The time when a brand would pay a well known celebrity an astronomical sum for a two week campaign is (or should be) a thing of the past. The proliferation of celebrity endorsments, and the competitiveness of most consumer markets, means that short term endorsements should be overlooked.

Instead a more strategic celebrity partnership should be formed by any brand wanting long term value. A partnership gives sufficient time for the positive characteristics of a celebrity (which is what any brand is after) to become intrinsically linked to the brand.

Let’s start from the beginning though, for anyone wondering why a brand should be involved with a celebrity in the first place: A celebrity partnership is a channel of brand communication whereby the celebrity certifies the brand’s claim and position by extending his/her personality, popularity, stature in the society, or expertise in the field, to the brand.

In a market with a very high proliferation of local, regional and international brands, celebrity endorsement was thought to provide a distinct differentiation. Over the years, many aspiring brands in Asia have jumped on to this celebrity endorsement bandwagon and endorsements have taken on a quasi-industry stature. Think Thierry Henry and Gillette.

As a rule of thumb any brand wanting to form a successful celebrity partnership should consider the following criteria:

• Attractiveness of the celebrity: They must be attractive to the desired target audience in aspects such as physical appearance, intellectual capabilities, athletic ability, and lifestyle.

• Credibility of the celebrity: Personal credibility of the celebrity is crucial- the celebrities’ perceived expertise and trustworthiness. As celebrity partnerships act as an external cue that enable consumers to sift through the tremendous brand clutter in the market, the credibility factor greatly influences the acceptance with consumers.

• Meaning transfer: The success of the brand-celebrity collaboration heavily depends on the compatibility between the brand and the celebrity in terms of identity, personality, positioning in the market. When a brand partners with a celebrity, these are some of the compatibility factors that have to exist for the brand to leverage the desired results.

The celebrity partnership will never replace the comprehensive brand building processes but it will never disappear. One of the most successful viral’s of all time would testify to this. Nike’s “Write The Future” set a new record for most views of a viral video ad, in its debut week. How would that video have gone down worldwide with John from Harrogate in the Wayne Rooney role? It would have bombed outside of the UK. The long term celebrity partnership that Nike has with Wayne Rooney contributed to its success, as geographical barriers were broken down by his world-wide stardom. Rooney’s high standing within the game meant instant credibility for the brand with football fans.

The above example proves that any brand wanting to add to their branding portfolio should look into celebrity partnerships. Celebrity endorsements, however, should be avoided like the plague unless short term gain is the only objective.

Swiftcover car insurance and Iggy Pop are a great example of this. The brand wanted instant recognition and short term market penetration. Their choice of celebrity was ill thought through and there was no ‘meaning transfer’ (see above). There was simply a famous old singer, trying to pretend he used Swiftcover for one of his many cars, while secretly thinking about what to do with his cheque.

Loaded brand extension doomed to fail...

The Lucozade brand has undergone a very successful brand extension, from energy drink to a whole range of nutritional supplements. These extensions have generally all proved lucrative. The reasons behind this were highlighted in a study conducted recently, that revealed that there is often an inverse relationship between fit and leverage.

This means that brands that consumers will allow to sit on a wide range of products have little leverage. This means they are not intrinsically linked to one product in the consumers mind. Consumers think, for example, that the Weight Watchers brand would be fine on many food product categories. But if that brand brings little strength, other than recognition and a general good feeling, it may have little leverage. In contrast, the Philadelphia brand stands for cream cheese. This limits its extendibility but it means that any brand extension where cream cheese is an important ingredient will find the Philadelphia brand to be a strong competitor.

So now to Loaded magazine and their attempt to crack the energy drink market. Gone before have been Loaded men’s underwear, Loaded credit cards and Loaded nightclubs. None of them worked.

Back in the 90s Loaded magazine was doing massive numbers and yet all previous brand extensions struggled. Their chief executive though clearly thinks this is a shrewd move: “Consumers of energy drinks are confused…research shows that consumers want extra functionality which is what Loaded Stamina Shot delivers.” The extra functionality he mentions here is that the drink is meant to improve performance in EVERY area of a man’s life, through its stimulant qualities.

