Kerfuffle

Of pork products, the economy and a perrenial special fast food item: The McRib is back

When I started working at Needham, Harper & Steers in 1982, the agency had just lost the McDonald's account.  The fast food giant was such a big part of the agency's culture that there was even a McDonald's right in the lower level of the building, part of the massive Illinois Center development at Michigan and Wacker in Chicago.

The McRib with food stylist help

Having this franchise an elevator ride away was a mixed blessing.  We were kind of pissed off at them, but it sure was convenient.  So we ate there, but we also made fun of them.  A lot.  And one thing we found especially amusing was the introduction of the McRib.

It was definitely an oddity in the fast food business:  a sandwich made from chopped pork, pressed into a patty shaped like ribs but boneless, drenched in sugary (well, high-fructose corn syrup) BBQ sauce.  Yum.

The McRib, naked

One a particularly slow day, we decided to get a McRib and do a little taste experiment.  We took the pork patty and ran it for several minutes under warm water to rinse off the sauce best as possible.  Our suspicions were confirmed:  the meat itself -- grey in color and amazingly well bonded so as not to come apart -- had absolutely no flavor, and standing alone and naked it looked nothing short of disgusting.

This thing has been a perennial "special limited time only" menu item for going on 30 years now.  I cannot for the life of me understand why, except to speculate that there are a lot of people in the country who have never had real BBQ in their lives, and somehow think the McRib is the real deal. Philistines.

The McRib as actually served

I never thought of the McRib as anything else but a crappy fast food sandwich until I read a piece this week by a blogger named Willy Staley, who posts at The Awl, a site with the motto "Be less stupid."  His article, A Conspiracy of Hogs: The McRib as Arbitrage, suggests in a rather humorous but astute way that the relatively random appearance of the McRib on McDonald's menus is actually arbitrage at work...

Arbitrage is a risk-free way of making money by exploiting the difference between the price of a given good on two different markets—it’s the proverbial free lunch you were told doesn’t exist. In this equation, the undervalued good in question is hog meat, and McDonald’s exploits the value differential between pork’s cash price on the commodities market and in the Quick-Service Restaurant market. If you ignore the fact that this is, by definition, not arbitrage because the McRib is a value-added product, and that there is risk all over the place, this can lead to some interesting conclusions. (If you don’t want to do something so reckless, then stop here.)

I'm not sure if Staley is correct, but it sure makes more sense than the counter argument that this is a delicious offering for people who love BBQ pork, given that I think my coworkers and I proved that wrong in our warm water McRib experiment way back in 1982.

Read the who article here... it's worth ten minutes.

[cross-posted on my course blog, J646 Overtime]

There's a market for just about anything on the Internet, including old magazine ads

I am fascinated with advertising history.  I especially like old magazine ads, as they are very accurate representations not only of advertising technique from various eras but also offer great cultural insights.  That said, I'm not sure I like them enough to want to spend money to buy and collect them.  But apparently some people do.

Recognizing that wit the Internet there is a market for virtually everything, the people who run AdClassics.com are ready to sell you ad pages from old magazines.  Seriously. 

I have to give this seller credit, though.  They do see a market.  For example, they target people who own or just love old automobiles.  From their web site...

Vintage ads offer a fascinating glimpse of history and represent the archival documents of our consumer driven society. If you own a vintage or show vehicle, a print of its original publicity advertisement is the finishing touch to your investment.

Ready to frame or laminate, our authentic classic car ads provide a unique decor to your home, business or showroom. All our ads are guaranteed authentic, carefully cropped from original publications. Our collection consists of over 1,000,000+ vintage ads so visit often to view our constantly updated selection. Click here to view all our ads.

It seems like they really do have an extensive inventory of car ads.  They even have one for the obscure Datsun F10 coupe (1976)... the car my parents got for me when I was a high school senior.  Yeah, I was stylin'...

But they have more than cars. For around $20, you too can own gems like these...

 

Nice to know that druggists supply the large tubes.  Where did people think they'd get this stuff?  The cosmetic counter at Macy's? (1920)

 

I suppose that was then; this is now.  But today, nothing... and I mean nothing... about Greyhound says "vacation" to me... unless you mean a vacation to Hell. (1937)

 

I have to wonder about this Marlboro ad.  Does this guy look happy?  It looks like he's holding a martini glass in his hand.  A little gin, a cigarette, and the look of regret... hmmm... interesting lifestyle emulation.  Oh, yeah:  nice tattoo. (1957)

I kind of doubt I'd ever spend money on any old ads.  But I could spend a lot of time just looking through the archives on this site.

[cross-posted on my course blog, J646 Overtime]

Don Draper introduces Facebook Timeline

UPDATE: As is often the case for some of the best videos that borrow from copyrighted material, this one got yanked down.  I found alternative links and recoded this post twice but they also have been shot down.  Understandable.  Too bad the Mad Men producers don't realize that videos like this actually promote their product.  A lost opportunity for them, I suppose.

