dilbert's taglines and brand positioning

al ries, WAWAM!'s Brain Food author - coming to manila!

two of al ries' books are Brain Food in WAWAM!. actually many more books of al ries are on the "active" book shelf, with a tag "read again" on each one. and he is coming to manila!

i would send my whole brand management and account management team to this seminar. that is, if your company has been making very healthy revenues and profits in the past months. the price tag is very stiff.

if my company doesn't have enough training funds to send the whole brand management and account management team to this talk, i would be selective.

what i would use as criteria, would be to send those people who have heard AND read at least one book of al ries. i would call a staff meeting of the department and ask two questions --- (a) who has read any of al ries' book? then (b) for those who read any of his books, i would ask the 2nd question -- what do you remember did al ries say in his book? correct answers to both would mean that person will be sent to the seminar courtesy of the company.

i think people who have read at least one of his books would be the ones who would benefit the most from the talk. it's a 1 day gig and based on the course outline, it seems ries will only talk in the first hour or so of the seminar.

given that very short time, i would think 1 hour at the most, that ries will be talking, it will be more productive if you already know some of his writings.

but if i am going to spend my own money, i am not going to this one. i don't think it's worth it. ries is only 1 of 5 speakers. it's not really a ries seminar, he is just a keynote speaker. in other markets, even in asia, he conducts 2 to 3 day seminars, all the days having rise as the speaker and facilitator. given the number of speakers, ries will probably talk only for 1 hour at the most.

rather than spend the money on the seminar fee, i would spend it in buying other books ries (or jack trout) will publish in the future.

actually, i got turned off by the description that is on the print ad - "Al Ries is the architect behind the groundbreaking marketing tool known as positioning - the concept of replacing a product and its function with a brand name." what the hell is that?

double click image for larger view

positioning is a marketing tool that has been around for decades, even before al ries wrote about it. brand managers all over the world have been using that tool since marketing was invented. al ries DID NOT invent "positioning", he just wrote about it and his writings on it were very well done. others before him have written about positioning, but they just did not become as popular and not as well written as al ries' book.

just for this advertising BS in the print ad, i will not spend my own money to attend the seminar. it's a matter of principle for me.

and the last part - the definition of what "positioning" is, hahaha! that is too stupid and ridiculous to even write about it here. the organizers of this seminar need to take the seminar themselves for them to be able to properly define what positioning is. or at least buy the al ries book on "positioning".

i don't think i should spend my money on an al ries seminar whose organizers have not read any of al ries books. they don't even show they understand what "positioning" is all about. what a shame and what a WAWAM!

sorry al, love your books but hate your organizers!

other posts on al ries in WAWAM!, read here : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/al%20ries

pantene's most beautiful wet beauties shine in gold

any woman's product that can make judy ann santos beautiful, i am buying it! that is what this pantene, "the most beautiful" commercial did to me.

the commercial starts with supers that says "the most beautiful" and then we see 4 gorgeous, well yes beautiful women who seem to have just come off from a bronze tanning machine, everything about them - their skin and their clothes were in gold. the ambiance of the room they were in was also in a nice golden hue. (so they were probably still inside the bronze tanning room when they shot the commercial?)

and you do a double take, move closer to the screen when the first beautiful woman speaks. who is she? then the shock of your life, it's judy ann santos. she is beautiful! you quickly make a mental note : find out who the make up artist and director of photography responsible for turning judy ann to a beauty!





this commercial succeeds in convincing you they are beautiful women. never mind that at the opening shot, they had this fine print declaration that the title "beautiful women" came from Preview Magazine's April 2008 issue. watching the commercial (refer to mental note) persuades you to it.

then the tv ad shows the beautiful women talk about how their hair are strong even when wet. apparently hair when wet is at its weakest state. i didn't know that but i believe it, four beautiful women told me so. who can refuse?

it ends with the copy and supers that says "shine. pantene." shine? where did that come from?

and that is the part when some debate must have ensued on. pantene's long term brand equity is "shiny hair". but a huge 99.99% of this ad does not talk about shine. it didn't even show it. what it did was talk about strong hair. my guess is they probably rationalized that by saying the consumer insight is strong hair. ahhhh, well, hmmm..... we will let that go for now because we are still high from looking at those golden beauties.

and that brings us to the strategic question of - is this ad about beautiful women, golden ladies, strong hair or shiny hair?

as for me, hands down it's about beautiful women. after watching this commercial, there is this urgent need to find out the names of the director, the make up artists, the director of photography and the costume and set designer. if they can make judy ann santos look beautiful, i'm buying pantene and hiring them for my next commercial with women talents.

