Hot on the tails of my last post on Red Bull editions breaking the "memory stucture" of the brand, here's an example of how to stick to what made you famous.
You don't get much more iconic than the little blue tin at the heart of the Nivea brand.
Check out 100 years of packaging below. Interestingly, it only went blue in 1925, 14 years after launch.
And just look at the pack from 1959. The same equties have been used for over 50 years:
- Blue colour
- Nivea name in upper case
- Creme written in same typeface
- Same round tin
- Pure and clean, apart from the little on-pack flash in 1993
A great example of how to reinforce and nurture the brand properties of your core product.
If you get a minute, could you please take 60 seconds to do our 5th annual brandgym survey: "Can Social Media Show you the Money?"
Click below to take the survey:
http://tinyurl.com/bgymSocialMediaSurvey
We are trying to cut through the hype and hysteria around social media, to figure out how it can help "SMS" (sell more stuff), as regular readers will know!
On a trip to Switzerland last week I saw the bizarre bit of branding which is Editions, the new range extension from Red Bull: Silver (lime), Blue (blueberry) and Red (cranberry). The range was also launched in Germany last September.
I'm really not sure this will give the sales of Red Bull wings. Let's have a look why.
Addressing a barrier to trial?
Let's start with the good stuff first. The role of core range extension can be to overcome barrier to trial. And perhaps Editions addresses such a barrier by changing the taste of the product? I'm not a big Red Bull drinker, but I have heard that some people like the energy it offers, but not the taste. As the advertising for Editions states, it offers "New tastes, same energy".
However, even if the new taste benefit is relevant, the problem is whether people will pick it off the shelf...which brings us to the next point.
Breaking memory structure, not building on it
Editions' bizzare branding fails to build on one of the world's strongest identities. The Red Bull visual identity is very powerful and helps you find Red Bull on auto-pilot. It has several key elements, none of which are used in Editions:
RED BULL vs. EDITIONS
1. The 4-quadrant design vs. Block of colour
2. Red, silver, blue vs. Red or silver or blue
3. The two clashing bulls in the middle vs. Bit of one bull
4. Red Bull name in red, centrally positioned vs. Red Bull small, vertical on the side
By breaking all these codes, it looks on shelf like there are three new products called Blue, Silver and Red.
Creating fresh consistency
The challenge with Editions, as with any range extension, is balancing two conflicting objectives:
1. Freshness: to make the new range stand out
2. Consistency: to build on the brand memory structure
In the case of Editions freshness clearly won the day.
A better balance was achieved with the sugar free version. This kept three of the four key elements of the brand identity (quadrants, name and bull), changing only the colours. This means you can distinguish the two versions on shelf, but it still looks like Red Bull.
In conclusion, Red Bull Editions shows the challenge of creating fresh consistency with range extension design. In my view, Editions has gone too far towards freshness, and this will reduce the ease of shopping at the shelf.
It will be interesting to see the decision of UK marketing director, Huib van Bockel. He was quoted in Marketing this week as being in the process of deciding "if and when" to launch Editions.
My view that the importance of online social media is vastly over-blown was backed up today by a WJS article forwared to me by Anne, our Managing Partner in Amsterdam.
The opening paragraph by authors Ed Keller and Brad Fay got me nodding vigorously:
"Online social networks are far from the Holy Grail of marketing.
For brands that want to be social and generate conversation, a far bigger and more powerful force is real world, face-to-face conversation."
Here are a few nuggets from the article.
1. Offline word-of-mouth is bigger and better
Ed and Brad have done research showing that online social media is actually not that important for word-of-mouth. They say "90% of word-of-mouth conversations about brands take place offline, primarily face-to-face, in people’s homes and offices, in restaurants and stores, really anywhere people congregate".
Furthermore, they found the quality of offline word-of-mouth is higher, not only the quantity: "These conversations bring greater credibility, a greater desire to share with others, and a great likelihood to purchase the products being discussed than conversations that take place online."
2. Most online conversations don't go viral
Sellers of social media rave about how social media is “word of mouth on steroids", with conversations spreading like wildfire to hundreds or even thousands of people. However, Ed and Brand point out that "Most links that are shared reach only 5-10 people".
They also quote the same data I posted on here showing that 99% of Facebook likers of a brand page have no involvement with it at all.
3. Paid-for advertising sparks conversation
The article suggests that "The biggest and most productive channel to spark conversation is not online social media, but paid advertising." They go on to say say that 25% of brand conversations include a specific reference to ad advert.
