We help companies develop compelling selling conversations that connect with their best customers, both internal and external, offline and online. When that happens, our clients sell more stuff. Think of us as a creative juice bar for fresh ideas - branding, advertising, graphic design, copywriting, TV & Radio concept and production, social media strategy & more.
Take a look at this classic VW spot from 1969. It is a minute long, was very successful, and surprisingly, doesn't even mention the client's name until the end of the spot.
Many marketing types today believe you have to state the client or product's name in the first 10 seconds of every spot and then trumpet it at least every 10 seconds thereafter. But customers won't remember your name if they don't remember your commercial. You have to give them a reason to remember. Either a compelling stiuation or a relavent marketable truth, or ideally, both.
This VW commercial does both. It creates a compelling and entertaining situation, causing people to hang on to the end of the spot where the marketable truth is revealed as well as the name of the product that can deliver on that promise.
Take a look. Who knew (advertising) history could be so fun.
The coupon was born 125 years ago. 125 years later with millions of the little suckers being redeemed every day, it seems it was a good idea... unless you ask J.C. Penney. J.C. Penney is celebrating the coupon's birthday by trying to kill it at their stores. Their goal is to save women from these awful discount devils by removing them and other promotional devices from it's pricing model. Bright idea, or dim?
Rule #1: Know Thy Customer.
One possible answer comes in the form of a recent survey of women in the US by Valpak. The survey reveals that a lot fewer women than J. C. Penney would have us believe are wigging out over the plethora of coupons regularly arriving at their homes (see commercial below). In fact, 70% of women surveyed say saving money with coupons is as American as apple pie and they "love saving money and getting great discounts."
84% of them say they use coupons they get in their mail, and in newspapers - 84%! Hmmm. Women don't hate coupons after all. Could be a problem.
Rule #2: Hope For The Best.
Penney's new pricing strategy contradicts the survey results with a move away from a high-low pricing model driven by coupons and discount promotions, to more of an everyday low pricing (EDLP) formula for success. Their advertising strategy is targeting what they apparently believe (or perhaps their own research shows) are women who are fed up with coupons and discounts. According to the Valpak survey though, that's not a lot of women. Regardless, Penney's ads to introduce the concept featured women screaming in apparent suicidal fear and frustration as discount signs dangle above their heads and coupons pour from their mailboxes. Apparently, the ads must feature the mere 30% of women who don't think coupons are as American as apple pie, and/or the 16% who don't use them (according to the survey, that is).
Rule #3: Don't Believe Everything You Read.
Of course this is just one survey, admittedly conducted by a company who's life depends on coupons. And if it's wrong, or skewed a tad, J. C. Penney may be onto something. If it isn't, 70% of women who "love saving money and getting discounts," and 84% of all women who use coupons will be going elsewhere to get their discount fix. And Penney might be going back to the drawing board.
Here are a few factoids from the survey:
More than eight in ten women (84%) say they use coupons received via mail, such as Valpak, and those found in newspapers.
However, digital couponing is gaining momentum; among surveyed women:
65% use online coupons from retailer websites.
55% use coupon websites.
34% use coupons from social networks such as Facebook.
25% use deal-site coupons.
19% use mobile/SMS coupons.
Nearly six in ten women (58%) say they have increased their coupon habits over the past few years.
Hey, someone at Nissan reads our Atomic Ideas blog....well maybe not. Either way,they finally are advertising "marketable truths" - ie , things they can say about their products that are true and should appeal to their target markets. Take a look.
It's a far cry from their "Fantasy" of a snowbaording pickup that does things no mass produced vehicle can, or ever will, do. Or their out-and-out lie of a spot (called that becuase they purposely tried to make it look as if it were a real news event-- so much so that some people believed it) which had a jet liner with a stuck nose gear land by placing it in the bed of a Nissan pickup that zooms out onto the tarmack.
But credit where credit is due. This spot gives consumers with a couple dozen grand in their pockets some real reasons to buy a Nissan. Whereas their previous pickup spots gave these same people a reason to say "hey, look at that" but no real reason to part with their dough.
Nissan is at it again. First they had a spot where their pickup races onto the tarmac to help a jet land by letting it put it's semi-extended front landing gear in the bed of the truck. Clearly fake, what does that say about the pickup? Since it's fantasy, NOTHING! I could just as easily (with a special effects budget and matting software) have my daughter's 2001 Chrysler Neon with a bent fender and 126,000 miles on it, race out and save the jet by putting it's landing gear on the roof. Both say the same for the Nissan pickup -- Nothing! Okay, you might remember the Nissan name. But once you think about the fact that they have no real benefits to talk about (which is why they present a fake scenario that no pickup could live up to) you're not going to seriously consider buying it. And isn't the whole reason advertising exists, is to try and put your product or service on top of someone's consideration list?
