The QBrand QBlog

Rexona brand extension madness: It's the pits

2011-08-28T13:10:00.008+10:00

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

2010-01-24T14:23:00.011+11:00

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!

2010-01-14T20:53:00.010+11:00

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?

2010-01-09T17:43:00.010+11:00

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

2009-12-27T18:51:00.010+11:00

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

2009-12-27T15:14:00.011+11:00

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?

2009-11-14T23:04:00.035+11:00

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

2009-11-12T18:05:00.009+11:00

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.

Vegemite iSnack 2.0: Who is being trolled?

2009-09-28T21:38:00.011+10:00

Thousands of words have already been tweeted, blogged and otherwise published about Kraft's announcement on Saturday of the new name for its Vegemite cream cheese blend brand extension: Vegemite iSnack 2.0.

As the immediate twitstorm begins to abate, some interesting and thoughtful analysis is emerging. Much of the latest thinking seems to settle around the theme of "It’s so bad, it must be a deliberate publicity stunt".

There certainly is a funny smell about all of this, and it's not yeast extract. Given that the name is supposed to conjure up associations of the internet, I think we should turn to the web for a better and more current term than "publicity stunt" – I reckon it’s a giant troll. Problem is, at this stage, I’m still not sure who's being trolled.

Are consumers the victims? Is our riled-up response on social media playing into Kraft's hands?

The thought that Kraft might risk a valuable, iconic brand with such deep cultural connections in Australia for the sake of some very dubious publicity makes me Vege-mighty uncomfortable. And yet it does seem one plausible explanation.

And not everyone thinks the controversy about the name is a bad thing. Marketing academic Kenneth Miller of the University of Technology, Sydney, says "it's good PR" and "it won’t damage the parent brand".

The idea that "any publicity is good publicity" may have some validity in the case of some up-and-coming brands that consumers have never heard of. Think Paris Hilton.

But it simply doesn’t hold true for a mature brand that’s a household name, especially not in the internet age.

And ugly brand extensions may not cannibalise sales of the parent brand but they sure as hell can damage the image of the parent brand and the reputation of its owner. It's clear that many consumers are feeling a lot less warm and fuzzy about the Vegemite brand and Kraft today than they were last week.

Alternatively, has Kraft been trolled?

The winner of the contest, Western Australian web designer Dean Robbins, admits "it was all a bit tongue-in-cheek, really". In his post hoc explanation, Robbins says the "i" phenomenon and web 2.0 "have been recent revolutions" (my emphasis).

Ahem. Not exactly "recent". The iMac was launched in 1998 – that’s 10 years ago – and the iPod in 2001. Putting an "i" in front of a name has long since had its day as a legitimate "cool" branding strategy.

So for a web designer to be suggesting a name using clichés like "i" and "2.0" smacks of a giant piss-take.

Kraft hasn’t shared with us just how many of the 48,000 entries from 35,000 individuals it received were, to put it kindly, "tongue in cheek", but I’d be willing to bet it was a fair percentage.

The likelihood of getting a great name from a public contest was always low. Seriously, anyone from a smart brand identity agency – or anyone who aspires to work in one – would have run a mile from a half-arsed crowd-sourcing exercise like this.

And it's impossible to imagine that Kraft didn't have a "What if we run a contest and only get crap names?" strategy. So did they have a few ideas already up their sleeves? Was "iSnack 2.0" one of them?

Still, it’s hard to believe one of the world’s biggest FMCG companies would make a strategic branding decision – putting its faith and brand equity on the line with a name like this – without taking some expert branding advice and/or doing some decent consumer research. So who is advising Kraft, anyway, and have they led Kraft astray? Or is this mess all of Kraft's own making?

Kraft might well be inclined to dismiss the almost universally negative views expressed on Twitter and the blogosphere as coming from an irrelevant Gen Y elite, and not reflective of the views of the heartland of Australian consumers. In which case, why did they go with a hipster, pseudo-Gen Y name like iSnack 2.0, as suggested by a Gen Y web designer?

Ultimately, it may turn out that Kraft have tried to be too smart for their own good. Trolled themselves.

Agency replies to post on Solo pavement stencils with warning and insult... but misses the point

2009-09-14T16:09:00.005+10:00

I received an email today (reproduced in full below*) in response to my recent post on the use of pavement stencils in a suburban Melbourne shopping strip as part of Schweppes’ Solo brand’s “Game On” promotion.

Apparently the substance used to produce the intrusive yellow stencils was chalk, not paint.

Fine. Maybe I should have sent the stencils down to forensics before commenting, but I just described what I saw. I stand corrected.

So it was chalk that dripped and splattered, was walked through by pedestrians and was dumped in adjacent gutters, as my previous pics clearly showed.

And it was chalk that – as today’s photo shows – someone has tried damn hard to remove over the weekend without success. The footpaths and gutters now have residual yellow stains.

The point of my blog – as I think was perfectly clear – was to ask whether pavement graffiti was a legal, legitimate and appropriate tactic for a prominent consumer brand like Solo to adopt. I must now add to that the question of whether it’s a good look for an agency apparently working on behalf of Solo to send antagonistic emails to a blogger with no vested interest who simply comments from a consumer’s point of view.

Glenferrie Road shoppers and shopkeepers to whom I have spoken found it intrusive and galling to have these uninvited bright yellow eyesores in front of stores, especially when traders must get a Council permit for a sandwich board or any other form of street signage or furniture.

As for the warning that not checking facts “could get you in hot water” and the insult – “such dribble (sic)” – I’m happy to take my chances.

* NOTE: Email removed on request of Mike Akers of Foot Traffic Media

Posted via web from qbrand's posterous

Breast cancer campaign confusion: Time for another self-examination?

2009-09-13T19:12:00.001+10:00

This afternoon, a man wearing an ID badge with a pink ribbon rang our doorbell collecting money for “breast cancer”. I don’t know which breast cancer cause or organisation he represented – I didn’t even open my security door. Rather than giving him the following explanation, I simply told him that we were not in a position to assist. I felt some regret, but also some anger.

Australian consumers have been thoroughly trained over the past few years to recognize that pink and/or a pink ribbon means “breast cancer” and that fundraising for breast cancer awareness and research is a “good thing”. But conventional wisdom tells us too that you can have too much of a good thing.

As someone who has taken a close professional interest in this subject for several years (see my previous pieces in Crikey) I am probably better informed than many. Yet, if I am confused and cynical about the “pinkwash”, where does that leave the average consumer?

No breast cancer organisation has sole rights to the use of the colour pink or the pink ribbon motif, although many have trademarked specific design configurations and slogans. But some seem content to allow consumers to be guided and reassured by the general impressions and emotions conveyed by pink and the pink ribbon without getting specific about their causes.

And marketers that produce special pink products on the back of claims that they support breast cancer causes also rely on general consumer goodwill. The potential for exploitation is obvious: in the US, growing concern about consumer confusion and the potential for marketers to make misleading claims about funding provided through sales of pink products led to a community campaign by Breast Cancer Action called “Think Before You Pink”.

Now it seems Australia’s breast cancer organisations are themselves acknowledging the potential for consumer confusion and recognising the need to compete for share of voice, share of the consumer's mind and the discretionary breast cancer dollar.

For example, the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) now describes itself as "the leading (my emphasis) community-funded organisation in Australia raising money for research into the prevention, detection and treatment of breast cancer". Use of the word "leading" points clearly to competition – if you don’t have competitors, then “leading” is meaningless and pointless.

Breast Cancer Network Australia, which calls itself “the peak (my emphasis) national organisation for Australians personally affected by breast cancer” has been up-front about the risks of confusion for some time. In March 2008, BCNA convened a collaborative meeting between what it calls Australia’s “big three” breast cancer organisations – the NBCF, the National Breast and Ovarian Cancer Centre (NBOCC) and the BCNA – “to discuss ways we can best work together to support each other”.

Of course, identifying a “big three” naturally consigns other organisations to some kind of second tier, although the basis for this classification isn’t clear. High-profile omissions from this list include the McGrath Foundation, which raises money “to place breast care nurses in hospitals and to educate young women to become breast aware”, and the Breast Cancer Institute of Australia (BCIA) which “supports collaborative clinical trial research” in breast cancer treatment and prevention and is sponsored by cosmetics company Avon.

But you can’t expect consumers to get their heads around this hierarchy or to understand how the different organizations might complement each other (if indeed they do).

Eighteen months after the BCNA-led pow-wow, the situation is no clearer. Here it is mid-September and someone is doorknocking for “breast cancer” funds, yet I read on the NBCF website a call for volunteers for October which is “Breast Cancer Month”. BCNA’s “Pink Lady” and “pink bun” campaign takes place in April-May, with a focus on Mother’s Day (second Sunday in May). But Michel’s Patisserie will probably once again roll out the Pink Ribbon cupcakes this October in support of NBCF.

As the BCNA website still says “We all know there is confusion in the community about the roles of the three major national breast cancer organizations”. Yeah, and the rest…

That confusion can only continue to grow and, with it, the very real risk of consumer cynicism, mistrust and disinterest in what remains a vital endeavour.

Posted via web from qbrand's posterous

Is Woolworths spending $500,000 to promote a $5000 donation?

2009-09-11T17:56:00.001+10:00

Motorists using busy major roads in Melbourne and Brisbane have recently noticed large billboards advertising a $5000 grant from Woolworths to the Somerton Park Sea Scouts.

Some, not recognising the name Somerton Park, have eventually found that it is neither in Queensland nor Victoria but in South Australia. It’s likely that the same ad is gracing billboards around the country.

And there’s a TV commercial too, featuring the Sea Scouts carrying canoes and other equipment funded by the grant through the bush in awkward and comical fashion, to the sound of the Woolies’ banjo and harmonica-tinged jingle.

So why is Woolworths undertaking a national campaign to promote a small grant to a local South Australian community group?

Somerton Park Sea Scouts are just one of 1900 community organisations that have received grants of up to $5000 – to a total of around $2 million – in the 2009 Woolworths Fresh Food Kids Community Grants program.

But, perhaps unaware of the size of the overall grants program, some consumers have observed that the $5000 given to the Sea Scouts must compare very unfavourably with the amount spent on just a single billboard supersite.

And this highlights a classic dilemma for any marketer that undertakes sponsorship of community programs – how much should they spend telling people how much they have spent?

Woolworths have been coy about exactly how much they are spending to advertise the awarding of the community grants. They declined to answer specific questions about the number of billboards, the reach and frequency of TV ads, production budgets and overall media spend on the campaign.

Media Relations Manager Benedict Brook would say only that “a limited amount of our marketing mix has been used to publicise winners” and that “in terms of our overall spend on community projects, any marketing costs are both necessary and negligible”.

Large billboard posters cost up to $5000 each to print and renting space on a “supersite” can cost between $10,000 and $20,000 per month. Even assuming a conservative 10 sites nationally, that’s $150,000 on outdoor alone, not counting the initial costs of photography and design.

A 30-second TV commercial involving a full-day location shoot on high-quality media generally carries a production budget of $100,000. And there is a second TVC for the 2009 grants, featuring the Picton Magpies Junior Cricket Club, southwest of Sydney. So add perhaps another $100,000. It would be most unusual to spend $200,000 on production of two TVCs and then not spend at least that much buying media time to show them.

Ad industry people with whom I have canvassed the issue this week agree that, even on very conservative estimates, the total cost of the outdoor and TV campaigns to promote the grants must therefore be in excess of $500,000, and probably much more. But is this what Woolworths has actually paid?

“Much of our community support marketing utilises media partnerships and free advertising space given to us” by major media organizations, said Mr Brook. This “massively reduces the cost”, he claimed, but he could not provide further details. “How we use our media spend is commercially sensitive information,” he told us.

Just like the proverbial lunch, “free media” is never really free to an organisation like Woolworths. It is based on their total spend and has an opportunity cost, as Mr Brook acknowledged: “We could have used this space to advertise products.”

When you look at the big picture, Woolworths is spending at least half a million dollars to tell us about the $2 million they have spent. This is not at all out of line with what experts tell us sponsors should spend to promote or “activate” the value of a sponsorship. And Woolworths says feedback from its customers “has told us that they are keen to know what support we give to the wider community”.

However, while styled as a community support program, ad industry observers see the Fresh Food Kids Community Grants Program – which is explicitly linked by name to the supermarket chain’s broader advertising (as the “fresh food people”) – as being more about brand positioning than it is about philanthropy.

Posted via email from qbrand's posterous

Schweppes Solo: Are public pavements fair game for marketers?

2009-09-10T16:30:00.002+10:00

Looks like the members of a Schweppes “street marketing” team are taking the term literally when it comes to the Solo brand’s “Game On” football (soccer) promotion. A series of bright yellow stenciled logos appeared this week on the pavement in the busy Glenferrie Road shopping strip in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn, frequented by thousands of students from Swinburne University and nearby secondary schools.

Just as the original “Solo Man” in the iconic 1980s TV commercials dribbled lemon drink down his chin and chest as he “cracked a Solo”, the corporate graffitists have dribbled yellow paint along the footpath and even cleared the nozzles of their spray cans in the gutters in multiple locations.

Are footpaths and pavements “fair game” for advertisers? What if one of Solo’s competitors (e.g. the Coca-Cola Company’s Lift brand) decided to come along and spray over the Solo stencils? Or tried to outgun them by spraying two or three times the number of Lift logos in the same stretch of the shopping strip? Where might it all end?

And what about the effect on consumer sentiment towards the Solo brand?

My immediate reaction makes me think that the sloppiness and intrusiveness of the stenciling work does the Solo brand no favours.

Posted via email from qbrand's posterous

THE EMPEROR'S NEW PROSE: Why someone must confront Kevin Rudd about his writing

2009-09-08T14:43:00.002+10:00

The TV series The West Wing gave viewers the not unreasonable impression that great political leaders surround themselves with the best writers available. The hot-shots writing for President Jed Bartlet had honed their writing skills in the law, academia, management, journalism and even TV sitcoms.

Yet the evidence of our own eyes and ears suggests otherwise in the case of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. We want leaders whose words can inspire, but Rudd’s most important speeches as PM have often left us feeling flat and befuddled or, worse still, have attracted ridicule. Sadly, they seem to be the work of the man himself and not communication professionals.

Now, The Age reports that an essay by Rudd has been rejected by the American journal Foreign Affairs. The Age’s diplomatic editor Daniel Flitton cited “dense descriptions” (read gobbledygook) and “runs of clichés” in the essay and wondered whether these might have brought the PM undone.

It’s worth reading the full version of the paper obtained by The Age under Freedom of Information, to identify examples that point to systemic problems with the PM's writing.

Firstly, his prose style, and indeed his spoken remarks in interviews (remember “fair shake of the sauce bottle”?), suffer badly from mixed and murky metaphors. The essay is thick with them.

“...weaknesses in the institutions that underpin the globalization juggernaut”

A juggernaut is an unstoppable force and carries clear imagery of movement. But you don't underpin something that’s moving – in fact, "underpinning" is about securing a structure from beneath so that it doesn’t shift or collapse.

“A G20 structure... bridges the strategic and economic weight of the present and the future.”

A structure can't bridge a weight. A structure can bridge a gap, a gulf or a divide. Alternatively, if Rudd means to convey the idea of bridging the present and the future, then the sentence is not properly constructed.

“…the G20 should act as the lightning rod for global leadership: articulating principles, defining broad objectives and crafting the political consensus…”

Dictionaries define the metaphorical use of lightning rod in terms of a person (or organization) that attracts, or is a target of, criticism or controversy, especially when this diverts attention from other issues. This is clearly not Rudd’s intended meaning – there is no suggestion of attracting negative sentiment or diverting attention – so lightning rod is wrong.

“The largest gap in the current global system is the absence of a driving centre.”

Just what is a driving centre? It sounds like somewhere you might go to learn to drive. But if it’s supposed to be a mechanical metaphor, then what kind of machine has a driving centre? In the end, it’s not clear whether “driving” is meant in the sense of steering, accelerating and braking (as in “driving” a car or a train), or in the sense of propulsion (as in a “driving force”).

Taking issue with mixed metaphors isn’t just a matter of grammatical pedantry. Metaphors are supposed to enhance the communication of ideas by tapping into existing knowledge structures and imagery in the reader’s mind. But ill-chosen metaphors often obscure the writer’s intended meaning.

Kevin Rudd also has a recurring problem with sentences that head off in one direction but take a strange turn or lose their way.

“There is a yawning gap between the capacity of existing global institutions designed to deal with the challenges of the past, but insufficiently mandated, resourced or representative of emerging power realities to deal with the challenges of the future.”

This sentence teases the reader by setting out to describe a yawning gap, but the two sides of the gap or comparison introduced by the word between are never identified. Hence, a yawning gap remains in Rudd’s meaning.

“But this in turn misses the point because in China… the way in which China formally conceives of its role in the world is of practical importance in shaping the terms in which China might be profitably engaged in a dialogue about its future participation in the international order.”

Shortening this unfeasibly long sentence helps to reveal why it is problematic: the writer’s perspective moves from internal (in China…) to external and objective (…the way in which China…) and finally to a decidedly subjective and strategic view from the West (the terms in which China might be profitably engaged in a dialogue…). The shifting perspective makes the reader uncomfortable and obscures the writer’s point of view.

Not surprisingly, the Rudd essay contains numerous empty phrases that, rather than adding meaning or gravitas, simply make the writing less accessible. For example, Rudd’s vision for the G20 should be a crucial point of clarity in the essay. Instead, the vision is obscured by fog:

…an enabling agency capable of constructing the political momentum necessary to cut through layers of national and international bureaucracy that at present impede real progress on fundamental global reform that is now urgent.

Yes, there is more mixed metaphor (e.g. you can’t construct momentum) and awkward structure, but many of the words in this sentence are unnecessary or just poorly chosen. For example, a combination like an enabling agency capable is difficult and unpleasant to read.

Overall, this essay illustrates the kind of writing that Don Watson – former speechwriter for Labor Premier John Cain and Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating – railed against in his books Death Sentence and Weasel Words.

Dozens of weasels – and possibly some stoats and ferrets too – appear to have taken up residence in the PM’s word processor. Furthermore, the presence of spelling and punctuation errors in the manuscript suggests that it wasn’t even properly proof-read prior to submission.

That it reached a prestigious journal in this sorry state is embarrassing. It cries out for the assistance of a professional writer and editor.

But perhaps of greatest concern is the inference we must draw that there is no-one in the Prime Minister’s staff willing or able to confront him about these obvious shortcomings in his writing style.

Posted via web from qbrand's posterous

Amnesty International confirms repression in Fiji. So why do Aussies turn a blind eye?

2009-09-08T08:41:00.001+10:00

via amnesty.org

It's getting harder and harder to understand the attitudes of many Australians to our island neighbour Fiji. Despite clear evidence of the repressive nature of the Bainimarama regime, most of the talk I hear about Fiji is about how cheap the airfares are and which resort is the best.

From a branding perspective, what are the forces that perpetuate our view of Fiji as a sleepy, friendly tropical paradise when we get worked up about human rights in Burma and Zimbabwe, or about media censorship in China?

Is it just proximity? Or is it that so many Australians and Australian enterprises with commercial interests in Fiji are willing to be apologists for Bainimarama and his military government?

Posted via web from qbrand's posterous

Facebook 'enhances intelligence' but Twitter 'diminishes it', claims psychologist - Telegraph

2009-09-07T19:34:00.001+10:00

Facebook 'enhances intelligence' but Twitter 'diminishes it'

via telegraph.co.uk

This looks like a ridiculously superficial approach to comparing the effects of two different social networking sites on human intelligence.

"Working memory" may be a relevant issue. But many other factors could easily outweigh effects on working memory. The nature of the content posted and the conversations in which one engages on Twitter as compared to Facebook must surely be far more important.

On Twitter, I have engaged in deep conversations and spirited and thoughtful debates on complex issues. And via Twitter, I have been alerted to thousands of articles like this one.

Excuse me a second... What's that Facebook? You want me to do another quiz? Pick 5 foods I hate?

How about I pick 5 reasons why i think this article is crap?

Posted via web from qbrand's posterous

Country Road: More long copy failure at the highest level

2009-08-27T16:19:00.005+10:00

As I've mentioned on this blog several times before, I am increasingly distressed by the declining quality of long copy in ads and brochures... and by the inability of those who supervise writers and sign off copy to detect glaringly obvious problems with grammar and clarity.

I have learned to expect poor writing in things like local tourism brochures, but I'm still gobsmacked to see it at the very highest level.

And arguably there is no higher level in Australian corporate communications than the Annual Report of an ASX-listed company like fashion/lifestyle retailer Country Road.

The picture above shows the key scene-setting page in the 2008 Country Road Annual Report.

Here are the first two sentences:The Australian way of life is unique and highly desirable. It is a country that is both incredibly old but very new.
Appalling.

But just in case you're having trouble seeing what's wrong, let's dissect it.

Nothing wrong with the first sentence:

The Australian way of life is unique and highly desirable.

It's a simple sentence, with "The Australian way of life" as the subject. Now let's look at the second sentence. In context, the first word "It" unequivocally indicates the same subject as the first sentence, i.e. "The Australian way of life". But the rest of the sentence is now talking about a different subject. "The Australian way of life" is NOT a "country".

And there's something else horribly wrong with the second sentence. Whether we're talking about a country or a way of life, it can't be "both (something) but (something else)".

When you use "both", you must use "and":

The bathroom has both hot and cold running water.

Both John and Betty went to school.

Sentence 3 continues on about the country (presumably Australia, although it never says so): its light, landscape and colour. Then sentence 4 introduces the lifestyle of the country. All right, but didn't we start out talking about "the Australian way of life"? So are the "way of life" and the "lifestyle" the same thing or different concepts?

In sentence 5, the compound adjective "free-spirited" needs a hyphen. And by sentence 6, the subject switches away from Australia the country to "this modern Australian lifestyle".

What self-indulgent crap on the part of the agency responsible. If you're going to wax lyrical, you must be able to write grammatically or the effect is completely undermined and, with it, the client's credibility.

And shame on Country Road's corporate affairs and investor relations team for signing it off. What a shocking way to begin a piece that is intended to be the pinnacle of the company's communication with the market and its shareholders.

Let's hope their clothing isn't so poorly made.

For the Lexus hybrid, economy and quality should begin with the brochure

2009-08-18T08:47:00.005+10:00

Last weekend, I picked up a 38-page brochure for the Lexus RX line of "luxury SUV" motor vehicles - the RX350 and the RX450h, the only luxury SUV with a hybrid petrol/electric engine.

That's an awful lot of brochure for just two models and variants. OK, it's printed on "green" paper, but it sure does use a lot of it.

As you'd expect, the brochure has lots of lovely pictures of shiny Lexuses (Lexi?).

But the brochure's worst excesses can be found in its overblown, amateurish long copy. It tries way too hard, to the point of being nauseating:The first luxury SUV opened the way to new lifestyle opportunities...
Being socially responsible never felt so remarkable
In doing so, Lexus has created a new relevance...
On steep climbs, the relentless torque lifts you effortlessly from deep valleys to the crests of the hills...
Unfortunately the copy is far from effortless. But it is relentless.

Far worse than the over-inflated (and often meaningless) prose is the grammar. Or rather, the lack of it. Try these:To look at the RX450h, it gives little away that this is a vehicle that is...
Unlike certain hybrids which are optimised purely for economy, Lexus Hybrid Power achieves both.
"Both"? Both of what?

It's bad enough that the copywriter at (I believe) Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney has been allowed to indulge him- or herself at the expense of efficient and effective communication. But it's absolutely appalling that no-one has stepped in and corrected the grammatical howlers that flow directly from those indulgences.

The father of modern advertising, David Ogilvy, famously sold the original luxury car brand, Rolls-Royce, to Americans using understatement. The ad that carried his most celebrated headline is a masterpiece of letting the facts speak for themselves and the target's imagination and emotions fill in the rest:

At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.

You'd think young copywriters would be brought up to speed on this example before being let loose on a luxury car account.

