the mad ad man

Case Study: How to fuck up a brand - Aston Martin

2012-02-20T16:40:00.000-05:00

I am making a bold prediction here: Aston Martin is going down. Not overnight, but it will die a slow and steady death. Why? Take a look at Exhibit A) and Exhibit B). Then pause for a moment and ask yourself: What is wrong with this picture? Trust me, you don't have to be an Einstein to figure this one out.

EXHIBIT A:

1 - Aston Martin DB5

2 - Aston Martin Vantage

3 - Aston Martin One-77

Now take a closer look at this:

EXHIBIT B:

1 - Aston Martin DB5

2 - Aston Martin Vantage

3 - Aston Martin Cygnet

Notice the difference? Exhibit A is part of what I refer to as Aston Martin's "Brand Equity Portfolio (BEP)" BEFORE and Exhibit B is part of the BEP AFTER 'The Cygnet'.

Aston Martin introduced this abomination in June 2009, apparently due to some emission law guidelines bla bla bla... basically to have one car in their portfolio that is eco-friendly to help save the planet etc.p.p. Got the message. Thank you. Well, we all understand that the world needs alternative resources, renewable energy, eco friendly transportation alternatives etc.. It's pretty much a no-brainer.

What we don't understand - or I in particular - is how the people at Aston Martin could make such a horrendous mistake in mismanaging their brand portfolio. Adding a pimped up Toyota IQ to the Aston Martin family and slapping an Aston Martin badge on it, simply to satisfy law makers? Really? Couldn't think of a better solution? Couldn't take a look at history and the competition and learn from other car makers' mistakes?

Volkswagen (VW) learned the hard way when it finally had to put an end to its CEO's passion project - the VW Phaeton. Volkswagen (translated: the people's car) sold 1,433 units in 2004 and only 820 in 2005 in the U.S. What was the problem? Well, 'the people's car' had tried to enter a segment where people don't drive 'the people's car' any longer, but spend a whole lot of extra money for 'luxury cars', such as the Mercedes S-Class, the BMW 7 series or the Audi A8. Why would you spend the same amount of money for a VW if you can drive a Mercedes?

Lesson learned: know your brand's sweet spot. The zone you are successful in. The range you can rationally and emotionally justify towards your audience and consumers. How far can you successfully 'stretch' your brand?

Aston Martin has been trying to go the opposite way, by going small. Law and business decisions aside, this was a stupid move from a Brand Management perspective. Why?

ONE - BRAND EQUITY
By having introduced this fugly piece, Aston has forever changed its carefully built and composed Brand Equity. Just take a look at the long history of Aston Martins (Wikipedia link below). There has been such a consistent story over all these years that is almost second to none.

TWO - TOYOTA IQ & CYGNET
Many car makers do it: badge engineering - taking one platform, and use it to build multiple vehicles on top of it. Quite often they get away with it, because the brands are low profile and the cars live in the 'use' vs. 'want' category. But taking a Toyota IQ, and trying to sell it as an Aston Martin? Really? That's messed up. I have no respect for anyone who allows themselves to be fooled by it. Just look at it:

Price tag: 25,000 Euro - 30,000 Euro ($35,000 - $42,000)

As compared to: 13,000 Euro - 17,000 Euro ($18,000 - $24,000)

THREE - JAMES BOND
Now you might laugh about this, but trust me. Ask a hundred guys on the street what they associate with Aston Martin, and I bet you a hundred dollars "James Bond" will be one of the 10 attributes you will hear most often. You can safely add him to the Brand Equity Portfolio. Now do me one favor: imagine him in a Cygnet. Do I have to explain this any further?

FOUR - THE NAME
"Cygnet" - what? What a fun exercise it would be to do a reverse associations test to see what comes to mind. Here are my attributes: cyborg / androids / terminator / computer / spy wars ... geez... what the hell were they thinking?

How does something like this come to live? Who makes these decisions? Who are the people behind these fuck-ups? I don't know. I can only guess. Here is what I think: It all comes down to either non-existing brand management, incompetent brand management, delirious brand management, or management dictating brand management (as was the case with VW's Ferdinand Piech - who's quite a brilliant business person, but he got the Phaeton completely wrong).

As was the case with Aston Martin, the brand was sold off in 2007 by Ford to a joint venture company for 479m GBP (for more see Wikipedia link). New ownership, new management, new marketing, new egos... everyone wants to leave their mark. Bang. There you have it.

THE BETTER ALTERNATIVE
Simple. Super simple. Set up an 'Aston Martin Holdings' company, which houses the 'Aston Martin' luxury sports car brand, and the newly created 'Cygnet' luxury mini cars brand. Aston Martin remains what it always has been. Its Brand Equity Portfolio remains intact. And the new Cygnet brand kicks off with the Cygnet C1, followed by the Cygnet C2, C3 etc., predominantly focusing on highly populated urban areas such as Singapore, Hong Kong, New York etc. Done. No harm. No foul. Everybody happy.

Whatever happened at Aston Martin, it will go down in Marketing textbook that haven't even been written yet as one of the major brand fuck up stories of the 21st Century. And it pains me to witness the demise of one of my favorite car brands of all times.

Related links:
Aston Martin's website
Aston Martin on Wikipedia
Volkswagen's Phaeton Story

Love: Logo Design

2012-01-22T11:00:00.000-05:00

Some logo designs are just ... I am at a lack for words here. 'Love' seems to be the most fitting. How brilliant is that? Wouldn't you wanna eat there?

Fantastic: 2012 Volkswagen Game Day Commercial Teaser

2012-01-21T13:58:00.001-05:00

Can't wait for the Superbowl commercials this year. After last year's somewhat mediocre creative executions, it can only get better. Volkswagen's "The Bark Side" is a fantastic appetizer. Fingers crossed.

Unexpected & fun: Lanvin's campaign video

2011-08-30T19:42:00.000-04:00

Who would have thought a high-end fashion brand could, or would I should say, break an ad campaign with such a fun video? Almost no one I'd assume. When it comes to fashion brands, we are so used to see uber-sexy goddesses in surreal poses, often with an alien-like quality, remote, distant from the world we live in.

Kudos to 'House + Holme', who created this fun video. And applause to the marketing folks at Lanvin for signing off on the concept. The result: something uniquely fresh and unexpected. I watched this a couple of times, and it put a smile on my face every time. I'm not in the market for Lanvin, and I'm sure many others aren't either, but if this gets through to me, assume how many others there will be?

MAD SCORE: +4

Message: 0, there's never really a message with fashion brands
Creative: +1, because it's a fun concept
Context: +1, it works well in the social space
Impact: +1, I'm sure this helps selling some clothes
Intangibles: +1, because of its uniqueness

Unique: Chevy Dream / Chevy Runs Deep

2011-08-09T22:04:00.002-04:00

We are being bombarded every day with commercials for cars that no one needs or wants. Yet still, people keep buying them for some reason.

I bet you there are quite a few guys out there who will buy this baby - the Chevy Camaro. Not just because of the advertising (without a great product, the commercial does nothing), but because the essence of the product is perfectly being interpreted in this commercial, telling a simple, yet powerful story we all can relate to.

Check out the dog when it climbs up the bottom of the bed. And the engine sounds at 0:53! Absolutely love it.

MAD SCORE: +4

Because everything works here. Only issue I have is that the world doesn't need another gas guzzler, but eco-friendly solutions.

Related links:
2011 Chevy Camaro Superbowl Commercial

Finally - the video of McD's super-annoying 'Sweat-tea-pie commercial'

2011-08-05T20:51:00.002-04:00

I ripped this one back in May (see link below), but I simply cannot let it go. It's just so goddamn awful. The more I see it on air, the more it makes me actually not just dislike the golden arches, but hate McDonalds. BIG TIME.

It took a while to find the video online. Seems that someone from McD or the ad agency actually had the brains not to upload a hi-res version, but thanks to someone with an Android phone, the above ended up on YouTube.

I googled around a little bit, and the responses this video gets are actually all pretty BAD, which makes me wonder why no one at McD has pulled this freaking mess off the air.

Here are a few unfiltered comments:

From Shaggybevo:

"As if McDonald's couldn't out-retard themselves anymore than they already have... Goddammit mcDonald's, stop making me want to murder people."

"... you do have to admit that the ad wizards behind this one have successfully communicated one thing: People who eat at McDonald's are morons."

"The level of stupidity is unconscionable."

"...glad i'm not alone in my hatred of this ad."

"The sad thing is someone got paid to create this ad and then someone else decided it was acceptable."

Enough said. Just makes me wonder what kind of marketing genius works in the marketing department at McD, and what kind of creative genius cooked up this freaking mess. They all deserve to be fired. Goddamnit.

Related links:
Original post 3/3: 'So annoying - the latest McDonalds commercial'
Another nice point of view at Prolifically Ridiculous
Shaggybevo discussion board

A Winner: AOL's 'Editions' Truck

2011-08-05T09:00:00.005-04:00

Bryant Park. Southside.

iPad stations & lovely, friendly promotional staff.

Well designed. Flawless presentation.

As I was strolling through the streets of Manhattan on this wonderful August summer day - the first one with California weather: 72 and sunny - my always wandering eyes were captivated by a very well executed promotional event, this one done by AOL.

In an earlier blog criticizing the makers of the reality TV show 'Swam People' for trying to score with a cheap publicity stunt (link see below), I wrote about the challenge of getting people's attention in New York City, where everyone and their brother are trying to get you to listen.

AOL did manage to do just that. And they almost got me to order an iPad online, because this editions app is actually quite cool. As I sat down on one of these chairs and played around with one of the iPads, a friendly, young lady came over and guided me through the program. She was well trained and very knowledgeable, although her eyes, at every question I asked, seemed to be trying to locate an invisible teleprompter hidden behind my left shoulder.

Editions, in a nutshell, is an app that pulls news content from various sources from the web and hence puts together your very own customized newspaper, similar to the social networking news aggregation app flipboard. It is pretty sweet. The only shortcoming is that you cannot print an article. Saving, archiving, and later printing are still quite somewhat essential for a writer. But perhaps I'm already part of a dying species.

In any case. AOL stopped me on a busy Manhattan work day, and got ten minutes of my attention. And hey, their promotional tour bus even inspired me to write about it. That is quite an accomplishment.

MAD SCORE: +5

Message: +1, because the iPad sells like hot cakes, and this app is pretty cool
Creative: +1, that is one impressive truck, and it's very well put together
Context: +1, because they understood that content is king, the medium (paper) only, well, the medium
Impact: +1, I predict this to be a success
Intangibles: +1, add the pretty ladies, and the 360-impeccably presented promotional stations, and AOL has got itself a winner

Related links:
For more about AOL's 'Editions' click here
Blog post 3/31: 'Cheap public stunt - Swamp people's fake gator'
More about 'Mad Ad Scores'

A wasted effort: John Hancock Financial Services

2011-07-26T19:41:00.002-04:00

While traveling Europe a few years ago, I came across various kinds of markets, e.g. in Amsterdam it was a ginormous flower market, and in Hamburg quite a unique fish market. Both markets had one thing in common. Pretty much all the vendors offered the same thing: in Amsterdam flowers, in Hamburg fish.

Now who do you think sold the most flowers, or fish respectively? The silent vendors with the most subtle appearance, flying under the radar, trying to be smart? Or the ones that were screaming one witty punch line after another into the audience?

I can't really say that the dear folks at Hill Holliday, the advertising agency in Boston, who are responsible for this disaster, don't get advertising, and are a sub-par shop. Quite the opposite. Their latest work for Dunkin' Donuts actually earns a +5 on the Mad Ad Score scale. But their team working on its John Hancock account simply seemed to have gotten lost in a bad idea.

Why is this so bad? Well, let's go back to basics.

The TV audience doesn't watch TV to seek out witty commercials. They don't really watch the commercials. Commercials are a nuisance, white noise, thrown at you by the networks. No one asked for them. No one, except a few mad people like me, actually pay attention.

Hence, you cannot assume that the audience, in between Yankees innings, or the latest C.S.I. episode, are desperately waiting to read typed text on their TV screen that tries to sell them on financial products. Granted, the messages are relevant, and investing for one's retirement is a serious subject matter and shouldn't be left to chance.

But, please! Not making use of the audio component? WTF? Were the minds at Hill Holliday actually on holiday? Or were they just too much in love with their idea? Back to advertising 101: with a TV commercial you get:
a) :30 sec of moving images to tell a story, and
b) a radio commercial on top of it.

Still don't get it? OK, let's take the behavioral approach. Taking into consideration the behavior described above, it's pretty much safe to assume that most folks watching TV, while on commercial break, either:
- go to the bathroom
- check their iPhone, bberry
- grab their iPad, Laptop
- snack on some popcorn, get a drink
- read the mail, a newspaper clip
- ... you fill in the blanks here

The one thing most of them don't do is: watch! Yet still, they do have ears, and if they don't mute the TV, they still will - to some degree - be able to listen to your message.

If you do what HH did for John Hancock above (and there is a bunch of other very bad examples online, see link below), you are wasting pretty much half of your media buy on the home-TV-watching audience. Whoever is out at a bar won't be able to listen anyway.

MAD SCORE: -2

Message: 0, because no one is reading it
Creative: 0, it's boring
Context: 0, you got in front of me, but you didn't get through to me
Impact: -1, it's all together a wasted effort
Intangibles: -1, this has got nothing special to it

Related links:
More examples on Hill Holiday's agency website
More about Mad Ad Scores

Disastrous: Rihanna & Vita Coco Water

2011-07-25T22:37:00.002-04:00

I have been in this industry for many years, and if there is one truth that has solidified itself over the years, it is that most of the advertising involving celebrities is poorly done.

And now they present to us: Rihanna & Vita Coco Water. Oh my... Not that the combination of the two is bad right from the start. No, not at all. But whoever executed this - both strategically and creatively - needs to be fired. Seriously. Why? Well, here is why:

ONE: THE MESSAGE
"Hydrate Naturally. From a tree, not a lab." Visual: Rihanna with RED, dyed hair. The color in her hair is clearly from a lab. It's beyond me that no one on the creative team got the irony of it.

TWO: THE IMAGE
Besides the fact that there is nothing natural about dyed, red hair, let's focus on the image. Rihanna is a beautiful, energetic person. That's how we know her. Yet whoever took this image managed to turn her into an apathetic, emotionless, neutral human something, void of any expression. What a disaster!

THREE: THE CAPTION
Whenever you have to tell the audience that the celebrity you are showing them is the celebrity you are showing them, in this case in UPPERCASE letters right next to her face, then you are doing it for a reason, right? Someone must have figured out that some people may not recognize Rihanna in the picture, which raises the question: if so, why choose her in the first place?

Michael Jordan never needed a caption of his name on anything bearing his image. Neither did Kobe, LeBron, or Michael Jackson. Yet according to Matt Delzell, an account director in the celebrity entertainment division of The Marketing Arm, the Omnicom agency who cooked up this dish: "She [Rihanna] is known by more than 82 percent of all US consumers -- she's about as well known as Gwen Stefani, Derek Jeter and Sting." If 82% know her, then why show the name? For the 18% who don't know her? Doesn't make sense to me.

HERE IS MY ANALYSIS:
In order to make the formula of 1) Rihanna + 2) Vita Coco work, the agency had two options:

A) THE LIFESTYLE-ROUTE
You turn Vita Coco into a 'lifestyle meets health' refreshing beverage for the young and hip. Rihanna lends her image. Vita Coco brings the health aspect to the table. You redesign the carton box packaging. Then you shoot the whole thing and create a visual where the energy of the shot makes the image vibrate on your page. Think of her laughing, thousands of water drops splashing, her hair flying... sounds familiar? You bet. Here is a screen grab from her 'Umbrella' video. Much more powerful than the dud they ended up producing.

Rihanna in 'Umbrella'

B) THE HEALTH ROUTE
If Vita Coco is all about brand strategy, and a clear brand DNA, well, then they wouldn't have chosen Rihanna in the first place. They should have saved themselves a million dollars in fees, and put that money to good use by:
a) hiring a model that reflects the attributes 'natural' and 'health'
b) sponsoring regional, grassroots events, promoting a healthy lifestyle (the Wholefoods consumer is much more into credibility and honest messages than celebrity endorsements)
c) spending it on an additional million dollar media buy to get the word out
d) sponsor a 'Summer-Hydration-Bus-Tour', providing dehydrated citizens with all natural hydration all around the country

Any of these would have made much more sense than doing what they did, which is some weird kind of hybrid of A) and B), which is all wrong. And poorly executed. And just very, very bad. So bad - it hurts.

MAD SCORE: -2 (Yes, that's pretty bad)

Message: -1, because see above
Creative execution: -1, see above
Context: +1, it got my attention at a phone booth
Impact: 0, indifferent here
Intangibles: -1, too much is wrong with this mess.

For detailed criteria on the Mad Ad Score click here.

Raising Prices? Huge Mistake, Netflix!

2011-07-14T19:35:00.000-04:00

Two days ago, subscribers of Netflix have gotten the email shown above, informing them that they now have to pay more. Just like that. No honoring existing contracts. No grandfathering down previous arrangements. No. You pay more now. That's how it is. Like it or not. That was pretty much the message. Of course they tried to suger-coat it in some nice ad speak language.

The public reaction has been tremendous. Just got to Netflix facebook page, and read some of the 62,000+ comments this price change has generated. That's 4% of their facebook fans. Many of them only 'liked' Netflix so they can voice their anger. Almost none of the comments were positive.

Customers feel betrayed, and taken advantage of. I myself was really angry, not because the increase was outrageous, but because of the way I was treated. Not like a valued customer, but like a cow that Netflix think they can milk any way they want.

Netflix simply has gotten arrogant. Or their Brand Management team is just very bad. Or they just don't care. Who knows. At the end of the day, this behavior show that they seem to have lost their edge, and have forgotten what made them successful in the first place.

The rise of Netflix, and subsequently the fall of Blockbuster has taught us one important lesson: a simple, yet significant change in the service you offer can win you millions of customers (by stealing them away from a big company that has gotten arrogant and slow).

Netflix and Blockbuster basically offered the same: movie entertainment. Yet while BB was relying on the old Store/DVD model, Netflix introduced DVDs by mail. Then they added streaming. BB never caught on, and when they tried to, it was too late to catch up.

So now Netflix is the big, arrogant player, and if there is any smart competitor out there, then listen: NOW is the time to win over hundreds of thousands of customers from Netflix. NOW they are open for alternatives. NOW they email, exchange information, listen to you. NOW. A week ago they didn't. In a week or two they might not. NOW is the time.

You bet that the majority of Netflix customers is angry. And if it's true that under normal circumstances only 1% of facebook fans are active commenters, then the 4% here show that this is an issue that Netflix has to take absolutely seriously. Or they are gonna take a major hit.

I canceled the streaming option. The movies were B and C movies only anyway. It was a 'nice to have', but not necessary. I kept the DVD by mail option though. That's where the good movies are. That's $8 less in their pocket a month. Take just 50,000 subscribers doing the same, and Netflix has lost $400K a month, or roughly $5 Million a year. I bet you though it is more than that. This is absolutely serious. Not sure Netflix understands.

Very nice: Toyota Venza Social Life

2011-07-13T19:05:00.000-04:00

This one made me laugh. Someone here actually understood the meaning of the term 'social'. Just look at her, sitting there all by herself, with her 687 "friends". Online. On her "social" network. Does she look familiar to you? Yes? I am pretty damn sure you have someone like her in your circle of friends, constantly wired, either on their laptop, their iPad, their mobile device...

I run into these people on Manhattan sidewalks all the time. They are like androids, on remote control - walking, staring at their tiny screen, bumping into you. They sit in restaurants - just like the two girls today in a cafe on 7th Avenue sharing the same table - looking not at each other, but staring on the tiny screen in front of them.

They come to your dinner parties, house parties, or join you for brunch, only to whip out their iPhone, bberry, or whatever, and check their email, facebook, twitter or whatever. It makes me wanna scream.

My friend recently had dinner with her boyfriend, and I think he couldn't stand the bberry between them any longer. So he took it, and dumped it into the water glass in front of her. She got the message. Dinner now is quality time. No phone. No distractions.

And if you ask me - I'd rather hang with this girl's parents, riding my bike, and then enjoying a nice grilled steak somewhere.

Oh, and the car? Well, the message here is: "This is a car for fun people." Unfortunately, they don't tell us more than that. Still a nice story. Well done, Saatchi & Saatchi.

MAD SCORE: +2

Go digital, or die

2011-06-03T09:30:00.006-04:00

SCENARIO 1
A veteran Creative Director in a major New York ad agency discusses the upcoming photo shoot with his team for a major national consumer brand, and the way he insists on traditional film vs. digital almost makes you believe that it is still up to the individual to withstand technological change. A million valid arguments were made as to why film was superior, and why digital was not an option. Two months later, the entire ad shoot was done. Digitally. The client demanded it. The CD simply had to go along.

