Canuckflack

Well, I’d just finished writing about marketing in India and China when the latest Wharton newsletter came through my virtual mail slot, including a book review for C. K. Prahalad‘s latest: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profits.

Prahalad argues that multinational companies not only can make money selling to the world�s poorest, but also that they must undertake such efforts as a way to close the growing gap between rich and poor countries …

Taken together, nine developing nations � China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Indonesia, Turkey, South Africa and Thailand � have a combined GDP that is larger, in purchasing power parity, than the combined GDPs of Japan, Germany, France, the UK and Italy. The bottom of the pyramid, Prahalad says, is �the biggest potential market opportunity in the history of commerce.�

And why aren’t these markets being developed? These are hard markets to gauge, target and evaluate. Marketers have to work hard, to be truly imaginative, to sell into some of the poorest regions of the world.

(But, as my previous posts point out, some companies are finding success doing just this)

… They usually lack regular cash flow, have little access to credit and live in rural villages or urban slums that make traditional methods of advertising and distribution difficult, if not impossible. Most of the people at the bottom of the pyramid are part of an informal economy in which they do not hold legal title or deed to their assets. Thus, effective strategies for reaching these people will require remarkably different approaches, several of which are described in case studies in the book …

The review runs through the details of marketing a number of products in India and Mexico as well.

Bit of a marketing trend here, isn’t there?

AdAge notes that the Brazilian National Self-Regulation Council’s new ban on “erotic exploitation” in beer ads is prompting brewers and their marketing firms to “find a new creative vocabulary beyond breasts and bare bellies.”

Here’s an example of the new advertising being generated for Molson’s Kaiser beer - in Brazil. Not very sexy – unless you’re a tattoo fetishist. (Mediaplayer)

But those rules don’t apply to ads for Brazilian beers being marketed in Canada. Here’s a recent ad for Marca Bavaria, a down-market Brazilian brand also owned by Molson but being revamped in the Canadian market.(Quicktime)

Here’s an even hotter Marca Bavaria ad – on the beach.(Quicktime)

Swinging back into the real world, Jayday noted last year how adbeast.com was involved in the filming of the Marca Bavaria ads. As the Financial Post described it, adbeast:

… acts both as a virtual library and a virtual studio for the agencies that pay subscription fees to use it. In [this] digital world, there is no longer a need for agencies to keep a physical library filled with 3/4-inch tapes stored in black boxes: It can all be moved online. Using the adbeast server, agencies set up virtual libraries of their work at the site. Access is strictly controlled by each agency member, but is available from around the globe.

“Adbeast was very helpful for us … not only in Brazil, but once we were back here,” said [a marekting executive] with Molson in Toronto.

In one situation, [he] was in Brazil during the three-week shoot and wanted to make a casting change. From Brazil, he was able to download footage of a proposed actor to the adbeast site, and then asked his boss in Toronto to go online, have a look and offer up his opinion. And that all happened in a matter of minutes.

Following on yesterday’s comments about P&G marketing – you don’t have to be a consumer goods behemoth to explore new marketing tactics. You don’t even have to be in the largest consumer economy on earth.

As P&G and other marketers keep emphasizing, you need the best information available. You have to research the customer, their needs, the factors that drive their purchasing decisions, and the best channels to reach them.

In India, CPG companies are exploring how SMS technology can reach a number of demographics on behalf of very different products.

When launching a new flavour of gum, Wrigley’s included free packs with a leading publication and solicited feedback on the product and price by SMS.

Hindustan Lever, the local subsidiary of the international CPG company, has been using SMS for years. A 2001 campaign sponsored a Vengaboys tour, and consumers responding by SMS were rewarded with pub passes. A 2002 campaign worked around the FIFA World Cup. Their take-away? SMS “can pinpoint target groups demographically. [Hindustran Lever] uses SMS for brands that need to balance ‘cost-per-contact’ with effectiveness of contact.”

“The usage is different as well: Mobile at work, mobile at college, mobile-on-the-move, mobile-after-dark,” says [one Indian promo firm working on SMS campaigns]. This means SMS isn’t necessarily confined to one economic segment of the Indian economy – the middle class and urban professionals.

But SMS isn’t the only innovation. CPG companies in India have discovered that packaging and promotions really affect their sales, especially if they are dealing with demographic segments that can’t afford the larger, more feature-rich products. In fact, the move by companies of all sizes to offer miniature packets, vials and “sachets” of products like shampoo, tea, detergents and gum has led to incredible sales numbers – and a price war.

