Communicating with the Valley

RSS, Blogs, Podcasts - test your knowledge of current communication technology terms

2005-09-09T10:57:00.000-07:00

The Information Age may well be turning into the Communication Age as new technologies for communicating with each other abound. With each new communication technology comes potential new ways for organisations to communicate with their employees, partners, analysts, shareholders, media, and customers. Are you up to date with the latest communication technologies and buzzwords?

See the glossary below for definitions to the following terms:
Blog
Bulletin board / message board / forum
Feeds / RSS feeds
K-log
Podcast
RSS
RSS aggregator / reader
Thread
Web conference
Webcast
Wiki

Blog
‘Blog’ is short for ‘web log’. It describes a web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often images and links to other sites. Most are updated daily and include searchable archives of past entries, lists of other blogs favoured by the author, and a facility for reader input.

Characterised by a conversational writing style, subjective viewpoints, and a sense of egalitarianism and empowering the voice of the individual, blogs facilitate communication and connections between like-minded people.

Bulletin board / message board / forum
These are located on a web or intranet site where people can interact with each other by posting written messages. Since the contributions are in written form, there is no inherent time limit for discussions, and individual discussions or ‘threads’ can go on for hours, days or longer. Posts to message boards can be censored or uncensored.

Feeds / RSS feeds
RSS (see below for definition) content from a publisher, as viewed in an RSS reader, is often called a ‘feed’.

K-log
‘K-logs’ or knowledge-logs are blogs that are used specifically for the purposes of sharing/documenting knowledge and/or sharing the process of knowledge-making. These may be public websites on the Internet, or private websites housed on organisational intranets that are used as an internal communications device to share information amongst individual teams or the whole organisation.

Podcast
Podcasts are audio files such as radio-style shows that are delivered over the Internet to your computer that can be downloaded to digital music or multimedia players, such as the iPod. Unlike streaming audio, which requires you to listen in real time, podcasting lets you control how and when you hear your favourite shows.

Content producers are increasingly turning to podcasting as an inexpensive and user-friendly new distribution channel that has the potential to reach a large audience. Not surprisingly, musicians and bloggers are prevalent among the early adopters, but mainstream media, including the ABC’s Radio National, Triple J, and Computerworld magazine, have begun to offer podcasts on their websites as well.

Some companies are also beginning to experiment with corporate podcasts: General Motors, Pepsico and IBM have corporate podcasts on their US websites.

RSS
RSS stands for Really Simply Syndication, and is a standard description format that enables broad distribution of web content including news, articles, web page updates, blogs and podcasts. When content publishers register the RSS document with RSS aggregators/RSS readers, it facilitates the instant distribution of content updates to consumers and other audiences who have signed up to receive it.

RSS readers enable web users to choose the ‘feeds’ they would like to receive and monitor them all in one place (as the content bypasses cluttered inboxes and appears directly in the RSS reader). This enables them to view a large quantity of web site content in a very short time. RSS is experiencing rapid interest particularly from users of iPods and other MP3 players; as well as many journalists who use RSS readers to keep them up to date on breaking news.

RSS aggregators / RSS readers
RSS aggregators (also called RSS readers) are programs that collect ‘feeds’ from various websites (according to preferences set) and deliver them in a simple interface so you can view them. Unlike search engines, where you proactively search for content, once configured, RSS readers automatically deliver the content directly to your PC.

Thread
A thread is a sequence of responses to an initial message posting. This enables you to follow or join an individual discussion in a newsgroup from among the many that may be there. A thread is usually shown graphically as an initial message and successive messages ‘hung off’ the original message.

Web conference
Not to be confused with a video conference, a web conference is a group meeting or live presentation which is conducted over the Internet. Web conferencing software enables all participants to see the same computer screen content (e.g. PowerPoint presentations, Excel, Word, or PDF documents, computer programs, or Internet or Intranet pages) and audio is provided via dial-in phone lines or also over the Internet.

Webcast
A webcast is a live or delayed sound or video broadcast over the Internet. Viewing Webcasts requires having an appropriate video viewing application such as Windows Real Media Player or Macromedia Flash Player streaming video players; these can usually be downloaded from any site offering a webcast.

Wiki
A ‘wiki’ is a type of collaborative software that enables users to collaborate in forming the content of a Web site. With a wiki, any user can edit the site content, including other users' contributions, from their own computer using a regular Web browser. The term comes from the word ‘wikiwiki’, which means ‘fast’ in the Hawaiian language.

B2B and IT: Need for a different approach to marketing, PR and communication

2005-09-08T10:46:00.000-07:00

From PR Influences...

Recent public relations and marketing graduates who have started working for an IT or B2B company may find the reality of their job a little different from what they were taught at university. This is because most university courses deal more with addressing consumer markets than business markets – and there are some significant differences.

Some of these are:

They’re not buying – you’re selling- Most consumer products are bought by people who visit a store or order by phone, fax or email. - Most B2B sales are effected in quite the opposite way with the vendor visiting the customer.
You’re selling to individuals – not a demographic- In consumer marketing the customer is often just a number – just one of many in a demographic. - In B2B, customers are real organisations/people who can be individually identified and profiled.
The decision-making process of your customer is different- With the exception of large items for the family, most consumer sales involve just one decision-maker. - B2B sales can have a myriad of decision makers, especially in IT where you may need to address the IT Manager, the CIO, the CFO and/or the CEO.
You probably have a limited marketing budget- In consumer marketing it’s likely you will have a reasonably sized budget, an advertising agency and the freedom to pursue some major marketing and communication initiatives. - Mostly in B2B you are likely to have a limited marketing budget, with the majority of it already committed to collateral materials and what you might regard as sales support rather than textbook marketing.
The corporate message is more relevant - Mostly in consumer, the emphasis is on marketing the benefits of a brand or product with the corporate name often irrelevant, or even deliberately omitted. - In B2B, corporate and brand/product need to be carefully balanced. For many B2B or IT marketers you are selling the company first and the product or service second
Marketing is often not understood or appreciated- In companies with a consumer focus marketing is normally a recognised function, with a Marketing Director and clearly defined brand and product responsibilities. - With B2B companies, marketing is often perceived as merely an extension of the sales function and it can be difficult to get marketing properly understood and appreciated by senior management.

So what does this mean about how you are going to have to plan and execute your various communication activities? Principally, it means that you should be:

Building relationships as a leverage tool
If your own resources and/or budgets are limited your key strategy should be to leverage what you have by building relationships with those who have the power to reach and influence your target market.

Principally, this covers two key audiences:

Media. B2B and IT customers are heavy readers of magazines and online media.

You need to understand:

which media are most relevant to your key audiences
how you can encourage the media to cover your company and its products

Analysts. Especially in IT the influence of analysts on buyer behaviour can be substantial.

You need to understand:

which analysts are the most relevant to your marketplace
how to introduce a local perspective to what is often an internationally driven agenda

Using information to gain share of voice
In B2B and IT the key to communicating is information and education. If you can’t buy share of voice through advertising (and even if you can it’s often not the best tool to use) your best alternative is to try and achieve significant editorial coverage in the trade and technical media that your existing and potential customers are reading.

Many consumer brands keep in the news by continually launching new products or product variants. Most B2B brands don’t have this luxury. This means that PR needs to be carefully planned so that coverage can still be gained on a regular basis – even though the product may not have altered significantly in the last six to 12 months.

Tactics here include:

Becoming an available spokesperson to comment on industry trends and developments
Writing opinion piece for media
Releasing customer win stories
Writing, and placing, case studies that show your products in action
Preparing white papers

Marketing & PR: Challenges of marketing to women exposed

2005-09-07T10:41:00.000-07:00

From PR Influences...

Women have long been identified as a distinct group for marketers to target. But now research in the US shows the pressures the key women’s buying group – aged 25-54 – faces, emphasising how difficult they can be to reach through traditional marketing activities.

A survey in the US undertaken by public relations agency Ketchum and research firm Synovate shows women 25-54:

trust experts (27 per cent), family and friends (26 per cent) and media reports (23 per cent) most in deciding about purchases,
consider direct mail (3 per cent) and advertising (2 per cent) as the least credible sources of information.

The research paints women 25-54 as having so many things on their mind, and so many tasks to undertake that they have little time for commercial messages.

Underscoring how little time they have in an average day for media, the survey disclosed that:

74% of them spend more time thinking about other’s needs than their own, which is a higher percentage than other groups,
70% are more likely to report feeling pulled in different directions than are men,
62% say they have little time for commercial messages, with nearly two in five acknowledging they have to read or hear something more than once because they’re often distracted or interrupted. That’s much higher than the total public including their male counterparts,
59% “rarely” or “never” read a newspaper from beginning to end, compared to 52% for the total public and 51% for men ages 25 to 54,
58% have “much more” on their minds now than five years ago. That percentage is a startling 18% higher than that of the total public, 20% higher than men ages 25 to 54, and 35% higher than men in general,
56% rarely or never read a magazine from cover to cover, a percentage that, surprisingly, is nearly similar to their male counterparts (57%),
51% “frequently” watch a television program from start to finish, compared to 60% of men and 55% of the total public,
47% frequently listen to the radio for more than 30 minutes straight versus 62% of their male counterparts.

“What the survey makes very clear is that women aged 25 to 54 are ‘multi-minding’ today – they’re constantly physically and mentally juggling those multiple facets of their complex lives,” maintains Kelley Skoloda, Director of Ketchum’s Global Brand Marketing Practice. “The previous term used to describe these women – ‘multitasking’ – is passé because it doesn’t capture the myriad dimensions of their lives.”

Ketchum’s Skoloda says the survey findings hold important implications for marketers:

Though women 25 to 54 respect the media (i.e. news and editorial) as a credible source of information, they don’t have a lot of time to absorb the information. So offering shorter chunks of information for women to digest will likely cut through the clutter,
Since this demographic group trust experts the most for information, tapping into experts will lend credibility to media reports, campaigns and messages,
While women ages 25 to 54 may not realise they’re indeed multi-minding, they have less information on how to deal with all of the thoughts and concerns they juggle,
Because these women spend a significant amount of time thinking of others, marketers likely can tap into women 25 to 54 by showing them how their products and services can help them take even better care of others, and themselves.

As a result of this survey, and other work Ketchum has done with marketing to women, the PR agency has developed a new suite of services and strategies under the banner ‘Women 25to54’. A first-of-its-kind, the four-phase communications program offers to identify create and deliver credible messaging that helps reach and connect these multi-minding female consumers.

Disclosure: Network PR, the publishers of PR Influences, is the Australian affiliate of Ketchum which is ranked among the leading international PR agencies.

Coca-Cola and Ms Mary

2005-09-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

Mary Minnick Ruffles Feathers in All Directions

Mary Minnick, Coca-Cola’s designated change agent, is sending chills down the spines of the genteel Atlanta company’s marketing ranks, challenging long-held convention and sending back to the drawing board agency work designed to revive the brand’s iconic status.

Her no-nonsense, risk-taking approach is already winning over investors. “Feathers need to be ruffled at Coca-Cola,” said Bonnie Herzog, beverage analyst for Citigroup’s Smith Barney. “It has desperately needed shakeup for a very long time.”

