Publicis (The Brand Managers)

Hello World,

Today I would like to take a minute to look into Publicis which is an international ad agency based in Europe. It does work all over the World, and is a major ad agency here in America working for such clients as Proctor & Gamble, Aflac, Wendys and Citibank. In my advertising class we were lucky enough to meet a gentleman named Chris Shumaker and he spoke about the process he conducts when creating a creative brief for a client. Some of the major points I pulled from his presentation are listed below:


Make an Emotional Connection: This is one of the most important factors when advertising, sometimes even when a company's sales are growing they still lack an emotional connection. By not having an emotional connection a company is vulnerable to competition taking away market share. Chris shared with us his experience with a Crest campaign. The problem was that consumers did not think about how important oral hygiene was in there everyday life. By presenting this as the problem to the creative team, they designed a whole campaign around "Your mouth is your portal to the World". This immediately made the product more relevant and put Crest into the consumer's mind when shopping for toothpaste.

Focus on Positive, Not Negative: Publicis does an amazing job on showing exciting events in your life rather than depressing times. Chris shared with us the advertising to change the way consumers viewed the brand of Bounty. Rather than viewing Bounty as the traditional "fix to the problem", they reinvented as "life happens and Bounty is there to help when it does". By changing the consumer's thinking process, they will now think of Bounty in a Positive light and become much more likely to gain an emotional attachment with it.



Show the Product in all Aspects of Life: This is another aspect of advertising that Publicis excels at. Rather than just showing one or two scenarios of a product, show how people will use it in any aspect of life. Publicis has done with this with the brand of Vicks, which is traditionally only thought of for the vapor rub. However, Vicks has a whole line of product that help breathing and recovering from the common cold. By launching a campaign that showed people going out into the World with the assistance of Vicks products they changed the consumers thoughts that Vicks should just be used in their bathrooms.

                                         

By using these three insights Publicis has reinvented many major brands and I am sure they will continue to succeed in the future. With great people working for them like Chris, I am sure that this company will not be going away anytime soon and I look forward to seeing their ad campaigns in the future.

Thanks again,

Andrew

*The three insights and everything stated above is all my opinions and thoughts. In no way are these the views or formula for Publicis when creating ads.*

Sources:

http://www.publiciskaplan.com/

NFL.COM Introduces the Next Big Game Changer

Hello again everyone,
(TL:DR available at bottom)

Background: Today I stumbled upon the future of reading websites. Similar to any other Monday, I like most men in America clicked on ESPN to check out the football scores and check our fantasy. Today however I wanted to check something else out on NFL.com, after clicking around for a couple of minutes I realized at the bottom I had accumulated some reward points. It was bright and engaging, so like any normal college student I clicked it. This is when I was introduced into the NFL.COM Fan Rewards program, which I have to admit blew my mind.

It seemed so simple to me, but yet I had never see anything like this before. A website offering rewards for the readers, creating an experience rather than just a one-way channel. I know the site worked on me today, rather than just reading a few articles as I would on ESPN.com; NFL.com tricked me into touring the whole site and watching countless videos on a quest to achieve badges and more reward points. That is the beauty of this reward program, NFL.COM rewards me for activities I would already be engaging in and on the other side, they can push products to me by offering extra reward points. Every week NFL.COM puts up challenges or what they call "Fan Drives", which is a series of tasks that if completed will offer some extra reward points. By using these "Fan Drives" NFL.COM can persuade the readers to check out certain content on the website.                    
                                                     
Real Example Fan Drive: Crucial Catch Campaign Drive           
                                                       
Task 1 - View the NFL Crucial Catch Campaign Page (10 Points)
Task 2 - Watch Video of Drew Brees supporting campaign (20 Points)
Task 3 - View the Donation and Registration Page (10 Points)
Bonus - Completion of Drive (5 Points)  

Just today I already earned over 700 points or about half-way to earning a cool pen with the NFL's logo on it. I know this sounds lame, but its a lot more than ESPN has ever given me. And now I am addicted to accumulating more points, so I will be heading to NFL.COM for all my football news and maybe even sometimes when I am bored to get my scores up.

