early part of WAWAM! the nestle give-me-a-name internet contest was a favorite topic. they eventually chose the name SCRAMBELICIOUS and on april 15, 2008 when they announced the winner of the name, they said they will launch the brand in a few week's time. it's already end july, now a few months after the announcement of the winner and the product is yet to be seen in supermarkets. wonder what happened to it?
view the discussions here:
http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/scrambelicious%20ice%20cream
http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/nestle%20give-me-a-name
nestle's give-me-a-name website: http://givemeaname.ph/win/index.php
mount pinatubo erupts shooting ashes several kilometers high, then floating to blanket many other towns hundreds of kilometers away
Showing posts with label nestle philippines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nestle philippines. Show all posts
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
SCRAMBELICIOUS is the nestle give-me-a-name winner
yup, that's what the nestle website says. SCRAMBELICIOUS is a name submitted by a Ms. Analyn Bojos. congratulations to miss bojos!
nestle chose the simple, no frills route in announcing the winner. just posted the winning name and the name of the author. no apologies. not defensive. and finally they learned, no drum-beating true or the false kind ("hundreds of thousands of entries", remember that? hahaha). this is a good move on the part nestle! finally, they learned?
scrambelicious as the winning name confirms that contrary to the impression the website gave, number of votes did not determine the winner. urflower's "taste of summer" didn't win and so it could mean a college girl from an exclusive girls school might decide to sell her body for money. the author of the name "tropical burst" now has to dispose the 100+ email addresses he got for the contest. or maybe look for another contest to join?
is scrambelicious a good name for an ice cream?
it's a play between two words "scramble" and "delicious". scramble most likely refers to the three flavors, a scramble or a mix of three flavors. it's filipinized english. also, there's an ice desert that's sold by street vendors called "scramble". so maybe its playing up on that idea. but the question is - will consumers "scramble" the ice cream when they eat it, as in scoop the three flavors and put it in their mouths all at the same time?
it's too playful and unserious a name for an ice cream. but that's not surprising considering that nestle already has an ice cream brand called "trio". it's a name that you know will not be a classic brand.
we will have to see the advertising support nestle will give this brand.
nestle chose the simple, no frills route in announcing the winner. just posted the winning name and the name of the author. no apologies. not defensive. and finally they learned, no drum-beating true or the false kind ("hundreds of thousands of entries", remember that? hahaha). this is a good move on the part nestle! finally, they learned?
scrambelicious as the winning name confirms that contrary to the impression the website gave, number of votes did not determine the winner. urflower's "taste of summer" didn't win and so it could mean a college girl from an exclusive girls school might decide to sell her body for money. the author of the name "tropical burst" now has to dispose the 100+ email addresses he got for the contest. or maybe look for another contest to join?
is scrambelicious a good name for an ice cream?
it's a play between two words "scramble" and "delicious". scramble most likely refers to the three flavors, a scramble or a mix of three flavors. it's filipinized english. also, there's an ice desert that's sold by street vendors called "scramble". so maybe its playing up on that idea. but the question is - will consumers "scramble" the ice cream when they eat it, as in scoop the three flavors and put it in their mouths all at the same time?
it's too playful and unserious a name for an ice cream. but that's not surprising considering that nestle already has an ice cream brand called "trio". it's a name that you know will not be a classic brand.
we will have to see the advertising support nestle will give this brand.
today, nestle will announce the winning entry
nestle apparently had a change of heart and announced in their website a few days ago that they will "exclusively" announce the winning name in their website today. previous statements in the website did not promise an announcement in the website, instead it just asked visitors to watch out for the product's launch in the coming weeks. this annoucement today is good, we will have closure! hahaha.
these were supposed to be the criteria and mechanics nestle used in choosing the winning name :
they actually did not follow the stated mechanics of choosing 30 entries weekly. they did not do that because they probably did not get 30 new entries every week, probably got much less than 30 entries. although of course, in the latest statement in the website, they claim they received "hundreds of thousands" of entries. hahaha. yeah, right!
they also said the following will be used as the crtieria for choosing the final winner. they had asked website visitors to look at the entries using these as criteria, either to vote or give comments on.
so, today, we will know the following :
these were supposed to be the criteria and mechanics nestle used in choosing the winning name :
c. All 30 weekly entries shall be evaluated on the basis of the following criteria: i. Originality. ii. Suitability for use as a brand name. iii. Absence of prior registration at the Philippine Intellectual Property Office. iv. Non-use by any company or person. v. Conformity with branding regulations of the BFAD or any other responsible agency.
they actually did not follow the stated mechanics of choosing 30 entries weekly. they did not do that because they probably did not get 30 new entries every week, probably got much less than 30 entries. although of course, in the latest statement in the website, they claim they received "hundreds of thousands" of entries. hahaha. yeah, right!
they also said the following will be used as the crtieria for choosing the final winner. they had asked website visitors to look at the entries using these as criteria, either to vote or give comments on.
- creativity : 40%
- suitability of the name to the Product Concept : 30%
- appetite appeal : 30%
so, today, we will know the following :
- when they announce the winner, we will know how they define the criteria that they have set
- we will know if what has been posted here is corect - votes of website visitors don't count. contrary to the impression the website gave, the entry that got the most number of votes is not necessarily the winner. this will be confirmed today.
- that means urflower's "taste of summer", the entry that got the most number of votes within the "promo" period will not be declared the winner. if "taste of summer" is not declared the winner, will urflower, a declared college student from an exclusive girl's school, go into prostitution and sell sex for money?
- that also means "tropical burst" will not be declared the winner. this entry got 1.400+ votes after the promo period until the website was closed on the single gallant effort by it's author who got for himself 100+ email addresses to get this entry to get that number of votes. posters in the website pointed out that gatorade and kool aid have brands that already use "tropical burst" which means nestle should have disqualified this name based on the criteria they have set for choosing the 30 weekly entries (above, 2nd paragraph). will nestle declare this as winner when this has gotten so many negative comments in the website and is already being used by 2 companies?
- will they declare 'scrambelicious' as the winner, based on the email send by nestle to deathnote? as far as anyone can remember, 'scrambelicious' did not get any vote in the website. some even doubt if it was in the list. we do know 'scramble' was mentioned in their tv ad.
- will nestle give a spiel on why they chose 'scrambelicious' as the winner?
- or, my worst fear and that of 'anonymous' - will nestle declare a different winning entry today aside from 'scrambelicious'? and as anonymous have posted here in WAWAM!, that will be an all time low for nestle! hahaha
- in their announcement, will nestle 'make nice' (as the song goes) and placate the dozens, hundreds even (but please, NOT 'hundreds of thousands') of website visitors and authors of entries submitted? the announcement on the april 15 date they had in their website i thought was very defensive and apologetic. nestle seem to know they had disappointed their target audience and the visitors to the website with their effort. they probably realize it was very much ill-conceived, not thought through and plainly incompetent. will their announcement today somehow try to 'make nice' to regain some goodwill? or will they just ignore that and have a celebratory tone? or will it still be apologetic and defensive?
- or...... will nestle not announce the winner today, as declared?
Monday, April 14, 2008
email announcement : nestle winning name
posted verbatim from forwarded email. with thanks to deathnote.
-----------------
From: "Consumer,Services,MAKATI,COMMUNICATION & MARKETING SERVICES" <consumer.services@ph.nestle.com>
To: "xxx" xxx
Subject: RE: may i know...
Dear Mr. xxx,
Thank you for your email. The winning name for NESTLE Give Me A Name promo is SCRAMBELICIOUS. We hope you will be as pleased as we are about the winning name we have chosen and we look forward to your continued patronage.
Regards,
Nestlé Consumer Services
Nestlé Philippines, Inc.Communication & Marketing Services Dept.
