How Target’s Che became a target

The image of Che Guavara, sporting a beret with a single star on it, has been popular since his execution in 1967 in Bolivia, where he tried to mastermind a communist uprising.
The photo was taken by Alberto Diaz (aka “Korda”) and became iconic.
Since Guavara's death, his portrait was put on everything from posters and T-shirts to schoolbags.
Che became a symbol of idealistic revolt for many, including students taking part in the 1968 Paris uprising in 1968 and Palestinians launching terrorist attacks against Israel in 2000.

As part of Target's positioning as a trendy discount chain, it decided to tap into the motley of symbols of retro cool, following the current trend at populate flea market stalls as well as in chic designer boutiques.
Target featured Che’s image on a music CD carrying case, wearing a set of small earphones, thus implying that he was tuned in to trendy music players such as iPod.

Target was not the first company to choose Che: Swatch put Guevara on a wristwatch and Smirnoff vodka featured the picture in an advertising campaign.

What Target didn't take into account, was the sensitivity of its Latin customers.
Guevara as a romantic hero is a myth.
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (aka Che Guevara or el Che) decided as a medical student, that the socioeconomic inequalities in Latin America could only be remedied by revolution.
He became a Marxist and joined Fidel Castro's paramilitary 26th of July Movement, which seized power in Cuba in 1959.
He served in various important governmental posts.
In this capacity, Guevara signed at least 600 death warrants and executed children by firing squads.
According to the Investor's Business Daily, Guevara was responsible for at least 2,000 deaths during Cuba's 1961 mass executions.
The Cuban exile community in the US collectively took a stand against sporting Che’s image on Target's merchandize.
The story quickly hit the newswires and numerous blogs pounced on it.
They stated that Guevara was one of history's brutal mass murderers, in the same league as Pol Pot, Pinochet, Osama bin Laden and Adolf Hitler.

Showing excellent crisis management, Target Corp quickly pulled all the CD cases from its shelves and issued an apology.
"It is never our intent to offend any of our guests through the merchandise we carry. We have made the decision to remove this item from our shelves and we sincerely apologize for any discomfort this situation may have caused our guests."

Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady applauded Target’s reaction, stating that Target made an "admirable decision" to correct the actions of some company employees who "allowed Target to become a target itself of the Che myth."

The irony of it all is, that Guevara’s iconic portrait is commercially used in the same capitalist consumer society that he died fighting to overturn…

The Brilliant Branding of Borat

When it comes to branding, standup comedians are champions.
They create characters that take on a life of their own.
Mike Myers “Austin Power” is a good example how to create a character, brand it and turn it into a major money making machine.

But the one that excels at this game is without any doubt the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.
He created the character “Borat Sagdiyev”, a Kazakh television news reporter making a meager living in the struggling country of Kazakhstan.
Dressed in his trademark grey suit, a mustached Borat tells the world in heavy accented English about his beautiful home country of Kazakhstan (a urine-drinking, Jew-hating, inbred society).
The Borat character is homophobic ("Are you a homo sapiens? Because it doesn't matter if you are."), misogynic (at a feminist gathering, he "innocently" extolled the virtues of Baywatch) and anti-Semitic (“my city is 3 mile north of fence to Jewtown”)
Cohen also launched a website www.borat.kz, which was promptly shut down by a highly offended Kazakh government.
It was rerouted to www.borat.tv.
If you look at the website, it is exactly in character and pokes fun at all the standard elements and mistakes that can be found on personal websites: black background color, emoticons, flash, common spellings mistakes, (ir)relevant photos, personal profile, MySpace.
Following the Comedy Store formula, Cohen capitalized on his character’s success by making a movie, aptly titled: “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan”.

The movie was cleverly promoted by putting trailers on YouTube.
The main push however came from the personal appearance of the movie’s shining star.

The movie was first shown at the Cannes film festival.
Cohen, always acting as Borat, appeared on a beach in Cannes, dressed in a minimalistic bathing suit that resembled (as the Jaunted website put it) “an upside down Star Trek symbol”.
The pics were beamed across the globe.

Cohen repeated his performance at the London movie premiere.
Staying non-stop in character, he wowed the crowds by stating:
"I have come here with Bilak, my 11 year old son, his wife and their child, and we are hoping maybe to put some chocolate make-up on the child's face and sell him to Madonna.
I am hoping that Madonna will be a very good father for it."
He was, of course, referring to the singer's controversial adoption of a 13-month-old Malawian baby.

For the US launch, Fox studios decided to downsize the initial release of "Borat" from 2,200 screens to 800 because their marketing analysis determined most of middle America wasn't going to "get it”.
During its first weekend, the movie raked in a record $26.4 million in 837 locations.
Since the production budget was under $ 20 million, the movie was able to reach profitability within 3 days.
At the beginning of December 2006, the movie generated $67 million.

Borat got the kind of exposure most A-list actors could only dream of.
He appeared on CNN, FOX, Letterman and O'Brien– to mention just a few.

For the Australian film premiere, Borat adapted to the Aussie way by greeting fans sporting cricket batting pads and a corked hat while holding a boomerang and later cradling a wallaby.
If anyone understands: “think global, act local”, it’s Cohen.

When a blog becomes a flog – the Wal-Mart-Edelman lesson

It all started when the PR agency Edelman Worldwide was hired by Wal-Mart to improve its image.
Edelman started by creating Working Families, a foundation to counter the criticism of union-funded interest groups.
Edelman went on to create a blog – a sort of travelogue following Laura and Jim traveling across the country in an RV.

The couple claimed that they wanted to visit their children, one at college in Pennsylvania and the other in North Carolina, so they came up with the idea to rent an RV and park each night a different Wal-Mart parking lot for free.
During their travel, they reported on the conversations they had with the happy Wal-Mart employees.
Needless to say, all of the postings were long and positive – especially about Wal-Mart.

Bloggers Laura and Jim were later exposed as Laura St. Claire, a freelance writer, and James Thresher, a Washington Post photographer.
Nice detail: Laura’s brother works for Edelman.
Edelman had flown the couple to Las Vegas and got them a mint-green RV emblazoned with the group's logo on the side, according to Business Week.

The fallout of the fake blog hit the blogosphere like a tidal wave.
It also created a new cyberspace word: “flog” a nice wordplay on fake (read: paid-for) blog.

Richard Edelman immediately kicked into crisis management gear and started apologizing “mea culpa” style all over cyberspace.
Clever, since Edelman is one of the co-authors of the WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) code of ethics, which states:
"Honesty of identity: You never obscure your identity."

The blogosphere is still unregulated territory.
This case shook the PR world – it will force corporate bloggers from now on to apply a code of ethics.
Both WOMMA and the PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) refused to take action against Edelman.
Disappointingly, they also ignored this great opportunity to formulate a code of ethics and start some regulation process.

As it looks now, Edelman will come out this escapade untarnished, with more free publicity than anyone of us can dream of…..may be his next step is to put his apology on YouTube as well?

