Archive for the ‘Marcomms’ Category

The Mo-keting Mix

Published on Nov 11th, 2011 by Jack

Not only does November mean the arrival of shorter days, longer nights and colder temperatures, it also means that you may see a rapid increase in the amount of men donning typically unfashionable moustaches.  I say typically, as in November it is fashionable to have a moustache due to the advent of Movember.

Originating in Australia in 1999, Movember was established to raise awareness of men’s health issues via the growing of moustaches. Now it is a global movement, annually raising millions of pounds in sponsorship. Not only is it individual men who support Movember, well known brands have also shown their support. Here we look at 5 examples of how this is being done in 2011:

Heinz HP Sauce

HP has released 1 million limited edition bottles of their famous sauce with the Houses of Parliament logo removed – replacing the iconic image is a gentleman wearing a bowler hat with a handlebar moustache. Further to this, Heinz is running a Facebook competition where entrants upload pictures of their moustaches in an effort to find the ‘HP face of Movember’.

Wilkinson Sword

Wilkinson Sword is running a series of campaigns to support the Movember movement:

  • A series of shaving events are being run across the UK
  • Money off vouchers are being distributed to consumers in-store
  • A social media campaign is being launched via Facebook encouraging men to participate in Movember, whilst offering ‘mo advice’ from the leading shaving brand

Mr Clean

The notoriously clean shaven face of US cleaning product Mr Clean (branded as Flash in the UK) is showing his support for Movember 2011 in the same way many men will. But how can a brand icon grow a moustache? Social media again provides a key channel – the more ‘likes’ received by his ‘stache-o-meter’ on the Mr Clean Facebook page, the more his Movember growth will progress.

Vitaman

Men’s skincare specialist brand Vitaman is showing their support for Movember in a traditional manner. Vitaman have formed ‘Team VitaMo’ led by Bath rugby player David Flatman, combining Bath RFC and Vitaman staff – including the MD – and will be growing moustaches throughout Movember, raising money for their efforts. To end the month, a VitaMo party will be held to award the best efforts.

Northstar UK

Lastly, but by no means least, we will be supporting Movember with 5 members of the office forming The Northstar League of Extraordinary Mo Bro’s and growing moustaches to aid the Movember cause. All support would be much appreciated. Please donate by clicking here. Photographic updates will be posted in due course!

 

Re-building Brands and The London Riots

Published on Aug 18th, 2011 by Jack

Following the riots in London recently, there has been a lot of talk about the ensuing clean-up operation and also about how to re-build ‘The London Brand’ prior to the 2012 Olympics. This poses an interesting related question; how do you effectively clean-up or re-build a brand’s reputation? Some brands such as Cadbury’s Wispa have been re-built from discontinuity. Others, such as Apple, have bounced back from poor brand images to have great success. So here we look at 3 key ways brands can help themselves in the face of adversity.

The Law of Candor

Jack Trout and Al Reis claim that admitting a negative will generate a positive. When a brand has produced a poor product, or has knowingly fallen behind a competitor, the worst thing it can do is try to hide from it. Consumers are smart – in a society filled with marketing speak they tend to know when brands are up-selling and will be sceptical of overly positive statements. Therefore, when trying to limit damage to a brand often the best thing to do is admit deficiency. Doing so will not only limit further damage to a brand, but will gain consumer respect for admitting weakness. This is classically epitomised by the ‘Avis Number 2’ campaign where Avis admitted to consumers they were behind Hertz in the car rental market.

Give Back To Customers

Brands are built on customer affinity. This means during a time of crisis a brand needs to give back to its customers to appease them and attempt to rescue loyalty. For example, when Toyota had to recall millions of vehicles in the US they understandably lost the image of being a quality and reliable car manufacturer. In order to re-build this reputation, Toyota invited their customers to suggest new ideas for the brand based around existing technologies in the ‘Ideas for Good’ campaign. By doing so, Toyota aimed to show customers they cared about them and valued their thoughts in an attempt to revitalise brand loyalty, whilst also gaining new ideas.

There’s a Time and a Place

When a brand is mid-crisis or has a failing product, it will generate a lot of publicity – albeit with mostly negative sentiment. It is at this time – when share of voice is high – that brands need to communicate and attempt to turn negative sentiment into positive. How is this done? Firstly, brands need to communicate through all mediums to ensure maximum reach. Secondly, their communications should be based around the two previous points – giving back to consumers and candor. By doing this brands can publicly be seen as being fast to appease their customers whilst being honest and trustworthy.

