CAN BIG COMPANIES EVER CREATE DIFFERENT COMMUNICATION AND MOULD BREAKING ADS?

I think one of the biggest problems major companies face is that it is very difficult, maybe impossible, to create copy and communication that breaks the rules or does anything different in the category. The more I observe communication coming from "the big guys" and the "blue chips", the more I am convinced about this.

It seems to me that if you were a truly creative agency, unless you deal with the head of any major organisation determined to change things, you may never get to break any rules. Or, unless that person demands their people really challenge the status quo and gets involved in facilitating and enabling some challenging work, it just will not happen.

Without this hands on leadership, large organizations will get communication that consistently delivers solid results. Nothing more.

Ironically, as a marketer to really step change the business (rather than safely in corporate world grow the few percentage a year) you need to do something that is different to others. But the system of large corporate world encourages and rewards being more incremental than revolutionary, different or dramatic (unless there is a crisis!)

It does seems that the really big break through work in large organisations came when the very senior leaders were the client or actively made it happen.

Two examples
From the past: The Margaret Thatcher "labours not working" which not only took her to power but make the Saatchi's into a powerhouse.

From the modern:
The slightly bizarre but very effective in terms of sales Cadbury "Gorilla" that was designed to create an ad people spoke about.




Both broke the mould and the norms. Both were dramatic, unexpected and spoken about. Like them or hate them, they were seen, remembered and spoken about.

Unless the most senior decision maker leads either directly or facilitates, it is always going to be safest for people in the chain o follow existing rules and norms in large organisations. Although communication should be developed for the consumer, there is always going to be a big element of “what will the boss think of this/ how will I sell this to my boss”. If you are the boss you nly sell to yourself in the end.

The key being, as one of my idols David Ogilvy made, is that when you really understand the rules of what works and then consciously break them this often works better. This is because you know why you are breaking them. You need a lot of experience and the ability and confidence to fail to do that. When you are the boss you can. When you are in the ladder hoping for the bonus and the next promotion, you need to deliver what your boss likes. Usually the boss likes no surprises, reliable and incremental. This is the stuff that bonuses and promotions are made of.

Mary: Queen of Charity Shops TV show: what can we learn?

While needing to remember that many business shows on TV (like “The Apprentice” and “Dragon’s Den”) are really more reality show and entertainment shows than actually telling or teaching us about business or marketing, I cannot help love many of them.

Though I do wonder how much I and other viewers are actually learning about business and marketing.

My 2 favourite shows in this genre are "Hotel Inspector" (helping failing hotels turnaround) and "Mary Portas: Queen of Shops" (turning round failing shops).

A recent short 3 part series had Mary Portas trying to breathe life into the worst performing Save The Children charity shop in the UK ina show called “Mary: Queen of Charity Shops”. While very entertaining, I did find it taught or made me wonder about a few key things:

You need to be very strong minded and very determined to take on entrenched old dears
But on a more serious note, she battles to get a team of volunteers aged from 60 to well into their 80s who have been volunteering for up to 20 years to make change happen. The learning is that, no matter how good your visions, your ideas, your plans are, you need to get the team on board. Or get a new team who will sometimes! Without that you are doomed. Getting people to accept change and do things differently, without them seeing what is in it for them is a big issue.

You need to get better than damp pants, dirty bras and used junk
The problem she faced was people donate junk that is largely unsalable, and the 30 per cent or so of donations that are tend to very low value. The "supply chain" and "suppliers" are shoddy, erratic and appalling. People going into the charity shops know that. The learning is that it is all about getting better product from better suppliers more reliable on quality. You need to have a great and reliable supply chain and great products to succeed.

You can't sell for over five pounds
The volunteers argued no shopper will ever spend over five pounds in the channel. Mary argued you could train shoppers through better products to reinvent the way they think about your offer. But only through dramatic change in service, products and the “packaging/ look” of the store so they rethink you and your offer. I am not so sure you can train consumers away from price expectations and habits, but if you have any hope you need to look and offer something very different from what they have “learnt” about you. You need a new product and shopper experience.

