nestle give-me-a-name is closed! they have chosen a name

the nestle website is now closed. nestle has chosen a name!

but they are not telling us what name it is they have chosen. hahaha. they did say it's one of the entries but contrary to previous announcements in the website, they are not telling us what it is.

there's a form there where they're asking us to type in our email address but its not for the purpose of telling us what name was chosen. but for the purpose of letting us know "when the product is available"! hahaha.

the form was very poorly designed that the top half of the fonts "when the product is available" are covered by the box form that you can hardly read the words. was that intentional? or an innocent design mistake? i guess, like the name, we will never know! hahaha

http://www.givemeaname.ph/

give us your comments!

part 12. some things that don't make sense - how not to name a brand

the nestle effort is awash with many things that don't make sense. there is one more that those who visit the website might find surprising.

the website allows visitors to vote for entries and there's a tally of how many votes each entry has gotten.

however, there is nothing in the promo mechanics that says the winning entry that gets the most number of votes will win the contest! what the mechanics say is that the winning entry will be judged based on (a) creativity (40%), (b)suitability of the name to the product concept (30%) and (c) appetite appeal (30%.) in other words, nestle can actually declare as winner any of the entries listed there as finalists, even if the name didn't get a single vote in the website.

"help-choose-a-name" is the heading and the accompanying text leading to the list of finalists that shows the number of votes entries got. from a technical standpoint or from a purely semantics, these do not say the entry with the most number of votes will win. but clearly having this feature of allowing visitors to the website to cast their votes for preference has definitely created a clear impression that the number of votes will determine the winner. and in fact judging on the comments and movements of the votes, including the efforts of urflower (pinoy exchange bulletin board)and authors of entries who even went to the extent of opening dozens of email addresses just to be able to cast multiple votes per day) seem to say they think the entry that gets the highest number of votes will win!

what is the point then for allowing visitors to cast their votes?

what they wrote in the website indicate it's just to get a feel for what the website visitors feel about the names. a way to measure interest or preference on the names. in other words, the point i have made earlier - to generate buzz and excitement among the target audience. allowing people to vote and know the rankings will necessarily push people to keep on going to the website to check the status of their choices on a daily basis and create some excitement on pushing a particular entry to win with votes.

they created a competition and as in any competition, it became not very friendly in some, among those pushing for their entries when you read the comments. naturally, the comments got a mix of pushing for their entries with praises and a bashing contest on entries people did not like. allowing people to post comments is not necessarily a bad thing as that allowed nestle for their purpose to get feedback.

but the whole thing also sets up the visitors and voters for disappointment when they eventually find out that contrary to the impression it created, the number of votes they casted will not determine the winner. i wonder how the people who made an effort to vote (some on a daily basis using multiple email accounts) will feel when they find out the truth that their efforts of voting does not mean a thing to the winner?

nestle had good intentions for their own marketing purpose but what they did may result to visitors feeling duped and can create dislike, to say the least against nestle. and that is the exact opposite of what nestle wanted to achieve with this effort. they did the effort to create buzz and excitement for the launch of a new brand. if the website visitors feel cheated or duped, then for sure, they will not buy the new ice cream product, whatever name they eventually chose to give it. there are 62 entries, choosing one winner means 61 will get disappointed. the intent was at minumum to create some goodwill among potential buyers of the brand but they can end up creating badwill instead.

to be continued.....

part 11. how to waste advertising money - how not to name a brand

did you see the tv ad for the give-me-a-name effort? or hear the radio ad? print ad? the billboard? i had not seen any of those but the nestle website said they had those materials and even gave the media schedule. so if like me, you have not seen any of these ads, it looks like we are not the target audience of the ads. they must have placed those ads in media programs and newspapers we don't watch nor read or the media weights must have been so sparse that we all missed the ads.

given what they say in the website, this effort must have a very high cost. and with such a high cost, equally high expectations must come with it. but how do you measure the success of the effort?

given the objective of generating buzz and excitement behind the new product launch and since they have used their website as the end medium for it, a key measure would be the responses generated in their website. that would be number of hits the website has gotten, and most importantly, the number of entries and votes the names have gotten.

you can't measure buzz and excitement directly as these are emotional reactions but marketing people measure these indirectly through the number of target audience reached and number of target audience who have responded to the effort. based on these measures, it looks like the effort failed miserably.

we don't know the specific weight (frequency and spend)of the media plan, but the media plan they had put there, at least from the point of view of media used and months, seem to be literally a WAWAM!

for one, its a WAWAM because i don't think anyone really saw the ads. if they actually aired the materials, that means the weights must have been so low that nobody noticed. in marketing terms, spending very little money on advertising that too few people are reached is like spending no money at all on advertising. why spend too little that it has no impact? if it's no impact you want, then there is no need to spend any money.

on the other hand, if they were really intent on creating buzz, given the short period of time of the effort, around 5-6 months, for media to make real impact, they need to spend very high amount of money to rise above the clutter. now, that by itself is a problem and one that i don't think nestle will see as a good investment since this is NOT yet the brand, it's just an effort dedicated to figuring out the name for the brand. the brand is yet to be sold, it has not sold a case yet which means this brand's p&l is already at a loss even before they launch the brand.

this is the nature of media spending behind an advertising campaign - spending too little and spending too much are both a waste of precious advertising money. unfortunately, often times many advertising agencies get their clients to spend on advertising just so they so something in advertising and generate revenues for the ad agency even if it has no positive impact on the their client's business.

to be continued....