Whaddaya mean it's wrong? It's a poll!

2009-07-28T19:15:00.000+10:00

There's been strong reaction to radio Triple J's Hottest 100 of All Time, as blogged about here previously.

That reaction hasn't been uniformly critical. In fact, there's been a considerable backlash, much of it based on the erroneous belief that if a poll is large enough - and this one had 500,000 entries - it must be right.

Wrong.

Any poll is only ever as good as the sample, the questions asked and how the results are gathered and analysed.

And the findings of this one don't have what researchers call 'face validity'. The problem isn't with any of the individual songs on the final list - each no doubt has its proponents. It's the big picture statistics that don't lie. When even Triple J announcers and fans are surprised and dismayed that not one of the supposed 100 greatest songs of all time is by a female artist, it suggests some pretty significant errors.

"Errors?!!" I hear you say. "But it can't be wrong - it's a poll. It's about people's opinions, so it must be right!"

People's opinions are never wrong. Absolutely never. But opinion polls often have errors that render their findings wrong. I'm using the word "error" here in the sense used by researchers and statisticians to describe problems in research design, analysis and interpretation. Let me explain.

If we accept that a TRUE Hottest 100 songs of all time exists out there in the minds of Triple J listeners, then the idea of the poll is - within practical limitations - to capture that collective mindset with an acceptable level of accuracy.

"Error" refers to any problem with the methodology that could contribute to the end result of the poll not being a reasonable reflection of what's actually in the collective mindset of our population of interest.

First and foremost is "sampling error". In any voluntary poll, the findings are only representative of those who actually vote. That naturally means that people who are particularly passionate about the cause (in this case, a particular song or artist) will vote. In other words, they aren't representative of the whole population - statisticians call this a biased sample. But people who didn't vote can't complain, as they only have themselves to blame.

In any case, what we have read about the scale of the Triple J poll (some 500,000 votes) and the spread of age and gender means you'd be hard-pressed to blame sampling error for the complete absence of female artists in the Hottest 100. So it's back to the methodology...

The next type of error is to do with the survey itself. We know what we were looking to find, but did we ask the right questions?

Triple J could have asked everyone who voted to nominate his or her top 100 songs in order, and then counted every vote and applied some kind of weighting based on that order.

But that's not what happened. In fact, Triple J asked listeners to nominate only their top 10 greatest songs of all time. You can well appreciate why Triple J would do this for practical reasons, but it introduces some significant sources of error.

Firstly, there's what I will call the Tenacious D effect. The instructions and the task are likely to have suggested to many people (consciously or unconsciously) that if they had to choose the 10 "greatest songs in the world" then these must be truly "awesome" songs.

Not surprisingly, the final list of the Hottest 100 was heavy on anthemic, epic, deep and meaningful power ballads - the kind of things that get played at funerals (yes, even Heath Ledger's). There are very few "feel good" dancefloor-fillers. And it appears to have helped a song considerably if the artist died in tragic circumstances.

Secondly, compiling a Top 100 out of thousands of 10-song samples introduces a very significant statistical problem. What you end up with is a sampling distribution of people's Top 10s, and NOT a true list of the Hottest 100. And that produces very unrealistic results, as per the following example - the figures are made up, but they illustrate the problem.

Let's put the Tenacious D effect aside for now and assume we asked a large group of people to list their Top 100 songs in order.

10% said Aretha Franklin's "Respect" was one of the 100 greatest songs of all time, and 0.5% of people had it in their Top 10

50% of people agreed that Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is one of the 100 greatest songs of all time, and 10% of people had it in their Top 10

Around a third of our sample said they'd never even heard of "Chop Suey" by System of a Down but 5% said it was one of the 100 greatest songs of all time and half of those (2.5%) had it in their Top 10.

So now we compile our list.

If we use all the votes to compile the Top 100, then Nirvana ranks above Aretha, with System of a Down lower down the list.

But when we only count people's Top 10s, Nirvana still - rightly - ranks high in the Hottest 100 and System of a Down makes it in towards the bottom but Aretha Franklin doesn't show up at all.

Without having access to any of the specific figures from the Triple J poll, the number of songs in the final Hottest 100 that could be considered relatively obscure - even for a Triple J audience - strongly suggests that these kind of survey and statistical errors are to blame for the lack of diversity that has bothered so many people.

How can Triple J design a poll that does a better job of finding the TRUE Hottest 100 of all time? Well, talk to some market researchers and statisticians to begin with.

Who says online publishing leads to a decline in standards? Fairfax does!

2009-07-27T13:36:00.016+10:00

Every day we read (on the internet, of course) of another old and revered print newspaper in a US city being read the last rites. The old business model just doesn't work any more. Advertising has moved to the web, printing costs are exorbitant, etc. etc. Fair enough.

But you don't have to go far to see some of the negative implications of this. A daily glance at headlines, links and copy in the online versions of many newspapers - including the so-called "quality press" - illustrates how publishing processes and priorities have changed.

It seems likely that news organisations are replacing sub-editors - people who knew how to get words to work - with IT types whose skills lie elsewhere and who are tasked with getting the words they are given up on screen as quickly as possible.

Consider the recent reporting of the Tour de France by Fairfax cycling correspondent Rupert Guinness (pictured above). You may have seen Rupert in a succession of gaudy Hawaiian shirts serving as a guest commentator on SBS Television at the end of several stages of the race.

But Rupert's print work, as presented online, often looked as scruffy and unprofessional as his attire. This, from his report after Stage 14 to Besançon on 19 July, is just one of several howlers he produced over the 23 days of le Tour:

However, within minutes of the stage finishing, the sparks began to fly between the Columbia team for which Australian riders Michael Rogers and Mark Renshaw are signed with, and the rival Garmin team who has Australian Matt White as one of their sports directors and had one of their riders in the 12-man breakaway.

What the...?

Firstly, when did so-called journalists cease to be able to write grammatical and readable copy? Producing acceptable clean copy used to be one of the basic rules of journalism - if you were a sports type who couldn't write, then you had a ghost writer or a sub-editor to clean up your copy for publication.

Second, how can a reputable "quality" news organisation allow such amateurish material to be published... and, worse, to sit there, uncorrected, more than a week later (as I write this). Clearly no-one literate at Fairfax has actually read the story.

OK, perhaps Rupe was under some pressure to file quickly. But the Besançon stage was over by 2am Sydney time and the byline on the story says 6:28am - surely plenty of time for a professional like Rupert to file something half-decent and enough to allow a sub-editor to make some sense of his mess (and to call/email him back to say "clean up your act").

Grammar and spelling are critical for ease, clarity and accuracy of communication. They DO matter - online as well as in print.

How many of these belong in the REAL Hottest 100 of all time?

2009-07-13T22:11:00.007+10:00

I compiled this list of 100 great songs from female artists and black artists. All of them appear on multiple online lists of "100 greatest songs..." (of all time, different genres, different decades, etc.). Sources include VH1, Billboard, Mojo magazine, Grammy winners.

It's just a starting point, but I defy anyone NOT to find at least a few songs here worthy of displacing some of the anthemic, epic, angry and emo white boy rock that dominated Triple J's list. (Note: Alphabetical order, not order of merit). Nominations and challenges welcome - it's all in the interests of diversity.

And let's face it - if Elton John's Tiny Dancer could get in, then nothing's off-limits!

(Sittin’On) The Dock of the Bay – Otis Redding
(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman – Carole King / Aretha Franklin
7 Seconds – Youssou N'dour and Neneh Cherry
A Change is Gonna Come – Sam Cooke
A Fairytale of New York – The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough – Diana Ross
Ain't No Sunshine – Bill Withers
All I Wanna Do – Sheryl Crow
At Last – Etta James
Birthday – Sugarcubes
California Dreamin' – The Mamas & the Papas
Close to You – The Carpenters
Constant Craving – k. d. lang
Crazy – Gnarls Barkly
Crazy – Patsy Cline
Crazy in Love – Beyonce featuring Jay-Z
Crazy On You – Heart
Cult of Personality – Living Colour
Dancing in the Street – Martha and the Vandellas
Dancing Queen – ABBA
Don’t Speak – No Doubt
Don't Know Why – Norah Jones
Echo Beach – Martha And The Muffins
Fight the Power - Public Enemy
Finally – Ce Ce Peniston
Go Your Own Way – Fleetwood Mac
God Bless the Child – Billie Holiday
Gold Digger – Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx
Got a Thing on My Mind – Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
Groove is in the Heart – Deee-Lite
Heart of Glass – Blondie
I Can't Stand the Rain – Ann Peebles
I Got You (I Feel Good) – James Brown
I Heard It Through The Grapevine – Marvin Gaye
I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself – Dusty Springfield
I Will Survive – Gloria Gaynor
I’m Coming Out – Diana Ross
If I Ain’t Got You – Alicia Keys
If You Don't Know Me By Now – Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes
In the Midnight Hour – Wilson Pickett
Independent Women – Destiny’s Child
Into The Groove – Madonna
It’s Too Late – Carole King
Jolene – Dolly Parton
Lady Marmalade – Labelle
Le Freak – Chic
Let’s Stay Together – Al Green
Like a Virgin – Madonna
Linger – The Cranberries
Living For the City – Stevie Wonder
Love and Happiness – Al Green
Love is a Battlefield – Pat Benatar
Love Rears its Ugly Head – Living Colour
Many Rivers to Cross – Jimmy Cliff
Me and Bobby McGee – Janis Joplin
Midnight Train to Georgia – Gladys Knight & The Pips
My Immortal – Evanescence
No One – Alicia Keys
Nothing Compares 2 U – Sinead O'Connor
Our Lips Are Sealed – The Go-Go's
Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone – The Temptations
Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag – James Brown
Protection – Massive Attack with Tracy Thorn
Push It – Salt ‘N’ Pepa
Ray of Light – Madonna
Real Love – Mary J. Blige
Respect Yourself – The Staple Singers
River Deep, Mountain High – Ike and Tina Turner
Run-D.M.C. – Walk This Way
Say My Name – Destiny’s Child
Somebody to Love – Jefferson Airplane
Something to Talk About – Bonnie Raitt
Sour Times – Portishead
Stand By Me – Ben E. King
Stop! In The Name Of Love – The Supremes
Strange Fruit – Billie Holiday
Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) – Eurythmics
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face – Roberta Flack
The Look of Love – Dusty Springfield
The Message – Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
The Power – SNAP!
The Tracks of My Tears – Smokey Robinson & the Miracles
Time After Time – Cyndi Lauper
To Be Young, Gifted & Black – Nina Simone
Venus As A Boy – Bjork
Vogue – Madonna
Walk Like an Egyptian – The Bangles
Walk on By – Dionne Warwick
Waterfalls – TLC
We Are Family – Sister Sledge
What’s Going On – Marvin Gaye
When a Man Loves a Woman – Percy Sledge
When Doves Cry – Prince
Where Did Our Love Go? – The Supremes
White Rabbit – Jefferson Airplane
Woodstock – Joni Mitchell
Wuthering Heights – Kate Bush
You Keep Me Hangin’ On – The Supremes
You Oughta Know – Alanis Morissette
Zombie – The Cranberries

"Hottest 100" very uncool for Triple J's brand

2009-07-13T15:27:00.025+10:00

Yesterday, the ABC's national youth radio network Triple J revealed the final results of its listener poll of the Hottest 100 (songs/records) of All Time.

The Hottest 100 brand has become extremely important for Triple J since the poll began in the late 1980s. The annual Hottest 100 CD compilations, which began in 1993, sell by the hundreds of thousands. The annual listener poll for the year's best releases and the accompanying CD and events are a central and vital part of the station's promotion and merchandising.

But the results of this year's poll make disturbing reading for Triple J management and its ultimate masters higher up in the ABC and the Federal Government.

The concern won't be about any individual song or artist - whether a particular song is worthy of inclusion in the best 100 of all time will always be subject to personal taste and passing fads, and will be a subject for robust and enjoyable debate.

But it's the overall picture painted by some basic stats from the Hottest 100 that should have Triple J management worried.

Firstly, only five black artists or acts are represented in the entire Top 100: Michael Jackson (whose recent untimely death no doubt gave him a boost in the poll), Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder and (maybe) English band Bloc Party (fronted by a man born in the UK to Nigerian parents).

It is inconceivable that any reasonable poll of the "Hottest 100 songs of all time" could so glaringly exclude any and all black artists and music since 1982. This is especially disturbing when one considers how culturally important, if not dominant, essentially black musical forms like soul, funk, hip-hop and R&B have been in Western popular music since the 1960s. Triple J (in)famously began its national broadcasts in 1989 by being the only radio station in the world to play the song "F@#* Tha Police" by NWA (Niggaz With Attitude). Yet there is not a single black hip-hop act in this Hottest 100.

However, far more glaring than the relative lack of black artists is the total absence of female artists.

At best, I can see two songs that even feature female voices - Teardrop by Massive Attack (with "vocals by Elizabeth Fraser", i.e. not a full artist credit) and vocals by Kim Deal on the Pixies' Where is My Mind.

Again, it is utterly inconceivable that any list of the 100 greatest songs of all time could totally exclude female artists.

I know Triple J's own playlist and announcers don't reflect this shocking lack of diversity, and I'm not suggesting an editorial hand at work here. But if you do as I did and Google "greatest 100 songs" (of all time, by genre, by decade, etc.), you'll find all kinds of takes on this - polls, subjective lists, critics' choices. Yet you won't find a single list that completely excludes females and all but the most white-acceptable performers of colour. Indeed, from just some of these lists, and in the space of an hour or two, I easily compiled this list of songs by black and female artists.

Some people - including Triple J on-air personnel - have defended the Hottest 100 over the last 24 hours using what I call "the Logies excuse", i.e. that it's a popularity contest and it's not about merit.

Problem is, Triple J has successfully leveraged its listeners' musical tastes for years in the form of the Hottest 100 brand. And half a million votes sounds like great level of audience engagement. But previous annual polls and compilations have never reflected such an overall narrowness of musical style and audience appeal.

The top 20 especially was dominated by anthemic, epic, heavy, "message" songs in minor keys. And if the singer died tragically and prematurely, the song placed even higher. No "feel good" songs. And definitely no dance.

All of this makes this Hottest 100 of All Time a poison chalice for those whose job is to try to promote the station on the back of it, and for those who would defend Triple J's taxpayer funding on the basis that the national youth broadcaster has an important role in promoting cultural diversity.

Unfortunately, the data suggest that Triple J - intended to break down the sameness associated for so long with commercial Top 40 radio - may simply have subsituted a new kind of (white male) sameness.

ABC News: Not just wrong but misleading on Yemenia Air crash

2009-06-30T17:24:00.004+10:00

An introductory headline in ABC Radio News at 5:00pm (as heard on 774 ABC Melbourne) said:

Another Airbus A330 crashes into the ocean...

The actual report later in the news noted - correctly (as reported elsewhere) - that the aircraft type involved is an Airbus A310, which is an older plane of completely different design to the A330.

The wording of the headline - specifically the reference to "another A330..." and "crashes into the ocean..." - was clearly designed to evoke recall of the tragic Air France AF447 crash in the Atlantic earlier in June.

I rang the ABC Radio newsroom immediately (while the bulletin was still running). The person to whom I spoke acknowledged that the headline had been incorrect and agreed with me that it should be corrected. However, five minutes later, the headlines in the "recap" at the end of the news once again made the misleading claim that "another Airbus A330 has crashed into the ocean".

OK, I may be a plane-spotting nerd, but this was not merely a matter of having the facts wrong. This was clearly an attempt by someone in ABC News to sensationalise the news by implying this was "yet another" incident involving the A330, regardless of the fact that this crash involves a completely different aircraft type. Furthermore, reports to this point suggest that this crash occurred while the plane was makiing its approach to land in the Comoros, and not (more worryingly and much less explicably) at cruise altitude in mid-flight, as was the case with Air France 447.

Given that there are a number of A330s in the Qantas fleet, that kind of misleading and sensationalist reporting has serious implications for Australian consumers.

Wilkins: Not just gullible but culpable in Goldblum death rumour

2009-06-29T15:18:00.009+10:00

There's already been a lot written about Nine Network entertainment reporter Richard Wilkins and rumours of actor Jeff Goldblum's death, which spread at the same time as the world was learning that Michael Jackson had died of an apparent heart attack last Friday morning, Melbourne time.

Wilkins' conduct - mentioned as far afield as the Daily Mail in London and exploited for humour by Rove McManus last night - looks more appalling than comical when one examines the timelines involved and considers the resources he has available to him as a highly-paid and apparently well-connected correspondent.

I watched it unfold on Twitter, and there is no doubt in my mind that Wilkins himself fuelled the rumour by:
(a) picking it up from Twitter and not from any reliable news source
(b) broadcasting it and repeating it without apparently making any attempt to check it
(c) worst of all by far, giving the rumour credence by – falsely – attributing the report directly to New Zealand police as though he had spoken to them, and not to the hoax website (which claimed NZ police as a source).

The video clip raises a number of significant issues. Wilkins clearly stated (around 0:52):

New Zealand police are saying that that is a correct story.

Wilkins and colleagues then went on (over a "highlights" or obituary reel of Goldblum's acting) to discuss his career achievements while speaking of him in the past tense.

Some Australian Twitter users then began repeating Wilkins' report on the basis that he had confirmed the truth of the rumour. Indeed, overseas Twitter users began identifying "TV news in Australia" as having verified Goldblum's death; thanks to Wilkins' confirmation, many like this even had the actor dying IN Australia. It wasn’t long before celebrity users like Demi Moore – with millions of followers on Twitter – repeated the rumour and expressed their concern.

Meanwhile, back on the Today show, the time clock in the bottom right indicates that Wilkins was reporting this "correct story" at 9.42 am Eastern Australian time. New Zealand is two hours ahead of Eastern Australia, so it was already late morning in New Zealand, and there should have been no difficulty in getting NZ police media sources on the line to check the story before simply repeating a rumour from Twitter.

Furthermore, Wilkins is a "showbiz" reporter of many years' experience. Viewers could reasonably expect Wilkins to have links to "insiders" (e.g. artists' management and publicists, etc.) not accessible to the general public and to have checked with some of his supposed Hollywood connections, again, before treating the rumour as essentially being fact.

The links to the "story" as it was being posted on Twitter soon after 9 am on Friday all traced back to a single hoax website – there was no great difficulty establishing that it was a hoax. Indeed, Twitter users were already identifying it as a probable hoax as early as 9.31 am (see my own tweet and re-tweet. That is, 10 minutes before Wilkins made the statement that "New Zealand police are saying that that is a correct story", numerous average Twitter users had already exposed it as a likely or definite hoax.

When the likelihood of the report being a hoax was mentioned on Nine (at 9.55 am), the Today hosts and Wilkins did not apologise but rather blamed the nasty, exploitative hoax website for spreading the rumour ("that’s sick").

To add insult to injury, in Nine's main Friday evening news bulletin, as a "footnote" to the Michael Jackson coverage, it was noted that "a rumour spread online" about the death of Goldblum. There was no mention of Nine’s role or of "Dickie" Wilkins' significant contribution to the rumour via his lazy, shoddy journalism.

Misleading use of the word "exclusive"? There's no other store...

2009-06-15T14:52:00.007+10:00

Recently, on the same day, two envelopes from David Jones arrived in our letterbox at home.

One was addressed to my wife, who has had a David Jones store account since before I met her 20 years ago. It contained a letter, addressed to her by name, and carrying a bold red headline that said "AN EXCLUSIVE INVITATION FOR DAVID JONES CARDMEMBERS TO OUR PRE-CLEARANCE SHOPPING NIGHT". The body of the letter read:

As a valued David Jones Cardmember, you and your family are invited to the David Jones Pre-Clearance Shopping Night on Tuesday 2nd June 2009 from 5pm to 10pm at all stores... This is an exclusive invitation for our David Jones American Express Cardmembers and David Jones Storecard holders...

The second envelope, which looked almost identical, was addressed simply to "the Householder". It contained a letter with a similar bold red headline, and read:

Dear Householder... You and your family are invited to the David Jones Pre-Clearance Shopping Night on Tuesday 2nd June 2009 from 5pm to 10pm at David Jones Doncaster store... Whilst usually reserved for David Jones Cardmembers... we are giving you the opportunity to enjoy great offers...

Over the years, my wife has sometimes attended "exclusive" shopping nights for David Jones Cardmembers. But our assumption has always been that an "exclusive invitation for cardmembers" means only cardmembers are invited.

Yet on this occasion, DJs clearly also letterbox dropped thousands of households in the northeastern suburbs of Melbourne.

On the night, there was nothing "exclusive" about entry to David Jones' Doncaster store. If you showed an invitation - any invitation - you got in. And no roped-off VIP area for cardmembers.

So how was my wife's personalised invitation in any sense "exclusive"?

This isn't about whether cardmembers are forced to mingle with the riff-raff on a promotional shopping night. It's about stupid and disingenuous - and possibly misleading and deceptive - promotion on the part of David Jones.

Discovering that a trusted brand has engaged in such behaviour can be a powerful influence in undermining customer loyalty. And isn't brand loyalty the reason why stores like DJs have store credit and cardmember programs in the first place?

Is Kraft putting its Nuts on the line?

2009-06-04T14:09:00.005+10:00

Noticed at the supermarket this week: Kraft appears to be re-configuring its peanut butter product range under the name KRAFT Nuts.

First to appear was the "smooth" variety, fomerly called simply KRAFT smooth peanut butter. Under the new brand architecture, the same product is now KRAFT nuts peanut butter - smooth. Only a minor change, and the overall look and colour scheme are the same. So why bother going to the expense of rebranding?

Well, while "Kraft Peanut butter" probably carries significant brand equity with Australian consumers, the word "smooth" and the phrase "peanut butter" are both highly descriptive and not distinctive. Hence, Kraft could only ever claim Trade Mark protection for the word Kraft itself and not for any combination.

However, a search of the IP Australia Trade Marks register shows that a composite mark including the word KRAFT in its familiar hexagonal red border combined with the word nuts on a peanut-shaped graphic device was lodged in April 2009. Kraft and its lawyers obviously believe that "KRAFT nuts" with a specific graphic device is sufficiently distinctive to be granted a trade mark monopoly. This would mean convincing IP Australia that, in combination with KRAFT, "nuts" is an unsual name for a peanut butter or other spread (even though it's a highly descriptive word if applied to nuts).

Strategically, this gives Kraft the opportunity to build equity in something it can own beyond the KRAFT corporate brand name, but in a way that probably won't confuse consumers.

Given that I can find nothing about it anywhere on the web, this rebranding seems to be getting a very "soft" launch. But I would expect to see some new advertising featuring, and possibly explaining, the revised architecture before long.

Fyna takes the fun out of Wizz Fizz

2009-05-31T16:08:00.005+10:00

Wizz Fizz - the sugary sherbet treat that comes in single serve packets, each with a little spoon - has undergone a bizarre package redesign that makes it far more conservative and wussy.
Yes, believe it or not, that's the OLD pack on the left and the NEW pack on the right.

In my experience, kids loved the freaky monster graphics of the most recent packaging. But the new look is tame - the colour scheme is muted, the fonts and graphic elements far less interesting, and the monsters are replaced with lame-looking kids.

Why would brand owner Fyna Foods make their product apparently less interesting and exciting for kids?

To me, all the clues add up to a ridiculous effort by Fyna to be seen as more "responsible", perhaps under pressure from nutritionists and those who would censor all marketing communications aimed at children (including product packaging).

The most telling of these clues is the amount of pack "real estate" - somewhere near 50% - now given over to "health claims". We are now told that Wizz Fizz is 100% fat free, gluten free, dairy free and contains no artificial flavours or colours.

Huh? Did anyone ever imagine that Wizz Fizz sherbet contained anything other than sugar, bicarb and citric acid? Do parents really need to be reassured that it contains no fat? Parents of kids with allergies and intolerances to dairy and gluten would already be checking the ingredients list, so why make these claims so prominent?