Advertising Related: Basically this program got me to thinking. As every company struggles to find a way to stand out in the social media universe, NFL.COM has found a creative way to make a connection. I have seen this before on survey websites, but no one likes taking surveys without rewards. NFL.COM has used this same formula of rewarding points, and putting it on content that is valuable to the reader. Then by creating user leader boards, and encouraging readers to share these scores for extra reward points, NFL.COM has created viral content that people will want to share with their friends.

NFL.COM had a consumer insight that consumers had no brand loyalty when reviewing sports news. Whether it is viewing the scores on ESPN, Yahoo, or NFL.COM the reader has no incentive to picking a favorite. Although this is not an advertising campaign, creative teams for designing websites still face many of the same problems and issues. In this case, the creative team needed to add value to what you do online. They discovered it can be something as simple as a badge for viewing 5 videos that you can share with your friends. By building off these rewards the website creators made it simple to share these rewards and encourage readers to feel they are accomplishing challenges every time they log onto the website.

In class the other day we had a speaker who discussed the importance of creating an experience with the consumer, rather than a one-way channel. He said the biggest problem when offering a service online is creating a personal experience with the consumer on the other side. By using "Fan Drives" NFL.COM can lure readers into checking out content that would probably otherwise be overlooked. Now if NFL.COM can do this for sports videos and articles, imagine what CNN or Wall Street Journal can do to create an experience with their readers.


TL,DR: NFL.COM has created a reward points system that gives you points towards prices and sweepstakes for interacting with their website. Points are earned by watching a video, reading an article, commenting, or sharing with friends. This has changed my new favorite website for football from ESPN to NFL, and I can see other sites adding in these programs in the future.

By using this reward points system NFL.COM has created an experience for the reader rather than just a one-way channel. This program encourages readers to share the content with friends to earn tangible or real rewards outside of the internet.

So I ask you, who would not like to earn rewards for things you do on the internet anyway???


Thanks again,

Andrew Haug

Sources:

http://www.nfl.com/

Less is More. Bars of Soap?

Hello again,

It was today in my class that we discussed how far body wash has come in the last 5 years and how it has replaced soap in many households across America. So does this mean that soap will one day disappear from the hygiene isle?

Of course not...in fact soap sales have actually increased from 1.1 billion in 2010 to 1.2 billion dollars in 2011. But why is this? What has Soap done?

In fact soap has done something brilliant, by reminding everyone why soap is so great in the first place. Rather than stressing the benefits like a body wash company might portray soap companies have decided to remind consumers about their experiences with bar soap and now offering fragrances similar to those in your body wash. Soap was trying to stress the new fragrances before body wash ever came out, but its almost like the consumer forgot. In a way consumer's have hit the "turning point" and decided to make bar soap trendy again.

Many might believe that the increase in sales my be due to the economy and bar soap being much cheaper than body wash. That is not true either, because the greatest increase in sales is hand-made or specialty bar soaps. Leaving us to believe that for whatever reason America is turning back to the bar of soap, and putting down their "poufs".



When dealing with a commodity, anytime you can create an experience or connection with the consumer is essential. I believe soap has done this, whether on purpose or not consumers are remembering how much they enjoy soap and looking to get back that experience they have lost with the body wash. I believe it is safe to say that although soap did not do some crazy advertising campaign it is on a comeback and will continue to be in our hygiene isle for years to come.

Thanks for reading,

Andrew Haug

Sources:

http://adage.com/article/news/soap-cleans-raising-bar/237596/

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyR5RrtvsmX5jzQkCvYodOBXRpTpfTHgs3Vp7SpJ5JUt_LisFLqDtFq03_h00GiYd2Fi4WQP0_20JgskVt2KK3SSu4srGL6GnICH1rqMF8hJZTy7fx562k3_vPu0tY7vsE1Lve8ZbhqWI/s1600/dove+soap.jpg

http://img.ehowcdn.com/article-new/ehow/images/a05/te/ao/make-homemade-soap-bar-800x800.jpg

Dr. Pepper 10 The Man's Drink

Hello Everyone,

Today I thought I would look into a controversial advertising campaign that continues to go strong almost a year after its creation. The product is Dr. Pepper Ten, a diet soda marketing to exclusively to men. In fact it is marketed so much to men that its tagline for the product is "Dr. Pepper Ten  - Not for Women".  Although this has been done in the past by Coke Zero and Pepsi One, they never changed the perception of the consumer on diet soda and eventually failed to attract the amount of consumers desired.