YouTube as a marketing tool

YouTube is a startup (funded by Sequoia Capital) that allows upload of videos to their site.
There are 2.4 billion videos viewed on YouTube each month, which puts in at the top of viral marketing hubs.
The challenge for YouTube is to turn the online social networking community into a profitable enterprise.
YouTube is trying to turn advertising interest into profit.
The tricky part is how to reach the target audience among the millions of consumers using the site.
YouTube has tested the marketing waters with Yahoo! and Google text-based ads as well as a banner campaign for Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.”
Without any doubt, the marketing reach is massive.
It needs a carefully crafted marketing strategy to ensure correct ads placement of ads – not in the least due to the wide range of video subject matter.
Keeping the YouTube website up is not an easy thing to do.
According to insiders’ estimations; it takes at least $300,000 and $400,000 per month to run such a huge bandwidth-size website.
If done properly, using YouTube for advertising will be a nice addition to the marketing and promotion mix.
"From a brand standpoint, it's become another way to reach consumers," says Barry Lowenthal, president of ad buying company Media Kitchen.

Viral marketing is a strong part of it.
Nike's Ronaldinho clip was e-mailed by consumers to their friends and embedded it in their profiles on social networking sites.
As a result, it has been viewed more than 3 million times.
The investment on Nike’s side was producing the digital video.
The uploading and distribution was free.

Some companies already engage YouTube as a marketing partner.
E Networks is featuring various E program clips on the site.
Deep Focus, a marketing firm representing studios such as The Weinstein Co., and MTV2 use YouTube for promotion, such as running the trailer for Scary Movie 4.
The trailer was seen 250,000 viewers within 24 hours and by 1 million within a week.

You Tube runs video clips based on formal agreements with the logo of the firm that placed them. It is also their way of letting viewers know that they are commercial.
Some companies prefer not the work officially, but just upload their videos on their own.
Warner Bros. posted video blogs from the Superman Returns director to promote the movie.

Copyright is an issue with viral marketing the YouTube way, and some companies are not amused.
NBC asked the site to pull down pirated clips of a Saturday Night Live skit due to complains from the rights-holders.

Since everything goes on YouTube, is does come with some unexpected “dangers”.
General Motor's Chevrolet launched a contest, inviting consumers to use Chevy-provided images and music to make their own Tahoe commercial.
Some people created harsh, anti-SUV messages about global warming, and posted the end result on YouTube.

Jessica Rose, a 20 something graduate of The New York Film Academy, used YouTube to launch her acting career.
For nearly 4 months, she played an innocent, home-schooled 16-year-old, pouring her heart out for the video camera in (what seemed to be) the privacy of her bedroom.
Calling herself Lonelygirl15, her first person video accounts became one of the most viewed on YouTube.
She built a fan base of millions, that couldn’t get enough of the “fresh faced teenager”.
In the end, it was revealed that her carefully and professionally crafted videos were part of a stunt for the purpose of catching a movie deal.

But how successful will YouTube be as a marketing tool?

"It's fantastic from a consumer research standpoint," says Lowenthal.
"You can type in a search for 'shopping' and then see (videos) of people showing their shopping habits. It's almost like a global focus group — all for free."

It’s a cost effective way to make a corporate or product video – all you need is a
iMovie or MiniDV camera to match the production quality.
Distribution is free – courtesy of the YouTube viewers.

When going for a YouTube video, keep the following in mind:

• Make it entertaining - funny works better than serious.
• Be aware that it has a short life span.
• Sex sells, and you can get away with racy materials.
• Keep it short – under three minutes.
• Be aware of your target audience – violent and weird stuff appeals to young males only.

The (ex)planet that launched a thousand merchandise items

When the International Astronomical Union shook up the solar system by stripping Pluto of its planet status, it did more than ban the celestial body from the cosmic planet club.
Discovered in 1930 by 24-year-old American astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, Clyde Tombaugh, Pluto’s planet reign lasted 76 years.
Pluto’s naming is an interesting story on its own.
11-year-old Venetia Burney, from Oxford, England, suggested the name.
It was chosen from a long list that included Atlas, Apollo, Zeus, Minerva and even Bacchus. As Jeff Mullin pointed out, it’s not surprising that New York Times reporters supported Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and intoxication.

The shakeup launched a merchandise wave that would do credit to any presidential campaign.
Scores of Web-savvy entrepreneurs went on the Internet, selling Pluto memorabilia fromT-shirts and mugs to bumper stickers and mouse pads.
Apart from objecting to poor Pluto’s demotion from a proper planet to a wannebee or dwarf one, they obviously wanted to cash in.
Within 24 hours of the “bad” news, a wave of Pluto items appeared on Cafepress.com (a San Francisco-area Internet company that prints T-shirts and other merchandise), including 200 designs on more than 1,500 products.
Many items and slogans related to Pluto's demotion and advocated its return with T-shirts proclaiming "Save Pluto" and "Stop Planetary Discrimination."

Why is there such uproar about the reclassification of the solar system?
The public just doesn’t buy it.
It’s similar to a company suddenly rebranding or redefining its product, without customer input.
And if there is no market acceptance, it’s doomed to fail.
The product “planet” had suddenly been redefined as:
"a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit".
(As The Chaser pointed out, this definition also applies to globetrotting Luciano Pavarotti)

People all over the world were happy with the known solar system, and were not waiting for a reshuffle.
They just don’t see the advantage of coming up with this new planet definition.
To quote Dr. Hiroshi Kyosuke of the University of Tokyo:
"It seems counterintuitive to me that we should say Pluto is no longer a planet, yet Donald Rumsfeld is still Secretary of Defense. After all, Pluto has done no harm."

Pluto the dog, who made his debut in 1930, couldn’t agree more.
According to Disney insiders, he worries about the fate of this namesake and all the textbooks that must be rewritten.

Our Pluto might not be reinstated as our ninth planet, but the 1930 discovery for sure made marketing history.

Comeback Kate - Crisis Management Moss-Style

Remember September? When life seems to crash around the pretty ears of Kate Moss?
Give the lady credit – she made a remarkable comeback.

She obviously knows a thing or two about crisis management – she went into rehab, officially dumped her hard drugs-using boyfriend, kept her mouth shut and went back to work.

The strategy worked like a charm: not only did she start her comeback by picking up a string of new contracts and held onto her old ones, including (funny enough) Yves Saint Laurent’s Opium perfume.
French vogue featured her in its December 2005 issue under the heading: “Scandalous Beauty.”

Having the public on her side makes Kate bankable and media saleable.
Kate’s image is that of a survivor, and the public loves her because of her cocaine scandal.
The media took notice of the “Kate fascination” and cashed in.

Vanity Fair featured Kate in its December 2005 issue with the headline: “Can she come back?”
The answer is obviously yes – in its September Fashion Issue 2006, Moss graces the cover again, this time, wearing long, white gloves, leather boots and a white fur hat.

What is the key success factor in overcoming a crisis like Kate’s?

1. Acknowledge the facts (or at least: don’t deny them)
2. Communicate your hurt, suffering and humiliation
3. Take measures to amend the situation (rehab, public apology)
4. Keep a low profile (no talk shows and interviews once the public apology is made)
5. Focus on your work
6. Avoid repeating the same mistake
7. Provide evidence that you are a indeed a reformed character

Kate did a great job on all accounts.
She apologized, checked herself into rehab, broke up with her disastrous boyfriend, kept a low profile and worked hard.