'Scary Mary' And shakeup is what the beverage giant is getting -- albeit it’s not always popular with insiders. In fact, Ms. Minnick’s tough-as-nails manner and willingness to unapologetically change gears have inspired nicknames like “Scary Mary” and “Minnick the Cynic.”

Indeed, Ms. Minnick has told Coca-Cola’s ad agencies her loyalties are not with them but “with brand Coke,” said an executive close to the marketer. Her take-charge influence can be seen in reworked creative for Coca-Cola Zero that broke Aug. 29 with stronger brand attributes than the original “Chilltop” ad created by Crispin Porter & Bogusky, Miami. Executives close to Coca-Cola said the new spot wasn’t created by Crispin but assigned to a team from Fitzgerland & Co., Atlanta.

Steve Heyer Described as time-sensitive, results-oriented and opinionated, Ms. Minnick has little patience for pretense or politics, inviting comparisons with Coke’s former president and chief operating officer, Steve Heyer. But while she shares his hard-bitten style, she has an advantage he didn’t: the pedigree of an insider and support of the board. “The culture rejected Steve because he was Steve,” said one executive close to Coke who requested anonymity. Ms. Minnick, on the other hand, a 22-year Coke veteran, knows how to game the system.

“Mary has had a significant impact on the organization in the short amount of time that she’s been in her new job,” said an insider. “She has taken her keen understanding of the business, the company and system, both its strengths and weaknesses, and used this perspective and her very sharp business acumen to drive focus on an agenda for growth. She has not only purposed her team but has engaged and gotten commitment from both the executive committee and the board of directors.”

'Shortage of focus' “We don’t have a shortage of ideas,” the straight-shooting, 45-year-old president of marketing strategy and innovation told analysts after taking the job in May (she had been president of Coca-Cola Asia). “We have a shortage of focus, leading to a bit of an inability to prioritize and make hard choices,” she said. “I’m confident we can do a better job of embracing risk.”

“She’s fast, smart and brave,” said Ian Rowden, former vice president and worldwide director of advertising for Coke and now executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Wendy’s. “She’s done a great job in navigating the system.”

But that doesn’t mean she isn’t rankling the ranks. In a May meeting in Buenos Aires with 100 Coca-Cola executives to review long-awaited advertising work aimed at restoring Coke’s iconic status, she made a one-hour presentation about her expectations for the brand, and made it clear that the ads ordered up by Coke marketing executives Mark Mathieu and Esther Lee wouldn’t be aired, according to an attendee.

“Mary hated all of the iconic work and killed it,” said an executive close to Coca-Cola. “She didn’t like the iconic brief and didn’t think it had enough to do with why you wouldn’t substitute Pepsi for Coke. There’s a pressure [inside Coke] to be the most optimistic brand in the world, but Mary is looking for irreplaceability and finding things nobody else could substitute for.”

(Last month, the marketer confirmed it had “widened” its search for a big advertising idea but denied Ms. Minnick shot down the work at the May confab. Coca-Cola refused to make Ms. Minnick available to comment for this story.)

Bringing in former executives With time lost on failed efforts, tensions have been high between Ms. Minnick and Mr. Mathieu and Ms. Lee, said the executive, though Ms. Minnick views them both as bright and well-meaning. Ms. Minnick has also has brought on former executives that have had marketing success in the past, including Len Fink and Shelly Hochron, formerly of the in-house agency that later became Edge Creative, and Sergio Zyman, the former chief marketing officer who hired her and now heads the MDC Partners’ Zyman Group. Mr. Zyman refused to discuss his current relationship with Coke and Coke representatives have denied any knowledge of his involvement.

But he is willing to comment on Ms. Minnick. “Anytime you’re in a position of power, you’re going to polarize people,” said Mr. Zyman, whose own opinionated manner earned him the nickname “Aya-cola.” “This is not a Carly Fiorina, where she comes out of nowhere. She’s a really well-rounded and very intelligent person. She’s traveled the world and trained herself and has tremendous experience.”

Launching Fruitopia Mr. Zyman relayed a story about when Ms. Minnick presented her strategy for the launch of Fruitopia in the 1990s and a public-relations executive argued that the press would position the move as Coke’s response to Snapple. “But we are,” replied Ms. Minnick, according to Mr. Zyman. “Do you think we’re doing this because we have nothing to do? We’re doing this as a strategic entry.”

Ms. Minnick is a “360-degree executive,” said one observer, noting she has helped transform the fountain unit from operationally driven to sales driven; developed the noncarbonated-soft-drink strategy for the U.S. bottle and can unit; navigated complex bottler systems in Asia Pacific and created a strategy for noncarbonated drinks and coffee as president of the South Pacific division and later as president of Coca-Cola Japan.

Under Ms. Minnick’s watch, Coke’s Asian operation sold more than 3.5 billion unit cases, or 18% of the company’s total volume in 2004. Those sales drew $4.7 billion in revenue, about 21% of the company’s total. There, noncarbonated drinks were a third of the total volume, nearly twice worldwide average.

Her grand plan Her grand plan for the total company, she told analysts, includes kick-starting “quick wins” through products, packages and marketing ideas from around the world and expanding the benefits of existing brands to respond to consumer demands; setting priorities for the innovation pipeline; providing a fact-based business strategy and building a world-class marketing organization; and speeding up marketing success rates, particularly on brand Coke. She also wants to “refine” Coke’s iconic brand effort “further to create a more consistent and meaningful brand-communication strategy globally.”

Said an analyst on the call: “She said the right things.” Ms. Minnick “knows how to [move product quickly] better than anyone in the company and if she can affect that globally, that would be huge in terms of helping to turn the business around and possibly getting to the growth targets they’re talking about,” said Smith Barney’s Ms. Herzog.

Doing so will take some cage-rattling. “She absolutely is tough -- but I’d say she’s had to be to get us all moving in the same direction and toward a set of priorities that will make a difference,” said a second company insider. “She does not accept mediocrity, the lack of commitment or confidence or an unwillingness to take responsibility for one’s part in the mission.”

Not the next CEO Several observers close to the marketer, however, express doubt that Ms. Minnick will be elevated to the executive suite because those very qualities won’t cut it in the CEO post now occupied by Neville Isdell.

“She’s not going to become the next CEO,” said the executive close the company. “She’s considered to be very good at marketing and has good strategic insights, but those are not right set of tools to take the top job or be executive in waiting.”

SPRINT LAUNCHES MERGED COMPANY TODAY

2005-09-02T11:34:00.000-07:00

New Logo, Marketing Message and Emphasis on Sports Entertainment

Sprint, now a stronger No. 3 telecommunications player following its acquisition of Nextel Communications, today relaunches and repositions itself as a sports-entertainment company as well as a telecommunications giant.

Nascar, NFL
In addition to Nextel's Nascar contract, Sprint last month signed a five-year, $600 million deal for exclusive cell phone content with the National Football League. It also earlier this year renewed its exclusive sponsorship of the U.S. Ski & Sports Association.

Sprint also has a contract with the National Hockey League. There are no deals in the works with the National Basketball Association or Major League Baseball, according to a spokesman.

40 million subscribers
The new Sprint, with 40 million subscribers, is also adopting a new marketing stance that boasts it "will challenge the rules, end limitations and stand against restriction." The company's new advertising tagline is: "Yes, you can." The Nextel "Done" tagline has been dropped.

In blending the two companies, the dominant advertising creative is centered on the Nextel look and feel, with bold yellow background and black type. A modified Sprint logo, represented by an abstract graphic of Sprint's long-running "Pin drop" campaign, will appear in print ads, and the campaign's "ping" sound will be heard on broadcast spots. Gone from the ads is the black-trench-coat-wearing government-agent type "Sprint guy,"played actor Brian Baker, who solved callers' problems with poor reception or unfair cell phone offers. Chief Marketing Officer Mark Schweitzer called that campaign part of Sprint's "history" and said it was dropped to ensure consumers would view the merged company in a new light.

New TV spots
TV spots launching the brand include "The Power of Two," celebrating the effect of great pairing throughout history. Another spot shows a man with many choices, such as a sink with faucets labeled hot, tepid, chilly and cold. To underscore Nextel's Nascar sponsorship, one spot focuses on great moments in Nascar history, concluding with the "great moment" of the Sprint Nextel merger. A name change for the Nascar cup is not likely for at least one year.
Although a number of executives estimated the new advertising campaign budget would be as large as $500 million, Mr. Schweitzer declined to give spending specifics but said the $500 million figure was high. Cingular Wireless, when it merged last year with AT&T Wireless, spent about $300 million to relaunch its brand.

Agency reassessment planned
Omnicom Group's TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York, formerly Nextel's agency, is the lead agency on creative for the national brand and consumer efforts, while Publicis Groupe's Publicis & Hal Riney, San Francisco, formerly Sprint's agency, handles business-to-business duties. Mr. Schweitzer said that while all agencies, including Hispanic, direct marketing and media shops, working on the accounts had adequate assignments to keep them busy, he indicated he would reassess agency resources in the first quarter of 2006.

On the retail front, some 1,600 Sprint and Nextel stores will be rebranded by Sept. 2.

Top four carriers
With the completion of the merger, the top four national carriers represent some 85% of total U.S. cell phone subscribers, according to a Standard & Poor's industry survey. The number of subscribers is expected to grow between 6% and 8% to around 190 million to 195 million in 2005, the report said. "With wireless penetration of the U.S. market above 60%, wireless carriers are strengthening their customer retention strategies," the report said.

A Growing Passion for the Latino Market

2005-09-01T11:25:00.000-07:00

From the pages of the NY Times...

A PUERTO RICAN agency is expanding to the mainland by opening a division based in New York that will specialize in producing campaigns for mainstream marketers seeking to reach Hispanic consumers.

The expansion by the agency, Lopito, Ileana & Howie, is to be announced today by the principals in San Juan and New York. The formation of the division - named Azafrán, after the Spanish word for saffron - is among several fresh developments that underscore the intensifying ardor among agencies and advertisers in the booming Latino market. Here are some of the others:

¶ Georgia-Pacific, the paper products giant, has hired its first agency of record for Hispanic advertising, La Agencia de Orcí & Asociados, based in Los Angeles. The company is to announce the decision today, to coincide with the start of its initial Spanish-language campaign in the form of television commercials for the Brawny brand of paper towels.

¶ With its Spanish-language programming, WXTV, the Univision Communications station in New York, drew more prime-time viewers this month in two pivotal demographic categories, ages 18 to 49 and 25 to 54, than any of the stations owned by the Big Three networks - ABC, CBS and NBC - did with English-language shows. (Yes, WXTV had original programming while many of the shows broadcast by WABC, WCBS and WNBC were reruns. Still, a station aimed at Hispanics had never before bested its mainstream competitors in the nation's No. 1 TV market.)

¶Sí TV, a cable network aimed at Latinos who speak English - owned by an alliance that includes EchoStar Communications and Time Warner - has signed sponsorship deals with marketers like Sirius Satellite Radio and the Universal Motown Records Group, part of the Universal Music Group division of Vivendi Universal.

¶The Magazine Publishers of America is planning its first conference devoted to Hispanic magazines, to be held Oct. 14 and 15 as a curtain-raiser for its 2005 annual conference, scheduled to start Oct. 16.

