Pinoy speak as brand name – “Tisyu” (toylet peyper)

with the brand name “Tisyu”, this is not a joke, there is no mistaking what kind of product it is, specially for Filipinos. (although we are guessing English speakers will get it too.) it is exactly how we say it. we may previously have not known how it is spelled, but now we do thanks to this brand of toylet peyper (this bit is all mine).

i was  in the supermarket for other things and just happened to  pass this particular display. while i  as not looking to buy toilet paper, this brand called out to me and caught my attention, the brand name spoke loudly. how could i resist?

ok, so it made me laugh. but it is a registered brand name and the product  was on an island display  – in between the laughter, i had to take this brand seriously. an island display is the most expensive display in a supermarket.

the product is very proud of its brand name. it says so on the shelf – “proudly produktong pinoy”.

this is the marketing question – so we have here a product used to wipe what we do not want to touch with our bare hands under there, behind us that its brand positioning  that is on pinoy nationalism that one can’t miss because it’s actually on the brand name.

the big question is for this kind of product, is nationalism a motivator for purchase?

 

~~mindscape landmark ~~

Budweiser’s “Lost Dog” TV ad at Super Bowl 2015 – Americana, the heart and the beer

Budweiser has a habit of airing ads at the Super Bowl that is decidedly American. this one at the 2015 Super Bowl is no exception. it has the feel, looks and tone of the everyday American, even the cowboy, but it has heart too. delivering the heart part is of course always done best with a cute puppy. with all these things in the brew, how can we resist? come on, lets pop open a Budweiser now!

McDonald’s makes a goal with this promo that will be aired at Super Bowl 2015

this is really a great promo. it is very creative and a perfect match to the advertising brand sell campaign of McDonald’s. it is rare to see promos that work so perfectly well with brand sell advertising.

McDonald’s has been running the “loving it” campaign in the US. in this promo, some customers will be chosen to pay for their McDonald’s orders with “acts of love” rather than money, acts of love like calling your mother to tell her you love her or a family told to do a group hug. they will air this promo TV ad at the upcoming Super Bowl 2015 this weekend in the US.

ad visuals that kill interest – gross out potential subscribers

we saw this ad at facebook. it is an ad for an iOS app where all you do is say the foreign words and the app will translate the words into your preferred language for you to understand what they mean.

that is potentially a great idea for an app except that the app is being sold using this visual in the ad.

i don’t know about you but to me nothing in that visual is pleasing or inviting. it is gross, scary and feels very, very painful. i don’t know how many FB users will find that visual appealing or enticing for them to go to the app store to buy the app because of that visual.

one of the principles in good advertising is visuals that work hard. one way to achieve that is have an image that visualizes the benefit.

yes, okay that visual does the latter – the visual is showing the closed zippered mouth is being opened for it to be able to speak. that is what the app is supposed to do – open the mouths of a foreign language so you can understand them. a closed zippered mouth is something we will not be able to understand.

while the zippered mouth being opened is what the app does, the choice of the zipper on the mouth goes beyond the message. the visual delivers another message which we think is more compelling and more powerful – that of pain and being grossed out. we can have a tagline that says “it’s so good you will kill yourself to get it” to communicate strong desirability but having a visual to execute that thought with something like someone blowing your brains out with a gun will not do it.

this ad forgets that there are other considerations other than accurately visualizing the message. a great  ad is a combination of many components and each of these components while they should work well together, all should also help the ad sell. one of the components not working for the ad and in this case killing the ad will make the whole ad fail.

