ThinkNoLimit Marketing Coaching

Happy Halloween. This is to round up the the coverage of this year's Halloween promotions. Who is the winner in leveraging on it to generate more businesses ? It won't be Disney I bet. I've been looking at the communications by Disney. The trouble is that it never tells me what are the specific attractions during Halloween. How would I consider going ? Compared with Hard Rock for e.g., it manages to tell us what are the happenings. Communications means telling what our target audience should know. Hope Disney can improve next year as we are all "shareholders" of Disney in a way.

"Day and night" is a pretty bright idea brought by skincare marketers. It's a consumer insight where ladies look after their skin before work in the morning and before sleep at night. Skincare people makes use of this usage habit to offer holistic solution during the day and night. Can this consumer behaviour "extended" to the usage of beauty related health foods ? Nestle offers such a yoghurt product claimed to have beautifying effect. But high chance is people either forget to eat either the day yoghurt (too rush in the morning) or the night yoghurt (too tired at night). It just takes too much commitment to turn this into a routine or a habit.

The visual of this ad may be able to catch our attention. But do you get the key message ? It's not difficult if you get into the copies. They are offering dim sums at dinner time and these dim sums are different from those in the daytime. More choices to increase your appetite. I don't blame creative director. I would scratch my head too if I were asked to communicate such an odd proposition.

Branding and extension, a never-ending debate. One school of thought says that we should stick with product branding, i.e. one brand for one product type. Another says that brand extension makes a brand grow. Who's right and who's wrong ? It depends (I may sound BS). In this case of Lipton getting into herbal teas, I would say I'm not too sure. But my feeling is that they should go for endorsement branding. Let's open this up for further debates...

There is no right or wrong in Marketing, just whether not it sells. Does this ad have a good angle to sell ? I found it in a wedding supplement. Interesting that they use dream wedding to sell their balance transfer. The message is like : "Having high outstanding balance on your credit cards ? No problem. Citifinance balance transfer will save you enough interests to make your dream wedding come true !". But look, the message is only relevant to couples who are getting married AND having high outstanding credit card balances. How many are there such pathetic couples ?

This ad reminds me of the old "Keep HK clean" posters and stickers. The message is rather unusual. They are making some kind of declaration that they are committed to improving the quality of their soups and coffee & tea. Consumers are encouraged to call them up to express their opinion. I wonder whether they have received so many complaints about their soups and coffee & tea that it takes an ad to declare their commitment. The funny thing is that we now all know their soups and coffee & tea used to be of poor quality ! Quite 此地無銀三佰兩...

Another innovative product idea although I wonder whether people will buy it. It's a device for connecting to the TV signals at home, either terrestrial or cable TV, so that you can watch your favouraite programs on your computer anywhere in real time. Does that sound great ? It does. But will you buy one ? Not really. Most of us are not TV addicts to the extent that we die to watch 肥田囍事 while we are enjoying the sea breeze and the beach in Bali. There is one thing called video recorder to tape our favourite programs for viewing later ...

Speaking of creativity, I think the marketers in health food supplements are the most creative people. Take this 豐胸 pill as an example. It has a daring name 波動丸 and the propositions are "one inch and one cup up" and "個個月都要換Bra". What are the supports ? The ad spells : pure herbal ingredients, "targeting" formula and most interesting of all, "首創3G技術", 吓又關3G事?! Plus the "激凸" 3-dimensional packaging design, everything is closely tied to sell the product benefits. Who says HK people are not creative ?

Shanghainese food is a trend in the Chinese restaurant scene of Hong Kong. Compared with foods with other provincial origins, why Shanghainese food is enjoying growing popularity ? One has to admit Shanghai is the most aspired city of China, a place where old traditions meet new trends and east meets west. This unique blend of cultures is being exported and marketed to elsewhere. Fashion is one and food is another. Unlike the 三六九上海飯店 that we used to know, there is an upspring of trendy Shanghainese restaurants like this上樓 restaurant, a blend of modernity and retrospective.

A new invention from the UK. A cure for snoring. A good news for many people. Does it work ? When I read through the ad, it sounds great as it's not a medicine but a formulation of herbal ingredients. What's more, they have a convenient handy form of strips, 口含片, same as the Listerine "爽口片". I'm not advertising for them but it may be worth a try. We seldom see really innovative products that help consumers nowadays.

Another promotion of "probability". It's the 42nd anniversary of Wing On Travel and if you happen to have a "42" in your ID card number, you will get half price on selected package tours. It's a bright promotion idea as it's not easy to get the half price ! Even if you are the lucky one, you won't join a tour alone, right ? Probably you will get someone to go with you. There is a very slim chance that two persons have "42" in both of their ID card numbers. In effect they are just giving away 25% discount for the lucky couples joining the tours. It's a turn off to many people like myself as most of us won't be able to get the half price. However, it has succeeded in letting know us Wing On Travel has been around for 42 years.

I'm quite domesticated. Let's talk about cling wrap. How much cling wrap/zipper bags do we use nowadays ? Not too much anymore. I guess the market for this category is shrinking. Come to think of it, they are not quite environment-friendly household products. There are greener alternatives, like those microwavable air-tight plastic containers that are very often given away free by other FMCG brands. The situation is like pocket tissues. It comes free with newpaper. Why bother to buy Tempo ? In face of shrinking market, here is what Glad is trying to do - usage extension. Here some "alternative" use suggestions for your enjoyment. Some are quite interesting but some are like those silly inventions by the Japs we have seen on TV or YouTube.

