PETA’s rebranding of fish – will its Sea Kitten marketing campaign work?

PETA is known for its often provocative and controversial campaigns, such as comparing factory farming to the Holocaust.
In its latest campaign, it tries to convince the public that fish are capable of showing physical affection, of feeling pain and of grieving when their companions die. They are in PETA’s opinion not different from pets such as dogs and cats.

Since fish are not furry and cuddly, PETA tries to change the public image of fish from slithery and slimy to cute. Similar to happy Disney characters, it launched a website featuring “Finding Nemo”- like Sea Kittens. Aimed at small children, the website allows its visitors to create and name their own Sea Kittens. There is also a section on the website with (rather scary) bedtime stories trying to get the PETA point across. One of the stories read: “Tony the Trout is the smartest Sea Kitten in his school. Already litter-trained at 2 months old, Tommy went on to double-major in neuroscience and environmental studies at Clamford University, eventually graduating with honors. When Tony is caught and fed to a precocious young child who, having eaten one mercury-filled sea kitten too many, falls to the bottom of his class, the irony is not lost on him.”

A spokeswoman of PETA explained, that "If everyone started calling fish 'Sea Kittens,' they'd be a lot less likely to violently kill them for food, painfully hook them for 'sport,' or cruelly confine them to aquariums. When your name can also be used as a verb that means driving a hook through your head, it’s time for a serious image makeover.”

PETA kicked off its marketing campaign at the beginning of October 2008 at a school in Fayetteville, NC. As a gimmick, a huge Sea Kitten welcomed the children, explaining that Sea Kittens are just like puppies and kittens and should not be eaten. As part of the marketing campaign, PETA launched a petition calling for the US Fish and Wildlife Service to abandon its backing for fishing (or Sea Kitten hunting in PETA’s language).

Will the campaign work? Doubtful…….

How I see it, the main “mistake” of the campaign is its target group. PETA wants to stop fishing, which per definition is an activity not conducted by totlers. The best what PETA will achieve is changing the eating habits of the little ones, which will disrupt a balanced diet. It is doubtful that school cafeterias serve fish as a whole, including heads and fins. It’s hard to make the connection between a fish finger and a real fish/Sea Kitten. Fish is also a main food source for many communities, and is a great source of omega-3 fatty-acid which helps reducing the risk of breast cancer.

Furthermore, no matter how you look at it, fish are just not cute! Even the biggest dog or lion has a high hugging factor: nice fur and two eyes looking straight at you. Fish have pointy heads with two large eyes on each side, staring unblinkingly at you (whether dead or alive – as we all know from eating trout in restaurants). They are scaly and cold-blooded, which makes it not exactly appealing to touch. Being cold-blooded and living in water it can hardly strive to become our favorite pet. It is also difficult to relate to the mood of fish – how do they show that they are unhappy? They don't growl, purr or bark... (OK, they do show anger, if I rememberJaws or Moby Dick correctly) And there is the “fish-eats-fish” angle; big fish eat shoals of little ones, which don’t score high on the cuteness scale.

The main result of the current campaign is its high entertainment value. Apart from creating our own silly Sea Kitten (see illustration), many of us are making relentlessly fun of PETA’s Sea Kitten in articles and on blogs. It downgrades the campaign to a Jessica Simpson-like gaffe level, similar to her "Is this chicken or is this tuna?" question while looking at a can of Chicken of the Sea tuna on her reality show. As Michael Pearce of the Wichita Eagle pointed out in his hilarious article, calling fish “Sea Kitten” needs some serious rewriting. He pointed out that according to the New Testament; Christ fed the 5,000 with five loaves of bread and “Sea Kittens”; not to mention the fact that several of his disciples were Sea Kitten hunters. Oy!

Marketing during economic turbulence

In times of an economic recession (and especially during a depression) marketing is the business area that is normally hit hard. When companies want to cut cost or downsize, it’s to the marketing budget, expenses and department they look first.

However, this is a strategic mistake. To adapt to the new economic reality, companies need their marketing professionals to analyze their current market position and to find out what their best strategy to survive will be. Marketing is uniquely positioned to analyze the changes in customer behaviour and advice on the optimal way to reach them.

To give an example, luxury research firm Unity Marketing interviewed 1,200 affluent consumers (average income $209,500) at the top 20 percent of U.S. household during October 3-8, 2008 about their mindset since the bail-out of Wall Street. The result shows that the respondents are overall spending less on luxury items. However, they do splurge on those items that they really want, even increasing their spending for those targeted luxuries. The way they shop has changed as well – to resist temptation, they avoid stores. Luxury store owners have to come up with new marketing and sales techniques to lure these customers back, such as cash-back gift card sales as Bergdorf Goodman is conducting.

