Having been going on about 'where’s the sausage?' for a few years, and even writing a book of the same name, we finally got to work on a sausage brand this year: Richmond! And its a great example of the power of combining product sausage and emotional sizzle.
Richmond is the Leader Brand in the UK with a 17% share, and has driven double digit growth over the last couple of years. At the heart of this success is product sausage and emotional sizzle working together to reinforce one another. The big brand idea cleverly combines these two sides of the brand: ‘The taste that takes you home’. On the product side is a unique Irish recipe, that creates a smoother textured sausage that kids like, making it a family favourite. And for mum and dad the taste triggers their own happy memories of childhood.
The communication campaign created by Quietstorm does a great job of bringing this idea to life, delivering an excellent level of ROI in econometric testing. What I like about this ad is the way the product is the hero. A property developer is showing off his plans to build a high-rise block of apartments in a nearby field whilst having lunch. The diggers are already at work, despite the angry protests of campaigners to stop them. That is until he tastes the Richmond sausages that are served, and is taken back to happy times as an innocent child. He comes to his senses, and rushes to 'stop the diggers'.
If you are on the blog website you can click below to watch the ad.
In conclusion, a great example of combining sausage and sizzle, and creating communication where a product story is told in a memorable and engaging way.
Jordans is one of the nicest brands I've been lucky enough to work on. Its pretty rare that you get to work on a big brand where the founders are still involved, 25 years after starting the business. Only last week David and Bill Jordan were in a workshop I was facilitating, getting stuck in.
The re-launch of their Country Crisp range is a great example of combining product "sausage" and emotional "sizzle".
First, on the product side is one of the most eagerly awaited launches of the year, at least in the Taylor family: Country Crisp with dark chocolate.
The blog post by Rachel, Jordans brand "editor", gives an insight into how much care and attention has gone into crafting this new product. Its a great dramatisation of the brand idea: "You can taste we care":
"We were anxious about making this new Country Crisp too indulgent so we
worked hard to make sure the proporition of clusters to dark chocolate
curls was just right, so you get a chocolate hit but without feeling
you have overdone it.
We only use the best quality ingredients, which
means we have chosen dark cocolate with 70% cocoa solids. The higher
the quantity of cocoa the better the chocolate, ours is carefully
crafted into delicate curls in Belgium.
The exquisite flavour comes
from the skilled roasting, mixing, refining and conching process the
cocoa beans go through. We then combine them with our oat clusters,
which also hold hints of vanilla and coconut."
Rachel has also made smart use of the Jordans blog to get reaction to the new product. Great way of getting some free and quick feedback. And what feedback. No fewer than 172 189 comments, and as far as I can see, all or most positive. Here are a few:
"Taken a while to find a box but was worth it. I love dark
chocolate and it really worked well with the clusters. I just have to
hide this from my children."
"Juicy Oats,Rich and Divine, And Naughty chocolate-it's mine, all mine!
"How can something be so delicious and healthy at he same time - more of this please!"
Second, on the sizzle side is the new TV commercial. Its tells a real product story, about the natural ingredients and tasty golden clusters, in a an emotionally involving way. I like that the same care and attention given to the new product has also going into creating the ad. The voice-over is by Bill Oddie, famous in the UK for being on nature programmes. There are lots of things going on that make you want to see it again, such as farmer Rob in his tractor. It also does a very clever of bringing to life the brand world from the packaging. And the intro line is inspired: "At Jordans we think inside the box"!
The blog has been well used here too, with the ad being premiered on it several days before even breaking on TV. Again, there has been a good level of positive consumer feedback, with over 30 comments:
"A
really heart warming advert,makes one think of all the nice summery
things in life"
"Like bill oddy's voice over make's you feel hungry for the product ... mmmmmm lets go and have some"
"The advert makes you want to rush out and buy a box!"
