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?

Non-personalized can work too

Often you hear that everything should be as personalized as possible to make customers feel like you are talking directly with them. But that might not always be the case.

99.3 CFOX is a local rock station in Vancouver and easily has the wittiest and sharpest morning show in the province, if not the nation. They have established a brand for the Jeff O'Neill Show that never veers from its true character. They know when they will get in trouble from the lawyers, execs, and government agencies and they will do whatever they feel like anyways.

So, what would you expect from them when you submit an email comment to the show? A standard autoresponse personalized with your name? Nope...something more like this.

A well thought out and pretty hilarious way of telling people that you got their email and you are interested in what they wrote. Works with their brand and leaves a smile on their consumers faces. I wonder how many times this has been forwarded to people's friends.

Re-gifting your terrible sports team

There are a lot of cliches in sports and the athletic world...

"Give it 120%"

"This sport is 20% physical and 80% mental"

"We've just got to show up and play our game"

But far and away the best one and the most marketing relatable one is

"These guys now get the chance to play the role of spoilers"

Translation, these guys have sucked all year and we don't want attendance/viewership to fall off so tune in or show up to see them suck some more.

But it is still an artful and ingenius way to re-gift a sports team, let's hypothetically call them the Soronto Purple Jays, that has no aspirations of a playoff appearance yet still has a month and a half of games to play. Thats when the communications department kicks in and your messaging immediately changes from "Watch as the Purple Jays battle it out for a playoff spot in the tough NL East" to "Watch the young guns play as they look to ruin other teams playoff runs".

A very crafty way of attempting to keep people interested after your 15th year in a row of struggling through a long season.

Of course there is another option for a sports team........learn how to draft and sign players so you actually have a good team, but where's the fun in that?

Cold reception, but worth millions

Now my blog thusfar has been loaded with entries regarding General Motors and people are probably tired of reading them (those 2 that actually read this blog) (sorry thats an exageration, the 1 that reads this blog). Well i'm going to try to turn to a new topic that will dominate the blog.
Beer.

And what better way to go than probably one of the most covered news stories in all of Canada.......a beer billboard.

Yes, thats right. The wildfires and gangshootings in British Columbia have taken a backseat to a national crisis involving a Coors Light billboard. For full disclosure I am a coors light drinker and avid silver bullet fan. I am also a life west-coaster and find this whole matter hilarious.

Have a look and see if you can see whats making this newsworthy....



















If you guessed "Someone from Toronto saw it and took it personally" you are correct!

Yes, as soon as the complaints started pouring in, one of the complainees was smart enough to go to the papers and give Coors Light millions of dollars worth of free advertising because this story is literally in every paper, every blog, every news show i've seen yesterday and today. Not only that but there is a serious dislike for Toronto in general in British Columbia and many other provinces throughout Canada, so all this news is getting them serious street cred among the population.

The best part I think is that Coors Light is a Molson brand who is headquartered in Ontario and the creative was also done by a Toronto firm. Lets just say that this is brilliant execution in my mind and I don't think Coors Light is disappointed at all by the result.

I look forward to the response from a Toronto based beer company that actually has the balls to fire back at this ad. It won't be Sleeman's or another national brand that could turn BC residents off its beer, but i'm guessing a micro brew or a smaller company will have an answer.

I also think that Coors Light should turn this into a social media opportunity and have some contests for "What is the coolest Colder than slogan you have".

Here's my entry "Colder than your girlfriends stare when you crack your 6th coors light post game"

Communicating with Guerillas

Came across this article on CBC and it just goes to show you that guerilla, grassroots or any other type of marketing takes just as much coordination as putting together a mailing campaign or radio advertisement. It talks about a new campaign that Ikea has been trying throughout Canada where they spray paint "Any space can be beautiful" on a bland, high-trafficked area around the city. These spaces send people to the http://www.anyspacecanbebeautiful.ca/ website which allows consumers to post photos of the rooms they need a makeover on. Other people that go to the website can vote on which space they think deserves to win a $15,000 makeover. Seems like a pretty well thought out concept.

Just one problem.....it was not communicated/coordinated well between the parties involved.

The ads were spraypainted on city property without city approval, okay no problem that is part of guerilla marketing.

But then they painted them on the storefronts of other businesses, why would another business allow you to get away with advertising on it???? Not well executed. There definately needed to be more direction or more hands on supervision from the creative agency over the painting company. Now they have to power wash all the ads off at their own cost, while losing some of the impact of the campaign.

Now some of the points of the article are completely irrelevant such as the business owners claim that Ikea can afford billboards and tv so they shouldn't be using such a tactic. As a small owner it's understandable that he was frustrated with them advertising on his space but they probably paid a good chunk of money for this campaign. And just because you are a large corporation does not mean you are excluded from using different/inventive marketing tactics.

Sex saves the environment

This is one of my favourite marketing stories of the year and it comes out of the Fast Company blog. Everybody knows that marketing with a green twist is a great way to show your business is socially responsible and get brownie points from consumers. You may have thought in the past "I don't know if my company can take advantage of this marketing fad to help us engage customers."

......and then this story came along

"You know Thomas, this economic downturn has really affected our brothel. Not nearly as many people these days are paying for sex! It's like they realized it was an unnecessary cost, so they are now going to the bars and trying to pick up girls with the rest of the male population."

"I know. But don't worry I have a way to get press, make our brothel appear environmentally concious, and get more guys in the door. We'll offer a $7 discount for anyone who bike or take the train to their chikka chikka bow wow."

"Next step..........carpool discount!"

GM still singing the blue

In an update to my post from yesterday GM has decided to thankfully stay with the blue background for its logo. Smart decision i'd say.

Here's the post from Marketing News.

All in all Mr. Henderson seems to be making sense, my only problem came with this line

The new company will focus on three top priorities, customers, cars and culture, Henderson said

Okay.......either that is the dumbest statement ever or that just goes to show you why this company is in such trouble. They didn't even know that "Cars" or "Customers" should have been a top priority!!!!! It took a trip to bankruptcy to make this obvious????