Category Archives: Marketing Strategy

Apr 23 2015
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Advertising, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning

Fight for Your Balls

fightforyourballs

Regular readers of my blog know my appreciation of lowbrow humor and brands who take piss out of everything.

That is why I am a strong supporter for the Norwegian underwear brand Comfyballs. Lately they have been fighting US patent office, because they cannot register their name because it is considered “vulgar”. The reason for that being:

In the context of the applicant’s goods… Comfyballs means only one thing – that a man’s testicles, or ‘balls,’ will be comfortable in the applicant’s undergarments.
The mark does not create a double entendre or other idiomatic expression.
When used in this way, the word, ‘balls’ has an offensive meaning.

I wish more brand, would be as clear as Comfyballs.

Their main product benefit is in their brand name. Double entendre would actually be more offensive, because you try to hide something. Comfyballs is truly honest brand and not hiding behind marketing jargon. When you wear them your balls will be comfortable, because their patented design PackageFront™ reduces heat transfer and restricting movement. There is not anything offensive of having comfortable underwear, on the contrary. Using badly designed underwear when jogging is a truly offense to your crown jewels.

Comfyballs has not just been scratching their balls, but also actually risen to a challenge and they are trying to get their name registered officially in US. They launched the site “Fight for Your Balls” and also created video to celebrate comfortable balls:
Comfyballs has not just scratched their balls, but also actually risen to a challenge and they are trying to get their name registered officially in US. They launched the site “Fight for Your Balls” and also created video to celebrate comfortable balls:

Legalize Comfyballs from Fantefilm on Vimeo.

Naturally the ad was banned in YouTube (those US hypocrites), but again more buzz for the brand. At least the visitors in the site seem to be in their favor.

immoralballs

There are things in the life you should fight for, your balls are one of them.

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Mar 31 2015
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Business, Marketing Strategy, Strategy

Strategy is Making The Choice

Roger Martin sums up beautifully what strategy is:

The very essence of strategy is explicit, purposeful choice.

Strategy is saying explicitly, proactively: “We’re going to do these things and not those things for these reasons.”

You only know that you’ve made a real strategic choice if you can say the opposite of what that choice is, and it’s not stupid.

This is the reason why so many brands fail. They are too afraid to make choices. If you are not premium and if you are not cost-cutter, you fall in the middle. And being in the middle is not a choice, it is indecisiveness.

Choices are not always easy. Making a choice is making a sacrifice. But you have also the opportunity to gain something. If you don´t make a choice you end up with nothing.

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Mar 19 2015
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Advertising, Marketing Strategy, Strategy

Budweiser: The Prime Example of Daddy Brand

What to do when you have become a daddy brand?

If I would need to name iconic US beer, previously I would have said Budweiser. Bland, boring and easy to drink (pretty much same applies to Finnish beers, not to mention Bud Light). Recently when I think about US beers, the first thing that comes to my mind are all the awesome craft beers, which have been hit Budweiser surprisingly hard especially with millennials. Actually 44% of drinkers aged 21 to 27 have never tasted Budweiser. This is a challenge for Budweiser. If you don´t cultivate new users, eventually you will become meaningless.

Their latest social experiment was a nice execution to attract the new users. If you have not tasted Budweiser, you do not necessarily have any idea how it tastes. This ad exposes Budweiser in new light. Does not ridicule or make fun of hipsters, just gives the good old surprise & delight:

Budweiser´s Superbowl ad went to a totally wrong direction in my opinion. ALthough I am always in favor of taking strong stance in your advertising, ridiculing people who could potentially be your consumers is not wise:

The message is strong, but it feels quite redneck as well. It probably appeals to current Budweiser heavy drinkers, but would it pave new way for the brand. Also we know that where beer growth is stagnant, the craft beers and import beers are growing. Would Budweiser start ridiculing foreigners, because US beer consumers want to drink Pilsner Urquell rather than old boring Budweiser?

Even though you drink craft beers, you are likely to drink regular average beers as well. Would you choose the brand that ridicules your hobby and passion? The strong stance Budweiser takes is also sign of weakness. The best way to address your competition if your bigger player is to ignore them. No one roots for Goliath going against David. It gives those Davids also ammunition to go on offensive (and craft breweries are the real challenger brands):

One thing is for certain, craft beers are not fad anymore. Where the regular beer market is shrinking, craft beers are growing and already contribute 11% of Beer market in US and the number still keeps growing. It keeps growing so fast, that total craft beer market share trumps Budweiser. No wonder, that Budweiser is afraid. Naturally Budweiser is way bigger than biggest craft breweries (there is not really any independent craft brewery in top 20 of the most popular beers), so their decision to go against smaller breweries is mind-boggling. Addressing the challenger makes you look weaker, especially if you do not have good alternative. People love underdog stories, but the underdog story has to be believable. The biggest brewery in US is not a likely underdog.

