The Affari Blog

After writing and discussing last week’s blog - especially its format - I’ve decided to commit to contributing more list submissions. It’s really a win-win situation. I’ll be more inclined to write more often, and you won’t have to read any more of my rambling, babbling submissions that usually lose their way about half-way through the post.

Enough dialogue, on to this week’s list - Hot Ad Angles. Campaign strategies, taglines and brand philosophies all contribute to the success of a product/service. These are some Ad Angles I currently dig.

Ballin’
(Ad Angles that have been successful or pleasing to me - in no particular order)

1. PC < Apple
-'Maybe I'm just not cool enough to be a Mac person'. Lauren is a sweetheart. A youthful chick who's just out to buy a new laptop that's hip and affordable. Sure, everyone knows Macs are so much cooler, and allegedly better, than PCs. Unfortunately, the price point reflects this belief. I like the fact that Microsoft is making a point that you can buy a PC that does everything majority of us need our computers to accomplish at a fraction of the Mac price. In the end - and especially in today's economy - this is arguably Microsoft's #1 selling point - I'm glad they've put out a spot that highlights this.

2. AXE
-The spots don’t hold anything back. They target us M16-29 and pretty much say to our faces, “We know you”. Every ad and campaign for the past few years has screamed, “We know all you guys want to do is impress the ladies”. Spots with Boom-Chicka-Wah-Wahs, Nick Lachey tallying looks from girls and the new, college montage have defined the AXE user over and over. Sure, they are a little over the top and kinda crude, but something about how shameless the campaigns are makes the brand more fun in my eyes. Besides, they’re key demo likes that stuff in a brand. Bring on the shamelessness.

(I included this video which is what I meant when I referred to ‘college montage’ above. This spot just kinda takes me back to that old lifestyle and mindset. Crazy nights that you need to clean up the next morning….or afternoon. This is an uncut version that’s actually pretty awesome.)

3. The April Cover of ESPN The Magazine by Gatorade
-Pretty cool concept if you haven’t seen it. It’s the usual ESPN mag, well, half of it is anyways. The front cover is split down the middle. The left side is half of a picture of Manny Ramirez making some weird ‘Manny’ face. The right side is white with bold lettering that reads, “Your wouldn’t settle for an incomplete cover”. You realize this white side is actually a flap that unfolds to show a Gatorade ad suggesting that it is the complete sports drink. I thought it was pretty clever and much more impressionable than a static ad lost somewhere on page 43 (no offense to whoever owns page 43 of this issue). Leave it to Gatorade to provide a refreshing use of an allegedly dying medium.

4. Apple > PC
-How can he write about how the PC campaign is so good and then go and write about how awesome Apple’s ad angle has become? It’s actually really easy, Apple rocks. Their ads are clean and crisp. They’re so simple, and yet, they feel sooo good! That coupled with well-designed products that even look superior to their competitor’s products make the Apple brand one of the strongest in the marketplace. According to Interbrand, Apple’s brand value has grown by 24% since 2007 - second only to the Goliath Google. Sure, PCs are cheaper and capable, but Apple portrays that added value that PC has lost over the years.

5. Old Spice has Swagger
-Swagger has become quite the buzz word in current pop culture. It’s referenced in several rap songs and has a unique and appealing feel to it. Old Spice has recently introduced the Swagger brand to its line of products. The commercials that have carried the product to market are great. In fact, I like all Old Spice spots. ‘Two things in one’ is a pretty good spot, and I enjoy the classy middle-aged man who sings, whistles and plays piano. They take on a different approach than the aforementioned AXE. More guy humor oriented than sexually suggestive. Here’s the ever popular Sword of Urlacher commercial.

6. Spaghetti Jimmy
-I’m sorry, but a little kid covered in spaghetti asking what’s in my wallet in one of those cute kid voices makes me smirk every time. I say smirk because I’ll automatically be docked several man points if I slip up and call it cute.

