Rexona brand extension madness: It's the pits

A couple of years ago, Unilever's Rexona brand of deodorant had one "For Men" product variant. It came packaged in black, the standard colour for men's toiletries.
Now, like tall Daleks, Rexona For Men line extensions have taken over the deodorant shelf in the supermarket, apparently massing for some kind of attack and chanting "ANTI-PER-SPI-RATE... ANTI-PER-SPI-RATE...".

At Woolies yesterday, I counted at least nine different Rexonas For Men. Problem is, I had no idea which one might be right for me. When it comes to shampoos and conditioners or shaving products, we're used to self-identifying as "dry", "sensitive", "damaged", "oily" or "coloured" (as in hair), but Rexona gives us little to go on when it comes to categorising our armpits. All products appeared to contain the same ingredients and each boasted the same 48-hour protection.

Among the variants I considered were:

• Original - Possible. I do still have my original armpits... and the hair
• Extreme - Well, I can be a bit extreme at times, but I wouldn't say my armpits were
• Sensitive - I'm a softy at heart, but not sure about my underarms
• Ice Cool - To match my cool personality or to chill my axilla?
• Extra Cool - For when "Ice Cool" just isn't cool enough, apparently. Liquid nitrogen...?
• V8 - With the freshness of high octane fuel, or maybe a lubricant to make the arm move more freely?
• Sport - Hmmm, not exactly me. At least that's one I could rule out.

But Rexona For Men Quantum and Forces left me even more puzzled. These brand extensions are neither trying to evoke the kind of man (or armpit) to which they were targeted, nor to describe the effect they might have when used. I have no idea what "Quantum" might mean (other than a geeky science show on ABC TV) and "Forces" sounds like the name of a soap opera.

This is a serious marketing issue - every new product variant costs money to manufacture, package, distribute and promote. Too many variants can confuse consumers (as it did with me), with the risk that they will flee to a competitor whose brand and product architecture is easier to navigate and understand. As a brand strategy consultant, I had to ask the obvious question - how could the gains Unilever was hoping for by flooding the men's deodorant market with bizarre variants outweigh the costs of launching and maintaining all of these different sub-brands?

Finally, I came up with a theory that might explain it. Maybe Unilever is being euphemistic. Maybe by using the words "quantum" and "forces" they are trying to tell us these Rexona products are... er... "intimate" deodorants for men.

So I bought them both. I intend to spray some Quantum on my sweaty quantum and use Forces to make sure my forces are always fresh.

Comedy Festival or not, bullshit's no joke

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival is a much admired cultural institution in my home town. Perhaps that's why I am troubled by what may look to others like a minor thing.

I saw an ad today for the 2010 Comedy Festival that features a "Comedy Fact":

"Those suffering ankylosing spondylitis gain 2 hours of painless sleep when expose (sic) to 10 minutes of comedy."

The "fact" is referenced to Pete Gitundu: 'Dealing with Stress' 2009.

To begin with, I know that ankylosing spondylitis is a real condition, an autoimmune arthritis mainly affecting the spine, and not something made up, even though it has a comical sound (especially to anyone familiar with the Goon Show's "Spon plague"). But that's a completely inadequate reference for any sort of therapeutic claim, so I Googled Pete.

It turns out that Peter Gitundu is "a Web Administrator and Has Been Researching and Reporting on Stress for Years" (all those capital letters are his, by the way, not mine). Sure enough, there in the first paragraph of one of Peter's 1400 online articles (!) is the source of the Comedy Festival quote:

"It has been found that two hours of painless sleep is added to patients of ankylosing spondylitis who are exposed to ten minutes of comedy. These are very interesting statistics..."

It's pretty clear that Peter isn't quoting his own research here, but there's no reference for these "statistics". So I looked a little further afield.

The trail leads back to a Canadian physician, Dr Norman Cousins, who published a personal account of the effects of laughter on his own ankylosing spondylitis in the late 1970s. Interesting and encouraging as it might be, it's a single-patient case report and does not appear to have been replicated in a clinical trial anywhere that I can find. There's no reference to a control group or placebo. And there are definitely no "statistics".

Dr Cousins may well have reported that he got an extra two hours' sleep after watching the Marx Brothers, but there's nothing to say anyone else will get the same effect from comedy (especially not if it's Two And a Half Men... just saying).

Look a bit further and you'll find thousands of references to Dr Cousins' work all over the web. Yes, it was a novel idea in the mid-1970s, and his personal account was compelling... but it didn't prove anything!

