buying philippine stocks online, citiseconline's print ads - lost twin found, but unknown still!

citiseconline, one of the country's online stock market brokers has come up with a second ad to the one that was previously discussed here in WAWAM!

it's a pool-out from the first one, with the same layout, design and under the same strategy, and that includes the same weakness as the first one.

first, the good news: this new ad was released side by side with the first one. the ad placement of the ads were brilliant! both ads appeared in the philippine daily inquirer, august 19 issue.

the first ad was printed on page B4, that's the left side of the double spread and the 2nd ad was placed on exactly the same level on page B5, the right side of the double spread. that was simply excellent media page placement! the media agency deserves a bottle of champagne for such a superb placement.

that placement made the ads look much bigger than what they actually are and were more effective. the ad placements enhanced the creative design of the ads.

the 2nd citiseconline print ad (double click ad to view larger image)

now, the bad news: the 2nd ad, above, was an exact pool-out of the first print ad (below), and that includes the error of the first ad - weak reason why.

in this ad, they featured a female employee, april lee-tan a CFA and citiseconline's head of research. that's a good contrast and pairing to the first one which had a male, juanis barredo, head of investor education.

the first ad failed because it featured a face in the ad who is not known to the intended target audience. barredo conducts seminars for citiseconline clients on technical analysis of stocks, so if you are not a citiseclonline client and even if you are but if you have not attended the seminar, you would have no idea who barredo is and most specially you would not know how good he and what he does.

the role of barredo in the first ad (print ad, below) is to lend credibility or to provide a strong reason why people or a strong permission to believe on why citiseconline's product is a great one. safeguard soap uses PAMET to bolsters their superior skin germ protection claim. other products use doctors, nurses, professionals or authority figures to help convince the target audience the product can deliver it's promise. you believe the claim because as in the case of safeguard soap, you know that PAMET is the authority on germs. the thinking is that it is easier and more convincing if PAMET says a certain product is good in killing germs.

in the citiseconline print ad, nobody knows what kind of authority or credentials barredo has, rendering barredo's inclusion in the print ad as a no-bearing component. it is not contributing anything to the sale.

that same weakness was put into the second ad. just like barredo, the target audience do not really know who lee-tan is. both barredo and lee-tan are being used as "experts" or "authority figures" that nobody recognize now even know about.

the 1st citiseconline print ad (double click to view larger image)

but i can appreciate what they are trying to do with these twin ads. barredo, the Head Of Investor Education is being used as the "teacher" for investors, with the headline "learn how to build wealth -- the easy way!". lee-tan, the Head Of Research, on the other hand is being used as the "expert", with the headline "with expert advice, we make investing simple." ( but that assumes new investors, who are the target audience, know what a research person does in a stock broker company.)

the thinking or intent seem to be somewhat there, but they are not being delivered in it's full power because of a very weak "reason why". this kind of ad and strategy needs one. citiseconline's first print ad may have found its twin, but they are unfortunately still unknown and ineffective.

read all WAWAM! posts on citiseconline here : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/citiseconline

celebrity endorser ads

celebrity endorser ads seem to be all that you see on tv these days. a few celebrities endorse severasl brands as well. aren't you tired of seeing nothing but these types of ads?

what makes this a really bad situation is that most of the celebrity endorser ads are the lousy ones.

marketing dilemma : scrambelicious vs trio

with the impending launch of the lower priced "scrambelicious", what ad will nestle go with for this brand? with its much lower pricing versus trio, scrambelicious will obviously be targeted against a broader socio-eco market, wider to include broad C and perhaps middle and upper D. this will need an ad that will appeal to the broader/lower socio-eco class.

but, they already have sharon cuneta for trio?! now, that can be a pain! sharon could have been perfect for scrambelicious. and certainly a kurot-sa-puso approach using the mega-star and mega-baby could have been a perfect fit for scrambelicious!