¶The Interstate Bakeries Corporation, the maker of that all-American snack, Twinkies, is introducing a line of cakes called Las Delicias de Hostess, in Dallas, Phoenix and San Diego.
Since 2001, when early data from the 2000 census showed that the Hispanic population in the United States was roughly on a par with the black population as the biggest minority, Madison Avenue has stepped up its efforts aimed at the Latino market. For example, Nielsen Monitor-Plus reported yesterday that the fastest-growing category of advertising spending in the first six months of 2005 was Spanish-language TV, up 15 percent from the period a year earlier.

Even so, revenue for all Spanish-language networks totaled $1.1 billion, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus, part of the Nielsen Media Research unit of VNU, compared with almost $11.8 billion for broadcast networks and almost $11 billion for cable networks. And while Hispanics make up about 14.7 percent of the American population, advertising aimed at them accounts for only an estimated 3.5 percent of total ad spending each year.

"To me, there's two marketing challenges for advertisers: China and the Hispanic market in the U.S.," said Graham Hall, who recently joined the Bravo Group in New York, the Hispanic agency arm of Young & Rubicam Brands, in a senior new post with an offbeat title, chief insights officer.
"A new understanding of the Hispanic market still needs to come about," Mr. Hall said, despite the progress advertisers have made to date. Y.& R. Brands is part of the WPP Group.

For example, despite Georgia-Pacific's status as one of the nation's largest advertisers, only this week is the company making its initial foray into the Hispanic arena.

"We were trying to figure out how to do it right and how to get the resources allocated to do it properly," said Gino Biondi, brand marketing director for Brawny towels at Georgia-Pacific in Atlanta.

A reason for the delay, Mr. Biondi said, was that "we determined it was far more complex than just putting Spanish language on a package or dubbing Spanish onto the soundtrack of a commercial."

That was because of cultural differences among Hispanics, he added, based on whether they trace their ancestries to places like Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico or Puerto Rico. In addition, he said, there are differences between "acculturated Hispanics and nonacculturated Hispanics" - that is, those who adapt to life in the United States and those who do not.

La Agencia de Orcí, which will also create Spanish-language campaigns for a second Georgia-Pacific brand, Angel Soft bathroom tissue, is sharing with its new client its experience working with retailers in Latino neighborhoods as well as the results of studies of the market.

"There are little things we found" in the research, said Tony Stanol, client services director at La Agencia de Orcí, like the Hispanic habit of using paper towels to wrap sandwiches. So a scene showing that is part of the new spot.

And the personality of the Brawny Man brand character is being expressed somewhat differently than it is in mainstream campaigns, Mr. Stanol said, to reflect that Latino consumers want him to be "the guy who helps you do your housework, not necessarily the guy who does it for you." So the commercial ends with a slogan on screen calling the character "the strong guy who helps you with anything," which does not appear in mainstream spots.

An agency based in Puerto Rico like Lopito, Ileana, which opened in 1972, may have a unique vantage point for helping marketers understand the Hispanic landscape. After all, Puerto Ricans are often explaining to residents of the 50 states that they are Americans, too.

"We hope to bridge the gap by offering something that reflects our own experiences," said Jaime Fortuño, vice president and general manager at Lopito, Ileana. He is coming to New York as the managing partner at Azafrán, leading the new division with Alicia de Armas, account director at Lopito, Ileana, who is joining him in New York as account management director at Azafrán.

Azafrán is opening with one client, the Orlando Magic basketball team. Clients of Lopito, Ileana include Anheuser-Busch, Cingular Wireless, Hershey and J. C. Penney, for the Puerto Rican market, as well as, for the United States mainstream market, Puerto Rican tourism and the marketing organization known as Rums of Puerto Rico.

Asked if he was daunted by the considerable challenges ahead, Mr. Fortuño replied with a rhetorical question.

"If you have a surname with a tilde like mine and you live in the first decade of the 21st century, how can you not be involved in this?" he asked.

Correction:
The Advertising column in Business Day yesterday, about increased efforts by advertisers and agencies to reach Hispanic consumers, misidentified the satellite radio company with which Sí TV made a sponsorship deal. It was XM, not Sirius.

NIELSEN REPORTS STARTLING PEOPLE-METER FINDINGS

2005-08-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Nielsen Media Research is reporting that its controversial local-people-meter (LPM) system has found startling changes in TV viewership over the last year among 18- to 34-year-olds.

The company said data from the six local markets with LPMs show dramatic increases in the number of viewers 18-34 in July 2005 vs. July 2004. The increase occurred in all the markets and in most day parts. The meters track viewership of local broadcast and cable stations.

As high as 83%
In Washington, the 18-34 viewership increase was 83%; Philadelphia, 56%; San Francisco, 55%; New York, 24%; Chicago, 21%; and Los Angeles, 10%.

A Nielsen spokesman attributed the changes to the meters' ability to track overall local viewership more accurately.

Media buyers have long complained that Nielsen’s local ratings based on paper diaries the LPMs replaced undercounted 18- to 34-year-old viewers. The new results appear to confirm that.

'More right than wrong'
Kathy Crawford, president of local broadcast for WPP Group's MindShare, said she thinks the numbers represent measurement improvements, not real changes in viewing patterns. “This is more right, more right than wrong, but I can’t tell you if it's absolutely right," she said. "It more right than the metered diaries.”

"Overall, people are viewing more," the Nielsen spokesman said. He said the greatest overall increase was in the early morning (weekdays from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m.), overnight (weekdays from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m.) and Saturday (from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.) with daytime programming showing increases in the number of men in that age group watching TV.

Overall prime-time viewership in the category was up, too, especially in Washington, San Francisco and Philadelphia.

In Philadelphia, the increase was most notable in the 18-to-24 part of the segment, but the LPMs showed more than twice as many people 18-34 watching early morning TV than had been reported a year ago when the paper diary system was in place. In New York, the numbers showed twice as many men 18 to 34 watching TV this July as was reported a year ago, with the number of men tuned in during the afternoon (noon to 4 p.m.) up 73% from a year ago.

National vs. local viewership
There are two separate people meter programs -- one measures national viewership and the other measures local viewership. Nielsen's latest report involves only local viewership.

Broadcast networks, cable networks and syndicators use national prime-time ratings created by a nationwide sample of people meters, which Nielsen introduced in 1987. Currently, the company has about 8,000 people meters deployed across the U.S., though it expects that number to rise to 10,000 by May 2006.

TV stations, rep firms and cable systems use local ratings. Nielsen has about 800 local-people-meter homes in each market where it offers the service. Where it doesn't offer LPMs, ratings are determined by paper diaries and set-meter boxes.

$17.3 billion spot market
Network TV, syndicated TV and cable TV ad spending together totaled $36.3 billion in 2004 and spot TV spending in local markets -- such as those being measured by the LPMs -- totaled $17.3 billion, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

~ ~ ~Abbey Klaassen contributed to this report.

AMERICAN LEGACY FOUNDATION WINS COURT VICTORY

2005-08-25T12:40:00.000-07:00

Judge Rules that 'Truth' Ads Don't Vilify Tobacco Giants

WASHINGTON (AdAge.com) -- The American Legacy Foundation today hailed a Delaware judge's decision as a victory in its legal fight over whether its Truth anti-tobacco ad campaign has "vilified" tobacco companies.

“We have known right along that [the Truth campaign] is true and it works and now we know it’s legal,” said Vermont Attorney General William H. Sorrell, who heads Legacy Foundation's board.

Delaware court
In a ruling yesterday in Delaware Chancery Court, the judge, Vice Chancellor Stephen Lamb, found that tobacco corporations had not been vilified by the Legacy Foundation's anti-smoking advertisements.

Lorillard Tobacco Co. said it would appeal the decision to the Delaware Supreme Court. “We are disappointed with the judge’s ruling,” said Ronald S. Milstein, senior vice president for legal and external affairs.

The legality of the Truth campaign ads had been challenged by Lorillard in the Chancery Court fight that echoed some of the discussions leading to the Foundation's 1998 formation in a settlement of 46 state suits accusing tobacco makers of underplaying risks and marketing tobacco illegally.

Definition of 'vilify'
Tobacco companies agreed to fund the Foundation’s anti-smoking ad campaign, but having seen a Florida campaign comparing them to Hitler, insisted one caveat in the Master Settlement Agreement: The foundation's ads couldn't be used to "vilify” tobacco companies or launch personal attacks. The agreement didn’t clearly define “vilification” and after Lorillard Tobacco Co. complained that some elements of Legacy’s Truth campaign including a radio ad suggesting ingredients in dog urine were used in its products was “vilification” and sought to get states to switch the funds to another group, Legacy went to court to get a declaration its ad were, in fact, legal.

That in turn prompted Lorillard to undertake a broader challenge to the Foundation’s Truth advertising. Agencies Arnold Worldwide of Boston, and Crispin Porter & Bogusky of Miami, handle the Truth ad campaign.

'Liars and greedy executives'
In his ruling yesterday, Vice Chancellor Lamb, said he examined 20 of the Foundation's TV and radio ads and rejected the vilification charges in all. "None of the ads subject the (tobacco companies') employees to the type of contemptuous language contained in other case law discussing vilification,” the judge said. "There are not scurrilous and vitriolic attacks. There is no cruel slander. There is no social ostracism. There is no public ridicule, traduction or calumny. Although the employees may be described, either explicitly or implicitly, as liars, greedy executives, or authors of embarrassing documents, the ads do not vilify them."

The judge did say the Foundation’s related truth.com Web site went too far when it offered online users automated fill-in-the-blanks e-mail forms facilitating the transmission of obscenity-laced messages to individual Lorillard executives. However, the judge also noted that by spending less than $1,000, the company was able to block the e-mails. The e-mail function was subsequently removed from truth.com.

Mr. Sorrell said the decision does make clear that the Foundation must abide by the rules of the Master Settlement Agreement.

Massive payment stop
Tobacco makers are no longer providing the massive payments that originally funded the Foundation's operations, but the Justice Department in suggesting remedies for its own case against tobacco makers has recently suggested new payments to Foundation.

“This decision underscores the reasonableness of what the Department of Justice has requested,” said Mr. Sorrell.

VINTAGE AD TACTIC SHOWS NEW LIFE: PRESENTING SPONSORSHIPS

2005-08-23T09:31:00.000-07:00

Why Target's Takeover of 'The New Yorker' Was a Brilliant Move

The idea of a presenting sponsor taking ownership of a media channel is not new. As a tactic it enjoyed its broadcast heyday between 1930 and 1960, and has popped up periodically across all media ever since. Still, as I flicked through the August 22 issue of the New Yorker it dawned on me that it’s time is now.

Top illustrators
As many will have read, that New Yorker issue had only one advertiser. Retail giant Target, abetted by Hayworth Marketing & Media and Peterson Milla Hooks, bought every ad site in the issue and then populated those spaces with exclusive images fashioned by world-renowned illustrators. The idea was that the works could have been in the magazine on artistic merit alone, but all incorporated the Target bulls-eye in one way or another, collectively giving the retailer ownership of the issue.