this is a WAWAM!

~~~mindscape landmark~~~
carlo arvisu

 

 

consumer data is king, consumer insight is the queen

“consumer-driven-data” – that is a principle in marketing that is central in any marketing or advertising plan. it is also often used and referred to in many marketing and advertising plans and yet in reality it is hardly used and even more often very few really know what it is and how to find it. it is in many ways something of one of the most “lip service” done in marketing and advertising (“strategic” is another lip service”).

here is one article we found at the Washington Post on fashion retailer Timberland where consumer data is king and was used to renew and in many ways reinvent the brand to a successful turn-around. while consumer data is king, the consumer insight is queen.

always, it is not enough to have consumer data, what is equally important and to some degree slightly more important is to know how to understand, interpret and translate consumer data into a consumer insight that is used in marketing and advertising plans.

it is in that bridge between consumer data and consumer insight where most marketing and advertising practitioners fail at or are weak at.

How Timberland used customer data to reboot its brand

STRATHAM, N.H. — There are few shoes more recognizable than theTimberland yellow boot. You know the one: The high-top styling, the sturdy-looking nubuck leather, the rubber lug sole to protect feet from sheets of rain or piles of snow.

But the durable boot — and the rest of Timberland’s footwear and apparel line — was having trouble weathering a fast-changing retail climate.

Timberland’s revenue was basically flat from 2006 to 2012. It was losing market share in the Americas, its home turf and most crucial market. And it was barreling forward with a confusing and slapdash patchwork of marketing and product strategies.

Here in the United States, it had become something of a hip-hop brand as rappers name-checked “Timbs” in countless songs. In Asia, it was thought of as a comfort brand; in Italy, it was more fashion-oriented. Still more customers perceived Timberland as gear for the rugged outdoorsman, the kind of guy who hikes in the woods for days with nothing but his backpack and his Eagle Scout skills.

“The brand had become stale in many ways, and the focus wasn’t there,” said Stewart Whitney, Timberland’s president.

In the past year, though, Timberland has staged an impressive turnaround, with salessurging 15 percent in the most recent quarter even as the broader retail industry has posted only modest growth. Its sales have improved in every global market and every product category, delivering a fatter profit margin — about 13 percent in 2014, up from 8 percent in 2011.

Timberland has revamped everything from its product design to marketing to merchandising strategies. And data science provided the fuel and the framework for each of its changes.

The company says that the cornerstone of the comeback has been a two-year customer study in which it collected data from 18,000 people across eight countries. In analyzing the trove of responses, Timberland was able to diagnose its problems and to zero in on its ideal customer — an urban dweller with a casual interest in the outdoors.

“Research wasn’t a driving factor as much in the previous 20 years,” said Jim Davey, vice president of global marketing. “It was kind of a product-driven organization.”

This data-driven approach was implemented after the family-run business was bought in 2011 by VF Corp., an $11 billion apparel company based in Greensboro, N.C., that has undertaken a similar analysis at other brands, including the North Face and Vans.

read the rest here : http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2015/01/02/how-timberland-used-customer-data-to-reboot-its-brand/

what is this queen? how do we define and how do we get this queen that is consumer insight?

1. consumer data is not consumer insight – results from consumer research, be it quantitative or qualitative is NOT yet consumer insight, they are just raw data on consumer information, attitudes or preferences. these are just raw data that needs to put into some kind of a mental machine that will churn own consumer insight. many confuse “consumer data” and “consumer insight” as one and the same as when they certainly are not.

for consumer data to become consumer insight, you need to put a few of them together, connect them into a sensible whole and get them to jump out of a trampoline. consumer insight is something that needs to leap out of something, a composite of many points where eventually what comes out is very different from what came in.

2. your experiences or observations, those of the advertising and marketing executives, from the client or from the ad agency is NOT consumer insight nor is it the penultimate consumer data – okay, fine what you or your client think may be part of consumer data and consumer insight, it is not in no way the whole thing or even the core of what consumer data and consumer insight is. a person or even several people’s points of view, experiences or observations are of course valid but they may not be what most of the consumers think and feel. they may or may not be the prevailing and most dominant among the target market. the real and maybe the painful truth is that we, those of us in marketing and advertising are NOT the target market or target audience. our views and experiences are at best anecdotal and taking them as THE consumer data and consumer insight is like playing russian roulette.

3. once the right consumer insight is discovered, it becomes magic where everything makes sense, it gains power on its own and everything flows – that is how powerful consumer insights are. once you find it, your marketing and advertising plan will flow very smoothly from start to finish. you will see that ideas, concepts and strategies build on each other, on to like a strong pyramid. that is how consumer insights are used – they become the core of what you do,

it is possible to have several consumer insights and several may be used in a marketing and advertising plan but there will be a very clear order of things where the weight of one is the shadow of the rest.

we have been witness to just how powerful a consumer insight is. finding it defines the success of a brand. do not use it as lip service, take it seriously, its discovery will make you.

 

~~~mindscape landmark~~~
carlo arvisu

 

Most Viewed Video Advertising Campaign Of 2014

Top Ten Most Viewed Video Advertising Campaigns of 2014

While First Kiss tops the chart, the other 9 places belong to well-known brands, veterans of successful marketing campaigns. 4 of the 10 most viewed ads revolved around the 2014 World Cup, with Nike, Samsung, and adidas attracting 306 million views between them. The average World Cup themed campaign ad generated nearly 3x the amount of average views for a branded video campaign compared to 2013.

1. Wren’s “First Kiss”: True Reach of 156,670,932 views
2. Nike’s “Risk Everything”: True Reach of 138,929,384 views
3. Nike’s “The Last Game”: True Reach of 122,249,570 views
4. Samsung’s “Galaxy 11 The Training”: True Reach of 78,130,824 views
5. Always’ “#LikeAGirl”: True Reach of 60,281,400 views
6. Turkish Airlines’ “#EpicFood”: True Reach of 59,549,152 views
7. Budweiser’s “Puppy Love”: True Reach of 59,074,980 views
8. Dove’s “Patches”: True Reach of 58,645,812 views
9. Samsung’s “Official Introduction”: True Reach of 52,692,263 views
10. adidas’ “The Dream”: True Reach of 47,828,815 views

source : http://www.reelseo.com/first-kiss-viewed-video-advertising-campaign-2014/

Wren’s “First Kiss” Overtakes World Cup Campaigns as The Most Viewed Campaign of 2014

read here : https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wren-first-kiss-overtakes-world-140000694.html

