A Step Back in Time

This framed poster hung from the walls of the Sporting Eagle Saloon beneath the streets of Havre in north central Montana.

On the third day of my week-long Montana trip, my fellow journalists and me took the "Havre Beneath The Streets" historical tour which essentially consisted of a set of business establishments from the last century, linked by narrow corridors. Of all the things on display, this poster caught my eye as I wondered about the advertising business in those days. They didn't have photoshop to enhance the rosiness of the woman's cheeks and neither could they google the tagline to see if it has been used before.

On the other hand, clients had to be satisfied with the basic layout. I bet the art director wasn't told "I thought we decided on a brunette....and while you change her hair color do you mind changing the color of her bow? The pink doesn't do it for me."

Also, going by the size of the logo and the product placement, I would think that the oft-heard request of "make the logo bigger" is a pretty old phenomenon. Well, as they say some things never change!

30 Rock raises a pertinent question: Why does Geico have so many spokespeople?

I am relieved. So it's not just me. Last night's premiere episode of 30 Rock had both Liz and Carol wondering why Geico has four spokesmen.

Here's how it goes: we have the Gecko with a cockney accent, the confused and sometimes angry caveman, the stack of money with googly eyes (yeah, creepy!) and of course,  the fake Rod Serling guy. Why do they need so many characters and so many concepts? I can't figure it out...can't say I haven't tried though. Maybe this is exactly what they want, everybody talking and wondering. With a considerable media budget and a motley of accents, attitudes and ideas, maybe stickiness is what they are after. If so, they have got the right ad mix.

Also, no matter how good a commercial is, it becomes repetitive after a point so brands sometimes take on new scripts with the same spokesperson. If that too gets boring, a brand new spot is released.

Geico on the otherhand has multiple spokespeople at any given time, taking the variety to another level. But sometimes quantity affects quality and that is why not all Geico commercials are engaging or funny.

If it's a strategy, it needs to be stream-lined. Maybe have just two spokespersons at a time. Saves advertising dollars, keeps us guessing and doesn't take away from the visibility.

On a personal note, I am not too fond of reptiles but find the Geico gecko exceptionally articulate and funny...the rest of them I don't get so much. As far as their service goes, I am a satisfied Geico customer. Guess that says it all.

Related post: http://thebusinessofadvertising.blogspot.com/2009/02/geico-gecko-strategy-which-makes-sense.html

Hotel Room in Melbourne - Free of Charge!

Yes, you heard right.

You can stay for free at the
Lost & Found Hotel Room in the heart of Melbourne. That's what I call aggressive promotion and I like it!

According to PSFK "Tourism Victoria-run e-newsletter Lost and Found recently added a hotel room to their venture, offering lucky subscribers the chance to experience Melbourne’s cultural offerings free of charge. Decked out in products exclusively made in Victoria, the furnishings, gourmet offerings, music, fashions and bath products all “tell a story about Melbourne as a city of creative people producing interesting things.”

Mumbai Traffic Awareness

Image via adoholik. Click to enlarge.

This is an example of an effective outdoor campaign. I know because I have driven to work on these very roads. Yes, the laws of billboard ads (short copy) does not work here 'coz as every Mumbaite will tell you, hell you can read a magazine cover to cover and maybe even a paperback given the long hours you spend stuck in traffic.

Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

Banana Juice. Designed by: Naoto Fukasawa, Japan. Image via adoholik

 Pop-up Popcorn. Designed by: Packlab, Finland. Image via adoholik














How many times have I reached out and bought something just because it looked good on the outside? If you ask me, of all the P's in marketing, packaging rules when it comes to an impulse buy. Yeah, yeah...don't judge a book by its cover...but haven't we all been guilty of it at one time or another?

Choice Architecture and Advertising

Say you want to buy a set of cheese from the pack shown in the picture? Which set will you choose?


If books like Nudge by Richard H. Thaler and Prof. Cass R. Sunstein or Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely are to believed, our mind plays quite a few tricks on us, and those tricks actually influence our day to day decisions!  


This piqued my interest in the subject and I realized along the way just how invaluable this field of study, known as Behavorial Economics, is for the advertising industry.


Rory Sutherland via campaign.co.uk says: "Behavioural economics provides us with an intellectual framework, which allows us to better justify (and charge for) the ideas we already generate as well as generate new and better ones."


