Trucks²

Our roads are getting more and more silted up with trucks. We don't always use this cheap medium to pass on our brand message. But watch out, this literally cluttered medium needs a creative way to be seen. Like this example of FedEx.

Windows branding evolution

This movie shows how even a fast developing product like Windows can remain consistent to its visual and audio branding. Like for a lot of brands, line extensions often deviate from this consistency. But luckily for Windows, the branding went back to where it came from at each large renovation.

Your skin as soft as a baby's

Commercials for shaving products often looked alike: a man enjoys his morning shave followed by a smiling girl who approves the good job with her hand or own cheek. And it works.

The difficulty with products for men is the targeting: the user group isn’t the buyers group. With this type of commercial, decided to fully concentrate on both target groups, based on 2 different insights:
- Female or buyers group: I would love to kiss my husband without irritating my skin
- Male or end user: I feel guilty because my cheeks are always shaggy

Wilkinson went a step further with this funny viral ad. As the father sees his wife kisses their baby all the time, he understands his cheek should be as soft as his son’s cheek!

Next generation washing machines

This machine looks innocent, but it might cause nightmares to every marketer in the multi billion dollar business of the giants Dash, Persil, Ariel, Coral and Vizir. This new piece of technology is made by the Chinese constructor “Haier” and is named WASH20.

So what? Well, it will wash your laundry as white and clean with clear water, without any help of soap or what so ever! According to the brochure of the manufacturer, the machine washes with a chemical substance called dihydrogen monoxide. It breaks down the water (H2O) into OH- and H+ ions, who both have a role in the washing process. OH- acts as the cleaning agent by attracting and retaining stains. The H+ ions sterilize the clothes.

It will soon be launched on the Belgian market for 699€ and exists already in France. Right on time, as with the global warming issue becomes more important for the consumer.

I know that Procter & Gamble and Unilever knew about this innovation since long. I’m curious what their reaction will be...

Nespresso for everyone

The new Nespresso commercial featuring George Cloony is out. This is the second in line to activate the “What Else?” campaign launched one year ago, when George Cloony became the new brand icon.



This is a best practice to illustrate the inclusive strategy of Nespresso. It takes into consideration the requirements of a specific target group (in this case baby boomers) without excluding the rest of your main target group (20-45).
George Cloony is aspirational for both age groups.
The opposite example is Dove with its Pro-Age range targeting 50+ women. It’s positioning is explicit in the whole marketing mix (packaging, product benefits, media selection, etc.).

Axe versus Dove - What's Unilever's message?

It's a pity how Unilever spreads 2 contrary messages into the world.
I thought consumers would think this is important: once they would start to understand Axe and Dove are from the same company, the credibility of the Dove’s self-esteem fund would drop below zero.

But the numbers prove the contrary. On Youtube, the new Dove movie (Dove Unslaught; posted 4 weeks ago) has far more clicks (785.867) than this message (posted 2 weeks ago) with merely 21.562 clicks!

Viral champagne

It's a little bit early, yet this is an outstanding viral campaign as a lot of funny e-mails are sent at work.

A pitty the marketing team can't measure the number of views.

Nokia reaches out to angry iPhone early adopters

After only 66 days, Apple decided to cut the price of their iPhone with 200 USD. Protests from Apple lovers were loud. They felt abused when they discovered their passion was nothing more than business. For Apple, this was just a profit maximization, especially with the Christmas holidays to come. Everybody knows this was going to happen (electronics always drop in price over time), but not that fast and with that amount!

The Nokia marketing team immediatly understood the feelings of these early adopters. Only 1 hour after the announcement, the Finnish company launched an Adwords campaign towards this target group. When early adopters Googled "iphone price drop", a sponsored link named "Sorry, Early Adopters" appeared. It referred to Mosh, Nokia's social network. The impact was huge as Nokia reached Apple's most loyal consumers right at the moment when they felt betrayed.

With this campaign, Nokia used 2 of the benefits of the internet: speed and creativity. Of course, this is only possible if you understand your target group long before this opportunity occurs.

