Trojan::: "Hard Times"

Brand: Trojan Condoms
Agency: The Kaplan Thaler Group
Review Date: March 24, 2009
Everyone is talking about the horrific economy, so it shouldn't be all that surprising that Trojan is getting in the game, offering assistance in these dark times with its own "stimulus package.
" Sex makes everything better! A new commercial breaking this week opens with the patriotic image of an eagle against the backdrop of the American flag.
As the music swells, the voiceover informs viewers that the company is offering its own stimulus package "to help America cope," the Pleasure Pack. And then comes the bes moment in the spot, when the voiceover wraps up the pitch with the line, "Because we believe we should ride out these hard times together."
You know someone's been dying to get that line on air since all the talk of stimulating the economy began. And you can almost hear the target chuckling in response. Probably the most unique economic play yet.

Skype::: Largest Long-Distance Phone Company

TeleGeography says that cross-border telephone traffic grew 14 percent in 2007 and is estimated to have grown 12 percent in 2008, to 384 billion minutes.

Falling prices and rising popularity have flattened the revenues (see graph below the fold). The big bump in minutes (and the flattening of revenues) has come courtesy of Skype, the company owned by San Jose, Calif.-based eBay.
Skype’s cross-border traffic grew approximately 41 percent in 2008, to 33 billion minutes — equivalent to 8 percent of combined international telephone + Skype traffic. Skype uses wholesale carriers such as iBasis and Level 3 for handling its network traffic. Five years after its launch, Skype is now the largest provider of cross-border voice communications in the world, Telegeography says. Or as my friend Andy Abramson would say: The world’s biggest minute stealer.

Corporate Identity
Skype have made their brand book available for free download to all.

The book is composed of two PDFs, ‘How We Look’, and ‘How We Think’. The first takes the reader through the evolution of the Skype logo and covers the key rules to be followed when considering the Skype logo for display, including mash-ups. The second is all about Skype’s philosophy as a company. They are both beautifully illustrated and will be especially useful for people who are interested or work in brand design.

Skype- corporate identity_ how do we look

View more documents from Ayman Sarhan.

Saudi clerics call for ban on women appearing in media

Saudi clerics call for ban on women appearing in media

by AFP
Wednesday, 25 March 2009

Hardline clerics in Saudi say images of women in popular newspapers and magazine are 'obscene' and should be banned.

Hardline Saudi clerics have called on the government to ban women from appearing on television and to prohibit their images in print media, which they called a sign of growing "deviant thought."

In a letter to new Information Minister Abdul Aziz Al Khoja that appeared on websites this week, the 35 Islamic clerics also condemned the increase of music and dancing on television, as well as images of women in popular newspapers and magazines that they labelled "obscene."

"Our faith in you is great to carry out media reform, for we have seen how perversity is rooted in the ministry of information and culture, on television, radio, in the press, literary clubs, and book fairs," the letter said.It cited an alleged plan to "westernise" Saudi women by "reducing their rights to a question of removing veils, wearing makeup and mixing with men."

It added that the ministry had permitted the import of "obscene newspapers and magazines that are filled with deviant thought and pictures of beautiful women on its covers and inside.""There should be no Saudi woman on television, in any case," they said."There is no doubt that this is religiously impermissible."

The clerics, including justice officials and academics from a conservative Islamic university, cited several cabinet-endorsed orders and policies from years past which they said supported their argument.

They appeared to be challenging a growing push for liberalisation of tough restrictions on women, including near-mandatory use of black, full-face veils, which are rooted in its ultra-conservative Wahhabi version of Islam.Both Saudi television and print media increasingly feature women, while Arabic-language magazines showing women in Western garb and makeup are also widely sold in the country.

The letter came in the wake of an information ministry-sponsored book fair in Riyadh in early March at which religious conservatives complained that men and women were allowed to mix freely, and that some books on sale violated Islamic principles.

The book fair was marred by the muttawam, or Islamic morality police, harassing a woman author promoting her book and trying to prevent men from obtaining her autograph.

Hyundai ::: Behavioral Segmentation

How Hyundai Uses Behavioral Segmentation to Take the Bull by the Horns and Send the Bear Packing

"The Faith We Have In You"
Published on March 10, 2009

Hyundai took the bull by the horns in this bear market and scored big. It used behavioral segmentation to identify what was keeping prospects from buying and then developed a strategy that made it easier for customers to part with their hard-earned dollars.

What can you learn from its example? In every market change, even a downturn, there is an opportunity to use the power of behavioral segmentation to make your product or service stand out.

Talk to Your Target Prospects

Each news cycle brings a tsunami of information that influences your customers' purchasing decisions. The smart marketer understands that every change in the marketplace is an opportunity to capture new customers.

How do you seize that opportunity and grow your business? Relying on secondary data or past segmentations isn't a realistic option. Even in these tough times, resist the urge to repeat a smaller version of last year's marketing strategy and tactics.
Instead, use voice-of-the customer research to talk to prospects you are currently winning over as well as those whose business you would like to win. You can't overestimate the value of talking to your customers. Ask new, open-ended questions. Focus on learning:

• What their reason is for buying—how is it changing?
• What their needs are—how have they been affected by recent events?
• What's keeping them from buying?
• What do they think of your product versus the competition's product?
• What would change their perception of your product versus the competition's?
• How do they rate your product against alternative solutions?
  

Sort Findings
Take a hard look at your data and sort groups with similar characteristics to determine which segments to target.
Hyundai discovered that as the market changed so did their segmentation. Significant numbers of prospects were no longer focusing on gas mileage performance, and they weren't necessarily looking for more discounts.

Armed with such customer insight, Hyundai identified a business opportunity.