7. Domino Effect: Bailouts
-Domino’s is running a spot now where the CEO claims to be giving a bailout to the hard working man rather than the wall street scammers. The bailout…$5 pizzas. I’m pretty sure they’ve been running the $5 pizza deal for a while now, but I like the idea of Domino’s playing Robin Hood here. Somebody needed to give Joe The Plumber a bailout, looks like Domino’s beat everyone to it. Unfortunately, this bailout isn’t millions or billions of anything being given away….maybe they should have done a Domino’s Pizza Bailout day where they gave out millions of pizzas. sounds like the perfect campaign for 4th of July…now that’s a bailout I’d be interested in…even if it is Domino’s.

8. You Can’t Say Nobody Makes Money From Twitter
-I read a short but great article today that cited Twitter as the source for Mark Cuban’s latest NBA fine. Cuban was fined after complaining via Twitter about the referees in a recent game. After he was slapped with a $25,000 fine, Cuban posted another tweet reading, “can’t say no one makes money from twitter now. the nba does.” Regardless of his constant fines, Cuban is a good thing for the NBA…and social networking.

9. Agency TV
-Mad Men and now Trust Me are two recent sitcoms about life in ad agencies. Mad Men was an instant classic with me, but I was much more skeptical with Trust Me. After watching several episodes and really bombarding myself with the question, Do I really like it - or do I just like the fact it’s about an agency?, I think I actually like it. It’s kinda fun seeing a show about people who are supposed to be like me. Sure, the agency portrayed in the show is much larger and much different than Affari - but the concepts and challenges are similar. Maybe they should put out a new sitcom about smaller agencies….something I could really get into.

10. I Told You So?
-Last week I said Tiger Woods’ return to golf was a great thing, especially for advertisers and sponsors. After his great comeback win yesterday, NBC posted it’s highest numbers for ‘overnight golf TV’ since last year’s US Open - a major tournament. Just had to boast about that one a little bit.

Not Ballin’
(A quick rundown of Ad Angles that aren’t quite cutting it for me)

-1800DUIGUYS. They have a big budget here in town. Billboards, radio. Probably a pretty good company. If I hear the radio spot 1 more time, I may lose complete control of my car…

-I’m not lovin’ it. I just want McDonalds to change up their creative once in a while. Turn the old Big Mac song into a rap or something.

-Why do blimp ads still exist?

-I’m not sure there is anything more toxic to a brand than spam. Not only do your continuous messages get blocked, but the recipient also blocks your brand from contention - thus, never allowing you on his/her Ballin’ list.

More lists to come…send me suggestions for future Hot Lists.

So, we’re about to wrap up the first quarter of `09 and I feel inspired to write a Top Adthings of `09 blog. I think I just want to highlight some things I haven’t had time to blog about, but we’ll just call it ‘Nick’s Hotlist: 2009 Adthings‘.

Ballin’
(Adthings that have been successful or pleasing to me this year - in no particular order)

1. HIGHLIFE!
- My last blog entry was about Miller High Life’s one-second ad that was rumored to run during the Super Bowl. After it ran, my entire living room lit-up with laughter. It was perfect. Literally two commercials before it ran, a friend of mine shouted, “Hey Nick, has that one-second ad run yet?” I replied, “I don’t think so, guess we could have missed it - if it’s even real.” Literally one minute later, with this dialogue still fresh in everyone’s mind, the screen switches to a warehouse with a large man screaming “High Life”. Then it cuts off. Two seconds pass before we realize what just happened…then we erupted in laughter. The timing couldn’t have been better - love it!

2. Twitter
- Yes, I have a twitter account. Yes, everyone I know has a twitter account. Yes, every media outlet, TV show and retail outlet has a twitter account. That’s why it makes this list - I just cannot deny its buzz. Unfortunately, I’m not sold. I’m a facebook guy so updating my status on facebook is like tweeting to me. I’m not sold on the search features of twitter - it takes too long to find everyone (again).

3. Five, Five Dollar Footlongs
- Don’t act like you don’t know the song. It’s catchy - catchy like the F-R-EE-CREDIT-REPORT-dot-COM-BAY-BE commercials. It works, too. I’ve ordered more footlongs from subway in the past few months than I have in the past 5 years. Is it lunch time yet….

4. Because We’re Aliens and That’s How We Roll
- Hulu is huge. It’s awesome. Remember when you couldn’t find that scene from SNL or The Office on youtube to save your life? Those days are over. Hulu has some of the best internet content, ever. Pretty much any clip or episode of any TV show. Check out some of the SNL Digital Shorts if you get a chance. Plus, running commercials featuring Alec Baldwin and Seth Green are automatic hits.

