Hasta La Creative!

Good customer segmentation is important, but it’s not the starting point of a targeted marketing communications or media plan, especially today when the clarion call is for marketing efficiency. Today the combination of available data, big-time processing power, asset management and marketing automation technology means we can really target individuals at scale, using business rules and decision-ing logic to trigger the “right time, right place, right message to the right person” ideal we’ve been making conceptual PowerPoint slides about for decades.

To target is “to select as an object of attention or attack.” While “attack” is a little severe as a marketing term (albeit less disingenuous than “engage”), it means selecting something with precision, assuming a high likelihood of a particular outcome. Given the latter clause, I’m struck by how many marketers have conflated segmentation with targeting. “Should we create a contact strategy for the Power Millennials segment?”

Umno.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

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Don Draper and Peggy Olson might be pitching Burger Chef on “Mad Men,” but in real life during that time Keith Reinhard, then a creative at Chicago’s Needham Harper & Steers, was busy landing McDonald’s for the agency. At the time, the fast-feeder was just going national and it had a massive budget by 1970 standards: $35 million.

Here, in the first of a video series on the real Mad Men of the 1960’s and 70’s, we interview Mr. Reinhard, today chairman emeritus of DDB Needham, about how the account was won — and how he came up with what’s arguably the chain’s most-remembered ad, “You Deserve a Break Today.”

Continue reading at AdAge.com

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I’m not sure I get the point of bacon marketing. It’s like advertising oxygen. The power of bacon should be self-evident.

I just assume that everyone (unless you have religious reasons or are a vegetarian) eats bacon.

But for any number of reasons — battle for market share as “artisanal” bacon enters the sector, the threat of Americans switching to sensible diets — bacon marketing exists.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

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At the recent White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, one of the big comedic targets was CNN. Both President Obama and host Joel McHale made fun of the cable news network, with Obama mocking CNN’s widely criticized overkill coverage of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

“I think they’re still searching for their table,” Obama quipped in reference to the CNN staffers in attendance, and during McHale’s routine a C-SPAN camera offered a reaction shot from CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer — who had apparently found his seat, but did not look very happy. He had a thin-lipped, barely-there smile on his face, as if he was only begrudgingly enduring the ridicule.

Honestly, I felt for Wolf. He’s been at CNN since 1990, one year shy of a quarter-century, and it’s gotta suck having to watch his once-respected network become an easy joke (and a ratings-challenged one at that).

Continue reading at AdAge.com

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Pick up a bottle of Singapore’s iconic Tiger beer, and you’ll now notice a subtle change in the logo. The “g” in the name looks like an “8,” a lucky number in much of Asia.

That’s part of a new strategy from Heineken International, which took control of the Tiger brand two years ago, to emphasize the brand’s Asian identity. Along with revamped packaging, there’s a new Droga5 international campaign focusing on real stories about cool young Asians including a tattoo artist and a stuntman — who defied family or societal expectations to choose their own path. Tiger’s new slogan is “Uncage.”

Asian consumers traditionally gravitate toward pricier Western products as their spending power rises, but Heineken sees an opening for a premium Asian beer brand targeting upwardly mobile young consumers on the continent.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

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Category: Career Oxygen
Summary: The “careers” your parents and grandparents had are things of the past — these days, we have experiences. The desire for stability in a career has been buried by the desire to love what you do, all day, every day.
You will spend more waking hours a week at work than home — sad, but true — so if you desire a happy life, a happy job is pretty critical.

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Category: Up Your Game
Summary: Last week I had a terrible experience with a cable television service. They didn’t show up for the installation appointment, and were unable to set up a new appointment when I called to reschedule. So like any curious marketer would do,
I tweeted about it just to see what kind of response I would get. The response I got surprised me.

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Category: Up Your Game
Summary: Alexander the Great is considered one of the foremost military minds in history. In roughly 10 short years, he conquered the entire known world and impacted future generations in ways that are still felt today. His exploits were so ahead of their time that his stratagems and tactics are still taught in modern military colleges.

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Category: Hire & Higher
Summary: Let’s face reality: 99% of the approaches used by corporate recruiters to attract the very best design, creative, and marketing professionals are simply dull and unimaginative. You might think that using these mundane approaches is okay because…everyone uses them, but you would be wrong! In order to successfully recruit the elite talent known as “purple squirrels,” you need to use advanced approaches that push the limits of traditional recruiting.

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Category: Up Your Game
Summary: There is little doubt that today’s job market has changed dramatically. Companies are constantly hiring and firing, and people no longer expect ‘life-long’ careers at a single organization, ending with a fat pension. Instead, we’re living in a ‘gig economy’ where one to five-year stints is the norm. So how does one embrace this environment and plan their career in a market that’s becoming ever more unpredictable?

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