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

Volkswagen's Latest Crossover is Bourne Spot

A "crossover" used to mean a cross between an SUV and a minivan, but the new VW spot for the Touareg 2 may redefine the word. 80% of the spot is a movie trailer for "The Bourne Ultimatum" featuring footage of Matt Damon running from crooked police in, of course, a Touareg. But then, there's a brilliant 2 second shot of another guy, looking at the car and uttering the "Holy..." This is, of course, the signature line of VW's powerful earlier Safety Happens campaign.



The ad, done by Crispin Porter out of Miami is part of a much larger $40 million deal between VW and NBC Universal. That's why you've seen VW's in movies from "You, Me and Dupree" to knocked up, but the team is doing more. VW has movies on their website showing how the stunts in the Bourne movie were done, and much more.

The ad is a great surprise with VW going from subtle product placement to movie star in a couple of seconds. This is a great example of outside-the-box cross promotion thinking, and it's getting some good attention in the blogosphere around the globe: Link 1, Link 2.

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

"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

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??

Honda Minisodes Clever, Subtle, On Brand

One of the tenets of new marketing--meaning marketing in an era of Web 2.0--is that sales efforts should be more subtle. Treat people as if they are intelligent and they'll respond to your product if it meets their needs and interests.

MySpace Minisodes, which are sponsored by the Honda Fit, are a edited versions of old, once popular sitcoms. The 30 minute shows have been stripped of commercials and extraneous detail to tell the story in 4-5 minutes. They'll go live on MySpace this week.

• Clever, because they're fun to watch.
• On brand, because the Honda Fit is a small car from a reputable company.
• Subtle, because the commercial message is only 8 seconds long, which is tolerable in a web environment.

Nice work all around...

New Tool is Old School

So, you want to use that DVR to fast forward past the commercials, eh? How high tech of you, Mr. Tivo.

Proving that what's old is new again, advertisers are weaving their products more tightly into the show's plot. Clunky product placement, like when Jeff shills for the latest Ford F-150 he's giving away on Survivor, may evolve into more seamless integration.

A new series called Mad Men will appear on AMC this year. It's about Madison Avenue in the 1960s glory days. Those were the days when products were blatantly part of the show. Anyone remember when Fred and Barney were sponsored by Winston, and actually took a break on the show to enjoy a smoke? True.

Mad Men will be sponsored in part by Jack Daniels, with integration on and off the show. Here's the funny part. The Brand Director at Jack Daniels is taking credit for finding "the next new thing." Uh, yeah, not so new champ...

How Does McDonald's Spell Success?...S-H-R-E-K!

Guest author Scott Werner back again --

Forget Grimace, the Hamburglar, Mayor McCheese and Ronald McDonald, the real dollars are in cross-promotional partnerships. Just ask the execs and bean counters at McDonald's who today reported that their May promotion with the movie "Shrek the Third" helped increase U.S. same stores sales by 7.9%.

But the interesting part of McDonald's Shrek promotion isn't really the promotion itself (fast food and entertainment cross-promotion isn't new), but how McDonald's chose to execute the program. With childhood obesity, and criticism of fast food restaurants on the topic, gaining momentum over recent years, McDonald's (with maybe a little prodding from DreamWorks Animation, the studio behind Shrek) made a decision to feature healthier food items like its salads, milk, apple slices with the Happy Meal promotion. Note that Happy Meals are marketed to children between the ages of 3 and 9, and a meal with a cheeseburger, small fries and Sprite totals 670 calories, with 26 grams of fat and 4.5 grams of trans fat — the fat type that experts say is particularly dangerous.

These latest sales figures are great news on a marketing tactic that had the potential to really hurt McDonald's sales big time! Especially after last year's news that Disney Pictures decided not to renew its cross-promotion program with the famed arches, partially over the concern the company had over childhood obesity topic and the assault being forged on fast food restaurants.

Now, McDonald's didn't release sales figures of their healthier food items versus their more famous, and less healthy, alternatives. But it appears that as long as they continue to find cross-promotions that interest the consumer, McDonald's execs won't have to worry too much about losing any sleep over declining sales.

So however you feel about fast food and childhood obesity, you've got to give some kudos to the McDonald's marketing team for the smart strategy behind their marketing for the this promotion. What will they think of next?

P.S. My child, like many other American children, is fascinated by the Shrek movies and thus encouraged me to make numerous trips to McDonald's for Happy Meals. I will admit that we probably didn't order many healthy items, but I did have one happy child who collected all but one of the ten Shrek toys. (If anyone happens to have an extra boy Ogre baby, the #8 toy, I'd be happy to send you a buck or two for it!)