GM’s New TV Spot. Same Old.

By
Steve Poppe
-
0

In a previous post I mentioned how the “phone guy,” the new chairman of General Motors, was not a good spokesperson for McCann-Erickson’s TV spot announcing the GM guarantee.

In the spot, Chairman Whitacre strolls through a GM building explaining the guarantee in a very predictable execution. Much more powerful in my opinion would have been to use a line worker (not 15 of them, mind you) to explain how GM got into the mess and what it was doing to crawl out. The spot would act as a mea culpa to the country…and if well written, would contain drama, pathos, slice-of-life and presumable a heartfelt plea for a second chance. America loves an underdog and would be more likely to help a company filled with line workers than Bloomfield Hills suits. Think of it as GM’s Joe The Plumber in a shiny new car.

I don’t need to see chrome filled R&D labs, newly shaped fenders on smaller cars and upbeat music to tell me things are getting better. In tough times, it’s okay to be human. Out of tough times come great stories. Great turnarounds. Great ness. GM needed to humanize what it hath wrought, it needn’t try to sell us with business as usual. Peace!

Branding and Doing Dishes

By
Steve Poppe
-
0

dishwashing gloves

There’s this great ad running in the The New York Times showing a pair of blue rubber dishwashing gloves. Scads of copy surround the gloves and an antiseptic logo – the kind that only pharmaceutical companies can make – letting us know this is a DTC drug ad. But for a pharma ad, it’s quite good. It tells a compelling little story. Arthritis pain can interrupt the simplest of daily activities and the drug Humira can help.

So are dishwashing gloves a branding idea?

When Dawn detergent came upon the brilliant and real idea to show the degreasing quality of its product with ducks being washed with Dawn after an oil spill (nice idea John Murphy), was that a branding idea? In both cases the answer is “no.” These are demonstrations. Supports. Tactics. Memorable though they are, and as campaignable as they are, they’re not branding ideas.

For the gloves ad, the branding idea is something like “Humira frees the joints to return to life’s little pleasures.” For Dawn, the branding idea was presumably “Dawn disperses grease better than anything on the planet.” Gloves and greasy ducks may be campaigable elements or icons but they are not strategies – they are not the idea.

Campaigns come and go, a powerful branding idea is indelible. Peace!

Campbell’s Tomato

By
Steve Poppe
-
0

cambells tomato soup

There are few things you will find in the grocery store less expensive than Campbell’s Tomato Soup. The can must cost more than the product after you factor in the promotion budget.  An ad for this wonderful American product appeared in my newspaper yesterday and it made me applaud.

A picture of a scallop shell floating above a clear blue sea contained a smidgen of salt crystals. The headline read: “We searched the world for the very best sea salt, and found one so naturally flavorful…” The headline finished at the bottom of the page printed atop a rich bowl of beautiful Campbell’s soup “…it helps us use less salt.”

This is ad craft at its best. Leveraging the known: Campbell’s soup is a great value. Overcoming an obstacle: Inexpensive soups are thought to contain lots of salt.  And elevating perception of taste and richness: Sea salt.

I’m sure the salt is from some unattractive location like Algeria rather than say Fleur de Sel from Brittany France, but that’s economics so the salt provenance is left out. Campbell’s and its ad agency, either BBDO or Y&R, have done a masterful job of selling a product that some might consider low-interest. Nice work. Peace!

Curing Cancer on the Weekends.

By
Steve Poppe
-
0

lab equipment

I attended a free webinar sponsored by the Altimeter Group (thank you Charlene Li and crew) and Ray Wang said something that really stuck. He said all the innovation in technology over the last couple of years , certainly on the Web, has come on the consumer or user side – not from the enterprise. With the exception of Apple, this is pretty dead on. I’m no Faith Popcorn, but in my view this is due to something I call the webertarian ethos – the need for people and in this case developers, to be free of corporate chains when they create.

I’ve written before that I think the Dachis Corporation and its Social Business Design concept will accelerate the cure for cancer. When we get a world of scientists and physicians working together on a project we are likely to get some serious innovation, logic disruption, and progress. Even if they work together only on weekends. Social Business Design products and their free cousins will provide a webertarian-like platform over which meaningful global change will happen. And on that happy note, I bid you… Peace!

Brandhackers and Brand Tags

By
Steve Poppe
-
0

I went to a Brandhackers Meetup last night in NYC with my friend Chong Na to see a presentation by Noah Brier, creator of BrandTags.net .  It was held at Dewey’s Flatiron in midtown south which, BTW, has very cool ceilings.

Brand Tags is part consumer game, part brand planner research tool. On the site, a logo pops up and you are asked to enter one word in a data box as a stream-of-consciousness, word association. The words are collected and a tag cloud created. (In a tag cloud, the type size of the word displayed indicates the word’s frequency or importance.) For BMW the tag cloud displayed “asshole” in rather large type. Presumably that’s not an engineering fix, but it does point out an addressable brand issue.

My bud Chong asked if this was just a planners playground and Mr. Brier admitted it might be (lately). Though at the time of launch when the first wave of publicity hit, visitors flocked to the site from all walks of life.  There are 1.8M tags today.  Brand Tags is a cool app and will be even cooler if users can sort the data temporally – in “way back” mode before a campaign ran. You can pay for this type of data today but free would really make the app sizzle. As would the very sort that allows users to see how quickly a tag is typed. Those who tag a brand in under 7 seconds are way more committed to their decision than are those who type it in over 7 seconds. Cool stuff. Check it. Peace!

