Powerful Promotion

I always respect a creative and captivating ad campaign, and this week, Dove has earned my admiration. With the production of a short 3 minute mini-video, Dove successfully portrays it's strong brand image and brand voice. 

Watch below:
 

By producing this video, this ad campaign has been effective on many levels. 

• It is engaging: Viewers are likely to share the video via social media, as well as spread the word about the video via WOM.
• It is consistent with Dove's core values: It empowers women with this message of natural beauty 
• It is memorable: The artistic elements of the video are compelling and appealing

It can be argued that this video is also ineffective on several levels.

• It does not drive sales: After watching this video, consumers are not likely to run to the store to purchase a Dove product.
• It may not change purchase behaviors: Though the message is powerful, it may not shift the purchasing habits of a loyal Neutrogena customer.

Though Dove has received much scrutiny in relation to the ROI this campaign has generated, I believe that the levels of engagement attributed to this video far outweigh the immediate fiscal return. It's probable that Dove's objective was not to drive sales but instead, to increase future purchase intentions. 

It's All Greek to Me

It's fairly obvious that the Greek Yogurt market is becoming fairly saturated. Representing 2 billion of the $6 billion dollar yogurt market, it seems as if every major yogurt competitor has jumped on the band wagon. But, is it just a fad? Or can this Greek madness last?

There has been a recent surge of television advertisements by Chobani, the American brand Greek style yogurt that entered the market in 2005. Until recently, the company relied on word-of-mouth marketing and print advertisement. The new $30 million ad campaign focuses around the theme: Go Real. With slogans like "keep it simple, keep it real" and "leave food alone," Chobani intends to undercut its competitors by highlighting the simplicity and pure quality of its product. Consumers are encouraged to use the hashtag #tastereal with prompts from television ads that state, "share your first taste of real."It seems to be working, as Chobani is the leading Greek Yogurt brand, capturing 49% of the market and 16.4% of the total yogurt market share. 

So will Chobani continue to rank above the market giants like Dannon and Yoplait? With a growth in the greek yogurt market from 25% to 35% in just a year, and a decline in sales of non-greek yogurt, we can assume that the major competitors will begin to compete financially. In order to gain market share, I assume that companies will begin to compete in price wars; sales growth will most likely remain steady, but will not increase as rapidly as it has been recently. 

Which Do You Prefer?

It's the age old question: Coke or Pepsi?

There is a growing trend of creating partnerships between brands and celebrities to generate new brand imagery through design. We've seen it in the telecommunication, sports, and technology industries. The problem with such collaborations lies in the execution of these partnerships. The association of a celebrity and a brand must be cohesive. The celebrity's target market should be similar, if not identical, to the target market of the brand product. 

Coke was followed immediately by Pepsi after introducing a Diet Coke partnership with Marc Jacobs in Europe. 

As a fashion conscious consumer, upon first notice I was thrilled to see such an alliance between one of my favorite designers and my low-cal drink of choice. But, as a brand aware consumer, upon further inspection I deemed this partnership completely inappropriate. I am not fully aware of the European brand perceptions of Marc Jacobs, but I have deduced from the knowledge of Americans' orientation of the product that the Diet Coke brand and Marc Jacobs brand do not match. Coke may capture it's upper class, fashion conscious consumer with this limited time rebranding, but the majority of Coke consumers (lower to middle class) will prove inattentive to the brand partnership.


When Pepsi followed suit, they introduced a collaboration with Vern Yip. 

WHO?! Exactly my point. Though Coke's Marc Jacobs rebranding may have isolated consumers, Pepsi's rebranding has consumers perplexed. "Who is Vern Yip and what is he doing to my Diet Pepsi can?!" The partnership seems rather advantageous for Vern: large consumer base of Pepsi googles "who is Vern Yip" (which I'm sure 90% of you just did). But for Pepsi, this may be a sunk cost with no real increase in returns. 

So where are companies going with this? Will the limited addition rebrandings continue? Most likely. Though the use of celebrities to rebrand products may not increase profits in the long run, it creates buzz. And word of mouth advertising is exactly what these brands are hoping for. 

      

Nothing Says "A Clean Mouth" Like....

BACON?

Well, at least that's what Scope seems to think. After Scope introduced it's new brand persona and packaging last November, I knew something was amiss. Why a brand that appeared hygienic and trustworthy would transform itself to look like a whimsical genie bottle is beyond me.


OLD                                               NEW

     


But, THIS. THIS, I just don't get. 




If Scope's launch of this product was intended to start buzz, then it has succeeded. But if their purpose was to start buzz and grow sales, then it has most definitely failed. I don't know about you, but I don't usually brush my teeth in the morning then chew a bunch of bacon to freshen my breath. Likewise, I don't think I'll be buying $6 bacon flavored mouthwash. 

