On a recent visit to Florida, I ended up seeing a lot of pharmaceutical commercials for all manner of pharmaceutical products that I had no idea about. The commercials all have a similar pattern. They introduce a product name, all seem to be something like “Prolaxatrol,” or some other made up name that might suggest… Read More: Footage to Minimize Anal Leakage & Possible Death »
PART IV of V: 5 Advertising Mistakes Retailers Make Some ads from retailers, especially newspaper ads, make understanding the DaVinci code a simple thing. You need to call Tom Hanks to help you figure out what you need to know. They seem to think that if you throw an entire vegetable garden at the wall… Read More: PART IV: Ads Filled With Information But No Message »
There were established rules that limited the use of well known persons in advertising to children in Canada. Then our client, General Mills, let us know they had signed a deal to launch a cereal, Pro*Stars in 1983, that would feature Wayne Gretzky, the Great One, on the package. It was the brainchild of Mike… Read More: Front Page Cereal Launch »
When you watch a football game, you see officials watching the runners being tackled or run out of bounds. These officials then run out, grab the ball and place it on the field when they estimate it was advanced to. It is a field of 100 (US) or 110 (Canadian) yards, and the placement is… Read More: Rough Guesses That We Measure Microscopically »
I once gave a class presentation about the psychology used in advertising that leads people to deceive themselves. I outlined some of the techniques to our class of about twenty or so. At the end of the class, a number of students said they did not believe me. They said they could never be fooled… Read More: Hey Nineteen – How Psychological Bias Works »
We were pleased a few years ago when our Media Director advised us that she had negotiated a free promotion activation from the CBC. She got a promotional tie-in with Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC) for our Subway client and, even better, it was to run during the highly rated Stanley Cup Playoffs. All… Read More: Overnight Sensation Takes the Cup »
A freelance assignment in Hungary came up in 1989. The country was just breaking free from Russian domination and communism, literally at that very moment. A bank in Budapest, called DunaBank, wanted to use their new entrepreneurial freedom to launch a credit card. I did this with the help of a local agency and after… Read More: Attila Was a Good Guy »
The Creative strategy for Camay bar soap in Venezuela was that it was gentle, leaving skin feeling soft because Camay contained cold cream. Softness was the end benefit of using the product, being caressable was what we called the end-end benefit, a social benefit to a physical one. The commercials were designed to empower the… Read More: We Leave You Caressable »
A freelance assignment in Hungary came up in 1989. The country was just breaking free from Russian domination and communism. A bank in Budapest, called DunaBank, wanted to launch a credit card. I was hired based on my marketing work with Texaco’s credit card operation, and the fact that Canada was less scary and more… Read More: Trying to Introduce Capitalism »
Everyone who has ever managed people should aim to be a “Geppetto Manager.” In the famous Italian story, retold by Disney, Geppetto was the old woodcarver who made a wooden marionette named Pinocchio. Pinocchio, the puppet, dreams of becoming a real boy. The story is about how Pinocchio learns to have a conscience and then,… Read More: Geppetto Management »