go daddy super bowl tv ad - have a laugh!

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.

barack obama's response

this was barack obama's response ad to hillary clinton's 3am tv spot.

i don't think this ad was done by someone who works in advertising. or it looks like it was done by amateurs! the ad copied the first few seconds of hillary's 3am tv spot! what was the point of that?

the obama ad people obviously thought hillary's 3am tv spot was very powerful and they probably thought they better counter it hard and strong. and one of the most powerful ad format is a direct comparison ad. i can appreciate that. but for heaven's sake, why use shots that are almost a copy of hillary's ads? that's not what comparative advertising means.

by copying the same visuals at the start of the ad, the obama spot threw away one of the cardinal rules in advertising - aim for differentiation, uniqueness. there's also a simple reason why that was dumb - the obama ad gave the audience a reason to remember the clinton ad. what's with that?

WAWAM!

clinton's tv ads

when you look at hillary clinton's ads, you can't help but admire it's simplicity and single minded approach to delivering ONE message and in a most powerful way. it's a no fuzz commercial but each one, specially the 3am tv spot, hits home.

the idea of a phone ringing at 3am, specifically a parent needing to call someone at 3am, together with the shots of children fast sleep is a very powerful and suscint combination. there is no mistaking what the ad is telling you. every parent can relate to that situation and the urgency that the person answering your call at that hour better be competent and someone who can help you.

the 3am spot is prime example of how a powerful consumer insight can drive an ad to excellence. i've always thought great consumer insights make it very easy and simple for the creatives to write a brilliant ad. one message, delivered powerfully. now, that's advertising.

Ad wars: Obama buys more, Clinton sets tempo

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- When it comes to campaign commercials, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are going where no candidate has gone before.

"Obama and Clinton have spent a combined $110 million on TV ads to this point; we've had a race that's literally gone on since last summer for ad spending," said Evan Tracey of TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group, CNN's consultants on campaign commercials.

"We're beyond what has been record spending in previous presidential nomination campaigns. John Kerry spent close to $20 million to get the nomination four years ago. Barack Obama's already approaching $70 million."

Obama outspent Clinton on ad buys in Pennsylvania by slightly more than 2-to-1, and Tracey says Obama is outspending his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination by about the same ratio in Indiana and North Carolina, which hold primaries May 6.

But is Obama getting bang for the buck?

Clinton "has been able to dictate the tempo in the last few contests, be that Texas, Ohio and then Pennsylvania," Tracey said. "What she has to continue to do is dictate the tempo of this race with her TV ads. She doesn't have as much money ... but if she's allowed to dictate the tempo, she can make up for that lack of spending."

An example of that is Clinton's "3 a.m." commercial, which asked, "It's 3 a.m., and your children are safe and asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?"



The commercial touted what the Clinton campaign calls its candidate's experience advantage over her rival.

"Clinton used the 3 a.m. ad very effectively to put the Obama campaign back on their heels. She did it again in Pennsylvania," Tracey said.

Another commercial summoned a phrase associated with a former Democratic president: "Harry Truman said it best: If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Who do you think has what it takes? I'm Hillary Clinton, and I approve this message."



The ad again touts Clinton's experience and questions Obama's strength and resolve, without mentioning him by name.

The ads have forced Obama to respond.

His campaign quickly put out its own "3 a.m." ad criticizing Clinton's vote on the Iraq war and also went with a commercial in Pennsylvania with this counterattack: "Newspapers call Hillary Clinton's negative attacks the old politics."

"What she's been able to do with some of these ads that attack Sen. Obama is basically make him into a political candidate," Tracey said. "That's the problem Obama's trying to avoid. Obama right now, he's got to decide: Does he take the fight to Clinton? In other words, does he strike first?"