"The nine examples below are merely an indication of some of the concepts so far revealed in experiments. Significantly, many of these non-rational behaviours affect us unconsciously, and hence will not be revealed by conventional market research."


1. Loss aversion
2. I'll have what she's having
3. The power of now - and of instant feedback
4. The power of channel preference and interface
5. Scarcity value
6. Goal dilution
7. Chunking
8. Price perception
9. Choice architecture


I will concentrate on Price Perception and Choice Architecture for now.


Think about those Jimmy Choos you bought because the price said $300 in a collection where most of the pairs were worth $1000? Would you splurge similarly on a pair of Faded Glory boots at Walmart? No way. High-end brands and designer stores are all about Price Perception. The higher the price, the greater the perceived value. But ad agencies almost never have a say on the price. So let's move on to Positioning and Choice Architecture instead. Choice Architecture as applied to marketing is the influence of the surrounding options while making a decision.


Did you by any chance choose the $7 cheese in the picture above? Studies have shown that most people tend to choose the second most expensive item on the list. Even though we rarely go for it, the highest price on a list does raise the average. Do you detect a "nudge" from marketers there?


On one hand we find cheap things to be of poorer quality but on the other hand, we stay away from the super expensive. So the best way to market a product will be to price and package it reasonably and place it amongst some very exorbitantly priced products.


As Rory Sutherland says in the campaignlive.co.uk article "In an ingenious exploitation of framing effects, one salesman sold Rolls-Royces at a yacht show. Seen alongside a $10 million yacht, a $500,000 car seems like a bargain."

Oscar Winning Short - Logorama - Here for the Long Run

I was one of the lucky few...I managed to watch this Oscar nominated and ultimately Oscar winning short before it was removed from youtube. Yeah, now it is no longer available due to copyright claims etc. What you see above is the trailer. The "trailer" of a "short"! The short gets shorter. Remember we are in the world of "tweets" now. No more than 160 characters please. 

Anyway, the idea here is the all pervasive "LOGO". I think anyone who has ever worked in an ad agency will agree with me on the "make the logo bigger" refrain from clients. Even big brands are not spared.

The art of creating a logo is not easy and it has a science behind it. Ever wondered how some logos get imprinted in your minds? Well, those are the best ones actually.

Anyway, logos are an integral part of branding and they are here to stay. So are shorts by the way!

Coca Cola - From Santa Claus to Social Media

Advertising plays a larger role in our life than we can ever imagine. Did you know that the image of Santa most people have today is largely based on Coca-Cola advertising?

Before the profiling by Coca-Cola, Santa's appearances ranged from big, small, tall, fat, elf-like, bishop-like, gaunt, strict, spooky...and he wore everything from animal skin to a tan suit. Except for the color of his suit, the jolly old man owes much of his persona to the beverage giant.The traditional red coat has more to do with the imagination of Civil War cartoonist Thomas Nast than with any brand color.

Back in the 1920s many people thought of Coca-Cola as a drink meant for warm weather. With the 1922 slogan "Thirst Knows No Season," followed with a campaign connecting Santa Claus with the beverage, the company tried to remind people that Coca-Cola was a great choice in any season. Thus started the association of Claus and Coke.

An Excerpt From the Coca-Cola Website:

"Archie Lee, the D'Arcy Advertising Agency executive working with The Coca-Cola Company, wanted the next campaign to show a wholesome Santa as both realistic and symbolic. In 1931, The Coca-Cola Company commissioned Michigan-born illustrator Haddon Sundblom to develop advertising images using Santa Claus --- showing Santa himself, not a man dressed as Santa. For inspiration, Sundblom turned to Clement Clark Moore's 1822 poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas" (commonly called "'Twas the Night Before Christmas"). Moore's description of St. Nick led to an image of Santa that was warm, friendly, pleasantly plump and human. For the next 33 years, Sundblom painted portraits of Santa that helped to create the modern image of Santa ---an interpretation that today lives on in the minds of people of all ages, all over the world."

More recently, as part of the "Open Happiness" campaign Coca-Cola Company is sending three bloggers to 206 countries on Jan 1, 2010 to find out what makes people happy and then blog, tweet, upload videos and generally create a social media buzz around it for one whole year! Consumers will get to vote, suggest and complain as with any social media campaign. - [via psfk]

From redefining an icon to digging deep into the latest trend, the Coca-Cola Company is all about branding and maybe a secret formula or two. Given the composition and benefit of the product in question, that is the way to go!

