Plenty of marketing people will tell you they are expected to perform miracles to keep ahead of the competition.
WestJet, a Canadian based carrier proved it can be done!
The airline set up ‘Santa chat boxes’ that looked like gifts at Hamilton and Toronto airports in Canada. The boxes featured a chatty Santa who asked kids and parents what they wanted for Christmas. Little did they know that the information was relayed to the WestJet office at their destination where a team of 150 WestJetters went out and bought the actual gift.
They were then sent back to the office where they were wrapped and put on the carousel as the passengers waited for their luggage. Just as the presents arrived Santa walked out and started interacting with the stunned but very happy passengers. Have a look at this wonderful video:
The video has got over 11 million views in 3 days. Hundreds of column inches and been featured in numerous news programs around the world. Total cost? Maybe US$100,000.
This Japanese commercial for tyre manufacturer Autoway comes with a health warning that recommends those with a heart condition, physical or mental problems or those who visit their doctor on a regular basis should not watch it.
It’s a clever if rather radical attempt to sell tyres. I’ve written about ‘shock and awe’ advertising here. Traditionally, it hasn’t been very effective, in markets like Malaysia, Singapore, the UK and Australia.
As an example, in Malaysia, despite nearly US$50 million spent on shock and awe campaigns to create awareness of the dangers of smoking, the number of smokers has practically doubled every 10 years.
Of course the success of this campaign will depend on what other initiatives are carried out and on which channels.
Whether or not there are parallels between campaigns for smokers and those who buy tyres, I don’t know. Perhaps this will be different, what do you think?
In 2011 Volvo posted its largest year-on-year increase in truck sales for the North American market. The market saw an impressive sales volume increase of 75%.
Since then the company has struggled to compete in a tough economic environment and even though 2012 saw the overall truck market in North America rise 52%, Volvo, owned by Geely, China saw sales drop by 6%. The company recorded double digit drops in China and Sweden and predicted a tough 2013.
At the same time, there is a boardroom fight going on between Chief Executive Stefan Jacoby and Vice Chairman Hans-Olov Olsson that often gets bitterly personal.
In Malaysia the company has faired better with 2012 sales up an impressive 42% from 2011. I haven’t seen any advertising campaigns for Volvo trucks in Malaysia but the latest commercial has gone viral and will no doubt get some coverage here.
The commercial features Jean Claude Van Damme doing the splits between two Volvo trucks driving backwards into the sunset to an Enya tune. It’s an impressive stunt and JC is in excellent shape but will the commercial make a difference to Volvo truck sales?
Will this impressively produced commercial get potential customers to review their purchasing options? Will it get logistics companies to revise their transportation tenders to include the line, “All vehicles must come with the equivalent of Volvo’s Dynamic Steering System”?
Surely such a unique and impressive bit of technology needs to be experienced by a potential driver/buyer first hand?
Of course I don’t know the full extent of the Volvo truck brand strategy going forward but to me, whilst the exploits of JC are impressive I find them a distraction, damaging the attempts by Volvo to draw my attention to a cool bit of kit. Do you agree or am I just an old cynic?
In my previous post I gave 10 reasons why you should use video to build your brand. You can read that post here
But there needs to be a creative element to those videos. Looking at the airline business, far too many carriers believe the bulk of their marketing dollars should be spent on well produced but hugely irritating glossy videos featuring pretty stewardesses, cute kids and seats that look further apart than they are on any plane I’ve ever flown.
A case in point is Thai Airways. In 2010, to celebrate its 50th anniversary, the carrier released a well produced video that gnaws at the heartstrings but does little new to differentiate it from competitors.
The video has generated a respectable 150,000 views since its launch in 2010 but only 400 likes which would suggest it has made very little impact.
There are some though that are doing their best to move away from this predictable and instantly forgetable approach. Most recently, Virgin America and Air New Zealand have approached the safety video from a new direction.
Instead of the oft ignored stewardess standing self consciously in the aisle and demonstrating how to use a seat belt, where are the exits, how to put on a life jacket and what to do when the oxygen mask drops, these airlines have gone to great expense with a refreshing approach to the tried and tested.
Earlier this week, on the 29th October 2013, Virgin America launched an airline safety video that it claims is the first safety video set entirely to music. They are probably right and the result is impressive.
Obviously I’m not the only one to think so as the video has already been viewed by more than 700,000 people in just two days. What I like about the Virgin video is that they are keeping the story live by inviting dancers to audition for future versions.