I don't want to be a killjoy, but a comprehensive review of the literature in 2001 concluded:

Few significant correlations have been found between trait measures of humor and immunity, pain tolerance, or self-reported illness symptoms. There is also little evidence of stress-moderating effects of humor on physical health variables and no evidence of increased longevity with greater humor.

It's disappointing that an anecdotal report from more than 30 years ago is still being cited - incorrectly - as "proof" of some therapeutic effect. But I find it even more disturbing that, having presumably chosen to use the first thing they Googled as a "fact" in promotion, no-one at the Comedy Festival bothered to check it anywhere beyond a ridiculously dodgy website authored by someone with no qualifications or authority on the subject.

Please understand, I'm not saying someone with ankylosing spondylitis doesn't deserve a laugh. But the Comedy Festival should be spreading mirth and merriment... not bullshit dressed as "fact".

Who ya gonna call? Consumer Affairs, the ACCC and the ACMA!

The Nine Network’s A Current Affair ran a story on Thursday night about a “haunted” nursing home in Queensland. The story centred on an “investigation” by a crowd called Queensland Paranormal Investigators, whose people wore prominent “QPI” shirts throughout.

Apart from being hysterically farcical - investigator “Shane” said at one point “it feels male”, making us wonder which part of the poltergeist he was touching – the whole segment appears to have been a blatant plug. Not only was the name of the firm mentioned several times during the story, but the host back in the studio then referred viewers to the ACA website for more information.

The web story turns out to be an uncritical piece of promotion for these fraudsters, with repetition by ACA of claims like these:

• QPI use “scientific and psychic methods”
• QPI use “more than $100,000 worth of ghost hunting equipment to determine the strange activity including... electronic voice phenomena recorders to pick up ghostly voices the human ear cannot hear”
• Members of the QPI team “have experience and qualifications which allow them to compile and analyse scientific, historical and psychic evidence”
• QPI “provide their clients with full documentation on completion of each investigation”.

And, of course, there’s a link to the QPI website, where they state clearly that “we are not a Not For Profit organisation”. So they are running a commercial operation “investigating” ghosts, hauntings and other paranormal activity? “Paging Dr Venkman. Dr Peter Venkman.”

But isn’t ACA the program that chases fraudsters down the street and demands answers from those who would hoodwink Aussie battlers and pensioners with their scams? The same program that fearlessly uses hidden cameras to expose rip-off artists and tradies who charge gullible consumers megabucks to fix non-existent problems?

Non-existent problems like ghosts, perhaps?

All right, so QPI will be dismissed by most people as hilarious losers (their website makes the comically underwhelming claim that they are “the only professional paranormal investigation team in Queensland with a thermal imaging camera”).

But how can ACA risk its credibility as a "scam-busting" program by presenting complete and utter bullshit like this? Did ACA receive payment or consideration for this story? If not, why did they let QPI's claims of "scientific" method go unchallenged?

As someone who has appeared on ACA from time to time to comment on marketing issues - drawing on published studies in consumer behaviour and peer-reviewed academic literature on marketing and brand management - I actually feel embarrassed to have been seen in the same company as these charlatans.

After tonight, don't expect any further ACA appearances - ghostly or otherwise - from me.

Google toilet paper: How easily could Google wipe away other hangers-on?

The amusing discovery that a company in Vietnam is apparently exploiting the fame of Google to sell toilet paper raises the question: Could anyone use the name "Google" in Australia and get away with it?

Google Inc. currently has registered Australian trade marks for the word "google" and the colour combination used in the familiar Google logo in a number of Classes, covering (not surprisingly) a range of products and services related to online search, other computer hardware and software, email and other telecommunications services, and advertising via the internet.

Perhaps more suprisingly, Google Inc. also has trade marks for the word "google" in relation to: books; manuals; notebooks; notepads; pens; greeting cards; stickers; decals; sticky notes; clothing; footwear; headgear; charitable fundraising; financial services; and payment and billing services.

While (broadly interpreted) the registration in respect of stationery might make it difficult for someone to use the Google brand for toilet paper, it would be very interesting to see what would happen if someone tried to use the word "google" in relation to (say) peanut butter, beer, a taxi company or any number of other products and services outside the limited scope of the current trade mark registrations.

Google Inc. would no doubt kick up a stink and claim that the intention of such users was to leverage the value of their world-famous trade mark. And they would probably be right. But Google Inc. can't claim that it (i.e. founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin) invented the word "google", nor that they have exclusive rights to the word it in all its forms and uses.

