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Whether you’ve heard it on the radio on the way to work or saw a spot on television, chances are good that you’ve been exposed recently to a commercial backed by a famous celebrity voice. And while this technique for selling products isn’t new, I’m curious to know if people today are receptive to it.
Call me a sucker, but I’m a fan of the celebrity voiceovers – especially if they make sense with the product. Take the latest campaign put out by Michigan’s tourism organization. Narrated by the much loved Tim Allen, (of Home Improvement fame), the radio spots (Pure Michigan) and TV ads have a soft, homey feel, enticing the audience to visit “Pure Michigan” – where the simplicities of life and your family are all you need for a satisfying vacation. Allen’s welcoming voice, matched with his reputation of being a family man from his long running sitcom create a warm and fuzzy feeling for the listeners.
And then there are the in-your-face, tell-it-like-it-is ads for the new Ford 150 trucks (Ford 150). With Denis Leary’s ranty narration and bold typography animation jumping across the screen, these commercials are hard to ignore. My guess is they hit their target audience perfectly as well – rugged men who haul heavy stuff with their trucks and like a lot of power in their vehicle.
So what’s my point? That celebrities and other notable people can be a great addition to a campaign – if they are a good fit. I wouldn’t want Pamela Anderson selling me life insurance. Thus, my vote is heck yeah, bring on the celebrity voiceovers, but don’t just hire on someone because they were in this season’s blockbuster. If there’s a disconnect between the product and the persona of the celeb, you’re just taking advantage of stardom and possibly leaving your audience confused.
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Over dinner recently, I found myself in a discussion about the importance of “policing” trademarks. The man who raised the subject described being chastised by a friend for misusing the brand name TiVo®. Their conversation had gone something like this:
“I really like that show. I always TiVo it.”
“But you don’t have a TiVo.”
“OK, no, it’s not literally a TiVo –– just a DVR.”
“Then you can’t say ‘TiVo.’ It’s trademarked.”
Technically speaking, the man’s friend is correct. Intellectual property –– such as a trademarked name –– can only be protected if it’s unique. Let it become too much a part of the common parlance, let come to stand for an entire group of products or services, and you can lose the right to own it.
But as I told my dinner companion, it’s a long way between “household name” and “generic term.” After all, when was the last time you covered a cut with an “adhesive bandage,” or blew your nose on a “facial tissue”? BAND-AID® and Kleenex® are excellent examples of brands that have become culturally pervasive, yet are still viable trademarks.
And don’t forget this: From a branding perspective, being a cultural icon is never a bad thing. In fact, most brand owners aspire to just the kind of category dominance that BAND-AID and Kleenex possess. Each time their names are used, it further promotes their market leadership –– and makes it that much harder for competitors to get a foothold.
So while TiVo no doubt keeps on eye on how their name is used, I’m pretty sure they’d be pleased to know they’re still the industry benchmark.
— Irene Westcott, Associate Creative Director
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Change. Over the past year Americans have learned to associate this single, simple word with hope, political reform, and a particular individual who promised both. Though the word is neither new, trademarked, nor rarely used, through successful marketing the word change has been universally associated with a single politician and his political ideals. While this is an example of a positive, effective, and universal word association, I have recently come across what I feel to be a less successful attempt. I recently saw this year’s holiday TV commercial from Macy's, and admittedly was not impressed. The commercial aims to highlight 150 years of Americans associating the department store as the best place to shop, particularly during the holidays. This is done through the use of old movie footage, clips from classic television, and footage of Macy’s sponsored holiday events. Call me bitter, but I am still not over Macy’s takeover of Marshall Field’s. I have always lived in Chicago and when I think of the holidays and holiday shopping, I will always think of Marshall Field’s, the holiday window displays, the giant tree, and the Walnut Room. In my opinion this nationally aired commercial didn’t effectively reach its goal, instead of evoking a universal feelings of familiarity and nostalgia, it reinforces Macy’s historic association as a New York staple. To master the use of word association as a marketing tool, the association must be universal among the audience to be successful.
Megan Warren, Media Coordinator
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Did you ever noticed how symbols created for certain reasons
were also used for other purposes as well? Groups have taken
symbols and other icons to represent themselves and let the world know who they
are by what they carry.This is how they branded themselves to be distinct.
Some symbols are used for nationality. For example, one good
example is the cloverleaf. It’s a plant but somehow it made its way to become a
symbol for Irish people. The same with a frog. The tiny green frog, the coqui, is used as well to
represent Puerto Ricans. These nationalities pride themselves on the symbols
they use on flags, shirts, accessories, and much more.