SCENARIO 2
A senior Creative Director in a mid-level New York ad agency, with years and years of high-profile, wonderfully crafted, artistic branding campaigns in TV and print under her belt, is slowly being phased out of her high-profile job, as the demands for her particular craft slowly but steadily dwindled down. She simply did not think digital was something she had to embrace. In her world, there were these web-guys who would simply adapt her ideas in one way or another if necessary.

SCENARIO 3
A 15+ years graphic design veteran found himself out of a job one day. Without a warning. Just like that. He simply had decided to focus on traditional graphic design only, and left everything pertaining to web and animations to others. For him, learning one craft or tool was enough to get by. Apparently it wasn't. The next guy hired didn't exactly take over his position, but his approach to graphic design was much broader and holistic. He adapted. He changed. He constantly pushed himself into new territories.

What may appear to be three separate, unconnected events, are actually just a fraction of all the scenarios that followed a similar story line: He/she who resisted technological change, or did not recognize the significance of having to adapt to it, will be left behind, phased out, replaced.

What holds true for creatives, applies the same way to account planners, account managers, production folks, project managers, and pretty much everyone else involved in anything closely campaign-related. Adapt, or you will slowly disappear.

Digital demands are only going one way: up. Technology will get better. Bandwidth will get broader and faster. Smart phones, tablet PCs will become more and more ubiquitous. It's pretty much a no-brainer. Yet some people still have not gotten the memo yet.

Questionable celebrity endorsement - Danny McBride for K-Swiss

2011-06-02T09:30:00.002-04:00

New York Subway Platform Poster. Greenpoint Ave Station, Brooklyn.

The typical formula for success: 'Sports Shoe Brand + Successful Pro-Athlete = Skyrocketing Sales'. It's worked with 'Nike + Michael Jordan = Air Jordan'. It's worked for 'Adidas + Kobe Bryant = The Kobe'. And the list goes on. Even the half-delusional Ex-Knick Stephon Marbury got a shoe deal and launched the 'Starbury' sneaker line.

But what on earth is K-Swiss doing?

ONE. They throw out a product that is quite similar to Reebok's 'Reezig' shoe line. Nothing wrong with that. That's what the apparel & shoe business is all about - taking inspiration from successful new product launches, and then throwing your copy of it on the market.

TWO. They hire actor Danny McBride to endorse their 'Tubes' version of this kind of shoe. But then again, not really. The sign-off on the ad reads 'Kenny Powers'. Who on earth is Kenny Powers?

This is where the confusion begins, and this is where this whole thing goes awfully wrong.

Kenny Powers, according to Wikipedia, is the fictional main character from the HBO show Eastbound and Down. It's about an ex-baseball pitcher trying to make a comeback. Ahhh. OK. So here is the sports-connection.

And here is the rationale as to why this money spent can be put right into the 'sunken cost' column:

A) CONFUSION
While we certainly recognize the face of the actor, the signature on the ad doesn't really ring a bell. That's until you google it.

B) THE HBO DILEMMA
B1) Not all of my friends have Cable.
B2) Not all of my friends who have Cable, have HBO.
B3) Not all of my friends who have Cable, and have HBO, watch the show.
And I challenge you to ask ten of your friends if they do. I'll buy you a beer if more than three do.

Wow. That's a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of an audience you need to reach in order to make the connection between the shoe and the face right next to it. Who thought of this? But furthermore: How dumb is this? How stupid actually? How bad? Oh my...

C) THE DANNY MCBRIDE PROBLEM
Everyone else of the non-cable, non-HBO, non-show-watching population, knows actor Danny McBride mostly for his goofy characters from movies such as 'Your Highness', 'Tropic Thunder' or 'Pineapple Express'. Not exactly the stuff that lends credibility to a K-Swiss sports shoe.

Unless you want to be the known as the 'silly, don't take me serious sneaker for clowns'. Dear K-Swiss marketing team: is that really what you want? I doubt it.

If I'm missing the point here, please feel free to enlighten me. I'm sure someone in the marketing department or the ad agency you paid wrote up some marvelous strategy deck that make you all nod in unison.

MAD SCORE: 0

Message: -1 (confusing) / Creative: 0 / Context: +1 (good media placement) / Business Impact: 0 (it will do neither good nor bad) / Intangibles: 0 (I see absolutely nothing here)

Wonderfully bad: Acura LT

2011-05-25T09:00:00.001-04:00

Acura currently runs both of these, and as much as they are beautifully shot - filming, sound, edits etc. - they are both terribly bad in their conceptual approach.

What exactly is the analogy here? I have no idea. So let's dissect the message.

"It works with people. It works with cars."

What exactly works with people? They don't tell us.
What exactly works with cars? They don't tell us either.

Instead they show us two athletes, first dressed in their sweaty, dirty sports gear, then being re-dressed in fancy outfits. So what does that mean? What are they trying to convey? What's the message transfer to Acura?

A) If you take a used, dirty Acura, and clean it up, and put fresh paint on it, you can sell it as a new Acura?

B) If you take a used, dirty Acura, and clean it up, and polish it, it looks much nicer?

C) In every Acura, there is exactly the same old stuff under the hood, and the chassis, and they simply throw on a different shell and throw in a few extras, and then sell it as new?

D) Acura doesn't really invent cars, they just dress them differently? So every Acura they sell is really an old Acura dressed in a contemporary outfit?

I don't get this one at all. I don't get the message. I don't get the analogy. I don't get "it", that "works with people and cars".

Having worked years in this industry, I assume this is what happened that makes this such an awful commercial (a beautifully shot, but conceptually awful one):

1) Agencies these days squeeze their creative staff too much. Too many ideas in too little time. Not enough thought is given to analyzing the concept chosen.

2) Internal hierarchies. Whether the seasoned CD liked this idea, and the junior AD just kept his mouth shut, or the junior AD kept pushing, and the seasoned CD didn't care - all possible scenarios how this got out of the creative lounge.

3) A team that has no car experience. Or a creative team that doesn't drive cars. Or a creative team that doesn't get cars.

4) A creative team that would rather do fashion advertising than car advertising.

5) Ideas like these get passed the client, because the ad people explain them five million times, until the main client says: "Ah, I get it." Then everyone else nods, they shake hands, and a gazillion dollars is spent on celebrities, staff, production, and media. Wow!

Problem is: Average Joe Smith out there does have anyone explaining this to him. Neither have all the other million of people in front of their TV's. They might all be shaking their heads.

Or I am overanalyzing. Or I am loosing it... and it's time for me to start scouting retirement homes.

MAD SCORE: 0

Message -1 / Creative +1 / Context: +1 / Impact: -1 / Intangibles: 0. What a shame. So much money spent on such a poor concept.

Preposterous: HTC's 'Every idea we have...'

2011-05-24T21:12:00.001-04:00

How ridiculous is this commercial? As we are now in 'Year Three of the iPhone', HTC seriously wants to tell us that "every idea we have begins with you"? That is absolutely preposterous. It's not a shame to come late to the party, but making such a claim to carve out your point of differentiation? Seriously?

Let's make that: "Every idea we have beings with Apple." Period. That's what I'm getting from all this. Big screen smart phone? Idea taken from Apple. Flip / touch screen? Idea taken from Apple. And the list goes on.

Besides that, there are a few scenarios in this short film - or 'vignettes' they created - that make absolutely no sense. Watch for example:

0:07 (he taps her on the shoulder): "the way you connect..."
// This is how we connect? What? Certainly not. If man approaches woman in such a way, he freaks her out. We pretty much learn that in high-school. This is a little bit too far-fetched.

0:10 (turns a page in a magazine): "how you browse..."
// What? I just tried this 'one finger magic with GQ magazine, and it didn't work. Again, why do they create these ridiculous vignettes?

0:16 (flips down the kick stand): "and how you interact with the world around you..."
// WTF? Someone please tell me what I'm communicating and whom I'm communicating with when flipping down the kick stand. That doesn't make any sense at all.

0:22 (windshield wipers): "down to the last detail..."
// "... you inspire everything". This is so stupid. Great, someone at HTC came up with a gimmick the iPhone didn't have - windshield wipers - but the benefit of having it is about as valuable to the individual user as these silly beerglass / naked girl apps.

I'm not saying this is a bad phone. It might be very good. Perhaps even brilliant. After all, HTC's tag line "quietly brilliant" pretty much implicates as much.

So why don't they take the 'brilliant' part and develop it into an idea? Not by showing the phone's features - Apple's done that already - and everyone else just looks like a copycat. But by creating a series of films about "brilliant" people and the "brilliant" things they do with their HTC instead?

MAD SCORE: +1

Just because the mobile revolution cannot be stopped, and selling a half-way decent smart phone in times like these is about as difficult as marketing gasoline to Americans.

A winner: Budweiser's 'Coming Home'

2011-05-12T08:30:00.002-04:00

There is not much else to say about this other than: "Dear Budweiser folks, I wish you would put as much dedication and love into your beer-like substance as your advertising people put into the creative concepts."

This is real. This is happening. All across the country. "Proudly serving those who serve" also is a great way to take a step back, be humble, and put someone else into the spotlight. This is how you build a brand beyond the product. Fantastic!

Real people. Real scenarios. Not too fancy. No models. No super star athletes. These are the people next door. The hero - we all see him every time we board a plane. The brother. The sister (?). The mom. The dad. There is even a tear on the girl's face at 0:51. A wonderful story. Captivating. Moving. Brilliant.

MAD SCORE: +5

Just extremely well executed on all levels. If only the beer were as good.

Too cocky: BlackBerry Playbook

2011-05-11T08:30:00.000-04:00

What is it with the consumer electronics makers of the world these days? First Apple started to play an arrogant tune in its "If you don't have an iPhone commercials", now BlackBerry kind of does the same.

"Amateur Hour is over", is what they told us in a ginormous banner ad on the New York Times online on May 6th. Are they serious? First, they are late to the party, as pretty much every other tablet maker putting out its me-too-product these days (Motorola, Dell, Samsung...), and then BBerry pees in the pool and complains that the water is dirty? What?

Because here is basically what they are saying: "Up until now (and by that they refer to Apples iPad, because all other tablet clones out there are late comers as well), everyone was playing in kinder-garden. Nothing serious has happened. Until now of course. Until we - BlackBerry, the makers of the mobile communication device for professionals - came up with our version of the tablet pc. The one for Professionals."

Which is kind of a joke if you look at the name they gave its product. They called it PLAYBOOK. That is f...... hilarous! I don't think they get the irony, the contradiction of their own message. Unless this is the PLAYbook for professional (not amateur) players? Nah... i don't think so.

Anyway, here is what I think they intended to do. They wanted to carry over the credibility they had gained in the professional business area with the BBerry into tablet pc territory. They just ended up choosing the wrong message. Something along the lines of GMC's 'We are professional grade' would have made much more sense. Why?

Apple's iPad was the first to the party, and pretty much owns the category. Their war chest with ad dollars is too much to overcome. You can't outspend them. Their communication is all centered around play, and a little work. They own that territory in the consumer's mind. What's left? The 'Pro' area of course!

"Watch out. The Pro's are coming", or something along those lines would make much more sense, and I haven't even really thought this through yet. Apple = play. BBerry = Pro. Everyone else? Look at their advertising. They are trying to communicate the same advantages as Apple. Doomed to fail if you ask me.

Now BBerry of course would have to rename the product. I doubt they will though.

MAD SCORE: -2

Great media buy. Wrong message. Wrong product name. Who approved all this?

Big time loser: Taco Bell's 'Winner'

2011-05-10T10:30:00.002-04:00

I am running out of words these days. If anyone can find a better alternative for "annoying", please email it to me. Because I am pretty damn sure I am not alone on this one... this guy is just so (insert word here) - I want to punch him in the face every time this commercial airs.

Besides the good, the bad and the ugly, there is another criteria category that hasn't been fully explored yet - I'd call it 'Repeat Watch-ability', meaning how does a commercial resonate with the audience after multiple runs?

I bet there are some - like Heineken's The Entrance- that you enjoy watching over and over again, and then there are those that make you jump up from the couch, reach frantically after the remote and switch the channel, because they are so damn (insert word here again), such as the latest McD commercial for example.

This "I got a winner" concept is one of those that you, as an advertiser, can run for about a week, before the newness wears off and the powers of advertising turn over to the dark side, and consequently turn the audience against you. Why?

ONE: You, as the advertiser, are announcing some new version of the ever the same fast food fare, just packaged differently. Taco Bell is Taco Bell. It is what it is. Weather or not it will be a winner the consumer will decide. So don't lean out of the window too far, you might come down hard. And yes, we got the message. A winner. Thank you. Now stop it.

TWO: If this version airs too often, the audience will eventually notice how dumb this concept is. Who on earth serves Taco Bell at their party? Seriously?

THREE: There is something strangely sexual about one girl saying to the other "He thinks he's got a winning taco". Again, this happens only if this airs too often. In any case, I am pretty sure the guy went home alone after the filming was done.

FOUR: Can you imagine a guy like this at your summer party? You would punch him, wouldn't you? You'd think he's on drugs, no? Either way, you'd pretty much hate him, right?

FIVE: It shows that this is one of the mass-market-ad-concepts coming out of a mass-market-ad-manufactury, where quantity is chosen over quality. No one thinks it through very much. It just comes out of the advertising machine one after another. No love involved.

SIX: Look at the expression on the extras' faces in the background (at 0:27 for example) - they all feel strangely uncomfortable in the presence of this guy. The poor guys and girls who had to endure multiple takes of this highly annoying dude - I feel so sorry for them.

MAD SCORE: -3

A shorter media buy would have gotten a +2 score, but the annoyance factor is just way too much.

I am dreaming: Corona's 'Find your beach'

2011-05-09T10:45:00.002-04:00

Here is a brand that clearly owns a territory in every consumer's mind - the beach. They have owned it for years, and if they don't screw it up, they will own it for as long as they wish. Cramer-Krasselt was the agency that originated the beach-concept, and Corona should be paying them dividends for as long as this concept airs.

The above version is a slight deviation from any previous iterations of the beach concept. It seems the Corona folks are trying to expand their brand territory, leaving the beach, and move into new territories. A smart decision? I don't think so. I hope it's only a one-off, and they stick to the beach.

I get the 'Find your beach' idea. I am just not sure if I am looking for it in the mountains. The color of the Corona beverage in my mind doesn't fit together with snow-covered mountains, or a lake in what appears to be Michigan or Washington. Corona equals beach. A tropical beach that is.

Nevertheless, this is a brilliant commercial, very well executed on every level. The soundtrack is perfect - it takes you on a 0:30 second vacation to various places. Why am I sitting in an office tower in Manhattan again? And after all, they tie it back to the beach in the end.

On a side note: whoever came up with the idea to film the actors/models from behind should be paid 1/10th of all the money Corona saved in not having to pay full usage rights for the rest of his life - it must have been hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years.

MAD SCORE: +5

Although the above version in my opinion only scores a +4 - due to the fact that they are leaving the beach temporarily - the overall Corona beach concept deserves a +5, and should included as a case study in any text book on advertising.

Absolutely wonderful: J. Crew banner on nytimes.com

2011-05-07T13:34:00.003-04:00

The final frame of the video, linking to the J. Crew website

They seem to get everything right these days, the people at J. Crew. Ever since Mickey Drexler took over the helm a few years ago, many good things have happened. They put out great new product, they revamped the in-store experience, and they simply create wonderful communication materials. Everything is connected. There is a cohesive visual thread, and it's all very professionally done.

Take the above for example. I noticed it this morning, browsing the New York times online. Its placement is rather modest. It doesn't try to jump into your face like so many expandable rich media banners that stretch your entire browser window to almost twice its size, leaving you angry and annoyed. No, this one sits modestly on the lower right hand side on your screen, with the sound turned off, waiting to be discovered.

What caught my attention was the charmingly done creative execution, making me curious, so I turned the sound on. I ended up watching the flash video five times, before I realized I had to share this. And please click on the link below and check out the J. Crew landing page - they brilliantly continue the "tapping" theme. Love it! Perfectly done!

MAD SCORE: +5

Because it gets people's attention. It's beyond cute - girls will love it. And they will buy tons of these flats. Oh, and expect the song on your friends' iPods shortly - it's quite a catchy tune and super cute. I just downloaded it.

Related links:
Download the song here (J. Crew website)

Fast and Furious: Liquid Plumber

2011-05-06T10:45:00.001-04:00

This is a fantastic commercial. It's simple as one-two-three, and the message sticks.

ONE. Track & field arena. 100meter dash. A guy in a blue work suit? Question.

TWO. Super fast. Totally over the top. Totally funny. Haha.

THREE. Tying it back to 'Liquid plumber'. Got the message. Thank you. Question resolved.

One message. Very well executed. Not trying to do too much. Right on target. This is neither the 'environmentally friendly' product, nor the 'smells like spring' liquid. No, this is fast. Super fast. Love it!

MAD SCORE: +3

There is a newer version in a different edit that works even better. That one gets a +4 score.

Really huge: NBA's 'Bigger' Playoff commercials

2011-05-05T10:45:00.000-04:00

These commercials are simply fantastic. Granted, the client and the subject matter make it a little bit easier for a creative mind to come up with something 'cool'. They actually make it almost impossible for you to screw up. Unless you put a couple in the stands, and she calls him "Mr. Snuggles", and he refers to her as "Sweat-Tea-Pie", because he got the McDonalds combo from the concession stands.

Back to the NBA. I love this one. It is over the top, and brilliantly so. NBA stars think of themselves as larger than life. And bigger they are, not just in size, but also in terms of their paycheck. So why not turn this truth into an obvious one?

Sound, rhythm, editing, message... everything here is right on target. Plus, it's fun to watch.

MAD SCORE: +4

Only because a +5 has to be really, really outstanding and knock your socks off. And as I said, it's hard to screw up an NBA commercial, unless...

In-genious: In-finity's 'In-Crowd'

2011-05-04T10:45:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I am not so sure whether I live in The capital of the world or just a (global) village. I mean, everyday we are surrounded by the biggest, and the best, and the most expensive companies, products, and subsequently advertising placements in the world.

So you would expect for things to constantly get better, for marketing and advertising folks to learn from past mistakes, to strive for perfection, no? Well, life would be boring if everything would simply be perfect, wouldn't it?

Thank God there is In-finity of Manhattan. They are to the automotive industry what the infamous 'Dr. Z' is to the medical profession - an icon of bizarre advertising. After having disappeared for a while, his subway car ads are now back, and his smile is brighter than ever.

But back to In-finity of Manhattan. I still don't know whether I should laugh or cry every time this commercial airs in the New York area. It is just so ... weird. Why?

ONE. The bizarre mix of various 'VIP-style' scenarios and homemade VHS quality.

TWO. The in-geniously absurd copywriting, putting the 'in'-sanity almost to the maximum stress test. Seriously, how many 'in'-this or 'in'-that do they think it takes for the average 'in'-habitant of the U.S. of A. to get the idea?

THREE. The soundtrack. It's 2011, yet the sound seems to come from a 1980ies porn movie spoof of Magnum meets Lethal Weapon.

FOUR. All the hilariously funny, weird moments in this thing: watch the woman spin her head around at 0:13 sec (in sync with the sound!), the odd couple (straight out of a Sopranos episode) exiting the restaurant / club at 0:21 sec, or the grand musical finale at the end. Ta-taa!

I am crying so hard. I just don't know why.

MAD SCORE: n/a
Because I simply cannot say whether this is in-genious or in-sane.

So annoying: The latest McDonald's commercial

2011-05-03T10:45:00.002-04:00

What the hell is going on in the McDonald's marketing department? What on earth is going on in the creative department of McD's ad agency? What the f have they been smoking?

I had hoped they had gotten enough complaints to stop that nonsense after their previous couple commercial - the one with the guy who's got no balls. Remember it? It hurt so bad watching the guy make a fool of himself.

And now this? It makes me cringe so badly inside - I am at a loss for words. The good thing is that there is consistency in the creative execution as both have obviously been developed of the same creative brief. So what on earth were the account planners on this thinking?

Are they trying to educate us men, trying to turn us into sissies? Are they trying to target the female population? What's the deal here? Their food obviously sucks, so they can't turn that into a story, but this? Turning McD into a 'couple's destination'? A dating spot? This is so f...ing ridiculous, I am going to throw up.

She calling him "Mr. Snuggles". He - because he is really smart (he chose McDonalds!) - calls her "Sweat-Tea-Pie"?! She in return calling him "Chipmunk"?! Someone please punch someone for this. Very hard.

There is something so innately animalistic in sinking your teeth into a juicy burger. This is male territory. It's embedded in our genetic code. It takes us back to a time when we were still living in caves, guarding the fire, like the millions of men barbecuing in the summer, proudly flipping those char-grilled patties in their backyards. It's millions of light years away from this disaster. This is one that makes me really, really mad.

I couldn't find a link to the commercial yet - if you do, please email me and I will update the post.

MAD SCORE: -5
Because it makes me not want to eat McDonald's anymore, and makes me angry. Seriously.

Update 8/5: Finally found the video. Click here to view.