the democrat's denver rage party - the challenge of delivering messages on a multi-level stage

what is happening in denver for the democrats is much like a rage party - people from different persuasions, mostly dressed alike but faces with different stripes and inside looking for different things and everyone hoping that after an all nighter, everyone will come out of the door happy and everyone had a night of wild fun to remember.


or, is it?


political speeches and political party events are both very different and the same to that of marketing events for brands and a brand manager's speech in a product launch.


it is the same in the sense that both need to deliver one theme and one message. you want the troops to rally to a specific point. that point is usually where you want everyone in the room to be standing at exactly before take off outside the convention hall or the hotel ballroom to start battle the competition.


it is different in that in a political speech and a political event you not only worry about the people inside the convention room (that's similar to product launches), but you have to worry about what competition can do to you as soon as that tv camera beams its broadcast on tv.


in political speeches and events, it is a must to always operate in multiple levels in everything. messages need to be looked into always from the perspective of many more levels beyond the convention floor.


whatever you say and in this case even what you do not say in the convention will be devoured by the republicans and their strategists and will definitely do something with what they get. that is a range of multiple options - hurl them back at you as an attack or expose a weakness, cause loss of confidence among your supporters or retool their own message in their own convention which will happen in a few week's time.


and that is just the republican side. there is a bigger beast, a more ferocious one out there called the media and analysts. their job is to look at the details, deconstruct and reconstruct what is said and not said to expose both the real message and the one you missed.


it might look easy on the surface - deliver messages that (a) differentiate yourself from competition, (b) define your own solutions well, (c) inspire the faithful, (d) take the high ground, (e) and move the faithful to action.


and all of that need to reverberate and take other forms that will prevent competition from finding something to use against you or the media and analysts finding a weakness that they can highlight. it is always wise to be aware of the two things at the same time -- the good and the bad.


the convention started on a reality check - it is a divided democratic party. and that in many ways define the task obama has in his hands. his acceptance speech need to be a blockbuster, 10 times more inspiring than the speech he delivered when people noticed him. everything should fall into place and get everyone on the ready to go after obama's acceptance speech. too much at stake here that it's a necessity that it lights the whole convention and the nation but not burn down the house.










an interesting article:
----------------



Three Democratic Clans Mix Uneasily

By PATRICK HEALY



DENVER — Neither family wanted it this way, neither the Kennedys nor the Clintons. But the opening of the Democratic convention on Monday brought a stark contrast: a bittersweet public celebration of the life of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who is suffering from brain cancer, and an embittered private drama about the terms on which the Clintons would yield the party to Senator Barack Obama.Mr. Kennedy, who endorsed Mr. Obama in January, had hoped to lead a hearty, full-throated night of anointing the next generation. Instead, the tribute to him took on the weight of a farewell to the last of the storied Kennedy brothers, with an intensity that rivaled the excitement around Michelle Obama’s speech about the Democrats’ next standard-bearer, her husband.

As one political dynasty was celebrating its legacy and ceding the political stage on Monday night, the other dominant family of the Democratic Party was struggling to protect its legacy and accept its own exit from the spotlight. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill Clinton had once hoped this convention would be theirs, an exultation of past and future Clinton White Houses. Instead, they were coming face to face with shrunken, supporting roles.




article parsed, read in full here : http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/us/politics/26assess.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

LBC, largest philippine courier company tv spot - quickly delivering superior speed through humor

i get a chuckle every time i watch this commercial. i have seen this ad many times and i laugh every time i see it. before this ad, you wouldn't think speed can be funny but that's what this commercial did - make superior speed of delivery, it's brand positioning something very funny and yes very effective.

LBC is the country's largest local courier company. "hari ng padala", ("king of delivery") says what they are - the market leader.

this is one more commercial that shows how a simple story can deliver (courier?) a brand's brand positioning, and this one is brand superiority in a very effective and entertaining way. this builds the case for humor being the fastest delivery system of a brand positioning.

an overkill of analogies on speed of delivery aside, looking at all the other LBC ads, there is an obvious attempt to make it's ads not boring at the most, entertaining and funny at the least. humor and entertainment seem to be one of the best execution handle to communicate a potentially boring positioning of superior speed. there are many ways to communicate that in very serious ways but we are glad LBC has taken it the way they are doing it.

e-trade tv spot - an easy way to explain easy

sometimes, explaining "easy" is not easy and actually very hard to do. admen know this and is almost a daily struggle.