Going back to the research Loaded has very high leverage in its niche male market. This high leverage will lead to its downfall as it struggles to apply its recognizable name successfully to a product launch as diverse as an energy drink.

Yes, rides differ between them and some are slightly more technologically advanced than others but you buy into them thanks to the magic…the razzamatazz.

Put a child in a cherry picker and they’ll giggle for a few minutes- dress the cherry picker up with a giant mouse and lead them through a ‘kingdom’ to it and you’ll have a fan for life. You may even get a Love Mark.

But who does the magic best?

Given the example above, it may be to easy to just say Disney, they invented the process so just give them the title…or not. You see in recent years a number of pretenders have sprung up to wrestle Mickey and his gang into submission.

There’s Universal Studios in Orlando for a start. They shied away from the mush and went in hard- monster imagery and language that both terrified and thrilled.

Not to be forgotten is one of the UK’s leading parks- step forward Alton Towers. Here the marketing campaigns are slightly more diverse. In a recent interview the park’s marketing director spoke of wanting to create a park which was split in the mind of people depending on their demographic- a family orientated escape, with tranquil gradens in the parents minds and a dark, unpredictable environment to those in their teens and early twenties.

So how do you rate them all?

As we have said forget about the substance for once here- who has made style into an art form and made a jumped up gypsy fair ground into a desireable escape?

Why luxury brands must behave differently on social media

Luxury brands are in a difficult position when it comes to social media. They are in a digital no-man’s land. On the one hand they are consistently reading that social media is the place to be and on the other they have a marketing history which has tended to shy away from mass communication tools.

Brands, such as Dolce & Gabbana, are built on the intangible factors of exclusivity. Yes they may appear in The Times but you’d never see them in The Sun. Social media is, at its heart, a communication tool for the masses. There is no segmenting the market: high income families do not congregate on twitter, while the working class spend their time ‘poking’ on Facebook.

Therefore, if a luxury brand jumps on the social media bandwagon and engages fully with the public, it runs the risk of losing its exclusivity. Luxury brands are not developed to speak to the common man. A luxury brand then cannot approach social media in the same way that the majority of brands do. They must take a different approach to the medium: Whereas volume of messages is normally seen as crucial, it may be better for a luxury brand to have a strict limit on the amount of time they engage with consumers. By keeping their distance from the consumer they maintain their mystique.

The tone of voice they adopt is also very difficult to get just right. Communicate using simple language or slang and you devalue your brand. Communicate in to high brow a fashion and you risk alienating all your customers.

In conclusion then, luxury brands simply have to be elusive but visible and wordsmiths yet understandable!

This is just my thoughts though; I am still a relative newcomer to social media. Let me know if your experience has been similar or different?

Tom McKenna

The social media landscape

A recent article on brand republic told of how Michael Birch, the multi-millionaire founder of Bebo, has injected a significant sum in social media agency start-up Punktilio. The investment was intended to enable Punktilio to compete with larger agencies that are moving into the social media space. At this point I believed Punktilo must be very much in its early stages of development with a client base of mainly regional organizations. This size of social media agency would justify a need for investment. Further reading however revealed that their client list includes Phones 4 U, Arsenal FC and Simon Cowell’s SyCo Music label! With such large clients, many would believe the agency is able to pitch to almost any client already, given that social media is to all intents and purposes free and reliant only on creativity coupled with time.

The fact that the social media industry is heading the way of all other marketing specialism’s before it is worrying. In advertising a small number of top firms have a stranglehold on the best accounts. Agencies such as DDB and JWT do produce great work but to think the ability to produce great adverts is encased within their swanky offices is wrong. I have seen inside the inner sanctum of many of these agencies thanks to graduate schemes but quickly became disillusioned by the mechanics of large agencies: I felt under stretched and yet overworked.

