Archive for September, 2005

« Previous Entries

Aflac – Debating The Duck

Friday, September 30th, 2005

Brand: Aflac
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here – It is the last spot entitled “Aflac Duck”
Target: Insurance seekers
Rating: ***
Reviewer: David

Description:
Another Duck ad. In this one, a man lays on a hammock thanking the Aflac duck for helping out since his disability. The duck participates with the family in quick shots. Then the duck loses balance on its hammock and goes flying, causing it to shriek “AFLAC!!”

What Works:
Formerly a little-known insurer, Aflac has gained tremendous visibility and brand awareness through these spots featuring the ubiquitous duck honking “Aflac!” For such a simple gag, the duck has been unbelievably succesful in fixing Aflac’s name in the minds of US consumers. This spot is interesting because of being invisible to the humans – as the Aflac duck most often is, this time the duck is interacting directly with them. This seems to mirror the duck’s success of being recognized by the public.


What Doesn’t:
No matter how you feel about these spots, it is very hard to argue that they’ve taken an unknown company and made it a household name. They are entertaining and visually engaging and the “Aflac” duck-honk creates a strong memory association to the brand. It is actually a clever successor to the ad jingles of the fifties and sixties which recognized that distinctive sounds can create a strong memory trigger.


The bigger question for Aflac is what to do with the duck as the mission of the advertising changes from awareness of the brand to creating a real value proposition for the consumer. Aflac is a household name but so is Allstate and Prudential and Geico, etc. Aflac needs to build a rationale for interested consumers to take the next step and contact an Aflac agent.


And this is where we reach a tricky problem with that duck. The duck is overpowering. It is such a strong visual and auditory trick that it is very hard to focus on anything or remember anyting in the spots other than the duck itself. It would be very interesting to see ASI test results for the Aflac commercials and see how many of the secondary points in the spots got high recall. We’re guessing that the answer is ‘not many.’


As it turns out, Aflac does really have some product diffentiation from other insurers. Aflac insurance pays the beneficiary directly even for health claims, allowing them to choose how to handle their treatment and make their own priorities. It is more like life insurance in this way. This might be appealing to people for whom an injury resulting in lost work time can create a cascading series of related crises.

But how many consumers will understand this from the Aflac advertising? Probably not many. At this point all Aflac has done is to reinforce the morale of its salespeople and give them more credibility with client prospects.

We don’t have a solution to the duck dilemma. Aflac has created an icon with the duck and walking away from it would be difficult. But Aflac needs advertising that does more than just honk its name.

Branding Bottom Line:
Now that we all know their name, the duck could become an albatross for Aflac.

Posted in Aflac | 4 Comments »

Allstate and the Blind Date

Wednesday, September 28th, 2005



Brand: Allstate (+ NASCAR)
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here – It is the fifth spot entitled “Girls Day Out”
Target: Beer Drinkers
Rating: * (for Allstate)/ **** (for NASCAR)
Reviewer: David

Description:
An SUV with four women out for a day at the races is reversing into a parking spot at the racetrack when they spot NASCAR heartthrob Kasey Kahne. The spot moves into slow motion as the women gaze adoringly at Kahne who stares back, smiles and nods. The sound track plays a romantic seventies-type song as we see several of the women with wind blowing in their hair attempting to attract Mr. Kahne. The slow-mo and the music abruptly stop with a crash as the SUV backs into a triangular ad tower which collapses and kills a sedan. The voiceover says “Your rates shouldn’t go up just because of an accident. Introducing Allstate Your Choice auto insurance with accident forgiveness.”

What Works:
This is a very nice spot for NASCAR. Women constitute an important part of the NASCAR fan base and lots of research has shown that most NASCAR fans identify intensely with the drivers rather than the venues or even the sport as a whole. So the right way for NASCAR to promote itself to the faithful is to create interaction with the drivers. This fantasy-fulfillment scenario is made more palatable by an injection of humor at the end (with the crash). NASCAR and Kasey Kahne capture the brand imprint from this spot.

What Doesn’t:

Here are the two major issues with this spot:


  1. Branding – There is one thing worse than leaving your brand unnamed until the last five seconds of a spot; leaving your brand unnamed until the last five seconds of a spot whose first twenty-five seconds are spent building a completely different brand. By ceding most of the spot to the NASCAR message and trying to flip it to Allstate at the end, Allstate fails to make a lasting imprint of their brand in this spot.

  2. Persuasion – There is a selling proposition in this spot – see if you can spot it. It’s hidden at the end with the description of Allstate’s ‘Your Choice’ program, where consumers can apparently be forgiven for an accident and not have their rates raised. This unique selling proposition is not only buried (it shows up in the voiceover near the end and is easy to miss), but it is missing a couple elements. First it lacks a logical link to the premise of the spot itself. It implies that these women should be forgiven for their momentary lack of parking attention as they were distracted by a NASCAR driver. But do we really want to forgive them for being distracted? Isn’t that one of the major causes of accidents? And what if they were backing over a child instead of into a sign tower? Secondly, we don’t really understand the value proposition behind “Your Choice.” Why are you forgiven accidents in this program? Do you pay a higher rate? Do you have to be a good driver? It is not clear.