Define Segment
Hyundai determined that the fear of losing one's job was a high barrier preventing prospective buyers from purchasing a car.

After defining the segment, the company developed and aligned sales and marketing strategies to reach this new segment. By targeting prospects concerned about job security, Hyundai broadened its audience and increased the number of customers who considered its cars.

David Zuchowski, vice-president of national sales for Hyundai noted in a New York Times article, "It doesn't matter how many zillion dollars you put in rebates, or what APR you give them. If people are worried about their job, they don't really care and they're just not going to get off the fence."

So how did Hyundai motivate customers to move off the fence?

Develop Strategy to Target Segment

Next, Hyundai developed a strategy to ease the fears of this segment: The company's Assurance Program releases customers from car payments without harming their credit score.

As Advertising Age editor Jonah Bloom wrote, "right there, is an honest-to-goodness big marketing idea.... Hyundai confronts the recession head-on and does something tangible to tackle its effects."

With consumers demanding more for their money, more companies are cutting prices to offer the “best deal,” which can come at the expense of the bottom line and brand perception. And now, more than ever, it’s important to stand out. Maybe marketers would be better off fighting the recession with incentives that add value and provide distinct business advantages instead. Creating tangible and rational value allows consumers to spend more wisely especially in this climate of frugality.

Create Messages
Craft messages to address the specific concerns of your customers.

Hyundai advertising used straight talk that resonated with customers: "We're introducing Hyundai Assurance to show you the faith we have in you. Right now, finance or lease any new Hyundai, and if in the next year you lose your income we'll let you return it. That's the Hyundai Assurance."

Hyundai’s Assurance program — which promises to let you return a newly bought car if you get laid off.
As of early March, no Hyundai buyer had yet returned a vehicle bought under the Assurance umbrella. This raises the intriguing point about what sort of consumer is being reassured. Probably anybody who is really afraid of losing a job simply isn’t going to buy a car right now. But somebody whose insecurity is more abstract, who perhaps simply needs a rationale for a big-ticket purchase at a moment when the headlines are full of doom — that’s different



* * *


Hyundai's Assurance Program had hit a home run. The company was one of only a few automakers to post an increase in sales.
So here's the question of the hour: Are you using behavioral segmentation to differentiate your product, reach new customers, and drive additional sales?

Instead of simply discounting its already economical line of vehicles, Hyundai is addressing consumer fears with an innovative return policy: Hyundai Assurance. Those who finance or lease a new Hyundai can return the car for no additional charge if they lose their job within a year of purchase. The incentive has helped Hyundai distance itself from America’s Big Three automakers and increase sales 14%, nearly doubling its Instead of simply discounting its already economical line of vehicles, Hyundai is addressing consumer fearswith an innovative return policy: Hyundai Assurance. Those who finance or lease a new Hyundai can return the car for no additional charge if they lose their job within a year of purchase. The incentive has helped Hyundai distance itself from America’s Big Three automakers and increase sales 14%, nearly doubling its market share as industry-wide, new-vehicle sales fell 37% last month.

The US recession.::: marketers Vs. consumers

"a great mismatch exists between the way consumers experience and think about their world and the methods marketers use to collect this information."

During these 'bad' days marketers have to be "attentive to the emotional dynamics of peoples' lives in these times… The goal of advertising should be to engage people with a message that has an emotional impact. And that requires actually grappling with the means by which they have experiences and react with emotion, sentiment, and feeling….

By tapping into an "emot-econ" marketing mindset, Hyundai's Assurance "provides a little heart in a world that has gotten so cruel."
The Transformation (basic changes that alter life's circumstances) frame is a powerful driver: People who are worried about losing their jobs may be reluctant to buy a car. "Hynudai has taken a relevant point of communications that may not have been true a year ago, but is true today,"

And, similarly, ReMax's "Best Time to Buy/Sell" invokes a) a Journey ("The meeting of the past, present, and future") and b) Transformation: Basic changes - some desired, some involuntary - that alter life's circumstances and c) Force (events that have a powerful impact on the lives of consumers) frames by suggesting that "people will be administering strong, self-inflicted kicks down the road if they fail to take advantage of home-buying or selling opportunities now."

In the current economic conditions, "People want to know they're being respected. Their feelings have to be acknowledged."
As a point of caution, however, that brands that are insensitive to the feelings and emotions disclosed by the visual metaphors may "suffer a backlash".
The possible downside of the ReMax advertising ("it may remind people of poor decisions they made in the past coming back to kick them") as an instance where some consumers "may perceive the company to be insensitive and out of touch…. Well meaning attempts to tap into these emotions could be seen as opportunistic or patronizing that could backfire."

Swedish Magazine is Published as a Tattoo

Taking the notion of limited edition to the extreme, Swedish magazine Tare Lugnt have released their third issue as a tattoo. You can see the magazine being “published” below.

Starbucks :::Super-Premium Ice Cream Line

Starbucks Coffee Company and Unilever unveiled a new super-premium ice cream line inspired by some of consumers’ favorite Starbucks® beverages. Created by culinary experts and food developers from both companies, Starbucks® ice cream is made with high-quality, all-natural ingredients, including milk and cream supplied by farmers who pledge not to treat their cows with rBGH.*

The line is now rolling into grocers across the U.S., and will be widely available by early spring. Imaginative ingredient combinations are sure to satisfy every palate.
“Our new ice cream line is an artful adaptation of some of our most popular hand-crafted beverages,” said Mary Theisen, director, business development, Starbucks Global Consumer Products. “We’re pleased to offer consumers a delicious and indulgent ice cream experience that is unmistakably Starbucks.”

