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July 28 2010
A recent study reveals that
Twitter is turning out to be not exactly the branding panacea marketers thought
it would be. Here’s
the story, from Wired:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Twitter users, it seems, are no more likely to go parroting advertising messages to their friends as anyone else. And, when they do discuss branded products and services, the conversation, such as it is, is seldom directed at the brand itself. Which reduces the whole brand dialog scenario to wishful thinking.
Key snip:
“Twitter is primarily for people, not corporations,” reads the first line of the study’s executive summary. “Those of us in the marketing industry tend to see Twitter as a marketing or professional networking tool, but it’s important to remember that it is a consumer-dominated medium.”But when you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Marketers can’t help viewing Twitter as a massive opportunity to market.
In social media, whether you are fanned or followed is less important than
whether you actively eavesdrop to integrate genuine feedback into everything
from product development to marketing and advertising. I think an awful lot of
marketers – and brands – have their eyes on the wrong ball.
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July 27 2010
Target is finding itself in hot water with its customers after it donated money to
support a political candidate in its home state of Minnesota. Here’s
the story, from the Associated Press via CBS News:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Ayup. That recent Supreme Court ruling allowing the corporate backing of political campaigns is playing out exactly as I predicted six months ago, back on January 22 2010. Target donated, not directly to the candidate, but to a supposedly non-partisan interest group made up of businesses based in the state. That group endorsed a particular candidate for governor, and will be running ads on his behalf. On the face of it, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to protect one’s business interests with well-placed political contributions. Nothing wrong, unless one is in the business of selling, in which case one has just alienated a sizeable number of buyers holding opposing views.
The key, as yesterday, is the social aspect. With today’s increased transparency into financial operations, it’s all but impossible for a significant amount of donated funding to go unnoticed by one opposing interest group or other. The political tactics that worked in the days of industrial barons like Andrew Carnegie just don’t work any more. Customers are too connected with the brand, the corporation, and each other.
Supporting a candidate brings a whole new passel of problems, because a candidate is a package deal. Support Candidate A, and you’re automatically categorized as agreeing with that candidate on all the issues, and, furthermore, opposing Candidate B on all the issues. In today’s 140-character newsbreak world, nuance is all but impossible to achieve. Yes, brand communication is in part about creating dialog, but in most cases a dialog about political views is irrelevant. Potentially fascinating, but ultimately irrelevant.
Although a brand must stand for something, that something must transcend mere
politics.
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July 26 2010
The MGA-Mattel catfight over the ownership of Bratz dolls has been temporarily settled in favor of MGA,
and new Bratz dolls are heading for store shelves. Here’s the story, from the Associated
Press via MSNBC.com:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Thing is, what with the Spice Girls well into middle age and the whole glitterslut look on the wane, Bratz may find itself ill-positioned for even a retro resurgence. Have those MGA executives taken a look at elementary school playgrounds lately? I have a couple kids in one, and for the entire time it’s been all about a more wholesome brand of fun, Hannah Montana and Barbie and (among the younger set) Dora the Explorer. (With boys, it’s about campy grossness in either fun or educational modes: Captain Underpants and Stink and science-of-snot stuff.) Granted, it’s probably high time for a shift, but I doubt it’ll be toward the whole Bratz look and feel, even with the changes to the line. It’s just too recent to be fresh.
That said, I think the key to making a successful comeback is going to lie
with the social component, including personalized, interactive websites for each
character, online upgrades and upsells, mobile apps, and brand extension into
non-toy merchandise. Stuff that the Hannah Montana machine nailed.
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July 21 2010
Anheuser-Busch is happy with how its sponsorship of the 2010 World Cup helped its Budweiser brand beer
penetrate new markets as part of a global brand strategy. Here’s the story, from the Associated
Press via MSNBC.com:
Advertising copywriter blog link
I wonder how Coke marketing people feel about being Bud’s global stretch goal. Probably pretty good. Come to that, the story mentioned Coke as often as Budweiser.
The other thing I wonder, is how long it’ll be until the World Cup overtakes
the Super Bowl in advertising importance. After all, the World Cup is to the
global mass market what the Super Bowl is to the U.S. mass market, much more so
than, say, the Olympic Games. I think the 2014 World Cup in Brazil is going to
be a tipping point in ad prominence for global branding, if it doesn’t happen
before then. (Speaking of which, does anyone else think it strange that the logo
for the 2014 World Cup shows three hands in a ball shape – a graphical hand ball if ever there
was one? To
my eye, that logo would be perfect ... for volleyball.)
