who put a sad face on jollibee? part 1

Went to Jollibee Ortigas Avenue and all over the place were large posters featuring the Jollibee image in several materials. The wait for the food was long and that gave me time to survey the posters.

The sad and listless Jollibee



My reaction was – they changed the face of Jollibee, that’s not the same Jollibee I was familiar with! That surprised me as I know that together with a total make-over of their logos and store design, they also did a major graphics design change of Jollibee and his face some years ago. I thought changing it again now is too soon.

I remember they did the graphics change at the same time Aga Muhlach became the Jollibee endorser and I thought Jollibee then looked like Aga, a significant improvement from the previous Jollibee.

At first, I could not pin down the changes but I was very sure some changes were made. This Jollibee face looked sad and listless to me. The lips had a smile on it but it didn’t help. I was missing the spark on Jollibee’s face, made it look insincere, not at all friendly and certainly not jolly. At times I felt this Jollibee was blind.

Jollibee had the saddest face in this family picture of Aga Muhlach

The sad and listless Jollibee was made even more obvious in this large banner that had Jollibee together with Aga Muhlach and his family. Aga and everyone in the family were happy – all had these huge smiles, almost laughing faces and even the girl who didn’t smile as much as the others had eyes that were smiling and very happy.

Then it occurred to me what was wrong!

This is the Jollibee we all know - happy and engaging!

This is the Jollibee I know - an engaging, sparkly happy Jollibee. And I realize the sad and listless Jollibee face that was all over the restaurant was that of the Jollibee mascot!

It looks like the mascot’s face graphics is not an exact copy of the flat graphics of the Jollibee face that is in their logo and in all signages. And unfortunately, it appears Jollibee has embarked on a merchandising campaign that uses the Jollibee mascot very extensively.

The happy Jollibee - sparkles in the eyes and big happy smile!

The sad and listless Jollibee, looking like a dry ornament

There are two very major differences between the two: (a) the white “sparkles” in the eyes of the Jollibee logo are not on the mascot’s face and (b) the smile on the Jollibee logo is wider and bigger almost laughing, showing a red tongue while the mascot’s smile had its lips closed. There is a third difference, the shape of the chef’s hat but that compared to the smile and the sparkle in the eyes is a minor difference.

The absence of the white sparkles on the mascot’s eyes made the face look listless and the demure smile both contributed to making the mascot’s face look sad and much less engaging than that of the face logo.

The Jollibee face is a very important brand property of Jollibee. In fact, given the target market of Jollibee, it makes the face slightly more important than the text graphics of the brand name. One of the most revered principles of logo design and application is consistency. Marketing companies obsess with perfection when it comes to the application of logos across different media. They obsess with it because it is literally their face to their target market. And in the case of Jollibee, it is the personification of the brand and an expression of the brand values it upholds.

Companies like Walt Disney whose products rely heavily on visuals like graphics, animation and mascots (Disneyland) are obsessed with consistency and perfection of looks and graphics. Their obsession on consistency is very much marketing legend and if you ask Disney, they will tell you it is a key success element in their business and one that they will not compromise on. It is not only their trademark, their graphics are actually their business.

In the Disney picture, the face of Mickey Mouse is duplicated to the exact feature from the flat graphics to the mascot - from the eyes to the mouth, including the smile that showed the red lips, which was probably used as inspiration in designing the Jollibee face. To make sure the face is an exact copy, Disney even used a hard material on the face of the mascot to so that the whole face and the very important components of the shape of the ears and nose do not get distorted and stay in shape even when the mascot moves.

The differences are more obvious in the pictures below, where the Jollibee statue in the middle is an exact copy of the Jollibee flat graphics, the picture below it. The same happy and engaging character comes out, but not with the Jollibee mascot on the first picture. The Jollibee statue in the middle picture looks happier and friendlier. My 11 year old son describes the Jollibee mascot on the first picture as “Someone who is not happy in his job.”.

The sad and listless Jollibee mascot

The happy and engaging Jollibee statue, exact copy of the logo

The happy Jollibee logo we all love


For me, Jollibee is much better than Ronald McDonald. I won’t even be surprised if McDonald’s found out many Filipino children find Ronald McDonald as scary. I think Jollibee is definitely an asset and an advantage versus Ronald McDonald. It’s a shame that Jollibee has been careless, incompetent even in applying the Jollibee image to their mascot.

First and foremost, I think it is unforgivable that the design graphics of the Jollibee face is not faithfully duplicated on the mascot. There should not have been any compromise on this one, it is after all a logo. They should have not launched the Jollibee mascot unless it was a perfect duplication of the logo. If it was a question of material, then they should have not stopped looking for the material that guaranteed an exact duplication.

The other part is – why the insistence in using the Jollibee mascot in merchandising materials that is pure graphics and did not include real people in the layout? The use of the Jollibee mascot in the Aga Muhlach and family poster is understandable, to some degree necessary even, but I see no value in using the mascot in the Wi-Fi poster that was pure graphics. Rendering Jollibee in graphics in these types of posters would have resulted to a much better poster as the graphics artist has full control on the rendering of Jollibee.

The reason the Jollibee mascot is used in materials that include real people in the poster is that a graphics rendition of Jollibee would have been too obvious and can look weird in that poster. It might look too staged and fake. People will have a point of comparison – a flat, one dimensional Jollibee graphics versus people who are real and obviously in 3D.