5. Tell Me Who’s Watching
- Oh, that? That’s just the money you could be saving with Geico. You know those weird commercials with two stacks of bills with a pair of eyes on top? Those commercials made my list. Mainly because I like the techno version of that “Somebody’s Watching Me” song that they use to tag out each spot. I also like thinking about the process of selling that idea. In my head I see somebody at the agency playing around with a few stacks of bills, eventually putting eyes on it and sarcastically saying ‘we should just pitch this’….I guess I love how fun and playful it seems.

6. iPhone lite Apps
- The iPhone apps really make the phone a toy. Some of the games they have on there are impressively detailed and complex. Usually they end up costing 5 or 6 bucks. These apps usually offer lite versions that allow you to play a fraction of the game…just enough to get you hooked. I know people who purchase $5 games on the reg after playing lite versions. I’ll stick to the lite versions for now, but I love the concept: Bait `n Trap.

7. Cash4Gold.com + HammerTime
- MC Hammer has a sledgehammer made of solid gold in this commercial. Enough said.

8. Tiger
- Tiger Woods returns to the PGA tour just in time for the Masters. PGA sponsors and ad buyers can breathe easy again.

9. The NBA’s MVP Race
- Superstars are assisting the NBA as it inches back on the radar. Amazing seasons by Kobe and DWade are propelling the league while Lebron is posting one of the best seasons in NBA history. I think it’s a good thing - just not sure if it’s really an adthing…ratings are up, there.

10. PoP. oHLALA. Yo. HoWDY. ALL FoR oNE. HoPE. XoXo.
Pepsi word play is one of the most recognizable campaigns out there right now. These brightly colored ads are stamped throughout cities across the nation. You know - the outdoor campaign with hip and inspirational words that insert the new Pepsi logo for every ‘o’. I like them. They’re a fun and a quick way to roll-out the new logo (which I also like). My personal favorite? Fo SHo.

11. woot!com
- woot! is probably my favorite website > especially shirt.woot!com. woot! is a webstore that sells one item everyday. The item is usually listed at a very good price and most days items sell out. shirt.woot!com sells one tshirt each day…they’ve become a niche-guilty pleasure of mine as of late. Visit: shirt.woot!, woot!com.

Not Ballin’
(quick list of my least favorite Adthings of `09)

1. The World Baseball Classic
- Boo.

2. Sobe TV Spots
- I guess I just don’t like dancing lizards.

3. Esurance Campaigns
- I don’t think I want to buy car insurance from Kim-possible. I’d rather hang out with two stacks of cash or even that guy with the deep voice who does the All State spots.

4. Myspace
- Everything I wrote above for Twitter applies here, only the lag and creepy Live Chat ads bother me. Facebook is better at everything Myspace does. In fact, I only use myspace these days to keep up with bands I like. Myspace should just dump a bunch of money into Myspace music….or lose the HUGE, creepy ads.

5. The Word ‘Bailout’ used in the Media

Yey for Adthings. Step it up Q2!

Everybody (especially here in Tampa) is talking about next month’s Super Bowl. The city is buzzing, sports fans are preparing and Ad men and women are anticipating another yearly advertising showcase. With the Super Bowl in town there are a countless number of activities and plans to make around the stadium. Amazing tailgates popping-off, celebrities and athletes scattered throughout the grounds and not to mention the most important sporting event of the year. Unfortunately, I think I’m just going to host the usual party and invite some friends over. When I think about it, it isn’t the socializing or the catered food that finalized the decision for me…it’s the promise of being entertained by the two most important industries in my life: Athletics(pleasure) and Advertising(work).

That opening paragraph was solely written to set the mood for this year’s Super Bowl ads. I’m extremely excited about the ads. In fact, I am more interested in who wins the Best Commercial Bowl than I am in the Super Bowl. I like the Steelers and don’t mind the Cards, so either team winning is fine by me. To me it’s all about determining if Budweiser keeps its crown, observing new techniques and commercial elements and looking for new players who make an impact.