Introducing: Mad Ad Scores

2011-05-02T22:04:00.004-04:00

I've been thinking about assigning each ad being reviewed some kind of score for quite some time now, and after evaluating various options, I have landed at a simple solution.

The first option contemplated was a 1 to 10 point scale, with 10 being the maximum and 1 the minimum score. Something didn't feel right about it though. Another option was the U.S. five letter grading system that most of us know from high-school or college, with the A+ being the top score, and the F the bottom score.

While both options were pretty similar, both would assign scores on the positive side of the spectrum. While I think this is fine in high-school and college, where you can be lazy and pass each school-year with a 'below-your-capabilities-performance', without any fear of retribution, and the opportunity to make up for it by going full throttle in your senior year, chasing those straight A's, you can't do that as a professional.

Once you're out of school, and you're in the big leagues of advertising, you need to be: professional. Competition is tough, keeping an account is not a given, there is constant pressure from shareholders (if you're publicly listed like IPG), or stakeholders, clients, society, consumers... you name it. The stakes are simply too high to fail, to put out bad work. Yet it happens so often.

Seeing so much bad advertising out there, I've come to realize that a simple 'D minus' or an 'F' doesn't do it justice. The range needs to be spun wider as bad advertising hurts your organization, not just financially, as the money spent on it is gone (think: sunken cost), but much more so economically in a wider sense.

Once the message is out there, it is unclear what kind of damage it can do to your brand. What you think it will do is not always what it is going to do. The consumer is a mysterious species, and the 'homo economicus' simply an illusion.

So here it is: Introducing 'THE MAD AD SCORE', or for matters of simplification, 'THE MAD SCORES':

-5 / Minus Five = The Worst. So bad it hurts.
-4 / Minus Four = Second to worst. Close to imperfection.
-3 / Minus Three = Medium bad. No reason to be proud.
-2 / Minus Two = Bad, but not as bad as it can be.
-1 / Minus One = Causing just a little damage.
0 / Zero = The neutral zone. You'll go unnoticed.
+1 / Plus One = You must have done something right..
+2 / Plus Two = Batting .269 while you think you're a .300 hitter.
+3 / Plus Three = Not many make it here. Big leagues. Clearly.
+4 / Plus Four = You can pat yourself on the shoulder. Great job.
+5 / Plus Five = The few. The proud. The Wizards of Ads. Bravo!

Notes:
When assigning scores to ads, the following criteria are taken into consideration:

1 - THE MESSAGE
Is it clear? Is it concise? Is it contextual? Is it fresh? Or does it confuse? Is it too complicated perhaps? Is it trying too much?

2 - THE CREATIVE EXECUTION
This includes aesthetics, casting of characters, use of celebrity endorsement, use of voice over, symbols, icons, logos, colors, camera movement, on-screen-display etc.

3 - THE CONTEXT
Is the medium well chosen? Is it wise to put ads for certain products on public garbage cans or in public restrooms? Are $3M spent on :30 sec during the Superbowl well spent?

4 - IMPACT ON BUSINESS
Does it help the brand? Does it positively or negatively impact sales? Is it merely neutral?

5 - THE INTANGIBLES
That certain something that cannot be foreseen in a creative brief. The great idea, the one ingredient that sets you apart. Like Sealy's line 'Whatever you do in Bed - Sealy's supports it'.

Each of these five criteria gets a score of either -1 / 0 / or +1. They are being added up, and all combined make up the MAD SCORE.

R.I.P. Flip camera

2011-04-13T11:00:00.005-04:00

Bye bye flip.

So Cisco decided to kill the flip video camera. Good decision? I am not sure. The word on the street has all facets of opinions.

Stephen Baker, Industry analyst from NPD calls it "a bad decision on so many levels that it is difficult to fit them all into one discussion." For a thorough comment I left on his blog apparently was not much space either as NPD decided to delete it. I had partially disagreed with the limited analysis as it only focused on past and current sales data, lacking a future outlook. It must not have sat too well with the NPD folks.

Sam Biddle from Gizmodo sits on the other side of the spectrum. He seems to welcome the decision as he calls the flip "a product nobody needed anymore or cared about." (links to both articles at the bottom of this article). I tend to disagree with him as well, for various reasons, and I want to tell you why both of them are wrong.

ONE: Mr. Baker from NPD calls Cisco's move a "cowardly act". Au contraire. In the business world, this is called a strategic move. Cisco made a strategic decision not to be in the consumer domain any longer and focus and invest in other parts of their business. So what? Apple is a consumer company. Cisco is not. Remember Sega? They decided to shut down their gaming console business when Microsoft announced they would enter the market. Sega was still doing solid numbers at the time. Nevertheless they left the playground. Simple business strategy.

TWO: Mr. Baker criticizes Cisco's "relative lack of exposure to consumer trends". Well, if you are a consumer goods company, then that would be disastrous. If you are not, and your value and supply chain is well integrated, and you are working with your business partners in harmony, then you need not worry about consumer trends. Your business customers sitting at that end of the value chain will take care of this part. This is called the division of labor and the focus on core competencies.

THREE: Mr. Giddle thinks "the blame should be aimed squarely at the smartphone in your pocket." According to the NPD market evaluation, flip was still doing pretty well in 2010 compared to 2009. Yes, the smartphones got better. Yes, the smartphones got smarter. Yes, the camera functionality got better. Yes, yes, yes, But! Does that mean flip never had a chance?

The good thing about NPD is that they have got the numbers. The problem with NPD is that they are too focused on their numbers, and can really only comfortable voice an opinion until the last submission from their retail sales tracking software. The good thing about Gizmodo is that they know their tech stuff. The problem with Gizmodo is that they too easily get lost in the technicalities of things, without a broader outlook.

Here are a few thoughts how flip could have lived on, or could have been saved (in my opinion of course. You are entitled to disagree.)

A) FROM FLIP CAMERA TO FLIP-PHONE
Cisco, as part of their business strategy, could have decided to enter the smartphone market by turning the flip camera into a flip smartphone. flip has a strong, and solid following, and it would have been only an evolution, a continuation of a story vs. the introduction of a completely new device. Other devices, such as Garmin or Nuevi GPS navigation devices have chosen such a strategy. If they will be successful, only time will tell.

B) KEEPING IT SIMPLE
Technical devices, especially in the digital day and age, tend to become more and more complicated with each version. More features, more buttons, more menus. Consequently that all adds up to more complexities, and I challenge you to confidently say you have already explored your devices capabilities at 100%. I actually doubt it. I just recently had a friend discover the 'Zoom' function on her iPhone after she had it for over a year.

This would have been the chance for the flip. Keeping it simple as 1-2-3. Not too many buttons. No confusing menus. Add to that Moore's law and the tendency of lower production cost as time moves on, and the flip could have been a low-cost device, easily replaceable and disposable. Not a big tragedy if it gets lost (vs. losing your iPhone or bberry!), but always a fun toy to have around at weddings, birthday parties, hiking and biking trips, you name it. Going Ultra HD with the flip was the wrong way. There is no way you enter the professional domain with this tiny device. Going the other way would have been a better option.

But Cisco apparently decided not go invest in R&D, and marketing, and a sales staff for such a device. So end of story. R.I.P. flip camera. You will (or will not) be missed.

Related links:
Stephen Baker's NPD Industry Analysis
Gizmodo's post
The flip website

Brilliant - NCAA's 'Going Pro'

2011-04-07T08:00:00.003-04:00

You may criticize the NCAA for taking advantage of their student athletes. While the league is raking in hundreds of millions of dollars year after year, it doesn't even allow its athletes a free meal. But that's another story.

What they have done right for many years, however, is their advertising. Year after year after year. There is a consistent message. Actually, it is exactly the same message. The only thing that changes is the creative execution that keeps it fresh, keeps it contemporary. The commercial above actually ran last year, but it doesn't matter, as you will see many versions on tv this year that all play the same tune.

"There are over 400,000 student athletes, and just about all of us will be going pro in something other than sports."

Wow! Speaking of strong messages. It cannot get any more powerful than this one. While the rest of the sports media focuses on the very few, lucky ones that get drafted by the NFL or the NBA every year, and hundreds of sports writers try to top each other with their draft, and pre-draft, and pre-pre draft predictions, the NCAA spends money to focus on the other 399,600 athletes, reminding us that there are more important things in life than signing a multimillion dollar pro-sports contract. That's a powerful message. I hope the NCAA will keep it this way. Forever.

After all, imagine you're a rookie on a NFL team, your knee gets shattered in the first game of the season, and you end up with a doctor such as the one in the Sprint commercial reviewed yesterday. Better to get a degree, and a real job, no?

Sending the wrong message: Sprint's 'Injury' commerical

2011-04-06T08:00:00.001-04:00

Ok. We get it. Fast network. Low monthly fees. But that's not the message here. There is something so fundamentally wrong with this commercial, I don't think the creatives who wrote this script ever thought about the deeper implications, or they didn't care.

The story that carries this commercial, is a very realistic one. Every season, quite a few professional athletes get seriously injured, and very often with career-ending injuries. There are tragic stories out there, and every once in a while we read about them. But the individual tragedy is not the subject matter here.

The underlying message implicit in this commercial is this: Although my profession is one that should be defined by helping others, by unselfishness, and by compassion, I don't give a damn. I am only acting selfishly, without caring about you at all whatsoever, only having my very own, personal benefit in mind.

The other few versions of this series are not as bad as this one, but they all carry the same message: I don't care about you. That's the takeaway for me from this series of Sprint commercials.

It is the same egotistic human behavior that made commuters on a San Francisco freeway scream "jump" at a suicide candidate, who had been blocking a bridge, from which he intended to jump, for three hours. It is the same self-centered thoughts we have when a co-worker gets laid off, and we crawl back to our cubicles not thinking about him or her, but about ourselves instead: Thank god not me. Better him than me. It is appaling. Definitely not the right message to wrap your cell phone services around.

Tomorrow will feature a commercial that does the exact opposite.

Powerful message: Anheuser Busch's 'Thank You' commercial

2011-04-05T08:00:00.003-04:00

The commercial is already a few years old, but there is something incredibly powerful about this message. It gets under your skin - whether you like the beer-like substances Anheuser-Busch sells or not (I don't). But I do like this commercial. It shows you why AB is always on top of its game (except for their brewing skills).

Thank you.

Yuck - BK's Meat Math Commercial

2011-04-04T21:11:00.000-04:00

Sometime during the NCAA tournament, Burger King introduced their 'BK Stacker' sandwiches with the above commercial. From the first time watching it, it struck me as odd. Here is my interpretation of it:

Opening shot: We see a sign reading 'Meat Mathematics Institute'.

Me: Mathematics Institute? What?

Then the voice over kicks in: "The world's foremost meat mathematicians were summoned by Burger King to solve this equation: How can we achieve maximum meat flavor for minimum money?"

Me: Yuck! Not real chefs in the kitchen, trying to achieve maximum TASTE, but scientists in a lab, trying to go for maximum FLAVOR! Yuck! This has artificial flavors, filler materials, and other disgusting ingredients, all cooked up in a science lab, written all over it! It brought memories of the movie Fast Food Nation back, instead of stimulating my taste buds.

Furthermore, they are trying to achieve it for "minimum money"? Oh my gosh... now they are telling us that they don't put very much into it (certainly not the best ingredients), and that they are a very cheap company, trying to save themselves as much money as possible when putting together the burgers they sell to us. It doesn't come across as savings for consumer, the way it was intended.

Last but not least, "achieving maximum meat flavor for minimum money" is an economic impossibility and misleading, because you can either try to achieve:

a) maximum flavor - at whatever cost associated with it (depending on the market price for wagyu kobe beef for example, and the exclusivity of the cheese on top)

- OR

b) minimum money - meaning you know what you want to sell the damn burger for ($1, $2, $3), you know the cost structure of the burger, which ultimately dictates how much real beef you can allow yourself as a company to put inside the burger.

Doing both - a) and b) is impossible. Anyway, the thought of scientists calculating my burger is stuck in my mind now, and I find it quite disgusting. I think I have had enough BK for a while.

Cheap public stunt: Swamp people's fake gator

2011-03-31T12:53:00.001-04:00

Hardly a day goes by without the announcement of yet another reality tv-show. From the Real Housewifes from almost anywhere now, to Jersey Shore, to Alaskan State Troopers, to Deadliest Catch, the list goes on and on and on. We have seen men driving 18-ton trucks over frozen ice (Ice Road Truckers), followed a bunch of men on their quest for gold (Gold Rush Alaska), and even Sarah Palin jumped the bandwagon with her very, very boring own reality tv-show (Sarah Palin's Alaska). Reality tv-show overkill if you ask me, but that is another discussion.

In this endless sea of sameness, how do you get people excited about yet another reality tv-show? The people behind History Channel's new show Swamp People must have thought it might be a good idea to put up a fake manhole with a fake gator, all sectioned off on a Manhattan sidewalk with branded, fake barricades.

I get the idea. I get the thinking behind it, but the execution is just very disappointing. It looks very cheap, like someone walked into a props or toy store, and put this together for a child's birthday party. The way they pulled this off may work in a mall in suburban America, but in the epicenter of communication overkill, this one comes across as plain, cheap and lame. I stood there for a few minutes, and watched people's reactions, and trust me: people walked past this thing without even raising an eye brow.

It's pretty sad when you think that the effect is completely lost, especially since it takes some effort and money to even put this small stunt together: you need to get a permission for the city to fence off a section of the sidewalk, you need a guy from the production crew to be there all the time (to make sure no pedestrian gets a heart attack? The guy was sitting in the car parked right next to it), and all that for pretty much nothing.

If you come into Manhattan, and you want to pull off a public stunt like this, my recommendation: go all out, and make this HUGE. Set up a real pool at Union Square for a day, with a real gator, and make it an event. Sure, it will cost more, but that is what gets the New York press excited, and earns you tons of free editorial coverage. You might even make the morning, and the evening news. New Yorkers love this kind of stuff.

Too arrogant - Apple's 'If you don't have an iphone' commercial

2011-03-29T08:00:00.001-04:00

Are the tides turning? Is Apple finally moving over to the dark side? Or did they fire their ad agency, and hire a cheaper one? Because the above tv commercial that is running these days actually feels like a very bad Microsoft ad, not like one of the many, witty Apple / iphone ads we know. Those all had a lightness, a freshness to it. They were surprising us constantly with new bands and songs that we came to love. Not this one though. This one is bad. Very bad.

I have to admit, I do have an iphone. I do, however, not agree with the quite arrogant undercurrent that is embedded in this commercial. The line that carries this commercial:

"If you don't have an iphone... well... you don't have an iphone" actually makes me quite angry, because you can just as well translate it as "If you don't have an iphone... screw you". This does not feel like Apple at all. It feels arrogant, and condescending, and pretty much shows the finger to all other smart phone users. Apple shouldn't take that route at all.

There is one line in particular in the commercial that makes matters even worse:

"If you don’t have an iPhone you don’t have iBooks, so you don’t have your favorite books in your pocket."

That is just awful copy-writing, and there didn't seem to be a creative brief in place at all. Have you ever tried to read a book on an iphone? It's a pain in the .... I have always resisted electronic books, but just lately have warmed up the Amazon's Kindle, which would actually be much more suitable for a a copy line like that. But not the iphone. Come on! You can't be serious.

I hope Apple will find its Mojo again. Because arrogance certainly does not sell.

Question to you: If you don't have an iphone - did this commercial stimulate your desire for one? Please feel free to drop me a line or share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Related link:
Apple's iphone ad gallery

Managing liquidity - literally

2011-03-28T22:12:00.000-04:00

Rosenthal & Rosenthal bank in Manhattan

Managing liquidity - really?

Here is an example of a New York bank that does what banks are supposed to do - handle money matters for its clients. Nothing wrong with that. That's what banks do. When they do it well, it helps the economy prosper. When they don't do it well, things end up being a mess as in 2008.

Rosenthal & Rosenthal in midtown Manhattan has a poster hanging in its window that reads:

"We help companies better manage their liquidity". So far so good.

Then, however, they do something really funny, and weird. They illustrate their message by - literally - visualizing the term 'liquidity'! How bad is that? I can't believe they are seriously showing a water bucket that has a tiny hole poked into it, from where water runs into a drinking glass! Oh my... that is just so awful! Why?

One: I think it is fair to assume that the target group for Rosenthal & Rosenthal is smart enough to know what "managing liquidity" in the financial world means. I mean, we are not talking about a consumer savings bank in a low-income suburb with high rates of illiteracy where you have to take a very simple approach to explain the term 'liquidity'. We are talking Manhattan business district.

Two: Everyone reading this ad, and seeing the visual, has to make two mental transfers. Transfer 1: Private bank - to - liquidity & the literal water bucket. Then transfer 2: liquidity & water bucket - back to - its original meaning in the financial world. It's completely unnecessary, and actually confusing.

Three: By doing the above, the ad is actually very two-dimensional. It doesn't have any depth. It comes across like a concept developed by a fourth-grade student. It is too simple.

Four: The best part - it doesn't even make any sense. The visual going along with the message is completely wrongly chosen. If we analyse it correctly, then it implies that the bank has HUGE amounts of the clients money in its vault (the big water bucket), but only releases a tiny bit at a time to the client, but in a constant flow. There is no 'managing' illustrated here at all! If they wanted to at least get this minimalistic approach right, then there should be a faucet, with someone turning it on and off, no?

What happens, for example, in the picture above, when the glass is full, meaning the client has enough money (liquidity) for the moment? Does the bank just keep pouring it out? Or is someone coming over, putting a finger on the hole in the bucket? I don't get it. This is so stupid!

I have seen a few scenarios in my career, where similar sub-par results like this were brought to life. It usually happens when not too much thought is given to advertising. It is usually two high-school or country club buddies shaking hands (one runs the bank, the other the ad agency), or the son or daughter of someone in the company has studies graphic design, and has been given the job without any real professional marketing consulting or competitive bidding. We see these 'friends & family programs' all the time, and I find it flabbergasting how people can get away with it.

The stupidity of TV sponsoring: AT&T

2011-03-27T02:00:00.002-04:00

I had always been under the impression March Madness was called so, because millions of Americans were going nuts for a few weeks a year by drinking and screaming their brains out watching a bunch of sweaty kids throwing a ball into a basket. The entire annual ritual is still somewhat of a mystery to me, as all 64 colleges, and their fanatic fan bases must simply understand at some point that there will only be one national champion at the end, not 64. Oh well.

A few days back, I noticed that March Madness was also spilling over from the court, and the sports arenas to our TV screens. Watching one of the first, or second round games - I don't even remember which one it was - with the second quarter coming to an end, it was time for yet another round of brilliant half-time analysis, filled with intelligent comments and pure substance.

The five minute commercial break ends, and a short trailer announces:

"The AT&T Half-Time show is presented to you by AT&T".

Before we continue, let us read the last sentence one more time:

"The AT&T Half-Time show is presented to you by AT&T".

No f...ing way! By AT&T? Really? I would have never thought. Thanks for telling me. Because for a split second there, I almost thought it was Verizon who presented to me the AT&T half-time show.

I don't even know where to begin my tirade about the stupidity at work here. Either the makers of this blurb of brilliance had been giving empirical research data showing them how dumb the tv audience (or the sports-watching audience?) is, or they themselves were too dumb to understand the redundancy of their brainchild.

Besides the fact that it is just plain stupid, it doesn't add any extra value other than mentioning AT&T one more time. We all know they exist. After all, they tell us a million times every day. So throwing out the brand name cannot really be the reason, can it?

Fast forward for a moment to the point where the FCC approves of the AT&T and T-Mobile merger that is currently in the works. Then, and only then, this could have played out just fine, with a nice twist. Imagine for a moment:

"The AT&T half-time show. Presented to you by T-Mobile." With some clever line attached to it. But that, I will leave to a copywriter. Not the one who wrote the one above.

Career Evolution in Advertising

2011-03-25T08:30:00.001-04:00

Amazing what you randomly find on the interweb. The above is very much true, at least based on my experience.

I have been at places where the guys on the very far right of the above image seriously only came in to count their money. Their strategic acumen was often impressive, although it seemed that over the years it got focused more towards "how to make more money" than towards "how to make better advertising". Their golden days in terms of creating great work were long gone. They were cashing in on the client relationships they had developed over the years.

There were some places however, where the guys on the far right had all reason to celebrate. Even though they were way too old to hang with the young, cool kids after work, frequent all those new, hot bars in town, or watch the latest, up-and-coming band in a small venue, they still had 'it' - the fire, the passion, the active brain that adapted with time and technology changing. They were listening, they were processing information, you could literally watch them think. They were leading by example, rather than leading by status or being of higher rank.

Just know that if you are still at the very, far left of this chart, it will take some time to get where you want to be. You will watch, and eventually pass people along your way that had just been lifted into certain positions because of time, and seniority, not necessarily because of their brilliance.

I found this particularly true with account people, who don't really have any work of their own to show for. There were actually some very bad ones that I had encountered that simply managed to hide behind other people's work, or had great juniors saving their asses, or that were just continuing to climb up the ladder by brown-nosing their way forward.

