Kerfuffle

Pretty unlikely that the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board will be trying this idea for promoting cheese

Wisconsin doesn't really need to work to hard at selling cheese.  The state's cheese-makers seem to market everything they make.  But the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board collects a cents-per-pound fee/tax/royalty/whatever from the dairymen, so they have to do something with that cash.  That's how we in Madison end up seeing giant billboards around the city with big pictures of cheese and nice little quips. 

Yes, they are selling Wisconsin cheese to Wisconsinites, on the chance that people in Madison may be tempted to stray and buy out-state cheese, god forbid.  Seems a little misguided, but some clients like preaching to the choir.  It's easy to execute and if you are buying local billboards, and you get to see them when you're driving around.  You can point to them and say, "Yeah.  That's me."  (It has nothing to do with the nice seats the billboard company has to all those Badger and Packer games, no sir-ee Bob.)

Fair enough.  When you know the ads don't really have to do anything measurable, having a "talking to ourselves strategy is pretty easy if not exciting or original.  But if the boys over at the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board really want to get the attention of the locals... well, at least the men, they'll borrow this idea from the French Cheese Makers Association play book that uses a fool-proof ad strategy:  Sex.

Ooh La La, doncha know?

I can just imagine those guys at the photo shoot, drooling all over the sets.  With their budget, they could probably cover every tavern, truck stop and auto parts store in Wisconsin and all the surrounding states.

Uh huh.  They'll be doing this when cows fly.

How 'green' is your product when it has to be shipped hundreds and hundreds of miles? Stoneyfield Farm's environmental claims seem to be at odds with it's own marketing strategy

I like Stonyfield Farm yogurt. It's much better than the mass-market stuff like Yoplait and Dannon, let alone store-brand wannabees.  No fake stuff, no high-fructose corn syrup.  No mystery fruit.  Even more so, I like that the company seems to take a very serious approach to environmental issues.

From their website...

We got our start as an organic farming school, which means we’ve been caring for the planet for longer than we’ve been making yogurt. Today, our organic ingredient purchases help to keep over 100,000 farm acres free of toxic, persistent pesticides and chemical fertilizers known to contaminate soil, rivers, and drinking water.

To help reduce global warming, we offset all of the C02 emissions from our facility energy use. We also started a nonprofit called “Climate Counts” which shows people how they can help fight climate change by the way they shop and invest.

With a solar array on the roof of our Yogurt Works, we generate some of the clean renewable energy we use to make our yogurt. Through reuse and recycling, we prevent hundreds of tons of waste from reaching landfills and incinerators each year. And we give 10% of our profits to efforts that help protect and restore the earth.

They so strongly profess a love of green corporate citizenship that the company CEO wrote a book about it. 

Here's the thing, though:  They talk about CO2 offsets and how they work to help people fight climate change by the way they shop.  Well, Stonyfield is located in New Hampshire, which is about 1100 miles from where I live near Madison.  Meanwhile, there are local dairies here in Wisconsin (perhaps you've heard that we are America's Dairy-land).  If I follow Stonyfiled's logic and instruction, I should be buying locally produced products, or at least those products that come the shortest distance.  Stonyfield's whole approach to green marketing suggests that I not buy their products.

So I stopped buying Stonyfield yogurt. 

But, to be totally honest, I didn't actually drop them for green reasons.  Now I buy Cascade Fresh yogurt, which is also all-natural and is actually even better than Stonyfield.  It does come from Washington, so it takes almost twice the energy resources in terms of fuel to get here.  But it is sooo good, not to mention being about 70% the cost of Stonyfield.  And unlike Stonyfield, which is part of global conglomerate Groupe Danone, Cascade Fresh is an independent company that seems to take a more honest marketing position.

Did I mention I drive a hybrid car?  That's my offset for buying products that come with excessive energy costs for my satisfaction.  Uh huh.  About as sincere as Stonyfield.

Burger King seems to be selling something more than just mediocre fast food these days

I would love to have been in the meeting when this transit poster was sold to the BK client:

The copy doesn't disappoint either...

Fill your desire for something long, juicy and flame-grilled with the NEW BK SUPER SEVEN INCHER. Yearn for more after you taste the mind-blowing burger that comes with a single beef patty, topped with American cheese, crispy onions and the A1 Thick and Hearty Steak Sauce.

