AZO Advertising is Amiss: Talk to your Consumer

The AZO campaign features a fatal flaw that can kill the effectiveness of any advertising:  it’s not clear.   While AZO is advertising a compelling and effective urinary pain reliever, the commercial uses “company speak,” not consumer language.  Throughout the spot, AZO is presented as a solution for UTI’s.  That’s great if you are a doctor or work for AZO and know what that is.   Sadly, however, most consumers don’t know that they mean ‘urinary tract infection.’

It’s a tragically common, and avoidable, mistake in marketing communication.   Companies get caught up in their own knowledge and internal language and forget who they are talking to.    Remember, when you do any marketing communication, you must talk to your consumer in THEIR language, not yours.

So, sadly, this commercial only reaches and persuades a fraction of their potential audience.    Make sure you keep it simple and avoid wasting money.  Keep it simple and talk directly to your consumer.

Lessons Learned:
1. Keep your target consumer at the forefront of all marketing communications. Talk to them in their language, not yours.
2. Before you produce anything, double-check that your communication is clear with unbiased consumers, or even internal employees  who are not involved in the marketing or technical development.   They are often too close to the process to stay unbiased.
3. Stay flexible.   If you happen to overlook an important, fixable issue like this, fix it!    In this case, the small cost of changing the words (with a new audio recording), would dramatically increase the effectiveness and sales impact of this advertising campaign.

by Tammy Katz

Ad Bowl 2012: Return to Sanity

While there were no must-see, spectacular ads last night, there were many excellent ads that were well worth the $3.5 million investment for the ad time, pre- and post-game public relations and social media legs.      Super Bowl advertisers returned to their senses with strategically sound brand communications that focused on persuading consumers to buy one return-on-investment, rather than misguided attempts to win on entertainment and humor.   Doritos, Oikos, Skechers, H&M and most of the car ads, just to name a few, had their brands central to the storyline (vs. prop ‘afterthought’) and told engaging stories about the quest for the brand.

Special groans for Chevrolet’s dark and tasteless Silverado apocalypse ad.     Visuals of tragic wreckage, in which the guy in the Ford perished.    Disgusting and a terrible statement, if any, about the brand.

Here are the winners (and worst) from three marketing mavens – USAToday‘s AdMeter (panel popularity) and  USAToday’s Facebook AdMeter (FB popularity), Mullen and Radian6’s Brand Bowl (twitter volume and sentiment), and us (effectiveness).

USA Today – AdMeter                              

Best:
1.   Doritos (dog bribes cat owner)
2.   Volkswagen (dog gets fit, Star Wars)
3.   Skechers (dog in sneakers wins race)
4.   Doritos (sling baby)
5.   M&M/Mars (Mrs. Brown)

Worst:  GE (turbine workers make energy)

USAToday – Facebook Ad Meter

Best:
1.  Doritos (sling baby)

2.  Bud Light (Weego)
3.  Chrysler (imported from Detroit)
4.  Kia (Dream Car)
5.  M&Ms (Mrs. Brown)

Worst:  Go Daddy

Mullen and Radian6′s BrandBowl

Best:
1.  Doritos (sling baby)

2.  H&M (David Beckham)
3.  Chrysler (imported from Detroit)
4.  Pepsi (for all)
5.  Chevrolet (Sonic)

Worst:  Priceline

Katz Marketing Solutions

1.  Skechers (dog in sneakers wins race)

2.  Doritos (sling baby)
3.  Fiat (seduction)
4.  Bud Light (Weego)
5.  Volkswagen (dog gets fit, Star Wars)

Worst:  Chevrolet Silverado

by Tammy Katz

The Chobani brand Yogurt Coup: Reinvent the Category

We applaud Chobani‘s explosion to +$900 million in annual sales since its 2007 startup by attacking the yogurt category with a truly differentiated and superior brand.    Not only have they catapulted to stardom, they’ve even beat the brilliant, entrenched competitors, like Yoplait (General Mills) and Dannon.    They’re among the elite brands, like WhiteStrips, Swiffer, Apple, and Dyson who invent and dominate new category segments by reinventing their category.   

First, Chobani designed a much better product.    Their CEO and founder, Hamdi Ulukaya, thought American yogurt was horrible and developed a premium, Greek-style yogurt, which is thicker, creamier, more protein, less sweet, and has a healthier perception.   They challenged many of the conventional approaches of what product design seemed to drive the category.

They also rethought pricing and price/value.  

7 Musts for Profitable New Products

1. Delight your target consumer
DO focus on creating items that truly solve your target consumer’s needs and points-of-pain
DO meet and exceed their needs
DO create fans, not just customers
DON’T focus on internal issues
Can you precisely define your target market and what motivates them?
√ Does 50% of your target audience say they definitely or probably would buy your product?

2. Make sure it’s profitable early
DO screen ideas for profit potential at the idea stage
DO rework ideas early to address any profitability issues

MiO brand liquid water enhancers – Killer Concept, but Terrible Trial

Kraft’s new MiO brand liquid water enhancers are a fantastic idea, but sadly, so disappointing in reality.   Kraft is touting it as their first major brand launch since DiGiorno in 1995, to capitalize on the  $10 billion bottled water market.   Unfortunately,  it’s a great example of how even the best innovations will languish, if you overlook some execution basics.