It's a different game for creatives. You either are a great copywriter, and have a brain that can develop concepts, ideas en masse. Or you are a great designer, got the skills, stay on top of what's hot and what's not, or a great Art Director, with a vast knowledge and immense interest in culture, history, architecture, arts, music and the like, and know how to adapt your knowledge in a way that makes it relevant to the product and the challenge you are facing.

Very minimalistic: Braun Multistyler from Germany

2011-03-24T08:30:00.000-04:00

This one here landed in my email Inbox as a recommendation. It's for a product called Braun Multistyler, sold in Germany. What exactly it is isn't exactly clear - the product only shows for a fraction of a second, but based on all the different graphic emoticon creations, I assume it cuts both kind of facial hair - the beard as well as the one on the head.

It's a neat creative execution. BBDO Dusseldorf/Germany did this. Visually, it links to the other work Braun puts out by being black and white (I ripped one of their U.S. ads in a December 13, 2010 review). Unlike with the Wrangler work reviewed two days ago, there is a consistent message being sent out on both sides of the Atlantic: Braun. Designed to make a difference. Although, it is not exactly clear what the difference is. They simply refuse to tell us.

It's a nice idea for a commercial though. A good concept. Puts a smirk on your face. Not sure it is big enough to carry an entire campaign that can be executed in multiple channels. After all, how many Braun products do you really want to (or can) feature this way? And how many more times can you listen to 'The Type Writer' song?

The minimalistic white on black approach reminded me of a campaign that XM Satellite Radio ran a few years back, done by the always merging Lowe agency network. The difference here: the line art concept allowed for more variations than the typewriter symbols. It was very well done. Here is one commercial - you will find the other ones on YouTube.

Feels like Nike: The story of Panyee FC

2011-03-23T08:30:00.009-04:00

What a wonderful story. Apparently, this is based on a true story that happened in 1986 in the village of Koh Panyee in Thailand. Although it has Nike written all over it, it is actually not. It's a commercial for TMB, Thai Military Bank, done by ad agency Leo Burnett & Arc Worldwide.

What does it have to do with TMB? Nothing. It got them attention, and if that is all they were going for, good for them. It doesn't do anything in the long run though. Without knowing it, or intending to, Leo Burnett has actually created a commercial for either Nike (Just do it) or Adidas (Impossible is nothing).

Wrangler - bad branding in a globalized world

2011-03-22T14:25:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I found a very strange print ad for Wrangler in France on Luerzer's Archive, made by a French ad agency, named Fred + Farid. I didn't get the ad. I didn't get the message. I actually thought it was very bad. Then I found the commercial they made, which actually tells me they spent a lot of money on a new campaign. Still, I didn't get it. Things actually got worse and worse the more I watched it. But first things first.

First: here is the Wrangler TV commercial we all know in the U.S.. The one with Brett Favre.

"Real. Comfortable. Jeans." I totally get this one. Real men. Throwing a football. Driving their pick-up trucks. A clearly defined territory. A clearly defined way of life. The perfect celeb endorsement. Very American. Not my type of jeans, but I get it. This works.

Now this. Sitting at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Fred + Farid, the agency in Paris, concocted this very bizarre piece of something:

I just don't get it. The whole thing doesn't make any sense. People jumping out of windows, breaking glass? People burning? "We are animals"? WTF?

Either we are being confronted with an entire new campaign coming our way in the U.S. soon, or the Wrangler brand management team didn't do their homework. Perhaps they don't have a brand management team. Or a bad one? Or did got lulled into this bizarre scenario by the French over some expensive Bordeaux?

What happened to Think globally. Act locally.? Doesn't mean you have to run the same commercial, the same print ad everywhere on the planet, but where is the overarching umbrella theme, the roof that holds the pillars of the Wrangler house? I don't see such a thing. What I see is Think locally. Act locally. (And hope for the best). That, to me, is a HUGE mistake. Especially in a more and more globalized digital world. Each tv commercial, print ad, or even online banner, is just a few mouse-clicks away. You have to have a plan, if you're a brand, and if you want to be successful.

Certainly, the type of men that the U.S. version targets may not exist in France. But you can't be a 'real, genuine, comfortable, accessible, rugged,' brand in one country, and an 'abstract, uber-cool, artsy' brand in another. That's too big of a stretch.

My guess? This is how things went wrong:

1. There simply is no global brand strategy in place at Wrangler. I have no other explanation. No Global Marketing Director, or Director of Brand Management, if he is worth his or her salary, would let this happen. The whole thing was filmed at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, meaning the Ad people from Paris had to fly from Paris to L.A.. Perfect opportunity for the U.S. team to meet them there. That obviously didn't happen.

2. The French ad agency was not properly briefed, and was given too much strategic freedom (or none at all), and just went off on what they thought was "cool". That's the first mistake, because not every brand needs to be "cool" (whatever that means). Check out 'Fred + Farid's' facebook page. They are just too cool in all possible ways, and too busy showing off their new office space on facebook it seems. These might be creative people, but that creative talent and energy has to be sent into the right direction.

3. Only 5% of the entire process of creating a new campaign was spent on strategy. 95% were spent on execution. Just watch this 'making of clip', and you see that they are too busy picking "cool angles" and "cool shots". Everyone on this crew is way too "cool" here. I am not sure these guys would even want to work on a creative direction such as the one in the U.S., filming guys throwing a football.

Oh well. In my opinion this is one expensive disaster. Two day shoot in L.A. at Paramount Studios, travel, accommodation, a whole crew, stuntman, fire, broken glass, actors, all booked and paid for for two days. Post production, director, editor, rights, usage etc. This easily cost upward of a million dollars. For what exactly?

Don't get me wrong. I think it's quite an artsy, well-directed, and super-cool film. Its purpose is just not clear to me, and I don't think it's a good commercial either. From a business strategy / brand strategy point of view, I think this is actually very, very bad.

No one said it was easy to create a great campaign, but in order to get it right, all the components have to be right. It starts with a well defined brand strategy, a clear positioning, and then it takes great people in every channel to execute. This one, however, is clearly broken. And you can see it.

Related links:
The uber-cool people of Fred + Farid on facebook

Burger King: 1 - McDonald's: 0

2011-03-17T08:30:00.002-04:00

I criticized Burger King in a previous article for their not so 'fast' food service, and the lack of passion in their staff (January 10 2011: The good & the slow...), and one can clearly see that the brand is purely driven by advertising, and image, not by the product quality.

But how great is this ad, taking on their arch-enemy once more in this endless battle of processed meats and deep fried deliciousness? Especially since McDonald's calls its burger creation the 'Big Mac'. Not so big apparently compared to the Whopper. Absolutely love it!

(The ad. Not the food. There is nothing better than a char-grilled, home-made, grass-fed beef burger.)

Wow! Where has the Durango been?

2011-03-16T08:30:00.001-04:00

Now here is a great TV-commercial for an SUV. And yes, I have been wondering where the Dodge Durango has been for the last two years. Well, all questions have been answered. In only thirty seconds. I see the new car (great shots, great filming, great vehicle). I hear the message loud and clear, and boy, that is one well-written and narrated script.

"It toured around Europe, getting handling and steering lessons on those sporty European roads" - there are three messages in this sentence alone:

ONE: We invested a lot of money in testing oversees, because we really wanted to make the 2011 Durango a great vehicle.

TWO: This baby has gotten handling and steering lessons while it was in school. Not it has graduated. It is ready for you.

THREE: Even though this Durango is a big mama, it passed the test of sporty European roads. How great is that?!

It gets better: "It went back to school, got an advanced degree in technology" - not just a degree in technology - an advanced degree.

"It's been working out. More muscle. Less fat." - Great way of finding a sales benefit for an SUV these days.

All woven together by a well chosen voice over actor, who gives this commercial (and all other Dodge commercials) a unique tonal "feel". Well done Dodge! This is a winner.

It hurts so bad: The McDonalds couple

2011-03-14T20:07:00.002-04:00

Who the hell wrote this script? I couldn't believe my eyes and ears when I first saw this one. The more it airs, the worse it gets. This story makes me cringe every time I hear him say "He's a jerk." Oh my...

What is wrong with this? The entire premise! Let's imagine a few different scenarios how this whole thing could have come to life:

PREMISE 1: This scene is supposed to be a reflection of reality
Well, I gotta tell you: It is not. It is wishful thinking. Look at the crowd at any given game-day (college hoops, NFL Sunday, MLB etc.), and watch the guys closely. Do you seriously believe they would act in this manner? I bet you they don't. Quite the opposite. I can hear that very crowd screaming at the tv-set "What a pussy!"

PREMISE 2: The guy is lying to avoid a fight
If so, then something is fundamentally wrong with the relationship of this couple. Does McD want men to lie about one of their passions? Doesn't he have the guts or brains to respond in a wittier way? I feel truly sorry for the actor who plays this part for making his character act so sad and gutless. And what about her? She comes across as quite bossy and condescending. Judging by the look on both their faces, this relationship is not a happy one. Can anyone imagine these two having a healthy sex-life? I can't.

PREMISE 3: The commercial's goal is to re-educate us men
Please. Does whoever wrote this script seriously believe that men will change who they are - men that is - and give up Sunday Football games (and there are only 16 in a regular season) for what? A walk in the park? A shopping trip to the mall? Please. Wake up. They don't even tell what the alternative to watching football is? Mc Donalds breakfast? How long does it take to get to the local McD - three hours? Game day starts at 1pm. That's lunch-time, not breakfast anymore.

Any way I try to look at it, it just doesn't add up. It is just very, very bad. Poorly constructed, and badly acted out. Someone should send the copywriter back to a 'concept'-class. Or have him (although I bet it's a SHE who wrote this) hang out in the target's group natural environment for a few hours to get a feel for reality.

This is just an awful commercial. Not even worth a the dollar (menu) they are promoting.

Nonsense: The official [...] of the [...]

2011-03-10T10:37:00.000-05:00

No picture today. No video either. Just words. While watching the revamped Knicks with Amar'e and Melo win yet another game of hoops, it dawned on me: all this offical xyz of the so and so is a complete game of bs.

Think about it. You are watching tall, muscular, sweaty, and heavily overpaid men throwing a ball into a basket. Many of them make millions of dollars a year, and even the ones at the lower end of the NBA food chain take home about $400K a year.

And you - dear Mr. or Mrs. Marketing or Advertising Director - want us to believe that the Kia Optima is 'the official vehicle of the NBA'? WTF? Are you serious? What does that even mean? That every player in the NBA drives a Kia Optima? That's ridiculous. That everyone officially involved in a NBA game is being driven around in one? That's even more ridiculous. So what does it even mean? Nothing, to be precise.

What it means is that the NBA marketing team sends out presentation decks to media agencies and ad agencies, offering companies to be 'The official [...] of the NBA'. Which basically is a bunch of bs. Because it is meaningless. All you get is to have the above line attached to everything NBA. It only gets you exposure, nothing else. No inherent, meaningful message that reaches the consumer. No benefit. Nothing. It is actually quite ridiculous. Imagine for a moment the following messages on your TV screen:

'Black & Decker - the official tool of the NBA' - To repair leaking roofs or what?

'Charmin - the official toilet paper of the NBA' - How funny is that?

'Tampax - the official tampon of the WNBA' - Can it be more absurd?

So what does 'the official car/vehicle of the NBA' exactly do? I don't know. Because they don't tell us. Why exactly are they 'the official car/vehicle of the NBA'? Because they paid a ridiculous amount of money to the NBA to be allowed to say so. And that's it.

It's kinda like you are going to an interview, telling your potential new employer: 'I am the best for this job." Problem is: before he/she can ask you why, you walk away. And that is just stupid.

Signed:
The Mad Ad Man - the unofficial ad critic of the NBA.

Nice! A straw for a yoga center

2011-03-09T13:28:00.000-05:00

What a wonderful way to advertise a yoga center. This is fun. It takes only a second to understand. It makes sense. And I'll bet you don't throw away the straw. Love it!

Brilliant! Print Ad for Aspirin

2011-03-08T09:00:00.001-05:00

"Whatever turns up. Wherever it turns up."

This doesn't require much explanation. It is simply brilliant. Fantastic idea, making context and type work together. Bravo!

Source:
Luerzer's Archive

The panhandler's pitch

2011-03-04T09:00:00.003-05:00

Just a few moments ago - another one of these New York encounters that make you think, make you smile, and make you write a blog post. Subway station, downtown Manhattan. As I am about to exit, I am spotting a panhandler near the stairs. Between 'first contact', and his last words fading, about twenty seconds pass - less than the time for a radio commercial. Yet his message is still stuck in my head. Within those twenty seconds, I hear it exactly three times, and while I am walking away, it rolls of my tongue a few times more, and makes me smile.

"You don't have to be a Rockefella to help a fella!", says he with a smile. Brilliant! Funny. Culturally relevant. All in one sentence. I wonder if he had help from a professional copywriter. This line deserves a golden pencil! It's clear what he wants - we get it the moment we see him. Does he have time to tell us his whole life story? No. Does anyone of us have the time to listen? No. Would many people actually stop and listen, even if they had the time? Probably not.

So the key here is: keep it simple, stupid. A short, concise message. Repetition is the key. And the delivery is important as well. As the message contains a certain portion of humor, it requires a personality that goes along with it. Love the guy!

I had a similar encounter a few years back, on a trip to D.C.. In some cities - I first saw it years ago in Europe - you have homeless people selling daily newspapers, all written, edited, published, and distributed by homeless people. While some of them come after you with the 'pity'-approach, one of them stood out. His message was unlike anything I had ever heard to that day.

It was unique. It was funny, and it is stuck with me to this very day. Standing in front of a bookstore (great strategic positioning!) on a very cold December day, he was quite a presence, in his long trench coat, the long, big beard, and his deep voice. His message? "Deep frozen, shock-frosted, and always fresh. Get it now. Get it here - The brand new 'Street Sense'".

I had a laugh, and I bought one.

The 4+1 P's of Marketing

2011-03-03T09:00:00.000-05:00

Traditional textbooks on any kind of marketing subject teach you the 4 P's of marketing to be considered essential in your marketing mix:

1_ PRODUCT
2_ PRICE
3_ PLACE
4_ PROMOTION

While this may have been true in the analog world, the world without computers and internet, it is no longer so in this day and age. If we have learned one thing from the digital age, it is that information travels at the speed of light, is available 24/7 around the world online these days, and pretty much every consumer can make her voice heard on a blog, via facebook, illustrated with pictures or videos taken with a smart phone, all in an instant.

All this has led to a whole new level of transparency in the world that simply did not exist twenty years ago. No company, no manufacturer can hide anymore, or simply try to brush off controversial claims. Invisible supply chains all of a sudden become visible. A temp worker for a commissioned manufacturer in China can easily snap a picture of her work environment or of questionable practices in a factory in, let's say Shenzhen, China, and it instantly reflects back on the Nikes and the Calvin Kleins of the world.

If companies only do business as usual, they will suffer the consequences. A change of mind is needed, as is a change of heart. A true commitment is needed, and in order to achieve this commitment, one must have the fifth 'P' in the mix: PASSION. Without it, the Goliaths of the world will loose slice after slice of the pie to the Davids of the world, the smaller companies that are truly, fully committed to their mission.

The new five P's of Marketing:
1_ PRODUCT
2_ PRICE
3_ PLACE
4_ PROMOTION
5_ PASSION

I'm sure you can easily tell the difference. Just compare the service an the quality of food in an Olive Garden, or an Applebees to that of your favorite local restaurant. Unless, of course, it is an Olvie Garden, or an Applebees.

The human billboard

2011-03-02T08:00:00.004-05:00

A few days ago, I saw this guy standing at the corner of 33rd Street and 7th Avenue, right in the middle of heavy Madison Square Garden / Penn Station foot-traffic flow. This is probably one of the most penetrated areas in terms of people per square foot per second, and after a while, you simply get used to all the communication noise in the area.

This guy however, when I first saw him from the side, looked like a street vendor, having the straps holding the sales tray wrapped around his shoulders. Coming closer, I discovered that he was actually a human billboard. Quite a clever folding construction, this thing could be packed up to suitcase format.

Still quite heavy it must have been. Poor bastard. Got my attention though. Stopped me mid-stride, and got people looking. The great advantage: I don't think this requires a license, since he's not setting up shop, but simply standing, with the ability to quickly move from corner to corner. Well done.

When the client is wrong

2011-03-01T09:00:00.003-05:00

Know this scenario? You are faced with a client that clearly is wrong, on so many levels? And I mean not just wrong in terms of a decision she has just made, but just wrong for her job. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do about it. She is the client, and she pays your bills. You have to live with it.

So here she is. She sits on her brand, she has been doing some marketing stuff in the past, but clearly her knowledge of how to do it right is limited to what she has come to know. Unfortunately, if you don't know what to look for, you are not looking for it. Then you are looking back inside, focusing on what you already know, and what you have already been doing so far. Therein lies the challenge.

I mean, you - as an ad guy - have been hired to help her to get it right. Yet once you have analyzed the situation, and have come to realize that drastic changes have to be made, you are faced with a client that seems to be holding on to the only thing that she has left, the status quo. She is trying to defend it, in order to save face, will try to justify why x, y and z that she has done in the past, have been good decisions. You, of course, completely disagree. Of course, you cannot tell her that she has no clue of her profession. So what can you do? Here are two viable options. The third one is simply out of a question, if you have any sense of self-respect.

1. RADICAL CHANGE
You radically challenge the status quo. You break down the house, clear it out completely, and then rebuild it from the ground back up. This will require a lot of schmoozing, and diplomatic relationship management on your end, but this has a chance of success.

2. SLICE BY SLICE CHANGE
Look at it as slicing a salami, slowly starting at one end, cutting one thin slice after another, until you have worked your way all the way to the end. For you, this means, being extremely patient, and starting with smaller projects, making her part of the process, making her buy into the process, and hence, get her support. Then, you will move on to larger projects, until you have gradually changed the status quo.

3. KEEPING THE STATUS QUO
This way, you will basically surrender, give up, waive the white flag. You should be ashamed of yourself though, and I am sure you will feel like a prostitute, only doing it for the money, not for the love of your profession. You won't last long this way. So no, it's not an option.

Superbowl 2011: The Bottom 5

2011-02-28T09:00:00.001-05:00

I present to you - this year's worst Superbowl commercials. They are all equally as bad, for different reasons. Some had the potential to be huge, but it's a fine line, if you aim very high, between nail or fail.

CHRYSLER & EMINEM

One of the best commercials of this year's Superbowl? Well, not in my world. I feel like watching an Eminem music video, but not a Chrysler commercial. I am totally unclear what they are trying to sell me? Luxury? The finer things in life? The Chrysler 200 is one hundred less than the 300, and that is far from being a luxury vehicle. So we are talking democratic car mass market here. Why do they talk about luxury? Detroit is an ugly city. My apologies to all people up there, but I will not come and visit if I don't have to. You have done cars up there for decades, but lately not cared much about innovation and quality, but more about union contracts, ridiculous health insurance plans, and resting on your laurels. The message here is just wrong. And pulling in Eminem to help out, shows the devastation of mind here. And why is there a concert hall and a choir? This is one expensive Eminem music video, nothing else.

SHAPE UPS & KIM KARDASHIAN

Oh my god! Yes, this woman is hot, but she is going down fast. Shape ups? Seriously? Those super ugly, ridiculously looking shoes? I thought you were associating yourself with cool people (Kanye is a regular on your TV show), and were appreciating the finer things in life (living in the 'Smyths' in New York's Tribeca, having a super stylish store named 'Dash' in Manhattan). You either over your zenith, and you know it, and are trying to cash out, or you are suffering from bad judgment disorder when it comes to endorsing the right brand.

TARGET, HERSHEY'S AND A FROG

I can hear dozens of people say: Oh, how cute. Well, maybe. But cute doesn't sell product. What I see is a story that features a frog. A slimy, wet, and smelly frog. Then there is a cut. And now I see a Hershey's kiss. In my mind, the Hershey's kiss is now linked to the slimy, wet, and smelly frog. That's gross. Don't they get it? This was another bad transfer.

STELLA ARTOIS & ADRIAN BRODY

What a nice short film! With Adrian Brody! Wow! This is one expensive piece of film. The length. The star. All the actors. The film maker. Wow. I am impressed. Beautiful execution, unfortunately very predictable, and not outstanding. Also way too long. This is just very bad, because it's so much money that doesn't get any bang for the buck. Although it's very beautiful.

BRIDGESTONE // REPLY ALL

Here is another one from the category: just stupid. Very stupid. Super stupid. Some twenty-something year old kid cooked this up, the Creative Director didn't care much, or was sick with the flu, and the client clearly has no opinion, or idea. Oh well, the client makes tires, of course. Why is this so awful? The whole story has absolutely nothing to do with tires. The main element of the story is not centered around tires, but around someone hitting the 'reply all' button, now trying to fix his mistake. Besides the fact that this is just ridiculous, and more than stupid, the transfer to the benefit of Bridgestone tires is just way too far removed from reality.