Did you see the show? Any thoughts?

watch a video of Mary Portas speaking on ITV "This Morning" about the show: click here to watch on YouTube or on the blog posting

IS YOUR BRAND MISSING IN ACTION? What happens when you go on air and people search for you?

Following up from a recent posting I did about how we tend to forget what we do and act as consumers the minute we walk through the door of our office, something struck me this week about how easy it is to miss things - even when they are blindingly obvious.

I was shown some data about how online searches for specific products, especially new ones, dramatically increases as soon as a new TV ad appears. This seems very obvious and rational behaviour. It is something we (as consumers) are all likely do when we see an ad for a new product on TV that interests us. We would go and find out more (and as many people actually are online when they are in front of the TV it is even easier to do.

So, type in your product or product variant you are TV advertising now or have been or about to. What would an interested consumer see and find?

Is your online content and search buying up to scratch when you go on air?

Find out by searching your product or variant right now...there is a google search box on the left hand side of the blog.. try it

Max Factor death in USA: more a comment on the state of celebrity use by a brand?

The news that Max Factor is going to be killed off in the USA (although it seems to be largely dead already!) ruins one of the examples I had often used of having a powerful, competitive Big Idea over time in various trainings and projects I have worked on. How annoying.

It seems that "the makeup of makeup artists" no longer appeals. So what happened or is going on?

In some ways, it is probably largely a sign of the times. Just as Lux (the choice of stars) in Western markets died when the studio system and the glamour associated with big screen stars died as times changed.

Today, with the advent of reality shows and instant and transient celebrity we seem to have lost that small, exclusive and highly glamorous world that the stars of movies used to represent. A world when a few cherished stars and their personas were carefully crafted and managed. Their image and stories carefully managed. Remember this is from time when studios controlled the stories and image so well that a star like Rock Hudson was not even suspected of not be a charming, good looking womaniser.

Now we have a more transient celebrity world. Celebrities still are very powerful as brand spokespersons, but are they seem to be doing more of a job in helping a brand achieve stand out in a cluttered world these days - than selling aspiration and glamour. You can, after become a celebrity yourself much easier than ever before.

So I do wonder if the role of celebrity and those associated with them has fundamentally changed over the last 10 plus years with the emergence of shows like Big Brother (in its 10th year in the UK) and the such like.

Even there we see names rise sharply and burn out just as quickly. Celebrity and stars as a currency and ally for brands is now less about adding to long and medium term values, and more about short term news and fast awareness.

It is the nature of the way we live and how media chases, builds and throws celebrities aside. Possibly the most telling thing is we don't really talk about "stars" anymore - we talk about celebrity.

Of course when chosen well and timely they have a big impact on awareness and trial. But maybe like the makeup artists of stars, they are not as likely to add glamour and aspiration over time as much anymore? I am sure there are many other issues related to Max Factor like products, pricing and distribution, but it still seems that the shine faded as the nature of celebrity and glamour associated with it faded and became less relevant.

Max Factor TVCs
1986 Max factor Ad with Jacklyn Smith talking about the glamour of Marlene Dietrich. The pay off line is "The glamour goes on", so linking to the glamour associated with the old movie stars (as the nature of stars changed even in the 1980s they struggled to have a glamour face as of old).
Watch on Youtube: click here or on the blog posting

TV ad based on the film "memoirs of a geisha" from that linked the brand to it's roots in film. Click here to watch on YouTube or on the blog posting:

This short clip is how Bloomberg reported the news of Max Factor being pulled from the USA: click here to watch on YouTube, or watch on the blog posting:

BOOTS: THINKING WITH THEIR DNA MEANT THINKING DIFFERENTLY/ MORE COMPETITIVELY IN SKINCARE

I admire what Boots the Chemist are doing in the UK on their anti-age line (Boots Protect and Perfect).

They have shown the importance of not just following the set and established ways and norms. In anti-aging the big players and brands, like Olay and L’Oreal, invest in TV as the main media (no doubt constantly wrestling with the TV authority on claims and claim support) and then also have PR and the such.

Boots were more clever. They do not have the same momentum and habit that the big FMCG players have where managements are trained and focused on the TV copy led model. Nor did they have the budgets I suspect.

