DR4WARD

ALCOHOL MARKETING SAILS BLISSFULLY INTO PERFECT STORM

Alcohol Industry marketing is sailing blissfully into a perfect storm.  Before we look at the signs let's quickly review:  unlike the highly regulated Tobacco and Pharmaceutical Industries, the Alcohol Industry basically self-regulates to avoid marketing's reach and appeal to children and underage consumers. 

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) does have limited jurisdiction over alcohol marketing but mainly promotes industry self-regulation to balance concerns related to children and the interests of adults.  You can read the complete FTC Guidance Documents here. You can also read the 1999 FTC Report about the benefits of self-regulation in the Alcohol Industry and the Alcohol Industry Advertising Codes regarding advertising placement, advertising content, product placement, online advertising, and college marketing.   

First Amendment issues are given regarding FTC lack of Government restriction on marketing but one only needs to look at the Tobacco and Pharmaceutical industries to see where alcohol marketing regulation is heading if the industry does not change course.  The Alcohol Industry stated goal to minimize the extent to which underage consumers are exposed to and attracted by alcohol advertising is impossible in practice. The "drink responsibly" messages and concern for children are lost in the rough seas of competitive marketplace pressures.  These pressures compel the alcohol industry to attract new consumers and grow consumption with current users.  Let's look at Alcohol Industry initiatives in the past year and the collision with the self-regulated industry code to see the Perfect Storm...

OSCAR NEEDS MAKEOVER, ADVERTISERS PLAY IT SAFE, Wii SUPRISE WINNER

The Academy Awards Ceremony and the Oscar is about the celebration and honor of the best in cinema.  Best Categories like: Best Picture, Best Actor / Actress, Best Director, Best Art Direction, Best Song, Best Animated, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Effects, etc.  You get the idea.  Recognizing the best is important.  However, if there was a category for Best Awards Show I am pretty sure the Oscars would not make the list.  I am a big fan of the movies.  However, the Academy Awards is in desperate need of a makeover.  Do you agree?   

Watching the Academy Awards Ceremony has become like an endurance test. If someone set their TiVo to record they would be disappointed to find out that the end of the show is missing because the already lengthy show ran over by almost twenty minutes.  Not to worry.  If you watched the highlights this morning you already saved yourself three and half hours of your life and saw the few memorable moments. A special award should go to anyone who managed to stay awake for the full ceremony.  What can the Oscars do to make the show more enjoyable to watch?

The most surprising moment of the ceremony for me came when voices from our local ABC affiliate broke in over the Best Director Winners, the Coen Brothers for "No Country For Old Men," and could be heard cursing.  Enough about the awards and on to the ads....

Unlike the Super Bowl, it is clear that marketers recognize that women are watching the Oscars.  An estimated 2/3 thirds of the 40 million domestic audience are women.  Sponsors like Diet Coke, L'Oreal, Dove, JCPenny, were all targeting women.  American Express targeted mature women with designer Diane von Furstenberg.  GM got in the act with Cadillac.  None of the marketers dropped the ball this year but they all played it pretty safe and no one stood out for me.   That is why the Oscar Best Ad Award goes to....

 

AND THE OSCAR GOES TO....GM?

This year I will be doing a 2008 Oscar Ad Recap similar to my coverage of the  2008 Super Bowl Ad Recap by the brand. The Annual Academy Awards are one of the few remaining mass audience events for advertisers second only to the Super Bowl.  The Oscar ads are not as highly anticipated as the Super Bowl but they do get more red-carpet attention than ads throughout the rest of the year. The 2008 Super Bowl Ads cost an average $2.7 million for each 30-second spot for an estimated audience of 90 million plus.  The 2008 Oscar ads cost an average $1.8 million for each ad for an estimated audience of 40 million plus.  Will you be paying more attention to the Oscar Ads this year?  Who will be the biggest winners and losers?      

Before I do my Oscar Ad Recap I need to first confess that I love cars and trucks. My grandfather retired from Ford, my uncle worked for Chrysler and my dad used to restore American muscle cars as a hobby. I may have my roots in Michigan and with American autos but I have not been too brand loyal. Over the years I have owned Japanese brands including Honda, Subaru, Nissan, and Acura.  I have owned two German Volkswagens.  I have also owned Fords, Dodges, and GMC models.

I have never been motivated to buy a vehicle out of pity for the manufacturer. I do enjoy reliable cars and trucks that are well designed and fun to drive. I have paid close attention to auto design and marketing almost as long as I can remember. Therefore I am looking forward to seeing what General Motor Corporation will do with their Oscar ads during the show.  I felt that GM's :60 second "Why Push" spot featuring their Yukon Hybrid that ran during the Super Bowl was too abstract but I did like their Malibu campaign for the Grammies.  Several GM brands will be featured in ads during the show and green friendly GM vehicles will chauffeur celebrities to the red carpet.  Will GM's Oscar Ads step up and deliver on the promise of their recent design and quality honors or will their marketing dollars be squandered? 

