A serious post for a change – I’d just like to send my sympathies to the family of Martin Cole, the excellent head of planning at Wieden & Kennedy London in the UK. Martin wrote for my former magazine Brand Strategy on a number of occasions and helped my writers out with their articles numerous times, always with good humour and excellent insight.

He will definitely be missed.

Burger King has carried out some of the most interesting marketing of any major brand in the last few years. Freed from the shackles and scrutiny of being the market leader in fast food, it has introduced some very silly but memorable campaigns playing on sexuality, including one for the BK Super Seven Incher sandwich claiming it would “blow your mind away”.

Also, Burger King Flame body spray, which claims to be a “body spray of seduction”. All a little bit childish but quite entertaining and a million miles from its chief competitor McDonald’s’ ads all about being so family friendly. Now, it is pretty cheeky to suggest that fast food might improve your love life and we all know that using sex is a pretty cheap way to advertise, but at least it’s something different. All the BK marketing is also very digitally focused, which fits with these frugal times.

But now I hear word that in a battle between Burger King corporate and franchisees over whether to introduce a dollar double cheeseburger menu (corporate says “hell yeah”; franchisees seem less convinced), the ads are coming under scrutiny.

AdAge reports (perhaps in an attempt to smooth relations with franchisees) that the company says it will tone down the sexual tone of its marketing messages, with an internal memo attributed to the CMO, Russ Klein, acknowledging that some of its ads might have caused unintentional offence and saying that in future, the company would be more “sensitive”. The memo added that the ad agency and Klein would “tone down” creative executions, while promising to remain “edgy”.

Is this a good thing? Have BK’s ads gone just a bit too far lately? Only earlier this month, the company offended Hindus by using a depiction of the goddess Lakshmi associated with beef – something taboo for the religion.

Or do you like the sparky nature of the brand’s advertising and think the CMO should keep its cheeky campaigns running?

A joint venture between Gazprom and NNPC has resulted in a company called Nigaz.

Yes, really. It is actually a business building pipelines and refineries through Nigeria. The name has caused an internet storm over whether the name should stand or be rebranded to something less newsworthy. In tribute, the MediaGuardian has pulled together a list of other branding blunders of products with silly, inappropriate or rude-sounding monikers.

These include:

Mazda’s Bongo Wagon.

The Toyota MR-2 (apparently in France, this sounds like the French word for “shitty” when spoken)

Pepsi in China (the translation of its slogan at the time meant “bring your ancestors back from the dead”).

This story reminded me of a few instances recently where I personally spotted some branding mistranslations and mistakes.

First, Australia’s Coon Cheese. Similar to the Nigaz issue above, I was shocked to see Coon appear on the shelves when I lived in Sydney some years ago. It appears that the tide may be turning against the brand name now but most Aussies I spoke to thought the product was merely named after an Edward Coon and didn’t see any slur there at all.

Second, while on holiday last week in Vietnam, I ate at a lovely ice cream shop called Fanny’s. Funny to any passing tourists; very good ice cream if you’re from Hanoi.

As my third and fourth examples, see these two pictorial examples below of some strange brand names out there from my own camera phone – Celebrity Meat Loaf (spotted in a supermarket in Scotland) and Legendarny Smak (found at my local Tescos).

Any of your own to add? Have a great weekend!

It’s always nice when something you write takes off and gets picked up around the internet. My features writer Louise Jack wrote a great story a couple of months ago about “Etail 3.0″. The idea was to explain how a new breed of online retailers were not only matching high street players’ offerings but going far further to offer a range of services that simply couldn’t be replicated by traditional brands.

Anyway, we were trying to think what to call this and we came up with the term “Etail 3.0″. As Louise put it at the time:

“The first wave of etail involved online retailers undercutting their traditional counterparts on price. The second involved trying to create “experiences” online, rather than just slashing costs. But the third sees etailers surpassing their high street rivals with enhanced consumer offerings.”

We decided that since we felt there had been three distinct waves of trends in online retailing, Etail 3.0 was a good term to sum this up. While people may have used it before, we couldn’t find any other articles using this as a term in the way we defined it.

Now a comment on our website drew my attention to the fact that point out that Etail 3.0 is now being used in the last month or so as a commercial term and popping up on blogs, more blogs, Twitter and magazines - all linking back helpfully to our original article (through our aggregator website Mad).

Love it!

It appears that in the US, Google is experimenting with an initiative that might be able to help finance lending companies serve you ads based on your credit score when you’re surfing various websites.

Google has been working with a company called Compete using around 2 million volunteers to help it test a scheme where it overlays credit scores (called FICO in the US) onto partner sites and then can match those with good credit scores to the very best rates and those with less good scores to the type of lenders more suitable to their needs.

The initiative came about after Google tracked the search behaviour of volunteers searching for a credit card earlier this year. According to MediaPost, Masha Korsunsky of Google claimed that the company discovered that: “Google’s Content Network can reach 70% of credit card applicants with a high FICO score, 87% of mortgage applicants with a high FICO score, and 90% of the people who visit small business sites who have a high FICO score”.

Google also found some interesting differences in search behaviour based on credit score. Those people with high credit scores were more likely to use generic search terms rather than search by brand name when it came to looking for credit cards. Which is something that financial and credit card marketers might want to bear in mind in future when advertising their products.

Could this really take off and become a core Google offering? Well, at the moment, it’s only a volunteer project and credit scores are fairly rubbish in terms of what they can tell you about somebody. Sure, they can tell you about their lending habits but not too much more. For example, someone who has never borrowed money and is flush with cash might show up as having a bad credit score because they haven’t participated enough in the world of debt.