Consumers can easily recognize Starbucks® ice cream in the freezer aisle, thanks to a clean packaging design that mirrors the iconic white Starbucks® cup.

“Starbucks complex coffeehouse flavors are the perfect complement to the rich, high-quality ingredients we use in our super-premium ice cream,” said Andy Sztehlo, research & development director, Unilever Ice Cream North America. “We’re thrilled to introduce a fresh interpretation of a classic product.”

Trojan::: LifeStyles Unfurls 'Skyn Revolution'

LifeStyles Unfurls 'Skyn Revolution'
New spots tout non-latex Skyn condoms
March 24, 2009

LifeStyles touts its Skyn condoms.NEW YORK While some men may act like they are allergic to condoms, the reality is that a number of them actually are.

For those who are allergic to latex, LifeStyles is rolling out its new non-latex Skyn condom. Unlike its top competitor Trojan, LifeStyles is taking the direct approach in marketing this new product.

Its new campaign features a number of couples getting into the act and the requisite sexy voiceover."The Skyn revolution" ads will appear on national TV, radio and online -- although the TV buys will be limited. Trojan proved just how difficult it was to land ads on network TV when it launched its humorous "Evolve" campaign in 2007.




CBS and Fox banned the ads portraying men who didn't use condoms as pigs. The LifeStyles ads will face less trouble online, where they will appear on MTV.com and ESPN.com.

The campaign, which targets men 18-24, was created by the Amp Agency, a division of Alloy Media + Marketing. "The 'Skyn revolution' campaign showcases our dedication to innovating both protection and pleasure," said Carol Carrozza, vp, marketing at LifeStyles parent Ansell Healthcare Products, in a statement. "That's why we used sensuality as a platform for conveying a safe sex message.

While some men may act like they are allergic to condoms, the reality is a number of them actually are. For those who are allergic to latex, LifeStyles is rolling out its new nonlatex Skyn condom. Unlike its top competitor Trojan, LifeStyles is taking the direct approach in marketing this new product. Its new campaign features a number of couples getting into the act. A sultry voiceover says: "Safe sex will never feel the same again . . . like nothing at all just Skyn from LifeStyle."

"LifeStyles hasn't been a big spender of late. Last year it spent $400,000 on media, excluding online.

Improve Your Email Marketing Through Segmentation

Published on March 24, 2009

Not all customers are alike, and what appeals to one may not interest another. Therefore, it is important that you connect the message you are sending to your customers' differing interests.
Email messages that are segmented, targeted, and relevant to the recipient are much more likely to be opened and acted upon.

Every small business can segment its customer base at some basic level. The following are some examples:

A sporting goods store emails information to its customers who have purchased bikes to inform them of new arrivals, while sending an "end of the ski season" blowout special to customers who have purchased ski equipment.

A garden center sends out a "Planting for Spring" promotion to gardening customers and a "Flowers for all Occasions" promotion to cut-flower and bouquet buyers.

A landscaping company sends out a promotion to past customers about keeping up their landscaping activities as well as its new services, while sending out a different appeal to prospects and builders.

A pub/restaurant sends out an email about an upcoming food pairing/tasting event to wine enthusiasts and an email about seasonal brews and pitcher specials for beer lovers.

Otherwise, the wine lover might get turned off by the beer promotion, and vice versa... but tap the right customer's passion and need at the right time—with a targeted subject line and content—and you're much more likely to create a sale.

Segmentation—Getting Started
Creating different email messages for different groups is a bit more work, but it's worth the extra effort when an email message hits your customer's sweet spot.

Your general e-newsletter may appeal to most customers, but mailings that reach out to your audience segments can build even deeper relationships, and drive more sales.
Consider these simple tips to be more successful with your segmentation:

1. Start with the first touch point
The best time to collect information for segmenting purposes is right when your prospect or customer joins your email list. You can easily create segmented lists by offering options with checkboxes on your sign-up form.
2. Ask for personal information
Ask for information such as location and personal preference to determine what's relevant to the person signing up. For example, a retailer might ask whether someone prefers to shop online or in the store. That way, the retailer can create two separate lists and send email coupons that contain an online promotion to one list and an in-store promotion to the other list.
3. Use online surveys
In your email newsletters, include a link to a short survey and ask for noncritical information that helps you add your people to the appropriate segmented lists. Once you have the survey results, you can create new lists or add to existing ones based on how respondents answered questions.
4. Use tracking reports
If you are using a professional email service that provides campaign-tracking reports, let the links that people click on help you understand them better. Your tracking reports make it easy for you to add anyone who clicks on a link to an existing list or a new list.
* * *
Remember that there is a real person on the other end of each email address. Every time you create an email, ask yourself whether your email content is addressing the specific needs of your audience, or whether you're only addressing the needs of your business. Segmenting your list will set you up to do both effectively.

Four Best-Practices for Renovating Your Brand—Before It's Too Late

Published on March 24, 2009

Stories of marketing heroes who transform poorly performing brands never fail to enthrall us: the transformation of Dove into an empowering brand; the shift to healthier eating for McDonald's; the rebound of Hewlett Packard in the PC market.

Those are among some recent successes. But they elicit the question: Why do brand leaders wait until their brands are at the breaking point, and at risk of joining such brands as Radio Shack, 7Up, or the GAP... for which renovation may be too late?

Unheralded marketing heroes renovate their brands while they are strong and growing. They spot changing market dynamics and address them as opportunities before they have time to develop into threats. Their reward is faster profitable growth without the negative headlines.
Here are four best-practices in brand renovation identified in our work with businesses across a range of markets.