So they cleverly focused on investing in clinical (which is more in the DNA of a pharmacy thinking company) and released it not through the beauty editor world, but through the science editor and news world. The take out from the clinical was: not many moisturisers have real anti aging effects, but Boots really does over time. One study, just one study.

Science sections in press reported it and news followed. The media did the job of making strong claims.

Then with their retailer mindset, they focused on attracting people into store with copy that said the thing everyone is talking about is now n store, and store displays reinforcing it. They drove traffic based on the news that an amazing product offering was now in store.

They are selling a ton of the stuff. And they never had to fight with authorities on claim support and nuances.

They also acted true to their mindset and competencies. They did not run head on with the big traditional marketers.

Thinking different model seems key these days. Boots are doing it in the UK, while brands like Caudalie are doing it in French pharmacies and Proactiv with direct response TV/ online in the USA. The traditional model may not be broken, but seems no guarantee of success as consumers know the model and how messages are told. The new models seem to get through and get reaction more....

Watch the ad on Youtube: click here
Or on the blog post:

Cassetteboy vs The Bloody Apprentice

Watch on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxi6QDwQyLU

This is pure entertainment. This master mash up of clips from the UK version of "The Apprentice" by a pesron called "cassette boy".

If you watch the show this is so funny.

Other than being entertaining on the blog, this also shows how brands can take ona life of their own and people can add to and extend the brand in their own way. These user generated pieces of content I find fascinating as they often tell you more about what people are taking out from the brand/ offer.

I have written quite a few postings on user generated content. They are entertaining and fascinating.

What Susan Boyle and Britain's Got Talent should get marketers thinking about more!

I am embarrassed to say that despite being a total online geek (some may say online whore as I use it so much and so many tools), in my professional life I have not led a more innovative and aggressive use of new media and tools. Focusing more on the traditional marketing tools of TV, print, in-store. Is this what you also revert to?

I really started challenging myself on this. This challenge started when I was merrily criticising the UK ITV TV channel and the producers/ owners of the "Britain's Got Talent" show who found that one of the acts (Susan Boyle) exploded into a global sensation due to clips posted by fans (ignoring any copyright) on YouTube. The clip (which was finally put up officially) has been watched some staggering 62 million times (and that is just 1 clip as other copies have several million as well) and growing. The station and owners making no money from it initially as they had not fully thought past the traditional model of selling space in the show on air, and some revenues from viewer phone-in voting. (Even I make money from my hotel room and other clips on YouTube). This was all as Susan Boyle, due to the YouTube fame, appearing on Oprah and Larry King live making a local UK TV show a worldwide feature. This is after an audition mind you - she has not won the show (as of writing) and may not. But her fame is assured. As is ITV for not being more aware of the new models available to them to reach consumers.

While I was criticising them for not embracing new media, embracing the power of people who engage with new media and social networks to discover things, I realised I was the same creature.

Why are people like me who even when using new media and tools so much as consumers, forgetting it all when we walk through the door of the office? I have blogs, use twitter, use Google news as my main source of news, on Facebook at least once a day, do all my holiday and travel using tripadvisor and online, buy a large amount of things online, use iPod and listen to podcasts every day... And so on. But have not championed them for the brand.

Why?

Is it because it is easier to use the tools that are more familiar with the management upwards and those leading the countries? Habit and familiarity?

Or is it because agencies have stayed as agencies, and still talk in a language of TV and Print (oh and here is how you could run that online) and so are not challenging enough? The online function seem to all be in different divisions in agencies, and not central to the process.

I really think I, and everyone needs to really revolt! We have to be more focused on the total journey from awareness to consideration to commitment and purchase by our target and where in that chain we need to influence.

Keeping acting more like a consumer when you walk through the door of the office!

Take a look at the video of Susan Boyle that made her the internet and international sensation: click here to watch on YouTube: 

Being noticed in rush hour. The importance of standing out in thelaunch crush

People
Originally uploaded by The Kids and Kahlie

Some years ago while working on some training on advertising, I used to talk about how there is roughly 365 new skincare/ personal care products and extensions launched every year. This meant that on average your new product or extension would only be new for a day. As within 24 hours there would be something new. I realise now that this was a silly fact, as latest data shows that (despite the tough times) that some 850 new personal care products were launched a year. That means you are only new for less than half a day if you are lucky.....

