Kraft Has Selfbrand-Hate

Thanks to @paulgebel for asking my opinion on this ad strategy.
The article from CMO Network: http://bit.ly/gpakdo
Kraft’s YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/miraclewhip (complete with “Love Us” and “Hate Us” counters)

Not everyone loves Miracle Whip; people are actually quite polarized. Kraft decided to embrace their so-called “haters” in a campaign that calls out that not everyone is for Miracle Whip.

In every brand, there are four main types of consumers. First, loyal consumers do not need to be sold as much as kept contented with their favorite brand. We’ll keep Kraft’s word “haters” to describe the next group, and the other two groups are those who are unaware of the product and those who know but are apathetic towards it.

I love this campaign. Kraft is a huge household name as is Miracle Whip. Everyone knows who they are and what it is. Kraft is past brand-building. They have closed the gap of people who are unaware or ambivalent and are left with their lovers and their haters. Since they have their faithfuls, Kraft turns to what they see as their biggest challenge: the consumers who do not want to eat Miracle Whip on a box with a fox wearing socks.

Of course some haters have already tried the product, but this campaign is a great call to action to just try it for those consumers who may be willing to find out what side they’re really on. It’s also a fun way to find the rest of those in-betweeners.

I think this campaign is an honest approach to where the brand is right now.

Back to Basics: USP and Car Insurance

Car Insurance needs to learn about the old Unique Selling Proposition. That in order to appeal to consumers, you must show them how you are different from everyone else trying to sell in your category.

I just saw two car insurance ads in one commercial break. Geico and Esurance. No wait, it was three. Progressive got in there, I must have tried to block out the memory.

All of them were bragging about the many types of discounts they offer. Now don’t you think that with a little research into the competition they would realize that they are all making the same claim? Don’t you think consumers realize that they are all making the same claim?

I don’t know much about the ins and outs of car insurance, but I do know that they are doing a horrible job of advertising. Maybe it’s an industry standard, or maybe it has to do with the legal stuff, but pretty much all car insurers offer the same discounts. Anyone who has shopped around for car insurance can tell that rates are basically the same.

What insurance agencies need to focus on is not their discounts. It is their service. What sets them apart is going to be their customer service. State Farm, All State, Farmers, they’ve all taken this angle. They know that their rates don’t vary much between their companies, but how they handle their customers does.

All in all, promoting discounts offered by every minimum-coverage insurance agency is not unique to the company and everyone knows it. Geico, Esurance, and Progressive need a big strategy redirect.

Fake Cats for Radio Shack

First, I have to give a quick “sorry I was missing from the blogosphere” – I moved into an apartment and needed to spend my time unpacking in place of writing.

I saw this ad yesterday, I assume it’s part of a series. It was an animated cat head on the body of an animated woman, with dog-headed man-bodied husband. She had a crazy voice and spoke very quickly about how excited she was to bring her prepaid phone from Radio Shack on vacation.

I’ve marked this ad as one I’m not sure whether or not to like it or not. There are a few reasons I would tend to not like it. The animation style is strange, the character voice is equally strange, and the dialogue moves very fast and risks losing some viewers. I know when I get talking that fast, I lose people.

However, there are also a few reasons it works. It has fun characters, it speaks to its audience honestly, it has a lot of information about the product, and it tells a story that the audience can relate to. I find myself strangely curious about more details because they’ve told me the main points up front.

Here’s the video if you haven’t seen it.
Help me decide if I should like this or not.

Show Me the Ladder

I just saw the new TheLadders.com ad this weekend. My friends and I saw it I don’t know how many times and we enjoyed each viewing!

I love seeing ads that embrace the funny side of their slogan. This campaign, “Be more attractive to $100K+ employers”, plays on the word “attractive” and parodies sexy fashion/perfume/makeup ads. Regular-looking execs dancing on desks, climbing over tables, and rolling around on a leather couch for The Ladders had us cracking up over time.

I’m not sure how to define the strategies at play here. The Ladders is definitely positioning itself in a market niche and keeping up its brand image. Yet I find it difficult to say that’s what it is because finding jobs for upper level earners is quite a unique niche and pertains to a very specific population. Maybe it’s best classified as a brand awareness and brand maintenance ad.

All I know is that now using TheLadders.com is another reason to want a huge salary.