Branding Brown

We all know the kind of hype generated by Dan Brown and his books revolving around Harvard professor Robert Langdon. Recently, the character was brought to life by Tom Hanks as summer blockblusters. But apart from being adapted to the big screen effortlessly, Brown's books have a certain brand of their own.

His contemporary J.K. Rowling has claimed her place in fiction fantasy with the Harry Potter series. Her USP being magic and her audience young. Although Brown's latest offering, "The Lost Symbol" has not been able to overtake the sales figure of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”, his books does have a heady mix of mysticism and skepticism, young and old, good and evil. His canvas is larger and his audience older.

But the branding of his protagonist is impeccable. Notice how he describes Langdon's Harris Tweed jacket and collegiate cordovan loafers right at the beginning. What his character wears is part of who he or she is. The BlackBerry and iPhone users in the story are different in their profession, their attitude and their personality. So are the coffee and tea drinkers.

Then comes the branding of the books in general. Described as "brain candy" by the Chicago Tribune, Brown's books can be categorized as a masstige brand. Though accessible and understood by the masses in general, they have a certain prestige associated with them. After all, we are following a "Harvard Professor" in his quest to unlock the mysteries of the world and save a life or two in the process.

Also, the deliberate mismatch in the characterization where academicians form the core of a thrilling plot fit for the Jason Stathams of the world is an obvious play at consumer(reader) aspirations. The actual readers of his books will be likely to be a bookworm whose idea of a Sunday is not chasing fanatics around the globe. So when Brown picks up a Professor from a mundane weekend and places him right in the middle of a chaotic international disturbance, his readers are already hooked. Aspiration as a brand attribute is pretty common in the world of advertising.

Brand Involvement is another key feature in his stories. The codes need to be unraveled, the symbols understood and the mystery solved. He keeps the reader two steps ahead of the protagonist making him or her feel smart.

The marketing of the book is another story altogether. Every form of media is tapped resulting in Doubleday announcing that Brown's "The Lost Symbol" has already sold more than 1 million copies after being on sale for one day in the United States, Canada and Britain. That total includes preorders for the book, which has been at or near the top of Amazon.com for months. The eBook version has been in the news too though the actual sales figure have not been released by Doubleday. The publishing industry is evolving as I write. Not so much the branding. The book, the author and his main character is and will remain a study in passive branding.

Branding India

I have been writing for travel websites for more than a year now and the way I see it, each city is a brand. Each country needs to be placed right, much like a product. Tourism is an industry which needs to be promoted, much like a service.

Often what bothers me is how India is misrepresented time and again. The poverty is highlighted, women are shown as helpless or oppressed and everthing somehow points at some kind of slum tourism. Any trace of luxury or well-being is strictly avoided.

In a recent World Hum article, I came upon the sentence "In all my train rides so far, she was the first Indian woman I’d seen traveling solo; the first who wasn’t dressed in traditional clothing, and herding children around the train." Well, in all my years in India I have had plenty of opportunity to see women travelling solo, mostly for work and obviously not "herding" children.
The only time I saw the true flavor of an Indian city captured was when I caught an episode of Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" on the Travel Channel.

I believe that the right advertising can make or break a brand so I thank the makers of the Incredible India Ad (see video above). It tries to give the right picture of India and succeeds beautifully. The ad portrays the country's diversity without resorting to visuals of the underbelly. Yes, every country has a seedier side to it but why would anybody want to use that to attact tourists beats me.
If we want to brand India, let's do it right.

"Marketing is not a cost" - John Gerzema

I follow John Gerzema's Brand Bubble so I clicked on this video posted by my friend Saurav on Facebook. Soon I found myself listening intently to John who was talking about "Avoiding the Looming Crisis in Brand Value" in this year's The Economist Marketing Forum. He cites examples of brands who have done the right thing, he warns us of the changing consumer psyche and of the changing marketing principles. He talks about "trust", "value", "values" and "durability" among other things. Yes, we gotta get down to the basics, offer warranties, cherish loyalties etc. Those I have heard before. What I hadn't was what he said at the end - "Marketing is not a cost, but a fiduciary responsibility to share holders." I second that.

