Dyson Ball - a vacuum purchaser's dilemma

So, I'm buying a new house, and I set out to determine if I want to have a built-in vacuum or a stand-alone vacuum - specifically the Dyson. Why the Dyson? Well, they have great ads, and really seem to stand for something. So, I "Google'd" it.

The forums I found - including one by car enthusiasts - all pointed to the Dyson as the clear winner in the suction and cleaning battle. So, then I set out to find a Dyson. I visited the Dyson site and found ... that I am now very confused about what their models all do. I didn't know that there could be so many models. They all look alike, and their descriptions don't really help you tell what miraculous feature one vacuum has over the other.

Here's the punchline however. On their site Dyson sell refurbished vacuums. These are older models, and without the new "Ball" feature. Presumably, however, they machines are as good as new. AND, they are roughly half-price. However, my better half isn't interested in saving $300. She's interested in getting "The Ball." Why? Well, simply put, because Dyson has done such a darn find job of telling us all about how great the ball is, and how stupid you'd be to buy a non-ball model.

Dyson = GREAT Branding! We are willing to pay a premium just because of the value of the brand.

On the other hand ...

Today I came across Mango Moose Media, and in contrast to my last blog entry and rant on the Ikea kerfuffle, MMM's site does have some interesting quotes on it:

• Every media plan should contain an element of alternative media
• "Nobody counts the number of ads you run; they just remember the impression you make" - William Bernbach
• Standing out is our job.

Alternative advertising, guerrilla advertising, ambient advertising, non-traditional media, mobile campaigns, pizza boxes, sidewalk ads, street teams, hangar ads, nail salons, floating billboards, pop-up billboards, limo wraps, projection ads, PR stunts ... the list goes on. These guys sound fun. I bet they get into trouble from time-to-time.

Swedish for "DUH!" - Ikea's guerilla ad campaign

Ikea is running an interesting, and apparently stupid, advertising campaign which involves tagging (i.e. spray-painting) their ad on public space. Do you think people are upset with this?

How about this:

Ikea has apologized and admitted the 400-sign national campaign was poorly executed.

It blamed the mistake on miscommunication between it and the company contracted to do the job, and promised to remove the stenciled ads.

What ... their Marketing team doesn't sign-off on this sort of ad campaign? Come on!

Read more on:

• CBC.ca
• Vancouver Sun

Also - the comments on these stories are interesting. They say that there is no such thing as bad publicity ... I wonder.

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• Advertecture Strikes Back in Whitewashing War (curbed.com)

Google Vs. Bing - Will Bing stand a chance?

A couple of weeks ago, Microsoft relaunched their effort to beat Google in the search marketing game. This time Microsoft has come out with an entirely new search engine - called Bing.com.

Will it beat Google? I don't think so.
Microsoft cannot claim much of anything with the new search engine.

• They are not the first
• They are not the most popular
• They are not the dominant

They may be the prettiest. Their site is full of neat Ajax programming tricks that make it a bit more intuitive to use than Google. It also has a nifty menu that creates itself down the left side that helps you filter your results. Will those innovations help? Maybe. Can Google copy them. Absolutely.

According to Comscore Media Metrix:

Microsoft Sites increased its average daily penetration among U.S. searchers from 13.8 percent during the period of May 26-30 to 15.5 percent during the period of June 2-6, 2009, an indication that the search engine is reaching more people than before. Microsoft’s share of search result pages in the U.S., a proxy for overall search intensity, increased from 9.1 percent to 11.1 percent during the same time frame.

Once the buzz and campaign that Microsoft has been driving dies down, my bet would be on Google to maintain strong leadership over time. But then again ... at one point in time I never had any reason to think I wouldn't use Altavista.com for a search.

Congratulations to the Calgary Herald

The Calgary Herald won several newspaper awards recently.

• Firstplace; Magazines: for Monthly magazines produced in 2008 entitled A Day in the Life.
• Second place; Special Sections: "Best of Alberta: The Search for Our Greatest Citizen."
• First place; Special Projects: for marketing, advertising and editorial initiatives undertaken throughout 2008, in honour of the newspaper's 125th anniversary
• Thirdplace; Newspaper Marketing and Promotion: A promotion centred around the Herald's Green Guide
• Second place; Integrated Ad Campaign: For a program it completed with WestJet called Fly Free.

You can find more details on the Calgary Herald site.

My apologies if you are in the newspaper business

The three things that are killing off our traditional newspapers are:

• Heavy debt loads due to bad choices with respect to heavy consolidation,
• A rapid shift to the internet to get timely news and information (esp. with the wireless web now allowing people to view the news in real-time on their iPhones and similar devices), and
• The emergence of CraigsList.org and Kijiji.com eating up their advertising revenues.

And now this report courtesy of CBC.ca today ... "Craigslist revenue on pace to top $100M US".

Big Rock Eddie's 2009 Winners

You can find the winners on YouTube now. If you follow the link from the title of this post you will find Big Rock's press release about the Eddie's and links to each of the winners on YouTube. Just in case you don't want to go to that bother, here are three of the winners and entrants.

The big winner:


One of my favourites (this one hurts ...):


And another (this one hurts ... more):

Thanks Jim Button - The Eddies were GREAT

What else can I say. The 2009 Eddies didn't disappoint me last night.

It looked like a sold-out event. The lobbies were jam-packed and a tonne of fun.

The quality of the ads were excellent. My personal favourites weren't the winners. But, that didn't matter. Maybe I'll have to pull out my video camera and get creative for next year :^).

I'm going to the Eddies

I meant to blog about this weeks, and weeks, and weeks ago. But, alas ... I forgot. One might say I fell off the blogging horse. So, now I'm flogging the blogging.