Announcing the product so close to April 1st has drawn some skeptics. "Is this some sort of April Fools joke?" America, let's hope so.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

It is important for companies to simplify what could be a complicating buying process for the consumer.  When a heavily competitive industry attempts to advertise their particular product advantages, the company must first pinpoint the customers needs and wants. Once those needs are understood, companies should construct marketing campaigns that center around those specific demands. These campaigns should be simple, straightforward, and entertaining. This process is extraordinarily difficult and many companies fail to effectively implement successful campaigns. But, some seem to get it JUST RIGHT. 

Recently, AT&T has partnered with BBDO to create an ad campaign designed to simplify the very confusing process of choosing a cellular provider. Choosing a wireless phone service can be daunting. All companies seem to offer a wide array of products, packages, bundles, and services; customers typically choose providers based on recommendations from friends and family. In this case, AT&T hopes to capture consumers by simplifying the purchasing process. They hope that consumers will base their choice on some very astute, candid, and hysterical children. 

Take a look: 



Funny, right? Not only are they funny the first time, they're funny the second and third as well. They're so funny, you'll start quoting them to your friends and then your friends will start quoting them. You'll unmute the TV during commercials just to watch them. And, that's where AT&T and BBDO have done it right! They've made commercials entertaining and informative and in addition, started WOM buzz! 

Way to go AT&T! Keep em coming. 

Persona Development

     Social media platforms are increasingly improving their ability to target key consumers with new advertising updates. Below is a list of improvements made to various social media platforms in the past year and a half. 

Facebook Improvements:

• Page Post Target Enhanced: gives business the opportunity to to target their Page posts by gender, age, Likes, education, interest, relationship status, and more.

• Paid-for Sponsored Stories-suggests "Pages You May Like"

• Sponsored Results: ads that appear below Facebook search queries

• Facebook's Graph Search: enables business to analyze and act on data associated with consumers

• Auto Play Video Ads: soon to appear on Facebook

Twitter Improvements:

• Promoted Tweets

• Promoted Trends

LinkedIn Improvements:

• Video Advertising

• Sponsored Posts

     With the ability for social media tools to more accurately quarry key customers, it is becoming more and more lucrative for companies to truly know their customers. Placing increased importance on developing customer "personas" to more accurately define a customer's needs and wants should be at the forefront of strategic marketing executives' minds. Without this in depth discovery, companies will end up targeting imprecise consumers with no interest in their product. 

     We don't want 55 year old mom, Cindy, who works as a physician's assistant in Missouri and values exercise and healthy eating habits, to be inundated with Marlboro or McDonalds ads.

 ++ = Loss of Possible Engagement

 

Thoughts Provoked by: http://www.inc.com/hollis-thomases/new-ways-to-advertise-on-social-media.html

Growing and Growing

In the past few years, many believed that the opportunity to capitalize on the U.S consumer market was not worth the effort. Marketers believed that the United States consumption rates were stagnant and that increased product marketing should be focused on developing nations. But, new developments have led to an expanded interest in marketing efforts in the United States.

The U.S has recently been named an "emerging market" by L'Oreal CEO, Jean Paul Agon. L'Oreal recognizes that the United States is their most profitable market, whereas the consumption growth rate in the BRIC countries are declining. For many years, large corporations believed that it would be most advantageous to capitalize on the developing markets in the BRIC countries. Though, now it seems as if increased competition and a thirst for market share is changing the way companies are focusing their marketing efforts.

The population growth in the U.S has led to the greater interest in investing in marketing efforts, as companies notice that a larger market will eventually lead to larger consumption, and greater profits. Whereas GDP in developing markets, such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China has slowed, in the United States, growth is at 2.2%.

The implications of the realizations that the United States is a market that should be further capitalized on led to the possibility of many companies, such as Walmart, to relocate their manufacturing plants. Walmart claims that they will $50 billion more made in the U.S merchandise.

Though the United States is a fully developed market, it is possible for corporations to take advantage of the population growth and growing GDP. It is important for companies to note that though markets may seem completely developed, there is still much opportunity.


Thoughts provoked from: http://adage.com/article/news/u-s-emerging-market/239848/

OH OH Oreo's Got It!

Many consumers don't realize what is going on currently in the digital age. When Oreo was able to post this ad just seconds after the Super Bowl blackout, 

the average consumer didn't wonder how they initiated this ad campaign so quickly. After doing some quick research, I learned that Oreo executives were stationed in the production room of their advertising agency during the Super Bowl. Oreo's quick creativity enabled them to capitalize on a pivotal social media moment consequently attracting many Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram followers.