The biggest question this spot leaves us with is why Allstate would run a commercial with NASCAR and come up with the short end of this stick. But this is not a NASCAR spot. It is an Allstate spot. In fact, it is very likely that NASCAR did not pay a cent for this commercial which works so effectively builds the NASCAR brand. In April of this year, Allstate announced a multi-year partnership with NASCAR. This includes a race called the “Allstate 400 at the Brickyard” as part of the NEXTEL Cup Series. The Allstate Press Release modestly announces that “Allstate becomes the first-ever insurance company to officially partner with NASCAR.”

Funny, that. Why has there never been an insurance company partnership with NASCAR? Lots of people watch NASCAR and it is one of the fastest growing sports in the US. And the sport is all about cars. Allstate insures cars, right? Hmmm.


Perhaps it is because NASCAR is also a sport where cars are driven around an oval at around 200 mph, over three times the legal speed limit. Possibly it’s because there are a lot of spectacular crashes in NASCAR. Perhaps the fact that the fans actually enjoy the crashes (if nobody is hurt) is also relevant. Or the thought that four of the major car sponsors are Budweiser, Miller, Coors and Jack Daniels. Just maybe the symbolism when the race winners douse themselves with alcohol is not ideal.


The real problem with this ad is not the ad at all. It’s the underlying partnership. NASCAR makes no sense at all for Allstate. So it is not surprising that when the two brands are combined in a TV spot, NASCAR gets the better end of the deal. Because NASCAR has already gotten the better half of the deal with Allstate.


Even seemingly sensible sports partnerships are a tricky game. When Coca-Cola first got into NASCAR with the Coca-Cola 600, exit polls suggested that most of the fans watching the event (which featured a huge bottle of Coke in the center of the race oval) did not remember who sponsored the event. Not even the ones walking out with cups of Coke in their hands. So Coke got smart and created an affiliation with the drivers, who are the heart of NASCAR. All of which goes to say that with sponsorships, your money can be highly leveraged or completely worthless depending on how good the fit is and how well you activate the relationship.


Allstate Chief Marketing Officer Joe Tripodi seems more like a golf and Scuba guy than a NASCAR fanatic, but surely someone in Allstate marketing actually watched NASCAR before they invested in it. Yet they still invested in NASCAR. What were they thinking?

Branding Bottom Line:
Allstate goes on a bender and ends up in bed with NASCAR.

Posted in Allstate | 2 Comments »

Carlton Draught – The Emperor’s New Beer

Monday, September 26th, 2005


Brand: Carlton Draught
Execution: Australian TV
Link: Click Here – It is the second spot entitled “A Really Big Ad”
Target: Beer Drinkers
Rating: **
Reviewer: David

Description:
A yellow-robed man chants once and points and the spot pans back, showing a legion of other yell0w-robed men, chanting to the tune of Carmina Burana by Carl Orff. As the focus grows wider and wider we see white and red-robed men striding forward, chanting as well. They unite to form a beer bottle (aerial view), and various other pictures and icons. The chant is in English and says “It’s a big ad. A very big ad. It’s a big ad we’re in. It’s a big ad. My God it’s big. Can’t believe how big it is. It’s a big ad. For Carlton Draught. It’s just so freakin’ HUGE! It’s a big ad. Expensive ad. This ad better sell some bloooody beer!”

What Works:
It is a big ad and it is very engaging. The striking contrast of the white, yellow and red-robed men, the ‘Lord of the Rings’ style aerial shots and the Easter Island meets Signs crop circle formations are all eye-grabbing. Carmina Burana gives dramatic urgency to the action and causes you to start reading the subtitles to see what they’re singing. And those words are incredibly funny – especially if you are in the advertising business.

What Doesn’t:
We know that advertising has reached a new low-water mark when ad agencies start advertising to each other. And when other advertising people begin to heap on the praises, most notably Ad Age critic Bob Garfield who calls it “a masterpiece.”

A masterpiece of what? It certainly is good social satire. The beer industry, with its expensive, sex-soaked and often meaningless ads has been asking for this for a long time. Carlton certainly takes them down by parodying all of the the expensive, silly, mindlessness of the entire genre. And even beer drinkers are likely to appreciate that.


But does that make it good advertising? As an advertising blog, we must ask whether the money spent on this spot will build the brand – or even sell some bloody beer. Our critique is as follows:


  1. Brand Positioning – Carlton’s brand positioning is indeterminate from this spot. This spot does convey an attitude of cheeky irony. But can that really be called a positioning? Is Carlton a lifestyle brand where the lifestyle is Monty Python tribute troups? Does it help us spot hypocrisy in our everyday life? Not clear. Nor does there seem to be any truly unique or defendable proposition for the brand in this spot.

