Volvo Ads Inspired By ... Valets

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The caption here? "So I'd recommend you buy the Volvo."

This is not the idea spotting reported in Advertising Age Magazine this week. It is Buick versus Cadillac Revisited.

So it has taken Volvo, Arnold and Nitro this long, and this way, to learn why doctors, dentists and other understated professionals of the 50's, who carried their confidence internally, bought Buicks while their "scream look at me" counterparts wore their confidence on their sleeves by buying Cadillacs. One brand represents ostentacious luxury you call a trophy while the other is understated elegance. It's the same rationale we learned to explain why two people with $400,000 to spend chose a Bentley over a Rolls Royce. Why does Madison Avenue let history repeat itself again and again, and then hold up remakes of old strategies, consumer insights and understandings as if they're new. Just because they're new to you busy learning everything for the first time?

What has happened here is that Volvo, Arnold and Nitro looked at a slice of one consumer culture (valets are members of a larger Culturally Influential Consumer Group called Walking Actors - people who work in service or information driven industries representing over half of the employed US population today)and found that valets can see the dichotomy between Cadillac and Buick owners; Volvo and Mercedes owners. One owner needs to be seen. The other really doesn't give a rat's ass about what people think. Classic Buick versus Cadillac. Nothing new here and not expected to move the needle. Volvo's just reexpressing all the reasons Greenwich residents have been buying Volvos for years. They're good, but they're boxy. Perception fits the New England work ethic of using up and making do - that's an Audrey Hepburn line.

An Amish farmer might not look out of place stepping up to a Volvo...and that might be a more interesting campaign. Who'd question those values?

VOLVOS and QUILTS go together like MERCEDES and MIRRORS.

SWIFT-ECKRICH SMOKED SAUSAGE is made by technicians in lab coats while KAHNS HILLSHIRE FARM'S are made by farmers in jeans and flannel shirts.

WELLS FARGO BANKERS are stuffed stiff starched shirts while WASHINGTON MUTUAL BANKERS are friendly Seattle residents - in blue jeans and flannel shirts.

Come on people, this is easy market research 101 - not the stuff of breakthrough campaigns.

GYST!!! By the way, if you don't have a subscription to Advertising Age Magazine get one.

Britney Spears Self. Moment of Impact Caught on Film at 11

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Britney Spears Self. Moment of Impact Caught on Film at 11. OK, I know. Lame wordplay but I couldn't resist. Britney Spears herself so often it's a wonder she survives the self-inflicted wounds. I know. I know. I'm late and way behind the bash Britney curve. And it's bad manners, but Hollywood corrupts and absolute Hollywood corrupts absolutely. Nature or nurture, she's a product of her environment run amuck. Post nuclear Britney. Mutant Disney gene pool victim. Can these Disney girls file a class action against Disney? They didn't know fame would ruin their lives. They were minors when they got started. Maybe they should get a warning: Danger: being famous is hazardous to your health. Pitch in your own copy in comments.

Advertising Agencies: Sitting Ducks

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Your client just left. You just lost the account. You feel like a sitting duck. Just slightly vulnerable. Has this ever happened to you? Artwork courtesy of Michael Bedard.

The TRUTH is, "NO ONE EVER QUITS WHEN THEY'RE MAKING MONEY." Would anyone care to share some of their client's exit strategies? I'll bet the truth is stranger than fiction.

Hudgen's Heros

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You remember the delightful misfits of Hogan's Heros don't you. Well, in true television tradition, it's time for the remake featuring your favorite Disney train wrecks. Cameo roles can include paparazzi favorites as well. Who would you cast, and in which role. We know the producers have been in touch with Vanessa Hudgens, Britany Spears, Nicole Richie, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton.

Vanessa Hudgens, Disney Flunk Morality 101

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Disney High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens hits a sour note. If you don't already have the 411 google her yourself. Research shows younger kids want what older kids have. She'd probably spice up Kraft's Miracle Whip ads.

Neuromarketing: Hidden Persuasion or Junk Science?