A fellow “pro-Miller” buddy of mine sent me an article today that I found really interesting. The article explained a new strategy Miller Brewing is incorporating this year: buying a one-second commercial for Miller High Life. I am a huge fan of the past high Life campaigns that feature the High Life delivery man. This campaign is very intriguing for several reasons:

- A one-second ad can’t be effective….right?
- The concept of refusing to spend $3mil for 30-seconds aligns with the High Life philosophy perfectly
- There is a great viral/web component located at http://1secondad.com/

Take a moment to view some of the ads at 1secondad.com. They are pretty entertaining and I enjoy how they just roll all of the ads. In fact, I think it would be pretty neat if they actually bought a 30-second spot and just rolled each of these ads, it would probably catch more eyes.

Either way, I am looking forward to catching this campaign among the other commercials next Sunday. Enjoy the one-second ads!

Read the article in the Business Journal at http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2009/01/19/daily17.html

When people think about the biggest day in advertising, they immediately think: Super Bowl. In the next 10-20 years, there may be some competition for the standard NFL Super Bowl. There is a new trend that is slowly emerging in the sports advertising scene that has been under the radar until the past couple years. What is this ‘new Super Bowl’ you may ask? Tune into FOX this Sunday at 3pm EST and find out for yourself.

Fox is eager to present the NASCAR Daytona 500 this Sunday. Considered by drivers, fans and sports writers alike as the ‘Super Bowl of NASCAR’, the Daytona 500 continues to draw attention. In fact, FOX sold out inventory for the event over two weeks ago (a record for the network).

It’s kinda funny when you think about it. If you asked the average American to list the top five most popular sports in America, you would probably expect the NFL, MLB, NCAA FB, and possibly the NBA and NHL before you would expect NASCAR. Surprising to some, NASCAR ranks second among most watched regular season sporting events.

The Daytona 500 isn’t your ‘typical’ Super-Bowl-esk broadcast in terms of audience. While the NFL Super Bowl doesn’t discriminate in terms of demographics, the “Daytona Bowl” reaches a good amount of a specialized audience. Many advertisers have been trying to tap the difficult to reach audience of M18-34. The viewership rating among this age group increased last year, and is supposed to increase again this year.

Why has the Daytona 500 become so huge over the past few years? Is it because of the increased hype from ESPN? Maybe the growing ad dollars are attracting a larger audience. I believe it has a lot to do with timing. Being a huge sports fan, I find this time of the year mostly depressing. Both NCAA and Pro football season are over, which is extremely hard for most American sports fanatics to stomach. The only major sports going on at the moment are pro/college basketball and the NHL (which are all in mid-season and experiencing declines in fan-ship).

Then, two-weeks into our Super Bowl hangover, we sports fans hear of a huge event in the American sports world. Something to hold us over until March Madness beings. The Daytona 500 Bowl. Nestled in a quiet Sunday afternoon, it poses a perfect opportunity to invite over some friends, grill out and enjoy one of America’s classic pastimes.

The numbers are there. FOX even sold out the QUALIFYING event last Sunday. Usually qualifying is aired on SPEED or some other cable station. This race airs the qualifying in prime the Sunday before. While there will always be critics who contest that the sport is one-dimensional and boring, there will also always be those die-hard fans who will continue to bring large numbers to the sport and it’s viewership.

I’m not claiming that the Daytona 500 is going to become what the Super Bowl is today. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it became something similar. With the inflow of huge dollars from major corporations, attention is sure to follow. I know exactly where THIS male 18-34 will be on Sunday with about ten other peers. The funny thing is, so do those huge advertisers…

As we enter a new year, I can’t help but wonder what new trends will emerge in the advertising world this year. Will we see another guerrilla campaign like the Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s invasion of Boston? Will Apple continue to WOW us with its Mac vs. PC campaign (not to mention the ever popular ipod/iphone spots)? And will Starbucks finally take over some of the TV airwaves?

There are so many questions and so much speculation already built up for this year in the biz. Who is going to be the first person to actually succeed with an online campaign? Even better yet, who is going to crack the video game ad code? Will shows such as ‘I Love New York’ and ‘Flava of Love’ get the respect they (arguably) deserve from ad pros? While the content of these VH1 celebReality programs is predictable and, well, ridiculous, they continue to create buzz among younger audiences.