As a result, Kate appeared in the ad for Italian designer Roberto Cavalli as well as the 2006 Pirelli calendar, and became the face of Coco Mademoiselle perfume and Rimmel cosmetics.
New contracts with mobile phone brand Virgin Mobile and French luxury label Longchamp are in the making.
Burberry, which canceled a campaign featuring Moss after the scandal, embraced their favorite waif again.

Although scandal has long been part of the Moss image, she seems to have struck a nice balance between mainstream reliable working mother and living-on-the edge supermodel.

Our Kate could give Mel Gibson some valuable crisis management advise….

Green Marketing – the BP Story

When we hear “green marketing,” different images spring to mind.
Is it about the environment, about organic food or about lifestyle?
It’s fashionable (read: profitable) for companies to profile themselves as green or having green products.
Even Vanity Fair launched a green issue that sold well.

In a recent study, the majority of the consumers (64% of all and 51% of environmentally conscious interviewees) couldn’t name a "green" brand.

The general public wants companies to be eco-friendly and produce fuel efficient, biodegradable, natural and organic products.

Public companies took note.
Dow Chemical launched its "Human Element" campaign, addressing environmental concerns in the "global community."
In June 2006, Shell Oil followed with a $30 million marketing campaign.
General Electric continues to build on its "Ecomagination" launched in 2005 to address the demand for cleaner, more efficient sources of energy, reduced emissions and abundant sources of clean water.

Green marketing is tricky because the public is very much aware of "greenwashing" – paying lip service to its consumers while continuing past practices.
Ford found that out when it retracted its promise to produce 250,000 hybrids a year by 2010. In its statement, Ford promised to look into building vehicles that use alternative fuel and flexible-fuel vehicles, which can use either an ethanol-based fuel or regular gas.
Its consumers were not amused.

The trailblazer in corporate green marketing is without a doubt the oil company British Petroleum.
BP is credited with being one of the first companies to make a significant grab for the green title with its 2003 "Beyond Petroleum" campaign.
In it, BP emphasized wind power, solar energy and renewable energy resources.
Under chairman John Browne, BP became one of the largest producers of solar panels, and made significant investments in hydrogen and wind power.

Despite its commitment, the majority of BP’s revenue comes from petroleum.
BP’s green image has attracted eco-conscious investors, including World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
During the company's annual general meeting in April 2006, WWF called for a resolution to have BP disclose how it measures and controls the risks to its investors of operating in environmentally sensitive areas.
Although it was voted down by a whopping 89%, it is a clear sign that “green” investors expect BP to live up to its image and keep on distinguishing itself from its peers.
If not, it will not only loose on the PR front, but “green” investors might decide to disinvest, according to Trillium Asset Management, which manages $700 million in socially responsible funds.
And that would also be a blow for green marketing....

Space – the final marketing frontier, to boldly go where no brand has gone before.

Companies eager to expand their market share are turning their attention to the sky and beyond. In the age of globalization, space is the final frontier for advertisers.
Space may be the ultimate product placement for advertisers.
Not only are products that were sent in space hot collectors items, but a little exposure in space has a huge impact on earth.

Space marketing has been around for three decades.

Two decades ago, soft drink makers Coca-Cola and Pepsi seizing a golden opportunity, when NASA approved an experiment to test the viability of carbonated drinks in space.
Despite strict rules preventing the rival cola makers from exploiting the experiment (known as the Carbonated Beverage Dispenser Evaluation, or CBDE), the first unofficial taste test in space became a marketing coup for both. Each company claimed that they were the first in space.

The first “space billboard” concept for advertising was designed by Space Marketing Inc.
It was supposed to be visible from Earth with the brightness equivalent to the moon.
Due to lack of funding and potential damage by space debris, it never happened.

What did happen were commercials shot in space – the first one was a milk commercial filmed on aboard of the space station Mir (from the Israeli dairy company Tnuva).

Up till now, NASA has been reluctant to take part – its official rule has always been:
“no product endorsements, generic entities only, and no commercial exploitation of flight on the shuttle.”
But this could change – ads and product promotion could fund scientific research.
According to NASA, they are working with the Bush administration to conduct an agency wide evaluation for a commercialization strategy in space. It needs a change in legislation though, since space marketing and product placement are prohibited under federal law.
Under current law, sponsorship deals are allowed where logos can be place on a rocket or an astronaut’s clothing.
Columbia Pictures used the opportunity and advertised its movie "Last Action Hero" on a Conestoga rocket as part of the Commercial Experiment Transporter (COMET) mission.

The Russians take a more pragmatic view - they have sold advertising space on their Soyuz rockets to hawk merchandise ranging from Sony electronics to Unicharm feminine hygiene products.
In 2001, Pizza Hut flew with the Russian Space Agency.
For about a million dollars, the fast food company gained worldwide publicity and bragging rights as the first to deliver hot pizza in space.
Electronic retailer Radio Shack followed soon after and filmed a commercial aboard the International Space Station featuring a Russian cosmonaut opening a Father's Day present.

But before getting too exicted about space marketing, we should listen to Dr. Philip Kotler, the eminence gris of marketing.
He is points out that old marketing is not so effective anymore, since products are failing and advertising costs don’t have a healthy ROI.
The man that brought us the 4P framework, states that traditional marketing heavily relies on advertising, sales promotions and marketing research.
Although necessary tools, the main means of communicating with and outreaching to the target audience should be the new channels of communication: website, blogs and podcasting.

Could it be that lies in virtual space, and not the one NASA is exploring?
Interesting food for thought indeed!

Black Hat SEO - Crime and Punishment

You have a website. You want to promote it and generate traffic.
You try Search Engine Optimiztion or SEO.
And then you find out that there is black SEO magic and white SEO magic ( "white hat" and "black hat" SEO)!
You understand that no ethical entity should ever go for Black Hat SEO, but what is it?

Black Hat search engine optimization refers to techniques used to get higher search rankings in an unethical manner.

The most commonly used ones are:

• Keyword stuffing by packing long lists of keywords and nothing else onto a website.
• Inserting invisible text (white text on a white background) thus attracting more search engine spiders.
• Inserting doorway pages (“fake” pages) that the user will never see, but search engine spiders do.

Using Black Hat SEO is a short-term gain but a long-term loss.
According to Google's webmaster guidelines, using hidden text or hidden links are discouraged to increase search engine ranking of a certain website.
Sites found to violate these guidelines are blocked from the search engine's search index.
Google ruthlessly punishes websites that us any of these tactics, no matter how big and powerful.

The website www.bmw.de was banned from the Google index for using doorway pages.
While BMW almost immediately removed the pages after the news broke (after having them live for almost 2 years), it was too late to avoid the “Google death penalty” - a ban from almost any imaginable top search result, and a degrading of the PageRank to the lowest possible value. After complying with Google's guidelines, the website was put back online.

A local e-commerce website (www.myAyala.com) was briefly banned from Google after it was found violating the hidden text rule.
The company subsequently took down the hidden text and Google took them out of the blacklist.

