Alex Woodruff Biz Buzz

Catch up competitors if you can. Here is a wonderful example of cobranding. Develey, Bavarian producer of sauces, mustard and condiments and supplier of ketchup to McDonalds in Germany, has a growing presence in supermarkets. McDonald’s has none. Develey has the technical and product know-how. McDonald’s as a franchise has, more-or-less, none. But Develey really [...]

We all know about the big M’s ongoing problems with health issues, so what – now that most people have heard the controversial statements and seen films like Super Size Me – are they doing about it? Well, in the UK they’re sidestepping a recently introduced ban on junk food advertising (as if that’ll stop [...]

I hate the term guerilla marketing. According to the book written in 1984 it is “an unconventional system of promotions on a very low budget”, but these days it seems to be anything that isn’t classic media. A creative way of doing something different by throwing people off buildings, slapping stickers on people’s foreheads, whatever.Would [...]

The classic approach to segmentation in consumer markets used to be demographics. I remember clearly as a brand manager at Unilever presenting my target group as C1C2D, women, over 35. Not surprisingly, this was a traditional hairspray brand. But in the 80s, marketing people got wise to the fact that people may be in a [...]

Whether comparative advertising is your style or not (some people say you shouldn’t need to mention the competition and in fact doing so is at some level only helping plug their name – at your expense), this picture says a thousand words. I never found out whether McDonald’s did anything about Burger King using their [...]