In fact, publisher Hearst Holdings has a current Australian trade mark (registered in 1960) for "Barney Google & Snuffy Smith" in Class 16, which includes books, newspapers, magazines and stationery. As it turns out, according to this well-referenced Wikipedia article, newspaper comic strip character Barney Google is actually the original source of the word "google" and Page and Brin's use of the word can be traced back to that source. So Google Inc. might not have it all its own way.

Astonishingly, though, an individual based in South Australia is currently trying to register the word "googler" for a range of services related to online publishing, entertainment and blogging. Once Google Inc. gets wind of that application, I venture to suggest it might be worth less than a pack of Google toilet paper.

ABC brand name policy runs aground on Etihad Stadium

I have written before on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's policy of refusing to use brand names in the titles of sporting stadiums and the like.

At one level, this is obviously laughable - intelligent, adult, ABC announcers are forced to use silly euphemisms like "the Scottish hamburger company" for McDonald's or generic terms like "the domestic 4-day cricket competition" when they weren't allowed to say "Pura Cup".

At another level, it's unworkable. Seriously - how can you discuss modern Western life without mentioning brand names at least sometimes? Apple, Google, Windows, iPhone. Several times I've been lined up to be interviewed on-air by the ABC on aspects of consumer behaviour - once on the subject of whether consumers have too many choices - and been asked by the producer: "Oh, and please don't mention any brand names."

But never was the sheer idiocy of the "no brand names" policy exposed more clearly than on ABC Local Radio this post-Christmas sporting weekend.

For every AFL season since it opened, the ABC has referred to "Docklands Stadium" or just "the Docklands", refusing to acknowledge successive "commercial" names: Colonial Stadium, Telstra Dome and - commencing in 2009 - Etihad Stadium. Yet, after Supermaxi yacht "Wild Thing" raffled its naming rights, ABC Radio coverage of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race yesterday was happy to call the boat by the name of its sponsor... Etihad Stadium.

As it happens, Etihad Stadium - the sponsor - probably got more than its fair share of early media coverage on ABC Radio on Boxing Day, as Etihad Stadium - the boat - was the first high-profile retirement from the Sydney-Hobart race.

So why is "Etihad Stadium" unacceptable to the ABC as the name of a stadium but perfectly OK as the name of a boat?

I agree that the ABC should remain free of advertising. But saying a brand name on air isn't advertising if they didn't pay you to say it!

It's time the ABC gave up this bloody-minded charade. The brand name "policy" is unworkable, hypocritical and makes absolutely no sense at all.

Ineffective "retractions": How to make false claims and get away with it

During the past week, bemused TV viewers in Australia may have noticed a brief TV commercial relating to a retraction by EASE-a-Cold.

I say "bemused" because it's an ad you could easily "see" several times without taking in much of it and certainly without understanding the context.

In my view, that's perfectly understandable. I think it's an ad that has been deliberately designed NOT to be effective.

First, the TVC features a single screen of tiny writing in red on white - one of the most difficult colour combinations to read on TV. Even on a 46-inch, high-definition screen, I could not read the text, especially not in the time for which it remained on screen. Second, it has a voice-over delivered in the least engaging way possible - monotonous, emotionless and perfunctory, the same way the disclaimers are read at the end of political advertising.

The whole impression is of an ad designed to meet the minimum requirements to comply with some kind of external order... and nothing more.

The facts are that Pharmacare Laboratories has been found by the relevant tribunal to have made an unlawful, misleading and unverified claim about the therapeutic benefits of EASE-a-Cold. The company was ordered not only to withdraw the false and misleading claims, but also to publish a retraction.

But the EASE-a-Cold case is actually a great illustration of how easy it is to make false and misleading claims about therapeutic effects in Australia and, effectively, get away with it. It is especially disturbing, as the product had been the subject of a previous adverse finding when earlier claims about its ingredients - zinc, echinacea and vitamin C - were also ordered withdrawn.

Problem is, although Tribunals and Courts sometimes specify that misleading claims should be "retracted", in my experience they rarely specify the form of that retraction. Even if they do make some stipulation about the content, quantity and scheduling of "corrective" ads in print or on websites (as it has done in this case), tribunals don't usually get into specifying the executional style of TV ads.

In TV advertising or advertorials, claims about health or weight loss benefits of non-prescription products are never presented in an unemotional and disengaged style. Rather, they use tactics designed to maximise attention, appeal and persuasion: attractive presenters, compelling images and carefully-chosen language.