Jordans is one of those rare brands that is a true brand with authentic product truths delivered in an emotionally compelling way. Its this combination that create true consumer loyalty and interest, as shown by one of the most amazing ever reviews I have read on consumer opinion website Ciao here.
BY DAVID NICHOLS, brandgym Managing Partner and Head of Invention
After years of cool marketing campaigns revolving around football, music and latterly computer gaming, the world’s most famous brand is going back to basics. Coca-Cola has been communicating about its product, what’s in it ("Nothing artificial. Never had been, never will be") and the product heritage, dating back to 1886 when John Pemberton created his secret formula. This print ad has been cropping up in selective publications for about
a year now, and has been run in key markets around the world, including
the USA. The print choice in the UK (e.g. British Airways magazine)
seems to be targeted at an older, upmarket target.
1. Sizzle don’t work without Sausage As the years have gone by, the Coca-Cola team have let the core ‘Red’ Coke rely on its key attribute of great taste. They have not entered the fray on naturalness, green credentials or additives. But now it seems the market has finally caught up with them. Gone are the days when anyone actually knew anything about what goes into Coke other than lots of sugar (does anyone remember that they have a ‘Secret Recipe’ locked in a vault? - no). All that expensive music and football sponsorship won’t convince if people think poorly of the product. 2. Have to woo the gatekeepers It can be assumed that a large portion of their volume is bought in 1-3ltr bottles in grocery retailers by mums. It is then doled out to thirsty kids and teens at home. If parents believe the product to be tooth-rottingly awful and full of artificial nasties they will ration it or even, as in my home, ban it completely.
So Coke have realised that they need to talk to parents to convince them of the all natural origins of their ingredients in order to unlock the fridge door and turn around their presumably shrinking family volumes 3. Remind people own Label ISN'T The Real Thing When the financial poo hits the fan, people will only pay for what they truly value. Maybe Coke has just wandered across the line into the ‘not worth it’ camp, and families are deserting them for Own Label that is significantly cheaper.
Now is definitely the time get back to brand basics and convince people of the high quality ingredients and the integrity of the product vs Own Label.
These are things that not that long ago were assumed to be ‘rock solid’ for Coke, as they had been for decades. It just goes to show how much of a cultural shift has occurred in the last 10 years. The Credit Crunch being an accelerating force but not the cause of this malaise.
4. Sometimes internal pride needs a boost It’s very important that people within a business are proud of their products. Our friend Richard Moseley, writer of the excellent ‘Employer Brand’ book, states that the best way to recruit and retain good people is to have a product they can be proud of.
Could it be that this targeted communication is in part doing an internal PR job? Word on the street has it that in an internal survey the percentage of Coke employees who would serve ‘red’ Coke to their children was in the single figures. When even your own employees won’t touch the product – maybe it’s time to change your ways…
Whatever their motivations, it is refreshing to see a great brand getting back to the basics. Our vote would be to do this on a larger scale, with upweighted mainstream media, to tell the world about the product quality and integrity of Coke, why it is “The Real Thing”.
Most strong brands are built on a truth: a real and substantial feature or attribute that helps create a point of difference. I've hammered on about how innocent have loads of these. But I'm sure you're ready for a change. Well, this year I've been lucky enough to work with one of the most authentic brands I've come across: Jordans Cereals. This is the first of several posts over the coming months on the progress of the brand's re-launch.
Brand truth: a rare commodity Genuine brand truthes are actually pretty rare. You know, that brand of "authentic Italian pasta sauce" with the sub-titled ad saying "Made in the UK". Several posts have covered other examples of hollow brand claims, including Heinz "Farmers Market" Soups, L'Oreal Telescopic Mascara and fast food photos.
What's great about Jordans is how much truth there is. For example, in terms of heritage: - The brand was started
by Bill and David Jordan 23 years ago. What is nice is that these two brothers are
still very much involved in the business. Bill and David's mum works in the company shop! - The Jordans family milling business
dates back much longer, to 1855! - The company is still based in Biggleswade, where it was started
This sort of stuff is a real asset to use in building engagement and trust with consumers who are interested in "the company behind the brand".