It is also officially time to start getting excited for the Super [advertising] Bowl. Yes, we are just about a month away from advertising’s annual celebration. Think about it: it is quite possibly the only time viewers Tivo something to actually watch the commercials, rather than fast forward through them.

I’m really excited to see what new and creative ideas emerge this year. Hopefully Super Bowl Sunday will bring about some new trends and inspire us ad pros across the nation to develop new, creative ways of growing our clients’ brands.

You know the old saying, “Be careful what you wish for”? That saying is coming down hard on broadcast radio stations and the companies that own them in the form of Arbitron’s “portable people meter” (PPM). And I say, GOOD! This is what the money-grubbing robber-barons of the radio industry deserve! At this time I should point out after seven hard years of work at the Tampa Bay cluster of Clear Channel Radio, I was fired last September due to “budget cuts” so this post may be ripe with sarcasm. Less than two months after I was released because my paltry salary was dragging down the company’s line, Clear Channel agreed to go private with a $26.7 billion sale to Bain Capital Partners and Thomas H. Lee Partners.

In the never-ending search for more money, the radio industry (not just Clear Channel) demanded a new way of accounting for its listeners. For decades the industry had been using paper diaries from Arbitron to create ratings reports four times a year (two times a year in smaller markets). Several years ago I felt the diary method was extremely outdated, and that belief continues to this day simply because people are too busy with their lives to write down every station they listen to at all hours of the day. So several years ago Arbitron came up with the PPM, a beeper-like device that detects hidden tones in a station’s signal. The PPM basically is a live, as-is ratings report. Whether a person listens to one station for eight hours, or eight stations in one hour, the ratings can be accurately reported instead of hoping the diary holder can accurately recall which stations he/she listened to at the end of the day.

There’s no doubt about the real, underlying reason why stations wanted the PPM– MONEY! With accurate, real-time ratings stations would not only know the age and gender of the listener but the listener’s habits too. How many hours does a person listen to the radio? Exactly where are they listening at? Why does a person change the station or turn off the radio? By digging deeper in to ratings, stations could adjust their rate cards and charge more to advertisers because they would know precisely how long a listener is listening. But then an interesting thing happened… radio found out how long people were listening to the radio. And the news wasn’t all good.

In the first PPM report from Houston, Texas, the most shocking revelation was that fewer people listening to radio during the morning drive (6 a.m. to 10 a.m.) as opposed to ratings derived from diaries. The data also showed just as many people listened to nights (7 p.m. to midnight) as they did morning drive. Afternoon drive (3 p.m. to 7 p.m.) was the highest-rated drive time, while weekends were listened to more than indicated in paper diaries. If this data remains accurate, it will turn the radio world upside down in that it was commonly thought that the order of most listeners (from highest to lowest) was mornings, afternoons, evenings (weekends were typically “thrown out”, never really considered as viable data in determining rates).

In New York City, stations that ranked in the top 10 during diary days have slipped 10 to 15 spots in the rankings with the PPM. Some stations say a lack of representation in minority listeners is to blame for this. But as evidenced in an article from the New York Times, Arbitron senior vice president Tom Mocarsky cites radio listening among minorities has actually gone up 67% with use of the PPM over the diary. So what does this mean?

Well first of all, Arbitron needs to make sure they properly fill the quota for minority listeners. This is something I’m sure they will do since the future of the PPM requires extremely accurate data from all demographics. Second, it means the radio industry HAS to wake up sooner or later and realize people don’t listen to one station for a long time like they used to. With competition from the Internet, mp3 players, and CDs, radio has to give the average person a compelling reason to listen in the first place and to listen longer. Radio could also help itself out by not having so many similar formats. With so many crossover artists and tight playlists it’s hard to tell one station from another. Finally, you have to have live, local, and entertaining talent to get people to listen and to listen longer.

But these are bean counters we’re talking about, and they’ll ignore good programming while counting their beans and blaming the PPM results on some outside force. But by keeping their blinders on the bean counters are merely getting their just desserts.

