Mannings TVC

It seems that Mannings has come up with a good direction for its thematic TVC this time round. As the distribution strategy, it has been opening small stores in housing estates in order to compete with the independent neighbourhood drugstores. Services of these neighbourhood stores are more personalized and this is what chained stores are weak in. So it's logical for Mannings to air a thematic TVC project a warm, caring and personal image. Yet as we all know those neighbourhood drugstores also offer better prices on many popular items like milk powders, nappies, toothpastes and so on . Price differential is fundamental in shaping shopping habit. So even with an TVC like this, Mannings will not completely replace the business of those drugstores.

Nestle Excel TVC

Since the incidence of 三聚青胺, consumers have lost confidence in all milk products made in China. Parents are now buying Japanese brands of milk powders for their children. It's an interesting phenomenon that most consumers see Japan as the country of origin for high quality milk products, rather than anywhere else. In reality, there are many countries that produce high quality milk products, like Australia, New Zealand, Holland and so on. Why do consumers consider Japan as the top of mind choice ? I don't have an exact answer and maybe consumers feel that Japan is an Asian country and its milk formulae are more suitable for the Asians. This Nestle Excel TVC stresses on the Swiss origin. Will it be able to win over the perception ? I doubt it.

Emperor Bullion TVC

Thought about investing in gold ? Gold hasn't been a popular investment tool compared with stocks, mutual funds and foreign currencies. It's kind of forgotten. Yet lately you just don't need to be a professional investor to hear the news that the price of gold has been on the surge. If you have heard about the gold price surge and watched this TVC, you will probably be moved to consider investing in gold. Gold is about power, security and happiness. It's quite a good emotional ad.

HK Broadband TVC

Everybody can afford 100M broadband service as it's only HK$99 a month. Isn't this Hong Kong Broadband TVC a bit disappointing in terms of creativity ? The production value looks quite high though. There are different scenes and if the Lamborghini is not computer-retouched onto the scene, you will need to either move the car around to different places or build different sets. It's costly either way. The only merit of this ad is that the Lamborghini becomes the mnemonic device of the speedy broadband and it can be easily applied in different 2D media. Yet compared with the previous Ads of HK Broadband, I still prefer the creative idea driven ones of the past.

Yahoo! Infomercial

Yahoo! has been airing an infomerical on TVB. It tells us the most searched buzzwords of today. It's something nice to know but why does Yahoo! do that ? Tell us that it's the number one search engine in Hong Kong ? Perhaps. So as to promote the search traffic to the site in a soft-selling, indirect way ? Maybe. Or it tries to promote the Most Searched Buzzword site, buzz.yahoo.com.hk ? Have a look at this site. What's the thinking behind it ? I wonder if this is a new serach advertising option for advertisers or it's simply intended for projecting the search engine leadership image.

Minute Maid grape juice + aloe

I was wondering how Coke wants to manage the Minute Maid brand when I see this launch of grape juice + aloe bits variant. When it launched the brand with major investment, it launched 果粒橙 and later on, 西柚橙. I thought it was intended to stand for pulpy juice. Now it launched grape juice + aloe bits. Does it want the brand to stand for juice with fruit bits or something else ? What a brand stands for would depend on the products launched under it. Let's keep track of what Coke will do to manage this brand which is still at the early stage. It could be a learning example of brand management.

Double A TVC

This TVC must have been "inspired" by the Transformer movie. You may say it's not so creative but at least it's conveying the no paper jam positioning. In fact our rational mind tells us that this positioning is not believable. If your photocopier is old and lacks maintenance, all brands of paper will jam anyway. Double A is no exception. Nevertheless, advertising would wash your brain when repeated many times and perception is reality. Your photocopier still jams with Double A as you would expect. You still prefer it as you may believe it jams more with other brands.

海天堂!!!

If there were censorship on bad taste TVCs, this should be banned. It's an eye sore. The intention of getting association with the East Asian Games is obvious. How on earth would consumers find the association between 龜苓膏 and the East Asian Games relevant in the first place ?! 中國人再無東亞病夫 ?! It even plays on Patriotism as well ! Isn't that too big for selling 龜苓膏 ?! LOL Thanks to the founder of 海天堂, 吳耀明先生, we can have some good laughs from time to time.

Cafe De Coral Dairy Abalone

When my dad saw this TVC, he said : "what kind of abalone can Cafe De Coral offer you ?". This is exactly the doubt of the consumers. Cafe De Coral, as we all know, is a fastfood chain and it means cheap eat. If the price of this abalone menu is low, people would doubt the quality of the abalone. On the other hand, if Cafe De Coral is trying to trade up with this abalone menu, asking for more bugs, people will find it not so worthwhile as fastfood chain should still mean cheap eat. Cafe De Coral has been advertising different novelty ingredients, which is a good strategy to project a quality food image. Yet it's a bit overdone this time round while getting itself into a paradox... a bit 走火入魔...

Pizza Hut's new pizza again.....

When I saw this new pizza of Pizza Hut, I bursted into laughters. The new pizzas of Pizza Hut are getting more "creative" (or gimmicky). Can we call that pizza anymore ? I'm sure there will be smiley face pizza later... One would argue young people like newness and you will need to have some new items on the menu to attract them to come over and over again. True, but it's getting overdone. Putting sarcasm aside, if the leader in pizza is messing up with its pizza, there may be room for a pizza restaurant chain to stress on authentic pizza as the positioning. Target segment can be the richer mature group. Remember how Triple O and other premium Burger chains get shares of the burger market from McDonald's ?