Obama fundraising machine has built an advantage in money to buy ads, but Clinton's win in Pennsylvania could help close the gap.


http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/27/ad.buys/#cnnSTCText

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

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.

coke knows it, but won't do it

market share is down, volume sales is down, the soda segment might be shrinking and yet there's a feeling coke is not doing some things they already know to help their situation.

sure user base shrinkage is an issue and yes, to fix that, brandsell advertising is the way to go to regain back their users and prevent further fall outs from their user-base. but in the philippine market, there are just some things you really can't argue with against consumers that advertising alone is not the solution.

this has been mentioned in WAWAM! before - often times, slow or declining business is a problem of marketing, not advertising. in this case, in my view it’s a problem of both but coke seem to be behaving like it's just a problem of advertising.

the angel tv ad is a good fix to the problem of advertising - it's a very good improvement from their previous campaign. (this will be discussed in detail next.) coke is an excellent marketer when it comes to engaging their consumers from a brand building and connecting with consumers points of view. they're very good at doing advertising that captures the essence of the psyche of their users, spending a lot of time and money on consumer research to enable it to capture consumer insights. they are also willing to spend behind it. they are an ideal client.

take things like these pins that they used in their previous ad campaign for example - it's a small item in their marketing plan and budget, but it makes it obvious how well they know their consumers. and they are very willing at going to that small a detail just to connect with their consumers.

but unfortunately, coke is not doing the other part - that of fixing the marketing problem. they have known about it, but they have become very stubborn by not doing the right things, in this case what the market demands, and that makes it all really ridiculous.

there are two - (a) they need to reduce their prices! value or cash outlay is an enduring and key issue for coke consumption in this market. they have known this for a long time but are unable to have enough political will to get it done.

they have done many tactical efforts to increase the value perception of their brand, almost everything that’s in the marketing books except to actually reduce the price!

they even bought a whole company, Cosmos Bottling, just to make sure price points no longer become an issue for them. well, almost. cosmos was killing coke then - its extremely low price was gobbling up market share and most importantly preventing coke to grow at the rate they wanted it to. coke probably realized they will eventually lose the battle with cosmos, so rather than face cosmos in the marketing arena as a competitor, they bought the whole company instead! brilliant move! (but stupid move for RFM for selling the company, a goose that laid golden eggs!)

but as theire research showed, even when they controlled the pricing and moves of cosmos (they already own it!), not much has changed in the value perception of their brands. they also did a whole slew of other packaging, pricing and SKU moves in the market but all of those were just tactical marketing moves and the negative value perception was still a huge problem for them.

as mentioned in WAWAM! previously, value is a key driver in this market. and as said, value or cash outlay is so powerful in this market that it even has the ability to trump sharon cuneta as the endorser of trio when scrambelicious is launched at a lower price than trio.

the other marketing part that coke is not doing is (b) coke's stubbornness in NOT launching new drinks in this market to directly compete with water, juices and teas. coke has done this in many other markets, especially in europe for many years already. coke has a wide range of drinks in its portfolio that they can sell in this market but for some reason are not doing it.

they seem to be so in love with coke that the feeling I get is that they feel they will be cheating on coke if they launched other brands, much like a married person feeling guilty in having a mistress.

coca cola product portfolio

this is the coca cola portfolio of products that can be launched in the philippines to directly compete with the emerging and growing segment of juices, teas and water in the market. launching any of these brands in the philippine market will enable coca cola to participate in the growing segment and more importantly defend coke.

coke angel tv spot : what works and what does not work

here's what is to look forward to in WAWAM! - the bottom line, what works and what doesn't work in the coke angel tv spot, "ang sarap dito".

we've discussed the casting and the production values, even obsessed on the wings of the angel - these are peripherals. not irrelevant but just on the peripherals of the ad campaign.

ad campaigns are business or marketing tools. companies hire ad agencies and air ad campaigns for a purpose - that of selling more cases and building market share.

for coke, these business objectives are more dire, their philippine business has suffered very much over the recent years. not only is market share and volume sales going down, incidence and per capita consumption has shrunk. this brand is losing it's franchise and its consumer base in the philippine market. and the philippine market is a very important one for coca cola worldwide - the philippine market is in the top 10 largest in the world. believe it or not, pinoys are coke addicts on a global scale!

it's a simplistic way of looking at business performance, but next time you eat in a restaurant, check out the drinks people have on their tables - when it used to be mostly coke, now it's mostly drinks other than coke. you have ice lemon tea, water and other juices. don't you see a lot more people carrying with them bottled water and those tea drinks like C2 than coke? even the takatak boys in the traffic lights don't sell coke.