"easy" is a most natural brand positioning for many companies, especially those that do business through the internet. businesses in the internet aim to take business from brick and mortar businesses. and we all knowthe difficult challenge we face in the space we need to navigate from home to store and those pesky humans we have to deal with when we buy in stores can make things very difficult for us. that is essentially the positioning of e-trade - easy.

we have also very often heard of the term "back to basics", it's like a going back to where you came from.

this e-trade tv spot combines both - showing us how easy it is to demonstrate and communicate "easy" and doing it in a very back to basics way - where we all came from, from being babies. i don't think there is a more basic and easy way.

while i was marveling at this ad, i kept looking at the mouth of the baby and kept wondering - how in the world did they do that? the lips were practically mouthing the words. not that i read lips, but it did look very much that way. and then that punctuation they did at the end that came from the mouth of the baby - how did they do that? it was on cue!

come to think of it, it's not easy making this ad about easy.

cebuana lhuillier's brand positioning - outside of the realm of possibilities

this was one of the comments left in the cbox. it's an interesting point. it was a comment coming from the analysis i had made on the cebuana lhuillier print ad. on the left. read the the analysis here : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/cebuana%20lhuillier

this is the comment:

Nick : I find that your analysis of the pawnshop ad was way off target. The objective of an ad campaign can be to change perception and not just reinforce current perception.

we like to thank Nick for giving his views.

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

changing perception is a legitimate advertising objective. in some cases it's even a very smart thing to do. but that works best if there is a need to change it and most specially if the existing perception is a barrier to purchase.

the other part and this is most applicable here is the question of believability. i find the positioning of lhuillier as a dream enabler, like an educational plan, as just too much on the extreme, too far off from reality that it becomes unbelievable. pawnshops is a place of last resort people go to to save themselves from a dire situation, turning that image around to making it like a dream enabler is just too much for the audience to accept and leap into.

also, i do not think its existing brand image is a barrier. people have come to accept pawnshops as the place to go to for last resort for dire situations. that's like a given to the whole category. the keys to usage or patronage is really accessibility, fairness and low interest rates.

no other pawnshop advertises. so positioning lhuillier in any of these would give it a competitive advantage. i also think the most sensible competitive set for lhuillier are other pawnshops and not other products like educational plans. positioning lhuillier as a dream enabler effectively positions itself against these types of products.

buying philippine stocks online - making up your mind on what stocks to buy is the hardest thing to do, even in print ads

anyone who is into stock trading will tell you that one of the hardest if not the hardest thing to do when you invest in stocks is - making a decision on what stocks to buy. you can have all the facts, all the data and the analysis at hand but making up your mind what to buy is a tough one.

and that i think is one of the things they grappled with on that citiseconline print ad. they had a difficult time making up their mind on what they want to do in the ad.

the most fundamental confusion and this has affected the whole ad in a very major way is - is it a "program" or a "investment product" like a mutual fund?


this is not an executional issue, it is a strategic one. and it's possible it goes deeper than an advertising strategic issue but all the way to the root, that of a product strategy issue.

the question citiseconline need to answer is -- what is the product they want to advertise? is it a learning program or is it an investment product? there are very major differences in the way you will advertise something that is a product versus one that is a program.

unless that is clarified clearly, the confusion will always be there.

this confusion shows in the ad - both are talked about in the ad. the headline, footer and the name of the product talks of a program. the body copy and subhead talks about an investment product. that confusion effectively weakened the ad. lack of focus wastes space and does not make for any strong sale on anything.

this confusion has affected another element in the ad - the lack of a strong reason why. this is the second weakness of the ad.

the use of barredo is the "reason why" but it is meaningless to most of the target audience because most of the audience are non-citiseconline clients and therefore do not know who barredo is. barredo is known only to citiseconline clients and in fact even among citiseconline clients, only a few know who he is.

depending on the chosen strategy, they can use as reason why one of the two: (a) why they have a proven way to minimize risks and maximize earnings or (b) how their system teaches clients to become smart and therefor profitable investors.

i do not know exactly what the product they want to advertise, but to me, its obvious the whole ad needs a major rethink. they need to start from square 1 - the product.

as an investor myself, new investment products is a very good thing for the market. there are many people who want to invest into the stock market but do not do so because they find it too daunting and complicated. whatever it is that citiseconline is selling will be good for investors and the market. hopefully it will expand the philippine stock market's user base. and thats good for all investors and the philippine stock market.

now, if only they can fix that ad......

what are you willing to do for building Brand Equity?

it's paragraph 1 on page 1 on chapter 1 in marketing and advertising books we read - the Brand Equity is most sacred and should be built and defended to death at all cost, at all times.

and that seems to be what exactly they did for Brand China. and done to the extremes - to perfection. but, it is china though, so it is expected. the question is, being in marketing and advertising, are you tough enough to do the same thing for your brand?