The most recent “casualty” is the company Jollibee Food Corp.
The company not only used hidden text to increase its ranking in a Google search, but also loaded the website with metatags or comment tags of repeating keywords.
The developers of the Jollibee website also created "doorway pages" to spam the index of a search engine.

To find out more about Black Hat SEO, check out Aaron Wall’s website: www.blackhatseo.com

The Marketing Beauty of the Baby Boomers

Baby-boomers or “boomers” refer to people born between 1946 and 1964.
They are the massive postwar boomer generation that drove every significant cultural and marketing trend for 50 years.
Now that they are heading into their 60s, they are defying marketers' expectations about how they wants to live and shop.
They grew up with mass markets, enjoyed the rise of network TV and the birth of the Internet.
They are opinionated, educated, successful and have money to spend.
No wonder that they have the power to tell companies how they want to be approached.

For decades, beauty and cosmetics companies used models in their 20s with dewy skin to pitch products made for middle-aged women.
Although part of the female (and male) boomers undergo Botox treatments and plastic surgery, the majority is comfortable with their aging bodies - liver spots and crow's feet included.
They want to see people who look like them in ads.

One of the first companies to recognize this was Unilever.
In the static soap market, it is tough to maintain market share let alone strive for growth.
To promote their Dove soap, Unilever conducted a worldwide market research.

In 2004, Dove market researchers found that almost all ads featured slim and young women with perfect skin, body and hair.
But no matter where Dove’s (potential) customers were located, (U.S., South America, Europe, and Asia) they all considered the featured women to have an unrealistic and unattainable beauty.
Dove listened, learned and launched a print ad campaign, using ordinary looking women instead of glamorous models.
As a result, the sales of Dove rose 3.4% in one year. The Dove "Campaign for Real Beauty" (designed by Ogilvy & Mather) won the top prize at the 38th annual Effie Awards.

Cosmetic companies took note and followed.
Spring 2006, Sharon Stone, at that time 48, began appearing in a campaign for Christian Dior's Capture Totale, a $125 serum and $115 cream that claim to reverse such signs of aging as wrinkles, dark spots and sagging.
She is well compensated for it - Dior reportedly offered Stone a four-year contract in excess of $8 million.

MAC chose Catherine Deneuve, 62, in January 2006 as the third “beauty icon” for its cosmetics, joining Liza Minnelli, 60, and Diana Ross, 62.
All three inspired cosmetics collections that became hot sellers.
Fall 2006, MAC will debut new national ads for its Viva Glam lipstick that star a 60-year-old woman, according to John Demsey, president of the company.

Summer 2006, L'Oreal Paris launched a skin-care campaign featuring 60-year-old actress Diane Keaton.
She will appear in print and television ads for a new formula of anti-aging creams.

Cover Girl is bringing back Christie Brinkley, a 51-year old former supermodel.
Brinkley, who represented the brand for two decades until 1996, will feature in its Advanced Radiance Age-Defying Makeup ads.

How much things have changed is nicely illustrated by the story of Dayle Haddon.
This 57-year-old one-time top model was told twenty years ago that she was “over the hill” as a model.
Sweet revenge – she now appears in ads for L'Oreal's Age Perfect creams.

Marketing to the boomers is tricky though. These aging consumers want to be targeted as mature without being reminded of their exact age.
Revlon solved this tricky problem cleverly when it launched, its line of problem solving color cosmetics Vital Radiance.
The ads and packaging never explicitly mentions “over-50” or “mature, skin”, but it does feature a trim, gray-streaked model carrying a surfboard.
Revlon chose the phrase "changing skin" to promote its cosmetics line.

The trend is going to continue – in the US alone, the 135-million-strong population of 18- to 49-year-olds will stagnate; the 50+ population is going to grow from 89 million to 111 million — an increase of about 25 percent.

The boomers have boldly gone where no generation has gone before and created a new marketing frontier.
To quote Brinkley in her ads:
"I don't want to be younger. I just want to look it."

Viral Marketing

Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence.
Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions.
On the Internet, the term viral marketing is used to refer to word-of-mouth, creating a buzz, leveraging the media and network marketing.

The classic example of viral marketing is Hotmail.com, one of the first free Web-based e-mail services.

The strategy is simple: start by giving away free e-mail addresses and services; make sure to attach a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out ("Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com"). Users will start e-mailing to their own network of friends and associates, who read the message and sign up for their own free e-mail service. They will send the message still wider to their own ever-increasing circles of friends and associates.
Presto: the first and (up till now) most successful viral marketing campaign ever.

There are five main viral marketing strategies:

1. Incentives or rewards
   A women's athletic clothing multichannel retailer rewarded message recipients with a free T-shirt and a $1 donation to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation when an individual sent the special email message to five friends and three of those friends opted in to the retailer's catalog or email list.
   Result: Email newsletter sign-up rate of over 30%, and a catalog subscription rate of nearly 70%, while the cost per sale decreased by 89%.
   
2. Sweepstakes
   Sony Music in Taiwan created sweepstakes encouraging users to spread the word.
   Every participant in the sweepstakes received a small prize, such as a coupon or discount. They increased their chance of winning by signing up friends for the sweepstakes.
   
3. Blogs
   Jolex Inc. used blogs to promote its Brugo coffee mugs.
   The company stated targeting bloggers at sites like www.morningcoffee.wordpress.com, www.coffeegeek.com, www.dailygadget.com and www.gizmodo.com.
   The bloggers running or contributing to those destinations were mailed complimentary mugs for written product reviews to be posted at the sites.
   As a result, the Brugo mug made the "Best of" lists and got on national television.
   Merchandisers read about Brugo and contacted Jolex about reselling the mugs in their country.
   
4. Freebies
   Free greeting cards enable the sender to personalize and send a free e-card.
   The addressee doesn’t receive the card itself, but must click on a URL to pick up or retrieve their card. The accessed website shows other products and services.
   They will then bookmark the site and send out another free card to others.
   Free ebooks contains links back to the writer’s offer and/or website.
   
5. Entertaining Game or Video
   Fun games or video clips tend to circulate through the Internet very quickly.
   Insurance giant Zurich recently created and launched a little Flash game called “Parking: Battle of the Sexes”. The aim of the game was to answer the age old question “who's better at parking, men or women.”
   Players had to use their keyboard arrows to successfully maneuver their vehicle into the parking spot without hitting the other cars.
   Toyota used a funny video clip to introduce their Vios model.

There is a downside to using viral marketing - the message that a product is trying to get across can look like spam.
The way to avoid this is to ask anyone forwarding to provide their name on a web link or page so that there is a recognizable sender in the subject line of a message. ( “Debra De-Jong thought you would like this”).

World Cup Marketing Campaign Korean Style – money in the bank!

The whole world (except for the English-speaking part of the U.S. population, who still view soccer as a minority sport) was glued to TV sets, computers and radios, following the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany.

One of the competing teams is South Korea that co-hosted the previous event in 2002, generating a $260 million profit for FIFA.
The 2002 competition gave a timely boost to South Korea's growing economy.
Korea spent $2.5 billion on new stadiums, most of them in rural areas far from the capital Seoul, thus boosting the local construction industry.

