Melbourne Herald Sun, 3rd October, 2009
My friend on the phone was ropeable. "Have you seen what they've done to Vegemite? Called their new product iSnack2. What sort of name's that? They should be whipped, messing about with an Australian icon like that."
My friend, an art director for many years, is passionate about his marketing and this move pressed all the wrong buttons. "What are they going to do next, rebrand Coca Cola ‘iDrink'? 'Cause that's what you do with it." I'll modestly pass over his suggestions for Sorbent toilet paper. Let's just say he was annoyed. And he was not alone.
The company, Kraft, was hit by such a flood of indignation that within days they announced that the new name was ditched and something better would be found. But how could this happen with a name that was democratically selected?
Kraft had asked its customers to name the new product - basically Vegemite with added cheese - in a competition that drew 48,000 entries. You can imagine the range of responses they received, with varying degrees of printability but very little marketing strategy.
The name they really wanted was CheesyMite but that already belonged to Baker's Delight. Instead they chose to take the trendy, digital iPod, iPhone, iTunes track and even added the two at the end to make it sound like software. But it isn't software so it just sounded phoney. The idea wasn't thought through to explore all the angles.
Sometimes public input can work, but it has to be managed well. NASA recently announced the winner of its own competition. To name the new planet rover that will explore Mars in 2011. The winner was 12 year old Clara Ma from Kansas - and the Mars Rover will be called Curiosity. "Houston, this is Mars - Curiosity has landed!" Yeah that sort of works, a lot better than iRove.
The attraction of a naming competition is all the free publicity it can generate. Zoos are fond of producing fluffy little animals and asking the public to name them. This guarantees that your panda or lion cub or giraffe makes the news and then gets repeated mentions until the name is chosen.
The secret is to make sure the final decision is made in-house. Otherwise you can have problems like another NASA contest earlier this year. They asked for a name for part of the International Space Station. Comedian Stephen Colbert urged his viewers to write-in ‘Colbert' and won with a hefty 230,000 votes. Fortunately the judges retained the last word.
This February Virgin launched their new cut-price trans-Pacific airline. And they too decided to put it to a vote. Their competition drew thousands of suggestions, but they were not allowed to use the word ‘Virgin' for legal reasons. The final choice was less than thrilling: ‘V Australia'. But could we have lived with one of the also-rans like ‘Matilda Blue' or ‘Didgeree Blue'?
The big contest at the moment is not for a name but for a slogan. Minister Simon Crean offered $20 million to the advertising agency that could come up with an Australian slogan better than ‘So where the bloody hell are you?' (Not difficult.) But up there with ‘100% New Zealand' or South Africa's ‘Rainbow Nation'. Big ask.
Now once upon a time you'd get half a dozen of an agency's most creative minds and lock them in a luxury hotel suite for a long weekend. They would then brainstorm and debate, applying logic or emotion depending on the time of day or night, and filling sheets of butcher's paper with dozens of scrawled ideas.
Finally the Creative Director would reduce the jumble down to ten good lines which would be researched. Hopefully you'd end up with two good candidates that would work whichever one the client chose. That's called professional marketing. But hey, a competition's much more fun isn't it?
ray@ebeatty.com
END
03 October, 2009
26 September, 2009
Product placement in TV and movies: Mr Spock’s Nokia
Melbourne Herald Sun, 26th September 2009
You’ll be surprised to know that in 2250 there will still be Nokia mobile phones and Budweiser beer, along with Captain Kirk and Mr Spock. Can these products last another 240 years? Well in the world of brand placement they can - they were seen in this year’s Star Trek movie.
Brand Placement is a $180 million business, which compared to the billions spent in advertising is pretty small fry - but it’s enough to affect almost every movie and TV drama you will see in the next year.
It’s 30 years since the business was born, when Christopher Reeve smashed into a giant neon Coke sign in Superman I.
Since then, those sneaky little product shots creeping into the actors’ hands have gone from occasional, to regular, to a pain in the eyeballs. But the producers insist that they are a necessary part of financing today’s film and TV business.
The British have always been stand-offish about the practice, even pixillating the logo on Simon Cowell’s drink when American Idol is shown there. But this week their culture minister, Ben Bradshaw, has permitted the practice “in order to help save the TV industry”.