Rare that you fee the need for a cigarette after the usual Burger King value meal, but then this ain't your father's Whopper.  Wait, that came out wrong.  Whatever.

[h/t The Consumerist]

Ed McMahon and Budweiser: I can never think of the former without also thinking of the latter.

It says something about American culture when CNN Radio News leads a "special report" with the death of Ed McMahon.  But, fact is, anyone over 40 remembers Ed's "Heeeeeeere's Johnny!" introduction of Johnny Carson in the 30 years Ed served as the Tonight Show announcer.  And who could forget Star Search?

For me, I think Budweiser.  When I worked on the Anheuser-Busch account in the 1980s, Ed would still make appearances at distributor conventions... and they loved him.  He was as popular as the Bud Girls, and you could tell he loved it.

In previous decades, he was the Budweiser pitchman, earning him lots of jokes from Johnny about his drinking.  But Ed seemed to have a way with those spots, ever the pitchman.

Another A-B pitchman, Frank Sinatra, joined Ed on occasion...

Ed did, apparently, show up drunk for work at least once...

God Speed, Ed McMahon.  Hiyo!

Walking the walk: Analyzing web campaign data and acting upon findings is a lot more than just talk

This tweet caught my attention as I scanned my TweetDeck page this morning:

Data geeks invade advertising world. You mean they weren't there already? http://bit.ly/TerIQ

It came from Markos Moulitsas (@markosm), the founder and chief blogger at Daily Kos.  Here's a self-taught master of digital communication wondering if high-octane digital data analysis is just now getting to the advertising world.  It piqued my curiosity enough to follow the tiny URL to a story in today's New York Times.

A few paragraphs into the report by Stephanie Clifford came this passage...

From the “Mad Men” era until now, advertising has been about a catchy tag line, an arresting image, the Big Idea. But Mr. Herman [Darren Herman, the president of Varick Media Management] and his competitors are bringing some Wall Street-like analysis to Madison Avenue, exploiting the huge amounts of data produced by the Internet to adjust strategy almost instantly.

“It’s putting numbers to an industry that never had numbers before,” says Mr. Herman, 27, who started and sold three media and technology companies before founding Varick last summer. “It’s nice to be able to tell your brand manager or the chief marketing officer which audience is interacting with the unit, what time of day, what day of the week, and what the response is on certain types of offers. Before, nobody could really tell you that.”

My first reaction was to think that this story was a bit overplayed.  And maybe it is.  It's not as if marketers have been just winging it.  There are all kinds of analytic tools, services and strategies that make Google Analytics look like a training program, and people are using them successfully all over the place.

Or are they?

The old cliche,  "walk the walk, not just talk the talk," applies here.  Saying one can do the back end is easy; doing all the analysis and responding to it rapidly is the hard part.  And, as the Times article suggests, it is not something a lot of marketers and their communication partners are really doing.  In a world of self-professed experts and no shortage of firms claiming to have the smarts to do the digital data dirty work, maybe it's time to go with another cliche:  Talk is cheap.

Forward-thinking marketing and media firms are embracing detailed real-time data analysis and enjoying the benefits beyond just figuring out which web ad to use, according to Clifford...

Where the data guys were once an afterthought in a marketing presentation, now they are at the core of the on line strategy. What’s more, they can help advertisers save money in traditional media by testing different phrases or images on-line to see what works before producing an expensive television commercial or magazine ad. Who attracts more clicks in a grape juice ad, for example — the blond girl or the brown-haired boy?

The shift to data-based campaigns is forcing marketers to learn new skills and drawing a new breed of worker to Madison Avenue. While most data executives now in the field came from media backgrounds, they are recruiting Wall Street math geniuses because the job requires hourly adjustments in strategy based on numbers.

When I started in the advertising business nearly 30 years ago as a media planner, media people were lucky to be invited into the strategic planning process until it was well underway... if at all.  By the turn of the millennium, best practices had the media people up first, determining and explaining how resources would be best deployed and in what medium in order to best meet strategic objectives.  That's why the major agency holding companies spun media into separate business units.  It wasn't just consolidation of spending clout; it was the aggregation of a lot of research and analysis resources.

It's happening again, but now in the area of data analysis...

Major advertising holding companies like WPP, the Publicis Groupe, Havas, MDC Partners and the Interpublic Group are starting data practices, hoping to latch onto what is expected to be the fastest-growing category of online advertising in the next five years.