This whole thing smacks of the same "strategy" that has brought Coca-Cola unstuck through its ridiculous and misleading (that's the ACCC, not me) "Mythbusting" advertorials last year featuring Kerry Armstrong. I've still seen nothing that justified Coke's defensive stance in the first place - it was all wrong strategically.

Nor can I see any reason why Fyna should be taking the fun out of Wizz Fizz.

Red Bull advertising gets a harder edge

2009-03-13T14:43:00.003+11:00

A new TV ad for Red Bull screening in Australia appears to be explicitly linking the guarana and caffeine-laced beverage to a claim of enhanced male sexual performance.

Red Bull’s long-running ad campaign featuring hand-drawn cartoons has consistently communicated the product promise that Red Bull “gives you wiiings”. Often this idea has been depicted literally, as the cartoon protagonists sprout wings allowing them to fly out of trouble or perform at higher levels.

Leading marketing academic Professor Kevin Lane Keller, in a comprehensive case study of the brand, writes that Red Bull’s ads were very effective “because they clearly communicated product benefits without promising specific physiological results”. However, although it looks similar, Red Bull’s new ad – which I saw for the first time this week – goes way beyond this well-established advertising formula.

The setting is a nude beach. A young woman is lying, presumably naked, reading a newspaper. A man arrives and asks her if it’s OK if he sets up next to her (his genitals are obscured by a horizontal black rectangle). They have a brief conversation and she offers him a can of Red Bull. He has a drink and immediately develops an erection, depicted by a change in angle of the black rectangle. While he appears to be embarrassed, she clearly approves. The ad is tagged in the usual manner: “Red Bull gives you wiiings”.

Why will this ad cause problems for Red Bull?

It’s not that the subject matter of the ad could cause offence – it’s a cartoon, after all, and the erection is implied (although there’s nothing equivocal about it). It’s not even that the tone is creepy and sleazy – erections on a nude beach are a bit Benny Hill-ish at the best of times.

The real problem here is that this ad makes no bones about what physiological benefit is being promised. It cannot be interpreted other than as a literal claim that Red Bull causes or enhances erection.

While medical opinion would suggest the opposite if anything (excessive caffeine intake is sometimes listed as contributing to erectile dysfunction), the internet is full of anecdotes, opinions and myths linking Red Bull to sexual performance. There are even YouTube testimonials to its power (WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT AND LANGUAGE. DEFINITELY NOT SAFE FOR WORK, KIDS, etc.).

Is Red Bull seeking to exploit internet rumours and gossip? That would be dicey strategy for any well-established brand.

But there are more serious legal issues here. What looks like an unequivocal and explicit claim for beneficial effects on male sexual function – or any physiological effect for that matter – would normally need to be validated by evidence, or Red Bull could be found to have breached regulations around the promotion of therapeutic goods.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration defines as a "therapeutic good" any product which is represented in any way to be, or is likely to be taken to be, for use... in connection with preventing, diagnosing, curing or alleviating a disease, ailment, defect or injury... (or) influencing inhibiting or modifying a physiological process".

In other words, would the Red Bull ad stand up in court?

Why some brands should NOT be on Twitter

2009-03-10T17:16:00.007+11:00

In the few short weeks I’ve been on Twitter (@downesy), I’ve already seen and followed dozens of posted links to articles about brands and Twitter. These have ranged from short and relatively obscure blog posts to serious articles by respected commentators in the advertising and marketing trade press. Many of them are interesting and have valid and useful points to make and share about brands on Twitter. But I’ve found it increasingly disturbing that these articles often share an underlying premise that goes unspoken and therefore unchallenged.

That premise is that brands should – indeed some go far as to say MUST – have a presence on Twitter.

OK, Twitter is new and buzzing. Yes, Twitter users are enthusiastic, zealous even, and great evangelists for this exciting new communications medium. Indeed, it seems like a very significant proportion of the traffic on Twitter is about Twitter. But being new, fast, powerful and exciting – like a Lamborghini perhaps – doesn’t mean it’s for everyone. Nor, indeed, does it make it right for every brand. The first – strategic – question any brand manager, agency strategy planner or “digital brand strategist” should be asking is not “Quick, how can we get our brand on Twitter?” but rather “How could being on Twitter help our brand?”

If you can’t answer the second question immediately, then there’s probably little point, cyber-squatting arguments apart (i.e. secure the brand’s @ identity before someone else “fakes” it), rushing around and appointing someone as the brand’s Twitter monitor and plunging headlong into the (ahem) Twitterverse.

And don’t be surprised or ashamed if you can’t answer the second question definitively even after lengthy, open-minded strategic consideration. It’s not a question that many brands can answer yet, if they are honest about it.

“What the hell, shouldn’t we just go for it anyway?” I hear you asking. Not necessarily – it may be that your brand should NOT be on Twitter, at least not yet and maybe not ever, for one or more of the following reasons.

Twitter users are not a target audience for your brand. A disciplined approach to customer segmentation dictates that you target some segments and choose not to serve others. Currently, the few million users of Twitter around the world represent a pretty distinctive segment when viewed along demographic, behavioural and psychographic lines. They are an attractive audience for some brands, but not for others. Should a brand therefore bother with Twitter if it is targeting people with a very low prevalence of Twitter use? Well, not if it diverts strategic resources (people, money and management focus) away from other priorities or if it has the potential to undermine more core communication messages and initiatives.
Twitter isn’t right for your brand’s personality. Popular individuals on Twitter have distinctive personalities and tones of voice. In the case of celebrities or people we know offline, these typically align with their real-life personae, or at least reflect parts of their personalities that we recognize (it’s amazing what the discipline of 140 characters can unleash in some people).
But we all know people who would simply be boring on Twitter – love ’em to death, but it’s just not their style. Likewise, there are brands – even brands we love – that would also be boring or inappropriate on Twitter.
Brand personality and values have to be built from within. Merely being on Twitter doesn’t automatically confer on a brand attributes like “cool” and “digitally savvy” if, indeed, that’s what you want for the brand. To assume otherwise would be to set the brand up for (dare I say) “epic fail”.
Your brand doesn’t speak “tweet”. Many brands have succeeded in communicating distinctive positioning and personality through long-running campaigns using (for example) long-copy print ads, or emotion-laden cinematic TV commercials, or quirky viral and outdoor media. That doesn’t mean the brand is stuck with these media, these tactics and this tone of voice forever, but you must ask whether the limitations of Twitter allow your brand to use a voice that’s congruent with positioning and other aspects of the marcoms mix. Or is 140 characters and the witty, sometimes arch, off-the-cuff Twitter style just not where your brand is coming from?
People like your brand but don’t want to follow it on Twitter. I have lots of friends who aren’t on Facebook or Twitter. Just because I now use Facebook and Twitter a lot doesn’t mean those people are no longer my friends – we have other ways of keeping in touch and relating.
The same goes for brands. Some of my favorite brands just don’t feel like they belong on Twitter or are not yet ready for Twitter.
Your brand becomes a freaking nuisance on Twitter. If your brand has little or nothing of relevance to say but keeps tweeting away regardless, even the most loyal consumers will begin to ignore it and may ultimately resent it and choose to stop following it. Haven’t we all “unfriended” someone because they kept bombarding us with stupid zombie requests?
Enraptured with Twitter and all its power and possibility, long-time ad people are sometimes forgetting concepts like wear-out. There are plenty of cases where excessive exposure to otherwise likeable ads has turned consumers off a brand and there’s nothing magical about Twitter that will prevent that from happening.
People who aren’t into your brand offline just aren't that into you. Being on Twitter may get your brand extra attention and extra opportunities to impress but it’s unlikely to make people love your brand if they don’t like it in the real world.
Even if people do like following your brand on Twitter, it doesn't change anything. Twitter should be a consideration in overall brand strategy, not drive brand strategy. What strategic objectives are you trying to achieve using Twitter? Could they be better met through other tactics and other media? And don’t ignore the potential downside risks of being on Twitter, especially if you don’t have the rest of the marketing mix right.
The rest of the brand’s service delivery and marketing infrastructure can’t support promises made or implied by a Twitter presence. I’ve had one great service experience via Twitter (from Google, after I tweeted a complaint about Google Toolbar out into the ether and got a reply from the Google Toolbar Grand Poobah himself in California). But the same didn’t happen when I tweeted about Telstra BigPond. In fact, nothing happened. And that’s fine, but I would be very annoyed to see a stream of semi-promotional crap from Telstra on Twitter when I can’t get them on the phone inside 30 minutes to talk about real problems with my service and my bill.
I can also envisage situations where Twitter might serve to exacerbate poor service experiences and then broadcast them to the world. A personal text message from an airline telling you that your flight is cancelled and suggesting you get to the airport for an earlier one can be an extremely valuable addition to the service experience. But the same doesn’t necessarily go for Twitter. If you’ve ever been at Sydney Airport (as I have) on a day when Qantas domestic has a total meltdown due to weather, then a Twitter stream of delays and confusion could be an absolute PR disaster. On the other hand, knowing that there are problems but finding no mention of it on a Qantas Twitter profile would also undermine confidence and trust.

People with a vested interest in one particular medium – and that goes for TV, radio, newspapers, etc. and not just “digital” – have always sought, and will continue to seek, to highlight ways in which your brand could use their medium ahead of any others. But based on what I’ve seen so far, some people who glory in titles like “digital brand strategist” need to extract the digit and focus first on the brand.

Trujillo and racism: My reply to Harry Mavros in full

2009-03-04T13:09:00.003+11:00

Harry Mavros wrote in reply to my two recent articles in Crikey, in which I was described aspects of the media treatment of Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo as employing racist stereotypes.

The following is the full text of my reply to Mavros.

I commend Harry Mavros for approaching the issue with some structure and intellectual rigour, and for playing the ball not the man. However, I’m sure we both deplore and reject racism not because of its underlying motivations but because of its awful consequences. While I acknowledge the distinction Mavros draws between “vulgar parochialism” and racism, I am far less concerned about issues of definition (those to which I referred as “technicalities”) than I am about the effects.

Racism and vulgar parochialism are fellow travelers – Mavros acknowledges that both produce the same kinds of derision of culture and appearance – and most Australians can’t tell an epiphenomenon from an epiglottis. The argument isn’t about whether cartoonists and sub-editors are motivated by racism (I don’t believe they are) but whether their actions could promote racism.

We appear to be in furious agreement that Knight's Trujillo cartoon is discriminatory and vulgar. But, as I made clear in both of my recent pieces (and my 2006 Crikey article), last Friday’s cartoon was just the latest episode in a long and troubling history. Sections of the Australian media have treated Mr Trujillo in this discriminatory and vulgar manner from the time of his appointment right through to the announcement of his departure.

This and other cartoons, “cute” headlines like “Si senor”, nicknames like the “Three Amigos”, and radio stations playing the Mexican Hat Dance whenever his name is mentioned may look benign when considered individually. But for a very significant proportion of the Australian population, each of these repeated pairings – of Trujillo with a false, vulgar and discriminatory (Mavros's words) national and cultural stereotype – leverages existing prejudices and has the potential to engender fixed and absolute beliefs about racial inferiority.

By humorously referring to Victorians as “Mexicans” (i.e. from “south of the border”), Sydneysiders have long tapped into the “Mexican” racial stereotype in order to imply, albeit gently, that Victorians are intellectually inferior, slow and lazy.

I have interviewed many Australian consumers who, based on the cartoon and movie stereotypes on which they have been raised, and bolstered by the information they get from trusted contemporary media sources, believe that: (i) Sol Trujillo is “a Mexican”; (ii) “Mexicans” are intrinsically (culturally, genetically, whatever) inferior to other “races” in intellect, competence and trustworthiness; and (iii) as a “Mexican”, Sol Trujillo was a poor choice as Telstra CEO and an incompetent manager.

These people often have no basis for assessing Trujillo’s performance objectively. They see and hear others making fun of him because he’s “a Mexican” and, linking this to other (perhaps more reasoned) criticism in the media, make racially-based attributions about the reasons for his incompetence.Average German citizens and soldiers probably didn’t consider Jews genetically inferior until encouraged to believe this by Nazi propagandists. Indeed, they had to reject evidence to the contrary, namely that Jews in Germany included academics, musicians, scientists and business leaders.

But the Nazis didn’t need genotyping to convince other Germans that Jews were racially inferior. They simply heaped scorn on their appearance and cultural and religious practices. These were the tangible artefacts that “proved” their genetic inferiority: “They look funny and dress funny, they act strange, hence they are inferior.”

I am disturbed to have been accused by Mavros of recklessness for having raised the issue of racism. To deny racism on the basis of a purist argument about definitions and motivations is to be recklessly indifferent to the potential consequences of racial stereotypes and derision in the media.

Victorian bushfires: Which brands are rising from the ashes?

2009-02-22T21:50:00.005+11:00

[Note: This article is not intended to be distasteful or to cause offence. I’m not suggesting that anybody “wins” or has sought to “win” from tragedies like September 11 or Black Saturday. I’m merely applying a marketing and brand management perspective to what often happens in the wake of such events.]

Contemporary approaches to consumer behaviour view brands as a key way in which humans beings categorise the modern world, and a basis for sharing important cultural concepts and experiences. It’s not surprising, then, that new brands emerge and others are strengthened or damaged in the context of major events like disasters and wars.

This was certainly apparent in the days and weeks following the terrorist attacks in the US on 11 September 2001.

First were the attacks themselves and their immediate consequences. It didn’t take long before “September 11”and “9/11” became the two names used relatively interchangeably, especially in the US. No reference to a year is necessary – say “September 11” or “nine-eleven” and people know instantly to what you are referring.

Then came the groups, institutions and individuals whose brand associations, imagery and equity changed in the wake of the attacks and the tragedy.

Consider al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. It’s fair to say that neither was a household name before 9/11, especially not outside the US. Now, for many in the West, they stand for evil – a willingness to deliberately sacrifice thousands of innocent civilians and to horrify and terrorise whole populations in the name of a dubious cause. To be “linked to al-Qaeda” or have “trained with al-Qaeda” is to be tarred with the same brush.

The New York Police Department, with whom New Yorkers had sometimes had an uneasy relationship over the decades, and the Fire Department of New York were rightly hailed as heroes of 9/11 for their extraordinary responses and selfless sacrifice. Millions of consumers have bought T-shirts and caps bearing the acronyms NYPD and FDNY out of admiration and genuine empathy.

As a focal point for New York’s response to the attacks and for New Yorkers in general, Mayor Rudy Giuliani became a national and international figure. The boost to his brand equity might have been sufficient to take him to the White House had other challenges and challengers not appeared – not that he would have sought to manipulate the tragedy of 9/11 for political advantage.

But there is no doubt that George W. Bush did choose to leverage the powerful brand imagery of the 9/11 attacks in launching the war on terror and, in particular, in justifying the invasion of Iraq. This has come to be seen as a misuse or misrepresentation of 9/11 and was one of many things that came back to haunt Bush in the later years of his presidency.

Now in Victoria and, indeed, across Australia, it has been interesting to observe some of the same phenomena in action – the emergence and re-making of some brands in the wake of the terrible bushfires of Saturday 7 February.

First, there’s the issue of what to call the fires. While “Ash Wednesday” took root quickly in the Australian consciousness after the 1983 fires, I get the sense that the name “Black Saturday” hasn’t yet become embedded. Of course, it doesn’t have the head start that “Black Friday” (1939) and “Ash Wednesday” had, both being names that were already in popular use in other contexts.

Perhaps the use of the name “Black Saturday” in speeches for the national day of mourning on Sunday 22 February – and, in particular, in PM Kevin Rudd’s official address – will get it over the “tipping point” of public awareness and acceptance.

Which organizational and individual brands have emerged strengthened from the ashes of Black Saturday?

Most prominent must be the Country Fire Authority. A continuous flow of words and pictures have reminded us what horrors the members of the CFA confronted both in fighting the firestorm and, all too often, as the first to come upon the unimaginable human consequences. The discovery that the picture of a CFA officer giving a koala a drink was from before Black Saturday did nothing to diminish the respect the organisation earned.

The fact that so many are volunteers is a critical part of the CFA’s brand identity and values and our response to the CFA brand. In his speech on Sunday, Rudd acknowledged this brand imagery and how it might resonate for Australians in the future when he referred to “a new army of heroes where the yellow helmet evokes the same reverence as the slouch hat of old”.

Although Rudd has been chief mourner, it’s not clear whether this has had much impact on his brand image. On the other hand, the brand of Victorian premier John Brumby has had a very obvious boost – this is not to suggest, of course, that he would ever have wished to gain brand equity in this most tragic of ways. My observations suggest that over the past two weeks, as his real personality and humanity have been allowed to come to the fore, many Victorians have warmed to a man who was once widely considered too cold and distant to be electable as Premier. Political commentators have made the same observation.

As the organization at the centre of the major fundraising appeal and at the heart of relief and recovery efforts, the Red Cross has had a significant boost to its salience in the mind of the average Australian. But then, of course, that is its fate – to be prominent at times of disaster, tragedy and great need, and far less visible the rest of the time.

Have any brands lost ground? As some people have cast about for someone to blame for the tragedy, “The Greens” (and/or “greenies” in general) and the Shire of Nillumbik have been two early targets of negative sentiment in regard to planning regulations and processes. These will no doubt be an area of inquiry for the Royal Commission.

Last but not least are the communities like Kinglake, Marysville, Strathewen, Flowerdale and Calignee, many of which may have been unfamiliar names even to Melburnians before this disaster, but now immediately call to mind the horror of the fatal firestorm. This is not necessarily the kind of brand association that a town wants – just ask the people of Lockerbie in Scotland, whose town even 20 years later is known only for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

But, as Kevin Rudd noted on Sunday, these names and others are now “etched deep in the nation's memory”.

Passive voice makes me aggressive!

2008-05-15T11:24:00.004+10:00

Ads running on Melbourne morning radio this week re the impending closure of the Montague Street on-ramp to the CityLink tollway included the following line in the serious voice-over:

"It is encouraged motorists plan their trip with alternate routes"

I think I’ve seen this message once before… on a Chinese T-shirt. If CityLink is going to pay real money for spots like this, surely they can also afford a copywriter who’s familiar with English.

Market research gets tougher as suggers clog the phone lines

2007-12-19T16:33:00.000+11:00

As published in Crikey! on 14 December 2007

The phone rings. You answer and there’s that tell-tale two seconds of call-centre ambience before you are greeted by name:

"We’re just doing a 40-second survey on holiday habits…"

"Just a quick survey about people’s telephone services…"

Don’t be fooled: not everything that’s a "survey" is research. Depressingly often, it’s what the market research industry calls sugging (a loose acronym for "selling under the guise of research"), fugging ("fundraising…") or dugging ("databasing…").

Although long recognised as abusing the rights and trust of the public and often constituting misleading and deceptive conduct under Section 52 of the Trade Practices Act, sugging and its fellow travellers appear to be on the increase in Australia. In the past week alone, I have received three sugging calls at home, and it’s a fair bet that many of the hang-ups on my answering machine were also from suggers.

The classic example of sugging is the call that starts with "We’re just doing a survey in your area…" and eventually, either during the same call or a few days or weeks later, leads to an approach, invitation or straight-out sales pitch.

Sometimes you’re told you will go into some kind of prize draw to thank you for participating in the "survey". Sure enough, a few days or weeks later, there’s a second call and – wowee! – you won a weekend away at a timeshare resort. Of course, there’s a catch: in order to claim your prize, you have to attend a lengthy sales presentation and agree to be hassled for months if not years to come.

More disturbing is the call that purports to be a survey but actually consists of a series of increasingly leading or pushy questions about your current phone bill or mortgage repayments. Most consumers will recognise that a question like "Were you aware there’s now a way that you can save thousands on your mortgage?" is not legitimate market research. But by this stage, it’s often too late – you’ve already taken the bait, voluntarily divulged some personal information and you’re on the back foot.

Other times, you are called a few weeks later and actually reminded of the responses you gave. "Remember you told us X and Y about your preferred holiday destination? Well, we thought you might be interested in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity..."

This would be a contemptible breach of privacy and ethical provisions in genuine research, which is undertaken on the basis that complete anonymity of the research respondent is strictly preserved. As the code of the Australian Marketing and Social Research Society (AMSRS) makes clear, any situation in which the identity and personal details of the people contacted are to be used for individual selling, promotional, fundraising or other non-research purposes "can under no circumstances be regarded as market research".

My own experience this week suggests that, like other forms of telemarketing, sugging calls can come from on-shore and off-shore sites. A call I received from the Stingray International Survey Centre – which was presented as a "quick survey" on my telephone use – came from the Mercury Blue telemarketing call centre in Mount Barker, South Australia. The caller did not and could not tell me how my data were going to be used, what were my rights under privacy provisions, or who was the sponsor of the research. Neither could (or would) the "supervisor".

The Mercury Blue website describes their outbound call services as including "direct sales campaigns, database updates, qualified appointment setting, surveys, database management, after sales customer service calls (and) product up-selling". Perhaps needless to say, Mercury Blue is not listed as a member of the Association of Market & Social Research Organisations (AMSRO).

The "40-second survey on holiday habits" was a call from a telemarketing organisation in Angeles City, Philippines, whose operator and "supervisor" were unable to understand my simple questions about the integrity of my personal information and the uses to which my data would be put. Off-shore suggers may be more problematic: do the misleading and deceptive conduct provisions of the Australian Trade Practices Act apply to a call placed from overseas on behalf of an overseas company, and can the Act be enforced in these circumstances?

But even if suggers are caught and punished by the law, and consumers recognise when they’ve been sugged, fugged or dugged, there’s a significant downside for the market research industry. Those who’ve been burned by suggers are much more likely to reject future requests to participate in genuine research.

Research conducted by the AMSRS has shown that Australian consumers are broadly supportive of genuine research and do differentiate between telemarketers and market researchers, but sugging muddies the waters by deliberately blurring this distinction. Some research fieldworkers are reporting increasing resistance from consumers who feel they’ve been misled and no longer known who to trust when it comes to "surveys".

The biggest problem is that almost all sugging goes unreported. Unsolicited calls of any kind are viewed by consumers not only as a nuisance but with increasing disgust and anger, but few can be bothered taking the additional time and effort either to check the bona fides of a purported research call with the AMSRS Surveyline (1300 364 830) or to report offenders to the ACCC.

Authorities like the ACCC must step up proactive efforts to detect and stop suggers and to alert consumers to the problem. It’s time we all told these offenders to take their fugging "surveys" and shove ‘em.

Memo to middle-aged cyclists: Please, no sausage and eggs with my latte!

2007-11-29T14:48:00.000+11:00

(As published in Crikey! Thursday 29 November 2007)

"Cycling is the new golf."

It’s an observation that’s been around long enough now to be deemed a cliché. I’ve even contributed to its perpetuation myself, trotting it out on more than one occasion when it seemed relevant.

Like other clichés, it contains some useful truths. Indeed, as has been the case with golf for decades, some business people (almost exclusively male) are using cycling for networking, perhaps not while they’re puffing uphill, but certainly at suburban or bayside coffee shops mid- or post-ride.

Furthermore, by taking up cycling, men get a whole pannier-load of further opportunities to compete on the basis of the size, power and expensiveness of their equipment. As a local golf blogger has noted, cycling – like golf – allows the cashed-up participant to indulge himself with ridiculously overpriced technology, specified far in excess of what’s required, that won’t actually improve performance but looks good and makes others go "oooooooh".

But lately I’ve realised that there is a great deal about cycling that isn't like golf at all. The main difference – and the most obvious when you think about it – is that golf takes place in private among consenting adult foursomes, while cycling is a very – alarmingly – public pastime.

We may find the golfer’s taste in plaid pants and Argyle sweaters somewhat dubious, but we generally don’t have to look at them. They’re out there somewhere, several fairways away from civilisation or cloistered in the clubhouse.

By contrast, in many parts of Melbourne and, I’m guessing, other cities, you can’t get to the counter to order your weekend caffe latte without pushing past a large group of sweaty middle-aged guys in tight, gaudy clobber. For the non-cyclist, cycling is a pursuit that’s a lot more "in your face" – literally – than golf.

