A “cool solution” to a “hot issue”

 

Tea and coffee seem to be fine to drink hot or cold, but when I ask you to think about drinking a soft drink, you’ll probably think of a refrigerated drink with cold sweat beads running down the sides of a can or bottle. When taking your first sip, the icy cold fizzy liquid startles your taste buds and tickles your throat.

But have you ever drunk a warm or even hot soft drink? Just the thought makes me want to opt for water instead.

A few weeks ago, Ian Alwill, the former Executive Director of Group Marketing and Communications at Nestle Oceania presented a case study in class for the Contemporary Consumer Insights unit of the Master of Marketing program.

Much earlier in his career he was the Asia Pacific Region Marketing Director for The Seven–Up Company.

The Taiwanese franchisee of the business was complaining that the formulation of the well-known soft drink 7-Up was too sweet. They felt that this was dramatically affecting sales of the product in the country. They were understandably a little hot under the collar … and said so!!

When he was presented with this dilemma by the franchised bottler he was quite surprised. Neighbouring Asian countries were happily drinking the exact formulation with no similar complaints. The global policy was not to change the formulation of such a well-known product until the market situation was well understood. His instincts and “gut feel” was that formulation was not the problem.

A market visit to the Taiwanese market place for 7-Up showed that the majority of the 7-Up sold in the country was in market stalls or in small stores… but most of these did not provide a sufficiently iced or refrigerated product, the way it was in other regional markets. His basic knowledge of the product was that temperature affects the sweetness of a product. The higher the temperature, the sweeter the product; and conversely, the lower the temperature, the less sweet the product tastes. Who would have known?

The product being sold in Taiwan did in fact taste sweeter because it was being consumed at a higher temperature since it was not adequately chilled. This explained why neighbouring Asian countries were not complaining of the same issue as they were selling the product for the most part refrigerated!

The real issue was now understood and the franchised bottler finally agreed that a different approach was needed.

A change in marketing support to the franchisee was in order. Rather than funding traditional brand advertising, the Seven–Up Company invested in 7-Up identified market coolers over a couple of seasons. As the product was then consumed chilled rather than warm/hot, there were no more complaints of the product being too sweet.

Ian then went on to stress to the class of Master students, the importance of understanding the culture, the consumer, and the market environment in which the sale occurs... to not assume that the standard mix of marketing activity is always the solution to marketing problems. In this case it was capital expenditure not marketing expense!!

He recommended a simple and important principle when formal market research is not available and your instincts say something is not right!

GO… SEE…… THINK……… DO!!!

Sounds simple, but it’s paramount, especially when working in a culture that you did not grow up in.

Mina D’Souza
Alumni of the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

The end of one journey and the beginning of the rest of our lives

As I sat in the Great Hall of the University of Sydney on graduation day waiting patiently for my name to be called so that I could collect the degree that I had earned with its fair share of sacrifices along the way, I thought of what Graduation from the Master of Marketing Program at the University of Sydney meant to me. My immediate thoughts were: an upgrade in my LinkedIn profile, a few pictures on Facebook, and something new to frame and hang on the wall.

Past the short term posts on social media, what this degree has really offered me is a change in direction. A second chance. The opportunity to start a career better suited to who I have become beyond the Bachelor degree that I obtained about a decade ago.

When I started the program over a year ago I wasn’t entirely sure that I had made the right decision to continue my education. The idea of not working full time (although a number of my classmates continued their full time employment while doing the program) and getting back into assignment writing and presentations was quite daunting. Now that I’ve graduated, I can honestly say that doing this degree was the best thing that I have done.

I have drawn as much from the lecturers and industry specialists that have presented in class as I have from interacting with fellow classmates from a wide variety of professional backgrounds. Hands-on exercises and engaging lectures always made me look forward to attending class.

And as the 2013 graduating class gathered outside the Great Hall after the ceremony to congratulate each other, we took a moment to savor our accomplishments by tossing our hats in the air. Then we all rushed back to work to begin the rest of our lives.

Have you considered applying to the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney?

Mina D’Souza
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Even Margaret Thatcher has a Personal Brand

When Facebook has a group with nearly 40,000 ‘Likes’ whose sole purpose is to track your death, you know that you’re not in the running for a popularity contest. The Facebook group: ‘Is Margaret Thatcher Dead Yet?’ was created in 2010, and only changed its profile picture on April 8th from ‘NOT YET’ to ‘YES, Margaret Thatcher is Dead’. According to comments on the group, there were people that checked the page daily to see if she had passed.