AND NOW...they come up with a snowboarding pickup. At least this time they try to avoid looking like they are LYING to us or trying to FAKE US OUT by clearly disclaiming it as FANTASY. So again, why should I buy the Nissan pickup??? Just because someone at their ad agency had a wet dream about depicting the vehicle like it was a snowboard and doing impossibly fake flips and jumps over snow covered hills? Substitute a Ford F-150, a Dodge Ram, or a rickshaw as the featured vehicle and the commercial would work equally as well, ie. not at all!
While you're at it, Nissan, if you're going to live in a fantasy world, why not just give your truck lazers, afterburners, and submarine qualities in your commercials, too? No real truck has those, either.
At least when I walk away from an F-150 commerical I remember a benefit or two, like Eco-boost. Or with Dodge Ram, towing capability. But with a Nissan Pickup commercial, other than the dubious entertainment value of "gee, I'd like to see a truck do that", there is no resaon to buy one, because, "gee, NO truck bound by the laws of physics can do that."
Sure a TV spot has to be attention getting, entertaining and likeable, but once the spot is over, if you want people to buy what you're advertising, it needs to have a marketable truth. In today's economy, it's not enough to have someone remember your product or service's name, they need to have a reason to part with their hard earned money to purchase it.
Well, it's two full weeks until Thanksgiving and retailers are already jockeying for postion on Black Friday. Since they are all competing on price, and prices can only be cut so far, the only tool they have left is to try to start their sales sooner than their competition.
Instead of sales starting at an ungodly early hour on Friday morning, Black Friday has crept into Thursday. Target has announced that their Black Friday will start at midnight on Thursday. http://www.target.com/c/Target-black-friday-2011/-/N-5q0f2. So...not to be outdone, Wal-Mart announced that their sales start at 10pm Thursday http://www.walmart.com/cp/black-friday-2011/1076614.I say we just take off the gloves and start Black Friday today...at lunchtime!
This is a microcosm of companies that rely on price to differentiate their brand. They put themselves at the mercy of a fickle consumer who will bolt the second they can find a lower price somewhere else. A brand, whether it is a product, a retail store, or a service, needs to stand for more than a low price.
Wal-mart and Target understand this. They can't offer much lower prices around Thanksgiving, so they offer something else, availability. But since their competition is trying to differentiate themselves the same way, this can only go so far! I mean, Black Friday can only be pulled up so far before it becomes Black Monday, or further back and becomes Black November, or Black Autumn starting September 1st, or heck, a Black Year starting at 11pm New Year's Eve!
At Atomic Ideas, one of the first questions we ask a potential client is: "If every one of your competitors had the exact same price, why would customers come to you?" If you don't have an answer to that question, you are doomed to compete on price...and your brand is simply...doomed!
I saw this new Honda Odyssey TV spot the other day. I asked my colleague Greg what it meant and what just happened there. He said they were imitating the Ozzie Osbourne song, “Crazy Train.” Really? Why? Smarter thinking?
Usually when you imitate or parody a popular song in a TV spot you hope that it’s… well… popular and recognizable. Honda struck out on this one. It’s surprising because Honda has always been very solid in their concepts and cleverness over the years.
I like Honda. I’ve owned many over the years and currently drive one. But I have to ask, whom were they targeting in this spot? The worldwide fan base of Ozzie Osbourne? No offense intended, but just how big could that be? Is this a song tune people have stuck in their heads throughout the day? Or maybe Honda just wanted to tie in the song’s title with Honda’s unique mini-van attributes – a weak tongue-in-cheek connection. The visual production value is good - it’s the audio that stumped me. I did not understand what was going on until Greg told me it was an Ozzie Osbourne tune, (Hmm... how did he know that!)
By the way, I later discovered there’s a 90 second version on the web that features a lot more of the Ozzie song performed by all of the Honda’s eight passengers. But it’s the thirty second TV spot that’s the measure for successful selling. One shouldn’t have to rely on the rarely aired :90 to substantiate or fill in the blanks of the :30 concept. However, it’s still not clear what Honda is trying to say here. The new Honda Odyssey is a crazy train?
This is one of those spots where you wonder how it was presented to the client. Was it acted out? Did they go so far as to test it as an animatic? And, who said, “Go for it” on the client side? - An Ozzie fan?
The spot wraps up with the line, “Smarter Thinking from Honda.” I’m sure there was smarter thinking for the new Odyssey vehicle, I’m not so sure there was for the commercial.