ok, ok, the brand name scrambelicious is certainly not appropriate for any kind of emotional or kurot-sa-puso ad, but there's gotta be a way to do it without turning the audience into neurotics. if not emotional, what about humor or the two megas singing to dial up cuteness and kilig factor? oh well, if it's the two of them, i still say it ought to be kurot-sa-puso.

the nestle ice cream marketing department is actually facing a brand portfolio issue with these two brands that have the same product characteristic of 3 flavors in one tub. the biggest issue will be the risk of canibalization. consumers will naturally compare scrambelicious and trio with each other because they have the same product concept. trio users will be most susceptible to that comparison.

unfortunately, with the significant pricing disparity between the two, scrambelicious being lower priced has the clear advantage. and when scrambelicious, a much lower priced and therefore generating lower margins and profits for nestle cannibalizes the market share of trio, a higher priced and with higher margins and profits, nestle will surely feel sorry they ever launched scrambelicious.

i am sure nestle has thought about cannibalization and what impact scrambelicious will have on the ice cream category profits. or did they?

i think the price difference between the two is too big to ignore for consumers. scrambelicious' retail price is 46% lower than trio's (based on the price printed on the lids of the tubs). if i am right in saying that the appeal of a 3-flavored ice cream is mainly value-for-money, then scrambelicious with its much lower pricing will be seen as giving the best value for money between the two. it's not only superior value for money that will be scrambelicious' strength, it will also be superior cash outlay. if i am right on those, scrambelicious will definitely kill trio in less than 2 years.

in the philippine market, value-for-money and in this case also superior cash outlay trumps celebrity endorsers, even if its the mega-star and the mega-baby.

not only will nestle face problems with consumers, they in fact might face problems even sooner - with their distributors and retailers. their distributors and retailers like supermarkets and groceries will be very reluctant to carry a lot of trio once scrambelicious is launched into the market. supermarket and grocery owners know that low price and good value for money sell better with consumers. they will feel that trio will decline in market share and will be taken over by scrambelicious. if they think that, they will certainly reduce their inventory and sales orders of trio in favor of scrambelicious.

sure, the product managers will argue that the flavors in each product are all different from the other and therefore can justify the difference in pricing. but that's like asking consumers to read the fine print, they will gloss that over. and the same way that low pricing and value for money trumps celebrity endorsers, the same two things will trump flavor differences.

does it sound like this wasn't properly thought through by nestle? oh, yah, i did say that already.

given this interesting portfolio issue, brand positioning will be most key. getting that very clear for each will be the driver for differentiating the brands and therefore giving consumers a reason to buy both, not just one over the other. good strategic thinking and applied across all marketing components will be most key. they need to do this for each of the brand and the whole category.

there are solutions to these issues, of course, but that's for another long discussion.

nestle's "trio" ice cream tv spot : how a lazy creative team wasted P5M+ in talent fees

this is nestle's "trio" ice cream, a three-flavored ice cream that nestle is selling now. it's gone big time with sharon cuneta appearing in its tv commercial.

nestle must have had good experience on this product that they will be launching a second 3-flavored ice cream, that will be named "scrambelicious". that's the product nestle had a contest on to get a name for with the famous give-me-a-name internet effort that has been very much discussed here.

i'm guessing that these types of products are selling because consumers view it as good value for money - people probably think they are getting 3 flavors for the price of 1. this variety in a single tub could be seen as very much "sulit". the philippine market is a highly value-conscious market.

will their 2nd 3-flavored ice cream with a funny brand name, "scrambelicious" do well in this market? also noticed that "scrambelicious" will be priced much lower than this one - P80.00/tub vs the P149.00/tub pricing of trio. scrambelicious seem to be targeting a wider socio eco class, appealing to a real broad based market, from the AB to true broad C and maybe even parts of D. i don't know what the incidence of refrigerators is across the socio-eco class but its safe to assume it's very high among the ABC and some among the D would have a refrigerator in their homes.