Lady Thatcher, who also goes by a number of names including Iron Lady, Tin Ear, and other colorful names that I will not repeat in this blog, continues to have such a controversial presence. Margaret Thatcher’s 15 second elevator speech would consist of a few facts including being Britain’s first female Prime Minister, and then being re-elected twice to the position. Her ‘personal brand’ is quite a unique one. She has truly left her mark on history.

Some love her, some hate her. Those who love her seem to be the winning side of her reforms, while her enemies are amongst those whom she showed little remorse for as she steamed rolled through her terms.

Personal branding and how we portray our personal brand is very important, especially if you are in a communications based role such as Marketing, Advertising and Politics. In the Internal Marketing Unit of the Masters of Marketing program, we focused on personal branding, particularly what it is, how to develop it, and it’s importance. It still surprises me how many people are not on LinkedIn, especially those who I would have thought surely would have invested enough time to create an on-line professional presence.

Even Margaret Thatcher is on LinkedIn. Her profile might not be very strong, but she still has a personal profile as well as a number of groups about her. And she’s on Facebook as well. Isn’t it time that you spend the time to create or update your on-line personal brand? Hopefully you too won’t have a Facebook group following your death, but rather your on-line presence will lead to positive things.

Mina D'Souza
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Tic Tac Knocks Out a French Town

At one time in our lives we’ve all had to share confined quarters with someone who has bad breath. The worst part is that the only person who doesn’t suffer the consequences of the noxious odors is the person who has bad breath, as they often are unaware of their effects on their neighbors. Breathing by your mouth, usually relieves you of the effects for a while, but if you have to spend 8 hours a day boxed up in a shared cubicle with Mr. Coffee-Breath, or Mrs. Smoker-Mouth, not even mouth breathing can help you.

Tic Tac has used humor in the above ad to show the devastation of the effects of bad breath on a small town in France. This ad is a take on the flash mob videos that have popped up in the past few years. The best part of the ad is that you don’t need to speak a word of French to understand the key message: Tic Tacs will take care of your bad breath.

When completing the Innovative Marketing Strategies Unit of the Masters of Marketing we analysed how humour can be used as a powerful marketing tool, but also how when humour used poorly can have devastating effects for a product and/or brand. When using humour an ad agency has to be careful not to put a market segment offside by negatively stereotyping a group ex. all old people are grumpy, or all young people are reckless. Country, political situations and target audiences are important to consider when creating your campaign.

Ideally you want your ad to be memorable: people remember your ad AND the product being advertised AND one key message. The icing on the cake comes when people talk to their friends about your ad, that’s when you really know that your ad has been successful.

I think that Tic Tac has done a great job in the above ad because it has met all those criteria. It also has international relevance, which not all humourous ads can boast of as it can easily overcome the language and cultural barriers of most countries in the western world.

Next time you’re in a confined space such as a lift, a car, or even on the street asking someone for direction, have a Tic Tac handy!

I would love to know what your favorite humourous ad is.

Mina D'Souza
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Branding the Un-Egg-spected

The other day when deciding on which eggs to buy during my weekly grocery shop, I stumbled upon branded eggs. By ‘branded eggs’ I don’t mean that there was a company name on the egg carton, these were literally branded eggs with the company logo printed on each egg shell.

Twelve beaming smiling faces greeted me as I opened the carton of eggs from Sunny Queen Farms to check that all the eggs were intact. These eggs looked ‘happy’ and were sparkling clean (no feces, feathers, or other egg debris… gross!). Just looking at these eggs gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling of happiness. These eggs HAD to come home with me. And they did!

Branded eggs? Brilliant. And ‘about time’, especially as everything else that I bring home from the shops is branded.

Eggs without branding are just eggs. They could be from organically fed chickens that were taken for walks twice a day, or even read a book at night, but for all I know, once eggs get taken out of their packaging and put into my egg-tray in the fridge, an egg is an egg, is an egg. Unless it has a smiling face on it or another branding stamp to differentiate it.

So why haven’t all egg companies jumped upon this very simple and probably not too expensive concept? It sure beats me.

Egg companies in my opinion waste money by trying to differentiate themselves by their carton packaging. They should really focus on the natural primary packaging of their product: the egg shell. Brand logo, expiry date, and even a short key message or company slogan should be printed on the egg.

Even my hubby likes the smiling eggs, and although he doesn’t yet remember the name of the brand, he no longer has to ring me in a panicked state from the grocery store to ask which kind of eggs to buy. He knows that the smiling face eggs are a sure win in our household.

What other products do you feel still have a long way to go in terms of branding opportunities?

BCM Sunny Queen Egg Case Study

Mina D'Souza
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Reinventing a best seller

How do you re-invent and improve an already good product? Saatchi & Saatchi LA have decided that a re-invented couch should be made up of toned and attractive females in bikinis, and should also be made available in a male version of topless buff men in shorts.

