Posted by truecreek on August 13, 2009 under More Dam News | 
By Stacy L. Wood and C. Page Moreau
New high tech products are a way of life for today’s consumers, but many innovative new products face a special hurdle to marketplace success: their complexity makes them difficult for consumers to learn how to use. While consumers may desire the functionality of a particular new product feature—say, the ability to hot-sync one’s mobile phone’s calendar feature to a desk-top computer’s calendar program—learning how to use such a feature may take some learning effort. How do consumers react to the learning curve? The answer often is, “not well.” Consider your own experience with complex products such as computers, software, mobile phones, mp3 players, TiVo, etc.
Likely, our own experience mirrors what has been shown through marketplace research—consumers’ expectations of usage difficulty have caused a significant number to delay purchases, while actual usage difficulty has caused many to return purchased products.
This research investigates the consumer’s new product learning process. What we find is that learning has an influential emotional component. Specifically, learning to use a new product can evoke an emotional response, (independent of the emotions produced by the attributes or benefits of the product itself), and that learning-based emotional response can influence product evaluations over time.
We used two empirical studies to demonstrate this consumer-centric process of innovation. The first study was a laboratory study examining participants’ reactions as they learn how to use an innovative new PDA.
The second was a longitudinal quasi-experiment examining participants’ reactions to a new web-based course management interface throughout the course of a semester. While the frustrations of wrestling with a new product’s instruction manual are familiar, three surprising findings emerge from these studies.
First, positive or negative emotions that arise from the learning process are not related to the products’ benefits (or lack thereof) but are independent assessments of the process of learning. In other words, difficulty in learning to use a product can create negative emotion even if the product is good (i.e., has strong net benefits). For example, a consumer may find a new product feature is both desirable and works well, but still have a difficult time learning how to use that feature. While the product features themselves might generate positive emotions if they are good, the learning process creates distinct emotions that are independent of the more traditional “consumption emotions.”
Second, although these “learning” emotions are process-oriented, they still have a significant and stable influence on product evaluations. In this way, we evaluate a product more positively when it offers a smooth learning process, independent of our assessment of the product’s net benefits. While it may not seem rational (since the pain of learning is only experienced initially and the product’s use may far outlast this initial learning period), these learning emotions can impact more stable overall evaluations of the product. Perhaps, as consumers, we blame a product when it has made us feel stupid and reward a product when it has made us feel smart.
Third, the emotion experienced by the consumer during this learning process is driven primarily by the consumer’s expectations for learning and early use. Thus, a consumer may experience the same challenging learning experience as positive if she anticipated difficulties prior to use or as negative if she did not. This last finding suggests that consumers’ emotional experiences can be influenced by both managers, via the early formation of expectations, and by the consumer’s own product-related expertise. Consumers with expertise in the product category will be differently impacted than novice consumers.
Marketers or salespeople may be tempted to make unreasonable claims about how easy a new product is to use as such claims are likely to increase a consumer’s likelihood of trial. But this research shows that setting unreasonable expectations for ease of use can cause a backlash of negative learning emotions that will impact the consumer’s evaluation of the new product.
Marketers must take care to encourage trial while setting fair expectations. How might this be done? Best Buy’s new Geek Squad program may be one humorous way to remind consumers that it sometimes takes a “special kind of person” (i.e., a nerdy technophile) to set up complex consumer electronics. The mere presence of the Geek Squad offer may serve to set consumers’ expectations so that, if they set up the product on their own, they are happy, but they are neither surprised nor upset if they find that they need to call in the experts.
Given the growing problem of innovation discontinuance (i.e., when consumers reject a new product after purchase or trial), understanding how marketing communications (e.g., product demonstrations, advertising, programs) and consumers’ own expertise interact to influence expectations is important. Especially for quickly evolving electronic and high tech products, product returns are costly both in terms of retail logistics (e.g., lost sales, restocking costs, repackaging and selling used products) and lost opportunities.
If a consumer has successfully made it through the early steps of the innovation adoption process—awareness, evaluation, and purchase—and then rejects the innovation post-trial, he or she may be unlikely to consider other alternative choices or related innovations in the future or, even worse, may be a source of negative word-of-mouth.
Posted by truecreek on August 4, 2009 under More Dam News |
We’ve posted about this before, but this strong article by Anne Mai Bertelsen really drives home the the point that it is short-sighted to shift too much of your ad budget to the web if you are looking to reach baby boomers. They just have not adopted these mediums as quickly as younger audiences have.
By Anne Mai Bertelsen.
Earlier this year, Forrester Research released its five year advertising forecast which found that marketers were shifting substantial advertising dollars out of traditional media and into interactive channels such as mobile marketing, display ads, search, social media and email.
Yet, marketers who rely too heavily on interactive channels, at the expense of traditional channels, risk losing out on the lucrative Boomer segment that are avid multi-media consumers. In fact, unlike other age groups, Boomers consume a daily, balanced diet of media from multiple traditional and interactive sources with traditional media — television, radio, and newspapers — providing their daily “squares.”
While the media has been focused on reporting the demise of traditional media, Boomers have largely been ignoring their prognosticators and continue to use these mediums as their “go to” sources for entertainment, news and exposure to brands.
Consider these statistics:
Television
* Boomers spend, on average, 9.5 hours a day on “screen” time activities — e.g., television, computer, mobile phones, video games — with the largest percentage of time spent on television.