  2. Value Proposition – Similarly, Carlton leaves us without a consumer value proposition unless it is – we’ve made you laugh now please buy our beer so this commercial won’t bust us.

  3. Branding – Even if this is a buzz-worthy spot, we also have to ask the question of how memorable Carlton is within the spot. The brand is used once in the subtitles (and Chanted), the bottle is reproduced by the human crop-circles, but overall there is remarkably little screen presence for either the product or the brand logo. So Carlton should not assume it will capitalize on the buzz from this spot. Both the ad agency and the creative director on this spot are much more likely to benefit from it than the client.


As much as we enjoyed this ad, we cannot say that it is good advertising. In the process of critiquing the depths to which beer advertising has sunk, Carlton produces an expensive spot which does not build their brand. And everyone is hailing the effort.

Branding Bottom Line:
Carlton produces a brilliant, pointless ad which parodies itself as well as the beer industry.

Posted in Carlton Draught | 1 Comment »

Miller and the High Life

Friday, September 23rd, 2005

Brand: Miller High Life
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here – follow links through to ‘See My TV Moments’
Target: Older Men
Rating: ****
Reviewer: David

Description:
This spot has a female voiceover of some of moments of the twentieth century and Miller High Life. It shows shots of men from the forties drinking High Life in bars, a High Life bottle towering over a drive in restaurant, families on picnic, Ray Charles, steel workers, football moments (the last three only in the :30) and others. Many of these shots have Miller High Life beer bottles, signs or logos in them. The voiceover mentions ‘the champagne of beers.’ Then it cuts to the Miller High Life logo and the voiceover says “I’m the Girl in the Moon” and quick cuts to a vintage Miller High Life neon sign as she continues, “and I want to tell you everything I know – everything there is to savor – everything.”

What Works:
Miller made a very bold choice in 1997 when deciding how to revive the High Life brand which had been in steady decline for nearly 25 years. The unfashionable full beer flavor was the choice of an aging demographic of working men. And it was being eclipsed by light beers on one hand and imports on the other.


The natural choice would have been to reposition the brand towards a young demographic and in the best case scenario pull off a Burberry-style reinvigoration of the brand. Fortunately, Miller did not make this choice. Instead, Miller chose to refocus on the core brand attributes of heritage and authenticity and to focus commercials on the emotional and cultural connection of the consumer to the beer. And most importantly, Miller decided not to walk away from its core
drinkers, aging though they were.


Given the meteoric success of brands like Burberry that have been rescued by hip-hop artists and the aging of its core users, why shouldn’t Miller have been looking to brand younger? There is no question that to survive, High Life must attract younger drinkers.


The answer is that most brands which abandon their core users end up looking a lot more like Tommy Hilfiger than Burberry. They chase a trend, catch it if they are lucky and are then left on the shoals of the next shift in cool, having permanently abandoned their core brand values. The beer category is particularly viscious and undifferentiated at the youth end with companies outdoing themselves to create funny, sexy, meaningless ads that confound the best efforts to remember which brand has just given you the great bikini shot.


So it took courage for Miller to tread a different path and it has largely paid off, as High Life share has stabilized and begun to grow slightly. This spot marks an inflection point in that campaign, and a significant intensification of what is almost unique in advertising today – making older people aspirational. By showing the authenticity of the beer, Miller is essentially holding up their aging working men as the guardians of the beer. And our growing societal taste for authenticity – for things that are real and genuine and not just contrived to look that way – has made this strategy pay off for Miller.


Here are some things we like in this spot:


  1. Engaging Visuals – To advertise successfully in the world of 10,000 distractions, your spot must first engage the viewer visually and then pull him into the narrative sequence of the commercial. With rapid cuts, brilliant and emotional cultural moments and some interesting effects that seem almost surrealist (creating visual depth and separation in a still shot, for instance), this spot grabs you tight and does not let go.

  2. Emotional Connection - When you turn on the sound, this spot really begins to connect. Miller has chosen a young female voice but its one that is distinctive and appealing and keeps this very emotional spot from turning maudlin.

  3. Product is the Hero - Miller High Life really is the hero of this spot because it is the faithful friend that sticks with us through the generations. This spot is ideally designed to reinforce this heritage.

  4. Strong Branding – Many heritage spots fail because they don’t connect strongly back to the brand. By scouring the photo archives, Miller has found enough real shots featuring Miller or Miller signs to keep the brand in the spotlight for most of the commercial.



All in all, this is one of the best-executed authenticity spots we have seen in some time.

What Doesn’t:
The narrator for this spot turns out to be the girl depicted sitting in the crescent moon in the Miller High Life logo. While this is a good rationale for the choice of a female for the voiceover it creates a head-scratching moment at the end of the spot when we should instead be savoring the smooth aftertaste of the great visuals and narration. Instead we feel if Ken Burns has just declared that he actually is Abraham Lincoln reborn and has been narrating the Civil War from his own experiences. It is an unnecessary affectation in this otherwise flawless spot.
Branding Bottom Line:
Miller somehow makes the old white beer-guzzling male seem cool.

