Guinness Wheelchair Basketball Commercial

Guinness released a new TV commercial a few months ago that is outstanding on nearly every front.  It catches your attention, keeps you engages, and connects emotionally.  Like I said, outstanding on nearly all fronts.  Unfortunately, the commercial fails to link back to the brand equity for me.  Take a look.



As much as I love the ad, it just doesn't feel like a Guinness commercial to me.

Subaru Turning Into a Lifestyle Brand

Subaru gets what few other automobile manufacturers understand, the days of marketing specific product features or racing through curvy streets are over. The future is all about understanding your core consumer and marketing your brand around either their actual or aspirational lifestyle.

More and more, specific car features are becoming commodities, with slight design elements and brand image now the primary factors points of difference.  Think about it.  Volvo use to be all about safety, now all brands have state of the art breaks and airbags all over the place.  Toyota was the brand of reliability, but now America cars have joined Japanese cars at the top of the charts and the 100,000 warranty no longer even raises eye brows.

At a time of increased competition, Subaru is making waves by playing a different game.  Subaru advertisements focus on using real life scenarios to relate to their consumers vs. closed course riving stunts. The ads are all about demonstrating how Subaru safely gets you through real life.

I've included several advertisements to highlight how well they paint different slivers of people's lives.

Subaru "Stick Shift" TV Commercial

Subaru "View from the Child Seat" TV Commercial

Subaru "Best Friend" TV Commercial

Subaru "Teenager Driving Responsibility" TV Commercial

Subaru "New Car Smell" TV Commercial

Subaru "Redressing Room" TV Commercial

Subaru "The Date" TV Commercial

Subaru "Cut the Cord" TV Commercial

Subaru "Nature Painting" TV Commercial

Subaru "Let's Do That" TV Commercial

The results are not just impressive for Subaru, but record breaking.  In August, Subaru sold 41,061 cars in the US, a 45% increase versus a year ago, and more importantly its highest ever in one single month. 

Even more impressive is that Subaru saw superb sales across its entire line, including its staple models (Outback, Forester, Impreza) as well as some solid traction with the newer XV Crosstrek and BRZ models.

Soon enough other car manufacturers will hopefully realize consumers are looking for more than product attributes, their looking for a brand that enhances their desired lifestyle.

The only thing I don't like is Subaru's tag-line "Confidence in Motion", it does not connect and comes off as artificial. However, the advertisement are very strong so they more than make up for it.

Gap "Back to Blue" Great Insights, Questionable Execution

Gap has made a huge investment behind it's back-to-school campaign, which is called "Back to Blue" and focuses on promoting its denim business.

I'm a big supporter of Gap focusing its marketing efforts on core wardrobe categories like denim or khakis because I believe these are the type of items the retailer is famous for and has the most right to win with. I also really love the "Back to Blue" tag-line, not just because it fits with denim theme, but also because Gap = Blue and it signals Gap's resurgence in many consumers' minds driven by a strong turn around strategy over the last several quarters.

However, I do not believe the execution of the Back to Blue campaign is on equity for Gap. Take a look at some of the campaign imagery....

The imagery just does not say Gap to me, it looks much to hipster versus mainstream All-American. It's fine if Gap wants to start evolving its imagery to have a bit more personality, but it cannot just jump there too quickly. Perhaps a more preppy hipster look might work to bridge to Gap's equity but the slightly disheveled, glassy-eyed, slouched over look just does not fit with the Gap of today. I think the brand is reaching too far and risks alienating existing consumers as well as coming off as a poser brand to true hipsters.

Gap CM Seth Farbman explains that "The entire Back to Blue campaign embodies what it means to be comfortable in your own skin".  This might be case, and I can see this attitude come to life in the imagery, but it doesn't mean the execution is done in a way that is consistent with the brand equity. Great campaign insight, great tag-line, poor execution. That's my view at least. We'll see what the consumer says. At the very least, Gap should see a bump from fielding its first TV ads in 4 years.