the tough part is that coke has done the right things - they have set up vending machines everywhere, they introduced smaller sized bottles and therefore lower cash outlay SKUs but to no avail. per capita consumption, along with market share and volume sales are sliding.

is this coke angel tv spot up to the task of giving coke wings to fly? that's next in WAWAM!

to be continued………….

compare those to coke angel's wings

victoria's secret angel pics

these are NOT the pictures of victoria's secret angels i was referring to in my post. i could not seem to find them in the internet. but i clearly remember the gorgeous angels with their majestic wings of the earlier victoria's secret shows. the most recent VS angel shows had wings that were too hyped up, very theatrical versions already.

just the same, i'm posting the pics here for a simple reason - they look nice to look at. enjoy.

coke angel tv ad - do angels have disheveled wings?

they are probably using this artwork for print or billboard materials. notice the rendition of the wings. that's not the same kind of wings we see in the tv ad. this one looks more believable, well i think at least they look closer to our expectations.

this version has long and big feathers at the tail, which makes sense. but the top are small, fluffy and disheveled. why would an angel have disheveled wings? even birds don't have disheveled wings.

to those not in advertising, yes that's how serious we can get in producing ads. people who are not in advertising will get shocked on the amount and kind of details that need to be threshed out and agreed to before an ad is produced and the kind of revisions that need to be done to get it perfect. that's also one of the major reasons why producing an ad can get very very expensive. it's a 30 second commercial, but you spend millions of pesos to finish one and can take anywhere from 3 to 15 days to finish! serious money is spent on productions, and that's not including the amount of money advertisers spend on airing the ads. coca cola will probably spend hundreds of millions of pesos on this ad campaign alone. it is pretty serious.


blogs on this coke ad:

http://creepygerry.blogspot.com/
http://www.cokeangel.blogspot.com/


to be continued......

here's a toyota ad for their small car that sold itself on its strengths. unlike the kia motor ad, this one did not shoot itself in the foot. like kia motors, i'm sure toyota knew avanza is one of the smallest cars in the market and one of the lowest priced. they also know there are many other bigger and more expensive cars in the market with much better features than the avanza. but that didn't matter to this avanza print ad. it still put it's best foot forward, it's positioning - Powerful And Practical! it gave potential car buyers reasons to buy it, unlike the kia motor ad which gave a reason not to buy the kia.




this avanza print ad will not win any award nor is it the gold standard but it's here just to drive home the points raised on the kia motor ad. read the kia motor post here -> http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2008/04/kis-motorc-print-ad-wth-is-that-ad.html

production values - the coke angel tv ad "ang sarap dito" spot

i think this coke ad is one of the most polished production i have seen on philippine tv. thailand has become one of the top destination for production work for ads in asia and it shows very well in this ad. the camera work and specially the cinematography i thought were very much thailand. (who is DOP? australian too? or thai?)

of special note is the audio, the jingle in particular. it's very well done. the jingle production had it exactly where it needs to be.

first of all, who knows how an adult angel should sound like and in song? we know how angels look like (well at least we think we do), we have seen a lot of pictures of angels done by humans, so we know what to expect. but singing adult angels? we have heard God speak in movies (low voice, reverb, slow, male, a fat male, and old) but not angels. we have an idea of cherubs singing but not an adult female angel. i thought the singing voice in the ad and more importantly the effects applied to it to make it sound like an angel singing was just right. it does sound heavenly.

i keep saying "just right" because this kind of production you can over do or under perform. that singing voice of an angel or heavenly singing in the jingle can sound like the chipmunks or worse a computer robot. the angel and the face just went extremely well together. i think a lot of the appeal of this ad comes from that - it's believability. what we see and hear in that ad, matches our expectations of angels and heaven.

i think over-all this ad has excellent production values, except for one item - the wings of the angel.