Posted in Miller | No Comments »

Mega M&Ms – Or Not

Wednesday, September 21st, 2005

Brand: Mega M&M’s
Execution: Television – :15 second spot
Link: Click Here – click on television in first frame and you will see 4 spots. The reviewed spot is lower right
Target: M&M lovers
Rating: ***
Reviewer: David

Description:
A twenty-something office worker looks up from his computer in his cubicle and picks up a giant M&M with two hands. He tosses the M&M in the air and opens his mouth as if to catch it in his mouth. The giant M&M comes down on his head, knocking him off his chair with a crash. The voiceover says “New Mega M&M’s – You wouldn’t want ‘em any bigger.” Then he repeats the stunt and knocks out the overhead light. The new Mega M&M’s packaging is shown at the end of the spot with the tagline “Perfectly Big”

What Works:
This is a great example of a concise, entertaining but effective spot that introduces a line extension. In fact, this quick fifteen second spot does a lot more work than most :30s.

Here is what works:


  1. Clear illustration of the extension concept – There is never a question in this spot about what Mars is doing to the M&M. The whole spot works to make you remember one single thing – “bigger”.
  2. Humor makes the brand message memorable - We remember that the new M&M is bigger because we’re imprinted with a picture of the Dilbert-esque office worker being knocked out by a ridiculously large M&M.
  3. Product is the Hero - There is little chance to forget the brand behind this spot because there is an M&M of one size or another in virtually every frame of this spot.
  4. Short is Sweet – This spot is fast-paced and concise. The brevity makes it more memorable.



As advertising, this spot is excellent. It entertains us without wasting our time, but it delivers a valuable message about a new product that is ownable and memorable.

What Doesn’t:
The tagline “Perfectly Big” is almost skipped over and seems unlikely to take hold.


The bigger problem with this spot, however, is in the new product itself. Mega M&M’s are larger than normal M&Ms but it is not at all clear that they are as large as anyone would want. The mega M&M’s are not even twice the size of normal M&M’s (Mars says they are on average 55% larger.) In fact, the spot sets up unrealistic expectations for Mega M&M’s which may cause a problem for Mars. This spot would have garnered at least 4 stars if the product hadn’t looked puzzlingly small after viewing the ad.

Branding Bottom Line:
A great M&M’s spot tempts us but the product doesn’t deliver.

Posted in M&Ms | 2 Comments »

The Inner Life of ROKR

Monday, September 19th, 2005

Brand: ROKR (Cingular Service, Motorola phone with iTunes from Apple)
Execution: Television
Link: Click Here and scroll down to the spot entitled “Shadow ROKR”
Target: Trendsetters
Rating: ****
Reviewer: David
Description:
The reflection of a young man in a subway window dances wildly to music on his iPod. Then the shot pans back and we see that while the reflection is dancing, the young man is still and that he is carrying a phone with iPod white headphones connected to it, not an iPod. As he moves calmly through the city his reflection and then his shadow keep dancing. Until he gets a call and the phone becomes a phone for a moment. The spot ends with a voiceover saying “The world’s first phone with iTunes. 100 songs to go. Only from Cingular – raising the bar.”

What Works:
It is hard to imagine a more difficult marketing challenge – how to advertise a phone made by Motorola, available from Cingular featuring iTunes songs from Apple. In fact, it sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Surprisingly, then, Cingular pulls off a feat by making a focused little spot that perfectly explains the product benefits while building at least two of the four brands involved. Here is what works:

  1. Strong Metaphor Gives us the Value Proposition – Why do we listen to an iPod on the subway or when walking down city streets – or country roads? Probably not because we’re dancing the way the characters normally do on iPod spots. But music makes us feel like dancing and allows us to live in a different world than we see around us, or enhance the world that exists by adding a soundtrack. The dancing reflection and dancing shadow, while not an entirely original idea, perfectly illustrates the real benefit of an iPod.
  2. Action Reveals the Product Benefit - While we are being given the familiar value proposition for an iPod, the phone rings. In the normal situation, this would be a moment of fumbling and dropping wires. By having the shadow immediately return to being a regular shadow as the young man answers the phone and dropping the audio, this spot perfectly illustrates the two primary benefits of the ROKR with iTunes. The phone knows when you’re getting a call and pauses the music so you can talk. And you don’t need to different devices to wander around town with your.
  3. Clever brand-building for Cingular - Cingular’s catchphrase is “Raising the Bar.” At first, this seemed like a well-directed rejoinder to Verizon’s ‘can you hear me now’ campaign which struck the Achilles heel of cellular competitors – poor coverage and call quality. After the acquisition of AT&T, Cingular began to move aggressively to take this claim away. ‘Raising the Bar’ referred to improving the number of bars on your cellphone – getting a better signal. It is impressive, then, that Cingular crafted this phrase to work equally well at delivering new benefits to the industry – thus raising the bar in a different way.
  4. Little Brand Confusion – With the names Motorola, Cingular, Apple, ROKR, iTunes and iPod all being potentially relevant with this spot, Cingular was smart to focus on it’s own name (you can only buy the ROKR from Cingular for now), the name of the new product (ROKR) and the brand behind the primary benefit (iTunes). This makes the spot easier to follow and remember in branding terms.

