Stanton Champion

Seth Stevenson at Slate just reviewed what may be the best worst ad ever.  He describes it as the most sexually explicit ad he’s ever seen, and I have to agree.  This one is pretty out there for American audiences.  Honeslty, it’s probably out there for international audiences as well.

You can click the link to the Slate article to watch it.  I’m not posting it here.  But to keep things short, here’s the summary:

A super hot secretary is called into an office by her manager.  The next scene shows the manager looking like he’s, umm, having the time of his life with someone under his desk.  Then there’s a pitch for a 6 hour energy product, and then the manager jumps up and shouts that “he’s ready.”

So why is this ad “best” in any way?  If the target audience is college aged men who party a lot and who watch Comedy Central, Cartoon Network, and Spike after 10:00 PM, then this ad probably hits the mark.  It’s memorable, and this demographic can consume energy drinks like water.

Why is this ad the “worst?”  Well, take this quote from the article:

Other ads in the 6 Hour Power campaign target slightly different demographics. An ad for the G4 network shows a video gamer first-person-shooting for hours on end, his focus sharpened by the energy drink. Another ad shows a harried mother chasing a toddler and airs on stations like E! and ABC Family. “There’s no one type of person we’re trying to reach,” Finnochio explains. “Everyone needs energy.”

So basically this company is going to try to reach lots of demographics with different kinds of ads.  There’s nothing wrong with that except for one small detail: the Internet has a nasty habit of combining demographics together.  In other words, plenty of “harried mothers” who watch ABC Family will see this ad on Slate or other places.  It will get plastered on Twitter, Facebook, and everywhere else.  Soon, all those other groups will have only one association in mind when they see this product: disgust.

Companies have to be really careful when they put together memorable ads meant for one market when they also want their product to be adopted by other markets as well.  Sometimes, they can be trapped into a segment with no way to escape.

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I have been insanely busy this week at uTest.  We had our General Availability launch and got a lot of excellent coverage from around the world for our software testing services.  Some of our highlights include:

• We appeared in The New York Times in an article titled New Service Applies Social Networking to App Testing
• Xconomy wrote about us: With uTest, U Find Software Bugs, U Save
• Mashable wrote a story about us: Global Software Testing Network uTest Opens to All
• James Whittaker at Microsoft mentioned us in his post about the future of software testing

There’s more on our uTest news page, and here’s a link to our press release as well.  Or see what we’re up to in the uTest blog.

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I wrote before about the newly kindled battle between Canon and Nikon in the professional camera segment.  Nikon has launched some incredible new products lately, but Canon has countered by promoting their long standing success as the camera of choice for sports photographers.  Now Luminous Landscape has found an amazing new photo from the Olympics:

All of the gray lenses are Canons while all of the black lenses are Nikons.  I count 21 lenses – 13 Nikons and 8 Canons.  Unbelievable!  Canon is in serious trouble!  The photo comes from Stern.de, and a larger version is here.

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I recently wrote about a trip to Wal-Mart where I noticed their pricing in the soda aisle was a little wacky.  Today I saw something even more egregious. Take a close look at the two packages of deodorant below (click for larger).  One is a single pack and the other is a “Twin Pack” with the words “Special Value” written on top.  See the problem?

Check the price at the bottom.  The single stick works out to be $13.10 per pound while the “Special Value” twin pack is actually more expensive at $13.80 per pound.  The privilege of having Unilever wrap two sticks of deodorant in some decorative cellophane will end up costing you an extra $0.22 over just buying two of the individual sticks.

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Our new puppy has an interesting way of evaluating if something is worth chewing: the more you try to take it away, the more he wants to keep it.  Sometimes this makes for great fun, like when he’s playing tug-of-war with you.  Sometimes it makes for a real headache, like when he’s carrying off your socks.

It turns out the solution was to teach him the command “trade.” Whenever he’s chewing something he shouldn’t, you corner him, say “trade,” and then present him with a treat.  He has to decide if he wants the new-found toy or if he wants the treat.  Most of the time his appetite prevails, and he’ll drop the toy to take the treat.  If you can quickly get the toy out of his sight, he’ll completely forget it exists.

People work the same way.  Deny them something they want, and they’ll work extra hard to get it back.  Give them something better, let them voluntarily choose to take it, and they’ll completely forget about the first thing in a hurry.  Think about how many people use iTunes and Hulu today who downloaded from Napster and Gnutella in the past.

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A recent trip to Wal-Mart revealed some clever pricing tricks in the soda aisle.

• Soda Brand 1 – Regular shelf price tag, “$1.25″
• Soda Brand 2 – Big shelf price tag, bold letters, “4 for $5.00!”

Which brand do you think had the most buyers and the emptiest shelf?

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Over lunch at a recent conference, I noticed that the catered cakes actually had serial numbers!

What you’re seeing is a flat chocolate shell sitting on the back of a piece of mousse cake. Look carefully at the bottom left of the chocolate:

Yes, that’s a serial number (sorry for the blurry iPhone photos). What’s not shown is that the chocolate also had a brand label printed on somewhere else. Neither of these things belong on fine food, which is what this purported to be.

Serial numbers help with inventory tracking and things like that, but that is rarely customer facing. Seth Godin had a recent post about serial numbers, but his best advice was simply “Think hard about whether you need a serial number at all.” Diners do not care that your desserts have inventory tracking codes that help you or your suppliers find them more easily. They just want to be wowed by taste and presentation.