Analyze your company image and overall performance
Any crisis, especially one of the current magnitude that is riddled with insecurities, forces companies to take a long, hard look at themselves. They need to evaluate their corporate vision and mission – are they still the same ones that are in the annual reports and the corporate website? Are they still in sync with the current times and new reality or is it time to refresh or reposition? Many high-tech companies launched a technology that they wanted to bring to the average company or consumer. Many of those technologies and products never took off. Computerworld published an overview of the 21 biggest technology flops, among them ebooks.

Even when a company is doing all right now, what are its survival chances? Will its customers allocate more, less or the same budget for items such as Internet security?It might be time to kill some scared cows, even (or especially) if they are the brainchild of the owners. Apart from using your in-house marketing experts, the best option is involving an external strategist to get a clear view.

London-based Financial Times is building steam, especially in the US. Any crisis is always good for the media, since the public is information-hungry. FT did well by the latest “if it bleeds, it leads” - its September newsstand sales rose with 30% in the US and 20% in Europe and Asia. Registered users of www.ft.com rose in one year from 30,000 to 750,000. FT also advises media companies to bring out their newspaper in several formats, push equally to enlist hard copy customers and online subscribers, using tools such as RSS. FT is also in favour of video, based on more than 1 million views a month.

Build new marketing strategies, be creative
One the main drives of survival is creativity – the ability to adapt to new circumstances. Based on the analysis mentioned before, it might be time for the company to reexamine the current offerings and adjust the current suite of products or services. There might be “sleepers” among them – a product of service that is now less-promoted, but is more affordable and consistent with the overall brand.

Based on the advice of the in-house marketing experts, it might be time to make a bold move and sell your product in new markets. Based on the reshuffling of the economic landscape, there will be emerging market niches and customer groups and demands not identified before. Clever companies grab these opportunities – being an early market entrant always pays off.

A recent example is the Australian Tourist NT which is concentrating on local visitors, since the number of international visitors is dropping. "Certainly we would anticipate we might have some softening in international arrivals, so our focus will be to further strengthen our domestic market. Tourist NT stated that it will “certainly continue investing in our marketing activities with partners to ensure that we have a sustained presence in the market to do what we can to ensure we get people visiting."

Communicate with your employees
During economic turmoil, employees are worried about their jobs. They want to know (and have to right to know!) how healthy their company is and if there are any plans in pipeline for cutting costs. Employees are the most valuable asset a company has, so it is foolish not to leverage this main asset!

A new research released today by global public relations firm Weber Shandwick shows that 86% of the respondents see their senior executives or management as "believable" and "trustworthy" sources on the topic. Sadly enough, more than half didn’t hear anything at all from the company leaders.

Don’t cut your marketing budget
The first thing that most companies do when times get tough is cut their marketing budgets. The recent Bellwether survey, published by the IPA, found that Q3 annual marketing budgets have been cut at a record rate as the economic crisis weakens business confidence. Key budgets hit are main media advertising, PR, events sponsorship and market research.It is a strategic mistake to ignore your customers when your competitors are still out there approaching them, as Post found out. In 1929, Kellogg’s and Post were in a neck-and-neck race for the breakfast cereal market. Unlike its rival, Kellogg's continued to advertise through the Great Depression, gaining a position of market dominance that the company still enjoys today.

Instead of cutting your marketing budget, look at your marketing mix and communication channels to your customers and readjust. Instead of going to a tradeshow, you might opt for more SEO and PPC, conduct more online campaigns, or increase the frequency of your corporate newsletter.

Avoid cutting your prices
In a time when customers become more conservative in their spending, it is a lower price that will sway them to purchase, but their need for the product or service. Impulse buying is replaced by ROI buying. Slashing prices for consumer goods can lead to cheapening your brand, which will result in long-term brand image damage.

Again, marketing professionals are uniquely placed to analyze how the current mixture of price and product/service is perceived by the customers. Adjustment to the overall marketing strategy might be needed. If a company is focusing too much on one small market niche with customers most hit by the crisis, it might want to branch out.

Before adjusting prices, analyze all of the elements of the marketing mix and make sure to fully understand what drives current and future customers.

Pamper your customers
As outlined above, customers will be driven by quality and service, and less by the actual purchase price. Customers have to feel good with the product or service itself, but also with the company that provides it. Giving customers extra attention pays off big time. In tough times self-esteem suffers, and companies that care about their customers will maintain existing customers more easily as well as build long-term brand loyalty.

A recent example is investment firm T. Rowe Price that began running a new ad campaign in the last two weeks, with the headline “Confidence.” The campaign ran in the Financial Times, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, communicating that “ultimately, there's one thing that will see our investors through these unsettling times ... confidence.”