* A follow-up to a previous entry of mine regarding casual dining outlets. Following Applebee’s new logo it appears other chains are also trying to pump up business in the sagging industry… with coupons! One analyst calls the move one of the worst things she’s seen in 14 years in the business. Check out the story from USA Today.

While scanning today’s edition of The New York Times, I came across a rather interesting article regarding a whole new look for casual dining chain Applebee’s. In an attempt to pump up sagging sales, Applebee’s is launching a whole new ad campaign featuring the voice of comedienne Wanda Sykes as the company’s “spokesapple”. The spots, part of Applebee’s annual $180-million ad budget, features a feisty apple convincing people who are eating alone to get together with friends and family at Applebee’s for a meal. But the chain isn’t just stopping there. The entire chain will undergo a renovation in terms of a new logo, new uniforms, new building designs, and an upgrade on interior decorating.

Now at first I have to give Applebee’s some props for this massive public relations overhaul. Their recent ad campaigns, under former agency Draft FCB (Applebee’s is now with McCann Erickson) didn’t make the chain stand out from other casual dining chains such as TGI Friday’s or Chili’s. And with the economy to blame mostly for slumping sales (higher gas prices and a shaky housing market means less disposable income for the family to eat out), why not shake things up with a new look and a new feel to remind customers you still exist.

I also have to commend Applebee’s on how it has built up to this weekend’s unveiling of the ad campaign by taking out a full-page ad in USA Today on October 9th, directing readers to a website featuring “tryouts” by other types of apples for the Sykes apple that was eventually chosen. Applebee’s then allowed the videos to spread virally through websites such as YouTube to create a buzz. With Applebee’s wisely buying commercial time during TV programs such as “Desperate Housewives” and “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”, the chain is hitting it’s target audience– the moms of these families who ultimately decide where the family will eat.

But the biggest problem I have with Applebee’s has nothing to do with the new ad campaign or the refreshed logo and look of the place. To me, it all comes down to the food. Now maybe it’s because I’m a 30-year-old man and I don’t play on the emotional pull of “Together is Good”, but for a place like Applebee’s I’m just thinking about what I’m getting to eat. To me, a basket of boneless chicken wings at Applebee’s will taste just as good (or bad) as the same order of boneless chicken wings from Chili’s, TGI Friday’s, Ruby Tuesday’s, or Bennigan’s. With all of these aforementioned chains offering essentially the same line of food (burgers, chicken, sandwiches, fattening appetizers, and 2-for-1 drafts), there’s just no good reason for me to select one over the other. And most importantly, and this is what kills casual chains from the male point of view, I can think of several local or regional restaurants here in the Tampa Bay area (such as Tank’s Tap Room or Beef O’ Brady’s) who offer food that taste BETTER than a national chain and cost just about as much.

Applebee’s isn’t too worried about the smaller restaurants, rather it’s the fast food giants who have helped dragged down the casual dining market a bit. MacDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s, now offer healthier top-end choices along with their traditional greasy burgers. Kentucky Fried Chicken (trying to wean itself from the “KFC” moniker) is trumping how their low-priced combo meals are in fact meals and not fast food. Sister company Pizza Hut claims their family meals of pizza and bread sticks, or big servings of pasta, cures all ills when it comes to cooking for the family.

So it’s going to take more than just a new look and an altered menu for Applebee’s to pull ahead of the crowded, yet lucrative, casual dining market. Bennigan’s plays up the Irish pub angle (although as an Irishman I’m not buying it) while TGI Friday’s plays up the “flair” card with wacky outfits and drink specials. Red Lobster cornered the chain seafood market while Olive Garden snagged the middle-class Italian market. Applebee’s will have to come up with something creative with their cuisine, not their logo, to really make the other apples in the casual dining bunch look like oranges.

Have you seen the new Miller High Life campaign thats been running on TV? It features a beer vendor who doesn’t deliver Miller High Life to stores and bars. Instead, he is taking cases off the shelves. Why would a Miller delivery man remove cases of perfectly good beer from stores? Well, because Miller High Life “a good, honest beer at a tasty price,” that’s why.

The TV spots are actually quite comical. I’ve always been a fan of Miller High Life advertising, but I really like the irony they used in this campaign. High Life is the low-end beer of the Miller brand, but their strategy is great. By promoting High Life as a quality, low priced beer for the working [common] man, they have really positioned themselves into a unique and effective position.