That's what makes these mandated retractions so farcical. They set out to attract minimal attention, to go unnoticed, to leave no lasting impression in the mind of those exposed to them. So they stand little or no chance of "undoing" the effects of the original false representations.

It's time for tribunals like the Therapeutic Products Advertising Complaints Resolution Panel - and even the Federal Court - to get serious about retractions and do much, much more to specify the style and context in which the corrective messages should be delivered.

Remind me again... who won MasterChef Australia?

It's four months this week since the MasterChef Australia phenomenon reached its zenith. There's been much discussion about just why the show became such a hit: it's been called "an antidote for cynicism" and "a marker of the social, political and cultural times".

Yeah, yeah, sure. But it's a commercial TV program on a commercial network, so it's also relevant to reflect from a marketing perspective on what has happened to the most prominent contestants, the judges, and the MasterChef franchise since the show's finale.

And, frankly, much of it has been very disappointing.

First, the franchise. With the next full MasterChef competition not scheduled to begin until 2010, Network Ten and producers FremantleMedia tried to sustain the extraordinary momentum by launching a Celebrity MasterChef spin-off immediately the main series finished in July. But with no episodes to screen before late September, they relied on the appeal of the judges to keep things sizzling with what (I gather) were supposed to be quirky teasers.

This was a recipe for disaster. Calombaris, Preston and Mehigan may be able to whip up world-class dishes but they aren't comedic talent, especially not when given some of the most contrived and lame promo scripts imaginable. I don't think anyone could make a line like "more celebrities than you can poke a caramelised carrot stick at" sound funny. Still, it's not a good move to undermine the credibility and dignity of your judges and hosts by having them deliver bad lines.

It's obvious that Celebrity MasterChef hasn't generated anything like the same buzz as the original. Is that a problem? Not in itself, no. It clearly doesn't have the same set of ingredients as the original. But, just as any poorly-performing brand extension can damage its parent brand, it would be a pity if a hastily-developed, underwhelming celebrity spin-off were to undermine the MasterChef brand.

What about the contestants? Do you remember who actually won? Yes, it was "regular housewife and Mum" Julie Goodwin, who overcame her own self-esteem issues and tendency to self-destruct, or so the story went.

I suggested in an interview with MX newspaper immediately after the final that, despite being beaten, Poh Ling Yeow was likely to achieve much greater media and marketing success than Julie.

Hate to say "I told you so", but so far, Julie has secured endorsements for the very common-or-garden Fountain sauces in two ads described by a media analyst as "atrocious" and for Glad cling wrap and garbage bags, via another appallingly ill-conceived, unfunny and un-engaging ad.

And check out the two kitchens! Both Fountain and Glad want us to believe that we are seeing Julie - a regular suburban Mum who happens to be a great cook - in her own kitchen. Clearly at least one of them is telling porkies! Is anyone advising Julie about which endorsements to take and how to maintain some authenticity about her image?

Meanwhile, production begins this month on Poh's cooking show for the ABC and she has fronted a quirky and amusing campaign for cookware retailer Matchbox that seems to be a good match for her personality and appeal.

Poh certainly continues to look like a winner to me.

Three years on, Nestle makes its first rebranding play with Uncle Tobys

Global food giant Nestlé acquired the cereal and snackfoods brand Uncle Tobys in May 2006. The background to the purchase was that Nestlé had very limited presence in the breakfast cereal category In Australia at the time. Its Milo and Nesquik brands of sugary cereals competed with Kellogg's Coco Pops, and it had recently brought the US cereal brand Cheerios to the Australian market through its international partnership with General Mills. But Cheerios (as shown here in the Nestlé archive) didn't exactly set the local market on fire, either.

As I said here at the time, I thought it was most unlikely that Nestlé would add any obvious Nestlé parent branding to Uncle Tobys products, given that the Uncle Tobys brand equity and consumer loyalty owed so much to associations with "Australian" and "healthy", an image strongly supported by its sponsorships of swimming and surf lifesaving.

Interesting now to see Nestlé recognising that brand extension is a two-way street. The company is now leveraging the "healthy" and "Australian" associations by relaunching Cheerios under the Uncle Tobys brand name. The product now has less sugar, "90% more fibre" and the Heart Foundation tick (whatever that's worth).

But how to downplay the American-ness of Cheerios? They are, after all, the quintessential American cereal brand... as seen on TV. Easy - use the home-grown talent. The new Cheerios ad campaign features good, honest Aussie workers, real country folk from the Uncle Tobys factory in Wahgunyah on the Murray River in Northern Victoria, welcoming Cheerios to the Uncle Tobys family.