This was the beauty of the social media industry for me- the ability of a one man band agency with bucket loads of creativity to handle the accounts of some of the most successful companies. Now market forces are impacting heavily and the traditional agencies are branching out. Tribal DDB launched a separate division purely for social media. The accounts housed elsewhere in the agency will now surely utilize them to handle social media campaigns.

So where does Juice Digital, where I am currently placed with Manchester Masters, fall in all of this. Well, medium sized would probably be a fair reflection but with the ability to become much larger if market forces do not become too great a barrier. The creativity is here, as are all of the technical elements. What we need though is for Marketing Directors at Nike, Manchester United etc. to realize that their social media account should not go to the largest agency or the one with the shiniest client list but rather to the team that can demonstrate real innovation. Let’s hope the social media industry can, for a few more years at least, become the market where the small agency gets to teach the traditional powerhouses a lesson every now and again.

Tom McKenna

Micorsoft/Google VS Twitter/Facebook

This morning the central topic of conversation in the office involved the outcome of a battle royal between a dog and a goose. We are in no way condoning this fight and the discussion was purely theoretical and yet hugely engaging. It came about as we presently have ten geese which have taken up residency slap bang outside our office door. They have taken to harassing cyclists and most of the female staff in the office. They have no fear and have been known to take on motor vehicles. From this the question was raised who would actually be victorious between a dog and a goose. To make things fair, as we are still a (questionable) democracy, we decided that the dog must be of medium size. A Border Collie seemed the obvious choice. Any larger or smaller and the outcome becomes to obvious.

Here was the general consensus of the office referees:

• In a natural, open setting the goose would come out on points thanks to sheer front and aggression. The dog, having the option to avoid direct confrontation and escape without injury would, after posturing, leave with it’s tail between its legs. A bit like Paulie Malignaggi recently.

• Take away the open environment though and force both into a direct confrontation and we felt that the dog may indeed have its day, thanks to its greater fighting resources.

So how on earth does this relate to social media? Well before you call the RSPCA, this is a great metaphor for Microsoft or Google and their social media competitors. Microsoft and Google are dogs surrounded by geese. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and to a lesser extent LinkedIn are the brash, in-your-face, segment of the digital world. The noise they generate is staggering. They have regular column inches in all of the top national papers and magazines and are usually the top story on all digital websites. Just like a goose they scare off competitors with a wall of noise. Geese honk, Twitter tweets and the dogs of Microsoft and Google avoid a full on, direct confrontation in the open industry environment.

A closer look at the revenues and overall value of these social media platforms however, show that these geese are lacking in the teeth department. An article published by Mashable valued Twitter at $1.4 billion, Facebook at $11.5 billion and LinkedIn at $1.3 billion. How much were Microsoft and Google valued at? $253.6 billion and $161 billion respectively on today’s markets. Add to this the fact that Twitter has struggled to build a sustainable revenue model and Facebook is suffering from privacy scares and the goose looks less bothersome.

Whilst there is some crossover between the companies (Microsoft in partnership with Facebook over banner ads etc.) Microsoft has to a certain extent continued to concentrate on its home markets; Hotmail has undergone a massive over haul and Windows 7 is getting great reviews. Google, continuing the dog metaphor, is perhaps eyeballing the geese with its recent addition of Buzz to Gmail.

It is the environment and its layout that is crucial to all this. The geese must not box the dogs in and force a confrontation: Social media sites can continue, in the short term, to dominate headlines in their own sector but they are in for a tough time if they diversify into other digital areas. Facebook are already venturing in to the ‘outside web’ with their universal like button and baiting Google with such a move. Let’s just hope they don’t push Microsoft into a cage or there will only be one outcome. Feathers will fly.

