ThinkNoLimit Marketing Coaching

We have been waiting for Fairwood to do something in the fast food chain war. Now that they have launched a new campaign. Its strategy is quite different from Cafe De Coral and Maxim's MX which are more focused on coming up with new food attractions. It is a good continuation from the previous 杜民澤's 「食得夠尖」campaign which manages to project a quality food image and more importantly, with an appealing fun brand personality. Great to see that its direction hasn't changed in the new campaign although the spokesperson has been changed from 杜民澤 to a group of 尖 girls who look for the best tomatos and olive oils in Italy. I guess the executives at Fairwood are aware that they are behind Cafe De Coral in terms of food quality image. Now it is trying to turn it around with the concept of "prototype product" with its spaghetti/tomato dishes. Let's go try it to see if it can deliver such quality food brand promise.

The war is still on. Cafe De Coral is really into the fight for more business during dinner time. It launched make-to-order 小菜 in May and now it has another gimmick : chocolate fountain. HK people like trying new things and there is nothing wrong with adding new products, new menus and new gimmicks to attract consumers. But my concern is with the frequency. Fast food business is about fast turnover and efficient operations with standard menus. Whenever new items are added, disruptions are inevitable : IT system errors, staff confusion, stock-outs and so on are common. The more frequently new products are added and changed, the higher the chance for all these errors to happen, ending up with consumer disappointment. Extensions will drive business growth but too many and too frequent would be a potential threat to the image.

Real PR or faked PR ? PR is about building credibility via third party's endorsement. By media relations, we need to find way to interest journalists so that they will cover the stories of our companies. It's not easy as it involves a lot of hard works and creativity. So many people would rather take the easy way out. The market is big for this kind of awards and different media and publications have been inventing various awards in different names to make advertisers (and the bosses) feel good and spend more money. Never know whether consumers would believe all these awards. Or we are just kidding ourselves ?

Marketing PR is about creating the buzz and talkabout for your product and service. Compared with advertising, a paid form of publicity, it is softer selling and hence more credible. To many marketers, it is a cheaper means of communications. Well, I say yes and no. It's not easy to create real news value nowadays. Either you are very creative or you have the money. In a way, we need to have the mindset of like entering the Guinness Book of Records. Think Marketing PR is about sponsoring a movie or organizing an event in shopping malls ? Think again.

Happy holiday and wish you a joyous long weekend. My daily post will resume on July 3. Stay tuned.

There is a recent promotion of California peach and plum, not only on the print level but there is also a TVC as well. As far as I know, this kind of promotion is financed by the US (California government). Around the world, different countries have been subsidizing their exports of produces, including tax relieves, price subsidies and marketing dollars. Like in the US, different promotion boards are formed to do marketing in export countries. Compared with direct monetary subsidies, marketing and promotion to end consumers could better avoid the political conflicts about trade imbalances. The US has always been complaning the trade imbalances with China. Americans are just taking the smarter way of promoting their exports. They invade by marketing, not just price.

PCCW has just launched this new multimedia service. Now you can access different information and services by your landline phone. In recent years, I think PCCW has been quite sucessful in setting up its multimedia services with some appealing contents. Since the service platform is there, it needs to increase the methods of access available to consumers in order to maximize usage : mobile phone, Now.com (web), Now TV (cable) and now the landline phone. Who would use landline phone for multimedia services ? My guess is those who don't know how to use the Interenet, probably the older generation aged above 50+. It does have a point but this EYE service isn't cheap at all. You will need pay HK$128 per month and on top you will need to pay some extras for stock quotes, the spots channels and so on. It can be quite a high price to pay for the older generation and I wonder whether it will get popular.