Nestlé Center,
31 Plaza DriveRockwell Center, Makati City 1200
Tel No. (02) 8980061
---------
From: xxx [mailto:xxx@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 10:44 AM
To: Consumer,Services,MAKATI,COMMUNICATION & MARKETING SERVICES
Subject: may i know...
good day!
who won the name of the ice cream: "give-me-a-name"? when would be the results of the winners be coming out to the public. im hoping it would be pretty soon. thank you very much and have a great day.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
wining name for nestle's give-me-a-name
winner for the nestle give-me-a-name effort is......
we have to wait for april 15!
read the nestle announcement in their website. i found the announcement very amusing. it sounded so defensive and trying too hard to impress that you sense they feel they have done a bad job on the whole thing. the good thing is they seem to know the whole effort has been disappointing to people. but they gave way too many details, "too much information" kind of thing that wasn't really necessary to let its readers know about. there are even lame attempts to give the semblance of success with self promotion lines like "hundreds of thousands of entries". that was down and out unbelievable! hahaha. the advertising efforts they did behind this project could have reached hundreds of thousands, so if they got entries equivalent to hundreds of thousands, are we to believe 100% or 99% of everyone the ads reached sent entries?!!! hahaha.
nestle should have not written this update that way. they really didn't have to sound defensive and apologetic. they should have just announced the date and did some hoopla on drumming up excitement and anticipation. sound nothing but upbeat and positive. they should have just a teaser to the april 15 announcement.
goes to show how amateurish the ad agency and marketing team who developed this effort. is this a publicis account?
announcement on the nestle website:
http://givemeaname.ph/win/announce2.htm
we have to wait for april 15!
read the nestle announcement in their website. i found the announcement very amusing. it sounded so defensive and trying too hard to impress that you sense they feel they have done a bad job on the whole thing. the good thing is they seem to know the whole effort has been disappointing to people. but they gave way too many details, "too much information" kind of thing that wasn't really necessary to let its readers know about. there are even lame attempts to give the semblance of success with self promotion lines like "hundreds of thousands of entries". that was down and out unbelievable! hahaha. the advertising efforts they did behind this project could have reached hundreds of thousands, so if they got entries equivalent to hundreds of thousands, are we to believe 100% or 99% of everyone the ads reached sent entries?!!! hahaha.
nestle should have not written this update that way. they really didn't have to sound defensive and apologetic. they should have just announced the date and did some hoopla on drumming up excitement and anticipation. sound nothing but upbeat and positive. they should have just a teaser to the april 15 announcement.
goes to show how amateurish the ad agency and marketing team who developed this effort. is this a publicis account?
announcement on the nestle website:
http://givemeaname.ph/win/announce2.htm
Thank you everyone for your continued patience, we are finalizing the new label of our new frozen dessert. We will reveal it exclusively on this site first on April 15, 2008. This is a humble gesture of thanks to the very active online community who have contributed to make our promo such a success! We have triple-checked the hundreds of thousands of names sent to us through drop-boxes and SMS. This was to make sure that we didn't miss any possible duplicate entries that matched the winning name! We also wanted to meet with the winner first-hand and carefully followed the law before announcing the new name (complying with BFAD approval, IPR clearance, and more). Moreover, we have listened to your valuable feedback and comments about the product itself and have made efforts to improve on it further. Rest assured that we will make the announcement of the winner on our website as promised. We are genuinely excited to unveil our one-of-a-kind frozen dessert back into the market -- now with an equally delightful name to go with it! Thank you once more for your kind understanding and continued support. It's our first time to try something as innovative as this and we were overwhelmed with your response! We are truly grateful and wish our fellow Filipinos online good food and good life. We would still love to hear from you! Please feel free to write us at webmaster@ph.nestle.com
Thursday, April 10, 2008
part 16. what nestle could have done instead - how not to name a brand
the marketing objective behind nestle's give-me-a-name website effort could have read something like this : "generate interest, excitement and anticipation over the launch of the new product".
to deliver on that objective, nestle's brand management team could have done other things other than what they had done. in fact many other things, only if they had thought it through. this is one of them.
first, they should have looked at the characteristic of the internet, a website, as a medium of communication. the internet website has the potential to capture millions of viewers, it's immediate, real time and more importantly it's interactive, not a static one-way medium. they don't just want to get as many people as they can, they also want to get as many excited over the naming of a new brand.
i would have asked a professional naming company to give nestle 5 names at least as a start up list, to seed the contest. the website could have started with the announcement that they are looking for a new name, and that they want the help of its audience in determining which one.
the point is - rather than what they had done where the effort was geared towards getting suggestions from its viewers, they should instead turned the web effort into simply asking for the help of its viewers to choose the name. and more importantly, rather than giving prizes to the authors of the names (viewers will no longer be asked to give name entries), they should have given prizes to those helping them find one. they can give daily, weekly and monthly prizes to those going to the website and giving their votes or opinion on the listed names.
the point of the effort is to generate excitement, interest and anticipation among as many viewers as it can, so giving prizes to those who go to the website will do that as it will make internet surfing rewarding. the potential of winning a prize by just going to a website will get more people to visit the website. that is what will serve as a magnet or incentive to for many to visit the website.
the nestle effort is misplaced as it was giving prizes to the submissions of names - let's be real here, how many people have the ability and creativity to name a brand? not many are as creative nor are confident to do that. the results speak for themselves where there were only less than 65 entries sent. let's do some theoretical math here - 65 entries meant 65 people sending in names, add 5 friends per author, 325 people could have gone to the website, and let's double that number to 650 to add incidental views from other sources and thats it! they spent millions of pesos to get 650 people to view the website! that's probably one of the most expensive marketing effort nestle has ever run in it's history on a cost per person basis!
the idea is to make the effort as some kind of a "betting" game much like the efforts run by noontime tv shows and game shows in the philippines --- the audience will be asked to select the name they think will be chosen and prizes will be given to one or a few among those who select the "winning" name. they can add more mechanics and contests that will give viewers prizes on a daily and weekly basis. (the mechanics are not being detailed here, but just giving the core idea.)
the point is give rewards and prizes to the viewers of the website to deliver on the marketing objective of creating excitement, interest and anticipation among as many viewers as it can pre-launch of the brand. you use an advertising and marketing medium such as the internet to reach and capture as many audience as you can. that's the point of all of advertising and marketing media.
to be continued.....
to deliver on that objective, nestle's brand management team could have done other things other than what they had done. in fact many other things, only if they had thought it through. this is one of them.
first, they should have looked at the characteristic of the internet, a website, as a medium of communication. the internet website has the potential to capture millions of viewers, it's immediate, real time and more importantly it's interactive, not a static one-way medium. they don't just want to get as many people as they can, they also want to get as many excited over the naming of a new brand.
i would have asked a professional naming company to give nestle 5 names at least as a start up list, to seed the contest. the website could have started with the announcement that they are looking for a new name, and that they want the help of its audience in determining which one.
the point is - rather than what they had done where the effort was geared towards getting suggestions from its viewers, they should instead turned the web effort into simply asking for the help of its viewers to choose the name. and more importantly, rather than giving prizes to the authors of the names (viewers will no longer be asked to give name entries), they should have given prizes to those helping them find one. they can give daily, weekly and monthly prizes to those going to the website and giving their votes or opinion on the listed names.
the point of the effort is to generate excitement, interest and anticipation among as many viewers as it can, so giving prizes to those who go to the website will do that as it will make internet surfing rewarding. the potential of winning a prize by just going to a website will get more people to visit the website. that is what will serve as a magnet or incentive to for many to visit the website.
the nestle effort is misplaced as it was giving prizes to the submissions of names - let's be real here, how many people have the ability and creativity to name a brand? not many are as creative nor are confident to do that. the results speak for themselves where there were only less than 65 entries sent. let's do some theoretical math here - 65 entries meant 65 people sending in names, add 5 friends per author, 325 people could have gone to the website, and let's double that number to 650 to add incidental views from other sources and thats it! they spent millions of pesos to get 650 people to view the website! that's probably one of the most expensive marketing effort nestle has ever run in it's history on a cost per person basis!
the idea is to make the effort as some kind of a "betting" game much like the efforts run by noontime tv shows and game shows in the philippines --- the audience will be asked to select the name they think will be chosen and prizes will be given to one or a few among those who select the "winning" name. they can add more mechanics and contests that will give viewers prizes on a daily and weekly basis. (the mechanics are not being detailed here, but just giving the core idea.)
the point is give rewards and prizes to the viewers of the website to deliver on the marketing objective of creating excitement, interest and anticipation among as many viewers as it can pre-launch of the brand. you use an advertising and marketing medium such as the internet to reach and capture as many audience as you can. that's the point of all of advertising and marketing media.
to be continued.....