Tom McKenna

The world’s gone mad if you believe, as some people are claiming, the above title. A politician (let’s say politician X) recently claimed that councils were wasting far too much money on design by employing agencies for jobs, which should instead be moved in-house. He went so far as to say that tools, such as Microsoft Paint and Photoshop, negated the need for the intrusion of design agencies into council life. Without doubt one of the most short-sighted statements made that day by a politician. The very fact that the politician and their chosen party are in power is due in a large part to design experts. The brand that Blair/Obama etc. built up is created with help from top agencies in fields such as design, PR and advertising. The power and consistency of their message is only possible through great design and brand guidelines. Posters and election literature are key communication tools and worth their weight in gold. Executed well , they can grab attention and create real emotion. Executed poorly (by an inexperienced in house designer/advertiser/PR ‘guru’) and your entire campaign momentum is lost as people struggle to decipher your message.

A belief that in-house is the way forward can even be seen in agencies traditional heartland; advertising. If you look at Marketing Magazine’s recent survey of ads with the highest recall, they found that ‘confused.com’ came out on top. And guess who created this masterpiece? Yes it was all done in house. ‘Success’ stories such as this seem to support financial directors view that as much as possible should be kept in-house. This success has led to multitple new national television adverts which clearly have no agency input- think webuyanycar.com.
A holistic view has to be taken here to see where the problem lies. Yes in-house people can have talents for advertising etc. and yes there can be one-off productions which achieve the business great success. Will webuyanycar.com have any longevity however? Will it be able to sustain its image and recall in the long-term by consistently repeating its aggressive message? The answer is probably no. In a year or two it will have fallen by the way side and the brand/website will always be associated with low value advertising. Catchy tune yes but one that has pidgeonhold them forever.

So would an agency have produced a better advert for webuyanycar.com? Perhaps, perhaps not. The only guarantee would have been that the adverts message and tone would have matched the company’s overall objectives and a longer term strategy put in place. They would have researched the target audience thorughly to see exactly what appeals and created the desired response.
How about PR? Surely that can be brought in-house and the occasional press story sent out to keep things ticking over? Well yes, if you are satisfied with your current position, because at best this is going to be where your business stays. At a housing company in Florida, I was approached by a PR agency to handle our communications in what was a highly competitive market. My manager having always worked client side had a deep mistrust of such agencies and insisted that we could clobber something together ourselves in-between leasing appartments and giving tours. Thanks to this way of thinking I found myself roaming the university campus in a banana suit in scorching temperatures, whilst riding a tuk-tuk, which had music blaring. At large crowds we would dismount, dance, throw out free t-shirts and hope that someone also took the leaflets. I also produced a radio advert, just because I was English. The script was written by everyone in the office that day, which meant it was hugely confused though doubtless amusing. So did our in-house PR help with the overall objective of signing leases? Well no not particularly. There was a slight peak but the largest improvement came in my fitness from riding the bike. After this we decided that we would give an outside agency a go. After evaluating the market the chosen agency was able to produce an integrated communications campaign, which focussed on helping us sign more leases. And it worked- by the end of my internship at the company we only had one house remaining out of 340.

The message here then is for marketing managers and company owners to accept their limitations. Just as you would not put out a rushed service or product, don’t put out poorly thought through communications. Social platforms now mean that any mistakes or off tone statements will be amplified and delivered to all your customers. On the same note do not just accept everything an agency says: challenge them to produce a set of targets that you want, not which they simply set as being the norm. No two businesses are the same and therefore objectives must always be tailored.

Tom McKenna

New blog for Tangerine PR and Juice Digital:

Hello all, I would like to introduce myself as Tom, the newest member of Juice Digital’s social media team. How long I will be the newest member for though is up in the air- Juice is looking to recruit and so I may not be the newbie for long! I am one of the ten students on the fantastic Manchester Masters programme and for my last three month placement I will be here working in the crazy world of social media. You will be able to find me in all the usual places online- Twitter, Facebook and also my personal blog which goes by the catchy title of “Marketing, digital, advertising and PR thoughts. Succinctly….unlike the title.” Here you will be able to share my experiences and opinions as I embark on my Juice Digital journey.

