Branding Thingys

Creative in Common

Nader Ashway3 Comments

When you consume as much advertising as I do, you start to notice patterns, like when two (or more) advertisements have a very similar theme.  Sometimes it’s an executional element, like the type treatment in a print ad.  Sometimes it’s the music bed in a radio spot.  Jeez, you work in this business long enough, and you start to recognize the more popular commercial actors in one television spot after another!

But once in a while, you catch a glimpse of creative synchronicity – two marketers plying their latest models using extremely similar conventions.  I’ve recently noticed this with the latest spots for Microsoft Surface and a revised spot for Kit-Kat bars.

Two gigantic corporations.  Two very different products.  Two disparate categories.  Two different audiences.  Two different agencies producing the work.  So how did they arrive at virtually the same executional strategy for their recent ads?

First, let’s take a look.

SURFACE

—

KIT-KAT

As you can see, these ads both employ a very specific creative strategy:  the “way in” to each spot is to focus on the “click-click” sound produced by using/consuming the product and create a commercial around it.

They’re both very entertaining.  The Surface ad starts with a little curious “click.” And then it’s followed by another, then another, and soon, the entire world is dancing in a Bieber-video-bonanza of clicking craziness.

In the KitKat spot, (which is not new, but has recently resurfaced in a media schedule that includes NFL programs,) the “click-click” of breaking off the chocolate wafers is soon followed by the “crunch-crunch” of eating the yummy snacks, harmonized with a few “mmm’s” for good measure.

Similar executions:  lots of different people, enjoying the product.  And interestingly, these multiple enjoyment scenes are focused around a singular commonality:  the click-click, or crunch-crunch.

Now there’s good reason to focus on this as a creative strategy.  For Surface, the click-click is an indication of the product features:  a self-stand for the tablet and the main focus of the spot, the quick-quick and easy-peezy snap-on of the Surface Touch Cover, a quick-click add-on that allows you to type into your tablet using a standard keyboard layout.  (You should also know that the Surface Touch Cover is sold separately, for about $120, and does not come with your Surface.)

For Kit-Kat, the click-click, crunch-crunch is the sound of the consumption experience of the product.  Break the wafer off with a click, enjoy the textured wafer with a crunch.  All for less than a buck.

Technically, both spots work very well.  They’re entertaining.  They’re light.  And they create a meme (click or crunch) around which to recall the product into top-of-mind awareness.  So far, so good.

But if we’re really evaluating these commercials on their merits, then by far, Kit-Kat wins without a contest.  Sure, the Microsoft spot is cool.  It’s sexy.  It’s energetic.  It’s youthful.  There are back stories on the filming and development of each scene (seriously, even extended scenes of just the schoolgirls dance routine,)  and “making of” videos with director Jon Chu.

But from a brand perspective, Kit-Kat gets more mileage out of this creative convention in a simple 15-second spot than Microsoft does in a one-minute choreographic extravaganza.  Why?  Because the “click-click” used in the Surface spot is highlighting a product feature (that a separately-sold keyboard can click on the tablet for a different type of use,) that has to be dramatically overplayed with all the dancing, twirling, and whirling about.  Conversely, the Kit-Kat “click-click/crunch-crunch” is a feature that is simple and direct, but most importantly, tied directly to the enjoyment benefit:  if you like a crunchy treat, you’re there in a matter of seconds – no big production number necessary.

Creative can be clever.  It can be cool.  It can be quirky.  It can even have things in common with other commercials.  As long as it makes you remember, (really important, especially for brand advertising,) it can pretty much be whatever it wants for whatever product or service or category. But in this case, you can see that it’s far better (and by better, I mean effective,) if the creative convention used in the advertising is tied directly to the enjoyment of the product – the benefit – derived from engaging with the features, rather than just on the features themselves.

Don’t you just love advertising?

Eat Marketing for Lunch

Nader Ashway2 Comments

Looking for a fresh perspective on your business?
Start by consuming some of what you produce.