* 77% of Boomer’s daily viewing occurs between 7:30 pm and 11 pm, when they are most likely to watch The Discovery Channel, A&E, the Food Network, ESPN and Fox News.
Radio
* 76% listen to the radio — more than any other demographic — with half listening during morning drive-time and their programming preferences vary from oldies to country to talk shows.
Print
* Time spent on print (e.g., newspapers, magazines, books) is highest among Boomers, with younger Boomers (45-54) spending on average 30 minutes a day and older Boomers (55-65) spending up to 100 minutes a day.
* In addition to national papers, 57% read their local daily newspaper regularly and 68% read their weekly community paper.
These traditional sources provide the foundation of Boomers’ awareness and knowledge of brands. They augment their daily traditional media consumption with time online, spending on average two hours a day.
But unlike other age groups, Boomers — who according to The Pew Internet and American Life Project now account for 35% of all Americans online — use the Internet much more heavily to research and purchase products and connect with friends and family than their younger peers. Typically, traditional advertising triggered their online search.
And, Boomers are researching products and services online because their brand loyalty is up for grabs; they are not brand loyal. Refuting a popular marketing truism that older consumers become more brand loyal, a 2008 AARP/Focalyst study found that 61% of Boomers felt “it didn’t pay to be brand loyal.”
A more recent Nielsen analysis of brand spending corroborated that finding: in March 2009, Nielsen reported that only a fifth of Boomers were more brand loyal than their younger cohorts.
As those who target Boomers well know, this segment offers an incredibly wealthy opportunity for marketers:
* 78 million+ members
* Estimated $10 trillion in discretionary assets – transferred to them by their dying parents and grandparents
* $2.3 trillion annual average spend on consumer goods and services
But, only if marketers shift some of their advertising dollars back to traditional media, creating an integrated media plan, to engage Boomers.
Posted by truecreek on July 20, 2009 under Opinions. Everyone has them. |
Seth tells it like it is.
By Seth Godin.
Sometimes people push back on posts of mine they don’t like by telling me I’m out of bounds. Somehow, they say, I’ve crossed the boundary of what I’m allowed to write about. They are angry that I’m now writing about something outside my defined area.
I’m usually taken aback by this, because I didn’t realize I’d actually agreed to any boundaries.
Brands run into this all the time. Consumers give them boundaries. Nike isn’t allowed to make a computer, for example (unless they partner with Apple). It turns out, though, that marketers decide to believe in these boundaries a lot more than consumers do.
A beautifully made product or service (one that we agree with) gets a lot of slack, regardless of its source. Virgin is a great example of this. Branson can market cola and airplanes with the same brand, largely because we like what he makes. In Korea, there are a few massive brands that are ‘allowed’ to market anything they like, from dishwashers to cars. Google is allowed to market the very cool new Squares, of course.
The real problem is that when marketers believe they are going out of bounds, the work they do tends to be lousy. Starbucks attempt at chocolate, for example, wasn’t as good at being chocolate as their coffee is at being coffee.I think that’s because the marketers at Starbucks feel they have permission to care about coffee, but chocolate is merely an extension, an additional profit center, not a passion.
I’m not arguing for carte blanche craziness with your brand. American Express can do travelers checks and credit cards and could have done PayPal… but no, they probably shouldn’t launch a line of whiskey any time soon. I am, however, arguing that once you have permission to talk to someone, finding new products or services for them is a smart way to grow.
Posted by truecreek on under Opinions. Everyone has them. |
By Seth Godin.
The bike shop is busy in June. If you bring your bike in for a tune up, it will cost $39 and take a week.
A week!
What if someone says, “I have a bike trip coming up in three days, can you do it by then?”
At most bike shops, the answer is a shrug, followed by, “I’m sorry, we’re swamped.”
The problem with telling people to go away is that they go away. And the problem with treating all customers the same is that customers aren’t the same. They’re different and they demand to be treated (and are often willing to pay) differently.
So, why not smile and say, “Oh, wow, that’s a rush. We can do it, but it’s expensive. It’ll cost you $90. I know that’s a lot, but there you go.”
Outcome: Maybe they’ll still leave. But maybe they’ll happily pay you for the privilege of doing business with you. Why should this be your choice, not theirs?
If you do tax accounting for mid-size businesses, why not offer a special last-minute service? A service in which you process shoeboxes filled with unsorted papers? A service that costs less but happens during your slow season?
There are two really good reasons to turn down special requests:
1. Because you’re marketing yourself as extremely busy and perfectly willing to turn down good work.
2. Because you want to market yourself as someone who is a rigid artist, a stick in the mud or a crotchety perfectionist. This works great for pizza places.
Posted by truecreek on July 16, 2009 under More Dam News, Research |
By Mike Shields
MTV Networks believes it has found a better answer for short form online video advertising than the much-derided 30-second pre-roll: a very short video spot (five seconds long) accompanied by a corresponding, though slightly-delayed display ad.
The company on Wednesday (July 15) announced the results of an elaborate study on online video advertising called Project Inform—one that sought to find a better ad standard for the burgeoning medium which combined brand effectiveness with user-tolerance. The extensive project, conceived as far back as early 2008, was conducted in partnership with with the researcher InsightExpress and employed the services of the Web video technology firm Panache.