At Juice I will get the chance to work with some great clients- Stagecoach Manchester, Dulux Trade and the Marketing Society are all forward thinkers which have embraced social media. Working in this field has added benefit for myself also, as my Masters dissertation is exploring the use of social media by PR agencies. The research I have conducted so far is overwhelmingly in favour of companies engaging with social media and the sites that are best suited to engaging with their target market: Over 80% of the world’s top brands recently stated in a survey on Brand Republic that social media was becoming an increasingly important tool in their marketing strategy. To emphasise this further each of these top brands had increased their social media budget for 2010- a sure sign things are going in the right digital direction.

The survey above did highlight some problems, however. Whilst 80% of the top brands saw social media as important, only 25% had made it a part of their core communications strategy. This is hugely worrying as it can result in the biggest problem of social media- poor execution. Every threat that social media poses comes from this. Luckily all of the threats can be turned into opportunities with dedicated time and resources. To give an example, let’s consider Mercedes. The brand is built on a consistently high-end, professional image that attracts high socio-economic customers. Its target market is drawn to the brand and their cars often by the intangible factors that the brand represents- wealth, power, elegance etc. Let’s say now that Mercedes recognises the growing importance of social media and passes responsibility for a company Facebook fan page onto a marketing assistant. If this assistant is not familiar and actively involved with the company’s overall strategy and trajectory then there will be major problems. The site may attract huge numbers of fans and gain Mercedes great exposure, but if it is not consistent with the core brand then this is all in vain at best, fundamentally damaging at worst. For example, the campaign may take an informal tone (use slang etc.) with customers that would be more suited to Mini customers but totally unsuitable for Mercedes. Loyal customers would be turned off and potential customers confused by the brand messages they are receiving.

So what is the lesson to take from all of this- your online image requires the same care and attention as your offline image, perhaps more given the speed of online communication. Have a great social media presence and people will flock, but have a poorly put together campaign and people will form negative perceptions. Frequency as well as great planning is also key: your pages must be updated to keep your audiences interest. Once you start up a social media campaign a level of expectation is formed that you will follow this through. Leaving a social media site dormant halfway through its planned cycle will shatter these expectations and be more damaging to corporate reputation than having no social media presence in the first place. If you show a lack of care for your social media presence you show a lack of care for your brand. This all sounds very downbeat but the positives are huge- a new age has broken whereby direct relationships can be formed with customers/clients like never before. Two way communication is here and brings with it a world of possibilities:

•    Engage with a geographically diverse audience and become a part of their daily lives
•    React in real time to their needs/desires and never be caught on the back foot by market research which is outdated
•    Notify a worldwide audience instantly of your key message/latest offer/thought of the day
•    Form another ‘touch point’ with your target market so that you are always at the forefront of their thoughts

Never before has all this been possible and reacting now is crucial. Don’t wait until competitors in your market have already set up camp online and engaged with your audience. Bring in professionals, either in-house or consultancy, who will ensure consistency and great performance.
Now to leave you on a high note lets look at a great case study- Skittles!

Skittles

Screengrab of the succesful Skittles Facebook site

Skittles created a huge spark when it launched its very own Facebook fan page centred around ‘Mix the Rainbow’. The site allowed customers to engage with the brand in a way they never had before. Daily competitions brought new customers and a light hearted approach to comments meant that customer loyalty towards the brand was cemented.

The exert below perfectly demonstrates this:
Derek says:  Is it just me, or does there seem to be too many orange ones in the bags now?
Skittles says: Derek despite what you or the Internet may think, we can assure you there is no orange skittles conspiracy – red on the other hand…

The results of this Facebook campaign were staggering:

•    It generated incredible short-term buzz and the company was praised for embracing social media
•    Home page traffic increased by 1,332% in one day!

Skittles committed the cardinal sin however of resting on its social media laurels. After the huge initial online boost it brought they failed to capitalize on it and left the site largely unmonitored. Due to its popularity this meant that rather unscrupulous vendors moved in with the dreaded spam.

The moral of this story therefore is that you have to be immerse yourself in social media as a business to see the results and that consistency is key to success!

