Alex Woodruff Biz Buzz

Two recent examples of how listening to the much revered customer does not always go right - especially if they take over your marketing for you! And using Web 2.0 and inviting online junkies to define tactics …?

Online geeks hijack P for Product.
Source: flickr

We’ll start in Australia. The Land of Plenty. This includes Vegemite, a yeast extract similar to (but definitely not the same as!) Marmite. The marketing department’s idea: let’s invite our customers to think up a new name for Vegemite. Were they mad? Or, as I suspect, was this a marketing stunt? The result: iSnack 2.0. Oh dear. Well, according to my sources the name was discontinued only four days after its launch. They’ll have to run down stocks. But as a Kraft spokesman said: “The new name has simply not resonated with Australians. Particularly the modern technical aspects associated with it.”

Ok, let’s see how community marketing and Web 2.0 works in another country: the United States. And how about letting customers design the next Barbie doll?

Pink programmer.
Source: Mattel website screenshot

The question is though, who are these “customers”? Well, it comes as no surprise to discover that the people who voted in this “You decide” poll, are online and, er, therefore into computers. So what would they like the next generation of Barbie doll to become?

You got it: a computer engineer.

Well, that’s social trends for you. And technology trends for you.

Customers voted - and marketing listened. Carefully. Too carefully?

Just because Web 2.0 and involving customers is all the rage, doesn’t make it right!

Bombarding the customer.

I often post on this blog about things that I find shocking as a Brit living abroad.

If it’s not about rudeness
or inappropriate visuals
it’s about marketing departments unknowingly putting their foot in it.

For more, see the Cultural Hotpot posts.

Well, this time something in reverse.

If you’re German, would this make a shiver go up your spine if you saw it in an English shop? The English obviously don’t think twice about it.

Blitz is now an English word, apparently. And the good news - only a minority would relate this back to the second world war. Which is why I saw this in Sainsbury’s supermarket, shouting out among other loud placards.

Nibbling away at the competition

The last case study of this kind for a long time to come was won by a group that, in my opinion, cheated just a little bit by extending the confectionery or chocolate ideas we should have been working on, and moving into snacking. This of course allowed them to hijack the Pringles brand (maybe this is “market stretching”?).

Anyway, they also caught the spirit of 2010 early by taking a theme that will be in the news (a common ploy).

It also fits in well with the concept of adding variety in a variety market - Assael would have been proud of you!

There is of course just one slight logical flaw with this strategy - what will happen to sales if (or should I say when?) Germany go out of the world cup finals early? If Germany’s not playing any more, there’ll be no need to “Wolf down the competition”.

But anyway, it was a winner.

Don’t be a girly. Buy me.

On my last visit to the UK, I was pleased to see an English brand reversing its positioning and using a trick that sometimes cuts through the competition more effectively than saying who you ARE targetted at.

This chocolate is NOT for women.

Another reason this ploy works - it immediately negates the “chocolate might not be good for you” worry with chocolate. The negative becomes a positive.

So indirectly it’s saying, “Go on, why not, don’t be such a wuss.”

How easy it is to put your foot in it. Or should I say hand in it.

Sinister imagery in some countries.

This image was going to be used by a big German company for an HR brochure. It was only for internal purposes, so why pull in foreign agencies? Enough people already had their finger in the pie. Well, when the first draft went to local subsidiaries, the reactions raised a number of eyebrows back at HQ.

“You can take your own fair share” or “there’s a piece of the action for everyone” were the sorts of messages the image was supposed to convey.

But the cake analogy was simply not understood in some countries.

In others, there was a major problem with the colour of the cake. Why pink? Isn’t that a bit gay?

And in others still, there was a definite cultural no-no. A westerner would only just make out the left hand grabbing the food in this image. By contrast, in many African or Islamic countries they would see this straight away - you’re considered an outcast if you eat with the left hand!

Solution: involve the locals in developing communications, internal and external. And that also means handing them the task of checking images, allusions and wording.

Nestlé does it again. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve tried to (constructively) criticise Nestlé’s inability to stick to design rules. So maybe I need to spell it out more carefully.

All right? Not quite

1) Update your packaging regularly. Make logos look contemporary. In some industries this could entail a redesign every 18 months. Essential if you don’t want to look outdated.

Here’s an example from Nestlé’s Caro brand with it’s new blue Nestlé flash - good. A more dynamic, fresh look. Sunrise. Modern. Ok, I’ll give you 9 out of 10 for that bit.

