The Year's Biggest Branding and Marketing Fiascoes

Just wanted to share a look back at 2010's biggest branding and marketing fiascoes, from Ad Age. Do you have any others to share?

Have a happy and healthy New Year and new decade!

The Multichannel Service Imperative

The Multichannel Service Imperative

Old and New Direct Marketing Worlds Collide

Old and New Direct Marketing Worlds Collide

American Airlines Renewed Focus on the Customer Experience

Recently, as I traveled back home to Chicago on my weekly Thursday evening American Airlines flight, I found myself without any reading material. Feeling desparate, I checked out the seat pocket in front of me. I had no interest in buying any life altering invention, so I picked up the in-flight magazine, The American Way.

I was very interested when I came upon an article from Craig Kreeger, SVP - Customer Experience, on American's "renewed focus" to enhance the customer experience. "Today, we are working to improve your journey with us from start to finish -- mindful that it really begins when you select and book your flight and ends as you pick up your bags upon arriving at your destination." This particular article provides examples of how they have invested in technology to improve the travel experience, such as a free iPhone app.

I look forward to following his updates on his progress, as well as experiencing them myself! To read his entire article, please go to page 77.

http://www.emag-americanwaymag.com/october_15_2010.html

Report - Consumers Pay More for Great Experience

Interesting research report from RightNow that reveals that 55% of North American consumers have become a customer of a company because of their reputation for great customer service. Read more...

http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/consumers-pay-more-for-great-experience-14657/?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=mc&utm_medium=textlink

The Case for a Chief Marketing Technologist

Here is a very good article posted in Ad Age.com that I could not agree with more. I have had deep experience throughout my career leading various marketing initiatives and strategies that involved strong interaction and dependency on technology and the various internal and external resources and solutions available to make it all come together and work. The line between Marketing and Technology increases to become blurred and it is critical that they work hand in hand...

http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=146175

Your thoughts??

No screaming or passenger unrest on this flight, just a birthday song

We've all heard about the meltdown on JetBlue last week involving flight attendant Steve Slater and his intercom tirade and quick chute exit. As all the details are still being uncovered, I am not shocked to learn that he has already hired a Hollywood publicist to sort through all the "offers." My personal belief is that no matter what may or may not have happened on that flight (most of his account has been seriously discounted from many passengers thus far), his actions were most unprofessional. However, in today's society, little details like the actual facts of what occurred are less important to many people than the immediate, viral momentum for many to consider him a hero. I think not. I hope his 15 minutes of fame are over, but I suspect there will be the made-for-cable-tv movie hitting the airwaves before the year is up. Even if his story turns out to be true, I still plan to skip that flight.

Anyways, upon just returning from a family vacation to Maine (Bar Harbor, Acadia, Freeport, Camden), New Hampshire (Portsmouth) and Rhode Island (Newport), I wanted to share a little "rich customer experience" that won't ever receive any media attention. On our Southwest morning flight from Chicago to Boston, the flight attendant announced that someone special on board was having a 7th birthday that day. She then proceeded to instruct all the passengers to turn on their overhead light to "turn the plane into one big birthday cake with candles." Then she delivered him the most charming birthday crown, made up of peanut packages and coffee stir straws. It actually looked like a King's crown! We all then sang happy birthday to this most appreciative little boy. It was a real great experience for this kid and his family, as well as for the rest of the passengers knowing they were welcome, appreciated and valued.

Does ayone else have any good or bad travel experiences they would like to share?

'Mad Men' Returns, Smoke Clears, and Things Still Aren't What They Seem (Maybe)

ok, this blog isn't intended for TV reviews, but if you are like me, have been pulled into the Mad Men world these past three seasons. Perhaps it is because of my early career passion for the ad agency world. Or, perhaps now that I am well past 30 something, old repeats of thirty something just doesn't cut it anymore.

