If not, pay attention.  A consortium of tuna brands and processors want to elevate the tuna –  as a fish, as a meal, as a healthy ingredient to sustain life itself.  Okay, maybe that was a little strong.  Regardless, the new campaign, Tuna the Wonderfish, is attempting to elevate the tuna to a new level — to a milk, orange juice or cheese status.

The success of the campaign is reliant on its ability to crack the four modes of how we think.  The modes are simple and straightforward:

• Daily Mode:  A person is focusing on life – daily issues.  They are not thinking about tuna, Omega 3, or tuna tacos — the person is just living their life.  BTW: this is 99% of people.
• Interest Mode: Someone takes time in their day, because they are intrigued by a product or service.  The person decides to to learn more about the product, but they are still not in the mode of  buying the product.
• Buy Mode: A person’s mindset when shopping for a product.  This mode can be months with a high-consideration purchase or seconds for commodity items.  Whether shopping online or aisle 3, the Buy mode is about closing the deal — getting the purchase. 
• Own Mode:  A person’s mindset during product usage.  Although usage is about meeting and exceeding expectations, you should also layer in did the product generate an emotional connection — a connection to the brand, a connection solidifying loyalty.

The modes vary in intensity by product.  Products with a strong advocacy (e.g. autos, fashion, electronics) tend to have a pronounced Interest mode for some people, because it is not just a product it can also be a person’s passion. 

The biggest factor for marketers is breaking through the Daily mode — a mode advertising is designed to crack.  And it can, however, it is hard to penetrate due to the overwhelming marketing noise in our life.  To compound the “noise” many marketers choose the wrong communication strategy, because they assume everyone is one degree away from purchase.  So instead of influencing the person in the Daily mode, the marketer is appealing to the minuscule Buy mode audience.

So will people Get Tuna?

The answer lies in the campaign’s ability break through the Daily mode, because there are very few tuna passionate people regularly seeking out tuna info, and by the time we get to the tuna aisle the marketing shifts from the Tuna the Wonderfish campagin to the individual tuna brands.  The novelty of the campaign may break through, however, I wonder if the gimmicks used on television can be leveraged in other media.  For example, the “Got milk?” campaign used the iconic milk-stache as an ubiquitous signature to pair with the breakthrough television.

Nabisco is not the first (nor last) brand to incentivize people to join their fan page.  Different brand stimuli have been used by Outback, Babies’R'Us, and Sears just to name a few.  Outback offered a free Bloomin’ Onion, while Babies’R'Us gave fans a $5 gift card.  Sears like Nabisco offers coupons to new fans.

Nabisco’s offer is not really free (note the asterisk).  The deal is fans can download a coupon on the first Monday of every month (limit 500,000 coupons per month) throughout 2010.  The coupon is good for a free package of Chips Ahoy when you purchase one package of Chips Ahoy and a gallon of milk.

 The second question is what type of  fan does a brand attract with incentives?  I don’t know how many fans of the Nabisco Cookies page came for love of brand or love of free cookies.  However, there is some insight by reviewing the page content.  In reviewing the past 24 hours there was over 30 postings.  Fan postings are primarily shout outs to their love of cookies.

• J Blair: we love cookies Yesterday at 4:57pm
• L Goodman: we are all cookie monster in this house:)Yesterday at 4:56pm
• V Coffey: MMMMMMMM COOKIES!!!! Me love cookies!! Yesterday at 4:38pm
• A Orr: Nabisco cookies and milk?! hummmmmmmm Yesterday at 3:13pm

Not every post was for the love of cookies.  There was some banter about the coupon promotion.   On the discussion page there seems to be a little angst around the use of the coupon.