But my personal fave is the Jordans approach to sourcing. The brand still have a strong and direct relationship with the farmers who provide the ingredients, especially the oats. Bill Jordan helped create something called "Conservation Grade Farming", and all the oats in Jordans cereals are farmed in this way. Each farmer has to use 10% of their land as habitat for wildlife such as bees, birds and butterflies. Check out the brilliant sign that is put in one such field. You can see Bill talking more about Conservation Grade here.
Future posts will unveil more about how the Jordan's re-launch positioning and mix was built on this foundation of brand truth.
Tom Fishburne puts his finger on a sensitive point in one of his latest cartoons: the rather unsavoury truth behind many big brands claiming to be natural, made with care etc..
Many of these brands are, of course, made in modern factories, not lovingly created by hand by artisanal craftsmen and women. And in many cases the main focus is actually on the minimum quality for the cheapest price.
There are a handful of examples where you can look behind the company and see something closer to the truth that is portrayed in the brand's marketing. Here are a couple that give me faith:
Jordans cereals: Ok, these are made in a factory. But, at least its still in the same village, Biggleswade, where the family started milling over 150 years ago. Even the original mill is still standing. Many of the people working there have been employees for several decades. Bill Jordan still has a hands on role.
Lush cosmetics are made by hand, and there is a photo of the person who made each product on the pack.
Tom Fishburne nails another point with another brilliant cartoon. This time his target is the way marketing folk get carried away with the idea of trying to seek salvation in emotional benefits, or sizzle. The risk of course is getting carried away and forgetting the product sausage.
In Tom's cartoon the company are trying to inject emotion into tile grout (the stuff used to stick tiles together). In an earlier post I asked whether your brand was more like Prada (emotional sizzle and lifestyle are key) or petfood (where you need a balance of sausage and sizzle)?
This is the second in a 2-part post on the comms. strategy of Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate. Last week we looked at the first part of their comms. strategy, which is the sizzling emotional bit. This used TV ads to dramatise the idea of "a glass and a half of pure joy": episode 1 featured a drumming gorilla, and episode 2 racing trucks at an airport.
The second part of the CDM comms. approach is single-mindeldy focused on the product "sausage". It takes the form of really impactful full-page press adverts promoting the message that CDM is made with real milk, not milk powder. These use a milk bottle, with a Cadbury branded foil top, and distinctive purple back-drop.
Some thoughts on why I like this: 1. Focused message: rather than trying to get everything across in a single ad, the brand has focused TV on emotional entertainment. And press hammers home a product message. This was an approach also used by P&G back in the Victorian era when I worked there. On Head & Shoulders we use a product demo ad with a "half-head" (half washed in H&S, half in normal shampoo), and another one with celebrities trying to put a little bit of aspiration into the brand, or at least make it less embarassing to buy.
This approach has the big benefit of creating single-minded communication. A common issue with any comms. brief is the multiplication of objectives, leading to communication that lacks impact. 2. Proud of a lovely product truth: it is great to see a brand that makes such a story out its product truth. Cadbury really do celebrate the "glass and a half of milk", and have been doing so for decades. Interestingly, they are a celebrating a truth which is in a way counter-trend. The hot part of the market is high cocoa, dark chocolate. Whereas Cadbury is very milky. But they have rightly decided that there are plenty of people who still like their milky Cadbury.
The glass and a half is on the pack, used in advertising and is also very prominent on the website as you can see here on the right. The website again splits into two main bits: i) plenty of space for the 2 adverts, Gorilla and Trucks. You can even link out of the site to some of the many remixes of the Gorilla ad on You Tube; ii) a whole section with some lovely film footage of the history of CDM, and the "Home of the Cows" that explains the product magic. 3. Clever use of media: Hats off to Cadbury for the good use of media. The TV ads are cinematic and use long time-lengths. The press ads are highly impactful, and have "stopping power". The magazine I saw the ad in repeated the "event-style" communication approach of the TV ads by using a gatefold, 3-page execution. This must of cost a packet, but it hopefully pays off with increased impact and memorability.
