The brand equity of Ms. Roosevelt in the 50s was vastly superior to that of the brand she was anouncing: “Goodyear” Margarine. As a result, people remembered Ms. Roosevelt but forgot the brand… the product’s protagonism in the ad was beeing stolen by the famous lady.
On the other hand, testimonials from famous people can be very effective if the famous figure’s attributes match the message of the brand he’s advertising. As was the case with “His Airness” Michael Jordan and Nike Air. Michael Jordan’s lifestyle and “Just Do It” are a perfect match.
Nowadays, the drive towards WoM and credibility makes touristic advertising return to testimonials of famous native people again: Portuguese soccer star Christiano Ronaldo for Portugal, and a bunch of Personalities that live in Houston for this city. They are Mega-Hubs in the language of WoM and also enjoy high credibility when talking of their own city or country:
It just has striking credibility! when a true Portuguese like Christiano Ronaldo tells us with “pride”, that “my country is the best golf destination of the world…”
by Pepe Subirana.
Nothing original, but effective. We’ve seen the idea of placing a giant figure on a ferris wheel before: The “Silver Surfer” figure on the London Eye ferris wheel promoted the movie.
We’ve also seen the idea of displaying a giant figure of a famous goalkeeper before: During the Soccer World Championship at the entrance of Munich, Germany. A giant figure of ‘Oliver Kahn’ crossed the motorway from side to side while halting a ball.
So why now another famous goalkeeper on a ferris wheel? Well, originality and creativity is actually not what matters, but effectiviness. The goal is not to win prices at Cannes, but to make sales go up, contrarily to what most classical advertising mamooths value today,
…and I don’t know about the Riesenrad in Viena, but the London Eye exposes your message to some 10.000 people a day!
by Pepe Subirana.
See how cleverly Italy improved its peoplescape throughout all its cities…
“Lo Struscio” is all the rage now in Italy and is nothing else than strolling in your best clothes up and down the main street -usually full of shopping windows- of your city. Everybody in Italy from 6:30pm to 7:30pm is enjoying Lo Struscio while occasionally stopping to chat with acquaintances one meets on your way.
Some do “Lo Struscio” by car, in which case you don’t have to wear your best clothes but your car must be really-really impressive: BMW, Alpha-romeo, …
by Pepe Subirana.
Jim Farley
The 3 Gurus of hybrid marketing, Jim Farley (Ford), Martin Cserba (101worldwide) and Simon Clift (Unilever) continue to leave their imprint throughout the marketing landscape. The latest jewel added to the crown, is the FORD DRIVE ONE viral and interactive campaign, featuring the technically perfect (!) website http://www.forddriveone.com as well as the viral campaign “friends to friends“.
Jim Farley has finally figured out how to get us to test-drive Fords, without having to get us first going to a Ford dealer: the “friends to friends” viral campaign consist in seeding Ford vehicles among some people for just one week, allowing them to turn the keys to a friend after the experience, just for one week too, and so on. Clever! …this Farley. First-class deadsushi.
by Pepe Subirana.
Tecktonik is a new dancing style -extremely brutal for your lungs- and is now all the rage among teens and twenty-somethings in France. Will the new trend catch fire and spread worldwide?
Enjoy!…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkGum1YYkGk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjv56k6hhCo
by Pepe Subirana.
The Austrian company Red Bull is daring a line extension of its very successful energy drink Red Bull. It’s called Red Bull Cola…
Hmm… a newcomer where many others have failed against the powerful brand equity of Coke and Pepsi. Is RedBull Cola really exploiting an untapped market opportunity (”blue ocean“) or rather just trying to dive into the already taken “red ocean” of Coke and Pepsi? Let’s see…
“STRONG & NATURAL”: RedBull Cola is an energy drink containing natural ingredients such as cola nut and coca leaf (natural), and more caffeine (strong) than Coke or Pepsi. Is that enough of a competitive advantage? Out of curiosity, I’ve immediately called 3 Red Bull consumers I know, and done a bit of informal research: “Strong & Natural” -RedBull Cola’s positioning- appears NOT to be enough for the consumer to perceive a real relative advantage above Coke, Pepsi or the classical Red Bull. Moreover, 20-somethings who drink Red Bull when going out at night in order to keep awake and fit longer, seem to deem this invention even “probably too sweet.”
I really wonder if RedBull Cola will be able to do the trick where other well-armed marketing monsters such as “Virgin Cola” failed. I’m thrilled!
by Pepe Subirana.
David Ogilvy named it the Story Appeal Element and used the technique profusely in its ads for Hathaway shirts: It consists in adding to the ad something mysterious that catches the attention of the public, thus bypassing the attentional filter. Ogilvy casted his Hathaway models with an eye patch. That arouses curiosity in the audience, which automatically reads the image’s text seeking for an answer to the strange and curious phenomenon.