The Yogurt Wars Heat Up and YOPLAIT Appears One Step Behind . . . AGAIN

The US yogurt wars are heating up again and about to become even more intense...and Yoplait appears to be one step behind again.

For years the US yogurt market was dominated by Yoplait and Dannon. However, five years ago the US market was fundamentally changed with the emergence of Chobani, which helped usher in the Greek yogurt revolution.

As Greek yogurt mainstreamed growing from 4% of the US yogurt market in 2008 to nearly 45% in 2012, Chobani was transformed a small challenger brands into a $1 billion power-player that is giving Yoplait and Dannon a run for their money.

Dannon reacted with the 2011 launch of its Greek yogurt sub-brand Oikos. Oikos growth has been tremendous, surpassing over $400 million 2012, which is a ~45% growth from its first year sales. Not only was Dannon able to leverage the brand to grow the overall Greek Yogurt segment, but also start winning back some share from Chobani by advertising its superior taste behind a claim that Oikos is preferred 2 to 1 over the leading brand.

On the other hand, more than 2 years later Yoplait is still trying to figure out how to win in Greek yogurt.  Yoplait's initial entry into Greek Yogurt was a bust...as was its first relaunch attempt in 2011. Now Yoplait, which is owned by General Mills, is hoping to make up for lost ground by relaunching its Yoplait Greek yogurt again, this time behind a new formula, packaging and advertising. In it's new TV ads, Yoplait declares that "it's time healthy gets a dose of happy" and carry the tag line "it's time to lick the lid again."

The insight Yoplait is basing its bet on is that American consumers will prefer a less sour Greek yogurt and fruit pre-blended into the yogurt, as opposed to being on the bottom of the container.  I personally, don't buy that this positioning will be enough to catch up to Chobani and Dannon, but it will likely be sufficient to remain relevant in the category.

Meanwhile, as Yoplait focuses on and invests in getting its base Greek yogurt offering right, the yogurt market is about to take its next major transformation - adult yogurts with flavor enhancing add-in. 

• First Pepsi's Quaker unit launched Muller (a new joint venture with a European based yogurt company) that features an extensive line of flavor add-ins.  Expect major marketing pushes behind this product over the next several months

• Chobani's answer was to launch  "Flip" and "Bite" sub-lines.

• Now Dannon is jumping into the game via its recent acquisition of YoCrunch, the market leader in yogurt mix-ins.  YoCrunch features 27 different varieties of mix-ins (though most are geared at kids).  Not only does the YoCrunch acquisition give Dannon instant market share in this segment, but more importantly instant access to critical packaging capabilities that will eventually allow Dannon to bring this innovation to their Dannon brands.

While Yoplait does have a mix-in granola offering...

...its already a step or two behind and is going to have to quickly invest in major innovation to keep its offering competitive. But in all likelihood, Yoplait will be spending the the next few years playing catch up again.  Proof a market leader can never stop innovating or it risks being surpassed.

Nike's "Just Do It" Turns 25

Twenty-five years ago, Nike unveiled one of the greatest tag line's in advertising history: "Just Do It".

Dan Wieden, the co-founder of Wieden+Kennedy advertising agency, coined "Just Do It" for a 1988 Nike ad campaign. Wieden evidently received his inspiration for "Just Do It" from Gary Gilmore, a convicted murder, who uttered "Let's do it" as his last words before he was executed.

Nike's first "Just Do It" advertisement debuted on July 1, 1988 featuring a then 80 year old runner named Walt Stack who had reached iconic stature in the running community at that time for having run over 60,000 miles over the course of his lifetime.

Now, Nike is celebrating the tag line's twenty-fifth birthday with the release of an new inspirational commercial, narrated by Bradley Copper and featuring Serena Williams and Lebron James.



"Just Do It" is still as amazing, relevant and powerful tag line today as it was 25 years ago.  

Does Taco Bell hate kids?

Taco Bell recently announced it plans to stop selling kids meals and toys in its restaurants at the beginning of 2014, making it the first national U.S. fast-food restaurant to kill kids meals (although west coast based Jack-in-the Box did eliminate kids meals back in 2011).