Is the SEC killing the press release – not likely!

On July, 30 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published its recommendations for public companies in their efforts to comply with the securities laws “while developing their Web sites to serve as an effective means for disseminating important information to investors”.

It sparked a hot debate among IR and financial PR professionals, who are trying to figure out what the impact is. Many IR/PR agencies make good money writing and distributing press releases on behalf of public companies. Since a public company must announce any change in ownership and significant deals as well as notifications, earnings, profit warnings etc. to the public at large, the financial press release was the only way to go.

By opening the possibility of posting all of the above on a corporate blog, it could mean the “death of the press release” as one PR professional put it. IR and PR circles were abuzz with speculations how the major new distribution agencies such as PR Newswire would take it.

Public companies have been weary of using the Internet as a public space for the dissemination of material information, not in the least since they need to comply with Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg-FD) and Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) rules. The SEC is now opening the possible for companies to adhere to regulatory policies without using some of the more traditional methods such as financial press releases. If public companies would opt en masse to use the Web for information distribution, particularly for earnings disclosure, it would have a huge impact on IR and financial PR agencies as well as the newswires.

Thus far, most companies have been leery of using websites to provide investors and other audiences with regulated information, such as earnings.
Beth Harbin, director of PR for Southwest Airlines, is hesitant about changing its current system with PRN, though she acknowledges the positive benefits, which have helped carve out a place for earnings on the airline's website.
"Since we started our... site, we've always had a vision of making it extremely robust," she said. "We currently have earnings up on our website, as part of a system developed through [PRN]," she said. "It also puts that release right in the hands of the reporters who need it."

It is at this moment not clear what the full impact will be. The SEC document seems to indicate that the SEC wants to open the use of public companies’ websites as part of the whole process of disclosing information in accordance with the Regulation FD.

The SEC stated that it “believes that company disclosure should be more readily available to investors in a variety of locations and formats to facilitate investor access to that information. Investors are turning increasingly to electronic media and to company and third-party websites as sources of information to aid in their investment decisions."

It seems that the SEC does recognize a company website as a channel of distribution. The information must be disseminated in such a way, that it is available to the securities marketplace in general.

How can a public company guarantee that? By taking more affirmative steps so that investors and others know that information is or has been posted on the company's website.
Trying to avoid the costs of issuing a financial press release (of which many companies complain), would not only incur alternative costs (e.g., mailing list and distribution + follow up, SEO, administration, legal & accounting department) but could also jeopardize compliance with SOX.
What would therefore be the best option for public companies to ensure the availability of their information to the investor and securities communities? Correct, by sending out their announcement as a press release!

Using (only) their website for announcements will be risky. Companies will need to consider whether the postings on their websites are “reasonably designed to provide broad, non-exclusionary distribution of the information to the public.” This would entail serious organic SEO or in-house website management with tracking and reporting capabilities.

Another issue is the requirement that the website's capability must meet the “simultaneous or prompt timing requirements for public disclosure once a selective disclosure has been made." This puts a strain on a company’s resources. For practical reasons alone, sending a financial press release via the newswire remains the preferred option, since it will be pushed to Yahoo Finance, MarketWatch, MSN, CNNMoney, CNBC, Factiva, Forbes, Fox Business News, Lexis/Nexis, sites operated by major financial institutions and trading firms, blogs etc.

It relieves the public company from the burden to determine whether its website qualifies as a "recognized channel of distribution" and whether web posting achieves simultaneous disclosure. If you are the IR Officer, CFO, CEO or Legal Advisor of such a public company, you would have your work cut out for you, and the SEC doesn’t supply comprehensive guidelines or instructions to that effect.

The SEC's Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting states in its final report: "Of course, the increased use of corporate websites is not intended to affect the valuable role that newswires and other news vehicles play in disseminating important company information to investors and the public."

Despite the fear of many IR and PR professionals – the SEC is not killing the press release, it just hands us another IR & PR tool.

Branding Rutland – a lesson in branding a small town

Branding is an art – it tries to capture the heart and soul of a product, service or organization, making it highly recognizable if not unforgettable. Brand loyalty is the key to successful companies such as Proctor & Gamble, Unilever, Coca-Cola, and General Motors (to name just a few).

Countries and cities are entities trying to brand themselves: “I love NY” and “What goes on in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas” are two slogans that made the cities they are connected to memorable.

Smaller cities and towns have a harder time to make an impact. That makes Rutland, in the US state Vermont, such an interesting branding case.

Rutland’s city officials, regional development officials and the local business community want to put the city (and region) on the tourism map. They are looking for a slogan that sums up the finest qualities of the city, its economic potential and the tourist attractions. It wants to emphasize that it is within easy driving distance (e.g., from the Tri-State area). However, the slogan must be short enough to fit on a bumper sticker.