............

An excellent mashup...


From Mashable:

In this Facebook Timeline and Mad Men video mashup, Donald Draper pitches the idea of a nostalgia-infused social network that “lets us travel the way a child travels — round and round, and back home again to a place where we know we are loved.”

The video pulls from Mad Men‘s “The Wheel” episode — in which Draper conceives an ad campaign for the Kodak Carousel — and applies its dialogue to the Facebook Timeline. It was created by Eric Leist, a technology strategist with Allen & Gerritsen.

“The most compelling elements of Facebook’s Timeline are the ones that made Kodak’s Carousel popular,” Leist explains in the video description. “Reminiscing is a social activity. It always has been and now Facebook is bringing that activity online.”

I still have a Kodak Carousel.  In fact, I may have appropriated it from an ad agency I used to work for.  A cool machine if there ever was one.  And Mr. Draper is dead-on when he talks about the power of nostalgia.

McDonald's gives a word to something Starbucks has been doing for years

I agree with the guy who blogs at copyranter:  I hate when advertisers make up words.  Erudite as it may sound, I think it diminishes the quality of our language.

In this billboard by the Leo Burnett Company, McDonald's is now claiming that your beverage is an accessory.

"Drinkcessorize!"

Really?

Sure, fashion is part of our self expression, our self definition, and our cultural interaction.  It's why people proudly wear merchandise with prominent brand logos, why they drive the cars they do, why one is either a Mac or PC user (mostly Mac, I'd say...), and why we share the music we do.  And that's all good.  Anything can be fashion.  Even beverages.  At its core, that's a lot of what Starbucks is all about.  It's a badge, a token of one's self.  That's why they (and most smart marketers) protect their trademark so aggressively.  That's totally fine by me.

But, jeez, don't make up stupid words.  It's already done too much.  As comedian Hal Sparks notes, "unsweetened" is a made up term.  "I want a plain iced tea."  "You mean 'unsweetended'?"  "No, I mean plain!  What kind of person would sweeten a beverage and then go through a process to take the sweetener out of it?  It makes no sense!"

Yeah, maybe I should let it go.  But it still bugs me.

[cross-posted at J646Overtime, my course blog]

Selling a mild energy boost to your inner 12-year-old

Coffee is big business these days.  After all, how else can we get that jolt we need in the morning?  Don't really like coffee?  Well, there are all kinds of energy drinks out there.  There's old-school Mountain Dew too.  Too much to deal with when trying to travel light?  How about what these guys are selling...

Clever, huh?

These little things, individually wrapped and similar to those Listerine breath strips (gelatin based, dissolves quickly) actually started out as a patch, but people thought that was dumb.  So they changed to little sheets you slap on your tongue.  They offer a smattering of vitamins and 100 mg of caffeine... about what you'd get in a weak cup of coffee.

There's certainly a convenience factor, in as much as you can throw a package of 10 in your backpack for $5.95.  Of course it takes more than three Sheets to give you the same buzz as the 330 mg of caffeine in a Starbucks Grande (almost the same price per mg according to my math).  By comparison, these are a bargain compared to those little bottles of 5-Hour Energy, which only offer a 120 mg jolt (twice a can of Mountain Dew).  So... cheaper than some things, more expensive than others.

What about the "cool" factor?  As it turns out, I found out by posting this video on my Facebook page that the brother of one of my friends is the one marketing Sheets.  And we just happened to be going to last week's Badger game.  So we stopped by one of the many pre-game gatherings near Camp Randall with some samples and did a little focus group work.

The porch full of Wisconsin students were impressed.  Well, I think they were impressed.  They were very receptive, liked the few "Take a Sheet" t-shirts we had to give away, and were more than happy to try the product.  I mean really happy.  Screaming happy.  One guy ate four of them, which we tried to discourage... mostly because we only had a single pack of ten.  (He claimed he was hoping to offset the effects of the liquid refreshment he was enjoying... since maybe noon.  Whatever.  All I know is the damn things were popular.  And they turn your tongue red.

I have to admit I love a good pun, bathroom humor, and anything that can make me laugh out loud the first time.  But I doubt I'll ever buy any of this stuff.

And yes, there is a Take A Sheet website.

[cross-posted at J646 Overtime, my course blog)

Bayer is spending a lot of money on radio ads promoting Bayer AM, but they don't come right out and say what it's really for. Gotta look at the web site for that.