On a simple, immediate level, this campaign works because it is sufficiently unusual to have the disruptive, first-mover advantage that is central to many of today’s best campaigns. The smartest marketers have realized that if their advertising makes a unique statement, either in content or placement, it will spark a media and water-cooler conversation whose value will be tens or even hundreds of times the cost of the media buy.

Pack-following newsrooms
You think the folks at Dove hatched Real Beauty because they care about women’s self-esteem? No, they simply wanted to play to the pack-following newsrooms all over the country who they knew would give the campaign more media coverage than they could have bought with a decade’s worth of marketing dollars. And Target was doing the same, scoring pieces in Slate, The New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle among a host of others. (As journalists we insist on church and state, but the best marketers make pawns of us without paying our publishers a dime.) Advertising-for-its-PR-value: Not new, but given today’s extreme media fragmentation, very smart.

Click below to see selected ads.
Ad 1 Ad 2 Ad 3 Ad 4 Ad 5

Even without the media coverage, the Target takeover was a better use of $1 million than a series of buys across different magazines, because it also recognizes the need to engage rather than chalk up meaningless numbers of eyeballs. While many media buyers are still paid to tick the reach and frequency boxes, such metrics look increasingly pathetic in today’s media environment because they tell marketers so little about whether they’re connecting with consumers.

New measurement vernacular
The Media Kitchen CEO Paul Woolmington says: “Magazines are still bought on average issue readership, with an acceptance that maybe half of the advertising is wasted. The truth is it’s probably way more than that. We need to de-construct the measurements and create a new vernacular that focuses on engagement.” That is exactly what Target did, focusing on depth and duration of engagement of the New Yorker reader and measuring its success based on striking up a relationship with this audience.

Even more importantly in today’s consumer-controlled, ad-savvy world, the presenting sponsor arrangement makes the marketer’s presence helpful rather than irritating: a media waiter delivering a choice morsel rather than a fly in the soup. And, in being an integral part of a positive experience, the marketer piggybacks that media outlet’s relationship with consumers to become a brand they regard as ‘one of theirs.’

Fringe benefit
Finally, a fringe benefit to presenting sponsorships: They remind consumers that ads support much of their entertainment. Coke recently bought up all the slots for several weeks on Jack FM in L.A., and ran brief commercials for Coke Zero and Minute Maid Fruit Punch. The creative: A Jack announcer comes on and says: “The people at Minute Maid Fruit Punch paid us lots of cash so you could listen to music not ads.” Not that sophisticated maybe, but wouldn’t you rather hear that than a spot that interrupts your favorite show to share the news that some teenagers want to teach the world to chill? Me, I’ll take the presenting sponsor every time.

American Legacy Unveils Jennings-Inspired Appeal

2005-08-20T09:45:00.000-07:00

From AdWeek...

Peter Jennings' death on Aug. 7 from lung cancer inspired the American Legacy Foundation to create a print ad via Omnicom Group's GSD&M appealing to smokers to get help, the client said.

Lung cancer and its effects have been spotlighted in news reports recently in response to the death of ABC's longtime World News Tonight anchor Jennings and the lung cancer diagnosis of Dana Reeve, widow of the late actor Christopher Reeve. Those high-profile cases inspired Legacy to craft the stark monochrome execution, according to the foundation.

An ad breaking Friday in USA Today features white text against a black background. The copy reads: "You don't need another lecture on the reasons to stop smoking. You need a game plan. That's where we can help. The American Legacy Foundation is a national organization dedicated to preventing and reducing tobacco use. Working with state governments and various public and private partners, we can provide the tools and information to help you beat tobacco addiction." The ad concludes: "To find out more about our programs, visit us at americanlegacy.org."

The effort is tagged, "The question isn't why to quit. It's how."

In addition to USA Today, the ad will run in local newspapers in select markets on Monday.

"In the very current news environment the devastating impact of smoking is being made more apparent to people and I think it's causing some smokers to consider quitting," said Joe Martyak, evp of marketing, communications and public policy at the foundation. "The point of this ad is to speak to those smokers who want to quit. It's a simple message about creating a plan. This is part of the stepped up effort at Legacy to get the right message to smokers who want to quit. We hope to be doing more of this."

Legacy last year spent about $70 million on ads and has spent $20 million through the first half of 2005, per TNS Media Intelligence.GSD&M in Austin, Texas, shares the business with Havas' Arnold in Boston and MDC Partners' Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami.

USA TODAY to Publish Technology Mag

2005-08-19T09:44:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (AP) — USA TODAY, the largest-circulation daily newspaper in the country, is launching a glossy technology magazine covering consumer electronics and trends, the newspaper announced Thursday.

The new 80-page magazine, USA TODAY NOW Personal Technology, will launch Oct. 17 with at least 300,000 copies printed. It will be sold at newsstands across the country with a cover price of $4.95.

The magazine will feature articles on shopping for electronics, how to set them up at home, Q&A articles with experts, polls, and editors' picks on key products.

USA TODAY is the flagship publication of Gannett (GCI), the largest newspaper publisher in the country. The newspaper also publishes USA TODAY Sports Weekly, a magazine for baseball and football fans, and USATODAY.com.

From Reality TV To Reality Ads

2005-08-18T08:06:00.000-07:00

Led by the Dove "beauties" campaign featuring real women rather than perfect models, these ads seem to be striking a chord with consumers

An odd thing happened at Ogilvy and Mather's Chicago office this spring. An emotional father called the ad agency's managing partner, Debora Boyda, thanking her for creating the Dove soap campaign that features decidedly ordinary-looking women in their underwear. Not skinny, beautiful models here. Just randomly selected women who tout their use of Dove soap.

The man's teenage daughter had just recovered from a four-year battle with anorexia and the grateful father wanted to stress how important he thought it was for ads to give the world other ideals of beauty rather than a size-2 blonde with high cheekbones. "That to me was the high point of what the ad achieved," says Boyda, who was part of the team at Ogilvy that created the ad.

In a world where reality TV increasingly trumps drama and sitcoms, where millions of viewers connect viscerally to ordinary folks performing as contestants or actors in their own drama, reality ads seem to be striking new chords. "Just like in reality TV, people relate to it because it's real," says Lindsey Stokes, one of the women in the Dove ads who in real life is a salesperson from Silver Spring, Md.

BEYOND THE SURFACE. Madison Avenue has even coined a phrase to describe the marketing technique -- "masstige" or prestige for the masses. Today, luxury brands increasingly are within reach of anyone who shops for, say, Isaac Mizrahi-designed apparel at Target (TGT ), or Karl Lagerfeld for H&M. The result: Rather than seeing designer clothes on models or fantasy images of the way they wish they looked, Americans increasingly view the products on their real selves.

"We have seen a dramatic change in what beauty means to people," says Beth Kaplan, executive vice-president and general merchandise manager at Bath & Body Works, who described the changes in brand building at a Women in Business Conference late last year in Wharton Business School. "It used to be all about the surface, what your face looked like. And if you asked people, 'Who is beautiful?' they would name models and movie stars. Now they will name their mom, their sister, their best friend. Beauty is all about the whole person." So for Kaplan, luxury means providing a shopping experience that caters to this new definition of beauty.

For years, ad makers often featured actors who looked like ordinary people. Now they really are real people. Posing in their white undergarments with smiles on their faces, the Dove women are everywhere -- splashed across billboards, in magazines, TV, and even sides of buses around the country. The ad has become a lightning rod in marketing circles, around the water cooler, and a debate topic in newspapers and magazines around the country.

"The fact is that it is a woman who looks like she could be my wife, and that has meaning for some," says Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys, a brand consulting firm.

HUGE GROWTH. Others are employing a similar approach. High-end clothing chain Eileen Fisher has featured its own employees in its ads -- from its lawyers to account executives wearing its apparel. The company believes that its ads creates a message that customers can identify with, giving the brand a wider audience. "Consumers identify with real stories," says Alan Siegel, chairman of Siegel & Gale, a brand-consulting firm. Another example: Malia Mills swimwear shows women in various shapes in an ad titled: "Love thy differences."

How successful are these campaigns? Since Dove launched its ads in mid-June, it says traffic on the campaignforrealbeauty.com Web site has grown 200% and calls into consumer call center at Unilever (UN ), which owns Dove soap, have surged, too. At the same time at the $3 billion Dove brand, U.S. sales are logging in double-digit growth, says Ogilvy's Boyda.

American Apparel is expected to hit record sales this year with edgy ads featuring its young employees in various stages of undress (see BW Online, 8/11/05, "The Serious Cachet of 'Secret Brands'"). Not only have the ads become a hot topic of discussion on the Internet but people are buying American Apparel clothing to the tune of $250 million in sales last year.

"FAT OR FAB?" Of course, there is still and probably always will be a very strong market for ads with size-2 models. One look at any monthly issue of a womens' magazine will show that. It has taken Dove's "real beauty" campaign two years to truly catch on. Launched in 2004, it initially featured women with freckles and wrinkles, and asked questions like: "Withered or wonderful?"

In an electronic billboard in Toronto that featured a curvy woman, Dove asked "Fat or Fab?" and prompted people to vote. Fab initially surged ahead. But the billboard was taken down soon after fat pulled into the lead with 51% of the votes. Even now, the latest campaign has also spurred a trend where overweight attractive women are mockingly referred to as Dove beauties.

Even though such reality ads might not change mass perceptions of beauty, expect the trend to continue as they fuel sales and draw connections with people who see the ads.

The latest to join in: marketing giant Nike. In an ad that launched in early August, it has real women telling their stories of different parts of their bodies. One woman says about her rear: "My butt is big, so's my mother's butt, my grandmother's butt, and my grandmother's mother's butt. It's in the genes. So I joined a gym, and my butt got really toned. From what I understand it is secretly worshipped by the girls who hang around the butt machine..." Just do it.

For Everyday Products, Ads Using the Everyday Woman

2005-08-17T16:03:00.000-07:00

From the Pages of the NY Times...

Madison Avenue is increasingly interested in using everyday women in advertising instead of just waifish supermodels.

The change comes after the Dove line of personal-care products sold by Unilever introduced what it called a "campaign for real beauty," which presents women in advertisements as they are rather than as some believe they ought to be.

If the fad becomes a trend and shows legs, so to speak, it has the potential to fundamentally change decades of image-making on Madison Avenue. But that is a big if indeed. There have been many previous instances of ads that showed so-called real women in place of professional models, which receded as the allure of glamour again reared its beautiful head.

This week, Nike is introducing a humorous print and online campaign for exercise gear, frankly glorifying body parts that until now were almost never seen in ads, much less celebrated. One ad, which begins boldly, "My butt is big," features an oversize photograph of the derrière in question.

Another Nike ad declares, "I have thunder thighs," while a third asserts: "My shoulders aren't dainty or proportional to my hips. Some say they are like a man's. I say, leave men out of it."
The Nike ads, by Wieden & Kennedy in Portland, Ore., are arriving days after the Chicken of the Sea brand of tuna introduced a television commercial showing a gorgeous young woman being ogled by the men in her office. She can escape their wolfish ways only in the elevator, which she enters alone, then breathes a sigh of relief - revealing that she really has a more-than-ample stomach, which she had been holding in.

The Nike campaign was in the works, executives say, well before the much-publicized arrival last month of Dove print and outdoor ads showing six women, none of them models, sizes 4 to 12, smiling in their underwear. (The first of the Dove "real beauty" ads, showing older, wrinkled women, started appearing last fall.)

