From our class today, I wanted to share the new Nespresso commerical. This commerical displays Penelope being the new spokesperson for Nespresso. She discusses Nespresso's attributes of how each expresso is made perfectly and it is easy to use. She makes a joke at the end about how the staff is exceptional friendly because it is a guy she knows.
Penelope is a good spokesperson because her other engagements don't conflict. She is also a spokesperson for L'oreal. She is a well-known actress and does not get into celebrity gossip that could ruin Nespresso's image.
Kmart's new holiday TV spots have been mentioned in class so I wanted to post a couple of them because they were being developed this summer while I was interning at Sears. I actually had the opportunity to go to the office of Kmart's creative agency, DraftFCB, the day that this concept, along with two others, were first presented to the Kmart strategy team. This was a really interesting experience because while the in-house marketing team and agency worked together pretty much everyday and had weekly meetings, this was a different, more formal meeting similar to a pitch that you would see on Mad Men. The two creators of the campaigns walked the group through the concepts using narratives and storyboards similar to those that we created for the Green River Beer case. They also had a few preliminary slow-motion videos to further illustrate this particular concept. Here are a couple of the final commercials that have been airing recently (good luck getting the song out of your head):
The ads are pretty unique and Kmart has produced a number of them; however, it will be interesting to see what kind of effect, if any, they have on sales. My main concern is the fact that they lack a strong holiday theme--although they may have more variations coming. The wrapped gifts at the end are really the only ties to the holidays and the paper is not really holiday themed since it is just the Kmart logo--the inclusion of the logo in the wrapping paper was something the Sears higher-ups felt strongly about because they wanted to reinforce the branding of the commercial. The holiday season is such a major time of year for retailers that it will be interesting to see how this concept competes against those like Target's new Big Dog commercial which is much more traditional.
Ultimately, while Kmart's ads may create some buzz this holiday season, the in-store experience for holiday shoppers will remain largely unchanged which is perhaps the largest reason why Kmart continues to lag far behind Walmart and Target.
Warning: This is a commercial about Christmas! If you're against Christmas before Thanksgiving, read this post on November 23rd =)
I just finished watching a new advertisement that struck me as pretty innovative. Before I get into my discussion, take a second to watch the commercial.
A unique insight that I gathered from this commercial was that it leveraged the holiday season to create incremental sales. For some products (like pumpkin, as we had discussed in class), seasonal demand is natural; however, for others (like smart balance), it is not.
The commercial is effective because it communicates the value proposition effectively to those that are decisional. The concept of being 'good for your health' is easy to recognize within the commercial, and it is equally easy to determine what products Smart Balance can be substituted for. However, this commercial goes one step further by creating a message that will resonate with youngsters. A beloved figure is stated to "need your help", and young children will likely interpret this as fact and communicate the need to help Santa to their parents. And while these children are not decisional, their power to influence their parents' purchasing decisions is greatly increased because if they don't buy Smart Balance they are risking letting their children know that Santa isn't real.And just to help out my point, here's a recent #HelpSanta tweet:
When I saw the Liquid Plumber example during our engagement through the moment discussion today, I was reminded of a new, and slightly ridiculous liquid plumber commercial I saw while watching E!. I hate to say it, but I was probably watching the Kardashians when this ad popped up during a commercial break. The ad seems to be targeting female buyers, and from the looks of the actress in the commercial, I can infer that the company is targeting single female buyers. It's a little over the top, but it was strategically placed on this network since it is predominately viewed by females.
It's very entertaining for a drain unclogging product commercial, and it might be brilliant it it's attempt to engage through the Kardashian moment, it got my attention after all.
Whether or not you have been sucked into the soap-like drama, Revenge, on ABC, an interesting new ad campaign and partnership debuted last night. Target and Neiman Marcus partnered together and purchased all of the advertising for the show. During the ad slots throughout the show, Target and Neiman Marcus featured actors from the show in a "story within the show story". If you were just tuning in, you might have been confused at times determining whether you were watching the show or these mini-story advertisements. Although unclear at times how two very different retailers like Target and Neiman Marcus could partner and what it would consist of, the big reveal here is its joint Holiday Collection debut. The collection features a variety of gifts that will be available in both stores beginning December 1st.