This ad however isn’t for the re-invented couch, or edible pizza curtains, or for plants that fight crime, but for the launch of an improved Toyota Camry. The creative touch of re-inventing the ordinary almost ‘un-re-inventible’ is quite funny, but I didn’t find that Toyota, or Saatchi and Saatchi on Toyota’s behalf, communicated the crux of their campaign… the improved features of the Camry in this particular ad.

But do the details of the sedan’s ‘re-invention’ really matter in this ad? I don’t think so. This ad is all about gaining attention and having people remember the ad rather than the car. Remembering the car and linking it back to the ad comes later in the campaign. This strategy is often used in advertising, where making a lasting impression in 60 seconds or less is challenging with so many ads bombarding our daily lives.

So what makes an ad successful? When evaluating ads in the Integrated Communications unit of the Master of Marketing Program, we used the acronym ‘S.C.O.R.E.’ to critique the ads.

S.C.O.R.E.: S = Simple, C= Creative, O=Original, R= Relevant, E= Effective.

Successful ads would rate high in every one of the criteria.

For this Toyota Camry ad, the ‘re-invention’ concept is Simple, and focuses on improving an already solid product. Making an analogy to a reinvented couch, curtain, and crime-fighting household potted plants is highly Creative. I would give this ad two thumbs up for Originality, how refreshing is it to see a car commercial without seeing the car wind along a quiet country road with a picturesque backdrop. Was this ad Relevant? No, in my opinion, but the fact that the ad isn’t relevant to the car’s improvements makes it Effective because the ad makes the car indirectly memorable.

What ads have you found to be so creative that they become highly memorable?

Mina D'Souza
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

The Block: securing the best ROI on your property

After watching ‘The Block’, a reality home renovation series on Channel Nine, I have come to the conclusion that there are many crucial factors that can affect the selling price of a property. It’s not only about how well the home is presented, (although that does feature high on directly affecting selling price), having a sound marketing strategy for the property sale is key to getting a high ROI for what is usually one’s highest valued asset.

There are many decision that need to be made when selling a property such as: when to put it on the market, which agent and real estate company to sell with, will the property be sold through an auction or a private sale, who will be the auctioneer (if the property sells at auction), your asking price, where to advertise… and the list goes on.

Although the TV show ‘The Block’ did not focus on how much time each bidder spent inspecting the property before showing up at the auction, on average, people spend more time choosing a car than they do on inspecting a property. According to the Melbourne Bank, potential buyers spend on average 45 minutes or less inspecting a property before purchasing it (that does not include the time spent researching the property market or the area). Since buyers don’t spend much time within the four walls of their potential new purchase, marketing the property before inspection is crucial.

An important part of the marketing strategy for the sale of the property is the advertising. The local newspaper, Australian real estate web sites, Asian real estate web sites, sign posting outside the property, and mail drops are some of the advertising options to choose from. These all cost money and it is best to understand what historical ROI these mediums have before making a decision.

A phone call to my local newspaper quoted me almost $1000 for a half page ad in the real estate section for one week. That seemed to me to be quite expensive for old fashion print media, especially when so many people are turning to on-line search engines for property searches. That said, understanding where your target market looks for properties is crucial when finally making the decision on how and where to advertise.

Although not all of us are talented home renovators like the contestants on ‘The Block’, highlighting your property’s desirable features as well as features that make your property unique during your marketing campaign is crucial. Perhaps a tasteful colourful painting on the living room wall, or a home smelling of freshly baked bread would be a suggestion for standing out that is achievable for everyone regardless of your renovation skills.

If you have sold a property, do you have any marketing strategies that you found useful that you are willing to share?

Mina D'Souza
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Sony Xperia Z’s Missed Adventurous Market Segment

The latest smartphone hitting the Australian market is Sony’s new flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z. The company claims that the phone is waterproof and dustproof, these features can be extrapolated as making the phone ‘adventure proof’.

A phone that can be dropped in up to a meter of water for 30 minutes and still function normally would be appreciated by anyone who has had to dig deep into their pocket to replace a handset that has been ruined by exposure to water. None of the other phones dominating the smartphone market to this point can boast of being both water and dustproof (ex. Apple’s iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S3, HCT One).

The Xperia Z is very much targeted at the upper class tertiary educated 25-40 year old who enjoys life and appreciates a quality phone camera that will capture their adventurous moments. A market segment that Sony has missed in terms of targeting are mothers of young children, who highly value anything that is electrical and waterproof.