Adventure Ecology floods Second Life

After Al Gore's movie (An Inconvenient Truth), his book several of his speeches, the on-line community Adventure Ecology created a massive stunt. 6 months ago, they flooded Second Life in order to show what life would be when the ice-caps would melt down: sea levels would rise up to 20ft!

The stunt not only touched the 200.000 avatars, but the PR reached also 18 million people through classic media.

Campaign developed by Ogilvy.

1984 Apple's Macintosh Commercial

With this commercial Apple introduced the first Macintosh in 1984. It illustrates how well the Apple marketers at that time already understood their customers. They recognized a lot of personal computers owners want to be different. They determined a rather large niche group in the market with great value potential that wants to stand out of the crowd. The new Macintosh gave the perfect answer: with this Macintosh, 1984 won’t be like 1984.

Another one to add to my favorite commercials' shortlist.

Dove Onslaught: the new Dove Evolution

This one might hit the same click rate, even though it gets less under my skin.

Nice follow-up for the previous one.

Drive cleaner with Golf BlueMotion

Last week, I saw this 4x3 billboard in Belgium.
I think the message is clear :-)

Ariston - Washing machine world ad

Great ad for Ariston washing machines with good impact because of its exceptional execution. Very esthetic with a single minded message.

It took me several times though to understand these were not just fish swimming around. And the branding was perhaps not strong enough. And indeed, they reworked the ad a little bit to improve on this: the reworked version starts and ends with a product shot and branding

Click here for the improved version.

Agency: Leo Burnett Milan

MARS – Smaller size, better sales

In 2006, Masterfoods Belgium understood consumers didn’t buy any candy bars like Mars, Twix or Snickers anymore because of their large size. No rocket science of course in a time were health and obesity are main trends, but it took a lot of courage to downsize the format. The business question was: will Masterfoods acquire enough new penetration by reducing the format to compensate the loss in volume / buying occasion?

The answer was yes. They reduced Mars from 54g to 45g (-17%), but shrinked 7 or 12 bars (according to the distributor) into a family pack to increase the volume per occassion. Communication was short and efficient: 15’ TVC with idiot proof messages.

Result? The product became relevant again and for the first time in at least 5 years, sales went up.

PS: The Mars commercial was 30" long in order to build the brand equity.

Stella Artois - The extra coupon

In Belgium, this Belgian brand is known as a cheaper, yet high quality beer. Outside the country, particularly in the US, Stella Artois has a super premium positioning. To strengthen this, they're running the "Reassuringly Expensive" campaign. This hilarious top topical fits right in their campaign idea. Nice impact.

Check out the TV ad as well. It got a golden Cannes award in 2006.

Dash - The longest clothesline

Yesterday, Dash broke the world record with the longest white clothesline. Since last Wednesday, the 60.000 collected white clothings were hung on the lines. All clothing was carefully washed with DASH and then delivered to VZW Spullenhulp, a charity organization that collects clothing.

The action was a partnership between P&G and the main distributor in Belgium: Carrefour. The communication of the mechanism went via 2 Carrefour features (door-to-doors) in a unique way.

Result: national television (VRT). Unfortionally at the non-commercial station, so non-branded, meaning without mentioning the brand name. But, this action was another example of "truly branding", meaning it's so recognizable that even without the logo. For the Belgian consumer, it's obvious who organized the event.

Levi's when still straight

In addition to my previous post on Levi's, here the a campaign on their new straight jeans.

Happiness Factory: The Movie

The sequel of the original successful TVC. Yet this time more complex, more expensive and I'm afraid off message. It made me rather think of the Lord of the Rings, not the happiness of Coke...

Ad bag

With these Alchemy Goods Ad Bag, your ad can have a second life. They're made from used vinyl billboards. Funny: the handles are recycled seat belts!

