People like my friend Bob Hoffman, a.k.a. The Ad Contrarian, at times grow fatigued by all the hubbub around social media and content marketing. Bob says, “Content is a meaningless term — a media contrivance — invented by bullshit artists to add gravitas and mystery to mundane marketing activities.” Yes, Hoffman is a humorist at […]
Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley is running anti-Koch brothers ads that say, “Monica Wehby may be a good investment for the Koch brothers. But she’s the wrong choice for Oregon.” It’s a good line and one I am apt to agree with. Now, let’s look at the challenger for a minute. Her views on certain things […]
Columbia Sportswear has been “trying stuff since 1938.” Now, with the help of CMD in Portland the recreational clothing maker is trying on the content producer’s role with the release of a new brand-sponsored documentary, I Am #OMNITEN. Each year Columbia selects ten more people to join its #omniten program. The #omniten are not full […]
Union Wine Co. of Tualatin, Oregon is making waves in the wine world—which like the ad industry, is ripe for reinvention. From the start, Union’s primary goal has always been to reduce the pretension associated with wine drinking by making great wine without all the fuss. In an effort to bring this “pinkies down” philosophy […]
Given that many lifestyle brands are also publishers today, brands have an opportunity to bring beauty and intelligence into the world, not just more “Look at Me!” adverts. For instance, King Tuff’s new single, “Danger in the Dark,” was created for the Captain Morgan brand’s new global advertising campaign, The Tavern Series, which premiered in […]
You can’t read a media brand by its cover. For instance, Daily Candy looks like an incredibly healthy site. But its owner, NBC Universal, is not pleased with the numbers.
So displeased are the suits that they decided to pull the plug on Daily Candy and Television Without Pity.
According to Variety, Comcast bought DailyCandy in 2008 for $125 million from investment firm Pilot Group. Since then, Comcast acquired NBCU — with female-focused networks like Bravo and Oxygen — but the hoped-for synergies with DailyCandy never materialized.
Beware! While there may be a perceived boom in content online recently and interest in investing in it, not all of the players get to survive.
Nor should all the players survive. Although in a more perfect world, purveyors of high quality content will have a decided edge.
In the real world though, quality is not always a determining factor. Financial success requires that you provide content—be it good, bad or ugly—to an interested audience that is willing and able to support the media enterprise directly via subscription or indirectly by being open to sponsored messages.
The great English writer Samuel Johnson once declared that, “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” Johnson’s beef wasn’t with patriotism per se, rather the issue of it being coopted for the purposes self-interest. In the preceding several hundred years since he uttered the phrase, proof of Johnson’s quote is still readily seen in many pockets of society. Politicians often appropriate the love of country for a broad range of purposes; from securing smooth passage of legislation, to xenophobic fear mongering. To wit, patriotism often rears its head when any standalone merit is hard to find.
The American car industry has a complicated history with patriotism. Since Detroit industry workers smashing Toyotas in the 70s, the call to buy American over imported cars has been strong.
But this is 2014. The problem with American manufacturers evoking the nebulous notion of patriotism is that not only are a slew of affordable imported alternatives available, consumers have never been better informed. Aside from buying a house, a new car is likely the biggest purchase a consumer will ever make. Can (or should) a car buyer suspend rationality for the love of country? The idea of this is worth examining in light of a couple a couple of TV spots from American carmakers, Wieden + Kennedy’s GlobalHue’s Super Bowl spot for Chrysler, and Rogue’s recent spot for Cadillac.
Chrysler’s spot features America’s most revered living icon, Bob Dylan, expounding on the attributes of other nations against the backdrop of gorgeously shot Americana. The spot finishes with a call to action, “Let Germany brew your beer. Let Switzerland build your watch. Let Asia assemble your phone. But WE will build your car.” Dylan assures us that other countries are adept at plenty of other worthwhile endeavors, but cars are central to the American story. To buy a car from another country is treasonous.
The Cadillac spot is more polarizing. A love letter to unfettered self-reliance, the spot seems to know which way its bread is buttered. Unlike the Chrysler spot, it doesn’t acknowledge but rather demonizes the attitudes of other nations, even taking the well-worn path of French bashing, finishing with the phrase, “N’est-ce pas?” While the YouTube commenters formed two camps, one of the, “How insensitive, egocentric, and repulsive.” The other, “Hey butthurt foreigners in the comments: instead of crying, take notes. This is why our country is the greatest in the world and yours isn’t,” the spot reinforces what American buyers of this car will love the most about themselves.
