Although this advert has been out on TV for a couple of weeks now, I just have to draw attention to the VW 'Think Blue Symphony' advert on our blog. Normally, I'm not bowled over by car adverts (there are obvious exceptions like the Citroen Robot), because typically, they all focus on the car and what you can do with it, rather than the feeling a car can give you. That's why I really like this VW advert which breaks that mould slightly with this distinctive advert.
Set to the song 'Wouldn't it be nice', by The Beach Boys, the advert features an artist drawing a timeline ofthe VW Cars through history. The ad is fresh and interesting, and you can't help but watch it until the end!
What's more, it give you an idea of the breadth of the company's heritage, a taster of things to come and makes me feel happy in a wholesome sort of way: wouldn't it be nice if more car adverts did that?
It's been award season for our team at apt after putting forward clients for both the South West Business Awards and the Taste of Gloucestershire Food and Farming awards which both took place this month.
The team attended the glitzy Taste of Gloucestershire awards ceremony at Cheltenham Racecourse to support two of our clients and were delighted to see SOHO Coffee Co. scoop the prestigious award for Food Business of the Year.
As well as schmoozing at glamorous award events we have also been rubbing shoulders with celebrity sportsmen at The Montpellier Wine Bar Rugby World Cup Breakfasts! For each of the big games we joined the likes of Bryan Redpath, Phil Davis, Dean Ryan and Andy Goode at the iconic Cheltenham venue to watch the games over a traditional English and glass of fizz.
Keeping our fingers firmly on the pulse of issues effecting businesses in Gloucestershire, we joined Expectations! Recruitment to discuss the new Agency Workers Regulations and the effect they could have on organisations nationwide over a coffee and a Danish pastry. The breakfast briefing was a great success and hugely informative to all business in the area who attended (and the cinnamon swirls weren’t bad either!)
For those of you who haven't noticed yet, we're big fans of Augmented Reality and the affect it's having on the marketing industry! At the end of August, we wrote about Smart Phone Augmented Reality in our post 'An addiction prediction' which took a look at Cadbury's new partnership with Blippar to turn their chocolate into an addictive game. This month, it's time to look at the latest Blippar partnership... with Tesco!
Blippar is a reality app that can be downloaded to a smartphone or a tablet and used to turn ordinary objects into interactive masterpieces. I hasten to add it doesn't work on everything, but it does work on a lot! You download the app, log on, search for a 'type' of object e.g. food, drink etc., then point the camera and an interactive element will appear. The interaction will vary according to the object, so you'll have to point and see!
Blippar-Tesco Partnership
Rather than a specific object, Tesco has chosen to create interactive print adverts to get their customers buzzing. Labelled 'the Big Price Drop', Blippar has been engaged to add interaction that enables users to get store location information and free recipe ideas, whenever they point their smartphone at an advert; Tesco claims this will help add a 'personal touch'!
Whilst clearly not as addictive or fun as a Cadburys, this could prove to be a useful element for consumers. It is likely to depend on their need at the time (personally I'm not bothered by the recipes). Then again, searching for a local store isn't massively different to the Supermarket apps you can normally download!
If I'm honest, I love the sentiment and visually it's fantastic, but in this case I'm not sure I'm bothered by the content in reality! I'm a big fan of Blippar, but I'm not convinced it works with everything. For the Tesco Partnership, I'll watch this space and check out the stats when they are released, to see just how effective it's been! Is this a case of enhancement for the sake of it?
For those of you who want to see how it works, you can watch the video here:
In recent months, we've been looking at the steps high street stores are taking to market themselves more effectively in a bid to maintain footfall and sales. Take a look at Republic's Social Dressing room, or our five day look at Retailtainment for examples.
For today's innovative new step however, our attention turns not to the marketing aspect, but to the whole ethos of the store and the business model it's using. Our case study - American based Forever 21, who have opened their most recent UK store at Westfield Stratford.
Forever 21 has a different business model to most; rather than looking at fashion and following the season, their entire business model relies on a 'here today, gone tomorrow' approach to stock. Forever 21 relies on a speed strategy, whereby new stock arrives every day of the year, they never replenish an item and they won't order it in again. What's more, the stock may vary from store to store, depending on the quantity available and the consumer demand.
The question is, does it work? The answer: apparently so! When the Westfield Stratford store opened, the store managers had to open the store early just to cope with the crowds waiting outside; what's more, with a £2.23bn turnover, the brand is incredibly successful. It appears that consumers are enjoying the different approach, hastening to buy the item in case it has sold out within a few hours. It doesn't seem to be denting the brand either; Forever 21 is as much a part of the American Mall as any other brand and is clearly identifiable amongst it's competitors. The success is so great, that many people are hailing it as the saviour of the high street, where online shopping can't compete with the turnover speed and changing stock.
I do have to admit I'm a little sceptical however; whilst it might just be working for Forever 21, what happens if all the stores do it and the novelty wears off? At what point will consumers revert to demanding what they want, when they want, regardless of the number in stock. What happens when the novelty wears off and the consumers revert to buying online for the convenience?
Whilst I think it's an excellent model and is fantastic for the brand, I don't think we'll see this one saving the High Street, maybe just making it more interesting...
In Marketing Week from the 25th August, there was an interesting case study on Proctor and Gamble, looking at their collective marketing strategy in their bid to save money. Interview available here...
