Hasta La Creative!

Sometimes the past is fulfilled with wonderful memories of friends, music, good times and lots of laughter. Or, the past should remain exactly where it is, especially when remembering how you dressed, your bodily piercings, and that mullet with the spiked top that would never go out of style. If you remember the mullet, do you recall these lyrics?

Buying bread from a man in Brussels He was six foot four and full of muscles I said, “Do you speak-a my language?” He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich”
By: Men At Work, “A Land Down Under

What in the heck is Vegemite, anyway? Until writing this post, I didn’t know, nor care. Then I found out that Vegemite is actually produced by Kraft Foods, and that Kraft has developed a new Vegemite formula and has rolled it out in Australia…

My first thought: “Would this be the next huge marketing FAIL, akin to the New Coke Formula back in 1985?”
Knowing absolutely nothing about the product, I had to do some research. What is Vegemite?

Vegemite is similar to the British product Marmite, which is a tacky paste, brown in color, with a salty “beef broth” or “meaty-like taste.” Marmite is usually spread on toast or biscuits but can also be mixed with hot water to make a drink. Marmite is made out of yeast extract saved after the beer brewing process. During World War I, the flow of Marmite to Australia was interrupted and an Australian cheese company, Fred Walker & Co., commissioned an Aussie scientist to come up with similar replacement.

Vegemite was introduced with great fanfare (including a national naming contest) in 1923. The naming campaign was a big success; the product flopped. Despite various marketing efforts, Vegemite sales remained poor. Kraft purchased Walker & Co. in 1926 (forming the Kraft Walker Cheese Company) and in 1928, changed the name to Parmite, which killed Vegemite’s tiny though hard-won market share. Vegemite never recovered.

So, with plenty of Vegemite on-hand, the Kraft Walker Cheese Company started giving it away with Pontiac automobiles and cheese products. Sales responded positively; then, the British medical association proclaimed that Vegemite was a great source of Vitamin B. Sales increased more. By World War II, Vegemite was in 9 of 10 Australian homes, had become part of a soldier’s daily ration kit, and was even carried by Aussie’s traveling abroad due to lack of availability in other countries. Today, Vegemite is one of the most well-known global brands and outsells Marmite in Australia by huge margins.

Kraft tried to extend the brand with a cheese and Vegemite “single,” but failed. However, marketing contests, such as limerick and song competitions, boosted sales. Then, following the war, the baby boom hit and Kraft jumped on Vegemite’s Vitamin B content for infants;

“…baby care expert Sister Mc Donald, said in the Women’s Weekly that “Vegemite is most essential”, further cementing Vegemite’s reputation for nutrition and wholesomeness. Infant Welfare Centres were recommending babies have their quota of Vitamin B1, B2 and Niacin. Vegemite had them all!”

By the 1950’s, Vegemite was to Australia what apple pie is to America, aided in part by consumer-oriented campaigns initiated by J.Walter Thompson.

On July 7, 2009, Kraft released a ’second’ Vegemite. The new Vegemite is a mix of Vegemite and cream cheese, is less salty, spreads much easier, and supposedly tastes better. To coincide with the release of the new recipe, Kraft is running a competition to give the new flavor a name, hearkening back to the competitions that worked 50 years ago. Kraft recently launched a comprehensive marketing campaign to name the new Vegemite, drawing on the successes of past campaigns that involved the public.

In fact, the new campaign mixes both traditional and Social Media, including an interactive website that includes fun facts, the naming contests, and the history of Vegemite. The new Vegemite can be found on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Below is the one of several commercials. This one has been extended to be 48-seconds long:

And, just as in the early days, J. Walter Thompson was chosen for creative expertise. While some wait to see if this brand extension will be a coup or a pile of crap, early research shows that Vegemite has more brand affinity than Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and Nike (globally);

The research analysed 1.5 billion posts across 38 languages within social networking sites, blogs, message boards, and online news. The results discovered 479,206 mentions for Vegemite, with brand affinity found more often than any other product globally.

If this was an election, the early results would show that the new Vegemite is a serious contender; however, all the votes haven’t been cast. Based on my research, I believe that the new Vegemite will most certainly take space in Australian kitchens.

Jeff Louis: Strategic Media Planner, Brand Project Manager, blogger and aspiring writer. To contact Jeff, leave a comment here, or find him on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Foi só falar da importância de se criar comunidades virtuais para as marcas, que surge mais uma. É a Destination Smart, uma rede social criada especialmente para abrigar a opinião e o interesse dos maiores entusiastas do Smart no Reino Unido.
Além de permitir que os membros troquem mensagens, a comunidade oferece notícias, fotos, vídeos, fóruns de discussão, sub-grupos, eventos e até a possibilidade de interagir com os “Smart Experts“: fornecedores, representantes e consumidores que sabem tudo sobre a marca, preparados para tirar qualquer dúvida oriunda dos membros desta nova comunidade.

