Loyal readers of House of Naked,

Sorry for the lack of posts lately.  We’ve been quite busy, and we’re feeling as overwhelmed as poor Diane Keaton in the 80′s.  And we don’t even have her dress sense to make up for it.

We’ll be back soon, we promise!

Until then, you can follow us on twitter – we’re @NakedNY .  We seem to be able to manage 140 characters.

Love,

Naked NY

Similar to my recent post regarding Unilever’s non-traditional choice of advertising its Axe Deodorant brand in the guitar cases of subway musicians, fast food chicken chain leader KCF is paying two Indiana cities for the rights to display their current promotion for “Fiery Chicken Wings” right on the cities’ fire hydrants. Get it??? Fiery and Fire Hydrant???
I think they called that symbolism.

KFC’s pitch to the cities was one of philanthropy. Your city is in financial straits and we care about your fire safety. Let us repair your fire hydrants and give you some cash and you let us use the clean and pretty hydrants as tiny little billboards around your town.

KFC’s thinking – if consumers are becoming immune to traditional advertising, put advertising in non-traditional places.

On top of the repair and painting fees how much is KFC paying the cities for this right?? — between $5,000 and $7,500. Sounds like chicken feed to me!

So……….. creative, imaginative, brilliant, philanthropic or just more inexpensively attained suburban blight???

Oh yeah, after a month the Colonel will come back and remove his buckets, but the cities get to keep their hydrants!

Truly, every square inch of everything everywhere is for sale, or at least for rent. Corporate identities, logos, tag lines and names are plastered on almost everything possible, from professional sports arenas, to taxis cabs, to cafeteria food trays and beyond. So why not guitar cases of NYC subway musicians????

Luke Ryan has been playing his guitar and singing in the NYC subways for 30 years. In a faded black t-shirt and and tattered leather vest, Ryan cranks out his tunes in a prime location right in Grand Central Station. Like others in his profession, his prime source of revenue has always been the spare bills and change tossed into his open guitar case by appreciative passer-bys and in-between train listeners. That is until recently.

As a joke, Mr Ryan put a sign inside his case reading, “PIMP MY CASE!” Well, the joke turned into reality when someone took him up on his offer. That someone was Unilever, the Holland-based food and homeproducts giant. They asked Ryan to put a simple sign that reads “Axe Instinct” into his open guitar case. Unilever owns Axe, a personal care line that is targeted at young men using unusual marketing tactics. Axe Instinct is a newly launched leather-scented deodorant. For posting the sign, distributing free samples and agreeing to play an Axe jingle, “Look Good in Leather”, a few times a day, Ryan (and 20 other street musicians and college bands around the US) were paid approximately $1,000 for 4 months of service.

Asked if it was authentic to have street performers singing a corporate jingle, a Unilever spokesperson said he thought it was. “The song itself is a song that was created in 2002 and not just for the ad campaign — it was an existing, organic type of music. We thought it fit perfectly.”

Interviewed by the New York Times, Ryan says he had sworn never to sell out. But today’s economy is tough even on subway singers, so when Unilever asked him, he said, “Well, why not?” Besides, he says, commercial branding is plastered all over the subway, so no one seems to notice his subtle Axe ad. In addition, Ryan thinks more deodorant sales would be a social plus. “If there was more of that stuff going on in the subway,” he notes “It’d be a better place.”

While so much of corporate sponsorship and brand-plastering doesn’t do anything positive for anyone, big round of applause for Unilever for creative and understated brand placement, providing cash to performers who can really use it and, most importantly, promoting the use of deodorant by subway riders!

(In the spirit of full disclosure, Unilever is a Naked Client, but I discovered this campaign independently in a New York Times article and it was not our idea. Love to know whose it was though…….)

For the uninitiated, “the U” is the nickname for the University of Miami’s college football program. The team rose to prominence during the 1980s for being incredibly talented, entertaining, and a total departure from the typical milquetoast college athlete. Cocky, brash, and ferocious, they sported gold teeth, and were the cultural precursors to athletes who wore baggy shorts, sported tattoos, and favored entertainment over sportsmanship. In other words, for a kid growing up in the 1980s, they were the coolest team around, and the only team not based in New York who I ever rooted for.

