In a new video which mirrors the Dove Onslaught commercial, Greenpeace is claiming Unilever, which makes Dove products, buys palm oil from suppliers in Indonesia who destroy the region’s forests.
According to The New York Times, gasoline prices surpassed $3.50 a gallon nationwide for the first time and oil jumped to a record high on Monday.
Given the intense price pressure on consumers, it’s interesting to note this article in Ad Age about consumers buying gas on brand preference, not price.
Karen Wildman, brand and communications manager of the Shell brand at Shell Oil Co., said the industry hasn’t done a good job in the past five to 10 years of educating Americans about their fuel products.
She said the $35 million she spent last year for the gas brand’s “Passionate Experts” campaign was a good investment and is spending the same amount this year to continue the effort.
Ms. Wildman said Shell’s quarterly research shows that consumers’ perception of the brand’s gasoline has improved dramatically since the campaign began running, though she declined to provide specifics. She credits improvement partly to the simple message that Shell gasoline can “stop gunky buildup” in engines.
Personally, I don’t purchase gas from Exxon/Mobil, nor Shell.
I love the copy in this new spot from DIRECTV.
Here’s the cable exec’s babble:
Problem: People everywhere are hooking up their new flatscreens to DIRECTV and they are blown away by the picture and all the amazing HD channels.
Solution: We go viral. We get on the net and we blog it out. Ta da! We are up 800% among suburban tweens. Who just saved Q3?
This campaign is directed by satirist Christopher Guest.
Speaking at Berklee College of Music in January, Guest said, “I direct TV commercials so I can afford to make my movies. These are the movies I want to make,” said Guest. “They’re my cut, not the studio’s cut.”
Even more commentary on Ford’s new Drive One tagline.
A microbrewer, like a small scale wine producer, creates passion around its product and, by extension, its brand. By forgoing the mass market, the microbrand actually can have a meaningful dialogue with its base (something big brands desperately want right now).
Here’s an example of the kind of “talk” that perfectly presents a brand’s value proposition.
Rogue Nation Beer Manifesto
est. May 1996
I. We hold that beer is a superior beverage.
II. We hold that beer is worthy of passion.
III. We hold that beer enlivens spirits.
IV. We hold that beer is not an abstraction but a concrete reality which occured in the past, occurs in this living present and will occur in the future.
V. Beer is made from basic ingredients of water, malt, hops and yeast.
VI. Beer occurs as a result of a naturally occuring process which can be adapted and reproduced by anyone.
VII. Beer flavors occur as a result of radical discontinuity between the old existence of its ingredients and their new existence as beer.
VIII. Beer thus obtains widely varying degrees of complexity based on its ingredients and the brewing process.
IX. Some beer is produced and exchanged as a consumer good.
X. Some beer is produced but consumed in the home.
XI. Consumer tastes are widely varied.
XII. Those that produce beer for sale too often hold their profits in greater regard than their product.
XIII. Large scale brewers have ruined beer.
Maybe this was written over some cold ones after a shift at the brewery in Newport, Oregon. I highly doubt a copywriter got anywhere near it. Maybe for that reason, it rings true and makes me want to drink Rogue. Luckily, I have a 22 oz. Mocha Porter and Chocolate Stout cooling in the ‘fridge.
According to Adweek, Ford management has asked its 750,000-person network of employees, retirees and dealers to talk to friends and family about the quality and features of Ford vehicles.
The new marketing initiatve created by JWT/Wunderman, known as Drive One is also supported online, in print and on TV.
“The whole idea behind this campaign is not fancy ads. It’s talking to the customer, who talks to a friend,” said Jim Farley group vp, marketing and communications. “It’s the only chance we have to break the apathy.”
When Farley was recruited from Toyota and hired by Ford last October, he was determined to “get people to care about [Ford].” He said, “They just aren’t engaged.”
Well, that’s certainly some straight talk form the executive suite. A good start, perhaps.
I like that the people asked to spread WOM are qualified to do so. We tend to think WOM as a customer-to-customer conversation, but it’s bigger than that.
