A jolly Happy Birthday!

Celebrations are in full swing back in Blighty for The Queen's 90th birthday, and I will no doubt join in. But I also want to celebrate a different birthday, for another (excuse the 'i-word') icon. Not a lady, this time, but a rather fine gent.

Mr Peanut, of Planter's fame, is 100 years old and celebrated his birthday officially two days ago.

Mr Peanut is one of my favourite brand characters, along with the Michelin man. Not many brand characters reach 100 without being deemed un-PC, too fat, too skinny, the wrong colour, inappropriate or - shock horror - offensive.

Although one or two of Mr Peanut's incarnations are laughable rather than endearing (I am looking at the first NUTmobile here), his longevity surely relies on his staying the sophisticated, nutty gent who promises great quality peanuts. Monocles and spats never go out of fashion.

I'm not sure what year my Mr Peanut mug dates from, but it could as well have been made yesterday.

The history of Mr Peanut is fascinating. In an early example of crowd-sourcing, the original sketches won a competition for 13-year-old Antonio 'Tony' Gentile. Tony won $5 for his idea, which must have been a fair amount of money for a young teenager in 1916. Here's one of his sketches, and you can see the others and read more here.

There's a rather sad end to Tony's story. He didn't go into the world of Madison Avenue, but qualified in medicine and became a surgeon. He died of a heart attack at the tragically early age of 36.

I do wonder, though, what that young boy would have thought if he'd caught a fast-forward glimpse of his creation in 2016.

... but I won't do that

The TV ad I've chosen for this blog post may be an odd one, as I'm not a dad, nor do I have a daughter.

But I have plenty of friends that are, and do.

This wonderful ad has been created and produced for McDonald's Australia by DDB together with The Sweet Shop. 

What's so great about it? Well, for a start, it's based on a huge and relevant insight: Dads make plenty of sacrifices for daughters, but food probably ain't one of them. Having just come back from a holiday together with a meat-eating dad and vegetarian daughter, I can confirm the veracity of this 100%.

And this insight connects to the product they are advertising - the DIY Create your Taste which promises 'grown-up ingredients.'

But it doesn't stop there - the film is packed with little observational insights on father-daughter behaviour which makes the whole thing watchable, funny, warm-hearted and true to life. There are no stupid bogus 'social experiments', no ghastly pulling on the heartstrings plinky music (the Meatloaf track is perfect, and has a neat association with the product), no horrible manipulative messages about empowerment and other such crap.

It's good old clever unpretentious advertising - and almost makes me want to give McDonald's another try.

Gripping Stuff

Just back from my favourite winter wonderland, which has turned into Audi Quattro wonderland in the few years that I have been away. I'm not usually keen on blatant commercial activity in beautiful holiday resorts, but I have to say - maybe because I'm an Audi owner - that this works.

Although BMW are an 'official partner' of ski resort Obergurgl/Hochgurgl, it was the Audi Quattro activity that I noticed primarily. Compared to a full size ice sculpture, and a tent where photos are taken and a competition entered, the few posters for BMW that I saw rather paled in comparison.

There are posters for Audi Quattro, too, of course, all around the resort. These communicate the sponsorship and association of Audi Quattro with freeriding skiers such as Nadine Wallner. Grip and challenge - perfect!

But it's not just these rather more ephemeral communication pieces that melt with the thaw. Since December 2013, one of the traditional mountain huts has been rechristened the quattro Festkogl Alm.

I'm a fan of unlikely combinations - in this case, alpine cosiness and state-of-the-art automobile technology. Amid the wooden beams and floorboards are hi-tech interactive tables, giving you something of the Quattro experience.

Above the roaring fireplace is a Quattro gecko symbol, instead of the obligatory stag's head or stuffed marmot. And there were some lovely deep red felt branded drink coasters which beautifully combine both worlds.

Grip and challenge and Audi Quattro - how long before they start making skis?

