ThinkNoLimit Marketing Coaching

Would like to introduce a new web radio station called radiodada.hk to you. http://www.radiodada.hk/ is the first and only creative channel and alternatives online-broaddcasting platform in Hong Kong. I was lucky to be invited as a guest in its AdSStalk 講港廣 program on August 11. This program is broadcasted live every monday from 8:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. You may listen to the program I was on from its archive (just go Programme timetable --> Creative Channel --> AdSStalk 講港廣 --> Aug 11). Check it out and stay tuned.

One reader wants me to comment about this TVC which is banned in Asia. Shock-vertising or shock tactic is never quite accepted in this part of the world. I'm sure if this ad is aired in Hong Kong, it will be banned too. TVC censorship in Hong Kong has got more conservative nowadays. One reason is that HK people has adopted the culture of complaining. We just complain all the time, about big or small things. (Remember people complain about the tongue and brain TVC of Coke Zero ?) TVC censorship has no choice but turns down anything of potential risk of complaints. It's quite a pity as we have fewer edgy ads to enjoy.

It seems that many people have sensitive teeth problem. Somehow there are so many brands promoting their sensitive teeth toothpastes, Colgate, Oral B and Darlie. And here is a TVC of Sensodyne. There is nothing much to talk about in terms of creativity as it's just like any other dental care product ads playing on dentists' recommendations. I would like to take it as a branding strategy example instead. While brands like Colgate and Darlie are taking the brabnd extension route, i.e. "Colgate Sensitive Teeth", "Darlie Sensitive Teeth" and so on, Sensodyne is a brand name associated with sensitive teeth in itself. The brand is more focused on only one consumer need. The advantage is that it can achieve top of mind awareness for who have sensitive teeth. It's about occupying a specific niche. Is that a better way to go compared with the umbrella way of branding like Colagte ? It all depends on the market size of that niche.

Have been watching this TVC for so many time and wasn't able to clip it. Lucky that I got it last night. I would call this some kind of 精神分裂 campaign. It consist of two parts. The first part is about exercising in order to get some associations with the Olympics (with sales promotion ?). The tone and manner is fun and cheerful, particularly coming with the voice-over of 葛民輝. The latter part is about its individualized drug prescription tracking services, featuring a pharmacist. In contrast, the tone and manner is serious and professional. Two blended in one TVC. Really two thumbs up. Can they split it into two and air at different times at least ? It exactly reminds me of a quotation : “To establish a favorable and well-defined brand personality with the consumer the advertiser must be consistent. You can't use a comic approach today and a scientist in a white jacket tomorrow without diffusing and damaging your brand personality.”- Morris Hite

Can't quite understand what this series of ads from Nokia is trying to achieve. The key message is not difficult to understand : "Nokia phones have the product features that consumer want". Movie shooting, Bluethooth, radio and so on. It's trying to use the availability of these features to set up a perception that its phones come with more comprehensive features than the competitors. However, consumers are smart enough to know the fact that Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola and so on also have some models coming with these features. How can consumers be convinced ? There is nothing much worth rethinking ...

This Olympics-tied campaign of McDonald's is on lately with TVC as well. I'm wondering whether it's only me who has problem with it. Sending 11 elite to serve at the Olympics should sound pretty alright. But will the athletes really eat at McDonald's ? Don't they need healthy diets during the game ?

I almost missed this one like many other boring ads coming without creative ideas. It does have an idea but the problem lies with execution. The whole idea comes from the small mouth that is not in proportion to the face but readers may miss it due to lack of consideration in the execution. The face of the talent is pinkish and the colour of the lips is also pink. It can be done much better just by setting higher contrast between the face and the lips with retouching.

This is a new brand of children health supplement called Vidaylin launched by Abbott. The ad is so colourful with the use of different pastel colours and fonts while highlighting the bear shaped tablets as the core appeal. Who this ad is trying to sell to ? Well there are two audiences for selling children health supplements, parents and children. Parents are the purchasers who give such product to their children for consumption. So it's more logical to set the parents as the target audience to really focus on selling the goodness or the benefits of the products. The tone and manner can be more professional as well.

Beers may be at one extreme using mostly emotional appeals. Skincare products are at the other taking the rational routes. Here is a typical skincare product ad : celebrity as spokesperson who explains to you how the magical ingredients work to make your skin fair and radiant. You know it can be quite boring indeed. These ads always use product demonstration and/or before & after as the not-so-creative way of selling. According to some agency people, all these big brands/companies have some kind of manual dictating how their ads are written according to some winning formulae. Just feel pity for the agencies and the marketing guys working for them. They must be bored to death.

Beer is not a typical FMCG product category. There is not too much room for us to create real product differences and that's why many beer ads play on emotional appeals. Beer is a social catalyst and this is exactly what this Heineken ad is all about. Positioned as the leading export beer in the world, the ad tries to combine such positioning with social catalyst as the category motivator. The key message is "Heineken gets parties going all over the world" and hence the tagline : 全世界 同喝釆. It's not awfully creative but the strategy is pretty clear.

In addition to the TVC I talked about yesterday, this Ribena Low Calories TVC is on air at the same time too. This is new, it says. Yet the ad looks like an adaptation of its previous Ribena Lights ad. Too many consumers, lights can mean lighter taste, less sugar and lower calories. Is it trying to redefine what Lights mean, rename it to Ribena Low Calories and launch the same thing as new. May be that deserves a new execution in order avoid any confusion.