Its participation in the World Cup 2006 is a big deal in South Korea and its banks found a way to leverage this by expanding their customer base.
They offer new and existing customers gifts and higher interest rates for new time depositors during the FIFA World Cup.
This World Cup marketing campaign will last until the tournament ends early July 2006.

Banks and card firms have been capitalizing on the World Cup through aggressive marketing, offering airplane tickets to Germany to new customers, as well as incentives to purchasers of its new time-deposit products.
As the World Cup unfolds, their marketing is also going into full gear.

Shinhan Bank has launched the sale of special time deposit products offering 1% point higher interest rates than ordinary time deposits.
For new depositors, the bank will hold a lottery to offer air conditioners, digital cameras and other gifts.
It also plans to give a 60% discount in currency exchange rates to those who have tickets to World Cup games in Germany.

Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) will hold an event to offer gifts to those who guess the right scores for Korea's games against France and Switzerland beforehand.
Hana Bank plans to exempt service fees for Internet banking for those who buy its stock price index-linked deposits until the end of June 2006.
To quote a KEB official:
“The World Cup is an opportunity for savers to have more interest income.
It also provides banks an opportunity to attract more customers.
That is good for both banks and customers.”
If the Korean team progresses to the next rounds, the bank will offer higher interest rates for some time deposits.
It also promised to offer 10% points higher rates for some deposits if Korea wins the tournament.
If midfielder Lee Young-pyo, the bank’s ad model, scores or sets up a goal during the tournament, the bank will offer 1% point higher interest rate to 200 selected depositors.

Woori Bank will offer 0.2 percentage point higher interest rate to purchasers of its one-year time deposit whenever Park Ji-sung scores.

Card firms have offered tickets to World Cup games and free nights at famous tourist attractions in Germany to winners of lotteries.
They also plan to launch new credit cards giving discounts for football and other sports games.

No matter how the World Cup will end for the teams –the Korean banks are already winners!

Ambush marketing and the FIFA World Cup 2006

Ambush (or guerilla) marketing occurs when one brand pays to become an official sponsor of an event (most often athletic) and another competing brand attempts to cleverly connect itself with the event, without paying the sponsorship fee and, more frustratingly, without breaking any laws.
Ambush marketing is as undeniably effective as it is damaging, attracting consumers at the expense of competitors, all the while undermining an event’s integrity and, most importantly, its ability to attract future sponsors.
An example is Nike that searched for creative ways to make a link to the World Cup vs. Adidas taht paid for sponsorship.

It is no surprise that ambush marketing techniques are at their utmost when the stakes are highest.
Stakes are never higher than at galactic sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup 2006.
As a result, ambush marketing has evolved into a combative art form.

The clash of free expression and commercial rights has become more critical as sports and business become increasingly intertwined, with total global spending on corporate sponsorships expected to reach $34 billion this year.
The official World Cup 2006 sponsors paid a whopping €30 million to €50 million, or $38 million to $63 million, for rights to associate with the games.
The rights the sponsors got are based on IP (Intellectual Property) principles.

To prevent ambush marketing, FIFA established a Rights Protection Programme (RPP) that involves a wide range of initiatives including a global trademark registration program, the worldwide appointment of legal experts, and collaboration with customs and police authorities in all key regions of the world.
So far, more than 1,200 cases in 65 countries have been pursued in connection with the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ and more than 850 have already been successfully closed.
Most of the cases were settled out of court with only 150 needing court litigation.

However, unlike piracy or counterfeiting, ambush marketing cases are rarely actionable, especially if the ambushers know what they are doing.

Marketers of unofficial World Cup goods are careful to avoid anything that would open themselves up to a FIFA legal challenge.
They simply include footballs, pitches, goalposts and football phrases -- all of it in the public domain and not subject to any trademark laws -- in the hope that the World Cup euphoria taking hold of Germany will make their products irresistible.

Take the German airline Lufthansa.
Its advertisements featured German and Brazilian soccer athletes, along with a seasonal soccer logo swoosh, LH2006, which just might lead people to suspect certain connections.
Lufthansa emphasized that they were not associating with the World Cup and that they took care not to use the trademark, FIFA World Cup 2006.

And if done cleverly, the alternative advertisements can have an even stronger impact than the officially sponsored publicity.
The Swiss Tourist Board, promoting the Alps, is a good example.
Since May, the Board televised advertisements in France, Germany and Italy.
They feature a cow-milking “Mr. Switzerland” and other handsome men trying to entice soccer widows to leave their sports-obsessed men behind.
“Dear girls, why not escape this summer's World Cup to a country where men spend less time on football, and more time on you?” the advertisement croons while showing images of a strapping farmhand, a sexy train conductor, a fit mountain climber, a dapper ferryman and a brawny lumberjack.

During the World Cup, Tom Houseman, head of legal affairs at FIFA Marketing and Television, was waging a war to prevent goodwill being eroded by trademark infringement, illegal tickets sales and ambush marketing, working across jurisdictions to police the infringements of FIFA’s IP –not an easy task.

To quote Adidas America spokesperson Travis Gonzolez:
“If everyone throws up their logos, it’s all-out war.”

Adidas vs Nike at the World Soccer Tournament

On June 9, the 2006 FIFA World Cup Soccer tournament will start.
The World Cup is a quadrennial event that thrives on high-octane international rivalries.
The last one in 2002 was watched by 28 billion fans worldwide, which makes it bigger than the Olympics or the Super Bowl.
The upcoming event will take place in Germany and is expected to be followed by 32 billion fans worldwide.
Needless to say, it offers wonderful marketing opportunities, both nationally and globally.
Since soccer (or European football) is not popular in the US, American brands are mainly targeting the 42m Hispanics domestically, who have $800 billion of spending power.

The FIFA World Cup™ is the most effective international marketing platform, reaching millions of people in over 200 countries throughout the world.
FIFA offers partners and sponsors a comprehensive marketing package, such as:
use of the Official Marks; exposure in and around the stadium; direct advertising and promotional opportunities and preferential access to FIFA World Cup™ broadcast advertising; use the official logo and create “artmarks” (new designs based jointly upon the official logo and their specific product category) and composite logos.

This year’s sponsors (who had to pay up to $200 for the privilege) include several global brands, such as Philips, McDonalds, Coca-Cola, MasterCard, Budweiser, Nike, and Adidas.

A famous soccer trainer once said: “soccer is war”, but it pales compared to the clash of the two sportswear giants Adidas and Nike.
This marketing battle is the most costly in soccer history, with Adidas spending around $226m and Nike an estimated $113m.

The German Adidas Group is the official sponsor of the World Cup and is profiling itself like no sponsor ever did before.
Adidas made sure that its sponsorship includes blocking Nike from TV advertising in the U.S. for all 64 games.
Its CEO Herbert Hainer made the Adidas position clear:
“Our three-stripes logo will be everywhere.
For two years, we have had more than 100 people in a separate building working on the World Cup. We have set ourselves aggressive targets.”
Adidas’ financial target is to reach at least $1.56bn in football related sales this year.
But the real goal is clear: get archrival Nike, especially on Adidas’ home turf Germany.

