Coke Creatures inspire thirst?

I saw on David Cameron's blog about a new ad for Coke featuring fuzzy little creatures. This is usually where ads lose my interest, but this ad wasn't too bad. It didn't make a lot of sense, wasn't particularly stylish, but had sort of a Muppet feel for me.



However, then I noticed that this isn't just an advertisement... this is a whole new brand direction for Coke, featuring these little Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, La, La, La creatures and suddenly it felt like the wheels were falling off.

The Coke Creatures have their own website(which I guess is not too far off into left field), and their own facebook page, flickr, and I gotta think will tweeting in no time.

All of which makes me question what the heck is going on over at the Coke branding department. If you want Coke to be equated to summer fun, do weird little musical creatures that are a cross between a mini-wookie, a muppet, and a gremlin really do it for them? Not to mention that everyone is drinking Cokes out of the classic glass bottle. I can only get those in one grocery store that happens to carry "Mexican Cokes".

Anyway, the music is pretty infectious and enjoyable, and as I said the commercial itself stands pretty well on its own. However, if coke were to ask me, trying to give life to these creatures and make them something "more" is a pretty terrible idea.

So, how to make the Coke brand = summer fun then? Running this music (even this particular ad) is fine, and I agree that its vaguely reminiscent of older Coke commercials when young people were holding hands on hills to Buy the World a Coke. Using the creatures as a tool for sprouting involvement with upcoming fun music for the summer is fine. I think that music and branding can work very well together because music has an emotional attachment and gives Coke the opportunity to get more direct interaction and actual conversations (instead of crazy made up conversations about photoshopped travel photos). If you really must include the creatures, why not have website visitors become more emotionally involved by making their own versions of the song by remixing using the creatures various "talents". (Oh lord, have I slipped into a Coke branding hallucination?)

Making the creatures the key feature and trying to build them as a branding tool, is likely to be a dismal (and creepy) failure (to wit: the facebook page has been live for almost a month and so far only 609 fans, with the power of Coke's ad spend, I would surely be disappointed with that slow a ramp-up). I have to wonder if Coke will be daring enough to measure the ROI on this ad: those little creatures are all animatronic and puppets, not digital! From an art perspective, that kicks ass. From an advertising ROI perspective, that's probably disasterous.

The other Detroit deadline...

There was much made of the special announcement today from the Detroit Newspapers (Detroit News and Detroit Free Press). Now, I don't want to sound too much like an armchair quarterback, but if anyone couldn't see this coming, then they aren't paying attention. Frankly, it was not nearly as bad as I expected. Here's the quick rundown for those that missed it:

• about a 10% reduction in staff
• "expanding the immediacy and impact of our digital services" (um, they haven't already???)
• stop home delivery on monday to wednesday and saturday
• continue to sell hard copies at newstands and stores seven days a week
  

I'm a little surprised they aren't doing more to eliminate the hard copies and looking harder for new revenue streams (well, that they announced anyway). If I were in charge, I'd be cutting the hard copies altogether for Mon - Wed. and Sat., and looking at new ways to deliver electronically, whether it be a subscription based access to hand-held wireless based electronics (like the Kindle from Amazon.com) or via text to voice conversion and mobile streaming. All while offering options for reading reduced versions for free - sort of the movie preview model for newspaper articles. I also would expend a lot more effort on local news, local events and local calendars pushing the local connection, local opinions and local advertising! Leave the national news to the national competitors (except that I suppose most of the national news has been involving Detroit recently).

I don't recommend clients spend their money on newspaper advertising for the exact same reason that the newspapers are going to stop existing as they are (even in their revised format). They may be printing, but very few are reading.

How about a little optimism here?

I am often critical of ads or just foisting my opinion about them on unsuspecting folks who don't realize they asked. I recognize that this can come across as a somewhat pessimistic attitude towards marketing sometimes. With all the rest of the pessimistic economic news these days, I thought I'd put together a positive message with some useful information for you.

With all the bad news that we're being bombarded with these days, its easy to forget that now is a perfect time for nimble companies with well defined products for well defined customers.