this ad is one of the millions of tv ads sharon cuneta appear in. over the years, we have seen sharon thin, endearing and pretty to fat, ugly and ewww! and now, we see sharon as just a bit on the chubby side but this time with this cute little daughter of hers. from a weight perspective, sharon does not look too bad here.

the baby is cute though! the director of the ad knows how to direct little girls in commercials. the secret in directing toddlers in commercials is to get the toddlers to pop their eyes as wide as they can. that's how they make toddlers appear their cutest on tv. in this ad, you see the daughter's eyes at its widest ever and voila - we have an extremely adorable little sharon. kudos to the director for knowing his job.

now, on the serious side of ad analysis.

this ad is simple and very single-minded. so, this ad is not a WAWAM!? what? a non-WAWAM! ad appearing here?? now, wait a minute, while our advertising gurus will say those are good things, that's not how i mean it. plrease read on.

it's simple, yes, in fact too simple that it's already bare.

it's a predictable and non-ownable story line of people stealing a snack at night, creeping down to the kitchen and stealing food, only to be "caught" by another family member and both ending up as enjoying the late night snack together. that's a story line we have seen in hundreds of thousands of ads (to borrow a descriptor nestle used for their internet effort) and not just in ads but also in movies. it's already a very trite story line.

not only is the story line more common than common sense, the copy, the exchange between mother and daughter is even more common. the dialogue is very straight forward, definitely forgettable, nothing memorable. it's almost like dialogue two ordinary people, like you and me who earn minimum wage to slightly higher than minimum wage exchange on an ordinary, non-event day.

should that be the case? look, we are talking here of none other than the mega-star of philippine show business and the mega-baby! they are not humans like us! and not being human like us, means they speak in non-ordinary words. their words are supposed to be magical, the type where you see stardust when they speak. or at least memorable! hello?

you saw the ad, right? quick, tell me, what did they say to each other?

i bet you were not able to quote it verbatim. and that is where the problem lie. this is sharon cuneta who gave us fantastically memorable lines, if she did not deliver them, she was in the scene when they were delivered. we associate sharon with almost showbiz biblical movie lines like "You're nothing but a second-rate, trying hard copycat." or "Kung saan, kailan, at paanong labanan, magpasabi ka lang. Hindi kita uurungan!". she is the mega-star and the mega-baby, they can speak in tongues and we will understand and love them for it or in poetry!

well, not in this commercial.

it is single-minded not in the sense of message delivery, but in the sense of being single minded in making a sale for the brand on the sole basis of sharon cuneta alone! the creative team seem to think they did not have to do any work on this ad, they did not have to do any thinking. heck, they sure did not think they needed to think of any memorable copy line for the ad! they were thinking that all they needed to do was to put sharon in the commercial, and it will sell on its own! face value lang ni sharon, ok na!

look at the ad concept - it's one of the most boring, most predictable slice of life ad one can think of. and the copy lines are lines you know college students with zero advertising experience can write even when they are sleep. in fact, i bet a lot of college students can think of better copy lines than whats on that ad. the creative team who developed these ads, simply put, were LAZY!

when i picked that ad up in you tube, one of the comments made there, obviously from a sharon fan, was that the mega-baby is the cutest of all babies in the world! (that make sense given the widest eyes shots done by the director of the ad) one was even gushing that in this ad, finally the mega-baby had speaking lines.

and that is what the creative team missed in this ad! the creative team was so lazy to think of creative concepts that involved the mega-mother and the mega-baby in a deeper, more creative story line! this could have been a slam bang winner, had the creative team made an ad that played on the emotion that the audience would have invested in the mega-star having the mega-baby in the ad. dapat kurot sa puso involving mom and baby! imagine the mega-baby delivering blockbuster memorable lines and inter-acting, exchanging kurot-sa-puso lines with the mega-star! certainly, the mega-star can act. and the mega-baby could have been directed to act! that could have made advertising history!

as that poster in you tube said - this is the first time they saw the mega-baby had speaking lines! people hearing the mega-baby speak for the first time in an ad, mouthing memorable lines would have brought mega-tears to its audience and, mega-sales!

