Billabong and Universal Music: surfing to music

The world’s leading music company, Universal, and Billabong, the world’s leading outdoor sports lifestyle company, have formed a strategic, global brand partnership that will bring together music and action sports through a broad range of innovative products and new services. It’s a brave, creative and highly innovative brand partnership where both brands have taken a leap of faith in working with another market leading brand. Universal and Billabong will collaborate on the development of a broad range of services and products. Among these initiatives will be co produced premium audio/visual content, live events, music compilations, sports and music merchandise, digital download offers, preloaded audio/visual hardware, streaming radio and TV, and a dedicated music service. This works as long as the Universal artists match the lifestyle and aspirations of the average Billabong customer. A tie up with Adele would not make them want to buy Billabong ever again! The partnership signals a need for even the largest of companies to work together to form brand partnerships to tap into changing youth culture appetites for entertainment and action sports. Together brands are stronger, especially when they are highly synergistic which these two brands very much are.

This article first appeared on

http://community.brandrepublic.com/blogs/chrisreed/archive/2011/05/27/billabong-and-universal-music-surfing-to-music.aspx

Lady Gaga’s coffee fix

Lady Gaga is the world’s most powerful pop star with 34 million facebook fans and 10 million Twitter followers. When ever she eats a bowl of pasta tens of millions of very sad people know about it instantly! Beyond the celebrity façade she does have a new album out which I’m sure you have been bombarded with (we haven’t been here in Singapore, possibly because she is banned in China and is a bit risqué for Singaporean tastes!). She has created an interesting brand partnership with Starbucks on the heels of her ‘Born This Way’ release date this week.

Gaga and Starbucks will launch an online scavenger hunt across Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. The singer’s desperate fans will have to search for clues in order to win a variety of items, including the grand prize of tickets to a concert on Gaga’s 2012 world tour. Wow! 2 frappuccinos for me please! Apart from the supposed positive brand association I can’t actually see what Starbucks get out of this partnership apart from trying desperately to gain some coolness from the hottest act on the planet.

To celebrate her record release day, US Starbucks customers will be able to stream the entirety of ‘Born This Way’; download her latest single, ‘The Edge of Glory’; and watch an exclusive video from the in-store Starbucks Digital Network. They can presumably do this in a Starbucks while they share a single coffee between five of them while other customers are patiently waiting for their table!

This article first appeared on

http://community.brandrepublic.com/blogs/chrisreed/archive/2011/05/26/lady-gaga-s-coffee-fix.aspx

PROCTER & GAMBLE appoint Partnership Marketing

Partnership Marketing, Asia’s leading partnership marketing agency, has been engaged by Procter & Gamble (P&G) Asia. Partnership Marketing will create brand partnerships with its range of products including SKII, Olay, Gillette, Head and Shoulders and Pantene.  PM will gain positive brand endorsement, gain money can’t buy media and drive sales amongst the target audience in five countries across Asia Pacific through partnerships with synergistic lifestyle brands.

P&G is a global consumer goods company, serving 4.2 billion consumers in more than 180 countries today. Being one of the leading FMCG countries in the world, P&G has 50 Leadership Brands that are among the world’s most well known household names. It’s portfolio of brands is impressive:  22 brands with over $1 billion in annual sales, and another 20 brands generating about $500 million or more in annual sales.

THE NAMES BOND, DUREX BOND

The new James Bond film will supposedly have the largest number of product placements ever featured in a film, generating the most amount of money for the production company, some $45m. As long as they don’t have strange and out of place Ford Focus moments or watch moments as they did in Casino Royale they might get away with it but they’re not that clever and money rules when it comes to product placement. It crosses the line from partnership (not paid for) to sponsorship/commercial arrangement where brands are getting what they want because they’re paying for it, not because of any brand synergy or partnership ideals. But there are some great matches in films that do make sense within a storyline context.

Source Code is a classic case of relevant product placement. The whole film revolves around a groundhog day 8 minutes set of sequences so it makes sense that Jake Gyllenhaal looks at his watch  all the time. The fact that the watch is a premium swiss brand and they linger on it to make sure you know the brand (which ironically escapes me!) says that the watch brand paid a lot of money to get that benefit. They also have some great product placement from Dunkin Doughnuts which is featured throughout the film in bags and coffee. But if you believed that Michelle Monaghan, the female star, eats any doughnuts and remains that slim size you have to be kidding. You don’t actually see anyone eat any doughnuts but coffee plays a few key roles within the film so it makes sense on that level. Presumably if Coke or Smirnoff had paid enough the script would have changed to reflect it.  

