ThinkNoLimit Marketing Coaching

Do you watch The Apprentice on Pearl at 8:30 p.m. on Sat ? I' m a regular watcher provided I'm at home and remember to tune in. This new episode is sponsored by the HK Institute of CPA and they have produced a TVC tying in with the show as well. It's a very funny ad. The ad plays with a parody/mockery creative idea where a Trumph-look-alike is questioned by the participants in the boardroom, whether he has any CPA qualification. And Mr. Trumph is eventually fired ! It's a good example of tailoring our communications to suit the media situation/environment. I'm sure it makes an impression to most viewers like myself. Too bad I don't have the ad clip but check it out next Sat.

Calyon has this ad to sell its guarantee fund with performance tie with the Nikki index of Japan. What kind of creative idea is this ? The most frequently used analogy direction again. Fuji mountain = Japan, Rainbow = flying colour performance and Sakura = blossom of investment. Get it ? Relevance is about how easy for the readers to associate the creative representation with the key message. In this case, they need to be very imaginative to get the message themselves. If we make it difficult for the readers, we are just talking to ourselves.

Who is the agency of Ocean Park ? I remember it was JWT but is it still JWT ? A good ad indeed. What is it about ? Recruitment of temporary staff to play the horrifying casts in Halloween. This ad serves two purposes. First the recruitment and second, an early build up for promoting the famous Halloween funs at Ocean Park. We never know if this is really their one-stone-kills-two-bird intention. In fact, the whole thing is of high publicity value if we manage it well. Why ? imagine, what if all interviewees need to dress up as some scary characters to attend the job interview and show their creativities ? Imagine the mummies, the vampires and so on have to queue for job interview. It will create a lot of publicities as pre-promotion of Halloween. I hope they would think of that too.

How to ride on World Cup differently ? This is a good example. (Sorry, the World Cup season has passed and I missed to talk about this one earlier. There are just too many ads to talk about) It's a pretty provocative ad. While most men are obsessed with the World Cup, it suggests women win back with their charms in Private Shop underwears. Clever, isn't it ? There are many women soccer fans but this proposition should touch a fair number of women's hearts. Executionally, it can be improved with a brighter background. It looks too gloomy. In addition, I would prefer the models facing the readers instead ... letting the readers appreciate more of their charms...

Slimming houses over-use celebrities but at least the celebrities they use are associative with the services they provide. Slim pretty movie/TV stars are aspirational to customers who wants to look slim and pretty. In this case, Lenovo uses Ronaldinho to endorse its laptop. I would call it a misuse. Ronaldinho is good soccer player for sure but what does he have to do with laptop ? None. Is it relevant ? Who is the target audience ? In the ad, it looks like they are targeting at business users and an attempt is made to associate the speed and accuracy of Ronaldinho with the laptop in question. It's not really convincing at all. If not Ronaldinho and we want to associate with soccer/world cup with celebrity, who do we use for computer ? One suggestion is to use the coach of the team saying he uses the laptop to analyse data, make field decisions, blah, blah blah. You may argue the coach of Brazil team, Dunga, is not a well-known celebrity. I'm not a soccer fan, sorry....

The photo uploading function is down. Can't talk ad today. Here are some quotes about Marketing. Enjoy ! "The essence of good marketing is the commitment to be something. You cannot hold two divergent positions at one time." - William H. Davidow "Complex strategies are doomed to failure. There are too many things that can go wrong. The holy grail is simplicity." - Jack Trout "People buy on emotion and justify with fact. We know it to be true." - quote on decker.typepad.com "Marketing has one purpose, to sell more stuff to more people more often for more money more efficiently" - Sergio Syman "Marketing is what a company is in business to do. Marketing is a company's ultimate objective." - Al Ries & Laura Ries "Trust is the currency of effective advertising, but it's highly fragile" - Pete Blackshaw "To be a good marketing person you have to know all these tactics, and then you've got to select the righ

Something special about this boring-looking 蠻牛 ad ? Yes if you go into the copies. How do we know this brand of energy drink ? They advertised on TV. Remember the poor husband gives massage to his fat wife. We should all remember as the TVC is so tasteless as there are some intentional dirty associations. I guess there must some smart guy who thinks a Taiwanese ad can be used straight in HK. HK is HK. Taiwan is Taiwan after all. They launch this print ad with an attempt to erase the dirty associations. It explains what 蠻牛 is all about, like its ingredients and stuff. Its copies start with saying "don't misunderstand that your CERTAIN function can be improved by drinking 蠻牛" ! Sorry there is no much use. First impression has been burned in our mind.