From ADLAND

Nespresso's 'butterflyer'

Very creative way of sampling by Nespresso.
The buttefly shaped flyers are attached to a Nespresso-cup, good for one coffee you can prepare yourself in the coffee corner in one of the fancy Nespresso shops you can find in the bigger cities of Europe.

McDonald's - The power of branding

For young children, anything made by McDonald’s taste better. This was the main conclusion of a recent study among 63 US children ages 3 to 5. In this study, the children got 5 types of foods: chicken nuggets, a hamburger, french fries, baby carrots and milk. The chicken nuggets, hamburger and french fries were all from McDonald's; the carrots and milk were from a grocery store. Every child got 2 portions: one wrapped in a McDonald’s branded wrapper, the other in a non branded wrapper.

Results?
- 77% of the children said they preferred the taste of the french fries from the McDonald’s bag, while only 13,3% preferred the non branded fries. Only 10% claimed both fries tasted the same.
- 59% said they preferred the taste of the branded chicken nuggets, while 18% preferred the non branded ones.

But the results are also valid for adults.

In 1999, in the Netherlands, we did the same test with the European coffee brand Douwe Egberts among coffee drinking adults. We made the adults drink 2 cups of Douwe Egberts coffee: 1 in a branded cup, the other in the non branded. 85% liked the branded coffee.

Another study even proved the power of the wine label and its impact on the perception of the restaurant where the wine is served!

From Fine as North Dakota wine:
Forty-one diners at the Spice Box restaurant in Urbana, Illinois were given a free glass of Cabernet Sauvignon to accompany a $24 prix-fixe French meal. Half the bottles claimed to be from Noah’s Winery in California. The labels on the other half claimed to be from Noah’s Winery in North Dakota. In both cases, the wine was an inexpensive Charles Shaw wine.
Those drinking what they thought was California wine, rated the wine and food as tasting better, and ate 11% more of their food. They were also more likely to make return reservations.
It comes down to expectations. If you think a wine will taste good, it will taste better than if you think it will taste bad. People didn’t believe North Dakota wine would taste good, so it had a double curse – it hurt both the wine and the entire meal. “Wine labels can throw both a halo or a shadow over the entire dining experience,” according to Cornell Professor Brian Wansink (Ph.D.), author of the book Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think.

It’s amusing to know that they used Charles Shaw wines for the test. This is probably the cheapest wine in the U.S. :-)

Pepsi's answer to Coke ZERO

Until last spring, there seemed to be a silent peace between Coca Cola and Pepsi in Europe: Coke focused on women with Coke Light, Pepsi on men with Pepsi Max.
But this year was different. Coke broken the unspoken rule and launched Coke Zero in Europe: a soda with zero sugar and a great taste. The same positioning as Pepsi Max (launched in ’94) but different execution. Prime prospects are young men.

For PepsiCo France this was the perfect opportunity to start with comparative advertising, as both companies have been doing in the past few decennia in the US. Yet, as the advertising rules are stricter in France, they’ve done it in a subtle way.

Pepsi started with a press campaign from June to December 2007 on Pepsi Max. The ad shows a cursor from ZERO to MAX. On the left, you see an ordinary guy. On the right a very sexy looking guy. They’ve done the same with a boring looking and sexy looking female nurse. It’s not real comparative advertising, but you can clearly see this is about both brands.

Furthermore, PepsiCo launched this year Pepsi Light, for a more female target. With this sexy fashion brand, Pepsi again tries to stand out: you drink it to stand out the crowd.


Agency Pepsi France: CLM BBDO.

Coke - Inside the Factory

A further glimpse inside the Happiness Factory. I admit, the charming interviews of the Coke employees make me melt...

Gay marketing finally out of the closet

Levi's latest campaign featuring its 501 jeans is produced in 2 versions: one for straight audiences and one for the gay target. The second version will exclusively be broadcasted on MTV's gay network LogoOnline.

Innovative media move, for a limited additional budget (some additional production costs) in which I truly believe. The gay world is known as trend setters and early adopters. And they represent more than 10% of the population! Right on target

Enjoy!