Not so successful past attempts included:

• “The Crossroads” (which sounds like a rehab center to me)
• "The heart of the "Marble Valley" (which doesn’t make sense if one doesn’t know where Marble Valley is located)
• "City for Weddings" (isn’t that Las Vegas?)
• "Rut Vegas" (which doesn’t have a nice ring to it)

It’s tough to brand a city or town. When it comes to branding, being small and relatively unknown doesn’t help. Lack of substantial marketing and advertising budgets is another restraint.

To brand properly, we must first look at Rutland’s strong points:

• Downtown shopping, dining and theatrical opportunities
• Pastoral settings of the rural communities just beyond Rutland's borders
• Lakes, trails, rivers, ponds, ski slopes and other recreational fun within easy driving distance from the big cities
• Part of the highly popular Vermont

The branding guru taking on the Rutland branding challenge is Peggy Bendel, senior vice president of Development Counselors International, who worked on the massive "I love New York" ad campaign, pointed out that branding a small city like Rutland takes a different approach. She recommends that Rutland adopts a catchy slogan and logo that sums up Rutland's best qualities and is easy to remember. The idea is for the city is to change the way visitors – and residents – perceive the community.

She makes an interesting point by stating that small town branding only works if everyone from the Chamber of Commerce and municipal officials down to small business owners and the average Rutland citizen can identify themselves with the slogan and logo.

Branding comes with a hefty price tag - consulting fees, marketing expenses and advertising are roughly $100,000. Rutland can apply for a state grant to be reimbursed for the consulting costs. Needless to say, research into attitudes, impressions and associations with the community are essential for branding success.

Rutland organized a preliminary meeting between a consultant company and about 20 regional and city commerce and development officials, city officials, representatives from recreational nonprofit groups, business leaders and residents. No suggestions for a new slogan or logo were brought up, but the qualities of the community were discussed extensively along with some of the challenges it faces including concerns about overcoming what some perceived as the main public perception problem: the name of the city and county, Rutland, is perceived as unflattering. However, on the upside – it’s easy to remember and spell, which is in our current Internet/Google age a must!

Two regions to the north and south of Rutland have successfully launched rebranding campaigns.

Burlington reintroduced their 1980s slogan "The West Coast of New England." It resulted in a high volume of downloads of the rebranding toolkit, complete with logo, slogan and other materials, coupled with T-shirt and sweatshirt sales bearing the rebranded imagery. The positive feedback from the public is also a sign that the rebranding is successful. The Chamber of Commerce stated that it only paid $30,000 for the consulting fee and left the advertising left to grassroots efforts.

The Green Mountain Regional Program (in the south of Bennington County) successfully concluded it grassroots efforts by introducing its "The Shires of Vermont” brand. According to the group's regional marketing coordinator, the slogan comes from Bennington County's unique designation as the only county with two shires that served as judicial districts in colonial times.

It will be interesting to see how the rebranding of Rutland will unfold.Until then, I would like to finish with a great quote from Bill Baker:“A brand is a promise - whatever you project, you must deliver on it and you can't have variations with everyone doing their own thing. The message has to be the same."

How will the current recession impact Public Relations?

Whether the current recession is real or perceived (depending who you listen to), the PR industry is looking at the impact it is going to have.

Possible trends to watch:

When media professionals will be laid off or move into other areas, PR professionals (both in house and at the agency-side) will lose established relationships – one of their core strengths.
Especially agencies will be hurt by contacts at leading magazines and news outlets that will have no more business value, and need to be replaced.
This requires heavy investments in time and effort.

The media organizations that are sizing down (also due to less advertising income) will have to figure out who will be cover their different market niches.
They might opt for merging some of topic areas (e.g. lifestyle and health) or cutting some areas in an effort to go back to their core business.
PR professionals might find that they cannot pitch their stories anymore, since that specific technology or topic is not covered by that specific media organization anymore.

Both media organizations and PR agencies might start cutting down on their high-level, high-salary employees and replace them with junior or entry-level people who will learn on the fly. This will come at a price – lower quality and less focus.
If this trend leads to fewer people and more newbies, readers might punish a media organization by canceling subscriptions. Some media outlets will close down, which will give PR agencies and professionals less opportunities to pitch their stories.

The competition for placement in the remaining media outlets will increase, and PR agencies will have a tough job explaining to their clients why they cannot be covered by certain news media.
In this highly competitive market, the strongest and most creative PR agencies and professionals will survive.
The media will be looking for quality to keep a competitive edge and to compensate for the loss of in-house resources. Receiving ready-to-print top-notch articles will help the news media to compensate for the lack of experience of newbies.