i don't think this ad got the wings of the angel right. i also do not think it was easy at all. my bet is that of all the items in the ad, a lot of pre-production meeting time was spent discussing the wings of the angel. there are two types of wings here - the real one like the props on the left and the CG wings. i bet a lot of grief and time were spent on these. i also won't be surprised if a lot of samples of the prop wings have been developed and discarded.

but having said that, i don't think they got it right.

here is where the difficulty is - no human has actually seen the wings of a real angel. we can only use drawings and paintings of angels with wings as references.

this will sound silly, but for me i thought the wings looked obviously fake in the ad. and i think i know why - the wing renditions in that ad, both prop and CG were wings for a cherub, not for a full grown angel. the feathers they used there were underdeveloped, too short and too small. it looks like the adult angel grew tall physically and big but the wings remained retarded, fit for a cherub.

also part of the problem is that the CG rendition of the wings were inconsistent, they did not look the same in all sequences. it looked like not one CG artist rendered all the wings in the ad but several artists did, thus the inconsistency in style and concept. they tried to hide the inconsistencies by blurring them but they still showed.

the wings didn't look majestic at all. to me the biggest disappointment was in that scene where the angel gets up and fully spreads her wings to prepare to fly to earth. they should have spent a lot of time and effort to make that a truly magnificent shot but not enough was done. all we saw was the wings fully spread but it wasn't awesome.

i'm sure the ad agency and director used a lot of references for the wings. but for me, i would have used the paintings of the masters and those we see in religious stampitas on how best to render the wings of an angel.

and, i'm very serious about this, i would have used the victorria's secret (yup the lingerie company) annual fashion show of their lingerie line where they started this trend of attaching wings to their models while in the skimpiest bras and panties. specially during the first three fashion shows using wings, those were the best wings i have seen on VS models. the wings they have in that fashion are exactly how they are drawn in paintings - shape and texture included. i swear, i was looking at the wings when i watch those fashion shows!





blogs on this coke ad:

http://creepygerry.blogspot.com/

http://www.cokeangel.blogspot.com/

to be continued......

the cast - the coca cola tv spot

looking at that production, didn't think it was necessary to do it in bangkok, thailand. the board is simple enough and there's no reason why the CG work can't be done in manila. i can believe the schedule issue. that's one part i don't understand with manila production houses - they seem to be busy all the time.

i thought this ad had excellent talent casting! the main characters look real good in their roles, specially the angel. that was the reason i asked about the casting of this ad. they can also pass for pinoys.

i thought the idea of casting unknowns for the ad is a very good idea. it's the kind of storyboard concept that will work much better if the talents are unknown. i wonder if mccann attempted to cast non-celebrity and unknown pinoys for the roles. and if they did, they probably gave up trying. talent casting in the philippines is not very easy to do specially for projects like these. it's a real pain. the ad concept could have failed to excite if they casted celebrities for the roles. (please! enough pinoy celebrities in ads!) but imagine what would have happened if they casted unknown pinoys for the roles - that would have launched the careers of two people. a much larger buzz would have been generated.

the angel, i think really looks like an angel. simple, with a very pleasing beauty with enough mystery and kindess to her face.

i don't know if it's just me, but doesn't she look like sunshine cruz?

sunshine cruz is in this pic with some of her clothes still on her. (didn't post the bottom half of the pic as it would be very distracting.)









blogs on this coke ad:
http://creepygerry.blogspot.com/

http://www.cokeangel.blogspot.com/
to be continued......

coca cola "ang sarap dito" tv30s : basic info

found two blogsites about this coke tv spot from a Gerry Cacanindin who seem to be the creative behind the coke ad. this is his blogsite, Inner Sanctum --> http://creepygerry.blogspot.com/.

he also created a blogsite just for the angel tv spot. if you like this ad, you have to go to this blogsite as it has lots of behind the scene pictures, and a lot of good chika on the development of the tv spot. here is the coke angel blogsite --> http://www.cokeangel.blogspot.com/

based on those blogsites, the angel is Michelle Dantes, a Brazilian model. the devil is played by a German-Vietnamese model Benjamin Tang. the spot was directed by an Australian, Adrian Van de Velde and this was shot in Bangkok, Thailand, including post-production work. final soundtrack re-mixes by Song Zu, Singapore. the song, "Ang Sarap Dito" is by Project 1, a pinoy band. i wonder who was the production designer?

