The brandgym blog

Dove's YouTube film scoops Grand Prix at Cannes

The times they are indeed a changin'. Dove's Revolution viral film, made for You Tube, scooped the daddy of all advertising awards this weekend: the Grand Prix at Cannes (via Brand New Day on Business Week). I posted on this film back in November, reporting that it had received 1.7 million hits, and driven more traffic to the Dove website that their Superbowl ad.

This is interesting for several reasons:
1. The most obvious one is that this is a "coming of age" of new media forms. It shows that you can get creative kudos without having to make a blockbuster TV ad
2. The ROI is amazing. Cost of media: zero versus cost of media for Superbowl ad that generated less hits: $2.5 million!
3.What a great example of combining a big idea with excellent execution. Watch the film carefully, and notice the quality of : i) casting, ii) direction, iii) music, iv) sound editing, v) lighting.
4. A less obvious point, and one I have commented on recently, is that the film was not created by the global brand team. It was developed by the brand team and O&M in Canada, and spread throughout the world through as "the success virus". Not some global campaign enforced by the brand police. But a successful campaign that other countries want to buy.

But the way you know Revolution is a true phenomenon is of course by the spoofs that it has inspired. Here's my favourite, "the campaign against real life".

McShrek...doing good, or evil in disguise?

After feeling quite good about Mc Donald's tie-in with the new Shrek movie, I'm left feeling rather sick....

The headline I read in Marketing magazine said the company was going to use its licensed promotional properties only on menu items not high in fat, salt or sugar such as carrots, fruit and organic milk . Marketing director Jill McDonald was quoted as saying that said that "the fast-food company had a major role to play in stimulating positive health choices as part of 'a broader response to the obesity issue'".

Now, I thought this was quite good... it is true that as Mc Donald's are so big that they can have a big impact on how kids eat, either good or bad. Indeed, in a talk given by Larry Light, the ex-CMO, he said that the company was now the biggest seller of salads in the USA.

However, digging a little bit deeper is a bit like eating at Mc Donald's. It seems like a good idea, and the first taste hit is actually quite good...but then you soon start feeling a bit sickly, and have that greasy after-taste in your mouth. An article in the Guardian reports that although the good guys (carrots, milk and fruit) will star in the TV ads, when you get in store the whole Happy Meal is promoted with Shrek, including bad old burgers and fries. Richard Watt from healthy eating campaining group Sustain smells a rat: "My view is using Shrek to promote Happy Meals breaks the spirit of the rules and we will investigate how exactly overall Happy Meals are judged in terms of HFSS (high in fat, salt, sugar) rules."

When I went online to have a peek at the Shrek stuff my queasiness increased. Shrek is indeed used not to promote healthy eating, but the brand as a whole. I felt very naive at having thought they would really be pushing healthier items.

Go even deeper into the site and you find a very impressive online game, which again promotes Mc Donald's in general, not a healthy eating message. Sure, this is part of a section of the site called "Emergy", which encourages kids to be active...which again is a bit 2-faced, when what is more likely is to have kids stuffing down a burger, fries and king-size coke whilst playing a video game!

I'm left feeling that brands like this should either be authentic and honest in promoting a healthier lifestyle, or not bother at all. Doesn't doing it half-heartedly like McShrek create cynicism not engagement?

Lipton to make only "green" tea

The Lipton tea brand's link up with the Rainforest Alliance recently made headline news. The Rainforest Alliance will check that parent company Unilever is buying tea from plantations that use sustainable farming and ethical labour practices.

What is smart, and brave, about this move in trying to give the whole brand stronger ethical credentials by being values-led": integrating the ethical principles into the way of doing business. This feels much more powerful than the more commonly used, quicker fix of launching an "ethical version". This is the approach used by Nescafe with their "Partner's Blend" extension, and Kenco with their "Sustainable Development" version.

Re-launching the whole Lipton brand with the Rainforest Alliance has several advantages over doing an ethical extension:
- It avoids the risk of a green extension raising questions about the rest of the brand... if Nescafe have a single ethical product, doesn't this imply that the rest is unethical?!
- A Lipton brand re-launch will strengthen the core business and avoid adding complexity through the addition of another extension
- As the re-launch will be on the whole brand, and not just a new extension, there should be more marketing funds available to communicate the news to consumers and retailers
- If Lipton can make this move it has a chance to "own the high-ground" in tea by combining quality, value and ethical credentials. This is hard for competitive brands to copy as it requires changes to the whole business system, not just the launch of a me-too green extension.

Red's not dead baby, its a $500 million brand

There has been a lot of slagging of (product) Red's first year's results: $25 million raised after many high profile campaigns by Motorolla, Amex, Gap and others. This is the brand launched by Bono where brands selling Red products donate a part of the profit to the Global Fund to fight AIDs. Jon at Living Brands went as far as posting about red being "killed by cynicism and scepticism". Grant says "The take-away for RED, take it down and start again.  This campaign is truly cooked."

Well hang on just a minute...to mis-quote Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction, "red's not dead baby". (I do have a vested interest here, as I gave it my vote as hottest brand of 2006.) What the critics miss, as co-founder Bobby Shriver points out, is that Red is not a charity. Its a product range which creates revenue for brand partners, and charity.

Here's a different way of looking at it. A $500 million brand who gives 5% of sales to charity. That sounds much better. And would probably get less slagging off.

How did I get this figure? Well, I admit its very back-of-the-envelope. If you use Gap as an example, they donate 1/2 the profit from the Red stuff they sell. From my days on marketing Hanes t-shirts and male undies, I think the profit margin was 20%. Which means the Gap donation is, say, 10% of the revenue they make. But retail sales would be roughly double their revenue when you add in trade mark-up...so that's 5% of consumer sales. Motorolla donate 5% of their Red customers' bills.

If we go with the 5%, this would mean retail sales of Red products of $500million.

So. What do you think. Expensive flop? Or worthy brand with a social mission?

Red: hottest brand of 2006?

Red feels to me like the hottest brand of 2006. This is the venture started by Bono to raise money for AIDS in Africa, not through charity, but by creating cool, "must-have" products with leading brands. The companies selling these products donate part of the profit to fight AIDS.

The first one to sign up in the UK was American Express, followed by Gap, Motorola and most recently, Apple iPod:

John Grant over at Brand Tarot wrote an article on Red which gives a good explanation of why its such a powerful brand, with an edited version of his key points being:

"1. Run by a charismatic, passionate leader who draws the gaze of the world’s media: Bono
2. It has a killer design idea. In a confused cluttered, post-traditional world it stands out a mile - and stands for something.
3. Its all about enthusiasm. Despite half a century of ‘cool’ and half a millennium of ‘chic’, the ultimate core value of consumer culture is enthusiastic participation.
4. It makes playful connections with other brands, sparking off each other
5. Its a GOOD brand. Not selfish, but good for the species. It starts with a cause, a manifesto, an agenda for change."

One interesting angle on the Red story is the fact that the partner brands have to partner with Red to integrate a social dimension. I wonder if its not stronger to have your own agenda, such as Dove and its Campaign for Real Beauty, which was discussed in an earlier post?

5-minute workout: if you were to have a social dimension to your brand, what would you campaign for? Would you then campaign with your own agenda like Dove, or "borrow" a social cause like Red's co-branding partners?

5-minute workout: