A Big Mistake

One company that has made some big questionable, marketing moves lately is Dr. Pepper Snapple. Which with the launch of its new diet soda called “Dr. Pepper 10” has engaged in some disputed marketing moves that may, or may not, hurt the company.

The Dr. Pepper 10 is different from other sodas because it is said to be having more of an authentic taste, compared to other diet sodas. The reason as to why that is the case, is because it has ten calories, which is quite significant when you look at sodas like Diet Pepsi or Coke Zero which have zero calories.

Not so many men drink diet soda because they think that it taste too differently from regular sodas and that is why the Dr. Pepper Ten was introduced into the market to change the drinking habits of men and get them to drink more diet sodas.

What has gathered so much attention is the marketing campaign that accompanied the launch of Dr. Pepper Ten and that is also why I am questioning this new product because it is in many ways, outrageous. The new diet soda is positioned as a drink for men and men only by specifically mentioning explicitly in their advertising campaign that “it is not for women.” This is a very bad move for Dr. Pepper Snapple, although it is creating a lot of buzz right know as is so vulgar and controversial. It will probably not benefit them in the long run because the largest segment of soda drinkers is women and by saying that they cannot have a specific product might alienate just those customers. Some people even feel that it is sexist like the people in the video down below. They are trying to get more men to drink diet sodas, but at the same time they are enraging a lot of people who do drink diet soda at the same time. The marketing effort might be very successful in the short period because people want to try the new talked about product, but in  longer term they need more loyal customers and I do not think that they will get that by having this sort of a launch.

The soda market is especially competitive and there are two major soda companies that would do anything to grow and steal someone else’s market share. The soda market is hardly a growing market and since they are financial behemoths and that Dr. Pepper seems to be willing to risk by having this outrageous marketing campaign, they could stand to gain a lot and Dr. Pepper could lose it all.

Dr. Pepper should have instead had the marketing campaign have a tough attitude and say  “only for though people” instead of “not for women” like it does now. Also the commercials and the ads that they have now are very childish, which could also offend the target market by having them think that the brand assumes that its consumers are stupid. The world is becoming more and more educated so many could turn it down because of the lack of perceived knowledge by those who drink the soda. The campaign should still have a though attitude, but the humor should be more cheeky.

A Company that is Wasting its' Money

A company that I do not think have such a good advertising strategy is GEICO. GEICO is in the car insurance industry which many think can be quite a boring to work in, if you are looking at getting into the marketing industry. However, some car insurance companies though, have actually done a great job with their advertising and created a fun advertising camping like Progressive, which has the lady with the weird hair style and goofy coworkers, take a look here.

Other car insurance companies have taken the more serious route like Allstate or Liberty Mutual, their campaigns play more on safety and peace of mind. What all of these companies have in common is that they all have a clear sense of direction and their ads all have something in common. Moreover they all portray their company’s single most compelling fact clearly and you know instantly what company the commercials from, because they all have their signature colors, songs or other things that signifies them in the ad.

Even though All State might have two types of commercials that they run, they still keep hammering home the message of that one should protect oneself from mayhem in a believable and logical way which is All State’s catch phrase.

Although GEICO has a catchy phrase too with: “Fifteen minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance,” that is all they have that links its’ ads together.

First off, they have multiple types of ads; one with an old movie star type guy that asks rhetorical questions, and another type of ad where a lizard is the spokesperson. Let alone this fact can be quite confusing for the consumer but what is even worse is that the commercials and their messages do not go together with car insurance, I do not get it. For instance, the old movie star type always starts out by saying “could switching to GIECO really save you 15% or more on car insurance.”  He then goes on to use an analogy which should be obvious but it really is not: “Is a bird in the hand worth to in the bush?” and they then show a segment form the Antiques Roadshow where an expert examine a sculpture which is of a hand holding a bird and he, the expert says; “it is worth two in the bush,” and the women who owns the piece acts happy and surprised. This type of ad with the old-time movie star comes in a number of different and ridiculous variations.

However, I do not see how this is related to car insurance, GEICO, or their single most compelling fact; which is that people could save 15 % or more by switching to them. Frankly, they make me mad, and they make others mad too, because their ads are not even funny and when they run as often as they do, the only agitate us.

 I would like GEICO to rethink their marketing strategy and stick to the basics. Talk about why people should switch to GEICO and make clever ads that contain a fun message such as AT&T’s tarantula ad that I talked about before, or multiple ads that have a common theme like the series of ads that Target runs every year before Black Friday.