4. Lovely execution: There is real craft in the press ads. Not just some standard, boring product message with a glass and a half of milk. They have created a distinctive, ownable visual device with the milk bottle on a purple background.
So, taking the CDM comms. approach as a whole, I think Phil Rumbol and his team deserve a round of applause. The Gorilla ad is the thing people talk about, a bit like the Evolution viral ad for Dove. However, when you dig deeper there is much more to it: - Anchored on a great product truth - Sticking to what made the brand famous, but making it relevant for today - Breathing life into an established brand, that could have been in danger of loosing relevance in the face of stiff competition from premium brands like Green & Black's (though Cadbury win there as they bought it) - Clever use of media - Real crafting of the execution - And, perhaps most important of all, balls to do something brave and get noticed. If you can't be seen, you can't be bought, as my mate Lars said.
The O2 brand’s bright new 60 second TV ad is an absolute classic example of “sponsored entertainment”.
Beautiful shots of teddy bears, frogs and people passing on a message, and a celebration of the human value of connection, with the new endline of "We're better, connected". Or, as agency VCCP
describe it, in perfect Hugo-speak,“A surreal kaleidoscope of connections through all walks
of life - an epic journey of fantasy imagery with symbolic
hyper-connectivity.”
There no sign of anything specific about why O2 is
better placed than any other brand to connect us. Yup, you guessed it, all
sizzle and zero sausage.
But this is nothing new for O2. Most of their previous TV campaigns have been short on ideas as well, as Justin Holloway eloquently expresses in this week’s Marketing:
“Throughout its short, but successful, life, O2 has had more to show for itself than say. Easy on the eye, but numbing to the emotions. An eye-candy brand for the eye-candy age. All elegantly symbolised by its bubble identity: bright, shiny and hypnotic, but penetrate the surface and then – nothing.”
So how come the brand has been so successful? It was bought for Telefonica in 2005 for £18 billion, a staggering 300% increase in value of vs. the £6billion value of the business when it was spun off from BT in 2001. And it has taken number one position from Orange in the UK.
I think the answer lies in the market in which O2 operates: mobile phone networks. O2 have adapted their brand management to reflect the fact that many of us don’t care much which network we’re with. It’s as low involvement a market as you can find.
What does matter a lot are two things that O2’s visual marketing approach has delivered on:
1. Being top of mind when people go into a store to take out a mobile network contract. Or, as is more likely, go to buy a mobile phone, and need a network to make it work. When the store-person says ‘What network do you want?’, most people in the UK say ‘Err…O2?' The simple name and highly memorable blue and bubble world mean that the brand is imprinted in our brains, and so its top-of-mind.
2. Making you feel OK about your choice: O2's sleek, smart brand world also reassures you that once you have signed up, you're with an OK network. A leader. Modern. Sound, safe and reliable.
What I do wonder is whether the big flashy and expensive TV ads really pay back. The poster campaigns the brand runs, that use the blue & bubbles to market more specific services/sausage, strike me as being much more effective.
Here's some good news for folks like me who hate going to the gym (the sports one, not the brand one). They don't work.
The Times reports that although there are now 5,714 gyms in the UK, compared to only 200 in the late 1980s, obesity rates have sky-rocketed, with one quarter of the UK population now obese. Furthermore, a whopping 60% of people who fork out cash for a membership drop out after 6 months.
According to Dr Smith Maguire, gyms focus on “image rather than health”.
