Never ever give up

'Just when you think some businesses are dying — or worse, turning into zombies — they come roaring back. In this infographic, we take a look at Apple, LEGO, Ford and Old Spice, brands that seemed like they were toast, but thanks to various brilliant maneuvers, found their way back to profitability.'


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Naming and shaming bad parking in Russia

Advertising at its best. Here is a creative campaign used by a Russian online newspaper, The Village, encouraging people to take a photo of illegally parked vehicles and post these online, to name and shame. The aim is to change cultural perspective around the illegal parking and make it socially unacceptable. All the while getting people to emotionally connect and engage with The Village brand. Sharp.

 

People Are So Outraged At Coca-Cola's Holiday Cans That It's Abandoning Them After Just One Month

Is it just me, or this is really that funny?? (and textbook material on ‘brand building, what not to do’)

Coke released this:

And got this:
picture source

I can almost see ‘the confused person’, opening the can, taking a much considered first sip, savouring it, savouring it, and finally concluding that ‘this stuff definitely doesn’t taste the same’…oh dear! Coke, bring back your signature brand colour.

Bring it back fast. And so they are doing exactly that after a month of the failed, silver polar bear packaging. Milk is white and coke is red (on the outside at least). And no more funny business please.

This is a brand we know and trust.

Yes. In (red) Coke we trust.

People Are So Outraged At Coca-Cola's Holiday Cans That It's Abandoning Them After Just One Month

Driven to Distraction (30 sec TVC)

One of the smoothest cross promotion examples I have recently seen. Vic Gundotra (previously from Microsoft, but since 2007) from Google (note nice big logo in the background) praising Mercedes S Class and coining the phrase ‘magical software’… Nicely done.

Commoditisation of online advertising

Digital advertising is big business. In Australia it reached $2.2bn last year and is forecast to be the largest in terms of ad spend by 2014 reaching as high as $3.4bn (according to neo@Ogilvy). It’s equally a big industry elsewhere in the World, in the US for example, digital advertising generated $7.3bn in Q1 of ‘11, representing a 23% YOY increase. And it’s expected to grow still.

Much of this growth is predicted to come from video and mobile. And because these are still relatively new platforms in the digital mix, publisher will have an opportunity to correct some of the catastrophic pricing mistakes of the past.

Anyone working in the industry knows that from the beginning, online advertising had fixed CPM (cost per thousand) rates, based on showing a particular ad unit a 1000 times. However, while all audience metrics (time spent online, unique visitors, page views, etc.) exponentially grew over the last ~10 years, ad dollars failed to follow, creating a huge discrepancy between supply and demand. To make at least some money of the millions and billions page impressions, publishers started ‘flogging’ their unsold inventory via ad networks, achieving on average less than a dollar for a thousand page views.

But as time went by, supply continued to grow and advertisers continued to press for more by paying less. Soon publishers yielded under the pressure and started offering CPC (cost per click) or a CPA (cost per acquisition) models, receiving revenue only, when the advertising banners were clicked upon. This was great for advertisers, as it enabled measuring every dollar spent online and reduced their risk to almost none. At the same time it also created a perception that online media is of little value unless it generates user action (click or acquisition). Awareness, Interest, Desire to purchase (first 3 letters of the AIDA acronym that describes the traditional purchase funnel, that ends in Acquisition, standing for the 4th letter), became unnecessary accessories of a digital campaign, as did brand awareness and recall.

Digital is soon to be commoditised further still, through online ad exchanges, which enable real time buying and selling of online inventory, based on price alone.

So, why are video and mobile well placed to break the cycle of performance driven buys in Australia? Mobile is set to overtake online media (debated, but seems completely conceivable), and video is set to see a boost from the current 1bn streams per month, once the new fibre optic cable is rolled out in the not so distant future.

Publishers have a real opportunity to position these platforms in a way that will see the premium ad dollars migrate to these channels. The audience is consuming it, its effectiveness has been proven, the only thing left is to determine and stick to pricing based on true value.
(Matt Berriman: how to devalue one of your own key propositions, Australian, page 27.)

Happy Festive Season!

Different cultures, different traditions. I have Christmas Carols to look forward to, but this looks like great fun, too and an innocent but very positive profile raising for Judaism.
Magen Boys Entertainment Presents Hip Hop Chanukah

GAP returns to old logo

Not sure which of the two was bigger news – Gap releasing a new logo; or Gap reverting to their old logo after only 4 days! Not surprised by the latter, and just like many others (see reaction on GAP’s Facebook page below), I applaud it. Only puzzled by who really signed off on a logo so different to what GAP stands for. Which is simple yet casually elegant…

GAP & new logos

You may have heard that GAP launched a new logo recently. On my weekly group meeting at work earlier this week, this was one of the pieces of market intel I brought with me. I’m not sure whether the team or I was more surprised, them about the fact and me that it stirred some interest.

