Wake up and smell the desperation

McDonald's has made no bones about trying to take a big chunk of the coffee market away from such companies as Starbuck's and Tim Horton's. They pursue this for a good reason, the coffee market is a massive one worldwide and McDonald's already has the distribution and locations in place.

They have tried a number of different marketing tactics from the McCafe setting to advertising their coffee as being high quality for a lower price. Well they seem to have settled on the "free sampling" idea in the end. It seems like every week I am seeing a McDonald's commercial offering people the ability to try one of their coffees for free. And the period of time keeps getting longer and longer - the latest one I saw just yesterday was offering two weeks of free coffee time.

The tactic is a pretty good one, you get people to try your product because you are confident you're making a quality product. The people try your coffee, love it, and become hooked on McCafe coffee! Unfortunately now it is starting to get desperate in my eyes. What it may break down to is coffee snobs who enjoy a fresh brew to start the day, just don't trust the guy that works the fry-olator to make their morning fix. Understandable. There is a certain message that is communicated based on the type of coffee cup you show up with in the morning. Maybe McDonald's isn't matching up in that area.

But how would McDonald's go about fixing those areas? They already have tried the McCafe setting unsuccessfully, and the overhead of hiring a professional barista to work the morning shifts wouldn't make economic sense. So maybe sampling is all they have left, and is somewhat working for them. God knows they could use the revenue.

Great musical commercials

One of my original posts on this blog was about using music to help create a memorable commercial. Well lots of ads have used this technique since I wrote about it, and its not like my post was anything earth shattering, and some of my recent favourites are these:

Honda Accord 2010 Crosstour commercial


Nissan Titan



Alexander Keith's Beer Birthday commercial


A little different, but a movie trailer (technically still an ad) for Dear John


The musical editing provides the tone and feel for these commercials and draws you into them deeper as a result. They are all really well done and the musical selection is incredible. It still impresses me each time I hear a song in an ad that i've never heard and how powerful it can be to grab the attention of the viewer.

Have you seen any ad's like this lately that utilize a good background song?

My favourite new tv ad

Without a doubt the new "Scents for gents" Old Spice commercial is one of the best i've seen on tv lately.



It's a rather brash commercial but seems to be taking up the steam that was created by the Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man in the World". These style of advertisements target the male ego and show off the bravado/confidence that every man dreams of possessing. Very well done in my opinion. Any other thoughts?

Car Industry Creative Bailout part 2

Further evidence of my earlier post on the lack of creativity by auto companies and their creative agencies. It's like the pepsi taste challenge, can you tell the difference between these two brands?

Looking at these two ads you would think they were for the same company, only problem is one company is German the other is Japanese.

Pepsi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEg-0uE-6iM

Coca-Cola
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsJ6uLWPu78

I haven't looked into which agencies are behind the creative for each company, but the entire concept is the exact same. Rather embarassing for all the dough they dished out for them.

Is Stephen Colbert the most powerful man in America?

Last night I was watching Late Night with Conan O'Brien and his first guest was Stephen Colbert. The talk led to Stephen Colbert's group of staunch supporters who he calls the "Colbert Nation". Stephen Colbert knows his target market, teens and young adults probably aged 17-35 or so. He knows that they are tech saavy and he knows that they enjoy a chance to disrupt the status quo. That is why when he calls on his "Colbert Nation" to do something such as change wikipedia entries to reflect his comical views, the website later has to adapt and alter itself due to the work of the "Colbert Nation".

Fortunately, it seems as if Stephen Colbert will not be having the Colbert Nation drinking special Kool-Aid anytime soon so they can visit the mothership. But this community of people seems to be developing into more of a religious cult following. The church of Colbert is up and running and people listen and hang on his every word.

Does that make him the most powerful man in America, or is he just a crack marketer? He knows his target, he knows how to keep them involved in his brand, he has developed an incredible following. Any brand/tv show/company would love to be in the position he is in.

Will he use it for good or evil? Only time will tell.

TWEET! 2 Minutes for Greed

Let me preface this post by saying I am a huge hockey fan and have been my whole life. I have played the game since I was 6 years old and I hold season tickets to the Vancouver Canucks, my local National Hockey League team. Needless to say, I am a devout hockey lover.

Well, the NHL needs to change things. They have no business plan except make as much money as possible, as quickly as possible. Which in the long run is not going to pay off for them. Let me backtrack before I go off on a big rant here. It was announced today that the NHL signed a contract to air games in Asia........huh?

No offense or anything but maybe you should spend some money on growing the game in North America before you charge all over the globe. I believe the term is walk before you run, or perhaps baby steps. The NHL was greedy enough to expand to such non-hockey markets as North Carolina, Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Nashville, and Columbus. None of these towns have turned into hockey markets, shocking I know. So the game is obviously not being picked up in one of the largest markets in the world, which also happens to have cities like Detroit, New York, and Minnesota that are in love with their hockey teams and have great knowledge of the game. So why not walk before you run NHL? Why not build the game in the U.S. before you charge all over the world? Why not work on what should be a more welcome audience open to the concept of hockey than one in China, which doesn't really have any exposure to the game? Build a nice core following, you already have one in Canada and part of the states, you should have an easier time working on the hesitant areas of the U.S.

No there is nothing wrong behind making money, in fact it is encouraged. But you have to set aside the greed and realize that by building your base, it makes expansion a lot better and you have more evangelists and product lovers to spread the word. The NHL in my opinion just has no concept of what it is doing. It is like a hungry hippo just trying to grab as many little bags of money as it can before everything implodes on it.....and unfortunately it will, it's inevitable at this pace.