• J. Mowen: Went to the store this morning and tried to use my coupon. I admit I should have read the date ahead, but what kind of coupon is only good for three days!!!! Leave it to a huge corporation like this to put such great limitations on the deal!  (Yesterday at 10:13am)
• J. Moore:no stupid coupon nabisco you suck (March 8 at 1:21pm)
• B. Dyer: NO COUPON.  WHAT IS WRONG WITH NABISCO? MUST BE RUN BY A MALE (Tue at 6:07pm)
•  
  D. Cooley:We have two major grocery chains in St. Louis/St. Charles Missouri. They both rejected my coupon because they SAY, it is not posted in the stores, that they reject all internet coupons for free items or even cents off! I talked with the store managers and they say they were not told by Nabisco they were having a promotion, and they would not accept a free item internet coupon!!! Thanks for a good idea, but it turned out to be useless to me!  (March 1 at 6:21pm) 

Last Tuesday I was in aisle 12 at the local Kroger a sign caught my attention (see visual).  It is a sign about toilet paper with a basic question: How do you roll?  An interesting question I will talk about in a bit, but the question poses a more interesting marketing challenge: Can you create a brand experience about toilet paper?

 Toilet paper is one of the basic commodities we buy.  Sure there are differences between brands — either from a brand imagery (e.g. puppies, bears, angels) or within product benefits (e.g. lotion, mega roll, recycled).  However, as a low consideration purchase, it is safe to say people rarely (if ever) search for toilet paper information or have discussions with friends about toilet paper.

However, if your looking to talk about TP there is conversation out there.  Online there seems to be content about everything — including toilet paper.  A web search of toilet paper provides some interesting results.  For example there is a  Consumer Reports review of toilet paper; a wide variety of printed TP on JustToiletPaper.com; and a YouTube video about How Toilet Paper is Made from the Discovery Channel.

Online there are some discussions — most center around how to TP a house.  An example is eHows: How to Toilet Paper – TP – A Friend’s House where the author even make the following TP brand recommendation:

Most stores that sell toilet paper will stock a very cheap brand of toilet paper that you probably wouldn’t want to use in your bathroom. My theory is that the manufacturers of this grade of toilet paper are targeting it directly to the tree-decorating market segment. Don’t let them down – buy this stuff!

I don’t know if the cheap toilet paper brands really make a lot of revenue from pranks, but the author does make an interesting brand delineation between personal and pranks usage.

Cottonelle is thinking beyond pranks, bears, and lotion and trying to engage in a toilet paper debate.  Probably one of the few discussions people may have about toilet paper — over versus under.  I can actually relate to both sides of the debate.  In my husband orientation 20 years ago I was “trained” by my bride to make sure the toilet paper must roll over, not under.  Over time I learned and needed no further reminder.  As far as the counterpoint, I have a friend who has cats.  She has to make sure the toilet paper rolls under otherwise her catnip crazed feline will unravel the entire toilet paper roll.

A core element of the Cottonelle campaign is an online brand experience called CottonelleRollPoll.com.  The cleverly simple site asks people if the roll their toilet paper over or under.  The site begins by asking users to join the debate by voting their preference (currently 78% voted for over).  Within the site users can view results by state; read watch videos of reasons why people prefer over or under; or watch “Roll Poll Throwdown” in which two fictitious characters debate the merit of over versus under.

I like Cottonelle’s effort.  It reminds me of Scott’s Halftime Flush during the 2006 Super Bowl.  Scott’s built a brand experience around the fact that there is more flushing during the halftime of a Super Bowl than any other time of the year.  Hey, owning the flush is not a bad idea if your a toilet paper brand. 

A recommendation for Cottonelle’s point of sale display would be a minor tweak to their campaign and provide a mobile aspect to the campaign.  I doubt if many shoppers (like me) are taking pictures of the sign in order to remember the URL.  Text messaging may be an additional way to engage a shopper in aisle 12 of Kroger.

First off, banners are a means to an end.  Most of the time they are drivers to a site experience.  Banners should not be the center point of your campaign, they are more like the icing you would put on a cake.  If the cake tastes like s%*# then there is little the icing can do.  This is why we need to think about bypassing the banner.

Think of bypassing the banner as a 100 to 5 to 1 ratio.  Recently at Team Detroit, we worked on an online optimization strategy for Ford, where we analyzed potential integration efforts into third party sites like KBB, Edmunds, and MSN Autos.  We quickly realized the potential was based on this simple ratio:

• 100: If we integrated an experience into the page, we could affect 100% of thepage  visitors on the third party site.
• 5: If we created a contextually relevant experience within the banner, we could potentially affect 5% of the page visitors.
• 1: If we created a strong, contextual call to action within the banner, we could potentially affect 1% of the page visitors.