Trio Nestle Ice Cream

it looks like nestle already has a product in the philippines that has three flavors in one tub. the name "trio" obviously plays up the content of the ice cream - three flavors. same way as the "give-a-name" product, the name of this brand plays up the core reason for being for the product, its three flavors. what's missing though is the element of appetite appeal. ice cream names deliver appetite appeal by including the flavor/s in the name but that's not the case here, although they have the three different colors of the ice cream on the label design to communicate three flavors and put in, mercifully, text to identify the flavors.

i wonder if nestle applied their learnings from "trio" when they developed the marketing plan for the "give-a-name" product. this new product is at least the second three-flavor ice cream they have launched (don't know if there are others) and it would be a shame if they did not apply learnings on the new one.

funny tv spot

after seeing this tv spot, you'll probably never look at screening machines in airports the same way again. and when you here it send off an alarm, an automatic reaction is to look if any of the security personnel has his/her hand in her pocket!

part 10. was it worth it? how not to name a brand

companies launch new products for a reason. the primary reason for most is that they want to generate additional revenues and gain more market share. it's the same thing with running promos. brands run promos to gain a tactical surge in volume sales and market share, hoping that the promo will attract new users and get its current users to increase their purchase and hopefully enable the brand to sustain some of it after the promo. that's for existing brands.

the product description in the website calls the give-me-a-name effort a promo. taking aside for the moment the problems i have identified on the confusing product description and how confused the whole thing is, (http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2008/03/part-3-how-not-to-name-brand-nestle.html) this is not a promo in the sense of generating additional cases for the brand as the brand has not been launched yet. the word promo is being used by nestle not in the marketing sense but on the "promote" the brand sense as in generate interest and excitement on the new brand. the thinking of the brand management group was to create pre-launch buzz so that when they actually launch the brand, anticipation and interest is already there to greet it. they want to seed the market with interest.

a lot of marketing funds have been spent on this promo. they seem to have produced a tv commercial, they did roadshows and the website. i don't know if they actually aired the tv commercial on tv because i have not seen it on tv at all. with the produced commercial, the website, the roadshows that would cost them some good money, if they aired the tv commercial, then their promo cost would have more than quadrupled. it can run to the millions.

since their objective for the promo is to create buzz and anticipation, then the first measure of success would be number of people who who participated in the promo. based on the entries of names posted in the website, it doesn't seem to be much. in fact, the number seem to be very small.

there are 62 entries and we can be generous to say each single entry was submitted by a different person. this is generous, the rules does not say 1 person can submit only 1 entry. so it's possible that one person submitted more than one entry. the number of votes is also a bad basis for estimating the number of people captured by the promo as the mechanics of the promo is such that you can vote once a day and this promos has been running for months. more importantly, based on the way the votes come in and the comments posted in the website, it's a sure thing the authors of the entries set up several email addresses to allow them to vote for their entries as many email addresses they can have.

we don't know the website stats, but based on what we can read in the website, the number of unique visitors and hits does not seem promising or encouraging. and also based on the kind of audience responses posted in the website, i don't know if any excitement or anticipation have been created. it reads more like acrimonious than excitement and anticipation.

to be continued....

truth in advertising : the miracle worker called photoshop

for marketing reasons unknown to man, alcoholic drinks in the philippines have followed what seems to be a tradition of printing calendars for the next year featuring scantily clad actresses. i doubt if it has any impact on brand building or if its able to sell more cases beacuse of the calendars but i think they do it just because its a tradition and they need to earn additional agency commissions before the year ends.

ginebra san miguel featured angelica panganiban for the 2007 calendar. unfortunately, someone leaked to the internet pictures of angelica during what appears to be a fitting session for the bikinis that she eventually wore during the actual photo shoot. more than that, an enterprising internet dude came up with side-by-side photos of angelica, showing her in all her swimsuit glory, a hilarious, yes, also pathetic display of the before and the after miracle of the photoshop for us to see what happened to truth in advertising.

i hope the ad agency fired the agency person who took angelica's pictures before the photoshop. and i hope ginebra fired the ad agency who did these calendars.

what is the lesson here? BAN CAMERAS DURING SWIMSUIT FITTINGS AND PHOTO SHOOTS! chuckle!

this is a classic DOUBLE WAWAM!


double click the pics to view much larger pics:

her fingers are saying something - she seems nervous. so that's how this beauty shows her nerves!

the two men behind angelica must be artists in the ad agency. my bet is they are measuring the length of the straps of the bikini top as they eventually replaced the yellow straps with see through plastic ones. those two men have such a great job!

behind angelica is probably angelica's assistant covering her back with what appears to be a small blanket. that makes us wonder what it is that angelica is covering with her hands on her behind, something the assistant was also trying to cover.

angelica surveying herself in this yellow number. disappointed? sad? thinking of the next weight reduction program she needs to take after the photo shoot?

kudos to the photoshop artist - brilliant work!

new post on this topic, read here: http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2008/07/wawam-and-angelica-panganiban-at-new.html

starbucks relaunch - back to basics, the power of brand equity

starbucks is plain and simple a marketing success. it is so successful that the you know the brand's marketing objective is not a marketing objective but something like "achieve world dominance". nobody will argue that is their goal, starbucks has had a ubiquitous strategy, to be in every corner of the city. actually the best description for their location choice strategy is "main street corner main street" and you know it's not said in jest, it's for real. you just can't say "lets meet at starbucks at the corner", as it's very possible that there will be more than 1 starbucks in that cross street.

and that is why i was dumb founded when i read in the business papers that starbucks stock market price has significantly lost value and that its ex-CEO, howard schultz was being called out of retirement to once again head the company.

more than that, what i found interesting in that news article, was what shultz said - starbucks will discontinue serving hot and steamy breakfast fare. he gave a very simple reason why they were stopping it - the aroma coming from the steamy breakfast food was interfering with the aroma of brewed coffee! it's not about product or pricing, its about aroma!

with that statement, i understood what he meant - starbucks will return to its core brand equity of great coffee and great coffee experience. that i think the most eloquent verbalization of the idea of what is referred to in marketing as back to basics, a going back to the true brand equity of starbucks. aroma is the most basic, one of the most physical manifistation of product delivery in cofee products. we know great cofee two ways - aroma and taste. in fact good aroma greets us first before good coffee taste. the CEO saying he will bring the company back to delivering on aroma means a most fundamental shift to a core brand equity for starbucks.

that was music to my ears as a marketing man. in fact that sentence in that article sounded like a full orchestra playing a great symphony to me. this man reeks with excellent brand equity skills and knowledge. it's not a surprise that he was THE MAN responsible for the " world dominance" success of starbucks. it is not only the fact that starbucks occupy the best locations on main street corner main street, it is the fact each starbucks look and most specially feel exactly the same. you don't even have to know the name, all you need to do is to step into one, sit down, look at the decor, the arrangement and feel the ambiance and you will know you are inside a starbucks outlet. starbuck's success is anchored only on one thing - its brand equity. there's no other way to explain why people are willing to pay P110.00 for a friggin cup of coffee that's served in a paper cup and spoons made out of a plastic strip that you can't use to scoop coffee with.

starbucks success is founded in superior delivery of the BRAND EXPERIENCE. (more on this in succeeding posts.)

when you hear a man say he will stop selling food products because the aroma interferes with the aroma of coffee being brewed, that's convincing proof that starbucks' success is nothing more but brand equity and that starbucks is on the road to recovery.

this news article details more changes in starbucks:

-----------

Starbucks Plans Return to Its Roots


By BRAD STONE

Published: March 20, 2008

SEATTLE — Howard D. Schultz, the chief executive of Starbucks, announced sweeping changes on Wednesday for the company as it seeks to reconnect with customers who have left for competitors or pared back their coffee budget in hard economic times.

