Advertising & Practical Thinking

2009-04-23T12:59:00.003-05:00

When Do You Rebrand? (Part One)

On April 20, 2009, one of the National Football League’s most inept franchises, the Detroit Lions, unveiled a new logo (http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4083796).

Is the new logo going to make the 2009 edition of the Detroit Lions a better team? By default, maybe. After all, in 2008 the team sported a 0-16 record, and even one win this season will be an improvement.

The visual identity of a product, or its logo, is only one of the many elements that constitute its brand. However, as a visual element, it contributes heavily to the make-up of the brand.

I have often stated, “A brand is not what you see or hear, it is what you feel.”

Yet, many companies revise/refresh the look of their brand by redesigning and re-launching their logo. The latest to reenter this arena is PepsiCo. All their major brands including Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Gatorade, and Tropicana have been rebranded and re-launched in the last three months. Not a bad idea, especially considering the fact sales of their flagship brand, Pepsi-Cola (as with all carbonated beverages) was slipping. For Pepsi, will the “Forever Young” statement sell more cases? Quite possibly.

Everyone wants to be Apple (the apple of the consumer’s eye – sorry, could not resist the temptation) and mimic the minimalist look of the iPod. This was one of PepsiCo’s objectives.

Sorry, a brand is what you feel, not what you see (or hear.)

So, when does a company/product rebrand itself? At times, never. BMW has always been The Ultimate Driving Machine; KLM, The Reliable Airline; All State Insurance, You’re in good hands; Morton Salt, When it rains it pours; and, Wheaties Cereals, The Breakfast of Champions, are a few solitary diamonds (are forever, as with De Beers Consolidated Mines) in a grave yard of retired brand slogans.

There are a few that come to mind who should have rebranded themselves years ago. Topping the list is State Farm Insurance. Take a look at their logo (www.statefarm.com). Not only is it ancient, but it also tells you that autos, life, and fire are the only insurance products they offer. What about health insurance and home insurance? And where is their "Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there" slogan on the web page?

The conspicuous absence of the slogan from web sites, product packaging, and at times even advertisements is appalling, and many companies are guilty of this crime. And the returned verdict from the CEOs of these companies: “Our branding strategy is not working. We need to rebrand.”

Back to the Detroit Lions. Their new logo has made the visual of the leaping lion from the old logo (in Hawaiian blue) more ferocious, bearing its newly appointed teeth. The questions then become, will the Detroit Lions players when they take the field in their opening game, show the same ferocity and will there be any bight in their new found teeth? Will the Detroit Lions fans hear the roar of the rebranded team?

Please do come back for When Do You Rebrand? (Part Two)

2009-04-03T11:50:00.002-05:00

An Open Letter to Advertisers.

Dear CEOs, CMOs, Directors of Marketing, Directors of Advertising, Account Planners, Creative Directors, and Copywriters:

Yes, times are tough. Most of us consumers have tightened our belts and further tightening is impossible for many.

Yes, we are eating only the bare essentials, driving the bare minimum, surviving with what we have, not using credit cards, falling behind on many scheduled payments, and living a very worried life.

We do not need to be reminded of this fact every moment of our lives, especially with every commercial opening with words to the effect of…

“In these economic times…”

“We understand you are going through difficult times…”

“Here’s a stimulus package for you. Have a sandwich, an order of fries, and a medium-sized beverage for just four dollars…”

“Now you can buy a car from us and if you should lose your job…”

I am sure most of your consumers/potential consumers have heard similar words over the radio or television in the last few weeks, and unfortunately will continue to do so in the coming months.

Please use the power of advertising in a positive manner. If you want to have a sale, go ahead. If you want to give away your product or service, that is your prerogative. A sandwich for three dollars, please do so. You can do all this and more. But please do not tell us you are doing this because you want to help those of us who are adversely affected by the economic conditions. You are doing this because you are in the same predicament as all of us: to make ends meet by making a few dollars.

Reminding someone of their misery makes them frown even more. Putting a smile on someone’s face costs nothing. Think about it.

Think positive!

I call it Practical Thinking.

Wish you a positive and pleasant day.

Best Regards,

PentaTwo

2009-03-29T11:05:00.007-05:00

Positively Brilliant!

A couple of days ago, I read about a creative marketing execution – going way beyond “traditional” thinking. My reaction, “Wow, this is positively brilliant!”

The winter of 2008-09 has played havoc with the streets of Chicago (and many other cities across the U.S.) There are potholes galore and driving is hazardous and on occasions painful on the wallet as tires and wheels have had to be replaced in thousands of vehicles. Townships and cities have been struggling with their budgets and Mother Nature – as soon as a few potholes have been temporarily patched-up, new ones have erupted.

Colonel Sanders of KFC fame is coming to the rescue with a “pothole refresh” program. The following is from Crain’s Business (for the complete article, please visit http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=33478):

Don't be surprised if you see Col. Sanders out filling potholes. In an unusual cause-marketing push, KFC is tackling the pothole problem in Louisville, Ky. in exchange for stamping the fresh pavement with "Re-freshed by KFC," a chalky stencil likely to fade away in the next downpour.

While KFC seems more suited to pot pies than potholes, the company is likely to build a reservoir of goodwill among the general population.

"This program is a perfect example of that rare and optimal occurrence when a company can creatively market itself and help local governments and everyday Americans across the country," said Javier Benito, exec VP-marketing and food innovation at KFC. Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson noted in a statement that budgets are tight for cities across the country, and finding funding for road repairs is a dirty job. "It's great to have a concerned corporation like KFC create innovative private/public partnerships like this pothole refresh program."

In addition to the Louisville project, KFC has issued an open offer to U.S. mayors to tell them about the state of their city streets and request assistance. The chain will select as many as four more cities at random for pothole assistance.

The restaurant has not yet been contacted by the city of Chicago, but has received request from Austin, Texas; Somerset, Texas; Chattanooga, Tenn. and Greenville, Miss.

Every now and then, I read about something that makes me wonder, “Who came out with that idea?" And then I tell myself, "I would like to shake his/her hand!" To the person who came out with this idea I say, "I want to shake your hand."

Now that I have written this, I think I will head out to the nearest KFC and order a couple of extra crispy pieces of their world famous chicken. No, I will make it a KFC Pot Pie.

What the heck, I'll make it a KFC Pot Pie and two extra crispy drumsticks.

A positively brilliant idea!

2009-03-23T12:33:00.002-05:00

Put to bed the last time.

On Tuesday, March 10, 2009, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was put to bed the last time, after 146 years of publishing. Seattle residents are left with one newspaper, the Seattle Times.

In February 2009, the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado, was also put to bed the last time after nearly 150 years, leaving the city as another with just one newspaper, the Denver Post.

I personally experienced the death of a newspaper nearly 30 years ago. The Morning Courier of Champaign-Urbana, after a 102-year history, published for the last time on March 31, 1979. Champaign-Urbana used to be a two-newspaper town. The Morning Courier was a client of mine.

The Courier and the News-Gazette were both afternoon newspapers; however, declining circulation numbers forced the Courier to rethink its survival strategy and they switched to the traditional morning mode. Unfortunately, the twin cities could support only one newspaper (in addition to the University of Illini student-run newspaper the Daily Illini.)

My mornings are incomplete without reading the print editions of my copies of the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. Most days, I have already read the web editions of other news publications before sitting down with my newspapers and a cup of green tea or black coffee. Pure bliss!

I am an avid reader of newspapers. Wherever my travels take me, I buy the local paper(s) and immerse myself in the read – one of the easiest ways of gaining a knowledge and understanding of the local customs and get a flavor of the city and its populace.

In the last few years, I have been to Seattle a number of times. The Post-Intelligencer was a part of my daily diet while there. Somehow, I don’t believe I will be visiting their web edition to get my dose of Seattle the next time I visit that beautiful city.

2009-03-10T11:56:00.005-05:00

Think Positive

That was the headline of the Chicago Sun-Times’ Terry Savage column (aptly titled “The Savage Truth”) on Monday, March 9, 2009. Ms. Savage wrote:

“The fear factor is taking over the markets, the economy, and the public psyche. And no matter what programs, speeches, or photo ops the new administration stages, it won't help restore public confidence.

This is not to say that "positive thinking" can turn the stock market around, or restore jobs, or create incentives for business to expand production, or even for consumers to start spending again. That would require real incentives -- things like lower tax rates on risky investments or capital gains. Or tax breaks for entrepreneurs to create businesses and expand hiring.

But a little positive thinking could be just what the country needs right now.

Positive thinking

One of the great motivational books of all time, The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale, was written 75 years ago. The "secret" was this: "We become what we think about!"
And all we think about and talk about these days is economic failure. The latest headlines about unemployment are just the latest example. Yes, more than 8 percent of the population is unemployed, but that means 90 percent are still working.

This is not meant to be a paean to Pollyanna. But it is a request that we start putting all this bad news in perspective. Especially the media, and the administration.”

Ms. Savage concluded: “We can't let fear rule today. Let's try the power of positive thinking, for a change. Let's think about prosperity. Yes, we need sensible tax and spending policies to get us there. But let's stop looking down, and start talking UP! At least we'll be thinking in the right direction. And that's the Savage Truth.”

The complete article can be accessed at: http://www.suntimes.com/business/savage/1467089,CST-FIN-terry09.savagearticle#

Thank you, Terry Savage. May your tribe increase!

2009-03-05T08:07:00.001-06:00

Uncommonly Common Service

It is human nature to talk about negative experiences, especially when it comes to customer service. Seldom do we acknowledge, at least publicly, some “uncommonly common service” we received during the day. So here I go with a couple…

I have ordered contact lenses from www.1800contacts.com for a few years, usually a six-month supply each time. A couple of weeks ago, it was time to reorder. Instead of using the Internet, I placed a call to 1-800-CONTACTS. With my previous order I had received a couple of damaged packs, and I wanted to make sure the company was aware of this.

My call was answered on the second ring with a most pleasant voice. Within a few seconds, she had my order history in front of her, listened to the problem I had with my previous order, said that she would not charge me for four packs, and my new order would be shipped the same day.

The same day, the soft water conditioning equipment at my home was malfunctioning and the water was unbearably hard. It was a Thursday afternoon, and I called DuPage Water Conditioning (the company from where I was renting the equipment) and the lady who answered the phone said that the earliest a technician could come in would be the following Monday. I gave her my cell phone number and said if there was any way the service call could be expedited, I would be most obliged.

Within ten minutes, I received a call from the owner of the company. He just happened to have overheard the lady answering my call. He said that he was on his way out for the day, but would come by my place and repair the equipment right away. Wow!

All of you who provide “uncommonly common service”, I salute you.

You are a most refreshing breath of fresh air, and may your tribe increase.

2009-02-10T16:13:00.002-06:00

Thinking Positive is Contagious

It is always good to know someone else is also thinking positively and trying to spread the word! On Monday (February 9, 2009) morning, like all weekday mornings at 8:00 AM, I received my email from The Emarketer Daily, a must-read for me every day.

Monday’s topic: Commentary from Geoff Ramsey (CEO and co-founder): How Staying Positive Is Good for Business. I was thrilled to just read the headline. The first three paragraphs made me feel even better. Mr. Ramsey wrote:

We’re bombarded by it every day of the week. The news media is shoveling a constant stream of bad news to us in the form of economic reports, surveys of plummeting consumer confidence levels, company layoffs, negative earnings announcements and decimated marketing budgets.

This drip, drip, drip creates a tremendous imbalance in our perspective. And since the news is fueled by a very real economic crisis, many of us are prone to see the glass as not just half empty, but 98% empty. But that’s not a recipe for success, or even survival.

The answer lies in seeking a balance—anchoring yourself to reality while focusing on every glimmer of hope and opportunity you can find.

(To read the complete article, please visit: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006915)

This morning (Tuesday) something I heard on the “Mike & Mike in the Morning Show” on ESPN Radio (my morning radio listening in the car) made me feel good. With all the negative news, both in and out of the sports world, ESPN Radio is dedicating this week to something positive in the world of sports and calling it A Celebration of Sports!

Yes, it is a coincidence that within a few days of my thoughts on Something Positive, I am reading and hearing similar sentiments from others.

Thinking positive is contagious. Spread the word…

2009-02-06T10:19:00.007-06:00

Something Positive

Yes, the economy is in shambles. We are all aware of this solemn fact. Many of us are experiencing the devastation every hour, every day. And, just to make sure that we do not lose sight of this fact, the media ensure we receive minute by minute, blow by blow updates.

Negativity pervades. It is in the air everywhere, and even if one is fortunate enough to not feel the impact, just the process of osmosis ensures we feel doomed.

Very few are doing anything positive to make a change, or try to make a change. It is not easy, but till an attempt is made, we will never know.

The Chicago Campus of the University of Phoenix wants to try. Try to be of help to small and medium-sized businesses by providing valuable insights into how to cope with today and plan and implement pragmatic changes.

Under the executive sponsorship of Dr. Marty Berman, Director of Academic Affairs, University of Phoenix Chicago Campus, a group of practitioner faculty members, loosely organized as The 21C Group, will offer an Interactive Business Forum Series to business leaders in the community.

The Interactive Business Forum Series has been developed for the express purpose of influencing business leaders into a positive thinking mode and guiding these leaders toward actionable business solutions for tomorrow’s challenges. The IBF Series will be led by a group of top-notch practitioner faculty having a pulse on the day-to-day happenings in the global economy, and practice what they preach to stay ahead of the curve.

The mission of the IBF Series is to help businesses with the timely dissemination of knowledge and wisdom, and the vision is to continuously offer business leaders pragmatic solutions to survive and prosper.

This forward-thinking, pragmatic forum where business leaders can gain ideas for implementing 21st Century business practices will be launched on Friday, February 20, at the Schaumburg (northwest suburb of Chicago) campus of the University of Phoenix, and will be offered at no cost to business leaders.

“Planning for the Unthinkable: Creating Resiliency in the Face of Constant Change” will be the topic for the inaugural Interactive Forum, and will be facilitated by Dr. Reginald Gardner and Mr. Ray Benedetto, two members of the MBA faculty who are also consultants and guides to local business leaders.

Yes, this is a positive step. A small step, yet very positive. Practical Thinking.

Dr. Marty Bermann and the University of Phoenix have to be commended for taking this initiative. Only good can result.

I must also state here, I am part of the University of Phoenix faculty. I teach marketing courses to MBA students. And, I will (along with Mr. Mike Yesner, a colleague) be facilitating the second IBF on March 20: “The Essence of Branding & Marketing your Brand.”