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July 20 2010
File this under Dumb Publicity Stunts: some businessmen sent a live donkey aloft in a parasail to publicize their private beach
in southern Russia. Here’s the story, from BBC News:
Advertising copywriter blog link
See, this is why businesses need independent counsel from an advertising agency or consultant. Then someone would have assumed the role of Responsible Adult and said, “This is wrong.” Instead, you have entrepreneurs with more ideas than sense, and no one or nothing holding them back.
The fact I find most disturbing is that people watched this helpless creature screaming in terror, and no one called the police. They just took pictures. Not nice.
I will add, though, that America did it first, albeit not for real. Remember
the episode of WKRP in Cincinnati in which management decides, as a
pre-Thanksgiving Day publicity stunt, to drop live turkeys from
a helicopter over a crowded shopping center? I think the last line of the show was
delivered by the late, great Gordon Jump (one of only three men to play the
lonely Maytag repairman): “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
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July 19 2010
Mass-market retailers, having apparently run out of new tricks to persuade consumers to open their wallets,
are turning to an old one: the holiday sale. In July. Here’s the story, from the Associated
Press, via MSNBC.com:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Few people are really buying for the holidays. Hot fashions, technologies, and trends change too fast to effectively do any Christmas shopping four or five months out. What retailers probably hope to achieve, is to add incremental sales to all those obligatory summer birthday present purchases. I predict the biggest product movers will be toys, accessories, and electronics.
As for cannibalizing back-to-school and other fall season sales, that can be minimized by managing the sale product mix.
No, the problem I see is twofold. First, how much will the discounting eat
into the profit margin? The key metric should be profitable sales, not just line
item sales or foot traffic. (The same thing is true online, by the way.) Second,
retailers in all market segments made a concerted effort to hold the line on
pricing during the 2009 holidays. Will that hard-won line be squandered by
pre-holiday discounting? Way to train your customers, guys.
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July 17 2010
Happy weekend! I was leafing through the Wall Street Journal and came across this article about
small businesses and a tax reporting requirement that may kick in come 2012:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Businesses have long been required to file a 1099-MISC for any vendor to whom they pay more than $600. The new wrinkle, designed to close loopholes that allow unscrupulous businesses to evade taxes by fudging expenses or income, is this: if a Federal Tax ID number can’t be obtained from the vendor, the business itself has to withhold taxes and send them on to the IRS.
As a taxpayer, I welcome this change. I do everything I can to make sure my business runs clean and that I pay my fair share (not a penny more, if I can help it, but not a penny less either). It always bothered me that some businesspeople partially freeload, often by taking off-the-books cash payments or having checks made out to separate entities – and unfortunately, the potential new rule does little to curb those tricks.
However, it might put a welcome damper on the practice of buying generic copy online from writers identified only by user names or pseudonyms. As a professional, full-time freelance writer, I can support that. Under the new rules, both sides could be held accountable: the buyer and the seller. But, if the seller accepts payment by credit card, that may provide another loophole.
On the seller-of-services side, though, the credit card option all but ensures timely payment processing. Vendors may no longer have to extend credit at zero percent for 90 days. Hey, payment cycles could actually get shorter, which could pump more money into the economy.
I just hope the paperwork side of it is sorted by the time 2012 rolls around,
otherwise tracking vendor payments could become a huge pain for a lot of owners
of small businesses. (But one more reason to work with someone like me, who has
a Federal Tax ID number and will happily fill out a W-9.)
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July 15 2010
I love ad jingles (or, as I call it, audio branding). Here’s a look back at some of the best, from Forbes via MSNBC.com:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Advertising jingles from the past were judged by a panel of chief marketing officers on the corporate side and top creative directors on the agency side. Their picks as the Top Ten along with the year of first use (from Forbes):
Now that you’ve read the list, at least one of those jingles is going to be in your head all day long. And that’s the kind of staying power that you don’t get by simply buying a current pop song. Of course, sheer reach and frequency had a lot to do with some of these jingles working. You’ll notice that most date from a time when media buying was a lot simpler, less fragmented and more consolidated. A slogan or jingle could enter the public consciousness en masse.
