Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

17
Mar
10

Major Corporations Not Advertising Healthy Options…To Protect The Unhealthy Ones?

By Tracy Weise Leave a Comment
Categories: Advertising, Branding, Marketing, business to consumer, commercials and healthcare marketing
Tags: , , , , , , ,

A recent article in Advertising Age explained that some major food production companies are doing away with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) as their main sweetener ingredient and replacing it with good old plain sugar. The switch to sugar is limited to certain products. I am no doctor or dietitian or nutritionist, but I have taken enough health, wellness and work out classes to know that high fructose corn syrup is unhealthy for two reasons – it’s sugar and it’s processed. And worse yet, it comes in virtually everything you buy that is packaged in the grocery store.

I also know that people are fed up with it. Which is why the switch is being made back to sugar. As HFCS became a cheap and easy way to add “flavor” to pre-packaged foods, obesity rates quickly began to climb. The statistics vary, but a variety of research says that the average American annually consumes upwards of 54 pounds of sugar, just in soda. Total annual sugar consumption for Americans is between 100-120 pounds, each. Yikes! You think you are not one of those people? Check out the foods you normally buy in the grocery store, many have HFCS included as a top ingredient – bread, yogurt, pasta, salad dressing, ketchup, pickles… the list goes on and on.

So why would a major food producer like Hunts Ketchup or Wheat Thins NOT do a major marketing splash when they eliminate HFCS from their foods? It’s not because of the lingering recession; it’s because of the unwillingness to take business away from their other brands that still carry the HFCS. (My guess is that non-HFCS products will be more expensive to purchase.)

According to the same article, Pepsi and Mountain Dew are marketing their products that have switched from HFCS to sugar – but these changes are for a limited time only. So they are making and marketing a short-term change to sugar, not a long-term one. See the Mountain Dew Commercial here:

I have issues on so many levels with all of this information (don’t get me started about why sugar is added to my bread or spaghetti sauce.), but my major concern is that the brands don’t want to advertise that they are switching from HFCS to regular sugar because they don’t want to hurt their HFCS brands, or confuse the consumers that don’t understand the issues with HFCS. Wouldn’t we all be better off if they did shout the change from the mountain top? Shouldn’t they be proud of this switch? Or are they just trying to defer the spotlight from how much sugar (sweetener, HFCS, whatever…) are in their products to begin with?

To make matters worse, we still have the Corn Refiners Association running a major advertising campaign stating that there is no difference between HFCS and sugar. The implication being that either are fine for you. You can see one of their commercials here:

OK – I’ll give them that added sweetener is still just that – added sweet. But HFCS is still processed, and our bodies react differently to it than to sugar. And I firmly believe that when a switch is made to a healthier ingredient, we should celebrate this, not hide it.

08
Mar
10

When Big Corporations Act Like Little Kids, Consumers Lose: The PR Battle Between ABC and Cablevision.

By Tracy Weise Leave a Comment
Categories: Communications, Disney, PR Mistakes, Public Relations and Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

That was a close one. Well, actually it was still late.

After apparently two-years of negations broke down and ABC pulled its signals from Cablevision the night before, executives from The Walt Disney Company, owner of ABC, managed to get the Oscars back on at Cablevision a mere 13 minutes after the ceremony began. Still soon enough for 3.1 million viewers to watch Sandra Bullock and the Hurt Locker receive their awards, but too late for consumers to have faith in these two corporate giants. And that’s just if they had the patience to wait.

Oscar parties were cancelled. People travelled to friends’ homes to see the broadcast. And viewership in general was probably down.

It was bad enough that the station broadcast was pulled in the first place. But the real clincher in all of this is the awful PR battle being waged. The following statements, from the Washington Post were repeated over and over in countless media stories.

“Now the only way for their subscribers to get ABC-7 is to ditch Cablevision and switch to a provider that cares about them,” Rebecca Campbell, president and general manager of WABC-TV, said in a statement.

Ouch, that hurts. Especially for those people who have no choice in their programming provider.

“It is now painfully clear to millions of New York area households that Disney CEO Bob Iger will hold his own ABC viewers hostage in order to extract $40 million in new fees from Cablevision,” said Charles Schueler, Cablevision’s executive vice president of communications.

Wow, that is just as bad.

My opinion is that the PR battle should have been waged without the public being hurt. Statements about their support for the community should have taken priority over “how awful the other guy is.” In this era of “turn off the TV and watch it on the computer” both Walt Disney/ABC and Cablevision would be better off trying to support their customers in lieu of letting them get hurt in a battle over who makes more money.

In the end we all got to see Sandra Bullock bring home a well-deserved award. So the night wasn’t a terrible disaster.

Here is a news clip on the issue:

26
Feb
10

Social media can increase ROI, help manage a crisis and slay Goliath. Do you have a story to share?