And if you launch in the mass market channels in most countries, the launches are crammed into 2 launch cycles in most cases.

So when agencies talk about clutter, they really mean it. Not only is there clutter in the amount of messages but also the amount of news and new things for people to explore. No wonder the beauty care business can be so volatile...

But it does mean that whatever you do, you really do need to stand out and be noticed. Think about rush hour and the volumes of people getting on and off the Metro, the tube, the trains. The volume of news is like rush hour every day. You need to be able to be noticed and stand out in that sea of grey and similarity. Just like in rush hour, everyone tends to be very similarly dressed and deck out in whatever the latest colour and fashion is. This is what we all do when launching and marketing in our categories, we tend to feel most comfortable sticking with the trends, what the competition are doing. What has worked in the past..

To really stand out, you need to be different. Different enough to be noticed. But not different enough to not be appealing. A tough balance. But it has to be done. Especially when the other scary statistic is that up to 90% of new launches fail or fall well below expectations.

You need to be noticed in rush hour, as it is rush hour every day, twice a day when it comes to beauty care!

Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel by Jerry Oppenheimer

The author of this book clearly is not very fond of the toy company Mattel, nor the larger than life personalities that have run it over the course of its history so far.

Though looking at a list of the other books that he has written, which I only did after finishing the book, it is clear that his stock in trade when it comes to writing is focusing on the drama of the people associated to dramatic events and scandal linked to celebrity and business. He has written books on Martha Stuart, Rock Hudson and the Hiltons (and has a book about Bernie Maddoff coming out in late 2009).

His story of the history of Mattel is a bit one sided, but it made for entertaining and interesting reading despite this. As long as you take that into account. It would be a less provocative and grabbing narrative if it was more balanced.

The book is structured to take you through a series of major stages in the history of Mattel, each of which he associates and focuses on the personalities involved at that time. Closely linking that individuals personality and faults to the peaks and troughs of the volatile fortunes of the company. This focus on the people makes it more of a soap opera than a real business analysis of the brand and company. So although you learn about the company, you do not really get a deep understanding of the company and brands themselves.

He spends time in the book on the battles (personal and business life) with the “father of Barbie” and then with the couple who started Mattel. Then he moves onto the dealings that ended up driving out the woman who created Mattel and the criminal charges that involved. It covers the loud and over confident CEO who was finally driven out by her poor acquisitions, through to the CEO who oversaw the company during the toy recalls related to lead paint from toys made in China and magnets being ingested by children.

Overall I found the book enjoyable although it was closer to a “holiday book” read in style and content. But good entertainment. It made me curious to see how he has skewered other people in his books. I may just buy one to find out.

The other thing that I thought was interesting from a "brand"/ "marketing" side was that the author (Jerry Oppenheimer) has been a good marketer as he has created this brand as you expect when you see or get one of his books that he will tell a soap opera style story about a personality from the world of business. Very clear!

To buy the book on Amazon:

How the confused and the meerkat made me think about rewarding brand loyalty!

There seems to be such a big focus on getting new business that many forget that is is probably cheaper, easier and more sensible to focus on getting existing customers to keep buying and buying more. I once read that it is very usual for 20% of customers to account for 80% of profits.

This issue really struck me over the last few days with the experience of car insurance, and now has made me challenge the the point of being loyal to a brand and a business. As things have been getting tougher economically, it is seems amazing how businesses (especially financial) are focused on getting new business - but they seem to care little about existing ones.

Like many I am sure, I have always assumed that my current provider of insurance for my car (Direct Line) who I have been with for many years valued the business and were giving a fair deal. I just got a renewal and it seemed a lot. So inspired by the almost avalanche of price comparison sites advertising on TV, I decided to try them out. I tried out confused.com and comparethemarket.com

I was gob smacked to see just how badly my existing provider was "looking after me" (a loyal customer). The prices ranged from half my current (for the same benefits) to around 15% less. On calling my supplier they then offered me £120 less from the renewal they had sent. This was an even bigger insult as meant that they really taking advantage of being loyal, as one call and they were saying their "best" was not. 

