Wishing You A Great Summer

So this advertising team has been working for months with no break on an enormous campaign for a Fortune 500 brand. Suddenly, a Genie appears before them and offers each of them one wish.

The copywriter says: "I've always dreamed of writing the great American novel. I wish I were on a tropical island where I could concentrate and write my masterpiece." The Genie says, "No problem!" And poof, the copywriter is gone!

The art director says: "I want to create a painting so beautiful that it will hang in the Louvre. I wish I could go to the French countryside to work on my painting." The Genie says, "Your wish is granted!" And poof, the art director is gone!

The Genie then turns to the account executive and says, "And what is your wish?” And the account executive says, "This is a really important account. I wish those two loafers were back here right now."

We remind all our readers of the old adage about “all work, and no play,” and with that wish you a great rest of the summer however you occupy yourselves.

We shall return to this blog after Labor Day. See you all September 6^th.

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Brand Meets Boy, Brand Loves Boy, Brand Takes Out Restraining Order Against Boy

It’s your classic romantic plotline. Brand meets boy (Abercrombie and Fitch meet Jersey Shore’s Michael Sorrentino, a.k.a “The Situation”), brand loves boy (A&F market t-shirts bearing the slogan “The Fitchuation”), brand leaves boy (A&F publicly requests The Situation stop wearing the brand and makes an offer of an undisclosed sum to him.)

We’ve commented before on what happens when love between brands and celebrities goes sour but this is a completely new type of co-branding situation (that pun intended). The union between “The Situation” and A&F was never even legal: Sorrentino isn’t, and never has been, a paid spokesperson for the brand. A&F was just doing what clothing retailers do these days: re-appropriating and re-purposing pop-culture phenomena.

Is this just a publicity stunt? A&F has explained, "We are deeply concerned that Mr. Sorrentino's association with our brand could cause significant damage to our image. We understand that the show is for entertainment purposes, but believe this association is contrary to the aspirational nature of our brand, and may be distressing to many of our fans." Then they made the same generous offer to the entire cast: take our money just don’t wear our clothing, please. Thus inventing a new celebrity income stream. Getting paid for not doing something!

To be fair, it’s hard to reconcile A&F’s website that looks so WASPY, reeking of American, collegiate affluence with the Jersey Shore cast’s down-scale sleazy and drunken behavior, although in an interview given by Sorrentino to the New York Post last year, he said A&F told him “The Fitchuation” had become their best-selling t-shirt. Maybe these irreconcilable differences are just A&F juicing “The Situation’s” name one last time on their way to a new brand positioning.

Either way, there’s a lesson to be learned here. When we look closely at this broken love story, we realize that it was never really about love. True love between a brand and a celebrity involves synergies. Having something in common on a deep level, like Intel and, well, any technology brand.

As we’ve said, the marriage between brand and celebrity should be a love based on compatibility. An enduring partnership can be based on nothing less. PR, on the other hand, ...

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The Wiener and the Losers

Yesterday’s Associated Press article, “Legal Beef: Sara Lee, Kraft Escalates Wiener War,” spotlights two hot dog brands (Sara Lee’s “Ball Park Franks” and Kraft’s “Oscar Meyer”) caught up in a terse cycle of sue and counter-sue. Their bone of contention? Which brand has the right to advertise to America that they’re the best.

Reportedly, Sara Lee and Kraft have co-slapped one another with false-advertising suits, and will step up to bat during the court case that’s set to begin next Monday.

It’s difficult to figure out how Ball Park’s claim as “America’s Best Franks” is even worth the thousands of pages of pretrial litigation filings already churned out by the dueling brands. Best apparently refers to best-tasting, and likely there is a forklift with a data deck on it somewhere that can “prove” consumers said so. The problem, of course, is that consumers say a lot of things, especially after eating a free hot dog at a taste test, but that’s not because they lie. It’s because direct questioning can only go so far.

The issue here lies with the brands. As a major league hot dog brand, you need to stake out more differentiated and defendable ground than “good, better, best.” Your brand sweet spot will be a compound of consumer expectations and your own unique answers to those expectations: your brand’s truly differentiated offerings. Consumers have heard the “the best” line before, and frankly, while winning stands possible, who wants to sweat blood and money over a “we’re the best” tagline anyway? Of course, that would mean you actually knew what consumers really want, and could market to that, instead of pointing to proof points.

Regardless, this war of superlatives is bound to yield an interesting legal legacy, as the results of this case will define the limits of false-advertising laws. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there; whichever brand wins the court case, the only court that matters is the one of public opinion. And that is always easy to measure. Just look at the last line on the balance sheet.

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Back-to-School ABC's

From our 2011 10,000 household/9 U.S. Census region annual Back-to-School survey:

A) Look for a slight rise in back-to-school spending. Plus 3.2% this year, or an average spend of $602.00.

B) The time between back-to-school shopping and the first day of school has been getting shorter and shorter every year exacerbated by retailers advertising over a longer period of time, offering good-better-best deals, and an absolute sense of entitlement on the part of the consumer.

The genesis of the shorter back-to-school purchase cycle is a consequence of increased levels of consumer expectations, retailers having spent a decade + teaching consumers they can get something cheaper if they just wait. This year nearly 72% of consumers indicated they were waiting till the end of August just before schools open to shop.

C) Average spends and increases for major back-to-school categories are listed below. The directionally higher spend in Computers and Electronics reflect consumer desires to trade up from computers to tablets and cell-phones to smartphones.