Collective Marketing is an initiative whereby parent companies bundle their complementary brands together into one advert in a bid to target new audiences and save money. On occasion there will also be a cross-company initiative if the products complement but don't compete with each other. Marketing Week identified three main types of collective marketing/brand bundling including
Executive Bundling - using your buying power across brands to save money on advert slots
Big Idea Bundling - cross-company selling of complementary products e.g. washing machines and washing powder
Endorsement or co-brand bundling - adding an additional brand to your product in a bid to sell more and split the cost e.g. PG Tips and the Rainforest Alliance.
As a consumer, I had never noticed/been conciously aware of this process, other than the obvious Supermarket adverts. Since reading the article however, I've been on the look out for these collaborations, from both a personal and industry viewpoint.
The first obvious example I see? Collective marketing of the new Jalapeño Doritos and Citrus Pepsi Max by parent company Pepsi Co. The advert combines a cartoon strip theme, with the 'Firefinger' crisps and 'Icefist' drink turning two 'regular Joes' into superheroes. The two products are hailed as a 'superpowerful' combination with the aim of persuading consumers to buy both products at the same time. Visit the website here...
So how will Pepsi Co benefit?
Monetary value - Pepsi Co will have saved money by making one advertising slot work twice as hard, using the same space to promote two products that complement one another.
New audience generation - the advert is aspirational and implies that the two new products are the coolest/best on the market, enticing people to buy them.
Cross-audience promotion - this type of collaboration will potentially target new customers for the company, from their existing consumer base; loyal Doritos consumers may be enticed to buy the drink and vice versa.
I like what Pepsi Co did here; ok, so I won't be rushing out to buy the drink because personally I can't stand fizzy drinks, but the advert did do its job! It made me watch, it successfully marketed two products (both of which I can remember) AND it combined two products into the same space.
This method isn't without risk; picking the wrong products and combining two brands with opposing values could be an advertising nightmare. At the same time, unless handled carefully, this method also dilutes the messaging of the individual brands and runs the risk of reducing the overall effectiveness of the advert.
Thanks to Marketing Week for highlighting Collective Marketing and I'll definitely be on the lookout for more examples in the near future!
Downton Abbey fans out there, will surely be aware of the current controversy surrounding the 'Aviva' adverts during the breaks. Aviva have purchased slots at the beginning and end of the advert breaks throughout Downton and are using them to build their own Aviva story over the course of the series.
The story builds around a motorcyclist who has a crash and has so far featured him crashing, in hospital and with visitors. This has resulted in numerous complaints: on Watchdog last week, on a number of popular news sites and across a multitude of additional platforms, all referring to the fact that the adverts are depressing. Aviva has been forced to justify the adverts, claiming that the feature does eventually have a happy ending as it builds. So the question is, does this process benefit the company or not?
The answer most probably lies in the story being told, the relevance of the story to the programme and the message as well as the gaps in between. So we've looked at the pros and cons of this kind of method in a bid to evaluate the effectiveness of advert 'storytelling'
Pros:
It builds brand awareness
Helps the company be remembered, giving the campaign longevity
Arguably increases the effectiveness of the advertising, by creating a brand association with a programme
Gives companies the opportunity to showcase their key sales messages, within a feature that people are familiar with and which provides another thread of understanding between the consumer and the company
Can create an association with the key characters in the advert
A classic example of this process is the well-known advert series for BT; Over the course of a couple of years, the brand built a familiar story with a number of key characters which showed the trials and tribulations of family life and enabled BT to showcase the benefits of their services to the whole family. Indeed, BT even developed a website to interact with the consumer, calling on them to decide the next part of the story. Despite this thread, BT also created stand-alone features, which built into a long term story and which they were able to distribute across multiple channels, at various times, without losing the message or the plot.
Cons:
If handled badly, the storytelling can have more backlash for a company than a straightforward promotional advert might. If they don't like the story, the viewers are likely to develop a negative opinion of the brand
The story has to have a relevance. The method assumes that everyone watches all the stories and therefore understands the progression. The brand must ensure that the adverts work as both a standalone feature and a longterm project (as per BT)
The method costs more - brands have to buy a series of regular slots, that will be seen by the same people. BT opted for a scattergun approach, whereas Aviva has focused on a specific series
Purchasing alongside a specific programme means that the length of the story will be dictated by the length of the series e.g. Downton Abbey.
In the case of Downton Abbey and Aviva, Aviva are likely to be reaching exactly the same audience every single time. Whilst this is good for building brand awareness, repeated viewings are unlikely to drastically increase sales and thus this may result in a lower ROI, than the scattergun approach
Given the cost of this type of storytelling, it is unlikely to become commonplace for all brands, however it will be interesting to see more successful and unsuccessful examples as time goes on. Let us know any that you've seen and what you think about them...
For those of you who haven't seen it yet, Innocent has launched a Social Discounting campaign, using the hashtag #tweetandeat. For four weeks, Innocent are monitoring the hashtag and linking it to a discount on their Innocent Veg Pots. The more we tweet, the cheaper we eat!
A voucher is currently available on the website which gives you a £1.50 discount off every pot. Innocent are calling it collective buying and the more involved people get, the more discounted the product becomes.
So... if you are a lover of the Innocent Veg Pots, all you need to do, is tweet it, request a Direct Message to notify you about the discount, then get munching! Simple!
We love this campaign, because it's simple, quick, easy and innovative! Well done Innocent!