LUNA-TIC SPORTS / CAUSE MARKETING TO WOMEN NOT SO CRAZY

In my coverage of this year's Super Bowl ads I noted that marketers forgot that almost half of the 90 million plus audience watching the Super Bowl were women.  Most of the Super Bowl ads used frat, gross- out humor and sex to target young males, while alienating half the female audience, not to mention many of the fathers, brothers, and husbands to these women.  Where was this year's Dove Real Beauty? 

Yvonne at Lip-sticking talks about smart marketing to women and how few companies get it.  After watching the Super Bowl ads I agree.  However, I believe that LUNA Bar, a whole nutrition bar for women, not only gets it, but is combining smart sports marketing and cause-marketing that all brands can learn from and that deserves Olympic gold medal recognition.  Here is what I think we can learn from LUNA Bar:

APPLE GETS 360 DEGREE BRAND MARKETING

I was recently interviewed by the USA TODAY for the Best & Worst Ads of 2007 . I was quoted on the Apple iPhone TV advertising campaign as being one of the ads that most made consumers want to buy the product. The ad, a simple, yet elegant visual shows a close-up of the iPhone and hands demonstrating how easy the innovative touch pad design is to use with one finger, which made buyers want to have an iPhone.

This year at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas many mobile, handheld, computer and media devises have copied the touch pad design and Apple's philosophy of "Lifestyle Design" with products being functional and attractive. Apple has incorporated this philosophy from the beginning throughout their product offerings, and most recently into their successful retail stores as part of their intergrated marketing communications and 360-degree branding.

While other brands struggle to find their voice and chase trends, Apple has consistently built their brand personality and equity through consumer centered innovation, functionality and design. Most importantly, the real question that Apple continues to answer is, "How can we make the consumers life better, easier and more simple?"  Do you have example of other brands for media, mobile and technology that have a passion for improving your life and communicate it consistently through their marketing? 

SILENCE SPEAKS VOLUMES THANKS TO PEPSI

How do you cut through all of the noise and clutter and get viewers to pay attention to your marketing? Do you try to out spend and out shout the crowded field of super brands?  Do you spend your money on celebrities, rock stars, or special effects in the hopes that someone will pay attention?  How about a contest? Do use sex or frat humor?  How about a monkey or a talking baby? 

While the other brands choose to shout an annoy us Pepsi instead chose the bold move of using complete silence with their Bob's House  ad featuring American Sign Language and closed captioning.  Pepsi used silence not for silence sake mind you, but silence to get a message out creating awareness of the deaf and hearing impaired community.   

Silence  alone has been done before and could have been just another gimmick if it wasn't strategically combined with the cause of the deaf.  Pepsi was also smart enough to know that the viewers and Pepsi fans around the country appreciate a good laugh more than a good cry. 

Cause-marketing, combining a brand with a cause, is an important and growing marketing strategy by associating a brand with a cause important to the consumer.  Marketers can mess things up when the cause and brand seem like a mismatch.  I think Pepsi manages to come across with sincerity related to the cause of deafness by also being the sponsor of close-captioning for the Super Bowl and their corporate Enable initiative for employees.  Cause-marketing must be part of a brands integrated marketing communications to be believable.  Do you have any examples of cause-marketing mismatches or particular successes or failures that standout to you? 

Yahoo! Microsoft Marriage - Can They Brand The Beast?

There has been a lot of chatter about a possible Yahoo! Microsoft marriage.  The pros and cons are debated and issues like synergy and corporate culture and the asking price for Yahoo! are being discussed.  However, I have not seen too much on how they will brand the beast and communicate the value to customers. 

The merger of Daimler  and Chrysler  once looked good on paper and we know how that ended.  Daimler Chrysler was never able to merge the cultures or figure out how to co-brand and communicate a reason why consumers should care.  Their few attempts were  too late and awkward at best before the unpleasant divorce this past summer.  The DR. Z campaign failed to engage the consumers and deliver the best of German and American engineering message.   Chrysler is still reeling and continues to struggle to recover their brand footing after the divorce and communicate the Chrysler brand.

Will Microsoft and Yahoo! be able to brand the beast for integrated marketing communications?  Do you have an example of a model brand marriage that they can follow? 

I look 4WARD to your feedback.

Keep digging for worms.

PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES ERODE MARKETING TRUST

Drug maker Merck and Shering Plough delayed reporting their clinical trials showing that their cholesterol drug Zetia, and a pill that contains it, Vytorin, did not benefit patients and may even put the patient at greater risk.

While drug safety is of primary importance I believe the greater harm of this recent scandal is that it questions the ethics of pharmaceutical marketing and erodes the public's trust for truth in all marketing.

Another Merck drug, Vioxx, was withdrawn in 2004 after it was shown to cause harm in patients after being heavily marketed.  Here is the ethical question (not legal) regarding pharmaceutical marketing:   Does it provide necessary information or does it manipulate physicians and consumers by creating demand and record profits in a rush to gain market share?

