ThinkNoLimit Marketing Coaching

This new Pocari Sweat TVC is on air recently. It's SMAP again but it's so different from the last TVC . In the last one, vaguely the message is "Pocari Sweat re-hydrates". But in this one, it's more like "bringing people together for funs". Execution styles are so different too. Inconsistent message and tone & manner. That's not good for building a brand. It's a matter of probability indeed. The more ads you produce, the easier you will get lost and produce inconsistent ads. "The consistency with which you behave and speak is of extreme importance. One mediocre advertising campaign run consistently for 20 years will do you infinitely more good than 20 brilliant campaigns introduced at yearly intervals." - Drayton Bird

GO!清, 高清, when do these people stop using this over-used buzzword. Everything is 高清. Can we have a break please ? Also, I find this ad so similar to the UA Finance ad in terms of creative idea. You credit cards get "dirty" in this one vs "搞到一身card數" in the UA Finance one : they are here to help you clean up the debts. I can only say boths are "interesting" but hardly qualified as good creatives. Does Wing Hang run out of ideas when it doesn't use 鄭中基 ?

Just don't know why a big brand/company would come up with a TVC like this. Tongue-in-cheek kind of humour would not do any good to the brand image of PCCW, a leader in telecommunications. A leader should advertise like a leader. This TVC lasts for 1'20" and media must cost a fortune. The question has been why it didn't invest more for a better production instead. Or it shouldn't have invested any more money in promoting this EYE service. As I talked about it in my previous post , it's quite a valueless service to most people. We are all using internet. Why should we use fixed-line phone multimedia service ?

Do they run out of celebrities or run out of money ? Maybe the mal-practices of these beauty centres have really scared off the first-line celebrities. Who is 馬國明 ? You just recognize his face but can never remember his name. Thanks to computer retouch, he turns out to be a very handsome guy all in a sudden. Talking about credibility ... As for Sau San Tong, I really wonder why it would use 樂基兒. She's famous and well-known alright but she is already very slim as a professional model. Talking about credibility again ...

Congratulations to UA Finance on a TVC really well-done. Two thumbs up ! This ad has just pushed consumerism to the next level. Your girlfriend is running away. What would you do to get her back ? The answer : fancy clothes, a diamond ring and an air-ticket will do the job. That all will cost you roughly HK$170,000 but it''s alright, UA is here to help ! It's communicating some distorted concept about love and romance. Well we are mature enough to take it as just another ad but what about the younger generation ? What if they really buy that ? Sigh ...

"Regardless of the moral issue, dishonesty in advertising has proved very unprofitable." - Leo Burnett If you are in marketing, you may find yourself stepping on the fine line between kidding your consumers and just "beautifying" what you are selling from time to time. It's Ok to feel that way as that means you still have the consciousness about marketing ethics and you are a sensible marketer with a heart. The fact is that there are so many marketing cowboys out there. Look at this ad, it's not about over-claims anymore. The copies are just jokes.

How do you find this TVC ? I will call it a "qualified" ad : key message is clear and supports are there. Yet it's not an exciting or creative ad that is able to grab your attention. Women exercising in gym, it's a very generic imagery for all kinds of products targeting women. Also, high calcium milk can prevent you from osteoporosis. It's not a new news. All high calcium products say the same thing. When product differentiation is marginal, your advertising needs to be more creative to make a difference, grab consumers' attention and build an image for the brand. Let's take some calculated creative risks if you still have some money to advertise for your brand. In advertising, it's more dangerous to be safe.

Technologies can change consumer behaviour. We now all use digital cameras and the good thing about it is that there is no need to print out the photos and they can be stored on the computers and shared online. Nevertheless, physical photo prints will not vanish completely. Some people still appreciate "real" photos but they are selective of what to print. With this consumer behaviour in mind, there should be growing demand for home photo printers and Canon is investing bigger and bigger in the marketing of photo printers. As the market leader of digital cameras and I bet it will become the leader of photo printers too. Back to the TVC, it parodies with the Korean movie "八月照相館". It's a very good movie but if you haven't watched it before, you can't appreciate the joke in the ad. That's the problem with it.