Golf may be elitist but at least plus-fours are loose in the crotch. When I put down my coffee and look up from the job ads in the early news pages of Saturday’s paper, I frequently find myself eyeballing a different kind of executive package. Bike shorts clearly aren’t for everyone: as noted famously in the movie Hackers, "Spandex (Lycra) is a privilege, not a right".

Then there are the jerseys. Apparently it’s a requirement that every piece of cycling apparel sold in Australia must carry at least half a dozen logos for brands we’ve never heard of. There are obscure European banks (sorry, "banques") and mobile phone companies, with names like "Clafoutis" and "Telesavalas", together with cars from former Soviet republics. This really amounts to visual pollution and an uncalled-for intrusion in our suburbs and bakery cafés.

I believe it’s time for the non-cycling community to rise up and demand that middle-aged cyclists take their hobby off the roads and onto the velodrome. Perhaps we could ask activist Naomi Klein to take up the cause: for the executive cyclist, the message should be "No Logo", "No Lycra" and "No Latte".

Is justice colour blind?

2007-07-03T21:33:00.000+10:00

Judges in the highest Court in the land have shown that, like all of us, they may be prey to the seductive effects of branding. And one of the world’s biggest brands may have been the loser.

The High Court recently refused BP leave to appeal an earlier Federal Court decision rejecting the petroleum giant’s application for a trade mark for the colour green. But remarks made during the hearing suggest that the judges at times got caught up in the current frenzy of “green” branding in the marketplace.

Consumers are now inundated with “green” claims, with everyone from energy utilities, banks and retailers to toilet paper invoking “green” credentials. “Green” has effectively become a brand in its own right. But it’s easy to forget that the word “green” hasn’t always carried this meaning.

When I was growing up, calling someone “green” meant they were raw, immature, untried or naïve. You could be green with envy. And having a “green thumb” meant you were a dab hand in the garden, but by no means a “greenie”. In fact, many gardeners with the greenest thumbs probably burned their incinerators, had no compost bins, didn’t mulch, wasted water and used all kinds of nasty chemicals to keep the indigenous bugs off the exotic ornamentals.

These were evocative and metaphorical uses of the word green… but not the colour green.

BP has been seeking for many years to register the colour green – not the word – as a trade mark in relation to petrol retailing. The High Court hearing in May was basically its last roll of the dice.

Reading the transcript, one could be forgiven for thinking that Justice William Gummow had decided in advance that “green” always has a particular meaning connected with the environment and that BP’s choice of green was related to this meaning, and not to brand identification. His Honour asked David Shavin, QC, appearing for BP:

“What is the… significance of fixing upon green? Trademarks, as we know, can have their attraction and force from an impact that is illusive or evocative upon the viewer. What is the idea here?... What is nature (sic) and healthy about the production or consumption of petroleum products?”

His Honour apparently struggled to follow or accept Mr Shavin’s explanation that the colour green had been chosen years ago by BP for reasons unrelated to what the word green may have come to mean in 2007. Indeed, it had been noted in an earlier trial in the Federal Court that BP has used green in relation to petrol pumps since 1927 in the UK and in Australia since 1954.

Justice Michael Kirby, while acknowledging the history of BP's use of green, remarked that it was:

“a clever colour (for BP) to have chosen so many years ago because it is now very much associated with the environmental movement”.

Was His Honour suggesting that BP, when choosing a colour for its bowsers in 1927, had “cleverly” predicted the meanings that the word “green” would take on 80 years later?

Perhaps it’s understandable that, in the midst of hundreds of volumes of evidence and with an intense focus on complex issues of law and the interpretation of language, both learned judges appear to have confused the word green and the colour green. But the ability to draw such a distinction is surely what the public expects of the ultimate triers of fact.

The national depression initiative chose the name beyondblue to take advantage of one use of the word “blue” to denote human sorrow. That doesn’t stop numerous businesses using, and seeking trade mark protection for, the colour blue in a range of different categories. Luxury jeweller Tiffany has a colour trade mark for its famous blue box, OneSteel for blue fencing wire and Pfizer for the blue colour of its diamond-shaped Viagra tablets. Naturally, none of these companies wants consumers to associate its brand with depression, but clearly none of them is worried that this will happen through their use of the colour blue.

Consumers can and do distinguish all the time between colours as visual brand identity symbols and the possible meanings of the words we use for colours. For example, ask consumers about colours and brands in the rental car category and you’ll find green identifies Europcar (nothing to do with the environment), yellow identifies Hertz (not “cowardly”) and red identifies Avis (not “communist”).

BP’s High Court appeal ultimately failed on a number of legal grounds. But just imagine the outcry if someone in authority had suggested in passing that when Australia Post sought a trade mark for the colour red in relation to postal services it was doing so in order to convey communist sympathies!

Leisel endorsing Preston Motors? Someone selected the wrong gear!

2007-06-26T21:32:00.000+10:00

Dy Dr Stephen Downes, as published in Crikey! on 20 June 2006.
In sports sponsorship terms, swimmer Leisel Jones is a hot property. An Olympian at age 14 in Sydney, she won gold, silver and bronze medals at the Athens Olympics in 2004. Two years later, she followed up with four gold medals at the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games, and was chosen to carry the Australian flag in the closing ceremony.

She’s young, talented and likeable. And just prior to the FINA World Championships in March this year, Swiss watch brand Tag Heuer unveiled an advertising campaign featuring Leisel as it newest – and first Australian – brand ambassador, a role in which she joined Brad Pitt, Uma Thurman, Maria Sharapova, Tiger Woods, Steve McQueen and various F1 drivers. (Interestingly, you won't find her listed on the "Stars and Glamour" page of the Tag Heuer website.)

In the latest issue of the Sweeney Sports Report , which computes a kind of sponsorship “order of merit” based on consumers’ ratings of athletes’ suitability as brand endorsers, Leisel Jones gained 7 “Sweeney points” to be ranked equal 18th with Essendon AFL veteran James Hird, race driver Mark Skaife and Socceroo Tim Cahill. This puts her ahead of such notables as Lleyton Hewitt, Brownlow Medallist Chris Judd, Socceroo captain Mark Viduka and World Cup cricketer Andrew Symonds.

Given that background, if you were managing or advising Leisel Jones, what car brand would you seek out as the best match for a popular, credible endorser who’s already a glamorous Tag Heuer ambassador? A prestige marque, of course. Something speedy, performance-oriented, highly engineered and European, naturally. BMW, Audi, Mini or Mercedes perhaps?

Guess again.

This week, Leisel popped up on Melbourne free-to-air TV spruiking for local Holden dealer Preston Motors in a cheap and cheerful, “past-its-prime-time” commercial. Sure, she looked pleasant and perky, and she delivered her lines well – as well as you can when the script calls for something corny along the lines of “Dive in to Preston Motors”, repeated several times to camera. And there’s nothing wrong with Preston Motors; it’s an old-time dealership that’s been around since 1912, with its roots in Melbourne’s working-class northern suburbs.

But it’s a bizarre choice for Leisel, given her potential, her Sweeney ranking and her own apparent commercial aspirations just a few weeks ago. When she split with her coach in April this year, The Age reported that her objectives were “to cash in on commercial opportunities in Melbourne” and be with her footballer boyfriend, Marty Pask of the Western Bulldogs. Melbourne was looked upon as “a land of opportunity” and her earning capabilities were set to go “through the roof”.

The chance to do a lame ad for a local car dealer doesn’t look anything like a golden opportunity. And I’m not saying Preston Motors are cheap, but the ad’s script and production values suggest that the fee wouldn’t keep her supplied with Uncle Toby’s oats (another of her sponsors) for terribly long. Perhaps she got a car as “contra”.

But the long-term consequences are potentially much more significant than the simple matter of what Leisel got paid for this particular gig. Becoming known (and possibly ridiculed) for doing poor-quality, small-time or even ill-fitting endorsements can seriously damage an athlete or celebrity’s credibility as a presenter and hence his or her perceived value to marketers as a “co-brand”. It’s been speculated (as reported in Crikey! 21 July 2005) that even Lleyton Hewitt’s high-profile ads for Sorbent, while apparently beneficial to the brand, harmed his chances of maintaining and winning other endorsements by helping (as Inside Sport put it) to “smear (his) reputation permanently through association with loo paper”.

So who is advising Leisel? Who convinced her that becoming a spokesmodel for Preston Motors was a good idea, and why the heck did she agree?

Why the "WorkChoices" brand is now unemployed

2007-05-25T11:53:00.000+10:00

(As published in Crikey!)

In turning its back on the name “WorkChoices” for its industrial relations policy and legislation, as reported late last week , the Howard government is finally acknowledging what can only be regarded as a brand strategy disaster. The new wave of Commonwealth IR advertising does not use the WorkChoices name, and it has also reportedly been dropped from other communications vehicles, including call centre scripts.

Why has WorkChoices failed as a brand name, in spite of the millions spent devising it (it has a distinctly over-workshopped feel), protecting it (via three separate trade marks in nine classes, including this doozy ), and on the website, call centres, and mailouts, not to mention the $45 million spent in the first round of advertising?

Is it simply that the name WorkChoices is so uninspired and pedestrian, or to be even more blunt, “lame”? “Choices” is one of those words, along with “options” and “solutions”, that are appallingly overused in brand and product naming at the moment, especially at the lower end of the market – even the local taxi truck owner-driver now describes his business as “logistics solutions”. You can’t expect consumers to warm to a brand name they feel embarrassed to use. Even the PM himself seemed to be admitting as much last week , when he said: “I don’t always describe it as WorkChoices. I sometimes say industrial relations, I sometimes say workplace relations”. You can bet the marketers of Coke aren’t happy for people to “sometimes” ask for “a cola”.

Or is it because WorkChoices so clearly fails the “Newspeak” test for sincerity in political language? Any reader of Orwell’s 1984 can recognise the absurdity of the Ministry of Truth being responsible for propaganda. So when politicians (or marketers) use a word like “choices”, even the least cynical amongst us is immediately prompted to wonder what choices or rights have actually been taken away. Perhaps the word “choices” itself has become too closely associated with propaganda. Even McDonald’s has made extensive use of it recently: “Deli Choices” is really about the Golden Arches fighting back against competition from Subway, while “Lighter Choices” is about breaking the strong mental association between the McDonald’s brand and fatty, unhealthy food.

Was there ever any hope of success for “WorkChoices” in the first place? Remember “Incentivation”, “Fightback”, “The Things That Matter” and “Knowledge Nation”? You don’t? Well, that’s the point. With an increasingly brand- and advertising literate electorate, attempts to brand political policies seem doomed to fail ever more spectacularly.

It’s not just the millions in wasted taxpayer dollars that should have Howard, Joe Hockey and the architects of the WorkChoices name hanging their heads in shame – there’s a significant political defeat here, too. “WorkChoices” not only failed to fire consumers’ imaginations, but Labor and the unions wouldn’t buy into it, either, maintaining the focus of their own counter-campaigns on phrases like “Howard’s IR laws” and “Your Rights At Work”. Simply walking away from the WorkChoices name at this late stage isn’t likely to allow the Howard government to leave the negative brand associations behind. The new slogan – “Know Where You Stand” – is also ripe for counter-argument and parody, as some bloggers have been quick to point out.

In the right hands, a well-chosen and well-managed brand can be a powerful influencer of perceptions, attitudes and behaviour. But the whole sorry WorkChoices episode seems to confirm that when it comes to branding contentious policy initiatives, you can’t polish a turd.

I see dead people… in prime time

2007-05-03T14:52:00.000+10:00

(Cartoon by Peter Nicholson)

By Stephen Downes, as first published on Crikey! on 26 April 2007

In life, it took a lot to silence Steve Irwin. His unbridled enthusiasm for wildlife and environmental causes and his exuberant turn of phrase made him a magnetic presenter and 24-karat gold talent for US chat shows. And it seems that even death can’t keep the irrepressible Crocodile Hunter quiet.

Several times this week while watching evening TV, I have had the unnerving experience of being enthusiastically invited by Steve himself to visit Australia Zoo on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. The first time I saw the ad, I thought it was some kind of tribute – I kept waiting for the “R.I.P.” message, the soft focus, the slow-mo footage and a few bars of John Williamson. But no, this is just a regular ad, apparently unaltered from before Irwin’s death last September, and now screening in Melbourne during prime time, a slot where I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it before.

You’d have to say there are few precedents for advertising messages from beyond the grave, especially when the departed spokesperson speaks directly to the viewer.

Although he died in 1989, the late John Meillion’s voice was sampled and re-engineered – with permission from his estate – so that he could keep reminding audiences right through the 1990s that “a hard-earned thirst needs a big cold beer... and the best cold beer is Vic”. But while his voice contributed great character to the brand, entire generations of VB drinkers would have had little or no knowledge of Meillion as an individual or perceived this as a personal endorsement.

On the other hand, Pauline Hanson – on video, direct to camera – told her fellow Australians that “if you are seeing me now, it means that I have been murdered”. Of course, it turned out she wasn’t actually dead at all.

Perhaps the most famous and chilling posthumous presenter was Yul Brynner. After his death from lung cancer in 1985, the American Cancer Society ran ads featuring footage from an interview with Brynner recorded just months earlier (you can see one here). He turned to camera, looked down the barrel and said "Now that I'm gone, I tell you: Don't smoke, whatever you do, just don't smoke." This ad was especially powerful – spine-tingling even – because we knew he was dead (the ad starts with a “super” giving dates of his birth and death) and we realise that he knew he would be dead when the message screened.

You only have to watch the “In Memoriam” sequence at the Oscars each year to recognise the emotional power of images of famous and well-loved people who have recently passed on. Perhaps that’s why I have found it disquieting to watch ads featuring a healthy, “larger than life”, pre-stingray Steve Irwin still spruiking for Australia Zoo in his inimitable fashion.

Of course Steve’s memory and legacy will always be central to the marketing of Australia Zoo and a key attraction for visitors. But I have no doubt many consumers will find the Irwin family’s decision to run the same old ads with the same old Steve surprising and perhaps even inappropriate or disrespectful. After all, immediately after his death the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service withdrew the entire taxpayer-funded “Quarantine Matters” campaign for which Irwin was spokesperson “as a gesture of respect for Steve and his family” (as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald).

Are your Harpics showing...?

2007-04-19T21:37:00.000+10:00

Back in the 1970s, we all had a good snigger at the Durex joke. Australians knew Durex as a brand of sticky tape but elsewhere in the world it was a condom. This created the premise for hilarious stories about cultural miscommunication. You know the kind of thing: Did you hear about the Australian tourist who went into a chemist shop in London and asked for "a packet of Durex, sticky on both sides"?

And Americans who come here still find it funny that we use Jif to clean the bathroom, because in the US it's a brand of peanut butter... not so good on the porcelain!

Now comes the case of "White & Shine" - perhaps not such a problem for consumers, but a whole lot less amusing for the companies concerned. Macleans - the toothpaste people - and Harpic - the toilet cleaning people - have virtually simultaneously launched product variants with identical names.

While the risk that consumers will be harmed as a result of confusion seems relatively low (although you never know what some people do!), the shared name poses a real business risk for Macleans. No-one who makes toothpaste wants their product to be associated in any way with toilets or even toilet cleaners. Consumers are very sensitive when it comes to oral care products - it's a highly sensory category, as Pond's found when it tried to launch Pond's Toothpaste (as documented in Matt Haig's book "Brand Failures"). It's amazing how many people who hear the name "Pond's Toothpaste" instantly react with a "Yuk!" as they taste and feel greasy Pond's Cold Cream - a powerful association - in their mouths.

Anyway, I say shame on both Macleans and Harpic for choosing such a boringly obvious and descriptive name for a product variant. My prediction for "White & Shine"? Expect the Macleans version to disappear very quickly. Everyone wants white and shiny teeth, but no-one wants to use a dunny brush!

Update: Planet Ark comes clean!

2007-04-16T22:19:00.000+10:00

Crikey! approached Planet Ark for comment on my piece (below) on the origins of its washing powder and got what looks to be a straight and detailed answer from Paul Klymenko, the organisation's Research Director, advising that it's made by a family-owned business in Melbourne. That's very encouraging, in keeping with what Planet Ark seems to be on about... and certainly not something to hide! I hope we soon see some reference to this on both the Planet Ark website and the packaging itself.

Forbidden planet: Who makes Planet Ark washing powder?

2007-04-09T22:40:00.000+10:00

In consumer marketing, green is the new black. It’s no secret that all manner of business and brands not previously known for their "earth-friendliness" are adding a splash of green here and there, and mostly to good effect.

Planet Ark, a green brand that first came to consumer attention more than a decade ago by promoting recycling initiatives, has come a long way from those humble beginnings. Planet Ark is now an impressive consumer brand with high levels of recognition, approval and trust. From a commercial perspective, this means the organisation is ideally placed to capitalise on the current surge of consumer interest in all things green, water-saving and climate-friendly. While early moves in this direction saw Planet Ark as merely an endorser of products like Safe brand toilet paper and Aware laundry powder, the Planet Ark brand has recently assumed centre stage as a consumer product brand in its own right.

My household recently ditched an established national brand in favour of Planet Ark washing powder, and we are pleased with its performance so far. The rather simple and stark orange and blue box is awash with all kinds of information about the product, its ingredients and its environmental and health credentials. Strangely, though, amidst all the detail about cellulose colloids and plant oil surfactants, there’s no indication of where the product is made, or by whom.

Oh, sure, there’s an address – Planet Ark Environmental Products Pty Ltd, based in the Blue Mountains town of Wentworth Falls – but the Planet Ark website lists only eight staff in the Wentworth Falls office. There’s no mention anywhere of the kind of manufacturing and packaging operations required to produce mass-market quantities of a consumer product, nor whether these operations are undertaken in Australia or elsewhere. Neither is there any reference in the Planet Ark organisational structure to supply chain management – the process of sourcing all these non-petrochemical ingredients – nor a logistics and distribution network large enough to supply national supermarket chains.

The extensive FAQs section of the Planet Ark laundry powder website also sheds no light on the issue of who makes it. The nearest it comes is a question that asks Are the products Australian Made & Owned?, to which the answer is Yes they are. Some of the raw materials are not made in Australia so they must be sourced from overseas.

It’s hard to understand why Planet Ark seems so coy about identifying its commercial partners in what looks to be a good product with commendable credentials, especially as it has proclaimed itself "pro-business" from the outset and been transparent about its other business relationships.

Let’s face it, consumers are sufficiently attuned to the business of brand extension to realise that Planet Ark must be contracting other organisations to manufacture, package and distribute its consumer products. Planet Ark "green" shopping bags, for example, are manufactured in China, and the organisation seems quite open about this. We don’t actually believe – or expect – that Planet Ark founders and front people like Jon Dee, Pat Cash and Rebecca Gilling are out in a back room somewhere with their sleeves rolled up, mixing up batches of detergent in plastic rubbish bins.

And surely no consumer would think the less of Planet Ark for contracting another organisation to make and distribute laundry detergent and other consumer products under its brand name, so long as the ingredients and processes are specified and controlled by Planet Ark and are in keeping with its values and not-for-profit status.

Do consumers really care who makes products, how and where? Traditionally, and for so-called "low involvement" categories, the answer was mainly "no". But recent trends in fast-moving consumer goods marketing have turned that around, especially among some significant customer segments. We are now encouraged – indeed, trained – to look for information and read the fine print: Is it made in Australia? Is it dolphin-friendly? Is it low GI and organic? Does it contain CFCs, artificial sweeteners, colours and flavours? Does it contain gluten or traces of nuts?

Ironically, it’s the very fact that Planet Ark provides so much product detail on its washing powder pack that makes the absence of manufacturing information stand out so starkly for me. But am I just overly suspicious and is the lack of disclosure merely an oversight? Or – behind the hundreds of words on biodegradability, zeolite minerals and being free of phosphates – is there something about the washing powder that Planet Ark would rather we didn’t know?

Letter to Friends of the ABC re brand names

2007-03-27T14:46:00.000+10:00

To: Glenys Stradijot
Friends of the ABC, Victoria

Dear Glenys

Thanks for your thoughtful response to my piece in Crikey re ABC and brand names. Believe it or not, I am a "friend" (with a lower case "f") of the ABC, a regular ABC viewer, listener and contributor (both formally and informally as a talkback caller on radio). I would be grateful if you could share my thoughts in reply with your members – I would be interested to hear what they think.

I’m sure you are correct that a sizeable section of the Australian community supports the principle of keeping the ABC free of advertising. But you are also right when you note that, in an era of what I would call "integrated marketing communications", the distinctions between advertising and other forms of promotion are increasingly blurred. And that’s precisely what makes the ABC’s current practice look so ridiculous.

Leaving aside the Grand Prix (which simply wouldn’t exist without commercial motives), in a week where ABC announcers were not allowed to say that Tasmania had won the "Pura Cup", this "citizen" encountered the following on ABC radio, TV and internet channels:

• ABC radio business news items featuring commentary by "stock market analysts" from Goldman Sachs JB Were and "currency strategists" from Macquarie Bank and ANZ Investment Bank;

• Several minutes of TV footage and dozens of web images showing sponsors’ logos (Ford, Emirates, HSBC, Vodafone, QBE, LG, etc.) on sporting jerseys and boundary line signage across multiple sporting codes;

• Numerous interviews with visiting actors, authors and musicians, all with a commercial property of some sort to promote, like singer-guitarist Tony Joe White, whose latest album we were told "is released by Warner Music" which no doubt sponsored his tour and the limo to Southbank for the interview;

• News items – on radio and online – reporting on a poll conducted and publicised by AC Nielsen – a commercial market research company – showing that 59 per cent of Australians are opposed to the "WorkChoices" industrial relations legislation (a name for which three separate Trade Marks have been applied by the Commonwealth);

• A cerebral palsy fundraiser to be held "at Riverside at Crown", which begs the question of whether mention of a commercial property like Crown is OK when it’s for charity?

• etc.

None of these constitutes "advertising" on the ABC. That is, in none of these cases did the commercial entity pay money to the ABC in exchange for airtime, so the national broadcaster’s conscience can remain clear. Neither, to my knowledge, does National Foods Limited attempt to pay the ABC to say "Pura Cup". Yet, in every one of these instances, there is a clear underlying marketing communications objective to the provision of expert commentary, the availability of a guest for interview or the sponsorship of a charity or community event by a commercial entity. It’s a simple question that I’m asking: Why should AC Nielsen – which benefits commercially from every mention of its name in a credible news service like the ABC’s and no doubt calculates a dollar value for every column inch or second of airtime such a poll generates – be entitled to acknowledgment by our national broadcaster when Telstra and Pura are not?

It’s highly likely that many of the concerned citizens that your organisation represents also support the principle of freedom of speech and are opposed to censorship, especially when it’s arbitrary and not transparent. Unless FABC has a better classification system than I do (and I teach marketing communications to postgraduate students) and you can mount a rational argument as to which of these cases deserve to get to air and which don’t, then I reiterate that refusing ABC announcers permission to say "Telstra Dome" or "Vodafone Arena" is not only unworkable but is a form of censorship of our national broadcaster and hence should be regarded as unconscionable.

Regards,
Stephen Downes

Double standards at the ABC (Anti-Brand Corporation)

2007-03-17T09:34:00.000+11:00

It's been a standing joke for years on the Coodabeen Champions' shows on ABC Radio: the ABC (so the apparent justification goes) is a Government broadcaster and doesn't carry advertising, so no brand names can be mentioned on-air. Of course, it's almost impossible to discuss modern life without reference to brands, so the Coodabeens have become experts at creating elaborate and humorous euphemisms to get around this restriction. In so doing, they clearly illustrate how ridiculous the policy is.

It seemed rather less ridiculous and a lot more bizarre when I was approached last year by ABC Local Radio to do an interview with Helen Razer about whether too much choice makes consumers unhappy (see this earlier blog entry). I was expressly cautioned by the producer not to mention any brand names! Asking a marketer to discuss consumer behaviour and decision-making without mentioning brands is like asking a football commentator not to mention the teams or the players.

