MIDEM roundup from Cannes

You can read most of Brand Strategy’s MIDEM coverage in the magazine this month, but a few comments from behind the scenes….

Our editor Ruth Mortimer took part in a panel on ‘music and brands’ with the fantastic Jack Horner from Frukt, Kavita Maharaj from Havas and Kwame Kwaten from ATC Management.

The discussion revolved around three campaigns involving music and brands: Madonna and retailer H&M; Tuborg & Live Nation; and The 02’s use of The Dome.

The panel agreed that the tie-up between Madonna & H&M hadn’t been a success. It was too traditional to have the impact that it could have had if some more innovative strategies had been employed. One major criticism was that no-one believed that Madonna really wore the high-street brand on a regular basis; another was that there was no real music involved with the promotion. The panel suggested that while Madonna is known for her music, her style is always evolving and cannot be pinned down into a fashion range with great ease.

The partnership between beer brand Tuborg and a number of Live Nation events and venues was also seen as undeveloped.  While the panel agreed that being stocked in so many venues was a great launch point for the brand, the additional marketing (a Myspace site etc) had not gone far enough. The panel suggested that if the beer brand didn’t want to be forgotten as being associated with music if its sponsorship with Live Nation dropped after several years, it needed to do more to back up the deal.

The final case study – The 02, previously the Millennium Dome – was praised by the panel for taking a venue with negative brand attributes and becoming the leading music venue in the UK’s capital. It was also praised for drawing in a crowd of middle-class, slightly older consumers who have disposable incomes with a well-judged choice of acts to appeal to this group and a wide selection of restaurants, bars and galleries. The added extras offered to o2 subscribers attending were seen as smart thinking and the use of the Indigo nightclub as the official ‘afterparty’ venue (thus getting people buying tickets twice over for the same evening) also came in for comment.

Ever the optimist?

A new website is dedicating itself to the more positive side of life  in a bid to combat the January blues. The site, www.OptimistWorld.com is going live on January 25th and will be delivering content focusing on good news and events from around the world. The aim is to offset the abundance of bad news reported by the media

The website will also offer positive information and advice on other topics:

Optimist Charities

The site offers opportunities for lower income charities to raise their profile, and provides a free listing service to all charities in the UK. Every week five charities will be highlighted and visitors can vote for their favourite. The people’s top charity will be rewarded with a cash donation.

Optimist Companies

This section looks at the role of Corporate Social Responsibility in business. The website offers a space for firms to list their strategies so consumers can see how companies are helping communities.

Optimist Sports

Optimist Sports provides information on sporting activities for all ages encouraging layabouts to get off the sofa and do some exercise.

Optimist Travel

This section takes a look at the greener side of the travel industry and offers information on the different ways that people can give something back when visiting a country.

A good idea? Send us your comments.

Monopoly board goes global

Monopoly is going global and maker Hasbro is allowing fans to influence what cities will be included on the first World Edition game board.

Instead of Mayfair and Old Kent Road, fans will be able to vote for their favourite Monopoly city from a list including Amsterdam and Zurich.

The top 20 countries will ‘win’ a spot on the Monopoly Here & Now: The World Edition, and will be placed on the game board in rank order from highest rent property to lowest rent property. Visitors can go to www.monopoly.com to make their selection and also nominate cities for the ‘wild card’ vote. Two cities nominated by fans will also be included on the board.

The game will go on sale in September 2008. I wonder how much a hotel in Amsterdam will cost in Monopoly money?

T-Post: the t-shirt that’s also a magazine

We like this idea – T-post is a magazine in the form of a t-shirt. You subscribe to it and into your mailbox drops a t-shirt based on a current news story every six weeks. Turn the garment inside out and you can read the print version of the story rather than the artistic interpretation.

Niche but definitely fun and an unusual present for the person with everything….

Which brands will benefit most from the Super Bowl 2008?

The top five brands that will benefit most and achieve greatest return on investment from the Super Bowl exposure are likely to be Doritos, Pepsi, Budweiser, Coke and Toyota, according to the sixth annual research report into this topic by consultancy Brand Keys.

The study, conducted with a sample of 1,200 US consumers aged 18-65 years old who claimed they would watch the Super Bowl this year.

The Super Bowl Engagement Survey is created to predictively measure respondents’ true reactions to brands. Results aim to correlate with respondents’ actual
marketplace behaviours and become reliable predictors of future brand purchase.

The ability for the brand and the media to engage is based upon an assessment of R.O.E. -Return-On-Equity- a measure that quantifies the level of engagement created between the media environment and the advertised brand. As a guide, companies want to see a minimum of +7 for their brand to ensure they’re getting a real return on their efforts.

Assessments for this year’s Super Bowl XLII advertisers are:

Advertiser                        “Super Bowl” R.O.E

Budweiser                            +10
Bud light                            +8
Audi                                    -3
Bridgestone Firestone    +5
Cars.com                            +8
Chevrolet                           +2
Coke                                   +9
Disney                                +2
Doritos                              +15
Fedex                                 +3
Ford                                    -2
Go Daddy.com                 +8
Hershey’s                           +7
Hyundai                              -5
Planters Peanuts               +8
Paramount Studios           +4
Pepsi                                   +11
Sales Genie.com                +7
Sony Studios                      +4
Sprint                                  +4
Tide-to-Go                          +7
Toyota                                 +9
Unilever                              +8
Universal Pictures             +4
Victoria’s Secret                  -4
White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy            -5
For more information on this research, contact Brand Keys directly.