By Tracy Weise Leave a Comment
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,

In a recent discussion, the CEO of an international franchise company told me, without a doubt, social media is a waste of time. The arguments included: You can’t prove ROI; Twitter is decreasing in use; there is no business-to-business purpose for it; it’s simple a waste of time; and a few other comments that made me wonder why the company does any marketing at all and if they blame stagnant growth on the recession or themselves.

Clearly, I disagree with the sentiments expressed. And I know many readers of The Side Note do, as well. However, in lieu of participating in an ego driven debate, I decided to prove my point in print. So I am out to discover some great stories about the results of social media. If you have a story to share, let us know about it. You can be a guest columnist on The Side Note, or just send us your information and we can post it for you. Either way, we want your stories!

Social media has its place in driving sales (both consumer and business), communicating to the public in good times and bad, increasing your corporate awareness, and, yes, slaying Goliath.

Here is our first story of how social media was the difference … and saved a company from financial disaster:

This social media success story is about the Vermonster beer victory.

This story has already been told in other blogs, including consumer advocate blogs, on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter – where it played out to save the company. Tens of thousands of people rallied behind the company because of the social media outreach.

Rock Art Brewery in Vermont, a small regional brewery, calls one of its beers Vermonster. Hansen Beverage Company, a huge corporation and makers of Monster Energy Drink, decided Rock Art Brewery had to stop using the name Vermonster because of what they considered was a trademark infringement. Hansen was wrong. Period. But the corporation most likely had the money to drag Rock Art Brewery through the legal system until they quit the fight and gave up the name. And this might have been their intention – until Rock Art Brewery’s social media campaign kicked in. The cease and desist message got to the public through Facebook and Twitter where thousands of consumers not only showed support for Vermonster, but also showed their disgust for Hansen. The support spilled over into local retailers where the beverage company’s products were pulled from store shelves. Blogs to boycott Hansen’s Monster beverage were started. Local and national media, including CNBC, MSNBC and ABC, picked up on the story and the inequities of trademark laws.

The entire process took 21 days, when for all intents and purposes, Hansen wised up. Vermonster prevailed and the name stuck.

You can find out more about this great beer on their website.

Moral of the story – social media can be used to generate grass roots support, the likes of which we have not seen before. In the case of Rock Art Brewery, you can’t deny the benefits and ROI of social media.

What is your social media success story? Share it with us here or email me directly at Tracy at weise ideas dot com.

Below is the original video that sparked great response from Vermonster supporters.

24
Feb
10

M’m, M’m Good has figured out how to be M’m, M’m Better – The Soups of Neuromarketing

By Tracy Weise Leave a Comment
Categories: Neuromarketing and Uncategorized
Tags: , ,

A long history, and Andy Warholl, have made Campbell’s soup labels synonymous with American culture. That’s about to change. After two years of research, including a significant amount of neuromarketing research, the soup labels you are accustomed to seeing on the grocery shelves are about to look different.

As previously posted on The Side Note Blog, neuromarketing studies the brain’s reactions to various stimuli in ads, messages, visuals and marketing tactics, and then seeks to apply those findings in a way that makes marketing more effective. These research techniques were implemented by Campbell to figure out how to update the labels in an effort to boost condensed soup sales. The tests evaluated how people reacted to the labels.

According to Ilan Brat, in his Wall Street Journal Article:

“’Typically, consumers show simultaneous blips in most of their biological metrics when they decide to buy something. These indicate the emotional reward they feel for making a choice and may help drive future purchases,’ Mr. Marci says.

But the array of condensed soups so overwhelmed many participants that they would quickly scan the category and select soups while evidencing little biometric response.

The people who spent more time exploring varieties showed more and bigger simultaneous spikes in biometrics—and tended to put more soup cans in their baskets.

The Campbell team figured it could boost sales by triggering more emotional responses in stores and prompting more people to focus on more soups.”

Changes include removing the spoon (people don’t connect with it), adding steam (to make you want the warm soup) and updating the bowl to something more “Pottery Barn-ish” (because this is 2010, not your grandma’s house circa 1978).

I believe in neuromarketing. And I think Campbell is a great brand, but evaluating the labels from a design perspective, the old ones were just dated and needed to be updated. And the new ones make the product look more appealing with greater focus on the product and less focus on the brand name. Maybe it took neuromarketing to convince all the key players that changes needed to be made. That is what good research will do for a company … and a good creative director.

What do you think about the new labels? Do they resonate with you? How can you use neuromarketing to improve your advertising?

