What if your brand changed, and you couldn't do anything about it?

Smokestacks offer a simple lesson in brand building that the auto giant Hummer is now painfully aware of.

Back in the day, smokestacks stood for progress, job creation and a vibrant economy. They were coveted and wooed by economic developers everywhere. Seeing one go up in your town was a reason to celebrate.

Today, the same exact "product" offers a completely different message. Now the reaction is pollution, global warming, an old fashioned economy.

But the smokestack didn't change. (If anything, it got a little cleaner.) But our perception of it changed 180 degrees.

That's what's happening to the folks at Hummer right now. A few years ago, I drove a corporate Hummer, an H1, for about six months. Bright red. The military style beast, just like this picture. It was considered cool. Arnold Schwarzenegger had one. The fact that it got 9 mpg only bothered a few people. Most people laughed. Hummer sales were robust. It was a profit machine for GM.

Now, GM reports that Hummer sales in May dropped 60% (ouch) from a year ago. The number of people considering Hummer is at an all time low. GM is even openly talking about selling the brand entirely. What a difference a year makes.

Remember, your brand is not what you say it is. It's what the public says it is. And in this case, when it would cost you $128 to fill the Hummer's 32-gallon tank, the public says the brand isn't working for them.

Fire Your Ad Agency, then Crack Open an MGD

If it weren't sad, it might be funny. A brand in decline. Sales slipping.

"It must be the advertising. Fire the agency. Get a new tagline. Get a new ad."

Yeah, how's the working out for you, Miller Genuine Draft?

Four agencies and eight taglines since 1991, yet sales continue to decline. The problem isn't the "creative." It's that you don't know what you are, what niche you serve and how to pick one position and stick with it until it resonates.

Below, courtesy of Ad Age, are the themelines for MGD for each year, followed first by the name of the agency that did the work, and then by the percentage market share MGD held that year. Strap in:

• 2001: "Never miss a genuine opportunity"--JWT--2.6%
• 2002: "Pure MGD"--JWT--2.2%
• 2003: "Keep what's good"--Ogilvy--2.2%
• 2004: "Good call"--Ogilvy--2.0%
• 2005: Various themelines--Martin some, Ogilvy some)--1.8%
• 2006: "Beer. Grown up."--Martin--1.6%
• 2007: "Experience is golden"--Y&R--1.5%

So shipments of MGD are down 41%. Guess what they're doing to fix it in 2008? Testing two new themelines!

Yeah, that'll work. Usually I would blame the product, but MGD isn't that bad. In this case I think it's the lack of any sort of brand identity. Calling it MGD was a horrible idea in the first place. And then failing to carve out a brand niche and stick with it is the kiss of death.

Good luck with your new themeline guys. I'll look for the big turnaround...

Airline Safety Video Enhances Brand Experience

Like Southwest Airlines, Virgin Atlantic has worked hard to brand their unique flying experience. Not in terms of logos and stuff, but the actual experience.

Now, thanks to the Experience Curve blog, we have a look at their airplane safety video. It's not amazing (they have a job to do), but it's very cleverly and subtly different and Virgin branded.

Just goes to show, branding limitations are often not all that limiting...



Thanks to Ignite Lisa for pointing it out to me.

Brutal Honesty, the new marketing advantage?

Two companies have used marketing tactics recently that whipped my head around (figuratively, fortunately). Both were brutally honest. It was amazing, funny and rereshing.

Remember that 1990 movie with Dustin Hoffman and Darryl Hannah called Crazy People? He was an ad exec that went crazy and started writing lines like, "Metamucil. It helps you go to the toilet. If you don't use it, you get cancer and die." and "United, most of our passengers get there alive." These two companies suggest he might have been on to something.

The first, Woot.com, offers only one product every day at a deep discount. When it's sold out, you're out of luck. When it's the next day, you're out of luck. What I really like is their FAQ section. Here are some excerpts:

I want to talk to a live person there, can I call you?

No. We are busy sourcing new products and shipping orders. You can post a comment to our community board, but we don't guarantee we'll respond. You should Google for the manufacturer contact to get product answers – we suggest a dating service, magic 8 ball, or ouija board for general life solutions.

Will I receive customer support like I'm used to?

No. Well, not really. If you buy something you don't end up liking or you have what marketing people call "buyer's remorse," sell it on eBay. It's likely you'll make money doing this and save everyone a hassle. If the item doesn't work, find out what you're doing wrong. Yes, we know you think the item is bad, but it's probably your fault. Google your problem, or come back to that product discussion in our community and ask other people if they know.

Maybe I'll just wait until this item becomes more widely available, so I know what other users think of it.