What Doesn’t:
Motorola, still trying to hit the next homerun after the hyper-successful RAZR phone, gets short shrift for its brand name in this spot. Although this spot will do a good job of building the ROKR brand as well as reinforcing the positioning of the Cingular and iTunes brands, it leaves Motorola without much of the credit as the builders of the device. Ultimately Motorola will have to hope that the phone itself is well branded and creates some loyalty among customers. Still, what Motorola really needs is to continue to build its cachet among prospective customers in addition to the relative few that will end up with this particular phone and this spot does not help.

Branding Bottom Line:
Cingular and BBDO produce an entertaining and effective spot that uses the iPod equity to build demand for ROKR.

Posted in Motorola | 2 Comments »

Gillette Fusion and the Fine Art of the Con

Friday, September 16th, 2005

Brand: Gillette
Execution: PR (news release)
Link: Click Here
Target: Wall Street
Rating: *
Reviewer: David
Description:
Gillette on Wednesday, September 14th announced the introduction of the world’s first five-bladed razor, the Fusion. The Gillette Fusion razor (photo not available – the picture depicts the M3 Power, the most recent line extension to the Mach 3 franchise) which leapfrogs Schick’s four-bladed quattro will sell for a 30% premium over current Mach 3 razors. This is in line with decades of successful new razor introductions for Gillette with steeply increased prices over previous generations.

What Works:
As a PR strategy, Gillette has certainly succeeded. The press has bought the PR story hook, line and sinker and even the Wall Street Journal, asking the soon to be $165mm richer Gillette CEO Jim Kilts seems content to end their in-depth analysis of the new product introduction with Kilts quote “Men are always looking for a better way to shave.”

Businessweek virtually trips over itself to heap praise on Gillette after it cautions “…seems like a classic case of overkill,” but quickly moves to explain that, “The overkill logic may seem compelling at first glance, but it’s off-base on closer inspection. Despite its high price, the launch of Fusion is probably the closest thing to a slam-dunk in the intensely competitive consumer-products industry, where many new products never gain traction. It should be a huge boon to Procter & Gamble (PG ), which is expected to wrap up its acquisition of Gillette this fall.” Of course, this is the same magazine that praised Enron, WorldCom and the AOL/Time Warner merger.

So clever is the spin on this announcement that Kilts and Gillette have successfully changed the dialogue on shaving from the question of reality (do five blades give you a better shave?) to perception (how do men feel about it). And the answer of course is that men are twice as likely to say they like the new shave.

Not a single of the myriad articles spawned by this announcement questions Gillette’s test methodology. There are valid questions to ask. There is a reason that clinical trials are conducted using a double-blind method (where neither the patient nor the doctor or clinical investigator knows whether what’s being administered is the test drug or a placebo). The reason is that when people are using something they know is new in a test they are more likely to think that it is helping them. So it is no surprise that men encountering 5 blades for the first time might think they are getting a better shave regardless of whether they actualy cut themselves less or are able to shave closer to the skin without abrasion or ingrown hairs. And there is similarly no evidence that Gillette has told anyone whether that is actually the case.

So Gillette has done a fantastic job in selling this new razor to the press, to Procter & Gamble (for whom the value of this razor is a key part of the acquisition price), and will undoubtedly do the same job on consumers when the blade hits shelves.

What Doesn’t:
How could we possibly argue that a brand which has successfully raised its selling price by about 30% every 6-8 years for the past several decades could be wrong? Gillette is one of the great branding success stories isn’t it?

We believe it is not. Every brand rests on a value proposition. That proposition gives consumers something they need (a functional benefit) and something they want (an emotional benefit) and charges a price to get it. In competitive markets, this value proposition is enforced by competition. If I don’t offer a fair value for the money, someone else will and they will steal customers and market share.

Gillette has so dominated its space in the past two decades that it is not truly in a competitive market. We believe that Gillette has essentially created a hostage brand which is able to extort money from consumers by undermining confidence in competing products. By holding commanding market share, dominating advertising and dwarfing competitive R&D spending, Gillette has essentially become the only acceptible alternative in shaving. And once dominating this market, they have charged monopoly prices to consumers and stifled innovation. We would argue that this is bad marketing and bad business.