Just a note; this isn’t as Big Brother as it might first appear, either. Google says it does not see individuals’ credit scores and it doesn’t plan to use credit score related ad targeting for any of its products. It also points out that the ads served to people are based on similarities to others visiting the site rather than anything more targeted.

But an interesting little piece of information, nonetheless, which marketers should be aware of, as in future, cross-referencing data is likely to become even more important. If you want more information about what actually happened during the project, Google helpfully responded to a blog here, where you can read more about it.

Corporates take note: new technology is available that scans employees faces to check that they are smiling enough and giving off that good brand impression to customers.

Sound a bit Big Brother? Yes. But it also sounds very intriguing. Apparently the Keihin Electric Express Railway Company in Japan have to have their faces scanned each morning to check their expressions. The software rates their eye movements, smile lines and other indicators to rate them on a scale from 0 to 100.

Not content with simply recording their moods, the computer then tells glum staff that they need to cheer up, flashing up phrases like “You look too serious” or the charming “Lift up your mouth corners”. There is even a personalised “ideal smile” that the employees can carry with them during the day to remind them how to achieve that ultimate friendly grin if they’re flagging.

Sounds horrific to me – but then I’m a very gloomy person – but I’d like to know if any service or retail brands in the UK will be implementing it to try and make sure that Britain (not known for its service culture) has any companies hoping to use this technology to enhance their operations. I think not, somehow.

Via the MediaGuardian.

What would happen if men needed sanitary protection? A Tampax campaign poses exactly that question through showing a 16 year old boy who discovers one day that he has started his period.

The brand has created Zack 16, an online campaign (blog, film, Twitter) involving a boy who suddently gets female genitals….the story then follows his struggle to cope with it. (Incidentally, he copes better than you would imagine any man waking up with girl bits would manage in real life.) He gets moody, eats junk food and finds himself living out the stereotype actions of a menstrual woman.  He also uses a Tampax machine (bringing in the brand and all that).

The whole campaign has a nice humorous tone to it and “Zack” encourages others to write in with their own experiences of menstruation. The branding is done in a fairly low key way and it’s a much more original idea than most campaigns in this area.

Sanitary products have always traditionally advertised themselves by showing women in ecstasy at living their lives as normal despite having their period. It used to be that whether women were rollerskating, dancing or just being out and about, a period was portrayed as a mild inconvenience that could be overcome by using the product on offer. So this makes a nice change.

The Mediaguardian, which tipped me off about this campaign, asks:  just who is it intended to appeal to? Men aren’t generally born with female organs so it can’t really be suggesting that more men go about buying tampons. Or can it?

I think not. I guess that means it is probably targeting young women, trying to make them smile at the idea of a bloke coping with their monthly issues. It aims to encourage teens to interact with a site fronted by a cute 16 year old boy in a lighthearted way that fits with how they talk to friends about periods.

So, a good job? Check out the Zack 16 site here and video below and see what you think.

We reported today about sprinter Usain Bolt looking for sponsorship opportunities to build his “brand”. He currently has partnerships with Puma, Digicel and Gatorade and his new image management team claims it is talking to many more companies about signing up the runner.

So what is Usain Bolt’s brand? I’ve been trying to work out which sponsorships would make sense fo him. He doesn’t have a massively high profile in Europe, where he is seeking these deals, so what type of firm would choose to use him?

1. Sports related. As a winning sportsman, Bolt clearly has potential for a sports brand. But with Puma and Gatorade already on board, this may squeeze out further sporting businesses from participating too much in helping Bolt build his brand.

2. Speed related. As the Olympic record holder for sprinting, speed is a natural fit for Bolt. So any business wishing to emphasise its speed might do well to use him. Delivery companies (FedEx or UPS?) could capitalise on this in marketing, as could mobile communications firms.

3. Performance. As a world record holder, Bolt is at the top of his game. Just as management consultants signed up golfer Tiger Woods to represent excellence, this is somewhere that a non-sporting brand could choose to use Bolt.

4. Caribbean-focused or influenced brands. Since Bolt is a proud Jamaican, brands aiming to highlight their regional character might do well to sign him up as a good ambassador for the region, painting it in a positive light through his high achievements and seemingly down-to-earth, hardworking nature.

5. Olympics. As an Olympics world record holder, those companies wishing to associate themselves in a subtle way with the event or the ethos behind the Games could sign up Bolt.

6. Food/drink. Any kind of food or drink that can be seen as part of a reasonably healthy diet would fit well. If Bolt himself is a particular fan of any particular foodstuff, this would obviously be a stronger link. Just as Kellogg’s signed up Michael Phelps after his Olympic victories, Bolt could find a sponsor among the food brands hoping to present themselves as “fuel”.

Any ideas on the type of brands you think Bolt could associate himself with? What wouldn’t be a good fit? Any more leftfield ideas than the usual sports, foods or telecoms examples?

I’m back.

And what could be a better welcome back to work than this lovely story, via Gawker, about Chanel requesting that their trademarked name be used properly by journalists, fashion types and you know…everyone.

The company ran an ad in Woman’s Wear Daily illustrating the correct usages of its name…..see below. Sensible brand protection or being precious? Tell me what you think.

I’m taking a short break from blogging as I’m away on holiday for three weeks from Friday 12 June, leaving my colleagues at Marketing Week to provide the insight, opinion and analysis for you. I will be back at work on July 6th and back to blogging again.

In the meantime, if you get bored, I suggest you check out the main Marketing Week website, which is constantly being updated or my colleague Stuart Smith, who is back from his own holiday on June 22.

In the language of Terminator (once again hitting box offices around the world), “I’ll be back”. But not till July 6th.

Thanks for your patience!

Ruth