Superbowl 2011: Five more mediocre ones

2011-02-27T09:00:00.000-05:00

MERCEDES // THE ONE WITH P. DIDDY

I originally wanted to put this one into the 'Good' category, because the initial idea is great. It is 100% Mercedes-Benz. The one thing that pulls it down though is Diddy's appearance. It is completely unnecessary. It doesn't add anything. Unless they wanted to target the African-American community this way. It's just that just when you think the thing is over, Diddy appears again, and pulls the whole commercial into the 'funny-zone'. It's unnecessary, and just stupid. And not funny at all.

MINI COOPER // CRAM IT IN THE BOOT

I seriously don't know what to say about this one. I am at a loss for words. I know the Brits have tons of ridiculous TV shows, even worse than American television, but taking that as a foundation to build your commercial around? I don't get it.

CAPTIAL ONE // VEGAS

We have seen this one in a million iterations already from Capitol One. At three million dollars for thirty seconds, they could have more of an effort to delight us.

MOTOROLA XOOM TABLET

I can't help but think of Apple's iconic '1984' commercial. It also ran during the Superbowl. In 1984. The story here is somewhat similar. Except that the Motorola Xoom is a late-comer to the tablet market. They are 'me-too-product', one of many these days. There is nothing impressive about it. Nothing groundbreaking. If you run a commercial with this kind of message, you better deliver something amazing, because the bar is set high. Otherwise, you are just a copy. With your commercial. And your product.

SUBWAY // 5-DOLLAR FOOTLONG

How many 5-Dollar footlongs does it take to pay for a Superbowl commercial? Three million, divided by 5, makes 600,000 sandwiches in revenue. And this equation was about the only exciting thing about this commercial.

Superbowl 2011: Five mediocre ones

2011-02-26T16:05:00.003-05:00

The next five Superbowl commercials are all just mediocre, average, and will soon be forgotten. Granted, all these brands were there, at the big event, but they didn't capitalize on the opportunity they had.

BMW // CH-CH-CHANGED

There is nothing wrong with this one. But there is nothing really outstanding either. I'm pretty sure they had a better idea on the shelf.

CHEVY CRUZE ECO // RETIREMENT HOME

Why senior citizens? Seriously? Why? Because your target age group thinks this is funny? Taking the 'misunderstanding' theme, and building the commercial around it? When Hyundai introduced its brand for the first time, they built their entire campaign around it, and made it so big, you couldn't escape. But Chevy? We all know what a Chevy is. So why?

BMW X3 // DESIGNED IN AMERICA

This is an honest, good commercial, with a nice story. The only thing that doesn't make sens though is the message in the end: Designed in America. Built in America. Is that why we buy BMW? No, it's not. We buy a beamer, because we know the Germans make awesome cars. Repeat: the Germans make awesome cars.

DORITOS // ALL OF THEM

I am probably acting against the mainstream here, but I think these Doritos commercials, all of them, are very mediocre, some of them actually very bad, and very dumb. I don't get them, but that might just be me. Licking some other guy's finger? Sniffing on his pants? That's gross, and very disgusting.

SNICKERS // LOGGING

This is, well, just mediocre. It's solid, but not Superbowl-worthy. We have seen better ones from Snickers. Like the one with the divas in the car. That one was awesome.

Superbowl 2011: No. 6 - 10

2011-02-23T21:44:00.000-05:00

Yesterdays review of the top 5 spots represents the best and most outstanding work in my opinion. You are free to disagree, of course. I try to look at all of these commercials through the lens of a judge who has a balanced score card in front of him, judging not only creativity, and entertainment value, but also business relevance, and use of media buy (meaning: did they really utilize the $3 million spent to the max?).

Following are places 10 to 6. None of these is outstanding, and while 1 - 5 were delivering above and beyond, these five are all on par, and pretty solid tv commercials.

NO. 10 // BRIDGESTONE 'CARMA'

Another one from the category I would normally criticize for not making use of a voice over. The story is nice though, a bit far fetched maybe. But it works. The benefit transfer to the tires makes sense. Perhaps the whole thing is a bit too cute for guys. I just wish they hadn't made the beaver act so human, but had put it in a more realistic scenario.

NO. 9 // BUD LIGHT 'KITCHEN MAKEOVER'

No Superbowl without Bud or Bud Light, of course. We already expect them to outperform themselves at this event year after year. While they have certainly done better in the past, this story here is pretty damn solid. It is culturally relevant, picking up the theme of endless makeover shows on television, and putting a nice twist on them. The story is completely on brand with the Bud Light brand proposition. It is consistent and in line with previous work. It's perfect for Bud Light. Unfortunately it doesn't make the beer substance they are selling any better.

NO. 8 // ACURA ADVANCE 'WINTER TESTING'

Don't be fooled by the low number of views on YouTube. This is one of the best car commercials I have seen in the last twelve months. While they could have spent a bit more money on a better filming technique (it looks kind of cheap, video-ish), the story, the strategy - everything is brilliant in this commercial. No aliens, no monsters, no car chases or out-of-this world scenarios. No, none of that nonsense. But a REAL benefit I am taking home with me instead. Here is a company that shows us how rigid their tests are, and how brutal the circumstances. "If your winters are tougher than this, you don't need a new car. You need a new place to live." Wow. This must be a pretty damn good (and tough) car. Seriously.

NO. 7 // DODGE CHARGER 'HUMAN RESISTANCE'

Try putting a positive spin on an old, outdated, and anachronistic approach to building a car, a muscle car for that matter. Here is one, a great one! I just wish Dodge would have spent the dollars that went into product development for this baby on an environmentally friendly hybrid-solar-wind power vehicle or the like. But this is guy's car. A man's car actually. This is what HE is drooling over, while having to buy the minivan with his wife pregnant and the child on its way. Damn, this might only give you 15 miles to the gallon, but boy, how would I love to drive one of these...

NO. 6 // CHEVY CAMARO

I have been on the fence with this one. I have never really been a fan of the 'behind-the-scenes' approach, unless it is for fans, or people who actually care. You want to see the show, not necessarily look behind the curtain (unless you really, really want to, of course). The way this has been executed though is top. It is clear what it's for, right from the beginning. It's fun. It's entertaining. It's unpredictable. It works.

Superbowl 2011: The Top 5

2011-02-22T21:32:00.000-05:00

NO. 5 // COCA COLA 'BORDER GUARDS'

Even though words are completely absent here, and I often criticize ad makers for that, this is just a wonderful story. Captivating. Intriguing. Well filmed, in an epic way. Could almost be the trailer to a big-time motion picture. The actors are brilliant. The story has a nice rhythm. Detail in every scene. Wonderful!

NO. 4 // TELEFLORA & FAITH HILL

Superbowl. A man's sport. Monday Night Football "mascot" Faith Hill. Valentine's Day around the corner. Then this line: “Because my heart told me to.” Fantastic! On all levels. Would love to see the web analytics for teleflora and the extra business this has brought to the site. And girls, please don't get mad for the macho approach here. If this got your guy to buy you a nice bunch of roses through their site, it's all that matters, isn't it?

NO. 3 // PEPSI MAX 'FIRST DATE'

What at first looked like a homemade, cheaply done VHS video has a nice twist. Works both for guys and girls. We've all been in this situation. And to be honest, that's what she thinks. That's what he thinks. Don't kid yourself. This is very well done. Perfect for Pepsi. Hope they can keep it up, and this wasn't just a one hit wonder.

NO. 2 // VW 'LITTLE DARTH VADER'

In many commercials, a very long intro too often tells us a story that has absolutely no relevance to the actual product. This one here though is brilliant. It's been reviewed a million times already. Seems VW scored a big hit: It is cute. It has a dramatic build up. It is well executed. Bravo!

NO. 1 // SLEEPY'S

Previously reviewed. May have only run locally on the East Coast. Still my favorite to this day.

Worst Superbowl Commercial: Kia Optima's Epic Ride

2011-02-09T08:00:00.002-05:00

I don't even know where to begin. So let's start with the best part about this sixty second disaster. The only positive that this commercial has created was a comment by user sejokedu on the linked YouTube page who posted: "So basically this is telling us that the best car thieves in the universe are latinos... lol". If anyone is offended by that, my sincerest apologies, but he's right. Because whoever created this baby, got it all wrong.

Let's think for a second: A car stolen by a cop. The stolen car stolen by a helicopter with a rocket-propelled suction device. On the way to the super yacht “Desire” (I’m gonna throw up by all these sublime details), Poseidon comes out of the water, trying to steal the car. But before he can fully get his hands on it, Aliens abduct the vehicle. Then, just when they think they have it, whoops, a black hole sucks it in, and the Incas/Maysa/Aztecs (?) worship it!

“One epic ride.” Kia Optima. This is so ueber-f….ing ridiculous. Someone should get fired for this. What a waste of money, time and resources. A clear lack of ideas. This is clearly a vehicle that will never ever, not even in a million light years enjoy any kind of excitement other than being driven from a suburban home to school, to work, to the mall, to soccer practice and back. Zzzzzzz.... boring.

Epic is a pretty big word. If you throw it out there, you better walk the wallk, and not just talk the talk. And this is exactly where Kia fails to deliver. The idea just does not match up with the car.

If, on the other hand, Kia had invented a car like the DeLorean from Back to the Future, equipped with a flux capacitator that runs on either vegetables and leftovers or who knows what else, while having a zero % carbon footprint, and while earning 100 miles per gallon, and, on top of it all, looking like a Shelby Cobra, then - but only then - would a story like this justified.

But a Kio Optima? Come on! It seems that the smaller and more ugly a car gets, the more outrageous and ridiculous the commercial idea (remember The 'Nissan Juke Joke'? Or the 'Hyundai Elantra Sheep' commercial?)

This was by far the worst commercial of the entire game. Not in terms of creative execution - the CGI was great! But the entire premise of the creative idea is just wrong. And at $100,000 a second, that makes me mad. Really mad.

Best Superbowl Ad: Sleepy's & Sealy

2011-02-08T08:00:00.005-05:00

This year's Superbowl was pretty disappointing. Both in terms of game quality and excitement as well as in terms of quality and entertainment value of the commercials. The next few days will be dedicated to dissecting all the noise and buzz into the good, the bad and the ugly.

There were a few really, really good ones, lead by the one above, two handful of solid ones that lived up to par. The majority, as so often these days, were just mediocre and will sink into oblivion a few days after. And believe it or not, at a price tag of $3 Million for thirty seconds, there were even some very, very, very bad ones. One was even so awful, it deserves to be shown here. Tomorrow.

Today, we celebrate the only true touchdown this year's biggest sports event has brought to us: Sleepy's Superbowl commercial featuring Sealy's Posturepedic matress. Why does it deserve this year's MVP award? For a number of reasons:

ONE. It takes a mere three seconds, and you are either watching, or watching and listening spellboundly, asking yourself: I wonder what's next. And you're hoping "please... no letdown here, please..." But they keep you waiting, while you're excitement grows (no pun intended). Just watch these couples and their expressions! Wonderful the acting. Whoever did the casting here - kudos! Then the resolution - the perfect fit!

TWO. The music. Perfectly on brand. In sync with the idea. Nice change of rhythm after about thirteen seconds, keeping the excitement up.

THREE. The subtle animation of "It's better on springs."

FOUR. The copywriting: "Whatever you do in bed, Sealy supports it." No one can feel offended. Hey, perhaps they're smiling because they've watched the latest show of Joel Osteen in bed. I guess we'll never know. Simply brilliant!

I wonder though if this spot was only run in the liberal parts of the country, or if the people in Utah got to see it as well. Does HBO broadcast 'Big Love' in Utah?

Tomorrow's review: this year's worst superbowl commercial. Just thinking of it makes me want to punch the wall.

Old school: How to promote an ancient technology

2011-02-04T15:28:00.000-05:00

The guys at Vice Magazine are known for their off-beat, irreverent approach to the publishing business. That's what has made them successful. It's who they are. It's who they will be. So when I grab a copy, I always expect to see something different than in the regular high-polished, politically correct magazines. Not just in terms of editorial content, but the advertisements as well.

The one above totally did it for me. It stopped me, it made me smile. And I'm pretty damn sure it works. Why? Well, for a number of reasons:

ONE. Whoever created this knows very well that vinyl is an ancient technology, a dinosaur. There is just no way you can convince anyone in this day and age that there is even one technological benefit in a record. So they don't even try to. Not even by selling the romantic aspect of lifting the lever and gently putting it onto the record, the crackling in the speakers etc.p.p. So they took a somewhat ridiculous approach.

TWO. This approach is actually quite funny. Yes, it's true, but it's kind of stupid at the same time. Which means it's perfect for the culture it promotes, and the medium it advertises in. I bet a hundred bucks that the percentage of Vice readers who still own a record player is significantly higher than GQ or Details or any other.

THREE. The way it's written, that little copy blurb at the bottom, doesn't take itself too seriously.

"This mathematical observation is brought to you by the volcom entertainment vinyl club - reminding you to support your local record shop."

It almost comes across as a public service announcement, promoting a good cause. Which it is.

So don't throw out your record player just yet. Your next date, or - a few years down the road - your children or grand children will think you're the coolest person on the planet when you put on that vinyl disk.

Related links:
Vice Magazine online
Vice on facebook

Terribly bad: Hyundai Elantra's Sheep Commercial

2011-02-03T08:00:00.004-05:00

How on earth did this commercial pass multiple levels of approvals? There are so many things fundamentally wrong with this concept - it makes me really really mad! Here are five reasons why:

ONE. "If you're not driving a Hyundai Elantra, you are dumb as sheep." Are you f...ing serious? That is the message you are sending out there to the world? Because that's what I'm getting out of this. Oh my... whoever cooked up this awful mess either wasn't thinking, had no one to straighten them out, or is just very bad at their profession. I get the thinking behind it. The shot just went off into the wrong direction.

TWO. If the guys from TOP GEAR were to draw an anology like this, while testing an extraordinary, and outrageously expensive sportscar, then it would be funny. It would work. As a joke. And we would take it as such. But a serious automaker, introducing a very, very boring, cheap, and extremely ugly car?! WTF?! I cannot comprehend the stupidity that is at play here.

THREE. The creative execution is just awful. The flashing words, the quick cuts. The shaky camera movements... I can think of a bunch of other brands that this style of filming would be more suitable for, instead of a serious auto maker. All this actually makes me quite nauseous, the way my brain processes the information.

FOUR. The first 22 seconds are 50% wasted media space, as there simply is no audio message except for the ridiculous sound. Whoever checks their phone, has the TV running in the background, or simply does anything else but stare at the TV, simply doesn't get the message. Does anyone care here at all?

FIVE. There is a complete disconnect between the message the first 22 seconds send us (Other car makers make boring cars. Hyundai makes awesome cars.) and the second message the last 8 seconds send us - "Stop setting for predictable. The 40mpg Elantra." What? What does one have to do with the other? What makes the Elantra unpredictable? Why don't they tell us? Instead they spend 75% of the time NOT showing us the car. What a waste of time and dollars!

An they really want to run this during the Superbowl? I don't get it. Someone please explain this to me.

Iconic: Dos Equis' Most interesting man in the World

2011-02-02T08:00:00.001-05:00

Every once in a while, there comes a big idea that stands out. It sits on a clearly defined strategic platform that allows for years and years of unique creative executions. Dos Equis has accomplished just that. Its 'Most interesting man in the world' has the right amount of humor mixed with a relevant sales message. It's memorable. And most importantly, it works. It builds brand equity. It moves product.

I can't say how, but this man got me to start ordering Dos Equis again after ignoring it for years and years. Not that it's a unique beer with great taste. Quite the opposite actually. It sits right there with all the below average concoctions that need a strong branding approach and plenty of marketing support to leave the shelves (did anyone say Budweiser?). But there is something in this message that is real.

It starts with the aspirational brand image Euro RSCG has put together. Clearly, this man is not real, but somehow we all wish he was. His demeanor. The way he carries himself. The fact that he is around 60yrs old makes it even more intriguing. He's not this twenty-something metrosexual model-type. He's not a young kid without life experience. He is the guy you wish you met in a bar, even if it just were for a few minutes. He's got that special something around him that makes both men and women gravitate towards him.

"The police often question him just because they find him interesting." Hilarious!

"Some say that he found the Fountain of Youth but didn't drink because he wasn't thirsty." Fantastic!

"He doesn't always drink beer, but when he does, he prefers Dos Equis." Brilliant!

Let's deconstruct this sentence for a moment. This is neither a binge-drinking teenage kid nor a pre-game tailgating drunkster - "I don't always drink beer" - and it leaves enough room for interpretation: a) he drinks other things as well, or b) he only drinks occasionally. "But when I do, I prefer Dos Equis." It sends us another message. He has an open mind. He tries new things. He simply prefers Dos Equis. They don't tell us why. There obviously doesn't seem to be a product benefit here. But who cares? He's the most interesting man in the world. Wouldn't you want to meet him? I would. And I would drink Dos Equis with him.

Related link:
The Most Interesting Man in the World on Facebook

Live at Macy's - Life in a shop window

2011-01-28T13:56:00.001-05:00

Live in a Macy's window

Life in a Macy's window

Next to Times Square and Fifth Avenue, the area around Herald Square on 34th street is probably one of the busiest areas in Manhattan in terms of foot traffic, tourist penetration, and shopping behavior. Every day, tens of thousands of commuters are rushing from Penn Station into their office towers, and each night thousands of Knicks or Rangers or Lady Gaga fans are on their pilgrimage into Madison Square Garden.

If you are a retailer, advertiser or marketer, and you want to get people's attention in this area, you better come out strong, or you'll fade into a highly cluttered background filled with billboards, electronic displays, phone booth ads, street teams, public stunts, and the list goes on.

Macy's itself is usually doing a great job with their window displays, especially during the holiday season. The rest of the year, you pretty much get used to it, and simply walk past the building without hardly ever paying attention to what's going on inside.

Not so this week. Right in the middle of 34th Street, between Broadway and 7th Avenue, a big cloud of people formed on the sidewalk, right in front of one of the windows. Inside? A carpet, two chairs, a table, a bookshelf, and a bed. On the bed, in PJ's, and with a laptop in his hands - comedian Mike Birbiglia.

"Why is comedian Mike Birbiglia living in a Macy's window? He's here all week - to put the freshness of Ultra Downy April Fresh to the test."

The entire story is streamed live via webcam on the Downy facebook page. A bunch of promotions are cleverly woven into the story. Outside, on the street, you can hear him and his buddies chatting over the speakers. The whole thing is quite funny and a brilliant idea to make people stop for a moment. Not that I'm in the market for Downy - I end up buying the small packages at the local laundromat all the time, but it has put the brand on my radar. And that - for a marketer - is a huge success.

Related link:
Mike Birbiglia live in the Macy's window

Higher and higher: Superbowl Ad Cost

2011-01-27T13:33:00.000-05:00

Only ten days until Superbowl XLV, and while the excitement in New York has cooled off, since the Jets effort to stage a comeback against the Steelers fell short, the anticipation of hopefully brilliant ads running during the game is creeping in to me.

A quick check on google yielded an interesting retail blog (link below the article), having a nice overview of the continuously rising media cost for a thirty second time slot during the game, and a breakdown of all the Nielsen data around it.

I am often amazed how many brands throw away money buying air time during the Superbowl. Not because they are in the wrong place, but because of their mediocre creative executions. Some even run the same spots they run in their regular media buys. That's pretty lame.

Think for a moment: this is probably the only time during the year, where not just ad people, marketers and media folks watch the game because of the commercials. A majority of regular consumers, who couldn't care less during the rest of the year, are actually looking forward to the entertainment between first downs. It's an incredible opportunity to make an impact. And then you serve the audience the regular, the average?

If you have $3Million Dollars to spend, you should at least free up another $500K to create a great story that will make an impact, that will give you some bang for your buck. Remember the first GoDaddy commercial ever? It ran during the Superbowl a few years back. The impact? Huge!

Then there was a disastrous Cadillac 'Chrome Couture' commercial in 2007, that cost more than a million dollars to produce. The concept was somewhere along the lines of: a Cadillac Escalade on a runway, in the spotlight... it was pretty boring, and the ad agency Leo Burnett took quite a beating for it. Here's the spot:

Conclusion: If you decide to air a commercial during the Superbowl, get your creative team excited. Treat this as an extraordinary project. Get their creative juices flowing. Spend enough time evaluating whether you actually have a concept that will be remembered. Just spending a million dollars doesn't guarantee you success. Then, and only then, go ahead and produce it.

Related link:
RetailSails blog detailing Superbowl 2010 data analysis

Classic: Pepsi, Coke & Jimi Hendrix

2011-01-25T12:09:00.000-05:00

Going

What if? One can only imagine... Pepsi did a brilliant job in the old days, taking on #1 Coke. These days, Audi is doing a similar approach taking on Mercedes-Benz with their latest campaign. Young, and innovative vs. old and stodgy.