It would be fun, and admittedly indulgent, for me to recap the team’s well-documented notoriety. But more pertinent to the readers of this blog are the steps that the school took to rise from obscurity to prominence in just a few short years. Reading these, it’s easy to see how they can be applied to just about any business looking to grow or reverse a trend.

Step #1: Commit to invest over time
The university understood the obvious fact that they were planning to compete in an expensive business, and wouldn’t be able to succeed quickly, or on the cheap.

Step #2: Find and grant control to a visionary leader
At Naked, we believe in using diverse points of view one finds in a group. However, great decisions are rarely made by large groups. Teams need leaders who have a clear vision and can inspire people. The University of Miami did this by hiring Coach Howard Schellengberger, who for the previous 20 years had worked for a who’s who of great college coaches. And they gave him control to build the program he wanted.

Step #3: State a clear, ambitious plan
Coach Schelleberger declared that the team would win a national championship in five years. Until then, college football had been dominated by the same handful of schools for decades. The idea of an upstart like the University of Miami winning a championship seemed absurd. Well, it seemed absurd to everybody but the coach. Ambition on that scale is not for everybody, but it sure is fun to be part of it when you’re on the inside.

Step #4: Determine an identity
Coach Schellenberger also had vision for the team’s marketing, and he decided to place a lot of emphasis on the letter “U” — even making the letter larger on the team’s helmet. He wanted the team to have a local pride, and the “U” became symbolic of that. Over the next 10 years, the team would would carry themselves with a swagger that intimidated opponents, and made everybody else seem downright meek.

Step #5: Gather influencers
Success in college football is largely achieved by recruiting the best athletes. The University of Miami was lucky to have so many great athletes homegrown in Florida. In order to get their attention, the coach successfully recruited two of the top local high school stars. These two gave the program credibility, and plenty of other great athletes were then willing to follow..

Step #6: Do what others are unwilling to do
Lastly, the coach and his assistants heavily recruited star athletes in the many poor areas of Florida — places that other coaches either did not know, or were scared to go. Since then, this has become standard practice of many other coaches throughout the country. But defying convention, Miami was able to bring in athletes that other teams simply could not access.

And when in doubt, just get Uncle Luke to write you a song. It’s all about the U, it’s all about the U….

Click here to view the embedded video.

As always, this post was originally posted at Jared Gruner Blog.

We’re planning to make some hires soon, so we want to meet the best, the brightest, and the most ambitious creative thinkers out there with no less than 5 years of experience under their belt.  In addition to selecting great music to play on our stereo, other job responsibilities will include:
- Leading strategy and client management for smaller accounts
- Supporting strategy (i.e., heavy lifting) for larger accounts
- Writing brilliant decks that read like stories
- Delivering memorable presentations

Things that go without saying, but we’ll say them anyway:
- We work in tight quarters, so all candidates need to be amazing teammates.
- Our business model is different from the norm, so all candidates need to be eager to pick up a new method of working.
- All backgrounds welcome: Brand Planners, Media Planners, Account Managers, Consultants, Researchers, etc.

If interested, please send a resume, cover letter, and anything else you’re compelled to share to: hiring@ny.nakedcomms.com

We hope to hear from you.
The Naked Family

Hint to the Airline Industry – When you are part of an industry that is in trouble, best not to irritate your existing customers.

It is so much easier and less expensive to keep your current customers happy and not irritated than attracting new ones AND then irritating them as well.

I travel a lot, both for business and for pleasure – and a good deal of that traveling occurs in an airplane. I have absolutely no fear of flying. I believe that I am far more likely to die by my own hands behind the wheel of my own car than I am in an airplane. I generally like air travel, as long as I am not overwhelmed with irritations.

Of course air travel does have its share of potential irritations. Rushing to the airport in traffic, having to deal with heavy baggage, de-shoeing, de-belting and ridding your person of all metals and fluids while waiting on a long slow-moving queue, flight delays, shuffling down cramped aisles to even more cramped seating, fighting for room in overhead storage and dealing with crying children and, far worse, obnoxious fellow fliers are just some of the possible irritants. But, even with these, it still beats multi-day car trips or ocean liners.

So, the airlines, recognizing that they are in trouble have decided in their infinite wisdom, that it is far better to adopt further irritating policies for the sake of a few more dollars, than focusing on positive customer experiences.

