Hit & Miss

With so much focus on social media, TV has all but gotten off the hook for its ability to engage. Truth is, advertising is advertising - digital, mobile, social, or good old fashioned print and TV - it's all the same. It's all intended to get people (ideally, its target) to like, think about and buy a particular product.

Before the product or brand message can be effectively delivered, the ad must first get people to stop, listen, and then ideally, engage in some way.

Conversation-worthy TV ads have become fewer and further between. Some of this, I believe, is due to marketers' evolution in "objective" for TV and increasing reliance upon "new media" to do the engaging.

This new spot for ePrint by HP printers misses on one very important level, but it does well in two areas: it captures attention and is likely to get remembered / talked about.

Take a look:

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A baby weaving through traffic in a runaway wheelie cart, ultimately showing up as a beautiful print from HP's new printer, delivers just the right amount of shock factor without overstepping its boundaries. So that's the win.

But here's the miss - I saw this spot 3 times before any more registered other than cute baby + capable printer. What I got the 4th time was the super important part about the direct email-to-printer capability. This new printer makes it possible to snap a pic with a smartphone and send it directly to print on your HP printer.

Suffice it to say frequency will be this spot's friend, otherwise I fear most people will miss the RTB entirely and never understand why they need to run out and replace their old printer with this one.

By the way, do people still BUY printers? But, that's another story..

In this case, the buried RTB miss outweighs the good stuff referenced earlier, so I have to call it OFF STRATEGY.

Get talked about without ruining your reputation.

When I first saw this, I figured they had to be joking.

(check it out in all it's glory here: www.charmin.com/en_US/enjoy-the-go/index.php)

But alas, Charmin's 'Enjoy the Go' Contest is a legitimate attempt to convert non-Charmin users on the basis that using Charmin will make the bathroom experience one to cherish. The implication being Charmin users are motivated to visit the bathroom simply because the toilet paper feels that good.

Putting context aside, because hey Charmin is toilet paper after all, let's focus strictly on the ludicrous proposition that toilet paper - soft, silky, beautifully designed or otherwise - has the ability to make people want to go to the bathroom.

I can't believe I'm writing about this.

I can't believe Charmin is promoting this.

And I can't believe someone with a marketing degree, the power to green light this, and a forecast to make is convinced there's anything believable about this proposition.

There is no RTB.

The only point I want to make with this one is about the insight - one that clearly did not come from a consumer. So, what's the upside? You get a bunch of juvenile videos from people who think bathroom humor is funny enough to spend 2 minutes filming themselves talking about it?

If the goal is to start a conversation about your brand, to what length should you be willing to go?

Naturally occurring conversation about ones' brand is a great thing - but for that conversation to translate to real value, it needs to become more than the butt of a joke - ideally, it's a conversation indirectly guided or influenced on some level by a real marketing strategy so the dialogue that evolves supports what you want people to remember about your brand.

This is a classic case of social media abuse and other decisions gone bad.

Do I even need to say it? OFF STRATEGY.

Men, beer, women and branding.

Most advertising that attempts to sell beer to men is funny in a sophomoric way. Typically the formula involves a couch or bar, a group of friends and an attempt to impress some scantily clad hot chicks.

That approach wouldn't be quite right for Stella Artois, but the fact remains men love beer the way they love women. Yes, it really is that simple.

Relying on generic "insight" (a super obvious one here) isn't necessarily bad - it's just a risky proposition, which mandates even greater attention be given to things like tone and manner.

Tone and manner extend well beyond vague decisions such as funny vs. serious to every nuance from casting to music to wardrobe to font to lighting to......

The point is, it's easier said than done to produce a brand equity spot that not only makes a unique, brand appropriate statement yet still is capable of resonating with its target. Because, yes, men love beer the way they love women. It really is that simple.

I think this spot from Mother does a stella job. Check it out:

Diving deep in shallow water.

Let's get back to Domino's, shall we?

Their latest spot begins inside a focus group, presumably a real group, that also ends up being the site of a real dairy farm - a farm whose cows produce the milk that makes the cheese that ends up on their pizza.

Catch all that?

Here's a look:


If you haven't been following my blog, do a search on Domino's and you'll see I've had plenty of good things to say about Domino's rebranding effort. More recently, however, they took a sharp left turn. The latest spot demonstrates more scattered thinking and isn't likely to do them much good.

First, I'm curious when this focus group took place. Curious because the respondent remarks about the cheese, stating she doesn't believe it's "real cheese." With all the money they've thrown at this campaign, one can only hope that by now she doesn't still feel the same.

My larger issue is this: the fundamental issue (I thought) was that people didn't think Domino's pizza TASTES good. The brilliance reflected in the earliest batch of spots was just that - the focus on TASTE.

Domino's CEO came out and revealed the alleged focus group learning; he committed to fixing the TASTE problem. He told us his culinary team reengineered the recipes. He enticed people to give Domino's pizza another try, promising we'd all TASTE the difference and love it.

More recently, they've gotten into ameteur photography contests and other antics that seemed to detract from the underlying taste conversation, and now gone a step further, talking about cows.