In any event - on with the show - tonight is one of the biggest nights and coolest events in Calgary. The Eddies.

The Eddies were conceived by the good folks at Big Rock Brewery back in 1993, and have been going strong ever since. Proceeds from the event go to charity.

It's my first time, and I am looking forward to it.

I know it is only hours before the event, but if you still want tickets, check out Ticketmaster.

Results are in for the Super Bowl Ads

The results are in for the Super Bowl Ads. Comscore reports that:

• One-quarter of respondents in comScore’s pre-Super Bowl survey indicated that watching the ads is their favorite part of the day’s festivities.
• Ads which people would most like to see again were Bud / Bud Light, Doritos, Coca Cola, Pepsi, and GoDaddy.com.
• Ads which most improved their brand image were for Doritos, Bud / Bud Light, and Denny's.
• Results indicated that GoDaddy.com's ad may have hurt its brand image. However, it also had the third highest ad recall.
  

Have a look at the full story and charts over at Marketing Charts.

Super Bowl Ads

Check em out and vote. ... Youtube's got 'em.

Important Marketing Trends for 2009 at CES in Vegas

I found this on YouTube today. It is an interview by AdAge of Accenture's Greg Douglass. Interesting to me was that the word VALUE popped out again. I think that is such an important word to focus on (one way or another) in 2009.

Greg's two key messages are:

1. Make your product aspirational. Consumers want to aspire to some sort of new Electronic thing.
2. Bundle services and options with products they sell. We haven't seen this sort of bundling to any major extent yet. Adding value to the device will be key in 2009.

Trends in advertising, 2009

Today's Google search ... "latest trend in advertising 2009".

And, that led me to a number of YouTube videos. Here's an interesting one ...

Leo Burnett Group Predictions '09, Future Trends in Advertising

Just in case you missed them ... those were:

1. New Realism - Economic Conditions will lead to a value-based messaging. Expressions that are confident, secure, uplifting, connected, honest, and progressive
2. Hyper-Reality - The pace of change is accelerating.
3. Trust Economy - Trust in a Brand is critical to success
4. Eco-Austerity - Environment pressures will turn into an economic reality
5. Digital TV - Tipping point of broadcast quality
6. Thread media - Content will be tradable across media (i.e. integrated advertising across media)
7. Generation Game - Gaming will become a mass-market pursuit
8. The end of fact - The internet allows more opinions to be delivered more rapidly.
9. Brands as vehicles - Brands are about to become a "means" and not an "end".

Your predicted top 3 trends for next year?

What are the top 3 things that you predict will happen in the Advertising / Marketing world or trends next year?

Post your comments here. It will be interesting to see your vision of the future.

What's new,interesting or useful in digital marketing

I've been fortunate to have experienced both the old school marketing practices and new digital channels. Increasingly my time is spent in the latter area - finding new communication technologies, understanding their marketing applications and finding ways to integrate them.


Because of my eclectic interests, I tend to take a more broader perspective on the use and value of digital media beyond simply building a web presence. Digital technologies offer even more capabilities to enhance the customer experience, simplify communication or improve the performance of marketing efforts.


As I encounter new applications, better ways of using communication technologies, case studies or research, I will be post this on the Calgary Ad Club site. If there are specific questions or topics, I will attempt to comment or provide more information. And if you have examples of actual application, successful case studies or wish to share your failures, I think we can all learn from these.


If you want to know more about my background, check out my LinkedIn profile.

Advertising Jokes?

Okay - I'm looking for a few good, clean, non-offensive, fun and self depricating Advertising and Marketing Jokes. I'm thinking along the lines of "How many Advertising Executives does it take to screw in a light bulb?" (Anyone have a punch line for that?)

Holiday season is fast approaching ... and I need some good material!

Please post your jokes as a comment to this blog.

Bumping the Calgary Ad Club

I've reposted this blog, as the original post from a week ago is starting to vanish off the bottom of the week's blogs.

The reason for starting up the Calgary Ad Club is to create a group similar to the Advertising Club of Toronto. If there is enough interest, then the Calgary Ad Club will organize events that will allow members to meet several times a year to:

• learn about and discuss ideas and developments in all types of marketing and advertising,
• provide an interesting forum in which members can network, and
• have some fun!

The smaller picture is to simply get to know some of the other people in the Calgary advertising community. To help withi this, you can now sign-up with LinkedIn & look for the group called the Calgary Ad Club. Join up!

Also - please feel free to point your friends and colleagues involved in the Marketing and Advertising community in Calgary to the Calgary Ad Club blog and LinkedIn group.

Other Ad Clubs in Canada?

So - I know of a couple. Can you add to this list:

• The Advertising Club of Edmonton: Edmonton's advertising club is one of the longest running advertising and ad-related groups in the whole country. Formed by a small and feisty group of advertising professionals in 1977, the club welcomed graphic designers, media planners, photographers, printers, production houses, various media and students.
• The Advertising Club of Toronto: The Advertising Club of Toronto serves the advertising industry and all its related services including media, creative, production, advertising management, and marketing. The Ad Club's mandate is to organize events that will present the newest ideas and developments in the advertising industry and to create social and business networking events for ad industry colleagues.

Know of any others? Please post them and their links in a comment.

What is your favourite marketing newsletter?

Well - I KNOW that at some point in the near future, SOMEONE is going to post a response to this blog. You wait, it WILL happen. Maybe it will even be YOU who makes it so!

So - the question of the day is ... what is your favourite marketing e-mail newsletter?

Seen any good movies lately?

How to get ahead in Advertising? What's your favourite movie featuring "advertising", either with advertising as the 'background', with the plot focused around advertising, with the main characters being involved in the industry, or so on?

Someone out there must have something to say about this. I need a good movie to watch this weekend!