Firstly, they have eliminated thousands of employees and greatly reduced the number of flights between destinations. This has caused increased inconvenience to passengers’ schedules and increases to the already unacceptable amount of flight delays.

BUT, these geniuses of transportation have not stopped there. Oh no, they felt compelled to try and take every last penny from those who were still not irritated enough to discontinue flying the formerly friendly skies.

Their solution – let’s irritate them even more.
Most irritating irritant – MORE FEES!!
Less revenue from ticket sales – Try making that up in FEES!!!

Baggage fee
Seat reservation fee
Re-booking fee
Food Fee
Sitting inside the plane fee
Landing at the right airport fee
Awake and sober pilot fee
Planes that have been recently inspected and properly maintained fee

I just read that American, Delta, United and US Air will all be adding a $10 surcharge if we book flights between Thanksgiving and New Years. Why? No reason, just because they want to get $10 more from each of their passengers.

So, for the holiday, can anyone recommend anything really lovely that is driving distance from New York?

THANKS!

Here are some resources to get you started on a planning career:

Stuff to read & people to follow:

Planner Reads
a bunch of shared Google Reader items from various planners and strategy people, all in one place!

twitter list of good strategists/planners to follow

twitter list of ad agencies to follow

twitter list of everyone at Naked

Some tips on ad job hunting / staying productive in a bad economy:

1) follow pitches: when an agency wins a new piece of business, they have to staff up.

2) do pro-bono work with agency people: Planning For Good on Facebook

3) focus on your own projects because:
a] they make you a more interesting candidate
b] you never know if they might take off

And you can click here to  download the Career Communications Architecture we put together for the session.

Good luck out there!

Amber & Leila

When we start a project, we ask for all the pertinent information we’d need to understand the brand. These typically come in deck format. Dozens of them. Many have overlapping and contradictory information. That’s because decks are easy to churn out, and each person/agency/consultant has their own POV. Therefore, most decks are of relatively low value.

On very rare occasions, believe it or not, we’ll get a brand book. These are typically weighty tomes with high production values. It’s always nice to see a brand book, because it suggests the client cares enough to pay for document that employees can put to use. Unfortunately, it seems most brand books are useful for a few months, and then start collecting dust on a bookshelf. And because brand books are expensive to print, they are infrequently updated and often become obsolete. Same goes for brand videos.
Which brings us to an obvious question: why aren’t there more brand websites out there? In the 10+ clients that I’ve serviced in the last two years, and before that, at the ad agencies I worked at, I’ve never once seen an internal, password-protected brand website. The benefits to creating one would seem obvious:

* Lower cost than printing books
* Incredibly easy to update
* Accessible from everywhere
* Creates dimension and experience that print and video cannot.

I’m sure some smart people out there are already doing this. But I assure you it’s not widespread. I hope that this post will inspire even a couple folks to change that.

*Disclosure: This thought was actually sparked by an idea that came, not surprisingly, from a smart CD.

As always, cross-posted from my blog.

Finally, in 1997, Grameenphone started operations as a joint venture between Mr. Quadir, the Norwegian Telenor and Grameen Bank, the pioneering micro-finance entity. It achieved profitability in 2000, and by 2005 the company had 250,000 retailers, 22 million subscribers, and 50 million cell phones. More importantly, it brought connectivity to remote villages, as well as a source of income for women operating ‘village pay phones.’ By 2012 it is expected that close to half the population will have a cell phone, a notable feat in a country that had one of the lowest telephone penetration rates in the world (before cell phones, it was not uncommon to wait 15 years to get a land line).

Bangladesh is not the only example of the rapid expansion of the cell phone. In Africa, mobile penetration was about 30% by the end of 2007 and is estimated to reach beyond 50% by 2010. Countries around the world are experiencing similar growth. Lack of infrastructure – particularly electricity, widespread illiteracy and the fact that these people live on $2,000 or less per year were some of the objections to this kind of venture. Yet, they have all proven baseless, and many companies are now eager to enter the inmense untapped market of those in the ‘Bottom of the Pyramid.’

