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Marketing Consolidation Should Favor Ad Agencies.

By
Steve Poppe
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While the economy is tough, marketers retrench and watch expenses. Larger marketers tend to have lots of specialist companies on payroll: Ad agencies, PR firms, direct marketing shops, media buying services, digital shops, promotion agencies.  As they look at these rosters and think about winnowing the list down they ask “Which of my shops will deliver the best value?” The answer must be the ad agency. They are more strategic and have the best general understanding of all the communications channels. Smart marketers will give more work to the ad agency, while not-so-smart marketers will give more work to the digital agency — trying to ride the ROI wave – where it is believed that digital is more measurable, predictable, and manageable.

 

Big mistake.

 

Digital shops, who admittedly are becoming more strategic, are still to tactically focused. In tough economic times the general ad agency is the most powerful partner. Peace! 

 

 

Campbell’s Select Harvest Campaign is Superb

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 
I’ve written before about Douglas Conant, the head of Campell’s Soup Company, who in my view is one of the smartest CEO’s in the business world. Click here. Here is another example of his marketing prowess.
 
Campbell’s just broke a new campaign for Select Harvest soups. I’ve seen only one print ad and one TV commercial, yet can tell you it is focused and has a powerful idea. Two actually. It takes on Progresso soups and MSG (monosodium glutamate.)   
 
The print shows two large soup cans with MSG above the Progresso can and TLC above Select Harvest. The copy uses words like “farm-grown,” “sea salt,” and “100% natural.” Very factual, hard hitting stuff. The TV is even better.  Simply produced, a young-ish blindfolded women sits at a table using her palette to determine the provenance of Select Harvest ingredients down to which side of the hill the mushroom field is facing. The spot must have cost $85,000.
 
When advertising makes you want to buy something or change your purchase behavior it usually starts with a clean, focused strategy.  Mr. Conant and his marketing team bring that type of focus to their marketing party. (Oh, BTW, Campbell’s soup sales are up 13% on the quarter.)
 
 

Circuit City Needs a Branding Idea.

By
Steve Poppe
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0
 
Circuit City’s chairman, president, CEO Philip Schoonover stepped down yesterday, perhaps from the weight of all his titles. Actually, Circuit City has been performing poorly and needed a change.
 
I’ve been in a Circuit City recently and the stores are nice. A little darker than Best Buy, but that’s soothing and makes the electronics glow a bit more. The place is not cavernous and the employees seem well-trained. Circuit City, though, does not really own a positioning the mind of the consumer.  And it could. I’m not sure Circuit City even advertises — if it does, it probably just uses circulars or price ads.
 
The new CEO needs a smart CMO, a good agency and a clean, ownable branding idea. Best Buy is about selection and price. Radio Shack is about personal service, but the place look like a toy store. Circuit City, with its name and heritage, has the opportunity to be “expert” in electronics.  The place that explains, clarifies and recommends. Think Geek Squad for all things electronic.  Peace!
 
 

Marketers With A Conscience.

By
Steve Poppe
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0
 
In tough times conspicuous consumption and wastefulness are uncool. In tough times we eat more leftovers, think about all the plastic water bottles we put into landfills, and ride our bikes to the store.   It’s the way we should live all the time, but what we really need is to have our kids remind us to be more thoughtful about waste. Just like when they told us not to smoke or drive after drinking a beer. Kids are our conscience.
 
In tough times, marketers that help educate our kids about the perils of wastefulness and poor environmental habits will be viewed by adults as more worthy of our business. And marketers who don’t just “preach” but “do” will be viewed most favorably — like the milk company that changed the shape of its gallon jugs to save energy consumption 3 ways.
 
 
 

Crispin and Microsoft Should Play Offense

By
Steve Poppe
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Crispin Porter is a very, very good ad agency. I don’t always agree with their creative, but more often than not it has a positive effect. As they get bigger, though, they run into client issues, category issues, and problems they haven’t seen before, making it hard to succeed all the time.
 
One issue they are currently addressing with the new Microsoft advertising is the corner they have been painted into by TBWA/Chiat Day’s “I’m a PC” campaign for Apple. The campaign uses a Bill Gates-like nebbishey figure to represent the PC and he is never as cool or consumer-friendly as the Apple figure. Moreover, he takes shots like a hockey goalie.
 
Crispin Porter has done a campaign that plays defense against the Apple campaign, in a sense whining about being mistreated and made into a “stereotype.” This defensive position is a mistake and very un-Crispin-like. They are best when on offense. Secondly, the genius of the Apple work is not in dis-ing Microsoft so much as it dis-ing the PC. Microsoft has taken the bait…focusing on the PC not the software. Microsoft needs its own idea. About software. And “Life without walls.” (the new line) isn’t it.
 