It's tasty, tasty, very very tasty

I quite often read through all those newsletters about new ideas and innovations and think – I wish I’d thought of that. And I am sure that there are more than a few brands these days that see something new in terms of media ideas and wish they’d got their name behind it.

Unfortunately, as much as many established brands talk about agility, many of their approval and testing processes are painfully and restrictively slow when it comes to getting something out there.

The neat new idea I’ve seen on my Facebook feed in the last couple of months is delicious little recipe videos, usually lasting less than a minute. Packed with mouth-watering appeal, these really do make it all look quick and easy. Fast food with a twist. And most of these come from Tasty or Proper Tasty, who describe them as ‘Food that’ll make you close your eyes, lean back and whisper yessss. Snack-sized videos and recipes you’ll want to try.'

Snack-sized videos. Brilliant.

Now, the interesting thing here is that behind the new brands Tasty (started July 2015, over 47m Facebook followers) and Proper Tasty (the UK version ‘in grams not cups’, launched December 2015 and an excellent demonstration of a global brand with local accents) is the digital media company BuzzFeed, better known for its clickbait headlines of the You Won’t Believe What Happens Next variety.

But BuzzFeed have been clever. They have realised that some of their Tasty audience (like me) probably isn’t into epic fails and awesomely cute fluffy kittens.

So you don’t have to like BuzzFeed (on Facebook) to like Tasty. In fact, you don’t need to go anywhere near buzzfeed.com – Tasty is tailor made for Facebook, and Pinterest, and Instagram, and Twitter, and … you can get it straight from there.

It’s not about ‘driving traffic to their website.’

And, although there are those who maintain that BuzzFeed and their like are driven by data and heavy on analysis, just looking at visitors to the food section of the main BuzzFeed site (14m, in the great scheme of things, not a lot) would not have led to this idea alone. BuzzFeed’s success is based on thorough data-crunching, yes, but combined with leaps of intuition.

It’s just a shame (I think) that a traditional food-related brand didn’t launch Tasty.

But then again, there are plenty more brilliant ideas to be had out there.

66 Identities

'Marketing to Mums' is one of those age-old topics that no-one seems to be getting right. I've posted about this old chestnut here and here. Much of the difficulty seems to stem from brands and agencies putting their agenda first, rather than what is important to women in their role as a mother. And although there are probably a few more mothers working in marketing and advertising than there were when I was in my 20s and 30s, many feel pressured into leaving their mother identity at home.

I was very impressed with a joint project conducted by Saatchi & Saatchi partnering up with Mumsnet, which you can read about here and even download the white paper. It's all about how marketing can create more meaningful connections to mums.

At the heart of the study is a great idea - what I would call back-to-front research. Instead of taking all the brand data and throwing it all into the giant factor analysis and segmentation machine, then giving the six segments it spits out oh-so-witty but rather patronising names, Saatchi and Mumsnet did something different.

They asked the question - how do mums define themselves, when they are conversing in social media? And to do this, they analysed all the popular mum-orientated social media networks in the UK. Which topics or groups were there?

The answer was 66 ways in which UK mums define themselves, ranging from the seemingly pure demographic 'mums with teens' through to something like 'mums with cheating partners'. On average, any woman will identify with around 6 of these groups - I tried it and found 12 that I identified with.

The next step was to do a sound quantification of these groups, amongst mothers aged 16-60, both in terms of volume and intensity of identification. This is important. Mothers with special needs children may be a smaller group in terms of volume, but are likely to identify at a high level of intensity.

And this is where the back-to-front bit comes full circle. Only at the end did they take a smaller number of these groups into qualitative research to get more insight and revelation about the lives of these mothers and their children. And here, the really fascinating stuff comes out.

One might think that 'one-child family' or 'rural mum' are not that exciting - just demographics, really. But knowing that for rural mums, a trip into town to do shopping is turned into a fun day out and really a bit of a treat for the child gives marketers all manner of possibilities to make a better connection.