Currently, there is not such a wide gap between the two giants.
Adidas has a market share of 28% (not including the US market) compared to Nike’s 31%.
In the US, Nike is still the leader, but Adidas is gaining ground in the American baseball and basketball market.
The only market where Adidas surpasses Nike is Japan, where Adidas sponsored the Japan national team in the 2002 World Cup and launched its innovative lightweight, thin-soled adiZero sneaker that hit the spot with Asian consumers.
Adidas is currently growing faster than Nike in other Asian markets, especially China, where it spent $80 million to be the exclusive sneaker sponsor of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.

Adidas also changed its advertising and followed Nike’s lead with cinematic, edgy ads such as the World Cup campaign and spots featuring superstar David Beckham created by BWA\Chiat\Day.

Over the next few months, Adidas will spend about $200 million to market all things soccer, including shoes, boots, national team jerseys and soccer balls.
Its ad campaign, dubbed +10, revolves around the idea that one player plus 10 others equals a team.

Nike isn't about to concede any market share to archrival Adidas.
It is fortifying its market leadership in basketball and running gear and has the goal to be the No. 1 soccer brand in the world, according to its president Charlie Denson.
Since soccer is a wonderful way to build brand loyalty with children worldwide, Nike is targeting its audience the viral and digital way.
Nike teamed up with Google to create the world's first social network for soccer fans: www.joga.com.
This site was launched on March 15 and will rollout in 14 languages covering 140 countries and is a replica of the American top social network website www.MySpace.com.
It enables soccer-mad fans to commune with each other over their favorite players and teams, download videos, and create discussion groups.
The branding is clever - campaign and website are named after the Brazilian phrase "joga bonito," or "play beautifully."
Fans who join Joga.com or visit Nike's site can sift through layers of video clips, messages, and ads involving Nike's star players as well as watch videos about the magic of soccer in different nations.
Fans can then download the clips to their iPods, computers, wireless phones, or portable PlayStations.

Finding out who will be the next world soccer champion might be interesting, but for me, the highlight is the Adidas vs. Nike game!

The changed face of global luxury brands

Luxury brands have a global appeal.
For years, Paris, London and New York have been the luxury style capitals of the world.
This has changed - Shanghai, Mumbai and Moscow have entered the global arena.
Their influence is not limited to having Prada fashion shows, local Armani boutiques or Bentley dealerships, but also setting trends.
As a result, the consumer profile of luxury goods has changed - and companies acted.

Especially the Chinese love luxury brands.
According to Ernst & Young, there will be around a quarter of a billion Chinese consumers who can afford luxury products in 2010.
Needless to say, companies maximized on this unique chance of business expansion: Giorgio Armani ( 30 new stores by the end of 2008); Louis Vuitton (13 new stores n 2007); Bulgari (6 new stores in 2006); Dolce & Gabbana (entering the Chinese market in 2006 with outlets in Shanghai and Beijing); Montblanc (200 shops countrywide by 2010).
In second place is India.
India doesn’t have luxury shopping malls or districts, which is a hurdle for opening branches. Notwithstanding, Burberry, Christian Dior, Gucci, Cartier, Chanel, Omega, Hugo Boss, Louis Vuitton and Versace want to get a foothold in the Indian peninsula during 2006.

Asian women are highly sophisticated and influential.
L'Oréal for one quickly realized that it had to cater to a whole new group of consumers.
Apart from the anti-aging and anti-wrinkle cream craved by American and European women, the cosmetics producer has to meet the Chinese and Indian demand for whiter skin.
The "wet lipstick" (the big runner in 2005) originated in the Asian market and was only later successfully launched in Europe and America.
Let's not forget the matter of local tastes - eye shadow colors must be bold in India, where the Bollywood-style reigns.

Needless to say, there is a difference between the affluent middleclass (looking for brandname products) and the megarich, who live by the same rules as their Western counterparts.
Their tastes follow the same pattern: designer clothes, real estate, art, and private jets.
Since they move in the same circles, there is an interesting cross-cultural osmosis.
As a result, a brand’s ethnicity is no longer an indicator of where its owners are from and where the goods are produced or sold. It forced companies to go global and leave their national image behind.
L'Oréal bought the Chinese cosmetics label Yue-Sai and Chinese entrepreneurs bought European labels Asprey, Mulberry and Lanvin. Apart from "foreign" ownership, production is ofter outsourced to low-wage countries. As a result, the "made in" label has lost much of its snob appeal.
Prada’s CEO Patrizio Bertelli caught the zeitgeist best by announcing that the Made in Italy label would be replaced by Made by Prada.

Marketing to technical managers

Marketing in the high-tech sector consists mainly of B2B (business-to-business)
A technology company that has a hot product or IT service needs to reach out to the relevant managers at the potential customer’s end.

The sales cycle starts with contacting a product management or R& D manager and to convince him/her of the benefits of the company’s product or service.
In most cases, these managers have an engineering background.

The first step is (of course) market research and getting the names and current job position of the managers.
Ideally, the company should have an idea of their interests and (technical) background as well.
The geographical area is important as well.
As the CMP Electronics Group published in a recent research, engineers in India are passionate about gathering information from nearly every media, especially in podcasts and video.
Their Japanese counterparts on the other hand, still rely on print and vendor websites, attending trade shows and having face-to-face events.

The next step is to find the best way to reach them.
Despite the decline in tradeshow attendance (although is seems to be picking up lately), companies still send their IT managers to scout for new products and technologies, to identify new trends and (of course) to check out the competition.
Arranging meetings and giving presentations at tradeshows and conferences is still effective and worth the time and money.

Webinars are gaining influence as well since they are convenient and cost effective.
As a PR tool for a company, webinars are tricky.
The webinar must have the form of a technical lecture (university level) to satisfy IT managers, but must be more general for marketing and sales managers, who don’t like tech talk.
The best option is to create separate ones and not to try and combine it in “one-webinar-fits all”.

What media should be used to reach out and communicate with IT managers and the like?
To communicate with IT managers, it is important to create a media mix of printed and online media.
The main sources used for learning about new technologies, trends and products are still industry publications (such as trade magazines) and vendors and manufacturers websites as well as blogs and online newsgroups.
Only a small minority uses the latest media such as RSS feeds and podcasts.

The form is important.
Engineers are first and foremost looking for downloadable data sheets, white papers, application notes, and product specifications.
When scouting for new product, price and product information is important.
They like to check out the source (manufacturer) and are less interested in the information supplied by the local distributor.
For further explanations, they do like to communicate with the local representative in their own language.
Don’t assume that all engineers have an impeccable grasp of English.
Some technical or industry terms are used differently throughout the world.
Needless to say, the representative must have an in-depth knowledge of the manufacturer’s products and technology.

As a marketing professional, never underestimate that no matter what, engineers are engineers are engineers, no matter their age, sex, nationality or media preferences.

Marketing:Impossible

Gimmicks sell, and coming up with something original to promote a product is great.
But you have to be clever and careful, something that the creative brains behind the Mission: Impossible:III overlooked.