remember that opening night at the beijing olympics? there was a girl there who gloriously sang this song. after watching her, everyone felt an international singing star was born. she wowed the 91,000 live audience in the audience and she achieved the same thing to millions of tv viewers worldwide.

well, the olympic organizers did a milli vanilli on this one. (read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milli_Vanilli )

it turned out this girl with a most pretty face (picture here) lip-synched the song. another girl, presumably off stage, unseen by the camera was actually singing. and this where it becomes extremely bothersome and bizarre - the girl with the beautiful voice was judged by the organizers as not pretty enough to be seen on worldwide tv, thus the decision to get a pretty face to appear singing that beautiful voice.

that was done in defense and in building Brand China into perfection. are you willing to do something like that for your brand?

this was not the only major effort executed for Brand China.

the other element of the olympic opening that wowed all of us was the fireworks. before the game began, i wondered what kind of opening china will have. when i saw the fireworks show, that made a lot of sense to me. china centuries ago invented fireworks. what an excellent match that the country where fireworks originated used it extensively during their day of glory.

to what extent were they willing to go through to make sure Brand China was perfect? apparently there is no limit.

some of the fireworks you saw on tv were computer graphics! well, the fireworks were real and were launched in real life at the stadium but what the viewers saw on tv was computer work that was done over a one year period.

the official reason given was that it would have been too dangerous for the helicopters filming the sequence to show it live on tv, thus they opted for computer graphics. (reminds me of the ginebra san miguel photoshop work!)

it's a noble reason, it's also great, well perfect for Brand China.

how many more efforts at building Brand China was executed in china? i have a nagging suspicion we will find out more in the coming days. this is just the 1st week of the games.

now, think about it --- do you have what it takes to build your brand's equity the way Brand China has been doing it?


---

read about the pretty face for the beautiful voice here :
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gvdGdbFHvF8M_eJh8CSMEIbZ8tFAD92H0VV81


read about the computer graphics fireworks you saw on your tv here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/olympics/2534499/Beijing-Olympic-2008-opening-ceremony-giant-firework-footprints-faked.html

bacchus energy drink tv spot - a cocktail of brawn, brains and humor that works!

when it's an energy drink tv commercial, you know what to expect to see. the category name says it all. but not this tv spot for bacchus energy drink. there are a few things about it that are unexpected and they all work well together!

the positioning is the first unexpected twist for this energy drink. it went beyond brawn, it took in brains - "not just physical energy but also mental energy". it didn't make too much of a sale on it, but the story in the commercial gave it a good enough spin. energy is obviously a generic benefit to the category and being single minded on that makes bacchus just one of all the rest of the energy drinks. smart move number 1.

the target market of young professionals and in call centers is smart move number 2. the BPO industry is a large one and it's where you can find the largest number of young professionals. working the night shift is the thing you do when you work in call centers and that makes energy drinks a most appealing product. next to coffee, energy drinks are probably the second most consumed drink in the call center industry.

these young professionals will also find appeal in the mental aspect of the positioning. most of them are college graduates and will appreciate the ad's recognition that it also takes brains to do well in a call center job.

IT people however will probably laugh at the ad, as the supervisor's copy lines did not make sense. the lines mentioned unrelated topics and did not sound technical enough or mentally difficult enough. they should have consulted an IT professional to help them write those copy lines.

you get the humor and you appreciate it, smart move no. 3. the humor is there not just for relief but used to demonstrate key aspects of the positioning.

it also works very well because of the excellent casting, the main talent in the ad was a perfect choice - his looks were exactly what we expected. the acting was superb - real looking and not at all overly done. over-doing it is a great temptation in a storyboard like this. that means the director did an excellent job.

this bacchus tv spot is an energy boost - an excellent cocktail of brawn, brains and humor that works very well.

brain food #1 : the 22 immutable laws of marketing

The 22 Immutable Laws Of Marketing
by: Jack Trout and Al Ries


Excerpts:


1. the law of leadership - it is better to be first than it is to be better: "The basic issue in marketing in creating a category (i.e. a given type of product or service) you can be first in. It's the law of leadership. It's better to be first than it is to be better. ItÕs much easier to get into the mind first than it is to try to convince someone you have a better product than the one that did get there first."

2. the law of the category - if you can't be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in.


3. the law of the mind - it's better to be first in the mind than to be first in the marketplace: "Is something wrong with the law of leadership (previously presented)? No, but the law of the mind modifies it. It is better to be first in the prospect's mind than first into the marketplace....Being first in the mind is everything in marketing. Being first into the marketplace is important only to the extent that it allows you to get into the mind first."


