The spoof claims that Pepsi has decided to give up marketing, announcing that “the multibillion dollar corporation announced that it would cease all advertising of its popular soda product, effective immediately”. And why?
“We know it’s good, and everyone’s pretty happy with the overall taste, so why spend all our time worrying about what other people think?” PepsiCo CEO Indra K. Nooyi told reporters during a press conference at the company’s corporate headquarters. “Frankly, it just feels sort of weird and desperate to put all this energy into telling people what to drink. If they don’t like it, then they don’t like it.”
She added: “That’s not really any of our business anyway.”
I can’t replicate the whole article here but it’s pretty funny. I would absolutely love to hear Nooyi really saying such things as:
“Look, Coca-Cola is a terrific product. Millions of people choose it over Pepsi every day. Are those people wrong? Of course not. Concepts like ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ shouldn’t even apply. It’s a soft drink.”
All in all, very funny although obviously none of it is true. Required reading for all marketers.
Boy, they are starting to train marketers young these days. This morning I got a press release about a brother and sister marketing team who are going to run their marketing agency beanwave from inside a school.
Celia and James Bristow will be running beanwave inside the Business Hub in The Milton Keynes Academy, sharing the building with 1,500 children aged 11 to 18. Celia and James will receive free office space in return for two to three hours a week helping students with enterprise-related projects.
The Academy’s director of business and enterprise says he thinks having the marketing agency based at the school will help offer the kids “role models”. He claims: “There is nothing better for young people than seeing a real business operate close-up.”
I certainly think it’s an interesting idea. I can only imagine that beanwave will be able to spot lots of new youth trends and channel them into its work. And probably the kids will benefit from mentoring; at least they will have a clue about real-life skills early on. Although I’m not a big fan of such close ties between business and schooling in general, I will be interested to see if this finds success.
I normally hate cutesy things like this. I hate putting animals in clothes for human entertainment (I recently saw a monkey dancing on the street in Moscow dressed as The Fonz and had to be held back from physically attacking his master).
But even a cold-hearted woman like me did crack a smile at the sheer schmaltzy brilliance of this ad slot for the New York Lottery. Watch it below and feel your hard outer shell crack with the sheer sweetness of it all.
A blog reader has written in with their favourite marketing moment. Apparently, he particularly likes the Spanish football club Getafe strips made by Joma and sponsored by Burger King (see pic one).
Picture One:
Nothing special there, you might think. Except that the rather dull shirt becomes a lot of fun during a goal celebration (see pic two).
But will this amusing sponsorship be affected by Burger King CMO Russ Klein taking a leave of absence from the company as recently announced? Some people have suggested that the chain’s franchisees weren’t too happy about Klein’s controversial advertising, much of which relies heavily on the use of the character of The King, as seen on the shirt above.
A great marketing lark for Burger King and Getafe fans or a commercial intrusion into sport that goes too far?
One of the most difficult areas for any marketer to manage is trade pricing. As costs rise and profits/margins fall, consumer products firms face great anxiety over their trade prices, especially as giant retailers with massive buying power increasingly dominate whole markets and drive down what is paid to manufacturers.
IBM has identified five steps a consumer goods brand should take to improve its trade pricing returns.
While the full report has a lot of detailed material that is worth exploring here, here is a quick take on the information:
1. Construct the framework and engage the customer.
This involves being as transparent as possible. Create a list of published list of prices and conditions – available to all trade partners. The price list should contain a transparent breakdown of gross prices and discounts. Unlike traditional price lists, published pricing under a trade pricing framework is completely non-negotiable.
The framework should also include a comprehensive range of commercial, operational and behavioural options which retailers and wholesalers can sign up to. It will contain details of potential trade promotions and generally be as open and obvious about its pricing strategy as possible. This should give retailers no room to negotiate lower returns to the manufacturer. Read the rest of this entry »
Patrick Burgoyne, my colleague over at Creative Review magazine, wrote a fantastic piece in the current issue about his experiences chairing a design conference in India – Designyatra 09. The event, which took place in Mumbai in September, not only featured some luminaries of the design world but also two of the biggest names in the history of branding agencies – Michael Wolff and Wally Olins. The pair set up the consultancy Wolff Olins together and their combined experience includes working with clients like BT, Renault and Volkswagen.
