In Saudi Arabia::: NEVER say NO to your customers

http://www.hotsauce.com/

for hot sauce lovers

OVK :::Let it ring

BRAND OWNER:OVK
CATEGORY:Charities
REGION:Belgium
DATE:Apr 2009 - Dec 2008

Most people know that using your mobile phone while driving can cause accidents, and a large number of accidents could be avoided if people didn’t answer their mobile phones while driving. A charity for parents of child road victims, OVK, wanted to hammer home the dangers of speaking on your phone while driving in a surprising way.
OVK created a website letitring.be where people could enter their friend’s mobile number and email address. The friend would then receive an email containing a link to a Belgium’s largest video portal Garage TV video and a message saying “check out this crazy car crash I found on the web (be sure to put your sound up loud)”. When the friend clicks on the link, the Garage TV video opens in his browser.

The friend thinks they are about to see a user-generated car crash movie on a video website. The video shows a driver’s view of a car journey, with the camera looking through the windscreen at the road. While the person is watching the video, their phone will start to ring at a crucial moment in the video. As soon as they answer the phone, the car in the video loses control and crashes. Then the message appears on the screen saying: “avoid an accident. Let it ring.” They are then given the option to pass the viral prank on with the website’s details. This was supported by a separate campaign aimed at young people who listen to their MP3 players in traffic. Teaming up with popular musicians Sioen, Joshua and Sound of Stereo they created tracks that could be freely downloaded. They songs start as normal, but halfway through you hear the screeching sounds of car tyres and a crashing sound, followed by the brand message.

copy cat bag

LESS ORIGINAL :

Unknown Advertiser - 2006

Agency : Artmaster Kiev (Ukraine)

THE ORIGINAL?

Dubai Autism Center - 2005

Agency : Bates Pangulf (UAE)

Amstel ::: Truck vrachtwagen

Nothing is allowed to slow the progress of an Amstel delivery truck on its rounds. The truck is allowed an exclusive lane on the motorway, it takes precedence on a car ferry, and hundreds of marathon runners are forced to wait while it passes. Traffic cops turn a blind eye while the truck speeds past. A young man learning to drive is astonished when his instructor slams on the breaks, even though he has right of way. But nothing comes before Amstel, that Dutch national treasure.
Language: Dutch,
Length: 45"
Agency: Doom & Dickson Amsterdam
Production house: Bonkers

A Day in the Life of...♀| Lactacyd TV Spot

Can Brand Loyalty Be Bought? - how susceptible are consumers to loyalty programs?

The classic brand loyalty program offers a combination of rewards and recognition. The bottom-line objective of the program, however, is retention—to ensure that a customer continues to purchase a product or service and remains loyal to that particular brand.
First airlines, and then hotels, used loyalty programs to offer incentives to frequent travelers, but today brand loyalty programs are just as common in financial services and retail.
One of the fastest-growing brand loyalty markets is financial services. Credit card companies in particular have adopted the rewards model with increasing frequency. In some cases a credit card will be linked with a specific airline; in other cases, the credit card rewards its “members” with miles that can be used on any airline. Some credit cards also offer merchandise, cash back or other incentives that build up with credit card use. Some even promise customers they can get preferred seating at events or restaurants.
Brand loyalty is big business. More than 1.8 billion memberships exist in US loyalty programs, averaging 14 memberships per household, according to 2009 research conducted by COLLOQUY, a leading provider of loyalty marketing, publishing education and research.
COLLOQUY estimates about 44 percent of these memberships are “active.” Among the general US population, 57 percent of respondents claim to belong to a loyalty marketing program. This compares to 86 percent of Canadian consumers who participate in loyalty programs, according to another research study conducted by COLLOQUY in late 2007.
But do these programs work? Kelly Hlavinka, partner of COLLOQUY, tells : “From the results of our clients’ programs, loyalty programs are indeed effective at 1)increasing visit frequency, 2)increasing the amount spent annually and 3)retaining customers.
The current economic environment may heighten the importance of a company’s loyalty program.
For the consumer, participating in a loyalty program can help them stretch their limited budget a little bit further. For the company, retaining your best customers that have enrolled in your loyalty program is more important than ever.”
For hotels, loyalty programs seem to be paying off. Jill Noblett, senior vice president of loyalty and direct marketing for Wyndham Hotel Group, discussed the chain’s loyalty program at a “Loyalty Leaders” session at the Direct Marketing Association Conference in October 2008. She says the chain works “to deliver the message that points earned are an enabler.
You can take that vacation or visit one of our fabulous resorts with your expenses covered by redeeming points. What guests earn during their stays also provides them benefits—like a Home Depot gift certificate to use to fix up the kitchen—long after they return home.” Noblett says, “we’ve seen a correlation between redemption and repeat stays.”
For retailers, buying brand loyalty may be more of a challenge. The research conducted by COLLOQUY “suggests that typical two-tier pricing and discount-based rewards—the model that dominates high-frequency retail environments—simply don’t engage consumers,” the company says. “The retail discount reward is now a commodity.”
Aubyn Thomas, senior vice president of marketing services for credit and loyalty for Macy’s, also spoke at the aforementioned Loyalty Leaders session. “Because consumers are very selective in what they buy, we’re relying far more heavily on our Star Rewards program today than ever before,” she says.
The economic environment makes it especially challenging for retailers to reward customers appropriately. As a result, Thomas says, “…we’re turning to less-costly experiential ways of reinforcing customer relationships. So instead of thinking only about discounts and coupons… we’re now thinking about experiences. For example, an experiential reward might be first-class travel to see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in person.”
While brand loyalty programs are designed to reward customers with tangible benefits, there is also a “softer” side to customer engagement. “The key to sustaining positive results from loyalty programs is a blend of economic and emotional rewards,” says COLLOQUY’s Hlavinka. “Smart companies strive to move beyond simple economic incentives to incorporate meaningful recognition benefits.”
Wyndham Hotels’ “ByRequest” program is an example of this recognition. “It’s high touch and provides guests with a personalized experience on property,” Noblett says. “ByRequest members can complete an online profile and tell us, ‘I want a certain type of pillow,’ ‘I want a snack and beverage in my room when I arrive,’ ‘I want a certain number of hangers in my closet.’ A manager on property welcomes ByRequest members and ensures that their preferences are met. How nice for a business traveler… to be able to check into a Wyndham and get that kind of special treatment.”
Still, a significant percentage of consumers do not participate in loyalty programs. As reasons for their lack of participation, they cite such economic factors as the need to spend too much and not wanting to pay a program fee, according to COLLOQUY’s research.
There are other non-financial demotivators that brand marketers need to understand. Consumers cited “boring rewards” and the feeling that “all loyalty programs look alike” as reasons for not belonging to a loyalty program. Additionally, there was a high percentage of what COLLOQUY refers to as “category churners—people who had previously played the game and dropped out.” According to the company, “While dropping out of a program is a common consumer experience, the number of consumers churning from the entire category of loyalty programs should raise alarms for loyalty marketers. Clearly, we’re not doing enough to keep customers engaged.”
All audience segments offered as a primary reason for non-participation the “lack of compelling rewards.” Almost half of non-belongers said loyalty programs look too similar. A third issue is the amount of churn: it appears that, regardless of audience segment, people join and then drop out of loyalty programs in relatively high numbers.
Those disappearing high numbers represent lost brand engagement opportunities—a high price for brands to pay in such challenging economic times.