The innovation concept itself is so promising. Leveraging their flavored beverage brilliance (Kool-Aid and Crystal Light), Kraft positioned MiO as a revolutionary, more contemporary portable water additive. The name is great – connoting personalization and a clever play on H2O. The launch plan was spectacular, heavy traditional and social media support creating cult awareness before the product even reached stores. Teenagers were begging their parents to get some; it doesn’t get much better than that in marketing.   MiO had stellar packaging and product displays – unique, eye-catching, and shaped like a water drop.

The television advertising campaign is exceptional too – clearly positioned the product as revolutionary, consumer-customizable, and thirst quenching.   Brilliant use of music (“That’s the way I like it”) reinforcing the customization benefit, and solid media plan to ensure the target market was aware of this
new product.

A nearly flawless product launch…. uh…. except…..

1) Distribution was spotty.     In many major metro markets,

The Ted Williams Phenomenon: Big Marketing Winners… so far

The world is temporarily fascinated with the Ted Williams homeless to celebrity voice internet star phenomenon.    At its core, it’s a heartwarming and inspiring story of second chance – and a little bit of refreshing, upbeat  news.      Of course, I’m fascinated with how  talent and instant celebrity translates to effective  brand marketing.    Here are the big winners, so far…

1.   Ted Williams, the man -  Clearly he has great talent and appears to know how to use it.   

10 Obscenely Easy Ways to do Better Marketing

Brand marketing and strategy can be very complicated, analysis driven, or even intimidating.    But much of the time, it just isn’t.     Here are 10 obscenely easy ways to do better marketing.    And this isn’t about one particular company, rather, all too many.

1.     Focus -  If you haven’t already, figure out what business you really are in (it’s not what you make, it’s whose problems you solve), what drives your business model, and what you need to attack first.    Less is always more, and more profitable.
2.     Develop your Business Strategy – This needn’t be the all-consuming five-year plan that is both painful and rarely used.    Just figure out what direction you want to head, make sure you know why you want to head that way (versus other alternatives), and make sure that direction is financially sound.      This is CEO and Board stuff, and it’s critical.    But it’s all too frequently not done.

5 Ways to Ignite Brand Innovation

Only 10 percent of new products launched in the United States are successful, according to Ernst & Young. This 90 percent failure rate for new products is tragic and avoidable. Leading innovators could consistently and successfully launch new products, simply through better planning and execution. The failure rate of new products doesn’t have to be so high, and the number of people and companies launching successful new products can be greater. Here are five Best Practices for innovation and launch of new products:

1. Set priorities and expectations: Innovation is more successful when it is established as a corporate priority. Senior management must set and broadly communicate clear and consistent innovation goals within the corporate strategy. Goals must be measurable and have clear accountability: Sales, profit and payback goals for the entire innovation effort (all products and services), typically for a one-year or five-year timeframe. Both marketing and research and development have interdependent accountability to deliver these goals. This step alone can address the paralyzing chasm between most marketing and R&D teams.

Super Bowl 2010 Ads: Rankings and Rants

Overall, an uninspiring collection of Super Bowl commercials last night.    Few disasters, few fabulous, a lot of just okay.    In most cases, each :30 ad was a $3 million investment ($2.5 million for air time, $500,000 ish for production) – so mediocre won’t exactly drive a return-on-investment.     Today’s Super Bowl ad chatter is mostly about entertainment, humor, and likability – and lots of fun.   Entertainment is swell, but advertising effectiveness – persuasion (making consumers feel differently about your brand) and incremental sales –  is what really matters.

Here are the winners from four marketing mavens – USAToday‘s AdMeter (popularity), Ad Age’s Bob Garfield (ad quality), Squawq (brands’ Twitter buzz), and me (effectiveness).

USA Today                               
Best:
1.   Snickers
2.   Doritos (dog collar)
3.   Bud Light (beer can house)
4.   Anheuser-Busch (Clydesdale friend)
5.   Coca-Cola (sleepwalker)

Brand Authenticity: Tiger’s Tailspin

Brands must be authentic.    Great brands, like people, create positive enduring relationships based on their credibility and consistency.      While brands have always needed to continuously earn their esteem, social media now makes brand authenticity a mandate.     All eyes are watching your brand, and missteps are reported globally in an instant.    Keep it simple.    Make your brand authentic.

Lack of authenticity is what’s driving the unprecedented demise of the Tiger Woods brand.   His ‘brand truth’ is dramatically different from the carefully honed aspirational brand image.    And it was that faux brand image and esteem that made brand Tiger so ideal for corporate sponsorships.     Incessant media coverage and its exponential visibility in the blogosphere unearthed the size of brand Tiger’s lack of authenticity.     Post-media frenzy, his champion credentials will remain, but the ‘wonderful man’ imagery has been unveiled as a sham.      Brand Tiger’s demise is an extreme, but illustrative example, of the danger of lack of brand authenticity.     Last week, AT&T joined the growing list of multi-million dollar sponsors who really had no choice but to stop aligning their brand with Tiger Woods.    The financial value of the Tiger Woods brand is a fraction of what it was just a month ago.