Heineken: King of Beers in Creativity

Heineken has been chosen as The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity’s Marketer of the year for 2014. This is not the first time that it has been recognized as in the past three year’s Hienkins brands have won over 41 awards from this festival.

Heinekens marketing in the past has experimented with on the edge advertising whilst maintaining the core beliefs of its brands.In 2014 they engaged in a number of extremely successfuly campaigns which include the following:

• A short video that was inspired by a fan tweet called “Lincolne” where the famous Aberham Lincon has been recreated but as a possessed evil version of himself.
• A campaign on Instagram in support of gay pride month
• And a mobile based campaign for their new beer-tequila

Heineken is the worlds 2nd largest brewing company but is number 1 on Facebook and seeks to dominate the social media realm compared to its competitors in a way that connects with its customers but more importantly providing them with creative, unique, attention grabbing content that is shareable and worthy of conversation. They’ve enhanced their creativity by asking their customers what effective advertising looks to them which inspires the material that they publish.

They realize that it is not enough to simply advertise anymore, they must create content is has viral potential in order to cut through the clutter of the advertising world. Being an alcohol based brand they receive a lot of attention from consumers had have the potential to perhaps push the boundaries in terms of its advertising. Instead of going down the traditional beer company advertising of young beautiful women selling beer in bikini’s, Heineken has created award worthy marketing material that consumers appreciate on a creative/artistic level.

Sixer’s Fans Go Pizza Starved

Papa John’s launched a promotion in October stating that if the Philadelphia 76ers won their NBA basketball game, you would win 50% off online orders the following day. This seems like a fun and easy way to promote Papa John’s while tying it to a widely loved game and create hype around the chosen team. The team was expected to win from 20 to 50 games per season and the offer was limited to online orders which seemed like a cost effective promotion. However the one contingency piece that the campaign relied upon has resulted in a huge failure. The Sixers have not won a single game. In the first eleven games of the season, the Sixers have lost every game. This has been blamed on a shaky start and an injury in their star player, Joel-Hans Embiid, benching him until further notice.

The pizza company has run promotions in conjunction with professional sports teams performances in the past, including the Yankees after they score at least six runs and wins by the Miami Heat basketball team. However these promotions were much more successful as the teams had decent performances. Papa John’s have come to terms with the failing partnerships and have changed their promotion from being contingent on a win to when they score a minimum of 90 points in a game. With averaging 88.6 points per game they’re chances are much higher of activating the promotion.

However this change in the terms of the promotion are contradictory to the purpose of the campaign itself. The original campaign was intended to gather support around the 76er’s basketball and bring fans together to share a celebratory half price pizza. By changing the promotion, Papa John’s shows their lack of faith for the basketball team to pull off a win which may insult fans and reduce their likelihood of doing business with Papa John’s.

If the Sixers can’t win a basketball game they should at least treat their fans to half price pizza. This campaign goes to show that there are many contingency factors that sales promotions rely upon. When these factors are out of the company’s control it may call for a more careful analysis of what factors they will lead up to fate or make adjustment in the current promotion to better reflect conditions of reality.

Nutella Personalizing your Hazelnuts

Selfridges&Co. has recognized an opportunity to capitalize the obsession over two current fads: Nutella and name personalized  products. Most famously done by Coca-Cola on their Coke products, personalized products (especially our favourite products) has become an intensely sought after product. Perhaps this is because we already believe we own these products and that they are “our products” and we like the affirmation of actually having our name spelled out onto them.

Coke impressively was able to create such a personal campaign on a large worldwide level with thousands and thousands of names. In addition these products were available in mass retailers all over the world, with sending popular names to specific geographic regions but also including more unique and unusual names for those who would usually not be considered in these types of campaigns.

The personalized Nutella products are only available in select retailers in London, Manchester and Birmingham. Their biggest opportunity for mass success would be offering this product online. While they initial did offer it online, they eventually pulled it, perhaps due to the inability to keep up with demand or shipping needs.