Why would Taco Bell risk alienating moms and kids?

The short answer is Taco Bell is doing a smart job of tightly targeting their consumer (the edgy millennial) and positioning its marketing and product offering to best serve that consumer. "The future of Taco Bell is not about kids meals . . . This is about positioning the brand for millennials" according to Taco Bell CEO Greg Creed.

The longer answer also includes the fact there is likely a sizable benefit to cost payout by removing the kids meals:

• Benefit:
• Remove operational complexity and inventory costs
• Trade-up to a higher ticket. A kids meal with a Crunchy Taco, Cinnamon Twists and a small beverage currently costs ~$2.84 vs. $3.17 when purchased a la carte from the full menu
• The menu space and signage can be better utilized for higher margin items
• Marketing can be better focused on core target
• Removes risk of lawsuits or negative PR around child obesity

• Cost:
• Limited as kids meals only account for half of 1% of Taco Bell's overall sales (Unlike McDonald’s where Happy Meals likely account for ~10% of sales)

So, no, Taco Bell doesn't hate kids it just loves 'edgy' millennials more and is willing to sacrifice a few consumers to do a better job targeting its core consumer.

Quest for Marketing Efficiency puts Market Share Growth at Risk

Procter & Gamble spent $9.3 billion on advertising last year,which helped generate $84.2 billion in global revenue. The company currently projects to increase its advertising spending on an absolute dollar basis, but is anticipating slightly reducing its advertising spending as a percentage of overall revenue while trying to win market share. This translates into a need to improve marketing return on investment.

To accomplish this objective, P&G is planning to  improved marketing efficiency by holding all of its brands to minimum success standards. CEO A.G. Lafley recently declared, "We are holding all of the businesses to a minimum ROI. . .We're pounding away on best media."

A.G. Lafley and Jon Moeller, CFO, explained on a recent earnings call that a significant portion of this ROI improvement will be achieved by continuing to shift traditional media dollars into digital marketing. Lafley indicated some brands are spending up to 35% of their marketing budget on digital, with plans to raise the bar on its other brands.

As a former P&G marketer, I understand why P&G management is making this push. P&G's marketing mix modeling analyses often indicate digital marketing has stronger ROI's than traditional advertising. That said, if my primary objective is winning market share over the next year versus maximizing profitability, the move starts to raise a caution flag in my mind.

It's very easy to overlook advertising effectiveness (volume impact) on a quest to maximize advertising efficiency (ROI). In other words, yes, digital is much cheaper and hence tends to produce a stronger ROI , but its reach is often limited and thus typically does not drive as many transactions as television ads. Additionally, you can only throw so much money at any one marketing vehicle before it reaches saturation and digital has a tendency to max out at a lower spend. The combination of these factors makes it difficult to drive market share, while also dramatically cutting back TV advertising. 

Lafley also indicated the next big wave of P&G product innovation may not arrive this coming year, meaning the business will have to rely on a high mix of commercial innovations creating another growth hurdle.

Net-net, if I was an investor, I'd be hard pressed to anticipate significant market share growth over the next year.

'KFC Eleven' a Branding Failure?

KFC, one of the world's largest fast food chains, is set to unveiled a new fast casual concept (think Chipotle or Panera Bread) called KFC Eleven, on August 5th in Louisville, Kentucky. 

The new concept will target more health conscious consumers by offer both higher-end food and a more modern, comfortable environment. 

• The menu includes sandwiches, flatbreads, salads, and rice bowls that are available in a mix of global flavors like Sweet Orange Ginger, Caribbean Tango and Southwestern Baja. All entrees are made with grilled or fried chicken, but unlike KFC, the menu does not feature a bucket of fried chicken, any bone-in chicken pieces, or biscuits.

• The experience emphasizes freshness utilizing an open kitchen so consumers can watch their food being assembled, is geared towards slower-paced dinning experiences, and features WiFi to encourage consumers to hangout.

