Tag: Business Week

Only You Can Prevent Ad Pollution

Posted on by Drew Neisser

If you’ve had any doubt about the wisdom behind Marketing as Service then be sure to read the article in this week’s Business Week called “Attention-Deficit Advertising.” Acknowledging the mind numbing clutter of ads invading every spare surface (at Renegade, we call this “ad pollution”), BW notes that marketers are looking for “new ways to capture consumers’ attention” and are turning to “messages that, in and of themselves, provide a service.” Ding. Ding. Ding. We have a winner. This is exactly what we’ve been talking about for the last 18 months. Stop messaging. Start servicing.

The BW article offers a number of interesting examples of Marketing as Service in action:

Through a special promotion, Motorola (MOT) enabled loved ones to “Say Goodbye” via photos and messages sent from their phones to digital billboards in the departure area. The photos appeared there inside the image of a giant Motorola mobile phone. Motorola got thousands of Hong Kong’s ad-inundated consumers to stare at a billboard longer than usual.

Hoping to sell more of its Johnnie Walker whisky in Singapore, liquor giant Diageo, (DEO) with the help of OgilvyOne Worldwide (WPPGY), created a “digital personal assistant” for drinkers’ mobile phones. An avatar named “Jennie” sends out VIP invitations, information about hot night spots, and Johnnie Walker promotions. For the inebriated, the service includes a “take me home” button that, when pressed, uses GPS to call a cab.

BW also offered a great summary about Why Marketers Like ‘Useful Ads’:

  1. Consumers actively seek out services, even if they are veiled ads. And they spend more time with the brand than they would watching a 30-second spot.
  2. When consumers sign up for a service, marketers can gather everything from demographic information to product interests to names and addresses–data they can use for a harder sell down the road.
  3. When the ads work, consumers feel more loyalty to a brand because they feel like it did them a good turn.

Ironically, there were almost no examples of Marketing as Service amongst the 25 or so ads in the magazine. The closest I could find was an ad from computer reseller CDW which informed readers that higher resolution LCDs are “easier on your eyes” and offered prices that were “easier on your budget.” A lame example indeed but it certainly demonstrates that there is still time for all you inspired marketers out there to gain competitive advantage through “marketing as service.” The simple truth is–only you can prevent ad pollution.

Is Carbon Labeling Good?

Posted on by Drew Neisser

The science of calculating the carbon footprint of any given retail product is tricky at best and downright guesswork at worse. That isn’t stopping UK retailing giant Tesco from trying to do just that for every product it sells. All 70,000 of them, from shoes to shampoo, parsley to plastic wrap. Business Week wrote about this in their story called Carbon Confusion leaving readers to decide whether or not this was a good idea.

From a marketing standpoint, this is another great example of Tesco rewriting the rules for retailers. They have been innovators for a number of years and undoubtedly are scaring the pants of the folks in Bentonville especially as they look to expand in the US. Tesco decided to add carbon labeling because their customers asked for it. Simple as that. Most of the time if you give your customers what they want they’ll keep coming back.

In this case, the added service of carbon labeling was not without its complications. Noodle maker Unilever noted that “our supply chain is constantly changing” making it difficult to calculate the carbon footprint of each spaghetti package. As Business Week reports:

The idea was that the solitary numbers on the labels would make it easy for shoppers to compare products. In fact, each number represents a bewildering maze of “inputs,” such as how much fertilizer must be produced and spread to grow a bunch of parsley, how much gasoline is used to transport it from the farm, and the electricity required to make the plastic packages.

Regardless of the exactness of the labels, I believe this effort is good business and ultimately good for the world.  It calls attention to simple issues like where products are made, how far they were shipped, how they are made and how they are packaged.  Heightened consciousness will force manufacturers to think about these things as much as cost per package since competitive advantage may now be gained on the green factor.  Though many manufacturers complained about Tesco’s efforts, others have used it to identify “hot spots” where energy is wasted, not a dumb idea when oil is exceeding a $100 a barrel.

As for the risks of inaccuracy, I think consumers will take all this information with a grain of salt.  If their favorite brand is a few grams less efficient, my guess is their allegiance will remain.  However, if the differential between two otherwise equivalent brands is huge, then expect the less energy efficient brand to lose out.  Is this a bad thing?  Do we really need to drink water flown in from Fiji when a local source is just as good?