So, what can ‘Brand Cameron’ learn from this regarding how to react to the riots?  Firstly, admit wrong doing and deficiency where appropriate – don’t hide behind a smokescreen of false positivity. Secondly, offer to give back to the public – show you value and care for them. Finally, let them know you are doing this. Not all of the UK watch BBC News or read The Telegraph, so be sure to communicate through all possible channels. Will this result in politicians being viewed as honest and trustworthy? Extremely unlikely, but at least they can try!

 

A Peek Into Marketing Week – Insight Show

Published on Jul 12th, 2011 by Daniel Tralman

The time of year where the marketing community gets together to network has come and gone. We shared knowledge and stories of success, and of course, branded souvenirs. It was an informative and entertaining introduction into the world of marketing and market research. It was great to pull the curtain back on other company’s ideas to help client businesses succeed. This year at Marketing Week Live, I attended two presentations at the Insight Show; the key learning’s of which I am sharing below:

“Context is everything” by Andy Dexter of Truth Marketing Strategies and Tom Crawford

Needs are influenced by social location

Depending on your social location (your position within our stratified society) you will have different needs. For example, a person living on the poverty line may be more motivated to satisfy his biological and safety needs, while a CEO has already met these needs and has moved on to fulfilling higher order ones like self-actualization. By understanding the needs of the consumer, businesses can develop relevant technology to meet these needs and in turn, increase interest in their products.

How can researchers uncover consumer’s elusive needs?

Spending quality time with the consumer.  Ethnographies allow the researchers to not only spend a lot of time with consumers, but also find out what really makes them tick.

What are these key consumer needs?

  1. PARENTS CONCERNED ABOUT THE SAFETY OF THEIR CHILDREN WANT TO KNOW THEY ARE SAFE

In response, Nokia have developed a GPS based technology in a mobile handset that allows parents to know where their kids are at all times.

  1. 2. STAYING CONNECTED AND SAVING TIME WHILE STILL HAVING AN ENRICHED MOBILE EXPERIENCE
    Nokia found that consumers don’t want to do something simple like deciding on where to eat out in multiple steps. The decision to eat out is complicated by restaurant research, reservations and directions. Consequently, Nokia developed handsets which can support apps like ‘See Reviews & Book’ which is designed to let the user read a restaurant review and book in one step
  2. 3. GETTING AROUND SAFELY AND EASILY USING GPS
    Nokia’s research uncovered that many people use landmarks and other visual cues to navigate rather than just street names, so they developed a Personalized Navigation System using 3D satellite maps to show aerial and street views.

“Bringing your customers into the business via online panels and communities” by Derek Eccleston of eDigital Research

The big shift

We are seeing a shift from single to multi-channel consumers who not only purchase in-store and from catalogues, but also online and mobile devices. These multi-channel consumers are reportedly worth four times as much as single channel consumers. Therefore it is crucial to develop a consistent and seamless multi-channel brand experience – across all platforms – from catalogue, to online, to mobile phone.

Why all the fuss about a mobile phone website?

eDigitalResearch assert that a whopping 10% of all sales from Halfords’ website are through mobile devices. Thus, it is crucial for businesses to ensure that they have an efficient, aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate mobile phone website with easy access to the shopping cart function.

Point of sale for smart phones?

Halfords also utilize QR codes in-store to aid POS for smartphones. This feature allows consumers to use their smartphone to scan a product barcode and instantly they are redirected to a website and a reservoir of information relevant to that product

 

The Smooth Way to Build a Brand

Published on May 24th, 2011 by Katia

“Mmmm, this smoothie tastes really nice”, I thought.  The label on the bottle read:

22 pressed red & white grapes

1/2 a mashed banana

1/2 a squeezed orange

32 crushed blueberries

double-decker bus*

a squeeze of lemon

* Hold very tight please, ting, ting!

“A double-decker bus?!”  It made me smile… “But who’s this company?”, I wondered. “Innocent Drinks…? Never heard of them before… but I like them!”. That was it. I had become, not only a loyal customer, but also very fond of Innocent Drinks. And so did many other people. Founded in 1998 by three college friends, Innocent Drinks has become the UK’s fastest growing food and drink business. Brand awareness has grown by 28 per cent in a year – reaching 41 per cent national awareness and market share has grown from 14 per cent to over 30 per cent in four years. Innocent Drinks are now available in over 4,000 outlets, including all Sainsburys and Waitrose stores, Starbucks, Boots, Eat and many other independent retailers.  Either through necessity or intent, they’vre created an image and brand values based on straightforward, slightly irreverent communications style that soon became the company’s trademark.  Their fun, easy going, no-nonsense approach helped them to gain 71 percent share of the £169 million UK smoothie market, selling 2 million smoothies per week, and yet maintain the integrity of their brand values, retaining the trust and support of their employees, customers and retail partners.