Superhero Ads? For Adults?

I am starting to notice an awful trend here in Rochester: advertisements that feature a superhero theme despite the fact that the target audience is composed of adults. The only campaign I have seen that successfully uses a superhero theme is “Be A Healthy Hero” which is geared at child health, does not always rely on the superhero theme, and fits a childlike theme as it could also be targeting children.

However, I have now seen billboards and television spots for being a hero for choosing health insurance and conserving water and energy. Is this a terrible request from a customer? The result of some horrible internal non-creative process? A strange piggyback concept? I honestly can’t imagine why an agency or client would agree that superhero themes such as these effectively target their audience.

An extra-special “What were you thinking?” to the health insurance company. With all the recent changes to the healthcare system taking effect in less than a month, being a hero does not address any of employer or employee questions about health coverage. It simply suggests that if you blindly choose this coverage everyone will like you. I get that people need to choose coverage soon, but when you don’t go with a more informative route, as a consumer I start questioning why you aren’t pointing out the advantages of your coverage (besides a strange path to popularity).

The Generic Claim: Is anyone buying religion?

This summer I was astonished to hear a radio ad for mormonism. So my question is: Is anyone buying religion or are we still locking our doors and turning off the lights?

Way way back in strategy basics, we learned the technique of making something seem unique when it is really inherent to the product and all its competitors. This is exactly what the radio and television ads for Mormonism are doing. The main focus of the campaign is that the members can be individuals while participating.

Well, last time I checked, people who snowboard and drive trucks and enjoy making necklaces aren’t excluded by many religions. There are no extra freedoms or any kind of special treatment being offered in these ads. Just pride in the individual. My own religious views aside (as much as I can, anyway), the only way this would work is if 1) A person was in the market for finding religion 2) That person didn’t notice the generic claim and 3) No other religions were making stronger claims.

The channels of reaching out to people are certainly different and more public and visible. Yet I can’t stop thinking how unsuited this tactic seems for this type of product. Couldn’t they find something their religion has that other competing religions don’t allow? I mean, there has to be a reason people go to the Mormon church instead of turning to Catholicism, Judiasm, or Buddhism besides being an individual. People are individuals regardless of religion so I really don’t see the value in these ads for the Mormon church.

Where and how would you put a religion on the market? Does advertising work on the soul?

Marketing Cell Phones in Guatemala

I found this marketing campaign thanks to @OgilvyWW tooting their own horn for their Ogilvy Guatemala branch. But it is a really fun campaign and is very much the style used in Latin American advertising and marketing campaigns.

For those of you who do not speak Spanish, the video talks about the cellular company “Claro” (which means “clear”). Although the company is one of the top in the nation, it struggles with the consumer perception that there isn’t coverage in some of the country’s more obscure towns. In the campaign, the company brought coverage to some of these obscure towns. They call them “Ringtowns” and gave out ringtones that sound like a traditional cell phone ring but say the name of the town. (You’ll get it when you see the video). This, the video says, taps into local pride while bringing awareness of the expanded cellular coverage.

http://www.telefoniaguatemala.com/ringtowns/

I like this campaign first because the ringtones are fun (& I want one). Secondly, I think it is a great idea to draw on local identity especially in such small places that aren’t used to special attention. No matter what culture you’re targeting, fun and simple is the best solution to a marketing problem.

Ads on PBS

From trailers for upcoming shows to the new look of the programming schedule, the Public Broadcasting Station has been making a lot of changes in the past few years to keep up with the rest of the television world. The biggest changes were to add sponsors, and then advertising for those sponsors, at the end of a program.

Since the lack of advertisements is one of the major things that makes PBS what it is, I have been dying to discuss this monetizing phenomena with the advertising world. Not so much a “what happened” as a “how did they do this so well?” The ads that air after a PBS show are relevant; they speak to the show and to the consumer while keeping a light tone and a soft feel.

Here are a few examples:
Sponsors:

Simple ad based on the program:

Highly directed ads based on the program:

Last week at the Rochester Advertising Federation’s Cannes Lion’s Advertising Winners event, the discussion ended on what innovative and new ideas look like in advertising. I think these PBS ads would be a great future for advertising. More keyed in to the audience and directed at a certain program instead of sprinkled in among all the programming. It is more meaningful and perhaps even more respectful for the viewers.