You can see there is a change of advertising direction for Ribena Lemon from this TVC. There is an attempt of positioning it with occasion and location. Location of consumption is in fact kind of fixed : tea meal house. Occasion is whenever you are busy, drinking Ribena Lemon is the best way to relax. Target audience is obviously the white collars. The attempt is good but it runs into relevance issue. Do we do our works in tea meal houses ? Ribena/Ribena Lemon stands for the goodness of Vitamin C. What is the connection between that and relaxation ? I'd rather stick with the previous "alternative drink at tea meal house" and build an attitude around that over time.

A new Wing Hang balance transfer TVC is on air recently. The THINK POSITIVE platform of this campaign is a pretty good one as it connects to the needs of the consumers. I have to say it's not easy to advertise for loan products. The product itself is so generic. To consumers, it doesn't really matter where they borrow the money as long as the interest is low enough and the borrowed amount is large enough. For banks, the borrowed amount is governed by various rules and calculations depending on individual situation. In regard to interest rate, it is a crucial factor that directly affects their profitabilities and it's so dynamic depending on the demand and supply of the money market. With both hands tied, It's so hard to come up with product innovations per se. At the end, there is no product difference to talk about. All these ads just work to generate top of mind awareness. Nothing more. Nothing less.

A muscle guy is fixing the lighting. The girls are so excited and are partying with Dreyer's. The tagline : 好嘢，點少得Dreyer's. What is the intention of this ad ? Giving the brand another occasion of consumption ? Relevance is low as we seldom see people partying in the office with ice-cream. I don't have problem with using illustration but can it be more tasteful ? I suppose Dreyer's is a premium brand of ice-cream. And the last thing you want to do is project your users as a bunch of horny women ...

Don't get me wrong. I don't hate 老夫子. Just that I don't know why people would use 老夫子 in their ads. It's a very good 集體回憶 among the more mature consumers. It was a popular comic book in the 60's and 70's and its readers should be in their 40's and up by now. The implication is that this ad may not be appealing to those in their 20's and 30's. However, this group of consumers should represent the biggest demand for air-conditioners as they are in the life stage of setting up their homes.

UPS is the official logistics and courier provider of the Olympics. It's almost a given for it to leverage on the sponsorship to enhance corporate image. The ad is telling us that it makes use of the latest technologies to ensure everything is delivered in time for the Olympics. The problem is the ad uses so many jargons. What are WMS, TMS and MDS ??? What is the point of talking about all these if no one would understand ? It's more like a corporate video targeting logistic managers rather the general audience.

Hello Kitty is back again at McDonald's. If you are a Hello Kitty fan, don't miss it. Oh well, if you miss it this time, don't worry. It will be back again later I'm sure. It has become a routine for McDonald's to run Hello Kitty promotion from time to time. No problem if you don't like Hello Kitty. A Snoopy promotion is on at Pizza Hut ... nowadays marketing is becoming very easy. If we want to produce an ad, we only have to think about which celebrity to use. If we want to run a promotion, we only have to consider which cartoon character collectibles to give away.

Respiration gets you old ! Why ? Because respiration produces free radicals that lead to ageing. That's why you need GNC Q10, an anti-oxidant, to combat ageing ... If you haven't heard of the theory behind it before, you would never understand what it is talking about. The ad lasts for 15 seconds and maybe it takes longer duration to really explain. Let the above video clip play on and pay attention to what follows ... it's a government warning TVC about misleading claims of health supplements/drugs. What an ironic spot arrangement by TVB !

Chrysanthemum tea is a dated product category. From this ad, you can see the intention of re-positioning it to the younger users. Key message : no matter what your taste is, Vita chrysanthemum tea is here for you. The ad also sells the original taste, high quality and the 清熱明目 benefit. Do the young users care about all these ? I wonder. It boils down to the question of whether chrysanthemum tea can be re-positioned to the young. Somehow the old traditional image of chrysanthemum tea is too deep-rooted. A couple of ads like this will not get them to drink more probably.

The Olympics logo is appearing in many ads and promotions. It seems not too exclusive. Big or small sponsors are enjoying the use of the very much the same logo and consumers can only tell the different types of sponsors by reading the small prints beneath the logo. Neutrogena sunblock is the official sun protection product of the Olympics. Didn't know there is such a type of sponsor but the product nature sounds like a logical tie with the Olympics. On the other hand, Sun Hung Kai is the so called "supporting property developer of the Olympic Equestrian event". I wonder why such a sponsorship would be granted. It's so minor and there is no association with the game. Such sponsorships will definitely dilute the effort of other more major sponsors. If you were Coke or UPS, what would you think ?

A consecutive page ad of Kee Wah that really makes me scratch my head. The first pages tries to tell us Kee Wah has been around for 70 years. Well it's not easy for a company to be around for such a long time and it's worth telling consumers about it. Communicating heritage is a good way for enhancing corporate image. However, I really wonder what the second page is trying to communicate. Fresh ? Is it talking about the cakes and pastries ? Creative ads ? Is it talking about 曾志偉 as the spokesperson in its ads ? Could anyone please tell me what it is trying to achieve ?