As a wise old baseball man once said, it's deja vu all over again.  As much as I didn't want to see media strategy groups separated from the creative agencies, the powers that ran the big agency holding companies were right in making that move.  I have a feeling they are correct this time as well.  The independent and smaller shops would be wise to invest in this area too, lest they lose another piece of the marketing budget -- and the control that goes with it -- to an outside partner who not only understands the data but can act on it immediately.

If I had any advice to give to marketers when they are meeting with advertising, PR and Internet agencies, I'd encourage them to ask a few questions right off the bat: 

Would you please introduce me to your analytical team?  I'm not talking about your research people; I want to visit with the folks who will crunch the data.  And how are you going to harness that data on the fly so we know what's working while we are doing it, not after the fact?

If you get that deer-in-the-headlights look from them or, worse, they shine you on with a few catch-phrases and book references, you may want to rethink that partnership.  Find someone who can actually walk the walk.  Or, perhaps better said, who can run the run.

[Read Stephanie Clifford's entire article here.]

Riding with the ghost of Rosser Reeves: I feel like I've befriended the originator of :30 presidential campaign TV ads

In hindsight, I guess it shouldn't have come as that much of a surprise that the man who gave us the first presidential campaign television commercials also gave mankind the sales pitch, "Melts in your mouth, and not in your hand."  Rosser Reeves was that man, and he was known in his day as the dean of the school of hard-sell advertising.

I came to know Mr. Reeves, who died in 1984, in an oddly personal way this spring by spending days sifting through the extensive collection of his personal papers archived at the Wisconsin Historical Society.  The treasure hunt was a part of an assignment for a graduate school course in the history of mass communication.  One of the course requirements was to research and write a paper about an event or historical figure using primary sources... archives. 

My original subject was Bill Bernbach, one of the most important figures in the advertising business and founder of the company where I spent most of my career.  Unfortunately, Mr. Bernbach's papers reside at Columbia or somewhere back east, and grad school has no travel budget.  But in reading up on him, I came across an interview with Mr. Reeves, whose papers were to be found in Madison.  Once I found out he was the first to use the now standard :30 television spots to sell America a presidential candidate, I knew I found my subject.

I mean, c'mon, how could I pass up a chance to learn about the man who gave the world this:

Or this:

Or this:

To look at any or all of these spots is to understand what television advertising was like in the early 1950s.  As Reeves said years later, “We were all new to television in those days, and we did not know what a thing we had… what a powerful medium we were working with.”  One of the things they learned right away was to focus on a single key point, what Reeves called the unique selling proposition (USP... a term still used today).  He had noted that, "Eisenhower was a singularly inept speaker," but knew that with the right wording limited to the three most important issues of the day, he could sell Ike to the public.  (Reeves actually wanted to go with a single issue, but the Republican National Committee wanted three.  Since they were the client, they won that battle, as is often the way in the advertising business.)

He poured over campaign documents, lifting phrases and ideas and  crafting them into what were actually :20 "chain break" spots that would run between prime time programs.  Then Reeves booked the General some studio time.  Ike knocked out over 30 spots that Reeves ended up writing on the fly; he had figured the candidate could get through maybe ten but was apparently a quick study.  Only after all the "answers" were filmed did the ad agency go out and recruit people to ask the questions.  As we say in the business, they fixed it in the edit.

The result was "Eisenhower Answers America."  Note the very similar production style and values in the Ike spots compared to the packaged goods spots also done by Reeves...

I love that woman.  Add some drama, a little war footage, plus the convention money shot and you have your :60 version:

Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson felt putting himself on camera was undignified.  Perhaps he knew he'd read cue cards even less artfully than Eisenhower.  Here's what the boys over at the Stevenson campaign put together as a comeback to the Eisenhower Answers America issue-oriented ads:

All right, then.  Got it.  Now what the hell does it mean?

Ike's team easily trumped them by hiring Irving Berlin to score and Walt Disney Studios to animate:

What I found amazing was that most of what I read in the Reeves archives about the 1952 election was found in two file boxes that represented less than half of one of the dozen or so cubic feet of papers and other files available.  It took me five trips to the Wisconsin Historical Society to get what I needed, mostly because I kept getting sidetracked by stuff that was irrelevant to my research but too interesting to ignore.  My media history professor, Jim Kates, told our class this would happen, and I thought he was kidding.  He wasn't.  The more I read, the more I wanted to dig deeper.  By the end of a day of reading Reeves' letters, handwritten notes, speeches, and phone messages, I would feel like I had been hangin' out with the dude.