I’m going to add eleven (like a Top Ten, but one better) of my own favorites in no particular order, along with very approximate and possibly incorrect dates of first use:
That last one even had a viral element, triggering establishmentarian outrage at its wildly improper grammar. Here’s James Thurber lashing out at the tendency for advertising copywriters to play fast and loose with language. His rant, “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend Me Your Ear Muffs,” was originally published in The New Yorker, and I have it in a collection called Lanterns & Lances:
The Madison Avenue advertising men, the men in the gray-flannel minds, deliberately take advantage of all the slur and sloppiness, because when purists object, it simply serves to spread the news of a product advertised in lousy English. Incidentally, some months ago I offered to sell to a brewery – any brewery – the slogan “We still brew good like we used to could,” but for some odd reason I have had no takers.
July 13 2010
A U.S. federal appeals court ruled that the FCC violated the First Amendment when it
issued guidelines penalizing broadcasters for “fleeting
expletives.” Well that’s just really, really
f**king brilliant. Here’s the story,
from The Washington Post (DC):
Advertising copywriter blog link
How long until the first advertiser goes on the air with an “unscripted” live spot in which the on-air talent (preferably already a celebrity) lets loose with a “fleeting expletive” when something “unexpected” happens?
Imagine one of those TV chefs doing a spot for, say, their own branded cookware. You know, a 30-second how-to. Here’s how ya do this, here’s how ya do that, and now ya just add the wine to the pan (SFX: FOOMP! KABOOM!) *&%#!
You pay to run it once, live on the Super Bowl, and it runs forever after on YouTube and blooper shows.
Yeah, that concept is contrived enough that it wouldn’t pass muster. But you get the idea. And someone, somewhere, with the right client and the right product aimed at the right audience, will do better.
But it’ll have to happen quickly. The FCC may find its best protection in
more rules rather than less – the guidelines the court objected to
were both sweeping and simple.
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July 9 2010
An analysis of advertising complaints in Australia revealed that a third of them
were essentially trivial time-wasters for industry self-regulators. Here’s the story,
dated tomorrow because it already is there, from the Brisbane Times (Queensland, Australia):
Advertising copywriter blog link
Unfortunately, the sample size was tiny enough to throw doubt into any conclusion; just 25 complaints were evaluated, out of nearly 4,000 received annually. Also, the math doesn’t add up: if a single complaint triggers an investigation, and the bureau receives 60 complaints a month, that totals 720 complaints (and investigations) a year – not 3,795. Some information about the process seems to be either in error or missing, which introduces more doubt.
However, there’s no doubt that complaints related to advertising are on the rise, and will continue to rise. There are many contributing factors. Media proliferation exposes more non-targets to targeted messages. Media noise drives increasingly edgy creative as a way to stand out. Increasing cultural diversity – in audiences and other communities – means keeping up with a broader range of social rules.
On the consumer side, that same media proliferation and noise create an environment that all but promotes misunderstanding. And, increased connectivity and ease of anonymous communication makes it easier than ever to push a “flag” button or send a complaint.
Regulation isn’t the answer. Complaints about advertising creative are caused by
ignorance and intolerance on both sides. As advertisers and consumers
move to a more global vision of themselves, assimilating new cultural ideas, the
ignorance and intolerance will fade. It will take many years, but it will
happen. Regulation won’t make it happen any faster, because change by
diktat
fails to address the underlying issues of education and exposure.
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July 2 2010
A new usability study indicates that people read content faster in traditional book format than on e-reader
screens. Here’s the study findings, straight from lead researcher Dr. Jakob Nielsen, of the Nielsen-Norman Group (Silicon Valley, CA):
Advertising copywriter blog link
The study was tiny, with just 24 test subjects counted. Subjects were all avid readers, with literacy pre-testing to ensure that they read at a high school level or higher. The test reading media were a traditional paper book, a PC, a first-generation Apple iPad using the default iBook application, and an Amazon Kindle 2 e-reader. The testing involved reading a Hemingway short story, taking on average 17 minutes and 20 seconds to read, with comprehension tests given immediately after reading. Key snip, about the 17 minutes:
This is obviously less time than people might spend reading a novel or a college textbook, but it’s much longer than the abrupt reading that characterizes Web browsing. ... It’s also representative for many other formats of interest, such as whitepapers and reports.
