Sunday January 24th 2010, 4:53 pm
Filed under: branding, cmo
It’s not a secret that Marketing is one of the most misunderstood, harangued and tortured career selections around.
The average tenure of a Chief Marketing Officer is less than 3 years. I have long said that a key reason for this is because companies think Marketing is magic - that branding is magic (!!) - and when everyone discovers that the CMO is no sorcerer… Well, let’s just say that CMOs have something in common with PCs these days: it’s just easier to throw out the old one and buy a new one.
And if the budget has to be cut? Take it from Marketing - no one knows what they do anyway. In an average corporation, I’d be willing to bet that, as a functional expertise, marketing departments house a higher percentage of people entirely untrained in marketing than - well, it’s got to be pretty high on the list.
So the last thing a marketer wants to do is sound like what others think marketers sound like. I cringe when I hear someone say something that only a Buzzword Bingo player could love.
Here’s a recent quote from the CEO of one of the biggest advertisers in the world:
“I would argue social networks and digital media are scale at play. One of the things that came out of Cannes for [us] was the scale impact of social media. The Cannes idea is a bit outdated… The way I see it, the awards now should all be Titaniums - you start with the idea now before you ever think about a medium and you take the idea, which is rooted in consumer insight, and only then do you figure out how to use the media, and you use every medium. And then what the marketer needs to be able to is to be about to let go… Another was the ubiquity of social media and how an idea can take off and you don’t have to pay for it. What I worry about is that it democratizes scale. It allows the little guy to get scale almost instantaneously. And we’ve got to make sure we don’t give up that opportunity. That’s why we’re talking about transforming the company through digitization, visualization, virtualization.”
WTF? Or perhaps I should say, BINGO!
People, people, people: speak English. Remember to use language that everyone (i.e. your boss and the finance guy) can understand. And - for Pete’s sake - unless you make video games, please try to avoid using the words digitization, visualization and virtualization in one sentence.
There was a recent article in the Wall Street Journal titled “Firms Hold Fast to Snail Mail Marketing.” It seemed to be about small businesses who gave up their direct mail efforts in favor of email to either save money and/or because it seemed like the hip thing to do.
The particular companies profiled in this article told personal stories about how email didn’t generate the same positive results. In some cases, the owners actually heard from long-time customers asking what had happened to the letters/reminders/postcards they had received in the past.
This is because email is beside the point. Establishing a connection with a prospect or customer is and always has been what’s most important. Think first about your history and what type of communications have worked in the past. What kind of outreach prospects or clients appreciate. What makes them feel special. What generates orders, referrals and repeat business. One of the owners profiled in the article discontinued his art-based postcard mailings, only to discover the cards permanently displayed in his clients’ offices. His customers started calling him asking whether they’d been taken off the company’s mailing list.
What we have right there, friends, is some serious brand love.
Testing is fine. It would be foolish not to test new technologies, which are usually cheaper and more easily wielded than the old ones. And compromises must sometimes be made in order to preserve cash. But - putting dollars aside - the beginning of the value chain is the relationship with the customer, and at the distant far end is the tactics you choose to reinforce and grow that relationship. Too many executives (particularly those in small companies, who either can’t afford good marketing help or get less-than-great advice) are putting social media at the forefront of their thinking because they’re reading about whatever the heck it is everywhere they go.
I tell these folks that they were right the first time when their gut was to do something special - something that showed they cared. If you can replicate this more cheaply, by all means do it: but don’t let any new whiz-bang communications vehicle get in the way.
I am sensitive to dumb and/or insensitive imagery and statements in advertising and the media - I thought that the “How I Met Your Mother” Frosty the Snowman spoof was a little over the top, for example - but this is pushing it.
A new commercial for the all-natural line of cleaning products, Method, has already been pulled - and that’s a pity.
Droga5’s “SHINY SUDS” is a silly send-up of Dow’s Scrubbing Bubbles commercials. Method created the video to support the Household Products Labeling Act, which would require full disclosure of harmful chemicals in cleaning products. Here’s the ad (if you cannot see the ad below, click HERE):
Right after the video was posted online, women began to react negatively - and harshly. A blogger accused the company of “humiliating women” and effectively saying that - if you don’t know exactly what’s in the products you use - “you deserve to be sexually harassed” in your own home. A reader of the same blog post called Method to tell them that she was “curious of [sic] their perpetuation of rape culture.”