4. the law of perception - marketing is not a battle of products, it's a battle of perceptions.


5. the law of focus - the most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect's mind (i.e. the way that Coke 'owns' the word 'cola', or Xerox owns 'copier').


6. the law of exclusivity - two companies cannot own the same word in the prospect's mind.


7. the law of the ladder - the strategy to use depends on which rung you occupy on the ladder - each category has its own ladder or hierarchy, and where your product or service is in this hierarchy will determine your strategic options.


8. the law of duality - in the long run, every market becomes a two-horse race.


9. the law of the opposite - if you're shooting for second place, your strategy is determined by the market leader.


10. the law of division - over time, a category will divide and become two or more categories.


11. the law of perspective - marketing effects take place over an extended period of time.


12. the law of line extension - there's an irresistible pressure to extend the equity of the brand: "One day a company is tightly focused on a single produce that is highly profitable. The next day the same company is spread thin over many products and is losing money."


13. the law of sacrifice - you have to give up something in order to get something: "The law of sacrifice is the opposite of the law of line extension. If you want to be successful today, you should give something up. There are three things to sacrifice: product line, target market, and constant change."


14. the law of attributes - for every attribute, there is an opposite effective attribute: "Marketing is a battle of ideas. So if you are to succeed, you must have an idea or attribute of your own to focus your efforts around. Without one, you had better have a low price. A very low price."


15. the law of candor - when you admit a negative, the prospect will give you a positive: "...it may come as a surprise to you that one of the most effective ways to get into a prospect's mind is to first admit a negative and then twist it into a positive."


16. the law of singularity - in each situation, only one move will produce substantial results.


17. the law of unpredictability - unless you write your competitor's plans, you can't predict the future.


18. the law of success - success often leads to arrogance, and arrogance to failure.


19. the law of failure - failure is to be expected and accepted.


20. the law of hype - the situation is often the opposite of the way it appears in the press: "When things are going well, a company doesn't need the hype. When you need the hype, it usually means you're in trouble."


21. the law of acceleration - successful programs are not built on fads, they're built on trends.


22. the law of resources - without adequate funding, an idea won't get off the ground: "Marketing is a game fought in the mind of the prospect. You need money to get into a mind. And you need money to stay in the mind once you get there."

hooters philippines - misplaced brand equity?

the picture on the left, of hooter girls in the US tells you exactly what the hooters brand equity is or are. their hands are exactly on their brand equities.

and just to tell you that's exactly what the hooters brand equity is - i go to this forum where the men in it where all talking about the hooters manila opening. a few of them were actually planning on going to hooters to look at the brand equities and maybe get some food or drinks on the side.

pictures of the hooter girls manila were shown to them, and almost immediately, the men decided not to go anymore. that's how devastating the off-strategy brand equity of hooters manila have become - a turn off. they quickly lost triers when the brand equities were shown in pictures.

aside from the flatter than expected brand equities hooters manila showed, what caught the attention of the men where what appears to be another brand equity. look closely at the picture of hooter girls manila on the left. look at the shirt of the girls, way down below the hooters logo, where the text that says "manila bay". notice the distortion being caused on the text? if you lay that shirt flat on a surface, the printing will not show any distortion. the text only got that way after the girls wore the shirt. (with great apologies to the ladies on the picture. we're just discussing the merits of brand equities here.)

this is a great lesson in marketing and we know that very well - BE TRUE TO YOUR BRAND EQUITY or lose customers!

if only brand character can kill

there are so many things wrong with the slimmers world print ad (black & white print ad, first of the pair) that it can boggle your mind. but, this will focus on - brand character.

the marie france print ad (2nd ad, color ad) is usually placed on page 3 of the PDI and the slimmers world print ad, on the next flip page, page 5. so that means even from a target audience stand point, they can immediately compare these two print ads and the companies/services they are advertising. in other words my observation will be obvious even to ordinary readers of the newspaper, those who are not working in the advertising and marketing industries.

one quick look at the ads, don't even read them and one thing is very apparent - there is a difference in brand character or brand image between the two companies/services.

slimmers world is the "palenkera" brand character, the noisy, screaming, scandalous neighbor who talks and behaves as if she is in a palengke even if she has a whistle bait body. you might want to look at her, but you will do it only once as you won't be able to stand looking at her again because of her palengkera personality. her personality makes you puke. and, please, you don't want to have anything to do with her.

not that the above description is not valid for some brands, but for a service that promises a sexier figure for women, that's like a mortal sin.