Dreft uses consumer insight as RTB

If you want to know if your dishes are really clean, just slide your finger over it. If it tweets, the grease is gone!
Dreft used this insight last year in one of their commercials as a reason to believe.

Refresh but stick to your brand DNA

When I was watching this BMW commercial, I noticed how faithful the BMW 3 Series has been to its brand DNA over the past 40 years. Its distinctive and highly recognizable characteristics remained: the front grid, the position of the branding, the wheel spokes, etc. Yet the brand is fresh and updated until today.

This consistency is extremely important to keep your brand loyals.

Dynamite surfing by Quicksilver

According to the homepage of the creative agency GoViral, this ad generated after 2 months already more than 10 million views worldwide. Not on TV but on-line!

The goal was to broaden Quicksilver’s appeal by making the brand more relevant to the European consumer. They did this by proving Quicksilver is more than just surfing: it’s original street wear for original people.

The 2 key success factors of the campaign probably were:
1. The myth around the unusual and slightly provocative video: is it fiction or reality? It created a huge WoM effect.
2. The effective seeding. To re-assure a firm kickoff, you need a minimal basis of people who really believe in sending around the message (= 1st peak in graph). Once you got this, the ad lives on itself (= 2nd peak in graph).

Quote GoViral:

Daily views:
This figure illustrates daily views. The number of daily views peaked in the first week of the campaign which is when the major seeding took place. The second very large peak is a direct effect of sites starting to pick up the viral campaign and the buzz created by people discussing the viral. After the first month, the daily number of views decreases to a steady number of approximately 20,000 views, which a very high daily average.

Total numbers of views:
This figure illustrates the total number of views accumulated from campaign start.
The blue area shows the views generated in the target markets, and the red area is the views generated outside of these. As the target markets included both the US and eight major European countries, the spill-over effect only accounts for 16% of the total views.

30 golden packaging principles from Nestlé

I got these 30 principles in autumn 2005 from a packaging training by Lars Wallentin, former Senior Executive Packaging & Training, Nestlé (Switzerland). There’s no structure, but it's a useful shortlist of your possibilities.

Here they come:
1. Use all the tools available: graphics (lay-out), material, shape (form), illustration (photo, drawing, and window), copy (words), touch, sound and symbolism. Always keep the 5 senses in mind.
2. Strengthen the brand and make the brand more interesting.
3. Fight over-communication! Keep it simple!
4. Facilitate handling.
5. Emotional advantages stimulate trial purchase, functional ones to re-purchase.
6. Don't be modest, be generous.
7. Improve constantly. Competition does. So store-check ofte!
8. Be unique. Try to surprise.
9. Communicate… don’t just inform.
10. Make the tray and the shipper sell!
11. Without taste appeal, who wants to taste it? Make it look good!
12. Design for the consumer, not for your management.
13. Treat side panels as front panels.
14. Call it service panel, not back panel and amplify important information.
15. Ecology: neither negative nor boring if seen from a marketing point of view.
16. Packaging is advertising and always includes some sort of “call-to-action”.
17. Don’t believe all what you’re told… There are exceptions to most rules.
18. Never change all variables at the same time!
19. Events, seasons, holidays, etc. offer opportunities. Develop special editions (cf. Coca Cola, Toblerone)
20. Don’t loose your common sense. Therefore ask questions.
21. If something looks interesting, new or different, it will be READ.
22. If we concentrate (on the essential), it will be easier to read.
23. If we highlight a service, the consumer will use it.
24. Without a clear positioning you achieve nothing.
25. A question mark makes us curious!
26. Headlines provoke interest.
27. Print clear opening instructions and verify if they work.
28. Use all space available (inside, top, bottom, sides, flaps, etc.)
29. Make the nutrition information understandable.
30. Cross advertise … it costs you nothing.

