ThinkNoLimit Marketing Coaching

Who does this ad sell to ? Obviously mothers who probably worry about bacteria attack to their babies. One may ask whether it would be too "narrow" to sell to mothers with little babies only. The market size is too small. The fact is that target segment in our marketing plan can be different from the target audience in the campaign. In this case, the target audience is chosen as a leverage to communicate the care to your love ones associated with this sanitizing detergent. House-wives with bigger kids or no kid will still consider it as a care to the health of the family. And of course, along the way, more campaigns can be produced with other scenarios related to other family members.

Been too busy to collect ads and write my blog for today. How about reading an article about branding I wrote for GROCER & CATERER ? Hope you would enjoy it (you may click on the image to have an enlarged view).

During this time, most restaurants are slashing prices. HK$1 chicken is back and there are loads of other HK$1 dishes on offer. Even McDonald's is offering discounted items. Seems that Cafe De Coral is sticking to its on-going strategy of launching novelty dishes to build its quality food image, rather than slashing prices. That's a good thing. Slashing price is short term. At the end difficult time will go away and image and perception will last. Consistency is the way to go for building brand. Has anyone tried this dairy brisket curry ? It may be nothing special but it's the perception that counts.

AEON and KFC , is it a good marriage ? Co-brand card is one of the ways for credit cards to expand their share of consumer spending. There are co-brand cards of all kinds and the market for co-brand cards is saturated. I suppose you can buy KFC at a good discount with this AEON KFC credit card. Is it motivating enough to apply for another credit card and keep it in the wallet ? It's funny to see it invest in TV advertising. Just wonder how the return on investment would look like.

PR is about public opinion. Public opinion is affected by many sources, the press, consumer organization, professionals and so on. They are like police overseeing what organizations do. Want to avoid negative publicity ? Fundamentally, we need to walk the talk. Advertising can do the talking but public opinion depend on whether you are delivering the promise. In the case of Park'n Shop, they promise you low price in advertising but actually they are not offering it, hence the negative publicity. Now look at this ad by HKSAR government. There are kind words and nice sayings. Will we feel better after watching it ? Will public opinion about our government be changed by such ad ? Kind of waste of air time....

There is no need to shop around. Park'n shop offers the lowest price everyday. Even with the endorsement of Ah So, would consumers believe that ? Consumer Council has disclosed that the two supermarket chains are actually selling popular brands at higher prices than other neighbourhood stores. Skepticism and negative publicity are lingering. PR is more credible than advertising. It's kind of silly to use advertising to try to turn around negative publicity.

Watsons and Bonaqua are the two big brands in the packaged water market. I would have thought they are close competitors, neck and neck in terms of market share. Both brands have been quiet without any sizable campaign in recent years. It's interesting Bonaqua unveils its top selling position with this new campaign. Will consumer buy more Bonaqua when they know it's the No. 1 brand water ? I wonder. I also wonder how Watsons will react. Let's see.

Every bank has a full range of services on offer. Yet what you promote and how you promote it will affect the overall image of a bank. In the past, we used to know Citibank as a prestigious bank for wealth management as it promoted CitiGold heavily. It was quite successful as it was one of the pioneers in developing wealth management business. In recent years, it has seemed to lose its focus and go into any consumer finance markets that are supposed to be big and profitable, credit cards of all kinds, installment loans, balance transfers and so on, in an opportunistic manner. What does Citibank as a brand stand for now ? Kind of vague. It's become one of the other me-too banks. Like its " Citi never sleeps" slogan, we just don't know what it actually means...

Wow, boy, you can treat the girls without going broke at Pizza Hut ! Wow 常餐, from as low as HK $35, is available all day. The intention is to attract more customers by extending the value offer during the recessionary period. The ad manages to make use of the offer to build Pizza Hut image as the ideal place for gathering with friends. Such image is owned by Pizza Hut over time. Just that the storyline has been used by McDonald's some time ago. It's alright so long as not so many people recall that.

女為悅己者容. That sums up the theme of this ad. The ad is actually saying that you need to wear this bra to please your man. Is it a bit sexist ? What would women say about it ? I'm not trying to turn it into a sociological discussion but I feel it may offend certain women. As a guy, I'm quite interested in what this "zero design" is all about, out of curiosity. The print ad doesn't tell what it works ... would it be nice to include some functional design aspect of it ?

It seems Bupa has found an unique creative strategy to sell. If you take a look at its previous ad and try to compare with this current onem you'll see that they are coming from the same platform. In each ad, it talks about a specific feature of its medical insurance policy, i.e., no need to pay at discharge in the previous one and no premium increase even you have claimed in this one. Both use humour to spell out the messages, which helps it cut-through in the big sea of insurance brands. By doing this consistently, I'm sure it will be able to build itself as the medical insurance specialist brand. It is exactly what the brand is supposed to be : have a look at its website .

Is this a well-known jockey ? Those who are not into horse racing may not know him (I don't, anyone ?). Does he suffer from nasal allergy as being a jockey ? Not really. At least it's not something we can relate with. Then why use a jockey ? Maybe the boss is fond of horse racing... or the boss bought it because the slogan , 羸番個鼻, 點只贏個馬鼻 sounds great...