At first you may say this is a bad ad because it immediately eliminates women, 50% of the World's population. However as we talk about in my advertising class, to successfully position a product in a consumers mind you must also deposition from the normal consumers thought process. In this case, Dr. Pepper is attacking the norm that diet sodas are strictly for women. Then by using the can design and emphasizing that it does have calories and taste, the brand tries to reach out to appeal to men seeking a low-calorie soda.

Below I have listed some of the brilliance of the campaign:

1) Recognized a need for a diet soda that appeals to men - Similar to five gum which realized teenagers were no longer purchasing gum. So they created a brand that made gum chewing an experience.

2) Used Perceptions of Diet Drinks for Women to Create Shock Factor - Right away you realize this is not for women, offended or not it forces you to read the rest of the print to learn more.

3) New can design - Simple, strong, masculine colors. Looks similar to the colors used for the Axe body wash campaign. Red, Gray, and Black



By using these three insights Dr. Pepper already had an advantage on the competition. Now nearly a year later Dr. Pepper Ten sales continue to grow, and just goes to show you that sometimes these advertisers know what they are doing.

Until next time,

Andrew Haug

Sources: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/story/2011-10-10/dr-pepper-for-men/50717788/1

Dove For Men. Creative Brief

 Hello again,

Today I would like to look at the success of Dove, and more specifically Dove for Men. How did a company that was so focused on women's hygiene products change their image to serve men's needs too?

That's where the advertising and marketing teams come in.        
                                                                                                           
By using an advertising agency, Dove created an amazing advertising campaign that changed how the average consumer viewed the Dove Brand. The advertising agency did this by starting off with a great creative brief.

A creative brief is created by the account planner, it is a simple statement that inspires the creative team and portrays the purpose of advertising campaign. A successful brief brings together inspiration and focus. Some things to consider defining a creative brief:

1) "The bridge between strategy and execution" - Henrik Habberstad

2) "Creative without strategy is called art. Creative with strategy is called advertising" - Jef Richards, Courtesy of Anis Khan

So although I did not find the exact Dove for Men's creative brief, I thought it would be fun to imagine what creative briefs they pitched to the creative team. To start we must think of the problem or mission at hand:

                         

Mission: How do we make Dove appeal to Men?

To show how they created the creative brief, I will show some bad examples and finally a good example.

Bad Creative Brief: Create an ad with a handsome man using our products in the shower

-This is a bad creative brief, because it does not inspire the team and it also limits their creativity by making them work within the parameters.

Better Creative Brief: Create an ad showing the benefits of our new products
-This is better because it does not limit the creative team, but again it does not inspire the team and there is no focus for the creative team to go off.

Best: Create a television ad demonstrating the numerous benefits of this ground-breaking new product line that equips your everyday average man with the confidence he needs to take on the World.

-This is the best creative brief because it has inspiration to help your everyday average man take on the World. It also has some focus with the television act and emphasizing benefits, but not too much like the first one limiting the ad to the bathroom.

Overall, a great creative brief is all about communication from the account planner to the creative team. Each side must have respect for the other, and work together to create a great advertising campaign. All of these briefs were simply things I imagined, but I do believe they pitched something similar to these when they started the campaign.

Dove for Men has been a great success, and in a lot of ways I would credit it to the advertising team. That's all I have for now, but I look forward to writing more later.

-Andrew

Sources:

http://www.unilever.ca/brands/personalcarebrands/Dove_mencare.aspx

Professor Jane Machin - Powerpoints