My Favourite Brands

 

Harley-Davidson: For over 100 years, Harley-Davidson has successfully targeted, satisfied perceived needs and touched the lives of its target market, that is, men and women of 40+ years. It understands its target market well. It cultivates emotional bond via innovative graphic advertising and classic conditioning through exposure to its ads, merchandising and branding. It fulfills the brand promise with consistent product quality and meets perceived needs for freedom and sense of achievement. Harley Davidson is an iconic brand with highest brand loyality from generations of customers.

Tim Hortons is a symbol of nationalism and a lifestyle brand. It has become one of the most recognized brands in the country on the basis of effective branding, brand image and brand experience. It executes effective branding via ubiquitous brand name, signage, tagline and its red color, and brand image via creative advertising and sales promotions. Above all, it offers excellent brand experience at all touch points. Tim Hortons satisfies human needs for food and enjoyment (fun) by regularly introducing new products, maintaining superior quality and offering convenience, comfort and good value for money.

Canada-Pakistan Trade Expo ‘09 – A Window of Opportunity

The current economic slowdown has once again highlighted the significance of globalization and diversification of trade for Canada. Though Canada’s economic indicators (sub-prime loans, real estate and job markets) were better positioned than the US, Canadian economy got badly bruised due to over dependence on a single market, the United States. (79% of the Canadian merchandise was exported to the USA in 2006). The government is encouraging diversification of international trade, however, much more needs to be done by both the government and the private sector to expedite the diversification process and reap economic benefits from moving into emerging markets.

There is a need to focus on second-tier countries, beyond the BRIC, to expand the market base. Anecdotally, mostly  western and Canadian businesses focus on the BRIC turning these countries into pure-competition markets for many products and services. From long-term economic and social perspective, it is prudent to shift focus to the second-tier markets and Pakistan is one of the potential market with 172 million people, 7% GDP growth rate and existing US$750 million bi-lateral trade between Canada and Pakistan.

Know Your Market

Marketers know how vital it is to understand the target market and its nuances for successfully positioning and marketing products and services. This becomes increasingly important in international markets, where cultural differences accentuate the significance of understanding consumer behaviour and markets. You may have heard stories about marketers and brands facing problems because of not respecting cultural differences and expected norms.

The following joke candidly depicts a similar situation!

A disappointed salesman of a Cola drink returns from his Middle East assignment. A friend asked, “Why weren’t you successful in this part of world?” The salesman explained, “When I got posted in the Middle East , I was very confident that I would make a good sales pitch as Cola is virtually unknown there. But, I had a problem I didn’t know Arabic. So, I planned to convey the message through three posters…

exhausted

Drinks Cola

Running

First poster: A man lying in the hot desert sand…totally exhausted and fainting.
Second poster: The man is drinking our Cola.
Third poster: The man is now totally refreshed. And then these posters were pasted all over the place “Then that should have worked!” said the friend.
“The hell it should had!? Said the salesman. I didn’t realize that Arabs read from right to left”

Designing Better Ads – Stop Readers In Their Tracks

I recently attended a webinar on Designing Better Ads conducted by Susan Down, Director Marketing at the Canadian Newspaper Association. Susan inferred from extensive market research and readers’ surveys by epic advertising research organizations. She advised on what generally works and makes print ads stand out from the clutter. Many of us would be aware of the points she highlighted and may be putting some of these in practice. It was, however, useful to get an affirmation and systematic refresher. I share the information with you, as I gathered, adding my two cents’ worth on few points.

Ad Size & Color
1. Ad size matters. Full page ads are noticed 48% more than smaller ads
2. There is no difference in the visibility of ads between right hand side and left hand side page positions. If the ad is attractive, it will get noticed on any page.
3. Color ads are noticed 33% more than black & white ads. The impact of color ads has grown over the time. Susan showed a bar chart to highlight this fact. She also informed that women notice color ads more than men.