Substral Fertilizer: Tree

Advertising Agency: Bark Copenhagen, Denmark

Advertising Discipline and others

My reflections to an employment ad

Marketing Communications practitioners usually formulates own approaches on analyzing and developing advertising ideas
Personally, I learned to question and judge my approach as following:
Impact “Does it sell?”
Marketing is not entertainment business, even humor driven approaches aim to link brands with consumer mindsets emotionally.
Relevancy!
Is my communication strategy on core brand values? Does the expressive values share common ground? Is it relevant to my target group life style/ life stage?
Originality!
Is the idea familiar to my target group or sound odd? Has it been done before? Does it incorporate some or all of my brand essence? Is it going to employ brand advocates?
Touch point!
Is my brand having a dialogue with target group? Is it a positive brand activation and engagement on the long run? Do the brand in need to create its own medium at point of truth?
Traditional media Vs. New media

Complexity, mobility and fragmentation of any target group command brands to think out of the box in order to be differentiated specially on visibility, consumer promotions and below the line tactics that deliver on one single unique insight and relevant brand key proposition.

The Global Online Media Landscape

Social Media And Video Site Engagement Reshapes The Web
April 22nd, 2009
Online engagement by Internet users is deepening, according to a new report on the online landscape released today by The Nielsen Company. This increased engagement is in part a result of a shift toward video content and social networking as popular online subcategories.

Highlights Of The Report Include

• The number of American users frequenting online video destinations has climbed 339 percent since 2003.
• Time spent on video sites has shot up almost 2,000 percent over the same period.
• In the last year alone, unique viewers of online video grew 10 percent, the number of streams grew 41 percent, the streams per user grew 27 percent and the total minutes engaged with online video grew 71 percent.
• There are 87 percent more online social media users now than in 2003, with 883 percent more time devoted to those sites.
• In the last year alone, time spent on social networking sites has surged 73 percent.
• In February, social network usage exceeded Web-based e-mail usage for the first time
• Retail, and the auto and financial services industries, have obviously made dramatic cuts to their online spending. On the other hand, the pharmaceutical industry is actually spending more on online ads today.

View PDF Report :

The Global Online Media Landscape

View more documents from Ayman Sarhan.

Natura eco-beauty

Vanity may be one of the seven deadly sins, but makeup is important to mankind. Primitive cultures painted themselves with plant extracts in rituals such as weddings, funerals, wars and religious festivals. So did the American Indians and African tribes. But it wasn’t until ancient Egypt that cosmetics gained prominence and the applying of colorful plant substances on human beings became synonymous with beauty.