What possible proof is there that this is the case? The product development cycle holds the first clue. Which product is more complex – automobiles or shaving systems? With tens of thousands of moving parts and computers, automobiles are vastly more complex than razors. Yet why do automotive companies now have a 3 to 4 year product cycle (the average time between substantial new product introductions in a particular brand line such as Honda Accord or BMW 5-Series) while Gillette has waited 8 years to move from the Mach 3 to the Fusion? The only answer is the lack of competition.

We have argued in the past that paying $4 or more for a cup of coffee can be a fair value exchange. So why will paying $3 dollars a razor not be? Because it is not at all clear that we have ten times the shaving experience that we had 15 years ago. Because unlike Starbucks which has to compete with everyone from Dunkin Donuts and local coffee shops to McDonalds and truck stops, Gillette was virtually without competition until Schick started stirring the pot with Quattro.

The regularity and degree of the Gillette price increases are also powerful proof of Gillette’s monopoly behavior. Very few categories sustain these increases unless they are dominated by a monopolist. Many categories offering the most innovation, in fact, behave in just the opposite manner – prices fall even as product performance improves. We need to remind ourselves here that Gillette is not selling itself as a fashion brand here – the advertising has very long been centered on power and performance (to an extent that might make one wonder if there is a bit of overcompensation on the part of Gillette senior management). This being the case, the price increases should be sustained purely on the improvement of shaving performance. Which makes us suspicious that Gillette has not made a stronger scientific case for Fusion.

We have very high regard for Procter&Gamble, but we have to wonder if they are overpaying for Gillette. We also have to wonder whether executing the acquistion of Gillette while at the same time trying to launch the first new razor line in 8 years is a very good idea. This advertising blog is not comforted by CEO Jim Kilts assertion that “someday there will be a Harvard Case Study on this transition.” We think there will be a case study, too – just not one that Kilts will enjoy reading. We certainly hope that having acquired Gillette, P&G will carefully consider the value proposition and how it might be improved.

Branding Bottom Line:
Gillette launches the Quintippio – oops, Fusion – and we grab our back pocket to see if they’ve lifted our wallet yet.

Posted in Gillette | 6 Comments »

The New Yorker on Target

Wednesday, September 14th, 2005

Brand: Target
Execution: Print
Link: Not Yet
Target: New Yorker Readers
Rating: *****
Reviewer: David
Description:
The American Society of Magazine Editors yesterday criticized The New Yorker for failing to post a notice in the August 22nd issue of the magazine stating that the content of the magazine had not been influenced by the single advertiser for the issue.

This in itself is hardly worth discussing as it falls into the category of warnings like “do not use this hammer on your thumb” which are both obvious and unhelpful, and other advertising blogs including Adrants take it in the proper spirit. If the advertiser influences the content of a journalistic magazine, it hurts the magazine, the consumer and ultimately the advertiser, too. A disclaimer is a silly artifact of a litigious society.

The more interesting question about the Target/New Yorker marriage is whether it was money well spent for brand Target. Given the obscene amount of publicity and blog interest the issue generated, the answer must be yes. And we believe that it is nearly as obvious that the issue was successful for Target on its own merits. The question of whether other advertisers should follow brings us back to why this worked for Target – and that is the most interested question from the brand manager’s point of view.

What Works:
Why did this single advertiser issue work so well for Target? Here is our take, by the numbers:

  1. Brand Positioning Match between Advertiser Brand and Media Brand – Target, positioned as design for smart people who don’t want to spend a fortune (which can and does include well-to-do-people who just think high prices are silly) matches up well with the New Yorker’s positioning as news and commentary for the sceptical and sophisticated reader. The brand character of both of these brands is contrarian as they tend to fly a bit against the mainstream of their categories. Target is the anti-Wal-Mart, almost able to make you forget you’re buying 32 rolls of toilet paper with a well-placed teapot by Michael Graves. The New Yorker defines irony the way Dante describes Hell – with such a wide tonal palate that any single issue is bound to both offend and delight.
  2. A Fair Value Proposition for the Consumer – Target realized that dominating a magazine with its fare could have lead to anger or boredom for the consumer. Imagine the effect of page after page of smiling twenty-somethings in sailor clothes, if you can. Instead, they chose to create art that complimented the unique nature of the magazine and drew the reader in because of the lack of an obvious commercial message.
  3. Show, Don’t Tell – Most advertisement works the same way as a comedian getting on stage and saying “I’m really funny and if you don’t believe me let me give you three good reasons why you should.” Target goes one better here and shows us that they understand design. This is why the ads work as commercial art – they prove a key part of Target’s brand positioning and do so in a unique, memorable way. It’s hard to argue that Target is not about design when you see these ads.
  4. Brand Linkage - An easy mistake to make while getting the first three points right would have been to produce a beautiful, artful magazine which had no linkage whatsoever back to Target. However the ubiquity of the Target bullseye logo in the ads – the only commercial message whatsoever in the magazine – was impossible to miss or forget. On the other hand, the logo was so artfully woven into each drawing that it was a core element rather than a brand slap-on.