I am not sure where and when Pepsi went wrong over the years. Their advertising messaging, and their identity, has changed as often over the last twenty years as Lady Gaga has changed her outfit in a single month. For the Gaga brand, that is key. It's what's expected. For a consumer brand trying to build lasting brand equity, it's a disaster.

Watch any Pepsi commercial from, let's say 1980, '85, '90, '95 and so on, and you'll see that the brand went in all possible directions. No clear strategy had been defined. The only consistent thing in all this really is the name.

My assumption is that neither the branding / ad agency doing the creative part lasted long enough to create consistency. But much more so I think the Pepsi marketing / brand management team is to blame. What usually happens in this industry is this: one marketing manager leaves his/her job for a better opportunity - most often after 2-3 years - and a new one is being hired. To leave his/her personal mark, they start tweaking the packaging, the logo, change ad agencies, do a massive communication overhaul. After all, you have to show your new employer that you can do stuff.

Then there is the other kind of marketing / brand manager. The one that is executing marketing text-book style, but without a clear understanding of the brand. They are too busy spending the money, moving massive volumes of communication executions around, and not spending enough time and focus on the brand DNA (or territory, or equity). Or they don't know better. That's when they turn to the ad agency, hoping they will hand them the holy grail.

My advice to any maker of consumer goods: Hire a great brand manager. Employ a recruiter to find one, because calling yourself brand manager doesn't make you a good one. Pay him/her well. Make sure to keep them around. Then listen to their advice. Building a brand is about consistency, not constant change. Unless you're Lady Gaga.

So dumb: Nationwide Insurance Parrots

2011-01-24T08:00:00.008-05:00

Wah

This commercial is just so awful - I don't even know where to begin. I guess the whole thing is supposed to be beyond funny, and ironic, and who knows what else. "The World's Greatest Spokesperson in the World!" is already off to a bad start. Casting a guy that looks like Clay Aiken, ten years from now, then make him behave like an idiot, what was the creative mastermind behind this story thinking?

Yes, the Aflac duck is funny. Yes, the Geico gekko is funny. But they are both fictional. We don't see them as the spokesperson of the company. They are branded mascots, setting one boring insurance business apart from the next boring competitor. Once you throw a real person in there, it changes the nature. This guy is a real person, too close in his nature and behavior to other real people. Is he the role model for all nationwide company representatives? If so, the intro line above only adds to his ridicule.

And WTF is going on with the parrots? This entire story is just so... dumb. I am really at a loss for words here. Compared to Nationwide's commercial, the Traveler's dog commercial reviewed in an earlier story deserves an Oscar.

Clay Aiken Sr. isn't really 100% in his role either. Sometimes, you have a character that plays his part so well, you wish they were real. But this guy is somewhat uncomfortable in his role. His performance falls about a mile short of creating an iconic character. Just watch the last three seconds, when the jingle kicks in, and he sits in his chair, forcing himself to be funny by shaking his head left and right, to appear in sync with the music. I just hope the media buy for these stupid thirty seconds ends soon...

High Impact: Apple's 1984 Superbowl Commercial

2011-01-21T08:00:00.004-05:00

I

Few advertisers ever achieve what Apple pulled off in 1984. Keep in mind that the above spot only ran once. Ever. During the Superbowl in 1984. Prices for a thirty second commercial running during the biggest event of the year have gone only in one direction as long as I can remember - up. Lately, they've been somewhere in the three million dollar range. That is one-hundred thousand dollars per second.

If you are a Marketing or Advertising Director, you better think twice if you have the material or the story to make a high impact during the Superbowl. If you are planning to run your average commercial, you'd be better off taking your employees on a trip to the Caribbean, or you'll just be one of many that won't be remembered.

If, on the other hand, you plan to leave your mark in Advertising history, go for it. The money is well spent, as this might actually be the only day in the year where people are looking forward to the advertising. Expectations are high, and you better deliver. Apple did it successfully back then, and a few years ago, GoDaddy did it in their special way. They came out of nowhere, made a big splash, and they are still around this day. The domain for this blog was actually bought via GoDaddy.

Carnival Cruises & Acid Reflux

2011-01-20T08:00:00.004-05:00

How do you 

How do you like spending all your day in a confined space; the view out of a small window being the same every single day? Your quarters measure about 10" x 15" if you're lucky, and you see the same people all the time. Sounds like prison to me, no?

I've never understood what makes people book a trip on a cruise ship. And I won't even try anymore. I guess it has to do with being content and lazy, and - much more important - with being passive and letting things come to you vs. actively seeking them out. Because the moment you set foot on that ship, you can just turn off your brain cells, and live on auto-pilot. Kind of like the cruising spaceship in WALL-E, with all the fat people being numbed down to passive, lazy, naive, consuming beings.

So how do you differentiate one boat full of lazy people from the next one? Ah, it's all about the 'experience'! In Carnival terms - the 'family experience'! Someone here obviously tried to pull off a 'cool' approach, by having teenage kids actually - for the first time ever in human history - enjoy vacation with their parents during their puberty years.

Something comical came out of this though. I might be the only one with these thoughts, but I'd be surprised if that were true. "Mom just caught air!" does sound an awful lot like "Mom just passed air!" to me. Because - and let's be honest here - it is quite more common for a woman of her age to appear in either a commercial for Viagra or Cealis, talk seriously about retirement, or praise the advantages of Immodium to their hubby who just ate the wrong lunch food.

"Mom just caught/passed air!" And then the final blow horn sound you know from ships everywhere. Sounds an awful lot like a fart to me. Well done, Carnival.

Hilarious! Old El Paso Flat Bottom Tacos

2011-01-18T08:00:00.001-05:00

On a recent flight back to New York, I had a stop over in Detroit. Torn between two concession stands during lunch time, I decided to think outside of the box, and hit the Taco Bell. Three tacos soon came in a small bag, and as so often with finger fast food of this kind, I found myself trying to find a safe, non-saucy grip on the taco shells. That stuff just always ends up being messy, and as I took on the food challenge I thought to myself: why can't they serve these in some kind of mini racks, similar to those you find in hotels in England in the morning, each holding a selection of breakfast toast slices.

Then, just yesterday, while Rex Ryan's Jets were walking the walk against Bill Belichick's Patriots, Old El Paso presented the perfect solution to the taco dilemma - flat bottom taco shells. They didn't choose to go with the ancient, no-risk taking "NEW" and "INTRODUCING" approach though. Instead, they hit all the available nails on the head. This commercial feels 360 degrees well-rounded. It's great story-telling. It's relevant. It's simple. It's real. It's memorable. And it's funny as hell. I laughed pretty hard.

The amazing thing though is, they manage to do all this in 15 seconds. An introduction. A challenge. A solution. And we're only six seconds into it. It's all wrapped in a story that is cohesive from start to finish.

Too often brands waste twenty seconds drawing an analogy that has nothing to do with the product or the service, then focus a mere five seconds on trying to transfer the benefit to their product, before telling us what it's actually all about.

Kudos, Old El Paso. You are not my first choice when it comes to TexMex, but I'll certainly put you guys on my list again. Because that flat bottom is actualy quite a genius invention.

Super annoying: the Progressive girl

2011-01-17T08:00:00.007-05:00

This woman just freaks me out. The Progressive commercial comes on, and while a Pavlovian reflex immediately makes me mute the TV, I am wondering how she ever made the cut in the casting sessions.

Grey did a solid job with its work for the insurance company. The visual identity is unique, and cohesive. The sometimes complex legalities of the insurance markets are broken down into small, digestible thirty second segments. Not too complicated, not too simplified. Just right. The visual environment is unique, and I can certainly see this whole story playing for years to come.

Just not with this woman please. I would love to know if there ever was a focus group testing, and what people had to say about her. I find this character quite annoying. Everything about her is just a bit too much. She's behaving like Mrs. know-it-all. She's in your face. She treats everyone else in these commercials like little, immature children.

I'm sure she was supposed to come across as somewhat funny, but it's not. Grey should have a rotation of different sales men and women, so none of them turns into the face of the brand, and the commercial keeps its focus on the product.

Size does matter - The naming game

2011-01-14T08:00:00.010-05:00

When I was a teenager, my mom always watched this television show called 'Santa Barbara', and ever since, one actor's name on the show has been stuck in my head. Not because of his particular impressive acting skills, but because of his rather unusual name that made me think: "That's not a name! There's something missing." 'A Martinez' was the actor. Not sure what he is doing these days.

Very often, when I hear, see, or read many a brand's name, I feel the same. Just a letter, or two, or three? That's it? Who are you? "A"? What are you? What are you trying to tell me? What is your personality? What do you stand for?

There are many reasons why companies choose certain names, like the ones above. Some never gave it enough thought. Others ignored the advice from their marketing or branding team or simply had bad brand managers. Some just got bored and lazy over the years of pronouncing the full length of their company's or brand's name, and there you go - you end up with two or three letters, void of any meaning, instantly destroying so much of the brand recognition and awareness you have created over many years.

Once you start goggling these brands, learning about the cryptic letters and the world behind them, you can feel the "Aaahs" and "Ooohs" running through your mind. It's like all of a sudden you opened a secret door to the brand's vault. Things begin to make sense, you feel the brand's depth and dimension, like an empty balloon that is being inflated and building up its volume.

Just ask yourself. What on earth does 'LG' stand for? Or 'IBM'? 'AT&T'? 'JWT'? I recently had a chat with a junior art director from a major New York ad agency, and yes, of course, she knew JWT as an agency, but she had no idea what the initials stood for. It has been just a few years, since the iconic 'J. Walter Thompson' got slaughtered, and the new 'JWT' took its place. Around the same time, the agency completely overhauled their midtown offices, located in one of those lifeless office towers in the Grand Central Station area. Humans disappear in it, being swallowed by its tons of steel and concrete, disappearing in one of dozens of elevators, being carried to one of way too many office floors.

While the agency was ripping out walls - getting rid of that old, stuffy, corporate office environment - and adding color, life and energy to the place, it did exactly the opposite with the one asset that distinguished itself from all the other corporate advertising manufacturing behemoths - its name. Instead of honoring its charismatic founder and heritage, it stripped itself into an empty shell, void of anything. Nothing that hints in any direction. Just three letters. Could just as well have been PMS or DVB.

You can't even argue that 'J. Walter Thompson' is too long, and 'JWT' is so much more efficient. Yes, it's more letters, but it's printed on your letterhead and business card, it automatically appears in your email signature, and on the website. You hardly ever have to write it down. You have to say it though. Might that be the reason? Communicating more efficiently in the 21st century? Can't be. The old name phonetically reads "Jay-Wal-ter-Thom-pson". That's five syllables. The new one reads "Jay-Dou-ble-You-Tee". That's five syllables as well. 'J. Walter' would have been a nicer choice. Three syllables. It flows nicely off the tongue. And it makes sense. Funny to see on their website that they've added the 'J. Walter Thompson' name right below the logo. Seems someone realized the mistake to some degree.

But what's an LG? 'Life's good' they tell us all the time. Is that the brand though? It is not. Apparently, it is the combination of two Korean brands - Lucky and Goldstar. Oh my. Ask a hundred people, and I'd be surprised if five know the answer.

An IBM? Probably a few more. Given that 'International Business Machines' is indeed a very long name, IBM seems to be the right choice. It comes with a caveat though. When you are a brand as big and strong as IBM, throwing millions of advertising dollars out there each year, reminding us that they exist, pounding their name into our heads, you can get away with it.

The same holds true for the American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation - AT&T. But how about GMC? Seems an easy one. General Motors Corporation, right? Wrong. It takes some digging to find the right answer. Very often, as in the JWT case, the owners or founders initials are hidden in there, which is also where GMC got its naem from. Max Grabowski, whose truck company was founded in 1901 and sold to GM in 1909, deserves the honor. So if you know someone who owns a GMC Pick-up truck or SUV, let them know that they drive a 'Grabowski Motor Corporation'. That might sound awkward, but the same holds true for 'BMW', who is hiding its heritage in the name. When you are driving a 'beamer', you are really in a 'Bayerische Motoren Werke' - a 'Bavarian Motor Factory'.

Long story short: if you are small, choose a good name. Simple. Easy to remember. One that makes sense. If you have gazillions of marketing dollars to spend, you might even be able to establish a brand called 'RX78TY'.

Hot when it's cold: JC Penney's winter ads

2011-01-13T08:00:00.002-05:00

You don't always have to score big, aim high, go in for the big kill. Sometimes, a simple message paired with the right image placed in the right spot does exactly the right thing: get your message across by being relevant.

JC Penney is churning out work in high volume these days. I see it everywhere. The above is placed on walls in a subway underpass in Manhattan, and it absolutely hits the spot. Someone really thought about the context and the person who is passing by. He/she is in a rush to catch a subway. No one will stop to read endless lines of body copy.

The timing of this media buy is a challenge though: just after the holiday rush and the big shopping bonanza. How on earth do you convince people to go back and spend more? By crafting a relevant message. The above is short and concise, and the copy is in BIG LETTERS, so even those who don't wear their glasses can read it. It's fun, and it's real.

One ad plays off a story we have all experienced around the holidays - getting that weird or completely wrong gift that makes it so hard to keep a straight face, fake smile and say "Thank you! I love it!" to the person across from you whose eyes are wide open screaming "Do you like it? Do you like it? I hope you'll like it!". Aaahhhh.

The other one is for all the girls who are facing the daily challenge of showing their assets in wintertime. Puffy jackets, Ugg boots, scarfes, hats and gloves don't allow much freedom for teasing the opposite sex with temperatures around the freezing point. But hell yeah, you can still look hot! Damn right, one or the other girl will say, and will walk right into JC Penney (or any other shop along the way).

The Power of Branding: Coke vs. Pepsi logo evolution

2011-01-12T08:00:00.007-05:00

When I grew up, I was a Pepsi fan. I liked their advertising better, and quite frankly, I always enjoy rooting for the underdog. As the years have gone by, I have seen five different Pepsi logos, and it did have an impact. Not a good one though.

In particular the last iteration has left me lost and confused. I just cannot warm up to the typeface they used. The really hilarious part about this whole thing Arnell cooked up here is the brand identity document - it circulated on the web about two years ago - explaining the strategic rationale leading to the yin/yang circle and its inner dimensions. I cannot help but wonder if whoever wrote this actually believes all the mumbo-jumbo in it, or just had to fill dozens of pages with ridiculous content in order to justify the hefty paycheck Pepsi had to fork over to Peter Arnell.

Look at the above and I hope you will understand the power of branding. The power of consistency. The power of building a strong brand platform, and building on top of it, versus always changing and modifying it. By doing so, you are communicating that you are confident, that you know what you are doing, that you care about who you are as a brand. Adding to all that is the mystery of the secret Coca Cola recipe that supposedly only very few people have access to.

Pepsi on the other hand. Oh well. They seem to think only in the here and now, and by doing so they ignore their heritage, and have no defined long-term strategy. The Arnell version might already be uncool and outdated in two or three years. I can't wait for the next Pepsi logo to come out. It might be sooner than we think.

Starbucks: Another logo redesign disaster?

2011-01-11T08:00:00.008-05:00

First The Gap, now Starbucks? What is it these days with major iconic brands feeling the urge to redesign their logos? Let's listen to the folks from Starbucks:

"Here we are today. Our new evolution liberates the Siren from the outer ring, making her the true, welcoming face of Starbucks. For people all over the globe, she is a signal of the world’s finest coffee – and much more. She stands unbound, sharing our stories, inviting all of us in to explore, to find something new and to connect with each other. And as always, she is urging all of us forward to the next thing. After all, who can resist her?" (Steve M., Senior Designer at Starbucks)

Wait a second? The Siren? I never knew there even was a siren. For me, there was always 'this woman' in the circle. I have neither heard of a siren, nor have I cared much about it. For me, Starbucks was Starbucks was Starbucks. Coffee, first and foremost.

"She is a storyteller, carrying the lore of Starbucks ahead, and remembering our past. In a lot of ways, she’s a muse –always there, inspiring us and pushing us ahead." (Steve M. again)

Oh my, I find it fascinating when some people get lost in too much poetry to describe a product they are selling. No one's ever told me a story. I've never seen a lore of Starbucks. I never felt inspired. All I wanted was coffee.

So a new logo it is, obviously. The jury is still out on whether this was the right move or not. I am not sure it was. Yes, the new logo looks more contemporary and fresh, but the last one wasn't really bad. Neither was it outdated. Too much prominence now is given to the Siren. And to be honest, now that I know it's a siren, I don't really understand what she has to do with coffee? She lives in the water, no? Has a fishtail, no? Coffee, good coffee that is, grows in the highlands of Colombia, Costa Rica or Brazil, but not by the water. So why a Siren? I don't get it.

While she was in the circle, surrounded by the Starbucks name, it didn't matter. Now it does. But it doesn't make any sense. Furthermore, much more attention now is drawn to her boobs. She looks like one of those cover girls on Elle or Vanity Fair that are being photographed naked, with only the long hair covering the bare chest. Or is that just my male fantasy imagining things that aren't there?

Related links:
Starbucks official preview site

The Good & The Slow: Two Burgers, Customized

2011-01-10T14:38:00.004-05:00

BK menu on 39th & 7th Ave in New York.

Advertising can’t solve all of your brand’s problems. Many other factors play an important part as well. Sometimes - as shown in this story - even with all four ‘P’ (price, place, promotion, product) in place, success is not guaranteed.

EXAMPLE 1: THE SLOW
The King has what a fashion brand would call a ‘flagship store’ on 39th Street & 7th Avenue, right in the heart of Manhattan’s fashion district. About a year ago, the old joint got an expensive overhaul, and a quite revolutionary concept (within the BK universe) was launched: the customizable burger. The options are more than enough, Prices are great, the Place is contemporary and fresh, Burger King’s Promotions/ads are fun and cool, and the Product is good, with the caveat that it’s fast food.

Within the fast food industry, that would seem to be enough to leave the competition behind. Yet in Manhattan, where two dozens of lunch options can be found in almost any one block radius, you need to do better. Gladly though, the direct competition (no, not McD) is only a block away, on 40th & Broadway – a brand new burger concept place called ‘The Counter’.

Enter BK. 1pm. Lunchtime peak. The previously 4Ps absorbed, I’m waiting in line – a way too long line for a fast food joint. Only two of the four cash registers open, the order taking progresses in a graceful manner, and watching the service staff cope with the challenge of assembling not a cookie cutter burger order, but individually unique meat towers, one can only admire the peacefulness and calm in their workflow. It’s like watching a cooking show in slow motion.

Summary: a shiny storefront, and flashy LCD displays can’t make up for the lack of excitement and passion in this joint. Somehow you get the impression they are trying to sell you an old product in a new packaging. If you’re product is standard fast food, then you’d better be fast.

Passion in a bun: The Counter on 40th & Broadway.

EXAMPLE 2: THE GOOD
Enter ‘The Counter’. Only one block away, the place is packed beyond capacity (BK was at about 25% capacity). The people waiting in line here don’t seem to bother. A look at the menu: wow! What a difference. Not just the sheer number of options (5 meats, 12 cheeses, 30 toppings, 21 sauces, 6 buns), but also the factor that it’s all fresh, natural, hormone and antibiotics free, tells you that someone here really cares about burgers.

Add another ‘P’ to the marketing mix: Passion. Go see for yourself, take a bite, and you will understand what BK is lacking: the pride and the intrinsic motivation and identification of its staff with its product. Advertising can’t buy that. A nice store can’t buy that. It comes from within. If you care, your customers will notice, and subsequently they will care about you.

Summary: great differentiation from all the fast food chains armed with multi-million dollar budgets, and furthermore from all the delis and bars and grills that throw greasy burgers out there. Betterburger may have had a chance to do the same, but somewhere along the way they lost that special something.

Questionmark: Traveler's insurance dog commercial

2011-01-09T10:00:00.005-05:00

"This dog deserves an Oscar!" "How cute..." "Love this commercial." The great thing about YouTube is that you get unfiltered, direct feedback from your audience. Having scanned through the first ten pages of comments, one may assume Traveler's insurance scored a big hit with the audience. After all, 625,000 hits on YouTube cannot be ignored.

I am not a dog lover myself, so the emotional "how-cute-effect" is completely lost on me. I do, however, see the emotional appeal and the brilliant storytelling in Traveler's commercial. Is that enough though? Does an entertaining commercial mean it's a good commercial; in our world: an effective commercial?

Let's take a closer look. What is the marketer's goal? In this case: Create awareness for your brand, and subsequently sell more insurance policies. I am not fully convinced this commercial actually does that. Yes, it is cute. Yes, it has been watched more than half a million times here. Many of those views seem to come from the same dog lovers who watch it over and over again. Non dog-lovers like me don't care very much. Let's check off the 'creating awareness' box however. But will it help sell more insurance policies?

I dare to say that the analogy drawn between a dog and his bone and the implied benefit for us humans seem a bit far fetched and very vague. The message is just a little bit too abstract, and the takeaway not very clear. Granted, the implied meaning is "Traveler's takes care of things. You need not worry." But what insurance does not do that? That's exactly the one thing they all have in common - they insure things. That is the whole premise for their business model. Where is the differentiation from the competition? The dog?

