The Greater Voice

Reebok Shocks?

If you haven’t seen the recent Reebok advertisement for their EasyTone brand of footwear, you have GOT to go to the company’s Web site and take a look. Click into the Reebok women's shoe page and you’ll see the header: “Easy Tone – Happy New Rear…” Get it – new rear? The point is that just by wearing the sneakers, you’ll improve your butt, calves, thighs, the whole deal. Or, as they say: “EasyTone helps you get better legs and a better butt with every single step.” No question, the marketing promise is just as cheesy as the header.

But wait until you see the ads themselves. You’re treated to women clad in nary a garment (if you’re lucky) and Reebok shoes. Their legs are gorgeous in the traditional sense, meaning unrealistically thin and cellulite-free and wholly unlike 95% of the women alive today. I didn’t make the 95% up, by the way. Numerous sources indicate that 95% of all women, even marathon runners, have cellulite, making Reebok’s promise as ludicrous as it is unnecessary. Besides who  wants abnormally thin legs, anyway?

Trust the ad and plenty of people do. They claim the result will make “…78% of men speechless and 81% of women jealous.” Explain, please. Where did these figures come from?  Credibility issues aside, the Reebok ad models are not speed walking, running, or even strolling, but lying down or standing more-or-less in place as if the shoes somehow performed their magic on their own.

 The real problem with the ads, though, is not the tasteless or unlikely nature of their promise. It’s just about everything else. For one, they present body parts as independent entities, giving new meaning to the word “objectification” and furthering the marketers perennial mission of alienating women from their physical selves. In one bazaar twist of advertising, for example, a pair of breasts are actually jealous, yes jealous, of all the attention the Reebok-shaped butt is winning. Look, I’m a woman. I’ve put on and taken off a bra more time than I can imagine. I nursed my kid for ages. And through all this, my breasts have not once uttered a word to me.

But the breasts aren’t the only ones who are jealous. Remember, that statistic I mention a few paragraphs up, that 81% of women will be jealous of the Reebok shaped result? The ad taps the negative and antiquated idea of women as competitors, not, say, friends, allies, confidants, heck, comrades as demonstrated in everything from the Relay for Life campaigns to Dykes on Bikes. 

 And competing for what? Male attention, of course, which brings me to the final point as prevalent in marketing to women as diet plans: fitness is all about looking good for someone else and not about, say, becoming, stronger, more powerful, and more of yourself….flab, dimples, big bottom and all.  

Granted, Reebok is struggling. Now owned by the German footwear company Adidas, it has been wavering on a high wire of brand identity issues for ages. How long they will last on this shaky path is questionable. Not to prolong the metaphor, but if they should stumble and fall, I have advice for their lead creative agency, Omnicom’s DDB Worldwide. Try a better idea. Something with honesty, taste and respect. It would be refreshing and might actually sell something even better than shoes.

 

                

                         

Sweet n' Old

OK, I love stories about marketing history. Because in the universe of today’s highly polished and high budget brand creation, it’s good to know something, somewhere, has a history. My personal favorite in food land is candy – no kidding. And this combination of interests led me to create this pop quiz. You ready? OK - what’s the oldest candy company in the country?  New England Confectionery Company – AKA NECCO? Hershey’s? Or Reeses?

 Actually it’s NECCO, born in 1847 – when Abe Lincoln was still Congressman and only 29 states were in the Union.  NECCO wafers were the candy of choice for Union soldiers in the Civil War, who allegedly carried them into battle. In case you’re wondering, yes, those original flavors remain today.

 The company Hershey’s appeared in 1894. As part of its operation Milton Hershey and his wife established The Milton Hershey School, an orphanage for boys.  The childless couple left most of their fortune to the establishment. Today, it’s home and/or school to 2000 low-income boys and girls. By the way, the school is the company’s largest shareholder…and beneficiary of the chocolate fortune.