The decline for Budweiser has not only come from craft beers and imports. The biggest beer in US is Bud Light, and it has cannibalized regular Budweiser sales as well. Maybe Budweiser should make ads to ridicule light beer drinkers as well?

Their challenge is simple:
“(Budweiser is) mostly to older gentlemen and country kids. Our clientele likes the craft beers.”
Jessica Dewey, Bar Owner

So Budweiser has to make a choice. Do they try to attract millennials and ditch those horses as well? Or will they slowly let the brand deteriorate to daddy brand while their parent company buys craft breweries to attract the millennials? Then they can hope that the next generation of hipsters will find Budweiser charmingly retro like Pabst Blue Ribbon.

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Mar 17 2015
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Business, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning

Much Ado About Meerkat

“Those sorts of consumer shifts used to take years or decades, but now they can happen in months or weeks or days, and we’re becoming accustomed to that idea”
– Ian Bogost, game designer

Have you heard about Meerkat?

Don´t worry, you might not even need to.

The hype cycle of new apps gets faster at every moment. I heard about Meerkat couple of weeks ago, this week it has been all the talk of the SXSW town and now it has already been declared dead.

Meerkat is essentially live-streaming app, which used heavily the social graph of Twitter and allowed you to connect to your Twitter connetions in Meerkat. Twitter has already blocked this fun, in conjuction of buying similar app called Periscope. Hence, Meerkat suffered a blow and in the world of tech news hyper babble that blow is naturally deadly.

I was not excited about Meerkat, when I heard about it. I didn´t and don´t recognize the novelty or appeal in the app. Opportunity to livestream is nothing new. When I was working in MySpace, we collaborated with Bambuser, which pretty much was Meerkat with MySpace-era user experience. There are currently many streaming apps available, like the one Twitter just acquired.

So nothing new under the sun, been there done that.

After that comment I can declare that I have officially become an old fart. A person who thinks he has seen anything in his life and can´t just wait to tell that “we tried it already in 2008 and it didn´t work then”. Old farts are the biggest obstacles of any innovation, because the old farts have seen it all. They have also innovated it all. Unfortunately, those innovations have happened only in their heads.

That horrible vision made me think Meerkat again.

The idea can fail for many reasons, but always the reason is not that the idea is bad. iPad was not the first tablet. Facebook was not the first social network. Idea can fail in so many phases, that you cannot really judge the initial idea. Ideas are not unique, executed ideas can be. Technology improves so fast, that the ability to do user-friendly and enticing live-streaming app is totally different than couple of years ago. Maybe 2015 is just the right time to launch live-streaming app. Executing idea is also just one thing, how do you market it and make it sexy is the other thing. Meerkat has been at least way more effective with their PR and hype machine than their competitors.

My opposition against Meerkat is that I do not see live streaming behavior taking off. To be honest, I did not see that Snapchat would evolve to be a legit app beyond teens sending their nude photos to strangers. I can also admit that I was wrong. Although it is easier to latch onto existing behavior, technology can also create new behavior. That we are glued into our smartphones is quite new behavior in history of human race. I don´t think that no one predicted exactly that to happen.

We are obsessed with new.

Meerkat has had disproportionate amount of hype, because media wants a new social media phenomenon. Old farts criticize it, because it is not new enough. Somewhere between the overhype of media (and tech hipsters in SXSW) and underhype of old farts is the truth. Which is: essentially no one really knows what will happen with Meerkat. But it is interesting to see.

You cannot ever evaluate the success of technology when it is hyped and brand new. The true stress test is when technology has become old and boring. That is when they start to make business sense.

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Mar 16 2015
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Advertising, Business, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Strategy

Training Hard Makes You More Human

“We are not encouraging people to just run faster for the sake of being faster. We are saying that ultimately you will be able to enjoy life if you take the time to cater to your own humanity.”
–Matt O´Toole (Reebok President)

Reebok has been a really interesting brand lately.

Their commitment to fitness has been a bold move and also makes perfect sense (as we have to also bear in mind that Reebok is owned by Adidas). Especially there has been tremendous growth in “tough fitness” which includes crossfit, martial arts and other “more demanding than your regular Zumba”-activities. What started out as a niche exercise has become now mainstream and everyone is flipping tires these days: me as well.