Geico has the Gekko. Aflac has the duck. Highly successful brand mascots. Will Traveler's stick to the dog for years to come? Or is this just one story being told. If so - what's next? Where is the cohesive thread that builds brand equity for the future? Is it perhaps in the way the story is being told? Will we see a similar analogy next, featuring a cat? I am afraid that the follow-up we'll get to see from Traveler's will be a completely different story, only tied to the above by the end credits and the Traveler's name vs. building on a clearly defined brand identity platform.

Furthermore, there is another issue with story-telling approaches like this one. Assume an audience that does not pay full attention to the commercial when it's running on TV, and quite frankly only a few people ever do. They checking their smartphone, have a conversation, do x, y, and z..., which leaves you as a marketer with only the audio part of your commercial that potentially reaches the audience. In this case, 95% of the time the consumer hears nothing but music, and just at the very end the words "Traveler's insurance" spoken only once! That's a lot of visual and audio space you paid for that's wasted.

The challenge with all this is that as a marketer (the ad agency's client) you need to combine your business needs with an artistic approach (which is what you pay the ad people for) by applying knowledge that is built from past experiences (ideally yours) and tons of research results available to everyone these days (Journal of Consumer Research etc.).

Too often though, the ad people don't care about research very much. They want to win a creative award to bolster their portfolio. The marketer however should be interested in winning an Effie, not a golden pencil. After all: do you want to have just a well-known brand (think: Camel) or do you want to have a successful brand?

Flying under the radar: Delta & Coke

2011-01-08T15:55:00.002-05:00

Two weeks ago, on a transatlantic flight from New York to Europe: the seat belt had been fastened, the baby three rows up front started its free concert, the guy across the aisle began his cough attack, and the flight attendant made the following announcement: "Welcome aboard flight 1234, .... once we are up in the air, our service staff will come around with the beverage cart and serve you a selection of Coca Cola products for free, alcoholic drinks and beer are seven dollars...".

A similar announcement was made a couple times during the flight, and only the third time around I realized that the beverage cart contained more than just Coca Cola products, and also that in the past the flight attendants announced 'refreshments' or an unspecified 'beverage selection' vs. explicitly calling out Coca Cola. A week later, on the return flight back to New York, the same announcements were made. Obviously, this was neither a one-off, nor the spontaneous inspiration of one flight attendant.

The Coca Cola company must have struck a deal with Delta Airlines to actually write these words into the announcement each Delta flight attendant reads off a sheet during the flight. What a brilliant way of getting your brand name into the consumer's ear!

Why is this so billiant? Well, for a number of reasons:

1) A CAPTIVE AUDIENCE
As a marketer, you are facing every brand's dream scenario: a captive audience. They are not just all huddled up together in a confined space without anywhere else to go, they can't even tune out the message or turn down the volume! If you are using the inflight entertainment system, the inflight announcement system automatically pauses your movie, tunes out your music, and all you can listen to is the words coming out of the flight attendant's or captain's mouth.

2) A QUANTIFIABLE TARGET AUDIENCE
The Coca Cola marketing managers must love it: simply take the daily / weekly / monthly number of delta flights and the passenger volume, and you know exactly how often you have gotten your brand name in front of how many passengers.

3) BROAD REACH FOR A BRAND WITH GLOBAL APPEAL
For brands such as Coca Cola, this is simply a fantastic way to catch every consumer group, from the young kid to the middle aged working professional all the way to the senior citizens, reminding all of them across America of its products. Whereas many brands face the challenge to find and target their consumers in a highly fragmented media landscape, Coca Cola and its various brands target everyone. And that is exactly who they get on an airplane.

In times of advertising and promotional clutter, this way of getting the name out is simple, it is subtle, and I'm certain other airlines will follow shortly.

The minivan dilemma: Honda Odyssey

2011-01-07T11:17:00.004-05:00

And a never-ending odyssey it seems to be... trying to sell and/or advertise a minivan in an exciting way. The problem is: a minivan is just not exciting. It's neither nice, nor sporty, nor does it fit any of the emotional categories that get a guy's juices flowing. Just imagine the guys from TOP GEAR, and their blunt, unfiltered comments about any kind of this unfortunate automotive species.

Well, here is another failed attempt. What the hell was Honda thinking? Lighting fire around the car? Showing an image of a panther for a split-second? Filling this vehicle with a Marshall sound system? The only thing that's missing is some B-list celebrity testimonial as to how awesome this car is. Urgh...

Let's be honest for a moment. The target group for a minivan is, and always will be a family with more than one kid. No single guy in their right mind would spend a buck on a minivan. No married man with the kids sent off to college will be willing to continue driving around, and being seen in one. This is a functional car, and while the kids live under the same roof as the parents, this species has a right to exist.

What's wrong with this commercial / car? Multiple things:
a) the fire & lighting - it's just stupid and a desperate attempt to create excitement
b) the panther - Jaguar owns the positioning territory associated with a cat of prey
c) the Marshall sound system - a complete waste of money loading a minivan with that kind of technology

Honda had better put out a special edition of their CR-Z, the Element or the Ridgeline. The kind of guys who drive these cars might appreciate this 'rock' angle and a Marshall sound system. They will however, never ever voluntarily set foot into a minivan.

This is just a totally wrong concept of a car. The advertising only makes it worse.

Lost in nomansland: SAAB's 'Change perspective'

2010-12-20T22:51:00.003-05:00

'Move your mind'... what do these three words tell us about a car? Pretty much nothing. It is as meaningless as so many other brand slogans out there. Take LG's 'Life's good' or Buick's 'Drive beautiful' (ca. 2007). They are generic statements that have no relevance whatsoever. No link to the brand, no potential to build lasting brand equity. A consumer shopping around for cars needs to be given at least one takeaway that he/she will remember about this car. 'Move your mind' seems more suitable for a travel destination in India offering meditation classes or the like. The fact that the commercial is beautifully shot is not enough.

When GM reorganized its agency roster in 2007, it wasn't doing so well financially, and dramatically needed to cut cost. Negotiations with the Interpublic Group of Agencies (IPG) were opened up, and the accounts were moved within the network to the roster agencies in Michigan (to cut travel cost?). While Leo Burnett in Detroit did the right thing by sticking with probably the second best slogan in automotive advertising: 'We are Professional Grade' for GMC (second after Volkswagen's 'Think small' from back in the 1960ies), the new agency for SAAB - McCann Erickson in Birmingham thought they knew better by changing everything.

HUGE mistake! Granted, SAAB's advertising for years wasn't very memorable. Things changed drastically though when Lowe New York in 2006 completely rebranded the automaker, and brilliantly hooked the brand back to its Scandinavian roots with its then new slogan - 'Born from Jets'. Wow! How powerful. A car. Born from Jets. I see an army of highly skilled engineers not only developing the intelligence for airplanes, they also put that knowledge into a car. How incredible is that?! (SAAB = Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget (Swedish Aeroplane Corporation)).

Now they tell us to "move your mind". What? I'm completely lost. Move my mind? Think outside the box? Change my perspective? What perspective? Does everyone have the same perspective? If so, what is the underlying premise? None of that is explained here. It just doesn't add up.

Furthermore, McCann wasted 36 out of 42 seconds in the commercial above by not showing a car at all, or giving any indication whatsoever that this is a car commercial. At an estimated $400,000 production cost for professionally made 30 second TV commercials, $360,000 were wasted! Ad the same proportional amount of 85%, you can calculate the financial waste included in every :30 second spot they run on TV. I am speechless, and unable to comprehend how this concept ever got the green light.

Parveen Batish, Saab's Executive Marketing Director tells us "The 'Move Your Mind' campaign concept fits perfectly with the Saab audience". "Our customers want the quality and performance that come with a premium brand, but they don't want the pretense associated with some of the established premium brands." Alright. And they didn't know that before? Did Lowe & Partners just make up their insights and the resulting ideas? I'm sure they spent a lot of time and money on consumer research, market insights and developing the brand strategy platform that led them to 'Born from Jets'.

Compare this GMC commercial from back in the days that uses the same idea of someone sitting at the drawingboard sketching ideas. How different!

Related links:
Saab on Facebook
Historic Saab advertising slogans

Fantastic! Gamestop's 'Cool Dad'

2010-12-17T23:52:00.002-05:00

Brilliant idea. Great execution. Simple, and straightforward. On top of it, it's hilarious. Great combination of a sales message, at the right time of the year, and just the right amount of humor. Plus, it doesn't annoy you with yet another "creative" version of all the holiday songs we have to endure for weeks and weeks. Love it!

Ouch! JCPenney & the Ho's

2010-12-14T19:03:00.002-05:00

JC Penney - now offering escort service?

I love the holiday season. There is so much advertising clutter flying through the orbit... just the odds demand that this incredible amount of imagery paired with type creates one or more really amusing, unintentional, and sometimes extremely humorous byproducts from time to time.

Speaking of the power of type and typesetting. The above would probably have gone by unnoticed, if it were not for the intentional play on words using Santa's annually reoccurring "Ho-Ho-Ho" in combination with the "Who - Who - Who", which creates an extremely funny, and I am sure unintended message, when combined not with the image of a Santa Clause, but a woman instead.

Ever since rap and hip hop music have brought the term "ho" into the mainstream and pop culture, pretty much every junior in high-school knows of its meaning describing a sexually promiscuous woman, and that by no means in a nice way.

What was the Art Director on this thinking? He/she probably had nothing but the holidays in mind, and I'm pretty sure that if you talked to them they wouldn't get the irony of it. That's because of the inside-out perspective of their profession. Problem is: the consumer doesn't always assign the meaning you had in mind when composing your ad and crafting your message... she assigns whatever she thinks it means.

All I see is a woman and three times "HO-HO-HO". Exclamation mark! Oh my....

Way off: Braun's 'Wear your face' campaign

2010-12-13T23:26:00.002-05:00

WTF?!

Braun is running a TV commercial these days with one of those uber-handsome, metrosexual model types us regular guys simply cannot relate to. A corresponding ad (above) runs in Redbook, and again a weird model was chosen. Kept black & white, both ad & commercial 's main punch line / slogan / claim reads: WEAR YOUR FACE. And what the hell is he doing in the picture on the left?

WTF?! What? I shall 'wear my face'? What does that mean? Where is the benefit here? What does this razor do that others don't? This line is just as bad as LG's 'Life's good'. It tells us nothing about your company, your brand, your product. It's just a silly line thrown out there that has no relevance and relation to what you are selling. It's one of those 'detached-from-reality' blah lines. I can hear the CD who wrote this rambling on about emotional appeal, aspirational brand image and the like, but come on: wear your face? That's just confusing.

Even the subhead in the print ad reveals nothing. "The perfect gift for back to college." Again. Why? Lesson 1 in copy writing: no one reads body copy in an ad. 1.4 seconds. That's as much time as you have to convey your message. In a picture. And a few words. If you can't say it in those few big letter words you put on the page, chances are you just wasted a lot of advertising dollars.

Don't believe me? Go to the public library, read online in the Journal of Consumer Research, and you'll find plenty of studies about research on advertising impact, especially print ad "consumption". Surprisingly, most copywriters / creative directors continuously tend to ignore these facts. Or perhaps they don't know. Or they don't care. Who knows?

The only piece of information that gets me excited about this ad is at the very bottom of the page: "Designed to make a difference." Aaah. Here is a message I get. My mind interprets this as: "Our team of dedicated product engineers and designers has spent endless hours and days, and tons of R&D dollars analyzing your needs and wants in a shaver, and we have created a piece of technology that will stand out from the competition, and you can feel it." Finally. Unfortunately for Braun, 99% of readers will have turned the page after the 'Wear your face'?! confusion.

Recommendation for the Braun Marketing team: rethink your strategy. Listen to the brand planners first, and don't be fooled by pretty pictures. Then craft a simple and powerful message that corresponds with the image. I bet you can do 10 times better than what this campaign is doing for you.

Related links:
Braun's website
Braun on facebook
Braun on YouTube

Same taste in music: Hilfiger & Honda

2010-12-10T10:16:00.002-05:00

Imagine you work on an idea for months. One idea that stands for many that did not make the cut, that ended up in the bin. An idea that is part of a big holiday season campaign. The client finally approves the script, and the cost, and the whole production machinery gets rolling. You media slots have been reserved. You finally launch the Holiday campaign, lean back, and then... WTF? Someone else stole your idea?

Not exactly. Someone else simply had the same taste in music. Neither you nor they were willing to fork over the amount of $$$ necessary to get the exclusive rights for the song. So you both end up sharing. Not a tragedy, but certainly not what either of you had in mind when spending six-figure amounts of money on producing your TV commercial, and much much more when sending it out onto the TV programs of the world.

How to do this differently? Either get the exclusive rights, pick a more generic song, or do what Apple does/did - sign young, and upcoming bands exclusively that don't have the leverage to demand ridiculous sums for using their material.

I'm sure neither Hilfiger nor Honda are too happy about this.

Related links:
Tommy Hilfiger on Facebook
Honda on Facebook

Very odd: Chocolate Diamonds

2010-12-09T14:46:00.005-05:00

Every now and then, you flip through a magazine and come across something that makes you stop turning the page, makes you think. After all, we spend an average 1.4 seconds looking at a full page ad in a magazine, and only .6 seconds more if it's a spread. Sometimes we stop, because the ad is clever, and intentionally set out to make your synapses work. Or in this particular case, we stop because it leaves us lost, raises questions without providing answers.

The December issue of Harper's Bazaar magazine features a whopping 12 pages of advertisements for something called 'LE VIAN Chocolatier'. Fine, you think. They sell chocolate. So what? The problem is that they don't really sell chocolate. Or do they? The product featured on all these pages are actually 'Chocolate Diamonds'. Chocolate Diamonds?

Ah, I get it. A chocolate maker and a diamond maker have paired up to create a co-branded new concept on the jewelry market. It seems kind of odd, but it wouldn't be the first time people believe in a strange product combination. Does anyone remember the 'Burgers & Cupcakes' restaurants in New York a few years ago? I didn't believe the concept made sense, and last year they shut down most of their stores. After all, who wants to smell grilled meat and sweet baked goods at the same time?.

So chocolate and diamonds it is. But in what combination? Does the jewelry come with a bar of chocolate? Is it packed in a box made of chocolate? Is it chocolate pieces put in a box of diamonds? Or do the diamonds smell like chocolate? How do these things fit together? None of this would make sense. Who on earth wants to lick on a chocolate flavored diamond?

Which leaves us with one reasonable explanation. The only thing the diamonds and the chocolate have in common in Le Vian's case is the color brown. But if it's only the color - why do they give the name ' LE VIAN Chocolatier' so much weight on the chocolate side? A chocolatier in my understanding is a chocolate maker, a very fine one. This is a totally confusing approach of launching brown diamonds. The naming hierarchy is completely off.

What would have made sense is:
Level 1: "Le Vian Jewelers" - or - "Le Vian. Diamond Makers"
Level 2: "Introducing: Chocolate Diamonds. Never before seen sparkles of chocolate color in a diamond." (or something along those lines).

I ended up going to the Levian website, thinking my confused mind may find more answers here, but it seems Le Vian is not aware of its communication mishap. A quite expensive one. At an estimated $40K - $60K per page in Harper's bazaar, only this December issue's media buy must have been in the half a million dollar range. Wow! That's a high price to pay for sending a confusing message.

But perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe this brand is so well known that I've lived in a bubble for years without knowing. After all, you don't shop for jewelry often as a man. So let's do a quick check on the Le Vian facebook page, and see if I missed the train... but no, I'm not wrong. Here a quick comparison in terms of facebook fan count:

Le Vian: 1,401
Cartier: 57,640
Tiffany & Co: 684,567

Neither quite a social media sensation, nor a well known brand it seems.

Which brings us back to the first and fundamental lesson in marketing communications: Be clear. Be concise, when crafting your message. If the consumer doesn't know who you are and what you are offering, she will flip the page, and your media dollars go down the drain.

Related links:
Le Vian website
Le Vian on Facebook

Me too! Me, too! The NY Food Truck Craze

2010-12-08T21:57:00.001-05:00

Nice one. 6th Ave at W 46th Street.

Not so nice. 6th Ave at W 26th Street.

Nice one again. 7th Ave at 26th Street.

First there was one. Now there are dozens. It's impossible to count them all, since they are always on the move, but they are everywhere. Walk the streets of Manhattan on any given day for a few blocks, and chances are you spot at least two or three of them - Food Trucks.

What started out as a fresh, and brilliant business idea of a very few, has turned into a regular staple of New York routine. It shows how easy a great idea can be copied, and if you are number one, and the concept works and takes off, there will soon be a bunch of copycats riding your tail.

Patenting or protecting the concept of selling food out of a movable truck apparently is impossible. Everyone can do it. You either have to be very different (kind of goods your are selling), or have a beautifully designed food truck, or you simply apply a unique strategy to build a loyal following. Some have done it via social media engagement, by tweeting or posting their times and locations to their fans.

The problem with the business however is that it is difficult to scale. Getting a fleet of five, ten trucks off the ground is a huge investments, and margins are limited - there are only so many cupcakes you can bake & sell in a day. By the time you get your second and third truck rolling, you'll most likely have a handful of competitors selling similar baked goods / foods on the streets of New York.

I wonder though if Magnolia Bakery should ride the trend while it's hot. Their store expansion on Fifth Avenue was highly successful - the last time I walked by the line was around the block, and a security guard was limiting the number of customers allowed into the store. I can see Magnolia aficionados jumping on the twitter feed, and happily running out of their office tower to pick up their vanilla cupcake.

A second problem I can foresee in the not so distant future is the environmental aspect once it's been put on the public radar. How much of a carbon footprint does each cupcake / coffee / falafel carry, if its home is constantly on the road, every day, adding to the congestion of New York City streets? Multiply the number of food trucks by the average carbon monoxide emission of a vehicle of that size, and I'm sure we will have a public discussion going.

Acura: great concept - wrong timing

2010-12-05T20:27:00.001-05:00

I really do like the latest round of Acura commercials. In one iteration, a soft-spoken man praises his high-end, luxury chestnut roaster. In another version, a different man sits proudly in front of his 60ies, post-modern gingerbread house, designed by a fictitious star architect. The punch line: "In a season marked by overindulging and overspending, Acura introduces the concept of oversaving."

Everything in this concept is perfect. Various, interesting story lines building up momentum, and a resolution that has a clear link to the product and the benefit Acura brings to the table. It makes you smile. It makes you think. It has a clear message.

So what is wrong with the concept? Well, it's not exactly a time of overindulgence and overspending. Perhaps three years ago it was. Maybe in two years it will be again. But this year? OK, some rich people may or may not go a bit overboard in their shopping behavior, but as a matter of fact this country is still in a recession, millions of Americans still feel the pain from the housing crisis. The job market looks far from rosy, and for many of our fellow citizens this holiday season will have to be marked by oversaving. Not by choice that is, but out of pure economic necessity.

And for the rest of us? Well, a car is not exactly your typical holiday season gift. It still comes with quite a hefty price tag attached to it. A five digit price tag that is. That is not exactly saving, it is spending. Spending a lot of $$$. Even if Acura throws in hefty discounts, don't forget you haven't technically saved money - you have spent a lot of money. The savings are only theoretical. In reality, there is a huge hole in your pocket.

Acura may have been better off putting this idea onto a shelf, and executing it when the timing would have been right.

UPS, you owe Dean Martin an apology

2010-12-03T17:59:00.002-05:00

Dear UPS,

You have produced a wonderful commercial. The images are beautiful, the pacing is right, the graphics are fantastic. It is fresh and contemporary, certainly 'on brand', but there is one major issue with it. You have violated a piece of American music history, an iconic song that for years has brought 'Amore' from Italy to America.

"When the moon hits you eye like a big pizza pie, That's amore..."- oh Dean Martin, if only you were still alive, could raise your hand and say: "No! Not with my song! You don't take it and turn it into some twisted version to illustrate how trucks and airplanes are taking packages from A to B. Are you insane? Go, and write your own music!"

What on earth went on in the creative minds who cooked up this idea? Have you no integrity, no respect for the arts? Can't you create something original? Taking an artist's piece, then painting over it, and declaring it your own - that's blasphemous. While there are plenty of awards for great advertising, there should be the equivalent of a 'Golden Raspberry' for the opposite as well. Just think: would you take a Chagall or a Monet, and then paint over it? I bet you wouldn't.

Dear Raymond Bark, you directed this commercial, and you did a truly great job. I just wish you had told the folks from Ogilvy "No. Please guys, don't do this to Dean Martin. Can't we give a composer, sound designer the chance to create something new and iconic instead?"

Now it's too late. The damage has been done. And that awful song is stuck in my head. It will take some time to erase it from my memory. I am afraid however that it will always be tied to Dean Martin's original. And that - UPS & Ogilvy - is not a good thing.

Buick - the wrong car for Xmas?

