All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to use poor marketing strategies.
Edmund Burke’s famous epigram (with a slight revision) illustrates the importance of good marketing in the current primary battles.
How can an outsider with no political experience (and a flaky business record) become the leading Presidential candidate in the Republican primaries?
We just defeated one of the most famous agencies in the world. Us. A small independent on the rise was selected to be agency of record over a legendary shop with more Lions than a wildlife sanctuary.
But we didn’t know they were in the pitch until we were awarded the account — which taught us a valuable lesson.
Here’s why not knowing whom you’re pitching against can be incredibly liberating for small agencies like ours.
As someone who spent 19 years at an agency, and my last 18 years consulting with clients on their agency compensation agreements, I read Rance Crain’s recent opinion piece and conversation with Gary Burandt with much interest.
In it, Gary argued that “losing the 15% media commission was the biggest game changer in the ad business since it started,” adding that “in retrospect it would have been better for the agencies to voluntarily agree to a lower commission of 10% and keep a system in place that was working well.” He also noted that the conversion to client fees and hourly rates “has made no one happy and has become a distraction on both sides.”
While I greatly respect Gary’s industry experience and smarts, I have to respectfully disagree with most of his arguments on the commission system, and can see no scenario where a move to a 10% vs. 15% commission rate would have made any difference.
A cup-half-empty view of fragmentation frowns over dwindling linear ratings and the challenge this presents to creating broadbased brand awareness. Many are nostalgic for the communal experience of TV’s past. Brands have a rich history of using TV commercials to create moments aligned with public consciousness, and the very best created the vaunted watercooler effect.
In an environment where tens of millions of Americans are not necessarily watching the same programs and the same commercials at the same time, it is more difficult for TV to spike omnipresent conversation, but there are alternative mechanisms to amplify commercial messages online.
This is why large-scale live events like the Super Bowl, the Olympics or awards programs have become even more premium. And surely, it was easier to just buy big ratings in days past. But chasing these scarce opportunities is not the only way. We can intelligently segment and activate very specific audiences and then reaggregate them for mass scale. And because smaller audiences are typically less expensive than larger ones, this can be the more cost-efficient and effective path.
Back in 2001, I wrote a column that asked: “Why do advertisers and agencies think it’s humorous to depict husbands as childish-but-lovable goofballs, unable to perform the simplest tasks without prodding and reminders from their wives?
“A corollary question: Do wives get this way only after being mothers themselves, or do they learn such behavior by observing how their own moms treat their fathers?”
After reading Jack Myers’ new book, “The Future of Men,” I must conclude that the advertisers who depicted men as goofballs knew what they were doing. In explaining why he wrote his book, Jack says that “the shift toward female power is far more pervasive than we realize and that male dominance is quickly fading. It’s becoming very apparent that the future of men will be increasingly defined, dominated, and controlled by women.”
The Queen of the United Kingdom turns 90 today — a momentous personal milestone to have reached while continuing her role as the country’s figurehead. Official celebrations will be held in the UK in May and June and will attract supporters from around the world — showing that enthusiasm and support for the British royals is holding strong both at home and abroad, boosted by the growing popularity of Kate and Wills.
So what is the legacy of the “royal brand,” and how has it stood the test of time in recent years? Here are some lessons for marketers from the continuity of the British royals:
Evolving with the times
An animated GIF of wildly gesticulating presidential candidate Bernie Sanders popping colorful cartoon bubbles with his pointing finger has racked up more than 5 million views in less than 24 hours on image-sharing site Imgur. And no wonder: It’s a perfectly shareable bit of nonsense that’s funnier than expected and feeds directly into the Short Attention Span Theater that is the 2016 presidential campaign. Who has time for a full soundbite — or even sound?
But if you look closely at the Bubble Burst Bernie GIF, you might notice a CBS-logo bug in the lower-right-hand corner. That’s because the GIF was ripped from a Wednesday “Late Show With Stephen Colbert” YouTube post — an excerpt from a segment on Tuesday night’s show. In that segment, Colbert played a clip of Sanders, noting that “Not only does Bernie make good points, he also points good. In fact, Bernie’s pointing prowess has inspired us to create a new video game. It’s Bubble Burst Bernie. Let’s do it!”