in the first place, who can afford to enroll in a service like slimmers world? slimmers world is not cheap. only the AB upper C and a few of the broad C can afford slimmers world. not to mention slimmer world branches are actually located in places like greenhills and the makati cbd. their location confirms my assumption on the kind of target market they have. would women who belong to the AB and upper C appreciate and get attracted to palengkeras? if you have a body that needs slimming services, you in fact want discretion and privacy. this slimmers world print ad says exactly the opposite.

the core benefit that they are selling goes beyond losing fat and cutting inches, they are actually selling beauty. will anyone see beauty in a palengkera? everybody hates a palengkera. you avoid them like a plague.

what makes matters worse for the palengkera slimmers world is that because of the media placement, their target market can compare them to their direct competitor. to add insult to injury, again because of the placement, marie france is the first print ad to be seen. the target audience will probably sigh and admire the luscious bodies they see in the marie france ad and aspire to have the same kind of sexy body, then flip the page and everything just goes downhill when they see the slimmers world ad.

i have mentioned that brand character is one of the ad elements that are often glossed over or even forgotten and yet it is one of the most important components where many brands fail and is the cause of failures for some ad campaigns. this is prime example of that thinking.

these two ads advertise brands that are direct competitors, they offer a similar service that offer essentially the same consumer benefit and are targeting the same target audience and yet the brand characters are so different and very apparent. for marie france and slimmers world, consumers will chose the brand that they will feel they can connect with, a brand that they think represent who they are.

flipping from the marie france print ad, this slimmers world print ad is an eye sore. it's beyond an eye sore, you can get so dizzy that you might want to puke. there are many more wrong things about the slimmers world print ad, but let me take a break, i feel like throwing up. will post what's wrong with the print ad another time.

it's a WAWAM!

what works and what doesn't work in the coke angel tv spot

what works in the coke angel "ang sarap dito" tv spot:

• excellent over-all production values


• brilliant jingle, arrangement and concept


• excellent talent for the angel role. perfect for the role, unknown to pinoy audience is a stroke of genius


• finally, back to basics for coke, making taste and refreshment as it's core proposition


• excellent tag line - "buhay coke, tikman mo"

what does not work in the coke angel tv spot:

• what was the inclusion of the devil in the plot all about? unnecessary, strenuous


• the wings suck!

coca cola's taste strategy

small banners in sari-sari stores carry the image of the angel with the line "tikman ang sarap". as mentioned previously, coke is obviously on a back to basics, taste strategy. and that's a very good thing. i think it's the right thing to do for coke. coke has strayed away too much from it's core positioning that it's good they now have the political will and the smarts to go back to their roots.

however, coke now runs the risk of falling off a cliff in getting confused on what exactly is their campaign. they now have a few lines that they seem to use in different media and at times a pair of them at the same time: "ang sarap dito", "tikman ang sarap" and "buhay coke tikman mo".

i hope coke has developed a brand architecture for this ad campaign to make sure they don't shoot themselves in the foot. in advertising, too many of a good thing can kill.

the question that must be raging in the minds of the ad agency and client is this - what else can we do to exploit the success of the ad campaign?

i am sure events and other below the line are in their minds now. the problem of course is the talent is not a pinoy. she probably speaks english but it will be very costly to get her to go to the philippines to do events for them. it's very lame, but i'm sure the coke creative team has asked the brazilian talent if she can sing or dance. hahaha. damn, i hope coke does not go through that route if they bring her to the philippines.

but that one is a whole new discussion all together.

back to basics - coke is on single minded taste strategy now. i bet they are now conducting a tracking study to see if taste is getting picked up and if this campaign is changing attitudes and bringing in the cases.

is this taste strategy enough to overcome the price problem? they need to stop migration away from coke and to attract new users. is taste enough?

pure essentials : what went wrong

here is what went wrong in the pure essentials relaunch ad campaign - i wonder if they realize it, but based on the print ads, intentionally or unintentionally, they are operating on two very different strategies.

it's possible they only have one strategy but they are probably unaware that they are coming out with ads that are written very differently from each other. another possibility is that the strategy was so poorly written, too complicated and didn't have focus that there are two ways to interpret it. there is even no attempt to achieve some kind of focus on sameness or put enough common denominators in the two print ads.

the mother strategy is about attacking skin dryness for the family. their support or reason why has two components - the celebrity mother who is concerned about her children's skin and the medical professional who is concerned about harsh ingredients in soaps.

the first print ad, a teaser ad that featured the doctor was single-minded on being anti-safeguard and product-centric. while the second, which features maricel laxa as the celebrity endorser-mother who is concerned about her children's skin.

both is supposed to tackle dry skin (it's in the headline) which makes it appear it's a focused strategy, but it really isn't. that can be seen at the end result, the two print ad's contents and brand personality come out very differently.

