You know you've got a great ad concept when.....

It's the same as anything else, copycatting is the most sincere form of flattery. And it rings true in the advertising/marketing world as well. In general once some creative tactic or ad or media buy or initiative proves to be a huge success there will be people everywhere copying it. Trying to make lightning strike twice.

One of the most successful television advertisements in recent years has been the Apple - Get a Mac ads. These ads have transcended the likes of being an annoyance in between parts of your program to something that people look forward to seeing. They may be some of the most powerful/popular advertisements ever, and they are still able to pump out new ones without it seeming like too much of the same.

Now of course people have caught onto this and the commercials are so well known that people are piggy backing on the concept.

Here is a Mac ad:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=DDuB8NLTj_I

Now check out this video regarding a provincial election in British Columbia, Canada
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9nhHsFKato

Very similar concept and pretty good execution. When someone sees this commercial they may be more friendly and open to it because they recognize the format (unless of course they are voting for the other party).

The Idiocy of Man

We live in a world where you basically have eyes on you all the time whether you like it or not. Cell phone cameras, webcams, security cams, bloggers, twitterers, facebookers and all have the power to capture and spread something throughout the world in a matter of minutes if not seconds.

So why have people not caught on? Why are there so many morons out there that can't seem to get this through their thick skulls. How come every day when I watch the news or turn on my computer it seems another person has been caught in an act of idiocy. And its not like these people tend to be the unwashed/uneducated percentage of the population. Today it was police officers in Australia making a drunk aboriginal dance for them.....ON CAMERA. Okay mates, heres the deal:

a. You are morons
b. Why would you actually film your moronicness
c. Do you really think that in this digital age you will be able to control the spread of your video???
d. You are such morons
e. You are more than likely fired, congratulations.

Maybe this is a positive to take out of the digital age, morons will expose themselves and everyone will know who they are. They will end up paying for their uncaring, idiotic, racist tendencies and thats about the best result possible.

There's always time for email

As late night show host Craig Ferguson says daily "Yes, there's always time for email". Of course he says it with more pizzazz and flashy graphics, but hey when you working with a budget of $0 a title is all you get.

As I found myself preparing a mass email to send out to our prospects today I got wondering, What is the best time to schedule the email to be sent? Research places the best days to send marketing emails as Tuesday and Wednesday but what time of day do you want it to drop. Most would probably think just send it sometime early morning. Here is the issue, with blackberries and other smart phones in the marketplace many people have them rigged to beep when new mail comes in. Do you want to be the company waking up your prospect or client at 4 in the morning because you scheduled an email to go out then? I certainly don't want to be. Thats why I tend to schedule mine to arrive starting at 7am local time. My situation is a little easier because our targets are purely on the west coast, so only one time zone to deal with. But we are starting to push across Canada, and when we do more and more what do I do then? Obviously the easiest option is to segment my list based on provincial location and have a few seperate email lists. What if all I had was a big opt-in email list? Then I think I would probably try to shoot for a 9am delivery on the east coast which would put the mail into my west coast prospects hands at 6am, a reasonable time that is not too early.

I'm not sure if it has even come up that much because I am constantly getting emails from Marketing Associations anywhere from 2 - 5 am. I've had to alter my phone settings so emails come through silently.

Has anyone else run into this problem or thought deeply about their email distribution times?

Logos, logos, everywhere

The position I work in has allowed me to be a part of the branding process for both a new product and a revamped company name. The process is long, can be costly and is also extemely important. There are a number of steps in the process but the part I find most interesting is the logo development. This is the face of your brand, it speaks to your customers even when no words are exchanged. The colours, the font, the images they all add up to create a living thing with a theme, an attitude, and a personality. Its incredibly important to determine the message that you want your brand to exude because one wrong italic, one shade to dark can turn your spa into some kind of devil worshipping social club (or so it might seem in the eyes of the consumer).

As a marketer I am constantly assessing these logos as I pass billboards, see flyers, browse websites, etc. and I have noticed that colour is a huge trigger for me. But there are only so many colour options out there for a brand and sometimes a logo I see triggers another brand in my mind instead of the new one. For example here is the new Pepsi logo

Now everytime I used to look at the old pepsi logo I thought nothing but pepsi, but now everytime I see this new logo I can't think of anything other than this logo which you might recognize:

The majority of my mind triggering to oldspice clearly has something to do with the use of the blue white and red colours, or maybe I just like Old Spice. That is probably also a good sign for Old Spice as they have such a strong brand image that when I see a beverage product's logo all I think about is deodorant......or maybe i'm just weird.

Do you have any logos/brands that trigger other such logos in your mind?

The new 30 second spot is a 10 minute spot

According to a recent Joseph Jaffe post, Only Poor People Watch 30-second spots, the American Idol key demographic is getting older, along with also trending to lower income earners. Maybe that is why they have added a rather attractive young female judge to be the 4th on the panel this year. But more importantly in his post was this fact:

"A new survey suggests that upscale households account for a disproportionate slice of the DVR distribution pie, as more than half of all U.S. homes with incomes of $100,000+ subscribe to some form of time-shifting device"

Advertising revenues are already down across the board for the traditional mass media outlets, so it's not like this has anyone shocked. But what are the companies that pander to these high income earners going to do to get their target markets attention. What is the future for television advertising as a result of the TIVO/PVR technology. This took me back to a session I attended at the Marketing Week conference in Toronto last November. It was on the lack of attention that people pay to traditional media nowadays and one of the panelists was Ian MacLean from Etc.tv

Etc.tv is a company that does on demand advertising in Canada, which basically puts the power of advertising in the consumers hands. They are allowed to click on a commercial or product and be taken to a more in depth longer commercial or experience with the product. This could mean a reverse in thinking, instead of people be less interested in a commercial they could be fully engulfed for as long as 1o minutes by a product advertisement. The only difference is they are choosing when and how they want to view the ad which is quite an ingenius concept. Although this concept is a long way from being in the mainstream, it does seem like a movement in the right direction. Technically this is where we are already heading with people able to youtube advertisements they like, so it seems like a natural evolution. The only problem is the set up to allow consumers to view this on demand advertising. Right now it is only available in Quebec through Etc.tv so look for it to expand in the future.