The Chicken of the Sea commercial is adapted from a spot that its parent, Thai Union Frozen Products, began running in Asia in 2001.

Even so, the arrival of all the ads at the same time suggests that change may be in the air. "We've gotten tired of airbrushed pictures none of us can relate to or recognize," said Linda Kaplan Thaler, one of the most prominent women in advertising, whose agency, the Kaplan Thaler Group in New York, was not involved in creating any of the campaigns.

Advertisers are "loosening the reins," said Ms. Kaplan Thaler, who is chief executive and chief creative officer at her agency, which is owned by the Publicis Groupe, in recognition of the reality that "women are the majority of consumers and are buying most of the products."

But those facts have been evident for years. Why the new style of ads now?

One reason, said Nathan Coyle, senior strategist at Brain Reserve in New York, a consulting company, is the advent of reality television.

"Your neighbors, everyday people, are the new celebrities," Mr. Coyle said, which feeds the desire for marketers "to shift from depicting women who are unattainable to women who are attainable."
Kelly Simmons, president of a brand consulting company in Philadelphia named Bubble, offered another reason: the aging of the baby-boom generation - the 76 million Americans born from 1946 to 1964 - who have long set the pace for marketers and advertising agencies. The first baby boomers will start turning 60 on Jan. 1.

"There's no question baby boomers feel better about their bodies," Ms. Simmons said, "and are determined to age beautifully," adding, "It feels there are real voices of women coming through" in the Dove and Nike ads. "I applaud the trend."

Nancy Monsarrat, United States director for advertising at Nike in Beaverton, Ore., said that in addition to the different attitudes about body image among boomer women, "younger women have a different perspective" from that of their counterparts a decade or two ago.

"They're more personally independent about who they can and should be," Ms. Monsarrat said, which is also reflected in the campaign's approach.

"One of the things we've noticed is if you go to an exercise class, if you go to a marathon, active women come in a lot of shapes and sizes," she added. "This can be a great celebration of that."
Fitness and health are also the focus of the Chicken of the Sea commercial, said John Signorino, the company's president and chief executive, in San Diego.

He imported the spot to the United States after consumers - including, he said, his wife - received overseas versions of it from friends by e-mail.

"It's an effort to show consumers, in an attention-getting way, that tuna, and Chicken of the Sea, fit into a healthy lifestyle," Mr. Signorino said.

For rest of story, go to link....

Screen Test

2005-08-11T10:02:00.000-07:00

From the pages of CMO Magazine...

Product placement can turn a brand into a star—if it has that certain something.

Mark-Hans Richer, marketing director for General Motors' Pontiac division, counts Oprah Winfrey and Donald Trump as members of his team. Tony Wells, Visa USA's vice president of event and sponsorship marketing, got an assist this summer from Nicole Kidman and Michael Caine, stars of the film Bewitched. Margaret Brooks, marketing director for GM's Buick division, probably owes a bonus to Eva Longoria, one of the stars of ABC's Desperate Housewives. Richer, Wells and Brooks are true believers in the marketing merits of product placement—one of the most talked-about strategies of 2005. By integrating a product into a movie, television show, video game or even a Broadway musical, these marketers are angling to snare consumer attention and to do it better than any traditional marketing vehicle could.

The trio is by no means alone in their efforts: 63 percent of 118 senior marketers surveyed by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) say their companies have used some form of branded entertainment—products woven into program content—in the past year. The hope is that these "integrations," as they're often called, will catch more eyeballs than the increasingly ineffective 30-second spot, which is being victimized by TiVo and other ad-skipping technologies.

But while product placement may imbue a car or credit card with a celebrity aura, the practice is rife with risks. It's impossible to tell, for example, whether a show will be a hit or a dud. With films, the release date can shift, wreaking havoc on promotional tie-ins. Measuring a placement's impact is difficult at best, and will remain so until industrywide standards emerge. The pricing model for integrations is inconsistent, often reflecting whatever the highest bidder is willing to pay. Finally, marketers usually don't have ultimate control over the context in which their product appears. Remember Cuba Gooding Jr. shouting "[Expletive] Reebok!" in Jerry Maguire?

Despite those worrying variables, Richer and others believe a calculated gamble on product placement can be part of a prudent strategy in today's changing media landscape. "I don't think TV is going away, or that TiVo will kill commercials, but things are changing," says Richer. "It's much harder to get noticed amidst the noise."

Smartly executed, product placement offers one way to rise above the commercial cacophony. One of Richer's splashiest deals was the giveaway of 276 new Pontiac G6 sedans to The Oprah Winfrey Show's studio audience during the 2004 season premiere. Oprah herself visited a GM plant and test-drove a G6 on the air. The giveaway achieved its goal of raising product and brand awareness: Research afterward showed "95 percent of people in America knew about the promotion," according to Richer. Pontiac has sold about 68,702 G6 sedans since the model hit the market last October, according to Mike Chung, a pricing and market analyst for Edmunds.com. And G6 sales are gaining traction, with 11,874 sold in June.

Understandably, Richer's enthusiasm for placements remains high. "If you're in marketing, and you're basing your whole strategy on certainties, you're missing out on a lot of the opportunities," he says. "Who sits around trying to lock down certainties in this day and age?"

Stardust Memories
Product placement may finally be getting its moment in the spotlight, but it's not new. In 1945, Joan Crawford served up Jack Daniel's whiskey—and won an Oscar for best actress—in Mildred Pierce. In the 1950s, The Dinah Shore Chevy Show featured the star singing "See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet," usually while cruising around in a convertible. And in 1982, Hershey Foods offered up Reese's Pieces—then a slow seller—for inclusion in the movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Sales of the candy soared among kids who hoped to lure their own friendly alien home.

Marketers who pursue product placements are chasing "the magic moment," says Mark Workman, founder of FirstFireworks, an entertainment marketing company. Earlier in his career, Workman arranged product placements for Sony Pictures and Walt Disney. An archetypal magic moment? The integration of Ray-Ban sunglasses into the first film in the Men in Black series, a deal he worked on while at Sony.

"The movie came out in the summer, obviously the big selling time for sunglasses," Workman says. "Will Smith's career couldn't have been hotter. Then you have the dialogue, where he and Tommy Lee Jones put on their Ray-Bans, and Will Smith says, `You know the difference between you and me? I make this look good.'" Ray-Ban sales soared, as did profits at retailer Sunglass Hut, which installed cardboard cutouts of the stars in each of its stores. Talk about magic.

Placements can get consumers to reevaluate an existing product (such as Ray-Bans) or to notice a new one (such as the April episode starring the new Pontiac Solstice on NBC's The Apprentice, which helped generate 7,116 preorders in the 10 days after the show aired). This is the Holy Grail of placement: to have a product woven into the plot rather than simply positioned somewhere on the set. Such seamless melding enhances an advertiser's ability to deliver its message or, hopefully, connect its brand emotionally with consumers.

In a key moment from 2004's National Treasure, Nicholas Cage's character is stealing the Declaration of Independence from the National Archives when a gift shop employee, thinking that he's carrying a souvenir replica, asks him whether he's paid for it. But Cage is out of cash. So he pays with his Visa card.

"That conveyed the key brand attribute," says Wells. "The card is there, and it allows you the freedom to do what's important. It's an enabler."

Initially, Wells says, that scene wasn't as pivotal to the plot, and he says that Visa wasn't comfortable with another part of the script in which law enforcement officials used credit card transactions to track Cage's character. "We were able to rework it," he says. That may be because Visa and Disney, the film's producer, have a global marketing alliance that extends beyond this one film.

Ad Agencies Should Take Their Own Advice

2005-08-10T09:49:00.000-07:00

A Critical Look at an Industry That Doesn't Advertise

The only industry in America that doesn’t believe in advertising is the advertising industry itself. Because they don’t do any.

Well, hardly any. And certainly nothing like the volume of advertising they convince their clients to spend.

Advertising is the communications backbone of America. Virtually every large company spends anywhere from 2% to 16% of its sales on advertising. That is, every large company except Omnicom, WPP, Interpublic and Publicis.

Look at the 100 leading national advertisers as reported in the June 27 issue of Advertising Age. All together, these 100 companies spent $93.3 billion on advertising last year.

Ad money goes to the Big Four
The bulk of this money flowed through the four advertising conglomerates. (Ad Age reports that the Big Four account for 57% of U.S. advertising volume and this percentage is bound to be higher for the large companies on the top 100 list.)

As you might suspect, the percentage of sales spent on advertising by the top 100 companies varies widely depending on product category.

Automotive: 3.1%
Beer, wine & liquor: 8.6%
Computers & software: 2.8%
Cosmetics & personal care: 16%
Drugs: 8.9%
Fast-food restaurants: 5.8%
Food: 5%
Retail: 2.1%
Soft drinks: 7.2%
Telecom: 3.7%

Why don’t advertising agencies advertise? Maybe they can’t afford to. Years ago, when even the largest agencies were relatively small, perhaps that was true. But today we have the giant conglomerates who are as big as many of their clients. Here are 2004 revenues of the Big Four.
Omnicom: $9.7 billion WPP: $8.2 billionInterpublic: $5.9 billionPublicis: $5.2 billion
(That’s revenue, not billings. If the conglomerates reported billings, the traditional way it was done, the numbers would be much higher.)

With revenues of $9.7 billion, Omnicom is No. 230 on Fortune’s list of 500 largest U.S. companies. In terms of sales, Omnicom is larger than Kellogg, H.J. Heinz, Apple Computer, Campbell Soup, Southwest Airlines and many other companies that do spend a lot of money on advertising.

What do they believe in?
If advertising agencies don’t believe in advertising, what do they believe in? What the advertising industry believes in is public relations. They bombard Advertising Age, Adweek, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other publications with press releases about their latest campaigns.

And why the intense interest in winning advertising awards? Awards generate publicity and publicity generates clients.

We looked through five consecutive issues of Advertising Age, and except for a few classified “help wanted” ads, there wasn’t a single advertisement from an advertising agency.
“Do as I say, not as I do” seems to be the motto of the agency establishment. They sell advertising to others, but they don’t buy advertising for themselves.

Other professional service firms
Maybe professional service firms like advertising agencies don’t need to advertise. Maybe their reputations suffice to bring them all the business they need. This might be true, but ad agencies have no trouble recommending big advertising budgets for professional service firms like PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Deloitte & Touche and Ernst & Young.

And some advertising agency convinced Accenture to spend $100 million to launch its new brand.

What about Omnicom, another manufactured name that presumably could benefit from a little advertising. “The quickest way to make a brand famous,” according to a DDB brochure, “is to make its advertising famous.”

That apparently doesn’t apply to Omnicom, DDB’s parent.

Agencies used to advertise
Agencies used to advertise. Some quite heavily. In 1930, Young & Rubicam was a charter advertiser in Fortune magazine and continued to advertise in every issue until the late 1960s. On the business-to-business side, Marsteller was a consistent advertiser its entire life, from its founding in 1951 to its sale to Y&R in 1979.

When we started Ries Cappiello Colwell (later Trout & Ries), we launched the agency with a full-page advertisement in, what else, Advertising Age.