The market for cosmetics has experienced exponential growth rates and is an important sector in many countries—particularly Brazil, where the cosmetics sector rose 8.6 percent in 2008 despite the global financial crisis.
Accordingly, Brazil rose in consumer market rankings, becoming the world's second-largest consumer of beauty products—surpassing the Japanese market, which shrank during the same period. Until 2007, Brazil lagged behind both the Japanese and American markets.
According to the Brazilian Association of the Industry of Personal Hygiene, Fragrances and Cosmetics (Abihpec), Brazilian exports in the sector were US$ 650 million against US$ 450 million in imports, reaching a surplus of US$ 200 million in 2008.
In Brazil, the industry of personal hygiene, fragrances and cosmetics is the only chemical complex—which includes cleaning products, pharmaceuticals, paints and fertilizers, among others—to produce a surplus.
www.natura.net
The cosmetics industry in Brazil is extremely competitive and involves big global players, but one Brazilian brand stands out from the rest: Natura. Born in Brazil, this cosmetics brand is now available in seven Latin American countries and France.
Founded in 1969, Natura is the industry leader in the cosmetics, fragrances and personal hygiene market in Brazil. It is also the industry leader in direct sales, surpassing even the giant American company Avon.
Natura offers a full range of products with solutions for consumers’ various needs, regardless of age, including products for the face and body, hair care and treatment products, make-up, fragrances, bath products, sun protection products, oral hygiene products and product lines for children.
Neighborhood success
In 1982, Natura started its internationalization process when it arrived in Chile. Six years later, it added the Bolivian market. It did not take long to infiltrate Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico.
In 2002, Natura’s products were being sold in duty-free Brazilian airports. But it was in 2005 that the brand took a major leap in the international market to open a shop in Paris, the world capital of cosmetic products.
Latin America accepted the Natura brand with incredible enthusiasm. A recent annual report indicates that the company's direct sales in the region will reach a turnover in the order of US$ 500 million in 2012.
In Europe, Natura continues with the important work of building the brand in a sophisticated market, generating the experience required to implement a business model in developed markets. But the international expansion will not be limited to Latin America and Europe. Natura is currently planning expansion into the United States.
Before coming to the US, Natura sent a group of senior executives to develop a plan to penetrate the world’s largest market for cosmetics and direct sales.
What makes Natura so special?
Concerns over global warming continue to increase, especially in politics. In December 2008, during a meeting with Al Gore, then-US-president-elect Barack Obama said: “We all believe what the scientists have been telling us for years now, that this is a matter of urgency and national security, and it has to be dealt with in a serious way. That is what I intend to do in my administration."
This discussion also included the role companies play in protecting the environment.
Natura, founded in the late 1960s, is credited for having a business model that embraces sustainability and commits to using natural ingredients in its formulas. Natura’s eco-friendly, socially responsible business strategy was in place long before current advertising trends made it popular. Under the slogan "Well-Being-Well," Natura has always focused on social responsibility, the environment and economics. These long-held beliefs have become the main advantage in differentiating Natura from its competitors—demonstrating that the brand and its values were ahead of their time.
Today many opportunistic companies use sustainability as a way to promote their products, but Natura’s green marketing is more than a strategy, it is a philosophy. Natura’s concern for the environment is directly translated into its products. During the production of product mixes, Natura does not test on animals and respects all international security standards. In 1983, Natura began to produce and sell refills, whose average mass is almost 54 percent less than the mass of regular packaging. This revolutionary project resulted in a significant decrease in the disposal of solid waste in the environment. In 2007, the company put into practice the Carbon Neutral Program, designed to reduce and offset all emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG).
In 2005, Natura was cited in a UN report, “Talk the Walk,” as one of the pioneers in green marketing. The report also cited American Apparel and Stonyfield Farm—both American brands—and highlighted the work of Natura’s Ekos line for communicating brand values that foster a culture of conscious consumption.
Natura’s Ekos line features fragrances, personal care and ambience products that draw from the wealth of Brazil's biodiversity and are inspired by traditional plant ingredients—elevating awareness around Brazil’s environmental heritage and promoting quality of life in the communities that cultivate or extract those ingredients. Additionally, Natura’s Ekos products are biodegradable and use bottles and packaging that contain recycled material across the brand’s market segments, including soaps, shampoos, conditioners, moisturizers and perfumes.
Brands, according to American economist Edward Chamberlin, must differentiate products and services to survive. It is not surprising that Natura is flourishing by embracing the history and diversity of Brazil’s people and natural environment.