That's a big concept so lets break it down a little:
Nimble companies - Many entrepreneurs that I talk to are encouraged by the economic news right now. Why? Because as the big corporate competitors are cutting on products and marketing, that's opening up an opportunity for entrepreneurs who can fill the niche left behind. But the key word here is "nimble". The risk in the market is still there, and you have to be ready to react (or better yet preempt). For example, a coffee shop that I've worked with in the past serves clientele who are professional, high-income, and are willing to pay for a high-quality product. However, the shop found that as Starbucks and another independent coffee shop closed, he was starting to see a different clientele - younger, not as affluent, more interested in quick foods to go with their coffee. Within the week of recognizing this trend, the shop partnered with a deli to offer cold sandwiches at the shop and introduced a new blend of coffee for 99 cents. However, he didn't change the current offerings and actually upgraded his chairs in order to keep his appeal to his current more affluent customers.

Well-defined customers - Most entrepreneurs that I know come to me and say something similar to "I've invented this new widget and it does X, Y, and Z" or "I've noticed there are not any widget stores in Cityville" and then they go on to talk about their product and how it will be successful. In my years in the research world, I've always found this to be the backwards way to approach the problem. Start with describing your customers. I always work to guide the conversation towards, "I've invented this new widget, and the reason it will be successful is because it solves X demographic's problems with X, Y, and Z." What this does is change the way you look at things. Seth Godin, a writer on marketing, said just yesterday on a webcast from bnet that the key to success is to seek products for your customers, not customers for your products. It takes a little creativity and a lot of hard work, but I couldn't agree with this theory more completely.

Well-defined products - As a marketing consultant, I am constantly attempting to explain to my friends what it is exactly that I do. It's an interesting challenge for those who are not in the business world (but that's ok, they don't need to know what I do). However, my potential clients do need to know. So, I've spent the last three weeks developing a very long list first of everything I offer, then I've narrowed it down into a more focused list based on the customers who I have identified as my targets. So, while I can design logos and do copywriting, my ideal clients do not care. They do care that I create marketing plans, identify targets, and develop tactics and advertising creative briefs to provide direction.

I can hear the folks getting ready to tell me now, "but if you are nimble, shouldn't that mean offering a wider variety of products to a wider audience?" I say not exactly... The target customer may be of a wider variety, but I still have to know who they are and what they are looking for in order to offer a product that caters to them. The coffee shop widened its product offering, but only after identifying what the customers wanted. If you can't identify a customer for the product, ask yourself, why would they choose me? The coffee shop didn't see that Starbucks had offered sandwiches and jumping to the conclusion that he probably needs to in order to pick up those customers. He identified what the customers wanted.

If you focus on those three things, you'll have an excellent start to an outstanding marketing plan.

The coffee wars...

Dunkin Donuts is launching a new "taste test" ad that targets Starbucks. This is brilliantly timed campaign showing the results of an independent taste test (well, paid for by Dunkin Donuts, but conducted by an independent 3rd party research company) that shows that Dunkin Donuts won in a blind test of taste.

I say this is brilliantly timed because as the economy continues to slip into "recession" as consumers continue to tighten their belts, pricey luxuries (such as $4 coffee) is likely to be one of the items trimmed back by consumers. If Dunkin Donuts can convince consumers that their coffee is just as good, but cheaper and not an expensive luxury, then they could definitely positioned to see some nice customer conquests.

However, as a guy who roasts his own coffee, I see a huge opportunity to make gains on the financial incentive of brewing at home. There are some other "convenience" costs (cleaning, brewing, etc.), but with some clever positioning and promotion of some of the easy to use automatic machines that make having your coffee ready in the morning (or whenever) easier and tastier than ever.

This is where the value proposition for smaller roasters will really stand out. A cup of coffee brewed at home, even accounting for cream and sugar costs about 20-25 cents. So, the accountants will be satisfied (the "bean counters!" - sorry couldn't resist). The next hurdle will be trying to get over the extra work that is involved, particularly the cleaning process. For marketers convincing people to make the switch to home-brewed coffee will have to be demonstrate how this step is easier than most may expect. There are some larger trends that are also pointing to the success of this move, particularly an increase in homebased businesses (losing access to office coffee, definitely increased my home consumption of coffee).

With that, I'm headed back to the coffee shop (aka kitchen counter) for another cup of perfectly brewed coffee.