This is a logical (and hardly novel) approach to online media.  The problem is many times we usually execute “.1″s.  That’s right one-tenth of a percent click-through rates.  We create a banner and efficiently pepper the banner throughout the internet through high-indexed sites, portal sites, and ad networks.   We are satisfied with micro-percents as campaign success goals.   The reality is we need to quit trying to drive people to our brand experience and bring the brand experience to them.

Start with 100%
Many industries have a natural path they can intercept people.  Many food products can integrate into recipe sites.  Many high-consideration purchases have sites dedicated to educating shoppers about their product (e.g. CNET for appliances and tech, KBB for vehicles, and many vertical pubs like MountainBike.com, EngagementRingAdvice.com or  PamperedPuppy.com).  Sometimes there are opportunities to integrate directly into the site — sometimes there is not.  Which mean we use banners — right?  Not so fast.

You need to begin with your target consumer’s mindset.  There are three levels to consider:

• Mind Elsewhere: Person is immersed in a passion point or in an online task like email, updating their social status, or reading the latest new story.  They are not thinking about your product or service.
• Product Interest: The person is interested in your product (or the competition) and is seeking out information to become more knowledgeable. 
• Shopping for Product: The person is actively shopping for your product (or the competition).

The latter two levels are easy to intercept if the person researches the product online.  This may be the case for high-consideration purchases, but is minimal or non existent for low consideration purchases.  The challenge for low consideration product marketers is their consumer targets are primarily in a mind elsewhere mindset.   These marketers need to find a way to connect with consumers — most likely through a brand connection than a product connection.

The natural brand path
The majority of people fall into the first mindset, which partly explains why click-through-rates are abysmal.  To bypass the banner we need to generate experience or content within their natural path.  This can be accomplished in many different ways, however one factor will be in common — a relevant brand experience.  The relevant brand experience intersects a brand truth and a consumer interest or insight.  This is where the brand can live, and where the consumer will accept the brand on their terms.

There are many examples across the internet.  Some are wonderful brand synergies.  Some not so much.  One of my perennial favorites is Mountain Dew and extreme sports.  The Mountain Dew Brand is about action — about a caffienated  buzz — about teenagers playing xBox all night drinking their gaming juice.   And Mountain Dew is about extreme sports.  The brand is integrated seemlessly with extreme sports with their own tour: Dew Tour.  Online you can find the Dew Tour on facebook, YouTube, Fuel TV, and the tour is referenced on many sports sites like SkiChannel.com, SnowBoard Mag.com, and ESPN.   Offline you can find the tour at ski resorts, in the press, and on television.  Not a bad way to bypass the banner.

Coca-Cola’s Expedition 206 Campaign is about to send a team of three people on a year-long global tour to 206 countries.  Per Reuters article Coke hopes to take advantage of the ubiquitous-ness of social media and ”deliver a year-long reality TV series without the TV.” 

For the people who do not get selected, they can live vicariously through the winning team.  They can follow the team on social platforms like facebook, YouTube or Twitter.  People can also offer suggestions to the team like activities to do or places to see within each country. 

The campaign made me contemplate if this was the best way to engage coke fans globally.  Sure the winning team gets a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but how enriching is the brand experience to the billion of global coke drinkers?  Or the 3.7 million fans on facebook?  What’s in it for them? Why should they care?  Is there a better experience to engage more people in Coke’s Happiness campaign?

Look, Coke isn’t the first marketer to generate a vicarious global brand experience.  Last year the Smirnoff 10 got the opportunity to go bar hopping world wide, and hang out with musicians, celebrities and the beautiful people.  And again, you wonder what the pay-off is for the people not on the trip.

4 Levels of Brand Experiences
Based on these initiatives I contemplated what are the different levels of brand experience engagements, and the overall value to a social network.  My objective in delineating different levels of brand experience engagement is not to say there is a “right” answer.  Rather, it can be used more as a brainstorming tool to explore more personal brand experiences that are more impactful to a larger portion of your fan base or target audience. 

The four levels I identified are:

1. Viewing the brand experience vicariously through someone you never met (or a celebrity) 
2. Viewing the brand experience vicariously through a friend
3. Sharing a brand experience virtually with your friends.
4. Sharing a brand experience physically (in the real world) with your friends.