2008-11-03T17:59:00.002-06:00

Hitching a Ride.

Am often asked, “How did you get into Advertising?” Let me rewind the tape to 1968.

A pleasant and cool afternoon, typical New Delhi February weather. I was a third year student at the Indian Institute of Technology, majoring in Textile Technology, and was heading to Connaught Place (downtown) to meet a friend.

Taking a bus was out of the question as the lines (or queues) at the bus stop were unwieldy, and other forms of paid transportation were beyond my reach. So, it was back to the old reliable – the thumb. Yes, in those days, college students would put their thumbs out and many a gentleman would stop and offer a ride. It was safe for both parties.

On this day, a middle-aged gentleman stopped and he was headed to CP. Lucky me! Soon the conversation got to what the two of us were doing and he told me he owned an advertising agency. Even after all these years, I remember his name (very strange since my memory nearly always fails me with names).

Mr. Allen invited me to his office and introduced some of his people – an Account Director, a Creative Director, and a media person. He must have spent over 30 minutes explaining the agency business to me. I was impressed!

When I walked out of his office, I decided my future would be in the advertising business. I said to myself I would complete my engineering degree in the top three of my class and get myself a scholarship to pursue a graduate degree in Advertising at one of the fine universities in the U.S.

The best ride I ever hitched. In fact, that day started my love affair with the advertising business and for that I am grateful to Mr. Allen.

2008-10-26T18:40:00.002-05:00

Client Service

I have been in the advertising profession for over 23 years on the agency side and the last 15 as an independent consultant. One of my strengths, over the years and still today, is providing impeccable Client Service. My service philosophy is reaffirmed by a simple sentence I have used over the years to conclude all my client correspondence: Assuring you of my best attention at all times.

My definition of Client Service: Always look at the big picture first – fly at 37,000 feet above ground level and then make the descent. Provide the best possible thinking and effort. Anticipate Client’s needs and be pro-active. I am here to make a positive impact on the Client’s business, not win awards for my work. Make what I think and believe are the right recommendations. Spoil them with this brand of service that their dependence on me keeps growing.

The longevity of my client relationships is a testament to this philosophy.

And then, there have been times when I have gone way beyond the call of duty. For instance…

On a Saturday morning in 1977, my home phone rang at 7:30. It was Mr. RJ, one of my clients. “Did you watch the 10:00 PM news on Channel Three?” “No, Mr. J, I did not.” “The seventeen year-old boy who died in a motorcycle accident last evening was my son.” I was shocked and had no clue why he was calling me. After all, he had known me for only a few months.

He wanted me to have a song written and played at his son’s funeral on Monday afternoon. After expressing my deepest condolences (not really knowing what to say), I asked Mr. J if he could tell me something about his son. “He was a free spirit,” he responded and asked me to come over to his house for the wake later that morning. I had never been to a wake, and all I knew was that there was no weeping at an Irish wake.

Off I drove to Mr. J’s house. Over a hundred people, all with a drink in their hands, some solemn and others jovial. Yes, I did not see any tears, except in Mrs. J’s eyes. The parents of the late free spirit told me a little bit about their lost one. They said the visitation at the funeral home was at 5:00 PM on Sunday. I promised I would have a song for them on Sunday and asked them to come over to my office (very close to the funeral home) at 4:30.

I had about 30 hours to deliver on my promise and absolutely no idea how I would deliver.

In the past four years, I had written the lyrics to a few jingles working with a handful of musicians at a local recording studio. I called the owner of the studio, and he said he would open the studio for me in a few hours and call in a composer/guitarist/singer. Within 24 hours, I had written the lyrics, the musician composed the music and we had a song recorded.

At 4:30 PM on Sunday, Mr. and Mrs. J, their other children, and a few other family members were at my office. I played the tape for them. Till that moment, I had never seen a dozen people burst into sobs the way they did. They left after listening to the nearly three minute song a few more times. I cried after that.

The musician played the song at the funeral the next afternoon.

Promise made and promise delivered.

Epilogue. The musician and the studio sent me their bills. I just paid them and did not invoice Mr. J. How could I? Unfortunately, Mr. J died a few months later. A private aircraft he was piloting crashed. A few months later, the business changed hands and the relationship with Penta was terminated by the new CEO.

2008-10-23T19:33:00.002-05:00

Searching for the Soul of a Brand

As stated previously, I strongly believe every brand has a soul and it can usually be found in the head of the CEO of the company. The SVP of the global advertising agency who had asked me to expound on the words “brand” and “branding”, later asked me, “How do you apply your practical thinking to mine the head of a CEO of a global company ?”

Seek beyond the obvious and look for simple clues that we would never consider as bearing any relevance. The Bentley he (or she) drives, the Armani suits he dons, or his Rolex timepiece do not necessarily reflect the innermost workings of the mind of this person. These are just the outer layers.

Start peeling the onion, one layer at a time.

Find out what are the brands he consumes regularly, from toothpaste to coffee, and cookies to chocolate. Soft drinks, beer and Scotch. Even deodorants, soap and shaving accessories. When was the last time he changed any of these brands?

How long has he been with the same insurance, home and auto, company? How long has he been with the same mobile services provider? Who is his rental car company? If any changes were made in the last two years, why?

Does he go the grocery store? Does he go to a hardware store or book store regularly?

Is he a collector of art, vintage wines, stamps, coins, or sports memorabilia?

Does he try new products or new brands? What was the last new product he bought? What was the last new brand he bought?

Does he play golf? Does he ski? Is he an outdoorsman? Does he watch sports on TV? Was he an athlete, a musician, or an actor at any level? What are his favorite TV programs, movies? What about music – blues, jazz, rock and roll, or classical? His favorite business and non-business publication? What were the last works of fiction and non-fiction he read? His favorite author?

What was his first job and at what age? How many siblings does he have?

On an average, how much time a day not related to business, does he spend on the Internet?

You get the idea. You are trying to mine the head of the CEO for some data and information. The interpretation of the findings is what will lead to that one nugget – the soul of the brand.

No, it is not brain surgery. It is just practical thinking.

Yes, there are times when the soul of a brand is totally lost in the cobwebs of the mind of a CEO. Or, the interpretation of the data is way out in left field. This is when we have confused brands!

Once the soul of the brand has been articulated, the process of branding the product can start – usually with the crafting of a position statement.

2008-10-20T18:42:00.002-05:00

What is a Brand?

I am very often asked, “What is a brand?” And my response always is, “There is no simple answer.” Yes, it is very easy to say AT&T, Apple, Microsoft, Starbucks, Xerox, Colgate, Kleenex, and Avis are all brands, as are a million other names. No, these are brand names. So then, what is a brand?

In its own way, “branding” is a modern day phenomenon. Yet, it is a very old concept.

Forty years ago, advertising and consumer behavior textbooks devoted just a few paragraphs to this topic.

Today, there are over 200 books on the subject of “branding.”

In the mid-to-late 1800s, Procter & Gamble and a few other consumer products companies started branding their products. Between the 1600s and 1800s, criminals were branded. Literally!

In the 1200s, England required bread makers, goldsmiths, and silversmiths to put their “marks” on goods they sold.

As far back as 1300 BC, potter’s marks were used on pottery and porcelain in China, India, Greece and Rome.

From a historical perspective, it does appear that branding originally served one primary purpose – identify the source of the product. This led to providing product differentiation, honesty, and quality assurance.

A few years ago, a SVP of a global advertising agency asked me to expound on the words “brand” and “branding”. My response:
• Every company, product, or service can be branded. Those that are not are essentially generic.
• Every brand has a soul. Normally, this resides in the head of the CEO of the company originating the brand (product or service).
• Branding is the process of mining the head of this CEO to search for the soul and finding that one nugget; developing a communications platform for the findings; and, effectively and efficiently communicating the “values” of the brand to all the constituents or stakeholders.
• The most important constituent for a company, or a product, is the consumer. Other constituents include the shareholders, the suppliers, the employees, and all other parties that are involved.
• Branding is a strategy developed to own a piece of a specific target audience’s mind share for the product or service.
• When this strategy has been developed and the brand’s values are communicated to its target audiences, identity and image are the two outputs.
• A company’s, or a product’s, identity is defined by its name, its logo (the design, typography and colors), and its tagline.
• A company’s, or a product’s, image is defined by the perception the consumer has of the company or the product.
• A brand is not “all things to all people”. A brand will own a piece of the mind of a very specific set of consumers. This is attained through the process of “positioning” and is normally reflected in the brand’s tagline.

A brand is not what you see or hear. It is what you feel.

2008-08-25T17:16:00.005-05:00

Who Needs Branding?

The Republican & Democratic Parties!

The 2008 Democratic Party Convention starts in Denver Colorado on Monday, August 25, 2008. As of August 28, the adjective “presumptive” will no longer be used with the phrase “Democratic Presidential Candidate”, while referring to Mr. Barack Obama.

“Presumptive” will again be discarded as of September 4. It will be Mr. John McCain, Republican Presidential Candidate.

Over the last few months, I have been wondering what do the two parties, Democratic and Republican, stand for.

Now, I am not new to American politics. Even when I was very young in India, I had my own opinions – and mind you, this was all from information gained from reading the Indian newspapers and occasional issues of TIME, LOOK, LIFE, or NEWSWEEK. Even though I was an ardent reader of Encounter, I was pro Barry Goldwater in 1964 and pro Richard Nixon in 1968. I must admit, at that time, I was not very engrossed with the ideologies of the two parties. I knew one was conservative and the other was liberal, but did not have wisdom to know the detailed differences.

The escalation of the Vietnam War made me anti-Nixon. I suppose all the anti-war protests, the student rebellions, and the music world influenced my thinking.

In August 1971, I came to the United States, and in April 1972 I started an advertising agency, Penta Advertising (please read The Penta Story). My introduction to serious American politics was a couple of months later when the Democratic candidate for the Illinois State Senate, Mr. Joe Pisciotte, hired me to provide advertising services for his election campaign.

One of my recommendations called for spot advertising in the central Illinois market during the 1972 Olympics. The recommendation was not accepted as the campaign manager felt that the elections were still a few months away. I pleaded my case – name recognition and building the Pisciotte name; however, to no avail.

Notwithstanding the fact that the war was still raging, the Republicans won big in 1972, and Mr. Richard Nixon was reelected. Central Illinois was a very conservative district and Mr. Pisciotte lost by just two points to the incumbent, Mr. Stan Weaver. It was only during the campaign did I learn that Mr. Weaver was a member of the board of directors of my first client, the bank – ouch!

Would advertising in the Munich Olympics (everyone was glued to Mr. Jim McKay and ABC) have made a difference? In my mind, yes! Building name awareness takes time.

Since then, I have been involved in a few successful campaigns for candidates to the U.S. House of Representatives, the Illinois House and the Illinois Senate. All, but one, were Republican candidates. And the lone Democrat was the late Mr. John Gwinn whose advertising I took over only because of the conduct of the incumbent, U.S. Congressman Dan Crane. Ironically, I was responsible for Mr. Crane’s advertising the previous election and his getting elected.

To a certain extent, till a few years ago, there were major differences between the platforms of the Republican and Democratic parties.

Today, the line has blurred.

Those of us in the advertising profession are well aware of the services provided by above-the-line and below-the line advertising agencies. Today, the line has blurred.

Can the two political parties afford to have no perceived differences? Is everyone a “centrist”?

Currently, according to the web sites for the two parties:

“The Democratic Party is committed to keeping our nation safe and expanding opportunity for every American.”

“The Republican Party stands for a safer world and a more hopeful America.”

Okay, so the only difference: one wants a safe nation, the other wants a safer world.

I believe it is time for the two parties to take a stance. It is time for the parties to re-brand themselves and re-launch their brands. And while they do this, they should also launch their elephants and their donkeys into outer space!

The one that does this first will have more to gain.

Today, the only branding of the parties that exists is visual. Visual as in ‘red” or “blue”. If a state is predominantly republican, it is a red state; and if it is predominantly democratic, it is a blue state. And yes, if a state has an equal distribution of republicans and democrats it is a purple state!

This coloring system was started by NBC News in 1976, during the Jimmy Carter/Gerald Ford election. A state won by Mr. Carter was lit in red and a state carried by Mr. Ford was lit in blue.

The color coding proved to be very popular and each network had its own colors – ABC even used yellow. In 1984, CBS decided to color the republican states “red” and the democratic states “blue”. This to a certain extent, I suppose, reflects CBS’s political leanings, as blue is a more pleasing color and red signifies danger!

However, it was only during the 2000 elections did all media follow the same color coding. According to The Washington Post, it was the late Tim Russert who coined the terms “Red States” and “Blue States”.

Is it not ironic that the color “red” associated with communism is the color assigned to the conservative party?

The color coding, or forced branding is carried to the next level by the political candidates themselves. More often than not, a republican candidate wears a red tie or scarf, whereas a democratic candidate dons a blue tie or scarf.

A message to the two parties: Brand yourselves. Stand for something. And, give the voters a true choice. Not a whitewash. If you don’t, there will only be gray states!

As for me, philosophically I am red, and not a pinko. Musically I like the blues, especially the Chicago variety. And when I blush, which at times I do, I turn purple!

2008-03-11T10:12:00.002-05:00

IMPORTANT versus URGENT

Whether it be one’s professional life or personal life there is a need to discern the difference between “what is important” and “what is urgent”.
Similarly, there is a difference between “what is not important” and “what is not urgent.”

Scenario One.
Let us say, you have to be at the airport for a 4:00 PM flight. You have a meeting the next day, and it is important you get a good night’s rest. You know that you should leave your residence at 2:00 PM so that you don’t have to rush at the airport.

This is "important."

You have already decided that you will wear your navy blue suit tomorrow, the purple dress tomorrow evening and the black suit the following day. You have also decided that you need something else for that evening. Should it be the red dress or the blue dress? This goes on for some time. Now, the challenge – what are the shoes and accessories you need to pack!
You look at the clock – it is 2:30 PM, and you are running late. The need to get to the airport on time has become “urgent”. You will not have the time to make a couple of calls you wanted to make before boarding the plane. You start panicking.

On the highway towards the airport, there is a massive traffic jam and you keep looking at your watch. You are worried if you will catch your flight. The next flight to your destination is at 8:00 PM.

Now there are two things that could happen: By a stroke of luck, you catch your flight. You are out of breath, your blood pressure shoots up, and you are tired. You reach your hotel room, counting your blessings. But you are exhausted and you have no energy to rehearse the presentation you have to make the next morning at 9:00.

