The Marketing Week – 23/11/2012

CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK

Upon receiving news of a Comparethemarket campaign anytime in the last two years, the conversation here at Marketing Week goes thus: “What still with the meerkat thing?”

Aleksander and pals are back and this time as a band covering the Coronation Street theme tune, Russian folk style, to mark the comparison site’s sponsorship of the long-running soap.

Any residual world-weary journalistic cynicism was cast aside after seeing the spot, however, and replaced with a broad smile of appreciation. It would take a brave marketer to cull the creative phenomena of 2009. And why would you if it still resonates?

A GOOD WEEK FOR……

Arsenal

In spite of the itself, the Premier League and the football club brands that contest it retain their allure to the commercial world. The ever present prospect that football and footballers will become mired in scandal has not deterred Emirates from agreeing to pay Arsenal a whopping £30m a year to have its name on the club’s shirts.

It is, allow us a slip into the language of a too keen salesman, a “win win”, however. Arsenal demonstrate to the corporate world they are a brand worthy of partners at the same time as receiving much needed funds to compete with rivals. Emirates continues to receive media exposure only hundreds more millions than actually paid would buy.

A BAD WEEK FOR…..

SodaStream

“In the beverage industry there are fantastic brands but their functional delivery process is not fit for the 21st century. The products are great, the brands are great but we need to stop using all this plastic”, says managing director of 80s innovation returned Fiona Hope.

Fighting talk round our way. For broadcast clearance body ClearCast, however, it fell well short of Queensbury. The spot amounted to “denigration of the bottled drinks market” and therefore not fit to air.

The issue, ClearCast continued, is the spot, which claimed consumers could save up to 2,000 plastic bottles every year by using SodaStream to make soft drinks from tap water at home, will be seen “to tell people not to go to supermarkets and buy soft drinks”. Err, yep it does.

Arguments over the veracity and wisdom of the decision are raging. It has, indeed, been argued it presents SodaStream with a PR opportunity to present itself as a feisty challenger wronged by the big bad soft drink behemoths. In the short-term, however, this is a kick in the nether regions for SodaStream. The very basis of its marketing comeback will have to be rethought.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Pete Markey, CMO of RSA on the “trinity” of skills a marketer must possess:

STATS OF THE WEEK

• 13 per cent of viewers would definitely buy from John Lewis after seeing its Christmas ad compared to 14 per cent who would shop with Boots and 20 per cent who would shop with M&S after seeing their spots, according to a poll by Vision Critical.
• 139 jobs will be cut from Standard Life’s insurance and investment business, which will include the loss of several marketing roles.
• £450,000 – Incoming BBC director general Tony Hall’s annual salary

MISSING WORD(S) ROUND

BBC Trust Chairman on new director general Tony Hall:

“And from his vantage point outside the BBC, he understands the sometimes justified criticisms of the corporation – that it can be ******* and on occasions too ******.”

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