That's the question for the search engine as it struggles to gain a foothold in
the fast-growing and here-to-stay social web. That web isn't marked by speed and
elegance but rather by pit stops and side roads that allow people to pull over,
meet new or old friends, play a game and buy souvenirs. In short, have fun.
While Google has had a mostly forgettable history in the space, from Orkut to
Buzz, the company's 2010 acquisitions indicate it's buying
the talent and technologies to make a play for social, largely through the
popular social-gaming space. This month, the shopping spree added up to almost
$300 million and included social-gaming company Slide and virtual currency maker
Jambool, whose
From Bill Bernbach selling the Volkswagen Beetle by telling consumers to “think small,” to Dan Wieden and David Kennedy telling us to "Just Do It" for Nike, Art & Copy is being billed as the "real-life Mad Men" although only a handful of these people were alive then (and Lois has vehemently denied that it was all martinis and misogyny).
Name these companies: 1) The computer for the rest of us 2) Networking networks 3) The world's information in one click 4) Personal video broadcasting network These are not tag-lines. The companies who expressed these words successfully positioned the value proposition and differentiation within a simple ‘one-liner’. Founders and executives delivered these one-liners to everyone who would listen and whom they needed to fold into the cause – investors, landlords, lawyers, recruits, customers, and partners.
Information today flows every which way.
The "shape" of the brand in the minds of customers may be more varied now.
Some percent of the variation is not good, but some may very well be.
Over-constraining the ‘position’ with too much specificity would not reduce variation (provide management control) anyway.
Therefore craft a simple, succinct statement that does a better job of absorbing or exploiting complexity (variation) rather than avoiding it.
AMC, the cable channel that presents the show about the ad industry - and America - in the 1960s has made a deal with a giant marketer, Unilever, for a season-long sponsorship agreement.Multimedia
VideoDove AdAdd to Portfolio
Unilever N.VGo to your Portfolio »The deal, for undisclosed terms, is centered on six commercials being created in the "Mad Men" vein for six Unilever products.
The rules are pretty simple: Allstar Products Group, the maker of Snuggie, is inviting people to enter the Snuggie Choice Film Awards via SnuggieFanClub.com.
All you have to do is create your own tribute, parody, song etc. — no longer than three minutes — and submit it to the webpage above. The contest ends on September 1 at midnight, at which point six finalists will be chosen by Snuggie fans. The finalists will be flown to New York in October. Awards () include a $5,000 grand prize and $2,500 for second and third place, Snuggies (natch), and the chance to appear in future commercials.
Even when served in the most contextually relevant and targeted environments, most banners struggle to achieve click rates in excess of 0.10%. Even within the demographically information rich environs of Facebook, banner click rates are abysmal. At a recent SES Conference, Sarah Smith, online sales operations manager at Facebook said that the average campaign click-through rates on the social network were as low as 0.05%.
In his outlook for 2010, industry analyst Imran Khan predicts that spend on display banner advertising will increase by 10.5%.
Khan identifies two important developments in this regard: greater creativity in banner ad formats and a better integration of mechanisms to capture real-time consumer intent data.
The Apple takeover on the New York Times page is an excellent example of how a creative ad format along with an innovative media placement can come together to overcome banner blindness. By navigating the website real estate between the leaderboard and skyscraper banners, John Hodgman and the Mac guy were effectively able to communicate the Macintosh value proposition. There was no need for the user to click away from the message. There are several other examples of innovative creative formats; the Pointroll Fat Boy ads that expand to reveal deals from CVS pharmacy and the "Intel's History of Innovation" rollover banner come to mind.
The ASPCA used a different approach to combat this drop off. To increase the number of its Facebook fans and Twitter followers, the ASPCA used a cost-per-lead banner. In such, the user fills in personal information within the banner. Upon hitting the submit button, the user information is sent from the publisher to the advertiser on the backend. The user continues to stay on the website. By using a banner that had a built-in mechanism to capture user information, the ASPCA was able to avoid drop off, and grow its Facebook and Twitter members quickly.
Banner ad effectiveness is poor because we've developed banner blindness. Now is the time to revisit the creative and strategic design of banners. In this piece from MediaPost, several examples of successful banners are described.
Once upon a time, Schwinn pretty much owned the American bicycle market and, with models like Varsity, Continental, and of course, the Paramount, defined American-made bicycling dominance. But that was back when a carbon frame was something you made with a pencil, and brands like Trek, Specialized, Cannondale and Giant had not climbed onto retail bike racks.
Schwinn is hoping to get its brand mojo in high gear with a new campaign aimed squarely at a vast consumer base of recreational riders:
The $5 million-plus marketing push -- Schwinn's largest in at least a decade -- includes TV, print, Internet banners, a new Web site (RideSchwinn.com), social media, and a major retail rethink for Schwinn's big-box and independent bike shop retailers, based on the idea that a forest of bicycles on store racks does not a brand make.
Creative, via Cossette New York, carries a whimsical, nostalgic message about how Schwinn bikes are a way to step out of the rat race, slow down and smell the bitumen.
The print and TV ads hearken back to Schwinn's heyday, when kids played in the real -- instead of virtual -- world, and bikes could double as Abrams tanks, except for the little handlebar bell, which, in fact, is the central image in the campaign.
Andy Coccari, CMO of Dorel's Cycling Sports Group division, tells Marketing Daily that the ad push is focused on women 25 to 54 because, "while purchase decision and ability to really connect with family aren't feelings exclusive to women, women are the chief purchasing officer of the family."
Ads will appear in pubs like Family Fun, Parenting, Shape and Working Mother. The TV spot, starting this week, runs for the rest of the year on national cable TV. Digital strategies include display, search and social media.
In the TV spot a young woman rides her Schwinn down a street. When she passes a young boy in his yard, glued to his DS game, she rings her bell. Magically, the video game is gone and he's playing on a tire swing. Then, on a city street, she passes a man yelling into his cell phone.
He says dealers will get point-of-sale materials and local market support, and subsidized co-op advertising.
Schwinn competes most directly with brands like Electra, Jamis, and Globe, per Coccari. "It's a saturated segment of the bicycle market, but Schwinn is number one, with 85% awareness in the U.S.," he says.
My first bike was a Schwinn. So were my second and third bikes. I still have the third one - my first real adult bike. It's forest green with a white basket and a sumo wrestler bell. I grew up on Schwinn and remember spending hours riding through my neighborhood with a group of kids. My Schwinn went with me to college, and has stayed through all the transitions of my life.
With this new campaign, Schwinn has recaptured its inherent drama and an opportunity to reconnect with those who still love the brand.
Are you wondering what your life would be like if you finally got your dream of becoming a creative director?
Read here for an insightful overview on the day to day role of the creative director from Phil Johnson.
The snapshot? Like most jobs of any importance today, the job changes by the day, hour, and minute.