It�s cheaper to buy a strip of sachets on a regular basis than family packs. On an average � and this is a stunning piece of statistic � the unit price of large packs is twice that of sachets. … P&G is selling 500 gm of Tide at 80% premium to sachets on a comparable basis. …

And this trend to “personalization” of packaging is being transferred to similar economies. P&G is developing smaller, less sophisticated versions of Tide for the Chinese market (less stain removal, no fragrance, less enzymes – in other words, June Cleaver’s Tide)

Over at Engage, Greg’s focused on Proctor & Gamble’s continuing quest for measurable results and effective techniques in marketing and advertising. He was prompted to comment by Jeff Jarvis, who in turn was spinning off a recent speech by P&G’s global marketing officer.

The speech has a lot of self-congratulation. It makes some broad generalizations. And the easy take-away quote is:

All marketing should be permission marketing. All marketing should be so appealing that consumers want us in their lives. We should strive to be invited into consumers� lives and homes.

But there’s a more detailed point to be found in the speech notes:

Consumers today are less responsive to traditional media. They are embracing new technologies that empower them with more control over how and when they are marketed to. They are making more purchase decisions in environments where marketers have less direct influence (in store, word of mouth, professional recommendations, etc.).

It’s easy to jump on P&G’s apparent misinterpretation of “permission marketing,” but the speaker does make clear their approach is about “collaboration.” It’s about reaching out to P&G consumers through new and vibrant channels, channels where they have proven receptive and open to innovative marketing messages.

Together with our partners, we�re learning how new connection points can have a profound impact on how we reach consumers beyond the 30-second TV spot (in-store, mobile technology and text message groups, pop-ups, digitized billboards that can be programmed, coffee wrappers).

(Well, maybe not pop-ups)

P&G has been beating this drum for years. They’ve been demanding better consumer information from the media, more creative marketing and PR approaches from their suppliers, and have focused on results that can be measured, compared and improved.

And remember, they’re still in business to sell us fragrance-free anti-perspirant, super absorbent paper towels and scented toilet paper rolls. So they’ll always be pushing something new, something improved, something not necessarily top-of-mind in our consumer consciousness.

That’s why they’ve started Tremor – an advertising arm of P&G dedicated to examining how to build word-of-mouth momentum among young consumers for products like Cover Girl Outlast Lipcolor lipstick, Pringles and Noxzema. Tremor doesn’t break any new ground by focusing on the 1% of youth who are “connectors” in fashion/trends/styles with their peers. It’s the same as the influencers or influentials concept floated by other marketing and PR firms.

But P&G has the resources and the budget to back these ideas, and Tremor is making its impact felt. Dreamworks drew upon Tremor’s network of 280,000 youth members to search for title suggestions for it’s new teen movie. 60,000 responses resulted in 20 identical suggestions; Eurotrip.

About 10 percent of teens who take a seven-question survey about themselves and their social activities and network make the cut. Recruited teens are sent an information kit by mail that includes a notification to parents.

Since she joined, [one teen] has offered her opinion on everything from music demos to facial scrubs. She’s also previewed unreleased songs by Avril Lavigne last summer and Super Bowl ads before they aired.

How successful is the idea? P&G is thinking of starting a similar agency targeted at mothers.

(I’m going to add to this tomorrow)

Over at Engage, Greg’s focused on Proctor & Gamble’s continuing quest for measurable results and effective techniques in marketing and advertising. He was prompted to comment by Jeff Jarvis, who in turn was spinning off a recent speech by P&G’s global marketing officer.

The speech has a lot of self-congratulation. It makes some broad generalizations. And the easy take-away quote is:

All marketing should be permission marketing. All marketing should be so appealing that consumers want us in their lives. We should strive to be invited into consumers� lives and homes.

But there’s a more detailed point to be found in the speech notes:

Consumers today are less responsive to traditional media. They are embracing new technologies that empower them with more control over how and when they are marketed to. They are making more purchase decisions in environments where marketers have less direct influence (in store, word of mouth, professional recommendations, etc.).

It’s easy to jump on P&G’s apparent misinterpretation of “permission marketing,” but the speaker does make clear their approach is about “collaboration.” It’s about reaching out to P&G consumers through new and vibrant channels, channels where they have proven receptive and open to innovative marketing messages.