The second possibility is that you miss your 4:00 PM flight. There is no other flight till 8:00 PM. You go to the restaurant at the airport, and have your dinner. The flight is on time, but you are so angry and tense you are not able to shut your eyes, and then there is this mother and crying baby sitting right behind you.

You start crying! And you promise to yourself that you will never let this happen again. You let what was "important" become "urgent"!

Scenario Two.
You are the Marketing Manager for a chain of ten local stores in a metropolitan area. Quarterly sales for the stores this year have been average at best. Spring is just around the corner, and you been challenged to ensure that this is best spring the company has had in its nine year history. Your job could be on the line!

You know you will do your best. You develop the outline for your marketing plan including a promotion for the first three weeks of this period. Your CEO approves your including the promotion, the creative strategy you will adopt, and the budget. He wants to know all the details, including the media plan in 45 days, the day after he comes back from his annual ski vacation.

You are elated! This is the most “important” project you have been assigned, and for a change you have the adequate amount of time.

You call your creative freelancers and arrange for a meeting for the next day, and expect them to deliver their best work in ten days. The next two days are spent on developing a media strategy. You have decided that this will be an all broadcast effort including radio, over the air and cable television.

You call the sales representatives from the various media outlets and arrange for each one of them to come and meet you for a media briefing over the next two weeks.

All the "important" issues have been addressed. The creative free-lancers have delivered on time and you believe their effort is superlative. The media sales executives have presented their spot avails, their recommendations, and the associated costs. You are on schedule and all seems rosy. All that is left is supervising the production of the commercials, negotiating the media buys, and writing the presentation for the CEO. You have ten more days. You decide to take it easy for a couple of days.

You finalize your spot buys and call the sales executives for meetings. Unfortunately, most of the choice spot positions that you wanted have been sold to other advertisers (including your main competitor) and you have to go back to the drawing board.

To make matters worse, your assistant has called in sick with some malady that will keep her out of the office for a few days.

Now you are in an absolute bind. This most “important” assignment has become absolutely “urgent!”

Not knowing and understanding the dynamics of the media industry made the “important” assignment “urgent”. Now you have to hope and pray that your marketing plan will be successful.

Scenario Three.
Mike is the Brand Manager for a chain of casual restaurants. Mike, unfortunately, is more of a promotions specialist than a developer of brands. He is always working on creating spikes in the sales figures for the restaurants.

He believes this is a continuously “urgent” issue. What he does not realize, or does not accept, is the fact the restaurants do not do well at all when there are no promotions.

The restaurants do not have any brand recognition; therefore, a very low brand image.
Mike realizes this is “important,” but refuses to accept the fact this is something he needs to address.

One day a Sales Executive with Comcast, a leading cable TV provider, had a long meeting with Mike. She was more than an order taker. She knew the value of a brand, and suggested to Mike he look into developing the brand of the restaurants. She suggested he needed to change his priorities a little bit. She also suggested an innovative brand-developing vehicle, called VOD. His response, “What you say maybe true; however, brand development is neither “important” nor “urgent” for my restaurants.” The Sales Executive could not make him see the value of a brand. She realized she was wasting her time with Mike.

A few months later, Mike call the Comcast Sales Executive, and asked for some details on Comcast VOD. He said, “My strategy needs to be re-examined, and maybe I have to look at building my brand.” I think it is “important”, and I cannot afford to wait for brand development to become an “urgent” issue.

Mike made the right move, and Comcast VOD became one of the pieces of his branding process for the restaurants.

Everyone in their professional and personal lives face such dilemmas. There will always be the unexpected happening. There are, however, steps each one of us can take to avoid major pitfalls.

Mike is one who finally understood this and took the right step.

2007-11-09T13:32:00.000-06:00

The Penta Story.

Many people have asked about the name PentaTwo. Before there was PentaTwo, there was Penta (Penta Advertising, followed by Penta Corporation.) Here is the story…
In August 1971, a 23-year old young man came to the United States of America from India. He came to the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, for a graduate degree in Advertising. His undergraduate degree was in Textile Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
He was fortunate enough to attain a Fulbright Scholarship and a James Webb Young Fellowship; otherwise the journey would have never started. He was also lucky. His Fulbright scholarship required an orientation course at a US university. He was sent to the University of Hawaii (board and lodging provided, plus five dollars a day) via Hong Kong and Tokyo. He was also fortunate that he grew up in India, learning to speak English at a very tender age and was exposed to American and English literature and print publications, and was exposed to western music and movies (there was no TV during those days, and all radio listening was on short-wave frequencies.) Most people under the age of forty would not know what that means. Just like they would not know the origin of the abbreviation cc – carbon copy.
In December 1971, he was talking to two of his classmates (JW and RL) and said, “I am going to start an advertising agency.” RL replied, “You have a snowball’s chance in hell.” His reply, “I have never seen snow and do not want to see hell.” Since then he has seen a ton of snow, and experienced a lot of hell.
In April 1972, he did start an advertising agency and decided to call the agency “Penta Advertising.” JW and RL and two others helped him for three months. By August they all left for greener pastures, Madison Avenue NY, NY. His capital, $30.00 from his roommate! And, this was to pay Illinois Bell for a telephone line!
His first account was a bank. The work he did for the bank got observed by the bank’s board of directors and two of them called him to do the advertising for their local companies. The next call, in July1972, was from the campaign manager for a candidate running for the Illinois Senate!
By then, he was close to graduating, MS in Advertising. However, his visa would enable him to stay in the US only if he was a student. Fortune smiled on him again and he was the recipient of a University of Illinois Fellowship for a graduate degree in Radio and Television.
Literally leasing more time, he was working 16 hours a day on Penta and his second graduate degree.
During this period, he innovated (with help from his ex-roommate) a software program for optimizing local TV spot purchases. This helped Penta acquire regional accounts including Pepsi-Cola, Arby’s and SuperValu.
In 1975, he also started teaching advertising courses (Introduction to Advertising, Media, and Advertising Campaigns) at the University of Illinois, a stint that lasted for three years.
Penta, by 1985, grew to be an agency with over 35 people.
In 1991, hell started barking at him. Pepsi decided to close one of their four divisions, Pepsi USA. Penta’s second largest client. The same year, Penta’s largest client. Marine bank was acquired by BankOne (now Chase). That was the last nail on Penta’s coffin.
Penta was forced to declare corporate bankruptcy on December 7 (Pearl Harbor Day!)
He moved to Chicago in 1994, and started a marketing/advertising consultancy, under his name. He was one of the first to advocate Internet Marketing, and introduced this (at that time) phenomenon to Frankel, now known as ARC and a part of Publicis.
In 1988, he wrote a “white paper” on Knowledge Management in Advertising Agencies.
In 2005, he took a six month sabbatical to study the state of the advertising world. He created a term “The Choice Group.”
Since then, and still is, he has been a consultant for two global advertising agencies. He is also working with a start-up technology company that will revolutionize the world of sharing information and knowledge.
He re-branded himself as “PentaTwo.”
I am he. No, not the walrus.
I am Bala.
Now you know the story. At least part of it.
More later…

2007-11-05T11:50:00.000-06:00

Green

All of a sudden, green is becoming the most favorite color. The NBC logo designed in 1976 (from a Nebraska PBS station's logo) has changed from a multicolored logo (rainbow?) to a green-colored logo. Just noticed this as I was watching the Sunday Night NFL game. Green to represent the ecology? Green to represent the Fighting Irish? Sorry, NBC! You may be broadcasting the Notre Dame home games; however, this is the wrong year to support their color. Or are you going to be merging with BP?
You had a very unique multicolored logo. Unlike most logos that are in various hues of red, blue, or maybe yellow. Why the change?

2007-10-09T15:39:00.000-05:00

The Choice Group. Another bandwagon jumper.

Just yesterday I posted Mr. Stuart Elliot's column, followed by my presentation (from 2005) on the same topic. What follows is from today's adage.com. Welcome to the bandwagon folks. Marketers, please read. You can reach Pentatwo at bala@pentatwo.com.

Boomers Don't Want Your Pity, but They Do Demand Your Respect
The Early-Evening News and Syndicated Game Shows Are Not Media Solutions
By Judann Pollack Published: October 08, 2007 A lot of people get depressed when they turn 40. For me, it happened five years earlier. That's because in passing the magic age of 34, I was officially falling off marketers' radar screens. After 17 years of being cradled in the most coveted and coddled of all demographics, I was thrust into no-man's land. Useless and washed up at age 35. Forget the pitches for premium liquor and Lexus: From here on, all my dedicated marketing would be for arthritis medications and hearing aids.
Advertising Age managing editor Judann Pollack ALSO: Comment on this column in the 'Your Opinion' box below. So imagine my surprise some years later (no, I won't say how many) when marketers suddenly began seeing the light. The $2 trillion stuffed into my pocket and those of my fellow baby boomers had inexplicably drawn the attention of everyone from Unilever to Martha Stewart and Ann Taylor, who have curiously developed a keen interest in courting my generation. And I say: Now you want me? Too damn bad. "You've got to continue to think about this target," Eileen Kozin, director-consumer futures at Unilever, told Ad Age's Jack Neff, who was one of the first to write about the change of heart among the corporate titans. "It's a huge target, and they're not going away. They're still going to be influential as they get older, and they've got the money to spend." That last bit is indisputable. There are an estimated 78 million boomers in the U.S. (born between 1946 and 1965), and we are retiring later and working more after retirement. And even before those golden years, we're shelling it out. Information Resources Inc. estimates boomers spend $46 billion annually on package goods alone, while Unilever's research shows that we buy a disproportionate 60% of all package goods. But my point is this: These statistics have pretty much always been true, so it's kind of galling that just now marketers have woken up to boomers' value. "We've definitely seen changes in the last two years," Larry W. Jones, president of TV Land, told Ad Age's Abbey Klaassen. "Three years ago the preponderance of advertisers out there were targeting 18-to-49. Today more and more have started buying into the 25-to-54 demo because [that demo] has the biggest pile of money, and it is growing faster than the 18-to-49 money." Not only do they suddenly now want us, they are going about trying to reach us in a similarly insulting ham-handed manner. You're not going to find me reading publications for the "aged," watching syndicated game shows or the early evening news -- the common media solution. For one thing, I'm still at work well past early news broadcasts and more likely to be catching up with news online. And while I can appreciate not having to shop in stores where Hello Kitty midriff shirts are the rage, I also don't want to be cornered in Chico's or a similar shop for "older" women. What's wrong with the average department store? "There's this preconceived notion that the so-called baby boomers are older than they really are," said Mr. Jones. "Baby boomers don't even identify with the term." You can say that again. Which is why Unilever appears to have hit a bump in its marketing campaign for Dove Pro-Age products. "For so long, the idea has been that people who are aging want to be young again," said Patty Bloomfield, VP-account director at Boombiz. "Boomers are saying, 'I'm aging, but I'm going to do it in a way that's graceful and still about who I am.'" I don't think boomers want to be young again -- I don't think they feel old in the first place. One thing this generation isn't about is giving in to anything gracefully. Its hallmark has been forcefulness, decisiveness and strength. So if you insist on reaching out to us now -- years after you so cavalierly threw us away -- your communication better be honest and thoughtful. And you know what? An apology wouldn't hurt.

2007-10-08T10:05:00.000-05:00

Wrinkled Baby Boomers and "The Choice Group"

It has been a long time since I have expressed my thoughts in writing. Hope to continue on a more regular basis...

On Thursday, October 4, 2007, Mr. Stuart Elliot, a most respected columnist for The New York Times wrote an article about "Wrinkled Baby Boomers." Sorry, Mr Elliot, I would not call them "Wrinkled." I would call them "The Choice Group," which is exactly what I did when I wrote a presentation in 2005 on the 45-64 age group. I published my presentation in 2006 when I started this blog.

I am reproducing Mr. Elliot's article and my presntation on "The Choice Group."

October 4, 2007
Advertising
Tailoring Messages to a New Audience: Wrinkled Baby Boomers
By STUART ELLIOTT
YOUNG LOVE,” the longtime siren song of Madison Avenue, is being remixed as marketers increasingly turn their attention to consumers born when “45” meant music rather than the number after 44 and “Apple” meant fruit.
The ardor for younger consumers has lasted for decades, fueled by perceptions of them as being more likely to try new products and change brands and to spend almost every penny they make. Older consumers, by contrast, were less desirable because they were deemed to be shoppers with entrenched habits who lived sedentary, frugal lives.
The arrival of the baby boomers — the 76 million Americans born from 1946 to 1964 — into the upper age brackets is the leading reason for the shift in opinions about older consumers. Free-spending boomers think young, to quote from a Pepsi-Cola slogan of their era, regardless of how old they actually are.
“It’s a demographic group that’s too big and too rich to ignore,” said Jerry Shereshewsky, chief executive at Grandparents.com in New York, which publishes an e-mail newsletter and a Web site.
“There’s still a lot of missionary work, but little by little, advertisers are getting it,” said Mr. Shereshewsky, who has hired the New York office of Taxi to create a campaign planned for the end of the year.
Another reason for the change is that consumers in their 60s, 70s and 80s are behaving differently from their counterparts in previous decades, particularly in their willingness to travel, dine out and adopt new technologies.
“They see life as something to grab and want to look great, feel great,” said Mary Lou Quinlan, who runs Just Ask a Woman, a marketing company in New York that works for clients like Clairol and GlaxoSmithKline.
“They won’t settle for the meager choices marketers might have offered in the past,” she added.
•
A sign of the shifting attitudes toward older consumers is the title of a conference on Tuesday aimed at women 40 and older: the Reinvention Convention. The host of the conference, at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan, is More magazine, published by the Meredith Corporation, and the sponsors include Wachovia and Harley-Davidson.
“These are people who are changing their lives, doing things they’re passionate about,” said Laurie Clemens, rider services marketing lead at Harley-Davidson in Milwaukee. “We want to connect with them.”
Other efforts to reach those consumers include garage party events at local dealerships, she added, along with courses for new riders at Rider’s Edge, the Harley-Davidson motorcycle school, and advertisements in magazines like More, Shape and Women’s Health.
More, introduced by Meredith in 1998, seeks a readership of older women. Although ad pages have been making percentage gains in double digits, “there are certain categories that still have this obsession with youth,” said Brenda Saget Darling, vice president and publisher, among them fashion.
“It’s a challenge that we’ll probably always face,” she added.
Offsetting that is business from marketers in categories like automobiles, including Lexus and Volvo, and financial services, including Wachovia, which concentrates its pitches on retirement planning (wachovia.com/womenandretirement).
“For a 20-something, retirement should be on your radar,” said Lynne Ford, senior vice president and director for the retail retirement group at Wachovia in Charlotte, N.C., but “around age 40, retirement comes onto the scope.”
“Financial services companies have historically woefully underperformed in reaching out to women,” she added. “We want to change the model.”
•
Another marketer rethinking its approach is Biomet, which sells artificial hips and knees. A campaign that began this week, by Boyden & Youngblutt in Fort Wayne, Ind., features Mary Lou Retton, the former Olympic gymnast, who is 39.
“She definitely trends in with our new group of demographics, boomers who want to be more active and don’t want to live with pain,” said Stacey Jones, director for consumer marketing at Biomet Orthopedics in Warsaw, Ind.
Ms. Retton not only endorses Biomet, Ms. Jones said, she is a customer, too, having received a Magnum hip when she was 37.
(Yes, Biomet’s joints bear brand names. Another popular product is the Oxford Partial Knee.)
Not every marketing maneuver aimed at older consumers is wildly successful. For example, the trade publication Advertising Age reported last week that a new line of anti-aging products sold by Unilever under the Dove Pro-Age name is being outsold by a similar line of products sold by Procter & Gamble under the Olay Definity brand.
The Pro-Age line drew widespread attention for ads of nude grandmothers, tastefully photographed by Annie Leibovitz. The article in Advertising Age wondered whether the Dove ads “went a step too far in embracing aging in all its naked, wrinkled and sagging glory”; the ads for Olay Definity are more conventional.
An older woman “doesn’t wake up and say, ‘I’m glad I look older today,’” said Ms. Quinlan of Just Ask a Woman, who is also a columnist for More and is to speak at the conference.
“As marketers try to come up with a new set of role models and icons,” she added, “there will be missteps.”