The logic between buying an entire show's advertising is to find a way to really reach consumers through advertising. ABC even jumped through hoops to ensure Target and Neiman Marcus that their ad segments would be tied into their digital viewing alliances with Hulu and through their own website. From a brand perspective, I think it is a fascinating move. Target obviously finds value in aligning its brand with a high-end retailer like Neiman Marcus to reinforce a big piece of its value prop-give its consumers the impression that they really are getting the best fashion at an unbeatable price. The brand logic for Neiman Marcus is a bit more complex and risky in my opinion. I support the reason for this partnership for the fact that it may likely draw in aspirational consumers who may feel extremely excited about being able to purchase something at Neiman that they can afford. This can eventually make Neiman the quintessential aspirational store for those individuals who have a great experience. On the other hand, I think you can argue that by aligning the brand with a low price retailer like Target and by selling lower priced items as a result of this partnership, you could risk diluting your brand.
Either way, I think such advertising moves may be something to look for in the future.
Along with our deodorant theme, below is a Degree commerical. It competes with Dove and Secret by going on ultra clear leading to fewer white marks. It is using a laddering down approach by showcasing the brand feature. It also shows the consumer the functional benefit. This commerical was clever because it used someone else to show how the product worked before the woman decided which product to use. There was "proof" from the guys shirt that degree went on clear.
Do you suffer from the inability to forget one of those nonsense commercials from your childhood? I do and the culprit is Mentos. Mentos ran an ad campaign in the '90s in which the antagonist would experience an unexpected problem and Mentos helped the person keep their cool and come up with an unconventional solution. I never quite understood what it was about those classic Mentos commercial that caught my attention: the quirky jingle that I can recite fifteen years later, the ridiculously poor acting, or the uncanny storyboard.
In my new role as an advertising analyst, I thought it would be fun to return to the childhood commercials that will be ingrained in my memory forever and shine some light on these thirty second clips. It is obvious Perfetti Van Melle, the conglomerate that owns Mentos, was implementing a point-of-entry strategy to target youth that were looking for a different type of mint. Viewers were directed to purchase Mentos because of their "cool factor" - they helped you maintain your cool and innovate a playful solution to your problems. Mentos was the mint of choice for only one of my friends, but he consumed them all the time. This leads me to believe that the company had a gated community of loyal youth that frequently purchased their product and were looking to grow their brand with new entrants into the category.
The ads typically starred Anglo professionals in their mid-20s. Youth tend to want to act older than they are, and Mentos played on this desire by mixing professionalism and humor. The simple story board was used so that viewers could easily follow along and retain the song. According to our text book, "young children show an uncanny ability to play back advertising word for word. This is especially the case when information has a problem-episode outcome structure." This rings true with me, so everyone chime in with me:
"It doesn't matter what comes, fresh goes better in life, and Mentos is fresh and full of life.Nothing gets to you, staying fresh staying cool, with Mentos, fresh and full of life. Fresh goes better, Mentos freshness, fresh goes better with Mentos, fresh and full of life! Mentos, the freshmaker!
Please share with me a childhood commercial that you still remember today.
Lincoln Financial Group recently launched an integrated marketing campaign, which completely changed their target audience from their traditional sales channel or middlemen to their end-users. To do so, they created a series of advertisements that all came back to identifying the end-user, as the "Chief Life Officer." The intent was to make people realize that there are a lot of important decisions they make in their life and research revealed that the more people take control of the decisions in their life, the better they feel about the direction of their lives. With this in mind, the goal for creative was to communicate the end-user is the chief executive of their own life, so you should take charge. This tactic was implemented through the use of promoting the empowering aspect of taking control of your finances rather than a prevention or fear tactic. The success of these ads can largely be attributed to:
1. Changing the target audience from B2B middlemen, to the end-user (which is somewhat unconventional in B2B.
2. Having the campaign be research-based and drawing on customer insights to shape the content
3. Using emotional appeal to really strike a chord with the end-users
4. Using an integrated ad campaign that used digital, social, and traditional media channels