I heard a radio spot for Bayer AM while driving home tonight.  The ad promoted this new version of venerable old Bayer aspirin as a product that is "specially formulated for morning pain, to help you get a jump on your day." OK, think about that.  It helps morning pain and gets you going.  Hmmm... I wonder what they put in it that makes it different from plain old Bayer.  I have a sneaking suspicion I know what's in it besides aspirin. From the product website:

New Bayer AM works to relieve the tough pain in the morning that can ruin your whole day. It contains the proven pain relief of Bayer Aspirin for all kinds of pain, from a headache to a backache and an alertness aid that can help you feel awake and ready to start your day. Take back your morning with Bayer AM!

Figure it out yet?  They tossed in an "alertness aid." More from the website...

Active ingredients (in each tablet):

Aspirin 500 mg (NSAID)*. Pain reliever Caffeine 65 mg. Alertness aid *nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug

Got it.  So two of these miracle pills have almost the same amount of aspirin as three regular aspirin tablets, plus they have about half (yes, half!) the caffeine you'd get out of a "Tall" (12oz) from Starbucks.  That's your alertness aid... the equivalent of 6oz of decent coffee. I looked at prices (slow night tonight) and Bayer AM costs about 4 times per dose what regular generic Walgreen's aspirin costs (28 versus 7 cents).  But, hey, every dose of Bayer AM gives you the same lift as 6oz of Starbucks.  I don't know about you, but I need at least a 24oz Venti to get me moving. Is this filling a need for consumers?  Perhaps it is, in as much as it does save you the trouble of making coffee.  It solves "morning pain"and gets you going.  Reading further into the website, I found they went ahead and offered up a practical use that I also considered:

Uses

• for the temporary relief of minor aches and pains associated with a hangover
• helps restore mental alertness or wakefulness when experiencing fatigue or drowsiness associated with a hangover
• also effective for headaches, body aches and pains alone

OK, now we're talking.  It's a hangover remedy!  If I were the Bayer AM product manager, I'd not be hiding this under a bushel basket.  I'd make "hangover remedy" the headline.  I'd work it into the radio script at least three times.  I mean, c'mon... this is why you are mixing plain old aspirin with caffeine... for people too hung over to make a pot of coffee themselves. 

Great product idea; poor marketing execution.

Drake University: We want prospective students to think of us as a "D+" school. Wait, that's not what we mean. Well it is, but not the way you're thinking.

We had a saying at the ad agency I worked at when it came to crappy advertising:  "Behind every bad ad campaign, there is a client who approved it."

Sure, it's a cop-out.  Ad agencies, PR firms and marketing communication consultants go to great lengths to convince clients to approve campaigns the clients themselves might be a little nervous about.  The agencies use arguments like "Edgy is good!" and "Don't worry that you don't like or get it.  You're not in the target, so you're not supposed to."  Of course, often the folks selling the campaign aren't "in the demo" either, but they claim to be able to think as if they are.

Such may well have been the case when Drake University partnered with Stamats, a firm that allegedly specializes in higher education marketing, to create their Drake Advantage campaign.  You might be thinking, "Drake Advantage?  That sounds like it is a good thing... a positive thing."  Apparently, so did Drake and Stamats when they decided to go with a graphic to capture this concept of the Drake Advantage:  D+ 

Wait, what?  D+?  No!  Really?  Are you f***ing kidding me?

There are probably some really great reasons why Drake let its ad agency sell them on this idea.  There had better be, since Drake quickly made national news -- and not in a favorable way -- over this campaign.  [Update:  Make that international news.]  Faculty, staff, students and alumni didn't exactly react with great enthusiasm, nor do they seem to be lovingly embracing the new campaign.  Maybe that might be due, in part, to the fact that the admissions folks failed to share the campaign's concept and materials with their faculty and staff before letting it fly. Thus the admissions team had to send out this letter trying to explain that...

In hindsight, introducing the concept and the testing that was conducted with the target audience may have minimized some of the concerns that have been expressed, and we are very sorry that many of you were caught by surprise as a result.

Oops.  The people at the Stamats agency must have forgotten one of the most important rules in successfully selling a campaign to a large organization:  seek internal buy-in first.  If the client's own people -- beyond the immediate client contacts -- aren't supportive or at least ambivalent toward the campaign, you're in for trouble.  You'd think this agency would be aware of this need for internal acceptance and understanding, since they suggest they are experienced in higher education marketing.  But you'd also think they'd see a red flag with D+ regardless of what surveys and focus groups told them.  I gather they didn't.  And at the very least, Stamats should have anticipated some media razzing and been prepared to meet it head on rather than allow the university to quickly become the subject of ridicule.  The headline writers had a lot of fun with this story.  Agency FAIL.

The aforementioned letter goes on to explain all the reasons why the Drake Advantage campaign and D+ icon are all good things.  Focus groups, copy testing, on-line surveys and all those other research tools suggest this is a "unique" approach that "conveyed that 'attending Drake would give me a distinct advantage that might not be available from other colleges and universities,' three-quarters of the participants responded affirmatively."