When brands are similar and products are marginally different, we rely on image advertising to build brands. Nike vs Addidas is the typical example. And thanks to these power brands that invest big in advertising, we still have some enjoyable ads to see. Featuring the China national team members, we see the feeling of togetherness, the heroic power and the memorable moments of the Olympics. It's just a brilliant image ad. Addidas is the official sponsor of the Olympics and with such a powerful image ad, it wins Nike by far, at least in this Olympics year. Wonder what Nike would do. Stay quiet and catch up later ? Maybe. Let's see.

Some people say marketing is about common sense. It's true to a certain extent. But then why there are ads that simply lack it and become a waste of money ? This wine is said to carry the heritage of the Louis Vuitton family. Nothing more is said. It's ok. We can keep the myth and let people try and find it out themselves. However, the problem is that this wine is only available in one restaurant : 鍾菜. Does we all know this restaurant ? I don't. Its logos is hardly legible and the prints are so small. Should we sell harder the restaurant at the same time ?

Long time no talk about creative execution. This is an example of using "slice of life" in advertising where you pick a scenario in real life, give it a bit of exaggeration of the problem and highlight the fact that your product is the solution. In this case, the idea is the embarrassing moment because of bad breathe. Along this line of thoughts, we can think of loads of embarrassing scenarios due to bad breathe but the key is to pick the slice of life that is most relevant and associative to the target audience. Look, this scenario is not relevant to older, more mature couples who are married long enough. They don't really care any more !

JF is running a sizable campaign for its new fund called "Five Elements Fund". As far as I am aware, the campaign includes print, outdoor and transit advertising as well as infomercials on TVB. If you happen to keep track of the development of fund products, you would find that there are more innovative product offerings recently. In the past there were only funds by countries, regions and sectors. As competition heats up, funds companies are now talking about funds with different themes. Some of them are quite gimmicky like this one. It is said to include all the five elements associated with the Chinese philosophy of Wu Xing. Actually, it is a fund with a mix of 5 different sectors. Yet we just can't undermine the creativity behind this catchy product concept.

又貪得意, 得閒寫下中文, 市場上周不時出現一D玩字或者玩音嘅廣告好似呢個Zuji稿咁, key message 都唔知係乜, 去玩好過篤背脊 ? 究竟想講乜 ? 諗條懶得意嘅 headline, 然後加張相表達條headline, 咁就叫廣告嗎 ? 呢廣告令我諗起"歡樂今宵" "蝦仔嗲哋"嘅盧海鵬 ... 可以 professional D 嗎 ? 咁做廣告就好似我寫中文一樣咁貪得意, 一樣咁唔professional !

It seems Smartone and HK Broadband are joining force to steal some business from PCCW. HK Broadband is trying to take shares from the ISP and paid TV businesses of PCCW while Smartone is attacking its fixed line phone as well as digital jukebox businesses. In the past, there was only MOOV by PCCW and now that we have MusicXS by Smartone. With more players fueling the digital jukebox market, it won't be too long before it replaces CDs, particularly among the younger generation. The monthly fee is quite reasonable at HK$56 for unlimited PC downloads and HK$96 for unlimited PC+mobile phone downloads. Not a bad deal at all.

There is quite a sizable campaign about the new HomePhone+ service from Smartone. The headline was a bit confusing as I doubt why Smartone would get into the stagnant fixed line phone market. Just checked out its website and it seems that it's not fixed line phone service per se. It's sort of like "mobile phone for home use" service as said on its website : "HomePhone+ redefines fixed-line service in Hong Kong and presents a significantly improved home phone experience with innovative wireless technology, integrated network, homezone service and device, to offer greater ease of use, convenience and flexibility." The service is location dependent and you can enjoy this service only if you live in the right area. With an all-inclusive fee at HK$118 for so many features (especially lower IDD rates and free IP calls), it may attract certain consumers to switch to Smartone. But still I wonder why Smartone would get into the not-so-profitable home phone service...

