kliff's notes

Why travel agents will be no more

2011-09-21T10:08:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I wrote about how my girlfriend had a tough time dealing with Lucky Brand jeans customer service. Fortunately they reached out finally and went above and beyond to rectify the situation. Unfortunately I still hear some shocking stories of customer service from friends, it just can't happen in this day and age. The individual has too much power to hurt your brand.

Recently two close friends of mine were married and wanted to go to Fiji on their honeymoon. They also had their wedding registry with Flight Centre to help pay for their trip. Since this was such a major trip for the two of them, they decided to use an expert to plan and book it. Unfortunately this so called travel expert didn't do his research and relied on outsourcing the accommodations to a Fijian travel firm. This resulted in my friends being placed in a worn down, family hotel on the mainland of Fiji where beaches aren't nearly as good as on the outlying islands. They arrived after traveling from Vancouver ready to relax and were instantly disappointed. They had been overpromised and under-delivered. Images they were sent were those of the hotel's sister property which was much nicer, but was double the price they were told. After two days they determined the hotel just wouldn't do and contacted their "professional" agent to help them switch locations. After he dilly-dallied for a day they went online and booked their own accommodation for the rest of the trip.

They arrived at their new accommodations to find it was cheaper than what their "professional" travel agent had booked them and much more to the specifications they had indicated to him, which he had failed to produce. It was off the mainland, featured pristine beaches, no screaming children, and a very nice private bungalow.

Now, I know there is no way a travel agent will know where to stay in every country in the world, it's impossible to ask that of them. What is possible, is for them to do a little bit of research on locations before recommending something to a new client. If an average joe can go on Trip Advisor and Expedia and read reviews why can't a person who's job it is to book travel for people? Such a simple thing could have avoided the enormous headache that is being created surrounding this entire catastrophe.

Now Flight Centre is holding up a refund for my friends by saying it depends on what the Fijian travel agency THEY outsourced to tell them they will give back. Well, unfortunately it's not my friends problem that YOU outsourced to Fiji. The only mistake my friends made was booking using a Flight Centre travel agent. Now that you have failed on booking travel AND customer service I'm sure they won't make that mistake again.

Oh and now they've told all their friends too, so..... you've got that going for you Flight Centre.

Awful Execution

2011-09-12T13:45:00.000-07:00

Is there anything worse than a mass communication piece from a company you have a relationship with that forgets your name? As a marketer and someone with half a brain I realize that they don't send out individual emails, but I also understand that my cell phone company should have a system that allows them to put my first name into the email instead of....

They executed the "Dear" part well but that is about as good as they did on this piece in which they were asking their customers for help in making the company better. I have one suggestion for them, but I'm not sure if this email was meant for me because there isn't any name on it so I guess i'll have to save my thoughts.

When you are sending out a mass email or mass communication check your database, check your system, and for goodness sakes do a test run to make sure everything will go smooth. You are sending this out to YOUR clients, I wouldn't want to embarrass myself like this.

Don't let them leave empty handed

2011-07-26T14:46:00.000-07:00

Recently I was in the wedding party for a friends wedding. We had arranged to get suits using a new company named Indochino that has you size yourself, enter the numbers on their website and three weeks later you get a custom suit delivered to your door. Now there were some problems with the initial suits as one could have predicted but the company has addressed this by offering a free remake if a tailor you take it to recommends they remake it. They also offer and alteration credit if only minor tweaks are required. So after getting sized up properly and receiving my new suit I needed to return the original suit to the company.

Indochino happens to have their head office in Vancouver so I decided to just walk down and drop it off. I was greeted at the door by one of their employees who then decided he could not let me leave the office empty handed. He proceeded to give me one of their newly designed "Suit Utility Kits" which included a black tie, cuff links, tie clip, and handkerchief.

I was a little frustrated with the suit process initially but when they gave me this small gift I turned into an advocate. I am now happy with a great looking suit and perfect accessories to go with it. It can be pretty easy to diffuse a customers anger with something this small. Isn't it better to invest the small amount of money instead of losing a potential repeat customer? Well done Indochino.