19
Feb
10

VW’s Sluggy Punchdub: Using Nostalgia and Integrated Advertising to Keep Building the Brand

By Tracy Weise Leave a Comment
Categories: Advertising, Marketing, Social Networking, Twitter, YouTube and internet marketing
Tags: , , , , ,

It is fun Friday at The Side Note and I just have to tell you, there is nothing more fun than the VW Punchdub commercial. It has had me laughing since the Superbowl. Not only do I love the VW brand, I love the nostalgia of the commercials.

Punchdub blue!

If you don’t know what I am referring to, you are not the VW target market – YET. Rest assured, you will be.

Even better than the commercials, is the total integration of the campaign. VW has created a back-end story about Sluggy Patterson, the inventor of the Punchdub game. He “blobs” and “tweeters”. You can follow him on twitter @SluggyPatterson and #Punchdub. You can also throw your own virtual punchdub from the VW site.

This is a great campaign that has great legs. It goes deeper than just one, very expensive, Superbowl commercial, and I for one am having great fun with it.

Enjoy the Sluggy Patterson story below. What do you think about the campaign? Does it bring back your own fun memories?

If you have not seen the commercial that brought it all back – check it out below.

16
Feb
10

Reporting from the Olympics, the good and the…not so good

By Tracy Weise Leave a Comment
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

Many articles have been written about the use of social media at the 2010 Olympic Games. Just three days into it and we are seeing a great proliferation of social media, mobile media and blogs coming from Vancouver. There is a lot of talk about what the athletes are doing (they are tweeting and twitpicking), but what about the “reporters?” (Yes, I meant for “reporters” to be in quotes).

I love the Yahoo Sports blog called Fourth Place Medal. This blog has been around since the summer games in China and I hope it is around for a few more games. The writers take a different look at the game, including a posting called Kirstin Holum: From Nagano to nunnery. One of my favorite early posts:

Fourth-Place Medal investigates the mystery of the biathlon rifles.

Today we tackle our first question of these Olympic Games: What’s the deal with those biathlon rifles?

Though they look like toys, these rifles are very real. They shoot .22 caliber bullets at over 1,000 feet per second. To put it another way, if used in the wrong way, it could be deadly. It rarely is. Though biathletes deal with dangerous conditions and elements, the sport has a remarkable safety record when it comes to the rifles. Our search found no known fatalities in major competition.

Bonus fact: Biathlon is the sweatiest sport at the Winter Olympics. A 2002 study showed that athletes competing in the 20-kilometer race produce approximately five pounds of sweat during the event.

So that was the good. Now onto the not so good…

If you are a fan of figure skating, you might want to skip the commentary by Kristi Yamaguchi and Peter Carruthers who are blogging live during the competitions. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am a huge fan of both Yamaguchi and Carruthers. If you know anything about skating you know these two. They were great skaters and they are amazing leaders in the sport, but someone really should take away their keyboards and/or smartphones.

They are not providing audio commentary on the NBC TV broadcast, which means they can just chat it up during the entire performances. These are some of their really “insightful” posts:

They’ll need to stand on their feet….

Pacific Coliseum is SILENT

Impossible Dream music — appropriate for the moment.

One minute left in the warm-up.

The PA announcer just informed the audience that if they wished to throw flowers to the ice, they must be completely wrapped. So noted.

Yes, so noted. But probably could have skipped it.

Another thing I don’t like about these postings is that while I understand that results are often spoiled because of delayed TV coverage, knowing the results of this competition because I read this silly blog posting is a bit of a downer.

Where are you getting your Olympic news? What are some of your favorite reporters? Let us know who we should or should not be following.

15
Feb
10

Get current healthcare tweets on Health Tweeder

By Tracy Weise Leave a Comment
Categories: Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter, healthcare and healthcare marketing
Tags: , , ,

Recently, the digital pharma agency, Pixels&Pills, launched their free online download tool called Health Tweeder. If you like virtual petri dishes (because, who doesn’t?) you’ll love the look of this tool. I personally think the design is cool, albeit a bit cumbersome, and the actual data could be a bit easier to read. But I like the concept of what they have created, and I really like it because it’s a free download.

Here is how it works. When you get to the home page you see a group of color-coded virtual petri dishes. Each color represents a disease or medical area, including cardiovascular, women’s health, pediatrics, HIV, diabetes, etc. Each cell within the petri dishes represents a relevant and current tweet about that topic. You click on the petri dish and you get a streaming list of tweets.

Clearly the search engine is very dynamic because the tweets, while relevant, did not automatically jump out as related to the topic, and this is because many of them are not consumer tweets, but postings from professionally written publications – medical jargon and all. Which means you are going to find tweets from companies that are publishing or reposting information on Twitter – not just individuals discussing their illnesses.

