FunnyBusiness: Everything About Business Except The Bottom Line

The Death Of The Tagline

Sometimes called a slogan, sometimes called a tagline, it has been an important component of the advertising mix for many years. But...hold on to your advertising dollars, AdAge's Steve Cone says...the tagline is so 20th century.

From Jossip

Powerful taglines, or “powerlines” as AdAge’s Steve Cone SO CLEVERLY calls them, have gone missing from today’s marketing. You don’t see a tagline for Apple commercials anymore; you just see the bitten apple logo. Based on that alone, we’re going to agree: Taglines have died

The Jossip post includes recommendations on what an organization should do if they want to create a tagline and then it analyzes some very well known taglines including :Nike's "Just Do It," Apple's "Think Different", and McDonald's "I'm Lovin' It"

To support the premise that the tagline is dead, I would not have been able to tell you either Apple's or MxDonald's Tagline. However, I can certainly hum the soundtrack to Apple's Macbook Air commercial thanks to an unrelenting earworm that will not go away.

Dove's Message To Women: You're So Vain, I Bet You'll Create a Commercial For Free

  While Dove is busy positioning itself as the company that appreciates a woman's real beauty, as a business they have no gumption in marketing to a woman's vanity  rather than their wallet.

What else can be the explanation of Dove's decision not to pay the grand prize winners of this year's Dove Supreme Cream Oil Body Wash Ad Contest?

Building on its success of last year's contest, Dove is once again offering every day women an offer to share their stories in a TV Commercial -- the winners may have their spot aired during the 2008 Academy Awards.

# We'd like you to create a 30-second TV commercial that best answers the question: How does showering yourself in everyday luxury with Dove Cream Oil Body Wash make you feel?

# We'll pick 5 Finalists and fly them to Los Angeles for an exclusive, Oscars® private-viewing party during the week preceding the Oscars.

# America will vote online for their favorite ad and help us pick the two Grand Prize Winners.

# It gets better- if your TV spot is one of the two Grand Prize Winners judged to best represent Dove Cream Oil Body Wash, we may reveal your winning ad on network TV during a commercial break in The Oscars® on February 24, 2008.

 

Dove is not the only major corporation to use videos as a marketing tool. It's just that many other businesses pay their winners -- a lot.

If you are a Pepto Bismol Fan - they're offering their grand prize commercial winner $15,000.

Home Depot is offering a $25,000 gift card

Even the non-profit Psoriasis Cure Now! awarded the winner of its PSA contest $7500

Yet, the powers that be  at Dove are relying on the belief that most women  are so star struck that they would opt for 30 seconds of fame at the Oscars rather than cold hard cash. Come to think of it, why should it be an either/or? Why not  pay $25,000 for the commercial and a trip to the Oscars?

It's not that appearing in a commercial at the Oscars wouldn't be exciting. But Dove is a for-profit business.Dove is saving a ton of money by not having a professional production team produce a commercial. Dove is getting great PR from its real women's campaign. PR that is translating to their bottom line.

Not offering the winners a financial  award  is as exploitive as air brushing models to set a beauty standard that is  a complete fantasy and an impossible ideal for 99% of women to reach,

 

Son of a Gun--It's High Maintenance Bitch

If the sign wasn't clear before, people walking past the Wallingford storefront in Seattle now know that High Maintenance Bitch is a high end pet store.

So does the rest of the country --thanks to a story with million dollar legs.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer got over 185 comments on their story which focuses on the community's reaction to to the store sign. Evidently, the Chamber of Commerce received multiple complaints.

People were offended by (a) the word ,(b) the prominence of the word.(c) the entire concept of a high maintenance pet store.

In other words, if the sign were a tad more subtle in its use of the word "bitch," the complaints may not have been so numerous.

It seems the in you face nature of the sign is what got cockles rankled-- not the fact that the store sells feather boas for dogs.

The article shares that the store owners have big national plans -- they say they want the brand to be as well known as Victoria's Secret. They have plans for expansion.

Yet it was this sentiment that actually caught my attention.

The owner of the store, Lori Pacchiano says in the article that  "one of her goals is reclaiming the word "bitch" -- so that it only means female dog and not something derogatory toward women."

As a reference point, thank you wikipedia,  the  word bitch has been used as a derogatory slang word for a woman since the 1400's --so creating a brand that will take the derogatory out of the B word is something that I will monitor with great intent.