Keep your customers in a vault

2011-07-17T14:19:00.000-07:00

Banks spend an impressive amount of money on television advertising in an attempt to lure people away from their competitors. But is that the best way for them to spend it? Shouldn't they spend more money on holding onto their current customers. The majority of my bank accounts and various investments accounts are with a specific bank, why aren't they working harder to maintain my relationship with them? Instead I see other banks offering me pretty good incentives to move to them. All I receive from my bank are statements and untargetted offers to use their rewards shop.

The other banks are offering me the simplest things to win me over, such as no fees for pulling cash out of ATMs that aren't theirs. I do that a couple of times a month probably amounting to costs of $3-5. My bank could offer me the same thing and keep a heavily invested client happy.

For a cost of $3-5 a month, that sounds like a no-brainer. How can a business full of financial minds say no to retaining a client for $60 a year? They will easily make that back off fees within the first month.

For an industry that is entrusted with peoples life savings you'd think they would have a higher emphasis on client retention, but they seem to be more interested in client acquisition. Its the standard marketing rule - generating a new customer is "x" times more expensive that retaining one you've already sold.

What are your competitors offering your clients that you could easily offer them yourselves to ensure they stay with you? That's what you should be asking yourself.

Let your customers do the work for you

2011-05-31T11:29:00.000-07:00

While I am not the biggest fan of Ticketmaster due to their monopoly over ticket sales and thus some ridiculous "service fees" that are attached to most tickets, they do do a lot of things right.

One of their best marketing ideas is allowing customers to create a bank of bands/acts that are "Favourites". When one of your Favourites is having a show in your hometown Ticketmaster will kick out an email telling you as much. How genius is that? The customer feels special because they know right when a concert in their hometown is announced and Ticketmaster has to do less marketing of the show. These people will want to be the one to announce to their friends that they know a show is coming so you've got instant word of mouth, and all Ticketmaster had to do was put the tool in place so their best customers could do the selling for them.

Sometimes it pays to let your customers do a little of the work for you. All you have to do is provide them with the tools, just like how you outfit your sales team with collateral.

Blocking talent

2011-05-10T10:21:00.000-07:00

As a recent entrant into the job market I have noticed an alarming trend - companies blocking talent from working for them. And I am writing this entry from the perspective of a slightly bitter job hunter, but also from a practical approach to running a company.

The main way companies shield themselves from talented individuals is with the "Industry Experience" requirement.

Now, in all fairness, there is some value in this argument. Often specific industries have intricacies and best practices that are handy to know. So having someone with this knowledge is of great advantage.

However, you are also limiting your potential hire to a very niche market. Imagine the possible intelligent, talented candidates that you are blocking by having this as one of your top criteria in your job search. Best practices and industry knowledge are something that can be picked up by an intelligent person. Intelligence and skills are tougher to teach. I'm just saying.

No excuse for poor customer service

2011-04-21T08:08:00.000-07:00

Over the past month two issues have arisen from purchases my girlfriend made. They have been handled in two completely different ways, and should leave one brand completely embarassed of itself.

When we were in New York she bought a pair of Lucky Brand Jeans from their store. She had been looking for a specific pair for a while and fell in love with a pair she found at the Lucky store. This is not her or my first purchase of Lucky product, we purchase a large number of clothes from their stores. She had been trying on two different sizes in the store and when she made the purchase the girl helping her mistakenly put the wrong size in her bag. An honest mistake, but one the company clearly should have a process in place to rectify considering we live in Canada. An email was sent three weeks ago to their online customer service explaining the situation.....and we have not received even an automated reply from the company. Brutal. Disappointing. Unacceptable. We spend hundreds of dollars on every purchase we make from the company and they cannot even respond to a simple email.

In stark contrast to that my lovely lady also purchased a box of General Mills granola bars and upon opening one of them up found a bug inside. Not exactly tasty. She sent a note to the company and within 24 hours had an apology and word that they would send some coupons to her since her product was not up to snuff. She received those coupons within a week and it was essentially twelve dollars worth of free product, double or triple the value of the granola bars she had initially bought.

To this day she still hasn't heard from Lucky Brand.

