Take a look these if you want to save time trawling through all the ads.
http://adage.com/superbowl/article?article_id=148720
My picks were the Chrysler and Audi spots. Skechers and the Chevy Al’s dealer spots missed the mark for me. Sadly, I think Bud was off the money this year and I forgave Snickers for using a totally unknown has been in their ad, because I actually found the pay off with Roseanne Barr laugh out loud funny.
The Superbowl is over, the packers beat the Steelers, but what really seems to matter these days is what was the best ad. Every year we hear more and more in advance about what the ads, we get sneak previews and hear about how much it’s costing. But what is really about. The ad agencies love the whole thing as it is used a vehicle to justify their existence and continue the whole ‘brand’ myth they love to promulgate, the media loves it because of the income it generates for them, but what about the shareholders? Are superbowl advertisers getting a return on their investment for their shareholders?
When I started out in business my boss at the time was an amazing leader, with great clarity of thought and focus. He instilled in me a principle that I have held true to throughout my professional career and one that I think it very relevant to review at Superbowl time. He said that at any time you make a decision about spending money in business, you should challenge yourself and ask – “would the shareholders pay for this?”
You want to meet with your colleagues at the other side of the world to review marketing strategy or discuss innovation – fine, would the shareholders pay for this?
You have the opportunity to sponsor a high profile trade conference – would the shareholders pay for this?
The more you ask this question, the more metrics bound you become as a marketer and the more successful. Why? Because you start to focus on what really makes a difference in marketing.
Measurement of the ‘success’ of a lot of the superbowl advertising will revolve around meaningless ‘likeability’ ratings that will be reported by the media (look at the number of self serving, self congratulatory media items published today (e.g. http://adage.com/superbowl/)).
The real measure of success for anything costing $3m for air time alone (never mind the production costs, agency fees and internal time and effort spent on developing the campaigns) has to be at the bottom line or in terms of share: it has to be seen to build the business, or no matter how good the campaign the money was wasted.
Measurement of the effectiveness of marketing has suffered in this age of social media and conversations, because some people are prepared to accept meaningless measurements (such as page views, impressions, hits etc) as sufficient to gage success. Effective (valuable to the shareholders) advertising needs to be successful at stimulating targeted customers to adopt the specific behavior needed to grow sales.
So:
How should we judge these ads? By investigating their perceived (and after the sales results are in, real) effectiveness which means identifying and assessing:
For each ad we need to consider who was the target market, what was the benefit they sought to communicate and what were the reasons to believe that supported that benefit. In some cases this is really quite obvious – for instance, Snickers has essentially been running the same ad for a number of years so we know what it’s about – for others it’s more difficult to assess.
If there is a real campaign strategy identified the next question is whether or not the team came up with a good campaign idea. It’s that campaign idea that transforms the strategy into a compelling consumer language that drives a behavior change in the consumer.
What we saw yesterday was some very strong execution, however, if that execution has not delivered against a relevant, meaningful and differentiated strategy it cannot be said to have been an effective piece of communication.
Execution is the part of communications that most people want to get into very early. This is where the agency likes to shine and is seen by many marketers as the most ‘fun’ part of their jobs – which is why execution all too often starts before the strategy and the idea are fixed. MArchitects cannot blame the agencies for poor execution: they can only work with the brief they are given.
If everything is done right, then this is the point that brand positioning will become evident through brand linkage and the emotional energy kicks in driving the change or behavior that the advertisers target.
We will all be looking carefully at these ads over the coming months, and I am sure that some are already being considered for industry awards (yes, I have my favorites as well, but that’s all irrelevant until I actually put my money behind my mouth/mind), but we have to keep asking again and again and again: how did these ads help grow their companies? If there’s not growth as a result of the campaigns, I don’;t care how good the ad, it was not effective marketing: pretty, but not effective, and I know my shareholders care a lot more about effective than pretty.
Posted in Brand character, Brand positioning, Campaign strategies, Communications strategy, Marketing communications, Marketing Excellence, News, Targeting
Tagged Brand leadership, brand positioning, brand strategy, Branding, brands strategy, campaign ideas, communications, competitive strategy, differentiation, insights, market research, Marketing, marketing mix, News, positioning, superbowl, targeting
I was sent a link to the Old Spice ads this week with someone asking me whether I thought that the campaign had run its course. It has, not because it is a poorly executed campaign, but because it has simply failed to increase sales.