With sons aged 2 and 3 years old, (who I collectively refer to as my ‘jungle animals’), I am constantly in the middle of daily if not hourly ‘adventure’. I have had to replace a smart phone after ‘nobody’ dropped it in the toilet recently. It’s replacement was quickly covered with a military grade, dust, water, and shock proof case. The downfall of this case is that the sound is very muffled, leading me to question why I have a phone if I struggle to use it for it’s most basic of functions: communicating on the phone.

The number of times that I have to ‘rescue’ my phone from testing the true capabilities of its protective case vary on a daily basis, but usually range within the 5-10 mark. Fish tanks, sinks and bath tubs filled with soapy water, and even sprinklers and swimming pools are potential dangers to my phone. Ideally I want to have a phone that I can use without a cover and be assured that it is going to endure a day in my household.

Had the Xperia Z been targeted to also include those caring for little ones, I’m sure that Sony’s ‘waterproof-dustproof-adventure proof’ features would have been recognized as sought after handset for this market segment.

When have you seen a product overlook a very relevant segment of a target market?

Mina D'Souza
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Centenarian Oreo stays Young through Social Media Campaign

Not every brand survives 5-10 years of existence, and even fewer can brag about being a centenarian. So what’s the secret behind Oreo’s over 100 years of success? Good Marketing of course.

Recently Oreo, the delicious crunchy dark chocolate cookie whose two biscuits sandwich a disk of contrasting white ‘melt-in-the-mouth’ sweet crème, has focused on building a strong and creative social media presence.

A highly relevant advertisement on Twitter during the 30 minute blackout at the Superbowl this year has made Social Media Marketers turn to Oreo in terms of resetting the bar for social media campaigns.

Oreo has struck gold once again with their latest social media campaign. They have chosen 4 teams of ‘Super Oreo Lovers’ with mechanical backgrounds to build ‘Oreo Separator machines’. The overall goal of the Oreo Separator is to separate the cookie from the crème so that the preferred part of an Oreo cookie can be fully enjoyed. The above video is just one of the 4 inventions created for this purpose (the other three videos can be found on YouTube). This video obtained over 4 million views in less than 4 weeks, a result even better than what the Oreo marketing team could have wished for.

Oreo has managed to obtain such a high number of views on YouTube by tapping into a key insight: People have a preference between the cookie and crème, and are therefore interested in separating the cookie to isolate and eat their favorite part. In the past Oreo has used this key insight to build campaigns based around ‘how do you like to eat your Oreo?’. They have now taken this concept a step further and have asked the more mechanically inclined ‘how would you separate your Oreo?’.

Other leading brands such as Coca-Cola, Gillette, and RedBull have successfully navigated the social media domain. History has shown that to have a successful social media presence you must be able to continue to provide creative and relevant material.

I’m looking forward to see how Oreo will maintain the social media buzz around their brand for decades to come, especially now that the bar has been raised.

Mina D'Souza
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Personal information. Where to from here.

The Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney was fortunate to have Jodie Sangster, CEO of the ADMA (Association for Data-Driven Marketing and Advertising) present as part of a panel discussing the use of personal data for marketers gain.

Jodie explained that a customer’s journey starts from the minute you start talking or engaging a potential customer to the point where they are no longer your customer anymore. Between these two goal posts is the window of opportunity for your brand to impress customers and to keep them on side with your offerings.

Maintaining these two goal posts wide apart on a time line means that you are keeping your customer for as long as possible. The way to do this is by engaging with them. What better way to engage with a customer than to use the information that you have collected about them to better understand their needs and interests and then to serve them individually targeted messages?

So where does the ADMA fit into all of this? The Associations role is to work with government and business to help determine fair ground rules for customers and businesses, considering both of their interests in advertising and marketing transactions.

Jodie stated that the discussion regarding data is being pulled in three distinct directions when it comes to the use of personal information in targeted marketing communications:

1. Businesses want to use data so that they can offer more relevant, targeted messages to customers. 
2. The government considers the realms of personal data being used by marketers an “unmanageable” according to Jodie. There is a lack of understanding of how data is being used, and the laws that have been established to regulate privacy are struggling to keep up with technological advancements. 
3. Then there is the consumer sitting in the middle of this rapidly developing area of privacy laws. Customers divulge their personal information for a number of reasons, and in return they want their personal data to be treated with respect. If the line of respect is crossed in terms of exploiting personal data, customers will become understandably upset.

Jodie and her colleagues at the ADMA no doubt have their job cut out for them as I can imagine that there is not a dull moment in their Sydney based office.

How has your company kept up to date with changes to the regulations concerning the use of personal information for marketing purposes?

Mina D'Souza
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

John Sergeant’s take on the Magic of Marketing

I’ve crossed paths with John Sergeant on enough occasions to predict that when he opens his mouth to speak you know that you are in for a succinct slice of his wisdom delivered with humor and enough wit to make even the driest of topics interesting.