1. Develop a holistic understanding of the brand
A holistic, customer-driven understanding of the current brand and a vision of the brand's future are crucial to proactive renovators. Typically, a holistic view includes an understanding of the brand's heritage, personality, iconography, functional benefits, emotional benefits, and perceived value in the minds of customers, influencers, and intermediaries.

The key is to understand how each of these groups views the brand in the context of their daily lives and compared with the other things that are on their minds. This view enables proactive renovators to see opportunities to credibly extend the brand and avoid the trap of defining the brand by what the company knows how to make or offer, instead of what customers want to buy.

Crayola has managed to stay relevant despite the digital and graphics technologies that might have threatened its brand's very essence. Its understanding of the brand goes beyond the functional benefits of washable markers or erasable pencils. Crayola's brand leaders understood that colorful fun and creativity best defined its role in the lives of teachers, parents, and children; accordingly, it evolved from an art-products company to a visual-expression company. It moved from being a partner with retailers to a partner with educators, parents, and children.

Crayola recognized the danger of being perceived as traditional and has continuously updated the look and the feel of the brand in a way that stays true to its roots but is fun and creative.
Finally, its leaders have used their understanding to guide them in developing programs for the Internet, a children's magazine, interactive toys, and advanced color technologies, breaking the constraints of selling only what can be made in a crayon and marker factory.
2. Look for segment swings
By the time most brand managers spot important trends, they are already threats. That's not surprising, since it's difficult to identify the early impact of trends among the general population of brand users.

Proactive renovators spot trends early by tracking segments of the population where the impact of change is more apparent, segmenting customers in different ways to fit their businesses.
Among the common segmentation principles:

• First, they ask questions about lifestyles and general attitudes in order to gain a broader context for the role of their products and categories.
  
• Second, they are particularly sensitive to trends with the potential to cross segments—from urban to suburban shoppers, or from youth into mainstream culture, for example.
  
• Third, they proactively test alternative ways to connect their brands to important trends in order to identify opportunities to play a greater role in the lives of their customers

Kohler is one company that is famously attuned to emerging changes in segments of the population, turning them into big business opportunities. In the process, it has been transformed into the US leader in bath and kitchen design solutions.

More than 30 years ago, Kohler spotted an emerging willingness of urban customers to spend more for high-end home designs. Herb Kohler began to advertise the Bold Look of Kohler with a differentiating focus on design that rode the wave of home investment and kitchen renovations throughout the '80s and '90s. In the early '90s, it spotted another emerging trend: the bathroom as a refuge and oasis in large suburban households. It took advantage with a line of whirlpools, Jacuzzis, and tubs, extending its reach into showers and bathroom accessories.

Most recently, Kohler has increased its emphasis on green technologies with toilets, showers, and control systems aimed at a broad audience.
3. Distinguish the underlying issues
Not every brand issue is a competitive one, but we frequently encounter brand leaders so focused on gaining advantage against a narrow set of competitors that they fail to address indirect competition or tackle customers who are questioning whether it's worthwhile to buy the category at all.

Proactive renovators are much more likely to distinguish among different types of threats and respond accordingly. Brand guru (and Prophet vice-chairman) David Aaker groups these threats as commoditization, brand lethargy, and changing customer dynamics:

• Declining brand differentiation underlies commoditization, which is characterized by increasing price competition, entry of low-cost competitors, and narrower margins.
  
• Brand lethargy is often a problem for category leaders who fall into the trap of repeating past success factors rather than updating the brand and keeping it fresh and alive.
  
• Brand relevance underlies customer dynamics issues. Changing technologies, lifestyle patterns, or attitudes typically cause a brand or a category to become less relevant to peoples' lives.

For decades, Coach focused on differentiating itself by handcrafting extremely durable and practical items with classic American designs in American factories. Between 2000 and 2007, it was able to accelerate brand growth from $500 million to $2.5 billion by creatively tackling leather goods' loss of relevance and lack of energy.
The company shed its handcrafted, American-made points of differentiation to leverage its core essence of classic, premium American design within the world of women's fashion accessories. It became more relevant and energetic by introducing color and fresh materials to its designs, transforming its assortment to provide a wide range of accessories and reinventing the Coach shopping experience.
Coach is the ultimate example of a proactive renovator that transformed itself into a category leader.

4. Apply the right strategies
Too many marketers think every brand issue can be solved with a new advertising and promotion campaign.

Of course, brand communication is an important component to building differentiation, energizing a brand, or building relevance. But, proactive renovators ensure that brand communications reflect fundamentally different strategies to cope with differentiation, brand energy, or relevance. One size will not fit all:

• Successful differentiation in commoditized categories almost always requires finding ways to provide more emotional reasons to prefer the brand. Emotional leverage enhances consumer credibility and trust in innovations that drive big margin gains and allows the brand to eke out small, but often crucial, margin advantages in older products. Emotional bonds provide a platform to charge more despite the competition. Staples's focus on ease (think "Easy Button") and expertise in small-business and home-office efficiency differentiates it from other superstores and lends permission to provide such value-added services as office delivery and computer repair to enhance loyalty and margins.
  
• Reinvigorating brand energy typically requires revamping the brand's imagery. A brand image in keeping with its promise makes it more noticeable, easier to understand, and more desirable. Marketers often think that refreshing the logo and trademark imagery is sufficient; that's rarely the case. User, usage, product, and associative imagery all must be explored to truly reinvigorate a brand. Sprite is one brand that regained energy by changing its user imagery to focus on young iconoclasts and its associative imagery to focus on the NBA.
  
• Relevance issues demand a re-examination of the customer experience. When consumers change the ways they shop, live, or use technology, the experience must adapt. Sometimes the adaptations include new offerings such as the salads and wraps that McDonald's has added to its menu to appeal to health-conscious women. Some adaptations encompass a comprehensive redesign of the entire experience, like Coach's store and product redesign to meet women's fashion accessory buying expectations.
  

