Alex Woodruff Biz Buzz

I’ve written a number of posts recently about Web 2.0 and marketing’s attempts to involve the online community in campaigns. We’ve had customers overruling marketing departments and getting them to reverse a logo redesign – Gap. Then we had the web communities basically mocking marketeers by suggesting weird product ideas and names: Barbie and Marmite. [...]

This latest marketing mishap is, frankly, embarrassing. The company concerned sells posters for retail outlets. It’s a clever idea. If you’re a small bakery and need a poster, log in to plakatshop.de and order one online. apostrophe catastrophe As a bakery I visited did. Only I don’t think they spotted the typo. Any student of [...]

Holidays always uncover marketing mishaps for me, probably because I can never switch off in a world brimming with unexpected marketing treats. But I find so many, I’m still catching up on the painful examples from last year. Here’s an unfortunate menu translation I discovered last July in Germany. I guess the restaurant wants you [...]

I frequently criticise logos, though it’s harder when people explain their rationale, as with memorex. Another design success? With this confusing logo, I didn’t bother walking into the shop in a wet and unusually cold town in Bavaria, the logo was enough warning to steer well clear. But I would like to know what it [...]

Hot off the press: Stuttgart – which like any other modern city, has to market itself – has unveiled a new logo to compete against “Barcelona, New York and Oberammergau” (quote kessel.tv). The new logo adorns the possible new brochures… My instant reaction was: Fancy an ice cream?!? Kessel.tv, from whom these images are sourced, [...]

Not much to say about this latest marketing gaffe, apart from: doh. The screenshot comes from Markus, who, quite rightly points out that English people looking for a job may have problems relating to “Motorrad”. If you’re not German, this means motorbike, but don’t ask me what it’s doing on an English website. I can [...]

Saying it in style. Source: M Walsh If you’re going to name your P for Product in English, do your homework. How about this new canine grooming centre in the town of Erlangen, north of Nuremberg: Doggy Style. Oh dear. Of course with the English having such smutty minds, this was bound to be rude [...]

Sniff this, or sniff the food? I was taught by one boss NEVER to put a negative image in an ad. I was working in foods at the time, so he said no insects, no animals (especially cows, as this was a dairy food, and he thought cows come from smelly farms), no men with [...]

I recently started comparing two own label diet/low fat brands that reminded me of the Memorex relaunch. X marks the confusion Ignoring the naff names (especially “Well you” – sounds to an Englishman like you’re about to be told off), they both use a symbol within the letters to signal an active and healthy person, [...]

Watch carefully It’s bad enough copying competitors’ products and selling a me-too. But when your advertising starts looking like the competition’s, you’ve really not done your homework. Banking is a low-involvement sector to lots of consumers, as with many everyday services, especially when they don’t want to pay for it. So I wasn’t exactly looking [...]