ThinkNoLimit Marketing Coaching

When a celebrity gets well-known and popular, his or her appearance is everywhere, TV programs, events and advertising. It's Ah So this time round. The fact is that a celebrity is also a brand, a personal brand to be exact. Nevertheless, the trouble is there are ups and downs in the career of a celebrity. His or her popularity comes and goes fast like a shooting star. We had 張達明, 黃子華, 詹瑞文, 梁文韜 who appeared on TV all the time. Where are they now ? The entertainment industry is about exploitation. That's the downside of using celeberity -you attach your brand to a celebrity, you run the risk of sustainability.

I had a positioning workshop talking about digital camera positioning a couple of weeks ago. Many DCs are competing with hi-tech features and using them as the main selling message in their ads. That's why we have been seeing so many demonstration type of ads of DCs, face detection, focus tracking, digital leveling and so on. Sony Cybershot T-series is an exception as it doesn't trumpet much about the features in their ads like 10 megapixel and the HD video recording function. It's more positioned as a gadget for the young with cool styling and wider colour selection. That's quite a differential positioning in the big sea of DCs selling features and functions.

A follow-up from the previous post . Here is the TVC that supports the bundled price offer by one2free. The idea comes from equating the offer as a piece of unbelievable news, just like Friday has become a legalized public holiday. Such news come in on newspaper in the TVC. I just wonder whether it would be better if the idea is executed on the actual newspaper medium. If it has to be on TV, why not feature a faked TV reporting scene ? That could be more catchy.

It's very common for restaurant chains to launch new menu and food from time to time to create excitment and newness. 味千拉麵 also comes without an exception. 愛情豚肉拉麵, what a gimmicky name ! But what is it about ? Too bad the ad doesn't tell. In fact the ad is an adoptation of the image ad launched during the IPO of the company. I suppose if this 愛情豚肉拉麵 has something unique to talk about, maybe it's worth producing a dedicated TVC for the launch. After all, a new product launch by a good single-minded ad can generate trials and revenue. Why not ?

Advertising is a product of consumerism and it sometimes sells you something that you don't need. Dietary supplement is not something you need if you have balanced diets. Who doesn't want their kids to be smart and healthy ? This is exactly what this ad is trying to leverage on. The fact is that the recommended daily intake of Vitamin C for adult is just 75-90 mg and the tolerable upper intake level (adult) is 2,000 mg per day. What do need kids need 1,000 mg of Vitamin C for ? Having said all these, this ad is quite catchy.

Some of the services of PCCW make you wonder whether they will sell at all. Like the EYE fixed line multi-media service , it is innovative for sure but who would use it ? Yet, one service that makes sense to me is Moov, the online jukebox service. Since the rise of MP3 and the Internet, the sales of CDs has been on the way down. Some record companies attempted to sell per song download before but have come without much success. The fact is record companies are no longer making money from selling songs but from concerts and shows. The more people have listen to their songs, the higher the chance they have for filling up the stadium and getting some humble profits. And what about online jukebox ? Would record companies make a fortune out of the tie-up with Moov ? Probably not. The monthly fee is as low as HK$48 and at the end there isn't too much money on the table to share. It's just a way to increase listenership for their songs and gaining exposures for their singers like the

Meko is running a Halloween TV campaign with two ads in sandwich buy. Is it a promotional campaign or an image building campaign riding on Halloween ? Probably it's yet another one-stone-kills-two-birds initiative. The whole thing is a complete flop. First the voice-over can't be heard clearly (guess that's why there are subtitles). Second sandwich buy is a waste of money. We just don't expect viewers to sit tight, watch both ads, connect the two together and figure out what it is trying to sell. Third the production can't be adopted for later use for image building as it rides on Halloween which only lasts for a month. It's very tactical in nature and why not just focus on the Halloween promotion with a stronger call-to-action message ?

Let's compare these two ads of Maggi. Which one is better ? Why ? The one below is better, right ? It is from about 2 years ago and the message is quite single-minded - you can bring out the soul of the food by dipping Maggi. As for the one latest one above, it tries to say Maggi is a versatile sauce for dipping, cooking, adding to food and marinating. The ad is rather weak but I wouldn't blame the agency. It's a creative challenge to find an idea to say versatility in a single 2D print ad, other than simply demonstrating the use of the product on one page. One way out is to break it down into 4 different ads and the chance of a good creative idea for each is higher. No budget ? Then we need to give and take, doing one thing at one time. If Maggi is known for dipping, we can promote marinating this time and then cooking later in the next campaign. Over time, it will still be seen as a versatile sauce.

After the hype of the Olympics, Coke has just resumed advertising based on the basic strategy it adopts for a long time - associating with eating as the way to extend usage and the breadth of awareness. The message of this TVC is as clear as the previous ones : Coke adds colours to your meal. Yet I find it runs into relevance issue in a way. The setting is a family dinner at home. Mum would of course love her kids to enjoy the dinner she cooks but she must also want them to drink more soup she makes, rather than Coke. Coke doesn't seem fitting in such occasion.

Just saw some print ad about http://www.onenow.com/ . It's quite an interesting online shopping service. With this service, you can order from over 300,000 online stores in the US even though some of them do not do overseas delivery. Your order will be delivered by DHL after you pay by VISA. However, penetration of online shopping remains low in HK. HK people take shopping as a past-time with family and friends and shops are so conveniently located. Why bother ordering from the US ? I guess it is more for people who look for some novelty products that are not available in HK. Business should be small as being so niche.