 

Coca-Cola’s Fairlife Milk ads – sexist, sexy, senseless or strategic?

yes, you read it right – it is “Coca-Cola”. the drink company that we all know for its Coke drink in that familiar red colored bottles launched a brand called Fairlife, a milk product and the advertising campaign they launched it with is calling a lot of attention. the ads are called even by the company as “pin-up girls” and that is a great summation of what the ads are – they are a throwback to the 50’s pin-up girls of the Marilyn Monroe type of pictures and posters US soldiers used to have in their lockers while at war in Europe. for these ads, pin-up means sexy girls showing a lot of flesh, long legs in particular but this time liquid milk is covering the bodies of the pin-up girls.

first time we read about it, the article described the ads a “naked girls covered with milk”. that of course caught our attention but when we saw the ads, we thought the description was too much hyped with imagination, “naked girls” is something that did not come up to our minds. yes of course with the liquid milk as the clothes of the women, it means the girls are naked under the liquid milk. but then again aren’t we all naked under our own clothes?

the over-imagination aside (pun intended), we looked at the ads and asked ourselves several questions:

 

are the ads sexy? no, they are not. sure they show long legs and the women in them have bodies that will allow them to join beauty contests but sexy is not what we see in the ads. it did not inspire us to think sex when we saw the ads. what we saw were good looking women in the ads. not seeing sexy or sex in the ads may be a function of the proliferation of images in media and the internet that are far more sexual and body baring than these ones. heck, we recently saw the magazine cover of Kim Kardashian in full nude. compare these images to that and these are not at all sexy. it also helps that the over-all concept of the ads is the 50’s pin-up girls. it did not make me think of my grandmother but there is a certain playfulness and innocence when you think of the 50’s now that it is 2014.

are the ads senseless? no it’s not. it does make a good argument for being sensible as an ad. what it is doing is equating health with looking good. health to many of us humans is invisible and we need a lot of help to visualize health. doctors and science give us a picture of “healthy” through lab tests and numbers that show how much cholesterol we have in our body. but after a few seconds of seeing those numbers, we quickly forget how healthy looks like. seeing abs, muscles and in this case well proportioned bodies and long legs are excellent visualizations of “healthy”. they are memorable images that we usually keep in our minds as our goal in life and as we age.

are the ads strategic? yes, we think it is. the choices of the elements in the ads – liquid milk, nice looking bodies, women and health do have a certain strategic flair to them. this is the first time we are being asked to look at milk and what it does to our health in this way. what we are used to are children, cows and nature. the imagery is very eloquent.

are the ads sexist? first, the word “sexist” is one that can be very confusing to many. perhaps because it is a word that has been used as a weapon too many times and that it carries so much emotions that the real meaning of it has been hidden from many of us. if your target audience is women, it is not sexist at all. milk is a health drink and it is most useful for women for its calcium content and its importance to women. it can’t be sexist if women are the brand’s primary target market and target audience.

in essence this is what we are saying – we all got to chill! and yes, we do like the ads.

Nike’s Together-LeBron James TV ad works with its powerful visuals

TV is a visual medium and so are TV ads. TV ads are at their most powerful when the visuals deliver. this Nike ad of LeBron James and for the city of Cleveland has exactly that – powerful visuals.

it is a welcome back to Cleveland  TV ad for LeBron. LeBron is front and center getting his teammates to join hands as a team to play for the city. soon enough people in the stadium and the rest of the city join hands with LeBron and the team. the ending is the idea that the whole city of Cleveland has joined LeBron and the cavaliers on their quest for the championship of the NBA.

the ad in black and white is an excellent choice. it ads a lot of drama and grittyness to the ad. the only weakness we see in this ad is the copy. it’s a long ad, it’s almost 2 minutes and the copy was too repetitive and lacked depth and interest for the time that the ad was running for. it’s either the copy was too sparse or the commercial too long. either way, we thought the ad somewhat suffered with poor copywriting.

the poster that was shown at the end was just as powerful too. the poster says it all and says the message very well.

 

bench’s Naked Truth crosses the line to brand destruction from brand building

bench is a local clothes brand that sell a complete wardrobe that cater mostly to the young. they have very good clothes at affordable prices for the pinoy teen. it is also known to have one of the most engaging outdoor advertising, mostly on EDSA with giant billboards of local and sometimes international celebrities.

they have this annual fashion show. well we are calling it a fashion show for lack of another term , where underwear is modeled by  local celebrities and models. the idea for the event we suppose was picked up from the popular Victoria’s Secret annual fashion show that feature super models in really sexy and skimpy underwear with all types of wings making them out as beautiful and sexy angels.

the bench fashion show started very close to the Victoria’s Secret concept – local celebrities modeling bench underwear also with wings. that has evolved over the years and this year it is called “The Naked Truth” .