there is an obvious confusion in these ads. i wonder if it's being caused by a poorly written copy strategy or a very poor interpretation of the copy strategy by the ad agency. one more thing, the advertorial format of the ads is not helping them. an advertorial format allows you to write many paragraphs, theoretically, you can put everything and anything into the ad. and that is exactly what the creatives did. if this was a typical intro or brandsell print ad, you certainly cannot put everything into the ad. the space limitation forces the creatives to be selective and give focus to their writing. don't get me wrong, focus and being on strategy can be achieved even in an advertorial, it's just in this case, weak understanding of the strategy and sloppy writing did them in. i get the feeling the creative director did not clear this ad.

pure essential's anti-safeguard soap war is a dud. and a WAWAM!

coke angel tv ad - back to basics

coke's previous ad campaign was difficult to understand. they had these strange drawings showing "buhay" stuff spewing up from an open coke bottle. figuring out what the graphics meant or what part of my "buhay" they represent is very difficult for ordinary mortals to understand. it was just a feel good ad campaign - the creatives feeling good for themselves for having a canvass to show how creative they are but i don't think it made consumers felt good about coca cola.

i am not sure what caused it, it was either the right strategy with a wrong execution or a bad strategy that was executed well. if the asi taulava and their christmas tv spots are an indication, i would say the problem was a bad strategy that was executed well. it's a strategy problem - either it was incorrectly written or it's meaning incorrectly interpreted.

on a strategy standpoint, coke's angel tv spot, "ang sarap dito" is a vast improvement from their previous campaign. with the current tagline "buhay coke tikman mo", the angel tv spot repositions coke to be what it really is - a softdrink meant to refresh and quench thirst. the previous tagline made coke pretend to be just a feel good product that may or may not have something to do with refreshment or thirst quenching. this one returns coke to being a liquid drink to fix thirst, back to basics as admen like to say.

this is like a back to basics ad for coke. the whole commercial is actually on a taste and thirst quenching strategy. in this ad, it's clear that people drink coke for it's taste and thirst quenching benefits. what a relief, finally, some focus for coke ads.

the ad works because of it's excellent production values. it's a very polished tv ad and we have not seen one aired in the philippines with this kind of high caliber production values for many years. i had obsessed with the crude and inconsistent post prod work and design of the wings of the angel, but i don't think ordinary consumers notice those things, nor will they care. anyone sitting in front of their tv will stop and notice this coke ad because of the excellent over-all production of the commercial.

aside from the over-all production values, what makes this coke ad stand out from the noise is the jingle. the melody is very memorable and more importantly, the interpretation and treatment of the song to make it sound like a singing angel was brilliant work. also, the choice of the talent for the angel role was very well done. she is an unknown to the philippine audience and that added to the mystery and interest for the ad.

(read more here:

http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2008/04/wings-coca-cola-tv-spot.html

http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2008/04/production-values-coca-cola-ang-sarap.html )

i am sure a lot of discussions have been made on this between the client and the ad agency at storyboard stage, but i didn't think adding the devil in the story at the end was needed. i fail to see it's value but i see the bad ingredients it added to the mix. i don't think it helped in the delivery of the message but what it did was make the story in the commercial unnecessarily complicated.

the point of the ad is to communicate that coke is so delicious and refreshing that even angels will want to taste it to the point of transforming to become a human. the angel deciding to become a human because of coke is the point of interest in this ad. adding the devil at the end just puts a strain to the ad.

what does adding the idea of even the devil likes its taste got to do with the story? it does not contribute to communicating the coke strategy in a better way. adding the devil brings in an unnecessary component of good vs evil. it does not also help that the treatment seem to leave an impression of some kind of attraction or a possibility of the devil seducing the angel. these are just too strenuous to the story.

pure essential - another wimp print ad!

what a disappointment, again! this is now a 2nd execution of their "anti-safeguard" strategy and all the aggressiveness from the teaser ad is still gone. it looks like they did get a CDO on their previous teaser ad that featured the doctor, but in this one, even a semblance of the competitiveness in the teaser ad is not here. you can get a CDO, but there are ways to deliver the same kind of punch and competitiveness but staying within the AdBoard (its different now?) guidelines. reading this ad, they did not even make an attempt to do so!

also, could not understand what's the point of doing an advertorial approach. sure, an advertorial approach allows you to say a lot of things, but the many things they said here does not carry a punch. so, what's the point? too much on laxa, not much on the product, not even enough sale.

i thought the skin dryness as caused by too much use of anti-bacterial soap story is best delivered in the traditional brandsell advertising format. it has excellent news value and will strongly call attention.