A Challenge to Sharp Solar

By
Steve Poppe
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The city council of Berkley, Ca just passed a program that will allow home and business owners to purchase solar panels to reduce energy consumption from the grid, while it reduces emissions and global warming therms.   The panels will be paid for through monthly property taxes, to the tune of about $180 per month – a number in the neighborhood of the resultant energy savings paid to the local electric company. Many other America cities are watching. Which brings me to solar power and Sharp Electronics. 
 
Sharp, long been known for its AQUOS TVs, copiers and consumer and business appliances, is not really well known for being the world’s leading solar company, but it is, “providing more solar energy around the globe than anyone else.” Inventors of the LCD and many other breakthroughs, Sharp has an amazing R&D department.   Here’s a business winning challenge to Sharp:
 
Design the world’s first solar power roofing tile. The tiles needn’t be small like current roofing shingles or large like tin roofs, they just need to capture the rays and heat of the sun, withstand 20 years of weather, and be fairly economical to own and install. 
 
Sharp Solar, has an opportunity to be the world’s first truly green company…and it already has a mighty head start. Good luck. Peace!
 
 
 
 


Chrysler vs. GM, Worlds Apart

By
Steve Poppe
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Wild days are these. General Motors is going to Washington with hat in hand trying to get some gov’t cheese bail out money to help retool its factories to build more Chevy Volts. Late to the table with the new electric Volt, GM finally strapped on a pair and decided it was time to do something about its hemorrhaging business. 
 
Chrysler, on the other hand, is launching the biggest ad campaign of the year in support of — are you ready for this — the Ram truck.  I’m not kidding. Is it any wonder Chrysler? Chrysler is owned by Cerberus Capital Management (capital, as in financial crisis.) Some dolt must have said in a marketing meeting “the Ram is our largest selling brand, let’s give it everything we’ve got.”   David Lubars (of ad agency BBDO,) Deborah Meyer (CMO of Chrysler,) and world class film director Tony Scott should all be ashamed of themselves. Does anyone hear a fiddle playing and smell smoke?
 
GMnext is the signal General Motors is sending into the market. Good idea. And Chrysler is sending some cowboy shizz called the “Ram Challenge.” OMG!

Best Buy Vs. MySpace Music

By
Steve Poppe
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0

MySpace Music is doing some really smart things making music available for free to its social network members via MySpace Music, launching very soon. The idea that music companies might make more money from advertising than from actual sale of CDs and songs is pretty forward thinking…and believable. Think free TV model.
 
But my money is on Best Buy who just bought Napster. Have you been to Best Buy lately? If Best Buy was a pie, close to half of that pie would be in CDs, DVD, Blu-Ray disks and other digitally recorded media. Another huge chunk of that pie is dedicated to the display and sale of the devices over which this media plays. 
 
I would love to be the CMO of the new Best Buy because this is going to be the entertainment company. Best Buy will smartly leave content development to the experts and OWN the pipeline/channel to the consumer. WOW!
 

FitBit ….A Little Bit (50 Cent)

By
Steve Poppe
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0
 
The FitBit Tracker, an small Internet-connected device with a motion sensor, was introduced last week at the TechCrunch 150. (TechCrunch150 is an annual celebration and presentation of cool new tech companies.)  The FitBit Tracker helps monitor health when it is attached to the clothes by tracking and recording things like steps taken, minutes sedentary, etc.  It then sends data to a basestation, presumably placed in your home or office.  If you attach FitBit to your pajamas and sleep fitfully, that is also recorded. Very smart little gizmo.
 
For those so inclined (not reclined) who wish to log on to the Internet and write down what they’ve eaten each day that, too, will be factored into your health report. Now I know many of us are often sooooo busy we don’t pay attention to the physiological signs of poor health, e.g., shortness of breath, aches and pains, listlessness, but come on now!  Do we really need a $99 techie reminder? If you look down and can’t see the FitBit on your belt, get out of the house and so something. 
 
 
 

Graying of the Microsoft Geeks

By
Steve Poppe
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0
 
Almost 2 years old, with gazillions spent behind it, the Zune media player has been an abysmal failure, capturing only 2% market share. It’s another bad example of Microsoft having Jobs-envy.
 
Microsoft is not about music, it’s about innovation and execution in computing software and computing applications. This is where its future lies. Microsoft needs to put all the smart Zune people in a room, let them know very gingerly that the project is in harvest mode, find out what they learned from the exercise and what can be used for its next gen project. 
 
It then needs to spend it time and R&D money identifying the next OS for mobile devices. Microsoft needs to think forward, not backward.  Mobile phones, smart phones, netbooks and even handhelds we haven’t yet thought of (GPS, language translation, money payment) are waiting for some unifying software and apps. That’s what Microsoft is good at. Not entertainment applications or advertising platforms. 
 
The geeks are graying and thinking like people living in mansions.  
 
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