- I recently discovered a firm that will, if supplied with a brief, provide a client with 100 ideas … overnight! They use Twitter to contact hundreds of ‘ideas people’ internationally.
- Creative agencies now provide media ideas as well as creative ideas. Media agencies now provide creative ideas as well as media ideas.
- Large supermarket retailers have in-house creative departments that can provide ideas and advertising for their supplier’s brands, rather than the other way around.
Marketers have more access to ideas than ever before. Everyone now seems to be providing ideas. As a creative person I’ve been raised to believe that the more ideas on the table the better.
But now I’m beginning to wonder.
Take Nandos Chicken. They’ve tried every bizarre idea you can think of. They had a stripping Mother wearing a Nandos Nicotine patch on TV.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxsjhREHH3M&feature=related
They’ve created a radio ‘satire’ of Clare Werbeloff, the Chk Chk Boom girl.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ-pt95BNZU&feature=related
They’ve even got into the latest craze of creating a disruptive PR stunt, that disrupted the king of disruptive PR stunts: Sacha Baron Cohen’s, Bruno.
(The raw footage has been removed from YouTube but you can see some of the news coverage at the following link)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIUlpkPKGvA
Some are funnier than others - I quite like the stripping Mum spot for some reason. But what story do they tell? What problem do they solve? What brand image do they build? What, as a consumer, am I supposed to think of the brand?
I honestly can’t tell. In Nandos I see dozens of random ideas and not a single brand message.
Possible taglines like, “We’re a little bit different”, “Unexpectedly delicious chicken” or even “We’re not for everyone” would tie the zaniness together. But we don’t get any help at all.
A visit to the website makes you think your dealing with a different brand altogether. It shows a low tech, hand drawn, food focussed, ethnic style brand. Nothing like the TV, radio and PR communication. I’m even more confused now!
http://www.nandos.com.au/
Many other brands are excitedly experimenting with channels, executions and ideas. Which is fantastic … as long as each piece of communication supports and builds on a consistent brand message. The beer people are particularly good at experimentation without losing sight of the message and target consumer.
When consumers are forced to re-evaluate a brand every time they see a new piece of communication, they just don’t bother.
Potential consumers of Nandos know the brand exists, and sells chicken. But they have no idea what it stands for and therefore why they should consider it.
When it comes to brand communication, dozens of random ideas won’t help you, one correct one will.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Not more ideas!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Crazy or what?
I did a crazy thing this month. I sent out a short survey to a number of clients and ex-clients asking for brutal honesty.
And I got it.
I deliberately targeted a few who had fired me. Most people were very complimentary. But a small number mentioned the same issue that bugged them. I was unaware of this issue and will now do everything to fix it.
This made me wonder how huge brands, particularly services, could benefit by asking, “What one thing could we do better?” Imagine what a Bank could learn if it asked this simple question. And imagine how its brand image would be improved just by the act of asking.
If this becomes a marketing fad of the future, remember you heard it here first.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Private Label Winning Battle of Brands.
I stumbled over this interesting article from the states: Private Label Winning Battle of Brands.
Quote: "We're pumping out the morphine of deal, deal, deal. And we need to be talking value."
Good reading for FMCG folk.
http://adage.com/article?article_id=134791
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Marketing in troubled times.
I like journalists and think they provide an essential service. BUT they do have a propensity for the dramatic. While crazy financiers have started a worldwide economic bushfire, the media are cheerfully screaming ‘Run for your lives! We’re all going to die!’ Bad news sells papers. But is the news really that bad?
Is an economic downturn really the end of the world? Or is it an opportunity to review how we worked in the past and to improve those practices for the future? I think it is.
We all know that ‘marketing’ is the first department of any company to have its budget slashed in economic slowdowns. It’s an easy way for the bean counters to save money. But of course reducing marketing exposure leads to reduced revenue and the prophecy of doom is self-fulfilled.
Short of holding a gun to the CFO’s head, we must live with the fact that budgets will be tightened in the coming year or so. The question is then, “How do I maintain and grow my business with less money and fewer resources?”
The answer is that you have to work in different ways. Picking up the phone and calling ‘the agency’ is easy but it’s expensive. Here are some examples from real firms who invested a little extra time to save big money ... and they still achieved outstanding results.
1. YouTube campaign. Company A had a confectionary product that researched well and seemed like a market place winner. Traditionally it would have gone straight to TV (with the associated high media costs). Because it was ‘fun’ and targeted to ‘young people’ a YouTube campaign was devised. Production costs were kept low and media costs were $0.
Cost to the marketer – She had to really work her email database to get the viral traction the campaign needed. And she had to give up the control she would have normally had with a TV campaign.
2. Virtual Agency. Company B assembled a group of talented creatives to execute a one-off creative campaign. They paid about half what they would have done with a full service agency for the same or better minds and options.
Cost to the marketer – He had to find the right people for the job.
3. Website Renovation – Company C had an existing website that was a little out of date. Rather than tear it down and start again the marketing person employed a copywriter to revamp the copy, improve the SEO and add a few new features all within the existing structure.
Cost to the marketer – Finding the time to accurately brief the copywriter.
There are many other ways of maintaining strong marketing communications in troubled economic times. The cost can be as low as looking around for alternative suppliers.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Zig while your competitors Zag
It doesn’t matter how right you are, if no one notices your communication, you are just tipping money down the toilet.