Rape culture? Sexual harassment? The “pornification” of a dull House act about cleaning chemicals? What am I missing here?
Apparently a lot, as the company received hundreds of calls and emails from outraged women before declaring itself a “values-based company” and pulling the spot.
Of course, there are other interested parties who struck back, most notably (a) the advertising community (which asks when brands are going to - ahem - “grow a pair” and tell zealot ”idiots” to bug off) and (b) both men and women who say that this “overreaction” is just another example of why many believe that feminism has become a joke.
I’m not going to lean that hard in either direction… but I didn’t see the danger in this video. What do you think?
There was a bona fide reason that I used to react badly to - well - bad gifts. Despite my mother’s it’s-the-thought-that-counts coaching, and the annual ”You don’t have to actually wear it” rationale, I was powerless to resist the disappointment.
Since 1993, Wharton economist Joel Waldfogel has been studying the value created (or not created) by holiday spending, and how we may react badly to gifts because we see the opportunity cost of not buying ourselves something we actually wanted. In his new book, Scroogenomics, Waldfogel tells us that, although warm and fuzzy U.S. folk gave $66 billion worth of holiday gifts in 2007, the value of recipients’ satisfaction is much lower: so low, in fact, that it actually created an “annual deadweight loss of $12 billion.”
Waldfogel estimates such “lost value” from student surveys he’s conducted at Princeton over many years. When a student is asked to (a) guess the value of a gift and (b) guess the same for items she purchased herself, she will almost inevitably underestimate the price the gift giver paid and overestimate the value of products she buys herself by 18%.
Amazing.
I completely understand the psychology of overestimating the value of something I might buy for myself because doing so helps reinforce my purchase decision. What cracks me up is how low our expectations of others are - and how accurate. The least “efficient” gifts, says Waldfogel tend to be from relatives who haven’t seen you in a long time (and so do not know your preferences).
So suck on that when the niece you haven’t seen for 11 years tells you she hates the color pink - while she’s holding the pink sweater you just gave her. Your goth niece just can’t help it: her reaction to your lame gift is bigger than both of you.
The only smart things to do are give gift cards (less tacky than cash) or overcome your embarrassment about not knowing her and email your niece to ask what she’d really want. She won’t assign as much value to the black nail polish, eyeshadow and lipstick as she would have had she bought them herself… but it’s a start.
Airbrushing, retouching and photoshopping are techniques that are broadly used with all manner of model and celebrity on a regular basis (see Kate Winslet, Jennifer Love Hewitt et al). Do it with your own photos, and your always-on-a-diet Aunt Nancy will thank you for shaving off that extra 30 pounds.
Some of the applications of photoshopping are so bad, there are entire sites dedicated to the worst photoshop crimes, like PhotoshopDisasters. One of my personal faves is a recent hot mess from Ralph Lauren, who took the idea of using really thin models just a little too far. If you don’t see the photo on the right, click HERE. Now that’s a tiny waist.
Anyway, what all of these generally have in common is the notion of creating personal desire - the desire to be the person in the photo (by buying the product, natch). This almost seems normal by now, but… could our food be wishing it could look a little more attractive, as well??
Witness the innocent Thanksgiving turkey. We think of them being saved by the President or, more likely, waiting for us at the grocery store. Who knew that your turkey might have had a little work done? The folks at Food & Wine, Bon Appetit and Every Day with Rachael Ray all admit to photoshopping turkeys that are too fat, too thin or just not quite right.
“Turkey, as a model, is very much like a fashion magazine with fashion models. There are plump turkeys, and, I’m not kidding you, there are skinny turkeys, there are chesty turkeys, breasty turkeys, there are flat-chested turkeys,” says the EIC of Food & Wine. ““We have,” she admits, ”enhanced the breasts of turkeys.”
Enhanced the breasts of turkeys. Turkeys. What kind of world do we live in where even our birds want boob jobs? Are flat-chested turkeys laughed at in high school? Don’t mama turkeys tell their babies that they are beautiful just the way they are?
Oh well. I’ve asked for retouching on my share of advertisements, so I’m hardly innocent. We marketers will do anything to get the shot.
To All The Worthy-Yet-Childless People Out There:
Have you ever felt disadvantaged simply because you haven’t procreated? Have you ever had to do extra work when a peer disappeared into a junior soccer haze or recital? Have you every suffered through phone conversations between a co-worker and her child that sounded like some demented episode of “Mr. Rogers Neighborhood,” only to have said anguished co-worker give you a back-handed slap by saying how lucky you are not to have kids? All that is about to change.