Starting with over 20 possibilities, by early 2009 year MTVN says it had boiled its list of potential video ad formats to three, including the classic pre-roll. The others included a unit called the Lower 1/3 Product Suite—which combines a five second pre-roll with a transparent flash ads that takes over a the bottom third of a users video screen only after ten seconds of content has streamed, and a newer unit dubbed The Sideloader Product Suite—which also utilizes a five-second spot and a delayed animated display ad appearing on the side of the video player.
Then, from January through April of this year MTVN began testing the three placements on its collection of sites, from MTV.com to ComedyCentral.com to CMT.com, using 50 million streams worth of ad inventory for three different advertisers, including a studio, a packaged goods brand, and a grocery brand. The results indicated that while pre-rolls faired OK, the “Lower 1/3” scored best when it came to classic branding metrics like unaided awareness, aided awareness and purchase intent.
That approach was crucial, according to Nada Stirratt, MTV Networks’ executive vp of Digital Advertising—who told Mediaweek that Project Inform was specifically designed to study the power of brand advertising—and not direct response advertising—in Web video. Yet it also had to yield actionable data. “The premise was to find out what do you need to activate a consumer response to a marketer’s message,” she said.
And MTV deliberately zeroed in on short form video and casual games—content types that continue to explode in user popularity but have often fallen short when it comes to monetization. “Everybody talks about long form,” Stirratt said. “That was our bias – ‘how do we make these [shorter] experiences work for advertisers?’ The goal was to find the perfect balance between an ad unit that is effective in moving the needle and an ad unit that is likeable.”
Why do people like the “Lower 1/3” unit? It’s hard to say definitively, but Stirratt’s theorized that it has something to do with the lag between the short five second pre-roll and the display unit, which comes 10-seconds later, when “you already have a favorable impression of a brand, and people are really engrossed in content. And they are still able to interact if they want.”
MTVN’s goal with Project Inform in some ways mirrors the research work being done by Publicis VivaKi and a host of prominent partners on The Pool —which is also aimed at establishing a better industry standard for Web video. But MTVN has declined to participate in The Pool, instead pushing forward in search of its own answer, one that Stirratt believes is desperately needed.
“Obviously we need agencies and clients on board [creating original online video ads],” she said. “The win for the industry is when people start creating things for this medium instead of for other media.”
Posted by truecreek on July 1, 2009 under Opinions. Everyone has them. |
By Carmine Gallo
It’s the best way to grab potential customers’ attention and warm them to your pitch. Here are some tips:
During a business trip in Reno, Mario Moretti Polegato took a walk in the Nevada desert. His feet began to hurt in his rubber-soled shoes, so he took out a pocket knife and cut holes in the soles for ventilation. When he returned to his home in Italy, he manufactured a special insole that lets perspiration out without letting water in. Polegato is now the chairman of the Geox shoe company. Polegato recounted that story in a recent interview in The New York Times. The same story is told on the Geox Web site, along with a photo of Polegato and the shoes he cut holes in during that fateful walk.
Most business communication is dry, writes David Meerman Scott in his new book, World Wide Rave. “People love to share stories. When someone says: ‘Let me tell you a story…’ you’re interested, right? When someone says: ‘Let me tell you about my company’s product&’ is your reaction the same? It doesn’t sound like a way you want to spend your valuable time, does it? Stories are exciting.” Tell more stories to create excitement. Consider employing the following tips in your next business presentation:
Tell stories about yourself. Stories can be incorporated into almost any business communication—blogs, Web sites, and especially face-to-face presentations where you have the best opportunity to make a strong emotional connection with your audience. In September 2007, Brad Nierenberg, CEO of RedPeg Marketing in Alexandria, Va., pitched a project to Gaylord National, a massive new resort outside Washington, D.C. He, along with several other members of the team, competed for the account to publicize the hotel’s hiring event the following year.
Nierenberg told me the team members told stories about themselves in the first slides of the pitch, connecting those stories to the roles each would play on the account. For example, the account lead showed a photo of herself as a young cheerleader and discussed how her role is to lead with precision and to keep spirits high. Nierenberg brought a picture of himself as a 6-year old in a cowboy outfit. As the “sheriff” in town, he might not be on the account every day, but he would be available to make sure “all was right in the town of Gaylord.” Nierenberg knew the stories were making on impact on his audience from the smiles on their faces. “They couldn’t wait for the next story,” he said. The attendees even asked for copies of the photos to show the other decision makers. RedPeg won the account.
Tell someone else’s story. “In a mental world, it is ideas that shape behavior, and it is the transformational leader’s job to package the right kind of ideas into a story and to effectively communicate it to the organization,” according to Charles S. Jacobs in Management Rewired. Note that Jacobs doesn’t say that a leader’s job is to tell his story. Personal stories work best in some cases, but not all. Sometimes your clients’ stories are more relevant than your own. For example, Eastcastle Place is an independent living complex for seniors in Milwaukee, Wis. Chicago-based Celtic Marketing, Eastcastles’ advertising agency, decided to use storytelling in its 2008-09 marketing plan. According to Celtic President Marlene Byrne, research demonstrated that seniors were interested in independent living but feared making the move. They assumed the transition would be stressful financially and emotionally. “We felt the best way to show them that moving doesn’t have to be overwhelming was to share stories of Eastcastle residents who already made the move and were happy they did.” Stories of real residents (along with their photographs) appeared in direct mail and public advertising.