Together with our partners, we�re learning how new connection points can have a profound impact on how we reach consumers beyond the 30-second TV spot (in-store, mobile technology and text message groups, pop-ups, digitized billboards that can be programmed, coffee wrappers).

(Well, maybe not pop-ups)

P&G has been beating this drum for years. They’ve been demanding better consumer information from the media, more creative marketing and PR approaches from their suppliers, and have focused on results that can be measured, compared and improved.

And remember, they’re still in business to sell us fragrance-free anti-perspirant, super absorbent paper towels and scented toilet paper rolls. So they’ll always be pushing something new, something improved, something not necessarily top-of-mind in our consumer consciousness.

That’s why they’ve started Tremor – an advertising arm of P&G dedicated to examining how to build word-of-mouth momentum among young consumers for products like Cover Girl Outlast Lipcolor lipstick, Pringles and Noxzema. Tremor doesn’t break any new ground by focusing on the 1% of youth who are “connectors” in fashion/trends/styles with their peers. It’s the same as the influencers or influentials concept floated by other marketing and PR firms.

But P&G has the resources and the budget to back these ideas, and Tremor is making its impact felt. Dreamworks drew upon Tremor’s network of 280,000 youth members to search for title suggestions for it’s new teen movie. 60,000 responses resulted in 20 identical suggestions; Eurotrip.

About 10 percent of teens who take a seven-question survey about themselves and their social activities and network make the cut. Recruited teens are sent an information kit by mail that includes a notification to parents.

Since she joined, [one teen] has offered her opinion on everything from music demos to facial scrubs. She’s also previewed unreleased songs by Avril Lavigne last summer and Super Bowl ads before they aired.

How successful is the idea? P&G is thinking of starting a similar agency targeted at mothers.

(I’m going to add to this tomorrow)

A column in the Guardian makes an interesting point about Ebay as social network AND reputation managment tool:

EBay does something no other network has done: it treats the social network as the supply-chain and by building systems of communications and reputation management into the network, turns a group of individuals into an organised, structured and wildly economically viable marketplace. The same can be said at an emergent level about open-source knowledge projects such as the Wikipedia encyclopedia.

Roy Greenslade at Media Guardian has a handy cheat sheet on the different levels of sophistication, knowledge and insight accorded to anonymous informants, including:

* An insider – someone who hopes to know enough, one day, to be a source.

* A close friend – the celebrity.

Richard Branson is a master publicist and skilled marketer. He has built several Virgin companies on a number of continents, each a brand to be reckoned with in its industry.

In the past, he has ballooned around the world (in a giant Virgin balloon, of course), went skydiving, dressed up as a bride and took his fight to market leader Air Canada’s biggest market by playing street hockey underneath the CN Tower with a team of pee-wee players.

These days, though, Branson is the target of promotions and gimmicks. He’s thinking about extending the reach of his Virgin Group to serve domestic US air routes, and cities across the US are embracing outrageous PR and marketing stunts to woo him to their airports.

In San Francisco, a Judy Garland look-alike, drag queens and a tall blond in Virgin-red surfer trunks met his development team upon landing. (Here’s a snapshot of the political firepower, celebrities and stunts a city like SF will call upon to win a new airline and new jobs.)

On the other coast, Boston sent over live lobsters outfitted with Virgin luggage tags. Oh, and offered $1.5 million for employee training.

“Being able to brand with Virgin is important for Boston because it could change perceptions of old revolutionary Boston and show we are cutting-edge … which is very valuable for us,” said Susan Elsbree, spokesman for the Boston Redevelopment Corp.

Northern Virginia is on the list as well, but they’re being close-lipped about their strategy.

How has Virgin USA reacted to all this attention? “We didn’t have expectations of a dog and pony show,” admits Antonio Hofbauer, corporate development manager for Virgin USA. “We have been surprised by the level of activity and the efforts from different agencies and politicians.”

In case you’re wondering how Richard Branson remains so creative and energetic, here’s a recent Fortune article chronicling a few days of his life (sub. req.).

but what is Ralph Nader’s problem?

Sure, he’s right to criticize the corporate and political interests that seem to dominate inside-the-beltway decision-making. Sure, there are thousands of disenchanted and disenfranchised voters who would scream for meaningful change.

But that doesn’t mean you should throw your hat in the ring if all it will accomplish is splitting the vote – to the benefit of your ideological nemesis.

In today’s most oft-cited stat: During the 2000 election, Nader received 97,488 votes in Florida, where President Bush officially defeated Al Gore by 537 votes.