:: Via Brand Republic

MarketingAnd is an eclectic mixture of product and service — part software-developer, part consultancy, part provider, and part business partner. It is capable of working within an established agency-client relationship and can also provide its own expertise to clients.

What do they do exactly?

MarketingAnd organically augments the number of business leads a company receives and then increases the conversion rate from lead to sale. The main difference between MarketingAnd and other lead/conversion companies is that MarketingAnd doesn’t broker lists or teach sales tactics. Its strength lies in converting visitors into leads, and leads into sales. Think of cultivating the low-hanging fruit.

Why go out and buy leads when you can simply convert the ones you already have?

Most of the time, consumers are researching due to their lack of knowledge towards specific products or services. For example, if I move from a condominium to a house, I’d have a lawn to care for. My limited knowledge in lawnmowers would lead me to various home improvement websites where I would be known as a prospect, or lead.  This is where MarketingAnd comes in, providing the necessary tools to engage visitors like me one-on-one.

Sammy James will be the first to tell you that he is a huge advocate of accountability. Thus, it’s no surprise that MarketingAnd’s suite of tools measure, qualify, and quantify. As the company expanded, it partnered with larger institutions (universities, health care companies, automotive dealers) that possessed their own marketing capabilities but didn’t track leads, cost-per-call, cost-per-sale, call volume, or closing ratio. MarketingAnd has the tools to address these issues.

One of these tools is called Form to Phone. In an Internet sales cycle, leads go from extremely hot (ready to buy) to ice cold in a very short time.  Form to Phone helps establish a quicker response time. Here’s how it works:

1. As soon as a prospect fills out a form and hits the submit button, your phone rings (wherever you are) and you’re given the person’s name and the reason for his or her inquiry.
2. You press “1″ and are instantly connected to the prospect via the number he or she provided on the form.
3. You engage the prospect in dialogue – before your competitors even have a chance.

Form to Phone also alleviates what is known as call reluctance. Call reluctance is a phenomenon where a salesperson experiences a heightened level of anxiety or apprehension before calling prospective client.  It could be so overwhelming that it decreases the total number of sales calls made and can render the salesperson useless. Because the sales cycle depends on volume and repetition, every call not made is a potential loss. Form to Phone is effective because it calls the salesperson with a lead. All the salesperson has to do is hit “1.”

Is MarketingAnd successful? According to Mr. James, its client-retention rate is between 90%-95%, and some clients have seen sales increases in the 300% range. If this seems like an appropriate fit to your business, research MarketingAnd first-hand. If you are in the higher-education business, its sister company, Get Starts, specializes in educational system needs.

Jeff Louis: Strategic Media Planner, Brand Project Manager, blogger and aspiring writer. To contact Jeff, leave a comment or contact him on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Today somebody asked me why I love social media. There are so many reasons and it’s hard for me to choose only a few. So I did what any other social media savvy individual would do: I posted the question on Facebook, Twitter and other outlets. I was able to use social media to explain why I love social media and I think fellow blogger Jenna McWilliams says it best: “Social media is not a trend, but a fundamental human urge to communicate,” and now we have more ways to do so. So, my top five reasons:

1. 1-800 customer care number? Consider it a thing of the past. Remember the time when we had 1-800 numbers? We’d wait on hold for eternity to finally get connected to someone in another country who was so far from executives that we were sure our complaints or problems would never be heard. Social media has changed that. Now companies have to listen to their customers because unhappy ones can broadcast their displeasure through social media. Also, it’s no longer a one-way conversation. Some companies have jumped onto the social media bandwagon (as they should) and created accounts to ask consumers to help create and improve their brands.  Two most notable examples are Starbucks’ My Starbucks Idea and Burger King’s Whopper Sacrifice.

2. Efficiency of reaching consumers. Look at social media this way – imagine all of your customers coming together on a daily basis and talking about topics that pertain to you and your company, thereby spreading even more information about your company and gaining more recognition and consumers. One of my favorite quotes comes from my mentor and good friend, Griffin Farley of 22squared: “Don’t plan for the ones you reach, plan for the ones they reach.”

3. Being connected (this was the most popular answer I received after posting the question). When something happens to ourselves or to someone we know, we share it with others through pictures, comments and tweets.  More importantly, it’s a new way to get news, support, and advice on anything.What better way to educate yourself on advertising and marketing than by following an expert in a specific field? Who knows, it could even get you a job (Tweeter Neal Schafer had it happen to him after he started his blog and web site).

