ThinkNoLimit Marketing Coaching

Notebooks and Netbooks are hot and mobile broadband is the arena that PCCW and Smartone-Vodafone both want to have a share in. It's funny that Telcos are quite into competitive advertising. But this Smartone-Vodafone does have a point and strike right on the weakness of Netvigator Everywhere. Netvigator is not "everywhere" per se. At home, you use fixed line broadband. Out of home, you need a device to connect to either WiFi, HSDPA or 3G. I mentioned it's self-defeating in my post last year. Seems Smartone-Vodafone people have been reading my blog. LOL.

It's a pretty thought provoking ad. This is a version talking to ladies and there is another version for men. While you can spend your money on buying a lot of shoes, why don't you consider investing for the future ? It's a quite a strike to the head, right ? Just too bad that the ad doesn't spell how it can help you invest for the future.

Do you believe in international marketing ? People say think global, act local. It's like a cliche but it's absolutely right. The fundamental of marketing is about segmentation, targeting and positioning and we formulate a marketing mix to satisfy the needs of the target segment(s). It's almost impossible to come up with a single marketing mix to address a wide variety of segments, geographical segments. Look at McDonald's, I suppose it's really a global company that thinks global and acts local. There are waves of new foods that suits local HK people's taste. It uses local celebrities for advertising and gives away Hello Kitty. It's like a local company just carrying a global brand.

I have talked about Eee Box in my earlier post . In its last advertorial, it was trying to sell to young lady users. It was commented that it could have picked the right target segment based on the small size and the very basic performance standards. To my surprise, in its next ad, it tries to sell to business customers based on energy saving. There is nothing wrong with selling to two segments, only if we know what it takes. Channel, price and promotion strategies need to be different. Do we have enough resources to kill two birds with one stone ? Given limited resources, we need to make trade-off decisions. Just a coincidence that I clipped another ad of Megaman that talks about energy saving. Sold at HK$19.90, this energy saving light bulb is said to save 80% of electricity. Would it be more motivating to spell how much money it could help save as the support ? I mean just like what ASUS Eee box does above.

Sex always sells. Trichoderm has long been using "womanizing" as the platform for selling hair growth serum. Bald head won't get you girls and here comes the need for hair growth serum. It's really pushing the platform by tying sexuality with hair this time round. Two thumbs up ! The visual of the print ad is so sexy. I'm thinking it would be interesting if it uses the same thing for advert sing in MTR. There must be awful lot of talkabouts and free publicity (there will be complaints too).

See more. Learn more. The Art of Commercial show will be on again in Dec and Jan. Check it out. I will definitely go. We may bump into each other !

A friend forwarded this TVB newsletter to me. In view of the financial tsunami and the on-going down trend of share of spending among other media, TVB has been trying to promote TVC as the most effective media vehicle. "Experience the power of TVC". It has taken the HKBB as the example. HKBB has produced 18 TVCs (!). Although they are all funny TVCs to enjoy, most advertisers must think that HKBB is an exception as they have so much money to burn. Will advertisers really rethink their budget allocation to TV because of this newsletter ? No kidding.

This ad of UA Finance is kind of funny and the message is clear. We can understand its intention of getting more business by extending to the SME loan business. Just that UA is known for personal installment loans for credit card balance transfer, it is felt that there is misfit between the brand and the product it is advertising. There are other banks that have been owning "SME loans" in the mind of consumers already like Heng Seng and HSBC. What is its edge over the bigger guys in this arena? Be it easier approval or lower interest rates, at least it could have given some reason why in the ad.

If you ever pay attention to the ads of Panadol, you would find that all of them are really along the same track. Although the scenarios are different, the storylines are all the same : problem-solution-payoff. Even the music is the same everytime too. Such problem-solution-payoff concept is very typical in advertising especially for FMCG. If we produce all ads according to the same formula, yes, we can achieve consistency and yes, we can build brand image with repetition. Nevertheless, Panadol has been using the same formula for different products. I just find it hard to distinguish among them even as a consumer.

For every pack bought, Pampers will donate one Tetanus vaccination injection to Unicef. It's not a big deal but it manages to make use of this CSR initiative to provoke emotional resonance with the users with this TVC. If you are the user of Pampers, I suppose as a parent you would feel you are doing some good for the less fortune children. On the other hand, will this kind of initiative encourage people to switch brand ? Probably not. It would only strengthen the brand equity of brand and it works best for the brand leader. Does anyone know which brand is the market leader in the diaper market, Pampers or Huggies ?

Parallel imports represent price control problems and channel conflicts. So for all MNCs, fighting against parallel imports is an important agenda. Getting rid of parallel imports at sources is not easy at all even though we know who the parallel importers are. After all, HK is a free port and it's not illegal to bring in parallel imports. Try to stop parallel imports at the source countries ? most of the time it just ends up an empty talk topic in the regional meeting agenda. Seems the only way out is what P&G do : working at the consumers' end. Will that get rid of parallel imports completely ? Not really. There are still price-conscious consumers buying parallel imports but at least it suppresses the demand and show the parallel importers that P&G is serious in the fight.