While Selfridges&Co. may be trying to replicate the success of the Coca Cola campaign with another extremely popular product, I believe that this is more of a one time novelty gift, especially since this is being made available just for the Christmas season. The campaign seems like a good idea however I imagine it would be quite costly to have to personalize each jar as it limits their economies of scale and increase variable costs per product. If the prices are the same as a standard Nutella jar (prices aren’t posted) then the cost of this type of personalization may outweigh the benefits. Which leads me to believe this may just be a temporary stunt to create another period of buzz around the product.

This campaign is not being implemented or sponsored by the Nutella brand but rather, it is a third party company that is trying to ride the wave of success of these two brand mega successes. Lacking its own creative flare, this company may run into troubles with copyright infringements based on the replication of the Nutella logo and packaging. Is this risk worth the small scale success that this campaign will realize?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/declancashin/spreading-good-cheer

Crash the Super Bowl with Doritos

Doritos has tasked its loyal customers to help them achieve possibly the most crucial piece of advertising they will part take in for the year – a Super Bowl commercial. After 8 years of buying Super Bowl ad spots, Doritos is asking customers to make their own 30 second video and enter it into the “Crash the Super Bowl” contest in chances to win $1 million, a dream job with partner Universal Studios, a trip to the Super Bowl and for their advertisement to actually be played during the 2015 Super Bowl. It calls for material that is bold, action pact, original and awesome which gives Doritos the permission to hours of unique creative material. Doritos will then chose a short list of finalists and the winner will be determined through a vote open to the public.

This contest reveals customers true feelings and attitudes towards the brand, allowing them to demonstrate their interpretations of how the brand is best represented/sold. Dorito’s could then use this data and material collected from their campaign to inspire their own creative material and to determine what it is their customers are looking for or drawn to. It empowers Dorito’s customers by putting the responsibility in their hands to best promote the brand. And it takes the hard work out of Dorito’s marketing department by outsourcing the creative content to millions of fans around the world.

This campaign has been promoted for weeks through the company’s Facebook and Twitter page with many action commands and timelines to encourage participation. This also allows them to build buzz and awareness for the highly anticipated advertisement. In addition, it convey’s Dorito’s trust within their consumer groups as they have promised to use someone’s video  to promote the brand on such a large scale. The campaign has closed submissions and is in the process of determining finalists for the final vote. This is a brilliant tactic to gathering consumer information and creative content. Yet it is accompanied by huge risk on Dorito’s part as let go of control of their most important marketing campaign of the year that will be watched attentively on the world stage. All that said, Dorito’s SuperBowl fate now lies in your hands!

See the details of the full campaign here: https://crashthesuperbowl.doritos.com/how-it-works

Revamping the Image of Pizza through Imagination

Pizza Hut has revitalized itself through changes to menu options, logo, customer experiences and online presence in order to save itself from its looming demise. This brand revamp includes changes to physical in store structures, offering new healthier options, enhancing the digital experience and offering one of a kind adventurous menu items with a variety of crusts and sauce flavours.

Pizza Hut has fallen behind the competitions in terms of innovation, development and sales. With 56 years in the industry, Pizza Hut was due for a major change in order to have an attempt at gaining back its popularity. Some new flavours include Curried Away, Ginger Boom Boom, Honey Sriracha and Salted Pretzel, and new toppings including Peruvian cherry peppers, sliced banana peppers, and fresh spinach.

These changes resulted from consumer research that indicated they wanted more unique flavour offerings that you couldn’t find anywhere else. As well, Pizza Hut wanted to reach a larger audience of those who are heavily involved in the health trend in buying fresher, healthier ingredients, but that could also have the pizza experience without sacrificing those values.

While this company makeover has been receiving a lot of media attention, my concern is the gimmicky nature of its menu items. With such outrageous flavours its menu items may be more novelty purchases (try it once for fun) opposed to building important long term loyal customers. In addition this strategy will heavily rely upon continuous innovation of new menu items. The unconventional flavours that they use will likely not become the next “traditional pepperoni pizza.” This revitalization will be best communicated through their social media platforms. Educating consumers will be key as this is such a radical shift from their previous positioning and it will be important to retain previous loyal consumers in the midst of attracting new consumers. Social media will also provide consumers with the ability to communicate back to Pizza Hut, letting them know their thoughts on the new image which will help with brand development. They could also get conversation going through a flavour contest asking consumers which flavours they would like to see on their next untraditional pizza!