The argument for the use of the mascot in posters that don’t include real people in the layout is the desire to make the Jollibee character more “real”. The mascot is 3D and can look better or more realistic. But that objective is not at all delivered in the posters. The photography in the posters is so bad that the Jollibee mascot actually looks flat, not 3D or a bad graphics rendition of the Jollibee logo. (The flat Jollibee mascot is the result of an over-exposed photo shooting of the mascot.)

I mentioned the difference in the shape of the chef hat in the flat logo and mascot is not as critical in as far as projecting an attitude and character of Jollibee, but it is nevertheless a grave violation in terms of consistency in the application of logos across media. The Jollibee face is not just a character like the other mascots they have, first it is Jollibee himself, the name of the restaurant and secondly, it is also a logo. And being a logo, you want to make sure it is faithfully applied across all materials.

That makes me wonder – is Jollibee management aware the Jollibee mascot is not an exact copy of Jollibee flat graphics? Another question – who put the sad face on Jollibee? Final question – who wants a sad Jollibee?

bud light "wheel" super bowl 2008 tv spot

hilarious!

there is a third version of the slimmers world print ad!

it still has the pelengkera brand character! but there is a very slight improvement in the layout - the horizontal lay-out tends to make you read from left to right, no longer does the design elements to confuse and disorient the reader. but the overwhelming palenkera brand character continue to be there.

like the first two layouts, slimmers world could have printed this ad on the wrong side and it would have not mattered. see for yourself, below:

philippine demographics - OFWs, the now definition of the pinoy masa

from the American Idol discussion on the dynamics of demographics and psychographics, this article from mahar mangahas is an excellent follow through - the ofw demographics.

the ofw has become the modern day quintessential definition of the pinoy masa. it's no longer juan de la cruz riding or pulling a carabao or wearing a salakot, it is now "mahal" in a jacket, with his his hand carry bag, pasalubongs on both arms and pushing large balikbayan boxes on his way out of the departure area of the NAIA.

it's interesting that SWS has elevated the OFW into a substantive segment of pinoy society and i agree it's about time. but how much do we know about the OFW and his/her families? has any serious marketing or advertising research been done to understand this segment? and more importantly, while the OFW segment is pervasive, does it have enough uniqueness as a group and buying power for marketers and advertisers to develop specific marketing plans for?

mahar mangahas' article may be the beginning. without going into details, these are the aha! data and analysis that popped out:

• women power confirmed and strengthened! women now more than ever make major family decisions and on more matters. this to me is the most major finding from the data. there are many strategic changes one can do by using just this data.
• living standards have improved. but what standards or criteria are being used? and in what areas of life?
• the OFW families are more optimistic. does optimism bring with it a different set of psychographics and push buttons?
  
  
  

-------


Measuring the OFW advantage
By Mahar MangahasPhilippine Daily Inquirer


First Posted 01:54:00 05/24/2008



MANILA, Philippines—Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) have done so much to improve the quality of life of their families in the Philippines as to make these families a demographic group deserving of its own statistics. Such families are now being identified in the regular Social Weather Surveys, from the question: “Is there a family member in this household who is currently working abroad, or not?”


One out of six or seven families in the nation is an OFW family, which I will abbreviate as OF; a non-OFW family will be NOF. The OF-proportion was 14 percent in the First Quarter 2008 survey of the poll group Social Weather Stations; it has been as high as 17 percent in previous surveys. Out of the country’s 18 million families, more or less 2.5 million families have an OFW working abroad.


These 2.5 million OFs are spread out geographically, but with Metro Manila a bit over-represented and Mindanao a bit under-represented, relative to their populations. There are about 500,000 in Metro Manila, 1.1 million elsewhere in Luzon, 500,000 in the Visayas, and 400,000 in Mindanao.

Note that OFs refer to the families that the OFWs left behind in the Philippines, and not the OFWs themselves:

• Forty-two percent of OFs, compared with only 32 percent of NOFs, are headed by women—when husbands are away, their wives take over.
• Heads of OFs tend to be older: 42 percent of them, compared with only 29 percent of heads of NOFs, are at least 55 years old.
• Heads of OFs tend to be more educated: 22 percent of them, compared with only 12 percent of NOFs, have college degrees.
  

Socioeconomic status. It is good to see that the D class, or “masa,” is very well represented among the OFs. The March 2008 survey implies that 1.7 million OFs are “masa.” About 600,000 OFs are ABCs, or middle-to-upper class; this is an over-representation of ABCs. About 200,000 OFs are Es, or very poor; Es are under-represented but not wholly excluded.
OFs are clearly better off than NOFs in terms of material possessions:


Security from poverty and hunger. More critical than material possessions, however, is security from economic deprivation.


Poverty among OFs is only half that of NOFs. Only 27 percent of OFs, compared with 54 percent of NOFs, rate their families as poor, or “mahirap.”


Poor OFs have a median threshold of P12,000 per month for home expenses to avoid being poor. Poor NOFs, however, have a median of only P6,000. Thus OFs also have much higher living standards than NOFs. (The median is the amount sufficient to satisfy half of the poor.)
On the other hand, 35 percent of OFs, compared with only 25 percent of NOFs, rate their families as not poor, or “hindi mahirap.” (The balances from 100 percent are those who see themselves on the borderline between poverty and non-poverty.)


The experience of hunger among OFs is less than half as frequent as among NOFs. Only 7.6 percent of OFs, versus 17.0 percent of NOFs, say that they experienced hunger at any time within the last three months, without having anything to eat, i.e., involuntarily.