During the conference, John also says that this time around more and more brands are getting innovative with their approach. For eg, McDonalds has this website called http://www.unsnobbycoffee.com/ where you can send a letter to your friend and stop him/her from paying for over-priced coffee. On the other hand, Starbucks has their Gold Card Program for people who really love Starbucks. These are just one of many promotional or branding ideas, one of which I had mentioned in a previous post of mine where I had maintained that "Quality Matters". Cause' it does. McDonald's can never ever get my coffee right whereas Starbucks does it everytime! But again, that's just my opinion.

Innovation. Competition. Both spell heaven for the consumer. Also, the economic meltdown has given us a chance to look at ourselves and re-think our choices. Our regulatory bodies have a lot to learn. So do we and the brands we promote or purchase.

John also said that "Trust in brands has declined by 50%" while according to Brand Asset Valuator (BAV), "Trust is the second-most desirable attribute for a brand, right after high quality". It is interesting to note here that "sensuous" is the least desirable attribute.

It makes sense, doesn't it? Consumers want to be able to trust their brands, they don't need them to be sexy! Marketing is definitely a fiduciary responsibility, but we have to make sure we market the right goods or services. Quality matters. As always.

To Bing Or Not To Bing

I assume we all know what Bing is by now. After spending $80 million to $100 million on an advertising campaign which forced JWT to thaw its frozen hiring, I would believe the least Microsoft has done is created a brand presence. Always happy to use a new product or the latest in sevice, I jumped in to find out all about Bing. The words "new" and "latest" spell "improvement" and maybe a certain "cool factor" in my mind.

The first thing that struck me were the Bing ads. Here's one from the seriesNow check out the Bing site. What information overload are they talking about? The Bing site itself is filled with unnecessary trivia. Why would I want to know about the benefits of garlic when I am looking for information on Long Island? The brand promise does not match the goods delivered to our browsers. Also, do a mouseover over the homepage image and you will be bombarded with more and more stuff you had no intention of looking up.

I googled my name and my blog showed up. I tried on Bing...no blog! Only my travel articles or rather, the same article came up multiple times. They have a separate link for blogs you might say, but where is the search box on the Bing blogs page?

Maybe marketers will have to re-think their SEO strategy as Bing throws up sub-categories on a search word. For eg. a search for "Long Island" got me a list of links to Long Island clubs, restaurants, tourism, facts, DMV, softball, economy and even maps. The maps link is kind of redundant when you think of it. I would have clicked on 'maps' at the top like I do for Google if I needed to look at a map.

As for the other players, I have never been able to find what I am looking for in Yahoo so I have stuck to Google for like forever. I was willing to change given a better product. Guess I will have to google words for some time more before I start to "bing" them.

The Magic of Touch

It is time we lost the keyboard, the mouse and the remote control. It is all about touch, tap and flick! On March 13 2009, Levi Strauss & Co.'s Dockers San Francisco brand launched the first interactive “shakable” mobile advertisement. Of course, the innovation made use of iPhone's inbuilt accelerometer technology and is available within a custom-built ad network of iPhone applications such as iBasketball, iGolf, iBowl and iTV.

Motion sensitive and sound-enabled, these ads are here to stay. Though a relatively new advertising format, they are catching on fast as the world gets caught up in "interactive play". Apart from ensuring that the consumer spends some time with your brand, these ads also help by having a targeted reach and capturing the all-essential data. Here I must mention that though knowing your consumer inside-out sounds like a sweet deal, the world of data capturing is murky and it is best to obtain the required permissions before plunging into a sea of information.

"The Dockers iPhone ad, titled "Shakedown 2 Get Down," features Dufon, a.k.a. Orb/Orbit/Orbitron, a freestyle dance expressionist from a Seattle group called "Circle of Fire," dancing around the screen wearing Dockers Vintage Workwear Khakis. In between levels of gameplay in the select application, users are prompted to shake the iPhone setting off Dufon's dance moves." - says www.mobilemarketer.com

"Click to view" will soon become a faint memory. It is all about tilting, shaking, rotating, pinching, swiping, flipping and tapping. You gotta touch it to play it. Think of your GPS, your grocery self check-out, movie tickets, train tickets, ATMs and many more applications of daily use. It's all about interactive touch-screens.

Technology is moving ahead and so should advertisers.