But it still screams D+ on the view book cover and on the admissions home page. 

I have to wonder whether the admissions staff ever thought to take a walk over to Meredith Hall in the center of campus.  That's where they would find the offices of the faculty of Drake's award-winning School of Journalism and Mass Communication. That would be the school that offers degrees in advertising and public relations.  Most of the faculty have real world practical experience in things like campaigns, branding and the like.  I'm not sure, but I am willing to bet they would have been willing to consult... maybe even for free.  At the very least, I hope a few of the PR professors are helping the admissions people fight their way past the waves of alumni and staff anger and embarrassment not to mention the media folly over this campaign.  But I doubt they were asked.

One Drake alumnus opined that high school students smart enough to get into Drake would appreciate the irony of the D+ campaign.  (Incoming freshmen reportedly average a 27 ACT and a 3.7 GPA.)  I hope so.  I am just picturing certain parents who may see the campaign and think: "Finally, a real university for our idiot child!" 

I probably wouldn't give this any more than a passing laugh if Drake wasn't my alma mater, where I earned a bachelor of arts degree... in advertising.  When I finish my PhD, Drake is actually a school whose faculty I would love to join.  I want to teach really smart students.  As such, I hope Drake's D+ campaign proves all the critics wrong.  Stamats Inc. hopes so too, since this has become their leading case study, whether they like it or not.

Pretty unlikely that this TV commercial will run anytime soon in the U.S. The Fundies would freak.

OK, stop saying the French are spineless... at least when it comes to marketing fast food.

Félicitations et merci. Plutôt impressionnant, McDonald's.

Was PC's likability the fatal error that crashed the I'm a Mac campaign? It's possible given the character is more lovable than the operating system it represents.

The marketing folks at Apple finally said it publicly:  The "I'm a Mac" ad campaign is dead.  So dead that Apple has removed the ads from their website and replaced them with product-specific promotional ads.

The campaign became iconic rather quickly.  Mac (actor Justin Long) and PC (humorist John Hodgman) became larger than life, developing a following beyond their own day jobs that was driven by the campaign.  Of course, not everyone loved it.  Shortly after its debut, one of its many detractors called the campaign mean-spirited. Slate's Seth Stevenson gave the campaign a C+, panning it for pitting cool kid against nerd.  He criticized Apple for an "off-putting brand strategy."  I wonder if he still feels that way, given where Apple is today.

One look at Apple's brand architecture, along with it's high level of management and execution, suggests that it's a good thing Apple ignored Stevenson (as they seem to do with all critics) since their brand appears to be stronger than ever some four years after the campaign began.  As for Microsoft's brand, well, they're no BP on the loathe-o-meter right now, but they are hardly what one would call beloved either.  To be fair, a lot of Apple's popularity and success right now is driven by its trio of mobile devices, the iPad, iPhone and iPod.  But all of those share the same DNA from the Apple master brand.

Marc Perton, writing for The Consumerist, offers what I'd say is a leading reason for the death of the I'm a Mac campaign...

Apple has finally caught on to something many of us have known for years: John Hodgman's befuddled "PC" is far more appealing than Justin Long's smug "Mac," so the "I'm a Mac" ads aren't really very effective at converting PC-users to Mac fans.

I have to agree that Hodgman's PC was the star of the ads.  Long's Mac was simply the straight man.  Hodgman actually made me dislike Microsoft less than it made me like Apple more.  (Admittedly, it would be hard for me to like Apple much more, as a brand, than I already do.  I'd be hard pressed to give up my MacBook and iPhone.)

Ad campaigns each have a life span.  Some are mercifully short; others have staying power that can work over decades.  It probably is the right time to say goodbye to this one.  But not without one last look, courtesy of the team over at OneMoreThing...

Oddly, I actually really do feel better paying my car insurance premium after seeing this...

Advertisers and their agencies talk a lot about viral videos.  "I have an idea!  Let's make a video!"  And they do, and far more often than not, the thing goes nowhere.

"This Too Shall Pass" went live on Monday, and already has 2.5 million views as of this moment.  I came across it via a link on Twitter feed from a guy I follow but don't actually know, which directed me to his Tumblr page.

It features the band OK Go in a giant Rube Goldberg-type machine.  (These were the guys who made the 2006 video involving some rather acrobatic jumps on treadmills.)  The back-story is pretty cool. 

Kudos to State Farm for sponsoring it, and for doing so in a very low key way.  Their very recognizable logo appears at the beginning, integrated into the first few seconds.  I noticed it but only really knew they were the sponsor at the very end.  This is exactly how viral videos should work.  Understated identification that makes a consumer connection but doesn't get in the way of the entertainment value of the video itself.

As the Tumblr post I saw from Harry Shum Jr. notes, "OK Go….That was pure epicness…."  I have to agree.

[Also posted on Mediated Communication, the blog of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.]