Given the noblesse of that mission and one that I wholeheartedly support ,I thought a quick check of their website was in order.

Maybe I was expecting a mission statement reclaiming the word bitch. Maybe I was expecting a blog that chastised musicians, public figures,and television shows that randomly called a woman  a bitch. Maybe I thought there would be something about  this campaign and how we could support it.

Instead, I found this:

At High Maintenance Bitch®, we believe in spoiling our pets and ourselves.  I hope you will think of new ways you can create energy and passion in your workplace and your life.
--HMB Co-Founder, Lori Pacchiano

WHOLESALE INQUIRIES:  CLICK HERE

 

 Image Credit:  Gilbert W. Arias/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

McVirus,McLaw Suit,McGadget, McSales

It feels like the vacuum cleaner phenomenon.That's when you need to buy a new vacuum cleaner, open up the paper( if you still get a hard copy of the paper)and voila..there is a vacuum cleaner sale. Now what you learn in an advertising class is that vacuum cleaner sale ad has probably been there for months but until you need the vacuum cleaner you never saw the ad before. That's how I feel about all the bizarre stuff I found about McDonalds this week. Some of it just happened last week, some a month ago..it was all new to me.

First, there's the contaminated MP3 player.

Under the category that you can't win for losing, McDonald's Japan has issued a recall of some 10,000 MP3 Players it gave away as part of a promotion. As reported in the Register

"Punters received the contaminated gift after purchasing a large drink form the fast-food chain in Japan and submitting a serial number contained on the beverage holder as part of a competition, sponsored by McDonalds and Coca-cola. Users who connected the McDonald's-branded MP3 player to their Windows PC were exposed to spyware code programmed to transmit their web passwords and other sensitive information to hackers. The cause of the accidental infection is unclear but past experience suggests a contaminated machine involved in loading content onto the players is the likely culprit."

Then there's the judge who reversed himself and said two teenage girls could sue McDonald's for making them fat because of misleading advertising. ABC's John Stossel is not amused about the case that is now entering its fourth year.

"Whatever happened to self-responsibility? Sure, McDonald's commercials put the best spin on its products. All advertisers do that. Individuals should exercise caution, and parents should teach their kids a little skepticism. It's not as if information about nutrition is hard to come by. Today we're constantly harangued about cutting calories, reducing fat, and exercising more. McDonald's competitors, such as Subway, provide lots of counter-information. You'd have to live in a cave not to know about this stuff.

Fast food doesn't have to make you fat. Soso Whaley of New Hampshire once ate only at McDonald's for a month. The result? Unlike the guy who did the "Super Size Me" documentary, Soso lost 10 pounds, and her cholesterol dropped 40 points. How? She didn't pig out. Low-carb dieters have lost weight at McDonald's by eating the burgers without the buns and skipping the fries."

Speaking of informing  customers  about nutrition, Customers in McDonald's Japan ( yes those same customers who got the infected MP3 players) can scan their food with a gadget that displays nutritional info on their cell phones.

Known as a QR Code, these printed codes look somewhat like a barcode and are scannable by many photo cellphones. All sorts of information can be packed into these little codes, from the website to find the amount of calories and fat in a Big Mac to a company’s contact information on a business card.

Meanwhile, despite all the turmoil, business has never been better.

After months or declining sales and despite a good deal of negative publicity, McDonald's announced that they hit a six year high in sales both in the US and abroad, with the best performances from stores in the UK. The company cites in increase in healthier menu items, including salads and less fattening kids' choices. At UK restaurants, the new options include deli sandwiches, free-range eggs, more fruit and beef that is only "from the forequarter or flank of a cow."

P.S. In case you missed this in May ( I did), McDonald's is also undergoing an extreme McMakeover which will include cozy couches, WiFi, plasma TVs and premium Coffee. Think of it as the Starbuckization of McDonald's.

"After 30 years without a major design overhaul, the 51-year-old fast-food giant is adopting a hip new look. The world's largest hamburger chain is redesigning its 30,000 eateries around the globe in a 21st century makeover of unprecedented scale.

The redesign is risky and has many franchisees up in arms over the high costs of a makeover. But company officials believe the overhaul is needed. McDonald's, whose restaurants are visited by more than 40 million people every day, has moved aggressively over the past three years to revamp its menu and attract a new breed of customer."