By the way, the original clip on YouTube has fewer than 50,000 views as of Thursday morning. (The view counter on Imgur embeds is erroneously showing “0 views,” but as of this writing the counter on Bubble Burst Bernie on the Imgur site itself indicates 5,743,988 views.)
In the social media age, we have certain still-new rituals that surround the death of a beloved artist — rituals that are somehow already deeply embedded in our culture. With the death of Prince today, millions of people are taking to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other platforms to express their shock and sadness in real time. Brands are doing their thing, too. And whether you seek them out or not, you’ll likely encounter — or have already encountered — roundups of celebrity tweets and posts paying brief tribute to the musical genius.
A flood of carefully crafted appreciations is imminent — on websites and blogs, newspaper front pages around the world tomorrow and magazine cover stories in weeks to come. But for now, here’s a post by a musician, Justin Timberlake, that beautifully bridges the gap between brevity and depth.
Even in the age of TMZ, Facebook and Twitter — or perhaps especially in the age of TMZ, Facebook and Twitter — the instinct to look at a newspaper the day after the death of a beloved entertainer endures. You wake up and you think: Did that really happen? Did Prince really die? These 10 front pages confirm the awful news and underscore Prince’s stature as a monumental artist whose death is being mourned around the world.
The Ad Age Presidential Campaign Ad Scorecard is sponsored by The Trade Desk
Editor’s note: Here’s the 10th installment of the 2016 Presidential Campaign Ad Scorecard, a comprehensive view of spending across broadcast, cable and satellite TV as well as radio. The charts below represent a collaboration between the Ad Age Datacenter — specifically, Kevin Brown, Bradley Johnson and Catherine Wolf — and Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG). Some context from Ad Age’s Simon Dumenco follows. –Ken Wheaton
The biggest jump in this scorecard vs. our previous scorecard: Donald Trump is now at No. 7 — up from No. 9. That’s thanks to a nearly $2 million increase in the Trump campaign’s spending on TV and radio ads, from a cumulative $18,093,980 last time to a cumulative $20,086,021 this time.
It’s hard enough to host the Olympics without having to deal with a Zika epidemic, a crushing economic recession, and the impeachment of a president. But that’s the plight of Rio de Janeiro.
Marketers in Brazil are cutting budgets in an economy forecast to contract another 4% this year after a similar drop last year, and car sales plummeted by 22% in February. The country’s congress has started impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff, and Brazilians hope the furor over who runs Brazil will be resolved long before the Olympic Games kick off Aug. 5.
Another big challenge is getting a nation distracted by multiple crises (and who are mostly soccer fans anyway) to pay attention to Olympic sports — and to the messages of six marketers paying a total of $420 million to sponsor dominant broadcaster TV Globo’s coverage of the games.
What are we to make of the news that Ted Cruz and John Kasich are teaming up to attempt to stop Donald Trump — and what does it mean for their campaigns and their political brands? As The New York Times reports,
Senator Ted Cruz and Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio have agreed to coordinate in future primary contests in a last-ditch effort to deny Donald J. Trump the Republican presidential nomination, with each candidate standing aside in certain states amid growing concerns that Mr. Trump cannot otherwise be stopped.
The plan, according to a statement from Cruz’s campaign manager, Jeff Roe, is to focus on winning Indiana “and in turn clear the path for Governor Kasich to compete in Oregon and New Mexico.” According to a statement from Kasich’s chief strategist, John Weaver, the Kasich campaign will focus on states in the West and “give the Cruz campaign a clear path in Indiana.”
The 2016 U.S. presidential campaign is by far the most volatile and least predictable in recent memory.
Candidates who would have been punchlines in previous election cycles have captured the nation’s attention — and votes.
Given the polarizing nature of the candidates and issues facing the nation, the primary results so far have demonstrated again and again that the traditional methods of understanding and persuading voters (large TV advertising buys) aren’t working the way they used to.
