BEST TV SPOTS – LOCAL VS. NATIONAL

I just announced my list of the best 2011 TV commercials produced in Southern Oregon. You can see full details here.  The goal of my annual ON THE MARK awards program is to recognize that no matter where you live, local businesses don’t have multi-million dollar TV production budgets; therefore, they must have clients willing to take creative chances and creative professionals willing to try and compete with national spots. Often it is a thankless job. That’s why I like to honor and recognize people who are up to the challenge.

What’s the national competition like?  Here’s Ad Week’s 10 Best Commercials of 2011. As you look at these great commercials, ask yourself what you are doing to make sure your commercial stands out in the same commercial break.

SOUTHERN OREGON’S BEST 2011 TV SPOTS

I created the ON THE MARK awards in 2009 to honor and recognize outstanding local creative work. I think it’s important that companies and creative teams willing to take creative risks are recognized for their work. In the second year of the award I reviewed a record number of spots. Below, in no particular order, are the 2011 honorees. Congratulations to all the winners. I’ve posted the featured spots on YouTube (Search “ON THE MARK AWARD – 2011”) and I’ve set up a blog page (go to the right column, ON THE MARK WINNERS – 2011) for more details on all the winners.

BUTLER FORD/SHANNON YOUNG CAMPAIGN – Spot: Buy Two (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_w9N7PFxtE)

GOODWILL INDUSTRIES OF SOUTHERN OREGON – Spot: Halloween (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeEEIXlrFZM)

CHILDREN’S ADVOCACY CENTER – Spot: The Tour (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YgOFPBZV5s)

TAPROCK NORTHWEST GRILL, GRANTS PASS – Spot: 2 For $20 Dinners (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3w9IvQAX5E)

NBC5 PROMOTION – Spot: Pharming (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZbGW-Gcxkc)

CHILD ABUSE NETWORK – Spot: Predator at the Door (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrorJFAT8b8)

BUTLER HYUNDAI – Spot: Diamond (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEUvvPZSlpE)

LA STRADA BOUTIQUE AND PAPILLON ROUGE CAMPAIGN – Spot: World Fashions/Fist Pump (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtARMD1-1uc)

EVEN OPRAH CAN GET IT WRONG

In my marketing book (www.powershiftmarketingbook.com) I mention that often when a company is highly successful they stop listening to their customers and start reading their own news releases. No one was more successful in daytime TV than Oprah Winfrey. Looking at her ratings over the years and honors, you would think that her own cable channel (OWN – Oprah Winfrey Network) would certainly be successful, especially replacing DISCOVERY HEALTH, a seldom watched cable channel owned by DISCOVERY. But you would be wrong.

According to data pulled from the “TV by the Numbers” website (a great site for quickly checking rating info), when you compare OWN’S 2011 3rd Quarter ratings (July-Sept), with the old Discovery Health in 2010 3rd Quarter numbers), it’s not pretty for the Queen of Daytime.  Daily average viewership: Down 20%. Women 18-34 viewership: Down 32%. Women 18-49 viewership: Down 24%. Women 25-54 viewership: Down 15%. Adults 18-49 viewership: Down 25%.

What went wrong? Not sure, but I bet everyone involved was so convinced this network would be a slam dunk, they didn’t ask their target audience (women) what they wanted all day and night on a network. Oprah was wonderful in delivering an escape for a couple of hours a day. But living with her and her friends 24/7 is another story. As I tell my clients all the time, past success doesn’t indicate future success. That’s why you need to be constantly talking to your customers.

 

BETTING ON A DISAPEARING 1.5 BILLION MARKET

According to a CBS News Poll, 1.5 billion Americans are sending out traditional holiday cards this year the old-fashioned way, by snail mail. But if you look behind the numbers, if you are a card company you are in trouble. Only 47% of Americans are now sending out cards and 65% of those individuals are over 65 years old. I point this out to show how if you focus on the business you have, you may miss the trends that will impact you in the future.

Of course, the U.S. Post Office noticed a trend, fewer people using their mail service, but their reaction was unique. Instead of trying to make snail mail more competitive or looking for new services that could support their network of offices, they decided to make snail mail even slower by closing sorting centers. Now that’s a great idea. When your product is not really competitive, take actions to make it even less competitive.

As you review your 2011 results, look for trends that you need to be ahead of, but please, don’t act like our government.

28 MILLION VIEWERS FOR FREE

If you read this blog, you know that I am a big believer in YouTube. Making and posting simple videos that relate to your business should be a no brainer. The big boys know this. That’s why the online video data-gatherer Visible Measures, via All Things D, has rated a five-minute ad introducing the new iPhone as the Number One viewed video in 2011 at 28 million views.

Coming in second was a Google Chrome spot featuring Lady Gaga that had 22 million views. Is it surprising that Chrome is now the second most popular internet browser next to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer? The point is that with smartphones and cheap video cameras almost anyone can post a video.

To make my point, I just spent 30 minutes creating a simple video of a recent golf game when a real duck decided to join our group:   http://youtu.be/pIO3m4_g4Tw … stupid, perhaps, but that’s my point. You never know if your video will be the one that goes viral Make using YouTube one of your marketing goals for 2012.

HAVE $400,000 TO SPEND?

As I’ve pointed out in my book and in this blog, mobile advertising is on the verge of becoming very big. The problem is that most people offering it don’t really understand who will buy the ads. This was made even more clear by a story in the Wall St. Journal by Emily Steel and Jessica E. Vascellaro.