I simply don't understand the objective of this free-parking promotion. It's a "collection" of different promotion entitlements. First, if you have a "9" in your ID card number, you will get 3-hour free parking (you will definitely get it by simple probability calculation plus the fact that there are passengers in your car). Second, if your birth month is September, you will get a birthday cake. And finally, if you spend HK$200 or more, you also get 3-hour free-parking. Compared with 3-hour free parking open to all, what is the difference ? But they so choose to complicate the promotion with all the different entitlements. BTW, why September is so special to Hollywood Plaza ?

First gold toilet. Now gold house. This gold house is built with 2.5 tonnes of gold and worth HK$500 million. It's a crazy idea, you may say but we have to admit this gold house is really talk of the town. No matter how crazy or 老土 it is. It really works to generate PR noise and drive traffics of tourists from China. The learning : no crazy idea is crazy enough if we want to cut-through the clutter, build our brand and claim leadership. I saw an interview with the chairman of Hang Fung Gold on TV. He reminds me of another crazy man, Richard Branson, the owner of Virgins.

Seen the TV ad of this Smartone mobile broadband service ? It's a very nice ad, upbeat music, dynamic and exciting. What is the key message ? Everyone can enjoy the funs and excitement of this new service anytime, anywhere. With a USB modem, you can get as fast as 3.6Mps using the HSDPA technology (said as 3.5G). The downside is that the USB modem is rather big. I also wonder whether it will be widespread. Th price tag of of the modem is HK$2,500 and for unlimited service usage, you will need to pay around HK$500 per month. As a consumer, I hope there is more competition and price can be driven down further for consideration.

How much do we believe in the miracle of slimming products nowadays ? Over the past few years, we have seen the pheomonal growth of slimming products but now this product category has become a fad. I suspect some of the products do assist in weight control provided that they are used in conjunction with good balanced diets and hardship of exercises. However, the market has been flooded with too many false/over claims and I would say in a way this category has been killed by marketers. Consumers' skepticism about slimming products is growing and do you think people will believe something that will slim you up in 24 hours ?

This is a "無厘頭" ad/promotion. So 無厘頭 that you either spend some time to find out what it is about or just skip it. The headline says "逼爆雪櫃都得, 至係真正多合一". 講真, 我都唔知佢嗡Ｄ乜！ Only when we go into the body copies, we will find out they are giving away HK$400 supermarket coupon. 四佰蚊又可以買Ｄ乜, 唔信逼爆雪櫃都得 ! 又點關多合一事呀？？？

Just can't help keeping talking about Halloween promotions. They are just flooding the market. But let's talk about creative this time. I quite like the creative idea of Maggi European Snack. The creative idea is called "Play with the product". If we compare it with other Halloween promotion ads, it obviously stands out from the rest. On the other end of the spectrum, the Mega one is yet another "one stone kills two birds" approach. What does 周麗淇 have to do with Halloween ? Yes you may argue "驚喜" is related to halloween ma...

So how does Ocean Park promote their Halloween Bash ? The secret of success is joint promotions. They "own" Halloween and they leverage on other people's money to build the hype. Look at all these brands. They are running Halloween promotions and giving away the Halloween Bash tickets with different mechanics, one way or another. It's much like the World Cup when everyone is pretty much doing the same thing. Isn't that great ? For Ocean Park ! During hot promotion seasons like Halloween, Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year and maybe the Olympics in 2008, you either stay away and save some money as it's hard to cut through or you spend big money and make sure you are the one to stand out.

Halloween is round the corner and it's become hotter and bigger year after year. It even overshadows the mid-Autumn festival. In the past, Halloween was just a day for westerners where happenings were rather limited at Lan Kwai Fong. Who has made Halloween more popular ? Allan Zeman, the father of Lan Kwai Fong and the chairman of the Ocean Park. Ocean Park has successfully taken Halloween as a key driver of revenue and their Halloween Bash has become the focus of attention of consumers each year. Very clever that they are able to take the funs of Halloween to a wider appeal, kids, teenagers and young adults. It's a case of success. Disney is having a Halloween promotion too. Who will win ? I guess it must be Ocean Park which has built the ownership of Halloween after years of investment. Simply having Mickey and Minnie dressed in Halloween customs is just not good enough.

The theme of the latest campaign of Wing On Travel is "不一樣的旅程". Based the idea of "being different", they have come up with a spot-the-difference promotiom. The promotion mechanics is rather unusual too. First you will need to go to a specific 12-sheet poster at a specific platform of MTR. Then, you take a look at the picture and spot the difference. Finally, you will need to submit the answer via SMS with your mobile phone and you will stand a chance to win a free trip. This is definitely a "不一樣的" promotion. So complicated. I suspect they wish to use this promotion to support the communication of "不一樣". But in fact consumers are looking for how different their tours are. A&P will not build product advantage. You would need to build product advantage and communicate it with A&P. They simply owe us the what's and how's, i.e. the support to make the claim "不一樣的旅程" sound.