Advertising in Recession – Part II

In December last year, I wrote on effective advertising strategies for slow economic times. Recently, I found a comparison of advertising by two similar brands during the Great Depression that supports my thoughts on advertising during recession.

Please review the image below. It shows that Post was as big a cereal manufacturer and marketer as Kellogg’s in 1929. They cut back on advertising during the Great Depression of 1930s and could not sustain themselves. Kelloggs, on the other hand, maintained its advertising levels during the same period. They emerged as the brand leader in the US cereal market.

Moral of the story: Best reason to advertise in 2009 is….2010
(P.S. I am not implying to write off 2009. Just maintain or increase the adspend and you would gain market share now and when the economy recovers.)

Creative Advertising-V

This ad was developed by creative agency Euro-RSCG and printed in the Daily Telegraph, Sydney on January 21, 2009. It leverages George BUSH exit for promoting Veet – hair removal cream. It is funny, simple, timely (in fact, spot on) and simply effective. I believe it got much more exposures and a wider Reach than it has paid for. Moreover, it connects well by alluding to a popular event.

If an ad makes its readers / audience smile, I think, its a job well done!

Good News, in mid of chaos

My former mentor Anu Parmar emailed the following photograph in response to my article, Good News, Any one! posted on this blog on February 20. This photograph is a good news. Despite human rights violations in the military prison at the Guantanamo Bay and invasion of Iraq looking for not-to-be-found WMD, a US soldier demonstrates the postive and loving side of humanity in the image below. He comforts a wounded Iraqi girl – indeed a humane gesture in the middle of chaos. Please click on the image to read full description.

Good News, Any One!

Yesterday we received unemployment numbers for Canada and the USA. As expected, the situation is bleak and so is the short-term outlook. Canadian economy shed 129,000 jobs in January 2009 pushing up the unemployment rate from 6.6% to 7.2%. The US lost 598,000 jobs last month increasing its unemployment rate to 7.6%. The economy has taken a down turn, we all know this and in fact many people have been feeling the pinch for last few months. Whether you choose to call it by its first letter “R” or by full word “Recession”, we are in it.

Most of the news is of despair. Business confidence is very low! Consumer sentiments are down! Bad news sells faster so media accentuate the feeling of despair by abject reporting, by floating phrases like Cash is King, Hold onto your cash – Do not spend. Deep-freeze winter, record level of snow and winter blues don’t help either. Bad news works as a catalyst in the economic downturn, bringing down business confidence, consumer sentiments, spending and demand, and the economy. I think the only good news we had on politco-economic front during last few months was the inauguration of Barrack Obama and it is too early to expect positive outcome from the change. As the bigger the ship, the longer it takes to turn it around.

In retrospect

2008 was a good year for blogging in general and for this blog per se. Writing and reading blogs, and posting comments on it spread like an ideavirus for sharing relevant and contemporary ideas and thoughts. The Marketing Mirror, which I started as a value-added service for a segment of clients, colleagues and friends, shone its reflection far and wide. Its average visits per-day increased by more than 100%. It received comments and feedback from many more than the intended group, reinforcing the increasing power of social media as a means for dialogue between stakeholders, (and we all have a stake in what we believe in and are involved with.)

I thank you all for reading my reflections on markets and marketing and sharing your comments and ideas. Please keep visiting and share your thoughts and ideas on the topics that are so dear to us. As the Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw said, If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.

Telonu.com – a new kid on the Blogsphere

A new blogging site Telonu.com (Tel.on.u) has been launched for sharing views and reviews on workplace, people and other important stuff. I think Telonu has potential for becoming a powerful on-line community because it provides info-sharing platform for a vast majority of Internet users and an easiest way to learn about potential employer, boss or colleagues, new products, school and more. Its seems like a big idea from marketing gurus and it’s for free (well you knew that! its web 2.0, it has to be for free) . Check it out at www.telonu.com and as they position it; rave, rant and rate there.