Yes, friends, there’s now a product made just for you: The Office Kid. When you buy The Office Kid (tagline: “Who picks up the slack? We do”) you get a framed photo of your fake child and some adorable fake-kid artwork to put up on your wall (drawn by one of the right-handed creators with her left hand). It’s like you had a child - only better!
No diapers to change, no private schools to pay for - just the goodness that comes with the kid guilt you can now foist on your co-workers and your boss. Imagine the possibilities…
So call 1-800-GET-A-KID and start leveraging your newfound parenthood today! And if your [apply air quotes here] “parent/teacher conference” takes place on the designer floor at Saks - or in a movie theatre - who has to know?
New Balance has created an online/social media campaign and (offline) line of shoes that marries both worlds in the most elegant way.
The 574 men’s and women’s collection is made entirely of left-over scraps of cloth in the company’s Lawrence, MA factory and, as a result, each pair is just a bit different – each has its own personality, you might say. A very special, limited line deserves equally powerful promotion, and the company’s ad agency, Mother, knew it.
When you buy a 574 pair from one of ten boutiques in the U.S., there’s a special Polaroid photograph in the box. The owner can then go to 574Clips.com, and match the Polaroid to a special mini-film about the shoe. Once the film has played, the happy shoe wearer can add his/her name at the end of the film. The film for 106Red appears to show a man dipping a carrot into the shoe (for dip, or course), while 115Green has a lovable furry muppet (with green nose to match) admiring a pair of shoes. Each is very short and fun – check out one or two for yourself, and see if it doesn’t make you want to buy the shoes.
574Clips.com also features links to Facebook, MySpace, De.li.ci.ous and Tumblr, so buyers of these unique shoes can tell (and show) all their friends. The campaign is also tied to sneaker culture blogs like High Snobiety and Nice Kicks.
Anyone who watches Entourage (Episode 3, Season 6) knows how culturally important “sneakerheads” are – the (mostly) men who must have the hottest, most limited sneaker available tend to be heavy influencers and leading indicators of pop culture trends and information. It’s a valuable and – in their own milieu – sophisticated crowd, and Mother has delivered an equally sophisticated communications plan. The blending of manufacturing, blogs, web, community, video and product is exceptional.
And now I must sign off - I’m on my way to Reed Space: the only shop in NYC to carry the $75 shoes with the special Polaroid inside…
So there’s a mini brouhaha in Manhattan these days because of a subway ad campaign created by New York City’s Department of Health.
Subway posters show someone pouring sugary drinks into a glass that, as a result, is overflowing with human fat.
You know when Dr. Oz goes on Oprah and shows you your fatty liver, or heart, or whatever Big Mac-filled organ he can come up with that day? It’s a little like that… but really, really gross.
But what’s even more gross - I have to agree with Bob Garfield on this one - is the nasty response from the industry’s lobbying association, the American Beverage Association.
“The ad campaign is over the top and unfortunately is going to undermine meaningful efforts to educate people about how to maintain a healthy weight by balancing calories consumed from all foods and beverages with calories burned through exercise,” said a 300-lb. ABA spokesperson (kidding). The ads will do “more harm than good.”
More harm than good? How will the campaign do more harm than good? I doubt the ads will make anyone barf on the train or reach for the nearest non-diet soda - the only two negative reactions that come to mind - so did the ABA really think before it chose to voluntarily and self-servingly stick its nose into this? The real kicker is the fellow’s claim that the ads “minimize a disease as complex as obesity.” Please.
And this isn’t just a bunch of random ads: one of Mike Bloomberg’s harangues has been about healthier eating, specifically in schools, but also as it pertains to calories listed on menu boards and so forth. A move that got particular attention was his appointment of Snapple as the exclusive vending partner in the schools - as long as the company stocked only bottled water and 100% fruit juices. The Mayor won an award this year for creating programs that increase access to healthy foods and free or inexpensive physical activity alternatives in the city, for cryin’ out loud. This is not really a good issue to pick on in this city.
As a parting thought, there is one thing about which Garfield and I disagree with regard to this matter: he thinks it’s “obnoxious” for NYC to “assault” subway riders. I am guessing that he doesn’t live in NY (or at least ride the trains a lot) because if he did, he might feel differently. If the ads get just a few people to rethink their choices, the campaign will be a success. At minimum, it’s one less Dr. Zizmor greeting on my commute.
