HAVING AN ENEMY WHEN MARKETING IS IMPORTANT. EVERYONE NEEDS ONE.

One of the best things that you can do in marketing and advertising is to have an enemy. It helps to focus the mind, your unique offer and the agency (and people in the team/ company) to be creative and innovative.

Having an enemy, especially one that is not likely to react, is a great way to drive creativity and competitiveness especially in copy and communication. This is a technique and approach used a lot by many of the big multi-national companies like P&G and Unilever.

There are a number of different ways of tackling this and approaches:

Having a category as an enemy.
The advantage is that a whole category is not likely to respond, but often stands for something clear in the mind of the consumer and so easy to get your point of difference across.

There are a few good examples:

Anti-Soap
This is a huge category and one that people understand. Years ago when working on baby products we used comparison with the perceived (and real) drying effects of regular soap to convince people to use liquid bath foam.

Soap was also the enemy for the hugely successful Dove Quarter Moisturiser soap bar. The famous TV ad showed litmus paper showing the PH of various types of soap and that Dove was neutral. It implied gentleness and mildness. Though may not have actually been significant in skin caring..

Watch the ad on YouTube by clicking here, or on the blog posting:

Gold Standard Action Standards
One of my favourite examples, and one I wish I had thought of (or our agency had) was the recent Olay Regenerist ads that compare themselves to expensive department store brands. This is a really great example, as consumers know that department store anti-age products are expensive (and are also aspirational) and believed to be very effective as they are so expensive. As they do not name a specific brand and in early ads compare to "a $350 dollar cream" it meant that they only had to do clinical or studies versus one cream. But they managed to get the impression they were better than all.

Watch the ad on YouTube by clicking here, or on the blog posting.

The ads says: We were flattered when we learned Regenerist beat the $100 dollar cream. Floored when we whipped the $350 dollar cream. And flabbergasted when we creamed the $700 dollar cream! For under $30 dollars Olay Regenerist Micro-Sculpting Cream, according to a European Study, hydrates better and longer than 32 of the world's most expensive creams. Fantastic, Phenomenal, Regenerist

The Market Leader
The most used and most expected. In the USA almost all headache pills seem to refer to Tylenol. I often though wonder if this approach is less good as you end up reminding people who the leader is, and that they are good.


Any others? drop me an email: click here

ARE YOUR CONSUMERS LEANING BACK OR LEANING FORWARDS? Why you need to change your approach now!

One of my favourite podcasts over the last few years has been the Marketing Online Live podcast. The 2 presenters are thought provoking, challenging and have strong views that creates debate and reaction. They are very focused on the importance of monetising content and of ways of using technology and new forms, like podcasts, YouTube and blogs to repurpose content and monetise it. They are feisty and also amusing.

They often have interesting concepts and one that they have spoken about a lot, and I find very interesting and exciting is that with all the new tools and greater interactivity online (and also actually with devices like x-box, and now digital TV) marketing people need to stop thinking just about "LEAN BACK" and think more and "LEAN FORWARD" marketing approaches. And this gets exciting as you have greater capability to not only monetize and generate leads and sales, but also can engage your target much more.

In the past a lot of broadcast media, and even online, was a "lean back" approach. Your target/ viewer would lean back and let the content and material wash over them as they sat back and let you talk to them. Now you can actually get people to sit up, lean forward and engage with you. That may be as simple as them watching an ad or video about your product or service and lean forward and click to buy, click to learn more, or click to respond. This is a huge mindset change. Most TV ads today, as a simple example, do not even have a real call to action!

I think this, like many simple ideas, is HUGE. What are you doing through all your consumer touch points and communication doing to get them to lean forward and act? I know for me and my brand not enough. Thanks to Marketing Online live for sparking this thought!

TWITTER: the hot new thing.. but for who? is it right for your brand too?

gary bembridge twitter home pgae, originally uploaded by garybembridge.

As a bit of an online junkie (some may even say whore), I love new tools and love new social networks like last.fm and facebook. I finally started to use Twitter a few months back, though I am still not really sure what it is all about and why it has become so hot.

To me it feels like a jumble of stuff and the more people you follow the more jumbled it gets. I thought it would be a good place to keep on top of news but find google news is better.

But one of the most interesting things that really made me ponder this whole topic last week, was a short interview and discussion on one of my most favourite podcasts (Media Guardian Podcast). On it they interviewed a 17 year old work intern they had who very bluntly said that Twitter is for celebrities who want to go on about "I am", and old people (by which she meant over 30) saying "look how young I am by using this".

It really made me think. The place to look for the next big thing is what teens and what this very online savvy generation is doing. By the time many of them get more mainstream, and your work mates start using them, it is time to think either:

(1) This tool is now past it's peak and past it's cutting edge. Our use of it may date us, may make us seem too establishment and behind the curve. OR

(2) This tool is now mainstream and time to embrace it!

Which option is right depends on your brand. So if you are a trendy young and cutting edge brand you probably need to be on what is scorching hot and new. More mainstream brands should look to the 2nd.

Either way you need to embrace these new tools and at least be trying...

visit my twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/garybembridge

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.