And guess which type of advertising is the single biggest driver of conversation. Yup. Good old TV advertising. The authors say: "Far from being a dinosaur, television and other traditional media play a key role in today’s social marketplace." Indeed, most of the recent examples of viral online success were driven by TV advertising: Old Spice, Yeo Valley and John Lewis to name a few. See my earlier post on "TV is still the King" here for more on this point.
3. Make your marketing worth talking about
I agree 100% with the suggestion on how to get talked about in a social age: "Start a story that consumers will want to talk about." Great and memorable marketing will get talked about and so make your brand more top-of-mind, as has always been the case.
The one bit where I disagree is the authors' suggestion to "Tap the right talkers... the consumer influencers in your category, and your brand advocates?". In research quoted here by Duncan Watts, 95% of word-of-mouth messages studied did not pass through influencers he called "super conductor" consumers. Duncan says: "Influentials don't govern person-to-person communication. We all do."
In conclusion, if you cut through the hype the key to conversation is the same as it always has been: create memorable, impactful and well branded marketing that gets people talking face-to-face.
This week saw greeting card store Clinton Cards become the latest high-street retailer to go bust, putting 8,000 jobs at risk. This follows losses last year of £10.6m on sales of £364m.
What went wrong, and what can we learn?
The UK recession has not helped for sure, with less people out shopping, and so less traffic to stores. But I think the company's problems were much deeper rooted. Clinton suffered from what I call "marketing intertia": persisting with an out-moded business model, even when you see the market changing.
What is marketing inertia?
Marketing intertia happens when a business can see change happening, but they are fatally slow to respond. In Clinton's case change was hitting them from two directions.
First, like many retailers, Clinton has been losing business to the supermarkets sell the same product at a lower price.
Second, and more fundamentally, there has been a rapid growth in eCards, with Moonpig.com leading the way. These cards started out as animated cards sent by email. But increasingly these are cards you design online, to be then printed and posted. Why go to a shop to buy a card when you can design your own one from your PC? Or even from your smartphone, thanks to apps from the like of Apple.
Now, did this threat from online cards suddenly hit Clinton Cards like a mugger? Not really. Moonpig.com started back in 2001, eleven long years before Clinton went bust. And how long did it take Clinton to launch their own online service? Two years? Five years? Nope, it took till 2011, a decade after Moonpig.com's creation, for Clinton to offer the same service. And by then Moonpig.com had become the dominant leader brand in the online card business, with a reported 90% share.
Instead of investing a new, future-proofed business model Clinton bought rival high street chain Birthdays for a reported £46.4m in 2004, adding an extra 322 stores. At the time the company said the move: "represents a significant step in [our] strategy of increasing high street presence and delivering profitable growth". But in 2009 the Birthdays chain was put into administration, a sign of what was to come.
What causes marketing inertia?
The first cause of marketing inertia is the amount of money, expertise and energy tied up in the "legacy" business model. The first instinct is to defend and protect this existing business.
Secondly, companies can be arrogant about new start-ups, failing to treat them with the respect they deserve. Moonpig.com was unprofitable for several years, and even now its turnover of c.£35 million is only 10% that of Clinton Cards. The same thing happened with Blockbuster Video and Netflix, as I posted on here.
Third, change is slow to happen and for many years, the existing business model will continue to work. As recently as 2009, Clinton was still profitable.
How to avoid marketing inertia?
So, what can brand leaders do to avoid coming a cropper like Clinton?
1. Define the market in terms of consumer benefits (sending greetings), not products (greeting cards)
2. Review the competitors in this market space, and treat new start-ups with respect, especially when they have a new and disruptive business model.
3. Act quickly and boldly, with a couple of options:
- Create a "spin-in" business unit: a separate group within the company enter and grow the new market. I call this "keeping the cannibals in the family". The challenge here is that often company leaders favour the dominant current business and starve the new business of resources, like a father favouring his eldest child.
- Invest in the start-up: this borrow the options model from financial markets and involves investing in start-ups operating in the new market space early. Back in the early days, perhaps Clinton could have bought part of Moonpig.com. If the new market grows you are well placed for growth. If the new market stays small your loss is limited as you invested early.
In conclusion, leaders need to not only have a vision of how the market is moving. They need to the courage and conviction to turn their vision into action by competing in the new market space sooner rather than later.