For your viewing pleasure, here are a few of the new spots:

Enjoy the High Life Americans!

As I was getting ready for work this morning, I thought about what to blog about today. I have been in a bit of a funk lately. I have started several blog posts, but about half way through them, I stop. In fact, I have two posts that are about finished, I just can’t figure out how to end them. They are good posts, they just seem to short for me to justify posting them…until now. I introduce the pilot version of Nick’s “Quick Thoughts”:

Anyway, I was trying to think of a brand or ad campaign that caught my eye lately. I am really impressed with the new Mountain Dew/Halo 3 campaign. If you aren’t familiar with Halo, it is one of the most popular video games of all time. Hundreds of thousands of people log online and play each other in Halo every day. It has recently released its third edition and is more popular [worldwide] than ever before.

Mountain Dew got together with Halo 3 and developed a new flavor, just for this game. Having worked on a Coca-Cola project for a year during my last two semesters in college, I did a lot of research on the target demo and its media consumption habits. Video games are a growing media that many advertisers are trying to crack into. Mountain Dew took a great approach by promoting this new drink as ‘gamer fuel’. I guarantee there are kids around the country at this very moment shooting aliens and drinking this new drink in between kills.

The Mountain Dew brand has always appealed to extreme, youthful individuals. The X-games were a great fit for the extreme sports drink. I believe they found a very effective way to appeal to this demo without intruding. A very simple strategy has been aligned to sell the product and promote the video game at the same time. Product placement in retail stores brought shelf space for the new Halo 3 Mountain Dew to the video game aisle (I actually witnessed this first-hand in a Target yesterday). Also, I have seen one simple, :30 spot run on TV. It shows people from different past of the world yelling at their television sets (some while laying on/falling to the floor) and dropping their Xbox controllers. At first, I thought the spot was for the newly released FIFA Soccer ‘08 game since the gamers were multicultural and didn’t all speak [scream] in English. At the end of the spot, the player who is killing all of the other people is sitting back and drinking the new Halo 3 Mountain Dew. Simple. Direct. Memorable.

While working on our Coke campaign last year, we would have killed for a major release like Halo 3 during our campaign. Unfortunately for Coke, this launch fits Mountain Dew perfectly. I could have seen energy drinks such as Rockstar or Monster try to take advantage of such a campaign - but Mountain Dew beat them to the punch.

Also, while I’m praising Mountain Dew for its timeliness and strategy, allow me to further commend the brand for picking up one of the most popular sports figures in the country: Dale Earnhardt Jr. The energy drink version of Mountain Dew will be a primary sponsor for the face of NASCAR, recently acquired after Budweiser was forced out of Dale’s contract. This is a major win for Mountain Dew. We NASCAR fans seem to develop a strange affinity for our drivers’ primary sponsors. Considering the most popular driver in one of America’s most popular sports is now representing Mountain Dew, I can definitely see a lot of people backing the brand, simply because Dale Jr. drinks it.

I guess this pilot version of ‘Quick Thoughts’ wasn’t so short after all. I decided to start this chain of Quick Thoughts for those posts that only need a paragraph or two to contribute to the blog. That put aside, I am still very impressed with some of the moves Mountain Dew has made over the last few months. Now if only they could convince me that Diet Mountain Dew was just as “extreme” as regular Mountain Dew, then maybe I could help them out and buy more cases.

I started seeing the TV commercials a couple of months ago. Slightly overweight, slightly older men, doing what men do (watching football, barbecuing, etc.). The voice-over guy comes on to say, “Gusto is back” as the beer that made Milwaukee famous, Schlitz, is back.

I’m a self-confessed beer snob. I buy those micro-brew India Pale Ales, pricey double-bocked German lagers, and spiced pumpkin ales during the winter. Quite a turnaround from my college days of ten years ago where a 12-pack of Miller Lite for $6.99 was just fine for me. I’m not the only beer snob in my family or circle of friends, but I’m one of the few who doesn’t mind a good old-fashioned blue-collar beer every now and then. And for me, now is a good time to like those beers.