During the latest Super Bowl, Reebok launched their new brand belief piece “Be More Human”:

I like it (mainly because I am part of target audience). Also because the message Reebok conveys is part of my whole life philosophy. I don´t eat to live, I don´t train to live. I live to train & eat. Sports is not just a way to prevent your inevitable physical deterioration, it also strengthens you mentally and socially.

Training hard improves you as a person. Competing against others makes you tougher but it is also social. I have learned more from teamwork, leadership and grit from basketball court than from work. When you push it to the limits in sports, you are more likely to be able to push it to the limits with other things as well.

And that belief I heartily endorse.

The other reason why Reebok´s message is compelling is that it is not for all. Reeboks has made a deliberate decision to be exclusive. Their core focus is in tough fitness and quite hardcore training with blood, blisters, sweat, snot, tears and tear down. Whereas the usual scared brand advertiser would have expanded the target audience and showed people doing all the mundane fitness moves and have message about how “fitness is for everyone”, Reebok kept the focus. Reebok is for those who train hard (or think they train hard, like me). The almost brutal nature of their ads is refreshing compared to the touchy-feely lifestyle-routes the majority of sports brands have chosen.

“We’re confident that when we push ourselves, we not only transform our bodies, we transform our entire lives.”
Matt O´Toole

That brings us to the last point. They are expanding, but they are promoting the whole category of tough fitness (which can basically mean quite diverse things) and training hard. Their message resonates naturally to those who currently are sport freaks, but it also has appeal to people who push themselves in other things in life. Showcasing the more “holistic” (in the lack of better word) benefits of intense exercise, they collaborated with scientist David McRaney and created the Human score to calculate your level of humanness:

It is a human nature to be a sucker for tests and I could not wait to test my humanness. I was luckily still more close to human than android. “Brain buff” also sounds like a new upcoming fad term like spornosexual:

brainbuff

As part of the campaign there is also a selfie competition (because no brand is perfect) and some other infographics about how training affects your brain.

Reebok is at least having tight focus on what they are doing. I believe that it will also pay off, if they have the perseverance and patience to follow their daring brand belief through.

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Jan 20 2015
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Advertising, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning, Strategy

Rethink Your Marketing Research

Majority of brands are doing research wrong. They spend all their efforts with focus groups, where “target audience” is overanalyzing ad storyboards in conditions that could not be more removed from the reality where those ads really are seen. In addition to focus, there is also qualitative research where the same “target audience” lies to their heart´s content about how they care about sustainability, ethicality but in reality only care about the price.

Don´t get me wrong. Right research is essential to successful marketing. Majority of brands would benefit with constant testing and research in the marketplace. You should be able to change advertising assets based on their actual performance in the media. Yes, it requires a little bit more production budget but will result in better success rate. Although there has been quite a lot talk about optimization, it is still surprising that how few brands and brand managers do the effort to measure, optimize and improve. It is just so much more convenient to blow up the money on useless focus groups.

Research is a powerful tool if we approach it differently. Where boring background research is generally reserved to the beginning of the project and happily forgotten by the time there is the creative development is on its full swing, you could actually make research integral part of your advertising. No need to be too scientific or cerebral about it:

Research is essentially just finding things out.

How you find things out is not limited to traditional methods. With digital tools we have more agile ways to do research and figure things up. Don´t let the bad image of current market research stop you. Be more of a mad scientist, less a census data collector and get your hands dirty with the research. On the right hands research can be a powerful creative tool and not just requisite tick in the box.

Great example about this is Shave Test by Gillette. Gillette could have done the usual boring qualitative study and ask women how they feel about beard. When asking someone for an opinion, you always give her opportunity to lie. Therefore observation is always better than asking. Therefore women might have been tempted to say that they love beards, because all the hipsters around sporting their beardos clouded their judgment. Regardless of the truthfulness of the answer, the guys could not have cared less. It would just have been another boring research piece that brands do all the time and no one really notices.

So instead of opting for boring, Gillette collaborated with Tinder for the rogue research. Right swipe in Tinder has become a unified standard for sex appeal. So Gillette and Tinder tested, which get more right swipes: bearded or well-groomed guys. The results were probably not that surprising to women, maybe a little bit to all bearded hipsters out there. You can watch highlights on the video below or get more detailed results in the campaign website:

How many times have come out with exciting creative from your focus groups?