He has been hit by a public storm that we in Oz, being already contaminated, would find surprising. But in Coronation Street they have their own brand of beer, and in Midsomer Murders the packets and bottles are always turned away from the camera. So allowing a logo to be seen is a scandal.
America, of course, has the most sophisticated system. And its champion user is Ford, who in the 2008 Product Placement Awards was clocked to have featured in 60 percent of the top box-office movies. They’re still up there this year.
If the movie shows a New York taxi it will be a Ford. They were in Transformers (1 and 2), I Am Legend, American Gangster, 17 Again, Hannah Montana - and of course that glorified motor show on celluloid, Fast & Furious. They have a Global Brand Entertainment Team whose job it is to stick Fords into movies.
Last year, of the 20 films to have a number-one weekend at the box office, each placed an average of 22 brands. The only clean skins were Harry Potter and Pixar’s Up. Inglourious Basterds was almost clean with just one product reference - to Walther pistols.
It’s only human to take things too far and so you’ll see cases where the tail starts to wag the dog. NBC has a TV comedy called Chuck, where a CIA agent works undercover in a shopping mall. The new season will only be made through the support of Subway sandwiches. So I wonder where the agent is going to work?
In these days when advertising income is being syphoned off by the Internet and new media, is this sneaky advertising the only alternative to endless, cheaper, reality shows and panel quizzes?
Maybe we’ll get used to it, as we have in sporting coverage. Will we see actors with Samsung logos on their shirts? Billboards in every external scene? Beam me up, Scotty!
I’d just like to conclude by assuring you that I received no payment for the mention of Coca Cola, Ford, Budweiser, Subway, Walther, Samsung, or Nokia in this article. More’s the pity.
ray@ebeatty.com
You’ll be surprised to know that in 2250 there will still be Nokia mobile phones and Budweiser beer, along with Captain Kirk and Mr Spock. Can these products last another 240 years? Well in the world of brand placement they can - they were seen in this year’s Star Trek movie.
Brand Placement is a $180 million business, which compared to the billions spent in advertising is pretty small fry - but it’s enough to affect almost every movie and TV drama you will see in the next year.
It’s 30 years since the business was born, when Christopher Reeve smashed into a giant neon Coke sign in Superman I.
Since then, those sneaky little product shots creeping into the actors’ hands have gone from occasional, to regular, to a pain in the eyeballs. But the producers insist that they are a necessary part of financing today’s film and TV business.
The British have always been stand-offish about the practice, even pixillating the logo on Simon Cowell’s drink when American Idol is shown there. But this week their culture minister, Ben Bradshaw, has permitted the practice “in order to help save the TV industry”.
He has been hit by a public storm that we in Oz, being already contaminated, would find surprising. But in Coronation Street they have their own brand of beer, and in Midsomer Murders the packets and bottles are always turned away from the camera. So allowing a logo to be seen is a scandal.
America, of course, has the most sophisticated system. And its champion user is Ford, who in the 2008 Product Placement Awards was clocked to have featured in 60 percent of the top box-office movies. They’re still up there this year.
If the movie shows a New York taxi it will be a Ford. They were in Transformers (1 and 2), I Am Legend, American Gangster, 17 Again, Hannah Montana - and of course that glorified motor show on celluloid, Fast & Furious. They have a Global Brand Entertainment Team whose job it is to stick Fords into movies.
Last year, of the 20 films to have a number-one weekend at the box office, each placed an average of 22 brands. The only clean skins were Harry Potter and Pixar’s Up. Inglourious Basterds was almost clean with just one product reference - to Walther pistols.
It’s only human to take things too far and so you’ll see cases where the tail starts to wag the dog. NBC has a TV comedy called Chuck, where a CIA agent works undercover in a shopping mall. The new season will only be made through the support of Subway sandwiches. So I wonder where the agent is going to work?
In these days when advertising income is being syphoned off by the Internet and new media, is this sneaky advertising the only alternative to endless, cheaper, reality shows and panel quizzes?
Maybe we’ll get used to it, as we have in sporting coverage. Will we see actors with Samsung logos on their shirts? Billboards in every external scene? Beam me up, Scotty!