Over the years, we ran quite a few advertisements, including a number of full-page ads in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. For example, we ranted and raved about the dangers of line extensions with a full-page ad in The New York Times headlined “There’s no such thing as a free launch.”

Hey, Omnicom, there’s no such thing as a free launch when it comes to advertising agencies, either.
~ ~ ~
Al Ries is the author or co-author of 11 books on marketing, including his latest, The Origin of Brands. He and his daughter Laura run the Atlanta-based marketing strategy firm Ries & Ries. Their Web site is at www.ries.com.

A Mainstream Brand Tiptoes Toward the Quirky

2005-08-09T14:42:00.000-07:00

From the pages of the NY TIMES:

MIX blue and red and you get purple. But what happens when you mix navy, as in the retailer Old Navy, with strawberry, as in an agency named StrawberryFrog?

That is the question Madison Avenue has been asking since June, when the Old Navy division of Gap announced that it had hired the New York office of StrawberryFrog to create a major part of its big back-to-school marketing campaign. The StrawberryFrog work, aimed at parents and teenagers, is now appearing on television and in magazines.

Old Navy is the first well-known American client for StrawberryFrog, which was founded in Amsterdam six years ago by Scott Goodson, a Canadian. Mr. Goodson, president and creative partner at StrawberryFrog, has been evangelistic in his belief that new types of agencies - more nimble and Web-based, less bureaucratic and hierarchical - are needed to help mainstream marketers reach consumers in new ways.

"I've been talking about it for years," Mr. Goodson said in an interview. "There's definitely an understanding now that there's a changing landscape."

"It's not the soup du jour," he added. "It's a fundamental shift, both in what clients are looking for and how agencies are working."

StrawberryFrog was among the first in a new wave of smaller, mostly independently owned agencies remaking the advertising landscape. They specialize in campaigns that are distinctive creatively, often quirky, and that typically extend beyond traditional media like television commercials. Some of the agencies, like StrawberryFrog, bear distinctive names meant to signal their different approach; others in that vein include Amalgamated, Mother and Taxi. Other new wave agencies carry more traditional names, like Crispin Porter & Bogusky, McGarry Bowen and Shepardson Stern & Kaminsky.

Whatever they are called, the new agencies have a couple of things in common. One is their focus on business as unusual. The other is their growing success, often at the expense of mainline agencies that find themselves sharing clients with the upstarts - or worse yet, losing assignments to them.

Take Old Navy. For more than a year, the retailer had used the Marina del Rey, Calif., office of Deutsch, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, as its lead creative agency. But in June, Old Navy executives said they would switch to a portfolio approach, working with a changing roster of agencies rather than a sole creative agency of record.

"We're looking to have a small group of highly creative agencies that we can pull ideas from," said Susan Wayne, executive vice president for marketing at Old Navy in San Francisco. "It's a better model to have a steady stream of new thinking, new ideas." Other large marketers taking similar tacks include Anheuser-Busch and Coca-Cola.

StrawberryFrog "has been one of the agencies gaining attention for creativity," Ms. Wayne said, which led Old Navy to meet with Mr. Goodson and other executives and decide "to partner with them on a project basis."

StrawberryFrog, which opened its New York office last year, was assigned the tasks of producing "mainline TV ads for moms and teens," Ms. Wayne said, while Deutsch was assigned duties that included creating commercials to run in movie theaters, online ads and CD-ROM's.

Subsequent assignments will also be made on a similar basis, she added. She declined to discuss a report in the trade publication Adweek that Deutsch had been awarded the duties to create a campaign for the holiday shopping season.

The first Old Navy commercial from StrawberryFrog, which began running July 28, departs significantly from the retailer's recent style of focusing spots on popular songs. The commercial is set in a diner whose only customers are mothers with children.

As the commercial unfolds, viewers soon realize it is not a typical diner: The cooks and waitresses are serving up children's back-to-school clothing, not food, which is being delivered on plates and trays as if it were meatloaf or mashed potatoes.

"It's based on the look and feel of a classic American diner, but with an Old Navy spin on it, a wink and a twist," Ms. Wayne said.

Asked how much she and other Old Navy executives liked the StrawberryFrog idea for the commercial, she replied, "We obviously liked it enough to produce it and put it on air for back-to-school." This is an important time of year for Old Navy, which has been struggling in recent months to stimulate flat or declining sales.

A second Old Navy commercial from StrawberryFrog, aimed at teenagers, is scheduled to start running Thursday. Print ads are already appearing, in September issues of magazines like Cosmo Girl, Elle Girl, Teen People and Teen Vogue, in the form of four-page inserts promoting a line of pants called Big Color Cords.

Old Navy is among several familiar brands that StrawberryFrog was recently named to handle, joining a client lineup that includes Asics Tiger, Ikea, Mitsubishi, Pfizer and Sara Lee. Other recent arrivals include Heineken, for a soccer-themed ad assignment in Europe; Diet Coke, also in Europe; and HarrisDirect, the online brokerage owned by the BMO Financial Group.

"We were looking to get together with an agency that had an approach to the marketplace close to ours and was good at generating ideas from a creative standpoint," said Charles N. Piermarini, president and chief executive at HarrisDirect in Jersey City.

"We're a challenger brand in our space and StrawberryFrog is a challenger brand in its space," he added. "In a cluttered space, we wanted to make sure we're working with someone with the ability to help set us apart."

However, the online brokerage space is soon to get less cluttered. HarrisDirect and the E*Trade Financial Group surprised Wall Street yesterday with a deal for E*Trade to acquire HarrisDirect for $700 million. E*Trade has its own agency, BBDO Worldwide in New York, part of the Omnicom Group, and the HarrisDirect brand name is likely to "go under the E*Trade umbrella" at some point after the acquisition is completed, said Pam Erickson, a spokeswoman for E*Trade in Boston.

Asked for a comment yesterday about the deal, Mr. Goodson replied that it was "a big surprise."
"One reason we built StrawberryFrog to be agile is that the world is the way it is," Mr. Goodson said. Although "you can't predict the future," he added, the agency was founded on a "flexible model that can grow and morph and shrink according to market conditions."

Meanwhile, Mr. Goodson said he remained optimistic about the agency's chances in several big reviews. Trade publications have reported that StrawberryFrog is a finalist for worldwide accounts from the Credit Suisse Group and the Heineken brand.

Consumer Guilt Presents Obstacles to Selling "Fun" Products

2005-08-05T05:08:00.000-07:00

Consumers are less likely to buy hedonic goods if they cannot justify a purchase to themselves. In “Justification Effects on Consumer Choice of Hedonic and Utilitarian Goods,” author Erica Mina Okada finds that consumers’ guilt requires them to produce higher justification for buying such products. The author differentiates primarily hedonic goods, which are used for more experiential or fun purposes, from primarily utilitarian goods, which are used more for instrumental or functional purposes. (Hedonism and utilitarianism are not entirely mutually exclusive, the author notes; many products include a mix of the two attributes.)

Okada demonstrates that consumers experience mixed emotions when deciding between hedonic and utilitarian choices. “The prospect of a hedonic purchase may be more appealing, but a utilitarian purchase is easier to justify,” she notes.

When subjects in an experiment were asked to evaluate separately the perceived values for a (utilitarian) grocery store certificate and a (hedonic) dinner certificate of equal dollar amounts, subjects tended to rate the dinner certificate more highly. However, when subjects were offered a side-by-side choice between the certificates, they tended to choose the groceries instead. This implies that side-by-side comparisons can make it more difficult for consumers to justify picking hedonistic goods over utilitarian goods. These findings could have implications for numerous products, the author suggests. For example, she notes that car buyers may be less likely to purchase a sports car that is displayed next to a more utilitarian vehicle.

She also found that people pay a premium dollar for convenience but go the distance for a bargain. When asked to choose between spending time and spending money for goods or services, people find it easier to justify spending more time, because the value of time is less specific than the value of money. “Hedonic purchases are harder to justify, so people prefer to pay in the currency that is easier to justify spending: time,” she says.

Okada’s research suggests that enhancing convenience is a more effective strategy to sell utilitarian goods, while price reductions are more effective for selling hedonic goods.

Adapted from an article in Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 42, No. 1, February 2005.

Strategic Learning Increases Corporate Adaptability

2005-08-04T17:07:00.000-07:00

As the advantages associated with brand and product become less enduring, strategic and systematic learning has become the defining element of competitive differentiation. In “The New Learning Curve,” authors Ken Demma, Julie Phillips Baker, and Niall Budds explore how marketers can use strategic learning to help their companies anticipate and adapt to market opportunities. According to the authors, “Marketing is best positioned to define, set, and execute the ‘learning agendas’ that are now at the heart of competitive success.”

However, marketers often fail to take advantage of their position. “Too often, marketing organizations fail to actively and systematically invest in learning,” they write. “Because they see their role as one of mere implementation, they have stopped making the discoveries, eliciting the insights, and defining the knowledge that can truly influence the strategic direction of the enterprise.”

Marketers should formulate a learning agenda to enhance their strategic role and relevance, the authors state. These agendas clarify and define what actionable knowledge they need to learn, what hypotheses to test, and what types of information to capture, codify, and analyze.

When an agenda has been set, marketing leaders must begin bridging gaps between “creative” and “analytical” marketers. “Marketers must freely traverse the boundaries of their own organization so they may be a credible force for boundary spanning and market engagement overall,” according to the authors.

The authors suggest that the learning agenda should encompass three intersecting and overlapping spheres of learning—the enterprise, the market, and the marketing organization. The market sphere is composed of all the customers and prospects that a company addresses and intends to address. The marketing organization is the sphere that connects to—and builds connections between—the enterprise and the customers it serves (or might serve). Finally, the enterprise is the underappreciated sphere that marketers should reach out to in order to purse a “policy of engagement.”

“Learning can be a unifying concept,” according to the authors. They add that a learning agenda can help create linkages among investments, actions, and scorecards and that it can represent the organization’s hidden and unrealized source of strategic value.

Adapted from an article in Marketing Management, July/August 2005.

News You Can Use Today

2005-08-03T18:38:00.000-07:00

Publishers of Fast Co., Inc. Resign

Two top executives at Inc. and Fast Company have resigned from their posts

Matt Barba, publisher of Fast Company, and Lee Jones, vp, publisher of Inc., both turned down offers from Mansueto Ventures to stay with the company. Mansueto, headed by founder and CEO Joe Mansueto, acquired the titles from G+J USA Publishing last month for $35 million.

“Lee Jones and Matthew Barba were made an offer of employment from Mansueto Ventures, LLC and they chose not to accept it," said CEO John Koten in a statement.

Jones, who resigned yesterday, had served as vp, publisher of Inc. since March 2001, and oversaw both Inc. and Fast Company until G+J USA Publishing hired Barba in February to take the reins. Barba, who resigned today, was an associate publisher at the Atlantic Monthly and worked at American Express Publishing's Travel + Leisure before arriving at Fast Company.

Replacements have not been named for Barba or Jones.

"It is with a sad heart that I share this decision, as I am disappointed that I will not be part of the team that rebuilds Fast Company's future. But for me, given all that has transpired, this is the right course of action," said Barba of his depature.