It was no surprise that John had a room full of current students, alumni, industry leaders and fellow teaching staff from the Master of Marketing Program at the University of Sydney intently listening to his panel discussion on the future of marketing last week.

When John addressed the questions of what do Marketers do, he didn’t hesitate for a minute to think about his response. He said, “Marketers produce an intangible good. It’s magic. A Marketer’s job is to infiltrate the magic into the business in a way that makes it relevant to individuals”.

When asked ‘How do you understand the magic that marketers do?’, John responded, “you have to start by getting out of the mental habit of referring to human beings as consumers. Habits of speech become habits of mind. Continually referring to people as consumers is a habit of marketers that stands in the way of delivering empathy”.

John even delivered a potentially lucrative offer to his future 2013 students. Students that catch him referring to people as ‘consumers’, will be paid 5$ out of John’s hard earned cash in return for his sinful referral.

It’s easy to forget that our business is about adding the magic and not simply dealing with the numbers that present themselves as a result of the data explosion. What is important, however, is to understand the insights that the data offer us, turn those insights into a very fine magic powder and then sprinkle that magic powder over the business. And that’s what Marketing is all about, according to John.

Mina D'Souza
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Digital Marketing: Understanding where your target audience is on-line

James Butcher, Group Sales Manager at Microsoft Media Networks shared his wisdom on digital marketing at an event hosted by the University of Sydney’s Master of Marketing program last week.

When James started working in on-line marketing 8 years back facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest didn’t exist. Running on-line campaigns was a simple task of creating a presence on Google’s ‘Search’.

How things have changed
 
With the predicted shift of tablet devices becoming the primary household computer based device by 2015, James believes that on-line marketing will gain in importance as more people will be able to connect to the internet easier.

According to James, on-line marketing is now all about tapping into the passion points of your target audience so that you can better understand your customer’s internet comings and goings. The ultimate goal is to create advertising touch points for your product or service to parallel their on-line locations.

For example, if an Axe/ Lynx deodorant (Unilever product) digital marketing campaign was created for a target audience of males aged 25-30 years old, digital Marketers must understand what interests they are likely to have and what other media they are tracking on-line in the day. In the morning while eating breakfast, where are they reading the news? During lunch, are they check the footy scores on-line? In the late afternoon do they use the internet to quickly catch up on celebrity gossip? How much disposable income do they have, does this affect how much time they spend on-line? Are they city dwellers? Have they previously engaged with the brand?

There has been an enormous shift in on-line marketing recently. I’m keen to see what the digital marketing space will look like in 5 years’ time.

How has your company shifted its on-line presence in the past 3 years to adjust to more tech savvy customers?

Mina D'Souza
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Samsung Galaxy S3? Apple iPhone 5? Sony Xperia Z? Or Nothing

It is time for a new smart phone. My iPhone 3 has been losing one function at a time due to wear and tear. Last week I realised that I could no longer turn off the phone, two nights ago the volume control stopped working. I thought that buying a new phone would be a fun and easy activity.

A visit to the local Westfield to check out smart phones left me overwhelmed. With 40 phones to choose from and just an hour up my sleeve to choose the right phone, a quick decision was necessary. For me, a phone is not just a piece of plastic/metal with a fancy screen and some buttons on the side. A phone isn’t just a purchase, but rather more like an adoption. The phone that I choose would be another member of my family…. it would follow me around for most of the day, live in my handbag, have a safety case, be invited to all family events, take pictures of my family, video birthdays and graduations, text my friends, call my parents. A phone is my ‘digital’ best friend.

So after chatting with the smart phone expert at one of the leading mobile phone shops, I decided that I just wasn’t ready to buy. There was too much choice. I needed to go home and do a little bit more research and figure out what were the most important features for me. Did I want to just purchase the new iPhone 5 and then realise that the Samsung Galaxy S3’s camera was better, or would the Sony Xperia Z suit my needs because it’s waterproof and that would surely protect my phone if one day the kids were to decide to put the phone in the fish tank, or worse, the toilet?

This scenario isn’t uncommon. When customers are presented with too many choices, a phenomenon called ‘choice paralysis’ occurs. It can be easier to make no choice than to make a choice that you will regret post purchase. Studies have shown that people are attracted to variety, but find it easier to choose a product and complete the purchase when there are a smaller number of choices available. Post purchase regret is also less of a factor when the amount of choice is less.

So what’s the perfect amount of choice? 2-3 items, or 9-10 items, or somewhere in between? Does it vary for the type of product? Marketers must determine how to frame products to make customers feel that they have been offered enough variety but not too much choice to make a customer second guess their purchase.

