Posts Categorized Marketing

Enter The New Pepsi Logo

In Advertising, Design, Marketing on Nov-1-2008 with
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Large corporations spend way too much time, effort, and money building emotional ties related to their logos—in many instances like decades and billions and billions of dollars—and then some branding consultant convinces them to just change the darn thing.

Pepsi’s new logo of course is an extension of their previous version, but it seems out of place and/or time. Almost like the designers were given the specific direction to “develop a new logo that will look cool in like ten years.” Not that long ago Coca-Cola (the world’s most recognized brand) refreshing their brand ID with a revised, but simple redesign of their classic logo. Pepsi should have thought about doing something similar. Not this.

[Found via Brand New]

When Direct Marketing Goes Wrong

In Business, Marketing on Aug-13-2008 with
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I went out to get my mail yesterday and noticed an over-sized postcard mailer for Dollar General. The offer was they’d give me $5 off my next purchase of $20 or more. I though great, cause about once a week I get all my cat related items at Dollar General which usually totals around $20 dollars. Then I took a closer look and I realize I can only use it at a store that is located in another town, about 15 miles away.

Problem is I shop at a Dollar General store that is less than a mile away, been open for years. It is also located in the same town and even zip code of my mailing address, which of course they know or I never would have gotten the mailer in the first place. As somebody that has done millions and millions of direct mailers stuff like this, and that it happens in our high-tech world, just blows my mind.

A wasted opportunity to make me a more happy and loyal customer.

Product Placements Enter News Programs

In Business, Marketing on Jul-25-2008 with
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Product placements in television shows have been around for years, if not decades. Shows like American Idol or Survivor (just to name a two) have done it very effectively for a number of major brands. If I had a client that had a product that was targeted to these audiences I’d suggest this as a tactic in heartbeat. It has proven to be effective.

But this is just over-the-line:

In recent weeks, anchors on the Fox affiliate in Las Vegas, KVVU, sit with cups of McDonald’s iced coffee on their desks during the news-and-lifestyle portion of their morning show. The anchors rarely touch the cups.

Executives at the station, one of 12 owned by Meredith Corporation, say the six-month promotion is meant to shore up advertising revenue and, as they told the news staff, will not influence content.

For decades media outlets (newspapers, magazines, TV, radio) have always maintained a virtual firewall between ad sales and news/editorial. But as traditional media outlets attempt to maintain ad revenue as the entire market becomes more fragmented that firewall is being breached.

In a connected world I think traditional media outlets are losing viewers, and therefore ad revenue cause a large percentage of the population wants to go to the source of the news and not have it filtered. Or said another way, many folks think the media outlets are just an extension of their parent companies (NewsCorp, GE, Disney) and therefore they report the news slanted to protect and promote corporate America.

So what are the media outlets doing, moving to product placements in their news programs. Therefore, just reinforcing one of the main reasons they’re losing viewers and ad revenue in the first place.

Very shortsighted to say the least.

What Do You Know? (About Marketing)

In Business, Marketing on Jul-15-2008 with
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More than three years ago marketing guru Seth Godin put together a long list of “what every good marketer knows.” As it said it wasn’t a “carefully planned manifesto” but a “riff.” The whole list is here, but I pulled a few of his bullet points I felt were the most important.

• Low price is a great way to sell a commodity. That’s not marketing, though, that’s efficiency.
• Conversations among the members of your marketplace happen whether you like it or not. Good marketing encourages the right sort of conversations.
• Products that are remarkable get talked about.
• If you are marketing from a fairly static annual budget, you’re viewing marketing as an expense. Good marketers realize that it is an investment.
• People don’t buy what they need. They buy what they want.
• You’re not in charge. And your prospects don’t care about you.
• Business to business marketing is just marketing to consumers who happen to have a corporation to pay for what they buy.
• Good marketers tell a story.
• Marketing that works is marketing that people choose to notice.
• Most marketers create good enough and then quit. Greatest beats good enough every time.
• You can game the social media in the short run, but not for long.

[Found via Buhler Works]

The Death of the Republican Brand

In Marketing, Politics on May-20-2008 with
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Republican Party leaders have been flipping around like fish out of water trying to identify possible remedies to their 2006 mid-term election losses. Their most recent effort, a new national Congressional campaign slogan, “The Change You Deserve,” was quickly identified as the advertising tag line for the anti-depressant Effexor. Ouch. But the biggest Republican problem seems that many of their leaders don’t realize the dire straits they are in. One that does is Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA). He recently said that Bush had just “killed the Republican brand” and “if we were a dog food [Republicans], they would take us off the shelf.” In the last 90s when I lived on Capital Hill in DC and worked in Northern Virginia I had a couple chances to speak with Davis. Although I did’t agree with many of his positions, he listened and give direct and candid responses to my questions, such as the status of DC Statehood (he was Chairmen of the Committee). He told me what he thought and not what I wanted to hear in every instance. It would seem he is doing the same to his fellow party members. I wonder if they will listen.