I would like to add 4 extra important points:
31. Clearly visualize your key benefit. Make it self explanatory.
32. Brand: the larger your branding the better you will be seen (attention).
33. But make it “truly” branded: if the packaging had no branding, the consumer must immediately know what brand this is.
34. Make your product accessible for 50+: readable copy (large typo with good contrast), right place in shelf (not too high or too low).

Spa Echo

In my opinion, good ad because:
- Great impact from the unusual format (black and white echo unborn baby)
- Drama is right on the benefit. A benefit that is relevant to the consumer.
- Good targeting: extremely engaging for the prime prospect (people with small children) + it works as a RTB for people with no or older children.
- Truly branded: clear pack shot and pay-off in the end.

And… according to the book “Winning with the P&G 99”, the first pack shot or branding must come after 7”. In this commercial, the first branding comes a little later (after 20”) which is still OK in my opinion.

Create your own M&M's

M&M's have been sweetening consumers' palates and making them smile since they were first introduced in 1941. Now, M&M's goes on-line where you can order your sweets in your favorite color with your personalized message: www.mars.be

The idea is nice and fits with the brand equity (colorful chocolate fun). It creates some WoM and makes the consumer rediscover the brand. As the brand is older and became out of fashion, this is a good way to increase brand consideration again.

I was disappointed though by the poor execution:
The world wide known M&M’s look&feel (e.g. the packaging you find in your supermarket) is completely lost. The site and the event packaging are branded, but not “truly” branded. This means, if you would take the logo away (or “smash your brand, as Martin Lindstrom would say), would a consumer still recognize this is an M&M’s site?
And where are the famous M&M’s characters? They are the key to the success of the brand. The "cast" of characters reinforces the distinctive product quality and overall brand essence as well as creates a strong bond between M&M's and consumers. They are fun, quirky, cross all age barriers and appeal to both sexes. In stead of a static website with a boring 1-2-3-4 step description, the funny characters could have leaded the consumer through the process.

Last but not least: why M&M’s on the Mars homepage? Why not create a fully dedicated micro-site?

Magic Happens

This is my favorite in the category "My favorite commercials". It won the Cannes Silver Lion 2001. Great equity ad because of its emotional impact. It's extremely engaging and has a clear message (drama on the benefit). In the end, it makes you love Disney and buy a Disney video.

Innocent's Big Knit

Barely 8 years old and Innocent already decided a few years ago had its first social marketing events. In the summer of 2006, the supergrans of Age Concern started knitting 175,000 little woolen hats. During a few cold winter weeks, these hats were sitting on the Innocent bottles at Sainsbury's and EAT Café. For each hat-wearing smoothie, Innocent donated 50pence to Age Concern. This organisation helps older people through the cold winters with hot meals, heating, blankets and advice.

Last winter, 220,000 hats in total were sold and £110,000 were donated.

This event is one of many of the Innocent Foundation. It's a registered charity funded by 10% of the profits from Innocent Drinks. It offers help to enable local communities to develop long-term solutions to their needs.

It looks small, but it's a great effort for a fast growing company. And right on target:
- it strengthened the "innocent" equity (honest, helping, health, ...)
- it raised the share of heart of their current consumers who started talking the brand (WoM)
- it temporarily improved the shelf impact of the small bottles

Check out Flickr for more pics: supergran2006

Google goes BLACK

Mark Ontkush wrote on his eco-blog an article about the energy consumption of a computer screen. According to his research, a white computer screen consumes 74 watts of energy, while an all black page uses 59 watts. So he calculated how much energy can be saved if Google turned into Black. Taking in account their huge number of page views (about 200 million queries a day), 750 mega watts/hour per year would be saved.

As a reaction to this article Google created a black version of its search engine, called Blackle. It has the same functionalities as the standard version, but with lower energy consumption.

It's a cheap and fast way to create a buzz and to further differentiate versus their main competitor Yahoo.
I've checked on BlugPulse from ACNielsen and since the launch (April 2007), there have already been 558 blogs talking about the tool with a firm peak in July. The result is not huge, but the ROI must be positive.