But the inconsistency and hypocrisy of this policy was never more obvious than in today's 9 am news bulletin on ABC Local Radio in Melbourne. Back-to-back items referred to (1) the final of the AFL "pre-season cup" to be held "at Docklands" tonight and (2) the relative performances of the Ferrari and Red Bull teams in practice sessions yesterday for the Melbourne Formula 1 Grand Prix.

How can it be inappropriate or unacceptable for the ABC to say "NAB Cup" and "Telstra Dome" but perfectly OK to say "Ferrari" and "Red Bull" in the next breath?

It's a no-brainer that participation by a company like Red Bull in motor racing is entirely about brand positioning. It follows, therefore, that every single mention of the Red Bull racing team on the ABC over the course of the Grand Prix "festival" is a piece of marketing communications initiated by the brand owner. Significant and undeniable mass-market brand positioning objectives also underlie the participation of car makers like Honda, Toyota, BMW, Renault and even Ferrari.

And then ABC motor sports commentator Will Hagon - current holder of the world record for irrelevant, self-aggrandising name-dropping - will spend hours of airtime on "our ABC" rabbiting on about Bridgestone and Michelin tyres and Zylon anti-penetration panels (both trade marks, naturally).

Of course, names like AFL and Formula 1 are themselves highly-protected trade marks and commercial properties. So why aren't ABC announcers instructed to refer instead to "the national Australian Rules football competition" or "the elite international motor sport event being held at Albert Park"?

And, yes, I said "hypocrisy". Consider the ABC's own brands and commercial activities (while it may be "not-for-profit", it most certainly has commercial operations). The national broadcaster (see - I'm not using a brand name) has spawned a number of immensely successful brands: The Wiggles, PlaySchool, Triple J, the Hottest 100, Gardening Australia and The ABC Shop are just a few examples of brands from which the ABC earns revenue directly and through licensing agreements. Every mention of those lovable Bananas in Pyjamas on ABC TV, Radio or websites helps drive profits for a variety of commercial entities that pay the ABC to use the images of B1, B2 and Rat In A Hat.

Don't let's forget that the ABC also does tremendously well out of leveraging the equity of many other brands, both in terms of its programming and via sales through ABC stores: think Little Britain, SeaChange, Planet Earth, etc.

It's time we called things what they really are - let's name names. The bottom line (whoops, that's a bit commercial, isn't it?) is that the ABC's "policy" amounts to arbitrary censorship - it's applied inconsistently and unfairly, and it's entirely unworkable, unnecessary and unwelcome.

The new Telstra: Boosting staff morale or "morals"?

2007-02-26T09:46:00.000+11:00

When you set about transforming an under-performing services marketer, so the thinking goes, often the most important and hardest thing to change is its culture. Organisations like banks and telecoms perform best when the beliefs and behaviours of customer service personnel are aligned with corporate mission and values, and when everyone in the organisation understands his or her role in creating value for both customers and shareholders.

Employees of Telstra, and especially those in "front-line" functions like call centres, have doubtless had a hard time keeping the faith through recent years of struggle, uncertainty and unpopularity. But it looks like Sol Trujillo and Phil Burgess, experts in organisational change, may have succeeded in turning around the culture and boosting staff confidence.

Never mind the broadband technology, I met one of the "Next G" of Telstra employees over the weekend. She was proud of the company, apparently certain of the corporate mission and vision, and unshakeable in her dedication to ensuring Telstra targets the right customers… it’s just that I clearly wasn’t one of them!

My daughter won a mobile phone on Saturday. It came with a Telstra Pre-Paid "bundle". She already has a hand-me-down phone with a pre-paid account, currently with Optus – Telstra had previously been sopping up her unused credit every few weeks, leaving the phone useless in the occasional “emergency” situations for which it is intended.

So we set about switching her over to the funky new handset. Optus told me I needed to call Telstra to "unlock" the new phone so it could be used on another provider’s network.

"You’ll have to pay an unlocking fee," explained the Telstra customer service officer to whom I eventually got through. "For a new phone, that will probably be around $200."

When I said I thought that was a bit steep, especially for a pre-paid phone won by a 12-year-old, she disagreed. Anyway, she said, “I wouldn’t be giving a phone to a 12-year-old.”

Introducing Telstra’s new positioning in mobile telephony: the responsible, adults-only, service provider that knows better than you do whether your child should have a phone. If Telstra intends to put morals ahead of revenue and no longer sell mobile service to parents on behalf of their kids, shouldn’t we have seen some kind of announcement to the ASX?

Not that I got a chance to ask this newly-aligned and empowered Telstra advocate about the company’s strategy. "I actually work for Telstra and I won’t sit here and listen to you criticising them," she said. And there, by mutual consent, the call ended.

Reply to Karl Treacher on "brand deceit"

2007-02-23T17:44:00.000+11:00

I really appreciate Karl Treacher’s reply to my blog on his description of an "audit" that judged Vodafone to be "top of the bad brand behaviour list" because of "brand deceit" (as quoted in B&T magazine, 9 February 2007). However, I’m afraid Karl’s reply simply raises a lot more questions than it answers.

"Deceit" is a very strong word with a very specific meaning. The Macquarie Dictionary defines deceit unambiguously as "the act or practice of deceiving; concealment or perversion of the truth for the purpose of misleading; fraud; cheating".

The B&T story suggested that consumers had rated Vodafone highest on "deceit", but included absolutely no information about the study. In particular, in my original piece, I wondered about the methodology. Well, it was "sound", says Karl: "A 9 month study – man on the street Qual. 7 stores, 10 people / store".

So how were these qual respondents selected? What stores? Was there randomisation? What level of knowledge and experience had the respondents had with each of the categories and brands? In other words, how representative was the sample of the bulk of Australian consumers?

To make a judgment that Vodafone was "top of the list" of badly-behaved brands clearly implies some kind of quantitative assessment and measurement, beyond the findings of qualitative research. Was there any statistical analysis of the positions on the list? For example, how many respondents with a positive view of Vodafone would it have taken to knock them off the top? Two out of the 70? Ten out of 70? Fifty?

And where did deceit come into it? Was this the actual word used by consumers spontaneously (very uncommon in my experience as a qual researcher) to describe a disappointing brand experience, or a term offered to them by the qual interviewers, or was it added in post-fieldwork analysis by the folks at Brand Behaviour? Was the degree of deceit scored and compared by respondents on some kind of scale (in order to arrive at a list of the worst)? Were respondents asked to rank brands (put them in order) in terms of "deceit"? Which brands?

The point is, when you say a brand was "top of the list", then we expect that there’s a list somewhere and an explanation of how they got in that order. Karl’s use of the term "audit" also implies a structured measurement (quantitative methodologies) against some kind of benchmarks, rather than exploration and investigation (qualitative methodologies).

There’s a very big difference between – on the one hand – a brand that lets customers down and fails to deliver on its stated brand promise, and – on the other hand – a marketer that sets out deliberately to conceal or pervert the truth, and to cheat and mislead customers (as per the accepted definition of "deceit"). If consumers really believe that Vodafone has practised deceit, then the ACCC should sue them under sections 52 or 53 of the Trade Practices Act, which deal with misleading or deceptive conduct and false or misleading representations in trade or commerce.

I have no argument whatsoever with Karl over his conclusion that Vodafone hasn’t lived up to the promise of a couple of years ago – it has clearly slipped a long way from the position it held in 2004 - and that consumers may well feel the brand hasn't lived up to its promises. But in service markets like telecommunications, banking and insurance, there’s a 20-year stream of literature on "gaps" in service quality and service delivery that provides many suitable terms – with numerous published benchmarks – to describe under-performance against expectations (e.g. the Berry, Parasuraman and Zeithaml "negative disconfirmation" model). I just don’t think a term like "brand deceit" is necessary, illuminating or appropriate to describe what has happened to Vodafone.

Not that I want to sound like a grammar teacher, but "integrity" is also a pretty strong word.

The cover of B&T is a lot more public a forum than the QBrand QBlog. And clearly the Brand Behaviour report didn’t come into the possession of B&T off the back of a truck. Given that B&T claimed it as an "exclusive", I’m sure that Karl fully expected that it would get a run and generate publicity for Brand Behaviour in the process, with some quotes thrown in for good measure. He should also, therefore, have expected, and been prepared for, reasonable scrutiny.

Instead, Karl is being laughably unreasonable in questioning my integrity, apparently because I didn’t contact him personally to "get insight" before making public comment about the story. Does he seriously expect all 6000 readers of B&T to contact him directly if they have doubts, concerns or questions about his research, its apparent findings and Brand Behaviour’s interpretations?

Brands (or brand consultants) behaving badly?

2007-02-15T14:07:00.000+11:00

Like a promo for Desperate Housewives, the front page lead on the 9 February issue of the advertising industry weekly B&T promises to dish the dirt on the "cheats and deceits" in the world of brands.

"Our worst brands" have "deceived" customers, according to the findings of "a new audit exclusively obtained by B&T". Vodafone, NRMA and St George are criticised as the "worst behaved" brands, apparently for having stood for something they then failed to live up to.

Is this the pot calling the kettle black? The story promises a lot but delivers very little. Maybe that’s because, as it turns out, there’s "more to come" in next week’s B&T. Or maybe it’s because there’s not much substance or rigour behind the analysis in the first place.

The "audit" cited in the article was conducted by the Sydney-based consultancy Brand Behaviour. Karl Treacher, CEO of Brand Behaviour, says "brand deceit" is at the top of the list of bad brand behaviour and "so is Vodafone". Strangely, given the emotive connotations of the word, there’s no clear definition of "deceit". Branding Vodafone a "deceiver" seems a bit risky when there’s no information about the methodology: how many consumers were asked, which consumers, and how confusion and deceit were measured.

Many ad agencies and consulting firms have invested massive resources developing proprietary names and definitions for concepts related to branding. Consequently, it’s getting harder to differentiate well-founded, well-researched and well-intentioned concepts that add value and understanding to the discipline from those that owe their origin purely – and often cynically – to commercial motives.

Concepts like brand personality, values, image and identity are well supported by scholarship and empirical research. But according to the agencies, brands may also have brand DNA, brand aesthetics, brand sense, brandstretch and brand manners. A brand may even be a "lovemark". And now a "brand deceiver", too.

In 2004, Professor Mark Ritson – now at the Melbourne Business School – noted this "confusing cornucopia of conceptualization" and warned that "the brand of brand is in crisis".

Interestingly, also back in 2004, Karl Treacher wrote an "exclusive" article for B&T in which he told of having "investigated the relationship between marketing promises and internal fulfillment (sic)" at Vodafone (reproduced here). "Our findings were nothing short of extraordinary," he wrote. The Vodafone brand "grew in a place where no telco has ever been before, in our hearts".

Given his earlier state of rapture, perhaps Treacher’s current perspective on Vodafone should be viewed as that of a jilted lover dissing his "ex"!

Comet McNugget: A lost marketing opportunity?

2007-02-01T12:46:00.000+11:00

Given both its aggressive stance towards anyone or anything else using the prefix "Mc", and its knack for spotting an opportunity, it's perhaps surprising that McDonalds let recent astronomical events slip by without acknowledgment or intervention.

Comet McNaught put on an unexpectedly impressive show last week (you can see some pictures here), far more spectacular than the much-anticipated but underwhelming Halley's Comet in 1986.

A number of courses of action might have been open to the folks from the Golden Arches. For example, they could have sought a licensing deal to produce a "McNaught McNuggets" Happy Meal, with astronomical facts on the box and a toy comet (a lump of ice?). They might even have tried to buy the naming rights to the comet from the Australian astronomer who discovered it last August (you can read the story of it here).

But perhaps more true to form would have been legal action to try to restrict use of the "Mc" (leaving it as "Comet Naught"?), as McDonalds has taken against a number of other traders, viz. its current ham(burger)-fisted efforts in Victoria (see today's Herald-Sun), and even beyond food service markets (e.g. "McBrat" in clothing).

Action over the name of the comet would have raised an interesting legal question: just how far into the solar system do McDonalds' IP rights in "Mc" and "Mac" extend?

Robbery under arms? Smells like ambush marketing to me

2006-11-24T16:42:00.000+11:00

Unilever's Rexona deodorant brand was the official provider of deodorant to the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games. This was proudly proclaimed early in 2006 on special green and gold cans bearing the official logo of the Games. While one might question whether the Comm Games actually needed an official deodorant (did they have an official shampoo, toothpaste or dental floss?), there is arguably a connection between athletic performance and sweaty armpits. From memory, tennis star Ivan Lendl endorsed a deodorant brand in the late 1970s with a line about how it made him "look cool on the court".

Anyway, it must have worked for them because someone at Unilever apparently decided to pursue another promotional tie-in with a major sporting event. Another special promo pack appeared in mid-2006, just as the FIFA World Cup was kicking off in Germany. As you can see from the picture, Rexona "Football" featured a gaudy green-and-gold colour scheme with a central logo of a soccer ball encircled by the words "Special Edition. Australia 2006". (It's a particularly messy and tacky design, by the way - nowhere near as classy as the rather minimalist Comm Games variants. Click on the picture above for a closer look.)

I initially took it to be some kind of officially-endorsed merchandise, and assumed that by buying it I was somehow (directly or indirectly through licensing fees) supporting Australia's World Cup campaign.

But on closer inspection, there's nothing official about it: no FIFA logo or reference, in fact no actual reference to the World Cup at all. Nor, despite the words "Australia 2006", is there any reference to the Football Federation of Australia or the Socceroos or their World Cup finals appearance.

Was Rexona deliberately hijacking increased consumer awareness of soccer (football) and heightened passion and patriotism surrounding Australia's first World Cup appearance in more than 30 years? In my view, all the signs point in that direction: why would the pack say "special edition" and "Australia 2006" if it was either a permanent "sports-strength" formulation or some kind of seasonal variant?

If deliberate, then it's a case of ambush marketing and it smells - someone at Unilever deserves a spray.

PS. Unilever's Australian website states that achieving their corporate purpose "requires the highest standards of corporate behaviour towards our employees, consumers and the societies and world in which we live". Nothing about free riding there!

Whose brains fell in the blender at Boost Juice?

2006-11-22T09:30:00.000+11:00

Boost Juice is undoubtedly one of the great success stories of the past few years in Australian retailing, brand management and franchising. Only an immensely powerful brand could have adolescents lining up and waiting several minutes to pay $5.00 or more for "healthy" FRUIT JUICE or induce them to drink WHEAT GRASS. (And to think parents of teens used to worry about their kids smoking grass!)

But Boost has been conspicuously unsuccessful thus far in its attempts to leverage its massive brand equity from the fresh juice service sector by way of brand extensions into the very different world of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG). Two different attempts so far at bottled juice haven't exactly set the world on fire (see picture). Now you can find a thing called a Boost Smoothie on a Stick in the ice-cream freezer at the supermarket (it's actually fruit ice around frozen yoghurt, but let's call it ice-cream for the sake of simplicity).

I bought a pack of Smoothie On A Stick as soon as I saw it last week, because frankly I don't think it'll be around for long - at least not based on the present marketing program. In my view, Boost is making a number of critical mistakes, and these can be illustrated quite simply.

First, consider the Boost Juice brand. It instantly conjures up associations of custom-made and personalised (they even call out your name), premium fresh juice products at premium (some might say "exorbitant") prices, for which consumers are willing to sacrifice several minutes of their time waiting (perhaps partially compensated by the "scene" in the average Boost bar). Prices typically start at $4.00 and head upwards of $6.00 once you add some fancy supplements (often of dubious nutritional value, but that's a topic for another blog entry). Boost re-invented fruit juice and gave it enormous street cred. Ask most Australians aged 12 to 25 to describe juice and Boost or a Boost-style offer will likely be what they call to mind.

Now compare the Boost Smoothie On A Stick brand extension. The actual end product is a small ice confection, of stock-standard shape (looks like they use the same mould as any regular icy pole) on a stock-standard "icy-pole" stick - hardly re-inventing the category. Of course, they aren't sold singly - they come in a pack of 8, and they sit in the supermarket right alongside other boxed multi-pack ice-creams like the Streets Pine-Lime Splice (also 8 to a pack). In fact, functionally, the Pine-Lime Splice would seem to be Boost's closest rival in this category. Bulla (whose Regal Cream affiliate is actually listed as the manufacturer of the Boost products under licence) also does strawberry and mango Smoothie Splits.

A multi-pack of 8 doesn't exactly say "premium" either, does it? Typically, when a super-premium ice-cream brand (e.g. Magnum or Heaven) does a multi-pack, they put only 4 in a pack or, as special "mini" versions, 6 to a pack.

So if the product doesn't communicate a top of the market positioning, then price must be how Boost signals "premium", right?

Wrong! My 8-pack of Boost Smoothie On A Stick (600 mL) cost $3.99 at Coles (regular price, not apparently on special). An 8-pack of Streets Pine-Lime Splice (584 mL), bought in the same supermarket at the same time, cost $4.99.

And the ice confection itself? Pleasant enough, but nothing special in terms of flavour or texture, I'm afraid.

So what the heck is Boost Juice doing taking an immensely valuable brand that commands a massive brand premium down-market by entering a commodity category with a "common as muck" product and at a price well below that of an FMCG powerhouse like Unliver/Streets?

Destroying brand equity, that's what! Boost franchisees should take note... and start asking some serious questions.

Stop the propaganda: "Free TV" is worth every cent we pay

2006-10-04T21:20:00.000+10:00

"Do you want your children to have to pay... or just miss out?" warns Network Ten sports presenter Ryan Phelan, doing his best to put on a "Grim Reaper" voice, his suit buttoned up, and shot from below to make him look more even more serious and worrying.

It's the new campaign by Free TV (what the cabal of free-to-air broadcasters calls itself these days), and it even has its own web presence under the title Save My Sport. It's a cynical attempt to fend off new "Use it or lose it" legislation that would force free-to-air broadcasters to actually screen the sports (and other events) to which they buy rights... or else lose them.

"Save My Sport"? I say "Save Your Breath"!

"Last year," the campaign media release tells us, "Australian sports fans watched over 1648 hours of sport on free TV." What the release and the TVC conveniently ignore is the thousands upon thousands of hours of programming - including major sports and superbly-crafted, Emmy-winning fare treasured elsewhere in the world - that "Free TV" has rationed, buried, dumped, butchered and otherwise treated with utter contempt... and we, the viewers, with it.

Have you (like me) found yourself staying up till the early hours of Monday morning to watch first-run episodes of The Office (US version), winner of this year's Emmy for Best Comedy, wedged embarrassingly by Network Ten between ads for ringtones and mobile phone p*rn?

The litany of insults to the audience (and program makers) could run for pages (and often does in the Letters section of the Green Guide). Quality programming dumped after two weeks or banished to late night. Ground-breaking shows screened (first-run) at 4 am. Episodes of series with long story arcs screened out of order. Promos that contain "spoilers" (i.e. giving away key plot twists). Cutting PG-rated episodes of "The Simpsons" so they qualify for G classification, just so they could be promoted (not screened) in kids' viewing times.

And then there's the dissembling. "That was the last program in the current series of The West Wing (or The Sopranos, etc. etc.)," says veteran GTV9 voice-over man Pete Smith. "No it's not," we yell back at the TV - we've looked up the episode guide online or seen the DVD boxed set that's already available at JB Hi-Fi. Poor old Pete must feel like former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf: we know it's a lie, they know it's a lie, but the networks just don't care.

So WHY don't they care, especially when these sort of practices have been exposed and criticised for years? It all comes down to one thing: as viewers of free-to-air television, we are NOT CUSTOMERS. In fact, to the folks at "Free TV", we aren't even complete human beings.

We are merely fingers on remote controls, bums on seats, eyeballs, or TARPS (target audience ratings points), to be harvested and offered up to the people they regard as their REAL customers - the advertisers. In terms of an industry value-chain model, we don't even qualify as "suppliers" to Free TV - we're actually more like raw material, to be extracted, processed, sorted, bundled up and handed over to the media buyers. So what if there's a bit of wastage along the way? That's just the cost of doing business!

The only time Free TV broadcasters acknowledge that there is value in an actual human response to what's on air is when they can see an opportunity to capture that value using a revenue-positive telephone voting scheme (Idol, Dancing With The Stars, etc).

When I pay for a service, I have a contractual relationship with the provider. Usually, it matters to service providers that I perceive value in the relationship and they care about my satisfaction. And if the provider misleads me, lies to me or fails to deliver what I have been promised, I can complain and get my money back, plus I have protection under a variety of laws.

But I have no contract with Channels Seven, Nine, or Ten. I have no customer number, no viewer profile, no CRM file, because I have no relationship. Hence, in the current culture of the networks, concepts like customer value and satisfaction are not only unheard of but completely irrelevant.

As Australian Pay TV continues to recruit new paying customers who perceive it as offering value (choice, timeshifted programs, commercial-free movies, personal digital recording TiVo-style, etc.), free-to-air broadcasters have got the wrong end of the stick. They are trying to hang on to the privileged position that once allowed them to succeed despite treating viewers like dirt. But the days when - as Kerry Packer famously said - a TV broadcasting licence was "a licence to print money" are over.

Free TV will only succeed in the future if free-to-air broadcasters start acknowledging TV viewers not only as valued customers but also as partners in the process of creating and delivering value to advertisers and shareholders.

It's simple: those who deliver superior customer value win. Hey Eddie, Kerry and John - that's how a "free" market works!

Can you be "ambushed" by a blimp?

2006-10-03T22:22:00.000+10:00

Oh, the humanity!

Looking at the fuss in the media, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Holden Airship had collided with one of the MCG light towers and collapsed in flames onto the hallowed turf during the Toyota AFL Grand Final. But by simply hovering in the general vicinity of Jolimont, the General's blimp has cast a giant shadow - figuratively and literally - over current sponsorship practices.

Numerous commentators are having a field day, even invoking the current chestnut of "Australian values": according to Crikey.com.au, Peter Young of Cricket Australia says it was "just un-Australian (for Holden) to try and sneak a free ride off the back of someone else's work".

But then perhaps Toyota ought to know a free ride when it sees one. Only five years ago Toyota itself employed controversial tactics against Holden that were seen at the time as "ambush marketing", in a campaign I’m sure no-one at Holden has forgotten.

Champion golfer (and sometime pasta sauce maker!) Greg Norman was paid by Holden to endorse its Statesman luxury sedan range for several years but, in 2001, switched allegiance to the Toyota Avalon for a sum reckoned to be $10 million (as reported on Drive.com.au at the time). The TV advertisement that launched Norman’s involvement with Toyota featured a weekend hacker so over-awed by Norman’s arrival at the tee that he duffs his drive into the car park, smashing the window of a Holden Statesman. He apologises profusely to Norman, who reassures the wayward swinger that the Statesman is not his – "Mine’s the Toyota".

Holden certainly objected at the time, both publicly and directly (by letter) to Toyota. Comparisons were drawn with the famous Mortein vs Raid case that centred on John Laws' switch from one fly spray brand to another. Noises were made about the potential for Holden to sue Toyota for misleading and deceptive conduct under s52 of the Trade Practices Act, but (to my knowledge) it never made it anywhere near the Federal Court. Unlikely, anyway, as (in contrast to Mortein v Raid) the distinction between the two brands was made fairly explicit in the TVC, leaving little risk that consumers might be confused as to Norman's new allegiance or perceive any connection between Statesman and Toyota.

Anyway, I haven't yet seen any actual cries of "no fair" from Toyota about the Airship ambush, and any loud public expression of concern is, in my opinion, highly unlikely. Don't get me wrong - I am vehemently opposed to free riding in any form. But while the blimp may well have been sailing close to the wind, a strident complaint from Toyota could easily be seen as the pot calling the kettle black... and how un-Australian would that be?!

Pauline Hanson endorses the Donut King brand... Please explain?!