The initiatives are intended to restore an authentic coffeehouse experience to the stores and, in turn, re-energize an ailing stock that has lost half its value in the last 15 months. In front of 6,000 investors, employees and analysts at the annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday, Mr. Schultz introduced an improved automated espresso machine that grinds coffee for each drink and has a lower height that will allow customers to see baristas making their beverage. He said the company would roll out the Swiss-made Mastrena machines to three-fourths of Starbucks stores by 2010.

Mr. Schultz also announced the acquisition of the Coffee Equipment Company, the four-year-old Seattle-based maker of the Clover coffee machine, which brews a more expensive, higher-quality coffee one cup at a time. The price was not disclosed. Starbucks will roll out Clover systems in select markets.

Mr. Schultz described a host of other plans: a pungent new coffee blend, a partnership with Conservation International to certify environmentally responsible whole-bean espresso products, and a rewards program for users of the Starbucks customer card.

Beginning in mid-April, users of the customer card will be able to customize their drinks — with soy milk or vanilla, for example — at no cost.

The announcements are intended to help Starbucks hang on to customers in the face of intensifying competition for brewed coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s, which is widely introducing espresso beverages this year.

“This was more of a position statement. They are going back to their core,” said Sharon Zackfia, a securities analyst with William Blair & Company. “They are saying, ‘We are not going to change who we are, we are going to defend turf aggressively.’ ”

Mr. Schultz obliquely referred to the powerful new rivals in an afternoon question-and-answer session with reporters. “A lot of people are making unique claims about coffee and what they do,” he said. “What’s interesting to me is that they are not coffee roasters.”

But Mr. Schultz tried largely to keep the focus on the company’s internal challenges and future moves. “This is the first time the U.S. business is under pressure; it’s a character test,” he said. “But it’s not about the economy. We don’t want to use that as an excuse. And it’s not about the competition. Don’t believe the media hype. There’s no coffee war going on. This is about us. “We somehow evolved from a culture of entrepreneurship, creativity and
innovation to a culture of, in a way, mediocrity and bureaucracy,” Mr. Schultz said.

His remarks combined self-criticism with musings on the turbulent economy, which he noted was reducing traffic to Starbucks stores. The company faces a hurdle that may be impossible to overcome in the short term: Will penny-pinching Americans, in the grip of an economic downturn, still pay $4.10 for their daily dose of white chocolate mocha-flavored coffee? Mr. Schultz said several times that the economy looked grim for the rest of the year, particularly in regions of the country hit hard by the subprime mortgage crisis.

Starbucks has also suffered from rising wholesale prices for coffee and dairy products. In the face of those pressures, Mr. Schultz returned as chief executive 11 weeks ago after serving eight years as chairman. He quickly announced 600 layoffs and the closing of 100 of the least profitable Starbucks stores in the United States. He also said Starbucks would stop selling a line of breakfast sandwiches that were served warm, creating an aroma that overwhelmed that of the coffee in stores.

At the heart of the new announcements is a desire to revisit the company’s early devotion to high-quality coffee. The new coffee blend, called Pike Place Roast, is a reference to the location of the first Starbucks store. Starbucks will introduce the blend in stores next month. Baristas will be directed to brew smaller batches of coffee and refresh the coffee in urns every 30 minutes. Today, coffee can sit in Starbucks’s urns for as long as two hours.

Mr. Schultz called the new blend “a coffee so fresh that those people who drink it with milk and sugar will want to drink it black because of the sweetness.”

Also on Wednesday, Starbucks introduced a new online community, mystarbucksidea.com, where Mr. Schultz and other managers will contribute to a corporate blog. Customers will also be encouraged to visit the site to make suggestions and interact with employees. The site opens on Thursday.

Looking further ahead, Mr. Schultz said that the company planned to introduce health- and wellness-related food and drinks and energy beverages later in the year.

Wednesday’s meeting represents what Mr. Schultz hopes will be a striking turnaround in the speed and spirit of innovation at Starbucks. In the first half of the decade, the company thrived on product introductions like the Frappuccino, a frozen coffee drink. The last innovation widely thought to be successful was the Cinnamon Dolce Latte — in early 2006.

Mr. Schultz partly has his own relentless ambition to blame for the woes at Starbucks. In the last two years, citing ever-larger expansion goals, the company doubled its number of stores to more than 15,000 in 44 countries — many in comically close proximity to one another and to competing coffee shops.

Analysts say new stores cannibalized traffic from existing stores and thinned the ranks of well-trained Starbucks managers and employees. The company then tried to create efficiencies among stores, adding technology like massive automated espresso machines, which have little of the romance or aroma of the old hand-operated machines.

In the second half of last year, Starbucks’s same-store sales — a significant number watched by Wall Street — declined for the first time.

Shareholders and employees began lining up for Wednesday’s event as early as 6 a.m. As a barbershop quartet sang and employees dressed in Starbucks’s green aprons handed out free coffee, many shareholders expressed excitement over Mr. Schultz’s return.