The economic news these days is, uh… bad. It turns out that the productivity increase in the 2nd quarter was due to companies letting more people go and freezing the salaries of those who remain. And then there’s unemployment. And retail sales. And GM. And the banks. And the entire state of California.
Shampoo. Rinse. Repeat.
So I was somehow heartened by an issue of the Wall Street Journal this week that just happened to include stories about a lot of companies trying to grow and people looking to better times. Here are just some of the stories I noticed in the WSJ on just one day:
– Disney buys Marvel – Baker Hughes agreed to pay $5.5 bil to purchase BJ Services – Walmart is creating an online mall and will sell merchandise from other retailers – Restaurants like The Cheesecake Factory are testing healthier menu selections and kids-eat-free nights to try to get families to eat out again – Payless Shoes is expanding into Russia – Companies are doing more pro bono work - and finding that it’s earning them paying gigs – Dell is going to sell Brocade networking gear under its own name – Samsung is launching an apps service for cell customers in Europe – Blue Nile is undergoing a major overhaul in an effort to attract women (most of its customers are men) – Some people are making fools of themselves with wacky job-hunting tactics that may not close the deal today, but have helped garner them some positive media coverage and made them stronger for it
Anyone who knows me knows I’m not exactly a blind optimist, and it’s not the first time I’ve noticed that newspapers are full of stories every day (wow!). But there was something about that particular issue that just seemed bursting with hope and – on that singular Tuesday – I appreciated and was grateful for it.
A new study released by Q Interactive indicates that - while women may be flocking to social networking - they’re not yakking about the favorite baby food or burgers. While 52% of 1,000 women said that they’d become a “friend” or “fan” of at least one brand, 75% of women in the study overall say that social networks do not influence what they buy.
I had to smile when Q’s president scrambled to make sure that marketers (with money) didn’t interpret the results in a negative way: Q calls the “disconnect” a “huge opportunity” for marketers and says that brands need to catch up to the needs of women online.
If I were an agency relying on clients, I’d say the same thing!
But what if that’s not true? What if the social media frenzy that’s been whipped up among advertisers is… overhyped? What if we find out that women love discovering new ideas and interacting with new people and new communities, but the commercial promise in these interactions isn’t there? What if online engagement doesn’t lead to sales? What if talking just leads to… talking?
I’m going to watch for new news and information about how women are interacting with social media because - if Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter and all the other social sites do not turn out to be a brand bonanza for advertisers, we could see a major reset in expectations, involvement and, most importantly, dollars.
Yet another result of the flailing economy: truly new brand launches are faltering while brand extensions are succeeding.
In 2008, less than 10% of new products were “net new brands,” even though the pace of product introduction was about on par with the last five years. Take a look at the top food and non-food brand launches of last year:
If you remove the pharma/DTC products (which are in a psychic/regulatory/financial class all their own), all the products on these lists are extensions or reformulations.
In the best of times, launching a truly new product is extremely difficult and expensive. Manufacturing, distribution, marketing - starting from scratch is daunting. In a recession, success is even more difficult to achieve.
Then there’s the consumer psyche to consider: what are the monetary and non-monetary risks of trying something truly new? Who hasn’t been curious enough about a new launch - let’s say something perishable that cannot be returned - to try it out? But when money is scarce, the news is full of stories of imprudent spending and people are making trade-offs among the smallest of purchases, the price of “wasting” money suddenly becomes very high. I will feel foolish if I buy this and don’t like it when there are existing substitutes that I know are good enough.
The other thing that’s noticeable about these lists and others is that the “closest in” extensions win: an existing brand holds a space in the consumer’s mind, a range of functionality and messaging in which that brand has credibility. Hershey’s can launch new candies, Porsche can introduce a “wireless racing wheel” for gaming, Mr. Clean can (sort of) try out the car washing business.
But a $1,200 Disney Sleeping Beauty fountain pen or Kellogg’s hip-hop streetwear? Not so much.
A recent Crain’s New York Businessarticle discussed what many retailers are doing to try to squeeze as much as possible out of what is expected to be a lousy back-to-school season.
One step: uniforms.
Not uniforms uniforms, but rather solid color separates - blazers, pants, polo shirts, skirts, etc. - that parents can mix and match to create multiple outfits for kids age 5-11ish. At stores like J.C. Penney, Target and Children’s Place (even Macy’s…) each piece is priced around $10 or less. As uniform sales in these stores have increased while sales of children’s apparel overall have been falling for the last two years, this is a step that is likely to help these stores hold onto customers who are trying to get through the recession.