The marketing department of Paramount came up with the brilliant idea to place approximately 4,500 digital music players in newspaper dispensers.

As soon as the newspapers rack would open, the programmed unit would play the Mission: Impossible theme.
That may sound great, but is not the cleverest thing to do in this post-9/11 era.

A Los Angeles Times reader in Santa Clarita inserted his quarter, opened the lid, and saw a small plastic box with a few wires poking out of it sitting on top of the papers.
Needless to say, he didn’t perceive a clever marketing gimmick but a bomb.
Correctly so, he immediately called the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, who dispatched an arson and explosives team to investigate.
Within half an hour, the efficient bomb squat checked the red plastic box that had wires sticking of it and rendered it useless (aka blowing it up).

Later the same day, law enforcement officials received several more calls along the same lines. By that time, the various law enforcement departments had received word of Paramount Pictures about its brilliant marketing campaign.

Needless to say, the Los Angeles Times gave permission for the gimmick.
As they put it, it was Paramount's aim to "turn the everyday news rack experience" into an
"extraordinary mission."
It is not known if the around 2.4M. daily readers of the LA Times share this sentiment.

So what went wrong? Well, the music players weren't supposed to be visible.
That makes me wonder: did anyone check after putting them in?
They obviously forgot one of the golden rules of marketing and PR:
Check, check and double check!

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as a marketing tool

Companies want potential customers to learn about their products and services.
The corporate website is one of the marketing tools that companies use.
In order to lead traffic to their website, companies must make sure that search engines such as Google and Yahoo can find them.
Therefore, SEO must be added to the marketing mix.

How should the company handle SEO?

Formulate the goal of engaging into SEO
The company needs to define its goal such as: generating more qualified leads, reaching new market segments, product launch, branding, attracting potential investors.
If generating more qualified leads is the goal, the company must define how many it wants to generate (compared to the existing number) and from which regions and industries.

Conduct market research
The company needs to find out how SEO is used in its industry and how its competitors handle it.
The main practice can be generic SEO or PPC (Pay Per Click).

Identify target audience
The company must identify its potential website visitors and what they are looking for. It is also important to know in which languages potential customers surf the web and which search engines do they prefer.

Define strategy
The company has to define how potential customers can contact: by email, via a contact form.
It also must decide which web pages should be visited: new products, special offers, demo, downloads, investor relations etc.

Resources
The company must allocate resources to make SEO happen.
First of all, the corporate website must be search engine friendly.
This might entail website redesign and update.
Often, companies don’t have the internal resources for SEO.
When hiring a SEO company, it’s important to realize that no tangible results will be seen for the first three months when opting for generic SEO.
A PPC campaign generates quicker results, but is more difficult to manage budget wise.

Implementation
Implementing a SEO campaign is not easy.
Many decision makers are not familiar with SEO and are confused by all the "techtalk".
PPC campaigns are fairly common in the consumer sector.
(Example: Type “Spa Resort Hawaii” in a search engine and look at the sponsored links on the right)

The internal webmaster or external SEO company must ensure that the company shows up high in the search engine results with relevant key words and phrases.
The phrases should not be too specific – it must be the sort of phrase the average surfer would type in.
(Example: If you are for a PLC chipset manufacturer, you will find the company DS2 when typing in “powerline communications chipset”.
When typing the more general and far more common search phrase “powerline communications”, DS2 will not appear on the first results page).

Evaluation
SEO is dynamic – not in the least since search engines such as Google keep changing the rules.
A contract for generic SEO is normally 12 months; a single PPC campaign takes about 3 months (depending on budget).
Marketing and sales must closely monitor the generated leads:
where are they from, what opportunities do they represent, what are the cost per lead and what will be the revenue.
Those results must be compared with the ones generated in a similar time period before the SEO campaign started.
Only then will the company know if the energy and resources invested in the SEO paid off.
If so, SEO should be permanently added to the corporate marketing tools.
Even if the SEO campaign didn’t meet expectations, it is still a useful way to perform a “marketing audit”.

To Blawg or not to Blawg

Is having a blawg a good marketing tool for lawyers?

For those of you that are not familiar with the term, blawgs are legal blogs (blog + law).
They are popular in the US and the UK is slowly catching up.

What are the advantages for a law firm of having a blawg?

1. Image.
   Having no blog at all could make a law firm look old-fashioned, much like in the ‘90s when law firms were slow to embrace websites.
   
2. Positioning.
   Blogs are the ideal venue for legal experts to show their their area of expertise.
   
3. Customer relations.
   Potential and existing clients check out websites and blogs to get an idea about the capabilities of a law firm and its lawyers.
   It also gives transparency for the customers in the legal jungle they entered.
   
4. Outreach.
   Blogs are the ultimate medium to reach to and communicate with a worldwide audience.
   
5. Feedback.
   Blogs are an ideal way to get (honest) feedback on products and services.
   
6. Create new business.
   The jury is still out on the impact of blogs for securing new business.
   If the law firm in operating in a niche market, it can have significant impact.
   For major law firms that handle all kinds of cases, blogging would not reach their potential customers in a efficient way.
   
7. SEO.
   Search engines rank well-connected blogs with many links to other sites higher than conventional websites, also because of their high text content and frequent updates.
   

In short, as a marketing tool, a blawg is a nice additional to the existing marketing mix.

A final word of warning though - bloggers in general get into legal trouble for what they write. Legal bloggers especially should be very cautious what and how they blog and stay at the right side of the law.

Oh goody! Swag as a marketing tool

We all heard about it – lavish gift bags are handed out to celebrities at trendy (and therfore newsworthy) events.
Attending art show openings, Broadway premiere parties, Emmy/Oscar/Golden Globe award shows enables red carpet attendees to leave with heaps of great products – free of charge.

The difference between these gift bags (also called "swag") and regular merchandise is that its purpose is not to make a profit, but to promote the product, and reward its endorsers by giving them something cool and unique. It’s a form product placement.

Chosen celebreties are also invited to gift lounges where they can carry off any product that tickles their fancy – without paying of course.
And if you are an A-list star, you can even demand that the organizers (e.g. the Motorola lounge at the Sundance Film Festival) supply you with your favorite product.

Companies want to put their products in front of celebrities and then create a photo opportunity with those stars.
Once the likes of Paris Hilton are photographed with a certain product, the company expects demand and sales to increase.
Therefore, the goodies are not transferable.
As Nathalie Dubois of Diamond Lounge puts it:
"We don't do agents, publicists or celebrity assistants.
We gift everyone well, but they have to be there with their talent."

Celebrities are expected to wear the jewelry in public and announce how great it is.
A good example of this kind of trade-off is Hilary Swank, wearing Chopard to the Golden Globes and several other events declaring:
"I’m so glad that I wore Chopard earrings, they brought me good luck."

But how effective it?
It has now come to a point that celebrities are not only expecting, but are demanding freebies – often adding up to thousands of dollars worth of merchandise.
Goodies include jewelry, perfume, sunglasses, cosmetics, cosmetic treatments such as Botox, massages, vacations and electronics (anywhere from cell phones and iPods to 103-inch plasma TVs).