we do not know how much of Bench’s sales are from their underwear lines but we are guessing they do  not command the majority of their sales. in fact, we think its very little, maybe less than 10%? but that is not the point. Bench does not hold an annual underwear fashion show to promote the line to generate sales but to get buzz, to get publicity for the brand. the prospect of seeing celebrities in underwear has a certain appeal to consumers, at least that is what we think Bench thinks.

nothing right about Bench Naked Truth Show, only crass, disgusting and degrading "fashion". an insult to all of us. pic.twitter.com/5tqtbQgmqY

— WAWAM (@wawam) September 24, 2014

they are no longer angels and we struggle to find where is the fashion in them and even where the underwear has gone. surely the pictures are showing that the there was a clear attempt to not show underwear.

these two pictures from the “fashion chow” got the most attention at social media and for all the wrong reasons. there was outrage and sharp hatred for these pictures. the first picture of the left shows coco martin on stage with a leash and at the end of the leash is a female model on all fours just like a dog. this is exactly what we do not want our men and specially our women to be – master and salve relationship with the women being treated like a dog.

the other is another actor, jake cuenca wearing something we cant figure out what it is or what it is called. we do not think it has a name except its obscene and horrendous.

we are wondering – are these brand images that Bench wants to have? and are these brand imaged appropriate for the youth, the market segment that comprice the bulk of Bench consumers? Bench may have achieved their goal of getting attention but we are wondering they think the kind of attention they are getting from the event is worth it. these things whether they like it or not will affect its brand image.

with these pictures, Bench now took for itself a brand image of poor taste, crass and vulgarity – adjectives that a fashion brand will not want for itself, s;pecially poor taste. good taste is certainly one of the top brand attributes any fashion brand would want.

victoria’s secret’s annual fashion show of supermodel angels in underwear are hardly criticized for such things. the supermodels in their show do wear very skimpy underwear but they never cross the line to vulgarity. victoria’s secret is a brand that sells mostly underwear, hence the underwear fashion show they hold every year is a direct match to what the brand is all about. bench on the other sell the complete wardrobe and holding an underwear fashion show does not make sense as they probably sell much more jeans and t-shirts than underwear. the sales of underwear in Bench stores being so minuscule and a fashion show supposedly featuring them and taking the brand image to the gutter makes no sense to us.

marketing efforts, even fashion shows, are supposed to do something positive to the brand, to be able to contribute to brand building. this fashion show  did a lot more destruction and deterioration than building anything.

 

 

 

when use of a celebrity in TV ad fails – the new security bank’s TV ad with Megan Young

use of celebrities in ads is a huge trend in the philippines, it has been for decades years now.  almost all the ads you see in TV, print, billboards and hear on radio use a celebrity. use of a celebrity in advertising is the go-to ad concept for most if not all the advertising agencies in the phiippines. we do not know how that happened or if that was instigated by ad agencies in general or clients in general. that is an interesting question but it is for another article in the future.

for now, we are interested in this particular celebrity TV ad by security bank using megan young.

megan young won the Miss World beauty title in 2013. she has brought so much glory to the country for this win
specially when it has been a long time when the country has won a major international beauty contest title.

beautiful women and men have been big choices for philippine advertising agencies specially if they have gained celebrity status. the usual choices are TV and movie stars and big sports heroes like manny pacquiao but beauty queens specially someone like young who has won a major international beauty contest classifies her a celebrity endorser.

security bank is a medium sized bank in the country. it has a good reputation among institutional or business bank clients but not as popular and in fact has very little mass consumer clientele like the top 3 major banks. you would know very few among your friends and relatives who bank with security bank.

security bank is not a big advertiser among the banks. it makes sense that it is not since its clientele, specially among mass consumers is not that much but it has been known to try to get into attract mass consumer clientele from time to time in spurts and in very limited efforts in the past.

this advertising with megan young represents a giant marketing effort for security bank. it has been many, many years since it had released any kind of advertising and in this magnitude. it has been airing heavily in the past weeks.

in marketing this megan young TV campaign represent what is called a brand relaunch where the bank re-positions itself and puts across a “new bank”, a new security bank.

based on the TV ad, security ad wants consumers to “switch to the new security bank, you deserve better“, the tagline of the ad. the “new security bank” offers the following new services : “priority queuing”, “exclusive privileges” and a “relationship manager” with all that intending to give clients better, more efficient, faster and personalized banking services. the ad shows young going into the bank and talks to the camera about her “new relationship” and she breezes through the bank services and gets attended to by a handsome relationship manager who wears a suit, no less.

well, that part of the handsome relationship manager in a suit is for certain an over promise and the roominess and good ambiance of the security bank branch featured in the TV, we do not think there is one single branch of security bank that has that kind of employee and branch design. but let’s pretend that is not an issue in this ad for the moment.

the ad also shows megan young being served coffee by the relationship manager. another over-promise that we should pretend we did not see in the ad and something we should not expect in an actual security bank branch.

the issue we have on this TV ad is much more than the over-promises of what a security bank branch looks like and what happens to customers inside the bank, what we are making a point on is the choice of the talent in the ad, the celebrity endorser and what the promises of what a new security bank is all about.