As a small start-up, they realised that they could utilise a space that was essentially a free advert: the packaging of their products. It was an inexpensive channel, and an opportunity to talk about the drink, the business and others things they wanted to communicate. And by constantly changing the words and keeping them interesting, it meant people started actually reading the labels and telling others about them.  So they used their packaging to channel relevant and timely messages at a time when they have their consumers’ undivided attention.  Their brand’s “tone of voice” – or their “verbal identity” even – did not only help differentiate it from competitors but also create bonds of affection and loyalty with different audiences.  With warm and humorous words, they convinced enough people to give it a try and to keep on going back for more. People laughed with them, liked them and wanted them to succeed. They bought into the idea of the Innocent brand.

Customers were invited to “call the banana phone or pop in to visit Fruit Towers, if feeling bored or if there’s nothing on TV”, and Innocent Drinks listened to them: they’ve created a banana-free smoothie (one of their biggest business requests) and eliminated honey from their Veg Pots (as a result of a reaction from a vocal group of people on their blog).  They’ve also coped well with a tricky situation that could have easily damaged their brand:  the news that they would be selling their shares, giving Coca-Cola a 58% stake, triggered immediate comments in their blog where the company was immediately accused of selling out their values to a very profit-orientated company.  But Innocent Drinks managed to keep their image intact by being very open with their customers and reassuring them that the mission and values of the company remained unchanged.

I went to their Annual General Meeting last year and I must say it’s very hard not to believe on what they say.  Being at the Fruit Towers, their headquarters, one does feel all the positive and creative vibes that you see on their product labels; it does seem that they do care or at least try very hard to.  Whereas they might not be as innocent as we originally thought them to be (after all, they are a for profit organisation), it is undeniable that they’ve managed to create a very solid company image.  They showed how an appealing tone and engaging words that are communicated creatively and consistently and that are “lived” in all customer interactions – whether that is sending warm messages on product labels, talking to consumers on the phone or encouraging customers to visit their offices – can deliver high market impact at relatively inexpensive marketing cost and be the basis for a successful brand.

 

Branding Marathons – More Than Just Mileage

Published on Apr 18th, 2011 by Jack

On Sunday 17th April over 35,000 runners took to the streets of London for the 31st London Marathon. The fact that it is formally called the Virgin London Marathon probably had little significance for the majority of runners. However, for the marketing/endurance hybrids who took part (such as NSUK’s own Rhiannon Price), this may have been more significant. Long distance sporting events are held every weekend. These have a vast array of not only distances and levels of competition, but also event names – all with different meanings, target audiences and auxiliary functions beyond sport itself.

Commercially Branded, Numbers Driven

Events such as these include the aforementioned Virgin London Marathon and the BMW Berlin Marathon. Their unique identifier is that they are branded in a corporate way, citing a large brand name in the title. These events reach out to people who would not ‘normally’ participate in events such as these. Resultantly, these events can be extremely large in size. Due to the popularity and size of these events they often serve purpose beyond a sporting event, with many participants taking part to raise money for good causes.

Sports Branding, Athlete Focussed

The increased popularity of endurance sports now means that brands which are large in the sporting world have the capability to brand events themselves. Examples include the Maxifuel Half Marathon. These events often do not have the reach of corporately branded races and therefore are not always as well communicated to the general public. However, they do have the power to communicate to the sporting community and often serve as a popular event for the enthusiastic athlete. The naming power of these events should not be underestimated, with events such as ‘Ironman’ in the world of triathlon being a global brand in itself.

Tackle Me If You Dare

Some endurance events avoid all commercial branding in their name, instead opting for monikers which reach out to participants and entice them to take on a race with the allure of a name which represents difficulty, hardship and a challenge. Such names include ‘Hell Down South’ and ‘The Cumbrian Killer’ from the worlds of running and cycling respectively. These events hope that through aggressive naming they will attract hardened endurance veterans – albeit in small quantities due to the niche audience they are aiming at.

Location, Location, Location

Some endurance events keep it simple, using only the event location as a prefix. Such events on first inspection may appear to be missing a trick. Or are they? Some events can attract participants without any commercial backing or an aggressive name. Often the attraction of a location is enough. Examples range from the Angmering Bluebell 10k to the Beachy Head Marathon. These events attract the scenery (as well as sporting) driven competitors. Don’t be fooled into thinking that these events are only small scale. Simply having a location based name helps the Paris Marathon attract 37,000 competitors a year, many of whom no doubt are attracted by the thought of going to such an iconic city as well as the 26.2miles of running.