ThinkNoLimit Marketing Coaching

These two chocolate TVCs are on air back-to-back, one is Ferrero Rocher and the other from Lindt. They are not tailored ads for the CNY and they just air the same old thematic ads we see during non-festive season. Positioned as the best gift for your love, its ad is about romance and bliss. It's not exactly positioned as the gift for families and relative in CNY. However, airing the same ad in CNY should still work as a reminder about it as the best gift. On the other hand, the Lindt's TVC communicates about the brand as a long-history chocolatier. This message is not quite associated with the gift-giving season of CNY. So in terms of communication strategy to capture seasonal sales in CNY, my feeling is that Ferrero Rocher wins.

Chinese New Year is round the corner. Maybe I should talk about some seasonal campaigns in CNY. The season for home furnishing products and furniture start from autumn and winter and peaks before CNY. People want a new look for their homes for the new year. That's why we see sale from IKEA and ads of home furnishing products like this one. Paint that doesn't stink. I'm sure it will sell because it's an innovative product which satisfy an unfulfilled need. The ad is just a straightforward one but it does the job of provoking the need for odourless paint. Once again, if you have a good product, you don't need a very creative ad.

Following the post of yesterday. Milk is a mature market and 蒙牛 is an example of using extension to encourage consumer to switch from other competitors. In growing markets, extension is also the common strategy to capture the growth with differentiated products. Here is a mutual fund example. 娛樂奢華基金 ! Isn't it creative ? Don't know whether this product concept will be well-received. The fact is that it is always easier to sell new products in a growing market even though the product concept is not too strong. When the hype is gone and the market gets mature, only strong brands and products with real consumer insights will survive. Working in a mature market is a challenge and a good test on marketing skills.

Good extension is not always easy. To be successful, the principle is the same as any marketing strategy : satisfying an unfulfilled need or satisfying an existing need better. For this 蒙牛早餐奶, we would appreciate the thinking that there is no other brand/product clearly positioned as the milk for breakfast, a positioning strategy of usage occasion. However, come to think of it, it's quite a silly idea. Milk is for breakfast anyway for most consumers. It's common sense and you don't need any market research to tell you that. Would it better if we put the new benefits upfront instead ? Something like 補腦奶 and 活力奶 with the added ingredients, 合桃 and 燕麥, as the supports ?

These are the contributions from Alex and Tommy. Thanks, both of you. Guess I have seen the one above in the Arts of Commercials show. The one below is supposed to be a banned ad from Rejoice. Never know whether it's real. Would P&G do something like this ? I wonder. Enjoy.

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When you watched this TVC the first time, did you get that it's a Nike ad ? Branding in the ad rather weak where there is only a small "nikewomen.com.hk" super at the end. Funny enough, we can all tell it's a Nike ad even with such a weak branding. This is all about brand power. A strong brand is like a close friend and you can always recognize him just by hearing his voice. The sayings and the tone & manner of all Nike's ads have been very consistent over so many years. Its brand personality is so profound that no one would mistaken it's another brand. Well, Nike is Nike. Don't try this at home. When you produce an ad, you'd better off ensure your branding is good and prominent enough.

7-Eleven and McDonald's are so indulged in running Hello Kitty promotions. It seems that they run a Hello Kitty promotion at least twice a year. Maybe I'm not a Hello Kitty fan and I shouldn't be too critical. However, in marketing point of view, there is diminishing effect with repeated promotion mechanics or theme. Like this new Hello Kitty promotion of 7-Eleven, I don't see very keen responses from consumers at store level by my observation. I suppose it's also about the mechanics itself : you will need to spend HK$200 to redeem one and there are eight different ones in the collection. You will need to spend at least HK$1,600 at 7-Eleven to collect them all. You would need to be a very big Hello Kitty fan to be interested. There must have been some miscalculation in the promotion planning.

You don't need a mega production TVC if you have the right strategy to catch consumers at the right time. Chinese New Year is only 2-3 weeks away. The economy is good and more people have some spare money for holidaying in CNY. Like some of my friends, they complain they are not able to book their holidays in this peak season. Now they can turn to Travel Expert to try their luck. It is said that it has reserved enough tickets and hotels for you. Don't know if it can keep this promise or it will charge high premiums. But I'm sure those last-minute holiday makers will seek for its helps.

