Tuesday, 29 December 2015
Merry Marketing
Merry Marketing: 7 of the Best
Holiday Campaigns
by Matthew
Bushery
The end of the year typically entails some last-minute Christmas
shopping, finalizing plans to see family and friends, and -- if you're
marketers like us -- prepping for
next year's campaigns. It also means we get to enjoy some of the most
heartwarming and humorous marketing efforts we'll see all year.
From commercials, to interactive websites, to social media contests, there's always
a fair share of top-notch marketing going on in November and December -- and
this year proved as much.
Check out some of this season's memorable and unique campaigns
from both sizable brands and small ones that epitomize how to do holiday
marketing right.
1) The Santa Brand Book
"Santa is a Concept, not an idea. It's an Emotion, not a
feeling. It's both Yesterday and Today. It's Tomorrow as well." That's how
this ingenious brand book from
communications consulting firm Quietroom begins. And believe me when I say
the rest of it is just as kooky and wonderfully facetious.
2) Apple Holiday Commercial
Oh, Apple -- how you've done it again. Say what you will about
the tech giant, but hot damn, do they know how to churn out one wonderful ad
after another.
3) Coke Zero Sweater Generator
Interactive sites are becoming more popular each and every day,
and thus, it's no surprise that some well-known brands are jumping on board
with the marketing concept. Take Coca-Cola for instance.
4) Netflix "Fireplace for Your
Home" Trailer
Think of where Netflix was just a couple years ago, when it
announced its ill-fated plans for a second service called Qwikster (which led to substantial
backlash and some poor PR). Today, though, it's a whole different story.
5) Topshop Pinterest Contest
Conducting a social media contest is a premier way to draw
visitors to your accounts on Facebook and Pinterest. One company that seems to
have hit the mark with its own contest is the clothing
retailer Topshop.
6) John Lewis Christmas Advertisement
Another sentimental promo in the vein of Apple's aforementioned
ad comes from John Lewis and harkens back to the days of the old-school,
animated Christmas specials (A
Charlie Brown Christmas, The Velveteen Rabbit, etc.).
7) Uncommon Goods
Though not as "sexy" as minute-long commercials,
interactive sites, or social contests, good-ol'email marketing is still a more-than-viable option for
marketers around the holidays. Uncommon Goods understood this, as evidenced by
this appealing email below (which actually displays as an animated GIF in your
inbox).
Friday, 18 December 2015
7 brilliant strategies Coca-Cola used to become one of the world's most recognizable brands
By Richard Feloni
Coca-Cola went from a cocaine-infused elixir in 1886 to a ubiquitous sugary drink by 1929.
Now people in more than 200 countries drink 1.9 billion servings every day,according to The Coca-Cola Company.
Having a product people enjoy is far from the only thing needed to become one of the world's most valuable companies. Coca-Cola used seven key design and marketing strategies, which made it as recognizable in the streets of Shanghai as in its hometown of Atlanta by the 1920s, says Coca-Cola VP of innovation and entrepreneurship David Butler.
In the book, "Design to Grow: How Coca-Cola Learned to Combine Scale and Agility (and How You Can Too)," Butler and co-author Linda Tischler explore these seven strategies, which we've explained below.
1. It started with a unique, market-tested formula.
After serving as a Confederate colonel in the Civil War, John Pemberton wanted to develop a version of the coca wines (basically cola with alcohol and cocaine) that were in vogue at the time. In 1886, Atlanta passed prohibition laws that forced beverage manufacturers to produce non-alcoholic versions of their drinks.
Pemberton sent his nephew Lewis Newman with samples of his formulas to a local pharmacy where people congregated to drink these early versions of sodas. Newman relayed feedback to his uncle about the various concoctions, and by the end of the year Pemberton had a recipe that was unique and tailored to customers' tastes. The original recipe is still locked in a vault in Atlanta.
Cocaine was removed from Coke in 1903. Other minor adjustments have been made in the past century or so, but beyond the "New Coke" disaster of 1985, the recipe has largely remained unchanged. This decision helped the company scale, Butler writes, since it did not spend time trying to tailor the taste to regional markets throughout the world.
2. Its logo uses a timeless font.
Pemberton's bookkeeper, Frank Mason Robinson, decided that Coca-Cola's logo should be written in the Spencerian script accountants used because it would differentiate it from its competitors. The company standardized the logo in 1923 and, like the recipe, decided that while packaging could adjust to the times, the core logo was to be untouched.