The Times also reports that "Since the 1950s we have
lost, on average, about two-and-a-half hours of calorie-burning activity a
day." The article recommends you forget joining a gym, and get back to some good old fashioned every-day activities. Here are some examples they suggest, and how many calories they burn: - Clean the bathtub 4 calories a minute - Play the air guitar 3.5 calories a minute - Rake the lawn 6 calories a minute - Go on a “bear-hunt” with children in the woods 5.5 calories a
minute - Play hopscotch 7.5 calories a minute - Sing to your favourite CD while standing up 3 calories a minute
This is a good example of the weird world we live in, where people prefer to be spectators, not active participants. Here are a few more: 1. Cooking - Cooking book sales are booming, as are TV programmes with celebrity chefs. But what about the time spent on cooking? - In the 1950s, we spent 13 hours a week on cooking... and 5.9 hours
in 2005. - The average amount of time spent preparing food has fallen to
13 minutes per meal
2. Virtual play My eldest daughter is 9, and I love the fact she still likes to play with dolls. Last weekend she took polystyrene blocks from my new Time Capsule box, and made them into sofas for her dolls. What a great use of imagination, and practical skills from working with physical objects.
Yet most of the kids in her class are busy, like millions of others, creating virtual houses on some Penguin website. Guess I'm a Luddite, fighting an advancing tide of cyber-play, but I'll help my kids hold out as long as possible!
3. Do it Yourself (DIY) The TV schedules are full of programmes about doing up your house or renovating it. Yet the DIY market is in not doing well. Verdict report that "Even with an upturn in sales in 2007, the UK DIY and gardening market will still be
worth less than in 2004."
So what? What is the opportunity for brands, I wonder?
Well, there may be an opportunity for brands that want to "zig when the world zags", by encouraging us, and more importantly our kids, to get off our arses and get doing stuff. More substance, and less spin.
On the other hand, there clearly is a huge opportunity for service. Take DIY, it is transforming into "DIFM" = "Do it for me". And hands up there. I'm one of the many people who fall into the category "I Can't Do One-Quarter of the Things My Father Can" mentioned in Boundless Line.
Regular readers will know I am a confessed Appleaholic. And with the latest bit of eye-popping innovation (or "thinnovation" as Apple call it), you can see why… so, forgive me. This is the first of a 2-part post on Apple.
The Apple MacBook Air is simply stunning. It’s the thinnest laptop in the world. And even though I already have a MacBook Pro, I'm working on a laptop PC-portfolio strategy that gives me an excuse to buy one.
It all starts with the sausage! The MacBook Air is another illustration that shows why Apple is not a
lifestyle brand relying on clever marketing, as some people claim.
Sure, it has a deafening amount of emotional sizzle. But this all flows
from a stupendously designed sausage (product):
- Somehow packing a super 13 inch screen, fast processor and full
keyboard into an incredibly light and thin machine. Check out the
comparison with the thinnest laptop until now, sold by Sony:
- I love the way that features from the iPhone have been applied to the MacBook Air. Like the way you can use 2 fingers on the trackpad to "stretch" an image, or swivel it around, rather than having to type in commands
- It is SO light. It has a brilliant "pickupability" appeal: the queue of people checking it out in the Apple store last week all just had to pick it up to see how light it was.
- Just how much innovation went into the MacBook Air is amazing. Intel had to create a brand new processor in order to make the thing as thin as it is. The CEO of Intel came on stage at the Mac Expo launch to talk about it. See the image below with the MacBook Pro chip (on the left) and the new chip (on the right).
Let your product do the talking
The great thing about having such an amazing product is that the job of communication becomes a lot easier. No need to come up with some fancy pants advertising. Just let the product do the talking. What I liked this time was the way Apple came up with a clever device to show just how thin the MacBook Air is: placing it inside an envelope, like the ones you use in an office for internal mail.
What was especially cool was the way Steve Jobs introduced this idea at Mac World (watch his whole show here). A nice bit of drama as he showed the envelope, then revealed the product. The same envelope idea was then used in the simple but highly effective TV advertising.
I shall report back when I have one in my hands....!