What Doesn’t:
The danger here is not for Target – which has clearly gotten it right – as much as for other advertisers who may follow and the magazines who will host them. Advertising may be a necessary evil for many news magazine readers, but advertising by a single sponsor is a different issue. To be a fair value exchange for the reader, the single advertiser must add something to the magazine that would not exist without it – and that cannot just be a product message. This reinforces the message in our Commentary post earlier this week – the advertisement must represent a fair value exchange for the consumer as entertainment as well as presenting a value proposition for the brand.

The danger to the magazine is greater, as the ASME was no doubt thinking when they slapped Target on the wrist as a public example. The possibility that a magazine even without overt pressure from a single advertiser might self-censor its content to give no offense to that advertiser is chilling and real. That in itself is enough to suggest that this particular tactic ought to be the provenance of the few advertisers who can play in the big leagues creatively and have the nuanced understanding of the consumer to pull it off.

Branding Bottom Line:
Kudos to Target which gets it right by bringing design to our doorstep.

Posted in Target | No Comments »

COMMENTARY: Advertising’s Third Way

Sunday, September 11th, 2005

When journalistic opinion about your industry ranges all the way from “the End is Near” to “The End is Here,” and even your leading industry journal starts publishing doomsday warnings, it may be a good time to find a new profession.

That is exactly where advertising stands today. Network television commands increasingly high premiums but offers less and less to advertisers. The Internet and video games have grown to be huge distractions without yet offering the same opportunities to reach large audiences (at $4 billion, Internet advertising is just one tenth the size of network advertising). And most disturbingly, mammoth advertisers like Procter & Gamble are beginning to divert major dollars to new forms of marketing like word of mouth. It seems as if the world of Darren, the ad executive from the sitcom Bewitched is vanishing before our eyes.

Those who are still slogging it out on the networks fall into two camps –Traditionalists and Entertainers. Traditionalists measure advertising by the gram. A spots value is equal to its related recall plus the incremental sales it generates. If the ad builds the brand and sells product, it is good.

Entertainers believe that making a memorable commercial builds the brand. They are not as keen about the link between the commercial and the brand, believing that if they build a good advertisement, people will come to the brand. In its newest form, pioneered by Crispin Porter, this has taken the form of ads which seek to shock or surprise the audience and generate buzz. Dominating water cooler conversation has become the gold standard for a successful ad in this school.

At this blog we are all former brand managers and were all trained to be Traditionalists. Recently, we have been bombarded with irrelevant ads that seem to have no connection whatsoever to the core brand values, from the impenetrable Burger King “Coq Roq” spots to the mystifying American Express ‘Andy Roddick’s Mojo” fiasco. And we know that these ads were developed by smart people working for smart marketers who are watching consumers just as hard as we are. This has caused us to wonder what was missing in the Traditionalist formula that seemed to be pushing so many people to the Dark Side of entertainment advertising.

The answer is obvious. And it is the same thing that makes everyone think that advertising faces imminent demise. Consumers are fed up. And sooner or later, that has to hurt someone. Do you remember when there was only one phone company? We used to pay much, much more for our phone service then. And we didn’t love the phone company. But we didn’t have much of a choice. So when deregulation happened, we were only too happy to flock to the Baby Bells for cheaper calls. We were not just saving money, we were finally punishing an institution that punished us.

As advertisers, we have been punishing consumers for years. We interrupt programs they enjoy with our messages. If they listen and buy our products, we assume we have done a good job. After all, they got to watch the shows they viewed our ads on for free, didn’t they? So there must be a fair value exchange in the advertising, right?

Wrong. Most consumers never liked being interrupted by advertising. And they never liked most advertising. And if it worked, they resented us for it. And now the value proposition – if it ever worked as we believed – has changed. Most consumers pay a cable company for their TV signal, so it doesn’t feel free to them. And they have many other ways to divert themselves during commercials – from hundreds of other channels to the Internet and video games. Not to mention time-shifting devices like TiVo.

So where do we go as advertisers? If we don’t believe that pure entertainment drives sales or builds brands, should we abandon traditional advertising?

We believe there is a Third Way. To be effective, we suggest that advertising needs to be persuasive and build the brand. But we also believe that the consumer must benefit for the time spent on the ad. And we believe that product information is not a sufficient benefit for an entertainment media. We suggest that advertisers ought to be producing spots that entertain and build the brand.

There are good examples of this. Some of the best are being created by the networks themselves. We have blogged the marvelous ads by USA Networks which are both stories in themselves but also give USA Networks a coherent theme (‘unique characters’) and promote individual series. These are hardworking ads that also entertain. And they’re durable – you don’t mind watching them again. The SciFi network has also done some extremely creative spots that link right back to the brand.