Here’s an interesting paradox. I’ve been in and around advertising for my entire 22-year career. And throughout that time, I’ve become increasingly desensitized to the type of work I produce… and that’s largely the result of a sort of self-imposed effort at OBJectivity.

However, over the past two years or so, I’ve been engaged in a new and evolving experiment to become more SUBjective to advertising messages. (In a really objective and observant way. Told you it was paradoxical.)

Since I’m involved in strategic brand activities and message development, I’m trying to avoid myopia. I’m trying to allow messages to sink in. I’m trying to see what strategies really break through, and which ones just get lost in the clutter and the noise. I’m trying to continually become better at what I do, and my competitors provide a mountain of useful information on the subject every day.  I’m consuming a LOT of advertising and marketing messages these days.

Marketers in any category can fall into these I’m-living-in-the-bubble-of-my-business patterns. If you’re a CMO of a large corporation, or the Chief Idea Girl in a lean startup, you’re focused on what’s right in front of you. You’ve got operational challenges. Staffing issues. You’re reviewing the plans. You’re considering hiring a shop to handle your social media. You’ve got a LOT going on. There’s simply not bandwidth to consume more stuff, or to consider more inputs.

But you must. Because it’s simply the only way to gain any real perspective on your own business-side matters. Here are a few simple steps that I’ve been taking that can help you gain some insights and ensure that you’re not operating – or investing in marketing your business – in a vacuum:

Go shopping (or searching) in your category.
This is the fun part. (Warning: it can also be a challenge for certain businesses, like orthodontia for example.) Be a browser. Be a consider-er. Look at your competitors first, and then look at anybody who does what you do. If you’re selling at retail, go to the stores you’re in and see who else is on the shelf. Better yet, go to the stores you WANT to be in and see what’s going on there.

One cool thing I do is pick specific markets far from NYC (where I’m headquartered) and then do online searches there. Why’s the restaurant scene rocking in Reno? Whose hand-made jeans are jumping off the shelves in Joplin? Is there somebody is Topeka who’s peddling test prep? Whatever your category, (b-to-b or consumer,) engage in the art of careful consideration.

Take note of what made you notice: was it the packaging? A promise embedded in the brand? Did you look at the ads?

Consume your competitor’s stuff. And some of your own.
Next, take it a step further. It may seem like sacrilege, but open up your wallet (virtual or otherwise) and buy some stuff made by your competitors, and some stuff made by your company. This is the ONLY way to truly immerse yourself in how your customers might feel when they buy your (or their) products or services. Follow the process from start to finish. Take note of everything, from the customer service if that applies, to the shipping, to the packaging when it arrives. Put it on or boot it up.

How do you FEEL? That’s the ethos you want to capture. There are deep emotional bonds being formed between brands and consumers every day. You must choose and manage the emotions you want to convey and the way you want them conveyed very carefully indeed.

Be brutally honest about your assessments.
One of the things we all like to do is assume superiority. “Their stuff is inferior to our stuff” is a common collective agreement at virtually every organization. (Seriously, don’t try to deny it.) So now, you have to shake that tribal mentality off and really observe what’s going on for you when you consume other products in your category. Is the ride smoother? Does it work better? Are there fun features you didn’t know about? Were you SURPRISED beyond your expectations? Make notes. Make lots of notes. Was it the marketing? What did you experience when you browsed the website? How did you feel when you bought your own stuff? Did you measure up?

Leverage your learning. Hard.
Now that you’ve done this, it’s time to take a good hard look at your own stuff and your own processes for delivering it to customers. If you can honestly you say you kick everyone else’s ass, (and your name is not already Musk, or Zuckerberg, or Brin,) then congratulations. You’ve outwitted, out-efforted and have come to dominate your market. But for the rest of us, you have an opportunity to thrust your organization forward on objectivity. Take the things you learned and put them to work. You’ll be surprised at the ancillary ideas that are sparked. A competitor’s label might jar your memory about a data capture form on your website. A competitor’s ad might help you formulate some platforms for your next product innovations. Your own ideals about your own products might be improved or elevated in some way.