first a side bar – technically, security bank as a whole has not been changed. it’s not really a “new security bank” but its a just new product that security bank offers to well-off clients. this “new relationship” or the “new security bank” that is being talked about in the ad will be given to a select number of clients – those who have a minimum P100,000 deposit in the bank, not to all clients of the bank. because it is offered only to a select few of its clients, it is just one product in the bank. do not expect to get the kind of servicing in a security bank if you are an ordinary bank client.

this new product of security bank  is being pitched to young bank clients, the yuppies given the use of young who is herself young (pun unintended) and the ad uses references to “relationships that are not complicated” a modern-day reference to social media (facebook) that young adults are familiar with and most likely very few older adults know about.

from there the question comes up on the defined target market of the ad – young yuppies as we would think very few of them can afford to have a remaining balance of  P100,000 in their bank accounts. they can afford to buy an iPhone worth P30,0000+ but hardly will you find people at that age bracket having that large amount of cash in their bank accounts.

now back to megan young.

the point of this “new security bank” but actually the new security bank product is that it promises to give its bank clients “special treatment”, something that clients of other banks and other security bank clients will not or do not get. what it is saying is that bank clients get the regular treatment of having to line up, no privileges and no relationship manager tending to your personal needs (including coffee being served). it is saying many bank clients get the regular treatment, not the special one.

and that is where the choice of megan young as talent in this tv ad shows a disconnect.

megan young IS A VERY POPULAR CELEBRITY. everyone knows her. for being a celebrity and this kind of beauty with an international beauty title, she WILL get special treatment from any bank or in fact any establishment like restaurants, department stores and malls even if she does not do anything, ask for it or have P100,000 with her to open a bank account with. getting special treatment, even the priority ones is part and parcel of the benefits one gets in being a celebrity and being an international beauty titlist.

we are willing to bet that if she enters any branch of any bank, the branch manager will most likely stand up from her desk and attend to her. she is that recognizable and that is what we do for celebrities.

using her in this ad then destroys the whole concept of the “new security bank”. if the bank used a regular person, a non-celebrity in the ad and the ad proceeds to show this regular person gets special treatment in security bank, then the ad works and delivers the message very well.

the point of relationship products like this is that one gets “special treatment” even if you are an ordinary person but has P100,000 minimum deposit. a regular person gets special treatment, that is the idea.

in this ad and with the new security bank product, the choice of a celebrity endorser destroyed the very idea of the new product. it’s a WAWAM!

 

 ~~~ mindscape landmark ~~~
carlo arvisu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BIR’s public shaming of doctors print ad – brilliant ad, disparaging to doctors & it can be banned from publication

this is Part 2 : BIR’s public shaming of doctors print ad is disparaging to doctors and the profession

this print ad has gotten thousands of reactions from pinoy netizens on the very first day the ad was published. not surprising, many of the negative reactions, angry even came from doctors themselves. non-doctor netizens also gave a lot of reaction to the ad almost in the same intensity and content – some liked the ad, others didn’t.

this i think is the first public shaming ad published in the philippines. it is the first of its kind that we have seen in our entire career. there have been other shaming activities  done in the philippines but not an advertising campaign like this one.my non-scientific scanning of the reactions to the ad i think are mostly negative where they are saying they do not like the ad. this is not surprising. i think the negative reaction to the ads both by doctors and non-medical netizens is a result of the tone and concept of the ad – it is public shaming of a group of people.

we have heard  alfredo lim’s shaming campaign against frug pushers when he was interior secretary where he spray painted the homes of suspected drug pushers to identify the occupant as one.

“shaming” of tax cheats is one of the intended objectives of this print advertising campaign. the question of course is will shaming the doctors get them to pay the appropriate taxes?

the number 1 objective of any ad campaign is to get the target audience to take action after seeing the ad. volume sales, market share increase or attitude change are the goals of advertising. for this particular ad, the intended action is for doctors to finally pay the right amount of taxes on their earnings.

another objective of ads, in the top 2, is to create awareness. this ad has done extremely well on the awareness part as we can see that it is the key topic talked about of almost everyone exposed to media, both in the internet and traditional media. the ad and accompanying controversy it created led to it being front page headline news at the Philippine Daily Inquirer on March  4, 2014 .

the kind of exposure it got and the resulting discussions obviously had this ad over-achieving its objective of creating awareness on the importance of properly paying your taxes. we think on this alone the BIR and the ad agency that developed it should look at the ad as a huge success.

high awareness is the first step before action. with awareness very high, will the doctors take action and stop cheating the BIR and start paying the correct taxes?

that is actually left to be seen. we suppose the BIR has some way of tracking whether this public shaming ad campaign will generate more taxpayers to pay the right amount of taxes. an increase of 10% will be a great achievement.

filipinos are big on reputation. things like protecting  or preserving the good name of the family is important to us as a race. this is even more important for doctors. doctors get their patients on the basis of their reputation. we know of names of doctors who are good in certain fields of specializations.  while they have not been specifically named in this ad, we think this ad will have the effect it intends to achieve and will succeed on getting more doctors to pay the right taxes.

aside from avoiding an even indirect slight to their reputation as doctors, this ad will signal to the doctors that the BIR in the next tax filing will closely scrutinize the tax returns of doctors. the BIR with this ad has put the doctors on notice. that should instill some kind of fear on the doctors. we won’t be surprised if many doctors have hired accountants in the past days to have their tax returns professionally and accurately prepared in the next tax filing which is in a few weeks time.

the doctors feeling shamed and insulted by this ad has merit. i think the ad do disparage the reputation of doctors. the key problem of the ad is that it does not have a disclaimer that not all doctors are tax cheats. all it has is this fictitious name of a doctor and this one ad talent appearing to be a doctor. the ad even without directly saying it generalizes ALL DOCTORS to be tax cheats. of course not all doctors are tax cheats.

releasing just this one ad first obviously singles out doctors. we only get to know that there are two more versions only from news articles on interviews done by BIR chief Kim Henares. the ad could have just featured the “generic tax cheat”, not identifying specific professions and that could have removed the problem of disparaging the practitioners of the medical profession. but if that was done we do not think it will be as provocative and effective as this ad is.

PMA president: ‘We are not tax evaders’
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/582198/pma-president-we-are-not-tax-evaders

the print ad actually talks about doctors as tax cheats which has nothing to do with their medical skills and reputation.  but regardless, it is understandable that the doctors feels slighted by the print ad. for people who belong to a profession where reputation gets you business and your livelihood, even a indirect insult can have the same intensity.

>> more to come <<

