For those who may be interested, this chart is based on the AdAge Power 150,
10.7.09
THE UK'S TOP MARKETING WEBLOGS
Big Winners at Cannes
“The Store that Sells Hope” for the Portuguese Red Cross was a multiple winner as was “Let It Ring” from Happiness, Brussels.
So, you can be disappointed in one media form but find happiness in another. Proximity London had high hopes for RNLI in Direct, but it barely scratched the surface, yet hurrah hurrah it won a Silver in Media.
Convergence is getting confusing and expensive.
Look at the PR Grand Prix, Best Job in the World for the Queensland Tourism Board from CumminsNitro Brisbane. It was also the Grand Prix in Direct. Probably the only reason it didn’t win Gold in Promo was because they didn’t enter it.
As Pablo Alzugaray, CEO of Shackleton, and the top agency for Direct at the Festival, said once, in Cannes you get the opportunity to buy several different juries for your work.
Not cheap but it will help them to a 3rd successive year at the top of The Won Report, no doubt.
Among the Promo Lions, Zuji Beans from Happy Soldiers, Sydney, was a shoo-in.
The Magic salad Plate from Clemenger BBDO Australia got a huge laugh in the auditorium when it was shown on Monday night.
But a personal favourite was Proximity BBDO Belgium’s “Baby Made On Board” campaign for the Dodge Journey. To demonstrate how much space it had in the back, they invited couples to come and have a bonk in the boot. Any couple who had a baby exactly nine months later would get a Dodge free.
In Direct, the big cheer of the night went to “Axion Banner Concerts” from Boondoggle Leuven, also in Belgium.
As Steve Aldridge also noted, “What’s with Belgium this year?” It’s a little country with a great big stack of metal so far.
A big favourite at The Big Won since it won Gold at EPICA is “Car Dance Party” for Toyota by Happiness Brussels, who must be ecstatic.
JWT Japan won the Grand Prix for Kit-Kat.
Hmmm. Not the people’s choice judging from some of the muttering in the Palais. More mutterings because the radio jury were tight with the gongs this year. A Grand Prix for NetworkBBDO Johannesburg for Virgin Atlantic, a Gold for the National Thoroughbred Racing Association from Devito/Verdi, New York, two silvers and five bronzes.
It would have been a short presentation ceremony.
More to shout about at the Outdoor awards where TBWA Hunt Lascaris won the Grand Prix with a campaign for The Zimbabwean newspaper, the posters printed on worthless Zimbabwean bank-notes because “it’s cheaper than paper”.
More to come later in the week.
CMD Selection: Cream of CMD
CMDglobal is preparing for a complete transformation. Having spent four years building a fantastic repository of case studies, it is time to evolve. We have invested heavily in a next-generation online service, Cream, which will replace CMD next month.
Building on the repository of case studies we have from CMDglobal.com, the new site will also feature daily news and analysis, ‘How to…’ guides, expert opinion, reports and industry research.
In addition to this, Cream will have a dramatically enhanced search function, more video and community tools which allow for ease of sharing marketing insight. There will also be a number of exciting tools including the Creativity Index, which benchmarks agencies according to their creative output and a Competitor Tracker, which allows users to gauge the quality of media innovation and engagement within rival brands.
As CMD prepares to undergo a radical transformation, we look back at the database to find the best examples of media innovation, branding bravery, non-traditional employment of “traditional” media and how creativity can deliver great ROI.
All of these and much, much more will be housed in Cream, The Innovation Exchange.
Simple ideas
Media innovation doesn’t have to be high-tech
Kolestone (FREE)
Koleston Naturals hair colorant uses the sky to provide natural colour to a billboard cut-out, with beautiful results.
Think laterally about what you consider a media platform
Don’t drink and drive
Race horse changes name and racing strip to become a four-legged advertisement for a campaign against drink driving. The stunt benefits from racing page listings, commentator mentions and on screen listings.
Great insight can result in a very simple but effective execution
Northwest Airlines
Northwest Airlines reached high flyers in their offices by branding the inside of the window cleaning carts that are used to keep the glass spick and spam.
Turn the medium into the message
Axe
A peel away costume on the model on the cover of Soho magazine gave the target market a real feel for the Axe effect.
Technology-driven campaigns
Mobile money map
ING (FREE)
ING helps cash-seeking consumers track down their nearest ATM via there mobile camera viewfinder.
You don’t always have to be first, but it helps
Nike
Way before the iPhone was invented, Nike creates an enormous billboard “app” that allowed people to design their own shoe and then order it on their mobile.
Enhance engagement with a two-pronged attack
Orange
Orange targets consumers with personalized messages delivered simultaneously online and on their mobile.
Content wears the crown
Ensure value for consumers and brand with truly relevant content
Dove (FREE)
Dove finds a perfect content fit to take its 'Real Beauty' message to China with TV show Ugly Betty.
Create spreadable content and reap the rewards
Blentec
An entertaining viral demonstration leads to a 650% rise in sales for kitchen blender.
