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    Creative by the pound.

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    New Cadillac Spots

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    Weighing in on Dove.

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    Advertising

    Heineken Light’s New Campaign.

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    Steve Poppe
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    Heineken Light is launching a new ad campaign. All the stories will be about new spokesman Neil Patrick Harris, Wieden+Kennedy and the advertising poking fun at the fact that one can’t drink beer on a TV commercial. Mr. Harris drinks and slurps off camera.

    According to Heineken USA CMO Nuno Teles “Everything in marketing should start with a consumer insight.” The one he identified to Stuart Elliott of the NY Times was that “40% of 21-27 year old consumers desire a light beer with a full taste.” Some quick research suggests there are 25 million 18-24 year olds in the US, so let’s say there are about the same number of 21-27 year olds. Forty percent of that number is 10M. In a country of 300M, that leaves a lot of beer on the table. But I agree that taste for a premium light makes sense. The fact that Barney from “How I met your mother” craves Heineken Light on a TV commercial, though, doesn’t quite set the “taste” hook for me. I’m not sure if he says anything about the new Cascade Hops, but I surely hope so.

    Behavioral brand planners will ask how do we get consumers to change beer brands? The answer is, get them to try it and like it. Also, give them a reason to expect to like it. Not sure drinking what Barney drinks is that reason. Peace!

    P.S. Wieden knows what they are doing and they know advertising, so let’s wait until the barrel counts start coming in. This is just my expectation of success.

     

    McAfee Advertising, Way Asleep.

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    Steve Poppe
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    So is the brand pronounced Mac-a-fee or Mih-Caffee.  (Hoe-gaarden or Who-Garden?) One of a brand’s first challenges is to make sure the name is pronounced correctly.  McAfee is a killer PC protection software product, which, if I’m not mistaken. is #1 or 2 in the marketplace.  It was purchased earlier this year by Intel.   I’m a 3-license custy and couldn’t be happier.

    But, as an ad rat (a gym rat for ads) I can’t help but see that McAfee needs a marketing boost.  There is an ad in the newspaper today showing the McAfee logo as a superman emblem on a man’s chest. The pithy headline reads SAFE NEVER SLEEPS. A line they give a TM.   Not sure if it qualifies as copy but in small text beneath the line reads (I’ll save you the caps) “Smarter security. Every device, every network, everywhere.”

    Classic “we’re here” advertising.   Is it any wonder digital advertising is cutting into traditional ad budgets?  This is some lazy stuff.  I’m not sure I can even type anymore I’m so disappointed. There is no claim here. And no proof.  Only colors, type and photography.  Why does the McAfee marketing dept. bother to get out of bed in the morning?  Are you kidding me?  What’s the idea?

    Visuals.

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    Steve Poppe
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    There is subtext in every marketing piece.  For instance, today there is a big hubbub (and rightfully so) about a Mad Men outdoor billboard showing Don Draper in free-fall high atop a building on the West Side of Manhattan.  (The board is 95% white space.) To show watchers it’s an iconic visualization of the show and Don Draper’s life.  To New Yorkers and others who lost friends and loved ones 9/11, it’s an insensitive punch in the como se llama. 

    Visuals, more than words, tell immediate stories. We need to be mindful.  Pictures that show danger may be eye-catching but convey danger which research shows can transfer that feeling subconsciously to the brand.  Imagery that conveys happy (Coke’s happiness factory) can transmute smiles.  Visuals that depict chaos or disorganization similarly hurt an organization story.

    Ergo, think before you select a visual.  Not everyone sits around a computer for hours trying to select a visualization to match a brief.  Most pass marketing pieces with nary a glance.  So look up. Stay true. Be sensitive. Peace.

    The Apple TV of Tivo’s Eye.

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    Steve Poppe
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    Tivo just sucker punched Apple. Apple TV specifically. Tivo just launched a new product called the BOLT which holds to its core value by allowing viewers to scan past pods of advertising with a click of a button. The launch ad highlights another 7 or 8 things it does that Apple TV doesn’t including get rid of the cable box. With Apple TV you can’t record your shows, you can’t watch shows on any device – so the ad says.

    The Tivo BOLT ad works. It contains a picture of the box, which offers a lovely Apple-esque product design. The unchanged Tivo logo, a particularly simple and brilliant design of a TV with Martian antenna, is not only distinctive but fun. And Tivo’s restraint in not trying to tie everything up in with a bow in the form of a new tagline beneath the logo, is genius. Under the mark, a space typically reserved for a tagline, it simply read “San Jose, California.”

    Start with a great product that meets pent up market demand (for features and function) and take care of marketing with clean comms and design and you have the secret to success. Apple has always known this, apparently Tivo does now too.

    Peace.

     

    Advertising is not a task for the lazy.

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    Steve Poppe
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    Google ran an ad today in The New York Times using an age-old communication device, listing a number of great user-benefits for which people use the service — a nicely bracketed list of searches Google has allowed us over the years. All true. All fairly amazing, were it not for the fact that we’ve been using Google now for 15-20 years.  In a sense it’s what I call “We’re here” advertising – not much more than a simple logo on a page, conveying no new information. A billboard reminder, if you will.