 As for Reese’s? Harry Reese was a disgruntled dairy farmer and a former Hershey employee. Don’t worry, the story isn’t one of back-stabbing or competition. Reese actually admired Hershey and even started his company nearby. In 1963, the Hershey Company purchased Reese for 23.5 million dollars.

 Ooooh, sweet.

And the Winner Is!

Sweet n' Old

OK, I love stories about marketing history. Because in the universe of today’s highly polished and high budget brand creation, it’s good to know something, somewhere, has a history. My personal favorite in food land is candy – no kidding. And this combination of interests led me to create this pop quiz. You ready? OK - what’s the oldest candy company in the country?  New England Confectionary Company – AKA Necco? Hershey’s? Or Reeses?

 Actually it’s NECCO, born in 1847 – when Abe Lincoln was still Congressman and only 29 states were in the Union.  NECCO wafers were the candy of choice for Union soldiers in the Civil War, who allegedly carried them into battle. In case you’re wondering, yes, those original flavors remain today.

 The company Hershey’s appeared in 1894. As part of its operation Milton Hershey and his wife established The Milton Hershey School, an orphanage for boys.  The childless couple left most of their fortune to the establishment. Today, it’s home and/or school to 2000 low-income boys and girls. By the way, the school is the company’s largest shareholder…and beneficiary of the chocolate fortune.

 As for Reese’s? Harry Reese was a disgruntled dairy farmer and a former Hershey employee. Don’t worry, the story isn’t one of back-stabbing or competition. Reese actually admired Hershey and even started his company nearby. In 1963, the Hershey Company purchased Reese for 23.5 million dollars.

 Ooooh, sweet.

And the Winner Is!

Marketing Memo...

I went to a meeting yesterday and something odd happened. In the middle, one of the participants stopped the conversation to ask about my credentials. This was odd for two reasons. First, no one ever asks, especially in the middle of a meeting. Maybe because they usually look at my bio first. Second, I realized that, on so many levels, having a past in the marketing world is almost irrelevant.

Primarily, when I first started out, I worked with marketing professionals, helping them better articulate and  position their messages. My forte, so to speak, was the written word because it mattered most. Now, the written word counts more than most people realize, but the universe has shifted. It's the blend that counts. The consistency. The viral force! Words matter - yes - but the word matters even more.

It's possible that a newbie with smarts and imagination can equal a boomer like me in marketing know-how. But then, they don't have my history of success and my experience of failure. If they try hard enough, though, the experiences will quickly rise and fall at their feet as the universe of marketing continues changing.

Marketing Dogs? Not Exactly...

I interviewed Sharon Sakson, author of The Healing Power of Dogs recently for the lifestyle radio stations where my features air. I've had dogs (always pound dogs!) my entire life but who knew? Us dog lovers may feel good about adopting the pup, but we've got it wrong. Actually, the pup is doing us good!

Here's what Sharon says: When your dog greets you when you walk in the house, your muscles actually relax, your heart beat and blood pressure lower, and you get a feeling of comfort and warmth.Not that they're necessarily comforting you, however.

Actually, dogs retain child-like traits. You gaze at the dog and oxytocin – a hormone that triggers nurturing – gets released.You just want to comfort and cuddle which, ask any mother on a good day, feels great.

Then there’s their power of smell. You know about drug sniffing dogs, right? Dogs can also sniff out  cancer - before the symptoms reveal themselves. Apparently cancer cells release a tiny amount of formaldehyde when they break down which dogs can detect in urine and breath samples. Dogs can pick up one-part in a trillion or the equivalent of one drop in a swimming pool, Sharon says.

Scent may also be behind dog's uncanny ability to detect heart attacks and seizures in  human beings. Quite possible the body emits an ordor which only dogs

can detect.

Amazing!

Sense Marketing?

These days, marketers are taking scratch and sniff strips in new directions.

Here’s why: up to 95% of our purchasing decisions are based on emotion…not careful thought. And 75% of all emotions are influenced by smell, says marketing expert Lucas Conley, in his ever-interesting book, Obsessive Branding Disorder.