“I’m glad Howard is back at the helm. Starbucks is his heart,” said Jan Melin, a retiree and
shareholder from Seattle who was there with her husband, Bill. “I have every confidence he will turn the company around so this stock can take our family on our 50th wedding anniversary trip next year.”

from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/business/20sbux.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=business

you mean i didnt know that? ads

we all know this - advertising is meant to communicate a message, to convince and persuade or to create a desired image. the basic idea behind ads is that the target audience might not know it yet, thus a message is being delivered to the audience. or the audience need to be convinced on something they do not believe in yet or you want them to change their minds on something. and finally, some ads are released to reinforce or remind them of something. those are the most common reasons why an ad is aired. do we agree on that?

let's remember that when we think of these ads that's shown cable tv - supposedly real people testimonials of filipinos testifying about their personal experiences on the economic growth of the country. real life stories, snippets of how they have experienced personal economic growth, ending all of it on the note "umaasenso ang buhay".

what??????

relate what we agreed to paragraph one to paragraph two. the first question is - what the hell is that ad for? if we filipinos are progressing economically, shouldn't we know that on our own? do we really need anyone, much more a tv ad to tell about it? in fact, do i need a tv ad to convince me that i am experience economic growth? if it is true that i am getting richer, i don't need anyone to tell me that.

i honestly do not understand the point of those ads. help me figure it out, please!

there are so many things very wrong and on very many different levels about those ads. that's next in this blog.

what's in a brand name change?

been hearing this radio commercial announcing the change of a brand name from "aspilet" to "kiddielet". what a shame. aspilet is one of the old brands in the country with heritage transfered from one generation to the next over several generations of filipinos.

i am guessing the change in brand name is being forced on it because of a change in active ingredient. it's no longer an aspirin, so the need to change to kidielet from aspilet. is that a regulatory issue? i think kiddielet is such a lame brand name.

part 9. a quicksand, the untamed internet : how not to name a brand

the internet is truly a whole new different world than what we know. it exists on its own and has its own rules, primary of which is - it has no rules. at the same time that there are no rules, it's open wide for anyone and everyone to be in.

the nestle promo is prime example of how that affected them. nestle did not think through the whole thing and allowed too many doors open for anyone to enter. while it is written, there are really no restrictions on who can submit entries to the effort. based on the rules nestle posted (which by the way has two typo errors), nestle was supposed to apply a selection criteria to the "finalists". they were supposed to select 30 entries but based on how it went, they did not actually follow that rule. and more importantly, based on the quality and wide diversity of the kinds of entries, they didn't seem to apply the criteria they set or if they did, it was loosely applied or done by an irresponsible and lazy manager.

otherwise, how can "3 Season", grammatically incorrect, missing the plural "s" be a finalist? or how can the word "summer" be allowed in the brand name when that is directly opposite and contradictory to an ice cream where summer is about heat and an ice cream is about cold? one can argue that a cold ice cream can soothe the effect of a hot summer, but no attempt in the entries were made to communicate that thought. besides, putting the word summer in the brand name seem to say the ice cream product will be available only during the summer months. the other is the entry "tropical burst" when it seem most appropriate to be a name for a juice drink. and true enough, two juice brands have been identified as having that name- "Gatorade Tropical Burst" and "Kool Aid Burst Tropical".

using the internet as the medium for submission automatically carries with it the potential of millions of people submitting millions of entries. anyone and everyone who has internet access can submit entries and that can number in the hundreds of millions. that characteristic of the internet by itself is not the only part that weakens this effort, its the part when criteria they set are not applied to the letter and their poor judgement bore holes into the whole thing.

another example is the effort done by "frenzy" condoms in the same bulletin board, pinoy exchange. frenzy is a frequent advertiser in pinoy exchange and we can assume that a smart brand manager or account manager thought of opening threads in the pinoy exchange to talk about condoms and the brand itself. i am sure the thinking there was having a lively discussion on the brand alongside the internet ads make for good synergy.


but here's the problem - the internet is a free for all medium where anyone and everyone can say anything. advertising agencies and clients have no control whatsoever, and frenzy's nightmare began when one person posted a product negative about frenzy! this post talked about how fragile frenzy condoms are and how it has failed him that because of that product inferiority, he has stopped using frenzy! the ads in pinoy exchange alongside with the thread was meant to promote, extol and propagate how great a product frenzy is, BUT here was a testimony from an actual user talking about product failure! disaster!

one of the first things brand managers learn in their work either through experience or as taught to them by their bosses is - the brand manager must exercise complete control on his marketing effort. do not leave anything to chance. apply all the mechanics and safeguards you can think of to make sure the effort follows only one path - that of success.

nestle, just like frenzy forgot this very important part in using the internet as a marketing tool.

before we end this section, one more example, a very important one, on the dangers of using the internet in your marketing effort at naming a brand is this : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/.

anyone and everyone, in this particular example, wawam, can create a marketing critique blog and feature nestle's effort prominently in the blog. nestle used the internet, a place where anyone can see and say something about it, specially the errors in the effort, the failure of the brand manager and the foolishness of the account amanager, just like this blog.

touche!


to be continued......

smart's "best for value" brand positioning

this is one of the first tv ads that smart ran when they launched the brand. it is clearly on a "best value for money" positioning. it's a good example how a brand's positioning is carried through from brand name to tv ads.

http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2008/03/part-5-how-not-to-name-brand-strategic.html

part 8. the risk of not thinking things through in the internet : how not to name a brand

assuming your target market frequents the internet, its a great medium by which you can get in touch with them. it's convenient, quick and highly accessible to a specific target market (the AB upper C market).

that's one of the good sides about the internet. however, that same good side is an open door to the bad and that essentially is what the nestle effort forgot to think about.

the idea behind the internet website is to get its readers to help nestle in choosing a brand name and as discussed earlier the brand name is actually a most important first step in every new product launch as the brand name is the only element of the brand that stays with it forever. making the process of choosing it public, asking the public to participate and in the internet allows its target easy access and quick participation but at the same time, it is open to the bad, if you don't take the necessary precautions and keep the door open to everyone.

in that posting in the another website, pinoy exchange, it allowed a prostitute wanna-be, someone willing to sell sex for money to join the contest and launch an internet effort to help her win the contest. if that entry won, will nestle be happy in publicising the author of the brand name who wants to be a prostitute? does that sound like a viable add on to the brand image of this new brand?

this shows how the use of the internet and its openness, having its doors wide open for anyone and everyone to participate as inviting risk to join this most important first step in marketing a new product.

based on succeeding posts, we can conclude that she was really not serious about contemplating on selling sex for money. it is obvious that this person used the sex-for-money angle just to draw attention to herself, get the sympathy of her readers and move them to vote for her entry so that she can win and in the process "save her from doing something wrong".