What Men Want.

By
Steve Poppe
-
0

mens fashion nyt

It’s Fashion Week in NYC and I love it. I read every word of Cathy Horyn the New York Times style editor and when it’s all over I wait until next season. Ms. Horyn is a wonderful writer and certainly has an opinion. Some designers won’t let her in their tent.

I always enjoy looking at the pictures of the men and women strolling down the runway, but today noticed something that has finally sunk in. The best new clothes and designs are for women. The men and their clothes just look goofy. Is anyone designing for men anymore? Red shorts and blue pork pie hats? Stupid loopy sweaters and lame diapers? Pants that show ankles and Capri pants? Come on! Close you eyes and squint…and you can see how these clothes might look good on a woman, but a dude?

We’re getting short shrift here men. Does anyone know what men want? I think not. Maybe next year. Peace!

GM. Come on down!

By
Steve Poppe
-
0

gm whitacre

A new General Motors ad campaign is breaking Monday and it will star the company’s “untainted” Chairman Edward Whitacre, Jr. Says Bob Lutz, GM’s new chief marketing officer, Mr. Whitacre isn’t sullied the way other executives who went through the chapter 11 process are. Mr. Whitacre, for all his folksiness and warm southern manner is, I’m sure, a very nice person but he was also the CEO of AT&T. I repeat AT&T. That makes him untainted? That makes him believable? Plus, he’s only been on the job for a cup of coffee.

The problem with GM for the last 7 years has been leadership. No one looked around and noticed we needed to move America toward a smaller generation of cars. Management sat 40 floors up in Detroit and couldn’t see the street. So rather than highlight a past GM ivory tower spokesperson, the ad agency or Mr. Lutz decided to use a “phone” guy to deliver the message. Absurd!

These ads will appeal to corporate turn-around artists with million dollar salaries, all 40 of them, but not to the man or woman on the street. The new ads and the very smart “money back guarantee” should have been delivered by a line worker; someone we could empathize with. Someone with skin in the game…with a blood-pumping heart. Someone from down on the street. GM marketing is still fairy well out of touch. Come on down!

Burger King Vs. McDonald’s

By
Steve Poppe
-
0

McDonald’s just reported sales and they are up 2.2% worldwide, missing analysts’ targets. Sales in the US were expected to be up 2.8% and came in at 1.7%. Value meal wars were partly to blame, but if you ask me the whole McCafe product extension is the cause. The New York Times reported the story – not a big one I might add – and nowhere is there a mention of the McCafe coffee line. I didn’t like the gourmet coffee move when I first read about it, and I don’t like it now. It’s not core.

Burger King, on the other hand, which for all its strategic and tactical ups and sideways owns the idea of “flame broiled,” decided not long ago it wanted to upgrade stores with state-of-the-art broilers. If memory serves, they’re supposed to be installed pretty soon. (I’ll have my fact checker get on it.) This is Russ Klein’s major stroke of genius. Crispin Porter, his agency, does great work and the King is the King, but flame broiling is what sets BK apart — and what should help them take a big chunk out of McDonald’s market share. Peace!

Twitter and Consumer Journalism

By
Steve Poppe
-
0

I love Twitter. When I try to convince friends of its breakthrough nature I often refer to the Iran post-election tweets that broke the story with pictures, video and real-time observations. The morning of revolt, I put my New York Times aside to patina (vb.) and read Tweets in rapt attention for 2 hours straight.

Today, I awoke to helicopters overhead, streets closed and sirens blaring. My wife who rode her bike through town after yoga told me there was a sheet on the sidewalk, which suggests badness. I tweeted. I hag-tagged my towns name. I @signed my local newspaper. Uun-gots.

Newsday.com did break the story, but close to 3 hours later. A women was hit by a car and heli-vaced to a trauma center. (Not sure how she made out, but my thoughts and prayers are with her.) The whole episode got me thinking though about how Twitter can help with stories like this and, perhaps, even assist in police work. As a form of consumer journalism it is certainly fraught with accuracy issues, but is a hella cool medium for real-time info. It will become a news medium, the question is when. Stay tuned. Peace!

twitter-logo

Body Wash Category Lacks Leadership.

By
Steve Poppe
-
2

axe-skin-contactAxe has 7% share of the men’s body wash category and it is the market leader. Old Spice is in second place with 6%. This category is ripe from leadership. As an ad-rat and someone who loves Bartle Bogle Hegarty, I’ve watched with great interest the Axe advertising phenomenon. But here’s the deal, 7% market share? Please.

Body wash isn’t even a new category anymore. An opportunity has been lost here. Unilever has to decide if it wants to own body gel or OWN body gel. If it’s the latter, they need to step up and spend some dough. BBH has been doing a good job of getting Axe on the map, but they’ve been diddling around with fun, yet small targeted programs. Lot’s of little stuff doesn’t compare with a big idea and a big spend. Old Spice and Nivea should not even be in the picture.

This category is ready to for a leader to emerge, but it needs some investment spending. Unilever has to start throwing some serious body punches. All it’s been doing to date is tickling. Men don’t like to be ticked. Peace!

1...246247248...309Page 247 of 309
© Newsmag WordPress Theme by TagDiv