Moderate hunger (experiencing it only once or a few times in the last three months) is 5.6 percent among OFs, compared to 13.6 percent among NOFs.

Severe hunger (suffering often or always in the last three months) is 2.0 percent among OFs, versus 3.4 percent among NOFs.

Trends in quality of life. A trend is a change over time, whereas a status is a position at one point in time. The SWS surveys measure past trend in quality of life (“uri ng pamumuhay”) of the family by asking the household heads if it has gotten better, gotten worse, or remained the same compared to 12 months ago. The surveys measure future trend by asking if they expect the quality of life of the family to get better, get worse, or remain the same in the next 12 months.
Relative to the past, 28 percent of OFs said they gained and 39 said they lost, for an unfavorable “gainers minus losers” score of -11. Among NOFs, however, only 17 percent said they gained, whereas 51 percent said they lost, for a dismal past trend score of -35.


Projecting into the future, 42 percent of OFs expect their quality of life to get better and 16 percent expect it to get worse, for a fairly good “optimists minus pessimists” score of +26. Among NOFs, only 27 percent are optimists, and 24 percent are pessimists, for a merely neutral future trend score of +3.


In viewing these figures, one should bear in mind that the advantages of the OFs were earned for them by their OFWs—“ang mga bayani ng bayan” [the heroes of the nation].

Satisfaction with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Incidentally, the advantages of OFs over NOFs do not translate into any difference between them in appraisal of national governance, as indicated by satisfaction with the performance of President Arroyo.

Among OFs, 25 percent said they are satisfied and 52 percent said they are dissatisfied with the performance of Ms Arroyo; that gives a net satisfaction rate of -27. Among NOFs, 28 percent are satisfied and 54 percent are dissatisfied, with her performance, for a net satisfaction of -26.

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20080517-137095/Update-on-poverty-and-hunger



......................................OFs.....NOFs
Has a phone.................73%.....51%
Mobile...........................60%.....48%
Landline........................25%.......9%
Has cable TV................20%......9%
Has a computer...........20%......6%
Has a motor vehicle....33%....22%
4 wheeled.....................14%......7%
2 or 3 wheeled.............21%....16%







---------

david cook's guitar hero tv spot

here is the guitar hero tv spot that was mentioned in the article. this ad apparently was aired during the finals night and it got a lot of attention specially from the women. this tv spot could have helped cook win american idol by a landslide despite of simon cowell!

apparently the cougars loved the ad so much that some of them may have voter 400 times to make sure cook wins.

----

'American Idol's' Davids battle, Fox wins

The finale was the third-most-watched in show history. The network, meanwhile, hits No. 1.

By Scott Collins, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer May 23, 2008

The battle of the Davids propelled Wednesday's "American Idol" finale to one of the show's best numbers ever, with 31.7 million viewers tuning in. Rocker David Cook's upset victory over the runner-up, teen crooner David Archuleta, capped a historic season for Fox, which amid the disruptions of the three-month writers strike became America's most-watched network for the first time. It also notched its fourth straight season as No. 1 in adult viewers ages 18 to 49, according to data from Nielsen Media Research. The 2007-08 TV season officially ended Wednesday.

The high viewership for "Idol's" Season 7 finale came as something of a surprise because the show had seen lower-than-expected ratings this season. As recently as earlier this month, "Idol" retreated to some of its softest numbers in years. But the matchup between Cook and Archuleta evidently proved irresistible. In fact, the two-hour episode was the third-most-watched "Idol" finale, after the 2006 showdown between Taylor Hicks and Katharine McPhee (36.4 million) and the 2003 face-off between Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken (38.1 million).

Last year's contest, between Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis, drew 30.7 million. In Los Angeles, the "Idol" finale overlapped for about 45 minutes with a Western Conference playoff game between the Lakers and the San Antonio Spurs on TNT. Yet both programs performed strongly, with "Idol" capturing 1.3 million area viewers versus the Lakers' 1.2 million. The "Idol" finale was a welcome dash of good news for the broadcast TV industry, which has been brought low by the writers strike and ongoing viewer defections to cable.

Every network except Fox saw significant ratings declines this season, including CBS, which shed 16% of its average total viewers compared with last season. As a result, Fox snatched the crown for most-watched network away from the usual victor, CBS, with 11.1 million versus 10.5 million (these data do not include Wednesday's results). Among the ad-friendly demographic of viewers ages 18 to 49, Fox led the season while ABC and CBS, both of which logged double-digit declines, tied for second. Results for the May "sweeps" period, which local stations use to help set ad rates and which also ended Wednesday, were worse.

Every network posted losses. NBC shed nearly one-fifth of its audience compared with a year ago. Against that backdrop, the "Idol" numbers assume even more importance, proving that broadcast TV can still deliver huge audiences with the right program.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-idolratings23-2008may23,0,7463265.story

the importance of understanding the target audience

tv shows like the american idol is very much like products that advertise - they are going after an audience. both need to understand the demographics and psychographics of their intended target audience. the need for an audience demands a need for understanding them.

the difference lie in the flexibility one enjoys or its limits on what it can do to it's product. in a sense, tv shows have a little more flexibility in altering their product than consumer brands. they can reformat, from minor to major like change stars or hosts, change story plots, etc. consumer products do not have that luxury of change flexibility.

tv shows can be very unforgiving too. the tv ratings immediately tell you if you are doing something right or something wrong. consumer companies may not have the same kind of speed in getting feedback.