Sales Peddaling Away from the Shop

I had a conversation with a shop owner near my home the other day who was complaining that he is starting to lose more shoppers to the internet over bike pricing. He was telling me that margins are so thin that he can't match the pricing information that customers often have when they come in.

I wondered about this. Is there really an epidemic of shoppers who visit shops then buy bikes online instead of at their local shop? This owner was actually complaining about a specific shopper who was looking at a very expensive tandem, used a lot of their sales time doing test rides, getting price quotes on various options, then just disappeared. The shop owner happened to run into the guy at a charity ride with his wife on their brand new tandem they purchased online.

I wanted to find out if this is a true epidemic or just a few (really annoying) instances. In my search, I found a consultant to bike industry, Jay Townley, who is very well respected and does a lot of speaking engagements with various bike business expos (including Interbike this year). He's been in the business for years, and has some very interesting market research and well thought out retail strategies that he shares with shop owners and bike industry execs.

I ran across a webpage of his that appears old (2006, I think) that discusses the challenge facing bike shops of "Over Educated Shoppers (OES)". I couldn't believe what I was reading. The basic premise is that:

"An overly educated shopper profoundly reduces close rates and diminishes the effectiveness of an under-educated sales staff.

The OES (overly educated shopper) walks into your store knowing more about your products than your staff does! Because of internet search engines like Google and Yahoo, your average shopper has spent over 10 hours educating himself on your products."

He also mentions that:

"The predominately brick and mortar bicycle shop is now challenged by the new information age where anybody can be a retailer because of the power of the Internet. At a recent conference, a representative from eBay presented research showing that the Internet will influence nearly one-half of total U.S. retail sales by 2010!"

Of course, as I mentioned this is old, it's a sales page, and perhaps he would choose to rephrase this now. But the idea that the problem with retail bike shops is that their potential customers are "over educated" makes my skin crawl!

The problem is exactly the opposite. If you have customers walking into your shop that are spending more time getting educated on bikes than the staff that you have on the sales floor, you are doing something wrong. Will your sales staff have all answers to all the questions? No, most likely not, but the answer is out there and a good sales staff will find it for the customer (preferably while the customer is there).

There are two shops that I know that both started as online shops only and then as sales grew, they got a bricks and mortar space. They have customers (as most businesses do) that do a lot of their information gathering online, then visit the shop when they've narrowed their choices. Both use their website as a funnel to bring in more qualified shoppers. Neither have ever complained to me that their customers are "too educated."

But getting back to the case of the shopper who buys online....

I guess the answer to my question, is basically, yes, there probably are a lot of folks who buy are shopping brick and mortar then buying online. And, yes, this is probably something that's growing. But it is all going to come back to service. Shops will never get all the sales (for example: the one sale described above, its obvious that shopper was planning to buy on price. period. He just wanted some test rides first. Annoying, but part of the business).

The best bet is to offer service and a sales experience that will make folks want to spend their money with you. Arm your sales staff with the tools to answer questions (or find answers) and provide value add recommendations that can't be done via a webpage (such as custom fit, custom build-up, after sale service, etc.). It will also help for sales staff to stay on top of Internet pricing and be prepared to defend your pricing to the customer that may (or may not) challenge it.

Personally, I can't imagine buying a bike online, but then I love the shop experience. (When its good.)

Good Marketing for Bad Times

It's no secret that the Detroit area has been hit pretty hard by the economy. This all started about a year ago (or longer) here. The latest national news sounds like just a rehash of problems that Detroit has been living with for a while. When the economy tanks, there is a lot of news about big changes in American's lives. For example, a poll for Fortune Magazine from January 2008 shows that even back then (doesn't that seem like a long time ago now??)....

• Almost half have been cutting back on spending
• 4 in 10 believe that their personal economic situation has gotten worse in the last 12 months
• 1 in 4 believe that gas (and energy) prices are responsible for the slowing economy

Add to this the horror stories about getting financing we're hearing right now (auto loan refusal is at its highest rate since 1984, according to Businessweek), and you may find yourself wanting to run for the hills.

So, is it time to close up shop and take a long nap until this storm blows over? Hardly. It's time to get to work. From that same Fortune survey...