Should famous brands consider re-running famous ads, even if they are 20 or more years old? An recent article in The Times suggests that this is indeed a great idea, saying: “Our nostalgia for adverts of yesteryear shows just how potent the best creations are”. And they may have a point. Here’s why.
On brand vision projects I often witness marketing teams pulling their hair out with frustration, as consumer focus groups recall not the latest advertising, but rather commercials from 15 or 20 years ago. They remember slogans, music and catch-phrases. Here’s an example from the Cornetto brand, that dates back to 1982 – click below to watch.
The reason for this recall is “memory structure”: associations that have been “hard-wired” into our brains. This memory structure takes a long time to establish. Experts suggest you need 2-3 of consistent marketing to have a chance of doing this, which is difficult to do given that marketing directors spend on average only 18-24months in a job.
Once this memory structure is established, it tends to stick. And the harsh truth about those frustrated marketing teams earlier in the post? They have probably failed to create any advertising memorable enough to dis-lodge the old ads from peoples’ memories and create new memory structure.
Now, not any old advertising creates memory structure, no matter how long you run it for. Communication needs to be highly distinctive and linked to the brand to be effective. And the key to this distinctiveness is brand properties, such as the Nescafe Gold Blend couple, who launched the “soap opera” style of commercial back in the 1980’s – click below to watch. These brand properties, when stored as memory structure, and serve as a key to unlock brand meaning.
So, how should you explore whether there is something from the past that could help your brand today?
Step 1: Look back at what made you famous
Start by looking back at the last 20-30 years of your brand history: what marketing campaigns were running, and when was the brand “hot”, with share and sales growing? Every brand that’s been around a while should have this sort of history, although only today I had yet another brand manager tell me the team had only a couple of years worth of advertising.
Step 2: Have you uncovered any “buried treasure”?
When you look back at what made you famous, what do you find? If you’re lucky, you may uncover something valuable, such as this classic, Bond-esque Milk Tray chocolates ad from the 1970’s – click below to watch. UK readers of a certain age will already be humming the theme tune, and saying the endline: "All because the lady loves, Milk Tray".
Step 3: Re-run or re-shoot?
If you do uncover a gem, the question then is what to do with it? The Times article suggest the bold move of re-running the advert as it is, to tap into our nostalgia. This could work well for us consumers old enough to remember the original. And it has the advantage of being free in terms of commercial production. However, the risk is that your brand might look a little dated.
A better alternative may be to not just remember what made you famous, but also refresh it. This was the route taken by Jon Goldstone, when he led the revitalization of the Hovis bread brand in the UK a couple of years ago. He had uncovered a diamond in the form of the “Boy on his bike” ad from 1973 – click below to watch. This was pretty much the only bit of communication any consumer recalled.
To deliver the simple but inspiring brief of “Make Hovis great again”, the agency MCBDcreated a new commercial which helped return the brand to growth – click below to watch. This epic, 122 second masterpiece ad tapped into memory structure, but refreshed it to bring it up to date:
- The boy and his journey
- The iconic “little brown (un-sliced) loaf
- The endline: “As good today as its always been”
In conclusion, brand magic is elusive and tends to come along only once in a generation. If you are lucky enough to have such a potent piece of marketing in your history, then it may be worth trying to “do a Hovis” by remembering and refresh what made you famous.
Michelin come up with an innovative new tyre with a genuine benefit - the PAX can run flat for 125 miles. They make it, launch it and get it listed. Consumers love it. Yet it falls flat (!) so badly the company gets sued by the same consumers. How did this happen?
The answer is a failure to create the right innovation "ecosystem", as described in a great case study in the FT here. An ecosystem is the series of other inter-linked partners and suppliers essential for the success of a new product or service. I posted on the example of the iPad ecosystem last year: growth has been driven by the Apple Stores where people can try it and, even more importantly, the thousands of companies creating apps that run on the device.
In the case of Michelin, the PAX system needed the support of several partners to work. First, the car makers. As the PAX System had a pressure monitoring system integrated into the car, so it had to ve built into cars early on in the design process. This part of the ecosystem worked well. Acura, Audi, Nissan, Renault started using the PAX system. Then the big coup was Honda installing it as standard on the Odyssey, the number 1 minivan in the US.