Technical lingo: Cognitive Dissonance. CD means that a new stimulus (an eye patch wear by a shirt model in an ad) doesn’t match the beliefs that are already stored in your mind (models should look pretty, an eye patch on a model is most awkward) and then you feel “dissonance“, a mild state or feeling of stress and mental alert. The eye patch made you switch from pre-attention (just sensing the ad) to focal attention (paying attention to it with interest) because of cognitive dissonance (or Story Appeal as Ogilvy would call it).
Zurich insurance is using cognitive dissonance in its tagline “Because Change Happenz” by ending the word “happens” with a “z.” That catches attention as it doesn’t match your prior cognitions that “happens” should end with an “s.”
The Music Radio Station SWR1 in Germany also launched a series of billboards where the names of famous groups and singers it plays were misspelled in order to generate cognitive dissonance and thus bypass our attentional filter. That’s “story appeal”!
Finally, cognitive dissonance is not only a way to catch attention but also the basic idea behind the book “Positioning” by Al Ries, the Sage of Marketing. Says Ries: Tailor your message to what’s already in the prospects mind… if you don’t do that he’ll probably reject it. That is: Don’t claim “Avis is #1 in rent-a-car” because we know that Herz is, and we’ll most likely ignore your marketing message altogether. Instead, admit a negative, as Avis did: “Avis is only #2“, this message connects with the prospects mind as true and consistent with our stored beliefs (”Herz is #1″) thus generating no dissonance and besides, it builds credibility because you’re admitting something negative about your product (”being only #2″). After you’ve admitted a negative, armed with credibility, you shoot us with your best USP about why it’s actually better for us to go with the #2 instead of with Herz.
by Pepe Subirana.
Why are the gorgeous iPhone and the MacBook not so succesful as these products deserve? The iPhone must carve market out of Nokia, and the MacBook out of Windows. Why are we weary to switch? Let’s review what makes a new product successful:
- Source of Satisfaction: The new product will be more successful if it is perceived as a source of satisfaction for a need. So you emphasize the benefit the product delivers. If the consumer tries it and is satisfied after purchase too, you’ll win. But you have to convey beforehand the perception that your product fulfills a need. The iPhone is essentially a cell phone with internet and mp3-player… as most Nokias are today too.
- Competitive Advantage: your product has an additional benefit -that only it has- relative to the competitor products. I.e. Yours is a superior product. The iPhone is superior in the user interface: it’s fun to use it, you control it with your fingers, no keyboard or pen. The MacBook is superior in design, and its operating system, the Mac Os X, in security and “fun-of-use”.
- Compatibility: your product doesn’t demand on consumers to change the way they live or want to live.It is consistent with their current or desired lifestyles (and values). That’s where iPhone and MacBook fail to succeed as your next product. In a century when “Don’t make me Think” is our favorite heuristic, we might perceive too much effort in learning to master the iPhone interface or the Mac Os X subleties, while we already have grasped regular cell phones and the windows operating system. Apple demands an effort: for us to adapt and learn. Is it expecting too much? Also, your old windows software won’t run on Mac: that’s a compatibility problem too. On the other side users of the iPod Touch might as well be more prone to advance to an iPhone: They have already learnt all the nitty-gritty.
- Ease of Use: When evaluating a new product, one assessment that consumers make is how complex or difficult it will be to use. As I said, with iPhone and Mac Os X you have to make an effort to adapt and learn a new system.
- Visibility: Making your product highly conspicuous, stimulates WoM and Modeling. It also adds up to overcome the Network Threshold of early adopters and later the majority (network threshold = minimum amount of people whom a consumer must already have seen owning the product in order for him to decide to do the same) . Also, consumers must know about your product before thinking about buying it. The more visible a new product is to consumers, the more rapidly will diffuse.
- Trialability (against Perceived Risk): You allow consumers to try your product without commitment. As in test drives. Trialability reduces perceived risk.
by Pepe Subirana.
TOP DEADSUSHI AGENCIES:
If you need help, here’s a Short List of finest DEADSUSHI-Marketing Firms and the leader behind it, in no special relevance order…
by Pepe Subirana.
In today’s Wall Street Journal Europe (03.13.08, p. 12) the prodigious Simon Clift, chief marketing officer of Unilever (Dove, Axe, Lynx…), told the world about the truths affecting 20th-Century advertising. In a nutsell:
- Marketing has probably changed more in the last five years than it did in the previous thirty.
- Many consumers are switching off -either mentally of physically- from the ads they do see.
- In a world where, according to Forrester Research, the coveted 18- to 26-year-olds spend more time online than watching television, the 30-second TV slot is certainly no longer the king.
- Word of mouth is increasingly influential: 90% of consumers regularly or occasionally give or seek advice from others about products or services.
- Consumers say word-of-mouth advice is twice as important to their decision making as advertising or editorial content.
- Dove’s “Evolution” viral film reached more than 21 million viewers in the U.S. alone, and spread globally within a matter of hours.
- There’s never been a more interesting time to be a marketer.
Right Mr. Clift: While the once sexy and tasty SUSHI (classical mass marketing) is not as dead as Elvis, it’s also no longer the king. Long live HYBRID Marketing!
by Pepe Subirana.
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