Engage your team (or your partners, or your cat) with your new ideas. If you’ve got one employee or 10,000, your newly found observations can have a profound impact on how things go. They may be threatened at first, but they’ll likely be inspired to go above and beyond and really start to wow people.

Use what you’ve experienced, purchased and learned – on a first-hand, completely subjective basis – about your competitors as a starting point for positioning against and amongst them. Ultimately, you’ll find new ways to move your organization forward in a much more objective and holistic manner. Plus you’ll have a bunch of new stuff to play with in your office.

Battling Browsers: It’s Getting Personal Between Google and Bing

Nader Ashway2 Comments

Every now and again, you might notice that two competing marketers are duking it out in the marketplace in the battle for top of mind among consumers or business prospects.  In our business, this phenomenon has been given the populist term “cola wars” in reference to Coke and Pepsi’s long-standing barrage of Hatfield/McCoy eruptions on the television airwaves,  likely touched off by the “take the Pepsi challenge” campaign from the mid 1970’s. In some cases, (like political advertising,) competitive advertising gets downright ugly – strong marketing ideas are replaced with unfounded attacks or gross exaggerations of the competitor’s position. But in other cases, the battle for supremacy can lead to something refreshingly interesting:  really great work.

Such is the case with the recent browser wars between Google and Bing.  Both have rolled out some new features, (see PC World’s comparison here,) and Bing is actually gaining market share on Google at a modestly increasing pace.  All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher commented on this in a recent post.   Interesting similarity between the Google/Bing and Coke/Pepsi battles:  Bing has roughly ¼ the market share that Google enjoys; between them, they occupy the #1 and #2 spot in the market; and like Coke, Google was first to market.

Despite the numbers telling a very clear story, both the Goliath and the David in this scenario are compelled to articulate their positions.  And their recent work really shines for a number of reasons.  Let’s look a spot from each marketer:

Bing

Google

As you can see, both marketers have employed roughly the same strategy:  “humanize search.”  And in both cases, they have managed to do that very well. But there’s something interesting at work here that needs to be noticed: neither of these spots is trying to do anything overly persuasive.  Rather, the thesis seems to be “you’re going to search anyway, so you might as well use our browser.”

Google’s spot touts Chrome’s ability to integrate Google’s robust technology set:  mail, doc and video sharing, translation, social integration, maps and more.  As the main character in this spot tries to win back his lost love, he has the benefit of a wide variety of tools at his disposal.  The Bing spot focuses primarily on the social integration feature – the user in the spot is getting hotel and sightseeing recommendations from friends as he initiates his search of Hawaii – “try the spicy Poke!” becomes part of his search experience. (And then we see it come to life in the spot as the main character’s mouth is set on fire.)

As I’ve written in an earlier post here on Marketing Thingy, “Community” is ultimately the holy grail for brands.  So it makes sense that search engines should integrate the social experience into searching for information.  After all, while we have all come to trust Big Brother’s algorithms, we’ll always put more weight on the opinions of our friends and colleagues.  When you get them both, you’re pretty much rolling in tall cotton.

So each spot does a fine job of communicating both features and benefits.  Google’s feature set leads to a richer searching experience because it allows you to communicate your thoughts and feelings most completely.  Bing’s core feature of integrating search with social allows you to have a richer searching experience because of the value of your social network’s opinions.  Both are pretty strong positions.

If we’re scoring, I give the edge to the Bing spot.  It’s more efficient:  it does in 60 seconds what takes Google a minute and a half.  It’s more cinematic:  you have to read your way through most of the Google Spot.  And there’s an unexpected twist :  the innocent search for things to do in Hawaii turns into a life change as the last scene is our protagonist “searching” for a job in Hawaii while checking out a 2 bedroom ocean-view rental.

Both spots are equally smart and sensitive.  Both spots accomplish the strategic objective of humanizing search.  Both spots are a very strong reflection of the creative teams that worked on them – it’s hard to put a human touch on a largely unemotional information exchange experience.  Both spots create a compelling narrative of where search can take you.  And they accomplish the unenviable task of convincing you that if your friends are coming along for the ride, then those searches can take you around the world or back to the center of it. Bravo browser wars!

