Advertising & Branding

Ramen Noodles gets unusual branding plug –from Michael Moore.

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Trust Michael Moore to dream up a creative (read: controversial) way to garner media attention. His offer of a pack of Ramen noodles or clean underwear to ‘slacker’ students is not a silly choice as it may seem. (I am sure there will be conspiracy theories that Ramen goes well with you-know-what brand of ketchup.)

Infusing a few strong brand names into a political stunt is a good way to fire up the marketplace, and the media. That, plus Moore’s silly ‘letter‘ on his Web site, looks deliberately crafted to get the slacker story out there. Moore definitely understands the tricks of guerilla marketing, as this recipe reveals in a Movie blog. To which, a visitor comments that Moore deserves an Oscar for his marketing and promotion skills.

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Street Spam and Election Advertising.

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

signs

Len Gutman, fellow IABC chapter member and PR pro, writes about a topic after my heart: Political Spam on our street corners. The article, Sign forests just political poster pollution appears in yesterday’s Arizona Republic.

Like Len, I don’t get it. They have such poor impact, especially when cluttered together. Besides they all look alike, in the standard 3 colors. Brand differentiation? I doubt their campaign folk give it a thought. They follow the same principle of spammers, sometimes planting the same sign twice in one spot. The next time you drive by a vacant lot, take a look at the street spam and tell me if their advertising money is justifiable.

Just for grins, take a look at this sign.

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Preventing ambush marketing at the Olympics

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Coke_flagbearers

Every Olympics, someone tries to ambush the million dollar sponsors.

This time, in Athens, the organizers are making sure Coke, Burger King and other big players don’t get upstaged. See this news report. I grant, they pay big money to be a ‘TOP’ (The Olympic Program) sponsor. In the neighborhood of 272 million Euro. But the brand guardians should guard against stunts that could undermine that reputation.

The article mentions –I thought this was really funny –-being forced to wear your T-shirt inside out, just in case the message was not commercially Kosher.

“Staff will also be on the lookout for T-shirts, hats and bags displaying the unwelcome logos of non-sponsors. Stewards have been trained to detect people who may be wearing merchandise from the sponsors’ rivals in the hope of catching the eyes of television audiences. Those arousing suspicion will be required to wear their T-shirts inside out.”

As Media Culpa, a blog devoted to Media and PR by Swedish blogger Hans Kullin notes,

“I’m sorry, but my soft drink preferences would start to lean slightly away from the word’s #1 brand. This is just not good PR.”

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Inventing the ‘new media’ all over again.

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Last month, I featured a story about how Macintosh users and Ferrari fans have been considered a target market –by a cell phone company and a sports car respectively. I know it gets confusing, when products target products. But the fact is that in the over saturated media space, the quest for the holy grail of attention, is leading marketers to invent their own media.

Take this quote from the VP of Lifetime TV network, Catherine Moran. (Quoted in Advertising Age, Aug 2, 2004)

“We’re all out there trying to find new media environments..Beaches do seem to be on everybody’s hit list.”

Hard to miss the irony of a TV network (the media) seeking a ‘new media environment’ to market itself.

Here’s another similar story. A Magazine using a Retailer as a ‘media environment’ instead of the other way around. A new magazine, called “All You” by Time Inc, will launch in Wal-Mart. Here’s what the publisher, Diane Oshin said about using Walmart.

“All You gives marketers the opportunity to target the ever-growing population of value-driven consumers in a high-quality environment that speaks directly to them,” said Oshin. “And, with initial distribution in Wal-Mart — where this customer shops — this magazine will be an extremely efficient way to reach her.”

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