Potential participants must send an Instagram video to a specially set up safety dance battle website. Some of those Instagram videos, that can only be up to 15 seconds long will then no doubt take on a life of their own, thereby continuing the Virgin America narrative. So far, the video has over 13,500 Likes on YouTube.
Earlier this year Air New Zealand teamed up with Eton educated ex SAS officer Bear Grylls to create a unique and captivating safety video. The pretty stewardess and cute kids are still there but I’m sure you’ll agree the rest of the cast is unusual!
To date, the Air New Zealand video has garnered more than 277,000 views on Youtube. Not bad for an inflight safety video!
I did a quick search of Youtube to see what Asian airlines are doing on Youtube. Cathay Pacific has created a lot of content some of which has generated a lot of views. Last year they did a ‘Day in the Life’ feature with flight attendants, pilots and ground crew.
This video of a day in the life of Grace, a flight attendant has a respectable 200,000 views but not too many likes.
Malaysia Airlines YouTube page suggests the carrier is creating a lot of video content but judging by the numbers of views it isn’t compelling enough for consumers to engage with, Like and share. However, when they do get creative, or rather innovative interest in the brand goes through the roof, as shown by this flashmob video that has generated over 1,100,000 views in just under 2 years.
Unfortunately this project appears to be tactical rather than part of a strategic initiative because it doesn’t seem to go anywhere or be integrated with any other activities.
According to Cisco, 90% of all Internet traffic will be video by 2017. These Asian carriers need to start producing content that is interesting and relevant. And that content needs to be part of a planned, strategic story that resonates with target markets in order for those markets to engage with and share across the ecosystem. Otherwise it becomes just another piece of expensive content that is out there, rarely viewed and therefore ineffective.
In 2002, Nokia was number two in the list of super brands in Britain. by 2010 it was 89th.
In 2010 Nokia, sold 450 million handsets, outselling Apple 10 to one. In 2012 the firm sold 16 million of its flagship Lumia handsets. In the same period, Samsung sold 384 mobile phones while Apple sold 125 million iPhones.
By 2010 Nokia’s mobile phone market share had slid from 36.4 percent share in 2009 to 28.9%. Nokia still sells more mobile phones than any other company but consumers no longer want mobile phones, they want smartphones.
And at the heart of the smartphone is the operating system. By January 2011, Google’s Android, and its Chinese versions Tapas and OMS had become the top smartphone platform in the world with an 888% year-over-year growth.
Nokia’s Symbian system was a very close second with Research in Motion a distant third and Apple’s iOS way back in fourth. Microsoft’s mobile operating system barely warranted a mention with 4% of the market.
Under pressure in a market it once dominated Nokia panicked. Realising the key to smartphone sales is the OS, it began to muck about with Symbian, a perfectly good OS with no more flaws than the iOS.
But because of the now huge size of the organisation, issues bought up during the testing of touch screens and browsers were often ignored.
Desperate, Nokia launched the N-Gage with too few poor quality games and terrible network connectivity for multiplayers, the phone was blown away by the PSP and DS.
Next came another disaster, the Ovi. Nokia’s answer to the iTunes Store was an unmitigated disaster. In 2007, Nokia restarted its touchscreen development after deciding in 2006 that touchscreens were essentially a gimmick!
This delay meant that the N95 and N97, both good smartphones in their own right and with email, music players, the Internet and GPS as well as a slide out Querty keyboard were supposed to compete with the increasingly dominant and cool iPhone. Sadly they didn’t get anywhere near it.
Next up, the beautiful N8, launched in 3Q2010. Someone described the N8 as engineering porn with a 12 megapixel camera good enough for professional photographers. But the N8 was outsold 6 to one in Europe and did even worse in the tech savvy, gadget hungry and fast growing Asian markets.
By now frantic, no hysterical Nokia tried a completely new Linux based OS called MeeGo but it’s corporate heart wasn’t in it and MeeGo only got a year.
In October 2011, in what was seen by many to be a last throw of the dice, Nokia teamed up with Microsoft and launched the partnership with a US$112m global brand repositioning campaign launch of its first phone running on the Windows 7 operating system.
This was a big mistake. Microsoft’s Phone 7 had already launched in Q4/2010 on about twelve handsets from a number of manufacturers. During the quarter it achieved a meagre 1.5 million sales, earning it about a 2% market share and worse than Windows Mobile which had 4%.