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
part 15. what nestle could have done instead - how not to name a brand
there are many things nestle could have done instead of the give-me-a-name internet effort in naming their new product.
the marketing idea behind the internet effort must have been to generate buzz, excitement and anticipation for the new product. but as has been discussed, that has largely failed - very few actually participated in the internet website and there were so many components of the effort that was not thought through that rather than generating goodwill, the effort generated badwill instead.
with this failed effort, what could have nestle done instead?
well, first, they could have just hired a professional naming company to name their brand rather than ask consumers to name their new product. they would have spent much less in fees, probably less than 1/5 of what they spent now and could have made their lives much easier and with much better results.
if you think about it, it's really hard to generate buzz and interest on a brand that doesn't have a name yet. not having a name does not allow the consumer to form an image in their minds. name, logo, font type and colors are the essential components of a brand name that help in forming an image in our minds and start building a relationship.
to be continued......
the marketing idea behind the internet effort must have been to generate buzz, excitement and anticipation for the new product. but as has been discussed, that has largely failed - very few actually participated in the internet website and there were so many components of the effort that was not thought through that rather than generating goodwill, the effort generated badwill instead.
with this failed effort, what could have nestle done instead?
well, first, they could have just hired a professional naming company to name their brand rather than ask consumers to name their new product. they would have spent much less in fees, probably less than 1/5 of what they spent now and could have made their lives much easier and with much better results.
if you think about it, it's really hard to generate buzz and interest on a brand that doesn't have a name yet. not having a name does not allow the consumer to form an image in their minds. name, logo, font type and colors are the essential components of a brand name that help in forming an image in our minds and start building a relationship.
to be continued......
Thursday, April 3, 2008
part 14. the ONE thing nestle did right in give-me-a-name
there is one thing nestle did right in their give-me-a-name effort. it is right from the point of view of the brand but wrong from the point of view of the website visitors. it is something i missed myself as you can read in the beginning of the discussion on the effort, somewhere in the first three installments.
here it is -- the fact that votes by website visitors for their favorite entries will not determine the winner. first, note that the website nor the mechanics posted in the website do not categorically say the votes will not matter in determining the winner nor does it categorically say it will. i am concluding the votes will not matter because NOTHING ABOUT IT was mentioned in the mechanics. i am assuming that since it is not contained in the mechanics, then it will not matter.
it is good for the brand as it makes sure nestle has all the power to choose the winning entry using the criteria they have identified in the website and the mechanics. they are not duty bound to consider any of the votes cast.
as i had written earlier, the danger of allowing website visitors to vote is that consumers might choose the lousiest name or the most inappropriate name in the list. the voting mechanics in the website is very loose, any one email address can vote at least once a day. that means all you need to do is have multiple email addresses and get all those email addresses to vote everyday.
that was actually done by obviously the author of the entry that got the most number of votes "tropical burst". the author initially has around 20 to 30 email addresses and that allowed the entry to climb to the second most number of votes. but after awhile, the author realized it wasn't enough as the highest it reached was 2nd place. the author eventually opened 50+ more email addresses, for a total of what looks like 100 to 170 email addresses. in due time, towards the end of the effort, that entry got 1,000+ votes.
it's bad for the visitors to the website as they will eventually get disappointed and feel cheated by nestle when it announces the winner which is not necessarily the entry that got the highest number of votes. nestle can choose any name in the list, even any one of the entries that did not get a single vote in the website.
as mentioned previously, including a voting facility in the website and asking visitors to vote automatically created the impression that the highest number of votes will determine the winner. not only did the website ask visitors to vote, nestle posted the rankings or the number of votes each entry got. the positions in the list changed as the number of votes changed. voting accumulates number and when numbers accumulate, the mind automatically thinks the most number will win. it becomes a very natural conclusion to make that highest number of votes will determine the winner.
the behavior, voting patterns and comments in the website obviously show that website visitors are on the impression that votes will count. and when nestle announces the winner and it's not the entry that has gotten the most number of votes, many if not all will be disappointed and will feel they were set-up by nestle.
this ONE right thing that nestle did, is it worth it that it's good for the brand but bad for its target audience?
(note: as of declared end of effort, the entry that got the most number of votes is "taste of summer". "tropical burst" accumulated votes after the declared end of promo date. nestle actually ended the effort but allowed people to vote and give comments some more weeks. it is during this extended period that "tropical burst" got 1,000+ votes and ended as most voted.)
to be continued.....
here it is -- the fact that votes by website visitors for their favorite entries will not determine the winner. first, note that the website nor the mechanics posted in the website do not categorically say the votes will not matter in determining the winner nor does it categorically say it will. i am concluding the votes will not matter because NOTHING ABOUT IT was mentioned in the mechanics. i am assuming that since it is not contained in the mechanics, then it will not matter.
it is good for the brand as it makes sure nestle has all the power to choose the winning entry using the criteria they have identified in the website and the mechanics. they are not duty bound to consider any of the votes cast.
as i had written earlier, the danger of allowing website visitors to vote is that consumers might choose the lousiest name or the most inappropriate name in the list. the voting mechanics in the website is very loose, any one email address can vote at least once a day. that means all you need to do is have multiple email addresses and get all those email addresses to vote everyday.
that was actually done by obviously the author of the entry that got the most number of votes "tropical burst". the author initially has around 20 to 30 email addresses and that allowed the entry to climb to the second most number of votes. but after awhile, the author realized it wasn't enough as the highest it reached was 2nd place. the author eventually opened 50+ more email addresses, for a total of what looks like 100 to 170 email addresses. in due time, towards the end of the effort, that entry got 1,000+ votes.
it's bad for the visitors to the website as they will eventually get disappointed and feel cheated by nestle when it announces the winner which is not necessarily the entry that got the highest number of votes. nestle can choose any name in the list, even any one of the entries that did not get a single vote in the website.
as mentioned previously, including a voting facility in the website and asking visitors to vote automatically created the impression that the highest number of votes will determine the winner. not only did the website ask visitors to vote, nestle posted the rankings or the number of votes each entry got. the positions in the list changed as the number of votes changed. voting accumulates number and when numbers accumulate, the mind automatically thinks the most number will win. it becomes a very natural conclusion to make that highest number of votes will determine the winner.
the behavior, voting patterns and comments in the website obviously show that website visitors are on the impression that votes will count. and when nestle announces the winner and it's not the entry that has gotten the most number of votes, many if not all will be disappointed and will feel they were set-up by nestle.
this ONE right thing that nestle did, is it worth it that it's good for the brand but bad for its target audience?
(note: as of declared end of effort, the entry that got the most number of votes is "taste of summer". "tropical burst" accumulated votes after the declared end of promo date. nestle actually ended the effort but allowed people to vote and give comments some more weeks. it is during this extended period that "tropical burst" got 1,000+ votes and ended as most voted.)
to be continued.....
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
part 13. how not to end an internet website effort : nestle's WAWAM!
nestle has concluded their internet website effort, "give-me-a-name". after months of tri-media advertising and school and mall events, asking for website visitor votes and comments, they have finally chosen a name among the entries submitted by consumers, so says their website. they closed the effort by closing all the pages in the website and a short announcement that they have in fact chosen a name and thanking the visitors for their participation. but they did NOT reveal the winning entry!
did they close this internet website effort well? is this the way to end it?
one of the most important characteristics, in fact an excellent selling point of an internet website activity is brand-consumer inter-activity. aside from inter-activity, the other important selling points are immediacy or real-time and the potential of reaching large, in fact huge numbers of the target audience (potentially hundreds of millions). there is no other marketing tool available that has inter-activity, real-time and huge numbers all in one activity. you can do events like mall and school tours and deliver on real time, but the quality of the interactivity is suspect and it cannot deliver the potential high numbers that an internet website can.
the use of the internet or websites in philippine marketing is at its infancy. not many use it, in fact very few and for those who are using it, they don't have a clue how to make it succeed or even just make the most of what this marketing tool offer.
part of the problem in the philippines is that internet use is also still in its infancy. incidence of computers and internet in homes while aggressively increasing year to year, are still very low. also, use of the internet outside of the homw again while significantly increasing year to year are also still very low compared to other markets.