Clothing: $328.00 (+4%)
Computers/Electronics: $220.00 (+5%)
Shoes (athletic & dress) $125.00 (+4%)
Supplies $ 95.00 (--0--)
Books/Study aids $ 23.00 (+3%)

D) Interestingly, the largest change in preferred retail distribution platforms occurred in the Online category. Consumers indicated that they were going to use online more to search out deals and promotions, rather than to buy at specific product outlets themselves.

Discount Stores: 95% (unchanged)
Department Stores: 58% (-2%)
Office Supply: 50% (-5%)
Specialty Retailers 40% (-5%)
Online 40% (-10%)
Catalogs 35% (unchanged)

But even in the face of an increased search trend, online retailers like Amazon and Zappos still make the top-5 list of retailers showing the greatest increase in consumer intent-to-shop:

1. Amazon
2. Zappos
3. TJ Maxx / Wal-Mart
4. J. Crew
5. Bed, Bath, & Beyond

E) While the economy always has an impact on overall spend, given the ubiquity of merchandise, quality, and pricing, what brands get what piece of the academic pie will ultimately be determined by what retail brands actually stand for. Research and merchandising timing precision can only help the bottom line, but real differentiation can become an authentic proxy for value. The real test? Consumers not only believe that, but behave that way in the marketplace.

And that should be a fundamental lesson for all retailers looking to leverage both consumer insights and their brands.

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Tiger Woods Gets Clocked

There’s a Russian proverb that advises, don’t stop and watch the clock. Do what it does and keep going. But what do you do when the clock watches you? And then it stops.

That’s what happened to Tiger Woods. Unable to stage a professional comeback, and reclaim a significant element of what made him a “human brand,” luxury watchmaker, Tag Heuer, became the latest corporate sponsor to end its association with fallen golf superstar.

To be fair to Mr. Woods, it wasn’t just his recent two-over performance at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational that caused the cancellation. Tag Heuer had previously stopped using the golfer's image in its U.S. advertising campaign and cut back on the former human brand’s presence in their international campaigns after the revelations about Woods’ serial adultery came to light two years ago.

It’s tough to be a “human brand.” It means that the actual human being represents 100% of the values sponsors find attractive. And unfortunately foibles and follies can’t be raked smooth like a sand trap. The designation “human brand” represents the highest level of imbued meaning in the brand continuum. Usually contrition and closure can ease a human brand through the worst of he or she is facing. But some of the fundamental values still need to be intact. Like being able to hit a 400-yard drive, sink 35-foot putts, and occasionally rank in the top-5. Currently he’s 30^th in the world rankings. And now out another $10 million.

Tag Heuer became the 6^th sponsor to drop Woods. The others included Accenture, AT&T, Gatorade, Gillette, and Golf Digest.

Woods, of course, is not the first “human brand” to find himself in this position, and likely won’t be the last. But here’s some validated brand loyalty advice that might come in handy: You can’t turn back the clock, but with the right strategy and engagement approach you can always wind it up again.

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The Digital Revolution: Old TV Shows

Digital streams of CBS's older television shows are helping boost its bottom line. CBS announced that their profits doubled for the past quarter -- $395 million, as compared to $150 million for the same time period a year ago.

“How?” you ask, “if nobody is watching as much traditional TV anymore.” Well, time spent in front of the old TV – super-sized flat-screen or not – may be down, but watching of TV shows is up – particularly old shows sitting in CBS’s library of programs of older shows via digital streaming screens.

Both Amazon and Netflix are in negotiation deals for shows like “Frazier,” “Star Trek,” and “Medium,” which is cool if you’re a fan of those shows and don’t want to have to be anchored in front of a TV set to watch them, and even cooler if you’re a CBS shareholder, where the streaming of such shows doesn’t detract from already established revenue streams.

OK, it’s true that CBS won’t make current hit series available for digital streaming services right now. They are a TV network, after all. The company is protecting its ratings for network runs and advertising revenues that high ratings for shows like “NCIS” bring in.

It’s been said that if you leverage your assets, you’ll always show a profit. For companies like CBS it’s apparently as simple as leveraging their past in today’s digital present. Like loyalty and engagement it’s also being able to better meet – even exceed – customers’ expectations.

Because if you can successfully do that, you’ll live long and prosper.

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Reigning Cats and Dogs

It’s been said that there is something about the presence of a pet that takes the bite out of being alone.

But caring for pets does take a bite out of your wallet. With an estimated 86 million cats and 78 million dogs in the U.S., it’s expected that $50.8 billion dollars will be spent on all pets this year. And according to this year’s Customer Loyalty Engagement Index here are the loyalty leaders for canned food for cats and dogs:

Cats

1. Purina
2. Hills
3. Whiskas/Iams
4. Fancy Feast
5. Friskies/Meow Mix
6. 9 Lives

Dogs

1. Purina One
2. Alpo
3. Pedigree
4. Hills
5. Gravy Train/Iams

Many pets are truly pampered. Owners get them holiday and birthday presents. And beyond the necessities, buy high-tech toys, high-end gifts, gourmet treats, and brand name shampoos and attire. Pet owners groom them and provide routine and specialty veterinary care. Those alone account for nearly $18 billion. But the bulk of the money, nearly 38% of the total spend, goes towards food, an estimated $19.5 billion.

Or $137 billion in dog money!

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