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ANALYZE THIS! Neuromarketing is a bad pitch. Don't swing. (or as George Parker says, it was rubbish then and it's rubbish now)

You don't need neuromarketing to see if consumers lie. The truth is, when you talk to consumers, they can only tell you what they know. And they have been trained by expopsure to your ads and education - the lowest common denominator. In this environment I found after 45 years of consumer inquiry that if you ask consumers questions, you don't get the voice of the consumer, you get the voice of the inquirer through the question being asked - a form of bias that will lead you astray - and consumers wondering what to them seem to be dumb questions. Consumers are suspicious of advertisers, con men and thieves (you). But why bother with questions? As Atticus Finch said in To Kill A Mockingbird, "You can't ask a question you don't already know the answer to." And you only know so much.

So the only alternative is not to map or neuroanalyze brains or to ask consumers questions. The alternative is to stimulate consumer minds with in-depth, comprehensive, product-based written stimulative materials that cause them to think the thoughts they've not had about your products - sparking the creative process in earnest - and determining what really motivates people about your products. The materials prescribed cover product design, packaging, delivery systems, price, quality, image, attitudes, sensory, form, function, usage and over 500 other PRODUCT POTENTIALS or DIMENSIONS we've identified that all go into the perceptual mix.

In 45 years in packaged goods working with the cream of the crop I have found that if you ask consumers no questions they can tell you no lies - but you will know truth - and this is how George Mennen discovered that he should manufacture solid "Speed" stick antiperspirants - still the most popular today. This "question-free" process turned around brands such as Pampers, Folgers, Crisco, Pepto and many others for Procter & Gamble under the reign of 5 Chairman excluding Alan Lafely who is now letting the retailer tail wag the dog. It is also the root of the new product process that created Chunky Soup, Tic Tac Mints, Baked Lays Potato Chips, Cold-filtered Miller Genunine Draft Beer and 100 other code-cracking brands.

So whether it was Al Pacino or Robert DiNero who starred in ANALYZE THIS, analyze this.

You'll be wasting your time by helping neuroscientists make their next car payment. But the old marketers at the top, fearful of loosing their job, will tell new marketers to test anything they want - as long as it's not actually a better idea.

Clients exposed to Calle & Company processes (my company) stopped conducting focus groups years ago. And of course, we set the pace for the other early qualitative and quantitative pioneers. We concluded long ago that focus groups, need segmentation studies, in fact anything that put the consumer under a microscope put the consumer in an artificial environment - and no one performs well as a lab rat. So we stripped away the veneer of information gathering and measurement - in all of its ill-mannered forms - to avoid the pitfalls and poor traditions of question-based research. Our clients ended up hitting far more home runs, and their agencies put more award winning ads on Cannes reels.

Here is some advice I give to my family before we head to Del Mar, Santa Anita or Churchill Downs for the races. Give me the money. Go to the races. When you are done I'll give you your money back and you'll come out ahead. Don't swing. Neuromarketing is a bad pitch.

Honda's in Hot Pursuit of Gen X

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With All the Boomers It Can Handle, Automaker Goes After New Demo

Generation X. Generation Y. Boomers. All nice macro targets - invented by someone else years ago. And made a buck at. Now just part of the drive-by marketing scenery. Does anyone remember VALS - SRI's values and attitudes lifestyle studies that came on the heels of our launching Culturally Influential Consumer Groups® years before the dawn of qualitative research?

Today, marketers talk about Generation X, Y and Boomers as if they really exist, and think about themselves this way...as if saying it makes it so. What do researchers tell their focus group recruiters? Go find me someone who identifies with being Gen X. Guys, this was all made up so someone could sell something to you! Now you buy into it! No wonder marketing's in trouble, and Madison Avenue's worse. The conned are being led by the conmen.