~~~ mindscape landmark ~~~
carlo arvisu

Read here :

Part 1 : BIR’s public shaming of doctors print ad is brilliant, it should win an ad congress award for excellence
https://wawam.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/birs-public-shaming-of-doctors-print-ad-brilliant-print-ad-disparaging-to-doctors-it-can-be-banned-from-publication/

Caltex Techron’s message cleans the wrong way

 

this is a poster appearing in Caltex gas stations. to say the least, the message it is trying to communicate is anywhere from confused to non communication of the intended message.

we are guessing that this is the message they intended to communicate with the poster – Tachron has been reformulated to include an ingredient that cleans the engine as the car runs. we do not know the exact science of it but we are guessing they included a cleaning agent additive to the formula of Techron.

that could be an interesting proposition for car owners – a clean engine means it will run better and more importantly the car will be very efficient in burning the fuel which enables the car owner to save on gas consumption plus a better maintained engine.

but the poster is not communicating that. with the suds emanating from the car and even bigger bubbles on the trees and roadside, the poster seem to be saying the car is cleaning the environment, not the engine. the car or Techron cleaning the environment? that is a crazy idea and totally unbelievable.

or… maybe that is what Techron does – it cleans the environment and not the engine of the car as we had understood it. whatever real benefit the new Techron has, cleaning the engine or the environment, the poster fails in clearly communicating what it was meant to say.

it’s a WAWAM!