The first level is like the current Coke campaign — people you never meet go on a trip, and you can follow their experiences.  The level of value and entertainment will be directly correlated to the attractiveness of the participants.  This is no different than any reality shows success.  The more interesting or provocative the participants, the more likely people will tune in and follow.  For this reason, a brand may use a celebrity instead of an unknown, because the celebrity is immediately identifiable, and you can forego character introductions or character building.

The second level is following a friend while they participate in a brand experience.  The friends social group may be more engaged in their experience, at least to a point.  Think of the last time someone shared their vacation pictures to Europe, Asia or any exotic destination.  Somewhat interesting to a point (depending on the stories), but lacks memorable or impact because you did not partake in the experience.

The third level is a distributed experience.  With social networks, wi-fi, and mobile tethering it is not a stretch for people to share the same experience in multiple geographic locations.  Imagine sharing New Years Eve with multiple friends across the country, tweeting about Super Bowl commercials, or star watching in the Academy Awards Show through a facebook chat.  

Some experiences already exist in a distributed manner.  For example, last August a group of friends participated in a virtual Fantasy Football draft.  About five people attended a draft party at my house, while three people participated remotely through chat, cell, and texting.  I found it interesting that the group dynamics didn’t change much for people who weren’t there. 

The final level is a an experience in the physical world.  These brand experiences are somewhat common.  Companies like House Party organize brand parties in homes across the country.   Brand parties are an excuse to get together with friends (like a Fantasy Football Draft parties are like a male Hallmark Holiday).  And unlike a jewelry, make-up or Tupperware party, there is no coercion to purchase items from the host at a brand party. 

Party Host, Wallflower or Party Crasher?
At all levels, brand integration is a challenge.  For example, how is the brand experience amplifying aspect of the brand?  Is the experience a reflection of the brand DNA or could any brand be inserted into the experience.  Integration is a key to memorability.  You don’t want the brand to be a wallflower within the experience.  The brand should be the ambiance.  The brand should be the experiential catalyst.  The brand should be the unforgettable reason why the experience exists.  The worst case scenario for a brans is there is no cognitive right to be in the experience — in this situation the brand would be seen as a party crasher.

An example of experiential synergy is Mountain Dew and gaming.  Imagine Mountain Dew hosting an all night gaming party across the country for the release of Madden 2010.  This is easy for Mountian Dew because the have spent years integrating their brand DNA with gaming (just think about gaming juice). 

Also, the more personal and shared the experience, the more the memorability will be amplified.  The closer a brand gets to a level 4 experience the more the experience will be amplified.  Past experience tells us there is a big difference between viewing pictures of a friend’s trip to Europe versus reminiscing with the same friend on a trip taken together. 

So is there a Level 4 Coke idea?
Most brands don’t have the luxury of a brand integration into a brand passion point like Mountain Dew.   Think about Coke.  I get the following equation: Global Brand = Global Trip.  Most people get it.  Executing a global social campaign makes sense for the brand.  So the current campaign is definitely on strategy, but is there a bigger global experiential idea that could get more people involved — that could show the global diversity of the coke lover — that was part of the Coke Brand DNA (e.g. spread Happiness which is the Coke tagline).

A step toward this would be to build on the current idea and increase the number of teams from one to 206.  Hey why not?  206 countries would equate to 206 teams.  Each team would cycle through each country sequentially, building upon the previous teams activities.  The breadth of diversity would increase.  The amount of friends would increase.  The social footprint would increase by over 200 percent.  The obvious drawback is funding.  But hey, Coke is a global brand with a global budget right?  In all seriousness, it would be expensive, but at the same time the bold action will bring more attention to the campaign and increase local relevance within each country. 

The global 206 still is primarily a Level 1 idea, maybe a borderline Level 2 idea.  So is there something deeper — in Level 3 or 4. This would require switching the emphasis to distributed experiences, and focus on single experiences that happen globally.  The challenge with a global experience is what experience is shared globally?  Maybe New Years?  Maybe the Olympics?  I don’t know the answer, but I feel there is a stronger Level 4 experience out there Coke create.