On my Steeb-O-Meter (a rating system for evaluating projects on film, video, music, television and print on a scale of 1 - 63), I’m giving this spot a 26.
You've seen the commercial, a "simulated" news story about an Airliner with half-extended nose gear, is saved when it sets the wheel down in the back of a speeding Nissan Frontier. (No I didn't remember the name from the spot, I had to look it up).
Sure it was well produced. Sure it cost gazillions to produce (Not the least of which is all that CG work). And sure it got my attention... right up to the part when I realized it was...as the youtube title says "unbelievable" (ie NOT believable).
THE FLAWED IDEA:
Now the idea was to "demonstrate" that the Frontier is tough and can haul a big payload. But a fake story about a fake event leads viewers to wonder what else is fake -- like the sales points they desperatly want to convince us are true? I was so turned off, that I tuned the spot out before they even got to the name of the truck. With advertising already being suspect for false promises, why go out of your way to purposly make a false promise (exaggeration for humor, aside). This is especialy true if you are marketing to the GEN Y crowd who eschew being "suckered" into anything.
Also, since they went to such great lengths to make it look real, and never let on that this was a joke or exaggeration, it leads one to wonder if they expect us to believe it's actually true...thus, insulting our intelligence? Now they're not just fakers, they're rude fakers!
WHAT THEY COULD HAVE DONE:
Okay, now I didn't have the benefit of seeing the creative brief (and I'm not being paid to spend a couple weeks to create a killer idea for this -- although Atomic Ideas is available, give us a call!), but IF the idea is to convince us that the Frontier can carry a big load, then show us an impressive, entertaining, REAL load that it can carry! If it can carry a half ton, have it put down the tailgate and let a mini-car drive into the bed ("Hauls everything from a mini to a full-sized load") . Or lead a half-grown elephant into the bed ("Hauls a full-size load for peanuts"). Or fill it with 100,000 gumballs ("A mid-size pickup that hauls a full size load. Chew on that a while"). And that's three, off the top of my head, that make the point without pegging the B.S. meter.
THE IDEA IS THE THING!
Without a good idea and a sound strategy, you can throw all the money you want at a commercial and still have it go down the drain. Or in this case, having it "not land."
The simple answer is: As much as you can afford. Why? Because people at home don't rationalize a crappy spot, saying "Gee, I bet they didn't have much money to produce their spot." No, they think, "Gee, what a crappy commercial." And a crappy commerical makes your product or service look crappy. And let's face it, your commercial may run after a million dollar spot produced by Nike or Budweiser. And again, the people at home don't rationalize that your company is not as big as theirs, they only know your commercial doesn't look as good as the other ones on TV.
Now that's not to say you have to spend millions. A small budget does not necessarily mean a small idea. You just need to be clear about the budget up front, so your agency can create a spot that can be produced well (and look good) with the dollars at hand. Sure, with a tiny budget, you may have to settle for a simpler execution . But that simple spot will look good, and get your message across. The biggest mistake advertisers make is wanting an ambitious million-dollar commercial like they saw on the Superbowl, but only bugeting a few thousand dollars to pull it off. A recipe for disaster.
The bigger the budget, the more options your agency has to create stopping power with a unique technique or entertainment vaule -- two important elements in getting your spot noticed and remembered. And we all know that a TV commerical that is unnoticed or quickly forgotten is wasted money.
The flip side is not agreeing up front on a specific strategy for the agency to follow. Even a slick, million dollar spot will fail to make the cash register ring, if it doesn't connect with your corel customers.
So the the bottom line is...spend what you can, but be sure to set a clear strategy before you start.
(This spot cost a bundle, not just for the number of scenes, actors, and quality of the lighting and directing, but also remember that they had to buy the rights to use "Star Wars" characters and music -- easily another $100K-$500K. Again, the bigger the budget, the more options for creating something entertaining, memorable and unique.)
Working in close collaboration with the marketing team at Belle Tire and production company Rare Medium, Well Done, and based on research and consumer feedback, Atomic Ideas created three new commercials to highlight the fact that tire shopping really isn't that much fun.
The new campaign capitalizes on Belle Tire's commitment to providing an unexpected and extraordinary customer experience for tire and automotive service customers, and introduces the new tagline "Better At Every Turn."
The spots contrast the alternate reality of a universe where people live for the day they have a flat, or their car breaks down, with the reality that those events are about the last thing a normal person looks forward to. Take a look and let us know what you think!
Atomic Ideas is an idea factory for marketers that need a boost.
We offer businesses strategically sound ideas to accomplish their business objectives, and then we execute them.
The results are compelling selling conversations that connect companies with their best customers, both internal and external, offline and online....aligned.
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