ThinkNoLimit Marketing Coaching

Quite many people are talking about the new launch of GUM 5 by Wrigley's. I bet the heated talk abouts must be generated by the TVCs and the packaging design which resembles to condom packs. I have clipped all three ads from YouTube for your enjoyment. The campaign has centred around taste sensation. No doubt these are great ads which are of high production value as well as successfully set up the expectation and build up the excitement for trial. The risk is there when consumers try it and find the taste nothing special. It will become an over-claim and the heat will only be like fireworks that last for a short while.

This must be a pretty memorable ad, probably not because of Andy Lau but the cute monkeys. Ads of 道地 TVCs is very consistent over the years. Andy Lau, the natural environment, and the soothing feeling of the music. I suppose 道地 is the leader in bottled tea. Does such consistency in advertising have anything to do with its leadership position ? Well sales do not depend solely on advertising but consistency in advertising would definitely give you a better chance to build the brand in the mind. Back to this ad. It's about a new product called 清烏龍 with the selling points of 茶清解渴 and 真正茶味. It's nothing special at all. What's the point ...

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.

I'm confused when I see this new TVC of Park'n Shop. I just find it hard to appreciate the thinking behind it. Wellcome and Park'n Shop have been competing on the low price image for so many years. Now Park'n Shop has seemed to give up on that. From 日日慳 to 日日賺, I can understand it wants to say that its products are worth the money you pay. Yet it looks like a confession that it's not the cheapest retailer.

Said to improve skin complexion, collagen drinks have been around for about 6 years. The most pronounced brand is Fancl House. On and off there are brands going in and out into the market with advertising investments. It seems there must be some loyalists who really believe in collagen drinks. As a late comer brand, H2O+ has taken a direct competitive approach of dosage comparison. It has 8,000 mg of collagen and so it's said to be the most effective. This ad has been launched for a week or so and here comes the Consumer Council's report on the effectiveness of collagen drinks yesterday. I wouldn't call it hard luck for H2O. Everyone in the health supplement business know collagen drink doesn't work at all. If people still decide to put in big money to kid consumers, it's their choice and they deserve having their fingers burned.

This ad must be inspired by the movie 家有囍事 way back in the 90's. It plays parody with the role of 吳君如 in the movie. You would be able to get the joke only if you watched the movie before. Those who watched it before should be 30+ old, i.e. the target audience supposedly. You may or may not like the parody with 家有囍事 as the idea. The learning is that by parodying with a popular memorable movie, we can home in on a particular target audience.

Play this ad and stop at about the 20 second mark. Guess what brand of DC is being advertised. Most of us would have thought it's Canon. No, it's Nikon. The execution is similar to Canon's ads again. One may argue that all DC ads should look similar as most of them are playing with the common category motivator : capturing the happy moments. True in a way and it's a creative challenge. Canon is the market leader and advertises more. The only way out for Nikon is to try harder and look different. Ok.... good creative is not easy to come by.... at least the branding in the ad can be played up...

Sharing with friends has long been a category motivator Coke trying to own. If you review the TVCs of Coke, you can easily find the element of sharing in many of them. This ad is also about sharing with friends in the festive season of CNY. Obviously the thinking behind it comes from the observation that young people today are heavy users of instant messengers and web video conferencing and hence the idea. Yet there is a very fundamental issue with this TVC. That is, why TVC in the first place ? If we believe they spend most of their time on the computer ... Another problem is that kids hate to be told what to do. The adults (who do the ad) sometimes fail to realize that.

Is it a good move to come up with a new version of a popular ad of the past ? The song, the romance and the directorship, unquestionably the old 陽光檸檬茶 TVC is a classic. Some people may tend to compare the old and the new and argue which one is better. There is no point arguing about that. It is a good ad so long as it works to appeal to the target audience. The old one managed to do so as it was new and fresh in the advertising scene at that time. Over the year, there have been many emotional appeal ads with similar blends of song + romance. Since the target audience were born in the 90's and hadn't seen the old version before, it may just be another ad similar to what they have seen many times. It is actually their parents resonating with this ad. Note young people are rebellious. They hate what their parents like. This ad may just remind the young people 陽光檸檬茶 belongs to their parents' generation and provokes the "not-for-me" thought.