* * *
These four best-practices expose one central truth: Customers must drive brand decisions.
To succeed, brand leaders must understand the brand through customers' eyes, track how different customer segments are changing, identify the different issues customers have in their lives, and link the brand to customer needs.

A Transformable Shoe Style - Modular Shoes

This shoe design is every fashion lover's dream or nightmare, depending upon your perspective, because it allows you to have just one shoe for every occasion. These funny shoes transform using zippers, and while they might be a bit casual for New York's favorite fashionistas, it's a great solution for the over-packer.

I'm in the process of packing for a trip right now, and lined up by my suitcase are many of the pair of shoes I own.

While I'm all about comfort, I can't decide what the weather and events of the trip will dictate, so I've got a variety of flip-flips, sandals, sneakers and flats. I know you can relate, and fortunately, the fashion designer behind these cool modular shoes, clearly another victim of the over-packing syndrome, has come up with a solution with a shoe that transforms to practically any style.

These funky, fashionable shoes transform from boots to flip-flops and everything in between. Heading straight from the beach to the nightclub and need a pair of stilettos? Just manipulate the zippers on the modular shoes!

Going from the office to a hoedown? Transform your loafers into a pair of country-style cowboy boots! Ok, so the canvas shoes slathered in zippers may not be the most fashion-friendly for the office or nightclub, but just think of the space saved in your suitcase!

These funky, modular shoes were unveiled at the "Bread & Butter" fashion trade show in January, in Barcelona, Spain. No word yet on when they'll be available for retail.

Join the Hunt

17/03/2009

The days of rushing round the garden to find a sadly melted and slightly disfigured Easter Egg could be numbered thanks to a a highly addictive online Easter Egg hunt. M&Ms Speck-tacular Eggs encourages mums as well as young children to ‘Join the Hunt’ at http://www.jointhehunt.ca/, on commercials and on pack promotions and via banner ads.The campaign is a collaboration effort between Proximity, Canada, BBDO Toronto and Firstborn, New York. Players complete games, search the website for Easter eggs, follow links to other sites connected to the campaign and discover pin codes in banner ads and on packaging to collect points for their online profiles.The more points gained, the higher the chance of winning some of the prizes on offer which include family holidays to New York, LA and Orlando. The campaign’s strategy was conceived by Proximity, with a planning process that lasted 18 months. Jon Webber, associate creative director at Proximity Canada told Contagious: ‘One of the key drivers for the campaign was to make sure it all came from one place’. He describes the online egg hunt idea as a ‘natural extension of the brief, to raise the awareness and purchase frequency of the speck-tacular eggs’.

The campaign also includes two TV ads that drive to the website, one of which (Join the Hunt) was developed by Firstborn, which had already produced the impressive 3D animations of the Red and Yellow M&Ms characters for the website. Dan LaCivita, executive creative director at Firstborn explains: ‘Proximity had the whole concept worked out from the pin numbers in packages to the hunt online, and we worked on the site and concept development’. He adds ‘By using the assets from the website in the TV spot we were able to save the client time and money’.The campaign is beautifully simplistic and compulsive, and the overwhelming idea is that the eggs you’re looking for could be anywhere. Christine Parent-Inch, brand director at Mars Canada concurs: ‘The virtual egg hunt was an extraordinary idea for the brand that builds on multiple platforms to engage the consumer. The entire campaign encourages participants to experience the brand through a virtual world that they can explore and tap into in a multitude of ways.’The campaign’s development through agency collaboration and its distribution across multiple platforms is impressive. LaCivita concludes: ‘We are trying to push clients to start with digital; we can find so many different ways to leverage content across multiple channels.’ www.jointhehunt.ca

Possibly the cheapest ad ever made

Proof that a cheapie can be a goodie.

Obviously there's no way of telling whether this is a real campaign or just some random idea that an art student smoked up one night together with his giant bong [the lack of egotistical branding makes us wonder], but a good idea all the same.

Before & After: Svedka Vodka

"The new bottle for Svedka imported Swedish vodka had to be bilingual: It needed to speak to younger scenesters who consider themselves “in the know” and hang out at trendy nightspots as well as an older, more affluent consumer who likes to have a drink at home. This meant the packaging had to look equally attractive lit up on the back-bar of a hip club as well as lining a club store’s shelf, said Marina Hahn, svp, marketing for Spirits Marque One, Svedka’s U.S. importer."

Holli Mølle Organic Flour

The Norwegian design agency, Strømme Throndsen Design, has developed the brand strategy, name, concept, packaging and visual identity of Holli Mølle Organic Flour .

Holli Mølle is a small organic mill in Eastern Norway, specializing in flour production with the use of ancient and nutritious grain types. The target audience is modern women who value health and nutrition and are willing to pay extra for the safety and taste of organic flour, thereby providing them with an extra feeling of love and care for their family.

In creating the name, visual language and packaging for Holli Mølle, the following criteria were highlighted:- The identity should be based on traditional and authentic values- The packaging should be environmental friendly, functional, flexible and efficient in production.- The identity should challenge the existing visual language in the flour category

The result is a simple and unique graphical design, with fresh colours on the labels as the only differentiator between the 6 variants. The design communicates well with the target group, giving them a feeling that the flour really is ”ground with love”, as stated on the packaging in the personal message from the owner, Trygve Nesje

Big Rock Brewery

Rachelle Hynes, a student at Capilano University, recently took the opportunity to redesign the packaging for Big Rock Brewery.