While customers may enjoy the change, the franchisees are less than enthused. It will cost them around $300,000 to make the change. This is not an optional change. The only way to stay part of the McDonald's family is to order that cozy couch.

The business story behind Dove's Evolution Video

               
 

It is fast becoming one of the most watched videos on the Internet. For  Dove,all those eyeballs will translate into increased sales. In the two years since Dove decided to brand itself as the beauty company that celebrates real beauty that strategy has rewarded the company with double digit sales increases.

 

A year ago, Strategy Magazine looked at Dove's strategy to transform itself from marketer to social activist.

"[Women] are really connected to the brand, and in a way that it's not just 'I like their message'; they're starting to see now that we're really doing things that are working toward social change." That strategy is key to the brand's success. "The way we see it is that people buy brands first. They access a brand through products," she adds.

And sales prove it: "We've experienced strong double-digit growth in every new category that we're in," says Mark Wakefield, marketing director. Brand recognition is also strong. During its brand tracking, consumers were asked if they recognized the Dove blue bird logo. "Ninety percent of people recognized it," he says. "Just slightly behind the Nike swoosh."

Moving forward, the plan is to continue focusing on the successful formula.

As part of its marketing, Dove is providing financial support to organizations that help "foster a broader definition of beauty."

Gray skies are gonna clear up,

You know when John Stewart leads his program with a clip that the intention of this  spot didn't quite hit the mark. Either the people who created this commercial just took a class in Advertising 101 where the professor demanded they figure out their "real benefits OR, actually, there isn't an "Or" that could possibly explain this asinine commercial. What were they thinking? . Click here to watch.

As I am sure the folks at WTWO are learning now that they've become the laughing stock of the country, is that when someone says "real benefits" what they mean is "benefits" that the target audience cares about.

While the folks at WTWO are probably "taking a meeting' today to figure out whether to pull the spot, apologize to their competitors, or just grin and bear the public ridicule,one thing is for sure, this spot will live in Advertising Infamy as one of the the worst commercials ever.

What were they thinking? Advertisers Gone Wild

Advertisers will tell you the point of advertising is to generate awareness, support a brand image, and motivate a target audience to take some action ( often to spend money on the product or service being advertised)

Over at WonderBranding, Michele Miller is wondering about Tampax's latest spot, dubbed the" Tampax Dance".It's an ad to get "pad" users to convert to the joys of tampons.

Click here to view

Since I'm not in the 'target market' I sought the advice of someone who is: my 17- year old daughter. As I showed her the spot, I watched her facial expression--it's best described as her WTF or  Elvis look...you know where you do the one-sided nostril scrunch.

Here are my research findings based on a sample size of one.  "I get it. If you wear  Tampax  you can be do whatever you want and you won't have leaks. Notice," said Berit, "That when she did the cartwheel they focused on  her butt."

"Would the ad make you want to use Tampax?" I asked.

"No," she said."I don't like them."

For me the problem with the spot is not the creative -- it's the entire message that if you wear a "pad' your period is not private and if you wear a tampon it is. Having worn both over a very long period of my life, let me say that ifyou want your period to be private ( no leaks) unless you are on the pill and enjoy mercifully light periods,  there are many a day when you will want to double dip-- pad plus tampon.

No mention of advertising today could go without mention of the very serious and troubling lawsuit that the

good folks at  WarrenKremer Paino Advertising have filed   against blogger Lance Dutson for copyright infringement, defamation, and trade libel/injurious falsehood.

Dutson is a Maine resident and blogger who was less than impressed with the work and dollars that Maine's Office of Tourism was spending with the New York ad agency. He found an embarrassing, and depending on your perspective, amusing "mistake" . It seems that on their 'rough drafts' of an ad for the state they used a dummy phone number . And, of course, the number they used  was for a sex phone service. Now, these dummy ads were on the state's web site for anyone to see.

For his part, Dutson is getting a lot of support from folks who see this as a First Amendment Issue.  While this case is fascinating, it also has long -term ramifications for business and bloggers. As they advised  at PR Speak,

Whatever side of the coin you're on when it comes to the effect blogs have on business, this much is true: they're a force and they're not going away.  If you don't believe me, just do a Google search on Warren Kremer Paino Advertising LLC. What pops up in the first result set?  Something positive?  Nope.  A couple more days of this and blog posts will be the only Google results for the firm. 