It's resulted in a logo that has had more than 100 years to become imprinted in the minds of people around the world.
The Coca-Cola Company
3. It was distributed in a proprietary bottle.
After the Georgia businessman Asa Griggs Candler became the majority shareholder of Coca-Cola in 1888, he set his sights on making Coke the nation's most popular cola through marketing and partnerships with regional bottlers.
By 1915, Candler was losing market share to hundreds of competitors. He launched a national contest for a new bottle design that would signal to consumers that Coke was a premium product that couldn't be confused with some other brown cola in an identical clear glass bottle.
The new bottle had to be able to be mass produced using existing equipment yet also be distinct.
The Root Glass Company in Indiana decided to enter the contest and base its design off the product's name. While combing through the dictionary for the word "coca" and words like it, Butler writes, mold shop supervisor Earl R. Dean came across an illustration for the cocoa plant that caught his attention. Coca-Cola had nothing to do with cocoa, but the cocoa pod had a strange but appealing shape. He and his team got to work and were declared the contest winners the next year.
Coca-Cola commissioned the bottle design as a piece of defensive marketing, but began promoting the shape as much as the logo and product. Even after plastic replaced glass as the standard means of drinking Coke in countries like the US, the company continued to promote the image of the Coke bottle as an icon.
Medicaster/Wikimedia Commons; The Coca-Cola CompanyThe cocoa pod inspired the Coke bottle design.
4. It held retailers responsible for maintaining its high standard.
Ernest Woodruff's Trust Company of Georgia bought Coca-Cola from Candler in 1919. Woodruff was focused on maintaining a standard of excellence as the company scaled.
The Coke team decided that its drink should be served at 36 degrees Fahrenheit, and would send salesmen to new retailers to tell them the product should never be served above 40 degrees.
The tactic may seem a bit silly today, but the 36-degree standard was just another example of establishing Coca-Cola as a premium product that was worthy of more attention than any of its competitors.
5. It kept its consumer price fixed for 70 years.
It's common today for tech startups to begin by offering a service for free and then charging a higher price to consumers and/or advertisers once they've become hooked. Before utilizing networking effects became a standard practice, Coca-Cola used a similar approach to scale across the US and then throughout the world.
From 1886 to 1959, a bottle of Coke cost just five cents.
6. It guided word-of-mouth advertising and developed a voice.
It became apparent after Candler took over early in the company's life that Coke was as much a drink as it was a consumable brand, an idea consumers could feel good about identifying with.
Candler started a mass coupon initiative that resulted in 10% of all products from 1887 to 1920 to be given away in order to build brand awareness. He also provided retailers with Coca-Cola swag like posters and festoons for decorations and calendars and clocks for customers. According to Butler, Coke was a pioneer in affixing a brand to items unrelated to the product.
And finally, all national, and then global, advertising contained variations of "Drink Coca-Cola/Delicious and refreshing" and fit into a standardized design style.
The Coca-Cola CompanyA vintage American ad.
7. It adopted a franchise model.
"Amid the soda wars that broke out in the 1880s, Candler's most significant business decision had nothing to do with branding," Butler writes.
In 1899, two Tennessee lawyers, Benjamin F. Thomas and Joseph B. Whitehead, approached Candler and asked if he would let them bottle Coke. The drink was sold as a syrup that retailers would mix with soda water, but it wasn't typical to drink cola on the go or bring it into the home. Candler decided to hand over the bottling rights for just a dollar, which he never collected, because he was content with maintaining the rights to the syrup.
This marked the beginning of what the company internally calls The Coca-Cola System, a franchise partnership with bottlers that allowed the brand to truly take off. Today, there are more than 250 independent bottlers around the world.
"The Coca-Cola Company isn't one giant company; it's a system of small companies," Butler writes. "And this pattern helps it scale new products, new communications, new equipment, etc. Designing for this pattern is critical; when it wants to scale fast, it can."
Thursday, 17 December 2015
Tuesday, 15 December 2015
Disney Executive on Marketing
A little bit old, but a great reminder on how marketing always changes.
The Best Thing I Ever
Learned (About Marketing)
By Robin Sagara
It was a marketing symposium, at the Ritz Carlton Pasadena,
about 20 years ago. Who knew they had a dress code just to check in (sheeshhh).
Anyway, lots of heavy hitters in the marketing world, one was the VP of
Marketing for Disneyland. She was a-m-a-z-i-n-g. She spoke little, and said a
lot.