Hype Reaches New Heights

Nader AshwayLeave a comment

In yesterday’s New York Times, there was an article about the “Freedom Tower” claiming that, with one magic beam being installed today, it will become New York City’s tallest building.

Wow!  Isn’t that SO exciting?  Isn’t that a major accomplishment?  Isn’t that something that should be all over the news?

Actually, no.  It’s total hype.  Or to borrow my favorite new phrase from Tom Scott and his anti-Klout website Klouchebag.com, it’s total asshattery. And frankly, nobody cares.

So let’s explore why.

In marketing, celebrating milestones is very powerful, and can actually help in creating promotional punch.  Some brand-focused events are worth celebrating:  an anniversary, a milestone, a celebration of something or someone special.

Promoting such milestones can add color and character to your overall marketing plan.  Mostly, it can help you create discernible distance between you and your nearest competitors (or would-be competitors if that’s the case,) and importantly, it can create more top-of-mind awareness, even if it’s temporary.

But, as with almost everything in marketing, publicizing such an accomplishment doesn’t hold much weight if it doesn’t have an explicit VALUE to your consumer.  Seriously.  If the consumer is not at the very center of this milestone, then why bother?

Nobody cares if your millionth vehicle just rolled off the assembly line at your Alabama plant.  (Good for your shareholders, maybe.  But there’s no consumer benefit there.)

Nobody cares if you just flipped your billionth burger.
(Nice story for the trades, maybe.  But there’s no consumer benefit there.)

And REALLY nobody cares if your unfinished building is about to (technically) become the tallest in the city.  Especially when it’s still a construction site, is likely unoccupiable for at least another year, and is, oh, about 9 years too late to the party.  Nobody cares about that except maybe the developer who is hoping against hope to sell real estate on the uppermost floors or the mayor’s office that loves/needs a feel-good story about…actually, there’s nothing really about this building that makes anyone in New York City feel good.  Scratch that.

But the consumer (in this case we’ll identify the consumer as two groups:  the New York City area residents who are still rocked and spooked by what happened down there more than 11 years ago, and potential renters/leasers of the office space being created in that building,) could really care less.  First off, we’re measuring the top of this construction site against the top of the observation deck of the Empire State Building.  So, in that case, using this logic, with the shoes I’m wearing today, I’m actually one inch taller than the 6’ 11” New York Knicks star Amar’e Stoudemire.  (Top of my head to bottom of his goatee.  Whatevs.)

Let’s face it, The Freedom Tower is an epic fail of skyscraper proportions.  It’s a trite name.  (It’s so lame, they’re quietly going about a re-branding–before it even opens–to One World Trade Center.) It’s got trite features (including ultimately standing at 1776 feet tall upon completion of the spire. More on that in a moment.)  In response to the devastating attacks of September 2001, it’s a towering symbol of cowardice and compromise.

Now on the topic of height, if you really look under the hood, the building itself isn’t really that tall.  The spire/needle thingy that will top the building is 408 feet tall (that’s 40 stories, kids.)  An article on the AP website gives you some more background on this topic.

Here’s a rule of thumb: don’t bother promoting an anniversary, a milestone, an anything unless it has a built in BENEFIT to your consumer.  Celebrating your 100 year anniversary?  Nobody cares, unless you’re giving me a $100 rebate on any purchase of a major appliance.  Now the leading provider of toner in the laser printer category?  Great – but only if you send me my next refill for free.  And so on.  (I know I’m just using retail promotion examples, but you could do something good for the environment; something cool for charity; something that makes me think more highly of the brand and reminds me why I might prefer it.)

I once wrote that a marketing “gimmick” is something that focuses on the marketer and not the consumer.  And that’s exactly what’s going on here.  If you run a brand (a restaurant, a credit card, a line of clothing, a piece of technology, a building…just about ANYTHING,) keep the focus on your consumer.  Especially when it comes time to celebrate.  Otherwise, it may be the last milestone you promote.

Article first published as Hype Reaches New Heights on Technorati.