ThinkNoLimit Marketing Coaching

McDonald's has been with us for 35 long years and it's definitely part of HK people's life. I scratch my head when it only chooses to use the anniversary to do price-cut promotions. It can do better than that as it should be a good excuse to strike a chord with the consumers. I can only imagine it needs to face the reality : it needs to generate higher revenue to make up with the rise in rent. The sad part is that promotions after promotions like this will only project a cheap eat image for the brand.

The founder of 海天堂, 吳耀明先生, keeps enjoying the fun of self-pleasuring. He has been investing quite a lot in TV advertising and he has become the icon of the brand. He is also the pioneer of rejuvenating the aged 龜苓膏 category by coming up with different new products : 龜苓膠, 龜苓茶, 龜苓糖... for more convenient consumption by all walks of life. Most of the TVCs are not great at all except this 海天堂 x 黃飛鴻 campaign. It's still self-pleasuring but at least it's fun to watch and attention-grabbing in the current boring ad scene.

If there were censorship on bad taste TVCs, this should be banned. It's an eye sore. The intention of getting association with the East Asian Games is obvious. How on earth would consumers find the association between 龜苓膏 and the East Asian Games relevant in the first place ?! 中國人再無東亞病夫 ?! It even plays on Patriotism as well ! Isn't that too big for selling 龜苓膏 ?! LOL Thanks to the founder of 海天堂, 吳耀明先生, we can have some good laughs from time to time.

When my dad saw this TVC, he said : "what kind of abalone can Cafe De Coral offer you ?". This is exactly the doubt of the consumers. Cafe De Coral, as we all know, is a fastfood chain and it means cheap eat. If the price of this abalone menu is low, people would doubt the quality of the abalone. On the other hand, if Cafe De Coral is trying to trade up with this abalone menu, asking for more bugs, people will find it not so worthwhile as fastfood chain should still mean cheap eat. Cafe De Coral has been advertising different novelty ingredients, which is a good strategy to project a quality food image. Yet it's a bit overdone this time round while getting itself into a paradox... a bit 走火入魔...

When I saw this new pizza of Pizza Hut, I bursted into laughters. The new pizzas of Pizza Hut are getting more "creative" (or gimmicky). Can we call that pizza anymore ? I'm sure there will be smiley face pizza later... One would argue young people like newness and you will need to have some new items on the menu to attract them to come over and over again. True, but it's getting overdone. Putting sarcasm aside, if the leader in pizza is messing up with its pizza, there may be room for a pizza restaurant chain to stress on authentic pizza as the positioning. Target segment can be the richer mature group. Remember how Triple O and other premium Burger chains get shares of the burger market from McDonald's ?

Black truffle breakfast. We all know it's just a gimmick and we wouldn't expect too much from a HK$20+ breakfast. The ad is quite a surprise though. Long time no see funny ads which play parody with competitors' advertising. 王祖藍 pretends 陳豪 with that pretentious voice and facial expression. It's really funny. Does 泳兒 actually say 麥當勞 ? I have played it for a few time and found out : no, she says "你未 Donald ?". LOL.

Environmental friendliness is not easy to become a culutral trend in HK. HK people like hotpot in all seasons. Having it during the hot summer time isn't too green, is it ? For fastfood restaurant chains, they push hotpot because they can sell it as a higher price menu item. Their restaurants are not so filled at night anyway and hotpot can let customers enjoy their dinner longer. Back to this ad. 黄祖藍 and 泳兒 are more like the successors of 杜汶澤. It's not a bad idea as they share some similar personalities that can be transferred to the brand.

Congratulations to the one who came up with this promotion. It has been receiving very favourable response. Maybe it's because the glass is given away free upon super-sizing value meal. I bet Coke must have sponsored all or part of the cost of the glasses but it's a win-win definitely. McDonald's can drive some additional revenues on one hand (without using the boring Hello Kitty this time round). Coke can promote the classic cola brand image on the other. Heard that some colours have run out of stocks already. Have you got one yet ?

I have to say Cafe De Coral is quite creative in coming up with new dishes and menus. When I first saw this ad, it got me to think it was talking about the "real" Teppanyaki. It made feel a bit excited. How can it be possible ? I asked myself. Then the VO explains later saying : 親手整更啱自己. Is that anti-climax intentional ? Putting the ad aside, this DIY 霜花牛板燒飯 still sounds quite interesting.