for reality shows like the american idol, the smart contestant is the one who takes audience demographics and psychoigraphics to heart although in the real world that might be too sophisticated or too complicated for most of the contestants. that function in some ways is being performed by the judges who more often than not not just give comments on the performance itself but also on what the audience think.

david cook's american idol win - a study on demographics and psychographics

david cook won the american idol in a landslide win and an upset given the heaps of praises archileta got from the judges during the previous night. cowell said it - archileta wins the night. but that's not how it happened. and it wasn't just that final night, archileta more often than not got good praises from the judges almost the whole season while cook a few times got bad reviews from the judges.

personally, i think cook won american idol because he was a much more entertaining singer than archileta. while archileta had an excellent voice and was extremely consistent throughout the season, cook had a much more significant entertainment value. archileta i thought was on the verge of being a boring performer. archileta is almost like watching a cd played while cook was a performer who was alive. i also think the voice quality of cook had more character - raspy at some points, powerful in some and endearing and tender when needed. archileta was one-dimensional compared to cook who was more multi-dimensional.

that aside, the article below i think is a great study on what a marketer or advertiser can get out of studying demographics and psychographics of a target market. this was of course unintentional on the part of cook, he was not specifically targeting them, but the available data mentioned in the article is a very compelling study in target marketing consumers with the use of demographics and psychographics. it showed how two very different and unique sets of viewers can swing towards one of two choices.

cook, the brand in this article had a wide appeal but what eventually got him the votes were the older set and archileta lost on the absence of the younger set in the american idol audience. the preferences and needs are very different, including signals that connected the audience and the product.

it's an excellent study of the consumer psyche.

---------------------

'Cougars 4 Cook' sign was our first clue
By ERIN CARLSON – 1 hour ago
NEW YORK (AP) — "Cougars 4 Cook."

There it was, on a poster in the "American Idol" audience last week, after David Cook belted Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" in the Key of Emo. And that slogan — not to mention the woman who hoisted it — speaks to the 25-year-old singer's popularity with, ahem, women of a certain age.

Maybe it's his edgy-yet-mainstream appeal, sly grin, sparkling hazel eyes, facial scruff, love for crossword puzzles, love for his mom and brothers. Or perhaps it's the way he broke down in tears after his final performance, a rock-anthem arrangement of "The World I Know," which he rebelliously defended from Simon Cowell's criticism.

Somewhere down the line, the Midwest-raised former bartender became a sex symbol for scores of women who are practically old enough to be his mom. And clearly, they voted.
Linda Sharp, smitten as a schoolgirl, voted 473 times for Cook after Tuesday's final performance show. The 42-year-old married mom used her land-line and cell phone — as well as her three daughters' cell phones — to show support for the singer.

"The biggest thing: He's legal, and that goes a long way," said Sharp, who's from Austin, Texas. "He's 25. That's old enough that we can openly ogle him, and we can drool over him, and it doesn't make us feel like we could be his mother."

The same couldn't be said for 17-going-on-13 David Archuleta, the kid from Murray, Utah, whose booming, mature voice belies a youthful innocence and humility that, at times, bordered on painful to watch. Cook, by stark contrast, was increasingly self-assured as the year wore on.
Sharp writes "Idol" recaps on her blog "Don't Get Me Started," which attracts the soccer-mom set, who've praised the various talents of Cook. After she posted the "Risky Business"-inspired "Guitar Hero" commercial starring Cook, one commenter said: "Mmmmmmmmmmmmm. Need I say more?" Another wrote: "Have I died? Is this heaven? I'll take it!"

Apparently these women weren't just smitten with a younger man, they were motivated, too: In a landslide victory, Cook, from Blue Springs, Mo., beat Archuleta by a margin of 12 million votes out of the record 97.5 million cast by viewers.

"American Idol" had slipped in the overall ratings this season, but Wednesday's finale was seen by 31.7 million people — about a million more than the year before, according to Nielsen data — suggesting the show swiftly gathered momentum after it boiled down to man vs. boy.
And the biggest viewer erosion in season seven was right in Archuleta's voting bloc. Ratings fell 18 percent among women aged 18-34; and 12 percent among teenagers 12-17. Also apparently in Cook's favor: Viewership has risen among people aged 50 and over, and the median age of an "Idol" viewer, once in the mid-30s, is now up to 42.

"I'm exposed to the Jonas Brothers and the `High School Musical' crowd and all of that, but as cute as I might think they are, they do make me feel maternal — not hot," Sharp said. "So watching David Cook, I think that's been a huge appeal for thirty/forty/fiftysomethings that 'We're not dead.' We might drive the soccer minivan, (but) we're just picky about what perks us up."

Apparently, they can be picky about hair, too. Michael Slezak, a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly magazine, said Cook became "almost unstoppable" after getting rid of that unfortunate comb-forward haircut in the middle of the seventh season.

"If someone had told me 14 weeks ago that David Cook would turn out to be this season's sex symbol, I wouldn't have believed it," Slezak said. "He had this hideous mop of hair and he looked a little schlubby and, you know, he was just a very average kind of guy with bad hair ... . Getting that side-part during Dolly Parton week was possibly his best strategic move of the season, even more so than his rearrangement of 'Always Be My Baby.'"

