For those of you who haven’t yet seen the last video about a marketing team inventing a stop sign, head on over to You Tube to check it out. It’s worth the trip. Y’all come back now, hear?
(Thanks to Julia W for pointing out that the embedding has now been disabled.)
Tsufit

Anyone who’s heard me speak or read Step Into The Spotlight! knows that I love to tease corporate types. About their corporate gobbletygook. About how their words obscure meaning. About how they seem to specialize in taking something simple and making it– well, check this out…
(Thanks to Ad Age for the heads up.)

There’s a saying, often credited to Oscar Wilde, “Any publicity is good publicity”.

Mars Inc, the maker of the Snickers bar, appears to be testing the boundaries of this philosophy with its series of “Get Some Nuts” ads. The ads feature Mr. T (in a tank no less!) taunting less-than-macho-males going about their business (speed-walking, playing soccer). The T character (I can’t bring myself to call him “Mr.”) shoots Snickers bars at these hapless guys (machine guns are involved, don’t ask…) with the put-down “Get some nuts”.

We all know it’s noisy out there.
We all know you gotta do something to cut through the clutter.
But where do you draw the line?

No point in sitting on the fence, but is it ever OK to ridicule a segment of the population in order to make your point? In the movie, Freedom Writers, the Hilary Swank character reminds her Latino, Asian and African American students that ridicule preceded the unspeakable period in Germany’s history during the 30’s and 40’s. It’s not a big surprise that these ads are offending many and that there’s been a serious outcry. (The ads were recently pulled but are readily available online.)

Mars Inc. had to know this going in. All part of the plan? Undoubtedly.

The Responsible Marketing Blog says “As the leader, Snickers could lay low and play it safe. They deserve credit for not doing that. Sure, “Get Some Nuts” is sophomoric, and it would be hard to call it message responsible: The homophobic overtone of the speedwalker ad can’t be missed. But it certainly breaks through, doesn’t it?”

It’s true. We are talking about them, but is it really gonna make you go out and buy a Snickers bar today? Before you say “no”, think about it. Snickers are kinda like pink elephants. Hard not to think about them even if you try real hard not to. And I gotta admit, after reviewing about 5 of their commercials I do find myself craving chocolate. So it probably will work. But at what cost?

Will it taint the whole Mars brand? Me personally, I wouldn’t want to be an M & M right now…

Ad Age quotes Eric Hirshberg, the chief creative officer at Deutsch, Los Angeles as saying “There are two kinds of controversy in advertising. One is the kind where you decide that it’s worth turning off one group in order to get a more exaggerated and positive response from your target. The other kind is when you either intentionally or inadvertently cross a line of taste and decency.”

Did Snickers cross the line? What do you think?

Just got back from Dallas. Did a booksigning in the Dallas Airport, all very exciting. Met a real estate agent at a conference who made Audrey Hepburn look like a shlump. I’m talking fresh as a daisy at all hours of the day or night. When I asked her secret, she whispered “Ann Taylor”.

Now, I’m not an Ann Taylor girl, far from it, me in my Guatamalan belts and thrift store Thai silk treasures. But I trekked in the 103 degree heat (by bus yet; I live a life of glamour) to not one but two Ann Taylor shops seeking the elusive crisp cool cotton I wash floors in this and still look like Grace Kelly blouse from the 50’s.

Didn’t find exactly what I was looking for but I found something better.

The shmate (clothing) business has hit on the greatest marketing innovation since ending prices in .99 . You take a woman who has bought size 10 or 12 all her life and tell her she’s a 2! I gotta admit, I fell for it and here’s the label to prove it. When I was a kid, the smallest size was 5/6. Now it’s a zero! What exactly are we telling women who buy a zero? What are we telling women for whom a zero is too big? And why are my feet still the same size they always were?

Who cares? The size 2 is hanging in my closet and as soon as I can figure out a way to attach the size label to the outside, I’ll wear it.

My kids LOVE the Kia commercial, you know the one where the guy does the Flashdance thing. Then again, my kids don’t buy cars…

“We don’t want to spend a good chunk of our time in a 30-second spot trying to entertain people. We have a lot to communicate in terms of our products, and we don’t want to obscure it with entertainment.” says Tim Chaney, Marketing Director, Kia Motors America. So they’re pulling the plug on Flashdancer.

You know my stand, “all business is show business”. I’ve always been a vocal proponent of using humor to sell stuff. If you’ve got 30 seconds, devote 25 seconds to attracting/entertaining and 5 seconds to informing. The trick is to make sure sure there’s a strong connection between the humor and whatever you’re going to say in the remaining 5 seconds.

If KIA is trying to sell “fun”, ie positioning itself as a fun car, the commercial might make sense. On the other hand, if KIA feels it has to prove itself as a quality car first, the commercials may not be having their intended effect. I must admit, I had seen the commercial several times but never really noticed what it was selling. You gotta make sure there’s a strong connection.