The true test of success will be whether or not Pizza Hut will be able to sustain this as an ongoing strategy. This will depend on their ability to innovate and create unique original flavours that will keep its adventurous customers returning for more.  If it is not able to sustain this type of ongoing adaptation, they will have to determine the most successful/popular pizza types and solidify its menu into a unique but stable offering which may fall in popularity back to the position they were in before their revamp. Only time will tell.

The Perfect Mixture of Balance

An unlikely trio has come together to promote the importance of the balance of food, drinks and physical activities. While Coca Cola, Pepsi and Dr.Pepper usually compete against each other in the soft drink industry they have joined forces in an attempt to revitalize their shrinking market. With a shift in consumer consumption behaviours away from carbonated beverages these companies have ventured out into new markets for growth. However the soft drink business unit has remained as the core centre of their brand.

In an effort to reduce the negative stigmatism towards their carbonated soft drinks they have agreed to part take in the education of how to eat and drink properly. This mixfy initiative offers tips including how to properly count calories, stay physical active and balance your daily activities. In addition they also provide expert info from some of the most knowledgable people in the subject including nutritionists, dieticians, coaches and athletes who are able to answer any kind of question.

This initiative has a large social media presence including a Facebook page with 10,875 likes, a twitter page with 5,183 followers, an Instagram account and a tumblr page. The conversation has been encouraged through the hashtag of #MyMixfy for people to contribute their stories, thoughts and questions.

While these companies are trying to remove the negative stigmatism surrounding carbonated drinks through the proper education of nutrition and health principles technically these products should be cut out of our diet. However because these companies are promoting the initiative I highly doubt they would do so if it resulted in the declining sales of their products. Which leads to the question of whether or not the information they are publishing is bias or skewed in a way that still favours the purchase of their products. So are Coca Cola, Dr.Pepper and Pepsi really concerned about the health of its customers or are they trying to influence a prominent trend into something that looks at their brands and products in a more favourable light?

Check out the full initiative here:   http://mymixify.com

Taco Bell Kills Its Social Media Presence

Taco Bell has made an attention grabbing decision to delete all of its social media accounts. In the process they have lost 1.4 million Twitter followers and all Facebook and Tumblr activity. This staggering move is an attempt to promote their new mobile application for Android and iPhone devices. The main activities the app will serve is: an online ordering and delivery service to customers home, help them find the nearest location and allow them to review menu items. This mobile application provides Taco Bell with an abundance of consumer data including their interests, purchasing habits and location. This is an attempt to converge the fast food industry with the mobile tech trend. While many of their competing fast-food chains such as McDonald’s and Burger King have also launched apps they did so in conjunction with their social media platforms. Consumers are asked to make the switch through the posting of one last hashtag #onlyintheapp. This has been announced by publishing one final post on their platforms promoting their shift through the hashtag.

This is an incredibly risky move as Taco Bell has placed sole reliance on customer communication through this app. This eliminates the communication function that social media sites services such as customer feedback which is critical to company improvement and relationship building. While many people look at this strategy as doomed for failure, it is the first initiative of its type and will only been disproven (or proven) in time. This has been an attempt for Taco Bell to live out its motto and “Think Outside the Bun.”

I believe that this will only be a short publicity stunt in order to gain initial popularity on the app. Once a large following has been developed for the app I believe they will restore their traditional social media platforms. For such a large consumer brand that relies on high quantity of visits of small order sales, they require constant connection with their customers and reminder advertising to keep their brand top of mind when consumers are debating their fast food options. Without the primary social media platforms running I believe they will lose more sales compared to what they will gain through the app. While they may receive PR attention, this is short lived and downloading an app involves much more customer participation than it does to follow them on social media. I believe they should restore their platforms as soon as possible, although this may damage the legitimacy of the campaign.