Most brands in the same category are advertised in pretty much the same way. Look at car advertising! Is every brand done by the same creative team? So while your competitors are trying to be noticed by being identical (huh?), you can be noticed by being different.
To use an advertising cliché, cut-through is as simple as zigging when others are zagging: or just being different to what is on air at that moment. You don’t have to, and shouldn’t, be bizarre, just different.
On the one hand there are marketers who create ‘company’ ads. That is, ads that fit the company mould. Their target is their boss or head office. The consumer and the Australian environment are scarcely considered. This is one reason most ads in a category are similar.
But ironically a lot of creative people are just as much to blame.
Most creatives slavishly refer to ‘Shots’ reels, which are a collection TV spots from around the world, deemed to be ‘creative’ or ‘breakthrough’. Some have better communication than others, but most are pretty ‘fresh’ ideas. So creatives start to copy creatives … who copy creatives who …
Technique trends quickly become popular, then ubiquitous. They go from being fresh to being unnoticed, because the whole creative industry is doing it. It’s a kind of cannibalism. And cannibalism is not good for your health.
One example is the rise of the quirky geek in beer ads. I don’t know who started it, but if I see another beer spot staring an obviously ugly guy with bad hair doing odd things, I’ll switch to Pimms and lemonade. What began as a different and engaging way of creating beer ads has become a cliché. If all beer ads are quirky then by definition, none are quirky.
Recently I noticed some commercials that really did break the mould, in an entirely appropriate way. They were for a brand of Tip Top bread. The bread market is essentially aimed at ‘Mums who want to give their kids good food’. The ads used funky low-tech animation. It looked like paper cut outs. Running in a popular gangster TV show among the slick ‘samey’ car ads, the simple animated bread ads stood out like nothing else AND as a result planted the message.
Using animation to sell bread is new. Using jiggly paper cut outs is really new. Result – instant cut through!
Another technique that will guarantee attention is quiet. Yes quiet. A 30 second spot can comfortably have about 60 spoken words. A lot squeeze in more. I created an ad for Tek Toothbrushes that used 16 words total: 5 for dialogue, 11 for the pack shot VO. The silence became the technique and had a devastating effect.
The idea was that a dentist had no patients because the toothbrush was so effective. We had a single shot on a receptionist in a large empty waiting room. After 25 seconds the dentist pops his head around the corner and asks, ‘Any patients Emma?’ The receptionist replies, ‘Sorry Rob’.
We always knew it had a lot of quiet. But when it ran on air surrounded by hundreds of shouting and overly busy spots competing for attention, the effect was sensational. People looked up from their magazines. People left the kitchen to check on the TV. And people bought Tek Professional in droves.
So to create cut through and maximise your production and media spend, ask your creatives to chuck out the Shots reel. Then get them to watch TV commercials in the shows your consumer watches. Then ask for something … different.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Website Insights
Many marketers talk about creating a dialogue with consumers, rather than talking at them. It surprises me then that these same marketers have websites that quite simply are love letters to themselves.
A corporate website is the perfect place to present your company and it’s brands as a helpful advisor to your consumer. At the risk of repeating myself, communication to your consumer should be ‘all about them’ not ‘all about you’.
If you talk about your brands it should be in the context of how this helps your consumer. But why not talk about human situations THEN how your brands help those situations?
Scotts Australia is a perfect example of how to get it right. (I must admit an interest here. I wrote and produced the TV ads that Scotts run on the site.) Notice how ‘Need Help?’ is the first tab you see. And ‘About Scotts’ is near the end. The site is chokka-block with useful information presented in a simple way that ultimately leads the consumer to the brands and products.
www.scottsaustralia.com.au
Kimberley Clark Australia’s site for Huggies is similarly informative and engaging. To a new mother her baby is the most important thing in the world. So KCA talk about babies and motherhood and slip their ‘plastic and paper fibre product’ in right at the end. The home page layout does this and the tab bar does it too. 10 out of 10 for consumer focussed design.
http://huggies.com.au/
Kraft’s site makes me hungry just looking at it! Fantastic food photography, recipes, and health information. Products neatly alphabetised with easy links to specific brand sites.
http://www.kraft.com.au
Continental’s site goes one further. It has recipes, that lead to family meals together, that lead to real conversations between parents and kids. You couldn’t get much more emotional than that. The Continental brand becomes a part of real life.
http://www.continental.com.au
Now for some sites that could lift their game.
Why do I feel that Telstra is unashamedly trying to squeeze every last dollar out of my wallet. Am I letting the constant call centre sales pitches blind me to a helpful site? I don’t believe their corporate home page is the right place to sell, sell, sell.
http://www.telstra.com/index.jsp
Procter and gamble haven’t bothered creating an Australian site or even a re-direct address to the US. Does this speak volumes? They do have sites for some of their Australian brands, but these are not accessed from the US site. So at random I tried Pantene. Product and packaging comes well before any consumer benefit.
The contact section has no phone number: you have to fill out a form. So much for a dialogue with consumers.
In the words of David Ogilvy, ‘The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife.’ Gender issues aside, if a consumer has bothered to tap the keys, we as communicators should make the process as easy and fulfilling as possible.
It’s pretty simple really. 1. Talk about consumer needs well before you talk about your neat new products. 2. Help, don’t sell. 3. Make contact easy.