Symbols do not always represent countries and ethnic
backgrounds. It is used a lot in religion as well. For Christianity, the cross,
the fish, and dove are icons used to show the faith what they believe in. If
you saw any of these icons on their car, you would know what their believes are
based upon.
If you know your symbols well, you are intelligent
to know which ones you would wear without being misjudged by others on
what you are.
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I know that in times like these, my brand loyalty is constantly being tested. Whether I’m standing in the middle of the cosmetics or detergent aisle, I seem to second guess myself. “Do I go with the cheaper generic brand or the slightly more expensive and familiar brand? Do I go with the brand I know and I am used to?” Yes I know the generic brand is probably made at the same manufacturing plant as the pricier brand, and the same ingredients and labor are put into both, but it’s the brand loyalty that holds me back.
A recent Consumer Report surveyed over 1,000 women to see which products performed better – generic versus brand-name. They found that most of the generic brands performed better and cost less then their well-known, brand name competitors. For instance, Great Value laundry detergent from Wal-Mart did a bit better than Tide with a Touch of Downy. And store-brand dishwasher detergents from Wal-Mart and Target cleaned dishes as well as brand-name detergents, but cost a lot less.
One thing about the report that I found very interesting was that women, and I am guilty myself, are less wiling to switch from well-known brands of cosmetics and personal-care items, but 68% say they would go for over-the-counter medications. I am ok with battling a cold for a week or two, just as long as I have my Tresemmé moisture rich shampoo!
Katie, Gurney, Media Coordinator
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A key metric with online advertising efforts is lead generation, or the ability to produce an engaging message for which a potential customer would give their contact information. While generating leads, one really needs to take into account the quality of the leads and how best to utilize them to create a purchase.
Quality leads are necessary for success, because having a large quantity of unqualified leads does nothing more than flood a sales department with a pile of contacts to sort through (many of them useless). This in turn costs the company time and frustration. A best practice to employ when determining whom a lead gets passed along to is lead scoring.
Lead scoring assigns a point value to those that submit their contact information. The scale is generally 1 – 5, and the higher the lead score, the further along in the buying process, which means a greater immediate value to the advertiser. Lower score leads should nurtured rather than dismissed.
At this point, its time to decide which contact is best to work with the lead. Low score leads should go through the marketing team, as this is their chance to begin dialogue through e-mail blasts and newsletters with a potential new customer. High score leads should go to a sales team, allowing them the chance to verbally contact or personally e-mail the lead to begin the conversion process.
We are also able to optimize current campaigns and plan for future initiatives using the lead scoring data. Publishers that produce low score leads need to be evaluated to judge if they have the potential to be nurtured or if they are simply providing bad leads, in which case they should be canceled. Ultimately, the cost on a lower score lead should be less than the high score lead.
Dan Murray, Manager, Emerging Media
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With the recent economic slowdown, many companies are turning to a growth strategy that revolves around acquisitions. While there are a number of financial and strategic considerations around acquiring another company, there are also important brand considerations to keep in mind that can help companies make better acquisition decisions.
1. Know where you are and where you want be.
Ask yourself what, from a brand standpoint, is driving the acquisition. Is there a specific position in the marketplace that you don’t currently own but want to? Are you looking to shore up your current positioning? If you are seeking to buy your way into a market, are you targeting the proper point-of-entry? Knowing where you currently stand in the marketplace and where you want to be – and why – can help you make more informed decisions about what acquisition makes the most financial and brand sense.
2. Know your markets and players.
Once you know where you are and where you want to be, brand-wise, it’s time to strategize how to get there. It’s critical to have a good understanding of the needs – both met and unmet – of a market’s customers, and identify where your current positioning places you relative to those. If you are seeking to acquire a company to stake out new territory in the market, be sure that they are not positioned so differently from your brand that they cannot be integrated both operationally and perceptually into your enterprise.
3. Plan for Integration
As you are evaluating your acquisition targets, keep in mind how they would fit with your current brand, positioning and company culture. Consider how an acquisition would impact the perception of your company: would you be seen as the same type of firm, be perceived as moving incrementally in a new direction or would the acquisition completely change how customers and competitors view you?
Customer and distributor loyalty is also a critical consideration when planning how to integrate an acquisition, especially if the move results in an absorbsion or rebranding of the acquired company or your own enterprise.
4. Benchmark and Continue to Benchmark
Increased revenues are just one way to evaluate the relative success of an acquisition. Consider performing some research to benchmark and measure issues such as:
• Changes of customer perception of your company and the acquired one
• Distributor satisfaction with the new entity and/or offerings
• Employee engagement
• Management perceptions of company integration
It’s helpful to take measures of these types of things when the acquisition is announced, and then perform follow-up research at six, nine or twelve month intervals.