    Advertising that doesn’t engage a reader with something new, something learned, something blue (sexy), is merely “We’re here” advertising. Repetition and/or frequency is a foundational tool for brand building the old school saying goes. According to the logic, consumers won’t remember your message until they see it a minimum of three times. Not a fan. It worked before we were saturated with ads. Not today.

    If the messaging is compelling, if it teaches, if it stimulates – it’s off to a good start.  Then it needs to make you do something. Act. And lastly, it must make a deposit in the brand bank. Alter your attitude in a way that predisposes you to purchase the next time — for reasons brand managers decide. Advertising is not a ask for the lazy.

    Peace.

     

     

    Adjectives R Us.

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    Steve Poppe
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    My alma mater Rollins College is a really neat school. A beautiful school.  But sometimes its beauty overshadows the academics, so someone smart came up with an idea for a YouTube video to downplay the former and highlight the latter. The video is nicely shot but the script is terribly weak.  Shame.

    Once past the beauty shots and facilities recap, about a third of the video, I began counting marketing adjectives. And there were plenty. The same adjectives any school could and would use. In fact, the same adjectives any institution, company or even brand might use.  Adjectives R US.

    There was a good provable “idea” hidden in the copy but it was glossed over. The notion that classes are small enough to mirror post-graduate work. Sorry to say it but the video proved nothing more than a pictorial sales piece. As it stands, the video strategy “more than just pretty” lay fallow and, sadly, uncultivated.

    Peace.

     

    The Silo Chasm

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    Steve Poppe
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    How does a brand idea cross the silo chasm?  It’s doesn’t always. 

    Matching luggage is creative term for creative that travels nicely from media to media.  Let’s say you have a selling idea for a TV commercial – but it’s visual.  How does that idea transfer to radio? (“Hi, I’m a talking horse from Yonkers Raceway.” Ouch. )  Similarly, what if you have an experiential idea, perfect for promotion or digital but it lies like a lox in print? Campaign ideas don’t always travel. So what do you do? 

    And today, with marketing silos expanding not contracting, it is even harder to corral a campaign idea and bring it to life – especially for big clients with multiple agencies, all of which want to come up with the “big” idea.  

    So here are some rules to live by. Campaigns come and go…a powerful branding idea is indelible. Coke must “refresh” no matter the campaign.  Corona must convey a hot, vacation-like retreat. Norelco electric razors must convey a smooth shave. Rule 2:  Don’t kill yourself trying to force fit a campaign idea to a media. Media is not a strategy.  A hammer does not turn a screw.  Do your best to allow an idea to travel, but don’t force it.  It only will diminish the original idea.  Matching luggage may be nice for Paris Hilton, but she doesn’t have to carry that much shizz with her — she got peoples.

    Peter Kim (the deceased one) once told an AT&T client spending hundreds of millions on TV “Campaigns are overated.” Peace.

    Advertising Generics

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    Steve Poppe
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    Advertising generics in this case does not mean store brands or value brands, it refers to the selling words we use in advertising and sales.  Quality. Service. Tailored to your needs. Savings.  You’ve heard these words a million times in selling. They are the flah, flah, flah of selling.  Key words, if you will, that tell consumers you have no real message. Today, if you are selling quality, you are not selling.

    If you want to study selling go out and do some cold calling. Or telemarketing. (No don’t. You may find your way to my door.)  Advertising is a little like cold calling.  But at least many who create ads understand the notion of engagement, product benefit, value demonstration and simplicity. 

    The best advertising and cold selling does not use generics.  It uses meaningful selling ploys —  to be figured out on a case by case basis. It’s an art.

    In sales the pop technique for the past 10 years has been “solution selling.” Don’t sell the features – ask, listen, find the pain points and create the perception that your product can heal.  Solutions selling has spawned a generation of listeners.  “Hi, I know you are very busy but tell me about your company.”  Nuh, uh.  No thanks.  Busy. Buh bue. 

    Stay away from generics. Don’t sell education, sell Princeton. Don’t sell medicine, sell your branded scrip. Listen to yourself selling, experience your ads.  If you wouldn’t buy from you who would? Peace!

    New Foxtrot Market Campaign.

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    Steve Poppe
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    So I came across what looks to be a fairly new retail brand in Chicago called FoxTrot. Nice name, great logo, smart targeting (urban millennials) and a good deal of energy. Also, some marketing peeps with good provenance. They offer some small, welcoming, design-forward brick and mortar stores and a very fast delivery system. All supported by an app.  One hour delivery, in fact. Sales were growing nicely before the pandemic, but now I’m sure they’re scorching.

    Foxtrot just launched a new ad campaign entitled “Good Stuff Delivered.” Not a very high bar they’re setting, with that line though.  And I dare say calling your up-market products “stuff” is not the best of positioning ideas, even with a little millennial je ne sais quoi.

    An article discussing the campaign references a “surprise and delight” strategy. Yet, searching for evidence of same I couldn’t find any. A free gift card? A gratis cup of coffee?

    This is an example of a strategy work that appears to be lead by the ad agency not the brand people. Perhaps, this is my bad for relying on a trade magazine for information, but my antenna go up when I hear surprise and delight.

    I love the business idea. It has legs. But the ad campaign feels a bit helium-based, rather than foundational. Give millennials more credit.

    Peace.

     

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