To regain credibility, pharmaceutical direct-to-consumer advertising will need to address trust and the seriousness of prescription medicine and stop treating their drug marketing like a fast-food or beverage brand.  What do you think pharmaceutical marketing needs to do to regain consumer trust?

I look 4Ward to your feedback. 

Keep digging for worms. 

NINTENDO Wii TARGETS ITS WAY TO SUCCESS

I just returned from Fort Pierce, Florida after visiting my retired parents over the holidays. They are both aged 70 +, live in an active seniors only community, and are the proud owners of a Wii (Nintendo video game) . We had several bowling tournaments during our visit and the women usually beat the men.  They often invite their friends over for Wii parties.  Mom is also the family boxing champion and frequently knocks Dad out.

The Wii is the year's game console champ. Much of their success is due to their targeting of seniors and other niche markets not typical of the traditional gaming industry.  Do you  know any seniors or nontraditional gamers that have played on the Wii?   How did seniors discover the Wii?

2008 SUPER BOWL AD RECAP BY THE BRAND

Super Bowl 2008 Ad Recap by the Brand -
Overall I kept having the feeling that I was watching the terrible Dot.com ads from the 2000 Super Bowl. Too many brands behaving badly, trying too desperately to get our attention with sophomoric gross out humor and stunts while forgetting to tell us anything about the brand.  (Toyota, Sales Genie, Planters, Tide, Career Builder, Go Daddy, Cars.com, E-trade, Doritos mouse trap, Amp, etc.)   We can watch stuff like that on YouTube every day.  As a matter of fact, you can see all 55 of the Super Bowl ads on YouTube Ad Blitz in the gallery section and also see how people voted for the ads

I think most of the brands forgot this year that almost half the viewers of the Super Bowl are women.  We desperately needed a Dove ad. I think the biggest losers this year was consumer created content and viewer generated contests that are running out of steam.  Doritos "Crashed the Superbowl" last year and showed great ads created from consumers as part of a contest. This year the winning song and music video from the Doritos song contest was Bum, Bum, Boring. I also found it remarkable how poorly the celebrities were used in the ads.  No real connection with the ad concepts or brands.

Bud started out well in the first half and fizzled in the second half. The automotive ads were all pretty bad but Hyundia had better ads than Toyota and GM. Movie Trailers?  Is it just me or are most of the new film trailers looking exactly like the same Matrix movie remake? 

With the best ads featuring animals and balloon characters, I am surprised that we didn't get to see an ad featuring a talking baby monkey that flies with x-ray vision super powers that allow him to see through the clothes of sexy women.  Let me know if you agree with my ad recap.   Do you think I missed any of the biggest winners or losers?

Best ads - 
Coke - Dueling Balloons - Loved it.  Finally a big idea rises to the occasion and delivers.
Bridgestone - Screaming animals.  Screaming fun.  Screaming Richard Simmons.  Traumatic. Also, a winner - Bud - The Rocky theme with the Dalmatian training Hank the Clydesdale was also fun.

Worst ads - Doritos, Sales Genie, GoDaddy, Toyota, Career Builder, T-Mobile, Victoria Secret

1st Half Recap - Few ads stood out.  Use of celebrities in ads make fans the biggest losers.
The animals in the ads have been the best thing about the first half.
Bud Light Continues to fan the cheesy flames of the American funny bone.

By the Brand - 1st Half

1st Quarter Recap
Bud Light - Flame on funny.
Audi - Grotesque is not a good way to sell a beautiful brand.
Diet Pepsi Max - This Saturday Night Live rip off is ten years too late to be funny.
Sales Genie - If Sales Genie wished  to put me to sleep their wish was granted.
Under Armor - Apple 1984 Big Brother wannabe was not Super Bowl ready.
Bridgestone - Screaming animals equals screaming good fun.
Doritos - Bum, Bum, Boring.  Thank goodness Doritos got some mileage from all of their pre-game hype.
G2 - Special effects never make up for the lack of an idea.
Go Daddy - Multi-tasking is so common that this concept is Go-Dull.
Dell - Desperate plea to save Dell.
Fed Ex - Big Idea and special effects drops little payoff.

2nd Quarter Recap - Tide - Talking stain annoys rather than engages.
Bud - Rocky theme continues to inspire.
Toyota - Threat of badger attack erodes brand equity.  Was this an ad for a late 90's Dot.com?
Garmin - This cliche of the French is short on building the brand.
Career Builder - Heart escape is creepy and bizarre.  Maybe the heart is a symbol for the U.S. economy.  "I quit."
Life Water - I thought I was watching an ad for Geico.  Beyonce (Naomi / Tyra) is the worst use of a celebrity in awhile.
GM - Why this ad?  Never again please.
Bud Light - Demeaning immigrants is Bud's first half misstep
Planters - Unibrow is instinctively mean spirited.
T-Mobile - Fave 5 gets my vote for the bottom five of the Super Bowl ads.
Pepsi - Justin Timberlake brings nothing back to Pepsi.
Doritos - Recycles last years mouse trap.  Consumer created content is running out of steam.

2008 Super Bowl Ad Recap by the Brand continued