If that's how you want to live your life, sure. Fine. There are those who would say that your type will inherit the earth. Until then, though, the rest of us will have all the coolest gizmos.

Boom. Loved the company instantly. I now check it daily and yes, I wooted and bought something... Cool.

The other is Buckley's Cough Medicine. Their ads compare the taste of their product to the liquid that collects at the bottom of a garbage can. Apparently, they've been doing this shtick in Canada for years, but now they're rolling out down here. Reminds me of Listerine's brilliant campaign to battle Scope by acknowledging that it tasted bad, but it worked.

I haven't tried Buckley's yet, but I think ALL cough medicine is horrible, so might as well suffer a bit extra to get something that works...

What do you think, is brutal honesty a trend? Probably not, but it's giving these two companies an edge.



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And so come the parodies...

Remember the Dove posts I did earlier about their great Campaign for Real Beauty?

Well, you didn't think guys would sit around quietly forever on that topic, did you? And so come the parodies. Here is Slob Evolution, from the Campaign Against Real Life...



That is really funny. As for Dove, being heckled with a high-end parody like this is the ultimate complement.

~Jim

The Power of a Brand, Demonstrated

People get confused as to what a "brand" is. It's not a logo, not a color scheme, not your CEO, not any ad campaign you've done or will do. A brand is totality of all the thoughts and feelings people associate with your product, your company, or even you.

A brand can be articulated any number of ways. This video is a funny example showing just how different Microsoft's brand is from Apple's brand. It's demonstrated based on design changes that are oh so accurate, but I think it also shows the dramatic difference in how MS and Apple approach the world.

What would happen if Microsoft redesigned the iPod packaging? Here's the answer. Enjoy.

Disposable Branding: Pepsi's Ice Cucumber

Brand managers often think in terms of slowly building a brand, nurturing it, trying to get it to permeate the public consciousness and then protecting it at all costs. Nothing wrong with that.

But there's a growing number of experiments in the power of limited editions. Most recently, Pepsi unveiled a pale green drink in Japanese convenience stores called Pepsi Ice Cucumber.

Within weeks, all 4.8 million bottles of the "summer beverage" had sold out.

Pepsi didn't make anymore. They "kill[ed] off a product at the peak of its popularity" to quote Business Week.

It seems to me that in an age where Starbucks permeates every corner, where Wal-Mart in Scranton, PA looks chillingly like a Wal-Mart in San Fran, we're all hungry for something that's different and unique.

Pepsi spent two years developing this soda flavor and, right now, they have no plans to launch it again. But with Pepsi Ice Cucumbers selling on eBay for $4.50 a bottle, this type of fad marketing could do as much to help Pepsi's overall brand as any TV campaign could. It's also very good to have something like this for PR coverage and to generate blog buzz.

What do you think?

~Jim Tobin
Life Is Marketing

Only 12 Kinds of Advertisements: True or False?

Slate is reporting today on the findings of Donald Gunn, former creative director at Leo Burnett who is claiming that there are 12 kinds of advertisements. If you watch carefully, he argues, all ads will fall into one (or potentially a couple) of these 12 categories:

1. The "Demo" Ad: These ads show you the product in action, like an informercial, or the new iPhone ads, that show you the features of the product during the spot.

   
   

2. The "Show the Need" Ad: During this type of ad, you show how something is wrong with someone's life, and then show (or say) how your product fixes it.
   
3. The "Symbol, Analogy or Exaggerated Graphic Problem" Ad: Similar to the show the need ads, these typically overdue it in demonstrating a problem, often with comedy. Or they may use a symbol or an analogy. Slate notes the erectile pill where the guy just can't seem to throw the football through a tire swing, until suddenly, bam...
   
4. The "Comparison" Ad: In these ads, you specifically call out the problems with your competitors, either specifically or as a group. Car dealer radio ads often do this, as in "Other car dealers try to fast talk you, but at Chris Leith we talk straight."
   
5. The "Exemplary Story" Ad: In this group of ads, you create a story in which the product can really shine, showing people how they really will benefit if they had such a product at such a time. (Full disclosure: This spot is a Brogan ad--and one of my faves.)
   
6. The "Benefit Causes..." Ad: This is sort of like the exemplary story ad, but in this case rather than telling the story and showing the benefit at the end, you show the benefit first, ostensibly piquing the interest of the viewer/listener, who is trying to figure out what wonder product caused this great benefit.
   
7. The "Presenter" Ad: In this case, a presenter or talking head or person dressed as a researcher or some such will explain to you the benefits of the product.
   