If I'm not wrong, Rejoice Ginseng Essence has been around for quite a while and it's back on air again. Ginseng is said to help strengthen your hair. Don't know if this is true or just another gimmick. In a way, it doesn't matter whether it really works. It's whether consumers believe it that matters. The competitive saying of the ad is worth noting. It wants to tell consumers that it's better than other Chinese herbal shampoos. Are Chinese herbal shampoos like Asience and 霸王 really selling ? Selling so well that Rejoice needs to take a competitive approach ? Does anyone know ?

Let's talk about another brand with long history. Over the past years, Quaker Oats has been successfully positioned as a health food with the scientific proof that it can help lower cholesterol level and promote heart health. This move must have increased its penetration, turning non-users into users. With such positioning in the minds of the consumers, the next logical step is to introduce more variants in terms of taste and form in order to expand business. So we have seen more choices on offer from Quaker Oats on the shelves of supermarkets. Suggesting different uses of the product is another way to increase consumption too. You may doubt whether people would use it for cooking rice but the strategy is obvious.

Over the years, we have seen the evolvement of what Lucozade stands for. In the long past, it was said to provide energy to who were sick and it had a strong association with recovery from illnesses. Later on, an attempt was made to go into the sports drink category with Lucozade Sport with the same energy replacement brand equity. Now it's positioned as a brain energy drink and Lucozade Extra is the variant that we can see its commitment to going into this market where I suppose Red Bull is the key competitor. Red Bull is a single product brand while Lucozade competes with brand extensions. Who will win ? Let's see.

This ad puts a smile on my face. Marketers sometimes do implement some complicated mechanics which are hard for consumers to understand. Promotions are supposed to generate short-term increase in sales and any grand prize shouldn't be given away too easily unless consumers have spent enough. The ad echoes with the mentality of the general consumers at this time : just give me a better price rather than gimmicky promotion. It says no gimmick and it is said by McDonald's, funny huh ?

When product differences are minimal among different brands in a generic product category, one way is to use image advertising to build brand. This TVC of Dove Chocolate is a very typical one. It intends to depcit the so called "Silky Smooth" taste experience with the expressive imageries of enjoyment. It makes use of emotional appeal while there isn't much rational product difference. Such imageries are also often used in selling ice-creams.

Media definitely have roles to play in shaping cultures and promoting ideas that are beneficial to the society at large. During this difficult time, how about some motivation all of us may need ? Positive power, positive oil, synergy, joy and Hong Kong Power ! It is trying to tell you to think positive and it will turn better tomorrow. Feeling better after you see such a nice encouragement from TV Buddy ? Not really. It wouldn't help much if you are one of the unlucky ones who have just turned unemployed. Companies are ruthlessly sacking people. The government is not acting on something solid to help. Social stability is at stake. Does it sound like some kind of propaganda trying to give you lip service of comfort ?

It's almost a cliche to say that the rise of internet has been replacing traditional media. It's happening where the younger generation have been watching less TV, reading less newspapers and listening to less radio compared with their parents. In the past, TV media represented a lion share of the advertisers' media budget but in view of the change in media consumption and decreasing viewership, advertisers have been shifting money away from TV. Over time, it will become a vicious cycle. When ad spending on TV decreases, TV stations will have to cut their budget in producing quality programs. And without quality programs, there are fewer and fewer viewers. Look at this program promo of TVB. Would you be interested in watching this kind of drama ? Boy, it will be aired in the prime time ! The vicious cycle is actually going on. You will see fewer quality programs and fewer good TVCs.

Let's carry on with the topic of extension of yesterday. What does the brand Extra stand for in the mind of the consumers ? It's a chewing gum. What's more ? It's a chewing gum that offers dental health benefit with Xylitol as the key active ingredient. Is candy a good extension ? Yes, given that this new candy offers the same benefit as the chewing gum. Putting it in another way, it provides more choices to enjoy the dental health benefit. Like myslef, I don't quite like chewing gum and now that I choose this candy to protect my teeth.

四海魚旦. To many consumers, the brand 四海 means 魚旦. Obviously you can't grow your business by selling fishball alone. Extension could be one solution. So it has extended to a few fish paste products and all kinds of meat balls. As you would would expect, some of them sell but some of them don't. The question has become what new products should come next to get more business. That's the most common question on the management table. When new product ideas that match with the brand run out, the temptation is to come up with something unrelated to the brand. This is a classic example : 四海魚旦一品餃! 好好食, 齊齊食!

Just read a blog article of Laura Ries (daughter of Al Ries who is the pioneer of the positioning concept). She has an interesting viewpoint about what a good marketer is : As marketing professionals, Al and I spend way too much of our time trying to sell our ideas to top management. Meetings often turn into boardroom battles between marketing on one side and management on the other. On many occasions, we have lost these battles and have the scars to prove it. So we tried to figure out why marketing and management always clash? And it occurred to us. They don’t understand each other because they think differently. What makes a good chief executive? A person who is highly verbal, logical and analytical. Typical characteristics of a left brainer. What makes a good marketing executive? A person who is highly visual, intuitive and holistic. Typical characteristics of a right brainer..... Click here to read on. How do you find out whether you are left- or right-brainer ? There is a little ...