The Rogue Marketer

Turn the Tub Around

"Turn the Tub Around" from "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" is the latest attempt by an advertiser to do something viral.  Viral is probably the right word as to me it is more like a disease.

What passes for a good idea these days is completely confounding.  Just watch this video from "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" and judge for yourself.  It artfully combines disco, a jingle and a supermarket aisle into something indescribable.  Definitely another candidate for the "what were they thinking" awards.

Now if I could only get this song out of my head.

Funny Commercials?

In an act of desperation, and a latent desire to see what was up with the advertising industry, I watched "America's Funniest Commercials" 2009 edition on TBS.....I shouldn't have.  The advertising industry used to be filled with really smart people.  Brilliant strategists, skilled humorists, great managers.  Now juxtapose this image with the funniest commercial of the year for Hardee's whose claim to fame is the ability to say a-hole.    No offense to the current crop of Ad professionals, but the industry really needs to step up its game, before it is game over.

Gap Christmas Advertising 2009 - Best of the Season

Image via Wikipedia

Congratulations to the Gap for putting together a fun, energetic holiday advertising campaign.  The spot featuring the young girls who "love their comfy sweaters" couldn't be more charming, and true to the age targeted.  Kudos to the Gap and the creative team that produced this spot and others that are featured in the campaign.

At a time when advertising from other retailers such as Target abandons the brand in desperation for some sames, the Gap's effort is refreshing.

Emotiional Advertising - Positive and Negative Emotions

A message needs to be emotionally important in order to be assimilated into the consciousness of the consumer.  There are 7 major positive and negative emotions that can be selected as an envelope for a rational advertising message:

Positive Emotions:

1. Desire
2. Faith
3. Love
4. Sex
5. Enthusiasm
6. Romance
7. Hope

Negative Emotions:

1. Fear
2. Jealousy
3. Hatred
4. Revenge
5. Greed
6. Superstition
7. Anger

Source: Napoleon Hill

Target Advertising is Off Target

Image by j.reed via Flickr

Target advertising as "jumped the shark." What happened?  Target , the leader in the "use television for positioning" and use print for promotion has abandoned their historical position in favor of obtuse, unclear and unlikeable advertising.

In a television spot that promotes thrifty spending, a husband and wife are at odds after she spends money on a new flat screen television, while the budget conscious economically concerned husband looks on is disbelief.  The point I think is "don't worry about it, because great gifts are less expensive at target, so go ahead behind your husband's back and spend away." 

Now why this is better than Target's cool high quality gifts at accessible prices positioning eludes me.  Beyond not even being able to understand the point of their new campaign, it is made even worse by its inconsistency with Target's historical brand positioning.

I get that the marketing and advertising team is under pressure to perform and generate sales.  I also get that they need to produce advertising that is cool and interesting.  What I don't get is this campaign.

Neuromarketing - The Next Marketing Frontier

Cover via Amazon

Neuromarketing promises to change the very nature of marketing and advertising.  Neuromarketing is based on an understanding of the thoughts in your brain that you are not necessarily part of your consciousness. It is not only based on observing human behavior, but on the study of how the brain is actually working using tests such as MRIs.

Instead of guessing the impact of different emotions, we can now determine with some level of certainty the areas of the brain that light up from being exposed to a piece of communication, and the relative impact on a purchase decision.  We can also determine when information should be communicated by studying the interplay of the rational brain and the subconscious brain.

Science is making exponential strides in understanding the limitations of the brain in assimilating information.  What great Creative Directors in Ad Agencies used to do intuitively, can now be informed by an understanding of the way brains are actually wired.

An example provided by Martin Lindstrom, author of Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy , is a study of why consumers are smoking more when health warnings are more prevelant.  In fact, when health warnings are removed form the cigarette pack, people actually smoke less.  Lindstrom states that the health warning makes you feel worse, and then lighting up the cigarette makes you feel better.  The Pavlov effect requires that the pattern be repeated.  Feeling bad from a warming sign becomes linked to feeling good. 