The purpose of the Eastcastle ads are not to make a sale over the phone but to inspire prospects to visit the community. More often than not, a story doesn’t make the sale. Stories open the door, making a prospect more receptive to the message. Although I’ve never owned a pair of Geox shoes, on my next visit to Nordstrom, I will probably look at a pair and think about the guy who poked holes in shoes in the Nevada desert.
If you want to connect with your audience, inspire them, and motivate them to action, start telling stories.
Posted by truecreek on June 23, 2009 under The Work |
A real nice piece of work from Rebecca, a fine writer and member of The Creekbed.
Posted by truecreek on May 29, 2009 under More Dam News |
We’ve been discussing this exact same thing with clients for several months now and it seems like we’re almost there. Brand advertising on TV will once again be back in vogue, with some nice budgets behind it.
By Mark Dolliver
Will ad agencies need to wait until the recession has certifiably ended before they see a rebound in their clients’ spending? A survey released today by the Association of National Advertisers gives a glimmer of hope that marketers’ expenditures will turn upward sooner than that.
In online polling last month among members of the ANA’s Brand Marketer Leadership Community panel, 68 percent of respondents said they plan boost their media budgets as the economy recovers; 41 percent said they’ll increase their spending on social networking/word of mouth. As for the timing, 73 percent said “they would ideally implement these increased marketing activities three to six months before the recession ends, and an additional 16 percent as soon as it ends.”
A renewed focus on long-term brand-building will represent a shift from what many marketers have been doing as the recession deepened. The ANA’s report of the findings says two-thirds of marketers “have shifted their emphasis to more short-term strategies in the last six months.” Such a shift is reflected in the answers respondents gave when asked to cite the areas in which they’ve cut back. Fifty-six percent said they’ve cut media budgets, and 41 percent said the same about sponsorship/events activities. The activity most likely to have been increased amid the recession: “pricing deals,” cited by 47 percent of respondents.
For all the flux in marketers’ use of media, TV remained atop the standings when respondents were asked to say which media are effective for building brand equity. Sixty-four percent cited TV. Though down from 80 percent in a similar February 2007 poll, that still put TV ahead of online (61 percent) and “guerrilla/word of mouth/buzz marketing” (57 percent). Lagging farther behind were magazines (51 percent, down from 67 percent in 2007), radio (30 percent, down from 36 percent), outdoor (26 percent, down from 35 percent) and newspapers (19 percent, down from 36 percent). Social media garnered the most mentions as “the media channel that marketers would like to use but have not yet been able to implement.”
Elsewhere in the survey (conducted in conjunction with marketing-services firm ‘mktg’), respondents were asked about the factors they watch most closely as indicators of “brand health” — i.e., the degree to which brand equity is increasing or declining. “Customer experience/satisfaction” was cited by 48 percent of respondents — up from 37 percent in the 2007 poll. “There is less focus on traditional metrics such as brand image and awareness, which tend to be lagging indicators of brand health,” says the ANA report of the findings.
Tags: Ad Business, Advertising, advertising agency in alexandria virginia, advertising agency in DC, advertising agency in northern VA, advertising agency in Northern Virginia, brand, brand strategy, Commercials, Research, strategy, television advertising
Posted by truecreek on May 6, 2009 under Opinions. Everyone has them. |
Time and time again, we’ve heard the story: Increase your marketing and advertising spend. Now. Not only to keep your brand top of mind but to assure that when everything settles down and we’re back in business, you will be too. And in a big way.
Folks will remember you were there when the proverbial crap hit the fan. That you were strong enough to keep the fires burning so that when the time comes for them to need your company, you will be there. Better, stronger and leaner than ever.
Seize the opportunity now. Start thinking positive about things and get back in the game. Add weeks, don’t cut them. Print the entire quantity, not just a segment. Use better paper. Shoot in HD. Raise those production standards. Buy more media. Shoot, how about running some great print ads? The newspaper community needs your business.
Better yet. Hire a great Northern Virginia Ad Agency by the name of True Creek and we’ll help your company put it together.
A few months ago, Mike Matson wrote and article that merits another post.
MarketSense study during the 1989-91 recession demonstrated that brands such as Jif Peanut Butter and Kraft Salad Dressing increased their advertising and experienced sales growth of 57% to 70%. During this same period, most of the beer industry made cuts to their ad budgets, but Coors Light and Bud Light increased their budgets and saw sales jump 15% to 16%. Among fast food companies, Pizza Hut sales rose 61% and Taco Bell’s 40% due to strong advertising support, reducing McDonald’s sales by as much as 28%.
MarketSense concluded the study by reporting. “The best strategy for coping with a recession is balanced exploitation of ad spending for long-term consumer motivation, plus promotion for short term sales boosts.”
Strategies to help your business thrive in this economy.
• Don’t cut your ad budget, increase it. Let your competition cut their budgets. When you increase your spending, you increase your share of voice. If your competitors cut back, your message grows even stronger.
• Have a strategic marketing plan that is well thought out, so you don’t waste money advertising the wrong message in the wrong place to the wrong audience.
• Keep your loyal customers by keeping in touch with them and letting them know what you have to offer.