Just came across this TVC on YouTube. Who would have posted such this ad ? Someone in the government you bet. YouTube is about sharing. People would only share something worth sharing. It's not funny, not creative and not obscene. Would you share this ad ? Nowadays advertisers upload their TVC onto YouTube as a standard act and hope they would be shared and viewed as a free medium. Yet it boils down to whether your ad is creative in the first place. The swine flu vaccination campaign is another learning about advertising. The government has been airing this ad quite heavily for a while. It fails to jet up the number of people taking it. Why ? Because there have been negative publicities about the safety of it. It shows PR is more credible. If the government is to push any policy, it will have to improve the PR initiatives, not advertising. Yet looking at then increasing number of public affair ads in recent years, it doesn't quite understand the power of PR.

Didn't have much time to watch TV lately but lucky me, I saw this full version of the new TVC of Konew. It lasted 2 minutes. Here it is for your enjoyment. You may like it or you may hate it but you would appreciate the production value of this TVC. It seems it is really committed to building a brand in the property-based loan financing market. It's always good strategy to build a brand in a specific segment of the market. Yet I'm worried that spending on marketing communications in such a fast pace is like firework display at the end. Sustainability is more crucial as brand building takes a long time.

位元堂養陰丸 is a health supplement which has been around for a very long time. User imagery is associated with the mature, older people aged 50+ years old. There should be some die-hard users among this consumer group but they are now exposed to a lot of choices of health supplements and competition is very keen. One strategy for 位元堂養陰丸 is of course to stick to the same target segment and invest to compete with other brands/products. Another strategy is to diversify into other consumer segments. It seems the latter is adopted in this case. However, I feel it is too ambitious to jump to cover all walks of life, from kids to the aged. Such jump is not so credible and maybe it should have made the attempt to target the next younger age bracket as the first step, i.e., 40 - 50 years old consumers.

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.

Here we go again ! With the same old Hello Kitty, it's not easy to come up with new promotion idea where a lot of gimmicks have been used before. The mechanics is the same old "spend n collect" but I have to say the promotion TVC is quite enjoyable playing on good old childhood memories. It's obvioulsy targeting those under 25 but savouring childhood romance is one thing, wearing a Hello Kitty wrist chain is another. I would be surprised if there are people who are willing to wear it ... LOL.

Seen this series of TVCs during the Christmas season ? There are like 4-5 versions featuring 洪金寶 playing different games with different people. It's just a simple demonstration to show that Wii is fun for all age groups. The campaign has caught the right timing of the festive season where people might buy it as gift for fun sharing during the holidays. Right product, right timing. I bet quite a bit of products should be sold with this campaign.

BRAND'S essence of chicken has launched a new TVC. Still remember the last campaign with Eason Chan in it ? If we put the two TVC side by side, you will see the new one is a disappointment. Why ? By the use of big celebrity like Eason Chan, certainly you will get fast spread awareness, create credibility and generate word of mouth. Yet when you can't afford the celebrity at later stage, all the magics will be gone at once. It's worth a second thought about using celebrities indeed. Somehow it's a road with no return. What you get is inconsistency at the end.

The latest TVC of Lipton tries to equate the consumption with hugging to depict the warm hearty feeling of the consumption. It's a sound attempt but the association between hug and tea consumption is rather far-fetched. Consumers may find it difficult to associate. I wonder if it would be better to skip the hug idea and just use the touching scenes to express the consumption experience.

This is a low cost animation production playing with the rather popular TV show 超級巨聲. It's not a great idea but the message is clear "Ribena is made from blackcurrant, rich in Vitamin C". The ad compares blackcurrant with grape. Is it trying to counter other grape juice products like Minute Maid ? Or is it trying to clarify that Ribena is not made from grape ? For an established brand like Ribena where there is no more new news about the product function, maybe it would better to strengthen the brand on the emotional ground.

IKEA is airing a new campaign. The message is "IKEA is offering unbeatable prices to everyone". It reminds me of the latest Mannings TVC . In the Mannings TVC, it says "it provides personal caring services to everyone". The creative ideas are different but the messages are pretty similar. Can we call them idea twins ? Both companies belong to the Dairy Farm group. Are they having the same agency ?

Different legends in history have made use of different tootls to influence the world. That's the analogy for selling 1010 Next G mobile data service. Bruce Lee, Martin Luther King and JFK. The target audience may be aspired to these legends but still is the analogy a bit too "big" ? it just gives me goose bump... I wonder why it doesn't mention Obama and his Blackberry... LOL