We do promotion either for image or sales. It's not always easy to kill two birds with one stone. If the objective of the ad is to reinforce the "priceless experience" proposition of MasterCard, it makes sense to use Japan as the theme as it's one of the most visited countries by Hongkongers. However, when it comes to the exclusive spending offers in Japan, I don't know who would really care although it's a logical tie-up. If it is really to generate revenue, it would be more effective to do joint offers with local restaurant and fashion chains. So these Japan spending offers just act as a better-than-nothing tag-on in a thematic ad.

Heard from one of my friends that Wing On would have a series of initiatives to rejuvenate its store image. After a while I saw this print ad. Looks like it's trying to work on its ready-to-wear offering to attract more customers and hence improve its image. The ad is not appealing at all and it reminds me of those James Bond movies from the 80's. Tried to check out what's new actually on its website . It is still carrying same sort of aged lower-end grocer's image. Department store is about lifestyle and Sogo, Seiyu and Jusco are Japanese lifestyles targeting different clienteles. What kind of lifestyle people look for when visiting Wing On ? Guess it needs to sort that out before launching any marketing campaigns. The trouble is that department store business has been shrinking over the years and it is no longer a good investment. Maybe it should stay where it is and invest in something else.

Is this a pure coincidence ? Just bought the latest issue of Next Magazine. The cover page news story is about the effects of weakening US dollor on the prices of commodities. Coincidentally there is a piece of advertising from a lesser known fund house on the cover page selling a new agriculture fund. In theory, editorial should be independent of advertising sales. So this is a pure coincidence or luck ? Or this initiative is from smart planning with joint ideation between the client and Next ? I will not speculate but send my congratulations to the client and its agency for such a brilliant placement.

Seen this TVC and various promotional initiatives about the fish fillet of Cafe De Coral. It represents a sound marketing strategy for building quality image and driving sales at the same time. In this case, a novel food ingredient, New Zealand Hoki fish fillet, is brought in and added to the menu. As it's new to the consumers, the whole campaign focuses on communicating the origin and the goodness of this Hoki fish in order to arouse interest and excitement. The breakfast is sold at HK$20. It's really value for money too. If Cafe De Coral carry out this strategy continuously for longer term by bringing in a new novel ingredient each time, it will make it stand out from the competition with a high food quality image. And it's gonna take the the cooperation between sourcing and marketing to make it happen. P.S. It's long weekend and daily post will resume on April 7. Stay tuned.

This Porsche Design phone looks cool, doesn't it ? The ad is also kind of cool without any elaboration about its special features like other mobile phone ads. Well, it's meant to keep the myth and for those who are interested and can afford it, they can check it out on its web (it is well-designed but loads slowly). It does have some interesting design fatures. One bizarre thing is that this phone is sold at 六福珠寶. That's definitely a channel-image mismatch although I'm sure those rich holiday makers from the Mainland will be interested in this phone when they shop jewelries. It's a dilemma between sales generation and image protection.

Speaking of HD, heard from the news that Sony has won the battle of high definition disc format with its Blu-ray disc over the HD DVD format by Toshiba. Toshiba has announced that it would no longer develop or manufacture HD DVD players. How did Sony manage to win ? It's not marketing but corporate strategy. The fact is that Sony is a conglomerate into various entertainment industries, like video game console (Playstation) and movie production, on top of AV and computer products, putting it into the advantageous position to lead and dominate. Now that the dust has settled. Blu-ray is the future. It is expected that various manufacturers will follow suit to develop more advanced, cheaper Blu-ray disc players. How long will it take to replace DVD and VCD ? It will definitely take short time than the replacement of VHS.