Wednesday, 13 July 2011

As sure as eggs is eggs…..

I’m a great believer in learning from our ‘advertising heritage’ and applying that learning to the challenges we face today.

One series of ads I have always loved was commissioned by the British Egg Marketing Board in the 1960′s.

Before supermarkets, and with only one commercial TV channel, it’s tempting to think these were simpler times. However breakfast cereal manufacturers were spending lots on advertsing and the variety of  their products was increasing.

You can imagine the challenges facing egg producers as housewives switched to an apparently simpler breakfast option. The response to the challenge was this fantastic series of ads.

Of course having the talents of Tony Hancock and Pat Hayes  to call upon is a priceless advantage, but I’ve always believed that even without them these ads would be classics.

The scripts are beautifully written testimonials  to the egg, to its goodness, versatility and simplicity. The language is straight forward and designed to aid comprehension. The comedy supports the product message rather than distracting from it.

The competition is challenged head on with lines like ‘Variety is egg shaped’ and ‘Value is egg shaped’.

And the sign off is wonderful - ‘Go to work on an egg’.   

6 words that distance the egg from the competition. They say ‘this is the food you need to have a successful day’ and ‘this is real food that sets you up for a hard days work’.

By implication anything else is second best. Once you have seen Hancock  dip his soldiers in the perfectly boiled 3.5 minute egg, a bowl of  cereal seems a poor alternative.

These ads teach us that when we communicate we should select the simple over the complex, what is understood by the broadest group, not by the narrowest . The message can still be rich in meaning and successfully engage.

At THE DM GROUP we work hard to keep the advertising messages we create simple, without diminishing their meaning or effectiveness.  If you’d like to see how we can do that for your advertising give us a call today.

Malcolm Harvey

Client services director

Wednesday, 29 June 2011

Tweaks to stop leaks

Marketers spend a lot of time identifying the perfect customers for their product. Then,with that knowledge embedded into the marketing plan, they set up a communication program to capture those customers.

Of course in a perfect world they would be the only player in a niche market and all the customers would come to them. But those markets are very much the minority so you have to plan to attract customers to your product.

The process the customer goes through in arriving at which product to buy is known as the path to purchase and it has been well defined. One version is the AIDA model – Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action. Each step is a stage along the path.

I’ve used this model as starting point for marketing planning on many occasions over the years and I’ve picked up a few pointers on how to apply it for maximum effect:

Focus on leakage.

As they move from one stage of the process to the next the customer refines a shortlist of brands and products they feel best suit their needs. The trick is to focus on why some brands survive and why others perish at that point.

Look for the positive brand attributes

Look for what the customer likes about your brand. These may be brand attributes that are unique to you or that all successful brands in your category share. Once you know these highlight those attributes in your communications.

Negative brand attributes

Equally important what does the customer see as a negatives. Once you identify these attributes, reduce or eliminate them.

Attributes vary…

You have to go through the same exercise for each stage of the cycle, but what works to avoid elimination at one stage may well not be important to highlight at the next stage. For example ‘green credentials’ might be  important to move your brand from ‘awareness’ to ‘interest’, but a reputation for innovation might be the key to get you to the ‘desire’ stage.

So next time you are looking at your marketing plan take into account these simple points and you’ll notice an increase in the business that goes all the way though to become a sale.

At THE DM GROUP we help many clients define insights that allow them to get the most from their marketing activities. If you’d like to discuss leaks and how we can plug them why not give us a call.

Malcolm Harvey

Client Services Director

Wednesday, 18 May 2011

Blows glass

It seems that recently the most popular thing for a car company to do is to make a TVC with a lot of glass. One that really has me in awe is the commercial by…hmmm I actually can’t remember, perhaps I’ll fast forward to the end…ah yes Toyota.  

The absolutely fascinating art of blowing glass and the soft music has me drawn in completely. The skill and precision to make these wonderful pieces, creating a whole human sculpture with internal organs is amazing! But is this a problem? Does creating such a visually appealing and interesting commercial take away from the focus of the commercial?  Well, I did spend 30 minutes trying to find the clip on youtube before asking around the office. Even that proved to be difficult.

Another glassy act was done by Skoda.

What a magnificent talent this guy has, playing a beautiful piece of music with just water and wine glasses. But again the problem lies with what it’s actually all about. I searched for the ‘musical glass tvc’ to find this clip, not Skoda Auto.

Perhaps they all got so wrapped up in the artistic nature of what seems like an independent film and forgot that they were suppose to talk about a car.

Here at THE DM GROUP, we can bring your brand personality to life through considered and insightful creative executions on and offline. If you’d like to discuss how we might help you make something memorable for your brand, why not give us a call.

John Brunckhorst – The American

Monday, 2 May 2011

From puffin muffins to destroying brands…

iSelect has changed its advertising with a campaign reaching both offline and online.

So whether you love her or hate her, as its seems so many people do,  it’s ‘goodbye’ quirky, bubbly little blonde with the penchant for ‘puffin muffins’ …

… and ‘hello’ portly bald guy in a suit who gets the name of the large lady in his call centre wrong and doesn’t care.

As a brand specialist this ad sent a shiver down my spine. You’d have to be ‘burying heads’ to believe I’m going to be thinking nice things about iSelect after this misguided attempt at humour.

I agree that iSelect needed to do something new, but for me this misfires badly. I get the message that iSelect is not a health fund, I got that from the previous ads. Now I also get the message that iSelect has a culture that rides rough-shod over the feelings of individuals. Their names and feelings don’t matter.

For many people there are few bigger faux pas than getting someones name wrong.

Well actually there is a bigger one. Getting a name wrong, not giving a stuff  and then insisting on using the wrong name over the protests of the victim of your poor manners.

At the DM group we work with many major brands to construct the framework of  their brand strategy and bring their brand personality to life through considered and insightful creative executions on and offline. If you’d like to discuss how we might help you do just that for your brand why not give us a call.

Malcolm Harvey

Client Services Director

Thursday, 21 April 2011

Goodbye Bensons – HELLO ‘Ciggies’

The recent Federal Government announcements on plain cigarette packaging  could mark the end of  40 year war against the tobacco industry. That industry  is up in arms and threatening multi-million dollar law suits. Perhaps evidence of how deeply this latest assault will impact the ‘brands’?

Over the years the tobacco industry has been quite remarkable in maintaining strong brands in the face of restrictions that would have sounded the death knell for other categories.   

In the 1970s tobacco companies were banned from using overtly glamorous or ‘cool’ imagery, so they resorted to an increasingly surreal approach to selling their wares. The result was arguably some of the best press ads and posters of a generation with oblique images of gold pyramids and ripped silk. For a while it seemed that the tighter you squeezed the industry, the more creative it became.

But that’s all about to change, no more ads, no more seductive packaging, no more brands, no more cigarettes.

Result = true happiness? Well perhaps its not that simple.

The fact is that you can take away the brand identity but the need that created the category will remain?

All you are left with is a single, mass market of ‘ciggies’ with similar look, price and taste (just a different name to pay lip service to their origin). It might stop me posing with an expensive brand I think says something about me, but does it stop me smoking? I doubt it. For the vast majority of smokers this is about addiction first and fashion a far distant second.

At the DM group we work with clients to create brands that positively differentiate them from the competition, our successes with  blue chip clients are testiment to our creativity. If you’d like to know more, why not give us a call.

Malcolm Harvey – Client Services Director