Topical advertising, taking advantage of the clock change to sell your product

One way to stand out and connect is by being topical and taking advantage of events. One event that happens twice a year and so can be planned for is the clock change. Here are how a number of manufacturers try and use events like the clock change to sell.

Radox viral ad about taking time to yourself. Using a Eastenders man in a suggestive ad to attract and target women. This viral video was re-posted many times by people on YouTube, Twitter and other social media sites.

Watch ad on YouTube: click here or on the blog posting:

Brand Integration: easy to say and hard to do. But key to commercial success in advertising and sponsorship

I am constantly reminded that if you want to create communication that people remember is for your brand then you need to make sure that it is fully integrated into the story of the communication.

So much so that you cannot tell the story of the ad (for example) without having the product or service integral to the communication.

This is one of the easiest and most basic mistakes that we all make. As consumers we know that we have seen ads, especially on TV, that we talk about but never sure what brand and product it is actually advertising. We have all done the "did you see the ad where the x did z etc". Often they are ads that we have really LIKED, but as we cannot remember what they are for, then not very good.

I was reading recently a book by Martin Lindstrom called "buy.ology" and in it he also talks about how key this is as we look at new communication forms. Some examples that struck me where:

American Idol sponsorship.
This show is the biggest TV show in the USA and has 3 sponsors who invest a lot of money to do that.

One of them, Coke, has found that awareness that they sponsor the show is huge and has driven some brand image positively. As part of their deal, they intertwined the brand into the fabric of the show. So the space the contestants are interviewed in has the coke brand code colour and the judges have a red glass with coke brand on it and they often sip while giving feedback. Cingular also does well as to be able to vote by text message you have to be a Cingular user and so that is part of the story of the show, voting by text is for Cingular users only. Ford just runs some ads and competitions, and awareness is almost nil. By integrating the Coke brand through the show even though subtly in relative terms it became part of the story of the show.

James Bond Movies.
Other than Austin Martin cars that have been used forever, almost no-one remembers the zillions of products placed in the films as the producers got over the top and lined up products and products in the films. But as they were just slotted in gratuitously and added little to the story and the plot, again they had little impact and few recalled them.

One brand that I was thinking of that was waved into the story and key to the plot was "Central Perk" coffee shop in Friends. I know that if you asked people what the coffee shop in the series was everyone could tell you. But it does not exist as a real brand of course.

The key is you need to add to and be part of the story in communication to be remembered and for good branding. It sounds really simple but ends up being harder to do than we expect as we get carried away by the momentum of a creative idea.

Do you have examples where brands do this well? Email me at gary@bembridge.co.uk if you do, or leave a comment on the blog

IS IT JUST ME, OR ARE THERE MORE NEAR NAKED MALE FOOTBALLERS IN ADS THESE DAYS?

The most read article on my blog online (rather than read by people who get email alerts with the articles in) by far is the one titled: Is it just me, or are there more naked men in ads these days?

This probably tells us a few things like:
(1) The terms “men” and “naked” are popular search terms online (and I think sex related terms are the top search topics overall consistently). Sex interests people, and so that gets traffic to the site.

(2) People are interested in naked men and like looking at them and so that probably explains while more naked and shirtless men appear in adverts, as they have stopping power.

(3) Men are now very much fair game to be treated as sex objects to sell things

But, one thing that also struck me recently is that there seems to be a growing trend that is increasingly bringing together the world of football heroes and designer underwear. In fact it is becoming so common, it almost looks like it is part of the career path of a successful footballer!

First Fredrik Ljungberg for Calvin Klein, then David Beckham with Armani, and now we hear that Ronaldo(who we often see in the tabloid press in small shorts and swim trunks) will replace David in 2010 as Beckham expands into his own briefs... By which I mean he is launching his own line.

Sports men and briefs seem to be good partners as even Bjorn Borg (the multiple Wimbledon winner) his own line.

I wonder if the main target are men wanting some of the sport champion winning power to wear off on them. Or for women to buy them hoping the more athletic and virile sport star will project onto their man.

Either way it is an interesting trend. Is success on the football field going to be measured by how fast you can get an underwear contract?


