cebu pacific's dancing flight stewardess youtube video - opportunity for a new brandsell advertising

this youtube video as of this writing has gotten 6 million hits at youtube since it was posted. that makes the video a viral success. but it is an unintended success for cebu pacific as they had nothing to do with its posting, an airline passenger posted it there.

cebu pacific is now top of mind. it is the kind of awareness that brand managers dream about - it's impact wide, it's fun and its free publicity. will it generate business for cebu pacific? it should, but we do not know how much it would be. it also helps that its key competitor, Philippine Airlines is having problems with their own flight attendants who are threatening to go on strike.

actually this video getting so much attention is hurting PAL as much as it is helping cebu pacific. the cebu pacific flight attendant being as fun and engaging is an extreme contrast to the PAL flight attendant who appears to be embattled and combative.

what is the next step? we were thinking this is an excellent time for cebu pacific to air a new tv brandsell advertising featuring the same flight attendant who is featured in the video doing exactly the same dance steps. the flight attendant in that video is very good looking and did an excellent job with her dance, she can be the next commercial model star in philippine advertising. 

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!

anti-safeguard soap revealed - johnson's Pure Essentials but disappoints!

last week, talked about a new product launch that was obviously anti-safeguard. this brand released teaser print ads in the Philippine Star that was very hard-hitting and highly competitive. because of the tone and content of the print ads, i thought it was going to be a start of the soap war in philippine advertising.

see the posts here :

http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2008/04/safeguard-soap-under-attack-start-of.html

http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2008/04/what-safeguard-should-do-get-adboard.html


today they published the intro ad in the same newspaper - it's JOHNSON'S PURE ESSENTIALS. and what a disappointment their intro ad is. view it here (double click the image to get a larger view):




this ad wimped out from what they had in the teaser ads. it's still on the non-drying strategy but it did not contain the aggressive anti-safeguard stance and content of the teaser ads. thy missed out on what could be a breakthrough idea in bringing down the dominant market leader safeguard.

it's very possible that safeguard did go to the adboard against the teaser ads and that can explain why we see a watered down intor ad. if CDO (cease and desist order) was issued against j&j, then they should have re-written that ad to contain the same strategy and copy points in words that meet the adboard guidelines.

it's still too early though. maybe pure essentials have other brandsell/intro advertising in the can and are just waiting to be released. maybe they have something better in tv. it's worth a wait.

it's very close to it, but this intro print ad is not a WAWAM!, it's just a WIMP ad.

what safeguard should do - get an AdBoard CDO!

this is the first of 2 ads that appeared in the Philippine Star today. it was placed on page 4 and on the opposite page 5, they had this print ad which was about the same size as the first one. they are teaser ads for the launch of new toilet soap.

notes: (a) click the images to view bigger size to read the copy; (b) these are actual ads that were scanned and the scanner picks up the imperfections of the printing of the ad, including "ghost images" of what's printed at the back of the ads and folds and creases on the print ad.

this is the 2nd ad:

can't wait for the intro and brandsell ad campaign for this new brand. these ads seem to indicate a very aggressive push to take market leadership from safeguard.

it looks like the new toilet soap will take head on safeguard's brand positioning and brand equity, superior anti-germs/bacteria. this new product will most likely cast doubt on safeguard's "health" positioning by saying or at least strongly implying constant use of safeguard causes damage to the skin which is "dry skin", which based on the ad and according to a TNS Research conducted in march 2008 said "dry skin is the most common skin problem experienced by mothers and their families".

that is the core brand equity of safeguard soap. and it will now be under attack!

if i was on the safeguard ad agency account team, tomorrow at 8:00 in the morning, i will be at the AdBoard's offices and will file a complaint asking for a CDO (cease and desist order) action against the first print ad. and i would ask for an immediate cease and desist action on that ad. i will make it my singular mission to disallow the printing of this ad again in philippine newspapers.

there are several provisions in the AdBoard code of ethics that can be used as basis for the CDO. one of this is "disparagement". this ad very aggressively have said "triclosan" and "triclocarban", safeguard's two germicidal ingredients are "harmful chemicals"! whoa! these two ingredients in safeguard are what make safeguard what it is. without these two ingredients, there will be no safeguard.

i would not discuss this further as the safeguard soap account team will need to do their job on this one. but let me say there are a lot more in that print ad that safeguard should question and ask the adboard to have them removed from the ad and future ads of this yet to be launched brand. i think the ad has over-reached itself and have said many things that they cannot defend and will definitely lose on. many of these things are, among other things, definitely disparaging to safeguard. and disparaging in a very major way.

it's a very aggressive and competitive print ad. among many copy lines in the ad, i particularly like the last paragraph, no. 4 on the ad, "Avoid the use of germicidal soaps. Check the active ingredients in your soaps and ensure that they don't contain chemicals like Triclosan or Triclocarban". they are saying stop using safeguard!

i like competitive ads. but this particular ad i find very irresponsible and very unprofessional. but they are very strong points that can harm safeguard's brand image, reputation and market share.

if i was safeguard, i would take this new brand beyond the AdBoard, i would take them to the philippine courts! i will immediately file a case with the AdBoard, literally at 8:00 am when it opens. and i will go to the philippine courts and get a TRO (temporary restraining order) to prevent the ad agency of this new brand from publishing this ad.

that's how serious i think is the threat of this print ad to safeguard's business and how wrong the print ad is.

coca cola: "buhay Coke tikman mo"

saw a coke tv ad (is this new?) on cable tv with the tagline "Buhay Coke Tikman Mo" showing an angel looking down on earth from heaven, decides to go down to earth, watches people drinking coke and enjoying it, then opens a bottle of coke herself. the angel is transformed into a human. then a guy approaches her, the angel now transformed to human asks the guy "are you from here?" camera pulls out to show the guy has horns on his forehead and he answers "i am now".

saw some billboards using the same tag line.

so the story of this ad is that coke tastes so good that angels would want to become human? its so good that even devils want to become human as well and they get hooked to angels turned human? that make sense?

is this the new coke brandsell? and how does the ad relate to asi's "balanced life"?

need to see more ads before we can talk about it.