I can also see where this campaign has the potential to become annoying. Imagine an already over zealous Ford dealer talking car facts over an otherwise pleasant golf outing. That would be bothersome. But handled correctly this idea could go far. That is, it can go far if the 750,000 employees, retirees and dealers honestly feel good about the recommendations they make. They have to be true believers. And true believers aren’t conjured up in a brainstorm, they’re born from the product itself. Are Ford cars and trucks worth believing in? If the answer is yes, then maximizing WOM is a good plan.
According to The Hollywood Reporter and Ad Age, “Gossip Girl,” despite lackluster ratings, is still the flagship program of The CW and a program worth pimping (and I use that word intentionally).
“We wanted to create a provocative campaign that stands out from the competition and reminds viewers of some of the ‘OMG’ moments that have made Gossip Girl one of the most buzzed-about new shows on television,” the CW said in a statement. “This sexy, sophisticated campaign speaks directly to our adult 18-34 viewers using expressions that are part of their lexicon.”
The show, which returns to the air April 21, has not had an original episode air since Jan. 9, due to the writers strike.
“Gossip Girl” brought in $28.2 million in ad dollars 2007, according to TNS Media Intelligence, attracting such marketers as Procter & Gamble, L’Oreal, Target and Johnson & Johnson.
“Gossip Girl” is also home to a wide-ranging product-placement deal with Verizon Wireless that has the wealthy Manhattan teens at the center of the program by routinely using the company’s products to talk to friends, send text messages, and even locate a seedy gambling den.
72andSunny in Los Angeles is the agency behind the work.
I snapped this pic this morning at my local Starbucks. I need to go back and study it, because now I realize that the smudged chalkboard look and feel is a neat way to say “LOCAL,” even though a chain with thousands of stores can hardly claim to be a local institution. At any rate, I’m wondering if this POS really is chalked. Take a look next time you’re at Starbucks and I’ll do the same.
Community? Check. Dialogue? Check. Expert advice? Check. Personalization and customization? Check.
In a move that combines the power of two well known consumer brands, and benefits from the latest interactive thinking, dove.msn.com, debuts today.
The new digital channel is the re-launch of Dove.com, providing what Unilever describes as “a unified worldwide digital presence designed to be a trusted source for information, education and inspiration.”
The channel is an alliance with OgilvyInteractive and Microsoft’s MSN.
“Our goal is to be become a global leader and a true digital media force by completely redefining the digital experience for women worldwide,” said Kathy O’Brien, marketing director for Dove in North America.
The site will personalize each visitor’s experience based on each individual’s choices and combines technical innovation with intelligent design. The site will also feature an editorial board of experts, inspirational guest editors and specially selected “ambassadors” all of whom will drive conversation central to the real beauty debate.
[see CosmeticsDesign.com or the press release for more]
Hey, remember that Zune Masks spot? Feed Company, which seeded it on YouTube and elsewhere, sent us metrics on how well it fared.
Sarah Lacy, the BusinessWeek writer who caused a melee at South By last month, turns her attention from Facebook to Yelp for the moment.
Yelp’s real Web 2.0 bragging right is its business model. Unlike many companies in its peer group, Yelp provides a compelling advertising platform. People go there intending to make a transaction—say, find a Thai restaurant in New York or an accountant in San Francisco. And it’s always easier to sell ads to someone when you know what they want. Even on a search engine like Google, people are only looking to transact part of the time. Often, they go to get information. And on a social network such as Facebook, people aren’t looking to transact at all; they’re just there to connect with friends.
I like how Lacy breaks that down. Web-based business models are all clamoring for ad dollars, but how many of them have asked the hard questions of themselves? Like, “Will our users click banner ads?”
Here’s an Absolut ad running in Mexico:
The LA Times reports:
The billboard and press campaign, created by advertising agency Teran\TBWA and now running in Mexico, is a colorful map depicting what the Americas might look like in an “Absolut” — i.e., perfect — world.
The U.S.-Mexico border lies where it was before the Mexican-American war of 1848 when California, as we now know it, was Mexican territory and known as Alta California.
The campaign taps into the national pride of Mexicans, according to Favio Ucedo, creative director of leading Latino advertising agency Grupo Gallegos in the U.S.
