Advertising Archives - Page 5 of 27

Content vs Context

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

While reading the Age newspaper on my iPhone yesterday I happened upon an unfortunate advertisement. Have a look at the series of screen shots I took to see if you can notice it:

No doubt you too can see that a red Double Decker bus ride is probably not so compelling in the middle of a street riot. Although it is pretty funny, this could and should have been avoided. Why digital media providers don’t have a simple tagging system where certain advertisements don’t run is beyond me. Simple example;

Key word for advertisement: Flight & London. (run adv)

Don’t run advertisement tag: Flight & London & Crash (don’t run adv)

Pretty simple really, so why the GUI internet is nearly 20 years old and these mistakes still happen is beyond me.

If your startup ever runs digital placements, be sure you include your ‘do not run’ tags too.

I'm in love with Shwood

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

I saw this video below and fell in love with all of it. Every single P. Of the 4P’s that is…

The Product: So cool. Who doesn’t want something hand made, that has a story, that looks uber cool, and is recycled?

The Price: I almost don’t care, so long as it wasn’t more than what I would expect to pay for this product, then it is fine. Really. In fact, I’d probably pay a little more.

The Place: I hate shopping. I like ordering over the web and not have to go find a car park, pay for parking, deal with condescending retail worker fashionistas. In fact, I’m not even sure how these will look on my head. But I figure because they are so cool, I’ll feel cool and they’ll automatically look cool on me. (hey, I’m not pretending sunglasses are not a fashion accessory)

The Promotion: Well let’s put it this way. All I have ever seen is the video below. No one has ever spoken to me about this brand or product. In fact it is my first exposure to it. I loved the film, the light and most of all the story. It was beautiful to watch. I have already placed an order over the web. I found out via a tweet that someone sent. (By the way over 10 million tweets a day are about brands). That was all it took.

And now I’m in, part of the brand and spreading the word. This is how startups gain traction. Making cool stuff and embracing new methods to go to market.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/26124634]

New rules of media

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

The new rules of media are pretty simple. The only type of messages pretty much anyone is interested in these days are:

Anticipated, personal and relevant messages.

Anything else is just noise, or maybe even SPAM. It’s also easy to conclude that this is only relevant in new media. Not true. These changes in the landscape have modified our worldview to the point that all media must now abide by the rules in bold above.

So next time we talk to our audience, we should ask ourselves if we abiding by the rules of the new world, or damaging our brand by living in the past.

The first 10

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

When we build our next project we should only worry about the first 10.

The first 10 people we tell.

These first 10 people are people that we know, people that like us, trust us and value our opinion. If they don’t tell anyone, we need to start again. Re-build our project, or find another one. But if they tell another 5. And then that 5 tell another 3. Then we can be pretty sure that it is start start of work that matters. Work that people need.

At the start of our next launch we should really think hard about these three words: the first 10.

Our writing really matters

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

This guy put some effort into writing the words that appear on his website. The result of his writing is around 10,000 people shared it with their friends. Read it.

www.alittlebitofsomething.co.uk

The words we publish matter a lot.

the new FMCG strategy

Posted on July 7, 2011September 19, 2018 by Steve Sammartino

As far as I can tell this is the strategy of every large FMCG company – (Fast moving consumer goods – think supermarket and convenience stores).

Keep prices low. Never take a price rise.
Sell to who we’ve always sold to.
Only make things the factory can make.
Focus on volume, that’s what keeps the factory busy.
Deliver short term quarterly profits.
Innovate incrementally. Flavours, sizes, fragrances, colors.
Only invest in a brand if there is an immediate return in sales.
Buy media on mainstream channels. Interruption marketing.
Buy startups who innovate in our category.
Conduct significant research to test ‘everything’. Make all changes research suggests. Safety in research. Don’t be edgy.
Roll out good ideas from one market (Country) in all countries.

And this industry wonders why it fails to grow, increase revenue or attract change agents. As someone who has worked in the space for many years, it’s time someone told the industry to forget everything they think they know. This strategy isn’t working. It’s why companies like Kraft foods have the same share price they had 10 years ago. That is zero capital growth. It’s one example of many large multinationals with a similar financial performance.

So far the consumer goods industry has been quite lucky. They’ve been insulated from the effect the web has had. But this is all about to change. Startups, innovators and Amazon will come. The squeeze is about to happen, and unless they reverse their strategy over the last 50 years, the future is not bright. In fact they need to flip everything they currently do:

The new FMCG strategy (for those who want to thrive more than survive)

Innovate so that price is not an issue. Make stuff people will pay a premium for.
Open up new channels of distribution. Over invest. Compete against their retailers.
Make things people want. Focus on the design of the product, not compiling it. (Manufacturing)
Focus on revenue. Ignore volume. Remove it from all tracking and all documentation. Report everything in dollars.
Do not give the market forecasts. Report results on year end only once.
Innovate dramatically. Embrace failed launches. Most fail anyway, so get more to market.
Invest in brands without expecting a short term revenue boost.
Build your own brand media channels.
Set up startups in your category. Put them in a skunk woks facility. Different space for a new culture. Then sell the startup to your competitors. Do it again.
Do not do market research. Only research what can be done & know how to do it. Invent the future for the audience
Sack all global marketing & innovation teams. Innovate locally.

This won’t happen in most large FMCG companies. There is too much to protect. Things like reputations, executive bonuses and careers. The courageous few will try. But 10 years from now every FMCG will be asking what happened, just like information industries and the car industry did. The change is coming whether they like it or not.

Business trends in 2011

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

A great piece from the Cannes Advertising Festival which is a great summary of key trends in business, more than advertising or marketing. Enjoy!

[slideshare id=8393334&doc=12trendsfromcannes2011-110622171131-phpapp01]