while some might find selling sex for money as more objectionable, the whole thing just the same reeks of an internet scam. if that entry wins on the basis of most number of votes (it did get the most number of votes on the promo deadline that was set), then it means it was achieved on false pretense.


to be continued.....

nestle website: http://www.givemeaname.ph/

apple macintosh - breakout ad that made advertising history

this apple tv ad started it all for the brand. it was aired only once, during the super bowl sand it was big hit. it was so well receivedved that practically all media outlets featured it and talked about the ad day after it was aired. this add created so much buzz for apple that its credited for setting apple on the way to success as a brand. a very clear case that confirms ads do work!

airing great ads at the super bowl have become a tradition in the US where many companies choose launch new ads at the super bowl. many companies even produce ads that are very specific to the super bowl. US audiences have come to expect to see the most entertaining and the most poweful ads during the super bowl.





from the you tube write up:

The classic Apple commercial released in 1984. By far, one of the best and most famous commercials in this generation.

1984 is a television commercial launched by Apple Inc. in 1984 to promote the Macintosh personal computer in the United States. Directed by Ridley Scott, the commercial first
aired on January 22, 1984 during a break in the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII. The ad showed an unnamed heroine (played by Anya Major) wearing red shorts, red running shoes, and a white tank top with a Picasso-style picture of Apple's Macintosh computer, running through an Orwellian world to throw a sledgehammer at a TV image of Big Brother — an implied representation of IBM — played by David Graham. This was followed by an on-screen message and accompanying voice over by actor Edward Grover: "On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984." At the end, the Apple "rainbow bitten apple" logo is shown on a black background.

The 60-second film was created by the advertising agency Chiat/Day, with copy written by Steve Hayden and direction by Ridley Scott (who had just finished filming Blade Runner the year prior).

part 7. the good side and bad of the internet : how not to name a brand

the internet is a new world technology that has managed to make very profound changes in our lives and the world. the interesting part about the internet is that not only has it made very profound changes in our lives and the world we live in right now, the best and the most is yet to come. and that includes business. business and those who wish to make a mark is all over each other to use the internet not only meet our goals but to be ahead of competition. we think of schemes and ways to make use of the internet and set us apart and ahead of our competition. ans that is most likely what was in the minds of the nestle marketing team who developed the name the brand promo (i shudder every time i use that term!).

but as many good things and many good people populate the internet, there are at least an equal number if not more bad things and bad people who sit right beside the good. that is the lesson, actually the warning we get all the time on the internet. when a new thing or a new rage comes up in the internet, the good parts are delivered first but it always ends with an admonition to take precautions, to be alert to be defensive of the bad that may happen. and again just as the marketing team who authored the nestle effort (avoided using the word "promo") decided to use the internet for the good things, they seem to have forgotten that part about applying caution and immunizing their effort from the bad.

on the first post, i had made the comment that this effort was not thought through very well. this is one of those observations.

go to this link : http://www.pinoyexchange.com/forums/showthread.php?t=330077


a girl who claims to study in an all-girls college with the username "urflower" (excellent name!) opened a thread with the title: "Is sex for money bad?"

1st post:

"Hi. I am a struggling student in an all-girl's college and as we know times are not that good when you are on a tight allowance. Some of my schoolmates approached me and said they know someone who would help get me "dates" with men with money. The problem I think is I can't choose the men. That is where the difficulty lies. Am I being a prude?On the side I have been joining some promos for cash prizes. You never know diba? But still what are the chances?This one is sure money but is it worth it?"

people responded to this first post - giving advise and their opinion. it became a very long thread but the following early posts complete the story:


2nd post:

"I was wondering as well. Would it be better if I got a rich old man? I do have a "suitor" who is older and more well off. Should I give in to him and stomach it? He isn't the man I like. Nor is he good-looking. Pero mabait cya.Thankfully my mom taught us English well. She is an English teacher. But we have fallen into hard times and we must do what we can? It is life after all.Should I take on the older, wealthier man and just have the man I like on the side? Will it matter?Only 1.5-2k for my virtue? Wow."

3rd post:

"Will it be possible that one of my rich clients will actually consider me for a long-term
relationship? Possibly marriage?Should I just hang around rich circles? But how can I do that with no money?"

it became a hot topic in the section with many giving their opinion and advise. eventually, urflower posted another thread with the title: "Help me from resorting to something that may harm me."

"Thank you all for your words of advice. It is obvious that I really need help.I am hoping I have a solution. It may be short-term and may be a long shot but it is worth a try. The power of the internet may help make it happen.There is a site called www.givemeaname.ph I have joined and luckily they chose my entry Taste of Summer.However it is low on the list. I am asking everyone to help me out and vote for my entry. Also pass on to your friends to have them vote as well.This should hopefully allow me to start off a small business which I can slowly grow over time.Please help me set-up an internet brigade to help me out of my mess."

read it here : http://www.pinoyexchange.com/forums/showthread.php?p=23378304#post23378304


this is what happened here: urflower sent an an entry to the nestle name a brand promo, "taste of summer". to get people to vote for her entry, she opened a thread in Pinoy Exchange, in the Intimacy & Passion section first asking if it's wrong to sell sex for money. she said she is being tempted to go into prostitution because her family has fallen into bad times. people responded to that thread very well. but eventually, she asked people to vote for her entry, "taste of summer" for it to win so that the she can set a business and stop herself from selling her body for money.

urflower opened other threads in other sections of PEX, one in the "dilemmas" section where there her question was "Should I answer the boy with money? or the one i really like?". the idea is the same thing, she opened a topic asking for advise on a "dilemma" where the issue was the need for money. she allowed the thread to get a lot of responses giving her advise and suggestions, then eventually asking the readers of the thread to save her from her dilemma by voting for her entry in the nestle promo.

read it here: http://www.pinoyexchange.com/forums/showthread.php?t=330073

there was another thread opened in another section but this was a straight out request to vote for her entry in the nestle promo.





to be continued....

pepsi philippines net profit drop -21% due to +529% increase in marketing expense. what marketing??? where???