Anyways, if you currently enjoy Mad Men, or might want to give it a try, the season premiere begins Sunday night on AMC. Here is a season preview...

http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=145044

Five Video Ads to Get You Pumped About the World Cup

The largest-single global event, the 2010 World Cup, is now two weeks in and we're on to the knock-out round of 16. The U.S. team advanced today in a riveting last-minute win over Algeria. One (last) second, they were about to be eliminated and sent packing...the next, they scored, won Group C and will move on.

The magnitude, importance and excitement of the World Cup has been captured in these five commercials. Even if you're not a "futbol" fan, these ads can't help but demonstrate the rich experience of this global tournament.

Nike, Puma, Pepsi, Carlsberg and Coke Have the Most-Viewed Online Spots so Far. Click on the link below to view...

http://adage.com/digitalnext/article?article_id=144375

IMC Gathering at BMA Conference

Just returned from IMC event (Northwestern IMC graduate program) as part of national BMA 2010 "Engage" conference at Swissotel Chicago. Re-connected with old classmates, met other IMC alums, shared my wisdom with some current students and heard fantastic presentations from digital age networking guru Sima Dahl and Jeffrey Hayzlett, former EVP and CMO of Kodak, who is single-handedly leading them back to relevance, and also star of Celebrity Apprentice and digital/social media rock star the world over. A very good day!

Ten Big Marketing Risks That Paid Off for Brands

It's been awhile since my last blog post. Sorry for that. I look forward to hearing from any of you followers with any of your thoughts or interesting articles to share among the community...


Marketing, like many things in life, requires you take a risk now and then to make a big impact that otherwise you may not attain. Here are ten, as described by Bob Liodice of Ad Age, that we may all not fully realize the risk that they were at the time.


by Bob Liodice Published: May 17, 2010

Marketers consistently push the envelope, hoping that novel ideas will yield stellar results for their brands. Companies attempt to break through boundaries previously set by competitors or, sometimes, themselves. Risk-taking, of course, is both exciting and scary. Deciding which lines to cross is never an exact science. Every decision demands that marketers weigh risks and rewards, but ultimately, without the risks, brands never achieve the best rewards. Below are 10 brands that took risks in their marketing practices and campaigns and proudly lived to tell about them.

-->EVEREADY POWERS PROGRAMMING HOURS
Ads and brand mentions during radio programming appeared in the very early stages of the medium. Programs were often interrupted to allow for station identification and to give proper billing to advertisers. New ways for companies to advertise on the radio appeared in the mid-1920s when the National Carbon Company's "The Eveready Hour" became the first broadcast series to be entirely sponsored. The idea came when George Furness heard a book being read on-air and imagined the possibilities of continuous radio programming, and how advertising could fit into that vision. He went on to become the producer and supervisor of "The Eveready Hour," a show created to showcase American culture.

-->AMERICAN TOBACCO SPENDS MILLIONS TO ADVERTISE LUCKY STRIKE
Lucky Strike sought a motive for the female market to smoke. In doing so, the American Tobacco Co. took on an unlikely competitor: candy. The brand's campaign encouraged women to "Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet." The National Confectioners Association launched anti-smoking literature in response. The industry rivalries led the FTC to investigate. To fight back, American Tobacco allocated $12.3 million for advertising, an unprecedented amount in 1929, equal to more than $155 million today. Despite great effort, the FTC banned the idea of marketing cigarettes as a weight-loss aid and Lucky Strike amended its campaign to the more innocuous, "Reach for a Lucky instead."

-->ANHEUSER-BUSCH KICKS OFF STADIUM SPONSORSHIPS
In 1953, the famous brewery attempted to buy the naming rights to Sportsman's Park, occupied by the St. Louis Cardinals, and to identify it as "Budweiser Stadium." Commissioner of Baseball Ford Frick rejected this first suggestion but eventually accepted the second proposed title, "Busch Stadium." Named for one of Anheuser-Busch's founders, Adolphus Busch, this was the origin of stadium sponsorships in the United States. After the name was approved, Anheuser-Busch released a product called Busch Bavarian Beer, now Busch beer, to complement the stadium's moniker. Its success paved the way for the stadium sponsorships we know today.

