Nissan's Key Campaign

Honorary Agent Rett sent this opinion piece from the New York Times.

As Rett points out, the article about the campaign isn't so interesting (as a viral campaign it seems to be succeeding), it's more fun to see how angry the professor gets at bending over for a set of Nissan Altima keys.

For those that don't want to leap, the joke is that the new Altima's personal driver recognition program does not require keys. It does not require one to give up on society. More about the campaign and promotion here.

Polarize Me

In the latest issue of Fast Company, (subscription required) Dan & Chip Heath, authors of Made to Stick, state “if you want people to like you, first decide who needs to hate you.”

As I’ve pointed out on this blog, you can’t be all things to all people if your brand is going to be meaningful and equitable. You need to be unique (differentiated), you need to ground that identity, and it must be profitable.

The Bros. Heath demonstrate through tea, vodka, and personal ads how one may differentiate or may just be a part of the “hey – I’m here too” group.

Ultimate?

Will the term Sanctioning Agent make it into the general lexicon? Special Agent Cragan is "interviewed" by the local arts and entertainment weekly.

This from the City Pages:

Ticking through the impressive list of big media outfits that have cited his work in the last few weeks—CNN, the Washington Post, even that "ultimate sanctioning agent," the New York Times—Dr. John F. Cragan looks pleased.

Ultimate? Dare I dream of the Ultimate Sanctioning Agent? It may be like a new Marvel superhero...or not.

Head Like A Hole: NIN's new SEO/Viral Campaign

Thanks to Field Agent Jason for this very interesting promotion from Nine Inch Nails. The campaign is a bit esoteric…or a whole lotta of esoteric. Read the Rolling Stone article and then look at some of the comments from music and marketing folks. What I like about the promotion is that it seems to combine an element of gaming and like good web applications or sites, it makes the user feel like they are making progress. In the end commitment is escalated to such a point that one will have to buy (or illegally rip) the album. Additionally, it seems to be "brand-right" in that the campaign is not all things to all people, but rather does a lot to shield the committed and bring in a certain segment.

Cool and weird.

Where's the damn box?!?!

The line says "It's hard to find your litter box if you can't smell it." That's what I want, my cat to piss all over the place, even my red couch, so we don't smell the litter.

Somebody paid for a full-page ad in Entertainment Weekly to confuse potential consumers about why they might buy Fresh Step.

Why?

Why do ad firms and more importantly their clients allow commercials to portray their current customers as nimrods? I understand if you’re making someone who uses your competitor’s product or service, but why bite the hand that feeds you?

This has bugged me for some time. Two recent examples are a Comcast commercial and a TGI Friday’s commercial. The Comcast one shows a family having dinner and shouting at each other because of the high noise outside of their house. White Bread mom’s response to her son’s success is “that’s Comtastic!” The camera zooms out to show the family is living on a freeway. The commercial implies that life is fast (on the electronic super highway that is metaphorically portrayed by a dirty, congested, real-life highway?) with Comcast. If you’re dumb enough to live on the highway, perhaps you’d like Comcast? A similar commercial about two years ago, spoofing cables prices and how they suck, had a family that had to shout because their TV acted like a vacuum cleaner – obnoxiously loud and pulled everything towards it. The cable sucks campaign made a lot more sense and didn’t make satellite customers look dumb.

The Fridays example is in the vein of most beer commercials. White dudes have it rough when they date dumb women ( a quick aside, this as offensive is the “sausage fest” campaign from last year where four dudes sat together loving their meat.”) In this case, the man and woman are dining at a Fridays and are trying to order. The woman can’t make up her mind because of all of the possible selections on the three-course menu. While she keeps changing her mind, the boyfriend/husband gives up and his head drops to the table. Beyond the undercurrent of misogyny, we have the customer looking bad? In this case, why do they look bad, because the Fridays menu is so damn confusing -- we've got features, features, and more features, as our marketing hacks are turning us into a commodity. Fridays, why don’t you take it a bit further and just have your new tagline be “Fridays, where suburban dumbasses are separated from their money.”

Packaging a Nation?

Travel and Leisure has an article about the packaging of a nation. To promote tourism, among other economic reasons, some countries are turning to brand “experts” for help position their country to outsiders. The attached article discuss some things that work and others that don’t.

In the case of this article, the limitations of the term brand are evident. I think “symbolic identity” would be more interesting and valuable. However, the articles is thought provoking as it still brings to mind questions about how people view the world around them and live in a symbolically created world which provides meaning, emotion, identity, and motive for action.

Here’s some hyperbole from the article:

"Ecuador and dozens of other countries are using increasingly sophisticated
versions of "brand theory" to attract visitors. Indeed, place branding may
be more important than ever, both as a way of standing out from the
competition and as a ballast against the buffeting winds of an increasingly
global popular-media culture that can shape perceptions drastically and in
an instant. "

Thanks to Alyssa for the article.

Lovemarks: Book, Strategy, and Kevin Roberts as self-proclaimed hero

More on the Lovemarks phenomenon. I posted something similar in September.