In a world with the internet you should easily have the facilities in your company to deal with customer issues with your product. People that purchase your brand are already sold on your company and it is far easier to please them and keep them purchasing your products as opposed to finding new customers who know nothing about your brand. So why would you mess around with something as easy as responding to an email???? It boggles the mind. Lucky has stores all across North America and yet they don't have the capability to respond to an email. To me that reeks of a company I no longer want to deal with. Sorry Lucky, you've lost two customers and we will be telling friends of your deficiencies.

Nice clothes are only part of running a business.

Your friendly neighbourhood internet store

2011-03-18T12:19:00.000-07:00

The internet makes the whole world a marketplace for your customers if you so choose. But it also allows companies to automate and essentially become lazy on their customer service.

Someone buys something and gets an automated email response with the order summary, shipping info and receipt - it's pretty standard practice for e-commerce.

But what happens when you change things up.

I recently ordered my girlfriend a bouquet of flowers because i'm just such an awesome boyfriend and I was looking online at the various flower shops in Vancouver that delivered. I finally settled on a florist and ordered the bouquet and of course received an automated email confirming all the details.

Then, to my surprise, later that day I received an email from the florist letting me know that he "would be delivering a beautiful bouquet to ------ on March 16th for me. Thanks, Joel"

That simple email that took him 10 seconds to send just earned him a repeat customer. The next time I look to suck up to my girlfriend I will definitely be going to the same place.

It's that easy to turn your standard online store into one that makes your customers feel more important than a standard automated reply.

Does your marketing smell a little funky?

2011-03-02T10:30:00.000-08:00

It might not be a bad thing to have an odor as part of your marketing efforts. Every Tuesday while I am driving home from work my nostrils all of a sudden perk up as I pass a certain point in my route, a KFC restaurant. They've got my attention for those few seconds I smell that delicious KFC odor wafting out from their building. I can only imagine how many people get sucked into ordering a quick bucket of chicken for dinner on their way home instead of making something at home. It's great marketing on their part. Attacking people's noses with a delicious smell at a time when they will be craving food.

So why don't more businesses utilize this type of approach to getting people's attention? Sure there are some odor pollution rules in most major cities but if you are a business that relies on people stopping and entering your location to purchase your product wouldn't smell be a great way to grab their attention.

Retail locations that market smelly products use it in malls all the time - The Body Shop, Lush, etc. But what about the other stores. Just because your company doesn't traditional deal with a smelly product doesn't mean you can't use the sense of smell to draw in prospective customers. If you are a surf shop in Vancouver, why not have a beach odor pouring out of your store? What about a shoe store, get the smell of fresh leather or that new shoe smell trapped and have it wafting from your location. You should be able to grab lots of people's attention as they go buy.

Cook something different up for your marketing plans. It'll be so g-double-o-d good.

Viagra-ing your brand

2011-02-03T13:25:00.000-08:00

Newfoundland and Labrador don't claim to offer visitors a big city experience, in fact they market themselves as the exact opposite of that - quiet, small, and friendly. Have a look at some of their most recent television ads. The scenery is breathtaking, the music is calming and it makes you want to hop on the next flight to take it all in for yourself.

But they save the best for last, and enhance their brand image at the same time, by offering a personalized telephone number on the last screen. Sure it's a 1-800 number, but you have an actual person's name to speak too. How small town is that? How personal and special do you feel calling a specific person as opposed to a main phone line? Simply brilliant marketing, and no doubt leaves a smile on peoples faces - exactly the way they want people to react.

Socially outsourcing your marketing

2011-01-17T11:30:00.000-08:00

As more and more companies start to latch on to social media and look at ways to leverage it, there seems to be one tactic that is used again and again to engage customers - Getting the masses to do your marketing work for you. Offering some sort of incentive (monetary or prize typically) in return for them creating your next brand name, commercial, slogan, etc. Companies are straying from the often expensive creative agency in favour of asking their customers, fans, friends to provide them with ideas, concepts, mock ups, and anything else.

Is it really "engaging your customers" or are you more taking advantage of them by using their creative work for cheap (Some of the prizes can be as small as iPods and iPads)? Individuals won't typically know what this intellectual property can actually be worth and they will have no knowledge of copyrights or trademarks like marketing people that work in the business.