PDI news article (march 13, 2008, business section) headline says: "Marketing costs hit 4Q income of Pepsi". article goes on to say net profit dropped -21% to P143M versus year ago period. marketing expenses rose to P232M from only P37M or a whopping +529% increase during the period from previous year.

what marketing effort??? did anyone notice pepsi spent +500% more during that quarter? just looking at that huge increase, you would have expected pepsi to be ubiquitous and must have created so much buzz that our consciousness should have been filled with nothing but pepsi. don't think that really happened.

makes you wonder where they spent all that marketing money supposedly spent over a 3 to 4 month period. that's an amazing amount for such a short period of time. they spent in 3-4 months marketing budgets of many brands that are spent over 1-3 years! so where did they spend that? with that kind of money spent and yet consumers didn't feel it's impact, the proper conclusion is - they threw all that money into the bermuda triangle, not the philippines.

the article states over-all sales rose ONLY 5%, with non-carbonated drinks remaining flat while non-carbonated drinks rose +34%. ahh..... so it seems those sales performance data is telling us -whatever it is they did in marketing, they were very ineffective that their sales growth was minuscule.

we can assume that since pepsi's core business is their carbonated drinks brands, it stands to reason that they must have spent a large chunk of that marketing expense behind that business. for their carbonated drinks sales to remain flat after such a huge marketing expense mean their marketing efforts were a dud!

when pepsi philippines did an IPO (initial public offering) and listed in the philippine stock exchange last year , i avoided it like hell. i thought pepsi has in their hands very huge challenges in the philippine market. and a key problem is lack of quality marketing and lack of marketing funds. now we know that marketing funds were put behind it, but the results were dismal!

of course it depends in what areas of marketing they put all those money. different companies define marketing expense in many ways. these could be marketing funds put behind consumer-oriented activites or for some companies, they see distribution or logistics as a marketing expense.

the other key weakness of pepsi in this market is weak distribution. they are up against coca cola and san miguel who have been giants in distribution muscle and depth in this market for many years. but in the case of pepsi, consumer marketing is a bigger need. also, any marketing person know that to get a jolt on sales and market share, consumer marketing is the way to go. so we can assume bulk of those marketing funds were channeled into consumer marketing.

conclusion? not only is it a lack of quality marketing, its pathetic quality. how else do you explain a +500% increase in marketing expense yielding only a pathetic +5% in sales? will any of the marketing staff put that kind of achievement in their resume? (time to change the marketing team and ad agency!)

nope, their marketing effort didn't have fizz! sigh!

sampal tv:30s : the pitch for modern methods of contraception

high birth rate is one of the realities and problems of the country, but people might not know it, there are many reasons why it is so and some of these reasons many will be surprised, shocked even as is the message of the tv ad.

tell us what you think about the ad.

part 6. how not to name a brand : planning and execution failure

this is from the pdf file in the website that details the mechanics of winning in the promo:

2. The winning entry shall be evaluated through the following steps:

Elimination Stages:
a. Every week from November 4, 2007 to January 31, 2008, 100 entries shall be randomly selected from the entries submitted. Entries that are not selected during the weekly random selection shall still be eligible from random selection in the following weeks.

b. The 100 entries randomly selected each week shall be initially evaluated based on the fit of the name to the product, after which 30 entries shall be chosen from said 100 entries.

c. All 30 weekly entries shall be evaluated on the basis of the following criteria:

i. Originality
ii. Suitability for use as a brand name
iii. Absence of prior registration at the Philippine Intellectual Property Office
iv. Non-use by any company or person
v. Conformity with branding regulations of the BFAD or any other responsible agency.

d. Entries that do not meet the criteria mentioned above shall be disqualified and those that were not chosen during the random selection. They are not qualified to win any prize, even if they turn out to have submitted the same as the entry/ies that eventually win/s the prize/s.

the above mechanics are confusing and unclear as to exactly what is the process they will follow in selecting the 'finalists". the mechanics is saying there will be 30 finalists, but at the moment the website has 62 "finalists" listed there now. and i don't recall the website ever identifying any 30 entries.

the 30 entries is quite important as based on their mechanics, these are the ones that have been evaluated based on the criteria identified above (letter C). the criteria they have identified there are legal and regulatory considerations (iii. to v.). you can't just use any name as a brand name, you need to register them and it should follow laws and regulations from the government.

since the 62 names are declared as "finalists", do we take that to mean that all these have been legally cleared and therefor ready for use as a brand name?

the use of a website in the internet to help them decide on a brand name is a very impractical thing to do, not to mention full of risks and dangers.

among other things, it means nestle would need to check each and every brand name submission to see it they pass the regulatory considerations and what they call as "fitness to be used as a brand name" criteria. they have to do that before they post it in the website.

they have 62 names as finalists, did nestle register each name already to own each one? they have to, as any 1 of the 62 can end up to be the winner. if they did not register or own all 62 names, an enterprising person can actually register if for himself/herself ahead of nestle. anyone can register it for himself the day it appears in the website and nestle is pre-empted.

brand names are trademarks, they should be treated as trade secrets until they are launched in the market. you worry about competition getting to know about it. in fact, you take pains in keeping everything about a new product launch secret. you don't want to be pre-empted.

since nestle put it out in a website, that means anyone can read it, including nestle's competition. that is the reason why nestle should have registered all 62 names in the list of finalists. if they didn't, there is no way it can stop its competition or an enterprising individual to register it for themselves.


to be continued....

part 5. how not to name a brand : strategic issue - what is an ice cream product?