the other more important issue is that in the philippines, computer and specially internet use is very limited only to a particular consumer psychographics and demographics profile. it is still a niche in philippine marketing. mostly, young and specific to the AB upper C and still very limited in penetration. this is not as relevant here but i think it's important to mention. this can be a whole new discussion.
did nestle close their internet website properly? it is my view they definitely DID NOT CLOSE their internet website effort properly. i will not be surprised to know that contrary to their marketing objectives of generating buzz, excitement and goodwill among its target through the effort, i think by and large nestle would have angered their target audience instead. rather than generating goodwill, i think they have generated a lot of badwill among their intended target.
marketing teams want inter-activity in their marketing efforts because it allows brand-consumer contact and exchange. tv ads connect to consumers only on a one-way basis. the internet website is not at all more powerful than tv ads, (tv ads is still the most powerful brand building tool) but it has unique properties that tv ads don't have and if use it properly specially in combination with the traditional marketing tools can be very effective and powerful.
the point of inter-activity is relationship building with the consumer. an internet website gets the target to invest their time and effort with the brand. the consumer is not a passive recipient of brand values, but an active seeker and consumer of brand values. also an important aspect is that the internet audience is used to these kind of relationship with websites (brands). getting hooked into an internet activity means the consumer has incorporated the act of going to a particular website or internet activity as a habit. getting something to become a habit is at the very core a marketing man's true obsession and calling. marketing people strive for a change of habits because that means the mind has been conquered.
unfortunately, nestle's way of closing their website is not at all good for relationship building among it's target audience. they had people going to the website checking things out, voting and giving comments even. getting your audience to make a comment in a website is huge! your target not only gave his/her time to view your website but also invested brain power and in many cases gave an investment in emotions when that person posted what they think of the entries. that has progressed and deepened from just time to an emotional involvement.
seeking votes and comments do get people involved and more importantly build both an emotional and cognitive bond with the target. it also created anticipation. but what did nestle do? at the end of the effort, they did not reveal the winning entry! the emotional and cognitive pay-off is knowing the winning entry! and with knowing what entry won, it's target audience would have celebrated the choice and giving it a proper climax. this was like a thriller where nestle through the website weaved a story of intrigue and competition and after a long time and many pages, nestle refused to print the last page, the conclusion of the journey.
that is no way to build a relationship with your target audience. that's like coming up with advertising where there is no pay-off! the target audience will feel cheated. everyone knows that's not how you treat a wife, a girlfriend or even a friend. do that to people and you will end up a loner, without friends or relationships.
again i pose the question - what the hell was nestle thingking? it goes back to these things -nestle did not think this through. not enough thinking was applied to it. i am shocked by the ending. and once again, even at the ending, its a WASTE OF ADVERTISING MONEY!
did they close this internet website effort well? is this the way to end it?
one of the most important characteristics, in fact an excellent selling point of an internet website activity is brand-consumer inter-activity. aside from inter-activity, the other important selling points are immediacy or real-time and the potential of reaching large, in fact huge numbers of the target audience (potentially hundreds of millions). there is no other marketing tool available that has inter-activity, real-time and huge numbers all in one activity. you can do events like mall and school tours and deliver on real time, but the quality of the interactivity is suspect and it cannot deliver the potential high numbers that an internet website can.
the use of the internet or websites in philippine marketing is at its infancy. not many use it, in fact very few and for those who are using it, they don't have a clue how to make it succeed or even just make the most of what this marketing tool offer.
part of the problem in the philippines is that internet use is also still in its infancy. incidence of computers and internet in homes while aggressively increasing year to year, are still very low. also, use of the internet outside of the homw again while significantly increasing year to year are also still very low compared to other markets.
the other more important issue is that in the philippines, computer and specially internet use is very limited only to a particular consumer psychographics and demographics profile. it is still a niche in philippine marketing. mostly, young and specific to the AB upper C and still very limited in penetration. this is not as relevant here but i think it's important to mention. this can be a whole new discussion.
did nestle close their internet website properly? it is my view they definitely DID NOT CLOSE their internet website effort properly. i will not be surprised to know that contrary to their marketing objectives of generating buzz, excitement and goodwill among its target through the effort, i think by and large nestle would have angered their target audience instead. rather than generating goodwill, i think they have generated a lot of badwill among their intended target.
marketing teams want inter-activity in their marketing efforts because it allows brand-consumer contact and exchange. tv ads connect to consumers only on a one-way basis. the internet website is not at all more powerful than tv ads, (tv ads is still the most powerful brand building tool) but it has unique properties that tv ads don't have and if use it properly specially in combination with the traditional marketing tools can be very effective and powerful.
the point of inter-activity is relationship building with the consumer. an internet website gets the target to invest their time and effort with the brand. the consumer is not a passive recipient of brand values, but an active seeker and consumer of brand values. also an important aspect is that the internet audience is used to these kind of relationship with websites (brands). getting hooked into an internet activity means the consumer has incorporated the act of going to a particular website or internet activity as a habit. getting something to become a habit is at the very core a marketing man's true obsession and calling. marketing people strive for a change of habits because that means the mind has been conquered.
unfortunately, nestle's way of closing their website is not at all good for relationship building among it's target audience. they had people going to the website checking things out, voting and giving comments even. getting your audience to make a comment in a website is huge! your target not only gave his/her time to view your website but also invested brain power and in many cases gave an investment in emotions when that person posted what they think of the entries. that has progressed and deepened from just time to an emotional involvement.
seeking votes and comments do get people involved and more importantly build both an emotional and cognitive bond with the target. it also created anticipation. but what did nestle do? at the end of the effort, they did not reveal the winning entry! the emotional and cognitive pay-off is knowing the winning entry! and with knowing what entry won, it's target audience would have celebrated the choice and giving it a proper climax. this was like a thriller where nestle through the website weaved a story of intrigue and competition and after a long time and many pages, nestle refused to print the last page, the conclusion of the journey.
that is no way to build a relationship with your target audience. that's like coming up with advertising where there is no pay-off! the target audience will feel cheated. everyone knows that's not how you treat a wife, a girlfriend or even a friend. do that to people and you will end up a loner, without friends or relationships.again i pose the question - what the hell was nestle thingking? it goes back to these things -nestle did not think this through. not enough thinking was applied to it. i am shocked by the ending. and once again, even at the ending, its a WASTE OF ADVERTISING MONEY!
Monday, March 31, 2008
nestle give-me-a-name is closed! they have chosen a name
the nestle website is now closed. nestle has chosen a name!
but they are not telling us what name it is they have chosen. hahaha. they did say it's one of the entries but contrary to previous announcements in the website, they are not telling us what it is. there's a form there where they're asking us to type in our email address but its not for the purpose of telling us what name was chosen. but for the purpose of letting us know "when the product is available"! hahaha.
the form was very poorly designed that the top half of the fonts "when the product is available" are covered by the box form that you can hardly read the words. was that intentional? or an innocent design mistake? i guess, like the name, we will never know! hahaha
give us your comments!
Sunday, March 30, 2008
part 12. some things that don't make sense - how not to name a brand
the nestle effort is awash with many things that don't make sense. there is one more that those who visit the website might find surprising.
the website allows visitors to vote for entries and there's a tally of how many votes each entry has gotten.
however, there is nothing in the promo mechanics that says the winning entry that gets the most number of votes will win the contest! what the mechanics say is that the winning entry will be judged based on (a) creativity (40%), (b)suitability of the name to the product concept (30%) and (c) appetite appeal (30%.) in other words, nestle can actually declare as winner any of the entries listed there as finalists, even if the name didn't get a single vote in the website.