Both spots evoke patriotism, but the Cadillac spot stays strictly in the visceral, emotional space, whereas Dylan’s Chrysler spot ends with a plea of rationality – it’s ok to buy foreign goods, just not cars.
The problem with this message is that is is patently untrue. By many independent (indeed, American) perspectives, Chryslers are a pretty middling choice. The jury is back in — Edmunds, Cars.com, Consumer Reports, and plenty of others suggest that all things considered, Chryslers aren’t a great buy. Chrysler is essentially asking us to sacrifice our decision-making rigor on the altar of patriotism. That’s a pretty big ask boys.
But by embracing only the emotional hot buttons and appealing to what makes them unique, Cadillac’s spot lovingly depicts those with the wallet and the will to buy the ELR. While controversial, this spot is much more relevant and appealing to the sensibilities of the self-made.
Jimmy Darmody from Boardwalk Empire cautions, “You can’t be half a gangster.” American carmakers would do well to take note. Evoking irrational yet powerful emotions can’t be tempered by a call to rationality. IF a brand feels compelled to evoke love of country (and it’s a big IF), then it needs to go hard or go home.
Dockers Alpha Khaki line is for young bucks with style, which helps explain this click-to-buy video featuring British hip-hop artist Tinie Tempah wearing Dockers.
The fact that this content-meets-celebrity-endorsement is underscored by a song called “Don’t Sell Out,” now that I can’t explain.
“We wanted to blend art, content and commerce to create a video people want to watch, and the Dockers element doesn’t seemed forced,” says Moksha Fitzgibbons, head of sales and marketing at Complex Media, which acted as creative director on the campaign.
According to Complex, the video has seen 1.5 million views since it was launched on October 1, 2013.
An American icon is vanishing. Thankfully, a Japanese car company with the help of RPA in Santa Monica, is doing something about it.
Starting at 10 a.m. Pacific time today, Honda will use its Twitter page to conduct an auction hosted by celebrity film critic Leonard Maltin. Proceeds from the auction will benefit Project Drive-In, Honda’s community service campaign to help a handful of drive-in movie theaters make the expensive transition to digital projection.
To participate in today’s auction, bidders can Tweet the title of the item, the bid price and apply the hash tag #DriveInAuction. The highest bid at the close of the auction wins. The auction concludes at 2 p.m. PT.
Alicia Jones, Manager of Honda & Acura Social Marketing says the use of Vine and Twitter to showcase the auction items makes sense because, “We want to leverage a medium where people are already talking about #SaveTheDriveIn.”
Here’s the problem: digital projectors can cost $85,000 plus installation, which most of the remaining 368 American drive-ins cannot afford. Sadly, failure to convert to digital will cause most of these drive-ins to cease operations. Which, as American car drivers and movie lovers we know to be wrong.
To contribute to this cause, visit the campaign’s IndieGoGo page. So far, $35,000 has been raised via this channel, which is $65,000 short of the goal.
An estimated 75% of the world’s fisheries are at or beyond sustainable limits. Yet, the consumer market for seafood is growing rapidly. This is a business problem, an environmental problem and a health problem. In other words, it’s something for big companies to stay away from. Unless you’re Walmart and not afraid.
When you’re Walmart, you have unrivaled buying power on your side. Thus, you can set the price, but more than that, you can dictate how the products sold at Walmart are sourced and made.
Walmart U.S. and Sam’s Club require all fresh and frozen, farmed and wild seafood suppliers to become third-party certified as sustainable using Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) or equivalent standards. By June 2012, all uncertified fisheries and aquaculture suppliers must be actively working toward certification.
Yes, the Arkansas-based retail behemoth that left-leaning elites love to bash is busy charting a new reality for how the oceans are fished. Should they spread this conscious sourcing to garments and other product categories sold in their stores? Absolutely. But let’s stick with this fish tale for a moment.
According to Sustainable Brands and Reuters, roughly 40 salmon processors in Alaska decided in 2012 to drop the internationally accepted blue ecolabel awarded by the London-based Marine Stewardship Council, saying it was expensive and eroded their brand. They said their own control systems were enough and they would consider the Ireland-based Global Trust Certification, as a replacement.
Wal-Mart responded with a routine letter to its salmon suppliers in June warning them it requires its salmon to be MSC-certified or working toward that distinction.