“smart” was used as a name for a cell phone service provider positioned as giving “best value for money”. at the time of launch of smart, there were three players - globe (GSM), piltel (analogue) and extelcom (GSM). smart intended to use analogue as its less expensive operational cost allowed them to under cut competition’s prices and quickly gain market share.

the choice of “smart” as the brand name was strategic, to uphold its “best value for money” brand positioning and to communicate that users who chose the brand were being smart about it. smart has in fact upheld their positioning even when they moved to GSM but not necessarily through undercutting competition through lower pricing but through industry leading value added services that resulted to the same best value brand image.

that is to show how a brand’s positioning is carried through to naming a brand. strategic thinking was applied through all components of the marketing mix, including the naming of the product.

a look at names of international ice cream brands tell you that they tend to be flavor oriented. that makes a lot of sense as in truth an ice cream is an ice cream is an ice cream. all of them are cold, most are sweet and creamy but the main differentiator is the flavor. there can be variances in texture through additional things like nuts and raisins but even in products like these, they still anchor the differentiator in the flavor.

nestle’s new ice cream product’s core reason for being is the three fruit flavors of melon, watermelon and orange. this is shown in what appears to be a tv comercial when you go to the website, but it is not mentioned in the product description, we can assume the flavors will not be mixed together (sure a bad tasting product id done!) but separated in the tub. we can also assume the product will have three colors (not mentioned in the porduct description but shown in the tv commercial) to signal the three fruit flavors. the three flavors then is the core strategic consideration for the product (not a “promo”!). this differentiates the product from others. the name should deliver.

it is this reason that the name submission “triple delight” (and others that use the idea of “three”) works very well. it highlights the core essence of the product and talks about appetite appeal (”delight”) without being too laborious and boring about it. its a complex product design, with the three flavors, and putting these in the name is just too cumbersome and impractical, if we were to follow what the international ice cream brands did. the tv commercial shown in the website mentions "tres marias" as a copy line, a suggestion for the name. "scramble" and "karambola ni lolo" were the other "suggested names, talking about the three unique flavors. the suggested names mentioned in the commercial clearly implies "three" or "triple" flavors is the core reason for being for the product.

when “triple delight” got a lot of votes, other copycat names were submitted using the concept of “three” or “triple”. but the authors submitted those only because they were riding on the popularity of the idea behind “three”, not necessarily because of an appreciation of strategic thinking.

now, we have basically two sets of names in the list of finalists - one along the concept of “summer” and the other on “triple”. that is the nature of a popularity contest like this thats posted in the internet where there are no cut-off dates for submission.
will this product have a name that will uphold the brand’s positioning the same way as “smart” did?

to be continued….

nestle : http://www.givemeaname.ph/

names of international ice cream brands

there are a few lessons to be learned from looking at the names of international ice cream brands. you can easily draw common denominators, the odd ones and even extract strategies and directions from them. ice cream brand names have certain qualities in them.


everyone is welcome to draw their own lessons learned and post them here.


Ben & Jerry’s Top 10 Flavors:

• Cherry Garcia® Ice Cream


• Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream


• Chocolate Fudge Brownie™ Ice Cream


• Chunky Monkey® Ice Cream


• Half Baked™ Ice Cream


• Phish Food® Ice Cream


• New York Super Fudge Chunk® Ice Cream


• Coffee Heath Bar Crunch® Ice Cream


• Cherry Garcia® Low Fat Frozen Yogurt


• Peanut Butter Cup™ Ice Cream

ben & jerrys : http://www.benjerry.com/our_products/top_ten/
dreyers : http://www.dreyers.com/brand/grand/flavorlisting.asp?b=133
haagen dazs : http://www.haagendazs.com/products/default.aspx
nestle : http://www.givemeaname.ph/

to be continued……

janina san miguel as brand philippines???

janina san miguel will represent the philippines. she will become the brand of the country. do we agree with that?



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Paolo Bediones: Janina, how are you?
Janina San Miguel: I’m pine.
Paolo Bediones: Alright, so you won two of the major awards - Best in Long Gown, Best in Swimsuit, do you feel any pressure right now?
Janina San Miguel: No, I don’t feel any pressure right now.
Paolo Bediones: Confident! Alright! Please choose a name of the judge.
Paolo Bediones: We have Miss Vivienne Tan.
Vivienne Tan: Good Evening.
Janina San Miguel: Good Evening.
Vivienne Tan: The question is, what role did your family play to you as candidate to Binibining Pilinas?

Janina San Miguel:
Well, my family’s role for me is so important b’coz there was the wa- they’re, they was the one who’s… very… Hahahaha…

Oh I’m so sorry, Ahhmm… My pamily… My family… Oh my god… I’m… Ok, I’m so sorry… I… I told you that I’m so confident…

Eto, Ahhmm, Wait… Hahahaha, Ahmmm, Sorry guys because this was really my first pageant ever b’coz I’m only 17 years old and ahahaha I, I did not expect that I came from, I came from one of the taff 10. Hmmm, so… but I said that my family es the most important persons in my life. Thank you.

part 4. how not to name a brand : strategy failure equals naming failure

the nestle website lists 3 judging criteria:

• creativity : 40%
• suitability of the name to the Product Concept : 30%
• appetite appeal : 30%
  

unfortunately, the Product Concept write up in the website, in the "About-Me" portion is sorely lacking of meaningful information in developing a brand name. while some mention was done on the commercial that is shown as an intro to the website, all that was mentioned in the product description in the website were the 3 flavors without giving detailed descriptions of the flavors. mention of the promo in the product concept statement made the whole thing even more confusing if not misleading.

looking at the list of names submitted and listed as “finalists”, however, showed that its very possible the authors of the names ignored the list of criteria or they did not understand what they meant. specially at the start of the contest, most of the names submitted were mostly an attempt to be creative or unique but hardly took off from the criteria of “suitability to the product concept”.

this can explain why there was a profusion of names that included “summer” in them. while summer is an interesting idea, its use in the names submitted were inappropriate for an ice cream product. summer is all about heat, sweat and sun on the physical side; and youth, fun and active on the emotional side. from a physical side, summer as used in the names are contradictory to the essence of an ice cream product. an ice cream product should evoke cooling or cold-related sensations, not heat and discomfort.

the idea of summer was also nowhere in the website or criteria and yet many names using the word were submitted. this happened only because at the beginning of the contest, two names with summer got the two top votes. it appears other names with the use of summer or its counterpart “tropical” were submitted as copycat submissions to the two top voted names. aside from the weakness of summer/heat contradicting ice cream/cold, the use of the word may mislead people to think this product will only be available during the summer months. brand names first and foremost should be descriptive of the product. ”suitability to the product concept” should have gotten more weight and less on “creativity”.

but then again, the contest participant is left guessing what the ”product concept” is. we assume it is that part that is labeled ”About-Me” or the product description. but the ”about-me” or product description as already discussed was poorly written, lacking and confusing. in marketing terms, a “concept” is very different from a “description”. nestle is hoping the reader of the website will be able to figure those things out on their own.


to be continued…..