Some of the ideas generated through this social outsourcing could result in the next "google" brand name or the next mac vs. apple commercials that are wildly successful for a company, yet the individual who has poured their time and hours into the project usually is modestly compensated.

Then there is the flipside that sometimes it may not be worth a company's time. If you receive a large number of responses to your social outsourcing you want to go through them all in search of gold. I'm sure more often than not you will be looking at pyrite because these individuals don't have the experience and knowledge of a creative agency. Creativity isn't something that requires an MBA but advertising companies are successful for a reason.

So where do you stand on this idea of social outsourcing? I think the trend will probably fade out but maybe that is just the rantings of someone who's amazing ideas continue to be left in the "pyrite" pile when he submits them.

Marketing that makes you go hmmm

2010-11-04T13:19:00.000-07:00

How often do you receive, hear, or see an advertisement that just completely confounds and confuses you? Probably more often than the companies who employ these marketers would like. It makes me go hmmm, but not in a good, thoughtful way, more like a who the hell would approve this kind of way.

For example this afternoon I received this email from a comedy club that I had once submitted my name to in hopes of winning free tickets to a future show.

This was the whole email and the title of it was "Yuk Yuk's special Announcement"

Sooooooo, I can surmise from the local service provider that this is a new television station but other than that it really tells me absolutely nothing. The email was also just one big image which I have now copied to make fun of them for not knowing how to market, and it did not click me anywhere. Not to a page dedicated to the television channel or anything. I watch a decent amount of television and i've never heard anything about this channel, I haven't read anything online about it or seen anything in a newspaper.

As far as I know, this is the first effort they have put into marketing this channel. Fail.

Confusing your customers

2010-10-19T09:04:00.000-07:00

To write, direct, and produce a 30 second television commercial is expensive, then you get into placing it on television and the costs continue to rise higher and higher.

So why would you waste your companies advertising dollars on something that doesn't explain a competitive advantage of yours, or even really explain what your offering your customers.

Exhibit A: Ramada worldwide

At least there is an offer in the second ad that may help explain what the advertisement is for. What is their message supposed to be though? "Do your thing"
Do you get a lot of scottish kilt wearing business people that like to ride bulls as guests at your hotel? Is that the niche market your targeting with these ads? Because to me you seem to be advertising to just-graduated frat college people that are starting out in the business world and want somewhere they can crash after a party. If that is the message, well then I guess well done. But to me instead of making a couple of crappy 15 second ads, why not create a full 30 second ad that will actually grab peoples attention and tell them why they should stay at your hotel.

Compare that to the Holiday Inn Express commercials, which use the same sort of angle in their ads of not talking about the hotel but rather the person that would stay in it. However, Holiday Inn Express does a lot better job of getting across the message of why or who would stay at their hotels - Smart people. They are telling their audience that their hotel is a no brainer.

The Holiday Inn Express team obviously spends a lot more money on creating their commercials but they are getting a lot more return on their investment than Ramada is in my opinion.

Crying wolf

2010-10-14T10:11:00.000-07:00

How often do you see a car advertisement that doesn't tout "Best Deals of the Year", "Sale on Now" or "Now is the time to buy". In fact, there is even a radio ad playing right now that i've heard multiple times that goes a little something like this:

"Sometimes with all the car ads saying "Now is the time to buy" it can be tough to know when the best time is to buy. But this time we mean it, now is the time to get to your Mazda dealer!"

Really? That's what you came up with?

People are completely numb and dull to these car advertising tactics nowadays - they are old and played out. The car companies have cried wolf one too many times and the consumer is onto their tactics. Maybe these have worked in the past but if a company like GM or Chrysler want to actually start gaining traction in the market place maybe they should take a drastic look at their marketing/promotions ideas and come up with something creative for once instead of the tired, old status quo.

The new age consumer is much more cogniscent of marketing, especially old school tactics that companies have been running out for decades. I can't wait for the follow up commercial that touts "Employee pricing on now".

"But people come to our lots when we say sale"

Well maybe you should start from the bottom up and start creating better cars that people enjoy, don't get frustrated with, and will tell all their friends about. Create a long term sales, marketing and production strategy instead of letting your production/design fully determine the marketing strategy.