C.K. Prahalad popularized the term 5 years ago in his book The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, in which he outlined how multinational corporations could operate profitably in these markets, stimulating development through commerce, and without engaging in charity. The cell phone is perhaps the best case study because of its immediate effects. For starters, it is accepted that, on average, a 10 percent increase in cell phone penetration helps increase a country’s GDP by .8 percent. Also, the cell phone has come to replace entire institutions: for example, while here in the U.S. we are just starting to pay or make financial transactions using cell phones, this has been a common practice in developing countries for years, cell phone credits sometimes being more valuable than actual currency.

What’s really interesting is how MNCs have moved to cater to these markets: instead of just transferring their products or services from developed countries, they have worked to understand the complexities of these new customers, building products for them. For example, Nokia has a team of anthropologists and designers that visit low income communities around the world to study consumer behavior, and have  even opened centers called ‘Nokia Open Studios’ in some of these places, where residents describe, sketch, even test cell phones that are tailored to their needs.

Credit: Jan Chipchase/Nokia

Apart from Nokia, there have been more companies actively courting these consumers. In India, BP engineered a smokeless stove called Oorja that runs on biofuels,  looking to replace traditional stoves that run on wood or dung,  which are more expensive to maintain and also pose serious health issues. Also in India, the Tata Group has unveiled the Nano, a $2,500 car that offers millions a chance at secure and efficient transportation for the first time.

But innovation runs both ways. Netbooks, fulfilling a demand for inexpensive yet durable and functional laptops here in the U.S., were born as part of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project seeking to provide affordable and effective computing to children around the world.

The market at the bottom of the pyramid is huge: most of the world’s population, around 4 billion people, lives on $2 or less a day. Yet, even with all of the opportunities for companies, it is challenging to enter these markets without clear guidance and a deep commitment to understand the local consumer and work with local partners. Here at Naked we are happy of our past and current work with major brands on projects around the world, actively engaging these markets. We are also proud of their determination to build lasting relationships with these consumers.

Mr. Prahalad said: “If we stop thinking of the poor as victims or as a burden and start recognizing them as resilient and creative entrepreneurs and value-conscious consumers, a whole new world of opportunity will open up.”

We say: people are your partners, wherever they are.

1) We have a special “secret present” hiding place in the office.  Small presents can be left here, and taken by anyone – but if you take it, you have to replace it with another small present.

2) free movies at Brooklyn bridge park

3) making sure to read and comment on each other’s HON and personal blog posts

4) museum of natural history

5) book exchange shelf – bring books for others to borrow, on the condition that the borrower must write a short note about what they liked/didn’t like about the book.

6) go to concerts together, especially my pre-husband’s.  ( he has one tomorrow – ha)

7) replace the toilet paper roll of it runs out when you are in the bathroom

form some sort of volunteer organization

9) holiday craft fair

10) movie exchange shelf – same thing as book one

11)  staff-picks movie nights.  Once a month, someone picks a movie for everyone to watch.

12) Mario 3 tournament

13) pot luck supper

14) snack of the week – each week, someone gets $25 to make a snack for the entire office.  They have to invent the recipe.

15) apple pie baking session
16) Christmas cookie baking

17) embarrassing moments board.  Each person writes their most embarrassing moment, and these are all tacked to the bulletin board

18) baby pictures? Something with those?  So lame.

19) scrabble tournament

20) trivial pursuit night

21) photo contest

22) creative writing workshop

23) grow an indoor herb garden

24) get one of those upside down tomato growing things from Skymall

25) tech support Tuesdays – people share their tech issues, and we collectively help them solve them

26) Acting!  Each month, a randomly assigned group has to act out a scene from a movie or play

27) fly to LA to be on the price is right

28) get an espresso machine (NOTE – we actually have one, I just was apparently unobservant)

29) fresh flowers upstairs

30) fuck this is hard

31) wine sampling – each month, someone gets to choose a wine, and we sample it with some ritz crackers

32) street masseuse

33) cupcake day – one day a month, someone makes cupcakes in the kitchen

34) Saturday morning running – run together in prospect park

35) go apple picking

36) hayride

37) go to someplace haunted and freak each other out

38) ouija board for the office

39) each month, we make a short film about what we do at Naked – highlighting one element for each film in a humorous way.

40) Shakespeare in the Park

41) musical theater appreciation – watch old musicals ( the movies of them) in the conf room.