"Big Rock brewery is a grass roots company that is 100% natural. By incorporating illustrations and a flat colour theme, it illuminates their image and gives a unique look amongst its competitors

Personalized print

BRAND: Lexus
BRAND OWNER:Toyota
CATEGORY:Automotive
REGION:USA
DATE:Mar 2009 - May 2009
MEDIA OWNER:Time Inc

The Lexus SUV 2010 RX is a car with 22 customizable settings, plus eight options handled by a dealer. Lexus wanted to highlight this feature and cotton on to the fact that these days consumers demand personalized offerings.

The rise of consumer empowerment in a digitally connected world, means people can read specialized blogs, RSS feeds and create personalized Google homepages.

Consumers have become accustomed to filtering out the content they don’t care about and select to read only the things they want.

Lexus recognized this but also recognized that this type of selection process was not available to the same degree in offline media.

Lexus teamed up with Time Inc to deliver this level of personalization to print. Readers can select five Time Warner magazines that Time editors will combine into a personalized magazine with 56 possible combinations.

The magazine, called “Mine”, is essentially a printed, expanded RSS feed, which is a five issue, 10-week experiment. Magazines available include Time, Sports Illustrated, Food & Wine, Real Simple, Money, In Style, Golf and Travel and Leisure. Lexus is the only advertiser, but with personalized messages for each subscriber targeting their interest.

When users sign up to the service, they fill out an online survey that means that all of the Lexus ads in the magazine are tailored to the reader, and will include their name and where they live.

Brand equity through the eyes of the consumer:

Brand equity through the eyes of the consumer: The case for measuring 'Commitment'

'Brand value is very much like an onion. It has layers and a core. The core is the user who will stick with you until the very end.' This much used quote from Edwin Artz seems simplistic at first glance, but the deeper you delve into it, the more profound are the implications for the brand management process, especially in the measurement of 'brand equity'.

Newcomers such as Lipton are establishing niche markets Whilst many definitions of 'brand equity' exist, most of them agree that any measurement should involve some combination of overall presence, usage or saliency, and public perceptions of the brand. However, this is more of an inside-out rather than the more realistic outside-in view of the brand and one in which not enough importance is given to the consumer experience that the brand generates. Brands are not central to consumers' lives - but consumers are central to a brand's existence; and so any approach to measuring brand equity needs to recognize that. Any practically useful measurement is not simply a function of presence and perceptions, but must also capture the quality of the relationship that the brand has created with its users.

We use the Conversion Model; which views 'Commitment' as the Holy Grail of brand building and measures equity as the brand's ability to convert promiscuous consumers into loyal apostles. Commitment is an attitudinal measure as compared to a behavioural one. Loyalty is behavioural and for that reason alone is not a sufficiently accurate reflection of the consumer-brand relationship.
There may be times when consumers may be highly satisfied with a brand yet still defect to the competition; similarly, dissatisfied consumers do not necessarily gravitate away from a brand at the first opportunity.

Measuring commitment in the UAE youth market

amongst 400 respondents aged 16-24 in the UAE. Our objective was to take a useful measurement of brand equity of key brands in cold beverages (carbonated soft drinks, energy drinks, iced teas etc) and electronic gadgets (MP3 players, gaming consoles, mobile phones etc).
Analyzing the results gives a clear idea of how commitment can shed light on the strength of the brand, important category dynamics, and emerging trends within these categories. As a category electronic gadgets generate greater commitment than cold beverages.

A typical young UAE national is more likely to try out different brands of beverages but unlikely to experiment with brand choice in electronics. While some of this can be attributed to higher switching costs or perceived risk, it also implies that most electronics companies have managed to create a differentiated brand offering through product innovations. Thus 66% of respondents tended to be single minded (i.e. committed to one brand) in their choice of gadgets, while only 47% were single minded in their choice of beverages. The implication is that market factors are more likely to influence brand usage in the beverages category.

Bigger may not always be better
Commitment is also a very useful indicator of future market share. In the cold beverages category a higher incidence of consumption does not necessarily lead to higher commitment. Brands such as Pepsi, 7Up and Coca-Cola currently have the highest consumption levels.

However, when we look into commitment levels we see that new age niche beverages such as Lipton Ice Tea, Power Horse and Oronamin-C enjoy the highest commitment levels in the category, with more committed consumers in their franchises than in the larger brands. This means that these brands have created a strong, dedicated following and while they may be smaller brands currently, they have the potential to wean more and more consumers and hence represent a very real future threat for these large CSD brands.
Based on our experience with cold drinks then, one might argue that a large consumer base leads inevitably to lower commitment. However, for iconic/power brands in some categories this is not the case.

Nokia's 'human' innovation brings success
An example of this is the performance of Nokia in the electronic gadgets category.
Nokia has by far the largest user base with a massive 90% of our respondents claiming to own a Nokia phone. But the more significant measure of Nokia's success as a brand is that 75% of those users are committed to the brand.

This is testament to Nokia's strategy of constant innovation yet consistent adherence to the values of human technology. The only other brands that come close are the iconic Apple Ipod and Sony Vaio, both of which enjoy only a fraction of Nokia's consumer base. An interesting aspect of Nokia's success is that perhaps brands need to be unfettered by the confines of their category and focus primarily on the consumer experience they wish to generate. Would Nokia have managed to create such strong commitment if it thought of itself as just a mobile phone company, and stayed away from photography or music streaming? In a city about to become home to the latest Armani hotel and Versace Pallazo surely that's food for thought.

Driverless car finds its voice

BRAND :Skoda
BRAND OWNER :Skoda
CATEGORY :Automotive
REGION :Netherlands
DATE :Jan 2009 - Feb 2009

To promote its new Octavia model to Dutch consumers, Skoda wanted a campaign that rose above the blandness of car specifications and entered into the realm of entertainment.
Skoda came up with the idea of a remote controlled car, thus Octavia RC was born.