Because what GEICO is doing now is wasting its time, and money, and the time of their existing and potential consumers. If they do not cease with those ads and change their direction, then it will only create animosity and anger between their potential consumer and GEICO because its message is unclear and poorly executed.

Where they fail is where they pose the rhetorical questions and then the answer is supposed to be obvious, but the analogies that they present do not make any sense and therefore you cannot really believe in their claim that you can save 15% or more with them.

The consumer gets even more confused when they see the all the different types of commercials the GEICO is running, where in one ad their mascot, the lizard, is the main character and in another the old time movie star is the main spokesperson, both of those ads have totally different feels to them because the movie star has an all american accent while the gecco has a british accent take a look here.

This is why I feel that GEICO needs to get its’ act together and revamp their marketing efforts because if you do not pay attention while watching the commercials, and consumer does not usually do that, then you will not know what company the commercial is talking about and why they are advertising and what they are trying to say. That is not only bad for the customer but also the company because that money is now being wasted.

The Crazy Target Lady

Over the holidays I saw a couple of commercials from Target that I thought where absolutely amazing! They follow a lady and her personal build up until the two day sale at Target which starts on Black Friday.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that she is crazy and obsessed with the “Two Day Sale”. She is kind of like the character Sue Sylvester from the hit TV show Glee, but in the form of a well put together house wife which is obsessed with preparing and practicing for the sale. She is usually dressed in a red track suit with white stripes which are the color of Target, she always wears a pearl necklace and high heels and has a blond perfect pony tail.

            Target ran multiple ads featuring  “the crazy Target lady” this year but now when I researched those ads, I became aware that it is not the first year that she has been featured in a campaign. It has actually been running since 2009 under the name Christmas Champ, but she is more commonly known as “The Crazy Target Lady.”  

            What I think is so great about these ads is first of all they are funny, but “the crazy Target lady” has grown into a phenomenon of her own. She has her own Facebook page and people like me blog about her. However, what is probably the most important thing about the campaign is that that the advertiser keep hammering home the message in each ad, meaning that there she is, in very ad, looking the same; she still has that pearl necklace, earrings and her perfect blond ponytail to the side, and she is still sporting red and white (Target’s signature colors) in every ad.

That is what is common for a marketing campaign and integrated brand promotion, which is when you use different kinds of media or multiple ads, but they still have a common theme or themes, that people can associate with the brand and this is what is so excellent about Target’s ads. As people see her and the red and white colors they immediately think about Target and shopping there.

This is what VP of Communications, Dustee Jenkins, had to say about the Crazy Target Lady: "She represents the whole notion of Black Friday being a contact sport. Love her or hate her, she resonates with our guests."

In a sense she has become the symbol of Thanksgiving and the following Black Friday Sale. That is gold for a marketer and Target itself because this means that they have done such an excellent job that this campaign and “the Christmas champ” have become part of a tradition, and because it is associated with Black Friday it automatically means more sales for the company since it plays such a crucial part of the holidays now.

            Another great thing about this kind of advertising is that it is like a TV miniseries where we get to follow our favorite character and were we are in a sense; anticipating what she will do next. So when we are fast forwarding trough the commercial breaks on the DVRs we switch back to “play” if we see a glimmer of that particular kind of ad and then we will most probably rewind and watch the ad in its entirety and perhaps even watch it over again. This is exactly what the advertiser want to achieve; to have a viewer watch one ad and continue following and re-watch other episodes because this drives home their message and an idea that they might have of buying something from that store can be solidified after watching the ads a couple of times.

A Memorable Ad

Another of my favorite ads that I discovered fairly recently is the ad for AT&T’s Samsung Infuse 4G phone.  This piece of advertising has made me laugh so many times and it does not seem to get old to me. The entertainment value of the ad has leads me to purposefully look for, and seek it out, when I am fast forwarding through the commercial breaks of my favorite shows that I have recorded on my DVR.

What the advertiser and the company set out to do from the beginning was to have the phone’s best quality, which is the screen, be the central theme of the commercial. The AT&T commercial is simply brilliant because it displays its best feature, in a simple and clever way that makes the ad memorable.