Franchise Brands: More than a Logo

Franchise Brands: More than a Logo
March 9, 2009

In franchising, it’s not just the corporate logo that needs to be carefully guarded, although that’s important. It’s the logo plus everything else—corporate colors, signage, buildings, trucks, uniforms, products, services, prices, promotions, ads, window posters, and even mundane stuff like pens, wrappers, and every collateral item in existence.
SUBWAY restaurants, named the #1 Global Franchise Opportunity for 2009 by Entrepreneur magazine, has more than 30,500 locations in 87 countries. Imagine what it’s like to control every aspect of the SUBWAY brand in every franchise location around the globe.
If it sounds like a major headache-inducing challenge—well, it is. “Multi-unit franchises may face a variety of difficulties along the way toward building brand consistency,” says Gary Findley, CEO of the Findley Group, in Franchising World (“Consistency: The Key to Branding," April 2007).
“Balancing brand uniformity while respecting franchisee independence and regulating brand messages while effectively targeting local communities are two of the struggles that often arise.”
Findley believes the only way to control the brand is through RQM—repetitive quality marketing.
“In RQM, repetitive is remaining persistent and consistent with the marketing message,” Findley says. “In RQM, the overall objective is to remain consistent.
Consistency in the marketing campaign will not only strengthen the brand identity, but it often leads to positive business growth.”
In the franchise world, however, marketing consistency takes on a whole new meaning. “…marketing touches everything a business does,” Findley says, “from the design on the bathroom tiles to the rips in the salesperson’s jeans, and anything a customer sees, touches, hears or smells can affect the brand image.”
For large and small franchise operations alike, educating franchisees about the value of the brand is often the first and most important step.
Taylor Bond, CEO and president of Children’s Orchard, a US-based children’s clothing resale franchise, explains it this way in Franchising World (“Communicating the Brand,” February 2005): “…we have aggressively focused on communicating the ‘picture of value.’ That means we have done everything humanly possible to help our franchise owners understand that the brand is the market share.
We explain that the brand is a mental message, a picture that consumers connect to their store.” Bond says smaller franchisors should point to the success of large global brands to get their franchisees “to understand and embrace the value of the brand.” It’s crucial, he says, to “tie the brand directly to the value of the business.”
In large, sophisticated franchise operations, the franchisor maintains control of the brand through numerous means, including franchisee training programs, comprehensive brand guidelines, and providing franchisees with consistently executed branding and marketing materials.
Providing brand guidelines is not that difficult, but enforcing them across a far-flung franchise system is another story.
“While many franchise systems provide their franchisees with guidelines about logo usage, signage and advertising, many fail to fully enforce those guidelines,” says Nikki Sells, vice president of franchising for Express Personnel Services, in Franchising World (“Consistent Brand Identification Increases Market Share,” December 2006). “This is why a customer can go from one unit to the next and have a completely different experience with the brand.
Enforcing clear guidelines will not only help franchises stay true to the brand when marketing, it will also improve customers’ experiences.” Sells says it may take site visits, customer surveys and focus groups with field reps to determine adherence to brand standards.
That’s why superior global franchisors such as SUBWAY and McDonald’s make franchisees part of the solution. McDonald’s requires its restaurants to spend a minimum of 4 percent of gross sales annually for promoting and advertising the business. Owner/operators work with local agencies to place advertisements and, in some cases, produce their own creative material, as long as it follows system guidelines.
McDonald’s also encourages its operators to offer feedback and ideas that could benefit the entire system; the Big Mac, Egg McMuffin and Filet-o-Fish sandwiches were all developed by owner/operators.
International branding is particularly difficult. Language and cultural issues present unique challenges for franchises. For food franchise systems, local cuisine preferences may require entire menus to vary. McDonald’s, for example, operates in India but does not serve beef there.
Instead, the Indian system offers a choice of vegetarian and non-vegetarian menus; the non-vegetarian menu is comprised of chicken and fish. Product names retain the McDonald’s branding concept but are country-specific: McVeggie, McAloo Tikki, Shahi Paneer McCurry Pan and Veg Pizza McPuff.
Challenges not withstanding, globalization is a means of rapid brand expansion. US-based Yum! Brands, owner of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell restaurants, has enjoyed widespread acceptance for its franchise brands around the world. The KFC business in France has the highest unit volumes of any KFC in the world. For the last four years, Pizza Hut has been ranked as the #1 most trusted food-service brand in India in a consumer survey in The Economic Times.

Mainland China is Yum! Brands’ top market for new company restaurant development worldwide. The company opened 471 new restaurants last year in mainland China. KFC, with more than 2,300 restaurants in China, is the leading quick-service restaurant brand, while Pizza Hut, with 400 locations, is the leading casual dining brand in mainland China. Yum! Brands says it opens a new KFC every day in mainland China. In 2007, operating profits for Yum! Brands’ China Division were more than US$ 375 million.
When a franchise system decides to change its brand, the implications are mind-boggling. In 2001, global shipping giant UPS acquired Mail Boxes Etc., a private postal center service. In 2003, “The UPS Store” brand was introduced. Tests in select US markets pitting The UPS Store against Mail Boxes Etc. showed a strong preference for The UPS Store. That meant thousands of US-based Mail Boxes Etc. stores had to be rebranded. Stores in Canada were rebranded in 2005. Stores outside North America, however, maintain the Mail Boxes Etc. brand. UPS currently operates over 6,000 stores worldwide.
Despite the arduous requirements of global branding, the business opportunity associated with a strong international franchise is unparalleled. Controlling their brands across thousands of locations is a key reason leading franchise systems succeed—and why their brands are among the most recognized in the world.

Soda Cans

Zoo Safari::: Take a peek

BRAND OWNER :Zoo Safari
CATEGORY:Sport/Leisure
REGION:Brazil
DATE:Feb 2009 - Dec 2008


The Zoo Safari in Sao Paulo is a safari park where visitors can drive their vehicle through forests as the animals roam around freely. The idea is that this way visitors are in cages rather than animals.
In order to communicate this different type of animal park, Zoo Safari created electrostatic stickers featuring pictures of animals including Zebra, ostriches and monkeys. These were placed on the windscreens of parked cars, facing inwards to car interior. Anyone getting into their car would get a glimpse of what it might be to have an animal peering into their vehicle. The proportions of the sticker gave the impression that an actual life sized creature was investigating the car passengers. The message on the sticker read: “Up-close, no cages, more fun”.