I turned in the paper this week as the semester came to an end.  This was a project that was both fun and satisfying to do, and in some ways, I'm sorry its over.  I'm gonna miss you, Rosser, ya big lug.  I may have to have a double martini -- up -- in his honor tonight.

It's all about branding: A suggestion for a new Republican Party logo

I have to hand it to Markos at the Daily Kos.  In addition to his blogging skills, he also is pretty adept at visual branding.  And he's a helper.  Today he offers an updated logo for the Republican Party that, like any good branding effort, captures the essence of the brand in a simple graphic representation.  But it also builds the existing but outdated logo.

His "crack team of designers" took it from this...

                                            To this...

Kos explains the design's rationale...

We call it the Goposaur. It's looking back, to the past, refusing to evolve with the times as it longingly dreams of the days when only good, white, god-fearing dinosaurs roamed the earth and those multi-hued and highly evolved mammals weren't taking over the place and turning it into a socialist same-sex utopia with reeducation camps and 100% taxes. It's also ready to "go Galt", which apparently is a euphemism for quitting work and starving to death, thus negating the need for the giant asteroid. Their brains are the size of peanuts, after all.

As a fan of branding, I love this.  I hope the GOP adopts it, and enters it into all the branding and ad competitions.  It's guaranteed to place well.

Live like you mean it. Selling a new slogan for Wisconsin proves, once again, that there's no pleasing everyone.

Remember "Escape to Wisconsin," a long running Wisconsin tourism slogan?  I can still picture those green bumper stickers all over Illinois.  It was a badge of honor, proclaiming "I'm a FIB and I'm proud of it."  (F.I.B., or "f***ing Illinois bastard," is a Wisconsinites' term of endearment we bestow our neighbors to the south.)

New political regimes, different consultants, and the general feeling among stakeholders lead to slogans being dropped, no matter how memorable.  And, thus, Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle proudly unveiled the new tag line for selling Wisconsin in both tourism and business sectors:

Impressed? 

You may be in the minority if you believe the media reports...

• Wisconsin State Journal
• Chicago Tribune
• Minneapolis Star-Tribune
• Yahoo News
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
• China Daily (swear to god) 
• Google search results

Most all of these stories are versions of AP reporter Ryan J. Foley, which speaks to the shrinking staffs of newspapers (Talking to you, hometown capital paper Wisconsin State Journal!  Too much trouble to send someone to cover this, being that you are the Wisconsin State Journal? But I digress.)  But what really matters is the pick-up this is getting is nearby outstate cities that are prime geo-targets for selling Wisconsin tourism...

Wisconsin’s new state slogan isn’t all that new.

Gov. Jim Doyle said Monday the state will use "Live like you mean it" to promote Wisconsin as a tourism and business destination. The Department of Tourism plans to use the phrase in advertising campaigns and is encouraging other state agencies to follow suit.

But motivational speakers, authors and even Bacardi have used the phrase in marketing campaigns. Some say they aren’t thrilled the state is overtaking their slogan and may oppose its attempt to get federal trademark protections on it or even take legal action.

"They are not going to get a federal trademark. I just wanted to let them know that," said Ellyn Luros-Elson, a Napa, Calif., dietitian who is co-author of a 2006 book by that name. "It doesn’t make sense the state is going to use something they know has already been put out there."

The stories go on to point out that the state did its due diligence in terms of trademark issues, contrary to what the lady from Napa thinks.  But still, it does mean that this is hardly original.  But what in marketing is, after all.  Nonetheless, I have to wonder how much this cost the state government.  

A Milwaukee firm called Red Brown Klé reportedly did the work.  Given the layers of creativity you have to go through to get into their website, they must be really, really creative. I feel for them, though, as I have been a party to a lot of branding projects over the years.  Tourism can be a real tough category to brand, since seemingly every hotelier, restauranteur, and go-cart track operator is, of course, a marketing expert.  The slogan does have some real value for both tourism and business, casting Wisconsin as a work hard, play hard place to visit or set up shop.  It's extendable, memorable, meaningful (kind of) and, most importantly, it will look good on a bumper sticker.