4. Creative campaigns. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – if I had a TiVo, all I would record are commercials. I like advertising, but not because I want to learn about the products. I like the  creativity used to showcase a product to consumers. And now with social media, they’re becoming even more creative. Viral videos, Twitter giveaways, Facebook fan pages, etc. I can’t get enough of them. Old school + new school = awesome, consumer-activity-inducing campaigns.

5. The best thing about social media? It is changing the way we think. And with the exponential growth of it, no social media professional can be sure of where these new media will lead. But I can tell you that it’s exciting to see the evolution.

Megan Green is a freelance propagation planner who has had her work published on PR News Wire, as well as many other outlets. Contact her on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or at megankategreen@gmail.com.

As technological capabilities expand, so do ideas…or vice versa. In either case, we seem to witness ideas that break the “traditional mold” on a regular basis. Cellufun, a mobile social gaming community, is launching the first Public Service Announcement (PSA) campaign over a mobile, or cellular, network. It is an idea that breaks conceptual boundaries.

Known as “The World’s Mobile Playground, Cellufun is teaming with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation and will feature in-game advertising as well as user-donation opportunities to the two charities via their mobile phone.

Cellufun is a virtual world where people are able to meet, play games, and shop…all via cellular phone. Available on any phone with a data plan, consumers are able to access Cellufun globally. Cellufun partners with diverse mobile operators and media companies to deliver entertainment and mobile marketing solutions.

Cellufun mobile clients will be able to purchase Superman Tags for their online avatars; profits from the tags will go to the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.

“We think this is a fantastic opportunity to extend our presence into the mobile space,” said Peter T. Wilderotter, president and CEO of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. “This is a unique chance to be part of a robust online community where people can show their support for our real-world efforts by purchasing an item in their favorite virtual world.”

There are currently 7 million-plus users of Cellufun, spending an average 7 hours per month connecting with friends, playing games, and shopping for virtual products. On average an active user will be on Cellufun nearly 7 hours each month, which equates to more than 220 million monthly impressions.

The ASPCA ads will be featured in “pet games and activities,” with a company-estimated value of $10,000 per month in free advertising.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Cellufun for this unique campaign” said Jo Sullivan, Executive Vice President of External Affairs for the ASPCA. “By bringing the ASPCA straight to the mobile devices of millions of users, we will be able to dramatically increase awareness of our mission and the vital work we do every day to save animals’ lives.”

By introducing the world’s first mobile PSA campaign, Cellufun hopes to raise awareness and secure donations from its users for worthwhile charitable endeavors. With a large user base, the company hopes to help non-profits reach a wider audience by bringing them into the mobile medium.

“Cellufun’s social games—such as Mobile Pet Online and Cellufun Farming—provide not only entertainment, but the perfect venue for raising social awareness by partnering with leading charities and non-profits,” said Neil Edwards, chief executive officer of Cellufun.

The company plans to expand the first-ever mobile PSA campaign to include other charities in the near future.

Jeff Louis: Strategic Media Planner, Brand Project Manager, writer and blogger can be reached by leaving a comment or on Twitter and LinkedIn.

(TrendHunter.com) INSA has teamed up with Nike Sportswear to create this exhibition titled “Looking For Love.” INSA is very well known for female-inspired themes in its artwork.

Some pieces had classic INSA trademark topics…

O Brasil é um dos primeiros países que recebe a novidade, apresentada no final de 2008 nos Estados Unidos. O novo conceito, baseado em uma energia mais positiva, foi trabalhado pela agência americana Arnell Group, renomada agência internacional de design, subsidiária do grupo Omnicom.

Assim, com visual limpo, a Pepsi transformou a onda branca de seu globo em um sorriso, que transmite a energia do jovem ou daqueles que possuem o “espírito jovem”.

Recebi agora, aqui em casa, uma latinha nova. Ao mesmo tempo que ela é modernosa, ela também remete a algo mais retrô. Gostei muito, apesar de não ser tão fã da bebida. Enfim, veja no topo deste post o filme que apresentou a nova identidade visual da marca, e também uma imagem da nova lata.

Ok, ok. The world now knows about my secret Sharpie obsession, or at least all the customers and employees at my local Staples. There it was, a behemoth of Sharpie infatuation, a display with every color you could imagine – teal, sky blue, navy AND in various tips of fine, medium, broad. Could it be? Or was just a mirage?