But one thing: please think hard before “putting a small section in and [literally] calling it uniform” in otherwise non-uniform retail locations. Few parents (or children, for that matter) will assign positive connotations to the word itself… and it’s not all that great in quickly communicating benefits, either. “Budget smart”-like phrases may be a better way to go.
Well, my Tappening idols - Mark DiMassimo and Eric Yaverbaum - are back with a new campaign that got a big write-up in The New York Times yesterday. Boo-yah!
As you may know, Tappening is a grass-roots effort DiMassimo and Yaverbaum started together as a laboratory for a social world marketing experiment focused on the negatives associated with bottled water (which - outside of convenience - turns out to be pretty much everythingabout bottled water). I first interviewed them nearly two years ago about the initiative and covered their first ad campaign back in March of this year. To date, Tappening has sold about $5 million worth of re-usable BPA-free plastic and stainless steel bottles, much of which is plowed back into the effort.
The team’s second campaign turns up the heat. “Lying in Advertising” includes several treatments featuring such claims as “Bottled water causes blindness in puppies” and “Bottled water is the primary cause of Restless Leg Syndrome.” If you cannot see the posters below, click HERE and check out the bottom of the page.
The new campaign has a dedicated website at www.startalie.com from which you can easily ”spread” your lie about bottled water via email, Digg, Twitter and Facebook (a nice touch). My first contribution was “Ben Bernanke says that bottled water caused the global recession.”
Pity the downtrodden marketing services community. That bad economy-thingy appears to have smacked it right in the face. No surprise.
And since price pressure should be no surprise, either, I’ve been startled by the snarly response emanating from the ad industry. I’ve already forgotten a few instances I noticed recently, but the WSJ late last week offered an ok example. In an article titled “Thrift Darkens [Ad] Industry’s Hopes,” Maurice Levy of Publicis sniffed, “The reality is that clients want more for less. It’s something that is unfortunately becoming quite common.”
Is that right? Really? Clients want more of the same quality work that you’ve been giving them all along for a lower price? For some, this may be the case. Then again, many of the large agencies in my experience became too big, spoiled and overpaid through the years. Too many clients have been pithed by the senior staff, and left with inexperienced AEs. You were supposed to fork over 15% just - I dunno, because. Because advertising is magic. Or whatever.
Times used to be great, no question. I’ve enjoyed some wonderful agency relationships and learned a lot of my craft from my partners in those shops and others. We all have. How many AdAge headlines have screamed about client cutbacks and layoffs in the last year? More with less? I’d say there’s plenty of pain to go around.
AdAge really lit this match for me whenb I first read an editor’s reaction to a set of business decisions recently made by P&G: business decisions that - for a reason that cannot be justified -touched off a cascade of immature, naive and nasty remarks from this person’s bully pulpit.
According to this editorial, P&G’s decision puts the “still-moist notion that it’s possible to do interesting things for huge, unglamorous marketers” out of its misery.” That’s just embarrassing. And my personal favorite - that the changes give ”the best talent yet another reason to leave the industry… buh-bye, innovators and creative geniuses” - is pathetic. Wow: talk about turning on someone when times get difficult. What does this solve?
The editorial concludes by toasting P&G for killing one of the “final drops of joy” (*gag*) left in the industry, and for making the business - and I quote - a “little bit shittier just because it can.” I’m actually still appalled just typing these words weeks later. This isn’t about freedom of the press: if the writer has her own blog, she should knock herself out. But AdAge is a publication read by professionals and aspiring professionals on all sides of the business. Such bitter statements are grossly unproductive and, frankly, more than a little silly.
I wonder if AdAge believes that this kind of vitriol will help the industry attract the ”creative geniuses” whose absence it so mourns. I doubt it will.
The fact is that agencies and vendors work at the pleasure of clients and - in AdAge’s case - report on them. I also believe it’s safe to say that both agency executives and marketing journalists fancy themselves articulate thought leaders… and they should be. Clients would like them to be. Throwing oneself on the ground and having an unattractive hissy fit helps no one and only makes a difficult time harder and needless (or at least more) contentious.
Ah, the sweet satisfaction of being able to vent. You know the feeling: you have an awful customer service experience and vow to tell every man, woman and child all about it until the day you keel over.