Blue-collar beers are making a comeback. Born in upstate New York, Genesee Cream Ale is my poor man’s poison of choice. Further north you’ll find Black Label and Narragansett returning to store shelves. In the Midwest it’s Old Style and Falstaff joining the legions of cans of Old Milwaukee and Pabst Blue Ribbon. So why the sudden influx of these less-than-finely hand-crafted brews once thought dead in the 1980s? Well, there’s a number of reasons, and the first is money.

The cost of living is higher, and salaries and wages aren’t necessarily following the trend. What’s a beer drinker to do? If you absolutely have to have some beer in your fridge, you can’t splurge $13 or $14 every week for a 12-pack of the usual micro-brew stuff. Especially since a 12-pack of Genesee (bottles OR cans!) is just $7 after taxes. But the money aspect has more than the economy on its side. Most beer drinkers start drinking when they’re 15 or 16, or if you’re good you at least wait until college to start. If you’ve been through college you know some times you only have $20 a week to spend on groceries and other necessities, so in comes the cheap beer and that special micro-brew beer will just have to wait until you get a job. Besides, who wants pumpkin ale with Ramen noodles?

With such a young base of drinkers looking for cheap stuff, beer that’s even cheaper than the college-standard Miller Lite and Budweiser, major breweries have an incredible fan base to tap with these old names. And this generation of young folks, with their i-pods and blogs, has no shame in dabbling in historic stuff. Retro is in, as evidenced by sports teams bringing back jerseys and logos from 50 years ago or movies like Transformers getting made into summer blockbusters. So it would make sense for a tried and true brand like Schlitz, to return to the market with this new generation of consumers eager to snatch it up like all those other “retro beers”. But here lies the problem: Schlitz’s ad campaign says everything BUT that.

I passed by a billboard today advertising Schlitz. Besides the usual “Gusto is Back” campaign, I saw the line, “Gentlemen under 55 need not apply”. I nearly drove off the road in shock to the campaign. While most of Schlitz’s hardcore drinkers probably are 55 or older, why would Schlitz (brewed by the Pabst Brewing Company) go out of its way to discourage 20 or 30-somethings from drinking their product? Does Schlitz really think there is a line in the sand, daring younger people to cross to try their brew? I’m not seeing it. And maybe it’s because at 29 (and very soon to be 30) I have no desire to be my father’s age (very soon to be 65). I look forward to my older, senior years, but when I reach them! Not now while I’m still young, spry, and able to weight lift in the morning without throwing my back out.

I’m not even sure Schlitz is sure at who they’re going after. One trip to the Schlitz page at the Pabst Brewing website shows this confusing description of what Schlitz is:

Schlitz is one of the undiscovered gems of American beer and today, young adult consumers are embracing the brew because it has stayed true to itself and hasn’t “sold out”. When you’re ready to discover something new (or old in this case), reach for a Schlitz and see what we mean when we say it’s “Just the Kiss of Hops”.

First, this sounds like something painfully written by a 46-year-old guy pretending to be 16. Young adult consumers are embracing Schlitz because it hasn’t “sold out”?!? NO THEY’RE NOT! THEY’RE EMBRACING IT BECAUSE IT’S CHEAP! This curious description of the beer undercuts the current ad campaign. Young adult consumers are embracing the beer, but Schlitz doesn’t want anyone under 55 to enjoy it? This ad campaign is further undercut by the website Schlitz then sends you to.

Go ahead, click on the “advertising” link. Amongst the collection of classic and new Schlitz ad campaigns, old-timey background music is playing. Now I like classical jazz and big band music, but some of this stuff is MUCH older than 55 years old. I’d be willing to venture some of this music is 70 or 80 years old, which would make the majority of Schlitz’s target audience DEAD.

The ad campaign still confuses me, and the conflicting messages on the billboards and the websites confuses me even more. Perhaps it’s as simple as Pabst targeting Schlitz for older drinkers while keeping Pabst Blue Ribbon securely in the hands of younger drinkers. If that’s the case, that’s a smart business move by Pabst. But in terms of advertising, I think Schlitz is missing the boat here. While the baby boomer generation is growing into the largest consumer demo in the nation, a perfect audience for Schlitz, excluding the younger crowd will likely make Schlitz a dinosaur again in 10 or 15 years.