About a year ago, I heard that 京都念慈庵 trying to recruit a good brand guy to take of the brand. Yes, brands with long history need to be injected with fresh ideas and professional way of brand management to sustain. Like in the case of 京都念慈庵, it has been taking quite a lot of initiatives to keep the brand up-to-date like new products and ad campaigns. Although this latest TVC is not too creative per se, you can just appreciate the clarity of the message, the production value and the smooth director's treatment. The fact is that not too many local brands believe in investing in producing good ads. Some of them are just indulged in using celebrities at best. Seems 京都念慈庵 is one of the exceptions.

Everything can be branded with the concept of branding. A government is also a brand. There are various policies, the products, to be sold to its citizens. It's not an easy task if you really think about it as a matter of branding. Branding is about segmentation and targeting. No policy can please everyone and address the need of all. It's takes insights and the guts to make trade-off decisions. At the end of the day, no great brand is positioned for everyone. Likewise, if we look at the great leaders in the history, they all push policies that are good for the countries regardless of oppositions with the use of publicity and political influence. Hard fights, you bet. Take a look at this ad of policy address of this year. It's a reflection of how (in)capable our government is. Big bluff and empty talk as you can see. As a little peasant, you just can't help asking: how does it benefit me ? This question has to be answered in every ad. There is no exception for public af...

Have been teaching a class of A&P and one student asked for my view about the latest ICAC TVC. Didn't manage to clip it but luckily found it on YouTube. It asks people not to 隻眼開隻眼閉and report to ICAC when they know there is bribery. The 隻眼開隻眼閉 platform is not bad at all. However, the selection of scenarios may not be "big" enough. For the carpark and Chinese restaurant scenarios, we usually call it tipping rather than bribery. It's happening everywhere and I doubt whether anyone will bother to report these to ICAC. Another downside of this TVC is execution. We just can't tell what kind of bribery is going on. The office scenario seems "bigger" but we just figure out what is going on. Good platform. Bad execution. Too bad.

Let's carry on our discussion on the DC market from the last post. The DC market is getting more segmented. At the end of one spectrum, there are 傻瓜機 targeting consumers who look for fuss free photography. Brand are stressing on various automatic functions for easy photo-taking like this Nikon Coolpix. On the other end of the spectrum, there are digital single-lens reflex cameras where brands also stress on high technologies but for enabling better photography creativity. In the middel of both ends, there are what people call "Prosumer" DCs. Like the Ricoh GX200, it is as compact as nomral 傻瓜機 but it has certain functions of DSLR like you can manually adjust aperture and shutter speed for some creativity. Different brands have also been promoting this kind of DCs. Looks like this will be another significant segment of DC.

Digital single-lens reflex camera has become a trend. Prices are coming down and many people are trading up from their 傻瓜機 to DSLR . All DC brands are now competing for a share. Professional and sophisticated image of the brand is quite crucial in this segment. Among them, Canon, Nikon and Pentax have the credentials in SLR for a long time since the flim era of photography. On the other hand, Sony is a brand that stands for electronic products and it lacks the same history in photography products and it will take a lot of marketing investment for it to convince consumers. Also in terms of branding, Sony has to use sub-branding for its digital photography products. Sony Cybershot is a great name for DC but Sony Alpha as a name for Digital SLR is not a very associative.

Now it's Hutchison's turn to try to steal some share of the broadband business from PCCW. Speed and offer are the selling points. Nothing special in terms of the message and the execution is not quite creative too. Look, if we have a generic, me-too message to communicate, the more it takes a creative ad to communicate. At least creativity would get your message to be heard. By the way, have you noticed there is a twist of branding in the ad ? A 3 logo is place next to the 和記寬頻 brand name. It's trying to say something about indoor and mobile broadband integration like Netvigator Everywhere too ...

Minute Maid is the orange juice brand of Coke. If I'm not wrong, this brand was only avaialble at McDonald's before. Orange juice with pulps is not a new product idea. Pokka has the same thing for a long time ago. Yet it doesn't matter as the younger generation doesn't know Pokka Pulp Orange Juice anyway. It's dated. Now that Coke is putting the investment behind this brand with such a clear unique selling point, I'm worried about the impact on Mr. Juicy. Comparatively, Tropicana still has a stand as being the 100% freshly squeezed orange juice. How about Sunfill ? Another brand of orange juice by Coke ? Wonder if it will be phased out.

If you watched TV lately, you wouldn't miss this campaign. The teddy bears are designed by 5 different artists and with any purchase, you can redeem one at HK$20 for charity. It's a pretty good CSR idea while you can drive some sales at the same time. The role of the TVC is of course call-to-action and let people know that McDonald is doing some good for the society. It's 1'15" long and there are cut downs. When I first saw it, my reaction was : that's quite costly. Would it be better to put that kind of money to the fund ?

It's a great production. I bet it's a regional ad and only big brands like Nokia can afford to produce ads with size and production value. Web 2.0 is about sharing and community. I just wonder whether it will become popular on mobile phone. True that we can do many things with our mobile phone as on the net - MSN, blogging, Facebooking, YouTubing, you name it. Sometimes I get onto the net with my Nokia phone too. Yet I find the screen too small, the connection too slow and processing time too long for real net surfing. For real mobile Internet users, they may prefer laptop or Smartphone.