I’d just like to conclude by assuring you that I received no payment for the mention of Coca Cola, Ford, Budweiser, Subway, Walther, Samsung, or Nokia in this article. More’s the pity.
ray@ebeatty.com
12 September, 2009
Why can’t a woman be more like a man?
Melbourne Herald Sun, 12th September, 2009
“Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” asked Professor Higgins. Well I’m sorry mate, she ain’t and never will be. So that’s why Fernwood Women’s Health Club was invented.
The fitness franchise celebrated twenty years last month and in the process has launched a new advertising campaign.
Diana Williams has given us a classic example of market positioning. You take a product, even in an intensely competitive field, and you give it an angle that nobody else has - in advertising parlance, the “unique selling proposition”.
Bear in mind that it does not really have to be unique, in that it does not exist anywhere else. But in perception - if you are the first person to promote that benefit, and bring it to the public’s attention, then as far as the public is concerned, you invented it.
So it was with Fernwood. Twenty years ago, back in little old Bendigo, Diana Williams stood up and promoted a gym as being exclusively for women, no men allowed. Then she stuck to her guns. She knew her market.
Let’s face it, many women get embarrassed sweating and straining in leotards that fail to disguise the lumps and bumps in their figures, before a roomful of men. They want to relax from looking good, even as they work on it. They responded to a man-free zone.
So much so that the clubs were opened in Melbourne and eventually around the country under a franchise model. And every one of them made the same promise. As immortalised in a Fernwood ad campaign a few years ago: “No Toms. No Harrys. No Dicks.”
Having hammered that message home for years, their new campaign can afford to concentrate on their customers’ self-image and aspirations. So the new line is “Find your inner fox”. Presumably talking about Jimmy Hendrix’s Foxy Lady or as they put it, “Happy, Sexy, Fun”.
The ads will run on TV, print, outdoor and online media. A typical poster ad declares: “Be a fox without botox”. The message being that if you exercise regularly you’ll feel fitter, look better, and be more confident.
The “No Dicks” campaigned positioned them securely in the public’s mind, so now they can afford to promote those more positive benefits.
The strategy has worked incredibly well. Fernwood is now the largest women’s health club in Australia, with 77 facilities, 80,000 members, 2,200 employees, and an annual turnover of $90m.
However, in July Victorian Attorney General Rob Hulls blundered into a hornet’s nest when he attacked the gender discrimination of men’s clubs. Why shouldn’t women be able to join the Melbourne Club and the Athenaeum, he asked?
The problem was that by taking a shot at these male clubs he also hit institutions like Fernwood and the Lyceum Club. They argue just as loudly for their right to be exclusively female, as men do for theirs.
There is a longer-term problem to this move, too. In recent years, throughout society, membership of groups and organisations has been falling - ask any political party to check its own numbers.
If you took away the gender exclusivity many of these clubs would have no more reason to exist, they would be killed off by political correctness.
There is now a parliamentary committee questioning the exceptions allowed under the Equal Opportunity Act, which is expected to report next month.
Now if they rule that women’s clubs are legal but men’s are not, expect much mouth-frothing from the top of Collins Street.
On the other hand I cannot see them ruling that women’s clubs are illegal. After all, it would be a very brave politician who would stand up before the wrath of 80,000 angry women in leotards.
ray@ebeatty.com
“Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” asked Professor Higgins. Well I’m sorry mate, she ain’t and never will be. So that’s why Fernwood Women’s Health Club was invented.
The fitness franchise celebrated twenty years last month and in the process has launched a new advertising campaign.
Diana Williams has given us a classic example of market positioning. You take a product, even in an intensely competitive field, and you give it an angle that nobody else has - in advertising parlance, the “unique selling proposition”.
Bear in mind that it does not really have to be unique, in that it does not exist anywhere else. But in perception - if you are the first person to promote that benefit, and bring it to the public’s attention, then as far as the public is concerned, you invented it.
So it was with Fernwood. Twenty years ago, back in little old Bendigo, Diana Williams stood up and promoted a gym as being exclusively for women, no men allowed. Then she stuck to her guns. She knew her market.
Let’s face it, many women get embarrassed sweating and straining in leotards that fail to disguise the lumps and bumps in their figures, before a roomful of men. They want to relax from looking good, even as they work on it. They responded to a man-free zone.