Keeping brand issues in mind when considering acquisitions provides an added layer of information that can result in more insightful company evaluations, better-informed decisions and
Mark Shevitz, Sr. Brand Manager
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As the U.S. auto industry experiences enormous stock decline, shifting advertising strategies may help steer away negative perception on how the auto industry spends money. Just the other day, I saw a full-page back cover ad in the Chicago Tribune for one of the begging for bailout money automakers. Realizing a full page is costly and un-targeted when running outside of the auto section, I questioned how the company justifies buying such an inefficient placement. I know that advertising is paramount in keeping – and hopefully building – the customer base for a business. But my question is: shouldn't the ad budget be used in a less expensive, and more importantly, an efficient way? This would still market the automobile and it would also communicate that the auto manufacturer understands that they have made poor marketing decisions in the past and are now seeking smarter solutions for their needs.
Dan Murray, Manager, Emerging Media
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With the presidential election fresh in our minds, I think it’s only appropriate to discuss nominating the right keyword suggestion tool for your search marketing initiatives.
A keyword suggestion tool allows you to type in a keyword and with the click of a button returns the relative number of times that keyword was searched in the search engines for in a given amount of time. In addition to the number of searches for that term, most keyword suggestion tools will give you related terms in the results.
When I say that these tools return a "relative number of times that keyword was searched for," I use the word "relative" very liberally. Some of the more popular keyword suggestion tools are Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery and Google Adwords Keyword Tool; and they can give you dramatically different results for the same keyword.
Unlike Google’s keyword tool, WordTracker and Trellian’s Keyword Discovery require a revolving fee. Both offer a free trial, which I highly suggest before choosing any of these tools. The cost of Keyword Discovery is roughly twice that of WordTracker, but it also has much more insight. Keyword Discovery tends to place more emphasis on seasonality of terms, giving you a better idea of the ups and down a keyword might have throughout the year; versus WordTracker, which gives you a daily estimate of the keyword, which you would need to multiply by 30 to calculate a rough idea of the number of searched for that term in a month. You can see from these descriptions how each tool can give you a decisively different result, depending on their algorithm.
Google’s keyword tool, on the other hand, is free and therefore attracts many marketers who are on a budget. This tool only pulls in results from Google-related engines, but I would have to believe that they are much more accurate. Although this tool doesn’t pull its data from a large pool of search engines like KD and WT, it’s an inexpensive way to get an idea of what’s happening in your market; especially considering that none of these tools are exact.
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Unlike the early days of web development there are now standards practiced when building websites. The closer a web browser adheres to these standards the easier it is to develop, update and maintain a website. Browsers such as Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome have all made great strides in becoming standards compliant. Microsoft’s browser Internet Explorer (IE), unfortunately, has had a pretty bad track record when it comes to this topic. Ask any web developer which browser has given them the most headaches over the past several years and I bet the majority, if not all, answer IE version 6 (IE6) – released back in 2001.
Why anyone in today’s online world would still insist on using a web browser over 7 years old is beyond me. Let’s add a little perspective here. The average American will upgrade their vehicle every 5 to 8 years, so by this account if you are using IE6 you might have owned two cars since it’s inception. Pretty sad when you consider the cost to upgrade a browser is literally nothing compared to the amount you would spend on a new car.
What I am driving at here (no pun intended) is that some people do not take their online experience as seriously as they should. The web has changed dramatically in just the past two years, let alone the past seven. Would you expect your seven year old car to run as reliable or efficient as a new one? No, of course not. Then why would one expect a cutting-edge “Web 2.0” website (more on this topic later) to work in an outdated, non-standards compliant browser?
You can check if your browser is standards compliant by taking the Acid2 test (www.webstandards.org/files/acid2/test.html) developed by the Web Standards Project (WaSP) back in 2005. If the version of your browser doesn’t smile at this test then it is imperative you either upgrade to a version that can, or change your browser altogether. The bad news for Microsoft is that their first release of IE to pass this test is version 8, which is still in beta! Users that insist on using IE should, at the very least, upgrade to version 7 until 8 becomes available.
Too much effort has been exhausted developing sites that will still work in non-compliant browsers. If we continue catering to the few percent of users who are too lazy or ignorant to upgrade to the latest strain of standard compliant browsers then we will be hindering the growth of the web. Websites can do a lot of cool and powerful things these days, so let’s focus our resources on the future and stop wasting time and money trying to make that old, gas-guzzling SUV run as smooth and efficient as a brand-new hybrid.
Jeff Jonjevic, Web Developer