During the same period, the latest version of Symbian (the all new user-friendly touch screen version that powers the N8) was launched on 3 Nokia smartphones and sold 5 million units. All Symbian products sold a respectable 32 million units.
The six month repositioning campaign, that was meant to regain lost market share from rivals Android, Apple and Blackberry failed and was soon consigned to the overflowing but ever popular positioning graveyard in the sky.
Yesterday on 21st October 2013, in a valiant but misguided attempt to steal some of Apple’s thunder, Nokia unveiled 2 new 6 inch window smartphones. These new smartphones are well designed and as always, have great hardware including a sensational camera, an app that displays the contents of the phone on a PC and more than one microphone.
Right phone, wrong OS
These new phones, developed before the decision to sell the handset business to Microsoft for US$7.4 billion was made, could give Android and iOS phones a serious run for their money. Except there is a problem. The problem is that these great products run on Windows mobile. And Windows is a dying brand. Widows mobile owns only 4% of the global market. And that is unlikely to change.
Windows is a dying brand
Today, Windows mobile products don’t come close to delivering the experience Android and Apple smartphone products offer. And that won’t change. And if Nokia can’t offer a compelling experience, Nokia (or Microsoft) can’t save the Nokia brand.
Any brand in the destination branding space should look at this infographic to see how much effort the big travel related US brands are pouring into social media.
It is reported that there are 199 airlines active on Twitter which is an impressive total. This infographic looks at the top six which is dominated by US carriers.
Travel brands are investing in social because that’s where their prospects and customers are spending their time
US hotels have jumped on the social bandwagon as well. Followers on Twitter for the top 6 hotels range from 4,000 (Radisson) to 231,000 for the Marriott. According to hotel marketing Internet users in the US generate 66.3% of global searches for luxury hotel brands which means that anyone in the luxury destination business needs to be online and doing social.
But it’s not just luxury brands that need to be doing social. 65% of leisure travelers begin researching online before they have decided where or how to travel. And a typical traveller visits 22 sites before making a destination decision. Arabs are big users of the online space for travel. Online bookings will nearly double in Arabia between 2011 and 2014, and the online leisure and business travel market is expected to cross the US$16 billion mark.
So if you are looking to attract visitors, especially from Western countries, you need to be doing social.
Spikes Asia is an annual get together for the creative communications industry to share ideas, network and possibly drink too much. It is considered by many to be a melting pot of creative talent from the east and the west and anyone who is anyone in the industry should be there.
There are lots of seminars, workshops and exhibitions. Work exhibited at the event is judged by leading creative minds and awards are handed out to the winners. A Spikes award is much coveted by anyone in the creative industry. The 2013 event was held in Singapore in September.
You are probably wondering why I am commenting on such an event, especially as I have written before that I think there are too many of these events and as a result creative people focus less on delivering value to clients and more on winning awards. Few people agreed with me. I remember some years back we interviewed a creative guy who had won nearly 200 awards and he was only 22!
I’m commenting again because I came across an interesting article on the mumbrella site about comments made at during Spikes Asia. Sonal Dabral, Chairman and CEO of DDB Mudra Group India said, “There is a restlessness among creatives to achieve fame fast without really understanding the consumer or the client’s product.”
Advertising in Asia is crap
He went on to say, ““Greed and shortcuts” are partly to blame for why there is “so much crap” advertising in Asia.”
Calvin Soh, the former creative head of Publicis Asia Pacific and now founder of Ninety Nine Percent said, “If you have a truly great product, you don’t need to advertise.”
You can read the full article here. Leading minds in the creative industries saying that a lot of what they do is crap, that many in the industry don’t understand their clients and that many companies don’t need to advertise does make me wonder why companies continue to let advertising agencies take responsibility for the success or failure of their brands.
It’s official, the new tagline that was supposed to launch the Malaysia Nation Brand will not now be used. The official launch for “Endless Possibilities” was supposed to be yesterday however it was cancelled. You can read more about the cancellation here.
My sources tell me that McKinsey, Futurebrand, Leo Burnett, McCann Erickson and O&M were all involved although I haven’t confirmed this. Ignoring the fact that not one of them bothered to Google the phrase “Endless Possibilities” before giving it the Prime Minister and causing him much embarrassment, my main concern is that the whole sorry process will be repeated once again and we’ll see them trying to retrofit the Malaysia Nation Brand around a tagline.