But what Honda and RPA's research doesn't show is the presence of more Culturally Influential Consumer Groups within these audiences. These are the real decision makers and trend leaders. Culturally Influential Consumer Groups like "Walking Actors" are not theatrical people per se. They are simply men and women who because of their occupations and lifestyles must come into contact with more people everyday. For this reason they are more concerned with the cars they drive and the statements that they make. The clothes they wear and the statements that they make. The foods they eat and how food makes them feel. And given that over half the working population now works in a service or information driven industry, that's a huge group of consumers that Honda has yet to learn how to talk to in a private and personal context. This is how you learn what really motivates people about your products. The conversation would be much more intense that the shot this effort will put across the bow. And there are over 250 other Culturally Influential Consumer Groups that will cause more consumers to sit up and take notice.

Expect a bunt and the runner to get picked off at first base here.

Chrysler Chief Sees Link of Housing to Car Sales

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Excuses are all too easy for Bob. Blaming car quality is all to easy for us. In reality, Chrysler's problem is that they are trying to sell today and tomorrow's cars with yesterday's positioning strategies. Bob's position just lets everyone, including execs at the company and their ad agencies off the hook all too easily. Bob talks about "right-sizing" the business. BS. That just gives him an out and lets him set the high water mark wherever he wants to. The guys in the picture don't seem to be buying it either. In Detroit, or any category, speed is expensive, positioning is the highest octane fuel, how fast do you want to go? In all of these years Chrysler has never done the qualitative homework to look at abstract dimensions to find out what really motivates people about its products. Here's what the New York Times had to say.

DETROIT, Sept. 7 — Only a month after taking charge of Chrysler, Robert L. Nardelli is concerned that problems in the housing market and the broader economy are hurting car and truck sales, and he wants his company to draft a plan to respond. Click on the post title to follow the link to the article.

Tell Clients to Stick It, Then Watch as New Biz Floods In

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Who knew publicly telling a client to perform an anatomically impossible act on your way out the door could be so good for business?

Cramer-Krasselt resigned the business as soon as CareerBuilder cited the weaker Super Bowl ads as grounds for calling an agency review, and Mr. Krivkovich said he was told that the unscientific Ad Meter poll was the sole reason for the decision.

In sales, telling a customer or potential customer to stick it is called "Indifference". It is one of the four factors of impulse under the anachronym FIGS (fear of loss, indifference, greed and sense of urgency) salesmen use to get people to say "Yes." It works like a Jedi mind trick. Imagine you're in a bar with your buddies eyeing the ladies. What's more attractive to the ladies, creeps in a group staring at them, or a bunch of guys off in a corner having their own fun and paying no attention to the ladies at all? The ladies will not pick the creeps.

Obituary for Coke BlāK

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I cut my teeth in marketing developing new products for Coca-Cola. My first assignment was to "identify future consumption drivers in soft drinks." Even became acquainted with McCann-Erickson Chairman John Dooner. At this time he was an assistant account executive on Sprite at Marshalk.

Expanding the brand's footprint is what Coca-Cola wanted to do, but in terms of identfying future consumption drivers, no consumer ever asked for Coke Blak. Coke offered a solution looking for a problem. Bites a manufacturer in the behind every time. Like Miller offering dry beer. Dry beer's promise, less beer aftertaste. Ever meet a heavy Bud drinker with a problem with the aftertaste of beer. Another solution seeking a problem. A double caf blast...half life=12 months. Starbucks tried the same thing with Pepsi seven years ago. Didn't work either.

Apple's Approach to Customer Relations

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I thought you'd enjoy this Harvard Business Review conversation starter.

Apple's reaction to its angry customers has been swift. Responding to a flood of complaints from early iPhone buyers over a $200 drop in the still-new product's price, Steve Jobs responded by:

1. Recognizing that customers were upset

2. Recognizing that customers had a right to be upset

3. Explaining why Apple chose to drop the price -- and doing so in a way that appears legitimate and honest

4. Offering reparations to early adopters in the form of a $100 credit

No, Jobs didn't satisfy each and every disgruntled iPhone owner but, like JetBlue's response to its meltdown last winter, Apple recognized it had created a potentially big problem with its core customers and took swift and open measures to address it.