I still haven’t decided which phone to buy but I have narrowed the possible 40 phones down to two finalists. I no longer feel as overwhelmed with choice because I have taken the time to research my decision. This luxury of product research does not occur for all the products that I buy, but for this purchase I wanted to get it right.

When did you feel like you were overloaded with choice and decided to walk away from a purchase rather than have post purchase regret?

Mina D'Souza
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Facial Recognition Technology and its use in Marketing

How would you like to walk into a store and be advertised products that are best suited for your age, gender and demographics? How could a store possibly manage to tailor marketing campaigns on an individual basis?

The answer is through facial recognition. If you are unfamiliar with facial recognition, it is technology that scans your face, determining your age, gender and possibly even your name. Military and law enforcement agencies have been using it for years, but now with a potential to be used in the field of advertising, the fun stuff for us marketers begins.

Many opportunities exist with the information that can be collected with facial recognition. For example, you can know precisely what type of customers come into your store at specific times; you can determine even repeat customers across a number of stores allowing you to uncover trends which can be used to your advantage.

Facial recognition technology can be used to solve business issues. For example, you wanted to grow your customer base as the owner of the local pub. Data from facial recognition technology determined that between 6:00-9:00 on a Friday night your pub was 50% full with 75% male customers between the ages of 25-30 years old. Ideally you want your pub to be at least at a 70% capacity, especially on a Friday night. Wouldn’t you consider offering a special on cocktails targeted to increasing the number of ladies aged 23-27 years old in the pub?

In futuristic movies, facial recognition is even used to identify mood and ads are served to cater to that mood. That’s inching onto the creepy side of things in my opinion. I know that I would not like to walk into a supermarket in the middle writing an assignment for Uni, slightly stressed, and be served ads for ice cream and chocolate.

What’s there not to love about facial recognition? Those of us that are concerned about privacy would argue a lot. Where would boundaries be placed in terms of protecting identity? Is facial recognition a marketers dream come true or a Big Brother scenario waiting to surface?

Mina D'Souza
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Google ‘Scroogles’, making Microsoft Outlook appealing

Have you been ‘Scroogled’ recently? I know I have. When writing a paper on Cirque du Soleil as part of an assignment for Innovative Marketing Strategies class (Master of Marketing Program at the University of Sydney) I kept getting served ads about Cirque du Soleil.

Having seen a number of Cirque du Soleil shows, I truly appreciate the innovation and creativeness of the production. I did not however appreciate that Cirque du Soleil was invading my ad space which essentially gave me the feeling of being watched.

So how did these ads just start showing up coincidently at the same time that I was writing numerous emails to my fellow students in my presentation group about the Cirque du Soleil? At first I thought it was just by chance, but as time went on and I kept receiving ads related to words I was using in my Gmail emails I realised that I was being Scroogled!

Microsoft, Google’s competitor came up with the term ‘Scroogle’ by blending the words ‘screwed’ and Google. So being Scroogled poetically implies you are being screwed by Google.

Many Gmail users are unaware that Google’s Gmail system scans emails for keywords and then uses these key words to serve you ads. Brilliant? Perhaps. Invasion of my privacy? Definitely!

As email providers might just become the new competitive platform (at least until the next iPhone or Apple product comes out on the market), privacy policies will be held in high regards as a deciding feature to stay with a current email provider, or to move to a Microsoft’s product such as Outlook.com.

Microsoft’s Outlook.com offers many desirable features over and above those offered by Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail. Among them is privacy (currently being violated by Gmail in my opinion), sophistication in that Outlook.com can be connected to your social media networks, and a sorting option that makes it easy for a user to prioritise their emails.

I’m tempted to ditch my Gmail account because I don’t want to feel like my emails are not private. Do you feel that Gmail fairly communicates this lack of privacy to subscribers? How will Gmail have to modify their activities in the future to stay competitive?

Mina D'Souza
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

The Harlem Shake, Gangam Style, The Man Your Man could smell like, Evolution of Dance… What made these videos go viral?

When chatting over the phone with my parents last week we got on to the topic of viral videos, and in particular the latest viral video, The Harlem Shake. My parents were quite concerned that I was watching viral videos because they honestly thought that doing so might leave me with a virus on my computer.

The following 30 minutes of our conversation was spent explaining to my parents (both are in their 70’s), that viral videos do not leave viruses on your computer, but rather they are considered ‘viral’ videos because the way that the video gains popularity mimics the spread of an influenza virus. One person watches a video and they share the video with a number of their friends who then forward on the video link via email, video sharing web sites or social media to their friends. In no time at all the video has been shared exponentially, and is officially considered ‘having gone viral’.