And so you do.
But how many people is that - 5, 6, maybe 10? And how quickly did you stop telling anyone about it - a week?
Brands often still behave as if they live in that world when - in reality - that world is gone forever. The “social media” phenomenon has seen to that. And I preach this as often as possible, even making presentations on the topics of online reputation management, the implications of new sites and technologies for marketers and how companies need to adjust to survive.
But we all know that this doesn’t happen. Three of my all-time favorite this-reputation-disaster-could-have-been-avoided stories are Jeff Jarvis’ Dell Hell, the recording of Vincent Ferrari trying for 15+ minutes to cancel his AOL account and KFC/Taco Bell doing nothing for hours and hours while local NY news crews shot video through the front window of a closed store while rats scurried here there and everywhere, thereby turning a gross story into a global event (not a good day for Yum Brands…).
Today, I share my latest fave: Sons of Maxwell creating an absolutely masterful video and song, “United Breaks Guitars,” about an awful experience it had with United Airlines.
It seems that the band, Sons of Maxwell, were on the tarmac in Chicago when some fellow United Airline passengers looked out the window and saw one of the bandmember’s $3,500 guitars being thrown by United baggage handlers. The guitar was severely damaged and unplayable. United did not deny responsibility, but tortured the band for nine months until finally refusing to compensate the guitar’s owner, Dave Carroll, for the loss.
Mr. Carroll subsequently vowed to “write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world.” HERE IS THE FIRST of the three:
The video was viewed 150,000 times in its first 48 hours and several comments on the page are from those who say that the band’s experience has negatively impacted their opinion of United Airlines. One person remarks that, based on the video, he shifted a group’s travel plans to another airline, thereby costing United about $10,000.
Now I’ve worked in plenty of places, and know that sometimes individual employees can be dimwits (the video dramatizes the apparent reaction three in-flight airline employees had when first alerted to the problem). I also know that it’s a fact of life that a company can’t resolve every customer service complaint to a person’s satisfaction: some companies even calculate the likelihood and cost of getting sued, based on past experience, and consciously do not address costly errors. History dictates that it’s more cost effective to take the risk of a lawsuit. But this… is not that.
The guitar cost $3,500. United Airlines does not deny responsibility. By the time Carroll is finished, I predict well north of 1 million views of his videos: videos that will last forever and be ”rediscovered” from time to time.
We’ll see. United says it has contacted Carroll, but first reports say that the airline likes the song (gee, thanks) but has not yet offered remuneration.
In the meantime, the band sold 40 albums on its website in 24 hours after releasing the video. It usually sells one per day.
Which entities would have a really tough time attracting positive attention right now? AIG, yes. GM, no question. Bernie Madoff, no doubt.
Added to the list are two little words that have to got to shake any agency to its core: Mexican tourism.
Yes vacationers, remember Mexico? That was the place to which thousands of you were headed before the swine flu outbreak… and the resulting fears have weighed heavily on Mexico’s economy.
The United Nations World Tourism Organization says the country boasts one of the largest tourism businesses in the world, welcoming more than 20 million tourists a year. It’s the only country in Latin America on the list of top 25 most popular vacation destinations, and tourism is the third largest contributor to the economy. 70% of all visitors come from the United States.
But that was before the cooties came.
President Calderon plans to spend $92 million on new advertising and promotion to bring tourists back. With t-shirts boasting “I went to Mexico and all I got was the swine flu” in circulation, he understandably feels he’s got to do something.
There’s no real point to this post. I think I just wanted to express a certain kinship and sympathy for a brand that feels it must include a medical update, the phrase “keep the people safe” and a quote from the dean of the Harvard School of Public Health in its new television ad.
Oh, well now I’m definitely in the mood for a Cancun vacation! Que es muy terrible.
I have no idea if they’ll sell even one tampon, but P&G’s Tampax is the stealth sponsor of a series of viral videos that tell the story of a 16-year-old boy who wakes up with - uh - “girl parts.” And at least from an art point of view… they’re good. Click HERE if you do not see the ad below.
Leo Burnett created the campaign at Zack16.com. Its big link to the brand thus far is when our hero, Zack, gets his first period in French class and sneaks into the girl’s bathroom looking for a Tampax vending machine.
P&G calls it “a learning lab out on the net” that’s “not very heavily branded at all.” Hmm. And so far the videos aren’t a huge hit, with about 10,000 views in the past week on YouTube and elsewhere.