One thing’s for sure. It was a smart move publicity wise. Getting a lot of ink and cyber ink.

What do you think? Is KIA making a mistake giving the commercial the hook or is car selling serious business?

Tsufit

“I’ll have a half caff latte, no foam, a Gone With The Wind, and a scone.”

Kinda cool. Yup, you can now order any book (or almost any, choose from 1 million titles) from a vending machine and have it printed while you wait for your coffee to brew, thanks to the Expresso Book Machine. Now installed in several UK locations (and several libraries), the Expresso Book Machine prints 40 pages a minute while you wait.

We’ve seen “Make a Bear”, now “Make a Book”. Check it out. What’s next? “Make a Buick”?

Thanks to 800 CEO Read for the head’s up.
T

So I’m the keynote speaker at an event 3 days ago and this guy with the biggest hands I’ve ever seen in my life tells me he enjoyed my stuff. I shake his improbably sized paw, do the “bask in the glow of my adoring fans” thing and go back to my seat.

I knew Bobby Hull was going to be arriving later that evening to sign autographs and move a little high priced memorabilia but it wasn’t till half an hour later that I find out that Mr. “You Have the Biggest Hands I’ve Ever Seen In My Life” was Mr. Hull himself, Chicago Blackhawks’ Number 9 from back in the day when my brother used to make us watch Hockey Night in Canada.

Me, I was more of a Bewitched/I Dream of Jeannie kind of girl. But none of that mattered on Wednesday night when I found out my new found fan was the living legend himself. I’m muscling my way in to get my picture taken with the guy, getting him to scribble his name on the flyer with both our pictures on it.

Fast forward to Friday (yesterday) and I’m speaking at another event, and since there are no hockey players to speak of within 100 miles of the resort, audience members come up afterwards, copy of my book in hand, to get their picture taken with ME!

I guess celebrity is relative. Truth be told, I kinda enjoyed my 20 seconds of fame.

What is it that makes us go up to total strangers and try to soak up a little bit of what they’ve got by standing in front of a flash bulb with ‘em? I’m worse than anybody. I’ve got 30 year old pictures of me and Rita Moreno, me and Peter, Paul and Mary. (Actually Peter OR Paul and Mary, not really sure which guy was missing…)

Far from the geriatric I expected when I did the math, Bobby, Mr. Hull, looked great and was very engaging. I wonder whose autograph he’d line up for.

Want to engage your audience? Tell ‘em a story. We’ve all heard this before, but this is the first time I’ve seen it on the local Weather Forecast.

I was doing the channel dance last month and got caught up in –get this, the weather forecast. I know. Pretty lame. This TV station had viewers send in their questions like “I’m going camping in Markville this weekend. It’s my first camping trip ever and I hear it might rain. Am I going to have to cancel?” Another viewer, Tyler, writes, “We’re planning to go see the fireworks at Canada’s Wonderland on Monday night. Will it be rained out?” Another viewer wrote in about her weekend family reunion in a third location. After reading the questions, the weather guy dished out the weather forecast and highlighted the specific locations and viewer’s names on his weather map with specific locations. Camping trip girl was told the weather would dip to 4 degrees celcius overnight so she was advised to double up on sleeping bags and wear a toque. (Yeah, I know it was May but it’s Canada eh?)
Tsufit

Sex Sells, Or Does It?

Business is a seduction. I’m always preaching to accountants and financial advisors that they gotta attract and entice, not chase, new clients. Well it appears that they’re not the only ones who are hurting. Word on the street is that the brothel business is slow and they’re not taking it lying down.

Nevada bordellos claim that business is down 25%-45% and one of them has put up billboards to bring in more business. The ads apparently feature a cartoon of a horse with the tagline “The Party’s at Wild Horse”.

Other brothels in the area shy away from billboards prefering to market their “ranch” as a home away from home to truckers, their primary customers. Kinda ironic. Everyone else is using sex to sell everything from cologne to cars while brothels are using down home cooking, barbecues, baked beans and apple pie.

Some even offer “frequent flier” cards. The 10th visit is free.

And the world only gets weirder…

Came across an interesting book. Haven’t read it yet, but what I read about the premise reinforces the idea that you can indeed market anything. The title of the book, Doubt is Their Product” comes from a fascinating document written by a cigarette executive in which he says : ‘‘Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy’.

While cigarette companies and pesticide companies are busy marketing doubt by challenging the lack of iron clad definitive proof that their stuff is bad for us, financial firms are marketing fear.

One of the more clever campaigns is a granny dressed as a greeter in a Walmart style smock, “Have a Nice Day” pin and all, with the tag line, “Is continuing to work part of your retirement plan?”
No doubt about it. You can market anything.