8. The "Ongoing Characters" Ad: This one is easy, think Geico Caveman, Budweiser lizards, or Jared, etc. Create a character and stick with it for a while as the character tells us about the product, usually using humor.
   
9. The "Symbol/Exaggerated Graphic Benefit" Ad: Just like number two, in which the advertisers exaggerate the problem they can fix, these ads exaggerate (or symbolize) the benefit that the product offers.
   
10. The "Associated User Imagery" Ad: In these ads, you convince people they want to be like Mike, but usually in more subtle ways. By showing the types of people that use the product (and, of course, their highly toned abs), people who want to be like them will buy the product. (Laugh, if you will, but it works.)
    
11. The "Unique Personality Property" Ad: These ads point out something that is a characteristic of the product and highlight it. This could be a bad name, like Smuckers, or a German engineering, like BMW.
    
12. The "Parody" Ad: Very popular today, these ads take pop culture, twist them and put them into ads. These ads can be very funny, or not so much.
    

So the big question: Is this true and accurate? Gunn believes knowing the 12 types can be helpful to the harried creative struggling for an idea to pitch. Perhaps. The first comment on Slate was from someone adding two more, including "oddvertising" and "self-aware" advertising (like Joe Isuzu). Putting aside the fact that Joe Isuzu ads didn't really sell cars very well, I believe they were comparison ads wrapped in humor.

At the same time, arguing that there are only so many 'big ideas' is not limited to advertising. In novel writing (an area with much more license than you can find in a 30-second spot), some claim there are only 36 unique plot lines. In fact, I own writing software based generally on these limitations of ideas.

My thoughts: These are pretty big categories. I suspect that just about every ad I've ever seen could fall into one of them. At the same time, I don't believe that limits the profession. There can still be highly effective types within each category, just like there are bombs within each category. So to me, it boils down to a fun way to watch the TV and critique the ads--but weren't we all doing that already?

~Jim Tobin
Life Is Marketing

New Look at Old Friend in German Commercial

This is just a really fun spot. Watch it first, and then we'll chat.



There's so much to like about this spot.

• First of all, the long format (2 minutes) is brilliant. I'm assuming this ran on German TV, and I'm not at all familiar with their commercial breaks, but it seems clear that this was longer than normal. The payback includes, among other things, over 600,000 views on YouTube so far.
  
• Secondly, the documentary style. Classic.
• The scenes of him just messing with people. Of course, that's great.
• But most of all, how the agency took an assignment that could've led to the same ole same ole green power, save the world creative. And they twisted it, but not just for a gratuitous joke. The twisting amplified the message instead of taking it away, as it usually does in a beer commercial, for example.

Congrats to Epuron, who just won the coveted Golden Lion at Cannes for this ad. Great casting, too. The guy who plays the Wind is excellent. There is likely must celebrating at Nordpol+ Hamburg, the agency that created the ad. They deserve it. Brilliant.



Whether you're going online to read about Germany, get yourself some free online music, or you just want some advice on buying a new computer for the family, the Internet is full of useful knowledge that might help.

Rats, My Product Tie-In Killed My Sales

It's a proven formula, take a well-known movie, particularly a kid's movie and tie your product to it. McDonald's has done it with Shrek. Burger King is aligned with the Simpson's movie.

This summer's hot Disney-Pixar movie is Ratatouille (pronounced Rat-a-too-eee), about a Rat named Remy who dreams of being a big-time fancy chef. Ok, cute movie. My daughter has the Wii video game.

Now let's say you're the maker of a new Chardonnay and your marketing person brings you the idea to name your new product, Ratatouille and put a picture of a rat on the label. Do you:

1. Fire your marketing person; or
2. Yell, ahah, and start sketching the new label.

Oh, and you're selling the wine at Costco...

Seems like a questionable strategy to me, but they are certainly getting coverage out of it. And Fat Bastard Wines continues to do well even if it makes me think of the Austin Powers movie, so quirky can work. But Rat wine, at Costco... I don't know... Take the poll on the right hand side and let me know what you think.

~Jim Tobin
Life Is Marketing

Guerilla Marketing And Great Targeting Combined

Yesterday's post on guerilla marketing left some folks wanting some more. I've long believed that the more you know about your target audience and how they live their lives, the better your marketing campaigns are going to be.

I don't know anything about this campaign other than the pictures, but I'm assuming the folks at this Chilean beer company did their homework and found that their targets had a high propensity to ride the bus. If so, what a great idea.Makes me thirsty...