Lindstrom states that health warnings do not work for the reason that we have tuned them out.  People also have an opposite reaction to what they are told what not to do.  Importantly, health warnings do not appeal to the correct dimension of the brain.  For example, instead of saying "don't smoke", say "don't smoke because your child will not see you."

Here's an excerpt from the Dr. Oz Show featuring Dr. Lindstrom.

Other books on the topic include How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer and and Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely.

Ad agencies and marketers should quickly embrace these new approaches and integrate them into their thinking.   Improving our understanding of how communications work can only improve the ROI of a client's communications investment.  The impact on the Advertising Community promises to be as pervasive as the beginning of the account planning movement.

It's an exciting time to be a communicator.

Related articles by Zemanta

• What Neuromarketing Can Teach Social Media (socialmediatoday.com)

Chevy Cars Deserve Better Marketing

Image via Wikipedia

New advertising for Chevy cars once again demonstrate that the General Motors marketing and advertising team have failed to learn the lessons of the past.  The feature rich campaign fails to position the cars as anything more than having better features than the competition. 

In an advertising feature fest, the cars talk miles per gallon, cargo room and many other factors that the left brain thinkers at GM think are important.  They back up these superior features with a money back guarantee.  Even worse, they may be emulating the comparative Ford advertising campaign assuming that they are solving a similar problem, which they are not.

While feature superiority is helpful, there is an opportunity here for the advertising to work harder by also positioning the cars.  The issue with GM is not that some of the features are superior, or that the quality is better, I'll give them that.  The problem is that I have no idea why I should buy one. 

As stated by Al Ries, advertising is for positioning, not for a feature fest. The issue isn't that Chevy is superior, it's that people don't want to buy them. 

Since I can't resist, here's what I would do:

1. Position Chevy as the best entry level family car in America.  If not this position, pick another, any position.  Measure the size of the audience for the positioning to ensure that sales targets can be met.

2. Identify those benefits that are important to young families - focus on those that are a price of entry into the category (safety, room, features), and those that differentiate the car.  Make the positioning primary supported by a select feature.

3. Model every program after being family friendly, from the showroom experience to service.  Features such as a purchase experience which offers babysitting on Saturday's so that parents can focus.  Or a 15 minute showroom gaurantee so that impatient kids don't get bored.  You get the idea.  Take these ideas as illustrations of what needs to be done, not as a specific prescription.

4. Offer loaner cars, so that the family is never without the car.

5. Guarantee that no future repair will be over a certain amount per year, to protect the family budget.

6. Feature real families that have customized their Chevy's to the needs of the family.

These are just a few. I'm sure with a bit of research the rest is easy.  Even better, I bet there is no leader in this space as the competition is marketed to everyone instead of anyone.  One strength of American manufacturing has always been our advanced understanding of marketing.  It's time for GM and Chevy to relearn that lesson and let the marketing and advertising team show what they can do.

Related articles by Zemanta

• GM Announces 60-Day Money-Back Guarantee (blogs.thecarconnection.com)
• GMC Stakes Out Some Higher Ground (nytimes.com)

Driod Phone Marketing Ads to the Confusion - Verizon and Google Could Do Better

You have to wonder why the advertising campaign for Verizon and Google's new Droid phone seems more ordinary than extraordinary.  For the record, I like the fact that Verizon is coming out with a credible competitor to the iPhone.  I'm a Verizon customer, and would rather have Verizon's superior network over AT&T Wireless and Apple's superior phone.  Actually, I'd rather have an iPhone on the Verizon network.

The next best thing is a Droid phone.  The only thing I need to do is ignore this over produced unclear advertising campaign that is introducing the phone.  Other than "it's coming" and "it's different", this campaign appears to obscure the obvious benefits of this new offering.