36.6 :::Ad-funded mobile brand

BRAND OWNER:36.6
CATEGORY:Telecoms/ Mobile
REGION:Poland
DATE:Jul 2008 - Dec 2008


36.6 was a service that allows people to top up their mobile credit just by listening to advertisements.

They must connect to a specific number, listen to the ad, respond to a specific question verifying that they listened to the ad and then get their account credited with free minutes or texts.

In order to launch the service, 36.6 wanted to drive the free message home, so created media and services that game the target audience of 15-24s something for nothing.

By following their habits, the brand identified key “need to phone” times and made sure the brand was there to offer an alternative to a cash-free mobile.

So this meant that young people were targeted when they were travelling to and from work, while they shopped as they exercised and during the evening.

36.6 appeared on signs in parks, on the sails of boats, as reverse graffiti, in digital out of home and on TV screens in electrical retailers.

The brand helped young people plan their big night out by appearing in the listings pages.

The brand also provided a free 36.6 bus which acted as a sales channel with the crew selling SIM cards.

The bus went along predefined routes in cities, carrying passengers between nightclubs.

Finally the brand also took control of snack dispensers in Warsaw selling 36.6 start up packs alongside snacks and chocolate.
As a result of the campaign, sales were 90% ahead of target in the second month.

Honda :::Mobile ignition

BRAND OWNER :Honda
REGION :Ireland
DATE :Jun 2008 - Jul 2008


To launch the Civic Type R vehicle model, Honda wanted an interactive campaign that captured the imagination of people in Dublin, Ireland.
Honda teamed up with JCDecaux to create an innovative new out of home format.

The special build was a 2D cut out of the back of the car with special lighting in the brake lights, smoke machines in the exhausts and a sonic element incorporated into it.

There was a text number on the poster that was linked to the controllers of the lights, smoke and sound. Passers by could text the number to “start” the car.

On doing this, the brake and indicator lights on the car started to flash, smoke came out of the exhausts and the roar of the engine was emitted from the board.

The sender then received two messages on their phone – one from Honda saying “thanks for participating, hope you enjoyed the show”, and the other gave a link to a specially designed mobile site that contained more information on the car (images of the interior, specs etc.).

A bluetooth unit contained in the build also picked up on any bluetooth enabled phones in the area, allowing people to download the roar of the engine as a ringtone.

Carlsberg::: Best Mate

BRAND OWNER:Carlsberg Group
CATEGORY:Drinks (alcoholic)
REGION:Canada
DATE:Apr 2009 - Dec 2008


Carlsberg was looking for a campaign to enhance brand awareness as it launched in Canada, building on its brand slogan “Probably the Best Beer in the World”. It wanted to engage with a primarily male target and link the brand to sociability.
Carlsberg came up with a nationwide competition akin to the Canadian Idol phenomenon. Competitors are required to show what makes them the “Best Mate” and why they can lay claim to the title.
The competition looks for “the guy that can make every situation better, is always connected and never lets anything stand in the way of a good time.
Visitors to www.bestmate.ca can enter to prove that with pictures, stories and videos that they are the best Best Mate. The 30 top “Best Mates” will be given a new Sony Ericsson W705 Walkman phone with integrated Facebook and YouTube applications.
The finalists will then be encouraged to record events and interactions as they build their case demonstrating their “best mate” skills.
A final winner will be selected and announced in June. The big prize is a VIP trip for the winner and three mates to Las Vegas. The advertising declares “Sinners needed for Vegas” and was created by GJP creative team Louis Duarte and Craig Burt.
The initial phase to invite contenders will be supported using a combination of outdoor, radio, online, video and social media tactics to cast a wide net.

Huggies::Baby countdown

BRAND OWNER:Kimberly-Clark
CATEGORY:Baby Care
REGION:USA
DATE:Feb 2008 - Dec 2008


There is a very short window in which first-time moms look at different disposable diaper brands and, once they have developed a preference, they generally stick with it.

Huggies sought an innovative way to inspire new moms to try the brand and build brand preference. The challenge was to create a meaningful tool that would allow mums to take information from the Huggies site and save on their personal profile pages online, creating brand ambassadors.
Multi-tasking is an important survival mechanism to help mums with their busy lives and online media play a major role in facilitating multi-tasking. Huggies created the “Huggies Baby Countdown” widget as a tool that expectant mothers could use to calculate how much longer their pregnancies will last based on their due dates.

It serves moms-to-be with daily pregnancy tips corresponding to their particular day along in pregnancy, as well as a picture of the developing fetus.

All content for the tips came from the Huggies brand website while a link on the widget drove users to sign up for the Pregnancy e-Newsletter on HuggiesBabynetwork.com.

This aligns Huggies with a useful tool that pregnant women can download to a personal profile page from more than 20 websites, including Facebook, Freewebs, iGoogle and MySpace, thereby connecting moms-to-be with the Huggies brand on a daily basis. All widget-supporting media and creative execution was negotiated as added value. Thus, every successful install was essentially a 9 month-long brand engagement, free of cost. The widget had 1,200+ installs in the first month and garnered an astounding interaction rate of 18%, compared with a Pointroll CPG rich media average of 7.25% (Pointroll CPG benchmarks, December 2008). To date, the widget has had 4,503,983 unique views and more than 31,000 installs

Dove::: Sleepover for self esteem

BRAND OWNER:Unilever
CATEGORY:Toiletries/ Cosmetics
REGION:Canada
DATE:Mar 2008 - Jun 2008

Too many girls develop low self-esteem from hang-ups about their looks and it stops them reaching their full potential.