The two resignations come a week after CEO Mansueto promoted John Koten to CEO of Mansueto Ventures. Koten succeeds John Byrne, who left the magazine to rejoin BusinessWeek as executive editor.

Koten will oversee both business and editorial strategies for Inc. and Fast Company.

B2B PR: A key tool for branding

2005-07-22T11:30:00.000-07:00

Building reputation, not splashing out simply on activities to promote an image, is the key to branding for industrial, B2B and IT companies. For this reason, PR is emerging as the key communication tool available to marketers within these organisations.

This was the message given by ‘PR Influences’ Editor, and Network PR Managing Director, Grant Common at L21’s ‘Industrial Branding Summit’ in Sydney on 1 June.

Recognition of the increasing role of PR in industrial branding was supported by the fact that at the two-day Summit, attended principally by CEO’s and senior marketers, PR was the only marketing communication discipline represented on the agenda.

Some of the key points made by Mr Common regarding the characteristics of industrial/B2B/IT marketing were:

Positioning and brand challenge is more rigorous than for consumer brands where the decision is relatively trivial and the delivery of the product is often the end point of the relationship
Purchase decisions have more implications, the decision-making process is more rigorous and the delivery of the product often begins a long-term relationship
Customers often care more about the company they’re doing business with than about the product itself
Product is often only the entry point. It’s not always who offers the best product, it’s who you feel most comfortable doing business with

The key theme of the address was that building a reputation was more important in marketing in these environments than creating an image. Whereas image could be created through sheer advertising dollars, reputation had to be earned over a period of time. It was built by what organisations did, how, and with whom they forged relationships.

Mr Common said studies indicated that approximately 70 percent of brand equity in industrial/B2B/IT was directly related to tangibles – price, specs/quality and distribution.

However, the other 30 percent was related to intangibles – perceptions of the technologies, industry leadership, and corporate issues such as CEO visibility, corporate governance and how an organisation conducted itself. It was this 30 percent where PR had a significant contribution to make.

“Traditionally the purchase decision was typically made on technical or engineering grounds by an individual, usually at the shop or factory floor level. However, intangible factors have gradually become more important as companies choose suppliers on a wider range of criteria than ever before, with the decision now often elevated to the C level”, said Common.

Mr Common also presented a model he called ‘the product staircase’. The hypothesis behind it is:

The type of marketing communication varies according to the value of the product
The lower the value of product, the more emphasis needs to be placed on image. It means that advertising is the prime tool to reach the large mass consumer audience
The higher the value of products, the more emphasis needs to be placed on reputation as a key driver. With the audience being smaller PR is the main driver

Those attending the Summit were told that the PR tools available to industrial/B2B/IT marketers included:

Media profiling – recognising that familiarity helps build credibility

media engagement
product releases
appointment releases
partner announcements
customer wins

Thought leadership- recognising that customers are attracted to companies they perceive to be leaders:

opinion pieces
speaking opportunities
cause champions
involvement with associations
media/industry roundtables

Technical credibility – recognising that customers want more than sales literature – they want evidence of substance:

customers case studies
technical articles
house publications
white papers
web site materials

Stakeholder relationships – recognising that building relationships with key stakeholders is the key to establishing a reputation:

initiatives and events that are informative and educational
a CEO stakeholder relationship program
partner events
CSR and corporate citizenship activities

Mr Common said PR was not being used as much as it should by industrial/B2B/IT marketers because too many seemed to focus on the short-term nature of projects rather than appreciating the need for continuity in communications. He also said that too many within such companies saw PR as simply press releases – and that there were too many offering so-called PR services who had no strategic vision beyond press releases.

Media Relations: Rate how equipped and proactive you are

2005-07-21T11:20:00.000-07:00

How well are you or your organisation really handling your media relations?

Too many organisations feel they are handling their media well just because they prepare and release media statements when the organisation is doing something they think may be of interest.

However, that’s only a starting point. Good media relations practice is about planning and implementing a series of activities, always with the ultimate aim of ensuring your organisation gets the coverage it deserves.

To assess how well equipped you are, ask yourself these questions:

How up-to-date is your media information database?
Media personnel change jobs and their responsibilities constantly. If you are relying on a printed reference guide the chances are that your list is out of date.

Large organisations that can justify the cost, or pr agencies that work for a range of clients, subscribe to on-line media databases that list hundreds of journalists by title, and the records in these databases are constantly update. If you are serious about media relations then you should be accessing such systems.

What depth of knowledge do you have regarding your target media?
You should know the preferred media release delivery method (fax/email/etc) for each contact and whether they like pitches via email or phone.

Do you know the specialist interests of journalists who write in your area? For example, not all IT journalists write about enterprise level solutions. Some focus entirely on new technology, whilst others have a preference for customer stories. The same applies to consumer electronics… some specialise in digital photography where others are searching for home entertainment angles.

What records to you maintain on media you deal with?
Dealing with the media is similar to running a Customer Relationship Model – you need to track every contact you have.

If you are serious about your media relationships and are the knowledge gatekeeper for your organisation, then information is vital. You should not only have a database of media, but a system that enables the history of your relationship with every media contact you work with.
How good is your system for distributing media releases?

Distribution is a key function of media relations – as these days journalists are deluged with information. Those who can justify the cost of an on-line data bases, also have the capability to automatically distribute to media by the method of individual preference. It’s also worth noting that some spam filters block emails with lengthy bcc lists of recipient addresses.

Do you actively search for media features and supplements?
Many organisations simply don’t take a proactive approach to looking for media opportunities. They think they are doing their job by preparing releases when there is a deal, new product or a corporate announcement.

If you are seeking to have a profile in the media you, or your PR agency, should be looking for opportunities in features and supplements. Most publishers regularly release information two to three months in advance.

Do you scan the media for general opportunities?
Do you regularly scan all the media about your industry to search for opportunities to leverage?
Do you identify journalists who seem to like to write about particular topics? Do you identify emerging issues, or topics which might give your organisation and opportunity to be included?

Do you really think about what the media is looking for?
Whenever you are preparing material for the media, you should write it with the journalist (not your boss) in mind. Journalists are very busy people, so the more tailored the writing is in terms of style and length for their publication, then the easier it is for them to use.

Think about what the journalist may want. What types of articles does each publication run? There’s little chance of building a relationship with a journalist if you send through something that either misses their mark subject-wise or is in a format that makes it hard for them to turn into a story that fits their style.

How often do you pitch stories to media?
If you are serious about obtaining a good level of visibility in the media you should be regularly identifying opportunities and pitching story angles.

Pitching is an art. Where releases can be used like shotgun pellets, pitching is like using expensive single-shot ammunition. You must be 100% on target, and that means getting everything right, from the details in your media database, to your story ‘hook’ and through to the way in which you craft your pitch.

If you know the journalist well, then a phone call is probably the best way. If you don’t, then you will have to write a pitch email that is as compelling and it is concise. Remember, the pitch is not to get your story in the publication; it’s to get the attention of the particular journalist – to make them want to know more.

What personal contact do you have with media?
How long is it since you took the initiative and picked up the phone and spoke personally to an important media contact – or had a meeting?

To be successful in media relations you need to establish personal relations with media that are important to your organisation. Journalists are busy people and increasingly it is difficult to get time with them. But if you and your organisation are important to the journalist he or she will make the time to meet with you – providing you make the effort (and you have done your homework and what you have to offer has relevance).

Have you created an on-line resource for media?
These days’ media expect to be able to access information about organisations electronically.
If you want to be reported on more regularly, and be seen as a source of information for media, you need to provide an on-line resource – commonly called an on-line newsroom.

This should not only contain copies of all your media releases, but should also provide profile information on the company, key executives and key products. Additionally, any on-line resource for media should contain images that media can download to support any stories they may prepare.

Test how organised and proactive you are in handling the media.
Score yourself on each of the 10 questions above on a scale of 1 to 3 (3 being excellent/well prepared, 2 being OK/average and 1 being poor/ill equipped).

If your total is 24 or above your can regard yourself, or your organisation, as being well equipped and proactive in your media relations.

Between 15 and 23 you are largely going through the motions in your media relations. There are quite a few gaps to address.

If you scored under 15 you really aren’t equipped to handle this area. You have an urgent need to address your media relations preparedness and capability.

Marketing: Communication is key for reaching confused consumers

2005-07-20T11:16:00.000-07:00

Evidence is mounting that marketers need to diversify their spend on communications as consumers grapple with an ever-increasing multitude of product alternatives.

A US research study by Forrester Custom Research in conjunction with Brodeur probed Americans’ attitudes on (among others) more than 80 consumer electronic brands and 35 consumer electronics manufacturers.

The results showed that advertising was only one of a number of sources of information – and a relatively minor one at that - with the internet and the reading of articles in newspapers and magazine heavily favoured by information hungry consumers.

Symptomatic of the pressures facing today’s consumer was the need for the researchers to create a ‘Confusion Index’ to rank how confused consumers felt about nearly 20 activities involved in the every day use of technology.

Some of the findings were:

Confusion:
More than 50 percent of consumers who rate themselves as “extremely confused” said they had delayed the purchase of a new technology product by more than a year since they first considered it.

20 percent of the above group said they delayed their purchase because they were confused by it, and 25 percent said they bought the product even though they were still confused!

Information sources:
Advertising recall for consumer technology products was highest amongst internet portals, beating out other web sites as well as traditional forms of media.

However, local newspapers toped even internet portals as the place where consumers most often read articles about consumer technology.

Consumers who said they plan to buy a DVD recorder in the next twelve months are twice as likely to read articles about technology in home magazines and national newspapers.

Those planning to buy a HDTV are four times as likely to read digital lifestyle magazines and nearly 2.5 times as likely to use manufacturers’ web sites and comparison shopping sites to learn about technology.

Consumers planning to buy a digital camera in 2005 are twice as likely to read women’s magazines.

Another recent study has also emphasised the importance of reaching consumers through editorial and other sources.

The recent release of the 2005 Edelman Trust Barometer, a survey of 1500 opinion leaders across eight countries, revealed:

Around 90 percent of people believe information conveyed by articles or news stories more than advertising.

More than 80 percent of respondents do not believe information unless they see or hear it from multiple sources.

“This”, said Richard Edelman, “is further evidence that you can’t buy trust by speaking at audiences through advertising”.

These and other studies indicate that there is always a role for advertising in making consumers aware of a product. But increasingly consumers are looking for more information in order to make an informed buying decision. This is where PR support is playing a greater role in converting that awareness into a firm product enquiry, which may ultimately lead to a sale.
This is particularly so in consumer electronics – where consumers want hard information about product capabilities before making a final product selection.

Blogging While Browsing, but Not Buying

2005-07-07T09:30:00.000-07:00

EXT on board the blogging bandwagon: e-tailer.

Online merchants are starting to test Web logs, which are akin to online diaries, in hopes of giving their stores more personality and giving customers a reason to return even when they're not in the mood to buy. But for companies like Bluefly.com, eHobbies, Ice.com and others, blogs are so far afield from typical retail functions that they will take time to master.

Take eHobbies. The site, which sells remote-controlled helicopters and other toys for grown-ups, added a blog in May, where it posts photos from trade shows and shots of employees. The captions range from boosterish to boring; many of the links on the blog lead to an eHobbies product page.