So much so that the clubs were opened in Melbourne and eventually around the country under a franchise model. And every one of them made the same promise. As immortalised in a Fernwood ad campaign a few years ago: “No Toms. No Harrys. No Dicks.”
Having hammered that message home for years, their new campaign can afford to concentrate on their customers’ self-image and aspirations. So the new line is “Find your inner fox”. Presumably talking about Jimmy Hendrix’s Foxy Lady or as they put it, “Happy, Sexy, Fun”.
The ads will run on TV, print, outdoor and online media. A typical poster ad declares: “Be a fox without botox”. The message being that if you exercise regularly you’ll feel fitter, look better, and be more confident.
The “No Dicks” campaigned positioned them securely in the public’s mind, so now they can afford to promote those more positive benefits.
The strategy has worked incredibly well. Fernwood is now the largest women’s health club in Australia, with 77 facilities, 80,000 members, 2,200 employees, and an annual turnover of $90m.
However, in July Victorian Attorney General Rob Hulls blundered into a hornet’s nest when he attacked the gender discrimination of men’s clubs. Why shouldn’t women be able to join the Melbourne Club and the Athenaeum, he asked?
The problem was that by taking a shot at these male clubs he also hit institutions like Fernwood and the Lyceum Club. They argue just as loudly for their right to be exclusively female, as men do for theirs.
There is a longer-term problem to this move, too. In recent years, throughout society, membership of groups and organisations has been falling - ask any political party to check its own numbers.
If you took away the gender exclusivity many of these clubs would have no more reason to exist, they would be killed off by political correctness.
There is now a parliamentary committee questioning the exceptions allowed under the Equal Opportunity Act, which is expected to report next month.
Now if they rule that women’s clubs are legal but men’s are not, expect much mouth-frothing from the top of Collins Street.
On the other hand I cannot see them ruling that women’s clubs are illegal. After all, it would be a very brave politician who would stand up before the wrath of 80,000 angry women in leotards.
ray@ebeatty.com
25 July, 2009
What’s the shelf life of a Master Chef medal?
Melbourne Herald Sun 25th July, 2009
Having won the Australian Masterchef contest, Julie Goodwin can rest assured that the award will last her for life and she will never be short of work or sponsors.
But for the rest of us just how long is the lifespan of an award? And in cool marketing terms, what’s it worth?
No doubt Julie’s win will sell lots of her cookbooks once she publishes, and draw a stream of customers into her restaurant. So yes you would call it bankable and worth much more than the prize on Sunday night.
Think about sports stars. An Olympic medal has no shelf life. Herb Elliot is still an Olympian even now he’s pushing 70, his wins as highly regarded as the recently minted medals of Stephanie Rice. They have both been able to make hay from the glint of the gold.
But what about advertising? A great deal of fuss is made about awards, whether the local ones like Award or Caxton, or the big international ones like Cannes or Clio.
Agencies proudly display them behind the reception desk as a hallmark of quality - “Look at how good we are”. However winning the gong does not always mean that the advertisements generated spectacular sales for the clients.
They are also time-sensitive. After a very few years the gloss pales. Let me confess that in my own case, introducing myself to new clients, I will mention Clio and Penguin awards - then quickly move the conversation on before someone asks me how long ago I won them. In this regard I know I’m not alone.
Contemplating this subject I read the label on a Dewar’s scotch (an aid to contemplation) to find that it displayed 14 gold medals from great international exhibitions. London to Paris to Cairo to Zurich and more. But they started in 1886 and ended in 1930.
Presumably anyone involved in the creation of those award-winning brews is long gone (one would hope). So how does that recommend today’s tipple?
Looking in my pantry I found a bottle of Lupi olive oil boasting a gold medal from somewhere in Italy - in 1880. Our own Cobram Estate olive oil is at least current, with Perth 2008 on its label.
Another honour used in marketing is the royal warrant. This is where a product is allowed to display a crest and “As appointed by...” on the label. Some companies, like Schweppes and Twinings, have had them for centuries.
Contrary to popular belief they don’t pay for them with truckloads of free tea and soft drinks - they are paid like any other tradespeople. These days a warrant needs to be renewed every five years and ends after the death of the grantor. So you cannot legally claim: “By appointment to King Edward VII”, and the Queen Mother’s favourites expired five years after her.