There is another version featuring 林海峰. Art direction wise, it's quite attention getting. However, if you just listen to the voice-over without paying attention to the small prints at the bottom, you cannot easily tell what the message is. It's a cause-related marketing initiative that should have been worth telling consumers loud and clear. Well in fact it's not really a big deal : EPS will only donate HK$1 to grow trees for every 10 purchases with it. I guess it is just too shy to tell consumers explicitly. Come to think of it, why advertise ? Let's not kid ourselves that airing advertising will build image. It is the message in advertising that matters.

Health supplements are high margin products. That's why they can afford big advertising and celebrities. Like this Nu Pharm bilberry eye supplement, it is retailed at HK$600+ for a pack. Being organic and its French origin are the two unique selling points. However, it's just some concentrated bilberry juice after all and it's profiteering. Are consumers ignorant ? Would they be convinced that it is worth the money ? Health supplement is not medicine. It will not give you immediate effect. So the chance is that people may buy a pack or two to try and give up quickly because of high costs. So I expect this brand will only survive for a short time or remain very niche in the future. In a way it's a reflection of the short-term orientation of most health supplement marketers.

The bottled green tea market is pretty saturated with different brands and varieties. Strange that we still see new brand launches. Isn't that too late ? Brewed from green tea leaves of 500-year-old ancient tea trees, grown at 1,600- meter elevation mountain, no additive, no flavouring ... are these USPs appealing enough to stand out from the crowd ? Another interesting thing is its disguises as a product from Japan. Some Japanese descriptions and words are added to make it sound Japanese but I bet it must be from China. In a way, it's a good calculation with all these USPs and disguises added up. However, the chance of success is low. The green tea market is coming down from the peak. It's all too late. When a market is mature and about to decline, only a few established brands, like 道地 in this case, will remain. It would be way too difficult for a new brand to survive while consumers are starting to leave the category.

I really don't know why Levitra keeps on launching such poor taste ads. Drug is drug. You need to project a professional image. Using this kind of 歡樂今宵 execution will not do any good to the brand. It catches the attention of consumer for sure and may make them laugh. But I think other stakeholders of the brands like doctors, pharmacists and so on should find it a turn-off. If you were a doctor, would you prescribe a drug with such a comical image to your patients ?

Taikoo is the leading brand in sugar. However, I'm sure consumption of sugar has been decreasing due to health and fitness concerns. And sugar is a generic product and there is literally no differentiation among different brands of sugar. This gives room for supermarket chains to launch house brands and private labels, eating up the share of Taikoo. One logical thing for Taikoo to do is extension : building differentiation with new products and pricing them at a premium level so that revenue can be maintained even with a declining volume. Will these new products sell ? I doubt it as they are quite niche indeed. Well, it's not easy to come up with winning new product ideas. What would you do if you were the marketer in Taikoo Sugar ?

I guess Sony is the only remaining brand which is still into promoting PMP aggressively. The declining trend is there and even a powerful brand cannot turn back the market trend. Many of us must once have a MP3 or PMP of some kind but when technology advances, mobile phone has replaced them. We just don't want to carry two devices. The only advantage of MPM over mobile phone is its memory size. The memory size of this Sony Walkman is 8G while the iPOD can even store up to 160G. Is memory size the motivating factor for people to carry two devices ? I don't think so. Just imagine the time and effort to load 160G of stuff into it ...

One Bluetooth, Two Personalities. This headline caught my attention. I was just curious how a bluetooth earphone can let you have two personalities. Read the copies and there are many technological terms that try to bluff consumers but you just can't find a clear answer. I can only guess it's a earphone for mobile phone as well as a headphone for MP3. Another interesting thing is that it uses research data to back itself up as a leading bluetooth earphone brand. From GfK (a lesser know research company to most consumers), it is the best selling bluetooth earphone among those priced over HK$600. Well, this is new. At least it's more creative than those XXX brand awards. But it's still an useless testimonial.