So why was I impressed by the link? It is because of the 87, yes you read that right 87 ways to share/blog/follow/forward the article. For the sake of completeness here is the list:
Now, I thought that I has some idea of the platforms on which to be active. After seeing this list, I am rethinking. I have no doubt that there are more and I would love to have contributions so that we can create a complete platform list and see just how many ways it is possible, realistically to share content.
Posted in Campaign strategies, News, Social Media
Tagged campaign ideas, Facebook, LinkedIn, Social Media, strategy, Twitter
So it looks like AB Inbev have responded to my questioning their planned brand extension into cider.
Unveiling the drink in London this week, Stuart Macfarlane, president of AB Inbev in the UK, referred to the “premium, quality, crafted and heritage” attributes that the Stella brand is perceived to have.
The belief is that this brand loyalty can add more value to the premium cider category than the current market leaders – Magners and Bulmers – have or will manage.
They are really bullish because:
“Consumers want it, accept it and say it will enhance the category” according to Inbev. Hmmm? I am still not sure. Beer volumes are dropping in the UK where this is being launched first and the cider category, especially the premium ‘over ice’ cider category is growing.
Stella had a tremendously successful brand extension in Stella Black, which took 4% of market share, but that was a lager – sitting 100% in the target market of their most loyal consumers. The question I still have in my mind is how prepared are Stella to deal with the branding challenges of being in two categories and handling that category and product management.
If I look at what their competitor Heineken has done in recent years (and yes I accept that in the home market it is not a premium product like Stella – although it is seen as a premium imported lager elsewhere) they have managed to keep the category alive with some excellent innovations. Most of these have been packaging: think the aluminium bottles introduced in night clubs, and have maintained their leadership in a category they know about.
It will be interesting to revisit this in a few years and see if Inbev have really got to grips with product and category management to support their brand.
Posted in Campaign strategies, News, Product development
Tagged brand positioning, brand strategy, Branding, brands strategy, Marketing, News, new_products, positioning
Yesterday, we saw what has to be one of the most crass pieces of misjudged marketing since, Alec Chamberlain came back to the UK with ‘a piece of paper, signed by Mr. Hitler’. [OK., maybe its not that serious, but read on]
What were the marketers in Kenneth Cole thinking? The editorial at Advertising Age that picked this up have captured my feelings 100%
“Kenneth Cole and others in the media and marketing industries not only suffer from a lack of tact, they suffer from a lack of historical knowledge and the ability to grasp that the situation in Egypt could get a hell of lot uglier than it is even at this moment. In other words, just because you have an opinion on everything doesn’t mean you should be sharing it.”
http://adage.com/adages/post?article_id=148643
Just because you have the tools to communicate quickly to your consumers and potential consumers, it does not mean that you have to. I have posted before on my concerns that marketers are placing content for the sake of posting content (rather than having meaning for their brands) and see this as a further example of marketers putting their hands on auto pilot and their brains into neutral.
I am sure I not going to be the only person posting about what Kenneth Cole twittered and yes, it will negatively affect my perception of the brand. Quite the opposite of what they thought this witty remark would achieve.
Using shock, humor and disconrguity tactics in marketing is OK when its is part of the brand positioning, Benetton have been using ‘discongruent’ images for many years, but making jokes about an ongoing situation where people are dying and its looks like it is only going to get worse…its just not on.
Please MArchitects, make sure your brain is in gear before you act. This sort of activity does not build leading brands.
What should Kenneth Cole do now? Its unlikely they will hunker down and remain quiet – we will probably see some magnanimous gesture of a donation to an Egyptian charity supporting casualties – but that’s not the issue. While I commend any act of charity, however it is prompted, it strikes me that Kenneth Cole needs to take back strategic control of its integrated marketing plan. It has to get a grip.
This sort of release should not have been approved at any level, so there is something wrong in the processes at play here and it makes me wonder whether all the marketers and agencies working here really do have a consistent view about what the Kenneth Cole brand stands for.
The Marchitect 