-->THE VW BEETLE BEGINS THE CREATIVE REVOLUTION
The Volkswagen Beetle was a small, economic vehicle, with comfort and power. While most advertisers in the 1960s used information-heavy text or fantastical ads to sell products, DDB went against the norm to advertise this unique car. VW appealed to consumers' sensibilities, using emotion and product benefits in clear, concise ways that had never been attempted before. Single words and short phrases such as "Think small" accompanied simple product imagery. The distinctive format of the advertisements and DDB's new agency model, where creative departments and copywriters worked side by side, were the start of what is now known as the creative revolution.

-->THE PEPSI GENERATION JUMP-STARTS THE COLA WARS
According to the Los Angeles Times, "the groundbreaking 'Pepsi Generation' advertisements launched in 1963 profoundly changed the direction of marketing. It focused on the attributes of people who buy Pepsi, rather than attributes of the product." The brand targeted baby boomers, showcasing energetic, young consumers enjoying Pepsi as they went about their athletic, fun-filled lifestyles. Coca-Cola and Pepsi had already been competitors, and for the next 30 years the two would fiercely battle on the advertising stage. The "Cola Wars" defined the soft-drink category for decades.

AVIS USES HONESTY TO WIN
In the early 1960s, Avis had spent 13 years in the red and in second place in the rental-car industry. Robert C. Townsend, Avis' new president, hired DDB to right its business model. Bill Bernbach told the brand to first revamp customer service and improve its product. During the initial collaborative efforts, a gem of an answer was given in response to the question, "Why does anybody ever rent a car from you?" The answer: "We try harder because we have to." This, and acknowledgment of its No. 2 status, became the tagline for Avis. "We're No. 2. We try harder," was risky as a campaign, but the brand's honest, fresh approach used frank facts about the company's business philosophy.

REESE'S PIECES PICKS UP WHERE M&MS LEFT OFF
When Mars Inc. was approached by the producers of a new movie who wished to use M&M's in their film, it declined to participate. The movie integration fell into the hands of the candy most similar to it, Reese's Pieces. Hershey Foods Corp. VP Jack Dowd gauged the opportunity, made sure that it was not a "monster film," and approved the use of the product as the means to lure an alien creature into a boy's home. This became one of the first, most well-known and successful examples of product integration within a movie. In the few weeks following the release of the blockbuster, "E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial," sales of Reese's Pieces grew by 65%.

-->THE INUNDATION OF AOL CD-ROMS
Before the days of Facebook and Twitter, AOL dominated the internet world. AOL's onslaught of mailing CD-ROMs and disks to homes and businesses in the late 1990s and early 2000s is still one of the most well-known marketing pushes and led AOL to become the No. 1 internet company. Collecting the disks became a hobby for some, while others rallied against the practice. With the disks and CDs flooding mailboxes, protest groups formed. In 2007 the CDs were given the undesirable top spot on PCWorld's list of most annoying tech products. Despite this, the AOL CDs were deemed a huge success for the company, as AOL soon took the reins as the biggest internet service provider in the world.

-->DORITOS CEDES SUPER BOWL CONTROL
With social media on the rise, brands find themselves relinquishing more control to consumers. Nobody has done that in a bigger way than Doritos. In 2007, the brand launched a contest inviting consumers to "Crash the Super Bowl." It solicited consumer-generated ads for Doritos, asked the world to vote and planned to crown a winner whose 30-second ad would air during Super Bowl XLI. The 2009 contest came with a bonus of $1 million for the winner if the video took the top spot in the post-game advertising polls. For the 2010 Super Bowl, the contest morphed into a 60-second music-video contest featuring a band chosen by visitors to CrashtheSuperBowl.com.