Jim Tobin
Life Is Marketing

"Thank you, come again!" 7-Eleven and Simpsons are a great match

I'm amazed by 7-Eleven's recent moves to turn about a dozen of their stores into Kwik-E-Marts. They're going to even sell Simpson's related-products, like Krusty-Os, and Squishees and Buzz Cola. They've decorated the outsides of the stores to make them look just like Kwik-E-Marts as part of a promotion for the upcoming Simpsons Movie.The amazing part is not that someone thought of the tie-in. That's a no brainer in this case.

• What's amazing is that they're laughing at themselves.
• What's amazing is that they're willing to cover up their brand temporarily.
• What's amazing is the fact that Apu is a stereotype didn't stop them from doing it.

After decades of carefully packaging messages, the companies that are going to thrive in a Web 2.0 world are the ones that can be real. 7-Eleven is going to get a lot of benefit from this promotion. It's a great way to increase the value of the brand, don't you think?

Jim Tobin
Life is Marketing

Apple's iPhone Now in Hand, But How Big a Hand?

Further proof that no detail is too small to worry about... Apple has obviously put great thought into the size of their hand models. Check out these early shots as compared with the later shots:Nope, the phone didn't change size, but it sure looks like it did.

Strangest thing is, it really does make a difference in how you think about the phone, doesn't it?

Credit to Boing Boing for finding this.

Hilton's "Be Hospitable" Campaign Tied to Paris' Bad Reputation?

Paris Hilton told Larry King tonight that she spent time in jail reading the Bible, although she couldn't cite her favorite verse. Yeah... I'm thinking she made that one up.

But my sister pointed out something interesting. The Hilton family of hotels launched their feel good "Be Hospitable" campaign around the same time that Paris' frivolity was starting to catch up with her. Could it be that Paris' is having such a negative impact on the brand image of Hilton Hotels that the firm felt compelled to reply?

After all, they'd run another campaign about getting from Point A to Point B before they started this.

Here's a version of their ad campaign. Check it out.



Feel better about "Hilton" than you did watching Larry King tonight? What do you think? Coincidence, or fixing some brand damage?

Wired Let's 5,000 Subscribers Appear on Custom Covers

Did you ever go to the amusement park when you were a kid and pose for those phony magazine covers, like National Lampoon or Sports Illustrated. Great fun at the time.

Now Wired magazine has taken it a step forward. They invited the first 5,000 subscribers to sign up at their website to get their copy of the magazine delivered to them with their picture on it. Very cool mashup of personalized marketing, digital work flow and the use of a digital production press. An example is to the right.

So, of course, I'm flipping through Wired tonight and see it, and I'm bummed that I missed out on the invite. But to bring the point home, and leverage their brand positioning from this offline effort in the online world so it can live longer, they have a website where you can play too.

Not as cool, but fun nevertheless. Create and share your own wired cover. Here's mine. And if you're wondering if I know I'm a dork...yeah, I know. But hey, I feel a bit like I'm back at the amusement park...Go ahead, play with it. You know you want to... You don't have to share it, but you know you sort of want to try it... Or maybe that's just me...

MySpace enters the Fashion Space

MySpace Fashion has launched, an effort by MySpace to chunk their massive user network into groups that advertisers will pay for. So far, they have 50,000 friends on the network. Look for it to become its own tab along with "music" and videos.

But the real reason is to find a way to host banner ads from fashion companies. Here's the challenge: Ads from which companies?

As AdAge points out in a good article, MySpace Fashion is currently running a banner ad for Bratz, which is a decidedly young demo. Is that the niche, or is it more mature, or more upscale. And will upscale brands advertise on MySpace, which isn't exactly a luxury brand. InStyle.com, on the other hand, has it right. They are serving up buckets of content via MySpace Fashion (the average visitor to MySpace Fashion reads 26 pages of InStyle's content), which helps extend their brand.

While MySpace works out the wrinkles, the fact remains that marketing via social media sites is here to stay. Let's hope some smart folks realize it's much more than banner ads.

When the iPhone Flops, What's Next for Apple?

Perhaps this is heresy, particularly as I type this four days pre-launch on an iMac that I love, but I suspect the iPhone is going to be a bust. You can watch the zoomy video below, but the fact is that the iPhone has a touch screen keyboard, does not support corporate email apparently, doesn't have attachments support (it seems), apparently has a tinny speaker in it, and much more.

So now Apple has hyped this product with videos like this one that have the technorati all aflutter:



But when the bad reviews come in from real users, I suspect that people who fork over $500 and sign up for a two-year deal to do it are going to be pissed.

And Apple's been on a real tear recently, with great new product offerings. It's like they've started to really gain traction. You know the iMac and the iPod are great. But does anyone remember the Apple Lisa? Or the Apple Newton? Huge flops.