Do I think there's something to be gained by showing the origin of ingredients? Perhaps, but not for a fast food pizza brand, at least, not yet.

There's some serious strategy muddling at work here. What food tastes like and where its ingredients are sourced are two different things. Yes, they can overlap, but people who appreciate this type of nuance aren't eating Domino's pizza and if they are, they're throwing caution to the wind.

My message to Domino's is this - find those strategic guardrails and please get back on track. Explore some new topping combinations. Find some more pizza holdouts and prove to America you can win them over with better recipes.

The water is getting deep; it's time to get back to the shallow end.

OFF STRATEGY.

The art of painfully relevant analogy

Last we heard from Jet Blue they were keeping deliberately mum on the antics of rogue airline attendant Steve.

This time, a new campaign from Mullen paints a picture of their competitive advantage that's so clear, it's painfully provocative.

Take a look:



While "Happy Jetting" was warm and fuzzy, it never quite got to the point. To be fair, it worked wonders for the brand, helping elevate Jet Blue from a little known start up to a major player with "cool" factor the equivalent of iPod. For that, it must be commended.

But times have changed and it's time for a natural sort of evolution.

Fundamentally, "jetting" is all the fun and special things you get that you don't get when you simply "fly". When you start talking about a whole bunch of things - even if you tie them all together with a glamorous name like "jetting" - it can easily become difficult for customers to articulate your competitive advantage - or, what Jet Blue has that the others do not. "Jetting" is simply not the way consumers express "better."

By now, most of us have had the opportunity to fly Jet Blue. We know about the endless snack basket and the tv sets on every headrest. We know the flight attendants are nice....right? Or did that part of the "jetting" experience fall to the wayside when dear steve flipped the bird and popped the emergency exit slide?

Fact is, the personal tv sets have become common place and Steve is a perfect example of how we can't control flight attendants' personalities. But, the most legroom in coach is both relevant and defensible as a competitive advantage.

Niceness is debatable, but how far I can stretch my legs? Well, I either can or I can't.

Mullen pulls this together nicely with flawless casting (or is that really a hidden camera?) and humorous execution. The insight is sharp and the execution is dead ON STRATEGY.

Microsoft opens Pandora's box (again)

New spots out from Microsoft are both insightful and flawlessly executed.

The insight is rich, the delivery succinct and the message quick to resonate. These easily pass the "it should only take a few words to tell a story" test.

Here's one of two:



This is a bold, risky, and presumably carefully calculated, move by Microsoft. So, does that make their new product positioning and subsequent ad campaign a good idea or a bad idea?

What's for certain is that Apple has a hold on the smartphone market, having both first mover and innovator / status advantages. Blackberry and Droid, plus the handful of small players, continue to give it their best go, with promises to offer similar functionality with some other form of advantage - like better coverage or a keyboard that makes it easier to type, etc. Unfortunately for those guys, nothing comes close to matching the breadth of app options or non-business interface ease of iPhone. (Beyond that, I can't say much more in defence of the iPhone since I'm still a loyal blackberry user, and consequently not an app user)

Microsoft could have chosen to play it like Droid and simply introduce another app-friendly, cool looking phone. It would then have been forced to compete on price, app interface, usability, coverage with exclusive service provider, sheer new-news, or cool / slick looking factor, none of which are really sustainable competitive advantages, so it probably would have been destined to failure from the start.

Instead, they decided to do something else - expose the very phenomenon that iPhone created and revolt against it, exposing app obsession and promising an interface that offers the best of both worlds. That is, all the live feeds and updates one desires, without the obsessive button punching and tinkering that go hand in hand with using apps.

I think the 'zig when they zag' approach is smart, but then again, let's not forget what happened when they tried the same strategy with KIN, albeit a tween-targeted product, but one I personally thought would be at least a niche success.

The question is whether the Windows 7 smartphone is truly capable of transforming the behavior it promises.

The advertising has laid a fine foundation. It claims life altering potential.

The question is whether consumers want - or are really ready for - their lives to be changed. The heads-down-app-obsession is absolutely a real behavioral observation. It's annoying, for sure, but do people want to stop doing it OR just stop seeing it?

Is it simply annoying to watch? Or only annoying when you find yourself on the other side of the table attempting a conversation with someone who is doing it? What about when it's you doing the app'ing?

What if the evolution of consumer behavior has fundamentally created a more curious, introverted society? A culture obsessed and happily engaged with its tech toys and private world? A people with common desire to get lost rather than pay attention to the boring, mundane company we're forced to keep on a daily basis?

Could it be that talking smiley face or crazy bird game is simply.........more interesting than what our friend / boss / spouse / colleague / etc has to say?

Then what?

I think given the paths available to choose, Microsoft took the right one so I'm calling this ON STRATEGY, but the jury is still out on whether the phone is capable of actually changing behavior.

Strategy gets death by execution.

Today's post offers a perfect example of a promising strategy gone horrible wrong.

The wrong turn here is likely the result of a runaway creative team or a client who refused to shell out the cash to get a quick consumer gut check - or both.