In response to a very good question - "How do you know
what will work, how do you decide?" - she gave some advice that I've
carried with me for years and years. She's right. And although it seems
obvious, I watch my clients break this rule over, and over, and over again.
She told us that we'll never know what's going to work until
we try it. Then she told us what they do at Disney: They put their heads
together and take their best educated guess. They set rules for results, what
will mean that it's working, what will mean that it's not. They go with it. If
it doesn't meet their criteria for success, they STOP. Even if they've poured
tons of money into it. If it does work, they milk the heck out of it. Period.
That's it.
Example of something that didn't work and they stopped: They
tried a promotion where, oh what was it? Californians got a discount. Just show
your drive's license and... They set their rules for success, how many months
they'd give it, how many Californians, etc. The results were not what they
wanted, they stopped. They did NOT keep trying to convince Californians to come
to Disneyland, they did not offer more, they did not lower the price. They just
stopped.
Example of something that DID work and they milked the heck
out of it: Y`all have heard of the Electric Light Parade? It started out as a
temp gig to replace a parade that just wasn't ready for prime time. They
figured it would be a short run, just to fill the gap. They gave it a couple of
weeks. But people went WILD for it. I think it was ten years worth of wild,
then they sold off the lighbulbs for $10 each when it finally wound down. If
memory serves, they even resurected the parade years later.
She emphasized, "Don't keep putting money into
something that isn't working. It won't help."
Reeealllyyyy good advice. And yet I see people doing exactly
that, over and over. And just like she said, it doesn't work.
Source
Monday, 14 December 2015
7 Social Media Tips You Can Learn From Richard Branson
7 Social Media Tips You Can Learn From Richard Branson
by Carmine Gallo
In a recent blog post Richard
Branson offered six tips on using social media. Specifically, he revealed how
Virgin Unite and other non-profits are leveraging social media to get their
message across. I believe these six tips apply to any social media campaign for
any business, not just non-profits. Here are the six tips along with one bonus
tip based on my personal observation of Richard Branson.
1. Tell stories. “People respond to stories, not
data.”
2. Be creative. “Experiment with new ways of
telling stories and make the most of all the new tools out there like Tumblr
and Storify.”
3. Choose the right channel. “Match your content to different
platforms and audiences.”
4. Be truthful. “Don’t pretend you’re something
you’re not.”
5. Work together. “Collaborate with people and
organizations who are fighting for the same cause.”
6. Have fun. “Work should be fun and making
work fun brings success.”
Bonus tip #7. Do it yourself. The most successful leaders on
social media are actively engaged themselves on social platforms; they don’t
delegate social media. I spent a day with Branson, which I wrote about in this Forbes.com article.
In between our conversations, I had the opportunity to see how Branson
interacts with his team, employees, and customers. I was surprised to see him
carrying a smartphone and sending out his own tweets. For example, when his
marketing manager showed him a photograph of a Virgin employee, he said, “Send
me the picture. I’ll think of a funny caption and I’ll post it.” The Twitter
posts from the handle @richardbranson go out to 3.5 million followers and most
are from Branson himself. Branson also writes his own blog posts.
As his tips suggest, Branson has fun
with his Tweets. It’s not uncommon to for him to post photos of himself at a
party or simply having a good time.
This week he posted this tweet about the new Virgin
Active health clubs in South Africa: “When Nelson Mandela phoned yours truly in
the bath, who knew by 2012 we would open this: http://virg.in/yowyV He
once posted, “There are no baby planes because @virgin always pulls out on
time. Ask your mother to explain…” I understand that not every exec can be as
irreverent, cheeky, and outspoken as Branson, but his approach is unique and
engaging precisely because it’s authentic.
Many of the leaders who I meet or
interview are completely disengaged from their company’s social media. They
delegate Twitter and Facebook to their Public Relations manager or outside PR
agency to use as a broadcast tool instead of a platform to facilitate
conversations. I’ve lost count at how many Tweets I’ve sent to executives,
leaders, experts, and brands that go unanswered. It’s rare to get a response
and I’m giving them an opportunity to be featured in this column. It tells me
there’s no authentic voice behind the account. I can hear some of you say,
“Carmine, you can’t expect a leader to respond to all three million followers.”
True. But most people don’t have anywhere near three million Twitter followers.
They’re simply disengaged.
Branson’s six tips are excellent and
will work for any leader or brand on social media. The seventh tip, however,
makes the first six more effective. Don’t be on social media just to say you’re
on it. By definition, “social” is the opposite of isolation. If you’re going to
join a community, go all in.
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