• Maintain your brand awareness. Advertising works cumulatively so you have to remind people frequently about your brand or they’ll forget you.
• Achieve greater media efficiency by taking advantage of more negotiable rates and special promotions.
• Don’t degrade your advertising by trying to save a few dollars on creative or production costs. Your customers will notice and will perceive lower quality not just in your advertising, but in your products and services.
This is one time to stress quality—and value. “All great enterprises move forward in a recession, and the weaklings move backward. The dumbbells cut back on advertising. The smart people don’t.” -Ed McCabe, founding partner of Scali, McCabe, Stoves advertising agency, a legendary Madison Avenue agency of years past.
Posted by truecreek on under More Dam News |
Moms Say Marketers Ignore Their Needs
-By Jessica Hogue, Nielsen Online
Marketers have made great strides in recent years to better understand and connect with moms. But in trying to perfect the message, many have forgotten to listen to the very consumer they are trying to woo.
According to M2Moms, 60 percent of moms feel that marketers are ignoring their needs, and 73 percent feel that advertisers don’t really understand what it’s like to be a mom.
Last year’s Motrin Moms kerfuffle, in which women on Twitter and YouTube reacted to an ad offending baby-toting moms, raised the antennae of marketing managers everywhere and underscored the importance of not just reaching moms but understanding their value systems.
Initiatives like Wal-Mart’s “elevenmoms” (a partnership through which the retail giant and a collection of mom bloggers are building a well-timed money saving community) demonstrate how marketers are taking steps forward to engage moms — particularly mom bloggers — and to develop mechanisms to absorb their input. Not all marketers have to go to such lengths to understand today’s Power Moms, but much can be gained from expanding perceived notions about this important and highly-influential demographic.
While marketers today have a so many opportunities to connect with mom at various inflection points during her life (having a first or second baby, child entering school, return to work), the challenge is sensing her distinct needs and responding in a way that truly resonates. This forces marketers to redraw the vision of mom in our head.
As CEOs of their households, Power Moms wield more influence than ever before: moms control 85 percent of household spending, and are worth more than $2 trillion to U.S. brands, as reported by the Marketing to Moms Coalition. Most moms work. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, in 1965, about 45 percent of women with children (under 18) were employed; by 2000, over 78 percent were. Whether they work out of the home, telecommute, or run a business from the home, media technology and the Internet have become a true enabler.
Nielsen reports that moms between the ages of 25-54 who have at least one child under the age of 18 within the home represent roughly 19 percent of the total online population. And they are not passive observers online. Rather, Power Moms leverage their megaphones to influence online purchase decisions. Considering the expansion in ecommerce for foods, beauty and household products — which is projected to grow to $12 billion in 2011 — effectively reaching moms has real bottom-line implication.
Power Moms leverage digital applications to stay organized, connect with their families, friends and mom networks (think Facebook and micro-blog platforms like Twitter, as well as mushrooming networks like MomBloggersClub.com and TwitterMoms.com), and to get things done, like paying the bills, ordering groceries, downloading coupons and hunting for ideas for the next family vacation. And lest you envision moms tapping away at their computers, know that Power Moms are also mobile enthusiasts who are 35 percent more likely to use text messaging/SMS on the go.
But even online, not all moms are created equal. According to M2Moms, African American mothers are more likely to read articles online (68 percent) and listen to music (45 percent), whereas Caucasian mothers are likely to frequent social networks (45 percent) and message boards (43 percent). Web 2.0 is also relevant for Latinas: blogs were the top choice among Hispanic Moms (55 percent) followed by social networks (42 percent).
Understanding the Power Mom’s online behavior affords a more holistic awareness about her passions and interests and also enables precision in online targeting for optimizing media plans. For example, established moms aged 40-50 who have three or more children in the home are heavy online shoppers, over-indexing on sites like Shopzilla, Target and Walmart compared with the average online consumer. On these sites, Power Moms are likely to be receptive to advertising deals and promotions. They also stay connected on email and are beginning to dabble in social networks, primarily Facebook.
Posted by truecreek on May 4, 2009 under More Dam News |
By Theresa Howard, USA TODAY
Car advertisers that maintain their ad spending can rev up market share in down times, gaining an edge to exploit in a recovery.
Sure, the auto industry is in the doldrums. Car sales through April this year are down 37%, to about 3 million vehicles from 4.8 million through April last year, according to Autodata’s latest sales report out Friday.
But while some brands all but stopped spending on marketing, others kept or increased their budgets, particularly for new or improved models. Among those for whom that paid off:
• Kia Motors increased U.S. ad spending 43% in 2008 vs. 2007, according to ad tracker TNS Media Intelligence. Its U.S. market share is up from 1.9% at the end of 2007 to 3.1% through April of this year, according to Autodata.
• Mercedes-Benz raised ad spending 39.8% in 2008 vs. 2007. Its U.S. market share is up from 1.6% at the end of 2007 to 1.8% through April this year.
• Volkswagen raised ad spending 45.7% in 2008 vs. 2007. Its U.S. market share is up from 1.4% at the end of 2007 to 1.9% through April of this year.
VW’s U.S. marketing chief, Tim Ellis, says that despite the tough sales year, 2009 ad expenditures will be held even with 2008.
“When we invest in marketing, things happen,” says Ellis. “We think it’s important to stick to our roots and stick to our value message. We’re getting a higher percentage of the dwindling marketplace. And when this crazy situation comes straight side up again, we’ll be positioned to increase our share even further.”