The Alaskan seafood industry is valued at $6.4 billion annually and is state’s largest private-sector employer, with more than 63,000 workers. Hence the “plead my case” visit by Alaskan officials to Bentonville last week.
“We are optimistic that Walmart will recognize Alaska fisheries as sustainably managed,” said Susan Bell, Commissioner of Alaska’s Department of Commerce. Meanwhile, I am optimistic that Walmart and sustainable practices will prevail. What the market wants, the market gets. And the market wants healthy seafood.
Digital disruption is more than an annoying ping in your pocket, and it’s not all good. Take the situation facing hundreds of drive-in movie theaters around the nation–if they fail to upgrade their projection equipment to the tune of $75,000 per screen by the end of the year, they will no longer be able to show first-run films.
Clearly, this is a problem in need of a solution and I for one, am pleased to see a progressive-minded brand step-up with an innovative solution.
Project Drive-In, a newly launched national effort sponsored by Honda to save as many drive-ins as possible, is raising community awareness across the nation, and will supply at least five drive-ins with digital projectors.
“Cars and drive-in theaters go hand-in-hand, and it’s our mission to save this decades-old slice of Americana that holds such nostalgia for so many of us,” said Alicia Jones, Manager of Honda & Acura Social Marketing at American Honda Motor Co.
I’m marveling at the perfect fit here. This is precisely what a car company ought to do and Honda is doing it, with help from RPA in Santa Monica.
As part of Honda’s fundraising efforts, there will be an online auction that features tickets to the Los Angeles premiere of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 as well as additional film-related merchandise.
Honda will also launch pop-up drive-ins at Honda dealerships across the country to help raise awareness and build a groundswell of support, featuring a free screening of the first Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs film.
Online, it’s all about community. Building community, embracing community, listening to the community.
According to USA TODAY, offline marketing is more about “the neighborhood.”
Many Starbucks stores now boast that they have the best espresso “in the neighborhood.” Applebee’s has a new slogan: “It’s a whole new neighborhood.” Wal-Mart’s smaller-scale suburban stores call themselves Wal-Mart Neighborhood Markets. Tesco’s new grocery stores are dubbed Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets. Even Lowe’s is onboard to be a neighborhood hardware store.
There goes the neighborhood?
Not exactly. The term “neighborhood” is beloved because it gives people a sense of place.
“Times of global stress cause people to retract and to want a sense of community,” says Renee Fraser, a Los Angeles ad psychologist. “Belonging to a neighborhood really motivates people.”
Sadly, the strip mall where these brands post up is far away from main street U.S.A. on so many levels.
The 30-second spot might be out of vogue at the moment, but that’s not a concern when you work on a brand that’s deep into lifestyle marketing. When you’re on a brand like that, you can make an entire film. Without leaving the ad biz for Hollywood.
Fresh Creation points to one such film from Roxy, Quicksilver’s womens line of surf gear.
Steve Hall at Adrants says, “who doesn’t like to watch girls in bikinis surf, pose and frolic on the beach?”
Brace yourself, big marketers are getting hip to text-message lingo. In ads that begin in two weeks for a new line of Degree deodorant for teen girls, Unilever is highlighting “OMG! Moments.” Print ads running in magazines such as Seventeen and CosmoGIRL show “High School Musical” star Ashley Tisdale at a glitzy affair discovering that she has toilet paper stuck to one of her shoes.
“We wanted to show the teens that we understand them and know how they communicate with their friends,” says David Lang, president of WPP Group’s MindShare Entertainment, which created the print, TV and online effort.
The Wall Street Journal also points to “Paris Hilton’s My New BFF” — and its Web site is www.parisbff.com from MTV as another example of text messaging language making its way into pop culture.
Creative executives say not all companies can pull off a text-message campaign. “You never want to come off as the Dad that is making Nelly references to his 12-year-old as a way to look cool,” says Bill Rosen, chief creative officer of Arc, a Publicis agency.
For any brand that builds community in real life, doing so online is a natural.
Starbucks wants to be your community gathering spot. In many cases, it is. But I feel Starbucks has a ways to go online.
Here’s what I can “discover” about my local Starbucks on the company’s site:
I’d like to discover more than that. I’d like to see a list of the people working there, with a little bio on each. They know my name. I want to know their names. And why not open that functionality up to the regulars, as well.
The web is social. Coffee is social. This is a solution waiting to happen.
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.