Who cares some may say, as:

(1) they certainly do stand out and get noticed. My lasting impression of the American Academy of Dermatology congress in San Francisco in 2009 was not the subtle Aveeno posters plaster on bus shelters announcing it was the natural brand dermatologists recognised, or the facial filler brand whose name I forget, but the zillions of David Beckham posters twice life size lying around display his ball tactics.

(2) they stand out from the sea of muscled and toned men now appearing not only on underwear but many other items. Having a naked/ near naked man no longer is enough as so many now seem to be doing it, you need people to remember who you are - and associating a football star very publically helps with that. Especially as it seems that almost none of the ads talk about benefits and features of the product, just the look. So it is all about brand recognition and aspiration.

OK, enough of my cheesy double entente posting for one day.

I still ask: are there more naked men in ads than ever? There certainly are more near naked footballers!

100 Professional Footballers in underwear ad prove my point:

And if to prove the point that being an underwear model is the career of choice of footballers (or that they are good at selling underwear), the Belgian designer and reported football fan Dirk Bikkemberg had 100 professional footballers pose in underwear in a sort of art installation to launch his new range.

See the story on YouTube: click here

Or watch on the blog posting

Guest Post: Connect with your audience socially and reap the benefits

I often get requests for people with a point of view on marketing or issues I have raised to provide a guest posting for this blog. I am going to experiment with having them to see how they go down if they add to the debate on issues I have raised. I do not receive any payment and don't take paid for postings by the way.

This posting was written by Christopher Angus, who descibes himself as "an award winning Internet Marketer, who owns SEOCompanyUK.com in the UK" and is on a topic dear to my heart at the moment and something am trying to work on for brands I work on.

Connect with your audience socially and reap the benefits

"Social media is the new kid on the block when it comes to internet marketing; however, it’s one of the biggest arrivals in the last decade and should not be ignored. Brands can be made and destroyed in the blink of an eye due to the effect of social media.

Social media is all about being social. It’s about connecting with a group of people, creating something interesting or useful and growing a group of fans. These fans are like fans of any other brand, but you can develop them quickly and relatively inexpensively when compared with traditional brand building. You don’t need to give things away to grow a group of fans; social media is still quite altruistic in a sense and fans will follow anything that tickles their interest.

It’s these people that will become your online PR machine, they will say nice, flowery things about you and your business so that it will grow. Be kind to your audience and don’t try to relentlessly market your products to them and they will reward you with loyalty and positivity when asked about your business or products.

Connecting with your audience and cultivating a loyal group of followers is hard work initially but very rewarding. It’s highly important that you make the right connections initially as a fault in the beginning can kill your whole social media campaign. When it’s got traction and you have momentum, you can then take a few risks and start to try to promote your product subtly.
The most popular platforms to grow your brand at the moment, include, Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In among others. It’s a form of “online networking” only with access to millions of people in a very short space of time.

Once you have built your relationships, you can use your connections to promote your business, help you with a product launch or get feedback on a new concept you're maybe considering. It’s a huge amount of power to have at the tips of your fingers, all for almost nothing, just the time to build your social connections around yourself.

People that take the time and effort to build their social networks today, will reap the benefits tomorrow, they will be literally years ahead of people that haven’t taken the time or bothered to grow their own networks."

My question for readers:
What is the best example you have of a brand doing all of this well?? Write a comment in the blog or email me using the link on the blog.

No money or not enough budget? It is more expensive if almost no-one is stopped by, notices and digests your message

It is too expensive. We don’t have the money to do that....


These are two very common phrases I have used myself and am hearing more and more these days. Especially when it comes to format and spot lenthgs in creative work.


However, one thing we all need to remember is:


It is very expensive if almost no-one is stopped by, notices and digests your message. That makes whatever you do very expensive indeed.


It is a topic I have been pondering much more recently, as with budgets tight and getting tighter in the current climate (though isn’t budget always tight anyway?), many markets, marketeers and agencies are aruging that they need to run shorter TV spot lengths, run single pages instead of double pages, sequential pages or even fold-outs and the such like that have been used more in the apst to have stopping power and engage more.


I think the key needs to that when making the call on not doing these or on moving away from them that: The most expensive thing you can do is something that almost no-one will see or hear.... that is very costly as you will have thrown away everything.


As someone once told me on an advertsing course: it is better to be seen once than ignored 1000 times....