With Cook's makeover came growing confidence on stage — and tears. The grainy-voiced rocker recently wept during a show while his older brother, Adam, who is battling advanced brain cancer, sat in the audience. He cried during his hometown visit and the two-part finale.
"Another reason women really dig him is he's an emotional guy and he's not afraid to show it," Slezak said. "It's hard to resist the appeal of a grown man crying tears of joy and not trying to hide it."

Anne Ward, 50, of New York City, said she impressed by Cook's "brotherly relationship" with Archuleta and the humility he showed when he didn't react to Cowell's acid-tongued commentary. Also: his frontman mystique.

"Here's this guy who sings so great, he crosses genres, and he's vulnerable, but yet, we didn't know a lot about him. And he's sort of soulful when he sings," said Ward, who has downloaded almost all of Cook's "Idol" songs.

Ward, a longtime fan of the show, said Cook "looks like a man, and he acts like a man," and knows how to milk the camera — but not in an overt, smarmy way (think Constantine Maroulis in season four). She was initially wowed by his musical skills, but didn't "feel the sex appeal factor" until his emotional performance of "Music of the Night" during Andrew Lloyd Webber week.

"It's almost like a courtship," Sharp said of gradual allegiance from other contestants to Cook. "It's been like this slow burn, and all of a sudden our internal 16-year-olds got ignited."
The icing on the cake, Sharp said, was Cook's finale duet with ZZ Top — and the "Guitar Hero" commercial aired during the finale, an homage to Tom Cruise's pants-less lip sync to Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock and Roll" in "Risky Business."

"We're the ones that salivated so heavily over Tom Cruise in `Risky Business' that he really slid to superstardom on a trail of our spittle," she said. "So to see David Cook — who we're firmly in love with — put into those two things ... I mean, it was just a gift. It was a present."
Archuleta did the exact same spot with similar choreography that aired later in the telecast, but it lacked the feral energy and intuition that Cook brought to the role. Cook looked like he knew what he was doing — but the would the angelic Archuleta really rock out in his skivvies if his parents left him home alone?

"They're both very talented, but it really boils down to what does it for you: A sexy hot man or Webkinz come to life?" she asked. "Is your cell phone studded with glitter, or do you just have a regular cell phone like I do?"

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iwlT6ScPejtf0sICQ69bAFWmz0AgD90QVNSG1

bud light "ability to fly" 2008 super bowl tv spot

this is another bud light tv spot that was aired in the 2008 super bowl. it's one of several executions.

apple computers : marketing magic and top quality sells

apple has for decades been a great marketing success study, it was then and in recent years it is once again that. apple's story is that of fairy tale quality, except that of course it actually happened for real. it's how one man's marketing brilliance and unwavering passion and obsession for excellence in concept and design took the brand from nothing to greatness. then kicked out of the company he made into a giant corporation, only to be restored back into position and a second time takes the company to greatness behind of all things this tiny little gadget called the ipod.

the ipod's insane success worldwide, behind the same brilliance and obsession that built the mac is being credited for reviving the company. this tiny product's excellence bar none is now propelling it's big brother the mac computer to leadership, at least in the high priced segment.

the lesson here is that marketing magic and top quality product design can not only demand a high price (and therefore high margins), it can also gain dominant leadership. i am not a fan of it, but in the ipod and mac's case, i am awed by the power called "halo effect".




---------

Report: Apple’s market share of PCs over $1,000 hits 66%

Here’s a new way to slice Apple’s growing share of the computer market. Last March, the NPD Group reported that Apple’s retail market share — its cut of the computers sold in brick-and-mortar stores — had climbed to 14%, a figure that’s roughly double its overall share of the U.S. market and reflects the power of the Apple Store to draw customers and move product. What NPD didn’t report at the time was the huge growth in Apple’s share of the so-called “premium” computer market — machines that cost more than $1,000.

To some extent, Apple’s (AAPL) share of this market is growing by default. Companies like HP (HPQ), Dell (DELL) and Lenovo ship enormous quantities of PCs at price points between $500 and $750, whereas no Macintosh (with the exception of the Mini) sells for less than $1,000.
Still, Apple’s share of the $1,000-plus retail market was less than 18% in January 2006 according to NPD. By September 2007, it had grown to more than 57%. And in the first quarter of 2008 it hit a record 66%.

This nugget of retail data comes from Joe Willcox, who writes the Apple Watch column for eWeek (see here). He extracted it from an interview last Friday with Stephen Baker, NPD’s vice president of industry analysis.

“Apple has got better distribution than it’s had in the last 15 years,” Baker told Willcox. They’re in the right spot right now.” It doesn’t hurt Apple that once you’re in its store, you can’t buy any computer with a screen for less than a grand. “If you don’t give people a choice,” Baker said, “people will spend more.”

http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/05/19/report-apples-market-share-of-pcs-over-1000-hits-66/?source=yahoo_quote

great advertising idea: 3D design on trailer trucks

it's the end of boring trailer trucks! here are some pictures of trailer trucks in europe where the advertising they put on the trucks are 3D giving this mobile advertising medium a new and very interesting twist.

the one below is very interesting and creative but i don't think it's safe. if you are driving and you drive up to the back of this truck, you're initial reaction is to get startled as it will confise you in thinking a truck is on it's way to a head on collision with you.

strategic change - from mass market to niche marketing

a very interesting article where you can see the importance of reading correctly changes in consumer behavior and how a company should adapt to these changes. AOL's business model is very different from mass consumer products, but the principles are just the same very relevant and useful. while AOL's revenue source, in effect its target market is advertisers, it needs to read the minds and habits of internet consumers who in turn are the target market of advertisers. AOL is a media through which advertisers can reach their own target market.


