The Marketing Mix

Location, Location, Location

It's an old adage, and a cliche, but location is so important.  Just got back from the White Sox-Cubs game at Wrigley field, and nothing other than location can explain why so many people still go see the Cubs play every day.  Lots of other teams have played crappy baseball in old-fashioned ballparks that don't sell out, but not the Cubs.

This is all very similar to some businesses I know, where employees are dissatisfied, but will never leave because the location of the firm allows them to live in a great place.  Location can be a competitive advantage not only in real estate value and foot traffic but in the retention of great talent at market or below market rates (consider this next time your moving your business to the far out burbs or a po-dunk town to save money)

Integrated Marketing - The benefit no-one talks about

The wide ranging benefits of integrated marketing are well-known and always viewed as the optimal way to sell a product or service - however there is one great thing about doing multi-layered marketing like this that I haven't heard talked about.  This is what I call Competitive Cloudiness.

Competitive Cloudiness is the what I define as the inability to understand which, if any, marketing tactic is really driving business results, therefore making it almost impossible to perfectly analyze and copy the strategies and tactics of another to achieve similar results.  For example, if you launch a new product, increase TV advertising, do consumer sampling, and drop a coupon, and your business grows at 5%, I really can't look at your growth and just replicate it, because I don't know which "thing" that you did gave you the increase.  In situations where a smaller or less resources competitor cannot match you dollar for dollar, I would recommend employing this tactic, as opposed to spreading things out and doing one thing at a time.

Seeming ubiquitious to your consumers is an obvious plus, misleading and confusing your competitors is the gravy.

Burger King - Off Target

Don't get me wrong, I love the creepy Burger King (It did take me a while, but I got used to him once they spliced him into NFL footage and he squared off with Darth Vader), but I think that the Burger King company has got it a bit wrong.  According to a high ranking marketing official from BK that I heard speak at a Kid Conference not long ago, the consumer target that these ads are being made for is men and women, ages 18-34.

The challenge - can you find a woman that digs this creepy King?  I haven't yet.  I always gave these ads a pass because I figured I was'nt the target and that I had to be a teenage guy to really dig them.  Well, if the target includes my Wife and other women that I know in their late 20s and early 30s, I can't see how Burger King can honestly say that these ads have been working.

Sometimes a funny thing about marketing people who is that they attribute results to the wrong driver for purposes of making a great press release (or enhancing their performance bonus).  In this case, I'm sure the Burger King ad agency is talking about how much their campaign has helped, but what they don't mention in the press release is that new product innovation, such as chicken fries or the Eggnormous omelet had a lot more impact on the top line (and bottom line) than any homoerotic Burger King hanging out with construction workers.

Sublymonal, but Not Persuasive

The new Sprite "Sublymonal" ads are terrible.  Breaking through is always important in advertising, but not at the expense of making the product actually seem like something someone wants to buy.  Replacing an eyeball with a second mouth?  Does this ad make anyone want to drink more Sprite?  Trying to product to teenage guys by out "extreming" the other brands on the spectrum of bad taste is such a tired, old cliche (especially if the products doesn't have caffeine in it, which is almost a requirement to compete with the likes of Mt. Dew).  I have to believe that a large part of Sprite's consumption is made up of people who would find these ads disgusting and artistically pretentious.

Isn't there a way that they could deliver on a lemon-lime benefit without showing the Chinese water torture of a guy with lemons and limes on his eyes (which actually turn out to be a mini-mouth).  And how creative is that new package design with the twist on yin-and-yang. 

I know people go lots of different ways on opinions of this ad campaign.  I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Jay-Z, Cristal, and Short-Sightedness

The recent news that the CEO of the company that makes Cristal is not happy that rappers drink so much of it and are so vocal with their support of the brand is ridiculous.  Cristal is not the only product that faces this dilemma.  Having worked on both the Cap'n Crunch and Gatorade brands, I have seen first hand that there is often a difference between who smaller group of consumers target your product to, and the larger one that ultimately consumes it.  For example, Cap'n Crunch smartly makes cartoon ads that kids love, but understands that there are more adults than kids that actually eat their cereal.  Similarly, Gatorade is all about the will to win and sports, but we see more and more people just walking down the street with the electrolyte beverage all the time.  In both of these situations, the eating or drinking, by non-intended people probably does not fit with the desired equity of the brand.  But does either brand outwardly alienate those "outside of the target" groups of consumers?  The answer is absolutely not.

This is where Cristal falls on its face.  Alienate some of your most loyal and vocal consumers, with access to the hearts and minds of a whole generation of kids, young men and rich athletes at your own peril.