Here it is - a new spot for VW Jetta:



The tagline is smart, and I presume plucked directly from the strategy. All that would have been needed to go right with this would have been a clear articulation of that tagline, which by the way, it nearly delivers until the end where it simply crashes and burns.

So, the folks at VW made a great automobile - with all kinds of bells and whistles, capable of passing all sorts of safety tests; it drives fast, handles well, etc, etc. Great. Literally, great.

Then they priced it just over $15k. That's a price point hard to find, let alone for a vehicle we just determined to be great.

Things are looking good so far.

So, why would the people who built the car fall over, crying at the end when the price is revealed? If you follow the logic, the only way one can interpret that is that these are greedy scumbags who want to take more money from people and put it in their own pockets.

Does that sound like the sort of company you would want to buy a car from? Better yet, what justice does it do the strategy? Forget logic, how does it advance the story being told?

The takeaway should be "The new VW Jetta is a great car for the price of a good car". Instead, it's a great car for the price of good car, made by people who aren't happy about it, in fact they're downright beside themselves and if you choose to buy one of their cars, you'll be stuck in a thankless marriage with a car company who won't be willing to shell out a cent to help you along the way, so let's hope those brakes work."

Sadly, this is a case of good strategy dismantled by bad execution. And since the the consumer never sees the strategy, all the intelligence is virtually undone.

For VW's case, let's hope no one sees the commercial and all they see is the price sticker on the car.

OFF STRATEGY.

What's your (brand) situation?

Today's post is not about advertising, but it is about a brand done right.

I'm sad to say the brand to which I refer is Jersey Shore's own "The Situation". I say "sad" because it's not a big, blue-chip marketer with deep pockets and a team of freshly minted ivy league b-schoolers behind it, navigating the choppy waters that are marketing strategy.


Instead, this brand is a guy who is arguably an egomaniac getting more free press and publicity than his acting ability deserves.

That's what makes this an interesting lesson in brand strategy.

A recent Miami ad school grad named Branden Kramer made up these Situation shirts and had his buddies model them as a goof (so he claims..) They are, if nothing else, a testament to The Situation as a brand.

For everything The Situation is not, including a guy most of us want to like, he is incredibly single minded when it concerns his own brand strategy. The Situation is a guy with 6 pack abs. Whether the camera catches him on Jersey Shore, hamming for the paparazzi or congratulating himself in TMZ interviews for Dancing with the stars, his behavior is consistent and predictable. He lifts his shirt and points to his rock hard abs.

The Situation doesn't talk much about his hair, his acting, his dance skills, his athletic ability, his family, future goals or anything else. He is a guy with a 6 pack. And he wants to be THE guy with THE 6 pack.

So, that brings us to the important part.

What is your brand's Situation? Is it equally single minded? Different from anything else? Can your target articulate (your positioning) without skipping a beat? Does your situation translate visually? If you saw it unclothed, without its logo, would you know it?

The above applies to whatever brands we support as marketers, as well as our own personal brands. Think about it.

There's one thing the situation is and that is ON STRATEGY.

A whole lot of song & dance

Virgin just launched a new :90 spot that sports a catchy tune, some sexy dance moves and not a whole lot more. Except, of course, if you count the tag line - "your airline either has it or it hasn't."

Have a look:



Virgin may be a cool airline, but this spot does nothing to reinforce the RTB or help convince those not already in the know.

Plus, "cool" is a nice to have, but airfare is too expensive to sell itself on cool factor. Unless the company's paying, that is.

First, let's address what an airline can "have" or "not have"? I'm no expert in this category, but I am a frequent enough traveler that I'd be willing to bet money that people choose an airline based on two things - first, are there flights available to and from the place I need to go from and get to and second, price. The only time most people make a conscious "decision" between two airlines is when more than one is able to equally satisfy those two requirements.

When I find myself in the aforementioned situation, I think about my experience on the two or three airlines that make the short list. My consideration process lasts about 60 seconds. I think first about whether I've had any horrendous experiences - cancellations, endless re-routing, hours on tarmac, rude customer service people, etc. Then I think about the comfort of the seat - how large, how much leg room. Then I consider the snack service - yup, no kidding - that $0.25 investment goes a long way. Airlines that don't even offer peanuts are far less appealing than others that roll out the snack tray and let you triple dip. Free headphones. Small individual bottles of water vs. the dreadful portioning system or worse yet, the water pitcher.

By the way, even if I'm NOT paying, I still go through the same process - I just skip the price comparison part.

The morale of the story is this: logistical things being equal, what separates one airline from another comes down to simple perks and little luxuries.

So, Virgin might be close when it suggests some airlines "have it" and others don't, but they seem to miss the "it" that matters.

Beautiful flight attendants and sexy stilettos won't quench my thirst or ease those nagging hunger pangs like a bag of Blue Terra chips, some almond biscotti and a liberal policy on handing out those cute little bottled waters that fit in my purse.

I'm left with no choice but to call all 90 seconds of this OFF STRATEGY.