So is it all bad news? No, not really.
It could benefit experienced copywriters, editors, journalists working as freelancers. It could also make it easier for seasoned PR professionals to enter the market as an in-house PR person or at a PR agency.
In the US, being fluent in Spanish as well will become a major asset. It will extend the reach of a company or PR agency significantly.
For Europe, being multi-lingual is the key. Since most of the wealth in Western Europe is concentrated in the Germanic countries, German is the additional language to go for.
Fluency in French not only secures coverage in the French media, but also in all francophone countries.
Don’t forget: no matter how fluent journalists might be in English, they still have to write their articles in their native language……..

The invention of niche marketing - breaking down boundaries in the process

We all take it for granted – niche marketing.
But do you know when it started? And with which market segment?
Niche marketing is the result of the Coca – Pepsi consumer war. The so-called “cola wars” between Pepsi and Coke began in the late 1930s when Pepsi started making gains in the market at the expense of Coca-Cola. In 1940, Pepsi-Cola Co. was in fierce competition with Coca-Cola Co.
In that year, President Walter S. Mack of underdog Pepsi decided that it was time for an innovative marketing strategy and go for the Afro-American dollar.
He decided to target black consumers with a black sales force – hence the concept of niche marketing was born.
A smart move indeed - the market segment was worth an estimated $8 billion at that time.

Between 1940 and 1952, a team of 12 black salesmen (sorry, no saleswomen yet…..) worked as Pepsi’s “special markets” sales team.
When Pepsi hired its first black salesman, Herman T. Smith, is was so groundbreaking that the New York Times mentioned it in their issue of March 18, 1940.
The sales team got a lot of media coverage from black newspaper such as the Chicago Defender. They had (correctly so) celebrity status. They were perceived for what they were: fashionably dressed and confident sales professionals.

Unfortunately, WW II and the related sugar shortage (no Diet Pepsi in those times) negatively impacted Pepsi’s business operations, including the sales team.
After the war, the charismatic Edward F. Boyd (1914-2007) took charge of the sales force. Multi-talented Boyd was a U.C.L.A. graduate, a trained singer and dancer, and actor.
Before joining Pepsi, he worked for the Screen Actors Guild, government housing programs, and the National Urban League in New York.
He became one of the first black executives in corporate America, developing a marketing strategy seeking brand loyalty among African-Americans.
His special-markets campaign featured some of the first black professional models, including a young Ronald H. Brown (1941-1996) who is shown in the foreground of the image.
(Mr. Brown later became the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, serving three years during the first Clinton Administration).
For the first time in marketing history, African-Americans were portrayed in advertising as stylish, fun-loving, middle-class consumers living the American Dream – in sharp contrast with the stereotypes normally used (such as Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben).

Boyd’s marketing success is especially astounding considering the many obstacles he encountered. In the segregated South, his salesmen could not stay in hotels, so Mr. Boyd had them use Pullman sleeping cars on trains. This also allowed them to eat in their compartments and not in segregated dining areas.
Although his sales team was better qualified, it was paid less than their white counterparts at Pepsi.
Within Pepsi, even self-identified liberal Northerners (including Mack) used egregious slurs.
In 1949, Mr. Mack told 500 bottlers at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel that he no longer wanted Pepsi to be known as a *black* drink. Pepsi also continued to run racist advertisements.

Despite all the odds, the salesmen succeeded in boosting Pepsi sales in every area they marketed in. For example, they forged a 13% increase among accounts called in Louisville, KY.
Unfortunately, corporate support for this special sales team faded after Mack left Pepsi in 1950.

With the creation of the special sales team, Pepsi and Boyd not only invented niche marketing, but also broke the color barrier in the US business world.
It opened the way for Indian-born Indra Nooyi to become CEO & chairwoman of Pepsi.

Shine - Yahoo’ s latest marketing blunder?

Yahoo just launched a new site: http://shine.yahoo.com/
In contrast to Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Sports, Entertainment, Yahoo Tech and Yahoo Green, this site is targeting a specific audience and not just a topic.
The target audience is women, or in Yahoo lingo “Chief Household Officers” between 24 and 54.
Yahoo claims that Shine doesn’t aim to tap into the stereotypes used by marketers and advertisers to decide what content women should be interested in.
The site should be a one-size-fits-all, since “it doesn’t want to be a site just for moms or just for single women or working women, or any specific demo- or psychographic”

Yahoo is ambitious – it wants to become the top destination site in the lifestyles category.
According to Amy Iorio, general manager of Lifestyles at Yahoo, women are a great demographic target. This is not based on women being roughly 50% of humanity, but on the number of female Yahoo users - 40 million between the ages of 25 and 54 each month.
However, most women more than one (free) Yahoo account, and many spammers use female aliases – facts that seem to elude Yahoo.
Shine’s all female staff is geared to avoid the normal “chick” headlines – completely failing in their current attempts.