this is the music video of the song "Ang Sarap Dito" by project 1. as the leader for the music video said, this was produced by unitel for coca cola.

i have a question - was this song composed specifically for the coke ad? or was this already a song and coke just got it for the tv spot? anyone know?



got more information: production was done at Great Guns Bangkok which also did the production design and casting. posted a few questions in the cokeangel blog and those were the answers i got.

am putting here this comment from "coke angel fan" that was posted in that coke ad post here. am using some of the things written here later on during the discussion of the ad:

Confirmed. Concept, production all handled by McCann Philippines.

Believe it or not, this is just for the local market. It's not a regional material--yet. Rumor has it this might become a regional material as Coke's Asia-Pacific head found this ad simply spectacular.

Filmed in Bangkok, Thailand. Post production also in Bangkok by Famepost. Hats off to Filipino creativity. I have to admit this is one of the best Coke commercials I've seen. Hits the target (teens) right in the gut and the idea couldn't be owned by any other brand. The story is made believable because of Coke.

Now I wish I could do something like this for Pepsi but this ad is simply a gem and it would be hard to top this :)

Congratulations, McCann Philippines for a job well done.

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QUICK REACTION : CAN THE "ANG SARAP DITO" (Angel) TV SPOT BE AN ASIAN REGIONAL COPY?

just wanted to post a quick one to the above.

can this tv spot be an asia regional tv spot? who is the coke asia regional head? probably an american?

my point of view is - i don't think so. i don't think this ad can be an asian regional copy because it's an angel-devil story. we understand the story because this country is made up of mostly catholics (80% of the population). we understand the concept of an "angel", the "devil", heaven and earth. unfortunately, the philippines is the only catholic country in asia.

most of asia is on the eastern religions like budhism, confusianism and of course islam. the concept of an angel and the devil are alien to these religions. how will they understand the angel is in heaven and decides to become human, then meets the devil on earth who has also converted into human form? understandability will be the major barrier.

of course they can translate it in their own culture and religion, but in those countries putting religion into tv ads can cause riots and revolutions! but there is a way to do it - they can look for myths and legends in the particular countries in asia. just don't know if all countries would have something similar to angels and if it has the same kind of image angels have in our minds.i don't even think they will find the angel story cute. i doubt if it will strike a chord among the rest of asia. for the rest of asia, this ad has too many baggages to overcome.

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

WAWAM! asked a few questions in the cokeangel blog http://cokeangel.blogspot.com/ and this were the answers i got. posting them here:

Hi Wawam, thanks for linking and thanks for the interest with this TVC. Though I am uncomfortable with being mentioned in Wawam as it stands for What-A-Waste-of-Advertising-Money, I hope the presence of Honda's "Cog" and other great ads there bode for a good review on your part.

Anyway, regarding your question, Great Guns Bangkok handled all the logistics inlcluding the talent search so the Manila team is not privy on the nitty-gritty stuff but yes, most of those hired for this commercial were foreign talent, from the main talents to the rigging guys.

You might be wondering why this is so. It all boiled down to the deliverables. This was pitched to both local and foreign production houses but Great Guns Bangkok was the only one able to promise delivery on a killer sked with the quality the Manila team aspired for. Besides, local or foreign shoot, the post production had to be done abroad anyway so it was better to do everything there as the schedule was really tight and there was no time to fly back and forth during the crucial post production on which this TVC hinged on.

Now, regarding Project 1 and Ang Sarap Dito, the band has been interviewed dozens of times on TV already and they have stated they made this song out of their own effort as Raimund Marasigan has long been contemplating on getting together members of different bands to do something, a "project" hence, Project 1.The song is a good fit with the TVC and so it was remixxed and used in the commercial.

--------

to be continued.....

is the safeguard ad agency at the adboard office now?

it's 8:00 am, the adboard office is now open. the safeguard ad agency right at this moment should be entering the adboard office and handing over the complaint against that print ad.

are they there?