2006-09-14T20:51:00.000+10:00

My lecture on "leveraging secondary brand assoc- iations" (by linking a brand to an entity like a celebrity, a country of origin, another brand, etc.) was still fresh in my mind the other night as I relaxed in front of the TV. Totally without warning, former One Nation leader and ex-con Pauline Hanson - one of the most divisive figures in recent Australian cultural history - appeared in the middle of an ad for Donut King, asking me something along the lines of "What do you feel like?".

Well, I'm happy to say that I felt like a fool - what would my students think? What would they ask me in next week's class if they'd seen this bizarre campaign? Surely all that stuff I'd been saying about marketers choosing celebrity endorsers for the beneficial secondary associations they bring to the brand must be complete rubbish?!

At first, I thought that I would have to explain it away as just another clearly bad choice - like (pictured) Ian Thorpe's THORPEDO tuna steaks or Greg Norman's pasta source (well Paul Newman did it... Greg Norman is near enough, isn't he?). And there are plenty of examples of using a celebrity - especially a notorious one like Mark "Chopper" Read - simply to get attention.

But then I started to wonder...

What if Donut King actually does want to tap into the network of brand associations that we hold (or some of us hold) about Pauline Hanson? Which of those associations could they possibly regard as potentially beneficial to the Donut King brand?

At a rational, brand performance level, there's nothing to go on - Pauline is vaguely known as a former fish and chip shop owner, but not a renowned expert on donuts whose endorsement would matter to us: Wow, she really knows donuts, so for her to put her name to those Donut Kings really means something! No, I think not. Homer Simpson comes to mind more readily (and would probably be a better electoral bet than Pauline these days, too).

It can't be about user imagery, surely? For how many Australians does Pauline Hanson have aspirational appeal? She's not exactly renowned for her good taste, so I consider it doubtful that there's anyone who would feel better eating a Donut King donut now that they know it's Pauline's choice.

So it must be more to do with linking to emotions, attitudes and perhaps even values that we associate with Pauline Hanson... and that, of course, is very dangerous territory. Perhaps it's an attempt to position the gaudy pink donut - iced with "hundreds and thousands" - firmly in the 1950s version of Australian cultural life that Ms Hanson seems to favour, alongside fairy bread at a kids' party, an Iced Vo-Vo biscuit, Bob Menzies in Canberra and the "yellow peril" still a few thousand miles to the north. Multiculturalism? Why, we've got all the diversity you'll ever need right here at the donut counter!

(By the way, donuts and multiculturalism are not mutually exclusive - I often enjoy an Italian style bomboloni with apricot jam filling from Caffe di Lusso in Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn.)

Another thought: maybe it's about protecting Australian interests against foreign takeovers of our markets. With business travellers still queuing to buy boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts at Sydney Airport, Melbourne's first KK store located at Fountain Gate (right in "Kath & Kim" territory), and KK's fund-raising program earning them tremendous kudos with community organisations, maybe Donut King is trying to send out a subtle call to patriotism (or xenophobia) by linking themselves to such a prominent anti-immigration, "White Australia" campaigner?

Or maybe I'm missing something more obvious. Perhaps, as a prominent Royalist, it's logical that Ms Hanson would support anything with "King" in the title: stand by for Pauline as spokesmodel for Burger King or King Oscar Sardines.

Better still, there's one product endorsement opportunity that would neatly combine her racist attitudes with support for royalty and good old fashioned Australian values: White King bleach.

Tick infestation is bad for the heart

2006-09-06T12:03:00.000+10:00

The National Heart Foundation announced a couple of weeks ago that it would be extending its "Tick program" to "everyday eating out of the home", including restaurants and food courts.

In effect, this move constitutes an extension of the Tick brand into a new category. But it comes at a time when the brand has never been more under threat, and when (I would argue) attention should be focused on brand protection rather than extension.

Ticks are taking over the supermarket shelves. Over recent years a tick (and very often a white tick on a red background) has come to denote first any nutritional claim ("97% fat free"), then any functional claim ("baked not fried"), and now any claim at all (just look at the picture above)! I picked up a box of Betty Crocker Brownie Mix in a supermarket last week, having noticed the white ticks on red - a familiar cue that I have come to associate with at least some level of nutritional information or endorsement. I (honestly) assumed that Betty Crocker was making some health claim - low fat, low GI, high fibre, etc. But no! Apparently, in this age of "premiumisation", when it's OK to be indulgent, even a claim of being "Rich and decadent" deserves a tick! Even Coles has commandeered the tick as the central feature of its new master housebrand "You'll love".

Don't get me wrong: there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Heart Foundation has built brand equity in the Tick. In fact, I'm sure that many consumers have come to rely on the Tick - just ask the copycats why they have plastered ticks all over their packaging. Even those who pay to use the official Heart Foundation Tick often stretch the friendship - Parmalat, owner of the Rev brand of low-fat milk, uses two smaller ticks right alongside the Tick to denote a claim of being a "rich source of Calcium (and) Protein".

The Heart Foundation clearly understands what the Tick is supposed to do: "Consumers rely on the Heart Foundation Tick to help them to make healthier food choices quickly and easily (my emphasis)", as they say on their website. They want us to trust the endorsement and respond to the Tick on the basis that we believe that "All Tick approved products represent a healthier choice".

Research might well show that consumers are - rationally - aware of the Tick and the "Pick The Tick" campaign, and even of the underlying objectives of the program. But we are talking here about frequent, highly routine purchases in a supermarket context. Studies of consumer behaviour in supermarkets have found average shopping times of less than 12 seconds per item, including the time taken to walk down an aisle and approach the display. Under these conditions, recognition of salient brand cues - basic colours, shapes, symbols, colour schemes and product Gestalt - is critical.

Consumers expect that these brand cues will make decision-making easier by acting as a kind of shorthand, not only for manufacturer or origin, but also for intangible associations like the trust that comes from third-party endorsement.

Faced with evidence of growing consumer confusion, the Heart Foundation has been encouraging us to make more of an effort to ensure that we are picking up the RIGHT tick. Unfortunately, once you have to tell consumers to trust SOME ticks but not others, you completely undermine their confidence and destroy the value of the Tick as a symbol: decision-making becomes more difficult and the perceived risk (of making the wrong choice) is higher.

On any critical appraisal, the Heart Foundation has failed to protect its intellectual property and it continues to suffer from very significant "leakage" of its marketing investment. Part of this stems from a poor choice of vehicle for this investment in the first place. The 1988 Trade Mark registrations for what is described as a "Correct symbol, in disc, in circle" note explicitly that "Registration gives no right to the exclusive use of the device of a TICK (CORRECT SYMBOL)". In other words, it has been known for nearly 20 years that a "tick" was too generic a choice - the Foundation can't "own" a symbol that is used so widely and non-specifically.

Secondly (and strangely, given the endorsement on the registration), it seems the Heart Foundation took a long time to recognise that it had a problem with copycat ticks. It should not have come as a surprise that other marketers would seek to exploit and leverage brand equity any way they could. But it appears that the Foundation made no regulatory attempts to stop others appropriating equity in the Tick until 1997 - that's when it lodged a Trade Mark application for a white tick on a disc of solid colour but without the words "National Heart Foundation Approved" around it. This application was rejected pretty swiftly.

The Foundation should act now - and quickly, before others like Betty Crocker completely undermine consumer brand knowledge and hence completely devalue the program - to shore up its equity in its brand elements, and plug the leaks. There are many conceivable ways to create a modified branding device that is simple, distinctive, meaningful and (above all) protectable, yet builds on what equity remains in the Tick. I'd love to hear from the Heart Foundation if they are interested...

Attention Cummins: Don't hold others back... Resign the Connex account now!

2006-08-28T23:48:00.000+10:00

OPEN ON MCU OF A GROUP OF ADVERTISING STRATEGY PLANNERS AND CREATIVES FROM SEVERAL DIFFERENT MELBOURNE AGENCIES. THEY ARE OBVIOUSLY TALENTED AND CAPABLE OF DOING GREAT WORK. CARRYING PORTFOLIOS AND STORYBOARDS, THEY ARE TRYING TO ENTER THE OFFICES OF MELBOURNE TRAIN OPERATOR CONNEX.

MUSIC FADES UP: OBSCURE TRANSYLVANIAN FUNERAL LAMENT.

CAMERA PULLS BACK TO REVEAL THAT THE TALENTED GROUP IS BEING RESTRAINED BY ANOTHER GROUP. SELF-INDULGENT CREATIVES FROM CUMMINS AND PARTNERS, THIS SECOND GROUP IS DESPERATELY GRABBING AT THE ANKLES OF THE FIRST.

ORDINARY VICTORIAN COMMUTERS LOOK ON, TOTALLY PERPLEXED.

Connex launched its Don't hold others back ad campaign on 13 August. According to the Connex press release, "the centrepiece of the campaign are (sic) TV ads that can only be described as intriguing".

Only as intriguing?!! You're kidding, right? From my first viewing of the campaign, I'm afraid numerous other adjectives came to mind!

This is a campaign designed to tell commuters that it's their fault Connex trains don't run on time more often. If you decide this is the right thing to be telling commuters (and I'm not at all certain that it is), it sets up a communications challenge that calls for brutal honesty and self-reflection on the part of the advertiser. You have to be prepared to disarm commuters' natural counter-arguments first - by acknowledging your own shortcomings - before you can begin to hope for a fair hearing. And your message needs to be delivered with a very high degree of empathy and, probably, ironic humour.

Cummins & Partners' creative strategy fails on both counts. The choice of black & white cinematography, the funereal music and the images themselves evoke Stalinist Russia - they are cold and there is not a jot of empathy. Then the message "tag" is delivered not by a human being, or even a human voice, but by a sign on the end of the platform - a piece of totalitarian bureaucracy worthy of Orwell's "thought police". There's no light at the end of the tunnel: the depiction of the problem is dark and heavy-handed, but the solution is just a sign telling us how we should think and behave.

Let's face it, we're not talking here about HIV/AIDS in the 1980s. A campaign to encourage commuters to contribute to the shared goal of helping the trains run on time doesn't exactly call for the Grim Reaper.

Spoilt for choice? (Or spoiled by choice?)

2006-08-20T12:25:00.000+10:00

As discussed with Helen Razer on ABC Victoria local radio, Sunday 20 August

It's been your favourite chocolate bar for as long as you can remember. But suddenly it comes in King Size, Bite-sized, Chunky, "Bits", peanut butter-filled, white chocolate, dark chocolate, low GI and guarana-boosted varieties.

Or your current toothbrush is looking shaggy and needs replacing. You spend 5 minutes in front of the oral care shelves of the supermarket - it's only 3 months since you bought your last brush, but the range of product features has changed even in that short time. Suddenly you're worried about something you weren't even aware of when you walked in: Do I need whitening, tartar control, plaque removal, gum massage, and a tongue scraper? And in what combination?

We enjoy and value choice when it lets us get closer to exactly what we already know we want. We're delighted by choice when we're seeking variety and excitement. But we are often troubled by choice when it undermines our confidence in our ability to make the right decision. In many purchase situations - especially when we're not quite sure what we need - the more choices we have, the higher the perceived risk that we'll make the wrong choice.

There's a standard term in the lexicon of the consumer behaviourist: "post-purchase dissonance". We've all had it - that unpleasant feeling we get when something (or someone) tells us that we made the wrong choice, paid too much or bought last year's model. The complexity of choice in the category - whether it's mouthwash, mobile phones or mortgages - makes information processing and decision-making more taxing, and post-purchase dissonance more likely. In other words, too much choice can make us unhappy.

And when consumers feel that marketers are deliberately making things more difficult by offering more choices, then this can lead to resentment, because they are made to feel ignorant or inadequate for what should be a straightforward task.

It's a problem, too, for the marketer. Product and brand proliferation, making the choice too difficult and overwhelming for the consumer, is a risky strategy. Sales may look OK as consumers continue to buy - but grudgingly - until another marketer detects that level of disaffection and the feeling of being "trapped", and dramatically simplifies the whole offer, taking share away from the brands that were making it all too hard, and often attracting new consumers to the market in the process.

A classic example is herbal weight loss supplements. Once you had to DIY: first read up, then buy separate bottles of brindleberry, chromium picolinate, chitin, lecithin, etc. from your health food store. Then along came "Fat Blaster", with a name and a value proposition that told you they'd done all the worrying for you - everything you needed and nothing you didn't was in the one capsule. At around $50 a box, it doubled the size of the market overnight!

And when a FMCG company like Nestlé offers at least four different products in the chocolate mousse category alone (see my earlier blog on this), you also have to wonder about the economics of it - the cost of developing and managing such a complex product portfolio or "matrix" has to be justified by increased overall profitability or you're simply destroying shareholder value.

What can consumers do? Some marketers argue that consumers have the power to simply stop buying if they're not happy, but that's an unrealistic expectation when we feel like we're being held hostage.

You can look for a market maven - someone (without any vested interest) who collects and disseminates market and product information (you know, the brother-in-law or the guy at work who knows all about mobile phones or plasma TVs). Web forums are often a gathering place for such mavens, especially for technology-based products. You can find an intermediary who will do the simplifying and worrying for you - place your trust in a broker to find the best loan, super scheme, etc.

But few of us can afford a personal shopper to go to the supermarket! For groceries and other FMCG products, the best way to combat the tyranny of choice is feedback - call the 1-800 consumer line number on the package to tell marketers you're unhappy (they're crazy if they offer this and then don't listen). And, please, please, participate in market research and be painfully honest - we're often afraid to admit that we don't understand or are overwhelmed by choice, but marketers need to know... for their sake and ours as consumers.

Telstra and Trujillo: Media are overdoing the Mexican flavour

2006-08-13T09:43:00.000+10:00

It's been a big week for Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo. First there was the scrapping of the fibre-to-the-node broadband strategy, then revelations of Mr Trujillo's severance package from US West a few years back, and then Telstra's financial announcements... and the news that the CEO had met his performance targets and earned his bonus. There were lots of calls for Sol to be sacked and oblique comments from John Howard about fat executive salaries.

I was astonished to see that, more than a year after his appointment, many editors, sub-editors and journalists are still using "Mexican" references when they discuss Trujillo and Telstra. A quick scan this week revealed the following:

...sends profits south of the border
...Sol Trujillo and his "Three Amigo" executive compadres are in the gun sights of furious Coalition MPs
...you've got to have faith, amigos...
...as you might expect from a true Mexican raised on chilli peppers, a bit of heat doesn't seem to fluster him
...Telstra opts for Mexican stand-off

By contrast, international reporting on Telstra this week invariably described Mr Trujillo as "an American", referring to his background and experience managing other telcos like Orange in France as well as US West.

The facts: Mr Trujillo has never been a Mexican citizen. He was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, to Mexican-American parents, educated in the US, gained an MBA from the University of Wyoming in 1974, and worked in the United States for the next 25 years. His Hispanic heritage is celebrated in the US - he was the first US-born Hispanic to become CEO of a Fortune 200 company.

But, hey, he has a "funny" name with a "J" that sounds like an "H" and a "LL" that you pronounce like a "Y". And a moustache...

In my Brand Management classes, I'd classify it as "leveraging a country-of-origin brand association". While we may try to assess Sol Trujillo's performance on purely rational grounds, by using "Mexican" clichés - not 21st-century Mexico, mind you, but those associated with the Mexicans of Hollywood Westerns - journalists tap into images and associations in our minds that have been reinforced over decades. First come the images: think sombreros, ponchos, siestas under a cactus, Speedy Gonzales, "Hey Cisco", etc. And hard on the heels of those images come the more judgmental associations: sleepy or lazy, thieving bandido, or just plum loco.

Of course, outside my brand management class, and applied to an individual, I'd call it racial stereotyping. Imagine the outrage if (for example) Jac Nasser, as a Lebanese-born Australian, had been subjected to the same sort of country-of-origin clichés when running Ford here or in the US.

If they can’t respect the facts or show some restraint, then perhaps it’s time some sections of the media laid off the tequila.

UPDATE 25 AUGUST: A piece based on this one appeared today in Crikey (subscription required), where it attracted a brief response from Eric Ellis, Walkley Award-winning SE Asian correspondent for Fortune and The Bulletin. In a piece written last April for Fortune, Eric noted - for an international readership - that Trujillo "has become the foreigner Australians most delight in mocking".

Brand equity lost in translation

2006-08-12T21:08:00.000+10:00

Why do we take such delight in the stories of marketers who get it wrong? A particular favourite - not only on the Web, but also in respected textbooks like Kevin Lane Keller's "Strategic Brand Management" - is the dumb US or other English-speaking marketer that launches a product in a non-English-speaking market without bothering to get a local translation done first. A Google search on terms like "brand name", "translation" and "blunder" will get you hundreds of sites like this one and stories like the Clairol "Mist Stick" hair curling wand, which sold poorly in Germany where "mist" means manure... etc.

Of course, they're not all true: the wonderful Urban Legends Reference Pages actually debunks some of these, including the false tale of the Chevy Nova having failed in various Spanish-speaking countries simply because "no va" means "doesn't go" in Spanish. (As if there weren't any Hispanic employees at GM in Detroit in a position to say "hang on a second...") Then again, the one we've all heard about the Mitsubishi Pajero is, apparently, true, as this scholarly account of Spanish swearwords from Wikipedia testifies. [WARNING: SERIOUS PARENTAL ADVISORY - THIS ACCOUNT OF SPANISH PROFANITY HAS VERY FRANK ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS.]

But step into one of Melbourne's increasingly accessible Asian grocery stores (there are two within 200 metres of QBrand's offices) and you get a better idea of how much we rely on familiar brands to guide us when we're shopping, and how easy it must be to miss some cultural subtleties when naming a brand for export. Even though many of the brand names are in English, the sheer number of unfamiliar names to mentally process can be almost overwhelming as you try to make sense of the structure of a particular category.

Still, it was well worth a few minutes' mental overload to find these two...

My usual advice to marketers is to avoid any connection - explicit or implied - between chocolate products and the word "colon".
And perhaps "Good Fortune" might have conveyed the intended meaning more effectively... in Australian usage, naming a canned meat product "Good Luck" sounds like a warning!

Iconic landmark? I'm not having a bar of it!

2006-08-09T21:18:00.000+10:00

It was fun being asked by The Age (put on the spot) to comment about what makes an "iconic Melbourne landmark". No, Showgirls Bar 20 isn't on my list. (By the way, the link is for those unaware of Bar 20 and in no way an endorsement, and yes, I had to go looking for it!)

In this case, "iconic Melbourne landmark" is, of course, just another expression from the real estate agents' lexicon (from the people who brought you "renovator's delight" and, in Sydney, "Harbour glimpses"). But it does prompt the interesting question of what makes for an icon, especially from a branding perspective.

"Icon" is generally used as a cultural term: to be regarded as an icon, a brand really needs to be linked to, and to symbolise, something that's culturally important. (For more on this, see the book How Brands Become Icons by Douglas B. Holt.)

But important to which culture? Our "national" culture? I don't believe we have a single national culture, so I'm generally very suspicious when anyone claims something like "mateship" as an inherently Australian cultural value (see Don Watson's excellent critique of the politicisation of mateship - he asks whether it isn't in fact gender-biased and xenophobic, and why John Howard seems so keen on promoting it).

I would, however, agree that the MCG is an iconic Melbourne landmark. It's very widely recognised and has enormous cultural relevance and resonance for a very broad cross-section of Australians. It calls to mind significant sporting and cultural events - not only the 1956 Olympics, 2006 Commonwealth Games, VFL/AFL football, Test cricket, soccer, rugby, etc., and great sporting achievements, many of which are themselves symbolic of cultural values. But there are all the other events and uses, too: military (First World War conscription rallies, a base for RAAF personnel and US Marines in the Second World War), spiritual (from evangelist Billy Graham to Pope John Paul II), artistic (concerts by David Bowie, David Cassidy, Madonna, U2, Michael Jackson, the Rolling Stones), and Royal... along with thousands of other schoolkids, I saw the Queen from the "hallowed turf" of the MCG on her 1970 Royal Tour. We were arranged into large herds, and Her Majesty was driven around us in a kind of Queen-mobile. Apparently, this was deemed culturally and educationally important enough at the time to take us out of school for the day, but it seems pretty bizarre 35 years on!

Likewise, Flinders Street Station is an iconic landmark. It has great symbolic value to the many generations of Melbournians, from all kinds of cultural backgrounds, who've arranged to meet "under the clocks" and is well and truly linked to notions of what it means to live here for most Melburnians.

So I'm not being a prude or a wowser (a tremendously useful and culturally-laden word that seems to have faded from use lately) when rejecting Bar 20 for icon-ification. It's not that a venue for adult entertainment and "showgirls" can't be an icon - I would certainly support icon status for the Folies Bergère or the Moulin Rouge in Paris. And I'm certainly prepared to acknowledge that many Melburnians have probably had a good time at Showgirls Bar 20, recognise it and perhaps even think fondly of it. But I'm afraid I just don't think it can really lay claim to symbolising any cultural truths about life in Melbourne for significant groups of our citizens.

Of course, I'd love to hear from anyone who thinks I'm not paying Bar 20 its due cultural respects - comments always welcome.

Comments on my piece on regulating drug promotion

2006-07-28T19:46:00.000+10:00

I thank Dr Ken Harvey very much for his comments, which you can read here (I haven't been able to figure out how to get Blogger to post comments with the original). I would also urge readers to follow some of the links Ken has provided and check out the evidence for themslves.

If you read my piece carefully, I don't actually argue that doctors are not influenced by the promotional activities of pharmaceutical companies. Of course, they are also influenced by their cultural backgrounds and religious beliefs, what medical school they went to, their patients, what they read in the newspapers as well as in the medical journals, what their colleagues tell them in the tea-room (evidence-based or not!), and whether they had time for breakfast and have had that all-important first cup of coffee yet (sponsored or not!). But I don't hear people clamouring for the ACCC to investigate the effects of each of these - and their interactive effects - on prescribing behaviour.

In the course of interviewing hundreds of GPs and specialists about influences on their clinical decision-making, I have been utterly flabbergasted at some prescribing practices that clearly owe nothing to company promotion (let alone any sort of logic). Of course doctors deny that they are influenced by promotion - from Federal Court judges and competition commissioners to mug punters at the local TAB, we all like to think of ourselves as rational decision-makers, but it's just not the case. But I've seen numerous product managers squirm when they hear the news that doctors can't recall the quirky brand name, thought it was only approved for a different indication, still prescribe the old one out of habit, etc. etc.

Anyway, I don't argue that there is no influence. But I will continue to argue most strenuously with those who make a giant non sequitur, leaping from the question of influence to the conclusion that this harms patients or community health or welfare. For example, the ACA says sales reps should be externally regulated because “representatives attempt to influence doctors’ prescribing patterns in non-rational ways which have negative outcomes for consumers”. This single, unreferenced, sentence paints the sales rep as deceptive, the doctor as potentially irrational and the consumer as unwitting victim. The Medicines Australia code mandates reference support for claims about drugs, but there is clearly no such code for the ideologue!

And speaking of influence, consider some of the incredibly emotive language used by Graeme Samuel in his opinion piece in today's Melbourne Age. At first, he reserves judgement and concentrates on transparency: "Regardless of whether such largesse actually influences a doctor or not... the perception of influence is enough". But, just when we think he's keeping an open mind, CLANG! the cell door closes: "Doctors prescribing medication based on anything other than the patient's needs offends the morals" and these are "grubby issues" and "an unpleasant stain" (presumably the remains of one of the "lavish dinners" at "top-class restaurants"). In other words, we’re not saying it happens, but it’s disgusting and we’re going to act anyway!

Finally, while we're on the subject of the difference between rational and emotional persuasive appeals, both Ken Harvey and the ACA played "the tobacco card" in their submissions to the ACCC. The ACA actually said "a parallel can be drawn between the methods employed by the pharmaceutical industry now and those that were employed by the tobacco industry" - you can read this outrageous quote for yourself here.

ACCC prescribes castor oil for greedy doctors

2006-07-27T16:33:00.000+10:00

Doctors – supposedly the “victims” of the pharmaceutical industry's promotional excesses and "sophisticated" persuasive techniques – will be the biggest losers under new requirements of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for greater levels of disclosure and transparency in relation to pharmaceutical company sponsorship, announced yesterday. (The ACCC authorises the industry self-regulatory code developed and administered by Medicines Australia.)