This is a tired theme in PR blogs, but..."note to business": you have to start working with blogs and bloggers (or at least paying attention to them), even if you don't "get" the technology or don't subscribe to the notion that blogs represent a tectonic shift in mass communications.  Spend the time to learn about blogging, or run the risk of suffering the kind of negative attention this particular advertising agency is working through today.        

Publicity specialists will tell you there is no such thing as bad publicity. The Chinese would say: Be careful for what you want...you may just get it.

Tags: blogs, advertising, tampax, branding, law, first amendment

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Notes From The Road - The Border

After staring at the bumper of the car in front of us for about 20 minutes while crawling our way to have US Customs inspect our passports and ask us why we were visiting Canada ,my daughter  Berit asked, "How much do you save on your car lease if you agree to have the dealership's name on your car?"

When I explained to her that there isn't a reduction in price, she asked what only a rationale person would ask, "Then why do they do it?"

Good question. Why do people willing allow their cars to become  24/7 mobile billboards for a car dealership? I have no idea. I also had no idea just how many people feel compelled to use their cars to share a personal brand message.

If you live in New Jersey, you can't do it --at least that's the word from Wikipedia which says New Jersey bans license plate frames--do the legislators have some evidence that license plate frames increase fender benders? I find that hard to believe.

As far as advertising mediums go, the license plate frame seems a rather benign and ineffective method for getting a message out. Who reads this stuff?  And if they do read it ,who remembers them?

On Saturday evening, Berit and I did read these plate frames  for about 30 minutes on Interstate 5. Much to my surprise, over 50% of the cars had license plate frames..I was astounded.  While the majority of them were the traditional auto dealerships ---Honda of Kirkland (with their website address ) , South Center Acura of Seattle, and Downtown Toyota. there were some cars that opted to use the frames as a personal brand billboard.

In that brief time, we saw cars sporting a variety of messages including:

'The Scuba Diver"

"Heading In The Wrong Direction? God Allows U-Turns"

"No island like Samish Island"

"I'd rather be golfing"

"My other car is an airplane"

Is  it a west coast thing? I drive around Minneapolis every day and if people are sporting these license plate frames, it is completely lost on me.

According to some out- of- date statistics, back in 2001, car promotion products including key chains and license plate frames  were the 1 th best selling promotional products  ---accounting  for 3.4% of the $18 billion promotional product industry.

Which brings me to a more in your face concept--The ID IT! Plates which claims"tens of thousands" have been sold worldwide"

'Forget bumper stickers and other cheap, cheesy decals. Classy I.D. IT! Plates are available in elegant polished chrome or a luxurious gold matte finish and are carefully hand assembled to your text specifications. They mount safely to your vehicle and have been road tested in the frigid Canadian north and in dry desert heat. Your plate can be run through hundreds of car washes and will probably outlast your car! Click here to see who is using I.D. IT! Plates.

And just who has these I.D. IT! Plates? According to the web site tens of thousands have been sold around the world.

"Webmasters - Small Businesses - Manufacturers - Corporations - Auto Dealerships - Political Organizations - Retail Stores - Limousine Services - Real Estate Companies - MLM's - Internet Businesses - Service Businesses - Schools - Universities - Trade Unions -  Associations - Churches - Individuals"

You'd think if tens of thousands of companies have these billboards on their cars that at least one real client would be more than delighted to have her business used in the I.D. IT! promotional materials.Instead, the company uses a pretend company in its promotional material.

Curious isn't  it?

. Tags: Business, advertising, car, license plates

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When Business gives you lemons....Merchandise it,baby!

Yesterday, I shared the story of Henderson Bas aka TheNiceAgency about a nasty email their CEO sent to staff regarding the need to clean the office.

Instead of hoping the  episode would simply disappear into the night, the agency did what has become a North American tradition--sell merchandising.

Shortly after the scandal broke, the agency changed it's home page to:

It was either very popular or the agency has a great sense of humor.

And not to be out, Cafepress has a complete line of products commemorating the episode.