Would your company do the same thing or would it try to bury or obfuscate the problem? Not sure? Consider these ideas from Harvard Business Review to brush up on your approach to customer relations:

Want to Perfect Your Company’s Service? Use Behavioral Science

Why Satisfied Customers Defect

Companies and the Customers Who Hate Them

Manage Your Human Sigma

Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work

You can't please everyone, but...I bought an iPod for my twelve year old daughter two years ago. Cost about $400. After the first year, it stopped working. She had dropped it without its hard case and dented the backing. The hard drive is built right into the backing and the warranty says that if there are any dents the warranty is void.

I tried to reset the machine several times. Frustrated, I made an appointment at an Apple Genius Bar. I was given instructions for resetting the iPod again. It still would not work. I had to buy a new iPod. But I wasn't ready to do that yet. I went online and made another appointment at the genius bar. The only available time was 8:55PM - five minutes before the Apple store here at South Coast Plaza in southern California closes. I went in. Met a different genius.
He fiddled with my iPod, then this is what he did. He said, "You know what?" I said "no." He said, "I'm going to give you another iPod for free." I was stunned, and reiterated that it was out of warranty AND dented. He said Apple didn't see it that way. He said, "At Apple we know people pay a lot for our stuff. We know that these people probably make a lot of money and are probably better than most at taking care of things. So when something goes wrong, we feel it's probably our fault and not their fault." So he went into the back room and returned with a brand new iPod.

At that moment I had rather been indifferent toward whether I used Apples or PCs. But that night I became a convert - and I will give Apple a lot of latitude before I jerk my knee and criticize them. Steve Jobs has been through a lot. And he knows that Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.

And I experienced all of this through my contact with a 19 year old at one of Steve Jobs stores. Simply amazing.

This also reminds me of a story that circulates around one of my client's, Mercedes-Benz.
The owner of a 1981 Mercedes with 480,000 miles had a turbocharger that went bad. A new turbocharger was about $3,800, more than the value of the car today. But here's what the dealer did. He replaced the turbocharger for free. And the following year, rather than shop around, that Mercedes owner came in and bought a brand new Mercedes. Now that's customer service.

BBDO Picks Up Agency of Record Duties for Monster

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Five agencies in less than seven years! That's a bi-polar client and one who definitely has yet to figure out what motivates consumers about its products. Right now they're only using what they think they know. The way they switch agencies, or the way CEOs jettison brands and managements reminds me of that beer ballad, "99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer, you take one down pass it around 99 bottles of beer on the wall. 98 bottles ...."
John, you may look forward to working with global teams to help the brand reach its full potential, but you'll only have about a year, less than the half-life of today's CMO. Joan Blackwood.

The problem with marketing is that anyone can define what is a better idea any which way they can when in reality speed costs money, positioning is the highest octane fuel and marketers today are not skilled at positioning. Oh they can plot it and measure it. But that's usually done by a marketer talking too itself about itself. When they throw it out there in advertising they just hope some of it sticks. Finding what truly motivates customers about your product takes extra-curricula homework. You can't just take what you think you know and shoot from the hip with it. You'll miss.

CMO Strategy: Companies Must Lift the Velvet Curtain

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Management Can't Function Independent of Marketing

Wow! This bashing marketers for not having good positioning strategies is becoming a theme!

Face it. Chrysler, like many other manufacturer's, have yet to figure out what truly motivates consumers about its products. If they had, they wouldn't have yo-yo sales trends, and they wouldn't jettison brands, managements and advertising agencies. In the last 50 years, all I've seen is a proliferation of integrated marketing support devices employed which obfuscate the fact that they still have not figured out how to position products to consumers. So these guys are going to continue to sell tomorrow's cars with yesterday's positioning strategies. When are all these guys going to get tired of being the chum for the churn?

If marketing can ever figure out how to get them, let Chrysler manufacturing figure out how to keep them. THAT'S INTEGRATED THINKING THAT BINDS MANAGEMENT AND MARKETING.

Take Back Control of the Purchase

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Hook Up: See Brand Value Rise by Creating Strong Relationships With Consumers and Retailers

LET ME RE-QUOTE HOW THIS ARTICLE BEGAN. "The retail trade seems to enjoy more control over the fate of a brand with each passing day."