On the surface, KFC Eleven may seem like an appealing solution to help KFC reach new consumers, but I'd suggest there are large branding barriers that will likely be impossible for the concept to overcome no matter how strong their in-store execution is. More specifically, the branding of the concept name has several fatal flaws in terms of generating strong trial conversion. 

KFC Eleven gets its name based on the 11 herbs and spices in the colonel's original recipe chicken. While its nice that the name connects back to the heritage of the brand, unfortunately, "KFC Eleven" sounds like the cross between "KFC" and the convenience store "7 Eleven". This combination makes the concept sound less premium than even a traditional KFC -  not an easy task.  Even the sign and logo look like they should belong to a convenience store.

Additionally, KFC has a larger negative halo surrounding freshness, health, and wellness. This negative halo will likely be very difficult for consumers to overcome. 

Creating the optimal brand image is key to any strong marketing strategy. To this end, I do not understand why YUM Brands!, the owner of KFC, did not launch the concept under a different name.

Mr. Clean Re-Stage

As a Mr. Clean marketing alum have to say I love the new re-stage of the Mr. Clean brand.  It does a great job of starting to form a more emotional connection and bringing to life the product benefits in a way no other clean brand can...

"I take down arm wrestling opponents like I take down grime, stains and dirt. Things got pretty intense with these bikers, but we're all friends now" -Mr. Clean

Great job Mr. Clean Team!  

On a side note, I'm also glad to see the the Magic Eraser Handy-Grip is finally being launched, something that was suppose to happen 5 years ago, but that's a longer story... 

Pepsi acquisition of Mondelez?

Activist shareholder Nelson Peltz has recently gone public about his latest bid to shake-up the consumer package goods industry by pushing PepsiCo Inc to buy Mondelez International Inc for more than $62 billion. As part of his plan, Pepsi would then spin-off its soft drink business to become a global snack food behemoth.

Give Peltz point for thinking big and seeing the power of a tremendous power combination. Pepsico is a $65 billion dollar beverage and food conglomerate with 22 billion dollar brands. It includes it's Pepsi-Cola beverage division, Frito-Lay brands, and Quaker, Tropicana and Gatorade. The Frito-Lay North American business unit is a $13 billion business with a clear #1 share of the snacks category. While Mondelez is a self-described "$35 billion, global snacks powerhouse" sold across 165 countries and 9 billion dollar brands.  It's power brand portfolio primarily covers the biscuits category (e.g., Nabisco, Oreo, Chips AhoyWheat Thins, Triscuit, Ritz) and Chocolate/Candy/Gum (e.g., Cadbury, Toblerone, Trident, Halls). The combination of these two companies is initially a bit mind-boggling.

Potential Benefits:

• Given Frito-Lay already owns the salty-snack aisle, while Mondelez's Nabisco owns the cookie/cracker aisle, the merger would give the new company dominant control of the snack section of your grocery store. This scale would give the company incredible negotiating power with suppliers/retailers and create significant advantages over remaining competitors.  
• The deal could offer huge potential cost savings by combining direct-store-delivery (DSD) networks as well as expanded DSD reach for Nabisco into the convenience store channel
• It also creates large international expansion opportunities for Frito-Lay by leveraging Cadbury's legacy international sales & distribution networks (Kraft purchased Cadbury for nearly $20 billion dollars in 2010 before the company was split into Kraft and Mondelez to leverage these networks to boost its own international expansion) 

Potential Challenges:

• Pepsico is said to be resistant to the idea of spinning-off its beverage business. That said, the Kraft/Mondelez split was also initially surprising, so while this is a challenge, it may not be an immoveable barrier
• Mondelez has under-performed expectations since the Kraft spin-off, weighed down by economic woes in Europe among other factors, and a merger with Pepsi does nothing to help ignite top-line growth. Without steady growth, Mondelez is significantly less appealing
• While the combined snack food behemoth would surely benefit from international expansion into fast growing developing markets, its lack of product diversification could put its core US business at risk to rising health trends in the US and in the rest of the developed world (much like the Pepsi soda business is today)
• There are also likely major cultural challenges in merging Mondelez and Frito-Lay. For example, the two companies have historically had very different brand management frameworks. Mondelez/Kraft has a very well respected general management approach, while Frito-Lay has historically focused their marketers energy more towards advertising. It would be interesting to see where a joint organization would end up. No doubt the cost of merging the two organizations together would be costly and the integration likely taking years to come to full fruition
• You'd have to imagine that a deal this size would at least raise some anti-trust caution flags, given the concentration in the snack food and the DSD structure of the category that essentially makes it nearly very difficult for new competitors to win shelf space