Naturally, marketers are eager to tap in.

Enter Auracell a plastic material made by Rotuba. Unlike its unpleasant smelling cousins,  Auracell can take on a variety of colors and scents. In fact, humans can detect 10,000 new ordors and Rotuba can provide 33,000.

According to the campany site,  "The key to Auracell is Cellulose, a material derived from sustainable resources that’s ideally suited to carrying scent. We can incorporate nearly any aroma imaginable . And then we can customize a color to match it. The result is unforgettable … smells like success!"

Companies are eager to tap that success on unsispecting consumers. Companies like Unilever are releasing a sweet-smelling bottle for their Suave shampoo. Huggies is crawling toward a scented diaper.  And there’s cologne scented golf tees, lavender scented cell phones, mimosa scented bangles, and scented caps on lip-balm targeting tweens.

Some video stores even exude a butter-flavored scent and supermarkets plant fruit-punch scented coupon dispenses to lure parents – and children – to Mortrin.

According to Rotuba this is only the beginning. They expect 5% growth each yearand the scent stratgey to remain, well, forever.

The Origins of Toy Favorites: A Modern Breather

In these days of outrageous marketing initiatives - and sometime dubious practices - it's cool...even refreshing...to return to a sweeter time. And the sweetest of all - those cool tools we played with as a kid. Many of them morphed their way in our play rooms from unlikely origins.

Take Play Dough. This staple of every kid’s play life was born in the 1950s as a cleaner for removing coal dust from wallpaper.

Thomas Dam, a Danish fisherman and woodcutter developed the troll doll in 1949, as a Christmas gift for his daughter using wool for hair. Numerous companies shared the ever-popular doll until 2003 when the Dam family won full copyrite.

In 1934, Charles Darrow created a way cool board game but Parker Brothers promptly rejected it because it had "52 fundamental errors." So, Charles made his own, easily selling 5000 sets. Parker Brothers had a change of heart and the game, known as Monopoly, has been monopolizing toy stores ever since.

 

New Balance Throwing You Off Balance?

Yes, patriotism is in - and marketers are picking up on the trend. But some, like New Balance, may be throwing you off balance when flag waving comes in.

The footwear company (whatever happened to sneakers?) has a new campaign announcing that their products are made in the USA. That distinguishes them from major competitors like Nike and Reebok whose factory workers chug away in places like China, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The campaign even includes a documentary. Race over to newbalance.com/USA and you’ll hear testimonials from Maine factory workers who use such words as “pride” “community” and, of course, “Made in the USA.”

 Still, while the company does manufacture in Maine and Massachusetts, only a quarter of their products are made here. The rest come from far off places like Norway and the UK.

So, how does this recon with Made in the USA ad campaign? Some might say it’s a bunch of fancy footwork. Hummm...

Commodities as Life, Life as a Commodity

In an economy where consumers (not to mention businesses, banks, and state and local governments) must micromanage their spending, one reality stands out: You live, therefore you pay. Yes, the sum total of who you are, in bad times as well as good, can rightfully contain a price tag, conceived and valued by marketers. In short, our lives are a commodity-based-existence.

Advertising Age underscores this matter in a series called “Bright Spots” of the down economy. One of these “bright spots” is that sales of sleeping pills and antidepressants have gone up recently because of the public’s anxiety over money. Here’s what they say:

“According to IMS Health, prescriptions for major sleeping pill brands rose 7% last year, while antidepressant-brand prescriptions jumped 15%...The economy, it appears is keeping us up at night, according to a new “Sleep in

America

” poll pout this week from a Washington-based National Sleep Foundation…”

In fact, according to one study, sleep is a $23 billion a year industry, with purchases ranging from sleep therapy to mattresses. One marketing vice president I know recommended, on behalf of his sleep-industry client, that people change their mattress every five years or so. When I expressed my surprise (I change my mattress at a regular cycle of hardly-ever-at-all) he shrugged. “Well, that’s what they say. But, you know…” Such is the way of commodities.