2010-12-02T23:56:00.007-05:00

What a man wants for Christmas?

Buick is running TV commercials these days - this one ran during the Arizona vs. Arizona State College Football game - where she (the wife) gives him (the husband) a car for Christmas. The car is parked in the driveway (it is sunny, there is no snow - was this shot in California?), with the annually reoccurring red ribbon wrapped around it. At first, he is happy. But wait. While he is sitting inside the car, taking it in, hugging the steering wheel, the new Buick Lacrosse drives by. All of a sudden all joy is gone, and we see a mixture of envy and sadness in the husband's face.

There is something fundamentally wrong with this concept. Whoever wrote the script at Leo Burnett, the agency for Buick, has no clue about guys and their cars. There simply is no way on earth that a woman will ever buy her guy a car. Unless she is loaded, and knows her hubby wants a certain kind of luxury sports car. But a Buick? Give me a break. Watching one episode of 'Top Gear' should be enough to teach them what real guys want in a car. And an entire season of the show will erase any last doubt about it.

We know GM has struggled over the years to make something out of Buick. Whatever they have done, was simply awful and bad, showing no understanding of brand segmentation, brand perception and the reality of their product. For a long time, they simply thought showing Tiger Woods driving around in a Buick for 30 seconds on screen would be enough to convince consumers to buy a Buick. Were they really that naive? Is there a single person on this planet who seriously believes Tiger Woods would ever voluntarily drive a Buick? No way. Tiger doesn't drive a Buick. Tiger is not in the middle segment. Tiger has the money to afford a luxury car. Tiger rides Cadillac. Just google "Tiger, accident", and you'll see images of his banged up Escalade when Elin Nordegren did or did not go after him with a golf club back on that November day in 2009.

And now Buick wants us to believe guys get car envy when simply seeing a Buick Lacrosse on the street? That thought is wishful thinking. And that is besides the point that the concept of a woman giving her man a car is totally wrong. We (men that is) are very particular about what we want in our ride. No woman would ever get that right. Just think of the guy who watched the football game during which this spot aired. That's the target group. Now think of this guy. Imagine him. Do you see him in a Buick? I don't.

The target for this kind of car is older. They are not in their 30ies. They are 45+. Back to the drawing board, Leo Burnett.

Related link:
Buick's YouTube channel

Lufthansa: No better way to fly?

2010-12-02T00:08:00.001-05:00

No better way to fly?

One thing that has always bothered me when seeing an ad or a commercial by Lufthansa, the German airline, was their positioning line, or claim. "Lufthansa. There is no better way to fly." Something in this message was always disturbing. Two things actually.

Problem # 1
It is a quite arrogant statement. Lufthansa is putting itself on a pedestal, saying that it has found the holy grail of air traveling, and every other airline is pretty much a worse way to fly. What if a competing airline makes vast improvements; improvements so good, that Lufthansa all of a sudden looks like a has-been? Do they really want to take that risk? We know the Germans do many things right. T'hat's why we often buy "Made in Germany". But to say that "there is no better way"? Really?

Problem # 2
The second problem lies in the use of a negative term. Even though Lufthansa is making a positive statement, it is doing it by using a negation, which is a bad choice as the use of 'No', 'Not', 'Never' and the like automatically puts you on the negative side of life. Think of it. If you are a law-abiding citizen, making a statement such as "I am not a thief" kind of states the same, except that you are associating yourself with a negative simply by saying that you are not. Not a wise choice. Instead of stating: "There is no better way to fly", Lufthansa could simply say: "The best way to fly - Lufthansa". It would still sound arrogant, and take you back to Problem Number 1, but at least you kill the negative connotation in your statement.

As a general rule, you should never say what you are not. Say what you are. Be clear, and concise. Have you ever noticed how often people struggle when telling you which foods they do actually like? It is easier for them to tell you what they don't like. Furthermore, many people's political views are composed of 'anti-this' and 'anti-that' statements. Being against something seems to be easier than actually thinking about what you stand for and what you believe in.

The Solution for Lufthansa?
A great lesson here can be learned from the success Avis has achieved. "We try harder" is what really turned things around for them. Why is this so perfect? On the one hand, it tells the customer a clear message. A message he/she actually cares about. On the other hand, it has a hugely positive impact on the entire organizational culture. Every employee at Avis must have felt a clear and concise mission statement being injected into their every day's lifeblood.

From a brand strategy point of view, it is simply brilliant because it's timeless, and it works no matter if you are number 5, number 2, or even number 1. You can always "try harder". Even if you are on top. It sends one message to your customer - that you are continuously striving for improvement. Simply brilliant.

What is the solution for Lufthansa? It is actually quite simple. Instead of:

"Lufthansa. There is no better way to fly",

they should get rid of the 'no' and tell us what they are really doing:

"There is a better way to fly - Lufthansa".

Related Link:
Lufthansa's Facebook Page

Free Gift with Purchase?

2010-12-01T22:15:00.002-05:00

Found in an inflight magazine

Aren't all gifts free?

A few thoughts on 'Viral Marketing'

2010-11-30T23:47:00.002-05:00

17-year old Joshua Beattie from Brisbane, Australia, makes a 7-minute shortfilm on a zero dollar budget. The actors: his friends. The cameraman: too. Equipment: a video camera and a laptop. He puts the film on Youtube, and generates almost a million views in one week. No marketing dollar spent. No 'Below-the-line' campaign. No PR agency paying bloggers to 'spread the word'. None of that nonsense. Just a really good story. Well told. Perfectly executed. His story is everywhere these days.

When a journalist asks him if he intended to spread the word through social networks, he shakes his head. No, he simply sent a link to a few friends who missed the screening at the local high-school. People simply forwarded it to friends, who forwarded it to friends, who forwarded it to friends.

In the old days, this was called 'Word of Mouth', the passing of information from one person to another. Somehow this concept got twisted, abstracted, and then misunderstood by ignorant marketing managers and advertising specialists, who called it 'Viral Marketing'.

There is something fundamentally wrong with this concept. While 'Word of Mouth' is an outcome, 'Viral Marketing' is most often misunderstood as a marketing strategy. Who doesn't understand the difference is almost doomed to fail when pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into a 'viral campaign'. Very rarely does this approach succeed, because you simply cannot force your friends to forward a link. If they think it's crap, they simply delete it. If the content is really outstanding - as in the above video - we forward it to five, ten or even twenty friends. After all, what we forward, reflects back on us. And who wants to build a reputation for sending lame links around?

What most marketing managers don't understand is that 'Viral' is an outcome, not a strategy. A few campaigns have succeeded, either because they were first, and no one else had done it before. Remember 'The Blair Witch Project'? That was a viral success story. Remember the roller-skating babies for Evian? A viral hit. Remember 'Fantastic Freddy' for Radisson Hotels? Chances are, you've never heard of him. He was planned to be part of a viral campaign. Look him up on YouTube and judge for yourself.

Fact is, these days you've pretty much failed if your viral video does not generate at least a 100,000 views in a week. Looking at the Top 10 hits of viral marketing per week, you need to even crack the 500,000 view mark to be mentioned anywhere.

So think twice before doing something 'viral'. Do you have a good story? Do you have a great execution? Would you yourself send this link to ten of your best friends, and ten of your top business contacts?

Related links:
The Top 10 Viral Video Ads of the Week
10 Memorable Viral Videos of 2010

A joke: The Nissan Juke Launch Spot

2010-11-29T21:28:00.005-05:00

It must be really hard being a young creative in an ad agency, when you're working on a car account. On the one hand you are trying to establish yourself as the next hot shot and build your portfolio, on the other hand there are these annoying people called clients, who have never understood your genius and who demand the same lame car driving around somewhere somehow over and over.

Just try to remember a really great car commercial you've seen in the last ten, five, three years. Not many, right? Because let's be serious here. Most work is interchangeable, and too often just quite boring. A car driving in the mountains, a car driving along the ocean, or a car driving in the city. They all do the same. Take you from A to B.

The Nissan Juke however is different. And it shows. It's an ugly car to begin with, which means we have to make the ad campaign surrounding it somehow cool, and fun, and witty. I am pretty sure the folks at Nissan have never really understood what the ad agency, in this case TBWA\Chiat\Day LA, has sold them on here. Because it is just stupid. The whole commercial is nothing but a joke. An expensive one, when you think that :30 sec like this pile up production cost of half a million dollars easily. Add all your media dollars on top, and you're throwing a lot of money out of the window.

Why is this so bad? Well, this kind of car and its commercial are clearly targeted at young, urban, post-college-graduate kids, like the guy in the commercial - Kowalczyk. There is an entire campaign built around him. So far, so good. But "the intern forgot the donuts for the status meeting"? Seriously? That's "the mission" for Kowalczyk? Who of these young, urban, cool kids wants to be reminded of the misery of corporate life in a cubicle, with boring status meetings in plain ugly conference rooms next to awful office environments like the one shown in this spot?

And Kowalczyk breaking the window of a donut store to get a few, stupid donuts? Is everyone so scared of the boss being p... ed off that the intern forgot the donuts? Or is life in this fictitious office so dull that the donuts are the only highlight of the day? Or perhaps the target group isn't that cool, young kid, but the grey suits in their fifties? Can't be. The crazy stunt driving wouldn't appeal to them. These people buy Buick or Volvo while aspiring to a BMW or a Mercedes. I'm really lost here. If anyone in the industry has sales numbers of this vehicle, please share with me. I would be surprised if this vehicle sells at all.

Advice to Nissan: don't let a kid in his/her mid-twenties go crazy with an idea, unless your entire brand premise is build on that idea (think Axe). Entire Nissan that is. Not just one design accident like the Juke.

And TBWA? Come on. You can do better than this.

Heineken's brilliant activation stunt in Italy

2010-11-24T10:58:00.002-05:00

This is clearly one of my favorite activation stunts this year. The recipe: take a major beer brand, men's obsession with football (read: soccer in the U.S.), a European Champions league match between Real Madrid and AC Milan, and wrap it all around a simple, yet brilliant idea. Then go and execute it in all the right channels. Why is this so amazing? Because football is a global religion for many men, and this concept could have very well been executed in Spain, England, Germany, France, Argentina, Brazil... you name it.

It was, however, only executed in Italy. Mind-blowing, how a local event has caught the attention of a whole country, then spread across the globe. There is no marketing budget in the world that can buy the kind of true joy every football fan got out of this. This is a story that will live forever.

No further comments necessary. Just sit back, watch, and enjoy.

Scent & the city

2010-11-23T23:23:00.002-05:00

New York push-cart vendor on Times Square.

Same vendor. Meat on fire.

Some marketers aim to target all of our senses, when trying to seduce us. Fact is the right design of sound and scent can make us spend more time and dollars in a store, and taking in that sweet smell of warm muffins and creamy cupcakes from the bakery on your way to work in the morning not only evokes childhood memories of grandma's homemade goodies, it most likely makes us stop midstride, walk right in, and before we know it, we're taking a bite out of that incredibly delicious vanilla cupcake.

But what on earth are these New York city push-cart vendors thinking? We see them every day, on dozens of street corners, selling hot dogs, sodas, pretzels and grilled chicken skewers. Grilled chicken skewers? Make that burnt skewers. They are either bad marketers or the worst grill masters walking the face of the earth. Whatever it is they are doing, their fare seems to remain most popular with the highly intoxicated on a late Saturday night. The two pictures in this article were taken on a warm, sunny, 55 degree New York day in November with not a single cloud in the sky. Yet half a city block was covered in smoke. I'm surprised no none had called 311, and filed a public complaint.

Just a few blocks away, on 39th Street and 7th Avenue, there is a Burger King, who for years has directed its exhaust pipe directly to the iron air vent grids outside that are supposed to get fresh air onto the subway platforms. But trust me: nothing good comes out of these pipes. The result: if you are standing on the subway platform of the 1 train underground, you wish you had an oxygen mask. What your lungs are taking in is not that summer night barbecue grill flavor making you dream of a juicy steak, but the putrid smell of rancid fat burning in the fire instead. The memory of that awful smell has been stuck in my mind for years, and it truly has has put my loyalty to the Whopper to the test.

How powerful these memories can be? Well, if I close my eyes, I am reliving the moments of joy I experienced back fifteen years ago at the Horton Plaza mall in downtown Sand Diego, brought to me by a place called - come on, google, help me real quick - ah, there it is: Cinnabon. I will never forget the sweet smell of oven-fresh baked cinnamon buns that came out of an oven-exhaust pipe that was strategically pointed at the sidewalk outside, which made escaping the temptation almost impossible.

For further reading, I recommend Marcel Proust's: In search for lost time. A Reader's Guide to The Remembrance of Things Past.

Related link:
A blog dedicated to the science of Scent Marketing

The Gap new logo mess – what went wrong?

2010-11-22T16:59:00.009-05:00

"Classic, American design to modern, sexy, cool"?

Rewind: on October 4, 2010, The GAP announced it would transition its iconic logo from “classic, American design to modern, sexy, cool”. What followed was a storm of negative consumer feedback – about 90% rejected the new version.
(For links relating to the full story, see at the bottom of this mail).
The new logo however looked like it was designed in MS Paint or Word Perfect. It was just so… plain ugly. After just one week, GAP pulled the story and buried the project silently.

What went wrong at ‘The Gap’? I don’t think they will ever tell us. Let us however think for a moment. You have serious business people running a company in San Francisco. They went to Business school. They work for a public company that is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. They have pressure from their investors – they have to publish quarterly results. And that is as much long-term focus as they have. Add an economic climate to the mix that has most retailers mark down their goods by 20, 30, 40 or even 50% (yes, it’s nasty out there right now), and you have people panicking.

What can we do? Well, you can’t force people to buy. You can change advertising agencies. Or you can try yet another advertising campaign to seduce the people. Gap’s advertising agency of record, Laird & Partners in New York, is very good at that. If the campaign however doesn’t get people to spend their dollars, what else can you do?

Enter the Gap’s marketing department. Strategy meeting. Panic there as well. Measure of last resort: let’s change the logo! Everyone nods. Ad agency gets a call. Creative presentation with a strategic set-up outlining the rationale. Something about a new customer type. They call them ‘millennials’. And the new logo is for them. Everyone nods. Let’s do it.

The problem with all this: between the Gap’s marketing meeting, and Laird designing a new logo, no one did the thinking. No brand strategist sat down and analyzed the brand’s equity, assessed the implications, the possible outcome, did some consumer testing. What a mess this was. I’m pretty sure someone got the boot for that.

A lesson for every marketing manager: don’t confuse an advertising agency with a branding/identity shop. Laird & Partner is a formidable agency with a proven track record, and an impressive client roster. Just check out their website. They are, however, a creative boutique. They produce aesthetic visuals. Still, and in motion. Agencies like that are not strategically driven. Creative people, often-flamboyant personalities, and sometimes even eccentric ones run them. Strategy there is the ugly step child, serving the purpose of post-rationalizing the creative in some kind of way. Most often it exists primarily to sell an idea or a concept to the client vs. doing what's right for the brand and the client's business.

Yet in the case of the GAP logo, even that doesn’t serve as an explanation, since the outcome is just so very bad. Did an intern work on this? I don’t know. What were clearly missing in this ‘value chain’ of creative components were a brand strategy/brand identity firm, and preliminary consumer testing. The results would have shown that this was a bad call from the beginning, and the story would have never seen the light of day in the first place.

Lesson for The GAP: You’ve spent years building an iconic brand. You’ve pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into this. Don’t throw your most valuable asset out of the window just like that. That’s just plain dumb. Seriously. Look at the logo evolution of Coke vs. Pepsi. It’s pretty clear who’s number one, and who’s the runner up.

One thought on the "modern, sexy, and cool" attempt of the new logo. Well, it doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t mean anything. It shows how poorly thought through this project was. The meaning assigned to these attributes solely depends on your age and where you’ve set your cultural anchor... something that is modern, sexy and cool is not so much modern, sexy and cool six months from now. What do you do then? Change the logo? Again? Timeless, classic, and cool would be a better attempt. But wait – isn’t that what the iconic GAP logo is all about?

I think I just heard Mickey Drexler laughing out loud in his offices at J. Crew...

Related links:
Oct 12, 2010: New Gap Logo Dead at One Week (Vanity Fair)
Oct 7, 2010: Gap Speaks Out: Yes, the Logo Is Real (AdAge)

Social Media Experiment: American Airlines & John Legend

2010-11-21T02:19:00.004-05:00

It all began so well. We were in the Meatpacking District on a fashion photo shoot. Next to us, in front of Hogs and Heifers, a New York dive bar, three guys in blue American Airlines t-shirts were handing out free concert tickets for John Legend & The Roots to those 'fans', who found time and location on AA's facebook page. So far so good. Word spread, a constant flow of frequent fliers came to pick up the tickets, and I managed to disguise myself as part of the in-crowd as well.

Two weeks later. Brooklyn. Williamsburg. Hipsterland. Getting off the L-Train at the Bedford stop, you could feel the cool factor coming. American Airlines seemed to have gotten this one right. A legitimate artist, the right location, some mystery surrounding the hunt for tickets - makes you feel special. Enter the venue. Crowd check. Style check. Positive. A nice mix of people. A good vibe. Surprisingly exciting for a Tuesday night.

The tension rises. The place is packed. The crowd is pumped up. Then, finally: stage lights on. Final sound check. The spot light pointing to the stage entry... the crowd gets louder... the stage door opens... and here he is - no wait, here he's not - who the f... is that?

Onto the stage walks a stocky guy in his mid-thirties, worn out blue jeans, square tip bulky black leather shoes, ill-fitted business dress shirt, the collar tips curled up, the top button casually unbuttoned, sporting a goatee and square black eye-glasses.

"Hello everybody! My name is John Smith (name altered by author), and I'm the Director of Social Media for American Airlines..." What follows are ten minutes of CAMS - Corporate American Marketing Speak. "... 10% off your next flight with the coupon handed to you at the end of the show...", "... make sure to tweet and post about this event on your facebook...", and so on and so forth. One could feel the cool vibe that had filled the music call being sucked out the door with every second he kept on talking.

Advice to American Airlines: If you pay John Legend and The Roots tons of money to have some of his vibe rub off on you, you should at least throw in a few bucks to pay a professional VJ, actor, or even one of those uber-cool Brooklyn hipsters to give the intro. Put them in skinny jeans if need be, add some Chucks to it, and for Christ's sake even a trucker's hat. Let him talk for two, three minutes, max. Keep the excitement level up. Mold the energy, before handing it over to Mr. Legend.

When the artist finally appeared on stage, one could read his thoughts in his eyes. To John Smith: "Yes, I'm taking your money. But I'm not going to bed with you. Now get the hell off my stage" To the crowd: "Sorry guys. I'll have my manager rewrite the contract so things like this won't happen in the future. Now let's play some music, and have some fun."

The lesson here: If you're a Director, stay in the background, and direct. Unless you have the talent, and the charisma of a Richard Branson, a Donald Trump or a Karl Lagerfeld, stay in the background, and hire a professional.

Oh, and that coupon, with the 10% off, I must have lost it somewhere. John, if you're reading this, would you mind sending me another one?

Girl scout cookies anyone?

2010-11-20T22:56:00.020-05:00

Peanut Butter Pattie + Peanut Butter Sandwich + Thin Mint

And the award for most brilliant marketing scheme of all times goes to - The Girl Scouts of America! Just a few days ago, it dawned on me. These girls have it all figured out. The perfect business plan.

As I walked into my Manhattan office tower, I saw them standing in the lobby. Three little girls in their spotless, green little uniforms, supported by their proud moms, standing by a plastic folding table stacked with cookies. Impossible to pass them unnoticed. "Hello Sir! Do you want to buy some cookies?" How can you say no to that? Three boxes. Done. Into the elevator. Up. Out of the elevator. Into the office. On every single desk: cookies. Two boxes, three boxes. Five boxes.

Flashback: a year ago, different company. Girl scout cookie season. A female co-worker working the office, one desk at a time. In her hand: a sign-up sheet for her daughter's girl scout cookie sales contest. What are you going to do? Say no, and feel the abuse for weeks to come? Hell no. "Yeah, sure, sign me up for three. Peanut Butter Patties, Peanut Butter Sandwich and Thin Mints" Done. And I don't even like cookies. Oh well. You can always share the love and make some friends, right?

Sitting in my cubicle, and thinking of all the millions of boxes of girl scout cookies being sold simultaneously, I couldn't help but wonder - is there a gigantic girl scout cookie factory somewhere in the U.S., with little girls mixing flour, eggs, and chocolate chips? Can't be. That would be child labor. So it must be a legit business. With a real CEO, factory workers, full-time employees, a truck fleet, a marketing and a distribution strategy.

Wait - distribution strategy? Of course! Little girls, working for free, in every state, county, and city in America! Being supported - for free - by their moms and dads, leaving no stone unturned. Simply brilliant! Payroll for sales force - zero. Commission for sales results - a badge. Motivation of sales force - purely intrinsic!

If only the people at the post office showed some of the commitment these little girls do...

And that's the way the cookie crumbles.