The study found that the PC screen was universally loathed as a reading medium. And, readers on the the iPad and Kindle were 6-10% slower than readers reading old-fashioned books.
Those findings pretty much parallel my own experience reading the same novel online, in book form, and on my iPod Touch. When presenting a fair amount of content, especially when you want messages to roll out in a linear fashion (as in a brochure), paper trounces electronic media – at least where user usability and efficiency is concerned.
A major caveat is the miniscule sample size and test scope. For instance, the test checked immediate comprehension, but not retention, which is a whole other high-value asset in marketing communications. Finally, I wonder if a few years will produce a generational difference between younger people and older people – older, in this case, meaning those over, say, 25. (Ha!)
However, there are unique elements to reading linear content on an e-reader.
One I’ve discovered, to my delight, is the element of surprise. Since my eye can’t subconsciously bounce around
across two pages as it undoubtedly does when reading a book, I find a lot more surprises
in stories read on an e-reader. In a way, that aligns the reader
more-tightly with the writer, which is cool.
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June 29 2010
Sometimes, you have to spend money to make money. It’s true in marketing, and it
may be true in national economics as well. Here’s the story of Ireland, where seemingly prudent
spending cuts and tax increases made in response to an economic collapse have hamstrung the country’s recovery, from The New York Times via
MSNBC.com:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Perhaps our two most recent U.S. presidents and congresses got it right, or at least more right than the leaders of Ireland, Greece, and Spain. In a competitive global economy, that and Yankee ingenuity may be all the edge we need. (Hey, when Tesla Motors launched its IPO today, traders drove its stock price up 41%, and that’s on a day when the Dow dropped 268 points. What might the outcome have been if Tesla was based in Ireland or Spain? Ayup.)
American brand owners could be picking up the scent of opportunity among the
blood and turbulence still ahead. Of course, the downside remains: in a global
economy everyone’s connected.
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June 28 2010
Now that Ford Motor Company has firmed up its plan to kill off the Mercury automotive brand (Ad Blog May 28 2010), it’s looking
at ways to rebuild what’s left of Lincoln (Ad Blog May 11 2010). Here’s the story, from the Wall Street Journal:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Just 12 years ago, in 1998, Lincoln was the #1-selling luxury car in the U.S., generating as much as $2.5 billion a year. Today, its sales figures place it at #8 among upscale car brands. Although that’s still in the top ten, that’s far down the list for a non-niche brand. Lincoln is a brand without an image.
The thing is, sales – #1 or otherwise – may have contributed to the problem. Marketing people tend to focus on the effects of marketing and branding on sales, but rarely consider, let alone direct, the effect of sales on marketing and branding. That top-down approach ignores half of the marketing-sales feedback loop. If Lincoln is known today as the car that takes you to the prom or airport, it’s because a large volume of Lincolns were sold to limousine and rental fleets. Those fleet sales were pursued, a sales tactic that conflicted with the marketing strategy and yet went on with no adjustment to strategy or tactic.
It’s proof once again of what I’ve long maintained: sales is branding. In fact,
in many non-commodity categories, sales are the only reliable following and
leading indicators of branding because they are accountable, real-time, and,
most important, consumer-driven.
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June 22 2010
I thought this was funny. An online retailer sold a parody canned meat product for April Fool’s day
the description for which included the claim that it was “the new white meat,”
which of course drew a strongly worded letter from the National Pork Board. Here’s the story, from
the Associated Press via MSNBC.com:
Advertising copywriter blog link
There really was no other choice for the pork people, who have to defend their trademark (“Pork: The Other White Meat”). But a 12-page letter from the legal representatives? I think a single-page letter from the marketing side would have been sufficient to (a) determine that the product was a one-off and would not be carried as regular stock, (b) assert trademark priority, and (c) join the fun with a retailer which, after all, does also sell actual pork-based humor products like bacon gumballs.
The National Pork Board thought like a corporation instead of a marketer, and
the opportunity to be proactive in defending the brand while simultaneously
marketing the industry it represents vanished like chocolate-dipped bacon at the
Del Mar Fair.
