Jun 27, 2011 | Branding, Innovation, Marketing
How often have you seen assumptions, either made in the early stages of a project, or as a result of a long association with a product category blinding people to alternatives, gradually become accepted as “fact”?
I have seen it often, as has everyone who ever sought to overturn the status quo, these “factoids” rear their ugly heads to stymie innovation.
Many years ago, when flavored milk was all packed in cartons that cost a few cents each, it was an accepted “factoid” that consumers would not pay extra for different packaging that added to the cost of the product. It was a “fact” that plastic bottles with a resealable screw cap that added 25 cents to the cost , for less product, held no attraction to consumers, a “fact” confirmed by market research. At the time, whilst pretty obvious that the research was flawed by asking consumers questions about something they had not seen, the institutional forces against any innovation were strong.
However, we launched a product, “Dare” flavored milk that delivered less product in a more expensive, more user friendly and attractive package, and consumers changed their behavior overnight, and the product was not only a success, but it changed the marketing landscape of flavored milk overnight, and 20 years later it is still on the market.
So much for the so called facts.
Jun 26, 2011 | Branding, Customers, Innovation, Marketing, Sales, Social Media, Strategy
The future of produce marketing in Australia is fraught with difficulties that many who just buy their produce in the supermarket will never think about.
The dominance of the chain supermarkets, lack of innovation, fragile investment outlook, environmental concerns, regulatory inconsistency and political blather in place of certainty coming from any philosophic foundation, an ageing workforce, trade barriers, the list goes on.
The report below was commissioned in an effort to put some framework around the marketing of produce in Australia, and to take lessons from what was happening elsewhere, and whilst it is a relative scratch at the surface, it highlights the challenges. Download it, and let me know what you think, what have I missed, where it could be improved. Its free to download, but I would appreciate you letting me know by commenting.
Embracing Innovative Marketing & Promotional Methods
May 29, 2011 | Branding, Personal Rant
Why does the government set out to create conflict? Is it to distract attention? The current “debate” on cigarette packaging is a silly nonsense, a politically inspired furphy.
Obviously it is in the community’s interest to reduce smoking rates, smoking kills, and obviously the cigarette companies will protect their investment in a legal product, immoral as that may seem to some.
Philosophically, I am alarmed at the proposal to retrospectively trash the investment in brands made over a long time by sellers of the noxious weed, it has been legal to promote their products by any means allowed by the moving legislative goalposts , just very difficult for the last few years. Why is it different to the announcement by the NSW Premier that retrospectively he will reduce the feed in rate for solar panels? Both are an injustice, no matter how ill advised the original circumstances.
In the event that this legislation passes, we deserve to pay huge amounts of damages to the fag companies as compensation for their trashed brand equity. In an environment where business needs a rule of law as a basis for long term decision making, retrospectivity, no matter how superficially attractive, should be a no-no.
Why don’t they just double excise, and announce that in 12 months, it will be doubled again. That would do more to reduce smoking rates than plain packs, not open the IP compensation box, and it would be easy. It would also drag in a bit of short term revenue to pay the hospital bills of those few smokers left.
Perhaps it is because they do not want to be nasty to all those smoking voters, they would rather open the community to huge compensation payouts. Silly, silly people.
May 10, 2011 | Branding, Change, Marketing, Social Media
Branding and brand marketing has always been about finding customers for a product, a “build it and they will come” approach. But life, and the world has changed from just 20 years ago.
I remember the day I saw my first fax, an astonishing tool, but I have not used one in 10 years. At that time I worked for a large company, and the “Boss” got anxious if he could not walk down the corridor and talk at (deliberate grammatical error there) anyone he wanted to, at any time, without the risk of anyone either contradicting him, or not doing as they were told.
Now.. That boss is as relevant as a dinosaur, the world of marketing is all about the individual, “find a customer, and build what they want!” It is products for customers, and the tools of the last 20 years have made the middlemen of previous generations, that command and control boss I had, the advertising agencies, promotional consultants, creepy blokes from universities who you just knew could never have sold a box of matches to a freezing man, irrelevant. The difference is the e-tools that have emerged over the last 20 years, transparency, and the flexibility and opportunity they bring is brings is king, although most institutions hate it, as they survive by hiding things.
When everyone can be a publisher of news, books, photos, ideas, the barrier to entry of needing a printing press is gone, all it takes is $600 for a computer and connection, and if you are really skint, go to the local public library and publish for free.
Morgan Spurlock has made his point in several independent films very differently, he now does it again, by selling naming rights to his TED talk, as he says, probably the only time it will happen. Worth a look.
Apr 26, 2011 | Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
The line between advertising to build brands and entertainment continues to blurr, and a whole new arena for creativity has emerged in our marketing mix, unheralded amongst many of those who run the corporations that create most of our old fashioned mass marketing.
Last week in the UK, just talking to some kids on fancy bikes in the high street of Chichester, it was clear they were a band of brand apostles for Red Bull, but it wasn’t the exploits of Sebatian Vettel and Mark Webber in the F1 cars, but a bloke I had never heard of, Danny MacAskill, and his exploits on a push bike captured on u-tube that hooked them.
Red Bull, a brand that has been rapidly built on extreme, aspirational, sports performance, does not make an appearance until the credits on this clip, a 7 minute “bike trip” but the impact on these kids was powerful. Advertainment, not advertising, created the powerful connection between the kids and the brand.