Brand Association Web Site

In Business, Marketing on May-5-2008 with
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Brand Tags is a neat site that asks people to cite what they think of when presented with a particular brand and then displays the results as tag clouds. For instance see what folks think of VW, Nike, Apple, and Google.

Dharma Initiative Boxes Launch Lost Season 4

In Culture, Marketing, TV on Apr-2-2008 with
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To promote the premiere of Lost Season 4 in Europe a number of Dharma Initiative boxes have been placed throughout Lisbon. Question, what the heck is in them? Io9 ponders:

A polar bear? Walt? (Maybe Walt.) Boxes of Dharma coke and Dharma cereal? We don’t know for sure, but Lost fans in Lisbon were psyched to see artifacts from their favorite TV show appear on their doorsteps in real life.

I generally find most guerrilla marketing actives pure junk, but this is creative to say the least.

Think Apple: It Boosts Creativity

In Business, Marketing on Apr-2-2008 with
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Well this is pretty interesting. According to a study to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research and as reported by the Wall Street Journal:

You don’t need to be a Mac owner to be a cutting-edge hipster. Turns out just thinking about Apple can make you more creative.

That’s according to researchers at Duke University and the University of Waterloo, who found that exposing people to a brand’s logo for 30 milliseconds will make them behave in ways associated with that brand. And in Apple’s case that means more creatively, Gavan Fitzsimons, one of the Duke professors who conducted the study, tells the Business Technology Blog. The study will be published in the April issue of the Journal of Consumer Research.

Scientists have long debated whether subliminal messages, the idea that subconscious exposure can shape behavior, really work. In recent years, the consensus opinion has tended towards no. But most studies measured if subliminal messages caused people to buy products. Fitzsimons and his colleagues wondered if the exposure resulted in behavioral changes that don’t show up on the balance sheet.

You can download a PDF of the complete findings here.

URLs Are Out In Japan

In Business, Marketing on Mar-27-2008 with
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A lot of us in the United States that don’t travel much like to think we are the biggest, the first, the best. Well that often isn’t the case. A good example is an advertising trend Cabel Sasser noticed in a recent trip to Japan.

Within minutes of riding on the first trains in Japan, I notice a significant change in advertising, from train to television. The trend? No more printed URL’s. The replacement? Search boxes with recommended search terms!

As Cabel notes this actually makes a lot of sense. If you’ve tried to buy a domian anytime in the last decade or so anything remotely meaningful (and short) just doesn’t exist. And when you add in a couple slashs and a .tv extension a lot of folks will just never get to your site. So enter these type of ads, where the search term is what you need to recall to locate their site. Pretty freaking smart if you ask me.

Obama Starts Campaign Raffle Craze

In Marketing, Politics on Mar-25-2008 with
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As an marketing professional I signed up to get e-mails from the campaigns of Barack Obama, John McCain, and Hillary Clinton. Although they don’t seem to care about e-mail fatigue, their frequency is frankly off the chart, there hasn’t really been anything interesting to report. Until today.

On Monday Obama’s campaign announced a raffle or lottery of sorts via email:

Out of this week’s campaign donors, four will be selected at random to attend dinner with the Senator, at his campaign’s expense.

Well by yesterday both his rivals must have thought it was a pretty darn good idea, why not just freaking steal it. McCain was first into my in-box. In an e-mail purportedly to be from McCain—which begins with his by now trademark “My friends” verbal tic—the Senator said:

Next week, I will embark on a “Service to America” tour visiting numerous locations that have played a significant role in shaping who I am today; places where I have had the honor of serving our nation. This tour will take me through Mississippi, Virginia, Florida and my home state of Arizona. I look forward to visiting sites that have left an imprint on my life aboard my campaign bus, the Straight Talk Express.

My campaign has come up with an opportunity for a supporter to join me on the Straight Talk Express for a day of conversation and campaigning. As a token of my appreciation for your financial support, you will be entered to win this seat aboard the Straight Talk Express if you make a contribution before midnight on March 31st. I hope you’ll consider joining me by making a donation today. If you can give $50 or more, not only will you be entered to win a ride on the Straight Talk Express, but you’ll receive a commemorative Straight Talk Express ticket.

But only minutes later, Clinton’s campaign was making basically the exact same pitch. An e-mail with Clinton’s signature outlined:

I’m really looking forward to the solo concert my friend Elton John is throwing in New York to help our campaign—and I would very much like the chance to meet you there.

We’re sending two supporters, along with their guests, to New York with VIP tickets for this very special, one-night-only concert on April 9, and it could be you. We will have a chance to talk just you and I—and you will get to meet Elton John at the party we’re throwing afterwards. It’s going to be a great night.

I am all for people utilizing best practices to improve their marketing efforts. But my gosh. At least what a couple weeks, put some thoughts into the idea to make it your own, and don’t just copy what a direct competitor does. This makes it look like McCain and Clinton are just following the leader, which in a political campaign might not be the best idea.