Hasta La Creative!

Olay for You, an online product- recommendation program that’s attracted more than a million visitors since January, is getting some play in Ad Age. I’ll give it some more here because I like to see online initiatives with offline legs.

Wal-Mart Stores has begun testing an in-store version of Olay for You via kiosks in stores, marking the latest of several efforts in which offline retailers are looking to tap the convenience and functionality of online tools, such as search and recommendation engines, to improve the often-annoying offline shopping experience.

Because of expectations created by web shopping, consumers increasingly expect offline stores to have the goods they want and make them easy to find, Carter Cast, a former CEO of Walmart.com said. “So the ante is raised in the physical world.”

While P&G has tried in-store kiosks before with Clairol and Millstone coffee, Olay For You’s combination of a highly graphic, iterative interview process and a soothing female voice may come closest to actually simulating a customer-service rep.

While I like to see online initiatives with offline legs, I don’t know about these kiosks at retail. They don’t seem to offer the kind of brand experience that truly comes to life in this space (inhabited by real humans). If I haul my ass all the way to the store, I don’t want to get on a computer, I want a real, knowledgeable person to work with me and guide me to a purchase.

If the ante is raised in the physical world, as Cast suggests, then raise the customer service bar at retail and find other ways to allow customers to experience the brand. For Oil of Olay that might mean in-store celebrity appearances, in-store seminars or a promotion that ties to the online presence in some way.

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.

Even more commentary on Ford’s new Drive One tagline.

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.

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.

Hey, remember that Zune Masks spot? Feed Company, which seeded it on YouTube and elsewhere, sent us metrics on how well it fared.

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.”

Native Americans probably want to redraw the map even more, I suspect. And Lou Dobbs is now totally switching to Grey Goose.

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.”

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.

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.