This has now got me thinking and am going to go through all my bills and do comparison online.

Despite saving money and seeing the power of price comaprison sites, it does raise a bigger question  for everyone in marketing: what are you doing to make sure your current and loyal consumers feel valued and are getting the best deal to reward that loyalty? As once trust is lost never to return..

Below are the ads that got me to try out the price comparison sites in the first place:

(1) The strange but memorable ad that helped me remember the site name: Compare The Meerkat.

(2) And the Confused.com ad the really annoying but clear ad that spoke about the product upgrade and news to drive traffic

Innocent stake taken by Coke. Does or should anyone care?

Innocent Smoothies hit the shelves in Austria, originally uploaded by viZZZual.com.

So Coke is buying a slug (excuse the pun) of the "ethical" smoothie/ juice company in the UK called Innocent for a reported 30 million pounds.

The owners say it will help them expand into other territories and bring their goodness to more people.

Does anyone care anymore?

It is hard to know if the success of Innocent was due to their homespun beliefs, interesting and quirky beginnings, the fact that consumers wanted to support young moral start up - or that the product met a gap and was good at doing it.

I think that once a brand passes from being a small local or regional size and enters the mainstream, people getting high and mighty about them "selling out" is probably unfair.

While there may be some that genuinely set up brands for an entirely moral or philanthropic perspective, I suspect the main unifying fact is they are set up by entrepreneurs who see a gap in the market and exploit it.

The really compelling things about Innocent and that they do have a brand belief that underpins what they do, this led them to be different and distinctive and they have products consumers like at a price they are prepared to pay.

If Coke sticks to these drivers that made the brand successful it can flourish.

As we have seen with Body Shop/ L'Oreal; Ben & Jerry/ Unilever and so on.

LAST.FM: WHY I HAVE FINALLY FALLEN FOR IT..!

lastfm, originally uploaded by garybembridge.

I am going to do a series of postings about sites and tools that I visit and use almost daily, as a way of exploring what seem to be things that have “clicked” and work online. And why I think that is the case.

Often I have found, as a bit of a geek, that I rush off an try out any hot new site or tool that comes along. So it was years ago that I first heard about the hot music site LAST.FM. So I duly signed up, and after a very short time lost interest as I really could not see the point as although I could let it know my current tastes and library I had that on my iPod and in iTunes. I could use those to play on the go or via my computer. So just did not get it and drifted away.

I went back to LAST.FM when they got bought for some zillions of dollars by CBS as it struck me that I must have missed the point again if someone big and fairly conservative like that bought them for mega bucks that there must be more to it. I came away still confused about what the hell all the fuss was about. I tried the recommendations they gave but they seems to em to be small obscure bands that were not that exciting.

I have recently come back to LAST,FM. This time it was sparked for a TV ad I saw for the iPhone. On it they feature as one of the applications a LAST.FM free application. I have an iPod Touch where the applications work when on wireless and so downloaded it.

I am now hooked to LAST.FM and love it. But I realised that the reason that I love it and got hooked is that they have found a way to integrate it much more into what I do generally online and off line, so it takes into account everything I do and adds value to it. And it is easy to integrate and use as a result.

So now I can:
(1) scrobble/ update what I listen to from my iPod/ iTunes. So it is building a much better understanding of my tastes and likes, and so the recommendations are getting more interesting and better. It does not mean I have to incrementally invest a whole lot of time playing stuff on the site but it captures all my music listening easily and automatically.
(2) It does the same when I listen to it streamed on my iPod
(3) There are application and features that connect to my FACEBOOK and also MYBLOGLOG accounts where I do visit every day, and shares automatically my most listened to tracks. Artists and favourite songs. It shares and highlights them to my friends.

I am still not sure that they have got the recommendations game locked down, as you still feel there are marginal bands and artists being recommended – and that better music discovery is still something I hope to have.