To illustrate, I give you a short rundown of the main headlines of March, 31st:

• The 100 Unsexiest Men 2008 (with a picture of toothy TC)
• Fashion + Beauty: Carla Bruni-Sarkozy we think you are awesome
• Food: Is all dark chocolate good for you?
• At home: Article about spring cleaning
• Love + Sex: Wedding season approaching
• Healthy living: Eat bread and still save on calories?

Yahoo claims that advertisers in consumer-packaged goods, retail and pharmaceuticals have requested more ways to reach those consumers -hence Shine.
To put insult to injury, the fixed items on the right top corner are Mail, Weather and (gasp!) Horoscope.
I would have expected to have News, Finance, Tech, Small Business and Travel there – aren’t they suppose to address business women as well?
In short, this marketing product is just one more in the long list of women’s mags.
The layout confirms this – the site is more magazine-like than an information portal.

Reasons why this site will not work (in my opinion):

1. The target audience is too diverse.
   Young mothers have other requirements than senior executives.


2. The site is in English only, solely targeting at the US.
   It leaves powerful demographic groups such as Spanish-speakers out in the cold. To illustrate my point, blogger Hieu T writes in her blog entry titled Khai truong the following: “Chả hiểu cái này dùng thế nào nhỉ???”


3. The main drive behind this site is Yahoo’s expectation that it will attract advertisers in the consumer packaged goods, pharmaceuticals and retail categories, where combined online advertising spending is expected to exceed $1.8 billion in 2008.
   It is a low-cost way for Yahoo to create more cross-promotional opportunities.


4. The site doesn’t have a specific appeal or taps into a specific need.
   To stand out, Yahoo should have created an “empowerment” theme.
   The line between Shine and sites such as CafeMom, Glam, ivillage, the knot and Martha Stewart living is too blurred.


5. Positioning.
   You cannot access Shine by simply typing in www.shine.com.
   You will get a completely different (although nicely designed) site aimed at job seekers. Yahoo’s Shine is a sub domain and has to be accessed with http://shine.yahoo.com/.
   If you try to access the site via the main Yahoo page, you have to scroll down the list of quick links on the left – for some reason, it’s not placed in the alphabetical list, but as a separate category at the bottom. It was not visible on my computer screen until I scrolled down…


6. The format.
   Shine is a large blog with magazine style layout. Content is broken up into various subcategories with the front page highlighting the newest content from across the site.
   Content is supplied by a pool of selected contributors (hailing from the world of women's publishing) and the site's visitors.
   Due to freeform blog format, visiting bloggers use it for personal advertisement, while the contributors use it for covert advertising and product placement
   (Example: Jennifer Romolini promoting Fig leaves).
   Articles and original blogs will come from a range of sources, including Glamour, Epicurious.com, Style.com, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar, Women's Health, and Good Housekeeping.


7. Yahoo tried content before – and failed.
   Yahoo has only been successful in content for sports. However, that was not due to the content itself, but by offering free fantasy sports as a piece of functionality as Jon Gibs, an analyst with Nielsen Online, pointed out.
   Main competitor Google stays away from producing orginal content.

The rebranding of President Bling-Bling aka N. Sarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy was elected based on the conception that he was different from his predecessors. During his campaign, he built his brand as the simple guy (an immigrant’s son without a patrician elite education) who would change things around (an overhaul of the welfare state which he sees as financially unsustainable, unfair and discourages work).

But on Sunday, March 16, the French voters sent a clear message that they were not impressed with M. le President. Sarkozy’s UMP party lost local-government elections in several major cities, trailing behind the Socialist party.
The main reason is the increasingly pessimistic attitude towards Sarkozy’s government policies aimed at boosting purchasing power as the global economy grinds slower.
At the same time, his lifestyle came under attack as well - indiscrete and bordering on ostentatious. Apart from his recent (and very public) divorce from wife Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz, followed by marrying former Italian model-turned-singer Carla Bruni within 4 months, Sarkozy vacationed on a billionaire friend's yacht, jogs wearing Ralph Lauren and a $14,000 Rolex.
His obvious enjoyment of the Good Life got him the nickname "President Bling-Bling".

His current image is in sharp contrast to his election brand as the man-of-the-people.
According to Denis Muzet, founder of the Paris-based politics-and-media institute Médiascopie, the French find it hard to accept Mr. Sarkozy's flashy lifestyle as they are feeling economically pinched. In January, inflation in France reached a 16-year high of 2.8%. A CSA poll last month showed that 56% of French people thought that Mr. Sarkozy "badly represents the role of the president," an 11-percentage-point increase from January 2008.