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 "ang sarap dito" (coke angel) tv spot

the new coke tv ad, "ang sarap dito", angel and devil is now posted in youtube. this was first discussed in WAWAM! april 6, 2008. view the post here:
http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2008/04/coca-cola-buhay-coke-tikman-mo.html

check out the ad:




things posted in You Tube - the girl is a brazilian model, the ad was shot in bangkok, thailand. anyone can confirm those?

safeguard soap under attack! the start of a soap war?

saw this pair of print ads in the Philippine Star today - they are teaser ads for an impending launch of new soap brand. it's a blatant attack on safeguard soap, the market leader. and i think this is the start of a soap war in philippine advertising.

safeguard has been the traditional market leader in the personal care category. at it's peak safeguard had 50% to 60% market share of the total philippine personal care category. that has now dwindled with copycat and low priced local products like green cross but safeguard is still the market leader. many have tried to pull down safeguard's market share but few have succeeded, it's superior germicidal positioning has been very formidable.

the launch of this yet to be named brand is quite interesting as i hope it will revitalize and bring some excitement in the toilet soap category, long been boring with very few activities. aside from that, those print ads are quite aggressive - it's a blatant and very direct challenge to safeguard's leadership and positioning.

if i'm right, the direction this new brand is taking in attacking safeguard is something that i have thought is the way to go to take leadership from safeguard. we don't know what the campaign is yet, but if the teaser print ads are an indication, they could be onto to something here.

safeguard will be defended vigorously, that is for sure. if i remember it right, safeguard is an ace-saatchi & saatchi brand, i wonder if this new brand is a uni-lever product. so we are talking of a uni-lever vs p&g and saatchi vs lowe battle here? does the two ad agencies have what it takes to win over the other?

next in WAWAM! what safeguard should do.






this is one of the safeguard soap tv ads aired some years ago when safeguard reached it's highest market share in its history.


to be continued....

nike kobe byant tv spot

kobe will not risk his life and career, no matter what. nor would nike put kobe's life and career on the line for a tv spot. it must be CG or something. it is very well done. and the copy sounds very realistic too and makes it very believable. nice ad!

kia motors print ad - what the hell is that ad?

this is a 2nd hand (pre-owned) kia car that's for sale and posted in the internet. it's year model is very close to the year if not exactly the same year the kia print ad here was released. so the kia in the picture is most likely the model the new kia model in the ad is supposed to replace.

kia at the the time of the print ad was one of the first car brands that offered an almost mini-car with very spare accessories and features. to good effect, at that time, kia had the lowest price among all the cars in the country. and that is exactly the reputation, what kia is known for in the market at that time - lowest price car in the market.

that reputation is obviously something kia and its agency knew about and was probably one of the main consideration they had when they developed the print ad. that's a good thing. knowing your brand's reputation or brand image when you do a new ad, specially for a new car model is the right thing to do.

note that this ad was published years ago. when i first saw the ad, i was dumbfounded. no, in fact i almost fell off my chair nearly spilled steaming hot coffee on myself. with my mouth open, still looking at the newspaper ad, i told myself, "what the hell is this ad??!!". years ago, i did not yet have the word WAWAM!, but it sure does fit this ad. by the way they had very heavy placement on this ad. again, what the hell is this ad?

we have talked about creative teams who have become very lazy, that all they did was put sharon cuneta on the ad and did nothing else in the tv ad. the creative team in this kia ad is of a different kind - this creative team fell so much in love with their ad concept that they forgot everything else.

actually, it's a ad full of comedy errors. i think it's an ad that started with very good intentions and in their pursuit of these intentions, they were unable to see the quicksand they put themselves into.

the ad is all about honesty and realism. i can imagine the creative team passionately making the presentation, they probably made a big point on the importance of starting off with the then current reputation of kia cars. and i bet they said it's like a zen ad - simple and direct to the point, qualities of honesty and realism. they wanted so much to focus on it, that they said, it will be a simple layout - just words, plain ones and set in a plain black background, the epitome of honesty and straight talk. ok, we got that. and the clients obviously bought it. that sounds really great. the agency was most probably able to bring the clients to cloud 9 and while in a hypnotic trance approved the ad without knowing that - THEY ACTUALLY FORGOT ABOUT SOMETHING.

