Archive for May/2008

La guerra publcitaria de Adidas y Nike está siendo de lo más interesante, con cada una de las marcas deportivas intentando superar en espectacularidad los comerciales de la otra.

En este caso, ha sido el turno de Nike, que aprovechando el superpartidazo de semifinales de la Champions entre el Manchester United y el Barça, estrenó la nueva campaña europea de Nike Football, con el claim ‘Take it to the next level’. Un spot de televisión espectacular que publicita las botas T90 Laser II y que lleva la firma inequívoca del director de cine Guy Ritchie, autor del estupendo film ‘Snatch, cerdos y diamantes’ y de interesante piezas publicitarias como el exitosísimo spot de hace varios años para lanzar el BMW X5 que protagonizaba su mujer Madonna (y que ya hemos recogido en nuestra comunidad).

Atentos a la lista de celebridades futbolíticas que creo que no tiene (lo mismo que, sin duda, el coste de la campaña) parangón: Cesc Fábregas, William Gallas, Wayne Royney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Nani, Ricardo Costinha, Huntelaar, Ruud Van Nistelroy, Wesley Sneijder, Rafa Márquez, Marco Materazzi, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Ronaldinho, Bojan Krkic, Andrés Iniesta, Costinha y el entrenador del Arsenal, Arsène Wenger.

Con dos minutos de duración y un ritmo trepidante, además de un rodaje con la técnica visual de personificación conocida como Point of View (POV) o Punto de Vista, Nike nos hace sentir como si estuviéramos en la piel de un jugador de fútbol, dentro y fuera del terreno de juego. Aunque no se le ve la cara al mismo, las coincidencias con la figura del holandés Van Persie de Arsenal son evidentes, lo que da más morbo al comercial pue éste tiene contrato con Adidas…

Y ahora la reflexión a la que quería llegar; excelente la apuesta tecnológica del POV, pero ¿no pensáis que tantísima inversión en celebrities no está justificada? Espero vuestras opiniones, amigos….

Abrazos

Manuel A. Alonso Coto

I will start this posting acknowledging three things:

1. I do admire Steve Jobs as marketer. He is definitively one the best in the World. Apple owes much of its success to his constant creativity, enthusiasm, vision and ability to think in a different way.

2. For sure, the I-phone has revolutionized the mobile handset ant telecom market. As I will explain later, they have not been up to expectations, but they have been able to bring the smartphone industry to its 2.0 version.

3. It is always easy to analyze things after they have happened and bring out lessons. However, it is vital to analyze the facts and try to learn from them

Having said this I would like to share some thoughts about the way the I-Phone has been launched and handled during its first year of existence:

• Branding is not everything. It might be for anxious early adopters + brand fanatics, but not for everyone. For sure it is something key that will make the difference and let you charge a premium price. But on top of that there has to be a real layer that supports it. In the case of the I-Phone, the brand was incredibly powerful and was supported by some innovative features + superb design. However, it also had some technical limitations that had impeded it achieving the expected sales worldwide.

• The Power of the Brand differs from country to country and so should do the strategy. Seems to be an obvious statement, but it was not for Apple. They took for granted that the attractiveness of the brand was the same in Europe and USA, and evidence showed this was not the case. Europeans are not that fanatic about the brand, and applying the same strategy as in the USA has not worked so well. Lesson: The strategy has to be adapted to brand strength and positioning, in order to maximise results.

• Exclusive distribution does not work everywhere. The latter made Apple to start working on a exclusive distribution basis in some European countries like Germany + France + UK. The result? As long as people in these countries were not that Apple enthusiastic, the sales were well behind expectations. This has brought the brand to a change in the strategy and to opening its distribution in other key countries such as Italy.

• Beware of handling properly the expectations. No need to explain to you the huge buzz + expectations that Steve Jobs was able to create when announcing the product at the Mac Convention in San Francisco (which could be something good if properly handled!). In this case, these expectations went too far and made analysts and bidding telecom companies for the exclusivity believe that it would go much further than it has actually gone.

• Price planning to be managed with care. Hand in hand with those expectations came a big mistake in planning the right price. As you will remember, shortly after launching the I-Phone, they cut the price by almost 30%. Reasons were not disclosed but it seems that the overstock was the main one. In the end it caused such a big mess that Apple had to refund the price cut to customers claiming for it.

