ThinkNoLimit Marketing Coaching

Everything can be branded. When there are so many food scares from time to time, consumers look for quality assurance on the food they eat. Egg used to be an unbranded produce but now the window is open for branded eggs that give consumer a peace of mind and demand a price premium. Safegg is a pretty good brand name and it's claimed to be bacteria free by the use of some pasteurization process. It does have some good selling points. Trouble is that the ad isn't too attractive with all these long copies. It just lacks the right creative strategy to appeal to consumers. Too bad.

Chinese New Year is the hot selling season for confectionery and household cleaning products. It's interesting to see that underwear brands have been trying to share some of the consumer spending in the CNY. It is a custom that we should wear new underwear in the new year. Last year we see Triumph and Embry Form advertised underwear for good luck ( see my post of last year ). This year Embry Form kind of copies Triumph and pushes the idea even further with the endorsement of fortune teller, Mak Ling Ling. It's said that you need to wear a specific colour/type of underwear according to your zodiac sign. Not too late to find that out. It's still the new year. See if it works.

Happy Chinese New Year. Wish you a propersous year of the Ox. See you on Jan 29.

Yomeishu is a brand that has been around for a long time. On and off we still see its advertising on TV. I bet there must be some loyal consumers drinking it. Otherwise, it wouldn't have the money to invest in advertising. I suppose this is a relatively low cost production using some stock footage and a simple analogy. Yomeishu improve your health so that you can withstand the cold. While we are shivering in the cold weather, such single-minded message can be clearly understood. It's not awfully clever but it just works.

PCCW Next Gen network - Beyond 3G ! I scratch my head when I try to listen to what the VO says. The delivery is so fast like 數白欖...1000M+ optical fiber backbone, HSPA technologies, HSPA plus cyber, PCCW Mobile, Netvigator Everywhere ... all these buzzwords occupy half of the TVC. There are benefit claims in the later part of the VO like powerful Internet experience, higher data transmission volumes, smooth and fast etc. The whole TVC just lacks any central idea of what it's trying to say. At the end, how does this so called Next Gen network benefit me as a consumer ? It's more like a self-pleasing ad that trumpets leadership in technologies.

New food item + Soft-Hard to advertise + redemption for fluffy dolls designed by Soft-Hard. Although the theme is Chinese New Year, the formula is pretty much the same as many other promotions of McDonald's over the years. Isn't it boring for the consumers and the marketers who organize the same thing all the time ? i still remember a teddy bear redemption was organized in November and in-between, there was the launch of fish finger and double filet-o-fish. Is it too frequent ? Can they really generate consumer excitement any more ?

With debt and credit problems roiling the world's financial institutions, many of the bank's Hong Kong customers were less than assured. East Asia had run into instability rumour a few months ago where people rushed to its branches for withdrawal. This must be why it airs a corporate image TVC to enhance the stable, long-established image. I just doubt whether this is the right time for doing this. Negative news about financial institutions is still ongoing and the effectiveness of any corporate image initiative would be leveled off by the ongoing negative publicity on the financial sector. Unless there is a really hard-hitting PR idea to turn the image around, I would rather stay quiet at this time. A corporate image TVC like this would not be the solution as it's so generic. Just have a look at the Sun Hung Kai Financial TVC below and compare the way of saying :

The music of this TVC is quite catchy. Other than that, the execution is a flop. The features of the phone are spelled out in words and they are just too small. If you don't follow the m in the screen and pay attention, you just can't figure out what it's trying to sell. Viewers do not stare at their TV sets and "read" ads. TVC is not a self-paced medium unlike magazine where they can take the time to read what you try to sell. They miss. Your money's wasted.

It's the peak selling time for flu, cold and sore throat remedies during the cold season. 得果定 is on air again. This ad, featuring 陳豪, reminds me of an old ad of 白蘭氏雞精. It's funny that the idea is so similar, playing on a court scene. Oh well, it may be only me who is old enough to find that out ...

I laughed when I saw this TVC. You can really appreciate the thinking behind it. We are suffering from the economic downturn. So we all want the god of fortune to bring us some extra bugs. Obama has been elected the US president and the world is expecting some change to the better. So why not having him in the ad as well. The idea is so unbeatable... hahaha... thought we would only see this kind of ads in the 70's... I bet 平霸 kind of ads from the 70's will be having a comeback soon...

Just watched 3 shows of Art of Commercials at the Arts Centre last weekend. Here is a Coke ad in the show I like so much. This year I find The UK ads are not as good as they used to be somehow. Kind of disappointing. Thai ads are very entertaining and Japanese ads always have an unique culture. Some of the ads are big productions and obviously they are the global brands we all know. The Addidas campaign is particularly impressive. It features a few sports stars including David Bechkham who tell their encounters and struggles before becoming sports stars. They are asked to do drawings and art pieces to express their stories bringing out the theme - Impossible is nothing. Too bad I can't find it from YouTube. So here is the last chance to see it. The show is ending this weekend :

Japanese companies like adopting corporate branding approach to branding their products. That is, their corporate brands are applied across different product categories. Like 岡本, we know this brand for condoms stressing on thinness. Over time we see it launch different variants of condoms like the latest 0.03 Aloe. Alongside with this launch of new condom, it launches a range of pain-relieving wraps as well. Condoms and pain-relieving wraps are rather unrelated and such branding approach is related to the Japanese culture where Japanese consumers trust companies rather than brands as the entities.

Thanks to one of my friends, I finally got hold of all 18 TVCs of Hong Kong Broadband. You would just either like it or hate it but the campaign has managed to create a lot of talkabouts. It's just as controversial as the chairman of CTI, 王維基. Not going to analyse it as I think it's more for enjoyment.

Speaking of DC advertising, how about this Canon Powershot E1 ad ? The strategy is pretty clear. This DC is positioned as a camera for taking snapshots to the young. The idea uses a slice-of-life that young people can relate to with a touch of humour. The functional selling point, face-tracking, is tactfully blended into the storyline. The tone and manner is quite Japanese in order to appeal to the target audience too. However, it doesn't come without a downside. Although it's humourous, the users in the ad are portrayed like 牛蒡男. That can be a little humiliating.

Ever imagine you may have put your precious advertising money in advertising for your competitor ? When I saw this TVC of Oylmpus, I thought it was from Canon. The message is about the fastest auto-focus function, a point of difference from the competitors yet the execution look so similar with any other camera ads (below). Also the branding is rather too. I bet more than 5 out of 10 consumers would say they have seen a Canon ad instead of an Olympus ad.

A follow-up on the post of yesterday. Advertising is about what to say and how to say it. It's important to think of a single minded benefit message about our brand and then we search for a creative way to say that message. The Tefal ad is a good example. Another way is to come up with a jingle to sing out whatever you want consumers to know about your brand. Use of jingle was once popular in the past and there are so many classics that we heard and remember. It's not a "clever" way of advertising but the advantage is memorability.

Judging creative is not a difficult task if we know what kind of creative ideas are put on the table. It is the creative idea that translates the desired message into an attention grabbing and memorable ad. There are limitless creative ideas. The only way is to see more and it's about self-learning. Whenever you see an ad, try to think what the key message and the creative idea are. Like this Tefal ad, the key message is simple : the best non-stick pan and it uses a bizarre demonstration of the product as the idea. Not so difficult, isn't it ?