Admittedly, changing the company logo is a big deal, especially when its such an iconic one. See for yourself here (thanks to Michael Wade for posting it: Execupundit.com: New Logos) on what a difference a new logo can mean!

When it comes to Gap, I think their ‘old’ one was just so much more elegant, yet simple. What do you think of the new Gap logo?

Ambush marketing at the World Cup

36 young women stripped down to bright orange mini dresses to promote the Dutch Bavaria Brewery during the Netherlands/Denmark match. They were swiftly escorted out and Fifa is looking into how to take legal action.

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When everyone wants a piece of the action…

And either there is just not enough to go around, or the price doesn’t stack up for some. But the media crowd is not a ‘giver-upper’. No, they put their creative minds together and find a way: ambush marketing.

You may have heard of the latest stunt by Bavaria Brewery at the Football World Cup.  Watch it here.

On one side there is Fifa, who are ardently trying to protect the advertising rights of the event – rightly so, sponsors fork out a fortune to be part of it (that is part of one of the largest corporate advertising spectacular with the sport element occasionally fading into the background)…

While on the other side there is the challenger brand, Bavaria Brewery, Budweiser’s competitor, who are pulling this stunt the second time around. Yes, they amused us in 2006 with the ‘orange lederhosen’… And of course, they are getting a huge amount of publicity for a fraction of the official sponsorship. But can you really, honestly say that you loath their efforts (bar the Budweiser camp of course)? I think they are rather cool…

Photo credit: www.guardian.co.uk
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YouTube - NIKE FOOTBALL WRITE THE FUTURE - FULL LENGTH VERSION

Addressing investors earlier this month, Nike VP-Brand and Category Management Trevor Edwards declared that the marketer's TV creative for June's World Cup was "among the best we've ever done," no small statement from a company renowned as a master of the form. (AdAge)

The ad shows the soccer’s ripple effect globally. Advertising at its best. Brilliant work Nike!

YouTube - NIKE FOOTBALL WRITE THE FUTURE - FULL LENGTH VERSION

Toyota’s mistakes and the real lesson

Until recently, Toyota was the glorious example of how to build a brand. The company redefined success while it learned, perfected its product and slowly but steadily grew share against the US car manufacturing giants since their first and humble launch of the not so successful Toyopet in the US in 1958. Since than Toyota has become one of the largest and most successful car manufacturer with a shiny and spotless reputation, quality and brand.

And then disaster struck, as one faulty car after the other hit the media headlines. They now face an unprecedented recall of millions of cars.
Will this be the end of Toyota? Certainly not. The brand is still upheld by decades’ worth of strong reputation. Damage has been caused of course, but what’s the real lesson?

Quality over quantity – in the race to the top Toyota has started compromising and cutting corners. Now they are paying the price.
Have a crisis plan – can you believe that a car giant like Toyota, a global company didn’t have one? Well they didn’t. People want the company take responsibility and show remorse.
Act on your crisis plan – when things go wrong, take control of the problem and offer a solution.
Face up to it – we all make mistakes. Admit to it, fix what you can and don’t make the same mistake again. Toyota was in denial for not days or weeks, but months and even years.

Toyota failed on all of these accounts and more.
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Display media & the magic 22% lift in ROI

I just watched Young-Bean Song’s, senior director at Microsoft Advertising Institute, OMMA keynote speech – highly recommended for all marketing and advertising professionals who are either side of the display media field – selling or buying.

A few interesting notes I took down while listening:

- Marketers have increasingly been concentrating on the end bit of the purchase funnel: where the ‘ROI’ happens. However, there is a whole lot of value before this point; and the next 2-3 years will be about revealing this value that’s already there.

- According to a research conducted by the Atlas Institute, the median number of touchpoints before the purchase is almost 14. Which means that there are some which happen after 1 or 2, but some visitors need twice as much touchpoints, such as 28 or even more, before the actual purchase takes place.

- So there are various touchpoints before the conversion. People are
Multiple advertising messages reach people before they make up their mind and decide to purchase. Yet affiliate and search marketing gets rewarded most.

- There is a ‘magic number’ to assist in this argument. According to the above mentioned research by the Atlas Institute, the overall lift in conversion rates when an advertising message reaches consumers higher up in the funnel, and not only at the end is 22%.