This cake should never have left the kitchen.

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While shopping in the HEB before leaving San Antonio, I ran across their store brand version of Wheat Thins, unimaginatively called Thin Wheat.

Store brands have a unique problem: they must look appealing while still communicating that they’re knock-offs of another product. Still, a branding crackers with “Thin Wheat” communicates more about knock-off and less about appealing. Consumers generally expect store brands to be less tasty than regular brands; so when the box is completely unimaginative, their expectations have no hope at all. Thin Wheat conveys Thin Taste, Thin Value, and Thin Quality.

Store brands are inherently low cost products, and people buy them to save money. However, a company can still at least try to make them interesting to the buyer some of the time.

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Just like Coke and Pepsi are the big two of soda manufacturers, there are also a big two of SLR cameras: Nikon and Canon. (SLR cameras are the traditional 35mm cameras with the big lenses on the front you can take on and off, like this one here.) Both Canon and Nikon make top flight cameras, both are well respected, and both are far far ahead of the rest of the competition. Yet Canon is the top manufacturer, and has for the last several years outsold Nikon in every segment from beginner to pro. Many have recently accused Canon of resting on its laurels, and Nikon has certainly not taken its number two position lightly. So it’s interesting to look a little more closely at two recent ads from both companies.

Nikon D60 & Ashton Kutcher

The Nikon D60 is Nikon’s latest generation of entry level SLR camera, targeted at a market of beginner photographers. The typical buyer is best described as aspirational, wanting better photos than a point-and-shoot camera can offer. They want to take photos that look good, while at the same time branching out into more artistic photography when the interest strikes.

This ad perfectly delivers on these values. Nikon positions the D60 as the perfect camera for a wedding, and Ashton Kutcher’s portrayal as a goofy everyman nicely sums up the buyer. Even the use cases are spot on with Ashton photographing everything from the wedding party to a butterfly. The ideals of what an SLR can do for a market of aspirational photographers are presented clearly and effectively, and it’s no wonder these cameras are selling like hotcakes.

Canon Rebel XSi

Up until recently, Canon’s ads have focused more on consumer point-and-shoot models with celebrities like Maria Sharapova and her talking dog. This has long been a more competitive market, but when it came to their SLRs, Canon has always been a little cocky. Now the SLR fun is over, and they’ve begun their own advertising campaign:

The Rebel XSi directly competes with the D60 and targets almost the same market. With this ad, the not so subtle reminder is that when it comes to your photography, you should trust the company that has helped capture some of the greatest sports photos of the last 20 years. Canon dominates the pro market, and their telephoto lenses, painted a distinctive gray, are ubiquitous at sporting events. Their message is that if you want to be aspirational, aspire to use what the pros use.

While beginner photographers make up the bulk of the Rebel market, Canon has a fine line to walk with their advertising. The Rebel line is actually very popular with pros as well, largely because it’s a light weight camera with a lot of hidden power. Canon can’t alienate this market and needs to remind them that the Rebel makes for a great small SLR. However, beyond this point, Canon also needs to keep their pro customers happy in general. Nikon’s new D300 and D3 cameras have attracted tons of glowing press, and just about everyone has started questioning their brand loyalties. Any pro related advertising is good advertising.

Conclusion and Grades

Both ads are good, but Canon’s ad comes up a little short. They’re an 800 lb gorilla with an 800 lb gorilla advertisement. Their value proposition is essentially “we’re the choice of pros,” but that’s entirely because of product choices they made in the past and has nothing to do with the average consumer. Nikon, on the other hand, ties their message to what the consumer actually wants today, creating a more powerful ad that nicely connects with the needs of the buyer.

Nikon: A-
Canon: B

Coming soon, a look at another camera manufacturer: Leica.

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Hello FedEx Office. FedEx is reportedly eliminating the Kinko’s brand and leaving their own on all stores starting sometime soon. FedEx acquired Kinko’s in 2004, so the name is theirs to toss, but any time a company eliminates a strong brand they face trouble. In FedEx’s words:

“Kinko’s was primarily a copy- and print-service provider when it was acquired in 2004,” said Brian D. Philips, president and chief executive of FedEx Office. “The name FedEx Office more accurately represents our broader role. … We are a back office for small businesses and a branch office for medium to large businesses and mobile professionals.”

Since when was FedEx about the back office? That was always UPS’s territory while FedEx built their brand around reliable overnight delivery. The stores may have become a back office for small and medium businesses, but have they done so as FedEx or as Kinko’s?

The UPS Store

And speaking of UPS, they actually did this successfully a few years ago when they acquired Mail Boxes, Etc. and renamed it to the UPS Store. The renaming worked very well for them, mostly for reasons that do not apply to FedEx. Mail Boxes Etc. was never as strong of a brand as Kinko’s, while UPS had already started to establish itself with some backoffice credibility. On the other side, the Mail Boxes Etc. shtick had always been about shipping first, other stuff second, making it easy to move the brand for UPS. Today this differentiation still works – when you visit a UPS store you see more shipping material than copiers while a Kinko’s is all about document preparation

FedEx’s Path Ahead

FedEx has a very difficult path in front of it. I have a feeling this won’t work out so well for them and that in a year we’ll wonder why they spent $891 million doing this in the first place. Besides, when was the last time you heard someone say “I’m going to go make a copy at FedEx.” When one strong brand disappears, it’s usually the competitors that win. Expect some turmoil in the office supply and copier space soon.

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