The Choice Group

"The Choice Group" watch prime time programs on Network Television on any day of the week. Most, if not all, advertisers are doing their best to reach and influence mostly those in the age group 18-44.
Many marketers are now taking "being enamored" with this audience group, and indulging them, to new levels. They are trying to reach the 18-44 with brand extensions, product differentiation, enhanced packaging, and special promotions. All as if they are the only consumers of their products; and, this we believe is something inappropriate.Till a few years ago, 18-44 with all its subsets, was the audience in terms of numbers, affluence, and spending patterns.Today, and for the foreseeable future, most marketers have to admit that there is a different audience they must start reaching. An audience that is nearly half the US Adult 18+ population, accounting for over 40% of the total US spending. This oversight, we believe, is costing marketers billions of dollars.According to the US Census, the 45-64 age group is responsible for over 42% of total US spending (over 36% of total household spending.)Yet, this audience is widely, and mistakenly, ignored.PentaTwo believes this is wrong. This age group should be "The Choice Group" for many marketers. Something ignored!
We do find it intriguing that "The Choice Group" is indeed ignored. Could it be because:
Network Television, especially prime time is programmed only to reach the younger audiences effectively?
Most advertising agencies are designed to cater to the needs of the younger audiences? Look at the age of the creative groups in these agencies! Do they really think they can reach "The Choice Group" just because they are using songs like "Happy Together," and "Do You Believe in Magic?" for every other brand?
There is this old saying that brand loyalties are built at a young age. Today, is this not a myth?
Most agencies cater only to product/service categories, as opposed to specializing in gaining an uncommonly common knowledge of the consumer?
Those in "The Choice Group" are perceived to be:
Brand loyal consumers and they do not switch brands.
Hesitant to experience new products and new services.
The Geritol and Grecian Formula market. Today, they are even referred to as the Viagra audience and the Matlock generation!
A part of the total audience. The line of thinking is that the product and brand messages aimed at the younger audiences will move up the age ladder and reach them sometime and somehow.
Difficult to reach, just because prime time TV cannot be used efficiently.
"The Choice Group" constitutes more than just a head count. It is what is inside their head that counts:
They launched and shaped more successful brands than any other demographic group.
Their core values were shaped largely by what was going on in their world and cultures when they were about ten years old.
They have more in common with their own 20-year old self than they have with their 20-year old children.
They grew up at a time when life changed faster than during any other era.
"The Choice Group" grew up with:
The Vietnam War and Give Peace a Chance.
The Birth of Rock and Roll and The Day the Music Died.
Falcons and Beetles.
The Eagles and The Beatles.
Bell Bottoms and Bikinis.
JFK and MLK.
FAX and FedEx.
Civil Rights and Women's Lib.
Broadway Joe and Masterpiece Theater.
Cheers and Light Beers.
Bunker and Carson. Cannon and Gunsmoke.
Jumbo Jets and Mini Vans.
PentaTwo knows. We grew up with them. Some of us are still growing up. We may be middle-aged or old, but we think of ourselves as young. The word "retirement" is not in our vocabulary. We are intellectually and physically active. We have experienced more physical, cultural, financial, environmental, and technological changes in life than any other single group. We have learned by living.
Marketers and their advertising agencies need to open their eyes. Look around them. Listen to the voices. Read what is being written. They may see and hear what we do.
Many of the marketers and their agency folks may be a part of "The Choice Group." Do they see, read and hear their own messages? Something for them to think about.
posted by PentaTwo @ 9:35 AM
Saturday, September 02, 2006

2007-05-06T10:38:00.000-05:00

Doing Business in India

The Focus Section of the April 30, 2007 print issue of Crain’s Chicago Business is on “Doing Business in India.” (www.chicagobusiness.com)

The section starts off…
“India is a land of stories. The Bhagavad Gita and the Ramayana, epic tales of godly power and wisdom, come to mind.
There are also the legendary melodramas of Bollywood, with devious villains and dramatic reversals of fortune.
Each of these tales comes with a moral. So do the stories of today.
But the latest seekers coming to India crave enlightenment of a different sort, truths made possible by a surging economy, a new consumer class and the promise of riches.
Some are finding it.
For others the search continues.”

The search…This is where PentaTwo can be of help to companies desirous of entering the Indian market. Please scroll down and read the February 21 and March 6, 2007 entries.

We know the people and the cultures – not to mention the geography (not being critical about the Crain’s article – calling Pune a south Indian city would be akin to calling Portland, Oregon a southern US city), the history, the traditions, and the languages.

We know what will work.

We can help you find “it.”

We call it Practical Thinking.

2007-04-19T11:41:00.000-05:00

Faux Pas? Not really!

On April 18, 2007, Brian Urlacher, the Chicago Bears linebacker, was fined $100,000 for wearing a cap emblazoned with a “Vitamin Water” logo at the Super Bowl Media Day in February 2007.

The NFL frowns and levies heavy fines, on players who wear any piece of apparel that is not an NFL-designated sponsor at “official” functions.

Vitamin Water is a product manufactured, bottled and marketed by Glaceau, a Whitestone, NY company. Mr. Urlacher has been affiliated (as an investor, partner and spokesman) with this product for over four years.

Mr. Mike Reople, the president of Glaceau, should be the happiest person in the world today. All across the US, and maybe in other parts of the world, Vitamin Water has received innumerable mentions in the media (including this blog.) Worth millions of dollars!

He should say a special thank you to Mr. Urlacher and give him a “bear” hug!

Did the NFL do anything wrong here? Not really! The NFL, like any other business entity, has to protect its interests along with the interests of its “paying sponsors.”

2007-04-19T10:49:00.000-05:00

"Sick" and "sic."

No doubt what Don Imus said about the Rutgers Women’s Basketball Team was sick and horrible. He has admitted his mistake. He has been fired by both CBS Radio and MSNBC.

Nike pays the Rutgers (the State University of New Jersey) basketball teams to wear its apparel. Nothing new here as this is a part of Nike’s marketing program.

On Sunday, April 15, 2007 Nike released a full-page advertisement in the New York Times, which according to www.adage.com, “indirectly thanks Mr. Imus for bringing the issues of race relations and sexism to the forefront.”

And the advertisement, making no reference to Mr. Imus, reads:

"Thank you, ignorance.
Thank you for starting the conversation.
Thank you for making an entire nation listen to the Rutger's (sic) team story.
And for making us wonder what other great stories we've missed. Thank you for reminding us to think before we speak.
Thank you for showing us how strong and poised 18 and 20-year-old women can be.
Thank you for reminding us that another basketball tournament goes on in March.Thank you for showing us that sport includes more than the time spent on the court.Thank you for unintentionally moving women's sport forward.And thank you for making all of us realize that we still have a long way to go.Next season starts 11.16.07."

Good idea!

It would have been a better execution, if Rutgers had been spelled without an apostrophe!

2007-03-06T15:09:00.000-06:00

India. A land of over one billion people, with nearly 450 million who are middle or upper middle class. A land of opportunity.

The Opportunity.
We believe the time is right for mid-size US companies that want to expand their business and go global to look at India as a manufacturing venue, not only to sell their products in India, but also to use the venue as a launching pad for entering all of Asia and maybe even Australia.

What We Offer.
We have formed a coalition with select individuals in India who have manufacturing and marketing expertise, and a thorough knowledge of the Indian marketplace. In addition we have individuals who know all the government regulations necessary to make a seamless entry.

In addition, we are a group of people in the US with a varied and diverse knowledge of business and marketing. The principal of PentaTwo is of Indian origin. He has lived in the US since 1971.

After a detailed briefing from your US-based company, we can help with any or all of the following:
The current state of your industry in India.
Develop a feasibility study for your company.
Competitive intelligence within India.
Create a report on the Government of India rules and regulations as they apply to your industry.
Develop a plan for your entry into India, whether it be as a new venture or through M&A.
Based on your needs, develop a list of the top three locations to establish your business in India, and help you select the city and real estate for establishing your company.
Provide assistance in recruiting key management and staff.
Based on your IT needs, help you set up an IT infrastructure.

May We Talk?
For further information about India, the opportunities it offers, and how we can help you expand your business, please contact: bala@pentatwo.com.

2007-02-21T11:33:00.000-06:00

India

Just returned from a trip to India.

Found the country to be so different from just two years ago, when I was there last.

India has changed. All for the better.

Yes, the major metropolitan areas -- New Delhi, Mumbai (Bombay), Madras (Chennai), and Bangalore seem to be more crowded. There is a simple reason for this. Villagers from surrounding areas migrate to the cities with hopes of finding jobs – domestic, construction and other forms of labor.

Another form of migration has been that of international brands. Practically every major (and not so major) brand is available today in India. Not just in the major cities but also in the remotest little towns and villages. I was in the northeast corridor (where India is surrounded by Bangladesh, Bhutan and China) for a few days and was pleasantly surprised to find anything from Gillette’s Fusion razors to Dove shampoo at tiny roadside stores.

The Indian retail sector is very different. Only about one percent of retail sales originate from the organized segment. The rest is from small to tiny stores that are one or two-man operations. However, the landscape is beginning to change.

Shopping malls are emerging in all the major cities. They are filled with practically every major US retail chain. These malls have become the place for the younger generation to hangout every evening. And just like in the US, strip malls are emerging.

Luxury goods manufacturers have found a brand new market. Nokia sells a handset at $10,000. Louis Vuitton is going to open a manufacturing plant in the southeastern city of Pondicherry. This facility will serve India and the rest of Asia.

Supermarkets are sprouting all over the country.

Wal-Mart is entering India in collaboration with an Indian company later this year. It is not sure if Wal-Mart will be the dominant (if at all) brand at the storefronts.

The transportation sector is growing at a phenomenal rate. Those who were riding bicycles are now riding scooters. Those who were on scooters are now on motorcycles. Women on scooters weave their way through the crowded streets. Middle class families have at least one car per household.

One of the things that amazed me was the vast improvement of the air quality, especially in Delhi. High polluting vehicles have been banned. A most rigid emission control system has been instituted that has contributed dramatically to the improvement.

Every major Japanese motorcycle manufacturer and automobile manufacturer has their brands manufactured in India. Ford is in India and GM plans to manufacture 200,000 cars starting in 2008.

The highway system is beginning to fall in place. I was driven down the Bombay – Pune Highway for about 75 miles. For the most part it was like a drive on any Interstate in the US.

In Delhi a brand new underground train system has been completed, and has won the acclaim of practically every mass transit system across the world.

Less than 20 years ago, there was only one domestic airline and that was owned and run by the government. Today there are nearly a dozen private airlines. Even the Delhi airport has been privatized. Domestic airline travel is projected to grow at an annual rate of nearly twenty percent and it is projected that the domestic airlines will be ordering nearly 400 new aircrafts before 2015.

The telecommunications sector in India has the highest annual growth rate in the world. Within a few years, there will be over 500 million cell phone users.

Construction of residential units, office complexes, and hotels is growing at a staggering rate. Because of soaring real estate costs, hoteliers are constructing four and five star hotels so that costs maybe recouped at a faster rate by charging higher room rates. Condominium (called “flats” in India) values have appreciated by 300% in just the last three years.

But all is not necessarily rosy. There are problems. Basic infrastructure development is behind schedule. There is congestion and with the increase in motorized transportation, navigating the roads is difficult. There are power and water supply problems. However, these are problems that have been recognized and solutions are being found.

India. A land of over one billion people, with nearly 450 million who are middle or upper middle class. A land of opportunity.

2006-12-21T17:19:00.000-06:00

After many years...

This morning, thanks to one of my sisters, I was able to reconnect with the gentleman who was responsible for my becoming an adman.

I graduated from IIT Delhi in 1970 with an engineering degree in Textile Technology. In1969, I decided I wanted to be an adman. Upon graduation, I went to Bombay (my father could not understand how/why I would turn down a job offer from ICC) seeking a job in the agency world. The first four agencies I visited would not even give me an interview (what can an engineer do for our business, was the question.) And then, I met Mr. Bal B. Mundkur. The gentleman who started ULKA Advertising, after a stint at another advertising agency. Mr. Mundkur opened ULKA without "stealing" any clients from his previous employer, and he offered me a position as an Assistant Account Executive Trainee ( albeit at less than a third of the salary offered to me by ICC -- and, yes my father was furious.)

Within a month, the words "Assistant" and "Trainee" were dropped from my position title. Soon, I was transferred to New Delhi (a newly opened office) as an Account Director. In June 1971, I was offered a scholarship at the University of Illinois for a MS in Advertising. At the same time I also was honored to receive a Fulbright Scholarship. When I informed Mr. Mundkur of this, he wished me the best of luck, and gave me Rs.1,000 in cash and said, "Son, you will need this as you prepare to go the US."