I really wanted to dislike this campaign and - if I were a P&G stockholder - I probably would. I also wonder if the best way to pitch tampons to young women is with stories about young men baking brownies, but what do I know? I hope it sells something.
In the meantime, I’m enjoying the work of a good copywriter and have started following Zack on Twitter at @ZackJohnson16. He appears to be trying to figure out how to manage menstruating while at soccer camp.
Note: the “hovers like a UFO” comment is from the Day 3 video. Really - these are pretty humorous.
In January 2009, I started a new feature called “Tone Deaf Ad of the Week.” Since every financial services firm out there felt like it should advertise but had little to no idea what to say, there was a vast selection.
The first ad I picked on came from Bessemer Trust boasting the enormous headline, “We invest our money right alongside yours...” First off, my portfolio is in the tank and you’ve kicked off an ad talking about yourself. More importantly, hadn’t the gruesome Fall/Winter of 2008 proven that idiots and jerks may in fact invest their own money unwisely and take themselves down right along with you? Next!
Next came yesterday, in fact, with a new full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal. The headline? “Right now, you have two choices, sink or swim.” Why yes, it’s about me, the investor, thank you. And the text, while too long, is more thoughtful - more mindful of what’s occurred in the last several months. The company still insists on that “we invest our money right alongside yours” thing but the ad is a solid player.
So hats off to Bessemer for having the most improved, formerly tone dead ad of the week. Keep it up!
Each year, the Financial Communications Society (FCS) recognizes firms in various categories for excellence in financial services advertising, collateral and (now) digital. You can read the press release announcing this year’s winners HERE.
There are two reasons I wanted to write a quick post on this event:
(1) FCS named two of my faves as Best In Show. The first is American Express, which was named Best In Show - Corporate Image advertising for its Martin Scorcese-Tina Fey “Timeshare” (my label) ad. The post I wrote about this ad is HERE. The second is E*Trade which was selected Best In Show - Consumer Retail for its “Baby” campaign - and you know how much I love this campaign. I first wrote after its premiere at the 2008 SuperBowl, then again this past January when the second round of ads came out (”I wanna punch the economy in the face“). And E*Trade has kept it rolling with two more greats, Singing Baby and Golf.
(2) It’s a walk down memory lane. 2009 is the 15th year FCS has given its Portfolio Awards. 1995 was the very first year - and my team won an award for our ChaseDirect launch campaign. ChaseDirect was the U.S.’ first national direct bank (even before Bank One’s Wingspan, which many remember), and we won that night. It was a business that we all felt passionately about and my team from Chase and Wells Rich Greene were there to celebrate.
Monday May 18th 2009, 7:53 pm
Filed under: Twitter
I just feel like I need to mark the occasion: I got my 500th follower on Twitter today!
That means that 500 people have elected to see everything I tweet on their home page, ever day. Day after day. All the time. Who are these people??
Actually I know who they are, and anyone can see for him/herself at www.twitter.com/stephfierman. It’s an eclectic group of digital, business, marketing, PR, advertising, social media, non-profit and strategy folks… and I thank every one.
And I’m learning more and more about how Twitter works every day, too. If you want someone to follow you, for example, start retweeting their tweets until they notice. They’ll check you out, decide they’re interested in what you have to say and voilà! your favorite ad agency or magazine decides to follow you.
I’ve mentioned him before, but Kent Huffman is doing an incredible job on Twitter, transforming simple but great ideas into an ever-widening community that’s good for him and everyone else. He started with the most popular CMOs on Twitter and has now created a list of the top marketing authors. He gives a shout-out to everyone on these lists, they pick up followers, positive karma comes back to Kent and on it goes. Brilliant.
There are also new automatic tools that are supposed to help you with Twitter arriving every day. Some are helpful, some are not. One that I tested this weekend puts supposedly like-minding people onto your “Followers” list automatically. One of these new follower’s business pages involved the words “live s*x” - I kid you not - so there’s spam and garbage on Twitter just like everywhere else on the Web. But TweetDeck, Seesmic and Tweetie for Mac and iPhone all have fans.
So thank you, Carol Phillips, for being my 500th follower. Carol is a professor at Notre Dame and an expert on millenials marketing. The chance of me “meeting” Carol and hearing her ideas (because now I’m following her) without Twitter? Quite close to zero. So that’s pretty great.
In the meantime, I’m enjoying the work of a good copywriter and have started following Zack on Twitter at 