But watch it for yourself, as no one conveys this message quite as well as Young-Bean himself: 

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The last click vs. the Long Road to Conversion

Continuing my previous post on the ‘last click’ and the influencing factors of preceding events… As consumers are using digital media (currently in the US accounting for a third of all their media consumption) and come in contact with brands – are we to count the last click, and discount all those ‘ad events’ that came previously? Not exactly. The Atlas Institute, in their recent research, The Long Road to Conversion, looked at the influencing factors preceding the conversion.

The research was based on some 69 million conversion records gathered from thousands of sites. For the purposes of the research 90 days of history was recorded. After the first day, the median total ad events were 2.2 (over 2 ads were served to an individual within 24 hours before they converted). However, the real surprise is, that this number went up to as high as 18.5 median total ad events during the entire 90 day window. What this means is that consumers are in fact reached months before they actually make the purchase.

Marketers know that for the purchase to happen, first they need to gain consumers’ attention, their interest and build a desire. The widely used marketing model describing these stages leading up to the purchase is the AIDA Purchase Funnel (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action). 

The Atlas Institute, based on their research, added time to the standard AIDA funnel – chart below – which allowed mapping the influencing factors. This funnel demonstrates where different conversion categories appear on the 90 day timeline. Search is at the very bottom, which means that this category reaches consumers within 24 hours before they buy. Strongly suggesting that at this stage many people have already made up their mind about the purchase and using Search as a navigational tool - attributing the ‘last click’ to this category. It takes over a week before the first publisher appears, but most are 2 weeks or further up on the funnel.

 
What this proves is that the relationship between brand / advertising message and the consumers is certainly not a ‘one night stand’ (Avinash Kaushnik), but can be a rather long road with a number of influencing factors before the actual purchase happens.

What this means for display advertisers is that they need to consider the entire funnel. To achieve an integrated marketing campaign there has to be a strong message at the top of the funnel, the middle and also the bottom. .

Digital media: does the ‘last click’ deserve all the credit?

Audience measurement metrics are integral to media planning and buying (as previously mentioned here). With regards to digital, the industry at first counted page views and people, then started counting clicks, progressing on to click through rates (CTR). The latest buzz is around engagement (more on this later) in a continuous quest to provide more detailed data for what is often coined ‘the most measurable media’.

What this means is, that advertisers are inundated with data, the sheer volume of which ironically often becomes a hindrance in making sense of it all. Add to this all the different ways audiences consume digital – through social media, video, display, search, rich media, the list goes on – and ‘the most measurable media’ quickly becomes a non-measurable one. At least by traditional digital metrics, that of click-throughs.

However, as consumers are spending more time online (currently, in the US, around a third of their media consumption), marketers need to understand what influences click-throughs and conversion, to determine what works and what doesn’t. ‘It turns out that most Online Marketers tend to think of life, online at least, to be all about “one night stands”. Come. Wallet out. Convert.’ (Avinash Kaushik, Jan 2009, Author of Web Analytics An Hour a Day, source: The Long Road to Conversion)
Does that mean that if a well known brand decided to pull all their advertising bar Search, from tomorrow onwards, their sales would continue to perform well? Of course not – at least not on the long run. Branding needs to be taken care of. However, too many marketers exclude or underutilise online when it comes to their branding campaigns. But when, as mentioned above, around a third of media consumption happens online, I ask why?

And all those times that consumers are online and come in contact with brands – are we to count the last click, and discount all those ‘ad events’ that came previously? Not exactly. The Atlas Institute has the answer – more on that tomorrow. .

Branding – Dubai & Tiger Woods

‘Dubai is basically […] the biggest, greatest and newest of everything’ said Tiger Woods earlier this year when he was asked about his choice to support the opening of a golf course in Dubai, named after him – as quoted in the Guardian’s June article by L. Donegan.
Reading this now, only a few months on, this comment seems almost surreal.
According to original plans, the golf course should have opened this (Northern) Autumn, but as you may know, two things happened since June 2009, when the comment was made. Both brands involved irrevocable damages: Brand Tiger Woods and Brand Dubai.
Dubai is being rescued (for the third time) by its rich and increasingly reluctant neighbour, the conservative Abu Dhabi, while no apology can save Tiger Wood’s image and him being dropped by sponsors – first of which is Gillette.
The internet offers millions of definitions on what a ‘brand’ is, but here is a good one from Seth Godin. Building it takes years and years of consistent messaging to achieve credibility and trust. But all that hard work can be destroyed in no time.
 
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