The Beautification of Food

While many common day social media users snap pictures of their homemade recipes and restaurant quality meals to share their experience, there is actual an industry behind the beautification and socialization of food to showcase it in the most attractive way. For food marketing agencies such as The Hot Plate, they consider the glamorization of food to be an art, which involves the perfect setting, background, lighting and props. They recognize that the sharing of food through social media platforms is an incredible opportunity for food producers to market their products and capitalize on the  status symbols they represent. In addition companies are able to showcase their products in different scenarios which allows them to increase its usage and possibly its customer base. It is a way for marketers to share their products/recipes without it feeling like a push advertisement, and the search ability features bring the consumers to you.

While this seems opportunistic for food companies to grow in the social media market it is also very costly as many resources are required to create a polished post and consumers are looking for new posts on a regular basis. The true question is: does the need for perfect images outweigh the costs production to create them. Or does the “Hollywood effect” take away from the realness and authentic approach that so many people value in advertisements. With the popularization of people posting their real food on the internet, should companies ride this trend by appealing to customers on a more personal level and save the intensive costs of creating perfect images.

Pinterest has proven to be one of the largest social media platforms in terms of food postings as it is ideal for sharing pictures and linking directly to website recipes. While it is important to show the food in a favourable light it is also very important to share food in a “real” way that looks authentic and desirable to consumers.

See the full article from the Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/marketing/where-the-eye-is-bigger-than-the-belly/article19761499/

Building “Green Giants” to Stop Bullying

Green Giant (the vegetable producer) has stepped in to help today’s overwhelming emotional health issues of bullying with PACER’s National Bullying Prevention Center. We all know that it occurs but the question is do we know how to stop it? Green Giant encourages this conversation through their “Raise A Giant” campaign which is intended to encourage parents to write letters to their children emphasizing how special they are, to embrace their individuality and to help stop bullying. By doing so these parents are “raising giants” to tackle the issue of bullying and to stand up for themselves and others. This conversation has been encouraged through a campaign website, Facebook, Twitter and blogs. In addition to the parent letters, a guide was created online filled with info regarding how to prevent bullying and encourage the conversation.

The messaging behind this campaign highly correlates to Green Giants mission as a vegetable producer. They are in the business of providing healthy meal options, which lends itself nicely to the growth and strength of children, building them into “Green Giants” that are unique and influence change. This campaign is also effective in terms of corporate social responsibility as it attacks current social issues prevalent in every society. It is an issue that their target market (families – mothers and children) care very strongly about. This correlation creates a emotional connection between the brand and its consumers that with strengthen brand loyalty and contribute to a greater society.

However, when it comes to businesses getting involved in social issues such as this, I often raise the question of intent and authenticity. Businesses conduct themselves in a way that will further their position in the market and make themselves look better in comparison to their competitors. Is this simply just another way to get into the hearts of consumers in attempt to create stronger loyalty bonds to increase sales? By participating in these kinds of initiatives not only does it create a bunch of positive PR and media attention but it also builds positive brand equity that furthers the position of the company. So next time you see another charity publicity stunt look beyond the surface of intent and determine what it is the company is really gaining from their participation.

We don’t bend, we #break

KitKat’s real time marketing campaign has been compared to the likes of the Oreo’s “Dunk in the Dark” campaign as they have taken a current social media and news phenomenon of Apple’s new iPhone bending and applied it to their core marketing messaging “take a break”. This type of real time, relatable communication has created a huge social media buzz, which reminds marketers to keep on their toes and respond to real time trends to reach consumers in their life events.

KitKat found a way into the conversation and take advantage of the hugely popular use of the hashtag #bendgate in attempt to take over the success. The hashtag represented a logical connection to their brand slogan of “have a break, have a KitKat”. The ad was created within 30 minutes and simply showed the chocolate bar broken and at a 45 degree angle in a clean crisp image.

By creating advertisements that coincide with real life events and current popular topics of conversation marketing loses its business and corporate aura and creates a personal feel that connects with people emotionally as it is relatable to their everyday lives. The success that Kit-Kat realized  of over 23,000 retweets and 10,000 favourites goes to show that marketing isn’t about large budgets, impressive graphics and intense planning of content. Instead, it should focus on creating material that is relatable, important to their audience and is of recency to fit into the everyday lives of their customers.

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/how-kitkats-awesome-bendgate-tweet-came-together-30-minutes-160414