To get the nod you have to be pretty classy. The Queen includes Rolls Royce and Bentley, Aston Martin, Burberry, Royal Doulton, Jaguars, Steinway and Range Rover. Hm, obviously has a very large garage.
But it’s not only big-ticket items, the list includes trades like dry cleaners, fishmongers, and these days even computer software. In Australia Hardy Brothers the jewellers have showed off their crest for 80 years.
But the Royal Warrant can be lost too. Harrods were proud holders of appointments by the whole Royal Family. But in 2000 the Duke of Edinburgh had had enough of Mohamed al-Fayed’s accusations about “the murder” of his son and Princess Diana, and rescinded his warrant.
Al-Fayed blew a raspberry and removed all the royal coats of arms on his store, including those that had not expired. Prince Phillip blamed a "significant decline in the trading relationship" for the spat.
He’s not wrong - no royal has shopped in Harrods since Princess Diana’s death in 1997.
ray@ebeatty.com
Having won the Australian Masterchef contest, Julie Goodwin can rest assured that the award will last her for life and she will never be short of work or sponsors.
But for the rest of us just how long is the lifespan of an award? And in cool marketing terms, what’s it worth?
No doubt Julie’s win will sell lots of her cookbooks once she publishes, and draw a stream of customers into her restaurant. So yes you would call it bankable and worth much more than the prize on Sunday night.
Think about sports stars. An Olympic medal has no shelf life. Herb Elliot is still an Olympian even now he’s pushing 70, his wins as highly regarded as the recently minted medals of Stephanie Rice. They have both been able to make hay from the glint of the gold.
But what about advertising? A great deal of fuss is made about awards, whether the local ones like Award or Caxton, or the big international ones like Cannes or Clio.
Agencies proudly display them behind the reception desk as a hallmark of quality - “Look at how good we are”. However winning the gong does not always mean that the advertisements generated spectacular sales for the clients.
They are also time-sensitive. After a very few years the gloss pales. Let me confess that in my own case, introducing myself to new clients, I will mention Clio and Penguin awards - then quickly move the conversation on before someone asks me how long ago I won them. In this regard I know I’m not alone.
Contemplating this subject I read the label on a Dewar’s scotch (an aid to contemplation) to find that it displayed 14 gold medals from great international exhibitions. London to Paris to Cairo to Zurich and more. But they started in 1886 and ended in 1930.
Presumably anyone involved in the creation of those award-winning brews is long gone (one would hope). So how does that recommend today’s tipple?
Looking in my pantry I found a bottle of Lupi olive oil boasting a gold medal from somewhere in Italy - in 1880. Our own Cobram Estate olive oil is at least current, with Perth 2008 on its label.
Another honour used in marketing is the royal warrant. This is where a product is allowed to display a crest and “As appointed by...” on the label. Some companies, like Schweppes and Twinings, have had them for centuries.
Contrary to popular belief they don’t pay for them with truckloads of free tea and soft drinks - they are paid like any other tradespeople. These days a warrant needs to be renewed every five years and ends after the death of the grantor. So you cannot legally claim: “By appointment to King Edward VII”, and the Queen Mother’s favourites expired five years after her.
To get the nod you have to be pretty classy. The Queen includes Rolls Royce and Bentley, Aston Martin, Burberry, Royal Doulton, Jaguars, Steinway and Range Rover. Hm, obviously has a very large garage.
But it’s not only big-ticket items, the list includes trades like dry cleaners, fishmongers, and these days even computer software. In Australia Hardy Brothers the jewellers have showed off their crest for 80 years.
But the Royal Warrant can be lost too. Harrods were proud holders of appointments by the whole Royal Family. But in 2000 the Duke of Edinburgh had had enough of Mohamed al-Fayed’s accusations about “the murder” of his son and Princess Diana, and rescinded his warrant.
Al-Fayed blew a raspberry and removed all the royal coats of arms on his store, including those that had not expired. Prince Phillip blamed a "significant decline in the trading relationship" for the spat.
He’s not wrong - no royal has shopped in Harrods since Princess Diana’s death in 1997.
ray@ebeatty.com
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