Maybe it's counter-intuitive, but I think that the way they hyped this phone is going to damage the Apple brand. The best it can do is live up to the hype. But it's not going to, and that's going to pierce their veil of infallibility--and that, my friends, is brand damage... Perhaps they would've been better off taking a somewhat more humble marketing approach to this. It still would be huge--the bloggers still would've gone nuts, but they wouldn't have fanned the flames.

It's like seeing a new movie when all your friends told you it's awesome, but it's only really good... You end up disappointed. If they'd said nothing, you probably would've liked it... That's what we're going to see with the iPhone, I predict.

What do you think? Is it going to take off?

Most Hated Internet Words Have an Impact on Marketing

Apparently every time you say "blog," you're driving some people nuts. And if you say something like "be sure to use your netiquette when you're on my wiki," that's a recipe for disaster.

A new poll released the most irritating words that came from the Internet. The top five must hated web words are:

1. folksonomy (web classification system using tags)
   
2. Blogosphere (the universe of blogs)
   
3. blog (uh, what you're reading)
   
4. netiquette (rules of behavior on the web)
   
5. blook (a book that came from a blog)

This clearly has marketing ramifications. Some people would love to have an online community where they could quickly post content and read what people thought about it. But those same people don't want a blog. People may want to know what all the blogs are saying about them, but they feel like a dork saying blogosphere.

Words matter. If you don't know that and appreciate that, then marketing is probably not a good career choice. And while some people no doubt admire your mad web 2.0 skills, Obi Wan, another percentage think you're being a dork.

It's easy to think everyone is talking about blogs. And they are. Just some people are making fun of it...



Do you need to find a family member? One way to find people is to use a website to help, like a people search engine.

Why Brand Loyalty is Vaporizing

One of the general rules of marketing is that the leading brand doesn't have to "enter the fray." Let the second and third tier brands fight it out. Let them make comparisons, because after all, they'll be comparing themselves to you.

But Advertising Age is reporting that huge companies (Apple, Subway, Pizza Hut and Diet Pepsi specifically) are now taking the gloves off and doing comparative advertising.

The reason: brand loyalty is down...

As much as it's my job to build brands, to support brands and to encourage brand loyalty, it is sort of a funny concept. Some act like brand loyalty should be a function of history and previous practice. Like you had a commitment ceremony with Coke because you bought it six times.

But brand loyalty is diminishing for a few reasons, among them:

• Brands are doing too many line extensions. What is Bayer, for example? Aspirin, of course. But as Ries and Ries point out, Bayer introduced their own brand of "non-aspirin pain reliever." How dumb was that? It's like holding a sign up on their flagship product saying, "We're really just a commodity, buy the store brand."
• Brands don't earn loyalty. You spend billions to get me to buy your product and 50 cents on the call center. And then you're surprised that I don't come back to buy?
• Product innovation and promise delivery generate brand loyalty. I got a Mac a year ago. My next computer will be a Mac. It costs 3 times what a comparable PC costs, and I'm sorta cheap. Don't care. The thing just works. It's simple to use. It's fast... That's brand loyalty building...

You can do comparative ads. Many may be better than some of the nonsense out there today in the big ad world... But look inward big brands... I bet your ad agencies will look smarter, and consumer loyalty will increase, when you start being loyal to your own brands first.

What do you think? How can brands build their loyalty?

Did Snap, Crackle and Pop Surrender to the Fat Police?

Kellogg's is making big changes in how they market breakfast cereal to kids. They're also making big changes to certain breakfast cereals formulas to ensure they meet some new health guidelines. (Kellogg's created the guidelines themselves.)

Apparently, Tony the Tiger is ok... (Well, actually, he's great, but you know what I mean.) But Toucan Sam and Snap, Crackle and Pop may be on the unemployment line if Kellogg's can't find a new recipe for them by 2008.

While nutritionists can debate the merits of their "complete breakfast", the question for marketers is did Kellogg's capitulate to pressures too soon, too late or just in time? Animated cereal characters have been on TV for a generation, so are they really the cause of obesity?

As a marketer, can you reinvent an iconic brand relatively quickly? Does Froot Loops even exist without Toucan Sam?

My thoughts:

• It was time to change the formulas. They are one small part of the obesity epidemic, but they can help a bit. They would have been punished in sales if they'd resisted too long;
• If they can get Froot Loops to taste close to the way they taste, stick with Toucan Sam. If it's a dramatically different flavor, then invent a new brand and a new way to market it. Let Toucan Sam live and die with his product.

Those are my two cents... Yours??