the creative team had 2 great talents in their hands and all they could think of is a trite story line! how could they miss such a golden opportunity here? the creative team totally missed on that one. why? only because they were lazy! yes, this ad is a WAWAM! in my files.

claudine, jodie and carmina tv30s - lactum tv spot the schizoid and repressed tv ad. part 1

this tv spot is some kind of a repressed tv ad where it seems it thinks it's a superior product that seem to want to position itself on a superiority claim but it doesn't, either intentionally or unintentionally. this indecision has resulted to an ad where it seems to shoot itself in the foot in more ways than one.

this indecision is also shown in using not only one, but three celebrity endorsers - claudine, jodie and carmina and yet they are not prominently featured in the ad where they appear only at the end, the last 2 to 3 seconds. it's not just the matter of not being able to make the most of the multi-million peso talent fees they had to pay the three endorsers, but more than that why have celebrity endorsers in the ad when they are not used properly? endorsers are chosen supposedly for their pulling power and the power to persuade but with the very limited time they are used in the ad and worse, the story in the ad don't even relate to their lives as celebrities, why use them at all? do they believe in the power of the endorsers they chose or not?

let's be honest here - will it really make a big difference, a loss in sale power if they removed the few seconds that the 3 endorsers appeared in the commercial in the last 2 to 3 seconds of the ad? will the audience miss anything in substance or sale?

99% of the ad feature ordinary upscale moms who make an effort to do their best for their kids - giving their kids not only the most but also giving extras on top of the most. these are moms who wake up early, who know that being a mom is difficult, cook the food and make sure their kids eat properly by serving them even fruits. and these moms choose lactum for that same reason because not only does lactum give their kids all the essential nutrients in the food chain, it has extras helping kids get 100% nourished. the visuals in the ad seem to be straightforward except that part where we see a mom putting a rubber ducky in a child's bath tub (very upscale! a bathroom with a bathtub!). i don't get what that meant or how that relates to moms wanting to give their kids the most plus more. was the ad saying i don't just give my kids a bath, but also playtime during bath time? why is that relevant? and why is that good?

the scenes they chose to depict the character of the moms as being very particular about choosing "the best and plus" are weak. they are not eloquent in communicating the characters of the mom. the power of the ad rests on the kind of moms that choose lactum but they have failed to make a compelling story to depict the characters of the moms they want to portray.

part of the problem could be length of time available to do so. it escapes me why they had to show three moms (i actually know the reason why, but more on that later) in the ad. having three moms prevented them to tell a more compelling and complete story on the moms. while time is obviously a factor, the biggest reason why this failed is the kind of copywriting they put into the ad. it appears to me that is the toughest challenge for the writers. the product freight is stock lactum - we have seen that in other lactum ads before. but the choices 0f waking up early, setting a toy in the bath and cooking food and serving meals with fruits are hohum depictions of what they want to convey. i don't think there's really enough time to allow the ideas to gel and properly communicated. all that they had was a sentence or two to be able to personify the lactum mom.

the only reason why i think they chose to have three moms in the ad is that they have 3 celebrity endorsers! hahahaha! (yup, that' real funny as it's really a very contrived reason.) it's probably a lame attempt to communicate 3 moms, 3 stories and 3 endorsers. but are we to believe that each of the three celebrity endorsers are represented in those three very lame scenes?

i get the feeling that choosing the right depictions of the lactum mom were the biggest battle the creative team had on this storyboard and ev eventually with the client. i bet they spent so much time with multiple revisions to get those 3 right. but in the end, they really were just bad writing. i get the feeling that a copywriter who just graduated from college 3 months ago wrote those scenes. or as they were revising the storyboard a hundredth time, the ad agency gave up in desperation and just agreed to whatever the client wanted to put in the ad.

this is a pity as giving flesh to the lactum mom is the foundation and core idea of this ad. it's probably the consumer insight that they extracted from some research but it's delivery is all lost on bad copywriting and too little time to do anything meaningful with it.