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June 19 2010
The best out-of-the-box marketing concepts don’t seem like marketing concepts at all. Sponsorship of a jazz festival
has proven to hit the right target market with the right message in the right way for
CareFusion, a medical device manufacturer based
right here in sunny San Diego. Here’s the story, from my hometown San Diego Union-Tribune (CA):
Advertising copywriter blog link
Sponsorships like this are the original social media campaign, and can still resonate every bit as powerfully as the new media version. If anything, the compressed nature of a real-world event, spanning hours or days instead of an online social media campaign that unfurls over months or years, provides even tighter targeting and a more-focused message platform. Plus, the year-to-year link maintains a continual brand connection while allowing constant reinvention, enabling an elusive blend of consistency and freshness.
Notable: sponsorship of the jazz festivals takes essentially all the company’s annual marketing budget. Yet, the ROI appears to have been tremendous: global brand recognition, an almost instant boost in awareness, and access to the C-level executives that comprise the primary target market. Unfortunately, the article did not reveal sales figures, which would have helped validate the approach.
I like seeing examples of smart marketing. And I really like seeing it from
companies based in my neck of the woods. I have not done work for CareFusion.
And the way things look, anyway, it doesn’t need a copywriter; it needs more
sales staff to better leverage the one-on-one connections it reaps from its
sponsorships. Now that’s how you go directly from marketing to sales.
Cool!
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June 17 2010
AOL has sold social networking site Bebo, just two years after paying $850 million for it,
citing the investment required to keep it going. Here’s the story, such as it is, from BBC News:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Of course, the purchasing company thinks it’s getting the better part of the bargain, picking up an established social networking site for what seems to be pennies on the dollar. The open question, is whether it’s worth even those pennies.
Note, too, that the company buying Bebo is neither a media company nor a web company. It’s Criterion Capital, an investment company. Its managing partner says Bebo is “an attractive media platform.”
For what, I wonder.
See, platforms are the easy part. It’s content and
participation that are the tough things to get dialed in, assuming the plan
includes maintaining or building Bebo as an active social networking site. Thing
is, AOL wasn’t able to make it work. But an alternate plan might be to leverage
the platform to serve up advertising. Oh boy. Just what the world needs.
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June 16 2010
FIFA, the organization responsible for the World Cup, is serious about defending its
authorized sponsors against ambush marketers. Here’s the story of how 30 women got
ejected from Monday’s game, two Dutch women ended up in court, and one commentator
got fired, from BBC News:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Well, there are orange mini-dresses and there are orange mini-dresses. These specific dresses were provided by Bavaria, a Dutch beer brand, presumably with the intent of seating a group of matching women together. Identical dresses were part of a giveaway promotion earlier in the year. The brewery also arranged the seats (the bit that got the commentator in trouble, because he allegedly provided tickets from his allotment for his family and friends). Most of the women were locals who only looked Dutch, hired for the occasion, making it noteworthy that the two arrestees are identified as actually being Dutch (perhaps employees of Bavaria or its marketing agency?).
So, clearly, this was a calculated marketing event.
Still, orange? There was no logo visible, so the flap is all about the color orange. I saw the photo and immediately thought of the European mobile brand Orange, which is part of France Telecom. In fact, without the news stories identifying the ambush marketer, I’d never have known who was behind it.
The news coverage is part of the ambush marketing event, which means it’s
still going on.
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June 4 2010
Today I have a story somewhat related to yesterday’s story about advergames aimed at children.
The FTC says Kellogg’s falsely claimed that their products improved school
performance and enhanced immune systems in advertising aimed at parents. Here’s the story, from MSN Money:
Advertising copywriter blog link
With the Frosted Mini-Wheats campaign, Kellogg’s got in trouble because it followed (poorly) a popular rule in direct marketing. It tried to substantiate a specific claim with a specific result from a specific study. All of which should have lent credibility, and did, except that the result was fudged to the point of incredulity. I’m no math whiz, but a copywriter with a bit more education in basic statistics (don’t they require media planning courses any more?) would have questioned the validity of claiming a 20% improvement based on one outcome out of nine.
As to the Rice Krispies claim, that’s just sloppy copywriting. The copy should have made clear that the “better health” claim was connected to the ingredients, not the product itself.
It’s notable that the market has responded: Kellogg’s packaged goods product
sales have been on a downward slide. After all, nothing sells like the truth.