Just a thought. But what do I know, i'm only a consumer.

Marble: The official cheese of Kliff's Notes

2010-09-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

Are you going to go out and buy a block of marble cheese now that you know it is the "Official Cheese" of the world-famous Kliff's Notes blog???

No? Well...shit. Good thing the cheese people aren't paying me then I guess.

This blog post is based on me walking into my local Subway and noticing on the door that Subway is now the "Official Sandwich of the BC Lions". I almost turned around and left, more because I dislike the CFL and the BC Lions than the sandwich shop itself. But do sponsorship dollars, like Subway no doubt had to spend to get this lofty title, spent on these type of sponsorships really work? Will I ultimately buy Gillette deodorant because it is the "Deodorant of the NHL"? Nope, not a chance.

Now there are obviously other parts to these sponsorship deals - exclusive mention on team/league websites, programming, etc. - but the whole "Official so and so" seems like such a joke way to explain things. Sponsorship that is more directly related to the sport/league/event makes sense to me, ie. "Blackberry, the official way to act like your working when really your sitting on your ass eating cheetos" or "Depends, the official diaper of long bowling" works fine for me. But the official sandwich of a football team? Nope, I just don't care.

Microsoft using their customers for more than feedback

2010-08-16T15:15:00.001-07:00

Over the past couple of years Microsoft has launched a number of different advertising campaigns and some of them have been incredibly successful, thanks in large part to the use of an adorable little girl

However, none of their advertising ever seems to live up to the stylish, cool Apple advertising. So, most recently they have been using the "We listen to you" sales tactic in their advertisements. Not a bad idea. Let your customers know that you listen to them and value their feedback. Good concept, but as I kept seeing these customer-centric ads I could'nt help but feel like something just wasn't quite right.

Then it hit me.....they are using their customers as scapegoats! "Windows 7 was my idea". So when Windows 7 goes wrong like so many of its predecessors (Vista, XP, etc) then Bill can just point right back at the people complaining and blame it on them. It's pure evil genius! No wonder he is much richer than I am.

You know you've done your job as a marketer when..

2010-05-26T11:20:00.000-07:00

When your campaign can make another marketer realize that they need your product then you have officially done your job as a professional marketer.

I realized this after seeing a recent Sensodyne commercial on TV. The commercial was nothing flashy, funny, or attention grabbing, what it did was tell me the benefits of the product and hit the right target market - me. Sometimes marketing can seem complicated, trying to grab peoples attention with a fancy new guerilla campaign featuring monkeys released into the city with a fancy website you designed painted on their backs. But sometimes, it's just as easy to stick to the old mantra of tell your target what you are offering them and what the benefits are to them. Make it look professional and show them you have knowledge in the area.

That's what Sensodyne did, and that's why I use their toothpaste.

This is an older commercial but still follows the same format as the commercial I saw.

Have you thought about dumbing down your marketing and just getting to the point of what you have to offer your target?

Cialis commercials come up limp

2010-05-11T11:19:00.000-07:00

As most people in the marketing world know Cialis, Viagra, and other pills aimed at adding some pop to people's peckers have restrictions on the type of things they can say and do in their advertisements. This has led to some amazingly creative work from Viagra and to a lesser extent Cialis.

But some of the latest Cialis commercials are more puzzling than interesting, funny, or attention-grabbing. First they had one featuring a guy at work sitting on some scaffolding (I can't find the commercial on youtube) and then all of a sudden the scaffolding starts moving and being pulled down roads back to his house where his "lady friend" is watering the garden or something. They are clearly going for a symbolism-type commercial but I am totally missing this one.

Then they came up with this

cialis morning from Me on Vimeo.

Here's my idea for the next Viagra/Cialis/Levitra campaign.

A man is rummaging around in his record/CD collection. He picks up a new disc/record and looks at the back of it. He throws it over his shoulder. More rummaging ensues. Again he picks up a disc, looks at the back, thinks about it for a moment and then tosses it over his shoulder. More rummaging. He finds another disc, and a broad smile crosses his face. He removes the disc and puts it in the player. Cut to his wife reading in another room. Marvin Gaye, Let's Get it on, begins to play loudly and the noise enters the room the wife is in. A broad smile crosses her face. Close with the standard Viagra ending.

