| We’ve Been Thinking Series |
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The We’ve Been Thinking Series offers Mangos’ insight into the world of communications. Our goal is to stimulate thinking and spark ideas.
Design Rules
In our latest edition, Design Rules, we explore the power of design in advertising as it extends beyond the classic sense of color and shape to encompass positioning, packaging, and even how customers purchase your products. |
Random Consistency
You can also check out Random Consistency, the first article in the series, where we explore the balancing act marketers have to consider between keeping their brand consistent while keeping it fresh. We hope you enjoy them. Stop back soon for another in the series.
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AROUND THE CAMPFIRE:
Business as usual in unusual times? |
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“Recession Marketing” seems to have temporarily dethroned “Green Marketing.”
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From Kraft Foods to Allstate Insurance to Hyundai, marketers are looking for ways to be both empathetic about the impact of the economy on their customers, while encouraging them, through larger and larger discounts, to open their wallets and spend.
But still, people sit tight on the sidelines. Irrational exuberance has been replaced by irrational fear. And nothing good ever comes from irrationality of any kind. So how should a marketer respond to these unprecedented days? In a nutshell — and at the risk of sounding insensitive — it should be business as usual. Why?
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Because everyone else is cutting their marketing budgets. |
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Because the more your competitors sit and wait on the sidelines, the more you’ll have the field to yourself. |
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Because when you spend into a recession, you gain market share cheaply. |
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Because now is the best time for your customers to get to know you. People become more selective and less impulsive about their purchases when they’re on a tight budget. This is an opportunity to arm your customers with all the information they need to choose you. And if they choose you now when times are tough, they’ll stick with you later. |
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Because now is also the best time for you to get to know your customers. People go back to the basics during troubled times. Find out what’s most important to the people buying from you — and make sure you give it to them. |
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Because your business depends on new and repeat customers. |
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Because now is the perfect time to try new things. For example, if you haven’t already, begin to include social media in your media mix. Social apps like discussion forums can be effective at getting people off the fence. When our friends say, “try” we’re more likely to “buy.” |
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Because your customers have a very short memory — out of sight, out of mind. |
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Because (paraphrasing economist John Maynard Keynes and his theory “The Paradox of Thrift”) while it’s good for an individual (or brand) to be thrifty and save for a rainy day, it may not be good for the economy as a whole, which ultimately is not good for the individual (or brand) either. |
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And last, but not least, |
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Because these are extraordinary days. And those who find a way to make lemonade out of this lemon of an economy will enjoy the benefits far into the future. |
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| MM&M Private View |
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Pharmaceutical companies are in a constant struggle to make their advertising stand out amidst increased government regulation and corporate guidelines. In the May issue of Medical, Marketing & Media (MM&M) Mangos Creative Director, Joanne de Menna looks at successful pharmaceutical advertising around the world and shows how products are finding ways to make their mark. Read the full review (PDF)
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AROUND THE CAMPFIRE:
Putting Politics on the Shelf |
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Political ad season is upon us. I have a recommendation.
Instead of candidates spending kajillions of dollars on ads that trash each other and infuriate us – while not telling us anything close to the truth anyway – why not just turn the whole thing over to Consumer Reports? No more ads. No more debates. No more kiss-the-baby photo ops. No more $10,000 a plate chicken dinners. Just Consumer Reports.
Think about it. Consumer Reports is the country’s ultimate watchdog and whistleblower. Its mission is to “test, inform and protect.” It doesn’t accept advertising and won’t take donations from corporations. It’s squeaky clean.
After all, what more important purchasing decision do we have than the one that puts a new product, I mean President, into the White House every four years? So why not have Consumer Reports take over the whole process to make sure we don’t get ripped off and buy something just because it’s been awarded the most prominent shelf space?
 Here’s how it might work. Consumer Reports mystery shoppers could be anonymously embedded with each candidate’s staff. They’d be there from the start of the manufacturing process right through distribution. So we’d get unbiased, independent information on reliability, accuracy, ability to stand up under pressure, and overall value.