The PAX system's problems came with the second part of the ecosystem: the garages (image below, from The Wide Lens Book). The repair process required dedicated new equipment to remove, repair and re-fit the tyres. Unfortunately, garages were slow to install this equipment. Incentives to install the equipment were linked to the number of cars with PAX fitted. But the 200,000 PAX system Michelin claimed to have sold was only c. 0.3% of annual car production. Garage owners could see it would take many years for the base of PAX-equipped cars to become significant and make their investment worthwhile.
As a result, for many driver with PAX tyres they could not get them repaired, only replaced, which was much more costly. And, this being the US, the pissed off punters filed several class action lawsuits, accusing Michelin of hiding the lack of repair facilities. Michelin ended further development of PAX in 2007.
In conclusion, when working on your next big new innovation, think through the ecosystem you need for it to be a success. As the FT article says at the end: "Success requires an assessment of interdependence among all partners, and clear strategies to manage them. It is no longer enough to manage your innovation: now you must manage your innovation ecosystem."
The role of marketing is not to "create emotional engagement", "delight customers" or, the flavour of the month, "ignite conversations". Its role is simply to "SMS" = SELL MORE STUFF. And in this post we look at the 3 ways you can SMS on your core business.
This post pulls together in one place a lot of the topics I've been writing on over the past few months relating to Byron Sharp's book, "How Brands Grow".
Building the brand by building the business
Of course, its better to SMS in a way that enhances brand equity. This should create growth that is more sustainable, rather than just "piling it high and selling it cheap", as Tesco have found out the hard way. But most marketers seem pretty good at coming up with "on-brand" ideas. Where marketers often fall down is coming up with ideas that can SMS. And in particular, how to SMS by growing the core, rather than by trying to stretch their brand into new markets.
How brands grow: 2 + 1 steps to SMS
The first two steps to SMS come from Byron's book. They both involve driving penetration - making your brand more popular so it has a wider group of people using it:
1. Physical availability
2. Mental availability
To this, we have added a growth driver not covered in How Brands Grow, because the book's focus is on volume not value share:
3. Premiumisation
I've pulled these 3 SMS drivers together on one page: see below.
1. Physical availability
This SMS driver involves getting your brand available in more places. Of all the ways to grow, its the one I'd bet my pension on. If you do a social media campaign, who knows what will happen. If you get your brand sold in more places, you will SMS. And increasingly this is the key challenge for brands, given the ever growing power of the retailers.
- Extending distribution in existing channels e.g. getting more listings in Tesco for a grocery brand
- Multipple sitings in store e.g. Coke selling chilled bottles at the store exit
- New channels e.g. Cup-a-Soup expanding into in-office vending
2. Mental availability
Being physically available is a great start to SMS. But to be truly effective, a brand also needs mental availability: being "recalled and relevant" at the moment of truth, when someone decides what to buy. In most cases, shoppers start with a category, and then figure out which brand to buy. For example, "Oh yes, I need to buy ketchup. What shall I buy?".
Mental availability is built by creating and amplifying distinctive brand properties, such as logos, slogans and music. This can be done in communication, as the Dolmio family and endline "When'sa your Dolmio Day?"
Brand identity is also key here. Most powerful of all is creating a brand property that can be activated across the mix, including communication. A good example is Felix catfood, who have consistently used their Felix the cat character across the whole mix. And then there is activation, where brands can create and nurture activation properties over time. Given the chopping and changing of most brand's marketing, few activation ideas ever turn into memory structure. Nike's Run London, Red Bull's Air Race and innocent's Big Knit would be some examples.
3. Premiumisation
The final step to SMS heaven is one not covered in How Brands Grow: premiumisation. Done well, premiumisation allows a brand to deliver more revenue and gross profit per unit sold. There are two main ways to do this:
- Added value formats: Heinz upside-down plastic bottle, which made using the product easier and made more profit per bottle for the company
- Added value versions: extending the core range with premium products delivering better performance, such as Gillette's continuous upgrading of its razor offer.
In conclusion, if you want to grow, there's 3 ways to know: drive physical availability (more places), mental availability (more memory structure) and premiumisation (more money).
Ryvita’s new Lunch Packs could be a rare type of brand extension: one that beats the odds (50%+ of extensions fail) and actually creates brand and business growth. What I really like about it is the way it can help drive the core crispbread business. Here’s what I think we can learn from this new innovation.
1. Solving a real consumer problem
Many people are looking for lunch solutions that are tasty, healthy and easy. Ryvita crispbreads combine taste and health, but it’s not easy to take them to school or work… they’re fragile, and you need to take some form of topping with you. The Lunch Packs combine three crispbreads, a nice topping such as goats cheese and pepper, and a dinky little spoon to spread your topping. And each pack is only 200 calories. So, all round, a really neat solution.