Burgoyne writes:
“The two of them appeared on stage together at the end of day three to speak for the first time about their relationship which, with Olins chivvying Wolff along to get ready, was curiously like that of parent and child. Asked (by me as compere) what drove him mad about Wolff, Olins’ list was long and detailed, the gist of which was that Wolff was totally disorganised and undisciplined.
Olins related various examples, from the time that Wolff wouldn’t get out of his hotel bed to meet a client as he was feeling unwell (“Michael, get down here now. I’m not your bloody mother!”) to the time that, after weeks of work and the client having signed a major identity project off, Wolff decided he didn’t like it after all and refused to let the client buy it (“I was apoplectic,” Olins remembered).”
As you can see, the reunion sounds absolutely hilarious. Burgoyne continues:
“The pair disagreed on much. Wolff doubted that Wolff Olins had really changed anything in corporate life while Olins was more positive: Olins was still proud of the company that neither has anything to do with any more, while Wolff worried over its ‘arrogance’. Both, however, were strongly critical about the branding industry today, its use of jargon and cynicism.”
It’s a really interesting insight into the minds, characters and attitudes of two men who have really shaped the design and branding industries over the last few decades.
The firm says: “We’re looking for real events, so anything that is private and not-for-profit is fair game. Stuff like cottage weekends, unique weddings, stags, annual parties, theme parties, birthday parties, postgame pick-up hockey beers, or anything else you can think of. We’re pretty open as long as it’s not a huge, professionally organised event.”
And what do you get? Well, it’s not a banner wrapped round the moon. But anything you receive will be nicely tailored to what’s needed.
“We want to help make your event better. Our sponsorship team will hook you up with party supplies, beverages, and other stuff. Maybe we’ll throw in a new ping pong table too, or a bbq, or catering for your friends. The supplies will depend on what kind of event you’re having, but we’re flexible on what they are,” says the brewery.
And how can you get sponsored? It’s all about the social media, of course. Upload a video to the firm’s website explaining why you need and deserve sponsorship. Winners are picked on a monthly basis.
Interesting that Amazon is moving into own-brand items. The retailer has long been selling other brands’ wares but this is the first time that it has used its own Amazon brand to sell items. Could this be the start of more Amazon-branded items?
The retailer has great brand value as an online seller of goods, but does it have the right stuff to become a manufacturer too? Well, I don’t see why not. We all accept that retailers like Marks & Spencer make their own goods, so why not Amazon? And online retailer ASOS not only sells fashion items from other brands but also its own-label goods, which are expanding in number all the time.
The goods, called AmazonBasics, are all positioned as “value”, in keeping with Amazon’s affordable retailing ethos. Surprisingly, it appears that they are actually designed and sourced by the brand itself. Even the wrapping comes with the Amazon “frustration free” brand promise in mind – it’s pretty minimal.
Of course, we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. It seems unlikely that we’re going to have Amazon TVs flogged through the site by Christmas, but this is a very interesting move. Apparently, while these products are only on the US site right now, international expansion is just around the corner…..
I’ve not been especially impressed with Pizza Hut’s marketing in the past but interestingly, the brand’s iPhone application has been chosen to feature in an Apple-sponsored iPhone ad on US TV. The Pizza Hut app was apparently a first in the fast-food space when it was released in the summer. It received more than 100,000 downloads within a couple of weeks of going live.
This new marketing push has apparently come about through Apple rather than Pizza Hut. Apple apparently came to Pizza Hut and asked the firm if it would be happy to have its app appear as part of an iPhone ad. Will this give the Pizza Hut app a boost? It certainly can’t hurt. When the iPhone app iBird Explorer (for twitchers aka birdwatchers) appeared in a broadcast ad, it quickly rose to the top of the reference chart of 35,000 apps.
It’s not the first time that the Pizza Hut app has been singled out for praise. Over in the UK, it was praised at the IAB mobile forum by Justyn Lucas, managing partner at Yodel earlier this month as “one of the best uses of an iPhone app by a brand to date” , saying it shows “a complete understanding of its target market”.