BAM! That's how its done Cialis.

Is Blue a little red of Green?

2010-05-06T13:29:00.000-07:00

Something popped into my head the other day as I was bombarded by green-vertising.

How did "Green" become the word/colour/brand for environmental awareness?

It's like there was never a choice. Green was always the answer, it symbolizes nature afterall. Trees are green, grass is green, plants are green.

But if you're blue, aren't you a little bit pissed off that you were never considered? Blue symbolizes the water, the sky, and cleanliness/freshness. All things that are being attacked by the "green"house gases, pollution, and other unfriendly aspects of this earth we inhabit. When looking at an image of earth from outer space there is more blue on the planet than green, yet Green was the ultimate choice. Maybe it's the connotation of "blue" meaning sad that ultimately won the battle for Green, but wouldn't a colour that was sad better show how the earth felt about the lack of caring for it?

To me Green feels like the Paris Hilton of colours - Using any and every opportunity to get it's name used in the tabloids, television or any other kind of media. It will sell out it's good name to any company to try and promote itself.

"Hey Green, Walmart will turn off their store lights at night if you'll let them use your name."

"Done!"

I bet Blue would be a little more cautious about having their name bandied about all willy-nilly like.

Maybe i'm just getting sick and tired of every company talking about how "green" they are though. Especially these companies that have realized they can save money by being "green" and then try to spin it like they are doing it for the environment.

You may be green, but ultimately you haven't gotten the "Blue" stamp of approval yet.

Great casting can make lasting impact

2010-04-26T14:47:00.000-07:00

I don't know that I have ever seen a Banking commercial on TV that has actually made me think about switching banks.....until I saw the Ally commercials in Canada. Absolutely brilliant. They cast the perfect actor to play the role of the "big bank" and the children that they cast to act out the role of the confused consumer are budding stars.

Here is the latest ad from them that has me laughing everytime I see it.

That combined with this ad, which was the first one of theirs I saw make you seriously consider switching to Ally if ever your bank pissed you off.

Brilliant casting leaves a lasting impression in your mind. There are many different ways to make an ad a classic in peoples mind, and casting is clearly one of the best. Just think about the brilliant casting job Apple did for their recent apple v. mac ads, these Ally ads have much the same feel.

Wake up and smell the desperation

2010-03-03T13:57:00.000-08:00

McDonald's has made no bones about trying to take a big chunk of the coffee market away from such companies as Starbuck's and Tim Horton's. They pursue this for a good reason, the coffee market is a massive one worldwide and McDonald's already has the distribution and locations in place.

They have tried a number of different marketing tactics from the McCafe setting to advertising their coffee as being high quality for a lower price. Well they seem to have settled on the "free sampling" idea in the end. It seems like every week I am seeing a McDonald's commercial offering people the ability to try one of their coffees for free. And the period of time keeps getting longer and longer - the latest one I saw just yesterday was offering two weeks of free coffee time.

The tactic is a pretty good one, you get people to try your product because you are confident you're making a quality product. The people try your coffee, love it, and become hooked on McCafe coffee! Unfortunately now it is starting to get desperate in my eyes. What it may break down to is coffee snobs who enjoy a fresh brew to start the day, just don't trust the guy that works the fry-olator to make their morning fix. Understandable. There is a certain message that is communicated based on the type of coffee cup you show up with in the morning. Maybe McDonald's isn't matching up in that area.

But how would McDonald's go about fixing those areas? They already have tried the McCafe setting unsuccessfully, and the overhead of hiring a professional barista to work the morning shifts wouldn't make economic sense. So maybe sampling is all they have left, and is somewhat working for them. God knows they could use the revenue.

Bragging

2010-02-23T09:45:00.000-08:00

With the Olympics in Canada this year many of the nation's businesses, big and small, helped fundraise and donate money to our athlete's with hopes of helping them make it to the podium. This marketing/communication tactic is great because it works for everyone, consumers feel warm and fuzzy about a company that coordinates a fundraiser like that, the athlete gets funding, and the sponsor gets good, positive exposure.