"help-choose-a-name" is the heading and the accompanying text leading to the list of finalists that shows the number of votes entries got. from a technical standpoint or from a purely semantics, these do not say the entry with the most number of votes will win. but clearly having this feature of allowing visitors to the website to cast their votes for preference has definitely created a clear impression that the number of votes will determine the winner. and in fact judging on the comments and movements of the votes, including the efforts of urflower (pinoy exchange bulletin board)and authors of entries who even went to the extent of opening dozens of email addresses just to be able to cast multiple votes per day) seem to say they think the entry that gets the highest number of votes will win!
what is the point then for allowing visitors to cast their votes?
what they wrote in the website indicate it's just to get a feel for what the website visitors feel about the names. a way to measure interest or preference on the names. in other words, the point i have made earlier - to generate buzz and excitement among the target audience. allowing people to vote and know the rankings will necessarily push people to keep on going to the website to check the status of their choices on a daily basis and create some excitement on pushing a particular entry to win with votes.
they created a competition and as in any competition, it became not very friendly in some, among those pushing for their entries when you read the comments. naturally, the comments got a mix of pushing for their entries with praises and a bashing contest on entries people did not like. allowing people to post comments is not necessarily a bad thing as that allowed nestle for their purpose to get feedback.
but the whole thing also sets up the visitors and voters for disappointment when they eventually find out that contrary to the impression it created, the number of votes they casted will not determine the winner. i wonder how the people who made an effort to vote (some on a daily basis using multiple email accounts) will feel when they find out the truth that their efforts of voting does not mean a thing to the winner?
nestle had good intentions for their own marketing purpose but what they did may result to visitors feeling duped and can create dislike, to say the least against nestle. and that is the exact opposite of what nestle wanted to achieve with this effort. they did the effort to create buzz and excitement for the launch of a new brand. if the website visitors feel cheated or duped, then for sure, they will not buy the new ice cream product, whatever name they eventually chose to give it. there are 62 entries, choosing one winner means 61 will get disappointed. the intent was at minumum to create some goodwill among potential buyers of the brand but they can end up creating badwill instead.
to be continued.....
the website allows visitors to vote for entries and there's a tally of how many votes each entry has gotten.
however, there is nothing in the promo mechanics that says the winning entry that gets the most number of votes will win the contest! what the mechanics say is that the winning entry will be judged based on (a) creativity (40%), (b)suitability of the name to the product concept (30%) and (c) appetite appeal (30%.) in other words, nestle can actually declare as winner any of the entries listed there as finalists, even if the name didn't get a single vote in the website.
"help-choose-a-name" is the heading and the accompanying text leading to the list of finalists that shows the number of votes entries got. from a technical standpoint or from a purely semantics, these do not say the entry with the most number of votes will win. but clearly having this feature of allowing visitors to the website to cast their votes for preference has definitely created a clear impression that the number of votes will determine the winner. and in fact judging on the comments and movements of the votes, including the efforts of urflower (pinoy exchange bulletin board)and authors of entries who even went to the extent of opening dozens of email addresses just to be able to cast multiple votes per day) seem to say they think the entry that gets the highest number of votes will win!
what is the point then for allowing visitors to cast their votes?
what they wrote in the website indicate it's just to get a feel for what the website visitors feel about the names. a way to measure interest or preference on the names. in other words, the point i have made earlier - to generate buzz and excitement among the target audience. allowing people to vote and know the rankings will necessarily push people to keep on going to the website to check the status of their choices on a daily basis and create some excitement on pushing a particular entry to win with votes.
they created a competition and as in any competition, it became not very friendly in some, among those pushing for their entries when you read the comments. naturally, the comments got a mix of pushing for their entries with praises and a bashing contest on entries people did not like. allowing people to post comments is not necessarily a bad thing as that allowed nestle for their purpose to get feedback.
but the whole thing also sets up the visitors and voters for disappointment when they eventually find out that contrary to the impression it created, the number of votes they casted will not determine the winner. i wonder how the people who made an effort to vote (some on a daily basis using multiple email accounts) will feel when they find out the truth that their efforts of voting does not mean a thing to the winner?
nestle had good intentions for their own marketing purpose but what they did may result to visitors feeling duped and can create dislike, to say the least against nestle. and that is the exact opposite of what nestle wanted to achieve with this effort. they did the effort to create buzz and excitement for the launch of a new brand. if the website visitors feel cheated or duped, then for sure, they will not buy the new ice cream product, whatever name they eventually chose to give it. there are 62 entries, choosing one winner means 61 will get disappointed. the intent was at minumum to create some goodwill among potential buyers of the brand but they can end up creating badwill instead.
to be continued.....
part 11. how to waste advertising money - how not to name a brand
did you see the tv ad for the give-me-a-name effort? or hear the radio ad? print ad? the billboard? i had not seen any of those but the nestle website said they had those materials and even gave the media schedule. so if like me, you have not seen any of these ads, it looks like we are not the target audience of the ads. they must have placed those ads in media programs and newspapers we don't watch nor read or the media weights must have been so sparse that we all missed the ads.
given what they say in the website, this effort must have a very high cost. and with such a high cost, equally high expectations must come with it. but how do you measure the success of the effort?
given the objective of generating buzz and excitement behind the new product launch and since they have used their website as the end medium for it, a key measure would be the responses generated in their website. that would be number of hits the website has gotten, and most importantly, the number of entries and votes the names have gotten.
you can't measure buzz and excitement directly as these are emotional reactions but marketing people measure these indirectly through the number of target audience reached and number of target audience who have responded to the effort. based on these measures, it looks like the effort failed miserably.
we don't know the specific weight (frequency and spend)of the media plan, but the media plan they had put there, at least from the point of view of media used and months, seem to be literally a WAWAM!
for one, its a WAWAM because i don't think anyone really saw the ads. if they actually aired the materials, that means the weights must have been so low that nobody noticed. in marketing terms, spending very little money on advertising that too few people are reached is like spending no money at all on advertising. why spend too little that it has no impact? if it's no impact you want, then there is no need to spend any money.
on the other hand, if they were really intent on creating buzz, given the short period of time of the effort, around 5-6 months, for media to make real impact, they need to spend very high amount of money to rise above the clutter. now, that by itself is a problem and one that i don't think nestle will see as a good investment since this is NOT yet the brand, it's just an effort dedicated to figuring out the name for the brand. the brand is yet to be sold, it has not sold a case yet which means this brand's p&l is already at a loss even before they launch the brand.
this is the nature of media spending behind an advertising campaign - spending too little and spending too much are both a waste of precious advertising money. unfortunately, often times many advertising agencies get their clients to spend on advertising just so they so something in advertising and generate revenues for the ad agency even if it has no positive impact on the their client's business.
to be continued....
given what they say in the website, this effort must have a very high cost. and with such a high cost, equally high expectations must come with it. but how do you measure the success of the effort?
given the objective of generating buzz and excitement behind the new product launch and since they have used their website as the end medium for it, a key measure would be the responses generated in their website. that would be number of hits the website has gotten, and most importantly, the number of entries and votes the names have gotten.
you can't measure buzz and excitement directly as these are emotional reactions but marketing people measure these indirectly through the number of target audience reached and number of target audience who have responded to the effort. based on these measures, it looks like the effort failed miserably.
we don't know the specific weight (frequency and spend)of the media plan, but the media plan they had put there, at least from the point of view of media used and months, seem to be literally a WAWAM!
for one, its a WAWAM because i don't think anyone really saw the ads. if they actually aired the materials, that means the weights must have been so low that nobody noticed. in marketing terms, spending very little money on advertising that too few people are reached is like spending no money at all on advertising. why spend too little that it has no impact? if it's no impact you want, then there is no need to spend any money.
on the other hand, if they were really intent on creating buzz, given the short period of time of the effort, around 5-6 months, for media to make real impact, they need to spend very high amount of money to rise above the clutter. now, that by itself is a problem and one that i don't think nestle will see as a good investment since this is NOT yet the brand, it's just an effort dedicated to figuring out the name for the brand. the brand is yet to be sold, it has not sold a case yet which means this brand's p&l is already at a loss even before they launch the brand.
this is the nature of media spending behind an advertising campaign - spending too little and spending too much are both a waste of precious advertising money. unfortunately, often times many advertising agencies get their clients to spend on advertising just so they so something in advertising and generate revenues for the ad agency even if it has no positive impact on the their client's business.
to be continued....