Once my parents had been reassured that I was not putting my computer at risk of disease, they asked a simple question that I didn’t have the answer to: “Mina, what makes a video go viral?”. Although most kids over the age of 6 have the answers to all of their parent’s questions, this one caught me by surprise.

If only us Marketers had the answer! I decided to do a little research to find out the answer to that question. After searching hours on my virus free computer I realised that the question ‘What makes videos viral?’ falls in the same bucket as ‘Where can I find out the winning numbers for next Saturday’s lottery?’.

There is no winning formula that has yet been discovered that will consistently result in viral videos. I did however find a number of common elements in viral videos:

1. Humor 
2. Strong Start: Enticing title, alluring description, and visually appealing video thumbnail enticing potential viewers to click through.
3. An emotional response
4. Sarcastic narcissism
5. Community participation
6. The element of surprise/originality
7. Identification with the target audience
8. Must be short, ideally less than 2 minutes in length 

The Harlem Shake is a perfect example of these 8 elements at play. PSY’s Gangnam style, Old Spice’s The Man Your Man Could Smell Like, The Evolution of Dance, and Kony 2012 are all examples of highly successful viral videos where many if not all of these 8 elements were present.

Next time I chat with my parents I’ll at least have the above list of elements a video should have if it is aiming for ‘viral status’. What I won’t have however, is a logical explanation for what people are doing in the Harlem Shake.

Have you been part of creating a viral video? Any secrets you want to share?

Mina D’Souza
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Oreo, Audi and Tide clear winners at the Superbowl

Superbowl XLVII has come and gone with the Ravens as the victors. There are however a few other notable winners this year that went home with thousands of tweets, a trophy of sorts for Advertising and Marketing departments, earned by dominating on-line social media creativeness and speed.

With a half hour blackout during the football game resulting in extra unforeseen advertising opportunities, only a handful of brands jumped on the Tweeting ‘brand’-wagon. Among the more successful were Oreo, Audi, and Tide. While the Ravens and 49ers were pacing the field during the blackout trying to prevent their muscles from cooling down, things were heating up within the advertising and marketing teams for these companies.

Oreo’s power outage tweet read: “Power out? No problem. YOU CAN STILL DUNK IN THE DARK”, with art work representing darkness with an Oreo in a dim spotlight. Oreo was able to capitalise on the advertising opportunity because their advertising firm and Management team were watching the game together and all powers needed to approve the ad were in the same room.

The Ravens and the 49ers weren’t the only competitors out in the field. Audi’s tweet had a message clearly aimed at their direct competitor Mercedes-Benz (@MBUSA) who holds the naming rights to the Superdome where the game was played.

Tide a popular laundry detergent brand wasn’t going to wash away a great opportunity to build on their TV ad where millions had already been invested. Tide’s tweet focused their message on preserving dark clothing color while getting rid of stains.

And the list of other brands that participated in Tweeting ads during the power outage goes on. The lesson learnt is a valuable one. One that we focused on in the Integrated Marketing Communications unit of the Master of Marketing program: strike while the iron is hot, as timely innovation with a dash of humor can leave a lasting impression that’s hard to wash off.

Has your marketing team ever had to create an ad in less than 20 minutes?

Mina D’Souza
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

SuperBowl 2013: The Talent Show of Ads (interrupted by a game of football)

How often do advertisers get the opportunity to enter into an Ad Talent Show guaranteed to be viewed by more than 110 million viewers? Viewers however should be forewarned that the ads will be interrupted briefly by grown men in tights running around chasing a football.

SuperBowl 2013 is right around the corner for our North American ad lovers, (and also for football enthusiasts). Ad agencies across the US have been preparing for the ‘ad talent show’ for months. With 30 second advertising slots devouring up to $4 million of a company’s advertising budget, advertisers have 30 seconds to showcase their product, make it memorable and convince customers that clear benefits exists for their product. No pressure.

A few strategy savvy companies such as Coke have decided to make every one of their hard earned advertising dollars count by creating a social media buzz around their SuperBowl ad. Their campaign features a ‘pre-ad’ to be aired in the weeks leading up to the big game where by viewers can vote to influence how the Coke ad pans out on the big day. Viewers not only can vote for their preferred ending, but they can also vote to sabotage other people’s votes. This strategy adds to the level of competition and consumer engagement. The most voted ad ending will air right after the whistle is blown announcing the end of SuperBowl 2013. Another simple and memorable marketing strategy.

What marketing strategy has stood out for you in terms of SuperBowl ads?

Mina D’Souza
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Obama’s winning 2012 election strategy

[image courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/barackobama]

It’s not every day that you get to watch an American presidential election unfold. Over the past few months I’ve been following the 2012 presidential election. I would be lying to you if I told you that I wasn’t interested in knowing the outcome of the election (let’s just say that I would be a rich woman if I was a betting woman) but that I was keen to know what aspects of the winning candidates campaign strategy would resonate best with the target audience.