When the new Economic Report of the President came out this week, questions were raised whether fast-food restaurants needed to be reclassified. At the moment, they are considered part of the service sector. But is the collection, assembly and distribution of Big Macs really a manufacturing job?

The White House thought this question important enough to box the relevant section, so it stood out from the other stats in the 417 page report.

There is some logic to the proposition: combining water and soft drink concentrate in a bottle is considered manufacturing, but doing the same thing at a fountain is considered service.

Some economists have underlined the need to logically and consistently identify industries – especially if this could have an impact on their eligibility for tax incentives and other forms of relief. Hmm. Maybe McDonald’s should consider pursuing this idea, given their financials.

Then again, this could be a positioning maneouver by the White House. After all, if fast food restaurants are reclassified as manufacturing industries, the dismal performance of the manufacturing sector will seem to improve as McDonald’s, Quizno’s and Pizza Huts continue to open across the country. And retraining programs would suddenly become much more reasonable and affordable if all those auto workers, cabinet makers and millwrights only need to be taught basic food safety skills and how to operate a microwave.

And those would make nice stats for the President’s stump speeches.

(Of course, it would likely take economists another four years to debate the idea. In time for Clinton ’08?)

As I was chopping my face up with a three blade razor this morning, I had a moment of self-criticism: am I a stupid enough consumer that I fall for marketing gimmicks like lubricating strips, patented blade protectors or ergonomic handles?

Yes. As are most men. Which is why the appearance this week of two very different articles about marketing razors struck me as funny.

On Wednesday, two smaller players in the market announced their plans for disposable four blade razors.

Analysts figure the one-upmanship had its limits � would anyone really try a five-bladed razor? � but in the blade arms race nothing is for sure.

Afshin Moghavem, president of Universal Group, said he doesn’t think four-blade razors are inherently better than three-blade ones. Yet this one is, he says, due to its moisturizing strips and thinner, fourth blade set apart from the other three.

A web outlet reports that Gillette, though, has other plans. Here’s a quote from the CEO of Gillette:

“… Sure, we could go to four blades next, like the competition. That seems like the logical thing to do. After all, three worked out pretty well, and four is the next number after three. So let’s play it safe. Let’s make a thicker aloe strip and call it the Mach3SuperTurbo. …”

“Here’s the report from Engineering. … They don’t tell me what to invent�I tell them. And I’m telling them to stick two more blades in there. I don’t care how. Make the blades so thin they’re invisible. Put some on the handle. I don’t care if they have to cram the fifth blade in perpendicular to the other four, just do it!”

You know what’s really funny? The quote above is from the Onion, but it could be real. The market for razors is so competitive, Gillette increased its advertising spending by 30% in the last quarter of 2003. There were duelling Schick and Gillette ads during the Super Bowl. Gillette’s introducing a vibrating Mach3 razor!

Even Junior, the Daytona 500 winner, will begin a marketing and PR blitz on behalf of Gillette.

In Stalin’s time, shunned Communist Party apparatchiks and countless others disappeared into horrific forced labor camps in the east of Russia, many in Siberia.

Just over a year ago, the Director of Communications for the Prime Minister of Canada was forced to resign after being caught referring to George Bush as a “moron” during a conversation with reporters at a G-8 meeting.

What happens to senior aides once they resign? In Washington, they move over to “K” street. In London, they take on high profile consultancy roles. In Ottawa, they sometimes apply their extensive experience to the benefit of the public service.

To wit, Francoise Ducros is now a senior executive responsible for Russia at the Canadian International Development Agency.

Today’s Financial Post (sub. req.) details one of her recent trips to Siberia: “she was introduced to an elk farmer who, upon hearing her name, said “Hey, I’ve heard of you. you’re the Canadian who called George Bush a moron.”

As the reporter noted: “welcome to the borderless new world of global information.”

The codfish lays a thousand eggs
The homely hen lays one.
The codfish never cackles
To tell you what she’s done.
And so we scorn the codfish
While the humble hen we prize
Which only goes to show you
That it pays to advertize.

- a little rhyme from a biography of cod I’ve been reading. No – it’s actually quite interesting. Really!

Jan Miner, the actress who played Madge the Manicurist in 27 years’ worth of Palmolive dish soap ads, died this week.

Dave Winer blogged about her two years ago.

Never ending on a down note, here is the Bugs Bunny “manicurist” skit.