This is not the way to build a Nation Brand. You can get insights into how to build a nation brand here and here
Okay, here we have yet another beautifully executed short film, this time from Audi featuring not one but two Claire Danes or is it Dans? Desperate to get to New York, she has to make a choice between making the almost 700 mile journey in a chauffeur driven non descript American tank or drive herself in a Audi A6 Diesel.
The film imagines, in an amusing, if predictable way what the journey would be like in each vehicle. So the chauffeur turns out to be a massive bore who used to be in a band (unnecessary surgery) and happens to have a tape with him. And the clunky dashboard still accepts tape. Of course the car needs to stop for petrol and gets a puncture and they meet some strange people and finally Claire Danes gets arrested (not sure why) and ends up in jail.
The alternative journey in the Audi features the star driving herself to New York. Of course this journey is the complete opposite, all autumn colours, perfect sunset, calming music, open spaces and time for a picnic with puppies, yes puppies. She makes it to New York in plenty of time and everything is fine and as she’s about to go on stage she manages to squeeze in a line about the Audi fuel efficiency.
Meanwhile, in the alternative journey she ends up in a dive where she may meet an old flame.
On the 5th September 2013, I reported that the newly developed tagline for Malaysia “Endless Possibilities” would not be used. You can read the full story here. The official launch was supposed to be on 17th September 2013 but this has now officially been ‘postponed’. This is a hugely embarrassing situation.
Malaysia tagline: Dead in the water
Background
According to an article in the Malaysian Insider on 12th September 2013, “…the campaign and tagline was refined by two foreign consultancies and a market research firm after discussions with officials from the Prime Minister’s Department.”
The article goes on to say, “”The consultants refined it from the phrase ‘Endless Opportunities’ which was used in a speech to ‘Endless Possibilities’.”
“An advertising agency was then called in to create the logo, which the Tourism Ministry used together with the tagline last year before it was used in Davos.”
This process began in December 2011 and the new tagline was given its first outing by the Tourism Ministry in Dubai in 2012. It was due to be launched officially on 17th September 2013, almost two years after the project was initiated. You only need to read this blog or those of any other destination branding experts to know this is not the way to build a destination brand. So what can we learn from this nightmare?
Here are 5 general lessons we can learn to ensure that next time the Malaysia Nation Brand project is executed properly:
1) If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, YOU CANNOT DEVELOP A TAGLINE AND THEN RETROFIT A BRAND AROUND THAT TAGLINE USING ADVERTISING AND PROMOTIONS. It is a fundamental of branding. If you are responsible for developing a Nation Brand you must understand this. I don’t care if someone gives you a tagline and tells you to build a brand around it. It simply is not possible and you have to stand your ground. 2) A tagline is not a brand. Let me say it again, A TAGLINE IS NOT A BRAND. Too many taglines have made promises the Nation couldn’t possibly keep, have left potential customers underwhelmed, have been lost in the clutter of advertising noise or have been ruined by an event beyond the control of the Nation. Moreover, we live in a social economy. What is the first thing a prospect will do when he hears a tagline? He will look to the Internet to find out what is being said about the country. If he sees more negativity than positivity, he’ll believe what others are saying, not what the Nation says. It won’t matter how much you spend on corporate driven messages pushed out across mass media that try to convince him otherwise. 3) Ask yourself how many great ads you remember from yesterday or the day before. Not many, right? Even those in the industry find this a tough question. There is so much advertising noise that it is very hard for a campaign to be seen, let alone remembered and acted upon. There is a place for advertising countries, but not for using advertising to gain traction for the brand. 4) Just because you hire a research company to do your research, doesn’t mean you’ll get the right research. And if you are starting with a tagline and trying to retrofit your brand around that tagline, your research is going to be flawed before it even starts. After all, how can you develop the right research methodology if you are starting from the wrong place? 5) If you insist on starting with a tagline, Google it first before you do anything. A Google search of “Endless Possibilities” throws up 13 million results including destinations that have already used it – Mongolia, Israel, Sagada, corporations – BHS India and conferences, t-shirts, singers etc. Every stage of every element of any brand development should be checked and double checked again.
13 million results requires some investigation before acceptance
There are other, more specific lessons that can be learned from this issue but there is nothing to be gained by outlining them here. Let’s just hope that to avoid any more lost time and money, the project will now be carried out the way it should have been in the first place.
brandconsultantasia.com 