ULKA was the last advertising agency in India to become affiliated with a global agency, (by then they had become the third largest agency in India) FCB.

Mr. Mundkur is a living legend. Truly a giant in the world of advertising. More importantly, he is a nice person. And, I am blessed that I know him.

2006-12-07T17:34:00.000-06:00

Branding an IT Department

Been rather hectic for a few weeks (not that any of you missed me!) Busy with a very “nice” assignment for a special Client.

Brand their IT department.

This is progressive thinking. In fact, most impressive thinking. And, from PentaTwo’s perspective, “practical thinking.”

Very similar to a client meeting in 1998, when the prospective client said, “Tell me what you think we are doing right.” One of the most incredible assignments, since everyone needs to know “what they are doing wrong.”

How do you brand an IT Department for a global marketing company (or, a local, regional, or national company?)

IT is a taken-for-granted-department. Just there. The only time, the user thinks of the IT Department when something is not functioning. And, at that time, the thoughts are not most pleasant.

A challenging assignment.

Writing only to say that "practical thinking" helps in meeting the challenges. And when your client loves the recommended strategy, it makes life more pleasant.

2006-11-11T11:27:00.000-06:00

Megabrands and Minibrands.

Two giant companies are attacking the marketplace with two diametrically opposite strategies.

The Kellogg Company is creating a megabrand with Special K (www.adage.com, November7) its cereal brand. Chocolate snacks (Special K Chocolatey Delight,) water (K20 Protein Water), snack bars, snack bites, and even watches that calculate calories burned (currently sold in the UK) are adorning the scarlet letter K.

Catering to different “need states,” Special K hopes to become the dominant global “diet” brand.

In the meantime, PepsiCo (www.adage.com, November 9) is launching Fuelosophy, a high-energy protein drink line.

However, Pepsi does not want to be associated with this new brand, nor does it want it to be available at every retail outlet. Fuelosophy, a minibrand, will be available only at one chain, the “darling” retailer brand of a segment of consumers – Whole Foods.

Earlier this year, PepsiCo introduced the Sun Snacks organic line of sunflower-oil chips and cheese puffs, exclusively at Whole Foods.

Pepsi believes this is a unique test marketing strategy and will allow it to determine brand acceptance (success or failure) at a very low cost.

A tale of two companies. It is the megabrands of times, the minibrands of times.

Two very practical strategies.

2006-11-10T08:35:00.000-06:00

Oh What A Relief It Is.

The last three days have indeed been a relief. No more mud-slinging, name-calling, absolutely uncalled for negative political advertising on television or radio.

Do not know if a study will be conducted to see if the candidate who was more belligerent about their opponent won or lost the race. The results would be most interesting.

There have been no voicemails with pre-recorded messages from Senators, ex-governors, candidates, or volunteers seeking votes. No obnoxious calls at 9:00 PM with “Hello this your Senator calling you to remember to vote this Tuesday for…”

The US Congress banned telemarketing a few years ago; however, political causes were exempt. Most self-serving!

Well, the next round of national elections (primaries) will start in about 400 days. No, that does not mean we will be free of this nonsense for that long. The next round of local municipal elections will start in less than 90 days!

Good political marketing should be considerate, civil, and caring. There will be less voter apathy.

Remember the “Morning in America” 1984 campaign for presidential candidate Ronald Reagan? Brilliant political marketing!

2006-11-02T18:56:00.000-06:00

Numbers…

This October, a few milestones (kilometerstones reads, and sounds, ridiculous) were reached and they need to be recognized by global marketers.

The US population crossed 300 million. In 1971, this number was just over 200 million. Not too many marketers paid attention to this crossing. Sad!

The DOW Jones Industrial Average rose above 12,000. It closed above 1,000 in 1972.
The population of India has doubled since 1971.

The Sensex (The BSE-Sensex is the benchmark index of the Indian capital markets) rose above 13,000. It was only in 1990 that it reached the magical 1000.

There are now 100 million Web sites with domain names and content on them.

All these numbers have serious global implications.

2006-11-02T17:35:00.000-06:00

The Power of a Logo.

In July, a particular candy bar with a distinctive logo (chocolate brown background, a red parallelogram with two of its corners curved, with a white fill-in, and the brand name in a blue, all uppercase italics font) started a ubiquitous out of home advertising campaign with the brand name replaced with words like Sattisfectellent, Nougatocity, Hungerectomy, Substantialicious and Peanutopolis.

Absolutely brilliant!

And the brand, Snickers.

In October, it was revealed that the most popular bottled water in history (in a green glass bottle, that made its entry into the US in 1976) was launching a campaign to attract the younger audience that did not know about the brand.

On the label of the green bottle (an elitist brand in the mid-seventies and early eighties; and, there were people who ordered this brand on the rocks!) the name of the brand is replaced by words Sexier, Crazier, Flirtier, and Sassier.

The brand, Perrier.

Snickers, imitation is indeed the best form of flattery. Kudos to you. Perrier, you are three months too late!

2006-10-16T12:04:00.000-05:00

Monday Morning Quarterbacking...

Last week, The National Football League joined a group of advertisers seeking consumers to generate advertising for their respective brands.

Consumer Generated Advertising started in 2005 with brands such as Timex, Chrysler, and Ban Deodorant developing promotions asking the consumer to come out with the next advertising idea the brand would use.

The NFL, in 2006, is following the footsteps of Chevrolet and Frito-Lay by seeking ideas for commercials to air in the broadcast of Super Bowl XLI on February 4, 2007.

There is something wrong here!

Those who follow the sport of football know the intricacies of the game. Many have played the game at various levels – Pop Warner, High School, and College. Many play Fantasy Football (a great brand!) There are thousands of journalists who cover the sport.

Does this mean that one of these people will be called to play quarterback for an NFL team should they lose all their QBs to injuries during a game?

Not likely!

Yes, all of us are “experts.” Especially, when it comes to advertising. After all, we are exposed to thousands of messages each week. We know which ones we like (very few) and which ones we detest (most of them.) Does that mean, we use only the brands whose messages we like? Not really!

When our favorite NFL team’s QB makes a wrong read and throws an interception, or the DB misses a tackle, the cry goes out, “I could have done that!”

Really?

The same holds true for creating great, or even good, advertising. It takes an experienced professional.

Yes, the consumer should “own” the brand. The advertising professional, not the consumer, should “create and own” the brand advertising.

2006-10-13T10:25:00.000-05:00

A Friday the Thirteenth Thought...

Marketers and Agency people: "Think like your consumer. Act like your consumer. Be your consumer."

2006-10-12T09:54:00.000-05:00

On this snowy Thursday...

Without the "ah ha" insight, there cannot be a great idea.

(yes, it is snowing in Chicago, and it is not even mid-October!)

2006-10-11T16:42:00.000-05:00

Wednesday's Thought...

Find an "insight" that is so remarkable, that people have to talk about how remarkable it is.

2006-10-10T17:14:00.000-05:00

A Tuesday Evening Thought...

Talk with the consumer.
Not at the consumer.
Not to the consumer.
Better yet, let the consumer talk with you.

2006-10-09T06:26:00.000-05:00

A Monday Morning Thought...

The Client creates the brand.
The Agency positions and stewards the brand.
The Consumer makes the brand.
And, the Consumer owns the brand.

2006-10-06T11:18:00.000-05:00

One Last Thought for the Week...

Today, marketing should be about "wants," not "needs."

Look at everything from the consumer's perspective.

2006-10-05T19:39:00.000-05:00

A Harvest Moon Thought...

It is not what consumers see or hear about a brand.

It is what they feel about the brand.

2006-10-03T20:01:00.000-05:00

“Is Nothing Sacred?”

A question posed by Mr. Al Ries (whom I admire) in his article “From Famous Advertising Name to Meaningless Initials” (www.adage.com, October 1, 2006). He goes on to state, “Initialitis has infected the world of branding.” Mr. Ries is referring to J. Walter Thompson changing its name to JWT (what he calls meaningless initials.)

Yet we live with IBM, BMW, SAP, UBS, MTV, KFC, CBS, ABC, and NBC. All three letter initials. The first six brands mentioned are amongst the top hundred global brands. We will not even get into all the TLAs -- Three Letter Acronyms -- spawned by the dotcom world.

Mr. Ries also writes, “Every powerful brand needs two names. A real name and a nickname. Why is this so? Because the use of nicknames help consumers establish closer relationships with the brands they admire.”

He may have a valid point. However, a few of the most admired brands of “today” are Starbucks, Google, Yahoo!, Apple, and Target.

Back to JWT. The agency is part of the WPP Companies. And, what does WPP stand for?

When Sir Martin Sorrell wanted to build a worldwide marketing services company, he used the initials of his existing company, Wire and Plastic Products Plc, a UK manufacturer of wire baskets. (Raise you hand and pat yourself on the back if you knew this piece of trivia.)

There has to be a reason for the name change to JWT. Must be to create a "global" brand and rid itself of all the regional name extensions/affiliations. Very practical.

Then there is the venerable BBDO, as a "four letter" name for a great agency. Wonder how many of those who work in this global agency can recall the four names the initials represent!

2006-10-01T10:41:00.000-05:00

Carrot or Stick?

In England, householders are offered rewards for recycling more of their "rubbish" and cutting down their waste, with many local authorities offering prizes including cash rewards and community gifts.

In Seattle, WA, consumers are warned not to mix recyclables with non-recyclables. If they do, the authorities stop picking up their "garbage."

Now we also know the difference between "rubbish" and "garbage."

2006-09-28T08:37:00.000-05:00

Account Planning and Account Planners. Bane or Boon?

“Don’t want to hear the word ‘Planning’.”
“The ‘P’ word is a nuisance.”
-President of a global advertising agency on what the creatives, in that agency, have to say about Planning & Planners. (As said to me, in 1999.)

In March 2000, these two statements were responsible for my writing this document on the subject of Account Planning and Account Planners.

In 2005, the COO of a global marketing company told me, “ We have a planning department. But, we provide planning services only to clients who are willing to pay for the services. We do not know how we can convince all our clients that Account Planning is the starting point of all strategy development.”

Today, much of what follows still holds true – obviously, the content has been updated.

The Origin of Account Planning.

The need to involve the consumer in the development of more effective, creative advertising was recognized by two different UK advertising agencies in the mid-sixties. In 1964, Stephen King of J. Walter Thompson (JWT) developed a new system of working which concentrated on combining consumer research and insights to develop more effective and creative advertising.

In 1968, Sidney Pollitt of Boase Massimi Pollitt (BMP) decided that the voice of the consumer was of paramount importance and that account management was using data incompetently in the writing of the creative brief. He wanted a research person working with the account man.

The name Account Planning was coined by Tony Snead of JWT merging the titles of media planners and account people, in 1968.

The first agency in the US to adopt the discipline was Chiat/Day (1982), and Jane Newman was the first senior vice-president corporate director of account planning.
It was Jay Chiat, along with Jane Newman, who led the agency on the Macintosh Account to create the much acclaimed “1984” commercial that launched Apple Computers.

Looking at the success of Chiat/Day, larger agencies including Ogilvy & Mather and DDB Needham adopted the discipline of Account Planning. In the 1990s, other agencies followed suit.

In adopting the discipline the U.S. agencies called the account planner a “Brand Planner” or “Strategic Planner”. Soon, the original “Account Planner” replaced these positions.

What is Account Planning? Who is an Account Planner?

Account Planning is a disciplined system for devising communications/advertising/commercial strategy and enhancing its ability to produce outstanding creative solutions that will be effective in the marketplace.

Account Planning also recognizes the need to demonstrate how and why the communication has performed.

An Account Planner is essentially the account team’s primary contact with the outside world; the person who through personal background, knowledge of all pertinent information and overall experience, is able to bring a strong consumer focus to all advertising decisions.

What are the Various Roles of Planning?

The planning department of an advertising agency is responsible for various functions. These include:
– Market Research
– Data Analysis
– Qualitative Research (focus group studies)
– Information and Knowledge Center
– Voice of the Consumer (target audience)
– Brainstorming Facilitation
– Prognostication
– Media/Communications (touch-point) Planning
– Strategic Thinking/Strategy Development
– Insight Mining (finding that one “nugget”)
– Authoring the Creative Brief
– Knowledge Application

Reactions to Planning & Planners Within an Agency.

“Planning” has finally become a part of the way things are done at most agencies. Within an agency, some people like the concept of planning and the planners, while others don’t.

Those who do not like it fall into three categories:
– Like the concept, but feel that the planners in the agency are inept.
– Feel threatened due to their own shortcomings/inadequacies and are very protective of their own territory.
– Have no clue as to what the discipline entails and how they can benefit by being true partners.

What some people in a major agency had to say about Account Planning and Planners (this agency, at that time had a hybrid research/planning department, with a traditional researcher as the department head).
– “Upper management needs to recognize the role of Planning.”
– "The process of Account Planning has never been defined.”
– “ I have no problems with Account Planning, but do the planners we have know what they are talking about”
– “Are our Account Planners trained and experienced or are they just research people?”
– “Account planning has fostered cross-departmental integration.”
– “We are not brief-driven. We should be!”
– “We are very good with quantitative research; I cannot say the same thing about our abilities with qualitative research.”
– “Account Planning does not exist here; we think it does.”
– "We need to look at doing things right, and experienced Account Planners can champion the cause.
– “Our so called planners do not know a thing about advertising.”
– “Too much dependency on focus groups; nothing wrong with that if we had qualified moderators and analysts.”
– “Account Planning is a serious issue.”
– “Creatives don’t like us (planners) telling them things. I was given a list of what I could say and what I could not.”
– "Some of the creatives accept research and our (planners) writing the brief; but not our reviewing the creative.”

The Account Planner.

Very often, agencies hire the wrong people to become a part of the planning group. They may be anthropologists, sociologists or psychologists; but if they are not students of the art of advertising, they will not be the right people.

Account Planners have to be advertising practitioners. If not, they cannot bridge the consumer and creative.

Account Planners need to have the capacity and capability to constantly re-challenge conventional advertising and marketing wisdom. Only those who are advertising savvy can do this effectively.

Most individuals have a distinct preference for either left-brain or right-brain styles of thinking. Good Account Planners, however, are more whole-brained and equally adept at both modes.

Account Planners have to be able to get passionate about consumer insights.