Sarkozy decided to "re-presidentialise" himself by toning down public displays of his lifestyle. During state visits, he tries to present an image of “elegance and decorum” – sans Rolex watch and Ray-Ban sunglasses.
He learned from past mistakes when he was giving interviews while jogging and using his Blackberry during an audience with the Pope.
For his rebranding he reshuffled his communications team. He started by firing his official spokesman David Martinon (a protégé of his former wife Cecilia).
Martinon will be replaced by a trio made up of Sarkozy's chief of staff Claude Gueant (secretary general of the Elysee); Jean-David Levitte (advisor for international issues) and longtime aide Franck Louvrier (who is in favor of daily communications with the press, instead of weekly press briefings).
Sarkozy also recruited Nicolas Princen, a 24-year old "cyber spin doctor" to detect and counter Internet attacks and rumors against the French President. Princen will keep a keen eye on websites, chat groups, blogs and film clips -with good reason. A handful of clips released on video sites like YouTube or Dailymotion badly tarnished Sarkozy’s image in recent months.
The first one of Sarkozy being seemingly drunk at a press conference at a G8 summit in 2007 was watched over 10 million times on YouTube. His famous remark to a man who refused to shake his hand at the Agricultural Fair in Paris in February 2008 was caught on amateur tape and watched over 3 million times in less than one month.

Will Sarkozy be able to rebrand himself? Will he be the patrician, discrete president the French want, implementing amazing new ideas?
If so, he could be one of the best presidents France ever had.
He made a great start with the appointment of this communication team and the toning down of his image.
But may be Riss, a cartoonist for Charlie Hebdo and co-author of "La Face Karchee de Sarkozy" by Philippe Cohen, Richard Malka and Riss, is on the mark with his observation “he will never change. Whether it rains or it storms he can’t change. It’s beyond him.”

Eliot Spitzer’s tarnished brand – can he remarket himself?

The Eliot Spitzer scandal will keep on mesmerizing us for some time to come.
For marketing and PR professionals, the big question is if and how Spitzer will reposition himself.
Over the years, he has been building his own brand as Mr. Clean and the Sheriff of Wall Street.
During his tenure as state attorney general he took on the insurance, mutual fund and securities industries, including a high profile and still unresolved case against former NYSE boss Dick Grasso.
He was even pegged to run for president in 2012.

Spitzer is not the first (and will not be the last) public figure that disgraced himself.
We all remember the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal – Clinton came out of that one almost unscratched, even finishing his term with a high approval rate.
Coby Bryant was able to save both his career and his marriage.
Barney Frank’s boyfriend ran a full-service prostitution ring out of Frank's Capitol Hill apartment – Frank not only stayed in congress, but heads the powerful house committee on financial services.
Inside trader and convicted white collar criminal Michael Milken is nowadays first and foremost know for his relentless fight against prostate cancer.
Hugh Grant’s career not only survived, but even prospered from his tryst with Ms. Brown.

The problem with Spitzer is first and foremost that he is not a likeable man.
This scandal hits him hard since he defined his own standards of right and wrong during his crime fighting years. The “holier-than-thou” have it tough, in contrast to libertines such as Clinton, Kennedy and Frank. So what should Spitzer do?

Phase 1 – the bomb dropped and he has to deal with the fallout.
Hiring a good publicist aka a crisis management expert is highly recommended.
He has to realize that his situation is bad, with powerful enemies out for his blood.

Phase 2 – he has to make a public statement on a respected TV show (60 minutes, Larry King Live) telling the world what a fool he has been and how very, very sorry he is.
Hugh Grant’s mea culpa on the Jay Leno show did him (and his career) a world of good.

Phase 3 – He needs to drop out of the public eye for a while.
Both Martha Stewart and Kate Moss did just that, which excellent results.
Let the next scandal take up front page space.

Phase 4 – It would be clever to get therapy for his addictive, compulsive behavior.
The public loves a rehab story, just look at President Bush.

Phase 5 – He could embrace religion, it’s a proven way to reposition oneself as an ethical person. The world just loves a repenting sinner.

Phase 6 – He needs to embrace a charity; it’s a proven way for redemption and atonement. Milken and Armstrong have a stellar reputation as crusaders, putting their scandals in the shadow. But it’s crucial to select one that makes sense, such as the fight against sexual slavery.

Phase 7 – Once he has repositioned himself, he can start his career in the private sector.

Spitzer has to realize that his life will never be the same again.
He needs an excellent sense of humor to weather this storm.
He will be referred to as “Client 9” and "Luv Guv" for years to come.
The best way to overcome this, is to write a tell-tale, tongue-in-cheek” book.
He has to make sure that the public has empathy for him.