THAT'S BECAUSE MANUFACTURER'S POSITIONING STRATEGIES STINK

"Years ago, my clients knew exactly what they wanted from in-store, demanded a certain level of performance and got it. Today, there is one brand major retailers such as Wal-Mart, Costco, Best Buy, Target and Safeway care most about -- their own. Marketers are squeezed by an empowered consumer, a controlling retail channel, and, on top of it all, a lack of predictability in the impact media truly delivers.

THAT'S BECAUSE MANUFACTURER'S POSITIONING STRATEGIES STINK. CONSUMERS NO LONGER ENTER STORES WITH A PREDETERMINED BRAND ON THEIR MIND

No wonder they are increasingly focused on return on investment and are zeroing in on where they can best measure results: at the point of sale.

THAT'S BECAUSE MARKETER'S DON'T KNOW HOW TO CREATE A MORE POWERFUL PRODUCT BASED POSITIONING STRATEGY - so they fall back on the easier things they can do. If they had a better positioning strategy, they could spend far less money on all this integrated marketing support stuff.

Positioning is the highest octane fuel. So how fast do you want your brand to go?

To Reach Today's Shoppers, Add Value

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Give to Get: Motivating Consumers Where and When They Make Purchases Is More Critical Than Ever

According to the writers of this article in Ad Age, Nowhere is the need for shopper's ROI more important than in retail environments, where an estimated 80% of all purchase decisions are made. 80%! THAT'S BECAUSE THE MANUFACTURER'S POSITIONING STRATEGY SUCKS. So consumers don't go into stores to purchase predetermined brands!

How many times has this article run in the last 45 years? Over and over again we hear the importance of hitting consumers where they buy. Why all the focus on integrated marketing crutches? The nuts and bolts sales support efforts? Speed is expensive. Better positioning your product is the highest octane fuel. The question is, "How fast do you want to go?" The reality barrier (like a sound barrier) is that less than a handful of people on the entire planet know how to build a better product-based positioning strategy - and they're NOT working for you, or Coca-Cola. Christ! Coke can't even figure out how to stem carbonated beverage's slide!

Reading this kind of stuff in Ad Age year after year by each new generation of marketing expert is like watching the countless remakes of Cary Grant's Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, remade as Tom Hank's The Money Pit - which by the way is what POP marketing is unless you have a better positioning strategy. All you're buying is artificial life support to prop up a weak parity product positioning that isn't all it can be.

This is just a self-promoting piece by two DraftFCB renamed DaftFCB "experts". The examples they reference and the motivators are just scraping the tip of the iceberg regarding what motivates people about products. The CONVENIENCE, SMILE, EMPATHY and EXPERIENCE they espouse are all cost of entry taken for granted parameters, not the big deal closers. I can show you 100 more for free that are way more meaningful.

Cramer-Krasselt Wins Porsche's $40 Million Account

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Carmaker Cites Indie Shop's 'Fresh Approach'

Can we interpret "fresh approach" as "I liked it?" Or that Porshe's ads will be more akin to Adidas. Hard to tell the difference. Both strategies give you sports, performance and style. Both products give you traction, handling and speed. We wouldn't sell excitement. That's Pontiac's turf. I'll take a pair. Size 11 please, in white - but as Chief of Differentiation Strategy here at Calle Company it's interesting to see that shoes and performance vehicles are both sold the same way. Is that why we tune out ads? Marketers converging on and spilling over each other's positioning strategies?.

Dave Disciples Flip Wigs Over Trendy Wendy

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Despite Seeming Success of Saatchi Campaign, the Family Thomas Fumes

Another CMO shoots from the hip. For Wendy's CMO Ian Rowden it must have taken a lot of brain cells to come up with a Ronald McDonald spokecharacter with a five o'clock shadow. Visual shock jock or creepy molester. If I saw this man in the parking lot, would you want your child to run up an give him a hug?