Do you remember the English brand name of 高登眼鏡 ? If I'm not wrong, it is "The Optical Shop". It's now acquired by another company and now their English name is "Lenscrafter". But their Chinese name, 高登眼鏡, remains. Is it a good thing or not ? It depends. Let's try to have some thoughts about it. What are the associated images with 高登眼鏡 ? Professionalism, high quality service, caring and premium pricing. In their ads, all their staff are in white lab coat, they clean your glasses for free and give you a drink for free when you swing by. And where are they heading towards ? Fashion. It seems that they want to reposition themselves as the fashion shop of glasses for young people. Should they use the same brand name 高登眼鏡 ? I would put my doubt about it.

At a glance, this is a pretty normal ad. What I see is a father and a son looking at a map, kind of discussing where they are going or they want to go. You feel the warm relationship of father and son. Not too creative but it suits the selling of an airline service. But when getting to the copies, it doesn't talk about things like shortening the distance between people, visit your relatives, blah blah blah. It actually talks about "two daily flights to European destinations and around the world where you can get all more business opportunities. Isn't that funny ? 上身著西裝, 下身著唐裝.

Donut is used as the analogy to promote this range of jewelry. Zero calorie donut temptation to be exact. A chicken and egg question and make guess. Was the jewelry designer inspired by donut and come up with the design ? Or the marketer or agency, after seeing the design, then they come up with the donut analogy ? We never know. The point is the idea is there in the ad. What kind of added value is gained by having Kelly Chan in the ad ? None. I'm only convinced if Kelly likes eating a lot of donuts. Another example of over-using celebrity. In this case, we can save some bugs.

Analogy of an apple to demonstrate the effect of anti-oxidant is not very creative already. I can't remember who but I bet that many people must have use apple to sell their anti-oxidant health supplements. In this ad, I'm more interested in how they substantiate the claim "4 times more beautiful", compared to other competitive Royal Jelly. The funny thing is there is no support to substantiate such a competitive headline or claim. If readers are really attracted by this catchy claim and find nothing mentioned to substantiate the claim, what will happen ? Disappointment ? Maybe. High chance is they think "This brand is trying to kid me. I would blacklist it !" Don't try to fool our consumers. They are smarter than we think.

Didn't know 無國界醫生 has a French-sounding name. Just checked out the website and it seems that they are originated from Switzerland. A simple ad. It's just a plain description of what they do. Is it very creative ? Not quite. But I don't blame them. Traditionally, charitable organizations didn't use much advertising to drive donations or build image. They use PR as the key communication vehicle. Such "amateur" way of advertising is acceptable. But the ultimate question is why use advertising in the first place. I hope the creative and media are donated to them, i.e. FOC or comes with high discounts. If not, I would imagine some donated monies are potentially wasted. Why ? Just because they use the monies to do things that they are not too good at. In other words, I still think PR is the way to go for chariable organizations. They need good PR managers and PR agencies instead, rather than getting into the game of advertising.

This is a great ad in artistic sense. A shot of the back of a car that looks like a beautiful human body. For those who attended my class before, do you remember what this type of creative idea is called ? "Different perspective" - an unusual perspective of the product to generate imaginations. When you look at this ad, what kinds of imaginations are generated ? Sexy, powerful and mysterious. But note this is a free parking ad. So although it's a great ad in artistic sense, it is probably off-brief. That is, an inappropriate creative idea is used to convey the key message.

A follow-up of the Chicks brand. This brand is really committed to rejuvenating its image somehow. In its last ad (left), it was like Giordano in the 80's. Here comes another ad. What does it look like ? A mix of Calvin Klein and Jockey with a touch of Shanghai Tang. Both ads are kind of cool. No mentioning about anything. Not even a positioning tagline to tell us what the new image is all about. What does it try to tell us ?

I do have my personal preference towards certain types of creative direction. Particularly I like those normally considered too over-the-top. In advertising, it's more dangerous to be safe. Why ? There are too many safe advertisers and you just can't be too safe. Otherwise, we will end up with similar creatives with our direct and indirect competitors. There is a term called "category imagery", usually found in cosmetics, shampoos and banking for e.g. It's safe to go take the category imagery path but it will be difficult to cut through and consumers will not be able to tell which brand is which. It's great to see some advertisers are willing to take risks. This Oxy ad is taking a surreal/bizarre creative direction to grab our attention. Some bosses would have already banned this kind of stuff. Everything is well executed too. Two thumbs up. Let's be more daring.