Blimey. Seems like the brand is getting its digital strategy right, at least.
No brand wants to look behind the times but failing to carry out due diligence when creating reactive social media and digital tools can be dangerous for companies.
A couple of weeks ago, we wrote about the dangers of failing to protect your brand effectively (see here for subscription-only article). But while many companies are convinced they are doing all they can to protect their brand against copycats, pirating and so on, there is an interesting article in Brandweek that suggests they are failing to see the issues in using new and often patented technology.
With so many brands desperate to use social media and the latest digital applications (who wants to be the last business to have a Twitter account or only brand in your sector not on the iPhone?) big names are falling foul of companies that have patented many of the tools that help brands carry out this kind of activity.
For example, when OfficeMax created “Elf yourself” – an upload-your-face-on-an-animated-character campaign attracted lots of attention, a company called PixFusion filed a lawsuit against it and its agency, Toy, for violating patents titled “method and apparatus for producing an electronic image” that covers the process of uploading and cropping a picture online.
“It’s not a new phenomenon, it’s just manifesting itself in the marketing world as more campaigns are using software,” said Rick Kurnit, a lawyer at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz who represents several agencies to BrandWeek.
The Elf Yourself case is one of only a number mentioned in the article and lawyers predict that this trend will become more of a problem in future as agencies and clients create speedy technology-focused campaigns with little thought for the patents behind such tools. Since patent litigation can be expensive – costing more than $3m per case in many examples, brands need to wise up quick or face an unwelcome bill.
Bartering seems to be all the rage in a recession. And last week, an event called ArtBarter started to auction off pieces of art for any alternative means to money. With backing from chocolate brand Green & Black’s (and executed using agencies PHD Rocket and Blazinstar Experiential), the show showcased a piece of ‘Chocol’art’ made [...]
So, Tiger Woods has been a bad boy and has allegedly been having some affairs. The accusations have begun flying since a suspicious car crash involving Woods last week. But what does this mean for the superstar’s endorsements and value as a brand? (Want to know Tiger’s worth, by the way? The Telegraph puts it [...]
We recently launched a new “white paper” section on the Marketing Week website, called Knowledge Bank. It’s a place where you can find information on issues like dat-driven marketing or email marketing that don’t come from the editorial team but from outside experts. With that in mind, I noticed that AdAge also has some great white [. […]
The Guardian has put together a great list of potentials for the prize of best ad of the decade. Included in its selection are the five below. The John West Salmon “Bear Fight” Commercial: The Honda “Cog” Commercial: Sony’s Bravia “Bouncy Balls” Advert: Cadbury’s Gorilla Commercial: Compare the Market’s […]
It’s World AIDS Day today and if you’re a Twitter user, you can have all the fun in the world turning your tweets red simply by using the hashtag #red or #laceupsavelives. For a geek like me, this kind of nice little innovation is a great way to remind people about an important cause. Good work [...]
The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games has launched its new logo for the event, which you can see below. Described as the “world’s first digital Olympic emblem”, due to its use of a website domain name format – Sochi.ru – in the logo, it claims to be a “symbol of contemporary Russia”. The promotional material continues: […]
Just what is Brand Dubai these days? For the past decade, the image of Dubai has been – to put it in the crudest way – “the planet’s next big thing”. With so much money appearing to flood into the Middle Eastern territory, it became a hot destination for both businesses and tourists. Enormous, ambitious [...]
So, just when we have seen thelondonpaper and the London Lite bite the dust, London’s streets are going to see another freesheet. Now, freesheets can make it on the mean streets of The Big Smoke, but those that have survived, such as business paper City AM, are very targeted and have select distribution to a [...]
Ever thought about going for a job somewhere but wish you could see a bit more what life is like within that organisation? Often it’s not just the words on the job description that make the difference to employees but the corporate culture, ways of doing things and the potential workmates. So I wonder if more [...]
We’ve all heard tales of people with Harley-Davidson tattoos. My Peruvian friend, who grew up in the slums of Lima, has often told me of coming across girls called “Madeinusa” because that name was written on so many labels of clothing (Made In USA) and was perceived to be a name conveying luxury and class. But [...]
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Posted by brandstrategy 
Posted by brandstrategy 