Consumer Reports could conduct safety-related tests for things like emergency handling and number of dangerous blind zones. So we’re alerted to potentially hazardous features, like stubborn unwillingness to ever change course no matter how much evidence suggests the need to do so.
In a test lab situation, a candidate’s claims could be independently evaluated. Tests could include knowledge of world geography. World history. World religion. World economics. And how many seconds elapse before the candidate answers a question other than the one actually asked.
Candidates would be ranked from Highly Recommended to Not Recommended. Any candidate judged Not Recommended because of poor testing performance would be subject to recall.
This type of independent rating system would lead to prompt and responsible action to remove an unsafe product from the lives of decent American citizens.
It just might work. What do you think?
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AROUND THE CAMPFIRE:
Once Upon a Time |
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Is it just me or is anyone else a little tired of reading all
the doom and gloom articles about how the traditional vehicles
used to deliver the message are hopelessly passé. That
the future is all about finding ever-more covert ways to intrude
on people’s lives. That branded content, the love child
of product placement, is the next new thing in marketing. It’s
marketing without — nudge, nudge — a consumer knowing
they’re being marketed to and it’s growing in popularity.
(Case in point, Martha Stewart’s own version of “The
Apprentice” had an average of 33 minutes and 51 seconds
of branded content per hour episode. Maybe that’s the
reason it skidded down the runway and came to a crashing halt?)
It’s the era of surround-sound marketing. And it will
save us all.
At the risk of sounding like an iconoclast or a throwback to
the Jurassic era of advertising, I find myself wondering where
it’s all going to lead. There’s a part of me that
says, let’s just call an ad an ad and get back to the
business of making sure they’re really good, tell a great
story and work hard — no matter where someone is eyeballing
them. Whether it’s in print, on one of the hundreds of
digital channels, or on that next big broadcast network, the
Internet. There’s something simple and straightforward
about knowing you’re being sold to, but not minding because
you’re being entertained.
The point is, and always has been, to get the right message
out in the right way to the right people at the right time.
Period. Over the years, thanks to technology, we’ve been
able to slice our audiences into proscuitto-thin segments enabling
us to create more personal and relevant communications. As Saul
Berman, global partner for media and entertainment at IBM says,
“The old standard demographics, like “males ages
18 to 35,” can be whittled down through tracking of online
viewing habits to something like “males, ages 18 to 21
who like motocross and snowboarding.”
At the same time, brands and their messages have mole-holed
into people’s lives in increasingly aggressive ways. So
brands are not only more laser-focused with their messages,
but paradoxically, they’re more ubiquitous, too. Everywhere
we turn we’re being sold to. Subtly, incestuously, embedded
under the cover of our favorite TV shows. Today “brand
brokers” (yikes!) hunt for product placement opportunities.
And they’ve found them. Product placements have grown
21% annually since 1999, turning TV programs into 30-minute
advertisements.
The thing is, the pendulum swings one direction and then the
other. There’s bound to be a backlash to this “pay
for play” model. Sell to me or don’t sell to me,
but don’t act like you’re not, when you are. Come
on, will I ever buy a Ford just because everyone on my favorite
show, “24”, drives one? It takes the show down a
notch. And, as Andy Donchin, a media buyer at Carat says, “The
risk is that viewers will eventually get turned off by all the
commercial clutter in shows.”
As everyone searches for new ways to reach the Millennials,
the next generation of tech-savvy, forward-leaning consumers,
we have to remember that it’s not how we reach people
that matters, but what we say to them once we get there. Yes,
advertising will have to morph right along with the delivery
formats being invented as I write. But, at the end of the day,
it still comes back to Rule #1 for our business — tell
a good story. As reality show king, Mark Burnett writes, “storytelling
will always be the most important aspect. It will be the same
online as it is around the campfire: if you can’t tell
a good story, nobody will listen.”
I feel hopeful for our industry when my super-connected 18-year-old
son yells for me to see his favorite commercial on TV (yes,
network TV), a 15-second Emerald
Nuts spot. Weird, quirky, but traditional in both its medium
and in its classic way of building its brand. These spots are
just plain memorable. My son knows he’s being sold to,
but he laughs and wants me to buy the peanuts anyway. And I
do.
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