The following are the key characteristics that a good Account Planner should possess (some of these were originally stated by Chiat/Day):
– Curiosity about what makes people act and think the way they do.
– Understanding that what people say is not necessarily what they believe or do. Being capable of discerning the difference and possessing the ability to determine real insights into motivation.
– Ability to examine a problem from different perspectives without losing sight of the big picture.
– Logical and analytical, yet capable of lateral thought.
– Views research as a means to an end.
– Applies a pragmatic approach to problem solving.
– Possess an ability to conceptualize and think strategically.
– Be capable of taking a commercial and making a reasonable judgment/guess on its intended effect on the target consumer and the desired responses.
– Has an inherent ability to visualize the meaning of numbers and generate hypotheses, or draw conclusions.
– Accepts nothing at face value, challenging assumptions until the whole picture makes sense.
– Enjoys talking about advertising.

Consumer insights are what help the Account Planner mine a few nuggets. In order to mine a quality nugget, an Account Planner starts a discussion with the consumers of the product/brand. Typically, this is what happens.
– Listening
– Probing
– More listening
– Taking notes
– Replaying the interactions internally, while blocking out all other thoughts
– Transcribing the notes
– Studying the notes. Not once, not twice, but many times.
– That one insight that will be that one special nugget is extracted.

The Brief.

The Planner is charged with formulating the creative brief and being the person who lays it all out and provides direction for the creatives. The ideal brief is developed when Planning and Account Service work together, also involving the media department if feasible.

They have to work together to combine the needs of the client, the demands of the market, and the expectations of the consumer.

Together they will have to stimulate creative development.

Great ideas that result in great advertising are a result of a “chemical reaction” between two basic elements:
– The Consumer: “What is it about the product that the consumer likes”.
– The Product: “What is the product’s (or brand’s) answer to the consumer’s core values”.

The right catalyst (that nugget) will create that magical reaction resulting in a compelling brief.

When a brief is compelling, it will breathe and have a life.

A compelling brief will also have a soul.

Therefore, in order to generate “great ideas” every time the following equation should be realized:

The Soul of the Agency Brief
=
The Soul of the Product/Brand
+
The Soul of the Consumer

This will make the “brief” the Crown Jewel.

How it All Works Together.

Advertising is a team effort. As stated by many, it can be best illustrated as follows:
Client says: “My Product”
Account Director says: “My Client”
Creative Director says: “My Ad”
Account Planner says: “My Consumer”

Planning? Who needs it?

No agency “needs” Planning.

Agencies that give clients only what they ask for do not need Planning, as they will find it a waste of resources.

Agencies committed to doing fresh, bold, innovative and effective advertising more consistently will find Planning a valuable investment paying rich dividends at many levels.

Account Planning, a concept over thirty years old is still in many ways in its infancy as some clients and agencies have been laggards in embracing the process. They are the losers.

Agencies practicing the discipline and their clients are the winners.
Certainly a boon for them!

Sources include www.apg.org.uk and www.ciadvertising.org/sa/spring_03/382j/hillary/accountplanningads.htm

2006-09-26T17:30:00.000-05:00

Putting The Customer First.

In early July, I was taking a cab from the Indies Hotel to the Kingston Airport in Jamaica and the lady on the two-way dispatch radio was blabbering. During the 30-minute ride to the airport, the cab driver was silent with the dispatch lady’s voice providing audio entertainment.

The Jamaicans have their own dialect with an accent as pronounced as that of a Cockney, making one wonder if she was indeed talking in English.

In between making dispatch requests, she also made an announcement to the cab drivers. It was only when she made the same announcement for the third time during the ride, did the message make sense to me.

Every day, cabs would be stopped randomly and inspected for exterior and interior cleanliness. Also, the cab driver should be well groomed, attired neatly, and exude no body odor. Your customer expects this.

Each day, the top ten drivers would receive a 25% discount at a specific gas station.

What an uncommonly common idea. Make it a pleasant ride for your customer.

Well done, Jamaica!

Practical Thinking at its best…

2006-09-19T15:03:00.000-05:00

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN AN ADVERTISING AGENCY

This white paper was originally written in 1998. All of what was written still holds true; therefore it is being published here. In 2002, The Marketing Store, a global promotions agency, invited PentaTwo to help them lay the foundations for an agency-wide Knowledge Management initiative and today the company is in Phase III of the undertaking.

However, most advertising agencies have yet to undertake an organized effort to establish Knowledge Management as an integral part of their day-to-day operations. This is a grave error.

Introduction.

“Knowledge by its very definition is unstructured and unpredictable. One never knows when the ‘aha’ experience - which combines knowledge, experience and action – will take place. So does that mean that you don’t have to worry about it? Another simple answer: You’d better!”
-Jon Powell, MMA/Gartner Group Newsletter, Summer 1998

In 1998, The Economist noted, “Knowledge Management remains an infuriatingly vague subject.” (And, today, it still does!) This is in part because it has an infuriatingly vague vocabulary surrounding it. Terms such as data, information, tacit and explicit knowledge, intelligence, learning and wisdom are often used interchangeably and without clear definition.

Add to this the challenge of navigating through all the technology suppliers that claim to have “Knowledge Management” products, and one can become easily overwhelmed by either philosophical debate or arguments over the question, “How do we manage knowledge?”

The confusion is understandable. Even experts and practitioners disagree on something as fundamental as exactly what to call concerted efforts to capture, organize and share what employees know. With some semantic quibbling, we are as likely to hear such efforts referred to as managing “intellectual capital,” intellectual assets” or “knowledge resources.”

Whatever it’s called, proponents generally agree with why it’s important. According to Anne Stuart, (thenSenior Editor at CIO,) “Because of downsizing, frequent job jumping, constant change, globalization and the transition from an industrial to a knowledge-based economy, companies feel more pressure than ever to maintain a well-informed workforce, boost productivity and gain competitive advantage.” By creating an inclusive, comprehensive, easily accessible organizational memory, knowledge management helps meet all these goals.

However, questions continue to evolve:

-Is it possible to manage something as intangible as knowledge?
-How do you determine its value?
-How do the benefits fit into the balance sheet?

Definitions & Distinctions.

It is now generally agreed that the starting point for knowledge is data.

Data is defined as raw forms of transactional representations, or basic units of observation and measurement. Data is mostly explicit, it can be written down, stored, retrieved, passed around and discussed easily.

Information is a collection of data that has been translated into a form, which conveys a message. It is the raw material from which knowledge is formed.

Knowledge is much more than organized and patterned data. Knowledge also pulls together assumptions, theories, understanding and conclusions from study, experiment and experience.

It is important to realize that there are two main types of knowledge: explicit and tacit. They can be further divided into ‘public’ and ‘private.’

Explicit knowledge is knowledge that can be easily passed on to others; whilst, tacit knowledge is difficult to codify and express to others without actively engaging them in an experience similar to that in which the tacit knowledge was created. Tacit knowledge is also said to be very context-specific. A final characteristic is that tacit knowledge can be created and stored unconsciously. As people become familiar with a task, they learn unconsciously how to improve their performance. They find this difficult to pass on to those new to the task because they do not realize they know it.

Tacit knowledge is often what makes an organization unique and differentiated in the marketplace. It is the keystone of sustainable competitive advantage.

Knowledge can be integrated and applied to achieve objectives and solve problems in the form of intelligence and is acquired and updated through a process of learning. How good any piece of knowledge is, and how appropriately it is applied in any given situation has a lot to do with wisdom, which adds another layer of discernment and judgement to knowledge through depth of experience. Wisdom, it has been observed, is knowing when one’s knowledge is useful or adequate.

Data and information, being mostly explicit, can be stored in machines, while knowledge, intelligence, learning and wisdom reside in the heads of people. Managing data and information is therefore a fundamentally different task from managing knowledge.

Information can be updated, transferred, processed and downloaded with ease and at a lower and lower cost. Updating, transferring and downloading knowledge from “knowers,” by contrast, is anything but straightforward. Transferring knowledge between people in particular is a major challenge, not least because knowledge is often equated with power that is enhanced by scarcity.

Also, unlike the information stored on a company’s computers, knowledge leaves the office every evening and may be lost for good when a “knower” leaves the business.

This is perhaps the most critical distinction to grasp from this hierarchy of definitions.

Joe Helfer, Founder of Knowledge Management Readiness Systems, provides what he calls a “common-sense” approach for a Knowledge Management framework.

Data: 6. Blue, Australia, (818) 340-7895
Information: Adam is six feet tall, has blue eyes, lives in Australia and has a telephone number.
Knowledge: Adam is easier to reach by telephone than by e-mail.
Wisdom: It’s best not to communicate with Adam by e-mail.

Now that we have an understanding of what we mean by knowledge, let us develop an understanding of the phrase ‘Knowledge Management.’

Knowledge that has been formalized, captured and leveraged within an organization to produce a higher customer valued asset is called Intellectual Capital. Or, in other words, intellectual capital is intellectual material - - knowledge, information, intellectual property, experience - - that can be put to use to create wealth.

Knowledge Management, or the management of intellectual capital, projects vary as widely as the industries undertaking them. But generally, efforts are intended to retain, analyze and organize employee expertise, making it available anywhere, anytime - - ideally and ultimately to improve the bottom line.

Effective Knowledge Management pays off in fewer mistakes, less redundancy, quicker problem solving, better decision making, reduced research and development costs, increased worker independence, enhanced customer relations, and improved products and services - - all adding up to keep the company at least a few steps ahead of its competitors.

“If we apply knowledge to tasks we already know how to do, we call it productivity. If we apply knowledge to tasks that are new and different, we call it innovation.”
-Peter F. Drucker, Post-Capitalist Society

Symptoms of a Knowledge Problem.

David H. Smith, head of Knowledge Development for global giant Unilever has developed a list of nine symptoms of a “knowledge problem” – something wrong with how your company manages its brainpower. In 1997, Smith was given the task of “helping Unilever act more intelligently” – that is, learn faster and leverage what it knows. “The solution to our problem isn’t to work harder. We’ve got to learn to work smarter…” That, as Smith says, “is obviously true but extremely trite.”

Knowledge problems have symptoms that mimic other problems, and as Smith says, “Each of the following is a symptom that you don’t manage knowledge well: People aren’t finding it, moving it around, keeping it refreshed and up to date, sharing it, or using it.”

-You repeat mistakes. Obviously, there is nothing wrong in making a mistake. But, when you keep repeating them, well…
-You duplicate work; or, you keep re-inventing the wheel.
-You have poor customer relations.
-Good ideas don’t transfer between departments, units, or countries. Thomas A. Stewart calls this “the most common knowledge problem of all.” How do we get people to share ideas rather than hoard them, to accept ideas, rather than reject them?
-You’re competing on price. Everything you learn about a customer is an opportunity to make it harder for competitors to horn in. The result: margin.
-You can’t compete with market leaders. Trying to answer the question, “What do they know, that we don’t know?” may enable you to outwit the bigger competitors.
-You are dependent on key individuals. This means there is too little teamwork or you do not know how to encourage star workers to reveal secrets of their success.
-You are slow to launch new products or enter new markets.
-You don’t know how to price for service.

Smith’s list is diagnostic, not prescriptive. And, each item on it is a knowledge problem, with real business consequences – for both your clients and you.

“Few people quarrel with the notion that companies must learn to invest in and manage knowledge if they hope to compete in an economy where, more than ever, knowledge is what we buy and sell.”
-Thomas A. Stewart, “Why Dumb Things Happen to Smart Companies.” Fortune

Knowledge in an Advertising Agency.

Let us take a look at a typical advertising agency, and the Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom (DIKW) hierarchy, as it relates to the Account Service Group. The following will hold true, for most account groups:

Assistant Account Executive: Data
Account Executive: Information
Account Supervisor: Knowledge
Account Director: Wisdom

More often than not, it is the Assistant Account Executive who is expected to be the reservoir of all data. All that the AAE is aware of is the fundamental data about the client (who? what? where?), the marketplace, the consumer and the competition. By the time this data has been mastered, it is time to be promoted to the position of Account Executive.

The Account Executive now has a very good idea of how the agency works, what is expected of him/her, and is capable of ordering and structuring data into information.

The process of “digging” for data (that already exists in most cases; however, it is inside somebody’s head) and the process of converting the data into information take up most of their time - - no wonder the AAEs and AEs spend 60-80 hours a week!

As the AE matures and is capable of pulling together assumptions, theories, understanding and conclusions from study, experience, and experiment (if there is ever time for that) and becomes knowledgeable, he/she is made an Account Supervisor.

Now the Account Supervisor is actively recruited by headhunters for a similar position (at a higher pay, of course) in another agency, or by the client, or worse yet by the client’s competitor.

There goes a “knower” out of the door.

Those Account Supervisors that do not leave (after six-eight years in the agency) become Account Directors. But Account Directors obviously have neither time nor the inclination to being a mentor and share their knowledge and wisdom with the young AAEs and AEs.

The cycle starts all over again.

This very scenario applies to all the departments in the Agency, from Creative to Production, Media to Administration. All that changes are the titles.

All this leads to inefficiencies, lost revenues and finally the next agency review.

While it is not possible to reduce or eliminate turnover, one possible solution is to develop a culture within the agency to constantly gathering all the knowledge, recording it, and making it available on demand to others.

Now let us assume that an Agency has three other offices in the country. Let us assume that the Midwest office has been invited to “pitch” Account ABC in a particular category? Before rushing to get all the information (starting out with calling Find/SVP) will anyone even consider calling the agency’s other offices to find out if either one of them had been involved in a pitch in the recent past to a client in the same category?

Let us assume someone did make the calls, and the Agency’s West coast office had indeed recently pitched another client in the same category. Did anyone keep records of the pitch? More importantly, did those involved in the pitch conduct a post-mortem on the complete process and determine any causes for not having won the account? In all probabilities, no attempt was made to have such a meeting to gather information and document all the knowledge gained from the experience. Capturing tacit knowledge, recording it, and making it available can indeed save time effort and money. It may even have helped in the presentation the Midwest office is to make.

How about that time when your agency was invited to pitch Account XYZ because your agency had handled a competing client, Account PQR till about a year ago? Now, Suzi who was the Account Director on PQR is no longer with the Agency, and the whiz kid Jim who knew everything about this category is working on another account and is on an overseas assignment. All the years your agency spent on Account PQR, and none of the knowledge and wisdom on the category is readily available. The team that will be making the pitch has to start from ground zero!