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Trio Nestle Ice Cream
it looks like nestle already has a product in the philippines that has three flavors in one tub. the
name "trio" obviously plays up the content of the ice cream - three flavors. same way as the "give-a-name" product, the name of this brand plays up the core reason for being for the product, its three flavors. what's missing though is the element of appetite appeal. ice cream names deliver appetite appeal by including the flavor/s in the name but that's not the case here, although they have the three different colors of the ice cream on the label design to communicate three flavors and put in, mercifully, text to identify the flavors.
i wonder if nestle applied their learnings from "trio" when they developed the marketing plan for the "give-a-name" product. this new product is at least the second three-flavor ice cream they have launched (don't know if there are others) and it would be a shame if they did not apply learnings on the new one.
name "trio" obviously plays up the content of the ice cream - three flavors. same way as the "give-a-name" product, the name of this brand plays up the core reason for being for the product, its three flavors. what's missing though is the element of appetite appeal. ice cream names deliver appetite appeal by including the flavor/s in the name but that's not the case here, although they have the three different colors of the ice cream on the label design to communicate three flavors and put in, mercifully, text to identify the flavors.i wonder if nestle applied their learnings from "trio" when they developed the marketing plan for the "give-a-name" product. this new product is at least the second three-flavor ice cream they have launched (don't know if there are others) and it would be a shame if they did not apply learnings on the new one.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
part 10. was it worth it? how not to name a brand
companies launch new products for a reason. the primary reason for most is that they want to generate additional revenues and gain more market share. it's the same thing with running promos. brands run promos to gain a tactical surge in volume sales and market share, hoping that the promo will attract new users and get its current users to increase their purchase and hopefully enable the brand to sustain some of it after the promo. that's for existing brands.
the product description in the website calls the give-me-a-name effort a promo. taking aside for the moment the problems i have identified on the confusing product description and how
confused the whole thing is, (http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2008/03/part-3-how-not-to-name-brand-nestle.html) this is not a promo in the sense of generating additional cases for the brand as the brand has not been launched yet. the word promo is being used by nestle not in the marketing sense but on the "promote" the brand sense as in generate interest and excitement on the new brand. the thinking of the brand management group was to create pre-launch buzz so that when they actually launch the brand, anticipation and interest is already there to greet it. they want to seed the market with interest.
a lot of marketing funds have been spent on this promo. they seem to have produced a tv commercial, they did roadshows and the website. i don't know if they actually aired the tv commercial on tv because i have not seen it on tv at all. with the produced commercial, the website, the roadshows that would cost them some good money, if they aired the tv commercial, then their promo cost would have more than quadrupled. it can run to the millions.
since their objective for the promo is to create buzz and anticipation, then the first measure of success would be number of people who who participated in the promo. based on the entries of names posted in the website, it doesn't seem to be much. in fact, the number seem to be very small.
there are 62 entries and we can be generous to say each single entry was submitted by a different person. this is generous, the rules does not say 1 person can submit only 1 entry. so it's possible that one person submitted more than one entry. the number of votes is also a bad basis for estimating the number of people captured by the promo as the mechanics of the promo is such that you can vote once a day and this promos has been running for months. more importantly, based on the way the votes come in and the comments posted in the website, it's a sure thing the authors of the entries set up several email addresses to allow them to vote for their entries as many email addresses they can have.
we don't know the website stats, but based on what we can read in the website, the number of unique visitors and hits does not seem promising or encouraging. and also based on the kind of audience responses posted in the website, i don't know if any excitement or anticipation have been created. it reads more like acrimonious than excitement and anticipation.
to be continued....
the product description in the website calls the give-me-a-name effort a promo. taking aside for the moment the problems i have identified on the confusing product description and how
confused the whole thing is, (http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2008/03/part-3-how-not-to-name-brand-nestle.html) this is not a promo in the sense of generating additional cases for the brand as the brand has not been launched yet. the word promo is being used by nestle not in the marketing sense but on the "promote" the brand sense as in generate interest and excitement on the new brand. the thinking of the brand management group was to create pre-launch buzz so that when they actually launch the brand, anticipation and interest is already there to greet it. they want to seed the market with interest.a lot of marketing funds have been spent on this promo. they seem to have produced a tv commercial, they did roadshows and the website. i don't know if they actually aired the tv commercial on tv because i have not seen it on tv at all. with the produced commercial, the website, the roadshows that would cost them some good money, if they aired the tv commercial, then their promo cost would have more than quadrupled. it can run to the millions.
since their objective for the promo is to create buzz and anticipation, then the first measure of success would be number of people who who participated in the promo. based on the entries of names posted in the website, it doesn't seem to be much. in fact, the number seem to be very small.
there are 62 entries and we can be generous to say each single entry was submitted by a different person. this is generous, the rules does not say 1 person can submit only 1 entry. so it's possible that one person submitted more than one entry. the number of votes is also a bad basis for estimating the number of people captured by the promo as the mechanics of the promo is such that you can vote once a day and this promos has been running for months. more importantly, based on the way the votes come in and the comments posted in the website, it's a sure thing the authors of the entries set up several email addresses to allow them to vote for their entries as many email addresses they can have.
we don't know the website stats, but based on what we can read in the website, the number of unique visitors and hits does not seem promising or encouraging. and also based on the kind of audience responses posted in the website, i don't know if any excitement or anticipation have been created. it reads more like acrimonious than excitement and anticipation.
to be continued....
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
part 9. a quicksand, the untamed internet : how not to name a brand
the internet is truly a whole new different world than what we know. it exists on its own and has its own rules, primary of which is - it has no rules. at the same time that there are no rules, it's open wide for anyone and everyone to be in.
the nestle promo is prime example of how that affected them. nestle did not think through the whole thing and allowed too many doors open for anyone to enter. while it is written, there are really no restrictions on who can submit entries to the effort. based on the rules nestle posted (which by the way has two typo errors), nestle was supposed to apply a selection criteria to the "finalists". they were supposed to select 30 entries but based on how it went, they did not actually follow that rule. and more importantly, based on the quality and wide diversity of the kinds of entries, they didn't seem to apply the criteria they set or if they did, it was loosely applied or done by an irresponsible and lazy manager.
otherwise, how can "3 Season", grammatically incorrect, missing the plural "s" be a finalist? or how can the word "summer" be allowed in the brand name when that is directly opposite and contradictory to an ice cream where summer is about heat and an ice cream is about cold? one can argue that a cold ice cream can soothe the effect of a hot summer, but no attempt in the entries were made to communicate that thought. besides, putting the word summer in the brand name seem to say the ice cream product will be available only during the summer months. t
he other is the entry "tropical burst" when it seem most appropriate to be a name for a juice drink. and true enough, two juice brands have been identified as having that name- "Gatorade Tropical Burst" and "Kool Aid Burst Tropical".
using the internet as the medium for submission automatically carries with it the potential of millions of people submitting millions of entries. anyone and everyone who has internet access can submit entries and that can number in the hundreds of millions. that characteristic of the internet by itself is not the only part that weakens this effort, its the part when criteria they set are not applied to the letter and their poor judgement bore holes into the whole thing.
another example is the effort done by "frenzy" condoms in the same bulletin board, pinoy exchange. frenzy is a frequent advertiser in pinoy exchange and we can assume that a smart brand manager or account manager thought of opening threads in the pinoy exchange to talk about condoms and the brand itself. i am sure the thinking there was having a lively discussion on the brand alongside the internet ads make for good synergy.
but here's the problem - the internet is a free for all medium where anyone and everyone can say anything. advertising agencies and clients have no control whatsoever, and f
renzy's nightmare began when one person posted a product negative about frenzy! this post talked about how fragile frenzy condoms are and how it has failed him that because of that product inferiority, he has stopped using frenzy! the ads in pinoy exchange alongside with the thread was meant to promote, extol and propagate how great a product frenzy is, BUT here was a testimony from an actual user talking about product failure! disaster!
one of the first things brand managers learn in their work either through experience or as taught to them by their bosses is - the brand manager must exercise complete control on his marketing effort. do not leave anything to chance. apply all the mechanics and safeguards you can think of to make sure the effort follows only one path - that of success.
nestle, just like frenzy forgot this very important part in using the internet as a marketing tool.
before we end this section, one more example, a very important one, on the dangers of using the internet in your marketing effort at naming a brand is this : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/.
anyone and everyone, in this particular example, wawam, can create a marketing critique blog and feature nestle's effort prominently in the blog. nestle used the internet, a place where anyone can see and say something about it, specially the errors in the effort, the failure of the brand manager and the foolishness of the account amanager, just like this blog.
touche!
to be continued......
the nestle promo is prime example of how that affected them. nestle did not think through the whole thing and allowed too many doors open for anyone to enter. while it is written, there are really no restrictions on who can submit entries to the effort. based on the rules nestle posted (which by the way has two typo errors), nestle was supposed to apply a selection criteria to the "finalists". they were supposed to select 30 entries but based on how it went, they did not actually follow that rule. and more importantly, based on the quality and wide diversity of the kinds of entries, they didn't seem to apply the criteria they set or if they did, it was loosely applied or done by an irresponsible and lazy manager.