Go for goal. Go for gold. How much gold has been given away during the World Cup ? Half a ton maybe. Creativity is always easier said than done. It is all about to be different or getting differentiated from the crowd. It's hard we all know. But we can learn from experience so that we can avoid me-too next time. I mean next World Cup 4 years later... well in fact the Beijing Olympics will be in 2008. Let's count how many brands will be giving away gold for their Olympics promotion.

Watsons is my favourite brand of distill water but there is only Cool available at the IPSC shooting association I go every week. I guess these labels are specially designed for students during the exam season. I'm not sure whether Cool is positioned for the younger generation. But if we are to hold a 無厘頭 label design competition, I will definitely vote for them.

Frequently we see brands put up ads about their No.1 position of some sort. What is the objective of claiming No.1 position ? Maintain leadership, drive sales and establish trust by creating a halo effect : "if everyone use it, it must be a good choice". Is that a valid strategy ? It depends. On one hand, we may argue that market leadership should be known by consumers naturally through word of mouth and observation. There is no need to advertise about it. However, in the case of GP battery, I can appreciate why they want to have an ad like this. When we use batteries, they are hidden inside our electronic equipments. No one would know which brand of batteries we use. So if everyone is using GP batteries, no one would know by observation. There could be a need for advertising. Such need is in the mind of the marketers. But what is in the mind of the consumers ? GP battery is a lower-price brand which may not be their most desired brand of high performance. If they can afford

What would you say about this promotion ? Spot the difference to redeem a 4-tablet sample pack of Lingzhi. I would say that this is at least a good try for a supposed-to-be-boring product. Health supplement is not an easy category to market. In terms of imageries, some use happy faces of families, some use sportsmen, some use medical/R&D professionals in lab coats, some use celebrity endorsements. Unlike washing powders or shampoos, it's always difficult to demonstrate the product benefit of good health. The room for creativity is therefore rather limited.

I reckon all ads from Cathay Pacific have a very consistent tone and manner. Usually very clean and tidy with big enough visual to catch your attention. Most of the time they use blue or blue sky as the background as visual clue too. You can fairly easily tell it's from CX. That's the merit of consistency. But one thing is rather strange about the promotion on the left. What is your natural association with CX "advertising" a menu ? Special in-flight menu promotion, naturally. No, sorry. In this promotion, you can get up 20% off and enjoy special CX menus at selected restaurants by showing your boarding pass. Strange that CX would borrow ideas from credit cards.

Didn't know that Emirate is an official sponsor of the World Cup. I thought the airline sponsor of the World Cup should be one of those bigger, more well-known and international airlines. They are just so rich digging out petroleum in its home country, United Arab Emirates. At the first glance I couldn't tell this ad was about an airline. You just need some imagination. It got my attention because I wanted to find out what it's selling (usual readers could have already skipped it). However even I read on, I couldn't find out more about this promotion from the copies. It was quite a disappointment.

This is an ad by a clothing brand called U-right. The ad itself is not worth talking about but the mix & match concept is quite interesting : for a fixed price, you can pick your own combination of jeans, jacket and knitwear. I'm not sure it's just a promotion or it's the "business model" of the brand. If it is the latter, I can see the potential of building a strong brand. Why ? Just because it's different. Brands come and go and it's always difficult to differentiate from competitions. Some brands take the route of product innovation and some use image and personality. Some brands simply fail to differentiate themselves, hoping that their huge ad spend can help cut through the clutter... Business model is in fact a strong point of differentiation to build a brand.

Wealth management is a blooming business. We see there are more and more companies entering the market. Convoy is a lesser-known name, compared with those established fund houses, banks and insurance companies. Convoy's brand concept is about comprehensive range of investment products and its neutral position as a wealth management advisor. Its ad is pretty catchy. Unlike other wealth management ads which typically feature happy faces of a family or businessmen in dark suit, they use some kind of surreal or bizarre creative direction. Good effort to differentiate and stand out from the crowd. The only drawback is the placement of the headline. Too small and too far away from the focus of attention. But overall a fine piece of work.

Do you know there is a little story about Sinomax in the ATV advertising award ? Agency A produced an ad that won Sinomax an award but they asked agency B, their current one, to go up the stage to receive the award. Sinomax must hate their previous agency. So here is a print ad produced by their current agency (?). Another all-you-can-paste ad. There are so many promotion messages they want to tell the consumers that you can hardly tell they are selling pillows at a glance. The use of colours doesn't bring any focus of attention. Ad dollars down the drain again.