My recommendation is always strive to the more personal experience.  It may not make the headlines (or make a good viral video), but in the long-term brand health it will have a bigger impact on the bottom line.

Following the media assault, I wondered if there would be a marketing assault to take advantage of the pandemic scare. I figured someone wanted to own the Swine Flu. Two marketers stepped up: Lysol and Kleenex. Well, sort of.

Lysol’s message was simple: Influenza A (H1N1): Common Sense Steps to Help Keep Your Family Healthy. I received the message via an email. The email detailed steps to mitigate catching the swine flu. The steps included washing your hands for 20 seconds (the time it takes to sing the “Happy Birthday” song twice), regularly disinfect the frequently-touched surfaces in your home, and avoid people who are sick.

The other marketer, Kleenex, did not mentioned the swine flu directly. Instead they are battling cold and flu bugs on a site called Battle the Bug. The site contains product info on Kleenex Anti-Viral Tissue, flu factoids (e.g. One sneeze can spray 100,000 infectious droplets into the air at more than 200 MPH), and a color-coded state map based on flu severity. Kleenex also recommends steps to avoid the flu like washing your hands (no time limit or song required), getting a good nights sleep, and disposing tissues in a trash recepticle as soon as possible.

The question I wondered about is: Do you want to own the swine flu?

Fear marketing can be effective. Think about GM’s OnStar campaign. The campaign centers around real calls normally with an OnStar agents contacting 911 services as people are pinned within their vehicle. Not appealing, but seemlingly effective for GM. In 2009, OnStar reported 6 million subscribers, and is now negotiating to offer the service to non-GM auto-manufacturers.

VW tried a similar tactic with their “Safe Happens” campaign. The shocking ads culminated in a Jetta smashing into another vehicle. An interesting way to advertise a Jetta’s crash test rating. Although the campaign caused an intial influx of shopper attention, there is mixed signals on the campaign’s long term effect on Jetta sales.

Owning fear is a delicate marketing approach. Taking advantage of a consumer’s primal fear can be effective — at least in the short term. However, for marketers, like Lysol, owning the swine flu may have too much negative baggage. This may explain why Lysol referenced the swine flu by it’s clinical title (Influenza A (H1N1)) and the message was sent via email, not in a broad reach media campaign.

National Humor Month
National Card and Letter Writing Month
National Poetry Month
National Kite Month
National Straw Hat Month
National Grilled Cheese Month

Kraft Singles would like you to observe the month by going to their site, I Heart Grilled Cheese, and write why you love Kraft Singles in 50 words or less. Kraft will draw 500 winners per week to receive a free package of Kraft Singles.

According to Ad Age (”Kraft Pays Homage to Grilled Cheese“), Kraft will also be hosting the largest grilled cheese cooking competition. The event called the 1st 7th Annual Grilled Cheese Invitational, will be held on April 25th in Los Angeles.

http://adage.com/article?article_id=135824

Okay, initially I thought grilled cheese would have as much enthusiasm as the straw hat. However, the more I researched the grilled cheese, the more I found an enthusiastic undercurrent sandwich (or “sammich” per the grilled cheese enthusiast). As you can see from the YouTube video (1st 6th Annual Competition on YouTube), attendees really get into the event. A lot of the enthusiasm comes from the creativity of sandwich assembly. For example, there are three categories in the competition:

The Missionary Position: Your standard grilled cheese: basic bread, butter and cheese.
The Kama Sutra: A freestyle category where the only requirement is the sandwich is 60% cheese.
The Honey Pot: Think grilled cheese for desert.

So is Kraft building on the passion?

Although Kraft believes they will be overwhelmed with responses (per Ad Age), I find their experience underwhelming. The “I Heart Grilled Cheese” site is a one-page site where users can enter their 50 word love note to Kraft Singles—yet none of the entries are published, shared, or voted upon. In fact Kraft isn’t sure what they will be doing with the notes. They may “possibly” put them on the Kraft Singles site at a later date.

In my opinion Kraft should take the enthusiasm from the invitational and generate a month long experience online—Think UGGC (User Generated Grilled Cheese). The site would be a true national celebration of the iconic sammich. The UGGC would be entered (and awarded) by category (expanding on the invitational categories), and entrants would submit a photo/video of their creation along with a corresponding recipe. The UGGC content would be wrapped in an online community (think UGGC site + facebook + youtube) where people can comment, vote, and share the recipes.