2. Driving physical availability
The really smart thing about Lunch Packs is the way they can drive core brand penetration by getting the brand in front of consumers in a new location – the chiller cabinet. This means that people who would never go to the crispbread section of the store will now see the brand and might buy it.
Ryvita could have created some sort of ready-to-eat “sandwich” product, with two Ryvitas and a filling in between. But I think this would have been less effective at driving core crispbread penetration, as the eating experience is not the same. It would have been a different product altogether, whereas Lunch Packs are a different way of eating the same core product.
3. Excellent execution
Poor execution kills many brand extensions. What looked good as a concept in powerpoint often looks less good when it hits the shelf. Well, hats off to Ryvita. The pack looks attractive, the product tastes good and is easy to use.
I also like the branding architecture. Many teams would have been tempted to create some sort of fancy sub-brand for the new product. The “Lunch Packs” descriptor works well on several levels
- It keeps Ryvita as the star of the show
- It clearly positions the product
- It passes the “shopping list test”: “Ryvita Lunch Packs” at five syllables long has a good chance of being recalled.
4. Brings to life the brand idea
The primary reason to launch a brand extension is to SMS : sell more stuff. If they’re good, they can also help build the brand image. And Lunch Packs might do this for Ryvita. They present a new face of the brand, and make it seem more modern and tasty. In doing so the launch can help revitalise the brand, away from being seen just for diets, and positioning it as a tasty, healthy and crunchy base for loads of delicious toppings.
In conclusion, the Ryvita Lunch Pack is an example of a brand extension that has the potential to build both the brand and core business, by solving a genuine consumer problem and delivering good execution.
Its tough being in the travel business these days. Leading UK travel agency Thomas Cook reported a loss of almost £400 million last year, announced plans to close 200 stores and saw its share price dive by 75%.
So how has Abercrombie & Kent (A&K) managed to survive and even thrive, and this with an upmarket, premium offer? Some clues to their success come in a fascinating interview with founder and CEO Geoffrey Kent in the Times.
1. Leadership from the top
Abercrombie & Kent is a good example of a "Founder Brand", where the founder of the business still has a hands-on role. The power of this model is that the CEO is a living, breathing emodiment of the brand. This can help engage people inside the business and create a distinctive image for consumers.
Despite being 70 years old, founder and CEO Geoffrey Kent has no plans to retire, saying “I'm going to give it everything I’ve got as long as I can. This is my life.” Indeed, this is a leader who truly leads by example. The report reveals that "He spends about 300 days a year travelling, much of it researching new destinations or leading escorted journeys." And he is playing a key role in driving growth in emerging markets like China, personally taking a group of 15 Chinese billionaires to Kenya, explaining that “I took them myself because I wanted to see how they interact and understand their needs."
2. Distinctive customer experience
In contrast to most travel firms, who have become increasingly online and “transactional”, A&K's offer is built on offering a personal touch to people ready to pay more for this service. As Kent says, “Our product is very diffuse after all these years. You track a gorilla one day, you can do whitewater rafting on the Zambezi two days later. That’s not something you can book easily online.” Most of A&K’s customers book their holidays face-to-face or over the phone.
3. New routes to consumer
Whilst most travel firms are closing down physical outlets, A&K is going the opposite and opening travel agencies. They opened their first super-exclusive "private travel bureau" in Harrods two years ago. The plan is to open additional outlets in exclusive locations in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Monaco and Sao Paulo. This is way of further enhancing the personal service offered to high spending clients, as Kent explains. “Someone coming to see us in Harrods might be spending $400,000 (some holiday!). They’re worried about safety, they want to no the best time to go somewhere, who to phone when something goes wrong”.
In conclusion, Abercrombie & Kent shows that even in times of a recession a premium priced brand can succeed, provided it has a truly distinctive proposition, led by example from the top.
Interesting comments from P&G's branding boss Marc Pritchard, about how brand/agency teams today need to be more reactive and have a "newsroom mentality", to capitalise on the opportunities in today's digitally-enabled world. He also shares his views on how social media can help you sell more stuff.