 

~~~ mindscape landmark ~~~
carlo arvisu

 

@scrap_pork gets the scrap pork logo right, very, very close

we had written about the poster of the october 4 million people march poster previously (click here : million people march october 4 rally poster – cute shades the point) where we said the image of the scrap pork idea was too cute and missed the important point of what the rally was all about – to scrap pork.

the twitter account @scrap_pork recently released a new logo for it and we think this one just about got it right.

this logo says it right – to scrap pork with the diagonal line across the face of the pig image like what we see in traffic signs that says  “no left turn” or the the simple “no smoking signs”.

we are all familiar and that means we all know what that diagonal line across the image mean. logos or symbols work best when it obviously and easily communicates what it means. when you see these images, you know immediately what they mean, even without needing to think about it.

“no pork” or “no pork barrel” is the message and this new logo of @scrap_pork says it all and very well.

well, at least very, very close to it – the diagonal line did not cover or slash the snout of the pig. you can still see the two holes of the snout. this treatment made it look like the snout and the diagonal line is a design element rather than single-mindedly talking about removing it or saying no to it.

BUT that really is a very, very minor point. it is as many in the ad industry will say, “it’s just nit-picking”.

kudos to the designer of this new logo!

great tourist attraction & marketing gimmick at Times Square NY

this is one of the most fun gimmick at Times Square – see yourself on that giant screen at Times Square.

it’s that iconic giant screen we see in almost all pictures of Times Square in new york. now, it does not just display ads and announcements, it now shows people who look at the screen in front of it.

the iconic Times Square NY giant screen – that is the screen that has “Hyundai” on top of it. it now shows the actual people standing in front of it.

everyone who stands on that railing facing the giant screen are captured for a few seconds and shown on the screen. that means all the hundreds who are on time square can see your image  on the screen. it’s a moving image, so whatever you do in front of it is shown.

it is really a great tourist attraction idea. everyone but everyone who goes to Times Square goes up to the railing to have themselves seen on the screen. it is technology obsessed 21st century kind of fun for the tourists.

it is also a great marketing gimmick. it has “Hyundai” on top of the screen and yes, Hyundai tv ads are shown on it one after the other with the live footage of people in front of it. you need to stay on that railing for around 45 seconds to watch the Hyundai tv ad before the camera turns on to show your image on the giant screen. that means  everyone who stands on that railing would have seen the Hyundai tv ad.

small, cheap fun but great for tourists and marketing.

guy on the left with brown jacket, black backpack and white baseball cap looking at the screen is shown on the giant screen left side

teen age boy in a red jacket is on the left side of the giant screen

~~ mindscape landmark~~

New Balance ad blooper – also need to pursue excellence in grammar

i was impressed by the number of New Balance billboards in Boston, MA – they were like all over the place. it’s hard to miss them, they are in the subway and the streets in almost every place where billboards are allowed.

but being impressed stopped there as i read the headline.

first time i saw the billboard was when i was riding the subway train. it passed my view for a few seconds, something got lit up in my mind – was that what i read? it bothered me throughout the train ride and kept assessing the words. i told myself i have to look at their billboard again to make sure i read the right thing and take pictures of them.

the New Balance billboard had this headline : ” To Light, Liberty and the pursuit of excellent”

i liked the subtle touch on patriotism, specially when at the time i was in Boston, the Boston marathon bombing just happened and the city was still looking for the perpetrators.  being patriotic which was what the billboard sort of said was a good thing for the brand.

i thought to myself, okay it’s good they want to get to “light”, truth (?) and liberty, but to the “pursuit of excellent”? that was shattering, New Balance needs to take on the “pursuit of excellence” in grammar.

that does not end there. just now, we checked the New Balance website (http://www.newbalance.com/) and we found this one. The need to pursue “summertime excellence” in grammar.

this is a WAWAM!

 

~~mindscape landmark~~

the big and long malice in Kraft’s “Let’s get zesty” ads

kraft released these ads for their salad dressing, Zesty Italian  where they took the meaning of “zesty” to another level. it got a lot of notice, many were complaints on what they were trying to do in the ad – selling salad dressing on the basis of a hunk removing his shirt while making the salad.

i don’t know if women will be encouraged to buy the Zesty Italian dressing based on seeing a hunk with great abs using it in a TV ad, but i thought they went too far, in fact there is obvious malice in the print ad version (above) of the TV ad. the TV was straightforward on using sex to sell salad dressing, but the print ad takes that to a higher level with using the body part covered by the picnic cloth in the print ad.

to make it more obvious, here is the print ad that emphasizes the emphasis made in the ad on the body part.

the tiny piece of picnic cloth strategically covering  what can’t be shown in the print ad is actually shaped to give an illusion of what is by implication not tiny under the piece of cloth. it appears they put a giant cucumber under the cloth, pointing to the left. that was obviously intentional. picnic cloths do not normally behave that way, like forming the shape of long and big cucumber, when placed on something. the rest of the picnic cloth are behaving naturally in the print ad, except that part.

i think that part of the picnic cloth was done digitally, a good photoshop effort. the shape is too perfect and the shadows on some red parts are unnaturally darker than the others and in most given the light source should not be darker than the others.

with the intentional art design, it is obvious the ad campaign is meant to use malice as a selling point for the salad dressing.

~~mindscape landmark~~

Kraft Salad Dressing Ad Gets Best Present Ever: A Slap From One Million Moms
http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/kraft-salad-dressing-ad-gets-best-present-ever-slap-one-million-moms-150412

valentine ads that will turn you red in the face, for better or worst

here are three ads that has the power to turn you red in the face, for better or worst.

 

beer on valentine’s? that is not the usual alcohol usually considered during velantines. something italian or some bubbly perhaps but not beer. this heineken ad gives beer a new respectability and yes a romantic twist to what happens when you see the bubbles coming out of the chilled heineken. romance with a beer, that works very well.

 