The new film Hop has more product placement than characters ranging from Hersheys to Wallmart, Kodak to Kraft foods. Nothing like marketing to kids when they least expect it!

 Demolition Man from 1993 starring Wesley Snipes, Stallone and Sandra Bullock was set in the future where “all restaurants are Taco Bell”. They actually changed the restaurant to Pizza Hut when showing the movie in countries that don’t have Taco Bell proving that story line somewhat ironic!

GM have to have the best product placement ever in Transformers as they’re featured in virtually every scene and in a cool way! However no one can ever compete with the Stay Puff man in Ghostbusters for context!

 Of course there had to finally be a film about product placement and who better to do that that SuperSizeMe’s Morgan Spurlock. His new film:  POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold comes out soon featuring dozens of willing paid for product placements, apparently without any irony at all!

This article first appeared on

http://community.brandrepublic.com/blogs/chrisreed/archive/2011/05/06/the-name-s-bond-durex-bond.aspx

Singapore Airlines versus Tiger Beer – why brands are admired or not in Singapore

 

Why is Singapore Airlines the most admired brand in Singapore and yet Tiger Beer is only 83rd?

Tiger Beer seems to have a marketing problem. Anyone who has seen one of their adverts or been to one of their numerous events will have seen several different creative executions appealing to very different target audiences. Half the adverts feature international expats and half the adverts feature Singaporeans. Never do the two meet. The football adverts are very focused on expats whereas the getting together to share the Tiger experience always appear to be focused at Singaporeans. However both groups see both sets of creative and therefore must wonder why they are sending out different messages to different people. The football adverts will also have turned off half the targeted audience as they featured Wayne Rooney who people either love or hate and is not especially admired by anyone, prostitutes and Alex Ferguson aside.

I always think that events are a poor man’s way of marketing, they don’t actually reach many people (only the people attending or those who see it in the press – if its featured which they mostly are not as media see right through them as being cheap marketing stunts) and are a very high cost per customer’s opportunity to see/experience. They are mostly to satisfy marketing director’s egos or board of director’s whims to make them feel good about their brand. They are surrounded by people who love the brand….but there aren’t many of them and they don’t reflect the broader spectrum of customers so they get a skewed view of how well the marketing and brand are going down. Tiger do a lot of events which might explain why they are not especially admired in Singapore. They think they’re doing a great job because that’s what they get told at events whereas the wider public disagrees but the directors never get to hear their views.

The Tiger Translates series of events and art inspirations really contradicts the football and male focus of the main marketing. It’s almost as though Tiger are marketing a different brand through Translates that they are trying to appeal to a different audience through. To most people it’s confusing. It can’t be both arty and football focused and when one target audience sees the other side surely that sends different messages and then turns a customer off rather than enhancing their brand affinity?

I wonder if the introduction of Tiger Crystal through high end bars and not available at retail is an attempt by Tiger to become more aspirational and admired. If so they will have to compete with the historical fact that Tiger was given away (and I think still is), to the Singapore Army free so was always viewed as being a working man’s beer and a staple to get through the day rather than an aspirational brand.

Considering the massive amounts of money that Tiger spends in Singapore and globally marketing itself, the fact that this is its home and you see the brand everywhere and it is locally recognized as being a global standard bearer for Singapore I would have thought it would be more admired. But trying to be all things to all men in its marketing has clearly confused its brand values. It’s meowing rather than roaring!

Singapore Airlines on the other hand is very Singaporean. They do what they say they will but nothing more and nothing less. They are not risk takers in their marketing or in their product and service delivery. They are a polished brand that make you feel good when you travel with them. But they are not exciting or thrilling or even especially adored or that people can get passionate about.

They are admired for all the reasons of quality of service and customer experience that you would imagine from a 5 star airline. But I wonder whether they are admired as you admire your Uncle or Aunt for setting up their own consultancy or chartered accountancy firm nor admired as you might passionately admire a famous footballer who scores an amazing goal or a rock star that delivers a heartbreaking song so passionately you feel his pain and relate to the experience. Nike, Apple, Google deliver excitement, wonder and passionate admiration and yet they were all beaten by Singapore Airlines in the most admired list. Is that because Singapore citizens prefer safe to exciting, trusted to thrilling, emotionless to passionate?