The Luxury Institute’s Wealth Report – premium trends for 2008

The Luxury Institute has issued The Wealth Report, which looks into the state of the luxury sector.

We have picked out some of the report’s key points and if you want to read the whole thing, please click here to download a PDF. International readers should be aware that the report has a US bias, but its conclusions could apply to any market.

Retail Gets Rocky
The holiday shopping season turns out to be a dismal one for most retailers, but those courting the wealthiest luxury consumers manage to fare slightly better. Saks, with its sharpened focus on luxury, defied expectations for a -2.5% decline, managing to post a 0.8% gain. Getting even more exclusive, Neiman Marcus (combined with Bergdorf Goodman) reported comparable sales rising 2.9 % from December 2006.

Scrabble vs Scrabulous: infringement or opportunity?

An interesting row has arisen over the Facebook application Scrabulous, which allows users of the social network site to play a Scrabble-like word game with each other. Hasbro and Mattel, who share the trademark, have asked the site to remove the game as it infringes their copyright on Scrabble.

The Scrabulous application was not developed by Facebook but by developers in Kolkata and the row has already caused fans to set up a group on the network to save Scrabulous. At time of writing, it had amassed more than 600 members.

It’s an interesting dilemma for those interested in branding. Yes, Scrabulous is effectively taking the idea of Scrabble and translating it to an online environment. This is obviously moving into an area where Scrabble could build a new user base.

On the other hand, Scrabble hasn’t exploited this opportunity. You can go to the Scrabble website and play a little game online but making real-time moves over social networks? It hasn’t happened yet, so it’s no surprise that other brands are moving into this area.

Furthermore, should Scrabble really see this as infringement or as the best marketing opportunity possible? Why not just launch a much better application for Facebook with more functionality to steal back users from Scrabulous? Competition can sometimes show brands whole new markets available to them.
The game has also revitalised the market for Scrabble. It has taken the idea of a game to be played slowly on Sunday afternoons and made it sexy. Facebook Scrabulous ‘addict’ groups are full of people admitting they’ve bought physical Scrabble sets after playing the game on the social network. It’s pushing sales to Scrabble too.

What do you think? Problem or opportunity? Let us know.

Bad news for board-level marketers?

One in three European chief financial officers don’t believe marketing is crucial in determining business strategy. More than half – 54% – rated the effectiveness of their marketing teams at less than 60%, according to a report by Deloitte.

Although support for marketing comes from the people leading the company – 67% of chief executives claim to fully appreciate the value of the discipline – this doesn’t seem to translate to the people on the ground. Just 50% of marketers believe this to be the case.

There is also a disconnect in terms of how much importance marketing has at board level. Marketers on the board think that just 16% of the discussions held on the board relate to marketing but chief executives claim it’s almost as much as a third.

Seventy per cent of chief executives also don’t think that marketing as a role is clearly defined within their organisation and 77% agree that their employees don’t fully appreciate its value.

There was more positive news for marketers, however, as 81% of respondents thought marketing is a key driver of growth, 85% say it is crucial to devising strategy and 44% think that a marketing director’s best skill is in strategic planning.

The Deloitte study involved 217 in-depth interviews in five European countries and you can download a copy of the report direct from Deloitte here.

Johnnie Walker turns to Jennie to attract drinkers

You’re on a night out, get a big tipsy so it’s lucky you have that attractive brunette beside you to point the way home. Except that the lady in question, Jennie, is not a real girl but a mobile application from  spirits brand Johnnie Walker.

Billed as a ‘digital personal assistant’, Jennie will tell users about parties, promotions and events at bars that have partnered with the brand. Johnnie Walker is also considering using webcams in the venues so Jennie can show what is going on at the parties to her users. She will also have a list of cab numbers available for easy dialling so people can make their way home safely.

Developed by OgilvyOne, the application is first appearing in Singapore this year with other regional appearances to follow on. There are also suggestions that a male avatar to appeal to female spirits drinkers could be in the offing.

Products of the year 2007?

Datamonitor’s Productscan Online division has announced its ‘products of the year’ for 2007 from around the world. The company believes each item has benefits to change or shape consumer packaged goods markets around the world.

1. Swiss Miss Pick-Me-Up Hot Cocoa Mix

The popularity of energy drinks is having an impact on other product categories; caffeine has moved into new categories, ranging from potato chips to instant oatmeal. This new version of Swiss Miss contains as much caffeine as a cup of coffee plus as much calcium and vitamin D as a glass of milk to offer the best of all worlds. It’s new in the US.

2. Organic Batter Blaster Pancake & Waffle Batter

Making pancakes and waffles from scratch can be a messy process. Batter Blaster offers a helping hand with pancake and waffle batter that is sprayable and is packaged in an aerosol can. The refrigerated product apparently makes organic, light and fluffy pancakes as well as light and crisp waffles in minutes. The aerosol can packaging greatly reduces cleanup and the product is fast and fun. The product is new in the US.

3. JT Fragra Functional Water

Bottled water is about more than just refreshment when it comes to this new launch from Japan. Fragra refreshes the breath and leaves a fragrance of citrus fruit in the mouth. Officially referred to as a “near water” by virtue of its 1% juice content, Fragra uses an active ingredient called linalool for breath freshening. Linalool is a natural substance occurring in lemons, oranges and other citrus fruit.