The ad starts out where a group of coworkers meet up at a fancy restaurant for lunch.  One of them pulls out his phone as they are sitting down and puts it on the table and moments later his screen saver goes on and the screen saver is a picture of large tarantula. Since the screen is of such good quality, one of the members of the group, a young lady thinks that it is a real spider and jumps up from her chair and freaks out. She starts to scream which is quite the departure form the quite setting of the nice restaurant because she screams like it is a scene from a scary Alfred Hitchcock movie.  

What is even funnier is that the third coworker also thinks that it is a real tarantula and takes off his shoe and starts hammering down on the perceived spider which in actuality is his coworker’s phone. However, the funniest part is perhaps the restaurant’s unsuspecting guests because their reaction is priceless.

This is another way how a company took the strongest feature of a new product and produced a commercial that was both memorable and funny, and I can say in terms of myself, that they got their monies worth from that particular commercial

Effective Marketing

People usually wonder what makes a particular marketing campaign successful and others not so fruitful. The difference is that a successful one has the consumer form an emotional connection to your brand. By first liking the product and after that when you have additional campaigns that he or she enjoys, and then this relationship can develop further into brand loyalty. The key is to move the consumer in an emotional way, as he or she will then spread the word about the ad, and the brand, to his or her family and friends.

The best thing about word of mouth promotion is that it is free promotional information that comes to new potential customers from a trusted source, their friends and family. That could not be a better Christmas gift for the marketer, or the Brand Manager, as the Brand Manager always wants to spend as much as possible on campaigns and other forms of brand promotions. However, top management normally wants to keep costs low and some organizations cannot see the value of advertising so they try and keep those costs down as much as possible. If they can get free advertising in terms of having the customers going around to their friends telling them about the brand, its products and why they are so good, the Marketing Manager will definitely take it because that means her or she can spend the budget on other things.

So how can the marketer move the customer with advertising? The marketer can move its target consumer in a number of ways; like showing people in distress, by showing compassion for fellow human beings, or by being outright funny. It can use popular images or videos of moments in time, symbols, playing a song or jingle to move people, as people can easily relate to those things. As long as you affect the consumer in an emotional way, then the consumer will pay attention to your message. If the campaign manages to do this then the person in charge of the advertising has done his or her job, as they have engaged the consumer.

            One ad that I think has been extremely successful in getting its message out to the world about their product and company itself is Dirt Devil. Dirt Devil ran an ad that takes place in the setting of the movie “The Exorcist”. The movie’s story line is about a troubled little girl that has been possessed by the devil and a priest tries to drive the bad spirits out the girl, but strange things keep on happening to her. The ad itself has become immensely successful and has been named by a few as one of the funniest ads in time. If you have not seen it already, you should do it right away because in the next section I will explain the details of it so I do not spoil any of the details for you.

The exorcist starts out with that creepy scene where the priest is walking up to the room and he hears strange noises and screams from the bedroom. You can see his trepidation and the sweat building on his forehead, the music playing is a creepy violin that plays faster and faster until he finally walks in the room when everything goes quiet. He sees the girl stuck to the celling screaming like a demon while moving back and forth stuck on to the ceiling and acting like she is from another planet. The camera then shows the priest, which seems petrified and is frozen in his tracks, before moving up through the ceiling to the next level, like you would do when you are looking into a doll house. The funny thing is that up in the apartment above, on the next floor, there is a little old lady wearing a bed jacket and hairnet and she is vacuuming the floor that is right over the spot where the girl is stuck to the ceiling downstairs, meaning that the vacuuming machine is so strong that it sucked up the girl and that is why she is going back and forth across the ceiling! The girl’s parents and the priest all believed she was possessed by the devil himself.

This ad is supposed to show the extreme suction power of the vacuum machine, but in the beginning the audience thinks that it is a scene taken out of the movie The Exorcist and you do not know who the advertiser is until the end and that it is in fact an ad for Dirt Devil.

            What some marketers do not usually know is that when some ads are particularly good or funny, people notice them and pay more attention to them. Even though they might be fast forwarding through the commercial breaks when they are watching TV, they might see a short glimpse of an ad that makes them stop, reverse and watch it just because they think it is so clever, good, or outright funny. That is the power of a really good ad; you will get your money’s worth out of it ten times. This is true because not only consumers of the brand will pay attention to it, but the message will be spread by the viewers to their friends and family through social media. Also news sources might pick up the story and spread it to their audience as a form of comic relief which is happening on a regular basis with news outlets like CNN and many other news organizations. Although, great ads might be expensive to produce, one should not discount the fact that they can pay you back tenfold.