to be continued......

asi's diuretic, errr, coca cola tv spot

i understand asi taulava is coke basketball team's superstar and has a very wide following. i also understand that he probably gets the top salary among their players in the team. and it makes sense for coke to do a coke ad with asi.

but why do a COKE commercial like this one?

mood and tone of the tv spot is all wrong. the whole tv spot feel and sound like an ad for an insurance company or a diuretic. it makes coke look like a product for old people and most importantly, it took the youth out of coke. coke is one brand where youth (not necessarily "young") is forever there.

the commercial opens on the right note with asi playing aggressively, exactly the kind of basketball play he is known for. but everything turns downhill after that first scene. copy and visuals take a sordid turn when asi says things and is shown in situations where we know in our hearts asi don't say and don't get into in real life. he is a sports hero, remember?!

copy talks about how he expels a lot of energy, and how that results to a bigger appetite (huh? a basketball superstar eats food?), making him a lot more (huh? you need food to play basketball?) and the further he goes (huh?).

then all of a sudden, unmindful of a need for a smooth transition, the ad talks about what a balance of life mean to him. it's not about the kind of emotional balance or ordinary balance that we are familiar with, but apparently for this basketball superstar, balance in life for him is being able to eat as much as he wants as long as he remains active. based on this commercial, asi enjoys two things - basketball and eating a lot (what? huh?).

is that the asi we know?

i also understand the marketing objective of this ad - increase consumption by convincing users to drink coke during meals. coke's philippine business has been reduced significantly year to year for sometime now. they need every additional case of coke to be consumed by users in times other than just being thirsty or a desire to be cool and hip. they are giving coke a functional benefit, this one with meals other than just an emotional one. (huh? but that's a whole new topic all together!)

the marketing and advertising objectives are understandable. even the use of asi. this is not the first time that coke in the philippines have use this copy strategy for their ads but is this ad the best approach to deliver on these objectives?

there are disconnects, in fact many, where our hearts and minds refuse to accept asi looking and sounding like he is in a diuretic ad or being a life insurance pitchman. the most important keys to success in real life celebrity endorser tv ads are - REALITY and IN-CHARACTER, the latter being slightly more important. we like to watch our real life heroes in ads when they are shown within the context of our expectations and our real life views of the celebrity, within the context of why we love the celebrity in the first place. we love asi for basketball, his attitude and the verve he demonstrates in every play - his aggressive, never say die attitude and dominating play. but we see none of that in this ad. well, very little of it. asi is about power and attitude. in other words, in this ad, we don't see him in things we love him for.

this feels like two commercials forced into one, like a cruel edit - the tiny bit at the beginning, the asi we know who was playing the kind of basketball we love him for and the rest featuring someone we don't know of. the asi we see in that ad feels like an alien who invaded asi's human body. it also feels like a tv ad that has been mostly written by the client, someone desperate to ramp up market share. and to achieve that, decided to put the marketing objectives he wrote in his marketing plan into the ad ignoring the protests of the creative director. i won't be surprised if the creative director of this ad decides not to include this ad in his resume.

there are other disconnects, the ad being very disjointed- is asi the right person to talk about big appetites, considering that he is an athlete who looks very fit? no attempt was made to explain or make a sale on the idea of coke consumption with meals or coke consumption and appetite. and how all those relate to a balanced life. the absence of the explanation on those points seem to say the ad is relying on the star power of asi to get people the blinded somewhat, to somehow get past the non-correlation of those elements, ignore the disconnects and get people to drink coke during meals. it they are relying a lot on asi, why didn't they present asi in a way that is most familiar to us?

not only is this commercial showing many things that are wrong, it's also littered with huge gaps on logic and very poor at making a sale. i understand saying something new and surprising about the celebrities we love can be a good thing. but in this case, it's never good to know that asi loves a diuretic!

this asi coke ad - it's a WAWAM!