• Half believe that their personal economic situation has not changed in the last 12 months (15% believe it has improved)
• Almost 3 in 4 have been able to keep up with their credit card payments, and 9 in 10 are able to keep up with other payments (such as mortgage, rent, car payments, etc.)

What this tells me is that there is still money out there, and a savvy business can survive (some may even thrive) in this difficult environment. Additionally, there's an excellent change to set the stage to have your brand be force when this storm does pass. But it's not a time to cut back on that marketing budget. The key to surviving or thriving in this kind of economic environment comes down to refocusing your brand:

• Awareness Is Not the Ultimate Goal - while no one with any sense will tell you that awareness isn't important, keep in mind that just telling people you exist is not the ultimate goal of any marketing that your doing. A friend of mine runs a bike shop that sponsors a lot of events with a tent, repair equipment, staff, and even items to sell. A while back, I asked him why he sponsored them and the answer was "awareness" so that folks know about the shop. But if that's the goal, why spend the time, money, and energy to actually show up? He could have just sent a banner to do the same thing. The real goal of these sponsorships is to move one step past awareness to get entered into the consideration set for purchase (or even make a few sales at the event!). This is the start to an emotional attachment (something very difficult for banners to do by themselves).
  
• Find Marketing Activities that Connect with Customers Emotionally - one of the first things that get cut out of a budget are a business that don't add an emotional value for consumers. Consider Netflix: as they expand further into social networking so that consumers can share their movie lists or take recommendations from friends, the activity becomes more of a social outlet, a connection. This strengthens the emotional connection to the Netflix brand and reduces the likelihood that it ends up on the household budget chopping block.
• Deliver Greater Value with your Marketing - greater value is OFTEN talked about in board meetings and marketing meetings but seems to be lost or watered down too far to be actually useful by the time it hits the trenches. Award or frequent buyer programs are a great way to increase the value of marketing, and I think a very useful way to capitalize on viral marketing techniques. If you provided unique content, games, or parties for those who have X number of points or purchases at a level between your current "free stuff" or discount levels, folks are going to get more out of the path they are on with your brand.
• Understand Why/How People are Spending Money with You - As the household budget gets trimmed, folks are going to have to shift the way they spend their money. Maybe you'll be lucky enough not to be impacted by this, but chances are you've seen a change in sales in the last few months. Talk to your customers. Get a better understanding of what they are buying with you and why things may have changed. There's a chance that while you may not be able to talk them into spending a lot more, you may be able to make changes to the store layout or menu or whatever to help direct customers to more profitable items or items that supplement other products and thereby increase their value while increase the overall sale. But talk to you customers before you make substantial changes. They'll tell you the why and how they are making changes to their spending habits with you.

Now, obviously, it's not a time to relax, but it's not a time to panic and undermine your brand either.

Viral Marketing

This is a pretty funny new ad from "The Viral Factory" for Diesel clothing for their XXX Party.

The thing is, while its clever, funny and shocking and I'm sure will be emailed all over the place, I'm not entirely sure what the point is. From The Viral Factory website:

By tapping into our extensive network of highly influentlial media sites and blogs, we take control of the critical factors that lead to digital and viral marketing successes. ... But seeding isn't just about getting views. TVF also helps generate an unprecendented [their typo, not mine] level of engagement and depth of conversation among the audience.

I guess, I'm not sure I understand their process. I sent that above link to some of my friends. I then clicked over to my blog to write this. Does this mean I'm having an indepth conversation with Diesel? If so, how does my writing this help Diesel? I suppose the problem is, I'm not the target market for it. Perhaps if I were in my 20's, this video and website combo would make me want to be part of the XXX Party (does that mean Diesel clothing is 30?).

The interesting thing is I think the website that goes along with this campaign is pretty well done. By the time I got around to actually looking at the website, I found it to be stylish and engaging. It will be interesting to find out if it actually contributes to sales, or if Diesel is simply providing entertainment.... I'm leaning towards the latter.

Is your brand dead? Does imagery matter anymore? (Part II)

I (finally) finished the book, Branding Only Works on Cattle by Jonathan Salem Baskin. The basic premise is that communicating brands as we know it is actually dead. Before you start writing a eulogy for your long, lost pal, Tony the Tiger, Baskin does have some fascinating points. As you may recall from Part 1, I claimed to not be fully on board with Baskin’s claims in the book, then he called me out on some of my points (see comments from Sept 21 post).