42) life issues – advice for whomever wants it.  Different topics led by people who many be experts ( like if you’ve gotten a mortgage, give advice about that)

43) petition together to get alessi to re-open the coffee bar in the morning

44) form a Habitat for Humanity group – once a year, a group goes to build a house or some shit

45) free noogies to anyone who wants one

46) I will play anyone at bloody knuckles, at their request

47) alex leads a session of simon says in French, improving our language skills

48) hire a French teacher and learn French, all of us, so Frenchy can”express herself”

49) replace those god-awful couches downstairs with something less hideous

50) ditto the chairs

51) sewing session – make little chairpads for our chairs

52) go to the statue of liberty and harass tourists

53) go to FAO Schwartz and hang out – whoever finds the best toy, as judged by MT, gets to buy it for the office

54) “stump Neal night” – we all come up with musical trivia questions for Neal, and whomever stumps him gets a day off

55) take a trip to be in the audience for a broadcast of “wait wait don’t tell me” on NPR

56) go blackberry picking

57) go to a 4H show or county fair.  ( THIS WOULD BE AWESOME)

58) morning yoga at work – small morning sessions of yoga led by one of us

59) Carvel cake eating contest.  Contest to see who can eat an entire carvel cake in one sitting.  This would have to be narrowed to a few people before the competition started

60) go to IKEA and get in everyone’s way

61) volunteer as a group at a public garden, and maintain it

62) Who makes the best meatballs?  Each month, someone makes their mom’s recipe for spaghetti and meatballs.  Then we judge them.

63) get a storyteller for a day at Naked NY

64) personal shopping – each month there is a raffle, and whomever wins it gets a personal shopping session with the Naked coworker of their choosing

65) cat petting – I will bring in my cats, and you can all pet them

66) go to dinosaur park in Connecticut

67) each month, we get small canvases and paint, and we all pair up to paint a portrait of our partner

68) ice capades

69) attend the circus

70) form our own circus

71) get an office pet, like a cat or guinea pig.  The money will go toward it’s food and stuff.

72) poetry hour – each week, someone new must share a poem they like with the office.

73) personal philosophies – we compile a book of our personal philosophies, however idiotic they may be, and we try to get it published

74) furniture building – each month, people submit a piece of furniture they’d like built ( like that can be made out of wood), and we will select one each month to build.

75) care packages for our troops in iraq

76) each month, we pay the postage for Satish to send us something weird as all fuck from India

77)  we start a program with other Naked offices, using the money each month to send them something weird as all fuck from NY

78) form our own jug band, using only office supplies as materials with which to make our instruments.

79) go to a taping of the Maury Povich show

80) go to a taping of the Daily Show

81) ice skating

82) each month, we get to print and frame one Flickr photo belonging to someone at Naked.  They can be hung in the office, or elsewhere, I guess.

83) new music at Naked – since we all listen to similar things, we use the money to buy newly released music ( the real CD’s) , and have listening parties

84) we all go to fire island and see what happens

85) each month, we can choose one decorative item for the office.  We can use that voting thing, but the 5 choices will be made by someone with taste

86) air-freshening:  all monies will go toward some sort of scent-improving system for the greenhouse

87) each month, someone can get hypnotized to do whatever it is they have been wanting to do (quit smoking, fear of flying, etc).  we all get to watch.

88) each month, we write a comic and try to get it submitted to the New Yorker

89) {REDACTED}

90) tattoo consulting – anyone who is thinking of getting a tattoo can vet it to the group first, and if the group unanimously agrees they should get it, Naked will pay for it.

91) laser tattoo removal, for those who acted rashly.

92) monthly competition to see who can create the most believable murder scene.  Money is used to buy props and materials.

93) laundry service

94) go to CAMP in Brooklyn.  Naked pays for the smores, we’ll get our own drinks.

95) client enrichment nights – we use the money to take our clients to something fun and exciting, like Barneys or the circus.

96) buy some absinthe off the internet

97) eBay find of the month – whoever can find the creepiest thing on eBay each month gets to buy it.

98) intern lunch fund – the money goes to our interns, for their lunch everyday.

99) marshmallow gun

100) Purchase a group membership to the NY film society, and fight over who gets to keep the 4 issues of Film Forum magazine that you get free.  Scratching and biting is allowed.