But is there a need to brag about all you've done for these people? It's not the quote-unquote "canadian way", and it certainly takes away some of the good will of what you've done. Take a look at this Shaw website and definately have a play of their advertisement.

Here are my problems with it:

Shaw is asking for donations for the athletes, which people have gratefully done, and then Shaw spins it to sound as if they have given it themselves (maybe they have given a large chunk themselves, but the numbers they advertise on their cheesy "we are the world" type ad match up with those of their ticker on the page)

It's all about them. "their" company and what "they" have done for the athletes. The oldest team sport saying in the world has got to be "There's no 'I' in Team", well clearly Shaw forgot about that

The tone of the tv spot is just way too over-the-top cheesy. I saw it on television the other day and laughed out loud. It doesn't make one feel patriotic, it makes one embarassed to be a Shaw subscriber. Trying to copy the "we are the world" style for a patriotic commercial is just shoddy.

It's great that companies like Shaw support our athletes and help raise donations towards a relevant cause, but don't brag about it. People know you have been helping athletes, thats why they are donating. They know you have been putting in the effort, so don't act like a 10 year old kid that needs recognition. Are you going to throw a tantrum if we don't acknowledge you? You don't see Molson Canadian bragging about all the money they raised.

Great musical commercials

2010-02-12T10:32:00.000-08:00

One of my original posts on this blog was about using music to help create a memorable commercial. Well lots of ads have used this technique since I wrote about it, and its not like my post was anything earth shattering, and some of my recent favourites are these:

Honda Accord 2010 Crosstour commercial

Nissan Titan

Alexander Keith's Beer Birthday commercial

A little different, but a movie trailer (technically still an ad) for Dear John

The musical editing provides the tone and feel for these commercials and draws you into them deeper as a result. They are all really well done and the musical selection is incredible. It still impresses me each time I hear a song in an ad that i've never heard and how powerful it can be to grab the attention of the viewer.

Have you seen any ad's like this lately that utilize a good background song?

Pour some ketchup on me...

2010-02-04T09:46:00.000-08:00

Your supposed to be singing that title to yourself to the Def Leppard classic "Pour Some Sugar On Me" and if you weren't before, i'm sure you are now. Have fun listening to that all day in your head, a gift from me to you.

Anyways onto bigger and better things. The ketchup packet has been remade! 40 years is all it took for a ketchup company to create something that gave their consumers the ability to "dip and eat it on-the-go" according to company Vice-President Dave Ciesinski.

It's actually a pretty cool new concept for the company and should please both the "squeezers" and the "dippers". I'm not sure if it should have taken them 40 years to create a new one, but at least they got there.

Makes you wonder if this new design will last another 40 years because where can you possibly go from here. Although that kind of near-sighted thinking wouldn't have allowed them to come up with such brilliant ideas as blue ketchup, and we all know that was a huge success. Is there a way to keep a brand like Heinz on the cutting edge of the Ketchup market? This new package clearly signals that they want to be there, but are efforts like coloured ketchup just a waste of time and money for the company. It certainly created a buzz in the condiment industry for that time period, but the lasting power of the product was minimal.

I wonder what is next for the high-tech ketchup market......what else can there possibly be. Should be an interesting battle for the marketing team, innovating when there is seemingly nothing to innovate....although I guess that is also part of the joy of innovation.

Lamp post on steroids

2010-02-03T10:14:00.000-08:00

This is what happens when your lamp post stops playing by the rules and starts shoving needles into it's ass.

Although in this case the shot of choice seems to be caffeine. It's a great creative example from the folks at Cossette West in Vancouver. You have to give credit to whoever thought up this idea, because this is definately thinking way outside the traditional box. A quick google image search didn't return any other examples of using lamp posts in such a way, and it also told me that I was way behind on this story as the image had been used in at least a dozen other blogs. Hmm maybe that's why no one reads my blog. Anyways kudos to the creatives that came up with this idea and Kudos to Vancouver for allowing it to be done. I'm sure it was very effective for passersby, but I wonder if it worked as well on people driving by. I live in the area and drive by that corner once a week, for the life of me I can't remember seeing it. Props to Vancity Buzz blog for the post.