According to their story, Apple’s iAd mobile advertising service, which sells ads within mobile apps on iPhones, iPads and iPod touches, has been a dud. They report that marketers have been turned off by the price tag, hard-charging sales tactics, and Apple’s control over creative. Advertisers pay a $10 CPM (cost per thousand) and $2 for every click-thru. Apple has decided to reduce the minimum annual commitment of $1 million to just $400,000!

Apple’s major competitor, Google’s AdMob service, which is available on all mobile devices, charges a $4 to $12 CPM. The reports states that Apple is running training programs to teach the ad firms and clients about the mobile marketing landscape. Good idea, perhaps, but who is teaching Apple and Google?

By its very nature, mobile advertising’s greatest advantage will be for smaller local firms that can target info to people within a few miles of their place of business. Mobile will become a powerful retail tool, not a traditional branding tool. When people offering mobile ads understand this and price it for smaller advertisers it will boom.

THE LAST ONE TO GO, ARE YOU NEXT?

As a former legacy airline employee, it was sad to hear that American Airlines has filed for bankruptcy protection. American was the last legacy airline in the U.S. to file for Chapter 11. With this filing, the airline industry that I worked for is gone. It was an era when employees enjoyed serving passengers, and meals, pillows, and bringing a bag along was expected service, not an extra.

What caused the legacy airlines to fail? High labor costs and major debt are the reasons given by every airline that has filed for bankruptcy. True, but I think the fundamental problem was a business model that couldn’t survive a lack of new technology. In the heyday of the industry, the 1950s and 60s, faster and larger planes made controlling costs less important than flying planes that would increase productivity. If they carried more people, faster to a destination, airlines made more money.

Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a new plane in 40 years that has significantly increased productivity. Sure, new planes use less fuel and can be flown with fewer employees, but they didn’t dramatically increase productivity. Lack of technology and union work rules made improvements in productivity tough. So, with fuel and employee costs continuing to soar for four decades, the industry had no other choice but to change their business model to become a cost-driven “parity” product, where all airlines offer the same attributes, making all brands a satisfactory substitute for each other.

Why share this tale? Because I see many businesses, like financial institutions, retirement communities, and casinos, heading down this same path to parity. So, here are two questions to ask at your next marketing staff meeting: (1) What new technology are we introducing to increase productivity? and (2) What are we doing to make our product/service attributes unique and marketable?

ARE YOU THANKFUL FOR THE DAY?

In a week when your favorite football team lost (Go Ducks), our government lost our faith (the Super Committee wasn’t super), and millions are still trying to market themselves to find a job so they won’t lose their homes, it’s a great time to pause and reflect on how friends, family and just life should make today a blessing. That’s why I want to share this lovely video sent to me by my friend Bill Ferry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXDMoiEkyuQ&sns=em=

I hope you will share this short video with people you love. It certainly sums up why I am grateful. Happy Thanksgiving.

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE, AGAIN

In my marketing book (www.powershiftmarketing.org) I use Kodak as a classic example of a company that couldn’t change fast enough to cash in on the digital photo revolution. That’s why I’m fascinated by their latest misadventures. They just don’t seem to get it.

They are now focused on raising money for their computer printer business by selling their patents and assets like Kodak Gallery. The rise and fall of Kodak Gallery is classic Kodak, a corporation pretending to embrace change but fundamentally staying with old paradigms.

As reported by Dana Mattioli in the Wall St. Journal, Kodak purchased an online photo storage and printing business for less than $100 million in 2001. Then, re-branding it as the Kodak Gallery, they did everything they could to drive it into the ground by not investing in it. According to ComScore Inc, the Kodak site had 7 million visitors monthly (2008), it now has 1.5 million. The major competitor Shutterfly drew 6 million visitors last month.

In my opinion, Kodak is destined to fail. Why? Because they simply can’t shift from old beliefs. Instead of using their proven brand name to invest in recapturing photography leadership in all things digital (including the Gallery website), they decided to bet the farm that printer ink re-orders could be their next “film-like” cash cow. Dumb.

Food for thought: Are you really embracing change by listening to your customers or are you, like Kodak, just trying to apply an outdated corporate philosophy by chasing opportunities that others have already cashed in on?

THE REAL COST OF A BRAND

There has been so much written about the Penn State child sex scandal that I certainly don’t need to add anymore. There have also been plenty of articles and books about the importance of protecting your brand. So, here’s my question for today: How important is protecting a brand to you? Unfortunately, in 30+ years in marketing I have seen first-hand numerous examples of what I call “situational ethics” … i.e. “Well it’s wrong, but in this case, it’s not that wrong when you look at the consequences to our company.”

So, as we all profess righteous indignation about Penn State, the question you should be asking at your next marketing meeting is: “How far would you go to protect your brand?” Think about it. Think about it before others begin to think about it. I believe John Romano, a St. Petersburg Florida sports writer (http://www.tampabay.com/writers/john-romano), summed it up the best:

“What were they thinking? That’s the question yet to be answered by the football coach, the athletic director and the Penn State administrators who had apparently known for years about Jerry Sandusky’s creepy admission that he had taken showers with small boys, and were now being told that his perversions were actually far worse. And still they did not call police.

So when you wonder what they were thinking, you might want to start there. For these people protect their own. They protect their brand
name. They protect their image, and they protect anything that might interfere with the scoreboard. Apparently, they are willing to protect it at any cost.”