For a #3 phone to compete, it has to not just equal the iPhone, but be demonstrably better.  The advertising obscures this fact with video game like graphics and intensity, but no real message.  If the iPhone is a great piece of hardware with some cool software apps, then the Droid has no choice but to be a great software platform powered by Google on an acceptable piece of hardware.  To imply that the phone is better than the iPhone, on the iPhone's terms is a fools errand and ensures that the Droid will live a long life as a distant #3 behind the iPhone and Blackberry. 

Now the left brainers at Verizon will talk about features such as the superior 3G network and Google Maps integration.  All fine and good, but this isn't about feature superiority, but category supremacy. 

Note how in this interview John Stratton from Verizon states that the "this product can stand head to head with the iPhone device." An obvious positioning mistake. The phone is either something new and different, or it is a weak iPhone imitator. With most consumer's locked into a contract by Verizon, imitation must be good enough.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Motorola's Droid Is Smart Success for Verizon Users [Personal Technology] (ptech.allthingsd.com)
• Review: Motorola Droid smartphone (macworld.com)
• Droid vs iPhone: The Comparison Chart [PIC] (mashable.com)
• Smartphone battle enlists the Droid (thestar.com)

Marketers Spark a War in the Boardroom

All marketers should read the latest book by Al & Laura Ries, which describes the battle taking place between right brain marketers and left brain managers. The book, titled "War in the Boardroom: Why Left-Brain Management and Right-Brain Marketing Don't See Eye-to-Eye--and What to Do About It " is an apt title for the battles that are taking place. I've been a big fan of Al Ries ever since his classic "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, 20th Anniversary Edition" was published.  Next to Aaker, Kotler, Hopkins and Ogilvy, this is one of the must reads for any marketer.

Left brain managers are taking over to the detriment of marketing.  Those that can quantify results and make numbers dance tend to win over those that can see the ship sinking, even though the numbers add up.  The trend is being exacerbated even further by the easy to quantify on line marketing results being a driving metric of marketing vs. the harder to quantify brand.  On the internet mediocrity measured well often wins over brilliant marketing.

The difference in outcomes is stark when you look at Apple's Steve Job's as a right brain guy vs. General Motors management that is still playing the better features = better car game.

According to Ries, The fundamental problem is that CEO's tend to be left brain thinkers and CEO's tend to approve marketing direction.  Since marketers speak and think in a different language, the two do not communicate well.  It's why CMOs last for 26 weeks on average vs. the much longer lifespan of CEOs. 

The other problem described by Ries is that left brain managers believe that they can overcome current consumer perception and what I call the "physics of marketing."  Case in point are recent efforts by T-Mobile and Version to battle Applie's iPhone.  New operating systems such as Android are being promoted as being superior to the iPhone.  The consumer on the other hands looks at both providers as offering weak substitutes for what they really want, an iPhone.  Who cares that other phones have better features.

Quantitative analysis is great when trying to optimize a campaign that is working.  The only issue is, figuring out how what makes for a great campaign is a right brain activity that is more gut than numbers. 

War in the Boardroom.  Marketers and great ideas are the casualty.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Android vs. iPhone (telecoms.com)

Visa Debit Card Gets Funky

Is it just me, or is the advertising industry getting lazy.  The new Visa Debit Card commercial featuring "Super Freak" is a great example.  Excellent music, strong production values and a message that is as thin as the Visa Debit Card itself.

I'm not sure what this commercial is trying to say.  That the card is cool, or was it an account planner at the agency that said that young innovative eccentric musically inclined people are early adopters for debit cards.  Even if all that is true, the commercial is more lifestyle than persuasive.  I'm not sure that a Visa card can ever be perceived as "funky" or cool in this lifetime. It is a tool for certain kinds of individuals that like direct and immediate control of their finances.  Instead of a "super freak" maybe it is a "control freak" that is needed.

I'd suggest that Visa go back and find the USP for these products, and then maybe, consumers will start using them instead of credit cards, which have the obvious benefit of delaying financial pain for those of us who are out of control.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Reward Programs Grow With Debit Card Use (abcnews.go.com)
• Sign of the times: Americans increasingly opt for debit cards (dailyfinance.com)