Who needs differentiation with dignity? According to CMO Rowden embarrassment sells. Everyone likes to stop and stare at an accident. But at what cost? A little intent to purchase bump? Big deal. Ian, ya took the low road even though the ads are pretty funny. You'd do a lot better telling us why we should choose Wendy's over the millions of independent hamburger outlets across the land like Tommy's or Omega Burger.

The daughter of the chain's late founder Dave Thomas publicly slammed the ads in The Wall Street Journal as a personal affront (Melinda Lou Thomas -- better known as Wendy -- auditioned to appear in the new campaign, but Wendy's spokesperson Bob Bertini said consumer response to Ms. Thomas' screen test "was not positive.") Her sister, Pam Farber, also denounced the direction, and according to the Journal, Mr. Thomas' widow, Lorraine, has called for Chief Marketing Officer Ian Rowden's ouster. (Despite numerous attempts, the family couldn't be reached for comment.)

Darren Tristano, exec VP of Technomic, tooting his own horn said his food-industry research group used the Wendy's commercial as an example of the right way to target Generation Y at a recent conference, BUT, we're not certain who appointed them the judge.

By some accounts, Mr. Rowden's job is also in jeopardy. "When you talk to Ian, he says he's a change agent and all change agents eventually need to move on or die on the cross that they are dragging," said one person close to the account. "He talks like a guy soon to be moving on." Mr. Rowden denied he has any plan to leave Wendy's.

I bet Ian ends up writing one of those "How to brand it" books and ends up a consultant. What do you think?

Portholes Remain Potholes at BUICK

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Favorite Ad Blog Agency Spy has an open call for client horror stories, so I just left this post in a basket by their front door. If you have a few horror stories leave them in my comment box too. Feel free to name names and places. Like Dale Carnegie says, "if you've lived through it, you've earned the right to talk about it."

Was working with Buick and McCann-Erickson on the Buick Regal. It’s principal competitors were/are the Ford Taurus, Honda Accord and Toyota Camry - to better or worse extents these vehicles offer the bread and butter auto segment a nice synthesis of conservatism and sportiness. Their appeal is obvious and proven by their sales. I had the bright idea of debadging a black Regal and showing it at the auto show in Germany. I made an agreement with Porshe to test the vehicle as a German entry by Porshe into the mid sized US car market. People FLIPPED. European owners of Audi, BMW, Mercedes; Japanese owners of Acura, Lexus, Infiniti couldn’t wait to get their hands on one. People were writing us advance checks we had to decline at the show. With blacked out windows the car was a sleek runway and runaway success. Paula Travenia was head of Buick Communications at the time. Maria Shoemaker was in charge of strategy. Where the Regal only sold 40,000 units per year (including units going to rental fleets) versus rivals Toyota, Camry and Taurus sold 1.2 million each - quantification for the debadged Porshe-impersonating Regal revealed a domestic market of 800,000 units! And this was top flight top two box intent to purchase of 97%! All people wanted was for us to name the car MUNICH - and please use italics. We were stunned. Upon returning to the states McCann unleashed the entirely forgettable “Regal. Its a fine line between sport and sedan.” ad series with a Pierce Brosnan type driver. No consumer ever asked for one of these. And the character or “brand character” as GM calls it on their positioning statements was totally out of synch - unbelievable. The campaign died as did the Regal soon thereafter. Did the refs or players get payed to throw the game? We’ll never know. But it sure does seem strange that car marketers don’t know how to sell cars, once again proving that portholes remain potholes at Buick. Oh well, at least more of their ads are forgotten than remembered. That'sablessing - for now at least - until they again figure out how to connect and relate with consumers. You'd figure that after 50 years of selling vehicles they'd know what motivates people about their products. Guess not. Darn brand heritage styling queues keep getting in the way too. They like 'em, but we don't.

Opinion

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Opinion is neither right or wrong, but thinking makes it so.

Paul Stuart

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My favorite fine clothing store for advertising and marketing execs in Manhattan and Chicago is Paul Stuart. Everything's superb.

Paul Stuart
Madison Avenue At 45th Street, New York, NY 10017
800 678 8278