Tom McKenna

By Tom McKenna (Juice Digital / Tangerine PR)

The ominous title is in no relation to Manchester Masters but rather refers to the fact that I have so far avoided, eluded and dodged my blogging responsibilities. Not that I mind blogging, in fact it is quite therapeutic, but trying to find 30 minutes to dedicate to it has been tough over the last few months. Now I find myself at Tangerine, the home of blogging, and resistance seems futile. An awful lot has happened in the last 6 months, two companies have been and gone, and there is a lot to talk about. So grab a coffee, take your seat and we’ll begin.

In October I landed at Argent, a property developer based in Manchester city centre. At first I was sceptical as to how interesting marketing buildings could be and was worried my work would be confined to brochures and tours for three months. Argent and the way it markets itself though is fantastic- I learnt an awful lot from simply being in their company and my body has only just recovered from their out of hours activity. Team nights out were legendary.

On my first day my manager told me that she loved working for Argent because you are literally shaping the city.  Argent is playing a huge role in helping Manchester become one of the preeminent cities in the world. In my time there I got to sit in meetings with all of the people who are driving Manchester forward such as David Partridge and Sir Howard Bernstein (completely name dropping). I was given responsibility for a lot during my time- Argent have a large number of projects but not many people which is perfect for an intern. I got to co-ordinate a launch event for one of its developments (and got the other Manchester Masters there to enjoy/dominate the free bar), produce an awards entry for a prestigous property competition and write a creative marketing strategy for one of its buildings.

Christmas and New Year then came and went and meant that this was perhaps the most unrelaxing of holidays. On January 4th though I set off for the Northern Quarter (Ancoats if Martin is reading this) and arrived at True North. These guys love design and brands and win awards left, right and centre. Martin, the owner is no stranger to controversy either- he once wrote that while designers could easily produce good advertisements, advertisers could not do good design! I got to work on some great projects whilst at True North but I thought I’d now write about one of the best aspects of life there: football.

Both fantasy football and an actual tournament were indulged in. The fantasy league wasn’t for the faint hearted- Friday afternoons were spent agonising over whether to transfer your star defender out or go mad and play your wild card. The result of a poor weekend was a Monday morning spent avoiding the rest of the team- one week I managed to score zero points (an almost impossible task!) and this was met with designated brew making responsibilities. The debate over whether Rooney or Drogba was the better choice would even go on after hours with the texts flying about. One humorous point was Martin’s insistence that Diaby (a midfielder who scores very few points) was in fact his star player. Deluded.

Actual football was also played as Bayer Neverlosen took to the field to represent the agency. We stayed true to our name for the first five games with some solid defensive displays. The final was beckoning until in the semi-final the opposition equalised late on. We approached the penalty shootout like Gareth Southgate thinking of a deal with Pizza Hut and proceeded to bottle it. Clearly had choco pops for breakfast.

Here is a snapshot of the team at True North:

Well the word count is saying that it is over 600 words and that seems like the perfect length to wrap this up. And there it is- my first blog in 6 months! I can now walk through the office knowing I have contributed and they can call off the blog squad…

Notes

• True North does real work and does not concentrate purely on football (it’s at least a 90:10 split)
• Argent is not full of alcoholics
• Martin Carr is at present 54 points ahead of me in the fantasy league and wanted this clearly stated.

Tom McKenna

Well, I am a masters student who is currently on the prestigious Manchester Masters programme. I have so far worked my way across  four different companies and taken in PR, design, advertising and in-house marketing along the way. The experience this has brought has been invaluable and each of the Manchester Masters students has a unique overview of the industry. I am currently at Juice Digital, a social media agency which is part of the Tangerine PR family. As I delve into the online world it seemed only fitting that I give myself an online platform to go with the obvious Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Below is the link to the video that got me onto Manchester Masters:

What can you expect from this blog?

Insightful comment on all areas of marketing (particularly digital and PR). The latest news will be discussed and overall trends looked at. Having studied marketing for five years now and well and truly dipped my toes in its waters I hope this will prove useful and interesting for readers.

Oh and here’s a picture to complete the introduction:

Tom McKenna