Meanwhile, for those of us who are mothers and work in marketing, let's not be frightened to yell loudly when we detect our colleagues 'faking it.'

Life isn't seamless

Hot on the heels of my last post about our smoothie society, I would like to unpick a few seams and see what I find. There is an obsession amongst marketing folk these days with the word 'seamless', and I notice it creeping into general usage, too. Recently, a fashion company promised me a dress which would take me 'seamlessly from Spring into Summer', and I don't think they were talking about the garment's construction.

Typical of the 'seamless' obsession is this article by Margaret Hung, SVP Consumer Dynamics, Solutions and Strategy at Millward Brown. It's called Unifying the Journey. It starts off: Marketers have long embraced the concept of creating seamless and rewarding brand experiences along the consumer journey.

The main point of the article is that digitalisation means that sales channels and media channels no longer have a divide between them, and concludes that: The solution is consumer journey mapping, which helps facilitate an integrated sales and media planning process by revealing which sales and media touchpoints play a role in the consumer decision-making process and how they work together to influence which product and brand is ultimately purchased.

No. This isn't the solution. Or at least, let's unpick that 'seamless' word and see what we are actually talking about here. 

If we're talking about 'a seamless customer journey' (if we have to) - in other words, the way that people find and buy brands through their smartphones, stores, advertising, word of mouth (maybe) - then, I would say in this day and age that this should be as easy as possible as a hygiene factor, if you like. And a brilliant technical team who are skilled in the nuts and bolts (or whatever they have these days) of making that happen should be able to sort that out.

But 'a seamless brand experience'? I'm not sure. Seamless to me starts to imply a few other things. Bland. Mediocre. Uniform. Dull. Predictable.

What about surprise? Richness? Mystery? Charm? Discovery? Curiosity? Surely these belong, too, in a 'brand experience?' As Jung said: The unexpected and the incredible belong in this world. Only then is life whole.

Which would you prefer for your 'brand experience', metaphorically? The beautiful patchwork quilt by Lucy Boston? Or a seamless robe?  

Smoothie Society

If there is one drink product that has dominated the 21st century so far, it has to be the smoothie. While smoothies have been around in some markets ever since blenders and fridges became commonplace, the market in Europe has only really taken off in the last fifteen years. Innocent was founded in 1998, and it was only seven or eight years ago that I blogged about the first supermarket smoothies spotted in Germany.

I have often wondered about the appeal of smoothies. Some years ago, I worked on Hipp baby food, and we discovered an interesting niche of adult baby food eaters. I hasten to add that they consumed mainly the fruit versions, rather than the mashed up chicken n' carrots, although there were probably hardcore fans who did just that, too.

I'm a little wary about calling these consumers 'adults' as psychologically, they were more 'reluctant adults'. Typically, these were young women, concerned about their weight and their health, in some cases verging towards a 'Petra Pan' orientation of not wanting to grow up and be a woman. The sort of young women who wear pink, dress up as Japanese cartoon characters and carry Hello Kitty bags.

And this is part of the appeal of smoothies. You don't have to chew, you don't have to deal with pips and peel and cores, you can just gulp it down and still satisfy Nanny that you are getting your '5 a day.'

In my more cynical moments, I feel that we have become something of a 'Smoothie Society'. In our homogenised world, everything is mashed up and made rather samey so that it's easily palatable.

Films are formulaic and often a rehash of what's gone before.

The same pool of emojis is used worldwide, the same memes are recirculated again and again.

News items and their You Won't Believe What Happens Next headlines are interchangeable, whether they come from Buzzfeed or The Times.

And brands, their logos, their ideas and their communications are all too often indistinguishable.

In the days before a smoothie was a fruit and vegetable drink, it had another meaning. It was a slightly disparaging term for a well-groomed, well-mannered but overly flattering man, and not a million miles from slimy, smarmy and softie.

If you had too many smoothies in your life, you longed now and again for a 'bit of rough.'