These are just a few examples of how a Knowledge Management initiative in your agency may help in the future. There are many, many instances that one can talk about where information is not available, not shared, or at times there being too much information stockpiled.

So where does one start? One way is to initiate and stimulate the agency’s thinking about Knowledge Management by asking the following questions, as suggested by Jon Powell:
-What critical knowledge exists in the agency and how is it accessible?
-How is knowledge systematically transferred?
-Does you agency acquire knowledge from the outside and how is this knowledge used within the agency?
-How do you generate, capture and disseminate new knowledge?
-How does your agency evaluate or value knowledge assets?
-Which technologies are used to capture, structure and disseminate knowledge?
-Are there any quality control checks built into any existing knowledge management processes?
-Does top management perceive and manage knowledge as a critical resource for future value creation and as an integral part of the corporate/business strategy?

In a very real sense, what is knowledge and what is not lies in the eye of the beholder: one person’s knowledge is merely data to another. A key determinant of these differing perspectives is strategy. Hence the first rule of effective Knowledge Management is that the definitions of management of and knowledge cannot be separated from the context of strategy. Therefore, your agency should first develop clear business strategies and then manage knowledge to support and leverage them.

You cannot manage knowledge unless you are very clear about what you want to do with it.
-Robert Davies “Reflections on Knowledge,” Management Center Europe

Some Principles of Knowledge Management.

Many companies are beginning to feel that knowledge of their employees is their most valuable asset. But, only a few firms have actually begun to actively manage their knowledge assets on a ‘broad’ scale.

Professor Thomas H. Davenport, University of Texas, an expert in the area of knowledge management, lists ten principles of Knowledge Management:
1. Knowledge Management is expensive (but so is stupidity!).
Knowledge is an asset, but its effective management requires investment of other assets. Many Knowledge Management activities require the investment of money or labor, including the following:
-Knowledge capture, i.e., creation of documents and moving documents onto computer systems. -Adding value to knowledge through editing, packaging, and pruning.
-Developing knowledge categorization approaches and categorizing new contributions to knowledge.
-Developing informational technology informational structures and applications for the distribution of knowledge.
-Educating employees on the creation, sharing, and use of knowledge.

2. Effective Management of knowledge requires hybrid solutions of people and technology.
Human beings may be expensive and cantankerous, but they are quite accomplished at certain knowledge skills. When we seek to understand knowledge, to interpret it within a broader context, to combine it with other types of information, or to synthesize various unstructured forms of knowledge, humans are the recommended tool. These are the types of knowledge tasks at which we excel, and we should be employed for these purposes.

Computers and communications systems, on the other hand, are good at different kinds of things. For the capture, transformation, and distribution of highly structured knowledge that changes rapidly, computers are more capable than people.

Given this mixture of skills, we need to construct hybrid Knowledge Management environments in which we use both humans and computers in complementary ways.

3. Knowledge Management is highly political.
“Knowledge is power.” Thus it should be no surprise that Knowledge Management will be a highly political undertaking. If knowledge is associated with power, money, and success, then it is associated with lobbying, intrigue, and back-room deal.

4. Knowledge Management requires knowledge managers.
Key business resources like labor and capital have substantial organizational functions devoted to their management. Knowledge won’t be well-managed until some group within the firm has a clear responsibility for the job. Among the tasks that such a group might perform are collecting and categorizing knowledge, establishing a knowledge-oriented technology infrastructure, and monitoring the use of knowledge.

5. Knowledge Management benefits more from maps than models, more from markets than from hierarchies. Knowledge managers can learn from the experience of data managers, whose complex models of how data would be structured in the future were seldom realized. Firms rarely created maps of the data, so never had any guides to where the information was.

Letting the market work means that knowledge managers try to make knowledge as attractive and accessible as possible, and then observe what knowledge gets requested using what specific terms.

6. Sharing and using knowledge are often unnatural acts. Many consider the knowledge they possess to be a valuable resource and accordingly are reluctant to share it with others. The person whose job it is to create knowledge will seldom put his job at risk by using someone else’s knowledge. Our natural tendency is to hoard our knowledge.

To enter our knowledge into a system and seek out knowledge from others is not only threatening, but also just plain effort; so we have to be highly motivated to undertake such work.

Sharing and usage of knowledge will have to be motivated through time-honored techniques such as performance evaluation, and compensation.

7. Knowledge Management means improving knowledge work processes.
Knowledge is generated, used, and shared intensively in a few specific knowledge work processes. Any Knowledge Management process has to start with mapping the work process and making improvements in these key business processes.

8. Knowledge access is only the beginning.
Access is important, but successful Knowledge Management requires attention and engagement. In order for knowledge consumers to pay attention to knowledge, they must be more than passive recipients. This is particularly important when the knowledge to be received is tacit.

9. Knowledge Management never ends.
Like human resource management or financial management, there is never a time when knowledge has been fully managed. The categories of required knowledge are always changing and new categories are always emerging. Changes in strategies, organizational structures, new managers and new professionals warrant a need for continuous knowledge management.

10. Knowledge Management requires a knowledge contract.
Who owns the knowledge or has usage rights to employee knowledge? Is he knowledge of employees owned or rented? Is all the knowledge in employee heads the property of the employer? What about the knowledge of consultants while they are consulting? Few firms have policies to deal with these issues today.

The Chief Knowledge Officer.

Knowledge can take many forms and organizations differ in their definitions. Nonetheless, there is widespread agreement among forward-looking companies that knowledge is the most important asset an organization possesses. Unlike physical assets, it never depreciates or gets used up. In fact, the more knowledge is used, the more value it has.

However, to have a lasting impact on productivity, knowledge must be translated into performance, and applied to business operations.

Knowledge Management is a multi-disciplinary field that draws on aspects of information science, interpersonal communications, organizational learning, cognitive science, motivation, training, publishing, and business process analysis.

Charles Lucier, Chief Knowledge Officer at Booz Allen, believes that it is very difficult to encourage people in a decentralized organization to share their best thinking and collaborate effectively without someone to champion such efforts on a systematic basis.

Realizing this, many Fortune 50 companies have established the role of ‘Chief Knowledge Officer’, and in most cases the three basic responsibilities of the position can be stated as:
-Evangelizing about the importance of sharing knowledge.
-Running and backing projects that find, publish, and distribute knowledge around the firm.
-Managing the knowledge management staff.

In short, the job of the CKO is about two things: collection and connection. Both must be done.

So, what does it take to be a CKO? According to Ron Miskie, Chairman of Knowledge Transfer International, Inc.: “CKOs need basic business acumen, a sense of vision, and an entrepreneurial spirit.”

What we should also remember is that knowledge officers manage people, not technology. Therefore, it is also important that the CKO wholly understands the business they are in.

“For us, knowledge management is critical. It’s one of our four core processes – sell work, do work, manage people, and manage knowledge.”
-John Peetz, CKO, Ernst & Young

Is it not time for your agency to create an environment in which information and knowledge are shared and used more efficiently and effectively? PentaTwo thinks the time is now.

2006-09-18T16:33:00.000-05:00

An Amazing Coincidence.

On September 18, 2006 www.adage.com published an article by Mr. Matthew Creamer about "Philips' Innovative Ad Campaign Makes Media the Message." In the article, Mr Creamer writes, "The medium is the message," said Eric Plaskonos, director-brand communications at Philips Electronics North America, invoking Marshall McLuhan's well-worn thinking that the way content is delivered is more important than the content itself.

Interestingly, on August 31, 2006 on this blog, it was stated (originally part of a presentation made by PentaTwo to Energy BBDO, Chicago on August 3, 2005):
The medium is the message," said Marshall McLuhan in the late sixties. How appropriate! Today, we could say, "the future of media, is the future of advertising."
Or, we could be more emphatic and say, "Media drives the business, and not the creative." "Sacrilege! Burn him!" shouts the Executive Creative Director of the Agency.
We will take it one step further: "The consumer's involvement with the media drives the business."

2006-09-18T09:53:00.000-05:00

2006-09-08T09:35:00.000-05:00

"The Choice Group"

Watch prime time programs on Network Television on any day of the week. Most, if not all, advertisers are doing their best to reach and influence mostly those in the age group 18-44.

Many marketers are now taking "being enamored" with this audience group, and indulging them, to new levels. They are trying to reach the 18-44 with brand extensions, product differentiation, enhanced packaging, and special promotions. All as if they are the only consumers of their products; and, this we believe is something inappropriate.

Till a few years ago, 18-44 with all its subsets, was the audience in terms of numbers, affluence, and spending patterns.

Today, and for the foreseeable future, most marketers have to admit that there is a different audience they must start reaching.

An audience that is nearly half the US Adult 18+ population, accounting for over 40% of the total US spending. This oversight, we believe, is costing marketers billions of dollars.

According to the US Census, the 45-64 age group is responsible for over 42% of total US spending (over 36% of total household spending.)

Yet, this audience is widely, and mistakenly, ignored.

PentaTwo believes this is wrong. This age group should be "The Choice Group" for many marketers. Something ignored!

We do find it intriguing that "The Choice Group" is indeed ignored. Could it be because:

Network Television, especially prime time is programmed only to reach the younger audiences effectively?
Most advertising agencies are designed to cater to the needs of the younger audiences? Look at the age of the creative groups in these agencies! Do they really think they can reach "The Choice Group" just because they are using songs like "Happy Together," and "Do You Believe in Magic?" for every other brand?
There is this old saying that brand loyalties are built at a young age. Today, is this not a myth?
Most agencies cater only to product/service categories, as opposed to specializing in gaining an uncommonly common knowledge of the consumer?

Those in "The Choice Group" are perceived to be:

Brand loyal consumers and they do not switch brands.
Hesitant to experience new products and new services.
The Geritol and Grecian Formula market. Today, they are even referred to as the Viagra audience and the Matlock generation!
A part of the total audience. The line of thinking is that the product and brand messages aimed at the younger audiences will move up the age ladder and reach them sometime and somehow.
Difficult to reach, just because prime time TV cannot be used efficiently.

"The Choice Group" constitutes more than just a head count. It is what is inside their head that counts:

They launched and shaped more successful brands than any other demographic group.
Their core values were shaped largely by what was going on in their world and cultures when they were about ten years old.
They have more in common with their own 20-year old self than they have with their 20-year old children.
They grew up at a time when life changed faster than during any other era.

"The Choice Group" grew up with:

The Vietnam War and Give Peace a Chance.
The Birth of Rock and Roll and The Day the Music Died.
Falcons and Beetles.
The Eagles and The Beatles.
Bell Bottoms and Bikinis.
JFK and MLK.
FAX and FedEx.
Civil Rights and Women's Lib.
Broadway Joe and Masterpiece Theater.
Cheers and Light Beers.
Bunker and Carson. Cannon and Gunsmoke.
Jumbo Jets and Mini Vans.

PentaTwo knows. We grew up with them. Some of us are still growing up. We may be middle-aged or old, but we think of ourselves as young. The word "retirement" is not in our vocabulary. We are intellectually and physically active. We have experienced more physical, cultural, financial, environmental, and technological changes in life than any other single group. We have learned by living.

Marketers and their advertising agencies need to open their eyes. Look around them. Listen to the voices. Read what is being written. They may see and hear what we do.

Many of the marketers and their agency folks may be a part of "The Choice Group." Do they see, read and hear their own messages? Something for them to think about.

2006-09-02T14:38:00.000-05:00

Implications
(The Sky is Falling... Part Seven)

So, what should advertising agencies do for their clients? They should develop a new set of rules:

Everything communicates.
Advertising should include all communications.
Every single expenditure must generate revenue for the client.
Brand awareness is worthless unless it results in sales.
Most importantly, nothing can be accomplished without putting the consumer first.

Let us take a very simplistic look at the situation.

A marketer manufactures a product or provides a service.
An advertising agency, or a brand consultancy, creates a name and a visual identity.
Marketing gets the product to the shelf.
Advertising gets the consumer to try the product.

Now, here is something that is more relevant today than ever before: The consumer creates the brand. Just look at brands like Starbucks, Google, eBay, and Whole Foods Market.

They have accomplished this by continuously getting customer feedback, sharing the knowledge freely, expertly building word-of-mouth specialists, devising specialized smaller offerings to get consumers to bite, and focusing on making consumers feel better.

Advertising agencies should redefine the role they play in helping their clients evaluate and strengthen the relationship their consumers have with the brand, at all points of contact. This is a broader and more valuable role, and at times may have little to do with traditional advertising. The role should be to create a positive and authentic brand experience for the consumer. This means:

Observing how the brand is actually used. Not once, not twice, but everyday.
Monitoring the consumer's perception of the price/value relationship.
Always looking at how sales and consumer service interact.

Essentially, a transformation process will have to start on how business is conducted. This can be accomplished by:

Re-emphasizing brand planning continuously. Start charging for planning services, as a separate service, instead of "bundling" it with creative services. This will be the trend of the future. By moving this department into a consultancy mode, it becomes a revenue center for the agency instead of it being a cost center.
Create a "connection planning" position/department. This will either replace the old media department or be an adjunct. Create brand contact planners.
Become media agnostic.
Encourage the creative department to to become "touch point planners."
Create and foster an "idea culture." Encourage/insist disciplined thinking.
Take a page from the old school of advertising: "Trust your guts."

There is a fine line between implications and recommendations. The way we have stated the implications sound as recommendations. They are.

2006-08-31T10:02:00.000-05:00

The Media
(The Sky is Falling... Part Six)

Nothing has changed the world faster than the Internet. The world wide web, at least as we know it, is only over ten years old. Yet, it has changed the media landscape forever. The computer is the second screen in our lives. It will not "kill" the first screen television, not during our lifetime. When television started gaining popularity in the early fifties, it was predicted that radio would die. When FM broadcast started, AM radio was buried prematurely. Satellite radio will be the continuum for the medium.

Little Chicken, "No, the sky is not falling."

And now, there is the "third screen" -- the screen on the mobile phone. This will become the most important screen of them all, in the very near future.

The biggest change technology has brought is in the consumer.

VCRs were the precursor to all changes in media consumption patterns. The consumer could see her favorite program when she wanted to see it. And, the remote control allowed her to "zap" the commercials.
TiVo for all the furor created is just an advanced VCR.
The Internet is different. It has empowered the consumer. He is on one-to-one communications. He is also on the receiving end of many-to-one communications. He chooses what to do, when to do. From catching up on the latest scores to to shopping for books. Or just sending someone flowers or renting a movie. All at his fingertips.