According to a Pixels&Pills press release, which can be found on the PharmaLive Web site, “The Tweeder does all of the heavy lifting, so that consumers with minimal technical and medical knowledge can use the tool easily. Patients can monitor online conversations regarding their condition or area of interest, journalists can follow Twitter chatter on disease states, and healthcare professionals will use it as a resource both for their own continuing education and as a user-friendly site that they can refer to patients.”

After playing with it a few times, I have decided I’ll probably use this as a research tool. I just have not figured out how to find tweets that may have been posted on the same topic a few days or weeks or months ago. Thanks goodness Lexus Nexus still exists. I’m not sure if this tool will be relevant to my “consumer” life…but time will tell.

What do you think about the new Health Tweeder? If you are using it, tell us how!

13
Feb
10

Lessons From The International Franchise Association Convention: From CEO-speak to comments in the hall – they all made an impact

By Tracy Weise 2 Comments
Categories: Franchise, Franchising, Marketing, Mobile advertising, Social Media, Social Networking and Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Last week San Antonio was taken over by several thousand representatives from the franchise industry at the 50th Annual International Franchise Association (IFA) Convention. It was my second time attending the convention, and it has certainly solidified my belief in this lobbying organization. As a small business owner myself, I feel and understand many of the business issues and concerns that franchisees have. And having spent much of my career working with or in large organizations – some franchises, some not – I also feel and understand the concerns of many of the franchisors.

It was once again a great great opportunity to learn from the speakers, exhibitors and other attendees.

Here are my top ten takeaways from the convention:

  1. Innovation is alive and well in America. The number of people I met with new and emerging franchise systems was both empowering and exciting.
  2. If someone can start out as a bus boy and end up owning more than 700 franchisees, anything is possible. Thanks Aslam Kahn,chief executive officer, Falcons Holdings, a (major) Church’s Chicken Franchisee, for this important life lesson: You must first learn who you truly are before you can truly succeed.
  3. A great idea from Russell Frith, chief executive officer, Lawn Doctor: If you have annual goals for your franchisees, give them an annual business plan to help them reach those goals.
  4. Mobile marketing can be fun and a great way to drive business to local franchisees. Duncan White, from OneUpWeb, has an app for that.
  5. You have to look at the big picture when making the best business decisions for the company as a whole – don’t make the mistake of getting bogged down in one small detail. Thanks Steve Greenbaum, chief executive officer, PostNet, for this great bit of information.
  6. One of the most eloquent phrases of the convention: Prayer is the most under utilized resource in business. I am ashamed to say I can’t give proper credit to the speaker, because I was so struck by the many levels of this statement that I neglected to note who said it. If you were at the prayer breakfast and know the author, please comment below.
  7. Adding social media into your marketing mix can significantly drive ROI for franchise sales. I already believed this concept, but it was great to receive confirmation from a numbers-based case study by Sean Fitzgerald of Wireless Zone.
  8. Just as important as the things you learn that you can do, are the things you learn that you can’t do. It was so inspiring to be told, “What I got out of that session on international expansion is that we are clearly NOT ready for international expansion.” I won’t expose the person who made that statement, the branches of her company can continue to spread domestically for a few more years.
  9. Since George Bush (one of the convention’s keynote speakers) left office, his presentation style has become much more dynamic. And he still has strong beliefs with which business owners clearly resonate – including the fact that lowering taxes helps create jobs. I look forward to hearing more from him and reading his new book (due out in November).
  10. Watching the Super Bowl on a theater screen is the ONLY way to watch the big game. Thanks to all the sponsors of FranBowl for a great night!
04
Feb
10

New PR Show Alert: “Kell on Earth”

By Beth Hardy Leave a Comment
Categories: Public Relations and Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I first discovered People’s Revolution founder Kelly Cutrone years ago on some reality hairstylist show where she was reading a newbie stylist the riot act for not knowing what a chignon was (it’s essentially a low bun, for all you non-fashionistas out there). The outspoken and often unabashed publicist scared me then, but I have uber respect for her now, especially after watching her in action on the MTV reality show “The City.” (I admit it! The show is one of my guilty pleasures.)

So when I heard about Cutrone’s new show, “Kell on Earth,” I was very excited. As a PR person in Denver, I’m far from the LA and New York fashion industry, which Cutrone’s company services. But the PR process is still the same – just twice or three times as intense – which absolutely fascinates me. Plus I’m a girl who loves fashion, so the industry itself is more than intriguing.

I haven’t yet seen “Kell on Earth,” the first episode was February 1, but I plan to watch religiously and buy her new book, “If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You.” The perspective her show and book provide on the PR industry is surely different from my day-to-day experience, but that’s what makes it so interesting. There have only been a couple reality shows about the PR/publicity world, so this should be fun. Who’s going to watch with me?

04
Feb
10

New PR Show Alert: “Kell on Earth”

By Beth Hardy Leave a Comment
Categories: Uncategorized

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