The Dove Self- Esteem Fund wanted to fight this and deliver a positive experience for mothers and daughters.
While mums have positive memories about their own childhood sleepovers, they know they can turn negative and hit self esteem.

The Dove solution was to get both mums and daughters excited about doing something positive together, encouraging mothers to make the sleepover positive experience for their daughters.
Information about the sleepover was distributed online at dovesleepover.ca/soireedove.ca, offering mums tips on hosting a positive sleepover with music downloads, photo albums and live to air texting for daughters.
In a media first the promotion included a five network takeover with commercial breaks replaced with segments that linked live to real sleepovers and showing mums and daughters discussing issues that affected them.
TV programming was also adjusted in line with the positive theme to show empowering movies. Support also ran in-store, print and via PR.
The campaign delivered 11m media impressions and more than 30,000 registered attendees.

Johnnie Walker::: Targeting Chinese-Canadians

BRAND OWNER:Diageo
CATEGORY :Drinks (alcoholic)
REGION :Canada
DATE :Jan 2008 - Feb 2008

Chinese-Canadians are a significant minority. They are also keen whisky drinkers – particularly as part of their New Year celebrations.
The challenge for whisky brands is that they prefer to be communicated to in their home language – adding to costs – at a time when many are still recovering from the expense of pushing their products at Christmas.
Research indicated that while this group liked the finer things in life – making it a perfect target for Johnnie Walker – they also love giveaways and value add-ons and actively seek out such offers.
Johnnie Walker created Fai Cheun stations inside the biggest Chinese shopping complex in Toronto to offer our own branded version of the red wall/door posters traditionally used to offer new years greetings in homes, stores and restaurants.
Consumers who arrived at our calligraphy stations were greeted by traditionally dressed models speaking Cantonese and Mandarin and given branded Fai Cheun.
They also had the chance to speak to a world famous calligrapher and get unique personalised Fai Cheuns on branded paper.
Finally they were given a chance to sample Johnnie Walker and green tea in a nearby liquor store.
Chinese-Canadians were happy to display the branded Fai Cheuns and the activity was covered by Toronto’s two largest Chinese dailies.
Twenty-three per cent of Toronto’s Chinese Canadian population participated in the promotion.
Sales via liquor stores grew 44% in January and February year on year.

Red Bull::: Break Da Rulz " Kuwait"

BRAND OWNER:Red Bull
CATEGORY:Beverages- Energy Drink
REGION:Kuwait

DATE:April 2009 (Souq Sharq on Friday April 24 at 5:30pm)

.....So 80’s......

How Google won the search engine wars

April 2009

The Story of Search: How Google beat Overture and Yahoo by backing the long tail

Gary Flake, Microsoft technical fellow and director of Microsoft Live Labs, first became renowned for failure.
In 2003, he joined Overture as chief science officer. At the time, as he reminded an audience at the 2009 Advertising Research Foundation's 2009 Annual "Re:think" conference, the search-engine business largely was a duopoly. In fact, a year later, Overture had a 55-percent market share, Google 35 percent, and a variety of other providers shared the remaining 10-percent.

Five years on, Flake said, "the pie had grown by a factor of four. And it had changed from a duopoly to a monopoly." In 2008, Google's market share was 80 percent; Yahoo, which had acquired Overture in 2003, had 15 percent and Microsoft rounded out the selection with five percent.
"Google's dominance almost didn't happen," Flake told the ARF audience. And, the drivers were as much Overture's failure to understand the market dynamics as they were Google's successful understanding of the search value proposition. From a personal perspective, he added, such a momentous change in just a half-decade led to two questions: " 'WTF?' or 'How did I lose so badly - with greatness in my grasp - and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?'"

Although acknowledging he is a technologist and only a "tourist" in the marketing world, Flake began answering both queries by acknowledging the need to address three different constituencies:
*Customers: "They only want what they want."

*Advertisers: "They want low cost and low risk."

*Media/Publishers: "They need to engage customers and they want to do so at a low cost and with low risk."

"For each to get what it wants, someone has to sacrifice. If a publisher wants to make more money, an advertiser has to pay more. If an advertiser wants lower risk and still get out in front of customers, the customers may not get what they want."
In the case of paid search, a customer types in a query; advertisers, in advance, bid on a click because they presume a click translates to interest; and, with each click, publishers presumably make money. "If the interests of all three partiers are aligned, new value is created to all parties. It's something all three want: Something is exchanged at a pricing that's market-determined."
When GoTo.com - the original name of Overture - was founded in 1988, "There were valid questions about the model", Flake said. Would users actually be willing to pay up on a sponsored search result? Up to that point, search had been almost entirely non-commercial. Would destinations show these server-sponsored ads, when so much emphasis had been placed on preserving an editorial voice on search-engine pages? Would advertisers be willing to take the risk of a new medium that was completely new with no demonstrated return on investment?
The hesitation all added up to "a serious cold-start problem." The solution, Flake offered, was to make paid search completely transparent.
Overture tried to engender confidence with three strategic platforms: Exact search meant that users would get exactly what they wanted. Type in "Flowers" and you'd get flowers. Type in "Flowers" and "Mother's Day" and you'd get a list of sites that specifically matched those criteria. "But if you typed in, 'Where can I buy flowers for my beautiful mother in San Jose,' - and, I kid you not, we received long verbose proposals like that - you'd likely not get anything."
The reasoning, Flake explained, was that "we felt that the thoughtful advertiser wanted to know precisely what they were getting." Three other Overture features that reinforced the concept of transparency: A "human" editorial filter that reviewed every ad, "high-touch relationships with advertisers through all parts of the workflow," and partnerships with such premium destinations as MSN, AOL, Yahoo, and Microsoft.