Initially the idea seemed very farfetched, but the more you consider the tremendous scale opportunity from the potential acquisition/merger it actually becomes quite an intriguing possibility that would no doubt remake the CPG landscape. 

That said, even if Peltz is able to convince the boards and shareholders, a lot would still have to go right for the merger to be a success. Take for example the P&G and Gillette merger. While one could argue that the P&G acquisition of Gillette has been a large success, much of the upside P&G initially thought it could easily capture by slapping the Gillette brand on its historic female skin/body care capabilities to win in men's skin/body care still hasn't come to fruition despite several years of trying and hundred of millions of dollars in investment.

It will be interesting to see how the Pepsi/Mondelez situation plays out, if nothing else its fun to think about the potential of the combination.

JCP, I mean jcpenney

After months of significant sales declines under the leadership of Ron Johnson, Mike Ullman is back in the CEO chair at jcpenney.  Ullman now has the tall task of steering the retailer back to growth.

While most of the attention surrounding Ron Johnson's downfall has been linked to his botched attempt to move from a high-low pricing strategy to every day low pricing, another critical factor that led to the struggles was Johnson's push to try to win with a younger, more fashion forward consumer that jcpenney traditionally never had much traction with. The push included discontinuing several of the retailer's own brands and revamping the marketing strategy to appear more cutting edge, by featuring young, slim models sporting fashion forward outfits. However, this move alienated some of jcp's loyal consumers, leaving many for them feeling that jcpenney was no longer a retailer for them.

While Ullman has only been back for a brief period, there's no doubt he recognizes this mis-step is actively working to win them back. He's moving quickly to turn around the ship, for example in the matter of 2 months he's apologize, brought back old brands, invited consumers back, thanked consumers for returning, and launched a new home goods department. It's ambitious, but the tone and approach for the most part has been right on target:

1. He apologized to his consumers in a campaign called "Yours Truly" where the voiceover read:"It's no secret, recently jcpenney changed. Some changes you liked and some you didn't, but what matters from mistakes is what we learn. We learned a very simple thing, to listen to you. To hear what you need, to make your life more beautiful. Come back to jcpenney, we heard you. Now, we'd love to see you"                                                                                                      
2. He's brought back St John's Bay, a private label brand brought that use to account for over a billion dollars in annual sales. "We heard you. St. John's Bay is back! What will you snag first, pants or shirts?" the brand posted on Facebook
3. He ran an advertisement reminding consumers of jcp's brands and inviting consumers back.  Listen to the end of this ad "So come back to jcpenney and save on his favorite brands. We'd love to see you"                                                                                                                                     
4. He also ran an ad educating that jcp recognizes they screwed up, but has corrected itself and thanks consumers for returning (potentially a little bit premature)                                                                                      
5. While he's moving forward with many elements of Ron Johnon's home goods department makeover, the execution is done in a way that is homy and connects authentically                  

However, a lot more work remains and there will no doubt be some awkward moments during the pivot back to the brand roots.  For example, I just received jcpenney's father's day catalog and there are several inconsistencies that make it appear as if the cover was just slapped on at the last moment, including:

1. The logo on the front is "jcpenney", where as everywhere else Ron Johnson's "jcp" in a box logo still appears
2. The cover says "It's all about you, dad", however many of the models in the catalog (including the ones on the first page) look like they are maybe 20 years old and are wearing styles that are all very slim cut and too fashion forward to be for most of the fathers I know
3. While Ullman has moved quickly to restore sales and discounts, the catalog takes that to the extreme. Every page is tattooed with several value message, from a $10 off coupon, sale prices highlighted in red vs. original prices, % off claims, buy one get one offers, and value pledges. The result is an overwhelming barrage of promotions that looks like a design agency translated a marketing brief too literally

It's an awkward execution and highlights the challenges brands face as they try to jump from one strategy to another quickly. While there is no doubt that Ullman has to move quickly, the brand is stuck in a transition period that is blurry will likely continue to confuse the consumer until jcpenney has the time to get its feet under itself and resources aligned to return to a consistent brand position and execution. 