Chinese herbal drinks are receiving growing popularity. Who doesn't want to share a spoonful of this growing market ? How about a Chinese herbal cereal drink ? East meets West, they call it. Red dates and green tea are added. It has a point and it's unique but it doesn't mean it will sell. To many consumers in HK, West is West, East is East. A mix like this is not going to work as you just can't beat the perception of weird taste. There are too many Chinese herbal products that are tasty and said to be good for our health. Why should consumers take the risk of trying a potentially yucky product ?

Continuing education is a big market. Private and not-for-profit schools like SPACE, HKMA and HKBU SCE are competing with one another for market share with all kinds of programs from certificate to doctorate levels. It's interesting to see HK4As entering the education arena too. Given its background, its courses in advertising should be very appealing and well-received. Is that right ? Hold on. Have a look at this course promotion ad. We are taking about a course in advertising from the reputable HK4As. Does it deserve a more creative ad to promote ? And we always have to consider who we are talking to in advertising. The ad doesn't tell you who the course is for ... just interested parties ??? An ad for an ad course, which doesn't really sell. What a shame.

Weisen-U can be regarded as an everlasting brand. Its positioning, the double action stomachache relief, has been consistent since 1960 when it was first launched. Its ads are not too creative and its packaging is almost unchanged in half a century but it remains as the leading stomachache relief in the market. That's the power of consistent positioning. On the other side of argument, however, this brand is not aggressive to achieve better growth through new products and extensions. It is a single-product brand. I suppose there could be some room for careful brand extensions riding on the double action positioning for stomach health.

Speaking of HD TV advertising, this TVC of Olevia HD decoder is aired heavily recently. The storyline reminds me of the 念奄 TVC featuring 楊千樺 chased by 狗仔隊. Another funny part of the TVC is the colourful balls falling from the stairs. I think it must be "inspired" by the Sony Bravia TVC below. It's a cheap production without creativity. A major portion of the production money must have been used to pay 曾志偉. It's aright to use 曾志偉 but don't let him do the voice-over. His voice is so unclear that the audience just can't hear what he is saying. Sold at HK$2,000, this decoder deserves a better ad to sell.

TV stations, the government, various TV manufacturers and retailers have been trumpeting about the HD TV service which has been launched on Dec 31, 2007. We are bombarded by advertising from all directions saying we are in the new era of TV services. It's a poor thing that it has turned out to be an over-promise. Since launch, there have been a lot of negative word-of-mouth about poor reception and incompatible decoders. According to a news program that I watched the other night, the whole launch was a rush as the government only decided on the selected digital broadcast protocols in August last year. Manufacturers had to rush production of decoders and HD TV sets without enough time to sort out the detailed technical problems. With these stories unfolded, I bet there will be more people having a wait-and-see attitude. The manufacturers are the victims who spent the money in A&P to gain the first mover advantage. It is going to be interesting to see how these people would do to...

One of friends sent this to me. I haven't seen it aired in HK. I guess it's an ad produced in HK but aired in the Mainland. It is qualified as a creative ad considering the storyline, the surprise and the single-mindedness. I don't know about the Mainland but I'm quite sure this ad will be banned in HK or it would only be allowed during fringe time at midnight. If it is really aired, it will definitely generate a lot of complaints as well as talk-abouts. Well, what the hell ... it really sucks. Check it out.

Making use of occasion and location is one way to promote our product. This is a perfect example : condom. 平安夜, 失身夜. Condom is in season during Christmas and new year holiday. Coming up with an ad for condom is not easy as sex is still a taboo for the majority of HK people. I'm sure if you have an explicit ad, you will have loads of complaints. You may say this ad is not too creative but I think it's alright considering the difficulty involved. At least it tries to do some product demonstration and communicate clearly the product advantage. The fact is many ads nowadays are not doing that ...

I don't know if you have seen the older version of this TVC before. The older version was aired ages ago when Vita Chocolate Milk was launched. With the jingle and the cartoon execution, it is a classic. It's a pretty good ad too as it communicates a clear positioning : perfectly balanced taste of both milk and chocolate. It's good to see an updated version of it. On the other hand, however, it's rather strange to have the new product tag-on in the ad. One of the new products is 200% chocolate milk ... that is kind of self-defeating with the perfectly balanced taste positioning ... does the 200% taste better than the original ???