THE SUBSERVIENT CHICKEN CHANGES EVERYTHING
When Burger King looked to promote its TenderCrisp sandwich in a way that supported its "Have It Your Way" tagline, the fast feeder turned to Crispin Porter & Bogusky for help. The agency brought in The Barbarian Group to create a viral-marketing website that risked Burger King's brand image, then quickly rewarded the marketer with a loyal group of young followers. There were upwards of 300 commands to which the Subservient Chicken would respond, and consumers flocked to the site to test them out. Since it debuted in 2004, almost half a billion consumers have interacted with the Subservient Chicken.

http://adage.com/print?article_id=143873

When Good Brands Go Bad - Look for the warning signs before your brand does a Toyota.

Here is a good article from Forbes about Toyota and its brand that reinforces how important it is to always listen to your customers before it's too late...



http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/07/toyota-general-motors-branding-cmo-network-mike-linton.html?partner=cmonetwork_newsletter

A Look Back at 10 Ideas That Changed the Marketing World

So, do you have any comments on these ten below or any new or different ones to add??


From the Absolut Bottle to the Nike Swoosh, the Inspiring Stories Behind Some of the Industry's Greatest Innovations

Looking back at some of the greatest innovations in marketing and advertising over the past 100 years, the creative brilliance of these ideas is obvious. Yet the stories behind these examples involve bold thinking, the passion to champion new ideas and a high dose of risk. Our industry's visionaries often countered research results, drove themselves beyond the great idea and defied bosses and boards to push through their plans.
Let these stories inspire today's marketers, who have so many new tools at their disposal, to set aside conventional thinking and become the marketing innovators of the next 100 years.

-->L'EGGS' PACKAGING HATCHES A NEW LOOK In 1969, designer Roger Ferriter of Herb Lubalin Associates wouldn't settle. Feeling the work wasn't creative enough, the morning he was presenting new marketing and packaging ideas to Hanes for a low-cost pantyhose launch, he sought to showcase the product in a new way. While squeezing the pantyhose in his fist to see how compact they could be, it struck him that the package could be an egg. Immediately, he also realized that egg rhymes with leg. Adding a French flair, he named the product L'eggs, prepared sketches for that afternoon, and hatched one of the most successful product launches in history.

-->ABSOLUT VODKA'S BOTTLE SPEAKS FOR THE BRANDLars Lindmark, CEO of Sweden's Wines and Spirits, teamed with Gunnar Broman, a Stockholm ad man, to create a liquor-export product. Bowman borrowed the name Absolut Pure Vodka from an inexpensive Swedish vodka and took inspiration from 19th century apothecary bottles for the unusual package. Ignoring opposition from art directors, liquor executives and focus groups, Lindmark began shipping. When he coupled the bottle design with the Absolut (something) campaign from TBWA, the bottle itself became its own marketing engine. Launched in 1979, Absolut became the No. 1-selling imported vodka by 1985.

-->WOODBURY SOAP DARES TO USE SEX APPEALIn 1911, the ad industry was dominated by males, and the advertising they produced was predominantly product-centric. It took a woman, Helen Lansdowne, who headed the newly formed women's editorial department of J. Walter Thompson, to challenge the norms of the day. She refocused Woodbury's advertising on product users with ads that featured elegant young ladies enjoying the attention of dashing young gentlemen. The campaign she directed, "Skin You Love to Touch," is considered by several advertising historians to be the first modern ad campaign to use sex appeal.

-->APPLE COMPUTER: ONE MENTION, ONE AIRINGThe "1984" commercial introduced the Macintosh PC to the world for the first time. Airing nationally just once, during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII in 1984, the Ridley Scott-directed spot by Chiat Day represented the Macintosh as a means of saving humanity from "conformity." It mentioned Apple Computer only once. The board of directors hated the spot after viewing it for the first time when Steve Jobs and John Sculley asked for permission to run it. Steve Wozniak volunteered to personally fund half the cost of airing the ad, but luckily there was no need for that, as the board gave in and approved it.