The Internet because of the Amazons of the world also spawned another industry, Customer Relationship Management. More important than the industry itself is the impact it had on the consumer.

Even though it was an electronically sent note, she received a personalized "thank you" note from Red Envelope. They even told her when her package would arrive.
After her first three purchases from amazon.com, they recommended books that she may like, now referred to as behavioral marketing.
He started reading blogs that were of interest to him. He could voice his opinion with the author -- something he never did by writing a letter to the editor of his local newspaper.
She could shop the best price for an airline ticket to visit her favorite Aunt Thelma; get coupons from coolsavings.com; and, monitor her stock portfolio at 4:00 AM.
He could watch the Live8 concert on AOL, all the acts and all the songs.
They could IM their son at the dorms at State U, and send pictures of his dog without going to the corner drug store to process the photos.
She could pay her bills without paying for postage.
He was finally in control. He is a consumer. He is King!
And the marketers loved them.

Some marketers/agencies started using the new media very well in 2004. Crest, as an example, used their web site to ask consumers to select their next toothpaste flavor. Staples with its "Invention Quest" sought product ideas from there consumers. While these concepts are not original (Crayola started involving the consumer with the "name the next color" promotion using traditional media in 1993) it is how the medium is used that makes it important and relevant. More so, is the involvement of the consumer.

The Internet has also been responsible for the creation of blogs and podcasting. Anyone can be a publisher with blogs (we are) and be a broadcaster with podcasting.

The Internet is being used effectively to create customer evangelists. Brands such as Starbucks, Whole Foods Market, eBay, Google, Fantasy Football, iPod, and youtube owe part of their success to "buzz marketing" and "viral marketing."

"The Third Screen" or the mobile phone (we in the US like to say, the cell) will become a major marketing player. Over 10 billion text messages per month, in the US alone, is just the tip of the iceberg. Many major brands, including McDonald's and Budweiser use this medium (or should we say "vehicle"). Soon, consumers will be able to point their mobile at a product's barcode and information about the product will show up on the third screen. The mobile will also be a wallet. Point it at a vending machine, punch in the numbers, and out comes your can of Pepsi. It is the one medium that is with the consumer all the time -- the most personal medium of all times.

It has even created its own language: "BRB," "TTYL," "HCIT," "LOL," and "G2G" are all part of the lexicon.

New technologies are making it harder than ever before for marketers, especially at the local level, to reach their potential consumers with their messages. It is unfortunate that the number of people reached by an advertiser will decline but the cost of the advertising will rise. Compounding this problem will be the fact that many consumers have become immune to the traditional language of advertising.

"The medium is the message," said Marshall McLuhan in the late sixties. How appropriate! Today, we could say, "the future of media, is the future of advertising."

Or, we could be more emphatic and say, "Media drives the business, and not the creative." "Sacrilege! Burn him!" shouts the Executive Creative Director of the Agency.

We will take it one step further: "The consumer's involvement with the media drives the business."

2006-08-31T10:00:00.000-05:00

The Advertising Agencies
(The Sky is Falling... Part Five)

When the first advertising agency holding companies were formed, they created silos. They unbundled the media departments to create media-buying giants, and they created monster silos. Then the holding companies thought they needed smaller giants for smaller and non-global accounts and created mini-monster buying agencies.

Then these holding companies went on a buying spree. They bought promotion agencies, direct agencies, brand consultancies, and PR firms in every corner of the globe. In 2002 alone, Omnicom bought 108 companies! Many of them have since gone out of business because of problems with the Internet business.

Unfortunately for them, what they bought was also different cultures, different expectations, different P&L motives, and competing/clashing groups. Disaster would not be too far off. It took them over two years to realize the mess they had created.

Resources were not shared, resulting in either lack of information/knowledge or duplication of efforts and costs. The left hand seldom knew what the right hand was doing.
Media planning became an island. Some of the media agencies started looking at communications platforms for their clients (and this practice is growing at an alarming rate) competing with their siblings.
Some clients started expressing misgivings about dealing with so many relationships and the total lack of communications between these "silos."
As an example, McDonald's at times finds it impossible to deal with Leo Burnett and ARC (or DDB and Tribal) on specific projects. In addition to failure within the entities, they are most displeased with the very high rates charged for duplication of efforts.
The biggest complaint from such marketers is the lack of a joint strategy between creative and media.

In 2005, Omnicom and DDB undertook a project to see how best they could integrate various entities (DDB DDB Tribal, OMD and others) for five of their global clients, including McDonald's and Home Depot. The new agency model is expected to be ready in early 2007. Will it be too late for someone?

"The Age of Disruption" has also created a flat world. Above-the-line is merging into below-the-line and vice versa. Soon the line will not exist. There are at least two major problems this creates for traditional agencies. What comes first, the creative or the media? Traditionally, creatives in the major agencies like to work on television commercials. Their "reel" is what they cherish the most along with all the awards they can garner. In our opinion, the traditional below-the-line agency will have the edge over a the traditional above-the-line in the future.

Another complaint often voiced today by advertisers is the lack of experience in the advertising world their agency day-to-day contact person brings to the relationship. They would like to see more knowledge and experience brought to the table. Will they pay for it? Many say, "yes" if it is the right person.

Marketers are also exerting pressure to reduce agency compensation, resulting in a rapid decline of several "think" departments in many agency networks. This is something agencies have to address in the very near future.

Agencies are also becoming averse to developing proactive recommendations, before they are requested, as they cannot justify the investment of time (dollars) on such activities. Meanwhile, another agency, that wants this marketer as a client is more than willing to make this investment -- at least till they acquire this piece of new business. A vicious circle!

2006-08-31T09:41:00.000-05:00

The Marketers
(The Sky is Falling... Part Four)

Bigger has become better, at least when it comes to flexing muscles to gain a price advantage. The Wal-Marts and the P&Gs of the world dictate consumption patterns and pricing strategies. To become stronger and maintain profit levels, they have only one goal: cut costs.
Global economies and new technologies have played a major role in helping them cut costs measurably, especially the cost of raw materials and production costs.
The pressure to further cut costs has necessitated seeking lower costs at all levels, including marketing.
The effect this has on the advertising industry is a major contributor leading to the current state of advertising agencies and the services they provide.
Marketers have always believed that advertising agencies are over compensated. The move to abolish the 15% commission system (and mark-ups on production and other costs) started in the early seventies, signaling the start of national agencies becoming less than full-service agencies. "Above-the-line" and "below-the line" agencies were born.
Today, marketers want a return on investment (ROI) on all marketing and advertising expenditures. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) task force is looking at various metrics for standardizing media effectiveness, the latest being "engagement." While this may be a good idea, it is being applied to the wrong discipline. Everyone is groping.
Nearly 200 brands are introduced everyday. Many of them die instantaneously. Others a more painful death. Over the years, many global brands have died due to myriad reasons. Some have been replaced, while others have no place in today's market.
Marketers expect their new brands to become instant winners. And, advertising agencies are expected to deliver this goal.

Contrary to beliefs, the concept of branding and branding strategies is a relatively new science. Marketing and advertising textbooks in the late sixties and early seventies had just a few pages devoted to this subject matter that has become today's imperative. Today, there are hundreds of books on this subject.

Over the last ten years, a new industry has spawned: Brand and Branding Consultants. Prior to that they were essentially graphic design studios developing visual identities for brands. Today, they provide many services including consumer and brand research, competitive analysis, market segmentation, market trends, supply chain analysis, and new product development. The best of these companies are certainly a threat to advertising agencies. However, as of now, they have not entered the arena of brand communications and brand stewardship.

The dotcoms of the nineties gave birth to a new position at the client level: the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). For some companies, this position has been a boon; but for most, at least in our opinion, a bane. A 2005 survey of the top 100 brand companies showed:

The average tenure of for CMOs was 29.9 months.
The average tenure for CEOs was 53.9 months.
Only 14% of CMOs have been with their present companies for more than three years.
Nearly 50% of CMOs are within 12 months of being on the job.

The need for "instant results" is reflected by this and also by the constant changes in strategies; and, therefore, changing advertising agencies. The CMO at Best Buy left the company just a few days ago, after nearly 48 months at the job -- the duration close to being a record. Best Buy will be looking for a new advertising agency very soon. That is our belief.

So what are CMOs looking for? Their top three priorities:

Drive revenue growth (46%)
Acquire, satisfy and retain customers (36%)
Align marketing function with business strategy (35%)
We find it interesting that the "customer" is not the top priority!

In order to try and attain their vision and goals, marketers are using the services of various entities:

Above -the-line advertising agencies.
Below-the-line advertising agencies.
Ethnic agencies.
Media agencies.
Internet agencies.
PR agencies.
Brand consultants. Other consultants.
Consumer research companies.

Additionally they are also reaching out to the media and looking for them to provide solutions, with their lead agency having little or no role at all to play in the development of communications. Specialized content is designed and developed to suit the perceived specific needs of a brand rather than relying on the agency that acts as their brand steward.

There certainly is a sense of frustration and despair, both latent and exhibited.

This frustration is also reflected in some of their other activities. They are going off their roster agencies to hand pick the best ideas. Companies like P&G are accepting advertising on their own branded web sites (crest.com for example.) A few marketers are establishing internal planning departments. Some marketers are asking the losing agencies to "surrender" all ideas made at a pitch. Some are even asking the selected agency to "raid" specific personnel from the agencies not selected!

All in search of the Holy Grail...

The "Four Ps of Marketing" are being questioned. In fact, Phillip Kotler suggests they be replaced by the "Four Cs."

Product = Customer Value
Price = Customer Costs
Place = Customer Convenience
Promotion = Customer Communication

We believe this is a good idea and welcome the change. Putting the customer (what a novel idea) first!

However, we would change the word "customer" to "consumer."

The marketers may still find their Holy Grail -- it has been in front of them always: The Consumer!

2006-08-31T08:16:00.000-05:00

The Evolving Marketplace
(The Sky is Falling... Part Three)

Just in the last 35 years, the world population has nearly doubled. Obviously this means that in most parts of the world, the population skews younger. However, in the US, the older demographic constitutes the majority.
Movement of people and goods around the globe is overnight.
Movement of information is instantaneous.
Though oil still dictates the global economy, free trade is what makes the world go around.
Regional tastes are becoming global and demand for goods and services is at an all time high.
Bigger (plasma screen TVs), smaller (mobile phones), faster (Internet connections), cheaper and better (everything) are the key market calls.
And, marketers are rushing to be "first to market."

2006-08-30T10:52:00.000-05:00

The Age of Disruption
(The Sky is Falling... Part Two)

This "age" did not dawn overnight. While technology has been the driving force, various other players have contributed:

The Evolving Marketplace.
The Marketers.
The Advertising Agencies.
The Media.

Yes, technology has been the main driver, but that has always been the case. From the invention of the printing press, telegraph, telephone, television, VCRs, cable, satellite broadcasting, the Internet, TiVo, and wireless, technology has shaped communications, hence advertising.

Over the last few years, the problem has been the speed with which technology has changed our lives. A hundred years have been crammed into five.

In the past, adapting to changes took time. Today, this luxury is not afforded, as the speed at which changes are occurring dictates the speed of adaptation.

2006-08-26T11:06:00.000-05:00

The Sky is Falling...

Over the last 35 years, the advertising world has changed dramatically. Let us take a quick look...

The Seventies

Cigarette broadcast advertising was banned.
Cable TV starts in a small town in Pennsylvania.
FM radio was in its infancy.
Hard liquor advertising (self-regulated by the industry) was banned over the air waves.
Six-color printing was introduced.
Three commercial networks. Monday Night Football propels ABC.
Boutique agencies sprout.
Fuel crisis starts the down-sizing of automobiles and the first wave of of Japanese imports.
Informecials come into vogue, creating a new channel of distribution.
Direct Mail Agencies and Promotion Agencies start making a name for themselves.

The Eighties

The start of media proliferation. Cable TV fueled by ESPN, CNN, and MTV grows. USA Today and People hit the stands.
Super stations WTBS-TV and WGN-TV are born.
Live satellite broadcasts emerge on a regular basis.
The start of deregulation of various industries, including banking.
Fallon, Chiat/Day, Martin, Riney and others start making a name for themselves.
Established agencies start merging, while some die.
Omnicom, an advertising agency holding company, is born.
The U.S. represents 82% of all advertising expenditures.
Sports broadcasting becomes a 365(6)-day-a-year happening.
The Super Bowl becomes more than a sporting event, and Apple (1984) establishes the game as the "advertising watching program."

The Nineties

The emergence of FOX, the fourth commercial network.
Globalization of "everything."
The concept of "Account Planning" born in England, crosses the Atlantic Ocean.
The separation of media departments from larger agencies.
The birth of Internet Marketing (thanks to the www.)
The boom of dotcoms.
Media mergers.
New marketing and advertising terminologies mushroom.
Disintermediation becomes an imperative for many.
Branding becomes the most important issue, and brand consultations emerge.
e-commerce develops as a new and viable channel of distribution.

The 00's

Hard liquor may be advertised on television.
The dotcoms of the late nineties bust.
The Internet takes over the world.
Satellite TV poses competition to Cable TV.
Network TV viewing erodes.
Rampant growth of cell phone usage.
China, Korea, and India emerge as marketing powers (manufacturing and consumers.)
Procter and Gamble starts flexing its muscle, threatening every media outlet.
Crispin Porter + Bogusky is what every marketer wants (just like the Chiat/Days, Rineys and the Fallons of the earlier decades.)
The consumer starts becoming the center of attention.

Many of these events brought out Chicken Little crying, "The sky is falling! I must go tell the king." Except Chicken Little did not know who the king was.

Yet, the industry survived, and at times thrived.

Change is inevitable, and the only constant is change itself.

No, the sky is not falling!

Today.

Television viewing habits have changed dramatically. The major networks do not command the audiences of even ten years ago.
TV viewers tend to recall a particularly good (or horribly bad) commercial. However, they do not necessarily remember the featured product/brand.
The audiences are splintering -- too many choices. Getting their attention has become increasingly difficult.
The choice of products/services available is multiplying.
Consumers have become more skeptical about product claims.
Consumers have the power to pick and choose as never before.
The ability to get information about whatever you want, whenever you want, has given consumers unprecedented strength. The digital marketplace has truly made the claim "The Customer is King" come true.

All of this led Sir Martin Sorrell, Chairman, WPP Group to say in 2004, "This is the age of disruption. Technology is driving this change. Agencies have to deal with this reality."