Ucedo, who is from Argentina, said: “Mexicans talk about how the Americans stole their land, so this is their way of reclaiming it. It’s very relevant and the Mexicans will love the idea.â€
Native Americans probably want to redraw the map even more, I suspect. And Lou Dobbs is now totally switching to Grey Goose.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has always done a lot of traditional advertising. I remember seeing their commercials on TV when I was growing up. With renewed focus on the LDS church due in part to Mitt Romney’s Presidential bid, the church is aiming to clear up misconceptions.
From Deseret Morning News:
The new print ad campaign features people who identify themselves and their quest to find God, describing a life challenge that sent them looking for meaning in the divine. “I felt so destroyed by my addiction to alcohol and drugs,” writes Jovanny Vasquez, of Bronx, N.Y., in a two-page ad that appeared in U.S. News in the Las Vegas area in August.
Appearing alongside the image of a man dancing with a woman and two children, he continues, “I prayed with all my heart to find a solution to my life. I was at the point of losing my wife and family. The God I was looking for was a merciful God. I wanted to know how to be forgiven.”
At the bottom of the page, the church’s logo appears in large lettering, with the phrase TRUTH RESTORED underneath in smaller type, followed by mormon.org beneath them both.
The campaign, which has adopted a slightly different format for TV, radio, billboard and Internet advertising, has been running for about eight months in four different areas of the country that correspond to designated LDS mission areas: Las Vegas; Las Vegas West; Independence, Mo., including Kansas City and Wichita; and New York Utica, which includes Albany, Syracuse and Utica.
According to Ad Age, Zune Arts was born more than two years ago as part of an alternative marketing effort by Microsoft that invited emerging artists to create online art around social themes to help launch the Zune digital music player.
But since then the website has morphed into an online haven for emerging artists and musicians. While still part of the Zune family of marketing initiatives and still touting the “sharing” themes, Zune Arts now has its own goals and audience in the indie arts community.
“The value of this service is that they help ensure people who like to discover things, discover your content where they want to,” said Glenn Cole, co-founder and creative director of 72andSunny. “To me, the mental image of what they do is that they’re like the guys who put the Easter Eggs out in the yard when they’re seven years old, and they do it really well. They could just put it out on the tree stump in the middle of the yard — and some clients want a giant egg out in the yard that no one can possibly miss — but I think [for other clients] the hiding makes their content feel more special when you finally find it.”
In a Wired feature from last December, advertising and design critic Warren Berger, said, “They’re creating pieces of art, content with viral potential, instead of just a 30-second commercial. It’s very smart, and a good way to go.”
“Get a Happy Face,” St. Ives’ virgin foray in digital marketing, launched today. Each St. Ives Elements product page includes a cereal surprise: widgets that help improve your life!
Anything launched on April Fool’s Day is, by default, suspect which is why Brand-mates, a site on which people can share the brand they love with others, just doesn’t seem quite right.
Atlanta’s Fletcher Martin has made a new spot to support Arby’s “Doublers.” It reminds me of Tide’s talking stain spot, although that spot is more unexpected.
Tribune Company, the largest employee-owned media company in the nation, today announced it has changed its name to ZellCoMediaEnterprises Inc. or ZCMEINC. Zell, who made a fortune in real estate before deciding he’d like to dabble in an industry completely unfamiliar to him, announced the change in his record-setting 437th email to exhausted employees this year.
“Hell, I put $315 million into this thing, and we’re on the hook for $13 billion — the least I ought to get is my name on the company’s stationery,” said Zell, who remains chairman and CEO of the newly named enterprise.
Picking up on the news. The Wall Street Journal notes that Tribune’s corporate Web site, www.tribune.com, has been temporarily replaced with a version including a running “DEBToMETER,” a “TipJar” labeled “Hey buddy, help a paper out?” and a rotating sequence of dog photographs—a wink, perhaps, at a controversy Mr. Zell stoked by uttering an obscenity at a staffer who suggested that the push for profit would replace serious journalism with puppy photos.
This Cadillac CTS spot has been on air for a number of months, and while I should be immune to this pitch, I have to admit it’s working on me. Let me just say this, a Caddy has never before been a car I would consider buying. That’s clearly changing and not just because I’m aging. The product is transforming and the brand with it.
Watch some catty females try outdoing each other with violent voluminous hair-flips. Cheesy as hell, but in a way that could have sparked many a feel-good spoof. (You know, like the Herbal Essences ads.) Produced by Identity for JWT,…
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