Kevin Harrington // marketing // blog

Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’

Differentiation in marketing is key, whether you are managing a budget or a premium brand. It is important that the consumer can quickly see why your product or service is better, different or beneficial to them. Whole chunks of the marketing industry are invoicing clients daily to help them with differentiation.

And then there’s UK politics. Now we know what Rizla cigarette papers are for…to fit in the gap between the main UK political parties.

But the great thing about our democracy is that we can all get involved and challenge the status quo and come up with new ways of doing things. So, well done to the parties that have differentiated themselves with ideas like:

• The 99p coin.
• The £ sterling to invite other European countries to join it.
• Increase the minimum statutory retirement age to beyond death.
• Public officials who are convicted of abuse of office offences to have their pictures printed on toilet roll packaging.

Read who is campaigning for these ideas, and a lot more from the BBC News website.

A bit more of this lateral thinking by us all may help us break out of the cycle of developing ‘me too’ offerings.

Here is a different take on Philip Kotler’s 4 Ps of Marketing:

Product: What do you mean we can’t do that? It’s in the press release!
Price: How much are the others guys charging?
Place: Should we hold the offsite meeting in Hawaii or Aspen?
Promotion: How long does it take to become VP around here anyways?

This is from Valley of the Geeks where ‘Zack Urlocker’ also says:

Once you’ve got a technology company up and running it generally consists of two groups; those who build the product and those who sell the product. So what role does marketing play? They’re the ones who talk about building and selling the product. Marketing provides an update to the old saw: “Those who can do, and those who can’t make Powerpoint slides.”

The rest of this article about marketing spin is worth a look at to remind yourself how some people perceive marketing…sometimes with good cause.

An inter-department football game was held every year between the Marketing team and the IT department of a company.

The day of the game, as hard as the Marketers tried, the IT staff whipped Marketing soundly.

In their best tradition, Marketing decided to find the best “spin” they could on the dismal result. They showed how they earn their keep by posting this memo on the noticeboard after the game:

“The Marketing Department is pleased to announce that for the recently-completed Football Season, we came in 2nd place, having lost but one game all year.

The IT Department, however, had a rather dismal season, as they won only one game all year.”

You know, I really don’t like shopping at Asda. But you never know, I could get converted. Recently I have been impressed with a number of their marketing activities:

1. I’ve heard some really good things about the way Asda motivate and acknowledge their staff. It sounds like they are setting a standard in the supermarket sector.
2. Asda seem to have managed to manipulate average basket prices to be frequently the lowest and sometimes half the price of Waitrose.
3. And now Asda plans to launch its own social networking site, designed to increase customer interaction. A brave move perhaps? Some people are wondering whether the supermarket chain is opening itself up to potential criticism from any disgruntled shoppers that may be out there. But frankly, they are better off hearing the feedback and addressing it than ignoring it and letting customers migrate.

So well done Asda. From my point of view choice and quality are things I want to hear are progressing and then I’ll be back to have a look.

Don’t get me started on car salespeople! I now know where some of the excess staff went when the world of estate agency contracted.

But look at bit deeper at the commercial world of the motor industry and there are some excellent examples of high quality marketing. One of my favourite recent poster campaigns, in fact it is current, is the one for VW BlueMotion: crisp, clear, on message and very much on brand.

There are several posters in the advertising campaign that reveal lengthy copy describing the benefits and efficiency of the brand’s BlueMotion technology. The text has either been crossed through or highlighted to leave just a simple statement. Click on the image here to see an example.

I think this advert would have been good five years ago, but it seems especially relevant today in our age of tag clouds and similar things.

For reference:

Format: Press and poster
Agency: DDB London  
Advertiser: Volkswagen 
Project title: Volkswagen Efficiency
Brief: Communicate that Volkswagen offers a range of technologies that lead to improved fuel efficiency.
Copywriter: Hunter Somerville
Art director: Graeme Hall
Designer: Pete Mould, DDB
Media agency: MediaCom

Here is an extract from an article:

Yet we all feel like advertisers are lying to us. The slogans, promises, and taglines of large corporate entities lack any meaning or authenticity whatsoever. We are used to products not working as advertised, or even not looking like what’s on the box.

Read the full article at Precision Change.

Iron Mountain and fast food

Is signwriting on vans, or other company vehicles, part of the marketing mix? That’s a silly question really: of course it is. And as with all other areas of marketing there are times it can work against you.

So when you are trotting up the motorway and the van in front lobs all of the remnants of a MacDonald’s breakfast out the window and it hits your car I would suggest that the signwriting is working against the company.

I guess the solution is to make sure that the behaviour of company members is in line with your company values…even on the road.

As a result of this incident on Wednesday 11 February 2009, at 10.55, I probably won’t be doing business with Iron Mountain or the driver of the Mercedes Sprinter PX06 VMV.

And before anyone asks: the photo was taken by my passenger, not me!