-----------

AOL seeks growth in shift from mass site to niches

Saturday May 17, 7:44 am ET
By Anick Jesdanun, AP Internet Writer


AOL seeks growth, ad dollars in shift from mass site to niches


NEW YORK (AP) -- A company rooted in bringing the Internet to the masses, AOL is shifting its focus toward serving niche audiences with the launch of dozens of specialty Web sites. The latest -- ParentDish for parents -- formally launched Friday, with The Boot for country music and The Boom Box for hip hop and R&B to follow on Tuesday.

Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, branching out in hopes of doing a better job attracting crucial advertising revenue to offset its rapidly declining Internet access business, calls the niche sites "passion points."


The sites reflect a growing sophistication of Internet users, who are spending less time at portals like AOL.com and Yahoo.com. and directly seeking specialized content at more focused sites. Examples outside AOL include Boing Boing, which keeps tabs on technology and the Internet; The Sartorialist, on street style; or Mom Logic, on parenting and being a mom.

"The consumer market is clearly fragmenting," said Bill Wilson, AOL's executive vice president for vertical programming. "We wanted to give people many front doors, not just one front door to come in."


In a fourth-floor corner office at AOL's new headquarters, once home to the grand Wanamaker department store in New York's Greenwich Village, Wilson was passionate, even hurried, as he zipped through AOL's plans to diversify its offerings.

Over the past several months, AOL has launched or revamped dozens of Web sites -- from general portals such as Music and Sports to specialty sites like Spinner for indie music and StyleList for fashion. AOL plans to offer about two dozen more by year's end, including BigDownload for downloadable video games. AOL isn't alone: Yahoo Inc. recently launched Shine for women ages 25 to 54. But, as the No. 4 Internet property behind Google Inc., Yahoo and Microsoft Corp., AOL has been more ambitious.

"The current problem with an awful lot of the mega sites is the fact that they aren't well targeted," said Rob Enderle, an industry analyst with the Enderle Group. "The material is written and designed for a general audience, and the reality is we are all individuals." AOL reigned over the Internet when it was known as America Online. It gave millions of Americans their first taste of the Net and had 26.7 million U.S. subscribers at its peak in 2002. But its mostly dial-up base quickly eroded as Americans adopted high-speed broadband services through cable and phone companies.

That forced AOL to change its mission. Instead of locking its news, music videos and other features behind a manicured wall for paying subscribers, AOL began giving away almost everything free through ad-supported sites.

Initially, it tried luring current and former paying subscribers to its free sites. But with ad revenue stagnant, the company is seeking new ways to boost traffic. "If all you're doing is keeping the people you have, that's not a growing audience," Wilson said. There are some early signs of success.

According to traffic measurements by comScore Inc., AOL has had seven consecutive months of year-over-year growth in both unique visitors and page views. For the entire first quarter, page views for AOL's content-focused sites, which exclude e-mail, instant messaging and the general AOL.com portal, grew 22 percent to 9.5 billion compared with the same period in 2007. The content sites had 55 million visitors in April, up 12 percent. Jack Flanagan, an executive vice president at comScore, said niche sites aren't solely responsible for AOL's growth but have quickly attracted sizable audiences.

The traffic growth, however, hasn't translated to ad dollars, which were flat in the first quarter. In fact, non-search ads on AOL sites declined 18 percent compared with the same period in 2007. The big growth has been in ads that AOL brokers for third-party sites -- such as the blogs vying for the same eyeballs as AOL's new niche sites.

Executives have been blunt: AOL made key mistakes integrating $1 billion worth of corporate acquisitions into a single "Platform-A" advertising unit. Its sales forces weren't aligned, and in some cases they were effectively undercutting one another on prices.

With new management, reorganized sales teams and new self-service tools for advertisers, AOL hopes to grow ad revenues on its sites again. The niche sites will be an important part of the mix, said Lynda Clarizio, president of Platform-A.


AOL already has behavioral-targeting technologies meant to let advertisers reach audience segments wherever they are on the Internet, but Clarizio said nothing can match reaching them when they are already engaged in a subject. The niche sites should help AOL attract sponsorship deals and other coordinated ad placements.

"That generally is the most valuable advertising inventory, the most expensive," Clarizio said.
Wilson said launch decisions are primarily based on whether AOL can offer consumers an experience unmatched elsewhere. Advertising potential is also crucial -- Wilson likens it to broadcast networks canceling shows that cannot draw ad revenue.


The individual sites are being given unprecedented freedom -- in many cases even shedding the AOL brand -- to best appeal to a particular community. ParentDish, tapping into parental desires to connect, hopes to let visitors to share photos and ask one another questions. In a twist, ParentDish will use Yahoo's Flickr rather than AOL's own photo services.

The Asylum site for young men takes an irreverent tone -- and devotion to the pursuit of women. The lead item recently: "How to Make Searches for Hot Babes Even Hotter."
With the new site on country music, AOL is adopting a homier feel. The Boot plans to go beyond the better-known artists who have crossed into the mainstream, something that might not appeal to a broader audience.

Such genre-focused sites allow writers to make assumptions about the visitor's knowledge, even posting jokes that would fly over the heads of a mainstream audience, said Bill Crandall, editor in chief for AOL's music sites.

Most are adopting a blog-like format to engage its visitors, a formula that has worked extremely well with TMZ.com, the celebrity-gossip site jointly run by AOL and Time Warner sister company Telepictures Productions.