Posted by truecreek on May 1, 2009 under Opinions. Everyone has them. |
For those of you who are following the saga of sale or no sale for the automakers: this is NOT what I was suggesting at all. This kind of local stuff just gives me the heebie jeebies.
I just sense so much desperation in the art direction. Agreed?
Posted by truecreek on April 27, 2009 under Opinions. Everyone has them. |
By Emma Hall
Welcome to social-media message overload.
The constant barrage of invites to sign up for this group or download that app are starting to wear on social-network users, presenting big challenges for the brands and marketers who are looking to use these sites to aggregate fans and cultivate relationships with customers.
Nearly a third of social networkers say they are fed up with the constant requests to join groups and try new applications, according to research by the Internet Advertising Bureau in the U.K. That means marketers will need to work harder and keep innovating if they want to harness the consumer power of social networks and persuade people to join their sponsored sites or pages.
When asked “What do you dislike about social networks?” by far the highest response, at 31%, was that there are too many invites to install applications, followed by 16% who said “when advertising isn’t relevant to me.” Slightly more than 5% complained about messages from brands and another 5% actually lamented the addictiveness of social networks. About 12% said they had no complaints. The research showed that 7% of respondents sign up to find out about brands.
“From a marketer’s perspective, social networks look brilliant on paper,” said Alistair Beattie, head of strategic planning at AKQA, London. “It’s a switched-on crowd with a huge amount of time who hold brands close to them. The difficulty is that they regard this as their space. We have all become our own source of entertainment. But there is a resistance to being advertised at in our own spaces.”
Amy Kean, IAB senior marketing manager, said, “Despite [social networking's] popularity, this study shows that respect for the user is just as important in social media. Users will not respond to spam or irrelevant advertising.” And controlling those intrusions will have to become a higher priority for social networks, said Union Square Venture’s Fred Wilson at Ad Age’s recent digital conference.
“One of [social networks'] biggest costs is ‘environmental mediation,’ or keeping the bad people at bay,” Mr. Wilson said.
AKQA had success with a Marmite group on Facebook. The savory spread’s advertising message is “Love it or hate it,” so the group works well as a discussion topic for social networkers. Fans post recipes, discuss weird and wonderful ways to enjoy the sticky black spread, tell tales of conversion to the taste and share frustrations about not being able to purchase it outside the U.K.
Too often, Mr. Beattie said, advertising on social networks is “still a traditional interruptive approach where brands are piggybacking on content that people value.”
The IAB research found that exclusive content, which appeals to 28% of social networkers, and a genuine interest in the message, which attracts 37%, are the keys to a positive response from consumers on social networks. And because only 5% say that they actively dislike messages from brands, there are big opportunities for marketers who can hit the right notes.
“To be popular, brands need to have a personality and be someone that people want to be friends with,” Mr. Beattie said. “The guiding principle is to offer things that are not available elsewhere, things that give social kudos or bragging rights. Brands are part of the fabric of people’s lives and ultimately most are happy to be identified as friends of a brand.”
The IAB study of nearly 2,000 internet users also showed that social networks are taking on extra relevance in the current economic climate. Forty-one percent of members say they now place even more value on ratings and reviews from family and friends on a social network. Mobile social-networking is also on the increase. Updating social-network sites via mobile handsets is increasing, with 25% of all respondents logging on to check or update their pages.
Posted by truecreek on April 23, 2009 under Opinions. Everyone has them. |
General Motors — facing a deadline to restructure its beleaguered operations — will shut down 13 of its 20 North American plants for several weeks this summer to allow its dealers to sell down overstuffed inventories. The shutdowns will reduce GM’s planned North American output by 190,000 units.
As I said in my previous post on the topic, “If Retailers Can Do It, Why Not the Automakers?”, it’s time for a sale.
According to CNN, GM has about 767,000 vehicles in U.S. dealer stock. While that’s 12% lower than the inventory last year, GM sales are about half what they were last year at this time. So they have a lot of cars on the dock. Even more on dealer lots and on the tarmac. The need to get rid of all that excess inventory is now the rationale as to why they are shutting down 13 plants this summer.
To me, that inventory is an asset that can, and should, be sold. At a price that will MOVE THE MARKET. The company should be doing everything in its power from a pricing standpoint to move those vehicles to add cash to their bottom line. Instead, we get ‘value add’ satellite radio for a year and an extended warranty.
Does anyone really believe that the margins for the automakers are so minute that they cannot develop an aggressive retail sales strategy based on percentage discounts? We’re in the midst of a virtual depression in the auto industry, so it just seems to me that now is the time for GM to whip out the big guns.
This is a company that would rather put thousands of people out of work over the summer rather than offer up their product at a sales price.
Think about it.
Posted by truecreek on April 7, 2009 under Opinions. Everyone has them. |
By Joseph Young
I just don’t get it. Today, I read ANOTHER full page ad in The Washington Post from GM, touting their new TOTAL CONFIDENCE PLAN, complete with a deal for OnStar, an upgraded powertrain warranty, vehicle value protection (whatever that means) and the newest and most popular trick in the book, a payment protection plan should the buyer lose their job.