Listen to my LAST.FM “station”: http://www.last.fm/user/bembridge

Saying though how much I am into it, I see that they are going to start trying to charge to stream music in some markets (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7963812.stm). I am not sure it is worth paying for.

J&J corporate image and baby

Adage in the USA has reported on the top corporate brand rankings. You can read the article at: http://adage.com/article?article_id=135386.

The top 3 corporate brands are:

#1 Coke

#2 Johnsons & Johnson

They comment in the article: “For 2008, two perennial favorites were lodged in the Nos. 1 and 2 slots: Coca-Cola Co. and Johnson & Johnson, which have remained in those positions since 2004”.

What is interesting about this is not only that the 2 leaders have stayed so firm and fast, but also that in reality the corporate image is driven by one product/ brand in fact.

Coke has many brands and products, but you can bet that the ranking is based on the main Coke product

In the case of J&J, this image is driven by the Johnson’s baby Brand. A brand that only account for a few percentage points of total sales at J&J. The company is mostly a pharmaceutical company, medical and then consumer products company (with baby quite small even in that group). But the company in the mind of everyone is associated with babies and the emotional bonding with mums. This gives a huge halo across the total corporate image. It is something that J&J has in some years invested in specifically, understanding the power of having such an emotional brand and product range associated with the corporate image. So much better to be associated with this than the perceived harsher and more aggressive pharmaceutical world too.

The association with baby and emotion in the mind of everyone also makes it easier sometimes to cause a sensation. For the 2^nd article I read today about J&J was the one with the headline: “J&J baby products under question in China” on Cosmetics news. Although about baby products it straight away feeds into the overall corporate image.

J&J is linked to baby. Although a small part of overall sales, it is what makes J&J be J&J in the mind of everyone. It is competitive edge.

American Academy of Dermatologists conference in San Francisco: consumer brands shout loudest

I attended the American Academy of Dermatologists conference in San Francisco this weekend.

This annual event is a monster of an event, and according the local papers about 19000 people attend the event. The exhibition areas are just vast, and everyone who is anyone in skincare and related issues are there. I suspect you may well be more noticed if you were not there, as people would be wondering why you dared not to be there.

It is clear that some companies want to make a very big statement by taking a large and very visible presence with massive stands and quite amazing displays and talk at their booths. The talks have lines of people waiting to join, though how much is for the gift packs at the end than the content I am not sure. For example the P&G gift back was worth a fortune at retail as had Pro-X kit which retails for 40 dollars, Fusion razor etc.

Johnson & Johnson, L’Oreal, Biersdorf, P&G, Clinique and other consumer brands seem to have the largest stands and presence. Interesting as it feels the more consumer focused the brand is and the more it is advertised on TV in the USA, the bigger the stand was. This may be because they are large brands from large companies and so have the funds. Or they feel the need to shout louder and louder to reassure the professionals that they are interested and focused on them.

In the USA, unlike parts of Europe and Latin America, dermatologists will recommend patients towards TV advertised brands. Something that is not as common in the other regions. Saying that at the European equivalent (EADV) the consumer brands are just as visible, but less so.

All in all very interesting exhibition

SHORT, SNAPPY AND COMPELLING. LEARNING FROM STEVE JOBS

Steve Jobs (Apple)(Mac)
Originally uploaded by 全球人氣榜

I was at an internal training session yesterday about PR and building powerful story pitches for the media. Other than being an enjoyable day (on an area that I used to think was a lot of puff and not really worth spending time on and now am a major convert to) there was one thing that really stood out for me.

One of the trainer / panel members was talking about building stories and how the key is to find something that is dramatic, sticks and resonates personally. He used the example of Steve Jobs and how good he is at telling powerful and memorable stories that grab people and motivate. He spoke about how Apple in the early days as a small start-up had been trying to recruit someone from Pepsi to be the CEO. After many attempts by head-hunters to convince the chap, Steve Jobs gave him a call and asked:

“Do you want to work the rest of your life on selling flavoured sugar water, or on something that will change the world”

Hard to resist and it stuck in the guy’s mind and he moved. It was motivating, personal, compelling and short and snappy. Just like any great headline and copy should be.

Love it.