Monthly Archives: May 2016

May 31 2016
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Advertising, Insight

Anatomy of An Insight: Cornetto Commitment Rings

cornettocommitmentrings

My wife and I seldom quarrel, but when I started to watch Orange is The New Black alone without her, there was a heated exchange. Therefore this is brilliant execution tapping into current life of target audience:

Insight: The biggest time commitment you make in this digital world is the 10+ hours you decide to invest to a TV series. You should want to share those moments with your loved ones, but quite often the temptation to be the first trumps the consideration for your other half.

I am not exactly sure whether Cornetto exactly the right brand to do this, but idea is rooted on a true insight.

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May 30 2016
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Business, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Strategy

God´s Hand and The Art of Differentiation

On recent work trip to Tokyo, I stumbled upon these products in Don Quijote:

godshand

Guess which one I bought?

The role of marketing is to make the product/brand desirable. That is something that quite often is forgotten while marketers spend their efforts on creating the first ever “smart shoes” and other “innovation” projects. More often than not, brands should go back to the basics to make their products truly desirable:

Have memorable name: When I start working with the brand, I always try to find ways to differentiate. Other handgrips don´t even have name, but the hardest (70 kg) is called God´s hand. That already sets the tone that this product is not for the faint-hearted or the weak.

Catch the attention with striking visual: Other handgrips have normal people showing the product, the hardest of the handgrips has the gorilla. You should always separate your spearhead product from the others (with the name and the visuals).

Fulfill emotional not rational needs: Before entering the store I didn´t know I wanted handgrips. There is no rational reason for me to even improve my grip. Although I play basketball and do CrossFit, the grip has never been a concern for me. However, because I am vain guy (usually women don´t have this problem), I am sucker for things that tests your strength. After seeing this video, I had to immediately test one-finger dead lift. 70kg is totally arbitrary limit to handgrip because you don´t have baseline to compare. They could have named the 40kg product as the God´s hand and I would still be happy with the purchase. If you target people with competitive nature, there are no limits on how far they will go to win.

Double the price: You should try to get customers who want the best. God´s hand costs the double of the normal handgrip. I don´t know how much handgrips should cost but when I saw the product I just had to get it. The price didn´t play any role in buying the product. The initial price was something like 10 SGD, which is actually really cheap. They should have asked even more, I would have happily paid it.

I have been really happy with the product as well. I use it almost daily during my workday, especially if I am feeling pissed off about something (usually daily affair). The biggest enjoyment is when people visiting my desk try to grip the God´s hand and cannot. God´s hand is 10 SGD, but feeling stronger than your friends is priceless.

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May 23 2016
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Advertising, Insight, Strategy

Anatomy of An Insight: +46 771 793 336

swedish number

Insight: When thinking about travelling to other country, you don´t necessarily know how the people are like. What if you could talk to the people before you are booking your holiday? In the spirit of being the first country in the world to ban censorship Sweden enables you to have unfiltered conversations with swedes, just because they can.

That number above works, but it is regarded as international call so you might need to pay for the privilege. Thus far there have been already over 150k calls and callers from 182 countries. As a Finn, cannot say anything else but Swedes beat us again (luckily we were better in ice hockey this year).

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May 10 2016
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Advertising, Marketing Strategy, Strategy

Advertising Can Make Even Baby Carrots Desirable

babycarrots

The fact is that majority of brands and products are boring. Being boring is a challenge, because your brand will not be noticed. You are not competing against the other products and brands in category, you are competing of mindspace of your consumer which is increasingly filled with Netflix, Snapchat and other way more interesting things than you brand.

The main role for advertising is to sell more products and how you do it is by making your product more interesting, desirable and thus noticed. Rational arguments don´t really work. Every smoker knows that he would need to quit. You know that you should hit the gym. And you know that carrots are healthy, but you still choose to munch on chips because they just taste good.

This campaign from few years back is a brilliant example of the true power of advertising. You have a great product, but it has an image problem. You fix it by going totally overboard. You appeal to heart. You beg, borrow and steal from other categories. You are bold. You make that product differentiated and interesting. If your category is boring, you reframe your whole category. You do what you are supposed to do:

If advertising industry has identity problem right now, it is because we have lost our focus on making the brands we work with desirable. We have gone too deep in rabbit hole of championing social causes or doing unnecessary technological innovations, that we have forgotten why we exist in the first place.

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May 04 2016
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Digital Strategy, Insight

The Thin Line Between Serving or Screwing You Up

“The easier you make the refund process, the more refunds happen”
–Morgan Hermand-Waiche (CEO, Adore Me)

You could sell almost anything with subscription model. The dilemma for the company is how difficult or easy you make it to opt-out. On the one hand you don´t want be regarded as a fraud by having too difficult billing scheme. On the other hand, you don´t want to make it too easy to get away from the program either.

“Any recurring billing scheme is problematic from a customer service standpoint unless you err on the side of the customer even when you may not be legally obligated to.”
-Sucharity Mulpuru (Forrester research)

The ugly truth of business is that majority of our loyalty is actually laziness. The best situation is that you truly love your subscription service and it gives a great diversity and value (e.g. Spotify, NetFlix, your gym and other entertainment services). Quite often your subscription is quite boring and if you could end your subscription right now with one-touch of button you would do it. But because there is no that button, you keep on going on because it is ok.

The perception of difficulty is sometimes more valuable than being truly difficult.

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May 03 2016
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Advertising, Planning, Strategy

Vodka From A Village and The Secret of a Great Brand Film

finlandialessordinary

I hate majority of brand films. They just revisit same old clichés and not even the employees get kick out of them:

The false deduction would be to conclude that if majority is shit, everything is. Brand film, when done well, can be truly uplifting experience. It can put your brand´s stake in the ground and convey your attitude in a manner that resonates both to your consumers and your employees.

This rebranding of Koskenkorva is a great example of a good brand film. The product consists of water and barley. It is coming from a small village. It is Finnish and we don´t brag or boast. The understated tone actually oozes confidence and in a minute shows what the brand stands for. Brilliant stuff from Bob The Robot:

Finnish vodka brands seem to have learnt something during the years, because the following example is from Finlandia vodka. Whereas Koskenkorva is the rural and rustic everyday drink, Finlandia has always been a little bit upscale. Upscale in Finland meaning still that you have weird attitude that other markets don´t understand. This is a brand film that is built around the desired attitude of the brand. After seeing this you are hyped up to grab a bottle of vodka and try your new deadlift record (this is done by W+K London):

Great brand film:

1) Tells something interesting about brand.
2) Is something that only your brand can do
3) Makes you feel something
4) Looks good (there is no such thing as lo-fi brand film)

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