But lo, what is that on the lid? The OLD logo by any chance?

Ok, let’s turn to another key step… (which designers could even claim is the FIRST rule of design)

Not like the logo on the front.

2) Maintain uniformity.

Fail!

How is it that Nestlé keeps doing this? Do they have no central control over CI (corporate image)? Is there no-one with an overview of which brand manager is doing what (and where)?

Or did somebody in logistics (or production, or purchasing) insist they run down their stocks of lid stickers before ordering new stickers with the new design?

I despair.

(For more examples see what they did to KitKat and After Eight - let’s hope whoever was responsible for those packs has now moved on)

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 for this latest marketing mishap.

But it jumped out at me!! Why? It was on exactly the same poster site as a campaign I noticed last year and uses exactly the same visual idea.

In the same sector of industry.

Not a teaser campaign like the one I’d seen before. But using the same visual cue to reflect the logo:

Don’t blink now

- the citibank arch (the curve over the logo ^) is reflected in the winking eye
- the PSD bank arch (also a curve over the logo ^) is also reflected in the winking eye.

Oops!

PSD - do your homework. Or if you’ve not got time, get your advertising agency to do their homework!

Companies that use the same advertising ideas as competitors are in danger of becoming interchangeable…

Unless you’re clearly targeting men who fancy blonds, and not brunettes.

Multiple Mars manifestations.
Source: http://twitpic.com/s3qwf

Mars are venturing forth again, “raping” the brand in Germany, along similar lines to the 2006 football campaign in Switzerland and Austria.

I’d seen this pack in the trade, but have Andreas to thank for pointing out that a visitor to Germany could easily get confused by all this on-pack clutter. Not only is the wording different, there seem to be a number of pack variations, each stating known Mars benefits, “Top up”, “Go for it”, “Feelin’ good”.

Does it work? Well yes, the logo has such high recognition, people still know what the brand is. Or do you think this time it’s not just one small step for Mars munchers?

Uplifting concept

The latest idea to beat off the other venture teams in the new product development case study went in the direction of functional food, just like many groups in the past, only this idea really hit home.

The concept worked for a number of reasons.

One: it wasn’t reinventing the wheel. UP is like a tag-on, a brand extension to Cadbury products already on the market. So you’d have your standard Crunchie, then your Crunchie UP. That’s a neat growth strategy.

An eye-catching campaign idea.

Two: the function of UP addresses a genuine need. It doesn’t leave you feeling tired and full, especially on the key occasion most people would eat a snack - sometime late morning or during the afternoon. Milky Way in the UK tried this concept for many years, to get round mothers’ concern that feeding children between meals would mean they’re not hungry later: “The snack you can eat between meals without ruining your appetite”. Not the snappiest of slogans. UP is more to the point.

Three: the slogan addresses the usage occasion and the benefit.

Four: the advertising concept is a stunner. It puts the product in the exact location of the benefit. You see the product and the benefit in one.

There is only one drawback to the concept, which we didn’t discuss last Friday but would have to be ironed out with the sales department: would these products sit on the shelf next to the “standard” products, or would they be placed separately? Also, should we expect any cannibalisation? The trade fights tooth and nail over ever inch of shelf, so getting the new range extensions into shops could be a challenge.

But in terms of the concept, it’s a winner!

Microsoft seem to be making a big thing of the Window 7’s touch screen technology. Now you can zoom in, select, scroll, skip, whatever with your PC monitor as you would on your iPhone.

But let me ask: how close do you have to sit to the screen to use this technology sensibly on a PC?

Source: Daily Telegraph

I remember the first time I had to use a mouse - yes, as a young lad I became familiar with computers without mice, through Sinclairs and really simple machinery. Suddenly jumping to a mouse and flipping around with my hands became a real challenge. It’s not conducive to fast typing when you’re taking your hands off the keyboard the whole time. I’ll admit, I’m still a keyboard man.

But now I’ll be expected to jump between the keyboard, a mouse and the screen. Has it escaped product development that a PC is not a handheld? And you use PCs differently from a laptop? I’ll have to lean forward, OVER the keyboard, then back, then reach out for the mouse. Will this really make work easier or slow things down?

I think I’ll stick to keyboard shortcuts.

Anyway: some fundamentals last:
Who are they marketing this system to anyway, the octopus community?
Is this a product/factory led “innovation” or based on true customer needs?
What do people say who’ve had to flap around with their hands on this system - have they tested this with REAL customers?

And: how often would I have to wipe my screen clean?