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Jan 19 2015
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Business, Insight, Marketing Strategy

ScootBiz Bidding: Gamification That Works

Gamification used to be the trendy buzzword couple of years back. Although industry hot shots are not raving about it anymore, the main idea makes still perfect sense. Gamification is making boring tasks fun, rewarding and immersive (not necessarily even game-like i.e. frequent flier programs).

Small example of this came from Scoot airlines, with whom I was flying last weekend. Little bit before my flight I got a mail from Scoot, which gave me an opportunity to bid for business class seats. I could set my own price and if my bid would be successful, I would get business class seats:

Screen Shot 2015-01-19 at 4.23.17 PM

This is a brilliant idea for two quite obvious reasons:

1. The opportunity makes the thief

My main concern when selecting budget airline is price, price and price. I would never book so calle ScootBiz in normal circumstances as my mindset is minimizing the investment. However, given the opportunity to bid on those Scootbiz seats, it felt different case. The price for economy class was already sunken cost, so I evaluated the opportunity to “win” those seats in new light. Bidding is an attention grabbing, active and addictive way to get people to spend more. It is likely that bidding also makes you spend more than you had thought, because it feels “risk-free” investment. You set your own maximum, which you are willing to spend. What many people do not realize that every price you set is already in addition to what you were first willing to spend. They also show “the strength” of your bid, which naturally prompts you to bid higher.

2. Only upside for Scoot

As you offer the bidding opportunity for those who have already booked their tickets you can wait to sell those seats until last minute. In best case scenario they might get even more money than normally. At its worse, they still get something. No matter what price Scoot gets from the bidding process, it is still better than no price at all.

Simple ideas are always the strongest.

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Jan 15 2015
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Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning, Strategy

Anatomy of An Insight: This Girl Can

This could almost be Nike ad (that is highest compliment for an ad I have)

Insight: There is currently a gender gap in sports in UK. The amount of females doing sports is only 66% compared to men. One of the main reasons holding women back is the fear of judgment (apparently guys do not fear it). Women think that other people in gym are semiprofessional low body fat athletes, when in reality everyone can benefit and enjoy from doing sports.

You should not also think about how you look when doing sports, because every one looks stupid when doing sports. Case-in-point: the all-time greatest basketball player Michael Jordan:

michael jordan tongue wag

Michael Jordan and his trademark tongue wag

More important is that when repeated enough times, doing sports makes you look better afterwards.

Will this ad change the sports habits of UK women?

Not solely. It is a great rally cry and provides inspiration for women to take on sports. The usage of regular women in the Nike-esque ad powerfully conveys the message, that everyone can do sports. That is important starting point and good kickstarter for the habit hange

Inspiration is not really enough to change a habit. It is a main component in motivation, but you also have to make sure to address cue, routine and reward to make it stick. Therefore it is interesting to see will “This Girl Can”-campaign play solely on inspiration space or will it expand to even more concrete actions.

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Jan 13 2015
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Advertising, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning, Strategy

Newcastle Brown Ale, No Bollocks and The Importance of Consistent Brand Behavior

We are approaching Super Bowl, which is tremendous for ad aficionados (not necessarily for sales, though). During the last year´s Super Bowl, the favorite ad I had was actually one that did not even air at the actual commercial break.

Every brand tries to be a part of big event and competes against limited amount of attention, which is really focused on the actual game. In reality there is more exposure to be had by exploiting an event in the outskirts where the other brands do not dare to venture. They are playing safe and being scared of doing anything out of ordinary. This creates a great opportunity for the bold ambush marketer. Tap into big events and sponsorship, but try not to pay for it, is my motto.

That motto was followed by Newcastle Brown Ale last year with these highly entertaining ads piggybacking Super Bowl ad craze:

The Teaser for The Trailer for Newcastle´s Mega Huge Football Game AD

The Mega Huge Football Game Ad Newcastle Could´ve Made

Rest of the videos can be seen on the campaign site and here is the full case study of the success of the campaign:

I have had debates about the campaign (which is usually good sign, seldom you even notice a campaign, thus argue about it). Does it really fit with Newcastle Brown Ale brilliant brand promise? Their approach has been all about “No Bollocks” which means avoiding the usual beer ad clichés. Their pseudo super bowl ad is essentially in its post-modern sarcasm and ad irony is, well, bollocks. Sometimes you have to point out that you are not bollocks by first demonstrating what the bollocks is. In these ads by showing the beer ad bollocks clichés, Newcastle takes the higher ground by using parody and rises above the bollocks. That´s some serious philosophy right there. Not to mention that the ads are truly the dog´s bollocks.