A producer convinced Quaker to buy the rights to the book and finance the movie – They re-named the bar “Wonka” to tie in with the movie, and changed the title of the film to WIlly Wonka and the Chocolate Factory so the name of the candy bar would be more visible.

Branded content for the web is on everyone’s mind lately – how can brands create something more interesting than advertising to win the hearts and minds of the public?  I’m usually of the mind that if you know things have been done in the past, they seem more feasible*.  And branded content has been around for ages!  One of the best known examples of brand-created original content, besides Willy Wonka,  created around products or brands is Soap Operas – entire programs created just to make sure housewives were watching TV or listening to the radio when your soap ads came on.

So brands have been creating content that people enjoy for awhile now – it’s just that now they’re figuring out how to do it in an interactive medium, and in a time where there’s a hell of a lot more to do in the afternoon than watch soap operas.

Many companies have realized lately that instead of just spending money to tell consumers something, they should be spending money involving consumers in something enjoyable and entertaining.  A recent study from King Fish Media revealed that almost all of the companies they surveyed were allocating more dollars to the creation of original content, for the purposes of attracting new customers and retaining old ones.

Which is great!  But I think the trap that a lot of brands fall into is that since they’re reallocating money from advertising to original content, they want it to carry all of their brand messages.  Which doesn’t usually add up to entertainment for the audience.   It’s just a different kind of ad.

Fortunately, there’s a difference between brand messaging and brand personality.  And brands can create content that’s true to and reflects their personality, even if it’s completely devoid of brand messaging.   Cadbury is a good example of this – they decided their behavior was all about creating joy, and their web content did just that, without a word about chocolate.

The good thing about reallocating dollars to the creation of original content is that there are a lot of ways to do it – some channels can carry more brand-specific messaging, while some can be tasked with giving people things that let them fall in love (and stay in love) with your brand.

And the best part about a brief focused on getting people to fall in love, versus hammering home brand messaging, is that amazing things emerge.  So here’s to brands continuing to make things as amazing as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, in the interactive space.

*Could have made a Harry Potter reference here, but I resisted.  You’re welcome.

Yes, you thought that it would NEVER happen – right? A category-killing brand – one that has spent untold millions of dollars on its corporate identity, pursued all potential infringers with the protective vengeance of a mother eagle on a new-born nest, grabbed up real estate and splashed it with its logo like an Oklahoma Sooner on meth with a crate of spray paint and has, most importantly, established a world-wide cult following that rivals the most fervent Kool-Aid-drinking, polygamous, snake-handlers out there – has divorced itself from its self-created image in order to, of all things, expand.

The brand I am referring to is (sound the tympani) Starbucks!

Yes, the colossal caffeine conglomerate has just done the completely unexpected and now appears to be entering into direct competition with itself.

Starbucks, experiencing declining sales as more of their patrons seek their daily fixes of java from non-corporate, less cookie-cutter establishments, has launched a new line of stores that are, for all intents and purposes, BRANDLESS.

There are no logos, no signs, no mermaids and no green coloring. The new shops take on localized names and neighborhood-funky styling. Starbucks officials have announced that the purpose behind this to give the stores “a community personality.”

Fascinating growth strategy!

So, can a well-established corporate giant pull-off cool independent hip?

Is this brilliant corporate strategy destined for stellar success or defrauding deception that will lead to embarrassing failure?

Discuss.

STARBUCKS:

NOT STARBUCKS???:

Against this background Booz and Company and Naked Communications embarked on a series of interviews with senior marketing decision makers from across the USA and the rest of the World.

Our survey covered all continents, and a range of marketers with varied responsibilities – ranging from global to local, large to small, blue chip to entrepreneurial in nature.

We explored fears and challenges, hopes and ambitions, barriers and opportunities.

We found that with regard to doing the job of marketing, there have never been so many barriers and obstacles- ironically at a time where the shifting communications landscape has created virtual unlimited opportunity and freedom to strengthen the relationship between brands and consumers.

It was against this backdrop and polarities that we tried to examine some of these tensions. What became apparent was there are a number of key discriminators that seems to polarise the marketer. These discriminators vary by marketing organisation.

By conducting a brief questionnaire we can start to show you where you currently are versus your peer group, where you want to get to, and maybe even start to hint at how we embark on the journey of change in this ever evolving World.