No surprise – it’s not just what’s in and of us – but what we demand to keep us alive. Food is a commodity, Michelle Obama’s organic gardening aside. (Besides, those organic manures and seeds have to come from somewhere, right?) Shelter (think foreclosures) is a commodity. So is water.

According to food writer and bottled water expert Michael Cervin, the water-as-commodity matter hits people especially hard. “We think water should be free, probably because it’s so pure….Many people are used to getting their water from the tap and resent paying for the bottled kind. They forget that there’s an infrastructure to support water that they pay for in local water bills or taxes.”

Water also supports the reality that in the commodity-based universe, one person’s problem is another person’s economic gain. Many municipal water sources are of dubious taste, for example, and tainted by drugs, pesticides, heavy metals and other containments. Others, like the water in my community, has cancer causing chemicals, as evidenced in the fine print warnings that come with our water bills.

Marketers have made much of this need and the big guys, as usual, are ahead. Cervin says there are approximately 500 water bottlers nationwide, but mega-names such as Coca Cola, who bottles the Dasani brand, swim at the top. Many have come under fire for portraying their brands as “fresh” and “clean”, as in spring-fed and mountain-nurtured. In reality, many, Dasani included, are actually purified tap water: think smog and concrete. No matter, we’ve got to drink, right?

And speaking of problem-solvers: a bad economy offers plenty of them. Perhaps the killer is one of Advertising Age’s “Bright Spots”: that gun makers and retailers are experiencing an economic surge. In fact, background checks have bumped up 42% last November to 1.5 million applicants.

The article is quick to point out that the increase in firearms results, in part, from Obama’s presidency, which threatens to place new restrictions on gun ownership. But other incentives include hunting, a relatively inexpensive sport which also fills holes at the dinner table, and self-defense in what some perceive as an increasingly unsafe world.  In other words, touch my house or my belongings and I’ll blow your head off.

Even better, this bright spot may have trickle-down economic advantages for the doctors, physical therapists, and funeral directors who get new business when the bullets fly. Something for (almost) everyone!

 

 

 

 

The Best and Worst of Advertising

Advertisers are coming up with a lot that is REALLY good and really...umm...not so good. This one (French, of course) is hilarious and self-mocking. It was also banned, in the US. Mais oui: The Hedgehog Trilogy.

As for these next ads...how can I say it? They're part of Liberty Mutua'ls Responsibility campaign. Liberty Mutual, and their marketing agency Hill Holiday, concocted the “Responsibility” campaign, as in ethical responsibility not, say, calling customers back on time. (In the interests of full disclosure, I briefly consulted on the campaign several years back.)

The campaign provides ample examples of responsibility. During the last election, for example, one ad showed a disabled person pushing her wheelchair through rain, traffic and other barriers to get to the voting booth. Another showed an elderly African American man of seemingly modest means who lost his wallet and – lo and behold – a young African American man who called to return it.

Examples of responsibility? Maybe, but these ads are also ruthlessly condescending. Are we expected to think the younger black man would normally dash off with the wallet and spend the proceeds on heroin?  Or that disabled woman would normally ignore her duty as a citizen, what with the wheelchair and all. Naturally, they have the “Responsibility Project” with, yes, a social network where people discuss their thoughts on such morally provocative issues as the octuplets.

Still, I don’t get it. What does all this have to do with Liberty Mutual? The company, while prompting others to be responsible, doesn’t show how they’re responsible. They do take lots of credit, though. The Hill Holliday Web site claims:  “It all began with a single commercial that gave voice to an entire movement. It prompted thousands of people to start thinking and talking about responsibility, to celebrate the positive things in their lives and the world around them…” Wow! An insurance company did all that!

Aside from all that, I find it tasteless, to say the least, for a company (95 on the Fortune 100 list) to use ethical and deeply serious matters to make a buck. Actually, many bucks!