Tags: FunnyBusiness, advertising, merchandising, business culture, work, employment

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Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde? Welcome to Corporate Blogging

On the one hand there's the Wall Street Journal declaring yesterday that "Corporate America Has Joined The Blogosphere" ( just not WSJ since I can't link to the article --subscription,baby) and on the other hand there is a major brouhaha in the PR sector thanks to the launch of Strumpette the randy, bawdy and tell all blog of a character named Amanda Chapel that promises to deliver "a naked journal of the PR Business"

In it's launch just last week, Strumpette demonstrated that she/he/they( it is a blog written by a character) knows how to get publicity. As the character shares in her bio:

"Bottom line professionally speaking, I am 5’ 4” tall, athletic, Pantene shoulder-length black hair, perfect perky boobs. I present well and am most accomodating. I’ve slept with clients. I sleep with my boss. I am the consummate PR strumpette. When I was 7 my mother told me I'd "never get anywhere with that mouth." I've apparently dedicated my life in proving her wrong.

I have a BA degree in Economics with a minor in Italian Literature from Columbia. I graduated cum laude. I went on to get a law degree from Dartmouth but flunked out after two semesters. They were just way too snooty and serious. To be fair, I think I was just bored."

Type in Strumpette on Technorati and you'll get a sense of how obsessed the PR sector has become in (a) Outing the creatives behind  Strumpette  and (b) utter dismay that this whoring character is a traffic-monger.

From d:notes:

"I think this is a wee bit of a stunt and it sounds like the brainchild of a man more than something a successful woman would do, but either way I think it's great stuff. Professional life is often boring so I'm loving the spice.

Little bit of a display problem in MSIE 6.0 I noticed with the comments getting truncated on the left and right hand side - check this page as an example.

http://strumpette.com/archives/66-Place-Your-Bets,-Ghoulish-Office-Pool-Spreads.html#comments

Other than that, my theory this is some guy doing this but it's interesting to see that the interest (in the form of comments) is pretty much exclusively from men. I guess that's usually how it works "

From :infOpinions? :: Public Relations:

"T he worst aspects of PR and Word-of-mouth (WOM) were laid bare in one pitiful post this weekend. Filled with stereotypes and void of character (while masquerading as one), Strumpette busts on the scene and is quickly exposed by - a student.

A blogger, calling itself Strumpette attempted to be cute with a post about Steve Rubel.

The funniest part of the whole post, to me, is that a UK student PR blogger - Stephen Davies - was the first to point out that this is a lame copy of Spin Bunny, the first PR gossip blog - and from the UK. (That link/site is dead, by the way.) Who knows, it may be Spin Bunny coming out of the rabbit hole. I doubt it, though. That blog was creative."

And from Andrea Weckerle's New Millennium PR

For all you PR students out there, especially the women, here's apparently the winning formula:

• "Piggyback on a big name"

  • Describe your best two assets. Repeatedly.
  • Mention your willingness to accommodate your clients and your boss.
  • Include a saucy photo.
  • Play up to the gents.
  • Above all, remember that modesty doesn't get you anywhere.

Which takes us back to the WSJ and it's article "Corporate America has joined the Blogosphere". While it is definitely an interesting read, and if you have a subscription I do recommend it, it is also amusing.

Here's the interesting part:

"Despite the concerns, a slew of big companies, including General Motors Corp. and Boeing Co., have jumped on the blogging bandwagon in the past year -- joining high-tech firms like Sun Microsystems Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. For these companies, the bigger risk is being left out of an online phenomenon in which an estimated 5% of Americans maintain blogs and 20% read them, according to a February Gallup poll.

"The biggest risk with regard to blogs is not having one" because companies then miss out on a burgeoning communications medium, according to a report from Gartner Inc., a Stamford, Conn., firm that advises many companies on technology issues".

Here's the amusing part:

When you click on the hyperlink to General Motors or Boeing, it doesn't take you to their blogs. It takes you here...to their stock performance.

Now, in their defense, at the end of the article they do have a cute little chart that includes some of the top corporate bloggers and their URL's...its just that you can't get there from the WSJ because they are not hyperlinked. Maybe its time for the WSJ to join the blogosphere?

Notes: I was inspired to write this post after reading a couple of posts by Marianne Richmond on Blogher. And, to be completely transparent, Boeing is a client.

Image Credit: Flickr image by Ross Mayfield

Tags: Strumpette, PR, Blogher, Blogging, Communication, FunnyBusiness

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