"There's a lot of good stuff in doing the blog, and some not-so-good stuff," said Seth Greenberg, chief executive of the company, which is based in La Mirada, Calif.

Mr. Greenberg said the blog allowed eHobbies to project the homespun image that sometimes eluded even small companies like his, which has only 25 employees. "It lets us pull back the curtain and show how we're a company of hobbyists who love participating in the things they're buyers for," he said. "It humanizes us."

In addition to featuring the link to the blog at the top of the eHobbies home page, the company will soon begin promoting the blog in e-mail messages to customers, and hiding coupon codes in the blog to give people incentives to visit, Mr. Greenberg said.

"Hobbyists are a little strange," Mr. Greenberg said. "They'll like things like that."

The blog's visuals will also improve markedly from the current collection, which are pictures taken with Mr. Greenberg's cameraphone. In the coming months, it will feature audio and video clips of hobbyists and their toys.

So far, at least, Mr. Greenberg said he had not encountered any significant disadvantages in blogging, aside from the occasional difficulty of posting pictures to the site. But analysts see pitfalls in these retail narratives.

If sites do not closely track and edit visitor comments, they may expose themselves to backlash from readers who see inappropriate language, or they could lose prospective customers who read scorching reviews, said Kenneth Cassar, an analyst with the Internet consultancy Nielsen//NetRatings. He noted, though, that vigilant editing could prevent such mishaps.
More importantly, Mr. Cassar said, sites must figure out how to keep customers from straying from the store to the blog without ever returning to shop. Because typical blogs feature links to articles elsewhere on the Web, they can represent a one-way ticket away from the site.

Such is the dilemma faced by executives of Ice.com, an online jeweler based in Montreal. Ice.com has created three blogs in the last six months: a celebrity jewelry site (SparkleLikeTheStars.com), a question-and-answer site (JustAskLeslie.com) and a company news site (blog.ice.com).

Shmuel Gniwisch, Ice.com's chief executive, said the company was "having an internal struggle" about whether to put links to its blogs on Ice.com itself. Currently, people reach them through search engines and links from other blogs.

"Our blog people want the links on our site, but our brand people say it'll take people off the site," Mr. Gniwisch said. "We'll probably test it and see what it does."

Within the blogs, of course, Ice.com could merely delete links that lead anywhere but the store. "But then it's not a blog," Mr. Gniwisch said. "This is about community, and giving people enough information to make a better decision."
Mr. Gniwisch said the blogs attracted "thousands of visitors" a week, but the effect on sales was unclear. "Technically, this is a very soft sell," he said. "We're intending to build awareness of our product, so if sales come, great. If not, it's also good."

Executives at Bluefly.com, the discount apparel e-tailer, credit their blog (Flypaper.bluefly.com) with bringing in new customers. Flypaper, which was introduced in April and features postings - sometimes more than one a day - on anything fashion-related, "is bringing some very positive things," said Melissa Payner, the chief executive.

Among other things, Ms. Payner said, Flypaper visitors who click to Bluefly have been more likely to make a purchase than those who visit Bluefly directly.

Ms. Payner said Flypaper reflected the company's firmer resolve to cater to women who cared about what was currently fashionable, instead of selling discounted clothes that might or might not still be in vogue. Ms. Payner, who spearheaded that shift when she took the chief executive's job last year, sought to craft the blog in the image of the company's merchants, whom she characterized as "obsessed with fashion."

And so, in the course of a given day, Flypaper might feature pictures of the singer Lauryn Hill's new hairdo, runway models in the latest Milan show or full-length shots of random, fashionable pedestrians, accompanied by snappy commentary. As with other e-commerce blogs, Flypaper is written by employees in their free time - a task Ms. Payner said her staff welcomed.

Blogging software, meanwhile, is available free, or, for more sophisticated versions, at prices in the range of $15 monthly. Those economics are attractive in an industry that is trying to curb spending.

Among e-commerce companies that have spawned blogs, that of GoDaddy.com, the Internet domain sales and hosting company, is perhaps the most controversial. Written by the chief executive and owner of GoDaddy, Bob Parsons, the blog attracts between 4,000 and 10,000 daily visitors, Mr. Parsons said. A link to it is featured at the top of the GoDaddy.com home page.

In the blog, Mr. Parsons muses on topics ranging from Guantanamo Bay to the company's Super Bowl commercial. In his Guantanamo Bay posting earlier this month, Mr. Parsons defended the government's interrogation techniques - a position he adjusted after many reader complaints.
"People said they'd never do business with me again, and tell their friends, neighbors and pets to do the same," Mr. Parsons said. "It also worked in the opposite direction. But you know what? It defines my company for people, so they can understand why we do things the way we do them."
He added, "I feel good that for a lot of people, when they're doing business with me - it's not just some name with a URL on the Internet."

Getting to the Hipsters

2005-07-06T09:22:00.000-07:00

Marketers sometimes sound like parents. "This next generation -- they are not like us. They're on their iPods (AAPL ) and IM-ing each other all day. Then they're text-messaging each other while they stay out all night. They've tuned us out."

But consider the case of Marisa Brickman. "When I was younger, I was, like, `oh, [expletive] Corporate America. I can't be marketed to,"' says the music-obsessed 27-year-old. "I'd rip the tags off my clothes. I didn't want people to know what brands I was wearing." Today, Brickman is director of event marketing and public relations for Cornerstone Promotion in New York.

Cornerstone is a new-school marketing firm with many tentacles, virtually all touching on music of the moment and its fans. It manages and promotes artists. It digs up music for ads and movies. It publishes a glossy music magazine, The FADER. It works with established brands such as Xbox (MSFT ), Sprite (KO ), Adidas, and Red Stripe on strategies to reach young consumers. And it deploys a loose network of local influentials to do so -- down to cool kids on college campuses -- winning favor by, say, setting up Xboxes at the hip local record store.

Cornerstone and Brickman are very good at "product seeding" among tastemakers within its 18-to-34 target audience. It helps that Brickman knows practically every DJ and underground rock band within a 1,000-mile radius, so Cornerstone's overtures are more palatable "than if some brand was just cutting a check," she says.

IT ALSO HELPS THAT BANDS AND AUDIENCES within a formerly contemptuous subculture now sing along. Fifteen or 20 years ago, Brickman's job couldn't have existed. A once-ubiquitous bumper sticker from a noted underground record label bluntly declared: "Corporate Rock Still Sucks." Back then, bands that cozied up to advertisers "were often ridiculed and hung out to dry," says Gerard Cosloy, co-president of New York-based Matador Records. "It's a different world now."

Product seeding is a way to get marketing messages out as traditional ads lose traction, and nowhere are they losing more traction than among peripatetic twentysomethings who hardly stay put for any traditional media experience at all. So companies plant wares in the hands of influential individuals in hopes that their cool or cultural celebrity will lead others to the goods. Malt liquor Sparks recently underwrote a tour of three bands on the ultrahip Vice label. It provided 10 cases of Sparks for each show, to be drunk by the bands or sold at a discount. One quid pro quo: Band members had to photograph one another swigging the bright orange drink.

At last March's South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Brickman set up the Levi's-FADERS Trading Post, an invite-only tent with free music and free beer for scenesters and swag for a clutch of chosen bands. "We booked all the bands and scheduled [them] to get outfitted in Levi's," says Brickman.These deals can come cheap, but they add up -- Cornerstone co-President Jon Cohen says annual billings are around $20 million. The payoff for clients such as Levi's: hitting a hard-to-find audience in a decidedly captive state. (It's hard to be distracted by other media noise when the Levi's-clad band onstage is blazing away at 120 decibels.)

The Levi's tent -- the third the jeans giant has sponsored -- is a notable inroad into a festival initially conceived as an antidote to the overt commercialism of other music gatherings. But then, the cultural landscape changed. Now, muses an underground rocker who has begun accepting sponsorships, "the only qualm I have is I usually don't like the stuff I get." A parallel is extreme sports, a subculture that also originated with an intensely anticorporate ethos. Now its stars sport nearly as many logos as NASCAR drivers.

Marketers, like parents, might spend sleepless nights worrying about not understanding youth. But they miss the bigger story. Formerly hostile subcultures -- yesteryear's punks and hippies and snowboarders -- now welcome them. Whether they've noticed it or not, marketers have won. Like Brickman, the hipsters are all buying in.

MICHELIN RESPONDS TO PR DISASTER

2005-06-30T08:47:00.000-07:00

Offers $12 Million in Formula One Race Ticket Refunds

In an unprecedented move, Michelin Tire Co. has decided to offer fans who attended the June 19 Formula One U.S. Grand Prix race in Indianapolis a full refund, the company said.

At an average ticket price of $100, the gesture will cost the Paris-based tire company $12 million -- plus another $5 million that Michelin has pledged to buy tickets to the 2006 U.S. Grand Prix.

Public relations disaster
The move follows a public relations disaster for both Formula One and the tire company on the day of the race when Michelin discovered a design flaw in its tires and deemed them unsafe. It asked the sports governing body to allow a change in the rules which prohibit teams from changing tires after qualifying, and also asked the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to install a chicane, or curve, that would slow speeds and make the track safer. Both requests were denied, and Michelin advised its teams not to compete.

Michelin and Bridgestone are the only tires used in Formula One racing.

Fourteen of the 20 drivers boycotted the race, leaving only six cars to compete and more than 100,000 fans in disgust.

"Michelin deeply regrets that the public was deprived of an exciting race and therefore wishes to be the first, among the different groups involved in the Indianapolis race, to make a strong gesture towards the spectators," the company said in a statement.

Chasing Nascar
Formula One, which runs mostly in Europe and Asia, has been desperate to find an audience in the U.S. that will draw the type of TV ratings -- and, in turn, lucrative sponsorships -- that Nascar receives. But the events of June 19 might have endangered those partnerships.

“We’ve already been re-thinking our commitment,” said a marketing chief for one U.S.-based sponsor, who asked not be identified. “Even before [June 19], we talked about taking a long look at a sponsorship where, of the 19 races, only two were in North America [Indianapolis and Montreal] and the popularity of the sport didn’t seem to be growing that much. Now, I would say, yeah, what happened has kind of hastened those discussions.”

Frank Williams, the British owner of the BMW-Williams team, draws more sponsorship money from American companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Anheuser-Busch and Federal Express, among others, than any other Formula One team. His was also one of the teams using Michelin tires that declined to participate in the race.

“I hope our sponsors will forgive us,” he said.

Formula One had a contract to run the U.S. Grand Prix at the famed Indy course through 2006.

Five years of marketing and planning
“We’ve been building this sport for five years, aggressively promoting and marketing it,” said track president Joie Chitwood. “All that might have been thrown away.”

Even Formula One president Bernie Ecclestone admitted as much, saying: “The future for Formula One in the U.S. is not good.”

The competition between Michelin and Bridgestone is as bitter as any of the rivalries between racing sponsors, including the car companies. A Bridgestone spokesman said, “Formula One was knocked sideways by what happened [June 19] and in our opinion now is not the time to be trying to gain ground as a result of the very unfortunate series of events that took place. ... We would rather have won the race with a full field of cars so we’ll be saving any ad campaigns for a victory taken on an even playing field.”