Alex Woodruff Biz Buzz

On the last MBA course we discussed companies that expect you to go to great lengths just to take part in a promotion. A bit like the mineral company that expects you to drink huge amounts of water just to get a stuffed toy, here is another promotion that really does ask too much of [...]

Household panels are probably as good it gets for understanding who buys what. Assuming the people on the panel scan in everything they bring home. Assuming the people on the panel are representative of the “universe”. But what about all the products people buy (and consume) but don’t bring home? For years this has plagued [...]

“Call a spade a spade” we say in English. Obviously a bit of a problem for this American tyre seller… Think they need an advertising agency?

In the hope that I can end the debate on whether German advertising for beer is funny, I think it is time to draw the line and allow you to make up your own mind. Henning (who was keen to emphasise in the last course that his favourite beer is Karlsberg) has uncovered a treasure [...]

One slip-up could wreck your image. What seems like a harmless sign in a UK supermarket is actually the result of weeks of anguish for the company, especially in the marketing department. You’d have thought that legal issues are not so central to marketing. Think again. As you’ll have read about in the Economic/Legal section [...]

One sure-fire way to capture interest is to hijack it from somewhere else. This falls into an area of advertising where you do a spoof or pastiche of an established campaign or concept. If you do it well your audience will smile and go with you. And Interest very quickly becomes Desire. If you do [...]

I’ve been waiting with baited breath to see how the German cigarette companies would deal with the smoking ban in bars. Trust my favourite brand (NO, I don’t smoke) to strike the right chord. Here’s how they dealt with it in Baden-Württemberg, which implemented the ban last year. Mocking the powers that be Rather than [...]

Wear me, feel better. Naming your wares is central to the P for Product aspect of the 4Ps. So I’m always on the lookout for interesting ideas. But this one surprised me. What in heaven’s name is a “wellness pullover”? I may never find out. By the time I got to tinker around Tchibo (a [...]

I see Procter & Gamble (P&G) are up to their usual tricks. In recent times they’ve moved away from purely functional branding (and problem-solution advertising) towards more image based marketing. Left: the sinister one. Right: P&G. So their big toilet paper brand in Germany, Charmin, used fluffy bears to talk about a personal issue in [...]

It’s good to see marketing issues becoming so big that they earn themselves a name in the marketing strategy books. We look at the changing nature of society in MM1, especially in Germany and the UK (where, respectively, the statistics tell us more Kebabs are now eaten than the iconic Hamburger, and more Chicken Tandoori [...]