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June 3 2010
A recent UC Davis School of Medicine public health study reveals a link between
children’s advergames hosted on corporate sites
and unhealthy eating habits. Here’s the story, from UC Davis:
Advertising copywriter blog link
I am a parent of two young boys as well as an advertising copywriter and marketer. We set these things called limits on our kids’ commercial TV and computer time. And, after school and on weekends, that limit in our house is pretty close to zero. (Come to think of it, the last program the kids watched on broadcast television was the Rose Parade, and we watched KTLA which has, in addition to the A-Team of Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards, no commercial breaks.) Sometimes, the kids get to watch a movie on the weekend. As for computer time, unless they’re doing schoolwork, we require them to spend time with a typing program before playing a game or visiting one of a handful of Mom-and-Dad-approved sites.
I think basing the study on websites promoted on after-school TV may have skewed the results. Thanks to standardized testing and budget cuts, less and less actual instruction goes on in the classroom these days. Kids today have so much homework that there isn’t time for after-school TV, especially taking into account any extracurricular activities, socializing, or just time to play. I think children who watch after-school TV are children who aren’t completing their homework, which these days means they’re getting only a partial education. That lack of education translates into poor choices, in entertainment and in food.
These are kids, though, which is why parental involvement and setting limits are essential and can’t be outside the bounds of the study. Branded sites that attract kids (such as Lego.com, to name one with which I am all too familiar) are absolutely relentless in their commercial messaging. See, that’s the point. With rare exceptions, they’re not about providing free entertainment. And they’re certainly not about delivering nutritional information. They’re about delivering a marketing message directly to their users and consumers. That advergames do so should come as no surprise to anyone. Except, apparently, researchers.
Here are more Ad Blog entries related
to advertising and marketing aimed at children (some you have to scroll down to reach): December 7 2009, October 24 2009, July 8 2009,
December 17 2008, August 4 2008, July 30 2008, November 13 2007, October 30
2007, October 23 2007, October 18 2007, March 19 2007, February 28 2007, January 15 and 31 2007, December 19 2006,
November 14, 17 and 20 2006, October 2, 3 and 27 2006, June 11 and 12 2006, April 4 2006, January 20
2006, November 22 and 30 2005, October 20 2005,
June 27 2005, April 14 and 27 2005, March
16 17 and 24 2005, February 17 and 28 2005, December 22 2004, November 15
and 16 2004, June 5 and 7 2004, December 5 2003, November 13 and 21 2003, May 6 2003,
and April 16 2003.
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June 2 2010
Speaking (the other day) of automotive brands, here’s an article about one of
the most significant vehicles – and brands – of all time. Indeed, it may be one
of the few automobiles in history that can truly be called iconic. It’s the
Volkswagen camper van, and here’s the story of its 60th anniversary, from BBC
News:
Advertising copywriter blog link
VW gave the world two iconic vehicles, the Type 2 (van) and the Type 1 (the original “Beetle”). I’d venture to say that the original Willys Jeep was an equally iconic vehicle. After those three, anything else feels like it belongs on a second string, within a set of vehicles that are classic or beautiful or historically important but not quite icons.
What’s interesting, is that all three of those sociocultural icons were birthed, not by brand development studies or marketing strategies or focus groups, but by need. All three are prime examples of functionality over form. And yet, each form became iconic designs, not through manufacturer intent but through consumer application.
Want to build an iconic brand? Start by meeting a need.
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May 28 2010
Ford Motor Company is pondering the future of its Mercury brand, and the big
question is whether Mercury has a future at all. Here’s
the story, from this morning’s Wall Street Journal:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Thing is, Mercury still outsells Lincoln, which isn’t bad for a brand “that has lost its meaning,” especially in light of recent concerted efforts to build up the Lincoln brand identity. Why is this so? Because sometimes, what you want just happens to be what thousands of other people want, and although you still want it, you also don’t want what everyone else has. So you personalize yours somehow, with paint or stickers or wheels. Or, you buy from a stablemate brand.
The need to assert one’s independence even as one consumes a mass-produced product makes little rational sense, which is why analysts just don’t get it. But emotionalists do, and branding is all about emotion, not analysis.