So our proposal is that advertising must now do more than sell product to remain viable – it must entertain. The ad itself must be a worthy use of the consumer’s time if we expect her to watch. Along the way, we might also considering moving the ad blocks to where they belong – at the beginning and end of the program, and perhaps a single commercial break for 1 or 2 hour shows. Many will say that nobody would watch these ads, but we at ThirdWay have been to the cinema in the UK and seen patrons with reserved seats and published movie start times show up early in droves to watch the excellent advertising.

Art can be functional. The design world has long understood this. But in advertising we have driven a wedge between those trying to create art with advertisements and those trying to build brands. To survive, advertising must bridge the gap.

Posted in commentary | No Comments »

COMMENTARY: Advertising’s Third Way

Sunday, September 11th, 2005

When journalistic opinion about your industry ranges all the way from “the End is Near” to “The End is Here,” and even your leading industry journal starts publishing doomsday warnings, it may be a good time to find a new profession.

That is exactly where advertising stands today. Network television commands increasingly high premiums but offers less and less to advertisers. The Internet and video games have grown to be huge distractions without yet offering the same opportunities to reach large audiences (at $4 billion, Internet advertising is just one tenth the size of network advertising). And most disturbingly, mammoth advertisers like Procter & Gamble are beginning to divert major dollars to new forms of marketing like word of mouth. It seems as if the world of Darren, the ad executive from the sitcom Bewitched is vanishing before our eyes.

Those who are still slogging it out on the networks fall into two camps –Traditionalists and Entertainers. Traditionalists measure advertising by the gram. A spots value is equal to its related recall plus the incremental sales it generates. If the ad builds the brand and sells product, it is good.

Entertainers believe that making a memorable commercial builds the brand. They are not as keen about the link between the commercial and the brand, believing that if they build a good advertisement, people will come to the brand. In its newest form, pioneered by Crispin Porter, this has taken the form of ads which seek to shock or surprise the audience and generate buzz. Dominating water cooler conversation has become the gold standard for a successful ad in this school.

At this blog we are all former brand managers and were all trained to be Traditionalists. Recently, we have been bombarded with irrelevant ads that seem to have no connection whatsoever to the core brand values, from the impenetrable Burger King “Coq Roq” spots to the mystifying American Express ‘Andy Roddick’s Mojo” fiasco. And we know that these ads were developed by smart people working for smart marketers who are watching consumers just as hard as we are. This has caused us to wonder what was missing in the Traditionalist formula that seemed to be pushing so many people to the Dark Side of entertainment advertising.

The answer is obvious. And it is the same thing that makes everyone think that advertising faces imminent demise. Consumers are fed up. And sooner or later, that has to hurt someone. Do you remember when there was only one phone company? We used to pay much, much more for our phone service then. And we didn’t love the phone company. But we didn’t have much of a choice. So when deregulation happened, we were only too happy to flock to the Baby Bells for cheaper calls. We were not just saving money, we were finally punishing an institution that punished us.

As advertisers, we have been punishing consumers for years. We interrupt programs they enjoy with our messages. If they listen and buy our products, we assume we have done a good job. After all, they got to watch the shows they viewed our ads on for free, didn’t they? So there must be a fair value exchange in the advertising, right?

Wrong. Most consumers never liked being interrupted by advertising. And they never liked most advertising. And if it worked, they resented us for it. And now the value proposition – if it ever worked as we believed – has changed. Most consumers pay a cable company for their TV signal, so it doesn’t feel free to them. And they have many other ways to divert themselves during commercials – from hundreds of other channels to the Internet and video games. Not to mention time-shifting devices like TiVo.

So where do we go as advertisers? If we don’t believe that pure entertainment drives sales or builds brands, should we abandon traditional advertising?

We believe there is a Third Way. To be effective, we suggest that advertising needs to be persuasive and build the brand. But we also believe that the consumer must benefit for the time spent on the ad. And we believe that product information is not a sufficient benefit for an entertainment media. We suggest that advertisers ought to be producing spots that entertain and build the brand.

There are good examples of this. Some of the best are being created by the networks themselves. We have blogged the marvelous ads by USA Networks which are both stories in themselves but also give USA Networks a coherent theme (‘unique characters’) and promote individual series. These are hardworking ads that also entertain. And they’re durable – you don’t mind watching them again. The SciFi network has also done some extremely creative spots that link right back to the brand.

So our proposal is that advertising must now do more than sell product to remain viable – it must entertain. The ad itself must be a worthy use of the consumer’s time if we expect her to watch. Along the way, we might also considering moving the ad blocks to where they belong – at the beginning and end of the program, and perhaps a single commercial break for 1 or 2 hour shows. Many will say that nobody would watch these ads, but we at ThirdWay have been to the cinema in the UK and seen patrons with reserved seats and published movie start times show up early in droves to watch the excellent advertising.

Art can be functional. The design world has long understood this. But in advertising we have driven a wedge between those trying to create art with advertisements and those trying to build brands. To survive, advertising must bridge the gap.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

« Previous Entries