With all that said, if you are still not a fan of grilled cheese, stay tuned, May is National Hamburger Month. I wonder how Wendy, Ronald and the King will celebrate?

I was pumping gas the other night at a local Speedway. As the fuel pump climbed to $36.32, I killed time by watching the gas pump TV.

Weather.
Speedway ad.
Sports.
Ford Fusion commercial.
Local News.
Bizarre commercial about alternative gum uses.

What’s that all about?

Stride Gum’s commercial uses the cheesy infomercial formula to entertain. And forget about selling the gum. The commercial centers around alternative uses for the long lasting gum like balancing a boomerang or replacement eyebrows. Oh yeah, they need your help. The commercial culminates in a call to action to go to StrideGum.com to help them name the new Nonstop Mint gum.

At the site users can participate in a contest to rename the gum and win $10,000. In addition to the contest the site contains gum games, photos from the Stride college campus tour (think dodgeball coverage), and Dancing Matt. BTW you may remember dancing Matt Harding . He is the guy who does a silly jig around the globe, partly at the request of Stride. The video did quite well with over 19.8 million views to date.

So back to the gum naming “winfomercial”. Strides’ different commercial breaks through. I liken it to recent ESPN 360 commercial using Billy Mays. Spoofing the infomercial gains attention. Add a call to action to a site mimicking the commercial, creates a fun memorable, brand experience.

I am curious what is next for Stride. First there was Dancing Matt. Then the infomercial. My guess is something with their college dodgeball tour. We can only hope includes Pepper Brooks and Cotton McKnight on the Ocho.

Instead of a web site, Skittles has deployed an aggregation of social tools. Their primary site is a twitter feed. Product information is stored on wikipedia. Ads have been posted on YouTube and flickr. Oh yeah, I am also a fan on facebook with 581,772 other facebook users.

Pretty impressive.

Skittles executed a well-thought out online social expression. Is this a glimpse of new marketing? Or a social stunt which will run its course soon? In reviewing the twitter banter, it seems the communication is not about skittles, but an industry love-fest (or backlash) for a marketer deploying a 100% social play. The tweeting included:

tevan: the redesigned http://skittles.com uses social networking to the extreme. those aren’t little candies; they’re colorful balls of steel.

  

ner1ssa: discovered Skittlesis using new media for its website – Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, FaceBook and mobile web. Interesting. http://skittles.com

 

ahhyeah: Looks like http://skittles.com isn’t the only one with this idea, Check this out: http://www.modernista.com again, brilliant!

johnmills: Skittles thinks they’re cool. They are not. Just another stupid publicity stunt from a corporate giant. Side note: I want some skittles 

 

Papstio: Had to see what the whole Skittles hype was all about. Not bad! Doesn’t exactly make me want Skittles though.

Love it or hate it. The Skittles Social Experiment has struck a cord — at least in the industry. But can it work?

One awkward practice working against Skittles, is the requirement of providing an age prior to entering the site. Seems like this would alienate many Skittle consumers (e.g. my six-year-old son LOVES Skittles). Although common in the liquor and beer industry, it is not a common practice for CPG. The reason for age filtering is (obviously) some comments may be objectionable. And, yes, there were a few f-bombs, porn references, and other select profane comments in the feed.

Is Skittles turning over its brand? I am advocate for listening to customers and engaging brand advocates. This is not what Skittles is doing. Look, skittle-ites already own the brand. They don’t need Skittles.com to artificially inflate their advocacy. A Skittles advocate can blog, comment, or post about it anywhere on the social sphere. The goal should be not to replace the advocacy, but amplify it. But Will the Skittle advocate take time to contribute?

When the furor dies down and we (the industry) move onto our next social shiny object (should be about 72 hours), will the Skittles customer be heard. Right now, it is hard to tell if the site works for Skittles customers/advocates. With the advertising/PR industry flooding the site with comments, an advocates comment will get buried in the twitter barrage. Obviously, we (the industry) have plenty of time on our hands to use a twitter soapbox to profess admiration or disdain for the site. When the twitter dust settles will anyone care? Or will there be social silence?