One thing I wonder about is the red silhouette of the guy doing a handstand.  Is that to show joy and spirit?  Or is it to suggest we'd like you to come up and visit so we can shake the money out of your pockets before we send you on your way?  Or a little of both?  Maybe I'm reading too much into it.  It's only marketing.

The face in Facebook is showing some wrinkles and a little grey on top

It wasn't too long ago that "old people," those over 25, were persona non grata on Facebook.  Marketers looked at it as this incredible youth targeting tool, and any company who wanted to sell anything to anyone under the legal drinking age damn well better get on that Facebook thing.  I used to laugh as my old boss used to toss out Facebook like it was the second coming of the Branding Christ, although she had seemingly little understanding of how it worked, let alone how users related to it.  (Calling it "The Face Book" in presentations didn't help.)

I got on Facebook early last year when I realized that to actually speak intelligently about it, I had better use it.  A funny thing happened:  I liked using it.  Perhaps too much.  Since joining, I have amassed (as of today) 365 "friends."  One of the most amazing things is that I have reconnected with at least 50 people i had totally lost touch with.  That in itself is probably the best benefit. 

Apparently, as one who turns 50 this year, I am not alone.  iStrategyLabs' 2009 demographic study of Facebook shows the 35-54 age segment grew 276%. 

The key findings...

1)  The 35-54 year old demo is growing fastest, with a 276.4% growth rate in over the approximate 6 months since we last produced this report

2) The 55+ demo is not far behind with a 194.3% growth rate

3) The 25-34 year population on Facebook is doubling every 6 months

4) For those interested in advertising alcohol on Facebook, there are 27,912,480 users 21+, representing 66.3% of all users

5) Miami is the fastest growing metropolitan area (88.5%) and Atlanta (6.4%) is the slowest

6) There are more females (55.7%) than males (42.2%) on Facebook - 2.2% are of unknown gender.

7) The largest demographic concentration remains the college crowd of 18-24 year olds

(40.8%) which is down from (53.8%) six months ago.

WTF, Atlanta?  Too cool for Facebook?

As much as anything else, i have to think ease of use and instant gratification, coupled with the proliferation of portable versions and attendant applications drive the aging up of the Facebook user profile.  It's not that it's suddenly getting old.  It's just building out as it's owners likely have hoped.  I know that for me, I really began to use it as more than a curiosity once I linked other things together... Facebook, Twitter, Ping.fm, and my iPhone all work together.  I use it to promte my own blog posts, call attention to other people's worthy blog content, keep in (minimal) touch with friends, and provide a venue for snarky remarks.  It's also my principal mode of communication with my nieces and nephews.

But, I swear, if my 82 year old Dad gets on Facebook, I'm quitting.  No one wants their parents seeing that crap.

Go here to see some more Facebook demographic fun facts in table form.

Starbucks finally realizes what most of us have known for years: Decaf is a waste of money

I love coffee.  But it has to be good coffee.  Admittedly, i am partial to Starbucks and Caribou or really good local places that know what they are doing.  (McDonald's and Dunkin Donuts think they make good coffee... but they don't.  But that's a subject for a different time when I am really desperate for material.)

Decaffeinated coffee, however, is a laughable option, in my not-so-humble opinion.  It's like non-alcoholic beer;  what's the point?  The buzz is part of the whole coffee experience.  The rich, great taste of a freshly brewed cup of French Roast goes hand in hand with the expectation of a little speed buzz.  That's why I can't see wasting money on decaf.

How much of a waste of money is decaf?  Well, for Starbucks, it's around $400 million in less than a year.  That's how much they expect to save by only making continually fresh pots of decaf until noon.  Seems they have been keeping it on hand for those unclear on the concept day and night, only to pour most of it down the drain.  So from now on, the company announced, only the real deal will be readily available after lunch.  Sure, they'll make you some emasculated brew if you are willing to wait.  Or, more likely, up-sell you to a decaf espresso drink.

Times are tough.  Starbucks sales are slumping, and they are closing stores and pulling back in other ways too.  In a lousy economy, $4 for a latte is more than some people can part with... and $400 million for ever-ready decaf is more than Starbucks can afford to waste.

My friend Evan must be devastated.  He is a Starbucks junkie, but always drinks decaf.  Never quite figured that out, but he's OK otherwise.