The Marketing Week – 7/6/2013

Welcome to The Marketing Week, your guide to the good, the bad and the ugly in the marketing industry over the last seven days.

CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne9yYg6qtTg

The first brand campaign in ten years for Pampers pushes all the right emotive buttons. Using user-generated content, the advertiser has created 15 clips of “real” moments parents will recognise and relate to. It puts the consumer and their babies at the heart of the communications. A continuation of the themes seen in the heart-tugging ads owner Procter & Gamble developed for its Proud Sponsor of Mums London 2012 brand campaign. The campaign launches throughout Europe later this month.

GOOD WEEK FOR

DoveRealBeauty-Campaign-2013

Unilever’s Dove Real Beauty Sketches was the most popular ad on YouTube in the last 12 months, according to the video-sharing site’s owner Google. The campaign, created by Ogilvy Brazil, launched last month. It tasked a criminal profile sketch artist to draw portraits of women based first on a description of themselves and second from a description by somebody else to demonstrate that women are their own harshest critics. YouTube compiled a list of the ten-most popular ads uploaded to the video-sharing network in the last year to mark the upcoming Cannes Lions Festival later this month.

BAD WEEK FOR

Spitfire-Campaign-2013

Real ale brand Spitfire has had to pull its latest ad campaign before it even airs on TV after Clearcast ruled it offensive to Polish people and failed to clear it for broadcast. The ad starred Armstrong and Miller playing the RAF characters seen in their BBC sketch show asking questions of a Polish General character in their characteristic street slang with clipped tones. They ask the Polish General:  “Listen blud, is you like one of them geezers that’s like a Pole from Poland or Russia or something place like that? Only my nan’s patio needs doing and I thought we could do, like, a deal for cash?” 

TWEETS OF THE WEEK

@openallhourz – Darcy Willson-Rymer, former Starbucks MD/CEO and now CEO of Costcutter, on the independent convenience retail sector.

“I think our opportunity is now. I agree the independent sector has to innovate and be creative. In the end it’s all about service.”

@p6_ndp – Neil Potter, brand communications and digital brand manager at Nike Europe, on Snapchat.

“Reading up on the epic growth of @Snapchat amongst 13-25 YO’s in the past 12 months. Someone is gonna buy this for big money soon.”

@exmonkey –  Mark Curtis, emerging technology lead at Tullo Marshall Warren, on email strategy.

Responsively designed emails get a +20% open rate on mobile. If users need to pinch or zoom, they will not engage. #fodm13 @tmwagency”

@newsworks_uk – Newsworks Twitter feed on publishing. 

“21m read an online newsbrand each month http://bit.ly/WT4TtH  #statoftheday #technation”

@MarkBorkowski – Mark Bortowski, founder of Bortowski PR, on Confused.com’s new marketing campaign. 

“Beaming countenance of the confused robot is an irritation. I blame the creative who came up with the idea. Back of an envelope concept?”

ONE TO WATCH

Mobile messaging service Tango is setting its sights on the gaming space with the launch of a dedicated gaming space. The video chat app has opened its platform to third-party developers in an attempt to reposition itself as a social gaming network. The company, which has more than 120 million users, is hoping the move will lead to new revenue streams as well as carve a niche in the social network space. Available for iOS and Android devices, the app generates around 250,000 downloads per day, according to its owners.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Fresh from its campaign to hand out shareable cans that split into two in Singapore, Coca-Cola has unveiled its latest packaging innovation – and it is considerably cooler. The brand has created bottles made entirely of ice as part of summer activity in Columbia. The ice bottles are shaped like Coke’s iconic glass bottles and have a branded strip around the middle which when the bottle melts away becomes a branded bracelet.

As drivers in the UK are being shocked out of drink driving in the latest and pretty brutal Think! campaign, drivers in Mexico are being warned against a different kind of dangerous driving in the latest Mini campaign. To warn female drivers about the dangers of putting make up on while driving, Mini installed small airbags within soap dispensers in public bathrooms that suddenly went off when women started applying make up next to them. The airbags carried the message “There’s a place for everything. Makeup or drive.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTJNDbOx-HQ

The world’s largest tech giants are facing a threat to their corporate reputation and damage to their consumer trust levels after a leaked “top secret” document revealed the US National Security Agency and FBI are tapping direct into their central servers to extract user information and communications.

Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype and AOL are all implicated in reports from the Washington Post and Guardian, which they both claim have been verified by senior US security sources. Senior executives from the internet companies are reported to be “surprised” and “shocked” by the revelations.

The programme, code-named PRISM, could be the first of its kind and is designed to detect threats to the US from foreign countries. However, the news is likely to stoke the fires of privacy campaigners as previously it was thought tech companies only handed over data to governments after receiving specific requests or court orders.

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

  • Monday 10 June – The Fundraising Standards Board will publish its charity complaints report for 2012. Last year complaints topped 30,000.
  • Monday 10 June – Apple kicks off its worldwide developers’ conference (WWDC). The tech giant will showcase new versions of iOS and OS X software but it’s likely to throw in a few surprises during the five day event too.
  • Tuesday 11 June – D&AD’s White Pencil laboratory. Marketers including Unilever’s Keith Weed and Puma’s Justin DeKoszmovszky join start ups and innovators to discuss the role creativity can play in driving positive social change. 
  • Wednesday 12 June – Sainsbury’s first quarter trading update.
  • Wednesday 12 June – SABMiller’s Pilsner Urquell beer brand will be hosting an event in central London where fans can here about the brewer’s upcoming plans.
  • Wednesday 12 June – Future of Digital Entertainment event. The annual consumer electronics conference will feature speakers from Facebook, EMI Records, YouTube, Zeebox and the BBC.

Recommended

Mark Ritson

CEO supremo Lafley is back, P&G will be too

Aaron Inglethorpe

Nothing makes a marketing professor more upset than deleting cherished PowerPoint slides because the content has become outdated. So you can imagine how sad I was when AG Lafley stood down after 10 years as P&G’s chief executive in 2010. A professorial treasure trove of quotes, case studies and videos of the man was rendered unusable overnight.

Branwell Johnson

Marketers could do more to create engaging anti-alcohol abuse messages

Branwell Johnson

Imagine a scenario where all alcohol advertising and promotion is banned – removed from outdoor, print, cinema and digital media, as well as television. Where even retail outlets cannot display point of sale and as for pub promotions – forget it. Sport sponsorship? It’s a no-go. In such an environment, how could brands possibly create loyalty and encourage the take-up of new products and variants among consumers?