Now that I’ve read it, I think that Baskin and I are not that far apart actually. I think that the main area we differ is in the definition of branding. I suspect that my textbook definition that I provided was not complete enough to clarify how I actually think of branding. Baskin summed it up perfectly on page 185 of the book:

“Company activities and customer perceptions are intertwined in many ways – communities, dependencies, partnerships, outsourcing, transactions, partnerships, product or service experiences, - and it is in these relationships that brand and business are realized. Brand is the verb of these behaviors made relevant to your bottom line.”

This definition of branding is a much more “practical” form than Tony the Tiger or the lust for Louis-Vuitton handbags implies (perhaps “useful” is the word that Baskin would use). I must admit that the more I thought about it, the more I agree with Baskin. His book lays out a nice road map, particularly for small or midsize businesses that are looking to grow and don’t quite get how branding could work for them.

In my opinion, if marketers (note that I don’t just limit this to branding experts) only take one thing from the book, it is to think of branding as game theory. Baskin purports that games have:

• Goals/a payoff – a purpose that requires an action (a.k.a. give branding a practical goal).
  
• Context – the universe where the game is actually played must guide the branding
  
• Narrative flow – prompt action, facilitate learning during the game, and then only talk to those who its relevant to talk to
• Use a variety of tools – the entire company is your toolbox (customer service, shipping, finance, etc.)
• Winners and Losers – engage with people to push them forward (winners), though there may be some that will therefore be pushed away (losers). That's ok, not everyone will buy your product anyway.
  

This kind of thinking, positive customer engagement with the company at a variety of points, is the definitely the direction branding communications needs to be moving.

So, am I a convert? Is branding dead?

Well, hold on a second. Brands are still very much alive. Another book I’m reading by Lucas Conley, “Obsessive Branding Disorder”, shows many different examples of branding out of control - both the comical (Christina Aguilera trademarking her name to market 450 separate products including modeling clay and contact lens) and the tragic (like New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin, who declared that New Orleans murder rate was “…not good for us, but keeps the New Orleans brand out there, and keeps people thinking about our needs…”). Conley proves that branding is still very much alive and still highly profitable (for both the branders and the branded business). People are still buying products because of its brand. But businesses are having to work harder, advertise in more places, and creative (read as, "crazy") things that in many cases make no sense to keep their brands in front of potential customers.

So, yes, Tony the Tiger is still going to don the cereal box and your kids will still scream for him. Louis-Vuitton will still drive people to buy (and make) cheap knock-offs. Paris Hilton will still draw millions of dollars for putting her name and likeness on perfume, bad music, or whatever else her agents think they can sell. A lot of companies will continue to brand in much the same method. But as Baskin (and Conley) points out, the challenges of communicating is getting increasing difficult, and the companies that can recognize this and truly connect with their customers on a variety of levels and points are the brands that will remain relevant and important.

Walking away from Starbucks...

I read the (supposed) real reason that Starbucks ad agency walked away from the Starbucks account on Advertising Age this morning. There has been substantial upheaval at Starbucks recently, starting with a return of the original CEO, job losses, and store closures. This is all a result of poor financial performance starting last year. All of this has resulted in Weider & Kennedy (Starbucks ad agency of record) has decided to quit the business... not something typical of agencies.

The reason that the Ad Age article gives is that:

...Starbucks was simply a very frustrating client for Wieden, an agency that other marketers have described as unusually honest in its communication with clients. Other agencies that have worked with Starbucks have felt frustration with the marketer too. Rich Silverstein, co-founder of Omnicom Group's Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, which did two stints representing Starbucks, said much of the fault lies with the mercurial Mr. Schultz. "He does not appreciate advertising," he said. "Any agency that comes in has one foot out the door already."

The thing is, this may be the reason that Wieden & Kennedy quit working for Starbucks, but its not the reason Starbucks is having problems. The problem is that the "brand promise" of Starbucks is not being fulfilled and that's not an advertising problem... its a coffee problem. Or rather it's an experience problem.

