Monthly Archives: August 2007

Volkswagen. Asleep at the Wheel.

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It’s never too late, but this whole fuel efficient, lower emission car thing should have been the provenance of Volkswagen. It was made to order for them.   But NOOO, they had to spend time designing the Touareg.

 
They owned both the “product” and the “consumer psyche” in this rich automotive marketing space. Moreover, as anyone who has ever written a brief for a German multinational knows, German companies gets major credit for engineering. It would have been a “can’t miss.” Yet they let the Toyota and Honda beat them.
 
In the early fall Volkswagen is launching a marketing campaign around fuel-efficient, low carbon-dioxide emitting vehicles.    Will it be too late? No. Muscle memory will help. But they clearly didn’t have enough vision, to get ahead of this one. Where’s the leadership?
 

Modernista. Rules breakers.

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M!

TIAA-CREF, which stands for TIAA-CREF, is launching a new branding idea thanks to the people at Modernista in Boston. The idea revolves around TIAA-CREF’s status as a nonprofit. Generally speaking, people know that nonprofits tend to pour money back into the organization…and the cause.

 
This branding idea is an example of where rules-breaking makes serious sense. Typically, you want to develop marketing from the consumer perspective. The old campaign did that, in fact. The old campaign celebrated TIAA-CREF’s customers, showing vignette’s of teachers, researchers and other members “doing good.” It was a bit of a pander but this type of advertising usually makes everyone feel good: company and customer alike.
 
But instead of focusing on customers, the non-profit idea focuses on TIAA-CREF. (I call this “me” advertising, which is usually a mistake.) Modernista’s creative idea positions TIAA-CREF as a .org. which as everybody knows is very different than a .com.  Implicit in this positioning is the consumer benefit. Brilliant! It’s a great way to position a benefit without being too overt or using too much chest thumping.
 
These boys and girls at Modernista got some serious game.
 

LaCrosse La Same

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According to J. D. Power a number of Buick automobiles are as reliable as those of perennial reliability winner Lexus. Surprised? Me too. Two of those cars, the Century and Regal are no longer in production, however. Ironic? You bet. Why would Buick work so hard on quality just to jettison those two cars? They weren’t selling. Their designs were tired. 

 
Enter the Buick LaCrosse.
 
The LaCrosse is a Regal with a new coat of paint. Maybe a wee bit sleeker and more  youthful but not substantially. The Regal and the Century, though kicking some major quality ass, have been dropped for an incrementally changed car with a new name. 
 
If Buick wanted to cut with the past, they needed to overhaul the designs.  Buick has been the slowest GM brand to see that design is the key to success. Name changes and marketing ideas won’t do it (Yeah, Tiger Woods drives a Buick to parties.) Buick has clearly built better cars; they just haven’t designed any new cars. They have also hired a new ad agency, so I see new commercials that talk quality story and a new song in our future.  (“If you don’t have something to say, sing it” is an old advertising maxim.) But the proof is between the bumpers and that metal looks the same.
 
   

A storied approach,

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Dan Pink is an author with a great thesis for today’s marketers. It’s his contention that right-brainers will soon rule the marketing world. I fancy myself a right-brainer and am, therefore, quite happy.

 
Here’s a quote from Mr. Pink’s book “A whole new mind.”
 
“In the age of abundance, appealing only to rational, logical and functional needs is woefully insufficient. Engineers must figure out how to get things to work. But if those things are not also pleasing to the eye or compelling to the soul, few will buy them. There are too many options. Mastery of design, empathy, play and other seemingly “soft” aptitudes is now the main way for individuals and firms to stand out in a crowded marketplace.”
 
I’m a particularly big fan of Dan’s notion that the best way to sell is to do so through storytelling. Today some really smart larges corporations are teaching employees not through manuals and rote memorization, but through storytelling. The best ads communicate using stories…and the best brands build relevance through the same mechanism. Don’t recite product function or benefit, embed it in a story.
 

Raymond Carver would love Second Life.

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I love the way Linden Labs Second Life users are referred to as gamers.
 
I’m going to share some quotes from a fascinating Wall Street Journal article that appeared today, written by Alexandra Alter. It’s about a man, Mr. Hoogestraat and his wife of 7 months. The Hoogestrads met in an online chatroom.  
 
According to the Journal Mr. Hoogestraat’s real wife (he has Second Life wife too) “pays the household bills, cooks, does family laundry, takes care of the three dogs and empties ashtrays around the house while her husband spends hours designing outfits for virtual strippers and creating labels for virtual coffee cups.”
 
Her response to all this so-called gaming? She “joined an online support group for spouses of obsessive online gamers called EverQuest Widow.” Oye. Cut to the living room:
 
“From the kitchen Mrs. Hoogestraat asks if he wants breakfast. He doesn’t answer. She sets a plate of breakfast pockets on the computer console and goes to the living room to watch television. For two hours, he focuses intently on building a coffee shop for the mall. Two other avatars gather to watch as builds stairs and counters, using his cursor to resize wooden planks.” 
 
Two hours later, “Mrs. Hoogestraat pauses on her way to the kitchen and glances at the screen. ‘You didn’t eat your breakfast,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t see it there,” He responds.
 
“They probably won’t taste any good now, she says, taking the plate.”
 
What a world!
 

Business 3.0

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Prediction Time.