-->AVIS TRIES HONESTYThe "We're No. 2. We Try Harder" campaign broke all of the rules. It admitted Avis was losing money, was short of customers and was second to Hertz. Test results from agency Doyle Dane Bernbach were so poor, no one today would allow it to run. But Bob Townsend of Avis believed in the tagline and knew it expressed Avis's management desires to be different, effective and outstanding. Almost 40 years later it is more than a catchy slogan -- it has become the essence of Avis.

-->BURMA-SHAVE LINES THE HIGHWAYSIn the early years of the automobile, Clinton Odell developed a brushless shaving cream. It was a great product with no marketing plan until his son, Allan, pitched him an idea in 1925: consecutive signs with simple verses, posted at the edge of highways. Clinton, not crazy about the idea, gave Allan $200 for a trial near Minneapolis. The signs delighted motorists, sales soared, and the iconic campaign eventually spawned 600 verses on 7,000 signs, many submitted by the public through an annual contest. Within a decade, Burma-Shave became the second-most-popular shaving cream in America.

-->BENETTON BRINGS PEOPLE TOGETHERIn 1965, four brothers in Treviso, Italy, started the now well-known international fashion empire Benetton. In 1984, advertising only in Italy and France, they hit upon an idea. Focusing on the global appeal for racial harmony and peace, Benetton launched its "All the Colors of the World" campaign. In 1989, an intense collaboration between Luciano Benetton and photographer Oliviero Toscani produced a bold and startlingly different campaign. Removing the merchandise from its ads, "The United Colors of Benetton" featured symbolic multicultural photographs. Benetton's commitment to ethnic diversity remains the staple of its advertising today.

-->VOLKSWAGEN TELLS IT LIKE IT IS What do you do if you are Doyle Dane Bernbach and the small, ugly, foreign car you are promoting is competing with over-the-top, macho, American superhero cars? You advocate the negative truths about your car: It isn't big, beautiful or fast. Then sneak in the positives: It doesn't eat gas, oil or tires and doesn't require a big parking spot or high insurance premiums. By turning negatives into witty positives, DDB created an influential ad campaign that made the VW Beetle the best-selling imported car in America and proved that it pays to "Think Small!"

-->BURGER KING'S 'SUBSERVIENT CHICKEN' DOMINATESThe brand promise, "Have it your way," took on a whole new meaning in 2004 with the "Subservient Chicken" campaign. Launching a new TenderCrisp Chicken Sandwich for the company and targeting young adults, VP-Marketing Impact Brian Gies wanted to launch in an unconventional way. Crispin Porter & Bogusky's solution was to launch an interactive website featuring a chicken that could do seemingly any command visitors typed in. The results? A million hits in a day, 20 million the first week, 396 million the first year, an average of a remarkable six to seven minutes spent on the site and a sales increase of 9% per week.

-->NIKE TAKES A $35 LOGO THE DISTANCEOne of the world's most-recognizable logos was derived from truly humble beginnings. In 1971, Carolyn Davidson, a graphic-design student at Portland State University, met University of Oregon track runner and accounting teacher Phil Knight. Phil and his coach, Bill Bowerman, needed a logo for a line of athletic footwear for their new company. They named their product Nike, after the Greek goddess of victory. For $2 an hour, they hired Carolyn as their designer, and, inspired by the wing in the famous statue of Nike, she created the swoosh. Total invoice: $35.

http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=142090

A Short (and Personal) History of Social Media

I never realized the actual origins of what we know today as Social Media, until I read this interesting article from AdAge/CMO.com. Who would of thought?

http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=141882

Super Bowl Shuffle: Why Marketers Will Shift to 'Platforms'

Interesting article from AdAge.com on where Super Bowl advertising is evolving to. Go Saints!

http://adage.com/digitalnext/article?article_id=141790

Domino's delivers with centralized database - DMNews

Domino's delivers with centralized database - DMNews