These days, Generation Y is prompted to engage, not by a company's begging and constant pleading for "likes" or "follows," but by inventive or impressive advertisement and marketing campaigns. As a member of Generation Y, I too admire and furthermore acknowledge a company's innovative attempts to attract brand champions through digital campaigns.  

Digital campaigns continue to be a gray area for marketers in both small businesses and large corporations. Personally, I believe this is due to the major generation gap between those producing the content, and those targeted to engage in the material. 

Once marketers pinpoint "what it is the consumers really want" from digital, the next step is how to quantify customer data and revenue generated from these digital touch-points. It seems as if Oreo is nearing that point.

Less than Super Superbowl Commercials

Let me be honest. I attended a Super Bowl party for 3 reasons: the commercials,

the great Beyonce,



 and buffalo chicken cheese dip.

 I would love to discuss the last two in detail, but instead, I'll attempt to recap the 4 million dollar 30 second ad spots which failed to impress this year.

This year, the reoccurring theme seemed to be babies, families, and animals. With these three crowd pleasing subjects, you would think that the marketer couldn't go wrong. OH, but they did.

Here are my picks for the top 3 worst Super Bowl commercials of 2013.

Priceline "The Mission"



This was a Priceline negotiator commercial gone wrong. The scenario is absolutely pointless and the commercial managed to lose my attention after the first 5 seconds. It was actually terrible. I would hope that Priceline executives are firing their creative agencies currently. (Too harsh? Well, they did just waste 4 million dollars.)

VW:



I don't think that Volkswagen really thought this one through. The Jamaican accent on the thrilled new owner of the red VW may be offensive to some. In fact, VW screened the commercial to a focus group of Jamaicans to determine whether or not it was offensive. If you have to screen your Super Bowl commercial to make sure it doesn't offend anyone, you probably need a new commercial. Not to mention there was not a single black person in it.


Wonderful Pistachios:



COME ON! Haven't we all had enough of this PSY character? Just because he's doing his little dance surrounded by a bunch of pistachios with legs doesn't make me want to consume pistachios any more than I already do. It's obvious that the Wonderful Pistachio team took the easy way out this time. "Ahh what will we do for our Super Bowl commercial?" "Well, America really likes that little dance PSY does. Let's get him!!" Great thinking, if the Super Bowl had aired 6 months ago when PSY was still popular.


I guess in our social media centered world, it's okay to have produced a terrible commercial. In fact, a terrible commercial can be better than a mediocre one. Why? Because it starts buzz. So, congratulations Priceline, VW, and Wonderful Pistachios. You've made my top 3 worst commercial list, and subsequently, started some social media chatter. 

Inside Job

No. This blog post is not referring to the 2010 documentary on the 2000's financial crisis starring Matt Damon. But just to keep you interested...

Now that you've had a glimpse of those beautiful beady eyes, it's time to move on to the serious stuff. And by serious stuff, I'm talking about this guy:

He may not look so serious, but he has some SERIOUSLY good points to make. Michael Lazerow, the geek chic bearded hipster man you see above, is the CEO and co-founder of Buddy Media, Inc. 

In an article entitled "Social Media Advertising is Set to Explode. Who Will Control It?" Lazerow brings forth the notion that the line between advertising, marketing, and PR is being blurred by the clients' growing need for social media platforms. The battle for clients' advertising budgets is becoming even more fierce, but until actual revenue can be traced from social media strategies, it is unclear how the results of digital marketing and social media agencies will be measured. Only the lucky few (those companies that entered the social media world as early adopters) have mastered the techniques necessary to engage in social media and gain positive quantifiable results.

Other companies have not been so lucky. Lazerow pinpoints three reasons as to why social media marketing is not flourishing as rapidly as many believed it would.

1. Clients still believe that the agencies can tell their story: The only way a social media campaign will be successful is if the company itself develops a strong and consistent brand voice and brand image. The client can not rely on the agency to establish a platform without constant consultation with the company.

2. Tool anarchy: In the past decade, thousands of companies have "popped up" claiming to have developed the latest and most improved social media software. Companies continuously focus on these "tools" instead of concentrating on the internal organization and content optimization across all touch points. 

3. Focusing on social media and not on social advertising: Companies fail by using social media as an engagement tool which consequently, only reaches a small audience. Instead, they should be using social media as a compliment to their larger advertising and marketing efforts in order to influence a larger market.  

In conclusion, Lazerow makes it quite clear that he scorns companies who use third party social media agencies to "get the job done." He believes that companies who organize social media efforts internally, and identify a common brand image and voice, will procure the greatest results.