Bring a product to life through partnership
Simpsons Movie
7-Eleven employs reverse product placement in a promotion for The Simpsons Movie.
The big campaign ideas
Find a brand platform that transcends the product
Haagen-Dazs (FREE)
Haagen-Dazs raises awareness about the crucial role of bees in the creation of natural flavours and launches a campaign to combat the threat of Colony Collapse Disorder
Be the brand to bring people together
Pedigree
Don't walk your dog alone. Pedigree creates the date-a-dog website to allow walkers to link up across Germany.
Bring your brand to life through the line
Death Proof
After flopping in America, Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof achieved a strong opening weekend in Sweden thanks to a real-life ‘Death Proof’ taxi service.
Think big and create a cultural movement
BBC Worldwide Trust
A campaign to remove the stigma about condom usage in India gets people to say the word out loud.
Advertiser as service
Save consumers' time and effort
Cadbury Dairy Milk (FREE)
Cadbury provides a service that allows students to receive their exam results on their mobile, rather than having to go and look at public noticeboards.
Invest in providing services to cement a positioning
Philips
Philips promotes its Healthcare division by developing a queue ticketing system for Chinese hospitals that cuts hours off patient waiting times.
Stunts
Ensure your stunts truly communicate your brand message
Adidas (FREE)
High above the streets of Tokyo Adidas created a game of vertical football with two players and the ball attached to ropes to communicate “Impossible is Nothing”.
And finally, if in doubt, create an enormous phallus
Tulipan
For World Aids Day Tulipan covered the Obilisk in Buenos Aires in pink rubber. The promotion was publicised by local radio stations.
Brand re-starting
That was the route of Savannah, Georgia basedLeopold’s Ice Cream, which was restarted by Stratton Leopold, a movie producer. The original Leopold’s was a shop founded in 1919 by his father, and counted folks like Johnny Mercer as customers.
Leopold is a prominent film director, and restarted the shop in August of 2004. It has been a big success. Of course, ice cream is a food dripping in nostalgia, so an old ice cream brand is a really safe category of brand to revive. In fact, this is an excellent category for revival as many local dairies have shut down and the names are available. Leopold just happened to love his father’s business, and so naming it was a natural.
If you, like Leopold, want to consider re-opening up an old local brand name, here are seven considerations.
- If it is a family name, be careful. While Colonial Williamsburg restarted old eponymous taverns like Christiana Campbell’s and Chowning’s, it did so 150 years later, where there was no possibility of confusion with original owners or descendants. In the case of Leopold’s, he had a claim on the name because that was his name. Consult a good intellectual property lawyer for help; even if they don’t represent you, paying for some face time can save aggravation. The key idea is Likelihood of Confusion (also the name of a fine blog by attorney Ron Coleman); if the desired name is likely to be confused with a another entity, you need to consider carefully how you position it. Nevertheless, if a brand has been abandoned, that means it is available. Do a search online with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. While USPTO doesn’t have that many local brands registered (most relied on common law protections) you would do well to see what other variations of your name are out there. Also look to see if the URL is available; many are taken. If the family is prominent, offer them a nominal role for lending their support to the project.
- Mine local history books and museums for ideas. In Richmond, entrepreneurs restarted the Commercial Cafe, which was an iconic restaurant in that Virginia city. The restaurant’s image an iconography was made relevant again in the 1970s, as a photo of the front of the restaurant appeared in a local history book, and everyone became familiar with the name again, as if it had never disappeared. Old City Directories, newspapers and the like are also good sources for ideas. And even if you don’t pick one, you can see some of the local history of your business category, and learn a bit as you position your own company.
- Consider a variation on the name. If the original name was The Pines Restaurant, call it The New Pines Restaurant.
- Take the name of the building. Restaurants do this with previous uses of buildings; in New York, I recall a restaurant that was called Mexico Next to Texaco. In Charlottesville, the C&O Restaurant is named after the railroad and is located near the tracks. In Richmond, the Miller & Rhoads department store is now condos and a Lucky Strike factory is apartments, each bearing the name of the brand.
- Revive products that were beloved. If there was a restaurant with old recipes that were popular, consider using some of the old recipes at the new restaurant. For instance, if you see a crab cake recipe from an old restaurant in a local cookbook, put it on the menu of your new restaurant. Describe that the dish was “based on the beloved crab cakes of Sue’s Seafood Hut.” While some folks might recall the original, most who never tasted it at the original restaurant will want to try it for novelty’s sake. If it is good, then you have won them over, and your dish suddenly becomes a local institution.
- Some categories work better with nostalgia than others. Retail, restaurants and consumer products seem to be the best candidates for reviving an old brand name, as the consumer naturally trusts things that have been around for a long time.
- Education and institutional brands can be revived. Norfolk Academy, the prep school in Virginia, was originally founded in 1728, but the school lapsed for decades. It was revived as a new institution in the 20th century, and assumed the mantle of the original idea. The College of William and Mary also shut down for a time after the Civil War, and then re-opened in the 1880s. The buildings were still around, and they just restarted the school when the economy improved.
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