Some of his recommendations:
1. Proving "social media shows you the money"
Pritchard picks up on a point I've posted on before, that social media alone is not the answer. Rather, its about great content worth talking about, with this content often created on TV. He says:
"Generally, if you get high hits on social media, you're also getting high public relations happening at the same time. And if you can combine that with TV advertising, you can really fuel a great deal of awareness."
I'd love to see the Market Mix Modelling work that Pritchard refers to, as he says "We've been able to apply it to every form of digital, be that search, social media, public relations." If anyone would be able to crack the measurement of social media, its P&G.
2. Get the newsroom team together:
Pritchard says that having the brand and agency team together is key to creatively respond quickly to events: "You have to organise so you're all co-located. It's not just the client but the agencies. You ask 'what's happened in the past 24 hours, how do we need to respond to it? We get people who are constantly on Twitter, Facebook and all forms of social media'.
3. The 80/20 planning rule
I like the suggestion that "You can still plan a lot – 80% of your activities – you just have to be ready for the unplanned activities." This means having some budget and time allocated to be responsive. Pritchard gives the Olympics as an example: "We're ready to see how our athletes do, ready to see how our brands do."
4. Learn by doing
Its amazing to hear Pritchard saying that the way P&G works today is "To do things and learn about them." In my days at P&G you had to make a data-based recommendation to do any marketing. He goes on to comment:
"I know if we put a YouTube video out there and it gets 7,000 hits in three days, it's a pig! Take it down. Do something else."
And here he is again talking about the amplification of activity using advertising, social media and PR, using the example of the Old Spice campaign I posted on here:
"With Old Spice we knew we had a hit. And then we poured the gas on. We went to our PR people about getting Issiah Mustafa on talk shows. We ran some more advertising and "heavied" it up. And so we fuelled the fire."
In conclusion, today's brand and agency teams need to be more reactive to capitalise on today's digital world. This means amplifying marketing that includes TV, social and PR. And this means closer collaboration, and an ability to learn by doing, not taking months to test stuff prior to market.
I love Original Source shower gel, especially the mint one. It packs a punch in terms of refreshment, and the packaging really leaps out at you. The brand has managed to stand out in a crowded market where other brands like Imperial Leather and Dove out-spend it.
Here's some of the good stuff they've done.
1. Packed with good stuff
There's a simple but powerful truth at the heart of the brand which is also the brand's tagline: "Packed with natural stuff". Each product doesn't just have natural ingredients. It has LOADS of them. For my favourite mint and tea tree one, Original Source say "We've flexed all our muscles and crammed 7,927 real mint leaves into every bottle."
I like the way this brand idea manages to squeeze in a bit of attitude. They could have said "Full of only natural ingredients". But by saying "packed" and "good stuff", it feels a bit more in-your-face and irreverent.
2. Telling a product story
The brand and their agency, BDH/TBWA, have made clever use of communication. They lived out the brand idea by packing good stuff into little 10 second ads. Each one tells the story of a product. And used naked people in invigorating natural settings to stand out. Click below on the blog to watch one.
And hoo-bloody-ray for a brand who has stuck to the same idea to create some "memory structure". Six years on after the campaign, the brand's idea is still "Packed with good stuff".
And on a limited budget of only £1million, the campaign delivered good results. It helped the brand create a distinctive image on "intense refreshment", and increase awareness, as shown below.
Image profile
Awareness
3. Distinctive by design
I love the Original Source packaging. The graphics are bold. I like the product story on the pack. And somehow, they've managed to hang on to the distinctive pack shape. This means that even though own label have copied the graphics, as shown in JKR's blog here, the brand still looks distinctive.
4. Big companies can do innovative marketing
The nicest surprise of researching this story was finding out that Original Source was bought by big company PZ Cussons back in 2002. This can be a recipe for disaster for a funky little company. But hats off to the Cussons team.
They have stayed loyal to the soul of the brand, but amplified it. Cussons actually introduced the more distinctive packaging, as you can see by the pack below from when they bought the brand.
They were also smart in focusing on driving penetration by reaching out to a wider audience, rather than focusing on existing "brand loyalists", through the use of cost effective TV advertising.
In conclusion, Original Source is a great example of what I think branding at its best is all about: a product story told with a personality of its own.
The topic of "consumer-created content" came up again this week, this time on a live project. No surprize, as consumer "enagement", conversations and interaction are all the rage at the moment.
The problem with this concept is that most consumers don't want to create content for most brands. And if we're not careful, we end up treating consumers like creative directors. As part of research on the project, I came across a post I wrote back in 2009, which feels even more relevant today. So, I thought it was worth dusting it down and re-publishing it.