An Octavia car was parked in various locations around the Netherlands. There is a camera inside the car and one outside the car filming the outside of the vehicle. Both of the feeds are sent to a website, http://www.octaviarc.nl/.

Visitors to the website could not only select which camera view they wanted to watch, but also interact with the car and watch the reactions of passers by. Once users arrive at the live feed, they can see a number on their screen which represents a countdown of the number of people who have a turn to do something to the car before it is their turn.

Once their turn arrives, they have one minute to remotely manipulate a number of the car’s features, including the lights, the horn, the windscreen wipers, as well as a series of jingles that are played from a set of speakers installed behind the bumper, which make it sound as though that car is speaking.

PINK IS FOR BOYS:::an exploration of the many meanings and uses of pink

1. MEN

NANTUCKET RED

A trademarked shade of weathered red sold by Murray’s Toggery Shop on Nantucket to unapologetically preppy men. It is, however, decidedly not pink—not the color of Thomas Pink shirts signal¬ing the elegant, crisp aggression of the office; not the color of pink polos dewed with sweat on the golf course; not a match to the rus¬tling pink newsprint haunting the early-morning hours before trad¬ing. Nantucket Red is thoroughly relaxed and never, ever pink.

SOMETIMES, PINK IS THE COLOR FOR BOYS
A century ago, baby boys were swaddled in pink—a watered-down version of red—and girls were in blue, evocative of the Virgin Mary. Ladies’ Home Journal said, “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.”

PINK TRIANGLE = GAY MAN
Homosexual men in Nazi camps wore an inverted pink triangle; lesbians, prostitutes and other “loose” women (including users of birth control) wore an inverted black triangle. Both symbols have been reclaimed by gay-rights organizations as symbols of pride.

FINANCIAL TIMES PAGES
The U.K.’s leading business paper distinguishes itself from com¬petitors by its salmon-pink paper. So ubiquitous is this trademark that “salmon press” is often used as shorthand for the economic press or business sections of general-interest newspapers.

2. EMPIRE

MOUNTBATTEN PINK
Naval camouflage promoted by Admiral Louis Mountbatten of the British Royal Navy during WWII. He colored his entire flotilla of destroyers this shade, intended to match the sky just before dawn or at dusk. Mountbatten Pink scored a “victory” by disguising the HMS Kenya (a.k.a. “The Pink Lady”) off the coast of Norway. The Ger¬mans’ marker dye used to target shelling matched The Pink Lady’s hue so well, they were firing more at their own shells than at the ship.
Mountbatten Pink fell out of favor in 1942 due to a critical snag: As soon as the sun actually rose above the horizon, it spot¬lighted the big pink ships with unfortunate, brilliant accuracy.

THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
These 53 sovereign states, members of the former British Empire, are often colored pink on maps. In the empire’s heyday, these pink countries represented a behemoth of trade, cultural ties and a visi¬ble manifestation of the Queen’s power sweeping across the globe.

ALL THE THINGS YOUR PINKY FINGER CAN MEAN
Whereas lifting your pinky while drinking tea signals one’s collusion with manners of the British Empire, the pinky has other expressions. Holding the pinky up signals your need to urinate (India) or a vulgarity (China). Link pinky fingers to swear an oath or ask forgiveness (U.S.) or to make a bet (Turkey). Waggling your pinky downward also can refer to a small penis (Australia).

3. REVOLUTION

PINKO COMMIE!
A term coined in TIME Magazine in 1926, a pinko (or “parlor pink”) will express sympathy for the Soviet Red Revolution but rarely budge when urged toward real action. Pass the petit fours.

GEORGIA'S ROSE REVOLUTION
Amid the crush of Georgian-flag designs in the past century, this dark-pink flag fluttered twice, briefly, over the melee below. It first flew in 1918 over the short-lived independent Democratic Repub¬lic of Georgia. The Soviets firmly tucked this flag away when they took over in 1921, but the tricolor rose reappeared in 1990 as Soviet rule fell, only to get stuffed back in the closet in 2004 as a symbol of the chaotic bloodiness of the post-Soviet period.

4. JAPANESE-NESS

CHERRY BLOSSOMS & DEAD WARRIORS
Since the Heian period (794–1191), the quick burst of short-lived sakura flowers has made the perfect, agreeably elegiac symbol of life’s transience. Just as sakura petals drift suddenly to the ground, so samurai die unquestioningly when duty calls. Kami¬kaze suicide units in WWII painted cherry blossoms on the sides of their planes, and folk wisdom suggested warriors’ souls were reincarnated in the fragile blossoms.

YAMATO MADESHIKO
The ne plus ultra in femininity has a name in Japan: Yamato Nade¬shiko, named for the willowy, pale-pink nadeshiko flower native to the nation. Yamato is chaste, quiet, loving, obedient, but—per Jap¬anese WWII propaganda featuring her image—will brandish her takeyari (bamboo spear) to kill if her family or chastity is threatened.

PINK FILMS
Soft-core, low-budget erotic films popularized in Japan from the 1960s through the 1980s, pink films (pinku eiga) worked cleverly around Japanese censorship laws forbidding the display of pubic hair or the so-called “working parts” in a sex film. Classic pink films include Go, Go; Second Time Virgin; Flower and Snake and Daydream.