Real innovation by Sensodyne

Dentists noticed that more teeth suffer from teeth erosion as a consequence of more acid food and drinks. The teeth look yellow and become more sensitive to warm and cold.

Based on this trend, Sensodyne recently launched Pro Glasur: a tooth paste that strenghtens your tooth enamel.

In my opinion, a great example of innovation because:

- it's based on a real consumer insight

- it keeps Sensodyne different from other brands or PL

- and it's right on equity (for sensible teeth).

These are necessary conditions as on average 90% of the innovations fail (cf. BMG). Very often line extensions keep the market dynamic, but with no real added value or impact on the brand. According to the book "The 22 laws of marketing", on the long term brands with large product ranges even drop in volume. This is because they scatter their marketing budget over more than 1 sub brand.

Sensodyne is the 3rd brand and the only growing brand in the top 4 of the market.

Nutella pizza !?

Nutella wants to push the volume per consumer by creating new consumer moments. Through PR and partnerships they've tried to show when and with what other side products than bread Nutella can be eaten. Go to the Nutella homepage or Google Nutella and you'll find plenty of receipes based on this delicious hazelnut spread.

In Italy, the brand's home country, they go even further and by stretching it to a real life Nutella experience: the Nutelleria. In the full branded shop, you can order Nutella crepe, Nutella pizza, Nutella burger, Nutella tacos, Nutella sundae, Nuttle ice cream rolls, Nutella shake, etc. It provides the consumer of basic ideas to use back home and therefore to buy more Nutella. And on top of that, it generates extra value for the company.

Good idea for other brands: Jacqmotte (Jacqmotte Coffee House), Dash or Tide (the Dash Washing Saloon), Tomato farmer (Tomato Restaurant, which actually exists in Paris on the place Saint Georges).

Dove for my best friend

Dove started recently an original endorsement strategy on TV. The latest Dove commercials end with a 5" tag-on showing a pack shot of the promoted range + an endorsement from the current Dove users. E.g. "92% of all current Dove Deo consumers claim they would recommend this product to their best friend." The data comes from a questionnaire on Dove.com.

searchCrystal: the next generation search engine

searchCrystal is a new tool under development. It is a Flash web application dedicated to perform powerful searches visually.
According to the developpers, it enables to see the big picture, gain new insights and interact with search results in new ways. It searches through existing search engines like Google and display between 50 and 500 results (web pages, blogs, vlogs, images, ...) in a single display that guides people toward relevant information. The more relevant the info, the closer it is placed to the display center.

Search on my name: Gerd Gossye

Carlsberg jumps on Mentos+Coke buzz

Carlsberg and a new buzz agency have created a spoof on the successful Mentos+Coke buzz. These ideas work and cost nothing compared to the production and airing costs of traditional media.

Source: www.adverblog.com

Commercial e-mail in week-end

A study around commercial e-mailing, conducted by eRoy, proves that "best days for opens are not necessarily the best for clicks".

Quote:

• Wednesday Through Friday Maximize Opens. Starting in July 2004, the best days for maximizing open rates shifted to later in the work week. For the July through November period, Friday performed the best, but it was less than 0.5% ahead of Wednesday and Thursday in average open rate.
• Weekends Rule for Generating Clicks. Weekend results are mixed, with open rates performing slightly below average, but Sunday and Saturday yield the highest click-through rates. With less competition in the inbox on weekends, people who open your e-mail have more time to actually read and respond to your message.

Source: www.emarketer.com

WoM campaigns need kick-off

This week, Hyundai started a viral campaign on their smallest car, the I30. I subscribed on Iwantani30 and within 3 days, I received a 3x4 banner. You have to place this banner in your garden or in your street, make a picture of it, upload it and then start your media campaign towards your friends to get as much votes as possible. The person the most votes wins the car.

Well done, as this campaign might create fast and relative cheap awareness through WoM. Important in this type of campaigns is a strong kick-off to trigger a minimum number of people to the URL. Without that critical mass the campaign might not take off...

Campaign developed by Duval Guillaum Brussels.