TV stations have been putting up numbers in front of us saying that TV media remain as the key media with stable viewership. We all know these researches are misleading somehow and contradictory to what we know by observation. The younger generation don't really watch TV that much and their media consumption on traditional media is on decline. We all know also that they count on Internet for news and entertainment. The question in every marketer's mind is how to make use of this free medium. There is no easy answer. I have just noticed this TVC from McDonald's. What if it's aired on YouTube exclusively ? Probably, we can forget about TV in this case in fact.

Burgers are now freshly made rather than "made-to-stock" now at McDonald's. Is it trying to match up with those higher end burger places like Triple-O and Monster Burger ? The upside is each burger is fresh and hot but the downside is you have to wait. Efficiency is crucial for a high volume/low price fastfood restaurant like McDonald's while you don't want to keep your customers waiting too long. The experience wasn't too bad at all, even during busy lunch time as I only had to wait 2-3 minutes. That's what we call operations excellence.

The idea is like a taste challenge. It's asking you to try the Cuppacino of McCafe and you will find it as good tasting as Starbucks or Pacific Coffee. Priced at HK$12, it is sold as a value-for-money choice too (that's almost the same price as the normal coffee sold at tea meal house). Will McCafe be able to take some business from Starbucks and Pacific Coffee ? Starbucks and Pacific Coffee are not only selling coffees but also consumer experience. It's the relaxing environment for people to chit chat, read, surf the net and kill time. You just can't do that at McCafe as most of the outlets are connected to McDonald's that are always busy, crowded and noisy. So I suspect McCafe will just steal some grab-and-go consumers from Starbucks and Pacific Coffee.

Here is another potentially controversial ad. That's the use of sex to sell a new kid meal menu. It's naughty but fun. Just wonder if any viewer will complain about it. You know Hong Kong people like complaining about everything nowadays. Let's not go into any moral discussion and see it in a brand image and personality perspective. On one hand, to qualify as a good ad, it should be attention grabbing and memorable. On the other, we need to bear the brand image and personality we want to build over time in mind. To me, 板長 stands for affordable authentic Japanese food. It's definitely attention-grabbing and memorable but what about its brand image ?

During this time, most restaurants are slashing prices. HK$1 chicken is back and there are loads of other HK$1 dishes on offer. Even McDonald's is offering discounted items. Seems that Cafe De Coral is sticking to its on-going strategy of launching novelty dishes to build its quality food image, rather than slashing prices. That's a good thing. Slashing price is short term. At the end difficult time will go away and image and perception will last. Consistency is the way to go for building brand. Has anyone tried this dairy brisket curry ? It may be nothing special but it's the perception that counts.

AEON and KFC , is it a good marriage ? Co-brand card is one of the ways for credit cards to expand their share of consumer spending. There are co-brand cards of all kinds and the market for co-brand cards is saturated. I suppose you can buy KFC at a good discount with this AEON KFC credit card. Is it motivating enough to apply for another credit card and keep it in the wallet ? It's funny to see it invest in TV advertising. Just wonder how the return on investment would look like.

Wow, boy, you can treat the girls without going broke at Pizza Hut ! Wow 常餐, from as low as HK $35, is available all day. The intention is to attract more customers by extending the value offer during the recessionary period. The ad manages to make use of the offer to build Pizza Hut image as the ideal place for gathering with friends. Such image is owned by Pizza Hut over time. Just that the storyline has been used by McDonald's some time ago. It's alright so long as not so many people recall that.

This ad puts a smile on my face. Marketers sometimes do implement some complicated mechanics which are hard for consumers to understand. Promotions are supposed to generate short-term increase in sales and any grand prize shouldn't be given away too easily unless consumers have spent enough. The ad echoes with the mentality of the general consumers at this time : just give me a better price rather than gimmicky promotion. It says no gimmick and it is said by McDonald's, funny huh ?

The financial tsunami represents an opportunity for fast food and cheap eats. Supposedly people will tighten their belts and eat out less too. How about some hot freshly made pizzas at home ? I think Pizza Hut has picked the right time to promote its delivery service. Although there is no new news talking about the same hot pouch that has been advertised about before, the ad will definitely boost up top of mind awareness. The message of the ad is very clear as being single-minded.

Some experts say during the economic downturn, there will be an upward business trend for fast-food restaurants and the market for cheap eats will get bigger. It's a fair prediction. If you were in fast-food chain, what would you do to cultivate on such trend ? One way of course is to come up with a range of cheap menus to satisfy the need of the price-conscious consumers. Another way is to stick to the quality food image without slashing the prices. Maxim's has just launched shark fin soup so that consumer can still pamper themselves with"cheap luxury". No one knows which way is better. I can only guess that fast-food chains wouldn't want to slash prices to compete. The reality is that they still have to pay high rents for the shops with rental commitments from last year when the rents were still up there.

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 ?