Bounty DuraTowel . . .I'd Understand Stronger or More Convenient, but Cleaner?

Procter & Gamble launched the new Bounty DuraTowel in February...

According to the company website "The new Bounty DuraTowel is a cloth-like, durable paper towel that leaves surfaces three times cleaner than a used dishcloth. This breakthrough paper towel provides peace of mind by combating the dishcloth’s dirty little secret: after just one day’s use, a dishcloth can harbor and redeposit millions of germs on the surfaces families come into contact with throughout the day".

The positioning as a cleaner version of a dishcloth is particularly interesting to me, as I would have expected the positioning versus the dishcloth to be around convenience (e.g., never ever wash a dishcloth again). While removing germs always tests well with consumers, the positioning seems a little foreign to my personal perception of Bounty's brand equity. My sense is this "cleaner" positioning will not be highly effective and will be evolved over time. 

I'd also be very interested in reviewing Bounty's research on what are the most frequent jobs consumers use dishcloths for; drying dinner dishes after they have been washed seems like it would pop to the top here, and I question if the germ message would resonate with these consumers given their assumption is likely that the dishcloth is clean as it would never be exposed to germs since the dishes are freshly cleaned. 

Additionally, I am somewhat surprised that Bounty chose to launch the DuraTowel as a white colored towel if they are really positioning as a dishcloth vs. paper towel, because the white does not come off as distinctly different from regular Bounty towels or competitors. A unique color would seem to help support the differentiated positioning in consumers' minds, whereas the white would make more sense if it was positioned as the strongest paper towel. 

Perhaps Bounty chose not to color the paper towel based on insights from past attempts. The Bounty Super Duty Paper Shop Towel was blue and positioned as Toolbox tough. 

"Bounty Super Duty has heavy duty texture for multi-purpose durability! Grease and oil; Painting projects; Barbeque grills; Patio furniture; Car detailing; Outdoor equipment".

"Happier than the Pillsbury Doughboy on His Way to a Baking Convention"

One of GEICO's new commercials features the Pillsbury Doughboy and is titled "Happier than the Pillsbury Doughboy on His Way to a Baking Convention".  Take a look...



The ad is highly entertaining and conveys positive emotions for the Pillsbury Doughboy.  My problem with this advertisement is I'd expect very low recall for GEICO.  So while it may entertain, I'd be surprised if it moved the needle much in sales for GEICO.  On the other hand Pillsbury might expect to see a nice little halo from the commercial as it allows consumers to connect with the Doughboy.

GEICO Dough Boy commercial - Pillsbury Doughboy scores, GEICO loses

Old Spice Bar Soap Commercials Spoof Competitors

Old Spice recently launched into bar soap and is driving awareness behind TV commercials that aim to capture consumers' attention by spoofing traditional bar soap advertisements.

I really like this 15 second spot. It's clever and engaging.  Wieden + Kennedy, the creative agency behind the campaign does a really great job with the details, even placing the bar of soap in the traditional product shot at the end upside down.  Take a look...



The next 30 second spot does not go as good of job capturing the magic of the campaign in is a little too far over the top...

Kmart "Ship My Pants" Commercial Connects on Omni-Channel

I have to give Kmart credit for their new "Ship My Pants" commercial, which highlights an element of their omni-channel strategy (link between the store and website) in a creative fashion that is sure to breakthrough and at least get a few laughs.  Take a look:



Two thumbs up for the creative advertisement, though I am curious are out-of-stocks really a large purchase barrier at Kmart?