To explain how Overture went wrong, Flake used three models of the new digital word that "that might explain the past and look toward the future":

• The Long Tail
• The Innovator's Dilemma
• Network Effects

The Long Tail

Before either organization fully realized the model or its implications, Overture focused on the head of the long-tail model and Google concentrated on the tail. And, as Flake described, those orientations would be the paid-search market-mover.
From day 1, Google defaulted to the approximate match. "'Where can I buy flowers for my beautiful mother in San Jose" generated a bunch of responses - florists in the specific market, 1-800 order-by-phone services, even grocery stores that offered plants as a sideline ordering. There were no specific matches (the head), but scores of approximate matches (the tail) that better served the needs of the consumer.

Similarly, Google used automated click-through rates (CTR) instead of staff people to determine whether a search was relevant to a query. If a search seemed to work, it was kept. If not, it was rejected from the system.
A CTR filter also served as a proxy for the relevancy that the destination partners had provided for Overture.
The pattern was not an isolated one. Flake pointed to other instances of head/tail distinctions that have become more common as the model has become better understood: mainstream media (head) and news aggregators/citizen journalism (tail); network TV (head) and "stupid YouTube videos (tail); radio (head) and podcasts (tail); RIAA (head) and unsigned artists (tail); shrink-wrap software (head) and software mashups (tail).
The Innovator's Dilemma
"The first companies in an industry (the innovators) must be willing to eventually destroy their own business to create something new," Flake told the ARF assembly. "They must destroy their business before someone else does."
Flake's career began in the hardware industry, "where the epitome was to program on a supercomputer." Although "it took decades to unfold," priorities for hardware moved from supercomputers to main frames to scientific workstations to personal computers to laptops to handhelds and to cell phones…. Comsumerization of that market actually drove innovation and drove the bigger things out of business."
"Innovators start off by doing something very natural," Flake said. "They focus on a small number of large, high-margin customers. They want to make money, they want to prove the model works as soon as possible. And they want to maximize their own ROI."
Late arrivals, by contrast, are left to focus on lower-margin customers - again, a common-sense strategy: Why go head-to-head with the market leader when there's a whole pool of customers for whom they don't have to compete?
"Meanwhile, through competition, margins begin to shrink," Flake continued. "Both the original innovator and the newcomer invade each other's space, looking for more business."
The difference in their histories, however, begins to reveal different strengths: The older companies - the original innovators - have not had to learn to grow up looking for more efficient ways to do business. The younger companies have a heritage of going head-to-head with competitors, of scaling up, on learning new ways to operate more efficiently. "And the late arrivals win because they can take the lessons of optimization" they've learned working on the tail and apply them to the head, Flake said.
In the paid-search business, the cycle of evolution took just 18 months to unwind. And, the change happened as - naturally enough - the principal players tried to move from their position of strength to the areas where they still could grow. As paid search matured, he added, the industry survivors naturally try to capture a fuller market share by moving to the opposite end of the long tail. Yahoo, which had purchased Overture in 2002, tried to expand its market from the head to the tail; Google attempted to move from the tail to the head.
But, as Yahoo discovered, it was much easier to move from the tail to the head than from the head to the tail.
Network Effects
"If you're the only person in the world with a telephone, it doesn't have much use to you," Flake told the ARF audience. "If everyone else in the world has a telephone, it has great use to you because potentially you can call anyone."
Any kind of network that has more participants simply provides both greater individual value and greater aggregate value, Flake continued. And, as networks grow, "virtual cycles emerge."
In an eBay network, he explained, the more buyers there are, the more opportunities there are to sell. And the more sellers who participate, the more opportunities there are to buy. It's a model that's replicated in operating systems (developers and users), file formats (writers and readers) and search engines (authors and searchers), marketing (advertisers and consumers), and payments (payers and payees).
"In the virtuous cycle of paid search," the director of Microsoft's Live Labs added, "You need advertisers. The more advertisers you have, the more bids you have. The more bids you have, the more traffic you have. The more traffic you have, the more money you get per search. And, with the more money you get, the more syndication you get. And, as you get more syndication, you get more traffic. And it's traffic inventory that pulls in the advertisers and the process begins to snowball."

Overture - and, in time, Yahoo - operated independently and allowing the cycle to develop "organically," said Flake. Google, by contrast, "primed the pump with a destination site that could effectively make them as powerful as any affiliate on the network. And, in doing so, they were able to bootstrap their own network in a way that was quite stunning."