this ad got replies from a lot of people in my timeline in twitter, all of them ladies.

a girlfriend who wanted to be an ex bought ad space in a place where her boyfriend goes to buy his lunch at work. in that ad space, she told her boyfriend she was breaking up with him, complete with the boyfriend’s name and some important information like where his stuff are. for sure the boyfriend would read the message, plus a few more hundreds who go to the same place, the ad space was rented for a month.

and the replies from the ladies in my twitter timeline was unkind and in disagreement with laura. your take?

 

 

this ikea promo ad is for what i think is just a brilliant promo for ikea.

it’s an ads that reads the habits of its target market very well. call it consumer insight that hits home and sits very well on reality among the target market. aside from roses, chocolates and dinner, what else do you do on valentine’s day to celebrate the day of love?

this promises to give a free crib for babies born exactly nine (9) months from valentine day 2013.

for sure this ad will give smiles to couples who read the ad and will generate such an abundance of brand loyalty and goodwill among those who goes to ikea to claim their crib.

my only want on this ad is this – it should have been a full page ad in the leading newspaper with better graphic design and copy. that is really a minor point. on its bare bones design and copy writing, it is still a brilliant ad and promotion. 10 stars plus one!

 

the goat and the kiss at super bowl 2013

there are two of the many interesting TV ads shown in this year’s Super Bowl 2013.

the Doritos ad does not take itself seriously, pokes fun at itself and succeeds in making it a memorable ad. of course the question ism after seeing a goat devour doritos, will it make people want to buy it and devour it themselves?

one of the pillars of food advertising, which we assume doritos is still under this category, is “appetite appeal”.  not sure many will find a goat eating doritos as appetizing. unless you are a goat yourself, of course.

one more to why doritos does not take itself seriously – the male character in this had has facial hair that resembles what we expect in goats. as i watched the ad, i thought there will be some role reversal in the end or something will be made out of the facial hair. i was disappointed, it did not end there.

the other ad with super model bar rafaeli and the lucky geek can be taken seriously by internet types who deal with GoDaddy. this ad did not score well in trackings for its too sexy content, the super bowl is typically watched by the whole family which includes children, hence the poor score.

but if you are an adult and you are into computers and the internet, this ad is an excellent fodder for dreams, wet or dry. geez, who can beat french kissing with a super model?

and a last note on the acting and production – the kiss seemed very real. in interviews given by the geek in the ad on US TV, they shot the ad for a whole day. yes, geek friends, they were exchanging kisses for the whole day!

there you go…..

the power of the picture in capturing and communicating ideas

 

 

we have heard it many times before – a picture captures a thousand words. this picture has 10 words in it but beyond that, the picture speaks of a thousand unspoken words on what the picture is communicating, the title of the picture  “judgement”. or how women are judged on the length of her skirt or dress. we don’t just enjoy looking, we also enjoy attaching one of the 10 words based on the length of the dress or skirt about the woman wearing it.

it is a very simple picture and yet it communicates the message very well, with utmost ease and in a very provocative way. words need not be used to communicate the message, we just have to look at the picture.

this is one of the amazing pictures we have even seen in our entire career.

 

 

source:

Rosea Lake, Vancouver Student, Posts Powerful ‘Judgments’ Photo Of Skirt Lengths (PHOTO)

Prudish. Flirty. Whore. Proper. Cheeky. Slut. These are just a few of the words that could be used to describe a woman’s sexual behavior based on her appearance alone, and 18-year-old college freshman Rosea Lake chose to display them starkly — on a young woman’s legs in a photo that has since gone viral. (Scroll down to see the image.)

Lake, who studies graphic design and illustration at Capilano University in Vancouver, never thought she’d become an Internet sensation when she posted her“Judgments” photo project to her Tumblr on January 5th. But something about the picture struck a chord with those who saw it, and within 24 hours the image had been re-blogged 100,000 times.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/18/rosea-lake-vancouver-judgments-skirt-length-photo_n_2504950.html

Real Leaf Frutcy Apple Green Iced Tea – schocking new product launch that is more like an ampalaya juice drink

it was an interesting packaging and i was thirsty and this was the only drink available at the store. it was the first time that i saw this brand and i thought i should get an apple drink variant. i thought choosing the apple variant was the safest bet, how can you go wrong with an apple flavor?

well, i was wrong. this one tasted bad.

the drink i bought was Real Leaf Frutcy, an apple green iced tea. okay, fine the brand name “frutcy” was trying too much to be cutie, but it had an interesting packaging – the green frosted plastic bottle was unique and it had a wide ribbed body that felt good on the grip.

it was cold when i bought it. being thirsty, i thought a cold apple drink will be great. but i was disappointed – the drink had a bitter after taste. the bitter after taste was so strong that it felt like i drank some kind of ampalaya juice drink. to make things worst, the ampalaya bitter taste stayed in my mouth for a long time, a few hours after i had take the drink. the drink tasted so bad that i was able to drink only 1/3 of the 480 mL drink.

i wondered who made this lousy product, i thought this must have been made by a cheap run of the mill juice drink maker. i was driving when i drank the green tea drink so i was unable to read who made it.

when i hit a stop light, i looked at the label to see who was the manufacturer of the Real Leaf Frutcy drink. i was shocked when i read the label – it was from the Coca Cola Company (Coca Cola Bottlers Philippines Inc.).

first thing that came to my mind – how can coca cola launch such a lousy product into the philippine market?

coca cola is not only the leading drink company in the country but also in the world. it is also one of the best marketing companies in the world. they do everything right and takes pains on doing things right.

coca cola does a lot of consumer research and for sure they must have done not one but a few consumer researches on this product before they launched it into the market. a product consumer research must have been done to vet the flavor and other things about the product.

how did coca cola miss on this one big time on the bitter ampalaya taste of this product?

for sure this one is the equivalent of a WAWAM on product launches. it’s not a waste of advertising money but a waste of product launch money.