otherwise, how can "3 Season", grammatically incorrect, missing the plural "s" be a finalist? or how can the word "summer" be allowed in the brand name when that is directly opposite and contradictory to an ice cream where summer is about heat and an ice cream is about cold? one can argue that a cold ice cream can soothe the effect of a hot summer, but no attempt in the entries were made to communicate that thought. besides, putting the word summer in the brand name seem to say the ice cream product will be available only during the summer months. t
he other is the entry "tropical burst" when it seem most appropriate to be a name for a juice drink. and true enough, two juice brands have been identified as having that name- "Gatorade Tropical Burst" and "Kool Aid Burst Tropical".using the internet as the medium for submission automatically carries with it the potential of millions of people submitting millions of entries. anyone and everyone who has internet access can submit entries and that can number in the hundreds of millions. that characteristic of the internet by itself is not the only part that weakens this effort, its the part when criteria they set are not applied to the letter and their poor judgement bore holes into the whole thing.
another example is the effort done by "frenzy" condoms in the same bulletin board, pinoy exchange. frenzy is a frequent advertiser in pinoy exchange and we can assume that a smart brand manager or account manager thought of opening threads in the pinoy exchange to talk about condoms and the brand itself. i am sure the thinking there was having a lively discussion on the brand alongside the internet ads make for good synergy.
but here's the problem - the internet is a free for all medium where anyone and everyone can say anything. advertising agencies and clients have no control whatsoever, and f
renzy's nightmare began when one person posted a product negative about frenzy! this post talked about how fragile frenzy condoms are and how it has failed him that because of that product inferiority, he has stopped using frenzy! the ads in pinoy exchange alongside with the thread was meant to promote, extol and propagate how great a product frenzy is, BUT here was a testimony from an actual user talking about product failure! disaster!one of the first things brand managers learn in their work either through experience or as taught to them by their bosses is - the brand manager must exercise complete control on his marketing effort. do not leave anything to chance. apply all the mechanics and safeguards you can think of to make sure the effort follows only one path - that of success.
nestle, just like frenzy forgot this very important part in using the internet as a marketing tool.
before we end this section, one more example, a very important one, on the dangers of using the internet in your marketing effort at naming a brand is this : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/.
anyone and everyone, in this particular example, wawam, can create a marketing critique blog and feature nestle's effort prominently in the blog. nestle used the internet, a place where anyone can see and say something about it, specially the errors in the effort, the failure of the brand manager and the foolishness of the account amanager, just like this blog.
touche!
to be continued......
Monday, March 17, 2008
part 8. the risk of not thinking things through in the internet : how not to name a brand
assuming your target market frequents the internet, its a great medium by which you can get in touch with them. it's convenient, quick and highly accessible to a specific target market (the AB upper C market).
that's one of the good sides about the internet. however, that same good side is an open door to the bad and that essentially is what the nestle effort forgot to think about.
the idea behind the internet website is to get its readers to help nestle in choosing a brand name and as discussed earlier the brand name is actually a most important first step in every new product launch as the brand name is the only element of the brand that stays with it forever. making the process of choosing it public, asking the public to participate and in the internet allows its target easy access and quick participation but at the same time, it is open to the bad, if you don't take the necessary precautions and keep the door open to everyone.
in that posting in the another website, pinoy exchange, it allowed a prostitute wanna-be, someone willing to sell sex for money to join the contest and launch an internet effort to help her win the contest. if that entry won, will nestle be happy in publicising the author of the brand name who wants to be a prostitute? does that sound like a viable add on to the brand image of this new brand?
this shows how the use of the internet and its openness, having its doors wide open for anyone and everyone to participate as inviting risk to join this most important first step in marketing a new product.
based on succeeding posts, we can conclude that she was really not serious about contemplating on selling sex for money. it is obvious that this person used the sex-for-money angle just to draw attention to herself, get the sympathy of her readers and move them to vote for her entry so that she can win and in the process "save her from doing something wrong".
while some might find selling sex for money as more objectionable, the whole thing just the same reeks of an internet scam. if that entry wins on the basis of most number of votes (it did get the most number of votes on the promo deadline that was set), then it means it was achieved on false pretense.
to be continued.....
nestle website: http://www.givemeaname.ph/
that's one of the good sides about the internet. however, that same good side is an open door to the bad and that essentially is what the nestle effort forgot to think about.
the idea behind the internet website is to get its readers to help nestle in choosing a brand name and as discussed earlier the brand name is actually a most important first step in every new product launch as the brand name is the only element of the brand that stays with it forever. making the process of choosing it public, asking the public to participate and in the internet allows its target easy access and quick participation but at the same time, it is open to the bad, if you don't take the necessary precautions and keep the door open to everyone.
in that posting in the another website, pinoy exchange, it allowed a prostitute wanna-be, someone willing to sell sex for money to join the contest and launch an internet effort to help her win the contest. if that entry won, will nestle be happy in publicising the author of the brand name who wants to be a prostitute? does that sound like a viable add on to the brand image of this new brand?
this shows how the use of the internet and its openness, having its doors wide open for anyone and everyone to participate as inviting risk to join this most important first step in marketing a new product.
based on succeeding posts, we can conclude that she was really not serious about contemplating on selling sex for money. it is obvious that this person used the sex-for-money angle just to draw attention to herself, get the sympathy of her readers and move them to vote for her entry so that she can win and in the process "save her from doing something wrong".
while some might find selling sex for money as more objectionable, the whole thing just the same reeks of an internet scam. if that entry wins on the basis of most number of votes (it did get the most number of votes on the promo deadline that was set), then it means it was achieved on false pretense.
to be continued.....
nestle website: http://www.givemeaname.ph/
Thursday, March 13, 2008
part 7. the good side and bad of the internet : how not to name a brand
the internet is a new world technology that has managed to make very profound changes in our lives and the world. the interesting part about the internet is that not only has it made very profound changes in our lives and the world we live in right now, the best and the most is yet to come. and that includes business. business and those who wish to make a mark is all over each other to use the internet not only meet our goals but to be ahead of competition. we think of schemes and ways to make use of the internet and set us apart and ahead of our competition. ans that is most likely what was in the minds of the nestle marketing team who developed the name the brand promo (i shudder every time i use that term!).
but as many good things and many good people populate the internet, there are at least an equal number if not more bad things and bad people who sit right beside the good. that is the lesson, actually the warning we get all the time on the internet. when a new thing or a new rage comes up in the internet, the good parts are delivered first but it always ends with an admonition to take precautions, to be alert to be defensive of the bad that may happen. and again just as the marketing team who authored the nestle effort (avoided using the word "promo") decided to use the internet for the good things, they seem to have forgotten that part about applying caution and immunizing their effort from the bad.
on the first post, i had made the comment that this effort was not thought through very well. this is one of those observations.
go to this link : http://www.pinoyexchange.com/forums/showthread.php?t=330077
a girl who claims to study in an all-girls college with the username "urflower" (excellent name!) opened a thread with the title: "Is sex for money bad?"