 
As Jerry Seinfeld might say “So what’s up with Rupert Murdoch?” News Corp has four parts to its business: 20th Century Fox Films (underperforming,) Television (performing moderately well), Newspapers (holding their own in a tough market,) and Other which comprises Fox Interactive and MySpace (doing quite nicely.) Rupert’s latest two pursuits, MySpace and Dow Jones, are the source of my prediction.
 
Coming to a computer near you will be a new online business network that will be an amalgam of LinkedIn, Monster, Ning, Harvard Business Review and The Wall Street Journal. Think the three martini lunch meets Red Bull. 
 
This new entity, launching in 2008, will be like nothing we’ve ever seen in the business world. I’m still trying to figure out who will run the show. When I figure that one out, I’ll post it. Who do you think it should be?
 
 

Offshore versioning Part. 2

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In my last post I mentioned how digital agencies are offshoring video production work to make it affordable to version TV and Internet ads for multiple target audiences — a strategy that mirrors direct marketers one-to-one mantra.  Versioning may be lucky enough to have some successes but on balance it is a flawed strategy.

 

Good brand planning attempts to find a single voice and idea for its selling stories.  Coke is refreshment.  MySpace is friends. Corona is about kicking back.  In order to develop this type of overarching idea, planners need to evaluate what appeals to the most people in the brand target.  To find what the target shares in common. As Peter Kim of McCann-Erickson and JWT used to say, the target needs to be broken down into its pieces, understood, then “remassified” into a single entity.  When we find a shared care-about that our brands can fulfill, then we can develop smart communications.

 

The fact that a TV commercial costs over $350,000 to make today, makes it an imperative that marketers and ad agencies agree on a single selling idea.  L’Oreal hair care used to take close to a full year to prepare a TV ad with Heather Locklear. The dress had to be perfect, the staircase just right, etc.  Ads, in many cases, were works of art. But with 20+ versions of an ad running, the quality of the idea must suffer.

 

Developing versioned ads, the production of which is handled offshore, with multiple scripts written by God knows whom and casting handled by committee, spells disaster.

 

Video Versioning Offshore

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Publicis Groupe, the French advertising holding company, is doing some of today’s most forward thinking and, in my view, has jumped over the other holding companies in terms of trailblazing this digital adventure we’ve embarked upon.

 

One of the Publicis companies, Digitas, is doing some curious things in terms of targeting broadcast.  They are offshoring production work to Asia to create versions of TV ads that are viewer specific.  (By one estimate noted in the New York Times today, an advertiser has created over 4,000 versions of a single ad.)  This approach is intended to increase ad relevance which will increase the power to motivate sale.

 

If we can somehow identify a digital fingerprint for each viewer and serve them up a tailored ad, we have achieved the holy grail of the ad biz.  The copy would change based upon the age and education of the viewer. The visuals might change based upon the address of the viewer. Price, promotion and even product could be tied to income level.

 

But let’s face it, video editing and content versioning of all this stuff will take thousands of hours, and though offshoring it to a workforce making $5 a day sounds appealing, who will be the exercising creative oversight? The first wave of this stuff will be nasty bad.  The good news?  You may only see that nasty commercial once, thanks to digital tracking.  Stay tuned for more discussion of digital and 3-D targeting.

 

Reality TV Must Go

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Whenever I start a post with the words “Okay, so I’m…” you know you are in for a rant. Or as an ex-boss used to call it a screed. 

 
Okay, so I’m flipping through the channels last night, waiting for the Mets to come on, and as I often do I stop by the Food Network to see what Emeril’s cooking and I see some cake baking contest. Men and women are baking cakes in the shape and costume of Disney characters—not that there’s anything wrong with it, if you catch my drift.
 
One woman is in tears because her character does not look life-like enough. The drama builds when one man’s cake, in the form of The Little Mermaid (Do I have to TM that?), has a sagging issue. The mermaid’s head was beginning to droop and was in jeopardy of– Are you sitting down?– falling off.
 
Now I like reality TV as much as the next person, but I’m beginning to favor my reality live. I know I can’t stage a Survivor, or Hell’s Kitchen, but come on?  Aren’t we getting a little carried away with all this drivel?   The networks love it because it doesn’t cost much to produce. No writers, not too many art directors, prop people or writer residuals. After cakes, what’s next? It can only go downhill from here.
 

Complexly Kohl’s

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Kohl’s department stores (Are they still called department stores?) is attempting to upscale it image and bring in new customers with some branded clothing lines. Tony Hawk and Elle Magazine have clothing in Kohl’s now and those brands are making a difference. New this fall, Vera Wang will be launching a line at Kohl’s called Simply Vera which has raised more than a few eyebrows.

 
Research suggests that 70% of Kohl’s shoppers have heard of Vera Wang, so they are clearly betting that having a high fashion brand in the store – albeit one of a “simpler,” less expensive design — will generate major buzz among the “back to school/work” crowd.  
 
Kohl’s is s little late to the party with this tactic, but it’s a good deal fro both parties. “Mom, but this Vera bubble skirt, is sooooo hot!” The big questions is will Ms. Wang’s foray into the mass retail stores mar her runway image?  I suspect it will.  But you are only as good as your designs, and Vera’s got game. If there’s a blip in her up-market sales, it will only make her work harder and she will prevail. Oh yeah, the McCann-Erickson advertising idea sounds like it will work big time. That’s key.
 
I predict success all around.