Here we go....
‘Consumer-created content’ is a red-hot topic at the moment. I've posted on it here. According to many experts we must give up control of brands and invite consumers into the driving seat. Consumers will come up with great ideas of their own, and this in turn will generate interest in the brand online. We have to stop talking at consumers, and start ‘a conversation’.
For example, UK food brand Oxo invited consumers to upload their own homemade adverts to a YouTube channel called "The Oxo Factor” (named after talent show The X Factor). The five best ads are being aired on maninstrean TV. Oxo’s marketing manager told Marketing “The Oxo Factor signals a fundamental shift in marketing. Consumers’ expectations have changed. They expect to be able to talk back”. The campaign aims to “catapult Oxo into the 21st century". [This is a brand of stock-cubes remember. Sounds scarily like Hugo, the marketing director in my book ‘Where’s the Sausage?’]
Well, like most new toys on sale in marketing store, it feels like this one is being over-hyped. Oxo’s YouTube channel has attracted only 19,000 views. And the ads themselves are pretty cringe-worthy to say the least.
The way forward is perhaps not consumer-created content, but rather ‘consumer-amplified content’. Brands need to retain their role as producers of compelling and relevant marketing. But they also have exciting opportunities to harness the power of online media to amplify the effectiveness of this marketing.
A good example of this is T-Mobile’s Life is for Sharing campaign. The brand’s YouTube channel, featuring videos of mass dancing and singing, has scored 23 million 95 million views. I posted earlier on Dance and Singalong. Here are some thoughts on how to get the best bang for your buck in this exciting new area.
Creative magic should be led by the brand The amount of creative resource that meant into the T-Mobile Dance campaign is mind-blowing. There’s a great YouTube video on this work here. 400 professional dancers spent 8 weeks rehearsing. Cameras were placed in carefully planned locations in the train station. The musical tracks were chosen to fit the brand spirit. A YouTube channel was designed well before the event. And PR contacts were made with TV news channels in advance of the event, so it could be tailored to their needs, thus maximizing coverage.
2012 Update: its also important that brands create a stream of content like this, not just a one-off. T-Mobile went on to do their Royal Wedding spoof (25 million YouTube views) and Welcome Back at Heathrow airport (11 million views). Consumers amplify great content Great content can spread like wild-fire, with the flames fanned by millions of online consumers. However, the key word here is ‘great’. Most of what normal folk post on YouTube is utter crap that never gets seen. There is so much of the stuff that the law of averages means 1 in a million will be great, such as Charlie Bit my Finger, that I posted on here. Its now the most viewed video of all time on YouTube.
However, brands will rarely get enough consumer-created content to end up with something good. The Oxo Factor is a good example of this. Most of the consumer ads are mediocre. Brands need to lead, and then let consumers amplify. T-Mobile created a template with Dance, and then invited consumers to do their own versions, and this worked much better.
Be true to your brand The final point is of course to be true to your brand. The T-Mobile Dance campaign flowed from and reinforces the brand idea of Life’s for Sharing. Mobile communication is all about spontaneous sharing, and this is what the event captured beautifully. Innocent is a highly creative and fun brand, so asking kids to design a smoothie pack feels right. In contrast, Oxo is a humble stock cube, used to flavour foods, and asking consumers to make their own ads feels forced and a bit ‘jumping-on-the-latest-bandwaggon-y’.
In conclusion, create great content that is loyal to your brand idea and feels true to its spirit. And then mobilise the growing number of online consumers to amplify this content.
You might have expected the winner of the best global mobile marketing award to have come from the USA, or maybe the UK. But no, the grand prix went to South Africa's Carling Black Label, for the Carling Black Label Cup "Be the Coach" campaign, as reported on adage.com. We worked on this project with the brand team in South Africa back in 2010 and again in early 2011, so its a real thrill to see it coming to life.
Congratulations to Andrea and all the Carling team, plus the agencies: Ogilvy and Brandtone.
In what I think is a world first, Be the Coach took consumer interactivity to new levels, allowing soccer fans to vote to pick the teams for a special cup match between South Africa's top 2 teams, the Kaiser Chiefs and The Orlando Pirates. An amazing 11 million votes were cast in 7 weeks. And the campaign has helped improve brand imagery, most often used and volume.