In fact, pharmaceutical marketers may actually benefit from closer public and regulatory scrutiny of their spending on entertainment for doctors, but doctors will be further disadvantaged if sponsorship of prescriber education is reduced as a consequence. But the bottom line is that the changes are likely to have no discernible effect on the health and welfare of consumers and the community as a whole.

There have certainly been some excesses in terms of pharmaceutical entertainment and largesse in the past... and I've been to some fairly lavish affairs put on by drug companies (and usually wound up asking myself why they were bothering). But, from a marketing perspective, many promotional practices viewed in the pharmaceutical industry as ‘the usual’ or ‘cost of entry’ are actually undertaken without any evidence of their marketing effectiveness.

Just because companies do something doesn’t mean it works... or, indeed, that it is harmful to the health of individuals or the community. Many of those urging the ACCC to impose tighter controls on the activities of pharmaceutical companies don’t cite any evidence that promotion actually has harmful effects on the attitudes or behaviour of prescribers.

In many cases, it's possible that cutting back on largesse might actually enhance pharmaceutical company profitability by reducing wastage. Drug companies should be ensuring that they invest their marketing dollars where they will be most effective. In the spirit of value-based marketing, the industry should probably look at this new requirement for transparency as an opportunity – it may well force greater internal scrutiny and justification of some of the "traditional" lines on their marketing and promotional budgets.

But the whole issue of further regulation leaves a bitter taste for doctors. Firstly, any increase in scrutiny inevitably raises implications about the perceived intelligence and integrity of prescribers. This type of regulation sends an unequivocal signal to the community that the ACCC feels doctors cannot be trusted to evaluate clinical and scientific evidence for themselves or, at worst, to behave ethically when selecting treatments.

The underlying message is that the regulator we trust to protect us as consumers – egged on by lobbyists such as the Australian Consumers Association (ACA) – believes that a doctor might put his or her own interests ahead of those of the patient for the price of a restaurant meal and half a bottle of wine. If you think I'm being melodramatic, check this out... In a submission to the ACCC, Prof Ken Harvey of La Trobe University argues for tougher regulation of pharmaceutical promotion not on the basis of evidence but on the astonishing assertion that pharmaceuticals are like tobacco and alcohol, and that any “highly profitable industries which spends (sic) a large proportion of their earnings on sophisticated promotion all encourage overconsumption and unhealthy habits”.

Secondly, prescribers are still expected to act as agents and "gatekeepers" for the Government in administering the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), a role for which they are completely unremunerated, while what minor compensations there might be for undertaking this role are whittled away.

The PBS is a massive program under which Australian consumers get extraordinary access to the world’s best and latest drugs. Yet doctors are expected to spend their own time and resources keeping themselves up to date with the intricacies and fine print of PBS listings, which change every three months. Even the most strident advocates of centralised regulation of pharmaceutical promotion acknowledge the reality that doctors remain reliant on the pharmaceutical industry for information about new drugs and changes to PBS listings and requirements.

QBrand's own experience conducting research with hundreds of GPs and specialists confirms that doctors take this gatekeeping role extremely seriously if grudgingly. Yet in no other sector of Australian society would professionals be expected to fulfil such an agency role without some form of consideration or compensation... like the occasional dinner and a drink!

Naming rights: If you can't lick 'em...

2006-07-25T20:42:00.000+10:00

We're pretty accustomed now to various stadiums, events and sporting teams carrying sponsors' names. There's Colonial Stadium, now the Telstra Dome; the Marlboro/Ford/Kia Australian Open tennis; the Foster's/Emirates Melbourne Cup (and even the year when - horror of horrors - Toohey's New, a beer from north of the border, had the naming rights). The Collingwood Football Club is now based at the Lexus Centre - no longer Victoria Park. And in the recent World Cup (Germany 2006), we even had the Qantas Socceroos.

But what about naming rights to public spaces? I was surprised recently to find that one feature of Brisbane's very attractive Southbank recreation precinct is an appealing (if artificial) kids' swimming area (pictured here) with a white sandy foreshore and even its own lifeguards... for which naming rights have been sold. Yes, the signs, banners, etc. proclaim that it is Streets Beach (Streets as in the Unilever ice cream brand - the Australian equivalent of Good Humor, for readers in some other markets).

If it's OK - in the name of philanthropy - for commercial interests to sponsor galleries, or to endow chairs at universities, then why was my initial reaction to Streets Beach one of some discomfort?

Perhaps it's just an emotional response to Unilever's relatively blatant, undisguised intent to link an indulgent product so obviously targeted towards children to a public activity and resource provided for children. On the other hand, on a purely rational basis, I can't really see why this should be any more objectionable than linking a cultural institution like the Melbourne Cup to a beer brand.

And I guess if I were marketing manager for Streets, it might have seemed like an attractive opportunity. As ever, though, I'd be very interested to look at the return on investment. In my experience, even the largest corporations seldom measure the real effects and cost-benefit of this type of sponsorship with any degree of spohistication.

Which bank creeps out its customers?

2006-07-25T12:34:00.000+10:00

Number 3 in a series reporting bizarre customer service encounters at my local branch:

Back in March this year, the Commonwealth Bank announced a "new strategic direction focussed on customer service". What I'm seeing at my branch, however, appear to be some very un-focussed and, frankly, downright weird manifestations of that strategy.

I went to bank a cheque the other day. When the teller brought up my account details on screen (where I couldn't see them), he peered at them then smiled at me and asked: "How's your home loan?". Perhaps this was simply meant to be a friendly enquiry or, more likely, a clumsy introduction to some kind of "up-sell" (e.g. "Can I make an appointment for you to talk to one of our lending advisers?"), but I found it disquieting. It's like going to the doctor with a cold and having him/her look you up and down and ask "How's your liver?". My natural reaction: Why are you asking? Do you know something I don't? Have I turned yellow since I last looked in the mirror? etc.

Am I just being paranoid? I don't think so. I actually appreciate "Do you want fries with that?" customer service scripts when they are contextually appropriate! Unfortunately, when the context and delivery are inappropriate, the effect is invasive and creepy. Another example of the Commonwealth stalking its own customers!

The bus stops here... but the bucks go to JCDecaux

2006-06-28T22:26:00.000+10:00

Outdoor advertising used to be seen by many people as a blight on the visual landscape of our cities and suburbs. But, just as authorised graffiti becomes "street art", outdoor advertising takes on a new respectability when it is "street furniture".

JCDecaux, global leaders in "street furniture" (who claim to work in partnership with more than 3500 town and city auhorities in 45 different countries), are signing contracts with more and more Australian municipal councils and transport authorities to build and maintain bus shelters, phone booths and the like in exchange for advertising placement rights on that furniture... and hence in our city streets and public landscapes. This is a somewhat different situation from the old days where a building owner sold space on his outside wall for a billboard, or a farmer allowed a "Golden Fleece Roadhouse, 5 miles" sign in the paddock by the highway.

How does JCDecaux choose sites for this "street furniture"? You might expect that public resources provided on public land under the terms of a contract with a public authority would be located where they will best serve the public. However, the evidence suggests otherwise, namely that the key advertising principle of exposure ranks significantly higher on the JCDecaux priority list than does any analysis of public utility.

As the company notes on its Australian website (under "Why JCDecaux"), "...we invest only (my emphasis) where high volume, high quality audiences are assured". Their Citylights advertising panels (the name they give to their bus and tram shelter sites) "...are a (sic) specially developed network to reach (sic) higher volumes of audience (sic) and higher income earners with disposable incomes (sic)". [Note: The appalling lack of copywriting skill on the JCDecaux website has made me "sic" all over the place!]

That's hardly surprising for an outdoor advertising company, after all. Yet some local councils seem to be trying to have their ratepayers believe that JCDecaux is providing these resources out of pure public-spiritedness. When push comes to shove, of course JCDecaux will put commercial consderations first.

South Sydney Council's arrangements with JCDecaux in the late 1990s apparently led to the unilateral relocation of bus shelters without community consultation (as noted by then NSW Parliamentarian Clover Moore, now Sydney's Lord Mayor)

The Pedestrian Council of Australia has noted that "in many cases, JC Decaux has placed... scrolling billboards directly in front of pedestrian crossings at some of the busiest intersections in the CBD", warning of their "propensity to distract drivers from watching the road and the traffic lights".

And my own experience suggests that when Councils take a laissez faire attitude to the French company's approach to the placement of advertising - sorry, street furniture - the outcomes can actually diminish public utility and cause public nuisance. Banyule City Council, which takes in the well-to-do Melbourne suburbs of Ivanhoe and Eaglemont as well as socioeconomically disadvantaged and refugee communities in West Heidelberg, announced in July 2005 that it had awarded a 15-year contract to JCDecaux "to supply, install and maintain 119 bus shelters and associated rubbish bins on main arterial and local roads throughout the municipality". The first of these of which I became aware was installed in a position where the large advertising poster on the end of the shelter completely obscured the vision of drivers attempting to make a right turn into a notorious stretch of one of these arterial roads... where it was odds-on to cause arterial bleeding!

Banyule Council received numerous calls from concerned residents even as the JCDecaux tradies were finishing the installation - nothing to do with the advertising, merely the lethality of its placement. The poster was replaced with clear glass, but this doesn't mean the same thing isn't happening at numerous other locations around the country.

And while (as per the press release) the local Councillors staged their launch photo opportunity at a new shelter in in West Heidelberg's "Mall", you can rest assured that JCDecaux will have done its sums in planning its Banyule bus shelter portfolio: a few freebies in areas like the Olympic Village are more than made up for by the fees recouped from selling ad space in other "high volume" sites with "high quality audiences".

Update: Nestlé acquires Uncle Tobys

2006-06-14T16:15:00.000+10:00

The RMIT University press release re my thoughts on the acquisition of Uncle Tobys by Nestlé, as discussed on this blog on 24 May 2006, can be found here.

A Tiid-ious campaign from Nissan

2006-06-11T22:42:00.000+10:00

If you've watched Australian TV at all this year, you couldn't help knowing that Nissan has launched the Tiida, its small-car replacement for the Pulsar. Now, I may not be in the target demographic (said to be 30-something, female skew), but when it comes to the ad campaign, I reckon the name Tiida must be short for "tired idea". When Harry Met Sally, which featured Meg Ryan's fake orgasm scene, was made in 1989. How many times since then has the "I'll have what she's having" idea been used in advertising? Definitely for shampoo, and I think I also recall a breakfast cereal version. Anyway, as a creative idea, "product induces orgasm" is, like a 1989 Nissan Pulsar (pictured), unlikely to turn many heads or win many awards in 2006.

OK, so there are plenty of lame ads around. The reason why I really take exception to this one has much more to do with what we might call the "Trapper John, MD effect". There is something unpleasant and disheartening about the exploitation of a well-loved character from a TV show, especially when it is done in a way that is unimaginative, predictable and very unfunny.

Consumers and TV viewers can tell the difference between actors and their characters. We know it's Sarah Jessica Parker, not Sex and The City's Carrie Bradshaw, who advertises Garnier Nutrisse. But the person in the Nissan Tiida ad is clearly the character Samantha Jones, not the actor Kim Cattrall.

I want (and feel I have the right) to remember the women of Sex and The City as they were written by Darren Star and Michael Patrick King, and as we left them at the end of Season 6 in 2004*. If they are to have a life after Sex, then let Darren Star decide that - I don't want my fond memories of a landmark TV show to be sullied in any way by some Australian copywriter's idea of how "Sam" might enjoy a ride in a small Japanese car. Even if it was developed by an all-female creative team at Whybin TBWA, and they happen to be the world's biggest fans of Sex and The City, that's no excuse in my book (in fact, if they claim to be fans, that gives them even less excuse!).

*Just a reminder... in the final epsiode we left Samantha Jones in her most committed relationship yet (with Smith) and fighting breast cancer.

The shape I'm in(to)

2006-06-01T22:54:00.000+10:00

The body of a Gibson Les Paul. The headstock of a Fender Stratocaster or Telecaster. A bottle of Grant's Scotch or a Crown Lager. A Weis Mango and Cream ice cream bar. The cap of a Bic ballpoint pen.

Q: What do all these have in common? A: Each is the subject of a current shape trade mark in Australia.

And I'm glad, because apart from being a few of my favourite things, the very form of each of these classic designs deserves to be protected, and not principally because they are design icons (although they undoubtedly are). Rather, their owners deserve protection against imitators because of the effects of shape on consumers. A distinctive shape doesn't only identify a product to a consumer as being from a particular source; shape is also a highly salient (easily processed) cue to retrieval by the consumer of the network of associations in memory that actually constitutes the brand in his or her mind.

So when I see a guitar that's the shape of a Gibson Les Paul, I don't only identify it as a product from the Gibson Guitar Corporation. It calls to mind a distinctive sound, several genres of 70s rock that I associate with the guitar and its sound, songs and styles that sound better on a Les Paul, and even particular players (see Wikipedia's entry here for a far-from-comprehensive list). These recollections are also linked in my mind to quality assessments, judgments and emotional associations.

The shapes of a Coca-Cola bottle, the triangular prismatic packaging of Toblerone chocolate or a Turbuhaler asthma inhaler (also protected as shape trade marks) all tap into similar rich networks of brand associations... even if I don't know exactly who makes the products or owns the trade marks. In other words, while a shape trade mark is based on the idea of a shape being an indicator of origin, it may protect things that are a whole lot more valuable to a marketer than mere source identification.

Oh, and if you're wondering about the picture... it's yours truly about 30 years ago (but who's counting?) playing an unmistakeably shaped Gibson Les Paul. (In fact, it's a Les Paul copy (!) by Ibanez, one of the companies Gibson has sued in an attempt to protect the value of that very iconic shape. What teenager could afford a real Les Paul?) Makes me wish I had been able to protect my shape (apart from the Miller shirt, perhaps)!

Will a Nestlé-owned Uncle Tobys give Aussie consumers the Vita Brits?

2006-05-24T21:34:00.000+10:00

I was interviewed today by Derryn Hinch about how consumers might react to the purchase of Uncle Tobys by Nestlé (in partnership with General Mills for the breakfast cereals). The short answer (as always) is that it depends...! Some may be concerned and react unfavourably to the acquisition of this "iconic" Australian brand by a global giant like Nestlé. This might even lead those consumers to avoid buying Uncle Tobys products. At the other end of the consumer spectrum, many just won't notice or care about a change of ownership, especially if there is no discernible change to the products that appear under the Uncle Tobys name.

Between these two extremes, the reaction of the majority of Australian consumers will depend on how aggressive Nestle is in "Nestlé-ising" the Uncle Tobys brand and/or trying to reposition it.

Uncle Tobys has long emphasised its Australian-ness, e.g. through its involvement with sports such as surf lifesaving and in many of its advertising and packaging images. Consumer perceptions of Nestlé as a large multinational or global firm with many different product lines and areas of operation could conflict with current perceptions of Uncle Toby's as a small(er) Australian company making Australian products (notwithstanding the fact that it has been New Zealand-owned for some time... close enough?), giving consumers less reason to prefer Uncle Tobys products over competing brands.

Uncle Tobys brand positioning is also built around the idea of "wholesome" breakfast and snack foods based on cereals and fruit. By contrast, Nestlé is perhaps better known to Australian consumers for convenience and indulgence products like Milky Bar, Kit Kat, Aero, Nesquik, Milo, as well as Nestle Peters icecream brands like Heaven. This might also create conflicting or negative brand associations for a Nestlé Uncle Toby's or Uncle Toby's by Nestlé brand, especially among parents concerned about their children's nutrition and childhood obesity.

I have no wish to fan the flames, but it should be noted that Nestlé has long been the subject of an international boycott by a small but vocal group of consumers who hold that Nestlé has acted and continues to act unethically in its marketing of infant formula in the third world. While this began as long ago as the 1970s, it is an association with the Nestlé brand that still surfaces in consumer focus groups today. For some Australian consumers, this alone will be enough reason for them to stop them buying Uncle Tobys products immediately.

Just how obviously and rapidly Nestlé will communicate its ownership of Uncle Tobys in advertising and product packaging remains to be seen, as there are some contradictory precedents. Nestlé has prominently re-branded Peters ice cream ("The health food of a nation") as Nestlé Peters, and what were once Rowntree confectionery brands are now Nestlé Kit Kat and Nestlé Aero respectively. The Nestlé products that already compete with Uncle Tobys in the breakfast cereal category - Nesquik, Milo and Cheerios cereals - are also very prominently Nestlé branded. On the other hand, Nestlé has (so far) let the Life Savers brand stand alone, and you won't find the familiar Nestlé logo on a pack of Purina Lucky Dog!

In summary, I would advise Nestlé to go very gently on the corporate (Nestlé) branding of Uncle Tobys, at least until they have done some thorough consumer research to establish what negatives might be associated with the change of ownership. It's a significant investment: Nestlé has paid about 11.5 times the 2005 earnings of Uncle Toby's, reflecting a very high valuation for the goodwill and potential of the Uncle Toby's brand. But whether it's brand extension or brand acquisition, the relationship between one brand and another is always a two-way street. It's possible, in a worst-case scenario, that negative consumer reaction to the acquisition could render the Uncle Tobys brand LESS valuable in the hands of Nestlé than it was under Burns Philp's ownership.

Marketers: Here's why the Trade Mark system Bites

2006-05-15T11:55:00.000+10:00

Only a fool would argue that Arnott's does not have brand equity in the name "Mint Slice", one of its well-known chocolate biscuits. The faith of Arnott's and FMCG giant Unilever in the value of this equity has recently been demonstrated through a co-branding arrangement between the two firms: Streets Blue Ribbon Mint Slice tub ice-cream and then the Streets Cornetto Arnott’s Mint Slice (quite a mouthful). More recently, Arnott's has itself moved closer to the confectionery category with its Mint Slice Balls brand extension (as pictured on the right)

Yet it may surprise you to know that Arnott's does not have a Trade Mark for the words "Mint Slice". Registration of the mark was refused by a Hearing Officer of the Australian Trade Marks Office (now IP Australia) in June 1998. You can download the decision as a PDF here. In summary, the officer found that the words "mint slice" were not capable of distinguishing the applicant’s (Arnott's) goods. Obviously they didn't ask members of my family... when my wife and daughter (both self-confessed chocaholics) hear the words "mint slice", they immediately and unequivocally call to mind goods from a particular source, namely Arnott's.

It turns out that Arnott's had in fact conducted and submitted a survey of 1200 Australian consumers which found: (1) 69% of people who said they were familiar with Mint Slice recognised Arnott's as the manufacturer; and (2) of those who were aware of Mint Slice and said they knew which company manufactured it, 91% named Arnott's.

Pretty convincing, you might think? Apparently not to the the Hearing Officer, who seemed more concerned with the 7% of respondents who associated the product with two manufacturers other than Arnott's, and rejected the (very plausible, in my view) explanation that these respondents had done so in error, or were simply guessing.

As a result, Arnott's has no claim under the Trade Marks Act to prevent competitors like Nestlé from using the words "Mint Slice" on its "Mint Slice Bites". Interestingly, Nestlé even uses the words "Mint Slice" on the packaging in the same manner as it uses the brand names "Kit Kat" and "Violet Crumble" on other products in its "Bites" range.

So, Arnott's has strong brand awareness for "Mint Slice" - more than enough to convince Unilever of the benefits of co-branding (it has done the same with another famous Arnott's brand, "Tim Tam") - but can't prevent others from hijacking that equity.

This is another powerful demonstration of the disconnect between the Trade Marks system and the realities of marketing and consumer response. However, it's also a salutory lesson in the difficulties you are likely to face if (under the current Trade Marks system) you choose to build a brand around a name that could be construed as "descriptive", as discussed on this blog a few weeks ago.

Customers wanted: Dead or alive!

2006-05-14T11:10:00.000+10:00

Were you one of the 150,000 "community leaders" who were mailed - in an envelope marked "private and confidential" - an "exclusive invitation" to the opening of the Commonwealth Games from Games supremo Ron Walker himself? Of course, as was well covered in the media at the time, a very wide variety of Victorians received them, including my wife and her Pilates teacher, but not me (do I sound bitter?), and at least 40 people who were no longer leading the community but rather some kind of heavenly choir. That's right, even dead people were being sought to liven up the Opening Ceremony. This was widely perceived as a desperate response by Ron and his team to low ticket sales - here's how The Age reported it. The term "community leaders" sounds like direct marketing (DM) industry code for high income earners, but there were plenty of pensioners... and, of course, not many people continue to earn income posthumously, notable exceptions being Elvis, John Lennon, etc.

Now the Accor hotels group - owner of the Sofitel, Novotel, Mercure, Ibis and Formule 1 accommodation brands - has taken a leaf out of the Ron Walker marketing manual. My late father-in-law Ernie, who passed away early in 1998 (yep, that's more than 8 years ago) has just received an exciting mailing from the Accor Première Vacation Club, a "holiday ownership" scheme (the sort of thing that used to be called "timeshare") that is a joint venture between Accor and the property developer Becton.

According to the letter from a Mr Benjamin Jones, Ernie is in a "very select group" and was "selected" to receive a "reward" with a retail value of up to $800, the only catch being (what, you didn't realise there would be one?) that he would be required to sit through a lengthy sales pitch (sorry, a 90-minute "holiday ownership preview") and doubtless be subjected to significant pressure to sign up or make some other commitment before taking up his "reward".

So just how bad is Accor's mailing list? The "Frequently Asked Questions" section on the reverse of the letter says "You are one of the select few able to take part in this promotion. You have been chosen to receive this special offer based on certain demographics, past promotions or personal buying habits". The reality: Ernie has (of course) not travelled anywhere, bought anything, responded to a promotion or used a credit card in eight years, so the "selection" process certainly isn't based on any recent market activity or response. What about "demographics"? Well, if Ernie were still alive, he would be aged 81 - definitely not a prime candidate to invest in timeshare!

In fact, based on the way in which the letter was addressed, it is clear that the only way Accor's DM people specially "selected" Ernie to receive this "exciting package" is by using the White Pages. Yes, he's still in the phone book and that's where Accor has gone trawling.

Receiving mail for a departed loved one can be distressing, but I prefer to look at it this way: next time I receive a personally addressed "special offer" and I'm tempted to feel flattered that some company has identified me as a highly desirable customer, instead I'll simply think fondly of Ernie, and smile as I am reminded (as if I needed to be) of just how abysmally poor so much direct marketing has become.

By the way, while Accor is a French company, Becton is ASX-listed with Australian shareholders. If I owned Becton shares, I would be livid at this example of a marketing practice that is dumb, ham-fisted, "bottom-feeding" and wasteful, when I expect modern marketing strategies to be based on shareholder value. How much of Becton's potential profits and dividends are being used to send unsolicited, misleading and untruthful material to unqualified prospects with zero chance of response?

Heaven's just a funky mousse*

2006-05-08T19:24:00.000+10:00

I have a confession to make: I don't frequent the part of the chilled dairy section in the supermarket where one finds products like National Foods' "YoGo" - the sort of thing Americans call "pudding". Hence I have already missed the arrival of Nestlé Heaven mousse, which joins Nestlé regular (no sub-brand) mousse and Nestlé Milo Mousse in the... mousse category? There's now more mousse in the dairy cabinet than in the Canadian Rockies!

Is there room for three different mousses (meesse?) from Nestlé? Are they optimally positioned for different target segments, and are their value propositions sufficiently distinct? Time will tell, I guesse.

*If you're wondering about the title for this entry, it's a variation on a well-known misheard lyric from the song Don't Stop Believin', the 1981 hit from power ballad specialists Journey (see Google search here).

In Heaven's name... not more hyperextension!?

2006-05-04T20:02:00.000+10:00

First there was Heaven on a stick. Then came Heaven in a tub. Now there's Heaven in a bar and Heaven in a block.