Overture, he explained, "did not understand that one network could prime another…. We were constrained by our own idea, by our focus on the head [of the long tail]. We didn't understand how it all could play out so rapidly."
The future plays out with "an even longer tail" and as "tools become simpler, more powerful and more prevalent, the pools of creators will increase dramatically." Everyday examples include desktop publishing, digital photography, garage bands, Songsmith, podcasting, and blogging. "What does it take to make an online business?" Flake asked. "Ten years ago, you needed a substantial amount of money. Today, it's $5 or for free…. The barriers to entry are dropping to zero."
And, as the opportunities proliferate, so will the occasions grow that enable additional long-tail partnerships - pools of intelligence that can overlap with (and reinforce) one another.

Bite me

Agency: Y&R Bangkok

Client: Johnson’s tooth brushes
Agency: DPZ Propaganda, Sao Paulo.

Lisbon store brings back forgotten favourites

Taking a firm stand in the face of globalization, A Vida Portuguesa has tracked down Portugal’s unique brands and opened a store dedicated to products that have resisted the urge to keep up with changing times.
At the store, located in a former soap factory in Lisbon’s traditional-yet-hip neighbourhood of Chiado, customers can find over 1,000 products that

1)have maintained their original packaging,

2) that are made by hand,

3)or that represent traditional Portuguese craftsmanship.

Soaps, pencils, mugs, jewelry, notebooks, coffee, tea, blankets and even toothpaste—everything on stock holds a fragment of the nation’s collective memory.

Some items are widely available and familiar throughout Portugal, while others were almost impossible to find and buy before the store opened.
A Vida Portuguesa appeals both to

a) nostalgic adults delighted to find the brands of their youth, and to

b)younger generations attracted by old-fashioned products and retro packaging that provide an alternative to mainstream brands.

It’s a testament, once again, to the enduring appeal of (still) made here, a trend that rewards brands for staying true to their local roots and identity.
Website: http://www.umacasaportuguesa.com/

Contact: avidaportuguesa@gmail.com

Western Union::: Rural movie project

BRAND OWNER:Western Union
CATEGORY:Financial
REGION:China
DATE:Jul 2008 - Oct 2008
Western Union’s money transfer service relies on brand awareness but also brand familiarity to drive usage.

Consumers need to trust Western Union to use the service.

In China a key target was people living in villages around tier 3 and 4 cities who tend to be older with lower educational attainment.
Reaching these consumers is hard because there are few targeted media options, printed materials may not be effective or understood and they are also conservative when it comes to testing new services.

The key way to earn their trust, however, is recommendation from family and friends and the communications solution was to create a family event in their villages and use the occasion to personally explain the Western Union service.

It created a tailor-made event in 95 different locations, promoted via posters, offering villagers the chance to see a relatively recent movie.

Before each screening a 10-minute video about Western Union was played with representatives on the ground also giving out leaflets and one to one explanations.

The event was totally branded with Western Union yellow stools, banners, event and leaflets.
Research carried out after the event showed nearly everyone questioned said they would try Western Union products for future transfers. The activity is being expanded for 2009.

Hansaplast::: Marching blisters

BRAND OWNER:Beiersdorf
CATEGORY:Pharmaceuticals/ Healthcare
REGION:Germany
DATE:Apr 2008 - Jan 2008


Special plasters for blisters are a niche product. Hansaplast had been mainly targeted at women to help them adapt their new shoes but the product was also suitable for other groups.
The Beiersdorf brand needed to ensure potential customers didn’t use less specialised products when they needed protection from blisters.
It identified new army recruits as a rich potential market – around 60,000 young men join the German army every year and undergo a gruelling fitness programme for nine months.
Their best friends will not only be their fellow recruits but also the boots that will carry them through the miles of route marches and exercises.

They need blister plasters just as much as they need the rest of their uniform.
And with extreme experience of the pain of blisters they would become advocates for the benefits of Hansaplast both in through the army as well as to their civilian friends.

The brand decided that each new recruit should receive not just a sample pack but also information on how to treat blisters.

Each quarter 35,000 sample boxes, including a camouflage sample were handed out.
Questionnaires revealed 40% satisfaction rates with the blister plasters and there was also a significant boost in sales at barrack shops, which rose permanently by 15%.

WWF::: Visualizing charity donations

BRAND OWNER:WWF
CATEGORY:Charities
REGION:Brazil
DATE:Feb 2009 - Mar 2009

When people give to charity, it is often hard to visualize where exactly their money is going. Many people can question that the money they donate is actually going to directly help the cause they are donating to.

WWF wanted to create a tangible link between donation and the animals that were going to benefit from the cause.
WWF was particularly concerned about the plight of the toucan, the sea turtle and the marsh deer.

WWF decided to set up donation areas in public places including gyms, cinemas and company reception areas.

It created large magnetic posters with a faint painting-by-numbers style outline of a toucan, a sea turtle or a deer. Within the outline were markings where people could place different types of coins to create the features of the creature. The message on the poster read: “Make your donations to WWF Brazil here and see who you’ll be helping”.

Silver coloured 50 centavo coins would form the lightest parts of the animal, gold and silver coloured 1 real coins would form the bulk of the animals, while the darker coppery coloured 5 and 1 centavo coins would build the shaded areas.

As more people donated by placing their coins on the magnetic surface, the image of the animal appeared.