teachthe4ps.com - For instructors of marketing.

Looking for some advertising examples to show on that first day of class?  Here are last year’s best according to Cannes.  “The 18 best commercials of 2009-10 as chosen by the Cannes ad festival” (courtesy of Adweek).  We have featured several of these ads over the last year.  I like to show award-winning ads in class and then ask students a series of questions:  1) Do you like the ad?  2)  Why?  3) Is this a good ad?  4)  What makes for a good ad?

Then I like to turn it around and make sure they realize that in the end, great advertising achieves the advertiser’s objectives.  Just because an ad is entertaining, that does not make it a good ad.  You can tie this into the AIDA model as well.   Believe it or not — as I write this I get great support for that proposition.  I just heard a story on Marketplace Morning and after googling it found this story, “Old Spice’s Viral Ads Got Attention, Not Sales” (Time, July 20 2010) — Old Spice won the Cannes Grand Prix Award — generating Attention and maybe Interest — but apparently not any Action. [UPDATE, July 27, 2010:  Never mind this last comment.  Time has also updated its article -- sales of Old Spice are taking off see my more recent post "Old Spice Campaign Smells Like a Sales Success, Too."  [NOTE:  This post is also featured at our companion blog for marketing students - "Learn the 4 Ps".]

A few months ago, we reported on this great Old Spice video climbing up the viral video charts.  As a follow-up, you can read about the campaign’s success in this USA Today article, “Old Spice revitalizes brand with trendy advertisements” (June 30, 2010).

In our books, we define a fad as “an idea that is fashionable only to certain groups who are enthusiastic about it — but those groups are so fickle that fad is even more short-lived than a regular fashion.”  Only time will tell if Silly Bandz is a fad — or has the legs to become a toy with a longer life.  But this article, “The Man Behind the Bandz” (Bloomberg BusinessWeek, June 10, 2010) describes some of the history and marketing behind this fast growing “toy.”  I say some, because founder Robert Croak doesn’t want to reveal all his secrets.  But they have relied on social media and viral promotion to fuel growth. A companion article, “Wham-O CEO to Silly Bandz:  Boost Creativity” (Bloomberg BusinessWeek, June 10, 2010) has a short Q&A with the CEO of the company that sells the Frisbee, SuperBall and Slip ‘n Slide among other products.

This article might be a nice example of a fad — or could be discussed with respect to the product life cycle.  The article also discusses success with using Facebook and mostly consumer generated YouTube videos featuring Silly Bandz — so it could work as a social media example, too.

As we all know, Toyota has had a pretty rough year. A long-term problem for automakers — how do you make a minivan cool? As a Sienna owner, I must admit I make my wife drive it. This campaign has ben running on TV since February but the long version recently worked its way to the top of the AdAge Viral video chart — with over 1.4 million views per week. This could be fun to show to class — starting with the question, “How do you make a minivan cool?” and ending with, “Do you think this does it?”

We have always enjoyed the creative marketing programs from John Deere.  John Deere has done a great job showing how a company can leverage the Internet in B2B.  John Deere really understands its customers — farmers.  Recently John Deere teamed up with Chip Foose, star of TLC’s Overhaulin – which every week “junkers into dream machines.”  The created a series of webisodes that featured the conversion of a John Deere 4020 tractor into a “hot rod.”  You can see the last episode below — find “BCS Big Buck Promo” series here.  The tractor is currently touring the country, visiting John Deere dealerships, before it will be given away in a drawing.  Sign up at your local John Deere dealership.

This might be interesting to discuss in organizational buying (our books feature John Deere in our opening case in this chapter) or when discussing Promotion where it is always nice to have B2B examples to supplement the numerous B2C examples.

This is a great little viral video you might enjoy showing in class.  Our students love rap — and I find that Nike is a favorite brand.  Teh video was made by Wieden + Kennedy’s (ad agency) Tokyo office.  I predict viral success.  The video was just posted to YouTube today.  As of this afternoon there are less than 750 views.  That will not last long.  It might be fun to ask students, “What does Nike get out of efforts like this?”  I believe that it helps position the brand as hip to today’s youth — a good space to be in.

Toyota developed the Scion brand to target young people.  They have been very creative with their marketing campaigns, shying away from traditional advertising.  Here is the brand’s latest effort — it involves developing a web series.  The video is part of the first episode — may be kind of long to show in class, but I might try to show the first couple minutes so students get the idea and see the production values.  Short article Video:  “Scion Targets Younger Buyers With ‘Project Runway for Cars’ Web Series” at Fast Company, March 30, 2010.  One measure of its success will clearly be the number of views (so you can track with me, because as of March 31 at 8:07 a.m. Mountain Time, there are only 1087 views of part 1 — and only 192 viewers went on to watch part 2.  You will have to click through to YouTube, double click on the video below, to get the count).

You know what they say in autos: One day you’re in, and the next day, you’re…winning a Scion? That’s the idea behind Scion’s Reinvent The Wheels, a new Web video series being billed as “Project Runway for cars.” The six-part saga, which premiered last night (just days before the New York Auto Show), follows 3 “creative thinkers” as they pimp a series of rides in an effort to win a Scion, a $30,000 cash prize, and “a one-of-a-kind opportunity to help them achieve their career goals by gaining valuable exposure and mentorship” (whatever that means).

…and takes not-so-subtle play on the Apple iPad.

This Old Spice commercial has taken the top spot on the Ad Age Viral Video Chart — moving past Doritos with more than 2 million views last week. It takes an interesting approach in its battle with Axe (if it even competes with Axe – different target markets?).  Axe’s ads target 16 – 24  [13-18?] year old males.  Just go to YouTube and search “Axe commercial” for examples. I have kind of stayed away from the Axe ads which are pretty sexist and might offend some of my students – but if you are up for it, search YouTube for the Axe “Clean Your Balls”. Old Spice seems to be taking a different tack by targeting women, who they figure will buy Old Spice for their man (who may be a bit older than the Axe target market).

One way to use these in class would be to show the two ads and ask students if they seem to be targeting different market segments and buying behavior. It could be a nice lead-in to some discussion about segmentation, targeting and/or consumer behavior. You can also see how Axe uses the internet to get racier ads (that would not get past network censors) in front of its target customers — and for a lower media cost no less. Note that the Old Spice ad is running on TV.

I found this OK Go (a music group by the way) video online about a week ago.  I forget how I learned about the video.  It was interesting and I showed it before of of my classes (at almost four minutes it was too long for me to want to show during class — so I let it run while I handed out some papers).  Anyway, I never noticed that it was actually sponsored by State Farm until I read this BusinessWeek article, “Inside the OK Go / State Farm Deal” (March 3, 2010).  Is this a good marketing strategy?  Personally, I don’t think so. I believe that efforts at viral video should have some fit with the brand — I don’t really get the State Farm connection.  I guess the objective could be to raise awareness — but does State Farm need more awareness.  Besides, the first time I watched the video I did not even notice the State Farm sponsorship.

You can decide if you want to show it in class — might be a nice break in the middle of a long lecture.  It is fun to watch and you could ask students after if it makes them feel different about State Farm.