The survey is simple, interactive and quick. You will get immediate feedback and see the shape of the reality or the fiction of advertisers integrated ambitions mapped in real time… all in about 30 or so clicks.

www.mymarketingdna.com

In life (i.e., beyond marketing), I like things that are built to last for the long haul. I appreciate simple materials that age well, that will look better tomorrow than today. I don’t consider this to be just a romantic notion. It’s also a pragmatic one.

No doubt, this has influenced my approach to marketing. In contrast, I typically think most marketers are too restless and too impatient. They get bored with things too quickly, and get frustrated when results don’t appear overnight. That approach results in wasted effort, wasted time, and wasted money.

My mindset typically falls in a school of thought, which Martin Peters calls “focused promise”. Citing a Laura Ries article, Peters writes that this is the “brand school that wants focus, hates line extensions and the one most likely to use the “Volvo = Safety” gambit.”

Peters’s definition is too simplistic for my taste, but he hits on the general theme well enough. However, I recoil at the note on line extensions. To be clear, I think line extension are typically overused and misused. However, I do think they play a useful role for injecting news, and adding incremental revenue. This is precisely where my long-term idealism meets short-term pragmatism. And that wouldn’t seem to be too controversial a point.

However, the other Ries, Al, recently penned an article in Ad Age where he compared line extensions to small steering changes on a large ship. He wrote:

It takes time to turn a ship and it takes time to build a brand. If you want to turn a ship to the left, you turn the wheel to the left … and then you wait and you wait and you wait. Finally the ship turns to the left. Marketing is like steering a ship. If you don’t wait long enough for a marketing effect to run its course, you can draw exactly the wrong conclusion.

As his case study, Al points to Budweiser, who experienced great success with Bud Light for several years after launch, until it began cannibalizing sales of Budweiser. And today, we see sales of both Budweiser and Bud Light slipping fairly quickly. Al appears to see that as evidence of a mistake. Budweiser, he surmises (and 28 years ago, suggested to management), should’ve never created Bud Light. Instead they would’ve been better off building a different brand entirely.

Maybe true, but I’m more forgiving of Budweiser. Their line extension has been a category leader (or close) for three decades. Not too shabby. In retrospect, should Budweiser have passed on billions in revenue to preserve the purity, clarity, and focus of the masterbrand? I think of most of us would venture “no”.

That said, I am more skeptical of Bud Light Lime, Bud Light Golden Wheat, and the several other line extensions that InBev seems to have in store. Should Budweiser continue down the course of being all things to all people, they’ll become of Wal-Mart of Beers – not the King of Beers.

Doritos is an example of a brand who does it right. Their recent line extensions (Collisions, X-13D, and Late Night) all support the masterbrand by being bold, surprising, and just kind of ballsy. It also helps that they’re branded as limited edition, so it doesn’t seem as though Doritos is grasping at straws.

The obvious conclusion here is that line extensions are usually bad, but sometimes good, and often kind of necessary. The hard part is looking at it from a portfolio perspective, not a separate business unit. I’m not even sure anybody reading this blog doesn’t know this already, but if somebody as esteemed as Al Ries can suggest that Budweiser faltered by creating Bud Light, then I figure this notion has a purpose to someone somewhere.

Cross-posted as usual.

My first association was with that creative couple that danced down the aisle at their wedding to that very appropriate song. Very sweet. My brain looked something like this:

My next thought was the memory of who sang that song. And instantly my brain looked more like this:

Is that too harsh of an image to post on this blog? Maybe so, but I would argue it was too harsh of an image for CBS to associate themselves with. How much money do you think they paid Chris Brown to use his song?  What message are they sending to women everywhere by supporting a convicted batterer?

There was talk last week about Nike dropping Serena Williams for the rather victimless crime of saying the f-word to a US Open judge. And yet somehow, beating up your girlfriend does not preclude Chris Brown from getting what is likely a lot of cash from CBS.

I don’t want to say that as marketers we have a responsibility to do good, because we don’t. As marketers our only responsibility is to make money. But we CAN do some good as a positive side effect of our choices. CBS did not make those choices, and as a result, I’ll be avoiding it for a little while. Everything communicates and I don’t like what they’re telling me.

*Disclaimer: NBC is one of our clients. I’m pretty sure that has nothing to do with me writing this article.