Consistent brand behavior is not about repeating the same line over and over again. That is just an attempt to bore you into buying. Great brand behavior has strong brand belief (like No Bollocks) that manifests itself in everything or whatever the brand does. Therefore you don´t have to repeat “No Bollocks” if you show and demonstrate what no bollocks –attitude means. Being an underdog is also about the attitude. Newcastle Brown Ale is able to portray challenger underdog mentality, even though they are owned by big beer behemoth Heineken.

Consistent brand behavior also means that you stay true to your course. Quite often brands change their direction too often, although their current approach just started to work. After the success of last year´s Super Bowl Newcastle Brown Ale continues with the same brand behavior and similar tone. Not buying Super Bowl ad, but tapping into this biggest advertising showcase in the world. This time they are trying to “crowdsource” ad with some other brands, because they do not have budget to buy super bowl slot:

Newcastle Brown Ale also tapped into one of the most famous ad properties around Super Bowl (Doritos Crash The Super Bowl) and made their own “Doritos” ad:

Internet does not like sequels, but their approach showcases unique brand consistency, which is rare nowadays. More importantly the ads are funny as well.

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Jan 07 2015
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Business, Digital Strategy, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning, Strategy

Skiplagged Sends Airlines to Hell

This week seems to be all about airlines and flight industry.

From Skiplagged website:

Update: Dec 30, Skiplagged is facing significantly higher than normal traffic. Please try again later if you encounter any issues–you will be amazed. Thanks.

The odds that you had heard about Skiplagged before Orbitz & United Airlines sued them last November are quite slim. After that, their visitor count has skyrocketed through the roof. Sometimes all publicity is good publicity.

Lesson #1: Getting sued is a great way for free promotion

Skiplagged effectively helps you to find cheap flights by using “hidden city ticketing”. The direct flight from Singapore to Helsinki can be more expensive than the flight from Singapore to Paris with stopover in Helsinki. Then you just hop over in Helsinki and just don´t use the last flight. This is only recommend to one-way flights because usually your ticket is cancelled afterwards. I have not (yet) tried out hidden-city ticketing, but I have done throwaway ticketing once. It just feels completely odd that if you want to travel one-way you have to pay double the price of return ticket. Actually when I did it, I did not even know that it was not approved. Aktarer Zaman, the founder of Skiplagged explains:

When you are searching for tickets, your market is just to go from this city to this city to this city. And you are shown a price. You are buying this flight when you are buying a ticket. So this is a service you are buying in. Consumers should have the right to partially use the services they buy.

I agree to most extend with the sentiment in here: when you buy something you should also decide not to use it. Not to mention that sometimes you are forced to not use the flights. There are certain arguments that using these loopholes in large scale might increase the costs of airline travel. It might also hurt smaller airline destinations as well. Eventually I feel it is quite fair game though. Airlines try to maximize the money out of us; meanwhile we are doing the opposite. In the bigger picture I think they are in better position to screw us over.

Lesson #2: Digital makes your business model eventually more transparent

Doing different airline booking ploys has been around longer than Skiplagged, but it naturally has done it faster and more effective. Exploiting these loopholes is definitely not illegal, but in can result in losing your loyalty program points. Based on the increased interest to Skiplagged and rising popularity of budget airlines this does not seem to be the a big concern for the majority of users. Consumers are not essentially stupid and millions of loyalty programs and cards have just led to more disloyalty. Also it has lead to increased focus on price especially with airlines.

I was just talking with one friend who mentioned that even with their corporate discounts with major commercial airline, it is still cheaper for the company to fly short-haul with budget airlines. And so they are doing. Consumers are doing the same. Flying has become so commoditized that you do not really care what airline you are flying if is deemed relatively safe.

Lesson #3: Price trumps the loyalty for the majority of consumers

After the lawsuit, Aktarer Zaman put up a crowdfunding-site up to cover up the upcoming legal bills. He has already raised over 60k. The response has been overwhelmingly positive for Skiplagged and quite vicious towards the airlines. One person donated $666 dollars and commented: “send them to hell”.

Lesson #4: People hate airlines

It is interesting to see how this will pan out, but again this a manifestation that no business is “safe” from digitalization. If there is a market fault, it is just easier and faster to point it out and also solve it digitally. That might create a totally new business as well. In the case of Skiplagged, it will be a zero-sum game. Either one will win. Time will tell will the Skiplagged send airlines to hell or will they sue Skiplagged to death.

Lesson #5: Always keep evolving

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