• Beware of competition. The announcement of the handset and the excessive time to market taken since the former was done, gave an advantage to competition. The result was that competition accelerated the introduction of cool terminals such as the HTC Touch, that reduced the potential sales to be achieved. Same thing has happened with the 3G version: It has taken too long to be launched and Blackberry and Samsung have already announced some state-of-the art handsets and get part of the momentum reserved for the 3G I-Phone.

• Use PR to justify your movements. Of course it makes sense to make up your mind in a different way, mainly when you have made a planning mistake. So if you make for instance a change in your distribution strategy, silence about it (which is what Apple has done) is not the best thing to do. PR will help you to explain things the way you like!.

The 3G I-Phone is likely to be launched within June. Let´s see what happens and what Steve Jobs has in mind to overcome all these points. To be continued.

Think Different!!!

Ignacio Gafo

¿Qué tienen en común…

• Nike
• Canon
• El Corte Inglés
• Carrefour
• Nestle Friskies
• Samsung
• y HP?

Piénsalo bien antes de seguir leyendo…

Omite lo obvio…

Pero piensa en algo simple…

Respuesta: Las Excusas. Esto es, todas hacen un uso sistemático de Excusas para captar la atención del cliente, intimar con él y, por supuesto, vender más.

De muestra (la lista podría ser interminable), algunas de las Excusas que estas marcas y distribuidores utilizan para hacer ruido y conseguir notoriedad:

• Nike: Eventos deportivos con sponsorización y equipamiento (próxima parada: Los Juegos Olímpicos).
• Canon: Champions League + Ferias fotográficas (Photokina ante todo)
• El Corte Inglés: Semanas Fantásticas + Semana de XXX
• Carrefour: Aniversarios + demás fiestas y días de guardar creados por la cadena
• Nestlé Friskies: Día de San Francisco (Santo de los Animales) + ferias varias
• Samsung: Semana del televisor en el distribuidor YYY + Eurocopa de fútbol
• HP: Fiestas Informáticas de diversa índole + HP Days

¿Tiene sentido hacerlo? Todo el del mundo. En el momento actual no tengo claro si Marketing es la gestión de percepciones o de la atención. La estimulación que reciben los consumidores es tal, que ya no sólo es difícil que nuestra marca consiga un share of mind aceptable, sino que ¡también lo está empezando a ser para la propia categoría!

Por lo que necesitamos algo que nos permita entrar en la mente del consumidor. Una Excusa con la que nos abra la puerta de su atención para que nos recuerde, nos tenga presentes y no perdamos nuestra cuota de intimidad.

El problema como todo es la saturación. Empezamos poco a poco y el dichoso benchmarking y “me too”, nos lleva a más de lo mismo, lo que acaba saturando al consumidor. ¿La solución? Ora encontrar excusas realmente atractivas para el consumidor (en lo que la investigación de mercado entraría en juego), ora combinarla con nuevas herramientas y formatos como el marketing móvil o digital.

Así que, en el entretanto, te paso la pregunta: Y tú, ¿qué excusa tienes?

Think Different!!!

Ignacio Gafo

La pregunta con la que empiezo me la hice el otro día al comprar un perfume de Carolina Herrera. Al pagarlo, recibí para mi sorpresa (pues ni estaba comunicado ni el vendedor me había dicho nada), un kit promocional que incluía una camiseta + un after shave de la marca. Kit con un packaging premium que no sé si realmente tenía sentido. Esto es, no me quedó claro:

• ¿Qué quería conseguir la marca con este kit?
• ¿Qué está obteniendo realmente la marca con dicha promoción?
• Si había o no fallado algo en la ejecución

La casuistica de las promociones es extremendamente extensa. Pero sea el caso que sea, hay tres elementos necesarios para que funcionen:

1. Un objetivo específico
2. Carácter temporal
3. Excelencia en la ejecución

Read more…

… Es lo primero que he pensado al asociar a Hugh Laurie (Greg House en la famosísima serie) y Tónica Schweppes, pues el slogan que han utilizado para la campaña resume muy bien el espíritu de ambos “Un punto amargo es sexy”. Desde el pasado lunes 28 de Abril el popular actor ha invadido las pantallas de todos los telespectadores del país como nueva imagen de la bebida, un papel que, como reza el propio spot, ‘le pega’.