5. VAGINA

SHOCKING PINK
Parisian couturier Elsa Schiaparelli coined the term “shocking pink” in 1928 as both the name of her signature perfume and the vivid pink box (shaped like Mae West’s torso) the bottle came in. Schiap, as her friends called her, adored shock, but doubly so when the shock involved a transgressive peek of pink: a giant lamb chop-shaped hat, for example (a joint project with Salvador Dalí), or a dress with a pink, trompe-l’oeil breast stitched in fabric. Such outré behavior might explain how shocking pink became a slang term for female genitalia, although Schiap’s motto hardly screams feminism to non-clotheshorses: “Never fit a dress to the body, but train the body to fit the dress.”

MARY KAY'S PINK CADILLACS
In 1968, cosmetics mogul Mary Kay awarded her top saleswoman a pink Cadillac, painted to match the company’s Mountain Lau¬rel shade of blusher. She expanded to her top five producers the next year, spurring hard-driving saleswomen globally to push for the big pink “career car”—although, since 1998, the color of rolling success is not limited to pink, but includes white, black and smoky platinum choices.

THE PINK LADIES IN THE MOVIE GREASE
Female greaser gang from the musical-turned-film Grease. The Pink Ladies included Jan (the fat and funny one), Marty (the super-pretty one), Betty Rizzo (the tough, sarcastic one) and Frenchy (the beauty-school dropout). The Pink Ladies teach doe-eyed Sandy to swill booze, crack gum, talk back (to the Burger Palace Boys, their brother-gang) and definitely put out.

MS. PAC-MAN
Released in 1982, a sequel to the video game Pac-Man. In Ms. Pac-Man, game-play got faster, ghosts cagier, “warp tunnels” suck fruit from side to side, and Ms. Pac-Man does it all with a floppy pink bow half-obscuring her eyes. Also, the orange ghost Clyde is renamed Sue, introducing virtual girl-dot-on-girl-dot action.

6. IRANIAN-NESS

PERSIAN PINK
Persian cuisine is rife with pink ingredients derived from rose petals, rose hips and rose-tinted sugars and syrups. Bastani, Per¬sian rosewater ice cream, is served between wafers as an ice-cream sandwich, evidence of a fine tradition of ice cream in the desert. By 400 B.C. Persians were already storing ice spirited down from the mountains and licking cones well into the summer months.

EATING ROSE HIPS
Rose hips, dark pink or orange in color, are a miracle food: They ward off urinary infections, constipation and iron loss in people, and they boost vitamin C in pet chinchillas (who can’t produce their own). The fine hairs inside a rose-hip bulb also make a nice itching powder.

7. GHOSTLINESS

THE BLACK DEATH & ROSES
Roses lurk around the Black Death as odd parentheticals. Despite popular claims to the contrary, the nursery rhyme “Ring Around the Rosie” does not describe blood-tinged skin blotches indicating bubonic plague; the rhyme actually dates from the 19th century.
Which is not to say roses don’t crop up during times of plague. The general post-Black Death chaos freed up Christine de Pizan to become Europe’s first full-time female writer. Her chief target: the Roman de la Rose—the medieval French poem celebrating the female ideal as represented by the flower—taking particular issue with the antifeminist stuff Jean de Meun had added to the text. Christine and Jean locked horns, circling each other poisonously like a liter¬aro-feminist ring-around-the-rosie, well into the 16th century.

MEHER BABA
Indian spiritual leader Meher Baba dressed himself and his mandali (circle) in pink robes, signifying love, embodied for him in partner Mehera Irani. Meher Baba stopped speaking from 1925 until his death in 1969; presumably the pink robes did triple duty to express his feelings during this period.

PINK NOISE
Also known as 1/f noise, pink noise is a signal with a frequency spec¬trum in which—ahem—“the power spectral density is proportional to the reciprocal of the frequency.” Pink noise occurs everywhere, from the electromagnetic radiation output of certain astronomical bodies to heartbeat rhythms and the pitch-progression of almost all musical melodies. Fittingly, pink noise sits halfway between white and red noise (also known as Brownian noise).

PINKY THE PAC-MAN GHOST
One of the four Pac-Man ghosts, along with brothers Blinky, Inky and Clyde. Ghosts seek to eat Pac-Man, deducting one of his lives, but when Pac-Man eats an energizer pellet, the tables are turned and hunter becomes prey. The ghosts are slowed down, they turn deep blue, they reverse direction, and if they’re not lucky, they’re eaten themselves. Their dead eyes, floating to the sidelines, repre¬sent one of the more heart-tugging instances of digital death.

SEEING PINK ELEPHANTS
When you’re good and snockered, you might start seeing pink elephants—but the real Pink Elephant Brigade stands in reserve, when delirium tremens begin.

8. SPEED

PINKS IN DRAG RACING
Winner-take-all TV show that debuted in 2005 on the Speed Channel. Whichever participant wins three out of the five races takes the loser’s car. The show’s title reportedly comes from the coinage “pink slip,” which handily refers to both getting fired and the ownership certificate for a car.

THE GIRO D'ITALIA
The winner of this long-distance cycling race throughout Italy scores the maglia rosa (pink jersey)—colored to remind bystanders of the pink pages of the sponsoring newspaper, La Gazzetta dello Sport.

FOX-HUNTING JACKETS
They’re colored scarlet, but they’re actually called pinks, as in “donning your pinks” to hunt. Supposedly, pink doesn’t refer to the red as it weathers and fades, but to a legendary hunting-garb tailor named Pink, Pinke or even Pinque.

PINK-SHEET STOCKS
Super-tiny, thinly traded, often-volatile stocks traded on what’s known as the “over-the-counter” market. Pink sheets are rene¬gades, beyond most rules for disclosing financial information, and hence are pretty suspect. Before electronic quotes, quotes to these mad little puppies were printed on pink paper to alert all comers of the wild ride implicit therein.