 This article first appeared on

http://sbr.com.sg/media-marketing/commentary/singapore-airlines-versus-tiger-beer-%E2%80%93-why-brands-are-admired-or-not-in-s

Singapore partners with fitness and brands to ensure it’s population is active not obese

They are obsessed with runs, cycle races and dragon boat racing here in Singapore. All of them sponsored by this bank or that supermarket. All of them happen at 6-10am due to the ferocious yar rund humidity and sun. Singapore knows the value of a healthy population and encourages all citizens to get out and race around Singapore and keep active. It even has special runs and activities for “seniors” and some are just for kids, (they like to encourage participation in fitness activities early here). Singapore knows that a healthy population contributes to society positively and is not costing them millions of dollars in health care. They are also very good at getting the biggest Singapore brands, especially banks, financial brands, the government owned trade union and supermarkets to sponsor these activities to show their links to the community and reinvest in Singapore. Every bank from Standard Chartered, who sponsor the marathon to Cold Storage who sponsor the Kids Run, from Singapore Pools, who sponsor the dragon boat racing to OCBC, who sponsor the main cycle race, market each event with great enthusiasm and creativity. They are constantly linking up with other synergistic brands to ensure that everyone knows about their connection to their sponsored race from media to FMCG brands like re-hydrating drink 100 Plus (the Lucozade of Singapore) to get some differentiation to their rivals’ sponsored races, (there is literally an official run or cycle race of some kind every few weeks and dragon boat racing happens every week!). If it stops obesity, which is on the rise in Singapore, (probably because of the massive numbers of specialist cake, bread and pastry shops everywhere!) then everyone’s a winner.

This article first appeared on

http://community.brandrepublic.com/blogs/chrisreed/archive/2011/05/04/singapore-partners-with-fitness-and-brands-to-ensure-it-s-population-is-active-not-obese.aspx

WHAT MAKES US TURN OFF OUR BRAINS?

One of my favourite TED talks is by Jill Bolte Taylor.
She is neuroanatomist, a specialised form of brain researcher.
One morning she woke up with a splitting headache.
At first she ignored it.
What she didn’t know was that a blood vessel had just exploded in her brain.
And every second she ignored it, it grew.
But she thought it was just a bad headache.
And, as the pain got worse, she began to find parts of her body shutting down.
Suddenly her right arm stopped working completely.
She finally realised what was happening.
“Oh my God, I’m having a stroke.”
But it was her next thought that separates her off as a truly unusual human being.
She thought “What an opportunity. How many brain scientists get to study what actually happens during a stroke, from the inside?”
And that’s exactly what she did.
She made mental notes of the whole experience as it was unfolding.
Meanwhile, the doctors sawed a large part of her skull away and removed a blood clot the size of a golf ball.
It took her eight years to recover.
During which time she memorised, catalogued, and formulated theories based on her experience.
She is now the national spokesperson for The Harvard Brain Tissue Research Centre, and Time Magazine named her as one of the 100 must influential people in the world.
We could all do the equivalent of what Jill Bolte Taylor did.
We don’t even have to wait until we have a stroke to observe what happens in our job.
We work in advertising.
We work in mass communication to ordinary people.
We could choose to experience what that feels like, how it really works, anytime we want.
We could go back to being ordinary people, because we are ordinary people.
When we leave work and go into a supermarket to buy something, we aren’t marketing experts.
We’re people shopping.
We could watch ourselves from the inside.
And when we experience ourselves like ordinary people we can see how little most advertising affects our choices. 
We can see how irrelevant and silly all the subtleties and details we argue about are.
But we don’t do that.
We observe ordinary people through a microscope.
As if we are scientists and they are bacteria.
We have research groups and planners to tell us how ordinary people behave, and what they think.
We have marketing people to tell us the nuances of the meanings.
We have creatives to tell us which executions will win awards and be seen as creative breakthroughs.
And all of that is an illusion.
Try an experiment.
Be an ordinary person for just a minute.
We are told everyone is exposed to 1,000 advertising messages a day.
Quick, name ten you remember from yesterday.
(Because ten would be 1% unprompted recall.)
Can’t do ten, okay name one.
(One would be 0.01% unprompted recall.)
The difficulty in remembering even a single ad from yesterday gives you an insight into the real problem.
When we are ordinary people it’s blindingly obvious.
But when we revert to being advertising experts it somehow isn’t.
So that’s the real problem.
The problem is we don’t behave like ordinary people.
So we never see the problem.

We turned off our brains when we became advertising experts.

This article first appeared on

http://community.brandrepublic.com/blogs/dtb/archive/2011/05/03/what-makes-us-turn-off-our-brains.aspx