De nuevo el recurso de los famosos y las caras conocidas ha sido utilizado para la nueva campaña de Tónica Schweppes. Hugh Laurie, releva como abanderado de la imagen de Schweppes al conocido actor Adrien Brody, quien protagonizó la última campaña publicitaria y spot televisivo de la misma marca.

El nuevo spot conserva el singular carácter irónico, sarcástico y mordaz del “doctor House” y su peculiar atrevimiento.

La elección de Hugh Laurie no es fruto de la casualidad, según Soco Trejo, directora de Marketing de Schweppes: “Refleja la singularidad y el carácter que caracteriza a Tónica Schweppes, por lo que no dudamos en ningún momento en elegirle como abanderado de la campaña de este año”.

Se llevará a cabo una intensa campaña a lo largo de todo el año, centrada sobre todo en televisión, donde arrancará con un teaser que se verá resuelto con tres diferentes opciones, también tendrá presencia en prensa, revistas, exterior y acciones especiales en internet. La marca se apoyará en acciones de relaciones públicas con el objetivo de afianzar a Tónica Schweppes como marca líder de su categoría.

Como en anteriores ocasiones (Carlinhos Brown, Eduardo Noriega, Adrien Brody), Vinizius Y&R ha creado tanto el spot como la campaña gráfica de publicidad para diferentes soportes y medios. La producción y realización son obra de la productora RCR y el realizador Dani Benmayor respectivamente. Arena maneja los medios.

Laurie era una vieja aspiración de la marca de tónica más famosa del mundo: antes de que fichasen a Brody para la campaña de 2007 estuvieron negociando hasta el último momento con el Dr. House. Me llegan comentarios oficiosos que esta vez han decidido rascarse el bolsillo lo que la ocasión merecía… ¿Creéis que aciertan?

Abrazos

M

I’m preparing a lecture regarding Viral Marketing and I’m facing the challenge of offering students something newer than the old and well-known (but effective) video-explanation: How To Sell Soap (one of the most effective viral campaigns ever launched to promote and agency itself)

Sorry, I coudn’t resist the temptation to include it! And taking into account the fact that I’m adressing them to discuss another classic on viral marketing, Wilson’s Principles, http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm I’ll have to add something really interesting to make myself forgiven. So I’ll use one of my favourite guru’s theories: Self Godin’s article on how to make and idea viral: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/09/what_makes_an_i.html

But let’s try to add some more value. These are the 10 ideas I always keep in mind when I have to develop a viral campaign:

1.) The viral idea is designed for your customers, not for your marketing department.
2.) Your customers are willing to stake their own reputation on the message
3.) The viral idea is easy to spread via email, blogs and discussion forums
4.) Your customers stand to benefit from passing the message along
5.) One of the most important secrets to be taken into account is about getting the headline right, and you can do this by adding numbers to the headline.
6.) Another secret for a successful viral is to tap into buzz-worthy topics, and that is because content that talks about something which is currently talked about has the tendency to get talked about.
7.) After that, you can also try to cram a lot of value into a small package, because the more value is to be found in one single place, the greater the impact.
8.) No matter how experienced you are, you must always learn from what already works. You must always use a proven formula.
9.) The viral content must be concise and right straight to the point, outlining the value, otherwise readers will scroll past it.
10.) Insert links into what you write for a plus of value and depth. Make sure though that they are carefully chosen links.

I hope I haven’t sound too academic since I like to be “simper fidelis” to the principle of “entertainment learning”. Anyhow I’ll try to balance the score of fun with a kind of independent list of do’s and don’ts by Baekdal.com: http://www.baekdal.com/articles/Branding/viral-marketing-tricks/

Too tired to keep on reading? Let’s swap to video then; not only regarding to learning materials but also from the standpoint of the vehicle for the viral message. No doubt viral videos are present in the majority of the most successful “word of mouse” campaigns. So it’s worth to learn how to make a profitable viral vid by reviewing the following series of videos. It’s an obvious parody, but it’s awesome!

More of the kind within the same campaign:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFxUnsGp2aw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drbcBKU9HYM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hgalYqoZf8

And now, a sample of how to combine all the tricks and ideas we have been reviewing: one of the most successful viral ads ever, with Madonna promoting the previous model of BMW M5 by showing a more down to earth side of herself and engaging in some self-mockery.