All Mercury has to be, is not a Ford and not a Lincoln; it fulfills that objective just sitting there. The next step, is to increase the advertising, to increase awareness, and develop more corporate-funded dealer-level promotions, to increase foot traffic. The market share issue can be addressed on a purely tactical basis. Once sales increase, the brand profile will increase.
Most marketing strategists like to start with branding. But that’s not always
the right answer in achieving relevance or market share. Because branding is
fundamentally affirmational, based on history rather than vision, in many
cases sales can drive branding more cost-effectively than branding can drive
sales.
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May 25 2010
Okay, this time they really mean it. Mobile advertising is set to explode this year
as the tech stars align. Ayup. Here’s the story, from CRM Daily (Calabasas, CA):
Advertising copywriter blog link
The obstacle to success here wasn’t a technological or content-oriented barrier; it was independent and inscrutable human behavior. Relevant ads will beget responses and more relevant ads. Irrelevant ads will beget ad-blocking mobile apps and low-tech tune-outs. The old way to try to achieve relevance was through data mining, but the results always lagged behind the real world. The new path is through search, which captures and uses active, real-time consumer input that all but assures relevance.
The future of mobile advertising isn’t going to look like advertising. It’s
going to look like a service.
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May 24 2010
Just a quickie to point out this wonderful little history of the Rolodex. Remember the Rolodex?
Here’s the story, from Gizmodo, via MSNBC.com:
Advertising copywriter blog link
It’s my dirty little secret, but I love obsolescence. Lost civilizations. Bypassed towns. Abandoned factories. Old, orphaned technology. I like them not because they evoke a different time, but because they demonstrate a different solution. Once you realize that all these obsolete things worked, and in most cases worked very well, you can see beyond mere chronological dust to the concept within. And that concept may well be worth applying in new ways, to meet new needs.
Some creatives read advertising annuals searching for inspiration. Me, I read
histories and books like the one this author wrote.
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May 22 2010
I saw this in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend, and had to point
it out. It seems that the factor that separated modern man from the Neanderthals may
have been creativity. Here’s the story:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Here’s a key snip underscoring the cultural importance of trade expansion ands economic growth (and, by extrapolation, the importance of advertising in human evolution): Trade is to culture as sex is to biology. Exchange makes cultural change collective and cumulative.
Once the population in a given area reaches a critical mass, creativity explodes, leading to expressive arts, technological innovation, and social invention. That seems to endorse the importance of population centers – cities – at a time when the trend is to decentralize and disperse the workforce. Another side effect seems to be the development of a division of labor – specialization. What that leads to is frankly disturbing: Prosperity consists of getting more and more narrow in what you make and more and more diverse in what you buy. Self-sufficiency – subsistence – is poverty.
I’ve gotta go. I’m engaged in important work helping further the evolution of
humanity. Or, perhaps, not.
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May 21 2010
Ronald McDonald: spokesclown, logo, advertising icon, and junk food peddler? Apparently, some people
would like to see Ronald McDonald “retired” over concerns that he’s
promoting unhealthy food choices to kids. Here’s the story, from the Associated Press
via MSNBC.com:
Advertising copywriter blog link
It is not Ronald McDonald’s job to teach my kids what to eat. It’s mine. Parents need to model healthy food choices. Otherwise, all the counter-advertising in the world will accomplish nothing.
What’s notable about this story, is that for the price of a press release, an
obscure organization claiming about 10,000 supporters can play whack-a-brand.
That’s a lesson too many mainstream marketers have not yet learned.
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Advertising strategy and other lies
An advertising copywriter’s bookshelf:
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Brands and branding: a white paper
Business thank-you notes made quick and easy
Do you make these mistakes in
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Free (yes, free) advertising copywriting
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Four ad copy traps that ensnare even
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How to
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How to take your copywriting portfolio to the next level
How to write a brochure: advice from an advertising copywriter
How to write better ads
Long John Silver on writing ads
More career advice: what’s it like being
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Napoleon’s advice to entrepreneurs,
Part I: starting the enterprise
Napoleon’s advice to entrepreneurs,
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Napoleon’s advice to entrepreneurs,
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The economy (and what to do about it)
The Tightwad
Marketing project
When you should consider hiring a freelance copywriter
Advertising copywriting
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Phone and fax: (619) 465-6100
John Kuraoka, freelance advertising copywriter
6877 Barker Way
San Diego, California
92119-1301