i liked the teaser ad approach because it was very product-centric which was the core strategy of pure essentials. but this was too much celebrity/personality, very little product. the teaser ad featured a doctor and that can explain why there was a lot of product and efficacy talk (actually, scare tactics), and laxa is not from the medical field. that can also explain the "softness" of this ad compared to the teaser doctor ad. but this ad is not just softer, it's empty.

nowhere in the ad do they talk about the dangers of using bacterial soaps and its dry skin effect. there is no mention of safeguard's two anti-bacterial active ingredients. they do say "harsh ingredients" in soap but that was not linked to safeguard or anti-bacterial AIs. (they could have just said something like "i now realize the soap i have been using for many years may bne causing dry skin". that's a freebie for the pure essential creatives.) even in laxa's "hygiene guidelines" (last paragraph) they just mention "use the right soap", no mention or allusion to safeguard. they simply gave up on the strong points they raised in their teaser ad.

i would even say this laxa ad is off strategy. they can still deliver the same product-centric and efficacy strategy of the doctor teaser ad, but in the words and experiences of laxa. it can still be competitive and still sounding like laxa said them. no attempt, even feeble ones, were done along the line.

i wonder if this laxa print ad is the sustaining brandsell ad campaign of pure essentials. i think it's worthless. as predicted, this ad confirms what i said previously - J&J and it's pure essentials ad agency do not have the brains or balls to wage battle with safeguard.

this pure essential laxa ad is another WIMP ad. again, did the creatives become lazy? its WAWAM!

the coke ad you love to hate

this was the ad coke aired last christmas. i fell off my chair when i saw that tv ad. while i agree "reconciliation" and "peace for all" is a great theme for christmas, i didn't get it why coke chose to deliver their message in the way they did in the tv ad.

coke is at minimum about good vibes, actually its always about celebration of what's good and happy. coke is one of the most wholesome brands in any market. this ad delivered the idea of reconciliation and peace for all during christmas in what seems to be a perverted sense of sentimentality. coke did not have to deliver it's message in a round about way - taking us to the sad and depressing, then to the happy. they could have just taken us straight to the happy like we expect coke ads to do.

it's a story that is not easy for children to understand. and for sure, children must have asked their parents what the story means. i can just imagine the horror and fear parents felt while they were explaining it to their children. think about it - a mother or a father is explaining to their young children a story of parents with a young daughter being separated in marriage. and doing that during christmas time - a time of family love and togetherness. are those thoughts we want our children to have during christmas?

it is really a very perverted way of delivering coke's christmas message. it was brave for coke to air this ad during christmas, but it was totally foolish. a WAWAM!

i thought it would be good to put the coke angel ad in context of what went before it.

safeguard soap - time for change

what pure essentials did is open a pandora's box for safeguard. it has unwittingly launched what potentially can be the achilles heel of safeguard.

unfortunately for pure essentials and fortunately for safeguard, pure essential's ad campaign missed the target with their wimp ad. well, at least based on this intro print ad. we are yet to see the tv ad and other sustaining ad materials.

j&j and its ad agency doesn't really know how to fight a bruising fight, so i don't think this will affect safeguard that much. j&j does not know how to fight battles like these. BUT uni-lever for sure will be watching this. uni-lever will be a much more formidable opponent than j&j for safeguard. and uni-lever has the guts and brain to dip into that open pandora's box.

i saw this whole development in a very good light, even for safeguard. if i was in safeguard's place, i would prepare a whole slew of ad campaigns to defend safeguard. i would prepare at least 3 ad campaigns with varying degrees of defensive and offensive tactics. i'd air one immediately and have the other 2 ready to produce in a moment's notice. in this kind of advertising war, being out there in the market in a moment's notice will be very much key.

i would also immediately do a tracking study to get a quick read of consumer sentiments as they evolve. and part of the research program is to search for better ad ideas for safeguard both looking into new positioning ideas and strengthening the current one.

i will certainly take this development very seriously. as i have said in the earlier post, i think pure essential's approach from a strategy standpoint is a real threat to safeguard, specially if done right. too much is at stake for safeguard not to be in a panic mode now.

i also think it's time for safeguard to look for a new ad campaign. this brand has been on this strategy and execution for decades and now is good time to rethink it.

this is one of latest tv spots of safeguard and as you can see not much has changed from it's previous ad campaign.

i know the saying - "it's hard to argue with success" but i think it's wise to add to that - being ahead of competition guarantees further success. and i will also add this for safeguard - it's best for them to not just look at the usual, but i will expand this way beyond it, to look at what is not the usual.





view safeguard's old tv spot in this post : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2008/04/safeguard-soap-under-attack-start-of.html