Nice stuff, but for me, I just like it simple. So, I have an idea. Lower your prices. Have a sale. 25% off all Pontiacs. 30% off all GMC trucks. Buy one, get one free. But you have to close the deal by the end of the month.
It’s that simple.
Sure, there are the folks that bought cars in the past few months that wouldn’t be very happy. Well, extend their warranty, or something like that. It’s so easy to think about why it wouldn’t work, but we all know it would. Long term, it might be an issue, but right now the writing is on the wall for these guys and they have to make a bold move.
It’s time for the Automaker Inventory Reduction Sale. Now through the end of the month.
Think about it. Today, there are a gazillion cars just sitting on docks all over the place. Things are so bad they are even storing them in airport parking lots, for Christ’s sake. Why not take all of that inventory and put the stuff ON SALE? Talk about getting cash flow moving again.
Dealers would be happy, because this would be a manufacturer driven sale. Customers would be happy because you would be speaking in a language they fully understand and can appreciate. And I would hesitate to think that the poor car salespeople just wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. It hasn’t exactly been nirvana for them lately.
Everyone loves a deal, but a deal that is clean and simple is to die for. All of these ‘creative’ new bullet points, complete with all of their disclaimer copy just confuse the issue at hand.
Can you imagine walking into a dealership today knowing that you were about to get a car for 30% under MSRP? Shoot, let’s go for 40%. They would just fly out the door.
If the retail establishment can do it, why not the automakers? From a competitive standpoint, it would just smoke the foreign competition. It would take virtually every sale off the table. It would be a Made in the USA home run for GM and Chrysler. But they better hurry. Time’s a wastin’.
Posted by truecreek on April 6, 2009 under Opinions. Everyone has them. |
By Beth Snyder Bulik
YORK, Pa. (AdAge.com) — Consumers don’t have to look far these days for a deal; it seems marketers everywhere are pitching discounts, bargains and value.
Walmart allows consumers to save money and live better. Microsoft reminds that PCs are cheaper than Macs and just as good. JCPenney promises the trifecta of value: style, quality and price. Kia Motors says it has features competitors can’t beat at a price they can’t match. Pillsbury Grands biscuits are only 25¢ a serving. Subway and Quiznos are duking it out by the dollar with $5 foot-longs and $4 torpedos, respectively.
As ’90s infomercial guru Susan Powter might say, “Stop the insanity.” On its face, the rationale behind value-based advertising seems to make sense. It’s a recession, and consumers are watching what they spend. But assuming everyone really is only out for the best deal during this recession, at what point does it all become one big blur? That is, if everything is a value, then what’s the value of being a value?
“When everyone is offering 10% off or 25% off or 50% off, what’s the point of difference?” said David Murphy, co-president and director of brand innovation at Barrie D’Rozario Murphy, Minneapolis. “A lot of the noise you’re hearing now is price noise. … Value in the traditional definition is getting more for less money or getting something for nothing. But value has an emotional quality, too, where I feel smart or I feel reassured or I feel in control by buying this product.”
He pointed to Hyundai, Target and Kodak as recent examples of brand marketing that tap that deeper kind of value. The Hyundai Assurance program reassures by taking the risk of job loss off the table, while Target harked back to simpler times with its fall campaign tagged “A new day. New ways to save.” And Kodak offers consumer-smart and less-wasteful picture printing with its newly launched “Print and Prosper” campaign.
“We’re promoting the value of saving people money. That gets to the trust of Kodak,” said Kodak Chief Marketing Officer Jeffrey Hayzlett of the work created by Deutsch, New York. “It’s not a pricing model; this is a value model. … Kodak wants you to take more pictures, have more memories and more Kodak moments. We don’t want you to have to worry about whether you can afford to print those moments and memories out.”
Even the word value can raise consumer suspicions, no matter a marketer’s good intent. “‘Value’ is the most overused and least believed statement in branding,” said Kevin Joy, VP at BrandProtect. “It’s OK to want to be perceived as providing value, but just keep it out of the slogans, please.”
Posted by truecreek on March 26, 2009 under Opinions. Everyone has them. |
I love newspaper. Always have. It’s just a wonderful creative medium that allows clients to not only project their brand image in a tasteful manner, but it allows for the communication of additional points of importance without destroying the creative at hand. It’s artwork. And it can really work for the client. Martin’s Mike Hughes thinks the same.
By Mike Hughes
It’s time the advertising industry did something important.
For our own self-interest — and for the common good — we need to start paying attention to newspapers again.
To begin with, it would be good for our business. For our own selfish reasons, we need a medium that targets the well-informed. We need a medium that lets us tell our whole story — and not just the 30-second version. With each passing month, we need more media that target people where they live. We need more media that let marketers build a brand and ask for the business. We need more media that let writers, art directors, photographers and illustrators practice their crafts.
We need a medium with the immediacy and importance of newspapers. Lee Clow says, “Newspaper is a special medium. It’s urgent, not yesterday or tomorrow but today. Sitting with a newspaper and a cup of coffee in the morning will always be one of the most intimate media experiences there is.”
Online or in print, we need newspapers. There are no substitutes. Magazines, TV channels and websites don’t do the same things. Not even close.
Our industry needs newspapers — but just as important, so does humankind. The world needs the kind of journalism practiced by newspapers when they’re at their best. The local investigative pieces. The foreign correspondence. The war reporting. Without them, news goes unreported. Viewpoints are narrowed. Governments can run amok.