Starbucks growth has been its own worst enemy. As the commoditization of the atomosphere has been spread across the U.S., the folks who first supported Starbucks are now turned off of it. How to fix this? Localization - not advertising. Coffee Shops are one of those businesses that has to fit very specifically with the local market demands. In many ways, Starbucks in Malibu looks and feels the same as a Starbucks in Buffalo, but what do you think? Are people in those two cities the same? If so, put someone from Malibu on a plane to Buffalo in January!

The other part of the problem is the coffee. I have argued that Starbucks roasts are all too similar to each other. A mild coffee gets the same (or at least very similar) roast as a robust coffee giving it a burned flavor. I have also argued that this reduces the quality of the Starbucks coffee itself.

So, Starbucks has found itself becoming a commodity with (arguably) mediocre quality beverages in a tough economic time when "luxuries" like $3 lattes are getting trimmed back. This is not advertising problem - Wieder & Kennedy likely recognized this, and gave up the fight rather than be doomed to failure in Starbucks marketing department's opinion. That would be my guess for the REAL reason they walked away.

Fortunately for Starbucks, Howard Schwartz (returning CEO) knows his stuff, and has taken some steps to try and fix this already. Perhaps he will fully recognize this in time to save your favorite Starbucks store.

Is your brand dead? Does imagery matter anymore? (Part I)

Yesterday I read an article on Bnet entitled "Kiss Your Brand Goodbye". This is a book review of Jonathan Salem Baskin’s new book “Branding Only Works on Cattle”.

The book is an interesting opinion on a larger trend in advertising and branding to deal with the new influence of integrated marketing (combined traditional advertising and web based marketing) and consumer mindset in the new millennium. His hypothesis is basically that a "brand" is an emotional association that marketers have created but consumers no longer buy into that association. They have become smarter and now look for product attributes that offer "actual" value rather than emotional brand attachment. This book is part of a trend to kill branding and in essence completely revise the advertising industry (some argue this has already happened). Well, I’ll throw my two cent hat into the ring (if you’ll allow me to mix sayings)...

First, brandchannel.com (article by Vincent Grimaldi) provides a pretty concise definition of branding:

Branding is the foundation of marketing and is inseparable from business strategy. It is therefore more than putting a label on a fancy product. Nowadays, a corporation, law firm, country, university, museum, hospital, celebrity, and even you in your career can be considered as a brand.
As such, a brand is a combination of attributes, communicated through a name, or a symbol, that influences a thought-process in the mind of an audience and creates value.

Ok, full disclosure, I have not yet read Baskin's book (I plan to), so I won’t be able to delve too deeply into his specific arguments. However, the article gives the background, and the book has several points that he claims prove that branding should be dead:

1. “There are no more trends, only moments” – shattered attention spans of consumers have killed the trends
2. “Subtlety is dead” because “people are more literal now” – our diversity means we no longer share as many common experiences. This means that “repetition risks becoming noise” and brand “recognition isn’t the same as brand relevance”
3. “Choice is real-time” – in other words, brand messaging doesn’t matter, and “forget about inspiring purchases through appealing to fantasy”
4. The “Virtual Experience is the new dreamscape” - social media “conversations are just the beginning”

As Michael Fitzgerald, the author of the bnet.com article points out, this is ahead of where we are in the market right now, and as such, I don’t actually agree with all his points.

I think of branding to be more like developing a friend – the brands are perceived to share consumers beliefs or interests, and consumers are likely to start the purchase process by looking at their "friends." Setting the attributes of a brand is an excellent way to set guidelines for the way a business will be marketed. For almost four years now, I’ve read about how the branding world is dying (Baskin’s book is just the latest shot across this bow), but then brands like Apple, Coke, Pepsi, BMW, Budweiser, Columbia, etc. remain stronger than ever.

In my mind, Baskin's argument only works if you don't believe consumers make image-driven purchases. Does just advertising product attributes or benefits really hold greater value than advertising a brand image? Frankly, I would argue that this isn’t the right question. We should be asking whether the current advertising model is working properly in the integrated social media millennium. Does the current media mix really work to advertise product benefits and image or is it all just becoming noise? I would argue that (as in the past) the two still can't be truly separated without disastrous results, but creating a truly integrated mix to reduce noise and target niches is the key to branding now.