1st post:
people responded to this first post - giving advise and their opinion. it became a very long thread but the following early posts complete the story:
2nd post:
3rd post:
it became a hot topic in the section with many giving their opinion and advise. eventually, urflower posted another thread with the title: "Help me from resorting to something that may harm me."
read it here : http://www.pinoyexchange.com/forums/showthread.php?p=23378304#post23378304
this is what happened here: urflower sent an an entry to the nestle name a brand promo, "taste of summer". to get people to vote for her entry, she opened a thread in Pinoy Exchange, in the Intimacy & Passion section first asking if it's wrong to sell sex for money. she said she is being tempted to go into prostitution because her family has fallen into bad times. people responded to that thread very well. but eventually, she asked people to vote for her entry, "taste of summer" for it to win so that the she can set a business and stop herself from selling her body for money.
urflower opened other threads in other sections of PEX, one in the "dilemmas" section where there her question was "Should I answer the boy with money? or the one i really like?". the idea is the same thing, she opened a topic asking for advise on a "dilemma" where the issue was the need for money. she allowed the thread to get a lot of responses giving her advise and suggestions, then eventually asking the readers of the thread to save her from her dilemma by voting for her entry in the nestle promo.
read it here: http://www.pinoyexchange.com/forums/showthread.php?t=330073
there was another thread opened in another section but this was a straight out request to vote for her entry in the nestle promo.
to be continued....
but as many good things and many good people populate the internet, there are at least an equal number if not more bad things and bad people who sit right beside the good. that is the lesson, actually the warning we get all the time on the internet. when a new thing or a new rage comes up in the internet, the good parts are delivered first but it always ends with an admonition to take precautions, to be alert to be defensive of the bad that may happen. and again just as the marketing team who authored the nestle effort (avoided using the word "promo") decided to use the internet for the good things, they seem to have forgotten that part about applying caution and immunizing their effort from the bad.
on the first post, i had made the comment that this effort was not thought through very well. this is one of those observations.
go to this link : http://www.pinoyexchange.com/forums/showthread.php?t=330077
a girl who claims to study in an all-girls college with the username "urflower" (excellent name!) opened a thread with the title: "Is sex for money bad?"
1st post:
"Hi. I am a struggling student in an all-girl's college and as we know times are not that good when you are on a tight allowance. Some of my schoolmates approached me and said they know someone who would help get me "dates" with men with money. The problem I think is I can't choose the men. That is where the difficulty lies. Am I being a prude?On the side I have been joining some promos for cash prizes. You never know diba? But still what are the chances?This one is sure money but is it worth it?"
people responded to this first post - giving advise and their opinion. it became a very long thread but the following early posts complete the story:
2nd post:
"I was wondering as well. Would it be better if I got a rich old man? I do have a "suitor" who is older and more well off. Should I give in to him and stomach it? He isn't the man I like. Nor is he good-looking. Pero mabait cya.Thankfully my mom taught us English well. She is an English teacher. But we have fallen into hard times and we must do what we can? It is life after all.Should I take on the older, wealthier man and just have the man I like on the side? Will it matter?Only 1.5-2k for my virtue? Wow."
3rd post:
"Will it be possible that one of my rich clients will actually consider me for a long-term
relationship? Possibly marriage?Should I just hang around rich circles? But how can I do that with no money?"
it became a hot topic in the section with many giving their opinion and advise. eventually, urflower posted another thread with the title: "Help me from resorting to something that may harm me."
"Thank you all for your words of advice. It is obvious that I really need help.I am hoping I have a solution. It may be short-term and may be a long shot but it is worth a try. The power of the internet may help make it happen.There is a site called www.givemeaname.ph I have joined and luckily they chose my entry Taste of Summer.However it is low on the list. I am asking everyone to help me out and vote for my entry. Also pass on to your friends to have them vote as well.This should hopefully allow me to start off a small business which I can slowly grow over time.Please help me set-up an internet brigade to help me out of my mess."
read it here : http://www.pinoyexchange.com/forums/showthread.php?p=23378304#post23378304
this is what happened here: urflower sent an an entry to the nestle name a brand promo, "taste of summer". to get people to vote for her entry, she opened a thread in Pinoy Exchange, in the Intimacy & Passion section first asking if it's wrong to sell sex for money. she said she is being tempted to go into prostitution because her family has fallen into bad times. people responded to that thread very well. but eventually, she asked people to vote for her entry, "taste of summer" for it to win so that the she can set a business and stop herself from selling her body for money.
urflower opened other threads in other sections of PEX, one in the "dilemmas" section where there her question was "Should I answer the boy with money? or the one i really like?". the idea is the same thing, she opened a topic asking for advise on a "dilemma" where the issue was the need for money. she allowed the thread to get a lot of responses giving her advise and suggestions, then eventually asking the readers of the thread to save her from her dilemma by voting for her entry in the nestle promo.
read it here: http://www.pinoyexchange.com/forums/showthread.php?t=330073
there was another thread opened in another section but this was a straight out request to vote for her entry in the nestle promo.
to be continued....
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
part 6. how not to name a brand : planning and execution failure
this is from the pdf file in the website that details the mechanics of winning in the promo:
the above mechanics are confusing and unclear as to exactly what is the process they will follow in selecting the 'finalists". the mechanics is saying there will be 30 finalists, but at the moment the website has 62 "finalists" listed there now. and i don't recall the website ever identifying any 30 entries.
the 30 entries is quite important as based on their mechanics, these are the ones that have been evaluated based on the criteria identified above (letter C). the criteria they have identified there are legal and regulatory considerations (iii. to v.). you can't just use any name as a brand name, you need to register them and it should follow laws and regulations from the government.
since the 62 names are declared as "finalists", do we take that to mean that all these have been legally cleared and therefor ready for use as a brand name?
the use of a website in the internet to help them decide on a brand name is a very impractical thing to do, not to mention full of risks and dangers.
among other things, it means nestle would need to check each and every brand name submission to see it they pass the regulatory considerations and what they call as "fitness to be used as a brand name" criteria. they have to do that before they post it in the website.
they have 62 names as finalists, did nestle register each name already to own each one? they have to, as any 1 of the 62 can end up to be the winner. if they did not register or own all 62 names, an enterprising person can actually register if for himself/herself ahead of nestle. anyone can register it for himself the day it appears in the website and nestle is pre-empted.
brand names are trademarks, they should be treated as trade secrets until they are launched in the market. you worry about competition getting to know about it. in fact, you take pains in keeping everything about a new product launch secret. you don't want to be pre-empted.
since nestle put it out in a website, that means anyone can read it, including nestle's competition. that is the reason why nestle should have registered all 62 names in the list of finalists. if they didn't, there is no way it can stop its competition or an enterprising individual to register it for themselves.
to be continued....
2. The winning entry shall be evaluated through the following steps:
Elimination Stages:
a. Every week from November 4, 2007 to January 31, 2008, 100 entries shall be randomly selected from the entries submitted. Entries that are not selected during the weekly random selection shall still be eligible from random selection in the following weeks.
b. The 100 entries randomly selected each week shall be initially evaluated based on the fit of the name to the product, after which 30 entries shall be chosen from said 100 entries.
c. All 30 weekly entries shall be evaluated on the basis of the following criteria:
i. Originality
ii. Suitability for use as a brand name
iii. Absence of prior registration at the Philippine Intellectual Property Office
iv. Non-use by any company or person
v. Conformity with branding regulations of the BFAD or any other responsible agency.
d. Entries that do not meet the criteria mentioned above shall be disqualified and those that were not chosen during the random selection. They are not qualified to win any prize, even if they turn out to have submitted the same as the entry/ies that eventually win/s the prize/s.
the above mechanics are confusing and unclear as to exactly what is the process they will follow in selecting the 'finalists". the mechanics is saying there will be 30 finalists, but at the moment the website has 62 "finalists" listed there now. and i don't recall the website ever identifying any 30 entries.
the 30 entries is quite important as based on their mechanics, these are the ones that have been evaluated based on the criteria identified above (letter C). the criteria they have identified there are legal and regulatory considerations (iii. to v.). you can't just use any name as a brand name, you need to register them and it should follow laws and regulations from the government.
since the 62 names are declared as "finalists", do we take that to mean that all these have been legally cleared and therefor ready for use as a brand name?
the use of a website in the internet to help them decide on a brand name is a very impractical thing to do, not to mention full of risks and dangers.
among other things, it means nestle would need to check each and every brand name submission to see it they pass the regulatory considerations and what they call as "fitness to be used as a brand name" criteria. they have to do that before they post it in the website.
they have 62 names as finalists, did nestle register each name already to own each one? they have to, as any 1 of the 62 can end up to be the winner. if they did not register or own all 62 names, an enterprising person can actually register if for himself/herself ahead of nestle. anyone can register it for himself the day it appears in the website and nestle is pre-empted.
brand names are trademarks, they should be treated as trade secrets until they are launched in the market. you worry about competition getting to know about it. in fact, you take pains in keeping everything about a new product launch secret. you don't want to be pre-empted.
since nestle put it out in a website, that means anyone can read it, including nestle's competition. that is the reason why nestle should have registered all 62 names in the list of finalists. if they didn't, there is no way it can stop its competition or an enterprising individual to register it for themselves.
to be continued....
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