Carling Black Label have tapped into an insight about guys being frustrated at what they see as bad coaching decisions in soccer matches. They spend hours debating who should play, and not play. And shout at the TV, or at the game, when things go wrong.
Importantly, this insight came from digging deeper than just "guys like soccer", to uncover the more precise insight about wanting to be the coach.
Be the Coach tapped into this insight by allowing fans to select a player in a preferred position via USSD ( form of text messaging). In a clever move, participants then heard from the coaches of the teams via pre-recorded messages. Then, during the actual match, watched by 80,000 in the stadium and millions on TV, fans got to actually vote via mobile for a live substitution!
2. Bring to life the brand idea
The campaign brings to life well the brand idea of "Champion Beer for Champion Men" at two levels. First, the winner of the cup is of course the champion team, and so Carling is the beer of champions. Secondly, and more importantly, the ability to vote and be the coach made brand drinkers feel like they were champions themselves.
3. If you want to "engage" consumers, create a wow opportunity
Regular readers will know I'm sceptical about trying to get consumers to interact and engage with most consumer goods brands. But this all comes down to content. If you have an amazing activation like Be the Coach, then you can get consumers to interact with your brand, as shown by 11million entries in 7 weeks.
The problem is that most of the time its not "make your dream come true" opportunities like this one. Its more often things like "Tell us your favourite stories about our bread", or this one on "Do a video for our brand of stock cube".
4. Create an activation property
A lot of brand activation activity is still "logo slapping", where brands sponsor a sports event or team. But the brand gets limited benefit beyond brand awareness, and perhaps some image benefit from association with the sports brand.
In contrast, Carling Black Label has created an activation property in Be The Coach, which is more distinctive and more likely to create "memory structure". This property can hopefully be developed and amplified over a number of years, so it takes on more and more meaning, and works harder for the brand.
5. Use the right media
One smart thing about the Be the Coach campaign is allowing people to vote using USSD on their mobiles, which made the promotion available to many more South Africans than if it had been done via PC. The mechanism was kept simple, to maximise the number of entries.
6. Amplify the property
Importantly, the property was amplified in the build up to the actual cup itself in July. This meant the brand got maximum effect from the idea, beyond the people who attended the event. The innovative and even controversial nature of the idea meant it got a lot of PR coverage, valued at c. £8million
In conclusion, Carling Black Label's Be the Coach campaign shows how to tap into a deep insight about your consumer's passion, as a springboard for creating a distinctive and relevant brand property you can amplify.
Sodastream is brand that is literally remembering and refreshing what made it famous. And boy, this a brand with fizz in its business. Revenues in 2011 were reported to have increased 39% to Euro 222.7 million, after strong growth in 2010.
This system turns tap water into fizzy flavoured drinks. It was popular in the 70's and 80's, but the faded seemed to fade away. But it was re-launched in the UK in 2010.
The press ad here on the right grabbed my attention. It rides the nostalgia wave by offering to trade in your old machine for a spanking new one.
Here's some interesting learning from this case.
1. Tap into memory structure
The team behind Sodastream have been smart in rejuvenating the tagline which was made famous in the 1980's: "Get busy with the fizzy". I'm sure there are millions of people who enjoyed Sodastream back in the day (like me), and still have latent awareness of this idea. The brand is now tapping back into this memory structure.
For those who remember the original ad, or who want to see what us oldies were watching on TV in the 70's and 80's, click below.
That said, I think the company is missing a trick by not doing more with the "Get busy" idea. Its not really central to the latest ad, below. Rather, its just a tagline at the end.
2. Refresh the brand
The fundamental Sodastream system is the same: machine + CO2 cylinder + pouches of flavour. However, check out how the machines and packaging have been brought bang up to date, in line with modern design trends.
I also like the way there is a range of machines with different price points. We now live in an era where people have Nespresso machines and the like, and are ready to pay to have a nicely designed object in their kitchen.
Hell, you've even got a designer version of the machine by Karim Rashid!
3. Tap into trends
The other fascinating thing about the Soadastream revival is the way it taps into the trend for more environmental living. To be honest, this is something I didn't think of at first, seeing more the fun side of DIY fizzy drinks. But the additional benefit here is that it saves on all those plastic bottles fizzy drinks come in, and on the transport of these bottles around the world.
Once you've bought your machine, all you buy then are the flavour pouches...and the CO2 re-fills... not sure what the story is with disposing of those though?
In conclusion, what a cracking story of rejuvenating a brand by remembering and refreshing what made it famous.