In a departure, the new sites routinely link to articles found elsewhere. AOL would rather have visitors start at one of its sites than bypass them completely for the blogs. A few years ago, if we didn't have it, we didn't want people to know we didn't have it," Wilson conceded.

Stand-alone sites also can be tailored to appear higher in search rankings. And executives believe that some bloggers would be more willing to link back to an item on, say, Asylum than on the AOL.com portal.

AOL's plans also include integrating its popular AIM instant-messaging platform so users can see other AIM members currently on a particular site. But Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester Research, warned that all of AOL's niche offerings may not attract the total numbers they're seeking. "There's no way they can possibly anticipate all the ways consumers will want to bend and shape their own content," Epps said. But she credited AOL for trying. "They need to do something different. They need to keep innovating and experimenting and sometimes fail (in order to) find things that do work."

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080517/fragmentation_at_aol.html

bud light "fire" tv spot super bowl 2008

who is in charge

consumer insight

MARKETING Rx



What consumer insighting can give that benchmarking can’t


By Ned Roberto, Ardy Roberto

Philippine Daily InquirerFirst Posted 05:01:00 05/09/2008


Question: We heard the senior Marketing Rx-er once spoke about consumer insighting. We agree with him that underneath every successful marketing campaign, a good consumer insight was responsible. We also like his point that we shouldn’t limit ourselves to only one method or one source of insighting.


We’re in the crowded consumer processed food business. Our consumer insighting does not come directly from talking to consumers as you’ve suggested is better. It’s indirect. We’re into competitive benchmarking and competitor intelligence. In fact, we now refer to our Market and Consumer Research Department as Competitor Intelligence Department.
We appreciate the senior Marketing Rx-er’s emphasis on the many many consumer insighting research methods available both quantitative and qualitative. We actually tried two of them: One quanti and one quali. But they each just took too long and were both expensive. Benchmarking and competitive intelligence by contrast gave us consumer insights that were quick and relatively cheap and sometimes very cheap.


Please tell us: Is consumer insighting research really worth that much more? What can we get from it that we can’t get from our benchmarking and competitive intelligence?
Answer: We should start with where you are in consumer insighting. That’s with competitive benchmarking and competitor intelligence. You’ve already mentioned their two key advantages. So we won’t get into those. Instead, let’s take a closer look at their insighting capabilities.
In competitive benchmarking, you have the benefit of “best practice” in your search for a solution to a marketing problem. That best practice need not be and is usually not found in your own industry. Take the classic case of Toyota’s search for a better inventory control system that ended in its own “just-in-time” best practice. Toyota found that not in Ford where they started their benchmarking but in the vegetable section of US supermarkets.


You may ask: Does that qualify as a consumer insight? Not directly but indirectly, yes. After all, the search for just-in-time was provoked by Toyota’s felt need to serve the car market and car-buying motorists more efficiently than competition but at a larger profit.
Competitor intelligence is even less difficult to connect to consumer insighting. For example, what your innovating competitor is able to offer ahead of you came from its consumer insighting research. Your past experience with competition in your processed food industry must certainly confirm that.


So both benchmarking and competitor intelligence are ultimately consumer insighting-based or -inspired. But that doesn’t answer your question of what’s in consumer insighting research that’s not in benchmarking and competitor intelligence. Of course, that’s not the point of the foregoing explanation. We wanted to firmly establish in your mind that every effective insighting including your benchmarking and competitor intelligence approaches is ultimately consumer insight driven.


Now, on to your question—


Notice that benchmarking and competitor intelligence is about your current market and industry. And as you yourself said, it’s a market and industry that’s now crowded. In the coming years, it’s going to be more crowded. So what’s the prospect of business growth?
Insights from benchmarking and competitor insights will promise a usual single digit sales growth. When it’s double digit, it’s typically going to be in the neighborhood of between 10 and 20 percent, or if you pray hard enough, maybe between 20 and 30 percent. It won’t be a doubling or tripling of sales.


That will be the case unless the insight is about a “new uncontested market” segment. Such a new market segment can double sales because it’s another market. When its market size is about the same as your current market segment, it’s like duplicating in sales your current segment. When the new segment is about double the market size of your current segment, then it’s easy to see how the simple arithmetic will triple sales. It’s like duplicating twice over in sales your current market segment.


This sales-doubling or sales-tripling consumer insight comes from a consumer insighting research that’s been specifically designed for that purpose. In his consumer insighting seminar, the senior Marketing Rx-er refers to it as “the market-growing insighting research.” It’s not just sales-growing but market-growing. The impact is still on sales but in market-growing, that’s mega-sales-growing.


You may of course say, as many marketing colleagues of ours also say, that innovating competitors may be into such a market-growing insighting research. So the easier option is to do a Matsushita who just waits for Sony to come out with a market-growing new product. It then gets a prototype, reverse engineers it and then comes out with a much-improved imitation. That’s what they successfully did with the Betamax and came out with VHS as a superior Betamax.


But this is not an independent either-or option. You can resort to it as you can also at the same time get into the discipline of having your own consumer insighting research system. In setting up for your insighting research agenda, you also have the option of outsourcing the research, or else go for a D-I-Y (do-it-yourself) alternative. You said that you found research outsourcing too time consuming and expensive. So the more cost-effective and quicker alternative for you is a



D-I-Y research approach.