As a result, the whole gift bag/lounge industry is over-saturated.
It has lost its strength as an advertising tool.
Companies such as M.A.C. cosmetics, Palm Pilot and Roomba are cutting down or opting out.
It also doesn’t come cheap.
Needless to say, companies have to pay for the privilege to be included in the gift bag.
Lash Fary, owner of Distinctive Assets, charges up to $20,000 for firms to be included in his gift bags.
This fee doesn’t include the value of the “gift” itself.
To give you an idea: the Grammy gift basket was worth about $ 65,000; the Oscar’s one about $ 100,000.

Another problem: some megastars just will not play the game.
"The real big celebrities are more concerned about privacy than getting free stuff," says Jen Mayer, spokeswoman for the Frederic Fekkai suite.
"And they can get all these (stylists) to come to their homes."

Some celebrities also don’t want it to be known what they will get free of charge.
"It has become annoying to some people that we give out these baskets," says Academy spokesman John Pavlik. "So we don't talk about them."
Mmmm, that doesn’t seem to play the PR card very well.

And then there are the celebrities who refuse freebies.
Glenn Close attended the 2005 Golden Globes in her own dress and not in a designer donated one.
Keanu Reeves turned down his freebies (including a plasma TV screen) at the Sundance Film festival.

The gift bag industry tried to save some impact by having a charity element.
It gives it a nice ethical touch and ensures that celebrities look more favorably at the freebies.
The latest trend: auctioning off your swag bag for charity.
Oscar winner George Clooney has donated his 78th Annual Academy Awards Oscar gift bag (including a BlackBerry 8700c, a Kay Unger kimono and a cultured Tahitian-pearl necklace) to be sold in an online auction to benefit the United Way Hurricane Response and Relief Recovery Fund.

But most importantly, the public (including the target group the company wants to reach) gets fed up with six-figure salary stars receiving free gift bags worth thousands of dollars in jewelry, travel, clothes and other goodies.
According to experts, a savvy celebrity can rake in close to $1 million in gifts and prizes in the week before the Oscars.
(This may come with its own price tag though - according to Lee Shepperd, contributing editor to the journal Tax Notes of the New York Times, the IRS might view these items not as "gifts," but as "income".
And to top it off, some celebrities have the nerve to snub the contents of their gift bag.
Paris "that's hot" Hilton labeled her $6,000 VH-1 2004 goody bag (that included Cartier sunglasses, an Avita cashmere poncho and a Surly girl clutch) as “lame”.

What started in 1988 as an effective marketing and PR tool has lost is impact.

Marketing to lawyers

For marketing and PR professionals, lawyers are one of the most exiting target groups.
Surprised? You shouldn’t be!

Just consider the following:

1. Law touches all aspects of human behavior and social interaction. It is so flexible, that the Romans already categorized it as an Art and not a Science “Ius est ars aequi et boni”. Lawyers specialize in all kinds of law that keeps changing.
   
2. Lawyers are a substantial target group – there are an estimated 650,000 lawyers working and more than a million registered in the US alone.
   
3. Due to their profession, lawyers are early adapters of technologies and trends.
   
4. Lawyers are also publicity savvy and realize that “publish or perish” applies to them.
   
5. Lawyers are creative and know how to use new media or venues to their advantage.

How do you market to lawyers?

• Know your customer.
  Find out who the lawyer you are approaching is and what services he/she provides.
  
• Keep it short and sweet.
  Lawyers charge per hour, so your approach or message must the short, sharp and to the point. The average window of opportunity to grab attention with a letter or email is 4 seconds.
  
• Keep it simple.
  Your message must be in clear and in plain text. Lawyers are the ultimate wordsmiths by nature; don’t go into competition! Forget about graphics and flash elements (such as banners in electronic newsletters) – l’art pour l’art wouldn’t cut it.
  
• Make a strong business case.
  Lawyers are business savvy. They know how to make money.
  They also are conservative in spending.
  The main message (no matter what your product or service offering is) should translate into more qualified client leads.
  
• Make sure it’s tailor-made.
  The vast majority of the lawyers (an estimated 90%) are small practitioners with a specific specialization and/or client base.
  It is therefore critical to make sure that the product/service meet the specific needs of that specific lawyer or law firm.

Vanity Fair's Hollywood issue - sex still sells

The cover of Vanity Fair’s March 2006 Hollywood issue shows actresses Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson posing nude together with the fully dressed fashion designer and guest editor Tom Ford.
Even before publication, the cover raises many eyebrows.

Why is a magazine cover in general so important?

“Vanity Fair” is one of the many magazines that need to attract readers.
If an issue in this cutthroat magazine industry sells more than 30 percent of its copies it’s considered to be a success. Every copy sold above that is money in the bank.
The trick is to grab first-time buyers at the newsstand within their 2 1/2 seconds attention span.
The best way to ensure this is a hot cover.
“The cover is your calling card; people are making a split-second decision, do it’s got to be compelling,” confirms Will Dana, managing editor of Rolling Stone magazine.
(“Rolling Stone” has produced memorable covers over the years, including the one showing a nude John Lennon wrapped around a clothed Yoko Ono)

But even before the “Vanity Fair” Hollywood issue hit the newsstands, it already created media frenzy and rekindled the age-old debate “female vs. male nudity”.
Apart from the racy cover, famed (female) photographer Annie Leibovitz shot a 46-page photo spread for the issue in which actresses Sienna Miller, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Aniston, and Joy Bryant also appear in various states of nudity.
The photographed male actors are all dressed, including George Clooney amid a bevy of women in flesh-toned underwear.

This leads to the question: is this arty and fun, or does it say something about sexual politics in Hollywood?
And does a serious actress still need to take her clothes off to get attention?

According to Janice Min, editor of the much-read celebrity magazine US Weekly, female stars disrobe since they have to be sexy to be a successful and bankable. Men on the other hand are
not viewed as sex objects in the same way that women are.

Journalism professor Samir Husni of the University of Mississippi claims that Americans have been trained to look at pictures of naked women, but not of naked men.
The American public has therefore an inherent fear of pictures of naked men.
He goes on calling the Vanity Fair issue a "Playboy" issue, since it sports naked women.
He agrees that the magazine has scored huge buzz, though.

He is not alone in that observation – famed society columnist Liz Smith wrote about a dinner party where people were passing the issue around, declaring it “ridiculous ... egotistical ... absurd”.

Vanity Fair spokeswoman Beth Kseniak said it’s too early to say how the magazine will sell, but that it has scored about 3,000 new subscriptions and almost 5 million web site page views before the end of February 2006 alone.
Some of that buzz has been negative, of course.
Vitriolic Rebecca Traister calls the cover an “over-the-top orgy of self-love, misogyny and idiocy” by Ford (who came up with the concept) in salon.com.

Since the cover is so buzz-worthy, US Weekly conducted a poll and asked its readers about their opinion.
The result: most thought the actresses looked better with clothes on.
(It would be interesting to know the age and gender of the interviewees).

No matter what you viewpoint on naked females (or males) on magazine covers is, “Vanity Fair” created wonderful PR with its cover thus increasing its sales figures.
So you see, sex still sells and that’s the naked truth!