Print
Marie Rose
Advertising Agency:Y&R, Paris, France
Creative Director:Pierrette Diaz
Art Director:: Eric Esculier
Copywriter:Eric Esculier
Illustrator:Illusion
Production Company:La Manufacture
Retouched:The Shop
Print Production:The Shop
The internet is creating an open-source revolution — a bottoms-up change in human habits across the globe, driven by hundreds of thousands of technologists, content creators, and business leaders to create nearly unlimited entertainment, news, information, commerce and services unimaginable in other eras.
But something insidious has begun to threaten the free web as we know it.
Armed with powerful tools that block advertising from appearing on websites, new and old players in the ad-blocking and mobile operator industry are threatening to strip ads at the “network level” from websites, in some cases seeking revenue-sharing agreements from the very companies whose ads are being blocked.
PR, Online
Dorina Nowill Foundation For The Blind
Advertising Agency:Lew’LaraTBWA, São Paulo, Brazil
CCO:Felipe Luchi, Manir Fadel
Ceo:Marcio Oliveira
Creatives:Leandro Pinheiro, Ulisses Razaboni
Online Creatives:Leandro Pinheiro, Ulisses Razaboni, Felipe Pimentel, Cainã Meneses
Account:Ricardo Barros, Fernanda Mariano
Planning Team:Renata D’Avila, Anderson Sales
Media Team:Luiz Ritton, Eduardo Shinohara, Suellen Kiss, Amanda Moura, Danielle Farhat
Social Media:Nancy Sestini
Art Buyer:Ale Sarilho, Sabino, Caio Lobo, Natasha Latronico
Piece Producer:Claudio Rocha
Photographer:Rodrigo Ribeiro
Project Manager:Monalisa Paduin
Agency Production:Marcos Pedra, Alexandro Coelho
Film Production Company:Landia
Film Director:Nixon Freire
Executive Producer:Carolina Dantas, Sebastian Hall
Producer Director:Fabiano Ramos
Director Of Photograpy:Nixon Freire
Art Director:Dartagnan Zavalla
Finisher:Henrique Gomes
Posproduction:Rafael Fernandes
Sound Production:Mugshot
Digital Production:BASE
Client:Eliana Cunha, Daniela Coutelle, Priscila Saraiva
Editor’s Note: In response to an IAB column that ran Tuesday, stating that “Ad blocking at the network level undercuts consumers’ ability to control the content they see and don’t see,” Roi Carthy, CMO at Shine, had the following response, printed here in its entirety:
Yes, the future of the internet is at stake, and for the first time, consumers have a say. Shine provides consumers the choice to protect themselves from the abusive practices of ad tech.
Numerous IAB members have reached out to Shine and are having thoughtful conversations with us on formulating a sustainable model for ad tech that does not put the consumer at risk.
Film
Lacoste
Advertising Agency:BETC, Paris, France
Unilever is updating its biggest brand Knorr with a global campaign targeted at a generation raised on supper clubs, superstar chefs, food bloggers and #foodporn.
The “Love at First Taste” effort by MullenLowe asks whether flavor can help you find love. Knorr paired up individuals based on their matching food preferences and made a film showing each couple meeting for the first time over a meal for two. (Knorr is best known for products that add flavor, like sauces and bouillon cubes, but has expanded into side dishes and soups).
Directed by Tatia Pilieva creator of the “First Kiss” film which won a Gold Lion at the 2014 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity the Knorr film features similarly moving and intimate moments between complete strangers.
Direct Marketing, Design
Temptations Cat Treats
Advertising Agency:adam&EveDDB, London, United Kingdom
Copywriter: Natasha Lyons
Art Director:Dan Lacey
Agency Producer:Agne Acute, Matt Craigie
Planner:Stuart Harrison, Jessica Lovell
Business Director:Fiona Mcarthur, Amelia Blashill
Account Director:Katie Baker
Media Agency:Starcom Worldwide
Production Company:Acne
Executive Producer:Ben Clark
Producer Film:Tim Mardell
Director:Joakim Behrman
P.:Adrian Wigerdal & Joakim Behrman
Editor:Pablo Antonio Labanino, James Ireland
Post Production:Cain&Abel
Audio Post Production:Clearcut Sound
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