Ever since my first days of creating art, the Sharpie has been my best friend and we have created some good times and great ideas together. Now my wildest dreams have come true with all the colors of the rainbow to choose from. Sharpie’s new product line and communications tell me one thing: it must be listening to its audience. With a website full of ideas, tutorials, contests, and opportunities for the fellow Sharpie-obsessed, it is deepening loyalty within consumers.

What can we learn from this? Taking our brands and tapping into the true connection they have with their target is key to communication and innovation. Sharpie could have pushed the brand’s connection with meetings, boardrooms, and diagrams, but instead chose to tap into the root emotion – the love to create. Bravo Sharpie!

Jinean Robinson is a CCIO (Chief Creative Infections Officer) who has been in the communications industry for over 8 years, specializing in creative strategy and implementation, 360 branding communications, and brand development. Join her at http://twitter.com/germllc or her firm’s website at http://germonline.com.

I am going to use an example involving polar bears to start out this conversation on agency/client relationships. It may seem like non-converging subjects, but it will come around.

I like polar bears. I don’t want to own one or anything, and I’m not part of the PETA-Elite, but as bears go, they seem like simple animals to me… and I like simple. For example, we have documented evidence that polar bears attack and kill humans. My simple advice? Steer clear of polar bears, even the ones at the the zoo.

Yet, polar bears are an endangered species. Thus, there are organizations fighting for their survival. Noah Wyle, an actor from the TV show ER, is the World Wildlife Foundation’s spokesperson for the “Save the Polar Bear” campaign. The advertising spot began in December 2008.

Unfortunately, every time I see the commercial, I say to myself, “I can’t believe they’re asking for money at a time when people are losing their homes.”

Yes, it pisses me off. Polar Bears won’t be receiving a check from Jeff Louis very soon. The vital point is that I have now formed a negative brand association with the WWF subconsciously, even though it has done nothing wrong.

I also wonder why the responsible agency hasn’t had the foresight to mention the possible negative aspects of asking for money in our current economic climate. Even if the spots are free of charge (PSAs), is the WWF willing to risk its brand for the sake of a single message? The polar bear’s won’t be extinct tomorrow… why not hold off a bit until things improve?

This is the point where client/agency relationships are defined. Is your agency a true partner, or is it simply a paid service provider?

Think about the differences for a second:

• A partner has a vested interest in the relationship — its success stems from the success of those it serves
• A service provider conducts business by taking orders and providing service — its success is based on $$
• A partner would rather keep a relationship than commissions from a TV spot
• A service provider is interested in the bottom line; there are other fish in the sea
• A partner would say, “The economic climate has changed. I think we should reevaluate.”
• A service provider would never voice that thought

True partnerships are forged by a mutual commitment to honest, often merciless assessment of what is best for the brand and the business, even if it means losing a few dollars along the way.

Jeff Louis: Strategic Media Planner, Brand Project Manager, Writer & Blogger. Unlike the other bloggers/writers for Talent Zoo, Jeff Louis is both cute and nice. Contact him on Twitter @jlo0312. Just kidding about the nice part.

A “nova” General Motors que emerge da falência, até a próxima semana deve apresentar um novo logotipo – mudando a cor de seu fundo para verde ao invés do azul atual.

A informação circula na internet depois de um artigo postado ontem no site da Associated Press.

Com um verdadeiro planejamento de branding, a marca pretende evocar uma essência mais ecológica, centrada na eficiência do combustível, mas sem perder a sua histórica solidez e representatividade.

Ao que tudo indica, a “nova” GM deve seguir o exemplo da Toyota que, ao compreender a megatendência do “indivíduo consciente” e preocupado com o meio-ambiente, foi a pioneira no lançamento do automóvel híbrido nos Estados Unidos. E sendo a pioneira foi percebida como a “original”. Hoje em dia, quase todas as montadoras fabricam automóveis híbridos, de diversos modelos, só que não são percebidas como “inovadoras” e “revolucionárias”. Neste exato presente em que a General Motors recria sua imagem, ela deverá se concentrar em estabelecer novas ofertas. Uma delas é a fabricação de carros menores e mais baratos. Com essas mudançãs, a GM pretende mostrar que é apta a fazer decisões rápidas e consistentes.

Alguns estudos e pesquisas também estão sendo realizados para que a mudança da identidade visual e “moral” da montadora seja, de fato, positiva. Isso se significa que ainda pode demorar um tempo para que as novidades sejam colocadas em prática.

::UPDATE::

Ontem a noite, em uma entrevista feita pela Agência EFE, o presidente da GM, Fritz Henderson, disse que apesar do que foi divulgado e espalhado pela imprensa, o logo corporativo da marca continuará sendo azul e não verde, como se tinha especulado.

:: Fonte AP, MSNBC e Yahoo! Finanças