Can he make it? It all depends if he follows the proven survival guide:
Public statement – teary confession – staunch support of wife & family – redemption.

Spitzer is a smart guy, and with the right advisors by his side, he will be able to remarket himself.

KFC's Super Bowl XLII marketing campaign - flying without a feather?

The upcoming Super Bowl XLII is a marketeer's dream arena.

Sponsors fork out big bucks to get themselves noticed - Fox is charging a record $2.7 million for each 30-second slot.

But one company launched a clever marketing campaign linking its name to the event without spending much money.

KFC Corp., is known for its creative (some would say: wacky) promotions over the years.
For the Super Bowl, it cooked up a clever one to promote its hot wings.
If a player or celebrity performer does an impromptu chicken dance in the end zone or on stage during the Super Bowl on Feb. 3, KFC will donate $260,000 to a charity in the name of that person. The person must perform at least three seconds of the "wing flapping" portion of the chicken dance, and only one donation will be made, according to a news release.
The donation will be made to the KFC Colonel's Scholars Program, a charity that provides scholarships to high school seniors planning to attend a public in-state college or university.
Also, people across the country can visit www.showusyourhotwings.com to upload their own chicken dance videos in the hope of winning a Super Bowl party.

"Talk about an offer worth showing off your Hot Wings for: this could be a great dance performance benefiting charity," said James O'Reilly, chief marketing officer for KFC.

"This will continue KFC's tradition of 'marketing first' promotions. We really hope someone shows the world his 'hot wings.'"

KFC is not an official sponsor of, or affiliated or associated with, the National Football League, the big game, or any other football-related entity.

KFC is not the only saves big time on sponsoring, but also on its PR.
Inviting the public to submit their videos is part of the recent consumer-generated media trend.

It's the ultimate low-cost/high-result strategy.

Just look at the following examples.
Lay's Doritos asked consumers to upload 30-second videos praising its chips, they received more than 1,000 entries. They picked two winners that aired as Doritos ads.
This year, Doritos invites musicians to submit original songs at myspace.com/DoritosCrashTheSuperBowl.
The song that wins online voting will air as a 60-second music video in the Super Bowl.

Considering the popularity of these campaings, they are here to stay - at least for now.

It is a win-win situation - the company saves big time on their PR budget and participants get a shot as their 15-minutes of fame.

How a viral marketing campaign went vitriolic – the Mozilla marketing mess

Mozilla normally markets its open-source browser using its Spread Firefox site and a host of fans to drum up new users.
In an effort to get a chuck of Microsoft’s market, it came up with an innovative online campaign that sadly backfired.
The “Fight Against Boredom” featured a YouTube movie which echoes “We are the World”.
Only in this case, the singers poured out statistics, comparing Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer users with Firefox users.
It included “fun facts” such as:
“15% more likely to have watched cartoons on TV within the last seven days” and “21% less likely to fish”.

However, it also included:
“23% less likely to have cancer” ; “25% less likely to have breast cancer” and “20% less likely to live with others suffering from cancer.”
These “statistics” also included that Firefox users were less likely to have high cholesterol or heart disease.

The TechCrunch blog was the first one to report on and object to the marketing program.
The readers’ comments make fascinating reading.
To give an example, Zachary wrote: "As a Firefox user who has cancer, I'm less than amused."

Paul Kim, Mozilla's vice president of marketing, tried to do some damage control.
He wrote on his blog:
“This is Paul Kim, VP of marketing for Mozilla.
I want to apologize to anyone who was upset or offended by some of the stats on the not yet final website for this campaign.
The list Techcrunch referenced was posted without a final review by Mozilla and wasn’t intended to be published as is.
We’re working right now to correct this on the site, which goes live in a final form later today.”

The apology doesn’t make sense. This kind of campaign should never have been conceived, not even as a rough concept.
I agree with blogger Tom Page, who points out that:
"Saying that it was not meant to be 'publicly available' makes it seem as if these comments are only acceptable as a private joke at Mozilla. Caesar's wife must be above suspicion, and if something like this came from Microsoft you'd go absolutely crazy."

Mozilla yanked the campaign.
What puzzles me most is the part that their PR Company played in this.
AKQA profiles itself as “ideas-lead agency” that holds the “Agency of the Year” title on “both sides of the Atlantic at the same time”.
You would expect more (cultural) sensitivity from an agency like this.
("Al AKQA", that also features a stuffed monkey on its website, claims $ 350M. in online media billing and 450 staffers).

Considering the gap between Firefox and its rival (according to the company Net Application, Inc. Firefox accounted for 16.8% of all browsers that visited the 40,000 sites the company monitors for its customers), this latest expedition in creative marketing will not help.

The lesson to be learned: marketing professionals need to be diligent in all their materials, even if it's only a rough concept.