Viral Marketing continues and will continue to be a killer marketing tool. Have a look at one of the latest Nike ads; much more effective than any TV one by the sports brand…

But please keep in mind that Viral Marketing is not a panacea for all your marketing problem!
Sermon is over by now… Best regards

Manuel A. Alonso Coto

I would not go that far with the statement, but I would certainly say that it has helped to diminish the decline that the The Coca-Cola Co was having within it soft drinks division, while attaining further differentiation.

Structural market trends cannot be changed through launching Star Products and Brands. But the latter can make indeed make a lot of sense from a financial and marketing point of view, even in mature markets.

Coca-Cola has been struggling for years within its soft drinks division, mainly due to the sharp decline of this market in its core market: The USA. Reason for this has been a shift of preference towards healthier drinks such as mineral water, juices and energetic drinks (sure that energetic drinks are not that healthy, but people perceive them as such). Coca-Cola Co was aware of this trend and has been able to enter successfully into this new market, but also had to do something for its soft drinks.

The solution has come by launching something new and aligned with what the market is asking for: The Zero sub-brand. Before launching it, Coca-cola had its regular Coke + a light one. The first was perceived as unhealthy, while the second was viewed as having a weird taste by many customers that were looking for something else. Solution for this? Coming out with something that had the best of each one: A new version that had the full flavor of the regular one while not having sugar at all.

The launch was carefully thought and turned out to be a big success throughout the world: It helped to revitalize the sales the soft drink division (at least for the first six months), while bringing a unique positioning for Coca-Cola.

What to do next? As a boss I had in Canon Europe once told me: “If something is working, keep on doing it and extend it to the rest of the categories”. Thus Fanta and Sprite Zero were launched. Same strategy as with Coca-Cola Zero: Big launch for the new version intended to revitalize the Fanta and Sprite categories and attain again differentiation. Results to be seen in the mid term, but are likely to be very positive for Fanta and Sprite as well. Again, they will not change the core market trend (soft drinks sales are to keep on dropping), but will have positive effects for the brand, its profits and its sales.

My prediction? Zero will be expanded to all brands of The Coca-cola Co. Aquarius Zero is to come soon!

Think Different!!!

Ignacio Gafo

Marvel Comics had to take the risk. It has been years of licensing its superheroes for extremely successful films made by other studios—Spider-man for Sony, or the X-Men franchise for Fox—, without really profiting from them.

They are a small 486 million-a-year comic book company, that did not have the know-how and the money, so they went for a $525 million credit line, made distribution arrangement with Paramount that allows it to keep a hefty piece of the profits, and launched their first superhero movie: Iron Man.

Looks good, but will they be able to make a business success out of it?

Three things will be critical for achieving it:

1. Product quality
2. Rump up
3. Exploitation of the Iron Man rights

Read more…

Todos los que hemos trabajado con el Canal de Distribución, nos planteamos esta pregunta: ¿Hasta qué punto invertir recursos y esfuerzos al cliente-distribuidor y/o invertirlos directamente en el consumidor? ¿Hasta qué punto poner el foco en el sell in, en el sell through o en el sell out?

La respuesta a dicha pregunta no es nada fácil y va mucho más allá de un mero reparto equitativo entre los dos. En último término la decisión adecuada dependerá del criterio del Ejecutivo, que tendrá que tener en cuenta variables como el sector, competencia, perfil de la distribución y del cliente, posición competitiva y otras más.

De cara a ayudar a formar dicho criterio, se imparte el Programa “Del Marketing Dual al Marketing Tradicional: Trade & Consumer Marketing” los próximos 20, 21 y 22 de Mayo. En el mismo, un grupo de expertos de distintos sectores y empresas compartirán sus experiencias y criterio a la hora de afrontar esta dicotomía.

Os adjunto el link con toda la información del Programa, por si os interesa asistir:

http://www.execed.ie.edu/esp/programas_abiertos/WF_Programa.aspx?id=90392

Think Different!!!

Ignacio Gafo

How would you term the children of Baby Boomers born from 1970 onwards? What are their defining characteristics? How would you deal with them? What is the correct marketing approach for them?

In an interesting book called GENERATION ME, Jean M. Twenge tries to address these questions. In words of the author:

“Why today´s young americans are more confident, asseertive, entitled and more miserable than ever before?”

Although focused in the american socierty and being sometimes too generalistic, the conclusions and points raised in the book can also be applied to young generations from Europe and other continents.

For all of us dealing with these generations and who want to analyse them (ourselves) with a critical but relaxed view, here you will find an interesting approach.

Read more…