5 Blogs Before Lunch

Guerilla Marketing Promotion: Smart Car Rally

Last weekend, the folks at Smart Car staged a rally through the streets of San Francisco. It was a brilliant guerilla marketing campaign arranged during the height of San Francisco's peak tourist season.
SmartCar Rally SF 2008 from davemorin on Vimeo.

Coors Aims Its Silver Bullet At Women

Coors is in the process of launching a series of products aimed at women.

It is a bold attempt, which many have tried before.

The brewer has set up a separate business unit code named "Eve" and will introduce a beer called Blue Moon, and a rose variant of its Kasteel Cru brand. Both will be marketed towards women, along with its existing brands, including Coors Light.

Gap's Fall Marketing Campaign

It is time again for a semi-celebrity slathered Gap fall marketing campaign. This season Gap has once again tapped a diverse group of actors and style makers including Liv Tyler, Ginnifer Goodwin, Hugh Dancy, Edgar Ramirez, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Melvil Poupaud, Clemence Poesy, Nate Parker, Joe Anderson, Georgina Chapman, Julia Restoin Roitfeld, Scott Schuman, Leigh Lezark, Sean Avery, David Benioff, Max Lugavere & Jason Silva, Cecilia Dean and Ryan McGinley.

The campaign features pieces from Gap’s fall collection which it feels will set a trend (and sales) for the Gap brand. Liv Tyler relaxes in the boyfriend cardigan, Scott Schuman (photographer and blogger for The Sartorialist) accessorizes the oxford shirt, and actor Clemence Poesy tops off the new low rise bell jean with a tailored wool blazer.

The campaign is pulled together under a theme of "Individual Style." The campaign features taglines built around the theme of “your own.” Each individual in the campaign provided a handwritten response to various fill-in-the-blank taglines, offering even more of a glimpse into their personality and capturing the emotion of each image. Photographer Ryan McGinley wrote “Invent Your Own Images,” Misshapes DJ Leigh Lezark wrote “Create Your Own Sound,” and Max Lugavere and Jason Silva, producers and hosts of Current TV, remind us to “See Your Own ¬Ability to Change the World!”

The campaign was developed by Laird + Partners, Gap’s creative agency, and will run in the September and October issues of national magazines including Vogue, Vanity Fair, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, Interview, Paper, Nylon, GQ and Rolling Stone. It will also run in the New York Times and New York Post, and will be featured in Gap stores, online at gap.com and in outdoor elements, including billboards and bus shelters.

Spanish Olympic Basketball Team's Ad is Culturally Insensitive

The Spanish Olympic basketball team is in hot water over a culturally offensive ad for a courier company that's been running in Spain.

The photo in the full page ad is of the Spanish basketball team, in full Olympic kit, pulling their eyes back. The cultural slur towards the Chinese hosts of the Olympics is clear.

Source: CNN

Visa Re-edits Michael Phelps Ad

Visa has already re-edited a spot featuring Michael Phelps to include reference to his latest victories.

The Wall Street Journal has a nice piece on Visa and its history of sponsoring Olympic athletes. And, Brandweek chimes in too.

The company has sponsored U.S. Olympic athletes for more than 20 years, from decathletes to skiers, and now has deals with 15 U.S. athletes in sports such as track and field, snowboarding, BMX racing, gymnastics and swimming.

More and More Companies Are Shrinking The Size of their Products, Without Lowering The Price

A couple of months ago, I blogged about how Dreyers ice cream shrunk the size of its product, but left the prices the same.

Well, the trend continues, with Procter & Gamble, Kraft, Nestle and Scottish & Newcastle adding themselves to a growing list of CPG companies who are countering higher energy and raw material costs by giving consumers less, without lowering prices.

The UK Independent is reporting that a number of manufacturers have reduced the size of products without telling consumers - among them Procter & Gamble's Pringles, Scottish & Newcastle's Strongbow cider and Nestle's Rolos confectionery.

These companies clearly do not feel that consumers will feel price resistance if they maintain what consumer's are used to paying for these products, and my suspicion is that they believe that most consumers will not notice that the products have shrunk in size.

But is hoodwinking the consumer ever the right way to go?

Companies need to be wary of damaging their brand.

Jeff Adler of the National Consumer Council said: "Even in a credit crunch, most customers are savvy enough to see these tactics as underhand. Companies should realise that, once caught out, their corporate reputation could suffer and customers always have the power to switch brands."

Whole Foods' Brand Reputation Is Being Challenged

Whole Foods has been struggling with its brand perception lately.

Nicknamed "Whole Wallet," the brand is known for both its quality and its high prices. Consumers, up to this point, have rewarded Whole Foods for its quality products and put up with the high prices.

But recently, with economic instability, consumers have been questioning their willingness to pay higher prices. Whole Foods response has been a campaign to shift perception from "high price" to "high quality value."

And now another blow--a beef recall that not only questions Whole Food's product quality, but shatters the image that the company provides "better than the average supermarket" goods.

The beef recall not only affected Whole Foods customers, but those of a handful of other "average" supermarkets. Turns out Whole Foods gets its goods from the same place as everyone else--or so the potential PR crisis suggests.

Whole Foods has built its brand on the assumption is tfor the higher prices for most Whole Foods products, customers  receive goods that are safer, fresher and more nutritious. The idea that the food is coming from the same source as other stores damages this reputation.

The reality is that of course Whole Foods buys its goods from places that serve other business. But this doesn't help the image, or brand reputation that the company has established as a brand that's a level above your average supermarket--and worth the additional cost.

The company seems to be doing all the right things in terms of dealing with this PR crisis. It has recalled the beef, and announced more stringent controls over quality.

Only time will tell if consumers will forgive Whole Foods for falling off its high horse. If they continue to showcase product quality and value, they may just have a shot.

Related articles; The New York Times on the recall, and on their slowing business.

Energy Drinks Are Losing Steam

It appears that consumer's appetite for energy drinks may be waning. According to Beverage Digest, energy drink's volume grew 30% last year, but is tracking at only 10% growth for the first half of 2008, and only 7% for the month of June.

Is the slowdown an indicator of a sector that's hit capacity? Is the slowdown part of an overall sluggish economy? It seems everyone is pointing a different finger, but they all point to slower sales.

Check out what the pundits have to say over at Brandweek.

Coca-Cola Bluetooth Olympic Video Commercials

Part of Coca-Cola's Olympic sponsorship will be fronted by the first Bluetooth interactive media marketing campaign of its kind. Pioco, a Chinese company that's an innovator in the OOH advertising space, has wired thousands of hotspots in and around the Olympic stadiums, hotels, restaurants, clubs, cafes and other venues in Beijing and Shanghai to broadcast Coca-Cola Bluetooth video commercials to Bluetooth-enabled cell phones.

Coca-Cola’s relationship with Pioco marks the first time in Olympic history that a brand has used Bluetooth media for its marketing campaign.

PRNewswire release here

Lexus Ranked At The Top of the Dependability Heap by J.D. Power

Once again, Lexus is consider the top car, based on dependability according to J.D. Power and Associates. It is the 14th straight year for Lexus, and a testament to their pursuit of perfection.

The J.D. Power rankings can be a huge support to marketing efforts both for consumers and to internal communications.

Source: AP