The Heaven ice-cream range (from Peters, later Nestlé Peters) was designed to counter the success of Unilever's Streets Magnum in the "premium impulse" category in the early 1990s. In 2005, after lagging Magnum in terms of sales and share for a long time and never really capturing consumers' hearts and minds, Heaven was re-launched in new packaging designed to communicate "premium", with high-quality "foodie" imagery (and, at the same time, to put more distance between it and Magnum).

But while brand identity and brand positioning may be conceived on a whiteboard or in a creative agency's persuasive proposals, the brand lives in the mind of the customer! Just because you've implemented a repositioning exercise, as Heaven has along the dimension of "indulgence", doesn't mean you have immediately respositioned the brand in the mind of the consumer.

Perhaps Nestlé thinks it can convince consumers that "Heaven = premium indulgence" simply by applying the brand to other indulgences... like chocolate. Which begs the question: why not Heaven cigars or a Heaven day-spa, as these are also considered premium indulgences by many?

Firstly, this strategy assumes that Heaven has strong brand awareness and preference in the categories it's already in, and if this WASN'T the case in late 2005 when they re-launched the packaging, then it's hard to believe that it IS the case barely six months later. Brand equity and brand associations take time to build.

Second, it's likely that many consumers still think of Heaven as a Peters sub-brand, like the Peters Drumstick. Nestle has retro-fitted the Nestlé parent brand name to Peters only since it bought Peters from Pacific Brands (as it has with Life Savers, Anticol, etc.). But the new Heaven chocolate extensions just say "Nestlé", that is, there's no "Peters".

And then there's cannibalisation. Nestlé's Kit Kat is also being extended in the direction of "indulgence" in the form of Kit Kat "Temptations", as we've noted here previously. Assuming that Australian consumers have a finite demand for chocolate confectionery, something's gotta give. In order to buy "premium indulgent" Heaven chocolate, people have to NOT buy another brand of chocolate, even if they move up-market (e.g. from regular Kit Kat or Aero or a Wonka bar - all Nestlé brands). Where will Heaven's share come from in chocolate? Does Heaven know? What is the risk that one Nestlé brand will simply eat another?

On the other hand, I suppose Nestlé may argue that the extensions, through their feedback effects, will help to better define the meaning of the Heaven brand for consumers. Seems like a long shot to me...

PS: While I seem to rant a lot about injudicious brand extensions at Nestlé, please don't think that (a) I have something against the Nestlé company and the people who work there, or (b) I think they are the only FMCG company suffering from hyper-extension-osis. However, I do think one can infer from the conduct of Nestlé globally (and not only in Australia) that people very high up in the firm have a very strong belief in the power of the brand (which I support), coupled with a very narrow, uni-directional and short-term notion of how brand equity should be exploited (which I think is dangerous).

UPDATE 7 MAY 2006: Just checked on IP Australia's ATMOSS Trade Marks database: Effem Foods (Mars, Inc.) has a registered mark in Class 30 that includes the words "Dove Heavenly White" for white chocolate, and Aldi Stores also have a Trade Mark application under examination for "Hazelnut Heaven" in Class 30. Could be interesting...!

QBrand public appearance: Sales reps and pharma brands

2006-04-30T15:04:00.000+10:00

For readers of the QBrand QBlog who are in the industry, I will be speaking this Thursday 4 May on "The role of medical representatives in product and company branding" at the PharmaMarketing and Sales Congress 2006, being held at the Stamford Plaza in beautiful North Ryde (Sydney), hub of the pharmaceutical industry in Australia. NOTE: You won't find my name on the website or brochure, as I am a late inclusion in the program.

Another milk bar past its use-by date?

2006-04-29T21:13:00.000+10:00

This photo (click on the thumbnail to see in full size) shows a typical example of what I wrote about a few weeks back on the problems with many of Melbourne's milk bars. The bright blue awning only serves to emphasise how desperately unappealing and uninviting is the rest of the shop's facade by contrast (that's socks, undies and cheap toys in the left display window). If I were Nestlé Peters, I'd be asking for my money back - being seen in this sort of setting does nothing positive for the Drumstick brand.

But, thankfully, there are some milk bar proprietors who "get it" - watch this space!

Call centres: Don’t call me stupid… OR Don’t call me, stupid!

2006-04-29T21:12:00.000+10:00

There are “moments of truth” in any service encounter. For organisations that use outbound calling as a selling or relationship management tool, the first moment of truth is when the customer puts down the saucepan, the baby or the remote control and picks up the phone.

Several current call centre practices – used by, or on behalf of, some very large and prominent organisations – demonstrate a very poor understanding of the strategic importance of this first impression.

First are the calls that begin, not with a friendly human voice, but with a few seconds of ambient room noise. Often, this is long enough that I find myself saying “Hello” for a second or third time. Occasionally, it’s so long that I have given up, hung up and walked away… annoyed. Once or twice, the phone has rung again 30 seconds later, and the caller (a real human this time) confirmed that it had been them calling earlier.

The information pages of the White Pages used to carry advice on what to do if you received a call where you just heard breathing on the other end. But apparently it’s OK for a call centre to make “nuisance calls”. It’s all because of predictive dialling technology, which enhances call centre efficiency by letting the human staff avoid busy signals, answering machines, modem lines and faxes. When I complained to a call centre supervisor about getting a call from a “breather”, I was told - in no uncertain terms - that her organisation’s “silent call” rates were perfectly within the range suggested in regulatory guidelines (in the US, a maximum of 3% of predictively-dialled calls are permitted to be dumped).

OK… so this is operationally optimal and it meets the letter of the law. But the telephone is, after all, a communication medium. And what this practice communicates – unequivocally – is that the marketing organisation considers the customer’s time, convenience and peace of mind far less valuable than the time of one of its call centre operators.

Now the second example: I answer the phone and there’s a voice I don’t recognise on the other end. “Is that Mr Downes?” - “Yes” - “How are you today?” Often, I can’t stop myself replying “Who wants to know?!”

Why are call centre staff being trained and scripted to ask people how they are before introducing themselves? What kind of thinking leads to a practice that ignores a basic social script? Does some sales manager or team leader think the operator will win me over with a patently insincere enquiry about my health before I even know who’s calling? You ring me, at my home, and you already know MY name. Don’t expect to make small talk until I know who YOU are!

Role and script theories are very important in service provision. When basic social scripts are tampered with, customers feel uncomfortable. Most get nervous, many get defensive and some get hostile. None of these emotions is an effective foundation for listening, comprehension, persuasion, all of which are critical steps in any customer communication.

It's time to name names!

2006-04-27T09:04:00.000+10:00

Some more tips on selecting a brand name to follow on from my interview in today’s Herald-Sun (Business Owner section, p. 68):

1. Don’t agonise over finding the name that perfectly describes what you do or what you sell. In fact, you should avoid being obviously descriptive, because: (i) a name that is descriptive is very likely to be rejected for registration as a trade mark on the basis that it is not inherently capable of distinguishing the source of goods and (ii) your competitors will most likely be perfectly entitled to use very similar names.

2. Don’t try to be too clever. Distinctiveness and memorability are the two key characteristics you should pursue in a brand name. Names that are too smart or obscure will be more difficult for customers to remember, less likely to be passed on through word of mouth or just plain unappealing.

3. Choose a name that is suggestive - not in the Benny Hill sense - but a name to which suitable meanings and associations can easily be attached. For example, “Amazon.com” is not a name with any intrinsic link to books or online retailing, yet it is distinctive, easily remembered and readily acquired meaning and associations. It is also flexible enough to encompass a wide range of goods, not just books.

4. Think ahead. Where do you see the business going in one, two or five years’ time? Use your imagination! Consider whether you would want to use the same brand name (or a related name) for each of the additional goods or services you might launch. If so, the name you choose today should be both adaptable to new product lines and transferable to different categories and markets.

5. As you build your business, your brand will become your most important and valuable business asset, as it crystallises the value of the customer awareness, preference and relationships you have built over time. Hence, when it comes to selecting brand names and other identity elements, you should strongly consider consulting a marketing/brand identity consultant for specific strategic advice and a patent and trade mark attorney for legal and registration advice.

A bowl full of Weet-Bix sub-brands

2006-04-23T22:00:00.000+10:00

Sanitarium is doing the brand consolidation and extension thing with Weet-Bix, another Aussie brand icon (see our earlier blog entries re Twisties and Kit Kat).

Several existing Sanitarium breakfast products have been re-branded so that they now reside more clearly under the Weet-Bix umbrella. HI BRAN, which previously carried only a small Weet-Bix "endorsement", is now clearly Weet-Bix Hi-Bran. Good Start, which previously carried no reference at all to Weet-Bix, has been re-branded Weet-Bix MULTI-GRAIN (that's if you can find it - they were out of stock at two Coles supermarkets this weekend).

At the same time, Sanitarium has launched three new Weet-Bix brand extensions. First, there's Weet-Bix Crunch, which consists of sickly sweet mini-sized Weet Bix described as "bite sized pieces packed full of energy and blasted with honey". Then there's Weet-Bix KIDS, a product line created especially for 1 to 5 year-olds and heavily co-branded with The Wiggles in its packaging and promotion. Third, there's Weet-Bix Organic. Strangely, a low sugar, low salt version of breakfast biscuits that look identical to regular Weet-Bix are still called (uninspiringly) Lite-bix.

Consolidating a wide variety of products under a single brand is based on the presumption that this configuration will optimise the economic benefits from leveraging brand equity. I think it's reasonable to assume that the Weet-Bix brand can carry a broad range of sub-brands, although I do hope Sanitarium has done its homework (i.e. well-constructed consumer research) on this front.

But re-branding itself carries a number of risks. First, some consumers may think the re-branded offering is no longer intended for them: it's possible (for example) that some consumers actually preferred Good Start because it wasn't Weet-Bix (e.g. the slogan "Aussie kids are Weet-Bix kids" suggests to them that Weet-Bix is not a brand for adults). Second, and perhaps most obviously, loyal customers may not recognise or be able to find the re-branded product, and/or they infer that the new version has been re-formulated. The most instructive instance of this in recent years was Lipton's disastrous 2002 re-branding of its regular tea as "Black Tea", which necessitated a costly and dangerous advertising and in-store rescue campaign (see this report from B&T) and RE-re-branding. I say dangerous, because Lipton's message that Black Tea was "the technical term for the tea you love" sounded condescending and was interpreted by some consumers as implying that any confusion was their own fault for being ill-informed about tea... or just plain stupid.

When brands collide!

2006-04-19T21:39:00.000+10:00

Next time you're in the breakfast cereal aisle at your local supermarket, check out new Nestlé Nesquik (as if we needed another chocolate flavoured breakfast food). You're most likely to find it right next to the Kellogg's Coco Pops.

Now compare the two products - Nesquik and Coco Pops (or, in the meantime, just examine our photo). Conveniently, each comes in a 450g box. Each package is predominantly yellow in colour. Each features a zany, brown, "teenage" cartoon character wearing a contemporary T-shirt (the Nesquik Bunny and Coco the Monkey, respectively). Each features a dynamic illustration of a bowl practically bursting with milky, chocolate-y goodness! The similarities are obvious in the context of the cereal category.

But please don't jump to the conclusion that Nesquik is "knocking off" Coco Pops. First, consider where Nesquik has come from. Nesquik is a very well-known and well-recognised brand name, especially among children and parents. The Nesquik name (or Quik, as I knew it growing up), the yellow colour and the brown bunny are very well established as brand identity elements in the flavoured milk category and have been used in other Nesquik brand extensions. They are also among the logical "levers" for Nestlé to use in extending the Nesquik brand into the breakfast cereal category.

It looks like this might be just one of those rare occasions when two brands arrive at the same place at the same time, by accident. Coco Pops has long positioned itself as "just like a chocolate milkshake... only crunchy!", i.e. cereal moving towards flavoured milk. Through category extension, Nesquik is moving from its base in flavoured milk towards breakfast cereal. In other words, a collision was pretty much unavoidable. Consequently, it seems unlikely that we'll see bowls of Coco Pops and Nesquik cereal being scrutinised as exhibits in the Federal Court.

IMPORTANT NOTE: QBrand is not aware of any legal action foreshadowed, instituted or ruled out between any of the brands or parties named in this story. This article should not be construed as providing expert opinion or advice on any such matter.

Is Starbucks Coffee going cold in Australia?

2006-04-17T21:28:00.000+10:00

Intending to prepare for a class I will be teaching later this year (my Brand and Product Management course includes Professor Kevin Keller's Starbucks case), I visited the Starbucks Australia website today (17 April). The site gives every appearance of not having been updated since December 2004: the last entry on the "Press Room" page is about the (global) Corporation's response to the Asian tsunami disaster.

How is Starbucks doing in Australia? Where is it heading? How many stores does it now have? Is it changing its business model from 100% company-owned stores to a franchise operation (like its apparently more successful competitor, Gloria Jean's)? What is its current approach to store location after it made some poor initial choices, like its now-closed store in Toorak Road, South Yarra?

Latest information on the Starbucks Australia site says it has 50 stores "to date". This was the figure it gave as its initial target when it launched here in 2000 (see this press story from 2004), but one suspects that this is well out of date. No info that would help answer any of my other questions, either.

By comparison, the Gloria Jean's Coffees website lists 51 stores in Victoria alone, and the latest item in the "Media Centre" is dated 10 April 2006, i.e. just last week. Interesting, too, that Gloria Jean's is apparently making a go of its store at Borders Skygarden in Sydney... one of the very locations where Starbucks closed down in 2004 (see the press story cited above).

On any reckoning, Starbucks has failed to take Australia by storm the way it did the United States. Of course, in the US it "created" a mass-market coffee culture where none had previously existed, and where feeble filtered brews were the dominant offering even in decent restaurants. And while I would be the last to suggest that you should judge a business by its website alone (the web is a great leveller), its lack of web presence certainly supports the impression that things at Starbucks ain't so Grande (pronounced "grahn-day").

PS. For those who are curious, QBrand's daily coffee needs are met by our neighbour Tony Romanella at Caffe di Lusso, 818 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn, recently named in RACV's RoyalAuto magazine as one of the 10 best places to get a coffee in Melbourne. But it's never just about the coffee is it? At di Lusso, Tony's personality and empathic service orientation, the atmosphere and the fellow customers (e.g. from the odd Collingwood AFL star and Jellis Craig real estate agents to MLC mums) all contribute to a unique service experience.

Clean-up on Aisle Six! MTV's brand equity springs a serious leak

2006-04-15T21:16:00.000+10:00

MTV, once a youth music powerhouse, is now a house brand! Coles-Myer has licensed the MTV brand and you'll find it in your local Coles supermarket applied to a broad range of otherwise "generic" CDs, DVDs, cassettes, cheap AM/FM radios, headphones, and other accessories. Yep, the subject of numerous business school and textbook case studies now takes its place not in the brand pantheon alongside Virgin, Microsoft and Apple, but rather in the bottom of the shopping trolley with Coles' "Farmland", "Savings" and "Reliance".

Globally, under new leadership, MTV is supposed to be trying to recapture its "cool" (see Business Week). I can't see how allowing its name and logo to be used on cheap, supermarket-grade consumer electronics and accessories could possibly help the MTV brand. But I can see lots of risks: there's evidence already that consumers are finding fault with the quality of MTV-branded recordable CDs and DVDs, and transferring that association to the MTV brand overall (see this consumer forum).

Of course, in Australia, MTV never achieved the heights of popularity or supposed cultural influence it did in the US or even in Europe and Asia, and it has a long history of being represented here as a licensed property rather than making its own way. Indeed, MTV was introduced in Australia in 1987 as late-night weekend programming on the free-to-air Nine Network (low-rent airtime previously occupied by the likes of Deadly Earnest, Hal Todd and Issi Dye). With Richard Wilkins as the host and face of MTV Australia, it was always mainstream and highly-processed - pretty suitable for the supermarket aisles, when you come to think about it.

But this move down market seems particularly bizarre given that MTV now has a lot at stake in Australia with its own wholly-owned cable channel and stiff competition from the home-grown Channel V. There's nothing particularly "cool" about Coles (other than the frozen food section).

Give us a break... that's not a Kit Kat!

2006-04-14T10:47:00.000+10:00

The Sunday Life supplement of the Melbourne Age newspaper recently carried an item about the release in Japan of Kit Kat Sakura (cherry blossom), a springtime variant of the confectionery brand that is said by the J-list to have become "the new Pocky" in Japan, based in part on its status as a lucky charm (see this BBC report). In fact, Kit Kat in Japan has a history of bizarre seasonal variants, from lemon cheesecake to green tea. Likewise, in Australia as well as the UK (Luscious Lime) and the US (Mint and Milkshake), Kit Kat flavour variants have emerged increasingly over the last few years (you can see a great collection here).

At least these line extensions - from Blood Orange to Black Bean - have had one thing in common: the classic four-fingered Kit Kat configuration of ingot-shaped, chocolate-coated wafer biscuits that has been around since the 1930s. Never mind the flavour or the language, Kit Kat has always been easily recognisable in any market.

Product shape or form is one of the quintessential identity elements of the Kit Kat brand. The advertising catchphrase "Have a break... have a Kit Kat" (registered Trade Mark No. 486933 in Australia) is based on the notion of breaking off individual "fingers". There's even a characteristic hand action required to separate the portions. That's the essence of what the name Kit Kat calls to mind, the anchor for the network of brand associations in the minds of consumers.

Even when Kit Kat "chunky" bars were introduced a few years ago, they retained clear links to the classic via the ingot shape of the bar and the (allegedly) humorous advertising line "You deserve the big finger".

Sadly, someone at Nestlé Australia apparently doesn't understand or subscribe to this notion of anchoring and protecting the central brand concept and brand identity. Nestlé has just introduced Kit Kat Temptations: "a tempting new range of indulgent bars combining lashings of creamy chocolate, delectable bite size pieces...". Kit Kat Temptations has the aesthetically unpleasant shape of some kind of lumpy bean-pod.

Yes, Kit Kat Temptations is indulgent - self-indulgent, driven by the kind of brand egotism that says "we can put our brand name on any kind of confectionery and it'll sell". The risks of cannibalisation and consumer confusion are very high. This is apparently well recognised in the UK, where a recently-departed marketing executive at Nestlé Rowntree has been criticised for his aggressive pursuit of brand proliferation (see this story from Brand Republic) and its potential to damage the Kit Kat brand.

But the message seems not to have been heeded Down Under. This looks like another case of the new marketing myopia - a shortsighted and short-termist approach to the exploitation of brand equity that's just as dangerous as the one Theodore Levitt described in 1960.

UPDATE (Easter Saturday): Just saw the ad for Kit Kat Temptations at the movies and it's a shocker!

Brand extension: A case of twisted logic?

2006-04-13T00:17:00.000+10:00

In 1982, I lived in a shared student house in North Melbourne that enjoyed a collective obsession with Twisties (among many other quirks that I won’t go into here) and a ritual that involved tying up the empty Twistie bags in a particular way, then displaying them in a large fishbowl. Only one pack size would do. And definitely no chicken flavour – only cheese was acceptable!

Any Australian will tell you Twisties are a cheese-flavoured cereal-based snack manufactured by an extrusion process that results in portions of an irregular and gnarled or knobbled appearance (as officially defined in the Federal Court).

Like Vegemite, Twisties is an iconic and quintessentially Australian brand that evokes the taste of home for expats and – like Proust’s madeleine – often leads adults to fondly recall childhood experiences. What Australian of a certain age doesn’t remember the taste and texture of a Twisties-filled buttered roll from the school tuck shop? Or is that just me…?

Anyhow… in recent months I have amassed a collection of products now being sold under the Twisties name that bear little or no resemblance to the “flagship” or “anchor” product for the brand: popcorn, rings, zig-zags and even hot dog shapes, in a range of flavours. The Smith’s Snackfood Company is at least half right in recognising that the brand equity of Twisties resides primarily in intangible brand associations carried in the minds of consumers. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that the Twisties brand can therefore be extended to any type of snack food.

There are two critical risks from an undisciplined approach to brand extension.

Firstly, extensions have feedback effects on the parent brand. The more disparate the products the Smith’s Snackfood Company tries to position under the Twisties brand umbrella, and the poorer the perceived fit with the parent (popcorn?!), the greater the risk that the Twisties brand will lose distinctiveness and meaning.

Second, brands with rich cultural connections (as per my earlier anecdotes) engender not only strong brand resonance but also a deep sense of “ownership”. Want an example of consumers taking back “their” brand? Try buying a can of New Coke!

Which bank dictates mindless service scripts to front-line staff?

2006-04-12T11:33:00.000+10:00

Another Commonwealth Bank encounter of note (different branch). It's a quiet time, mid-morning, two tellers free and no-one in the queue. One teller makes eye contact as I walk in the door and watches, smiling, as I walk the length of the branch and up to her window.

TELLER: Thank you for waiting.

ME: But I didn't have to wait - you saw me walk in. Have you been told you have to say that to customers?

TELLER: [Embarrassed nod and laughter]

At a personal level, a positive and empathic moment. From the perspective of a customer of the bank, a perfect example of non-discretionary scripting of the service encounter that leads to perceptions of what Lovelock et al call "mindless service performance".

Which bank stalks its own customers?

2006-04-11T23:23:00.000+10:00

NEWSFLASH: The Commonwealth Bank is considering installing tougher security screens in its branches… to protect its customers from rabid bank tellers making frenzied and uninvited attempts to “upsell” financial services.

Last week, the guy ahead of me in the queue at my local branch was browbeaten by a teller in full hearing of other customers, despite making it clear that he was just there to deposit a cheque: “I see you have a very large balance in your account. Would you like to speak to someone about investments? What about a term deposit? Speak with a financial planner? What about insurance? Business accounts?” No thanks, but where do I go to take out an intervention order?!

Memo Ralph Norris and Michael Cameron at CBA: As a sales technique, this has the same predicted success rate as spam email ads for Viagra. As a relationship-building technique, it's the equivalent of stalking.

Milk bars getting the mix wrong

2006-04-10T23:03:00.000+10:00

Only a few years ago, liberalisation of supermarket trading hours in Victoria was widely opposed in the name of protecting the interests of the classic corner milk bar and “mixed business”. Milk bars just wouldn’t be able to compete, went the argument.

The reality today? Forget the supermarkets, most milk bar proprietors are their own worst enemies!

Impressions of the typical milk bars in my area (the leafy, well-to-do Eastern suburbs)… windows smothered in cheap, fading posters for obscure phone cards. Poorly lit, visually cluttered and difficult to navigate. Dusty inventory of jam jars, biscuits and instant coffee on home-made pine shelving, overshadowed by tacky plastic toys and no-name socks and underwear. A VCR playing non-stop Chinese movies on a portable TV behind the counter. Distinctly domestic cooking smells wafting from the residence and disinterested counter staff in regular street clothes (whatever happened to the old apron?).

In other words, it’s the absolute antithesis of the kind of environment that’s conducive to buying fresh milk, fresh bread, sweets and treats like ice cream.

Smart retailers have recognised for years that the shopping experience begins long before the customer enters the store and that it involves all of the senses. Real estate agents know about “street appeal” and the smell of a freshly-baked loaf of bread or cookies during an “open for inspection”. So why do people choose to run a milk bar if they don't understand or care about the basics of the consumer experience when buying "fresh" food?

And, seriously folks, what is with the phone cards? What’s the retailer margin? What inventory do they need to stock? Just how many consumers in the Eastern suburbs are looking for cheap calls to Mongolia? (I’ve only ever met one Mongolian in Melbourne.) The benefits of this intrusive and ugly promotion can’t possibly justify the negative aesthetics and the loss of natural light.

Meanwhile, judging by the way it is redesigning and refitting its supermarkets with street frontages, Coles Myer clearly recognises that the local and convenience shopper is attracted by large open windows revealing other shoppers enjoying a brightly-lit, attractive and well-organised shopping environment. Put the fresh and impulse stuff near the entrance, add some express checkouts and a friendly smile and… wait a second, that’s pretty close to what the old milk bar offered, isn’t it?