I still remember the price war among different telecos in the 90's. Voice call services were so cheap and every telco was competing to win a bigger customer base. At that time, 3G hadn't been launched yet and everyone was thinking it was alright to slash the price on voice call service while placing the hope on the data services realised by 3G for future revenue. Now that 3G has been around for a long while and 3G data services are not as popular as expected. So what would they do to increase their revenues ? The pie is not growing big quickly enough and one way out is to slash the prices again. This is one of the examples where one2free is offering data and voice services at attractive bundled prices. Will there be another round of price war ? Maybe. If yes, let's see whether market price reduction would lead to a wider use of 3G services.

A friend sent me the following piece of news. I can only say that there are stupid branding strategies everywhere. It is the stupidest thing on earth to move away from your brand franchise, what you stand for. Yes, consumers are getting more health conscious for sure. The simplest way out is to add more healthy options to the menu. Really want to diversify into pasta restaurant business ? You can always open restaurants in a different name. It is almost common sense ... (明報)10月8日 星期三 05:05【明報專訊】家喻戶曉的Pizza Hut一夜之間大變臉！為塑造健康形象，1973年在英國開業的英國Pizza Hut連鎖店，將會改名為Pasta Hut，由薄餅店變成麵條店。今後除了薄餅之外，該店將會更注重意粉等健康食物，老闆說，有信心兩星期內，意粉等銷量可大增，佔銷售額的一成。英國試行 旨吸引高消費客「我們一直想令我們的食物更多元健康，而不是只提供高卡路里食物」，Pizza Hut老闆默多克（Alasdair Murdoch）說：「我們要告訴消費者，我們不僅精於薄餅，還擅於做沙律和意粉。」過去意粉銷售份額只佔Pizza Hut全部銷售額的3%至4%，默多克稱有信心數字於兩周內就會升至10%。這次改名，是英國Pizza Hut耗資1800萬鎊（約2.4億港元）改頭換面行動的一部分，目的旨在吸引高消費階層及新顧客。Pasta Hut更新了菜單，提供多種的菜餚，例如番茄、大蝦、小龍蝦等，也會減少使用鹽和飽和脂肪，又為兒童準備了「內藏蔬菜」的特別餐；一向受歡迎的「沙律吧」則大升級。默多克說：「我相信人們會喜歡全新的店。」目前，英國的Pizza Hut連鎖店改名尚屬試驗階段，公司甚為期望得知消費者的意見，

All you can shop ! It's a pretty good ad. It manages to catch your attention although it's just yet another ad selling merchant offers in order to encourage customers to spend more with the card. Yet when I look at the merchant list, I don't find it too attractive. Is it because it's not popular among the merchants due to the high commission rate ? That is an inherent weakness advertising can't fix ...

Nokia has launched a series of print ads lately and there seems to be a change of advertising strategy. In the past, individual campaigns are devised for individual handset launches. Now that this series of ads are more thematic with an attempt to position Nokia as an all-round multi-media phone brand. In the ads, less focus has been put on trumpeting the functions and features of individual handsets. On the contrary, the handsets act as the support collectively to substantiate the multi-media positioning. The ads are colourful and attention grabbing. Not a bad try at all.

It's not easy to advertise product like condoms. You can't be too subtle if you want to ad to be effective. If you are too explicit, the ad can be bad taste. This ad of Durex, with before-and-after as the idea, manages to strike the balance by injecting a sense of humour with illustrations. Compare it with some of the Viagra ads , you can tell the difference between good and bad tastes.

A brilliant TVC always has a simple message, a surprise and most important of all, a touch of humour. Nothing much is to be said. Have a good weekend !

Seven Seas is a brand of cod liver oil health supplements. The original positioning was about general health maintenance like its direct competitor, Scott's Cod Liver Oil . Later on, it was discovered that the Tri-omega 3 in cod liver oil is good for joint health. Seven Seas was then repositioned for this specific health benefit and renamed as 七海健絡魚肝油丸 in Chinese. From general to specific, it's quite a good strategy. Ok, enough history. This TVC uses romance to sell the joint health benefit. What do you think ?

A min-size PC. It's not a bad strategy to position it for young lady users. Unlike guys, they usually don't need high PC performance . This little box will do the basics like Facebooking , MSN , You-Tube- ing and so on. The price is quite attractive too. Although the positioning strategy seems right, the advertising strategy is a flop. Advertorial allows us to put as much information as we want to and it's always tempting to fill out the whole page. In this case, there are just too many technical details that girls don't really understand and care about. I think it can go for a more lifestyle approach instead.

What is advertising ? Here is a textbook definition : "Advertising is paid persuasive communication. It uses nonpersonal mass media to reach broad audiences to connect an identified sponsor with a target audience". In other words, advertising is a waste of money if people do not know who the advertiser is. That points to the importance of branding in an ad. Look at this ad from Maxim's. It's a pretty good ad but the branding is so weak with a small logo at the top left-hand corner. What a waste...

While 7-Eleven wins with distribution, Circle-K tries to get a share with differentiation. Circle-K has come up with a new platform, 轉出新鮮感, since last year (please refer to my previous post ). This TVC is a follow-through from the previous campaign. In terms of strategy, it uses product assortment of Japanese snacks to attract consumers and support the 轉出新鮮感 platform. You can imagine it's a very campaignable platform if Circle-K continuously brings in new exciting products. Over time, it may be able to get consumer to switch from 7-Eleven which is just a convenience store nearby. It's quite a solid strategy indeed.

7-Eleven has the largest shop network of convenience stores. 梗有一間喺左近 has long been its brand promise which is fulfilled by the franchise business model. Its latest TVC attempts to translate the rational advantage of convenience offered by the shop network into a more emotional reason of preference. Literally, it is trying to say to consumers : "We have so many stores around town. There bounds to be one favourite store of yours". My problem with this particular TVC is that although it's kind of humourous, the storyline portrays the consumer as a loser. Guess no one wants to be like the talent who can never get the girl and has to sit outside of 7-Eleven drinking with another guy, right ?