visit the nestle website: http://www.givemeaname.ph/

part 3. how not to name a brand - nestle abdicated strategic thinking, 1st major failure

all marketing books, all marketing gurus and all marketing successes tell you that good strategic thinking is most key for any success in marketing. and the opposite, failed strategic thinking is the major cause of many marketing failures.


but strategic thinking applied to naming is what nestle abdicated when it decided to ask its advertising and internet audiences to name this product.


this lack of strategic thinking reeks in the names submitted by contestants and chosen as finalists. the names range from the ridiculous to the playful to nonsense to totally off-strategy. that’s not the fault of those who submitted the names. they thought of those names with the sole intent of winning the contest. and the ”best approach” to win a contest like this is to think of names that are attention getting and not necessarily strategic.

nestle’s product description :

"Imagine having the top three favorite fruity flavors (Melon, Watermelon and Orange) rolled into a convenient 750mL tub that sells for only P80 then making this Frozen Dessert the entire promo in itself. Introducing Nestle Give-Me-A-Name Frozen Dessert. It’s a refreshing new promo for a refreshing new desert the entire family will love! Try it and see for yourself.”

first, i don’t understand what they mean by “making this Frozen Dessert the entire promo in itself” and what that has to do with naming the brand. it goes on to say “It’s a refreshing new promo for a refreshing new dessert the entire family will love!” so now, it’s the promo?

is this about the ice cream product or the promo? is this for naming a promo or naming an ice cream product?

that portion was supposed to be a product description that the audience is supposed to use as input in naming the brand. the person (brand manager? account manager?) who wrote this probably thought it was very smart and cute to include that in the product description. it’s cute in that person’s mind, but it does not do nor contribute anything to the task of explaining a product description.

consumers don’t eat promos, they eat ice cream. the whole idea is supposed to name an ice cream product, not a promo. the person who did this is very confused as to what the whole point of the effort is. and in the process, those reading it, the ones who will give suggestions for the brand name may have been confused as well.

instead of putting in pa-cute things like “this Frozen Dessert is the entire promo in itself”, they should have instead put descriptions of the three flavors. while this was mentioned in the tc commercial at the intro to the website, there were no descriptions on the kind of melon taste, the kind of watermelon taste and the kind of orange taste. things like what it will feel in the palette and how it will feel inside the mouth. the tv commercial mentions "yummy melon", "cool orange" and "refreshing watermelon".

aside from the physical or palette signals, state the emotions that the product will deliver to the eater. there must have been a reason why they chose these specific flavors. they chose these flavors because they wanted to create a unique and specific product experience. what are these product experiences?

and the most important part - why did they choose three flavors in one product? they must have found something unique and compelling in that. including that in the product description would have served them more rather than the pa-cute line on “making the frozen desert the entire promo itself” that is totally meaningless, confusing and does not contribute to the project.

there’s a lot of difficulty in trying to understand why that reference to the promo is included in a section with a title that said ”product description”. though shown in the tv commercial played when you open the website, they failed to mention texture, color and how the three flavors will be placed inside the tub (three equal triangle shapes? circles? all mixed up?).


to be continued….


nestle’s website: http://givemeaname.ph/

part 2. how not to name a brand : nestle failed on the most important 1st marketing step

there is only one single element in a brand that is forever - the brand name of a product! being forever, it makes sense that work done on this be seen as a first important marketing decision. and yet nestle abdicated this most important first marketing step. rather than thinking about it themselves or hiring professional naming companies, they have asked the audience - the advertising target audience and internet citizens to do their job.


did they expect their audience to be able to appreciate product or formula design and how these should be used in naming a brand? and do they expect their audience to appreciate the importance of differentiation and uniqueness? not to mention memorability?

names of humans differentiate an individual from the rest. when we have more than one child, we make it a point to have unique names so that we don’t confuse one from the other. sometimes, we even look for meanings of names we give our children. at times, we invent names, combine syllables to create unique ones. but the point is we use names not only to differentiate but also to have meanings.

that is also true for brand names. only, the need for such things - uniqueness and meaning are of much more primal importance and cost money. companies launch new brands at great expense and know their importance to their business. new brands add new revenue streams and help ensure a company’s future growth. often, you launch new brands because they see a market opportunity either something that their current portfolio lack or something that is a white space in the market that can be exploited. the point is new product launches are very serious marketing undertakings.


but nestle with their name a brand “promo” is not behaving that way.

we can only assume the nestle brand management team who handle this brand has developed a marketing plan. we can also assume that a lot of thinking and analysis were put on developing the brand strategies. and these strategies come from doing a market analysis, segmentation analysis and extraction of consumer needs and insights. how did the nestle brand management team get their marketing plan approved when they did not have a brand name?

the nestle brand management team developed a product strategy, we have a glimpse of it in their website. and usually this product strategy, plus market analysis, plus consumer needs and insights come into play in thinking of the brand name. did nestle think their advertising and internet audiences have these abilities?

not being able to apply strategic thinking on the most important first step in marketing is the first major failure of nestle on the new product launch of this nameless brand.


to be continued….



nestle’s website: http://givemeaname.ph/

part 1. how not to name a brand : nestle's give-me-a-name online wawam!

here’s how not to name a new brand. there are so many things wrong about this effort. aside from this will show its really a dumb idea to name a brand the way nestle did it, it’s also a good study on how to do badly at planning things.

go to this link to get an understanding of what its all about : http://www.givemeaname.ph/

naming a brand is probably the first most important step one takes in launching a new brand. a lot of time and effort should be spent on it. consumer research should be done first. and there is now a whole industry of professionals whose job is just to name a brand. it escapes me why nestle has decided to ask people (internet and advertising audience) and to do it through the internet to do this very important first step.


lets not forget that the Brand Name in truth is the one component that stays forever with a brand. you can change graphics design over time, change formula (flavor, color and ingredients), change packaging/container and change advertising campaigns, but the brand name stays, no matter what.


so what is the advantage of naming a brand by asking consumers and internet citizens to give a name to a brand? what is the intended gain? i am sure nestle thought it will gain something by doing it this way. but is the gain worth the danger and risks? and how could the brand management group and the advertising agency be so bad in planning the whole thing? it appears to me, nobody thought it through.

to be continued......