It’s unfortunate that marketers and marketing researchers refer to D-I-Y research as “quick-and-dirty” research. When incorrectly designed and nonscientifically implemented, it’s true that a D-I-Y research is quick and dirty. But when you bring statistical and marketing science into its design, implementation and analysis, you can turn a D-I-Y research into a decent “quick-but-clean” research. How to do this is, of course, another matter and suited for another column.

slimmers world WAWAM! print ad

there's a sneaky feeling the slimmers world print ad is a client-developed ad, someone in the PR department or a clerk who knows how to do some basic computer graphics did the layout and conceptualization of the ad. it's that or the high school child of the the owner of slimmers world did the print ad like a class project in her laptop at nights.


this ad is so terribly done that i think they could have printed the ad upside down and it would have been as effective when it was printed right side up.

this is so bad that i refuse to believe this print ad was done by an ad agency or even someone who has some advertising agency experience. i don't think someone who works in the ad industry can do something as bad as this one.

the ad violates every principle one can think of in doing a design lay-out for a print ad. even an art department trainee or a copywriter trainee will not do an ad like this.

if this ad was done by an ad agency, this then is prime example on what ails the philippine advertising industry. this lay-out should be used by every course in advertising in all universities and colleges in the philippines under the heading : "how to screw up a print ad : what you should never, never do. promise!".

the print ad's layout reminds me of those tea leaves fortune telling where the tea leaves are thrown into a cup of water and it's resulting image is read to tell the fortune of a client. everything in this print ad does not make sense. there are many, but let's just mention a few as analyzing this print ad is making me dizzy.

• where in the world is the headline? it's supposed to be "world class slimming, fitness, face and skin by" (yes, the very top of the ad.), then you get lost, you think it's a typo as it's an incomplete sentence! hahaha. actually, if you do some very close scrutiny, you will see the completion of that sentence, "slimmers world". look closely, it's hidden on the next line, center page.


• the lay-out is a nightmare - there is no center to the print ad. every component is given almost equal prominence, that your mind will refuse to look at anything in the ad.


• believe it or not, they have crammed at least 8 products and services into that print ad and none of it you understand what they are. you know they are there but your mind is refusing to read any of it.

the copywriting is of no help either. with this kind of lay-out, you really don't want to read the print ad. but for the purpose of analyzing the print ad, i forced myself into reading the copy. and it's of no help. nothing spectacular or mind boggling about it. the copy lines they have are just like words lifted from a brochure or the manual they got when they ordered the machines and technology they use in slimmers world. here's a sample - what is the difference between "Buy 1 month, get 1 month free!" and "Buy 15 treatments and get 15 treatments free!"???? they mean the same thing, right? but in this print ad, they chose to put them in two separate sections of the ad in the most irritating large fonts. i don't see the point of separating them if the only difference is just "treatments" and membership. collapsing these two ideas into one would have lessened the extreme clutter on the layout.

they have a second layout of the same ad, above. that should have been cause for a celebration and some hope, but all they did was change the image in the center of the print ad, the rest practically the same - a palengkera print ad.

a WAWAM!

bud light super bowl tv spot

budweiser beer ads is a fixture in the super bowl . since forever, the best bud ads are shown there. the ad agency and budweiser treat super bowls ads like an ad campaign where they draw strategies and executions specifically targeted towards the super bowl audience.

it makes a lot of sense as the super bowl is actually a cultural event in the US. watching super bowl is a family event and almost as sacred as thanksgiving. all the males in the family are expected to be home to watch it. and that makes the super bowl an excellent media buy for budweiser. aside from the high ratings and targeted audience, beer consumption while watching the super bowl is part of the cultural tradition, almost the same way as turkey is a must during thanksgiving.

but that does not come cheap, ad rates during the super bowl is the highest in all of tv. in 2008 a 30 second spot at the super bowl is at $2.7 Million! http://www.ktar.com/sports/?nid=23&sid=709586

budweiser usually airs several commercials during the super bowl. will be posting here the ads they aired in 2008 at the super bowl.

this one is hilarious! very high entertainment value.

nike's manny pacquiao tv spot - what a relief!

we must have seen a thousand manny pacquaio tv ads by now. most of them range from bad to crappy commercials. many of them i think is an embarrassment specially considering pacquiao's standing in the boxing world and hero status among filipinos.

this nike tv spot is an exception. it's actually a very decent tv spot. this one deserves to win an award for being a good manny pacquiao tv spot among the thousand manny pacquiao tv spots ever made.

more on manny pacquiao ads in the coming weeks....

buhay coke buksan mo - sandwich tv spot

this was one of the executions behind coke's previous campaign, "buhay coke buksan mo", the campaign that was difficult to understand (discussed previously). even this ad is difficult to understand. you can't tell what it is about our "buhay" that they are unravelling or opening. and more importantly, what role coke has in all of that. i bet the creatives were extremely proud and happy about this spot. i like creativity, but it first needs to be understandable to the target audience. this ad is creative only to those who wrote it, but not to the audience who don't understand it.

there is one more problem with this tv spot - it very much looks like pepsi tv spots. only, pepsi's spots are easy to understand.

compare this spot to the coke angel tv spot and you can immediately tell the differences and improvements they have made on their ad campaign. the tagline of the coke angel ad is excellent, "buhay coke tikman mo"; it's single minded and strong on taste and refreshment, coke's core positioning; and the story is much simpler and easy to understand, even with the irritating inclusion of the devil in the ad.