Target audience, who would that be? Any American over the age of 18 who was able to vote? The American population is deeply divided by a number of factors. Race and age being the most obvious, but income, sexual preference and gender also featured high on this list. How could a campaign be created to best address ALL of the American population, as vast and varied as it is?

In a recent Marketing Strategy class we learnt that you must know where your business competes, what your business offers to differentiate itself from competitors, and how it balances these advantages in its favor.

If we take a top level approach to dissecting these three aspects of the Obama campaign strategy, we can see that the ‘where’ aspect of his strategy was clearly defined. It was a simple numbers game. He had to achieve an Electoral College vote majority in the swing states, also referred to as the battleground states. Similar to the Olympic 100m sprint final, Obama was well aware that he didn’t need to beat his opponent by miles, but that being fractionally ahead of Romney would be all he needed to gain these states’ electoral votes.

In my opinion, the ‘What’ Obama offered to clearly differentiate himself in this election was empathy. Plain and simple. The American population responded well to this offering, stating that they didn’t just want their leader to be solely concerned with fixing issues, but that they wanted a deeper presidential engagement. They wanted their leader to care about the issues their country faced.

So ‘how’ did Obama cross the line? Women, minorities, and young people were part of the Obama coalition. Empathizing with these groups was key. Registering new voters, and increasing polling stations' opening hours to attract supporters who don’t consistently vote was also a successful tactic (getting the ‘new business’ as opposed to focusing on the ‘switch’ business is usually the easier sell).

Obama's appeal to be a supporter of the middle class resonated well with a large portion of the population. How many times did we hear Obama tell a story about Joe, a struggling middle class man in Ohio….? Having buddies with benefits such as Bill Clinton, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, and Katy Perry only strengthen his campaign.

Obama’s use of social media in this 2012 election campaign did not hold the novelty that it did in the previous election. Obama’s tweet for voters support in the final hours leading up to the polls opening didn’t just focus on his followers, but he extended his tweet message to request that his followers also enlist their friends to vote as well.

These strategies were employed and executed to win the hearts and more importantly the votes of the American population. U.S. Marketers could learn an important strategy lesson from Obamas campaign: know where your business competes, what makes your business unique, and how your business leverages their advantages. With this knowledge as a backbone, all you have to be is just a little bit better than the rest to win the gold medal, or in this case four more years of calling 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC home!

Where do you think that the presidential candidates could have improved their campaign strategies in hind sight?

Mina D’Souza
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Market Strategy Wars – Apple vs Samsung

There is only a very select range of products that can successfully implement a marketing strategy that revolves around ‘low supply and high demand’, with with the goal of increasing the desirability of a product and ultimately increasing sales.

One company in particular has proven particularly adept at this strategy. Apple has successfully done this time and time again for the release of a number of its products, the iPhone 5 being the most recent.

It would not be at all surprising if Apple fans worldwide would be well and truly over waiting in line to get their hands on the latest (and supposedly) greatest from Apple, but that is not the case.

Apple has strategically regulated the volume of iPhone 5 handsets available in the market to be well below demand, justifying bragging rights to all who have been 'lucky' enough to get one.

Moving forward, Apple might need to rethink their marketing strategy, especially with the appealing features that their competitors are sporting. For instance, Samsung's Galaxy S3 has a number of advantages over the iPhone 5, including a larger screen, better resolution, and a significantly longer battery life both in standby mode as well as during talk time.

Samsung has used the hype of the iPhone 5 launch to their advantage by informing potential iPhone 5 buyers of the features of their Galaxy S3 smartphone through mainstream media as well as through social media channels.

Also, Samsung's presence outside Apple stores in several major cities during iPhone 5's launch week was subtle, but Samsung's message was clear and well in line with their tag line: 'It Doesn't Take a Genius'

The implication of that tagline being that it really doesn't take much thought to grasp the clear advantage the Galaxy S3 has over Apple's iPhone 5. Samsung's other tag line: 'The Next Big Thing Is Already Here' is a head on attack to Apple's tag line: 'The biggest thing to happen to iPhone since iPhone'.

After completing a class in Innovative Marketing Strategy as part of my Master of Marketing degree at the University of Sydney, I'm fascinated to see how Apple will adjust their marketing strategy for the future. It will also be very interesting to see how Samsung copes with more prominent up and coming competitors in the smart phone market , such as Nokia's new Lumina handset.

I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on the marketing strategies that Apple and Samsung are employing. Please feel free to have your say in the comments section below.

Mina D. - current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School