and that something is a most basic question of any advertising campaign and marketing plan - WHO IS THE TARGET AUDIENCE?

it's a very strange print ad. ads are supposed to make people want to buy the product or service. and to do that, ads usually present the product in the best light possible. for those that can, some even claim superiority, being better than all other brands. or some select a certain benefit the product can give that is meaningful or attractive to the target audience. there are many ways to do it, those are just two.

this print ad doesn't do that. in fact what this ad did was the opposite - it admitted the kia car is NOT the best around. this thought in the ad is one of many comedy of errors.

why did they do that? the ad campaign concept is about honesty, their end tag says "We tell it as it is." and within that ad concept, they did just that. but in the process of doing it, they forgot to make a sale. not only did they not make a sale, they admitted that compared to other cars, they have nothing to offer that's better than others. huh? what? this is probably the first ad in the history of advertising that is trying to sell itself on the basis of not offering consumers something better, in effect, they are offering consumers something worse than others. that's just the first part of the print ad. things get screwed up even more as you read the rest of the ad.

the lead-in asked, "Are Kias the best cars available?" and the answer to that lead-in is, "Maybe not, but our new Kia models are definitely better than before." ah, the ad is saying this new model is much better than the existing ones, so that means, the target audience of this ad is - current owners of kia cars! that is a fatal mistake! another comedy of error.

i am saying the target audience is current kia car owners because that kind of proposition is meaningful only to current owners of kia cars. it has no meaning at all to owners of other brands and first time car buyers because they do not have any point of comparison, they do not own a kia! if you don't have a kia car experience, the line, supposedly a "superiority claim" will sound greek to you.

it can be argued that that kind of proposition can appeal to car buyers who previously looked at a kia but got turned off by it. well ok, that is possible. but here's the problem there - those who looked at a kia and got turned off before may have already decided to buy another brand at that time! that's also one of the reasons why it's a fatal mistake - car replacement frequency in the philippines is not very frequent, people tend to hold on to their cars for a long time.

so now, you have a print ad that in its pursuit of honesty as an ad campaign concept, zen and all, developed a proposition that sells itself on an inferiority positioning versus other cars, and in the process may have unintentionally limited it to a very small target audience, the few number of kia car owners and on something that is not at all meaningful to other car owners and new car buyers! this obsessive pursuit of honesty has pushed this ad to a confusion of who the real target audience is and removed a proposition.

but that's not yet the biggest problem of this ad.

as mentioned earlier, i think the ad agency started this ad campaign with very good intentions. one of the most important good intention was they really wanted to present kia in a position of superiority or at least on an "er" claim, as in "better" claim/positioning. they knew they could not claim superiority versus other cars, so they looked for something else that allowed them to do so and that is against themselves.

that ad campaign concept is often seen in p&g and uni-lever advertising where they start the ad with the talent saying "i found a detergent that is better than Tide Detergent, i found New Improved Tide Detergent!" then goes on to make a sale on how the New Improved Tide is better than the old. it's a smart way of communicating product improvements and create that "impression" of superiority without needing to claim it for real.

but that kind of concept works only for products where the purchase cycle is short and often. it does not work with cars where the purchase cycle is many years. people buy detergents on a daily basis, but people buy cars after many years.

and combining that concept with an obsession on honesty really did them in. superiority claims against your own brand work well only if you detail in the ad the ways your new improved product is superior over the old one. they did nothing of the sort in this ad. i think the ad agency thought the honesty ad campaign concept prevented them from doing that. in their minds, those two ideas became contradictory, like an oxymoron for kia cars. besides, it wasn't zen enough.

honesty is a good thing, but it might not be something good to use in an ad, not in the way they did in the print ad. product superiority is much better to use in ads than just plain honesty. it's simple really, one of the top 10 rules in advertising is to make a sale and to do that, give the consumer something to bite on to, something better than that of the competition. none of that happened here.

the bottom line why this is a WAWAM! - this is a print ad that did not have a proposition and one that did not have a target audience! in other words, this ad shot itself in the foot! not zen at all!

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.