That kind of reporting is expensive, and right now no one knows how it will get paid for in the coming years. With newspapers cutting costs every day, who will pay to man a substantial bureau in Baghdad? Who will spend the money to report the atrocities in Africa? Who will find the resources to blow the whistle on the next Watergate?
Even at their best, magazines, TV channels and websites don’t come close to giving us that kind of reporting.
Of course, humankind’s problem isn’t necessarily the advertising industry’s problem. If online and print newspapers weren’t proven effective, no one would say our industry needs to address this important problem.
But decades worth of evidence — including evidence gathered in 2009 — points to the uncommon efficacy of newspaper advertising. You know how excited our industry gets about the Super Bowl? Well, every single day of the year, more American adults read a printed newspaper than watch the big game once a year. And in 22 of the top 25 markets, the local-newspaper site is the No. 1 local site in town. And the newspaper-website audience has grown 80% in the past five years.
So why aren’t we creating more newspaper advertising? Part of the answer is undoubtedly fashion. Twenty-five years ago, an advertising campaign usually meant “TV and some print. Maybe radio.” That was the fashion then. Say “campaign” to ad people today, and their minds leap to “TV and digital.” We say we’re media-agnostic, but our behavior often says something else entirely. How many agencies aren’t selling newspaper advertising to their clients as hard as they should? How many advertisers are overlooking the medium that still has unsurpassed credibility with its audience? It’s time for a wake-up call.
No less an authority than Jeff Goodby reminds us that far from being out-of-fashion, a good newspaper ad is actual art. “The art is the part that gets people to look. Show outrageous things that don’t belong there. Shock people with a new logic,” he says. “If we all do this, it will become very difficult to find which newspaper page we want to wrap the fish in.
“I will like that day.”
Let me be clear here. I don’t think the newspaper industry is going to die anytime soon. With some well-publicized exceptions, most papers are surviving the economy’s near collapse. They might be holding on by their fingernails, but at least they’re holding on.
But if the newspaper business is going to give us the content our industry feeds on — and if it’s going to give us the journalism the world needs — newspapers need to be robust.
If we don’t give them a fair shot at our budgets, they might never be healthy enough to do the job we want them to do.
And we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves.
Posted by truecreek on March 3, 2009 under Opinions. Everyone has them. |
I don’t know about you, but for the life of me I cannot understand the rationale behind the new campaign from Gatorade. Gatorade has the type of brand history that most companies today would just die for. So why would the company throw that all away and confuse everyone with a slick new campaign?
What’s up with G?
To get a good feel for the history of the brand, let’s see what the company has to say about it. For accuracy, the next few paragraphs are from the official website:
In the early summer of 1965, a University of Florida assistant coach sat down with a team of university physicians and asked them to determine why so many of his players were being affected by heat and heat related illnesses.
The researchers — Dr. Robert Cade, Dr. Dana Shires, Dr. H. James Free and Dr. Alejandro de Quesada — soon discovered two key factors that were causing the Gator players to ‘wilt’: the fluids and electrolytes the players lost through sweat were not being replaced, and the large amounts of carbohydrates the players’ bodies used for energy were not being replenished.
The researchers then took their findings into the lab, and scientifically formulated a new, precisely balanced carbohydrate-electrolyte beverage that would adequately replace the key components lost by Gator players through sweating and exercise. They called their concoction ‘Gatorade’.
So that’s how it all started.
Soon, the drink was a huge success. After seeing their gridiron fortunes turn around, the Gators attributed their ability to withstand the tremendous heat to the fluids and essential elements in Gatorade. Of course, word got around and eventually virtually every team in college football had plenty of Gatorade on the sidelines.
Today, over a dozen products and flavors now carry the Gatorade name. Shoot, the drink’s manufacturer, Quaker Oats, thought so highly about it they registered and trademarked the name.
So what does the agency recommend to the client? Change it.
Now, I love the art direction and execution and I’ve always been a big fan of b/w television. The talent chosen for the spots is superb. The cinematography is excellent and everything is very well written. But my problem is with the STRATEGY and the rationale.
I would have loved to have been in that presentation. Just imagine the dancing the creatives had to do with this one. They sold everyone in that meeting a ton of goods, you know…this is gonna be cool. But whatever they said in that meeting, it worked. Quaker Oats decided to change everything, including the packaging, product names, website….the whole enchilada.
The campaign is nothing but a huge financial gamble. Can you just imagine how much it will cost to get the letter “G ” up to the brand recognition numbers the name “Gatorade” has today?
To me, the shop has done the brand and Quaker Oats a tremendous disservice. Here’s what I think will happen. I suspect you will see the Gatorade name once again gain greater prominence in the packaging design, as negative numbers start reflecting the lack of enthusiasm with the new direction. G will slowly fall into obscurity. But not after millions of dollars will have been put into this misdirected approach.
But that’s just me. I believe in the power of brand history and to convince a client to make such a radical departure is just irresponsible.
Posted by truecreek on January 31, 2009 under The Work |
This research investigates the consumer’s new product learning process. What we find is that learning has an influential emotional component. Specifically, learning to use a new product can evoke an emotional response, (independent of the emotions produced by the attributes or benefits of the product itself), and that learning-based emotional response can influence product evaluations over time.