Aflac isn't just about the duck. The company, which used the duck icon to take the company from marginal awareness to one of the best-known brands in the country, has also -- in the past two years -- used the duck to explain what it is that Aflac does. Jeff Charney, SVP and CMO of Aflac, told a nearly full house at the OMMA Global conference in New York on Monday how the company used the humorous creative approach focused on the Rodney Dangerfield-like duck that quacks "Aflac" to deliver a concise message about the company's competitive offer. The duck appeared for the first time in 1999 in a TV spot in which two guys on a park bench ponder why there are no insurance companies that actually pay for accidents. A duck keeps trying to get their attention, to no avail. "That was one of the first disruptive ads and it put us on the map. Forty-six commercials later, here's where we are," said Charney. "Brand awareness has gone from 11% to 91% in fewer than four years. The commercials worked so well, but people were laughing so much they didn't know what Aflac was about." Charney said that a year ago, if someone asked 100 people on the streets of New York what Aflac is, only four would have known. So, he explained, the company developed "You don't know Quack," a guerrilla campaign with cryptic billboards the company left up for 15 or 20 days. "Ultimately, we put a duck up there and finally the Aflac name," said Charney. The next phase put banners at workplaces. One, on a construction site explained: "If you are here working without Aflac, you don't know quack." And there was a new tag: "Get to know Quack." Charney said the company exploited affiliate marketing programs with NASCAR driver Carl Edwards as spokesperson. Edwards appeared in cross-branded ESPN/Aflac ads touting NASCAR broadcasts but with lots of Aflac branding on Edwards' fire suit, helmet and car. The company also tied in with "Toy Story 3" and "UP!" "We also had to make our online efforts a lot more interactive," he said. "We were behind the game getting onto Facebook, so we launched it with the duck, and within a few weeks, went to 172,000 fans," he said. "And, frankly, our Web site was not very good. We went from a boring Web site to something with dozens of original animations featuring the duck." Charney said that new efforts are about explaining that Aflac pays cash for accidents or medical needs. One features chef Guy Fieri and the duck. The spot ran during football season and had Fieri cooking a picnic while the duck accidently eats a hot pepper and goes from one mishap to another while Fieri explains in 10 seconds or so what Aflac does. The company is also focusing on Japan this year where, with new advertising featuring a hybrid of a cat and a duck; sales are up 195%. "We're an $18 billion company," said Charney, "so it's substantial."
Procter & Gamble has unveiled a new -- and aggressive -- sustainability strategy. The company is vowing to reduce packaging by 20%, replace 25% of petroleum-based products with sustainably sourced materials, and get consumers so inspired that cold water accounts for 70% of washing machine loads -- all within 10 years. "We are dedicated to reaching five billion consumers over the next five years," CEO Bob McDonald said in the company's webcast, "or one billion more than we reach today. It does us no good to grow our business today at the expense of tomorrow." Many of the Cincinnati-based company's goals, developed in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund, cover manufacturing and production issues -- like truck transportation reduction, powering plants with renewable energy, such as solar and wind, and switching to plastics derived from sugar cane in some of its cosmetics packaging -- that are largely invisible to consumers. Others involve initiatives that are likely to make consumers feel better about P&G brands. For instance, the company introduced its first-ever cause-related campaign for Pantene last week, called "Healthy Hair for Healthy Water," which will help save an estimated 2,500 lives by providing half a billion liters of clean drinking water in the developing world. But those that require people to actually do something differently are much more complex. "It is going to be very difficult to get consumers to switch to cold-water washing," Jacquelyn A. Ottman, author of The New Rules of Green Marketing, due out this fall, tells Marketing Daily. "We are obsessed with cleanliness, and P&G is the company that got us to believe we wanted laundry that was whiter than white, and that you need hot water to get things really clean." P&G believes that due to the recession, people are thinking harder about how to do more for less money, and that by using products like Tide Coldwater, introduced back in 2005, "they get excellent cleaning, and a cost savings by not having to pay for heating that water," Len Sauers, VP/global sustainability, said in the webcast. "This is a good time to be talking about sustainability." Ottman is skeptical. "Tide Coldwater certainly isn't the Toyota Prius of the laundry category," she says. "And while theoretically, the government could get involved -- mandating that only cold-water washing machines be sold in the future, for example -- without massive intervention, most consumers will only be comfortable with hot water. "If P&G really wanted to put its money where its mouth is, they'd formulate regular Tide so that it worked in cold water as well as hot."
Disney Parks guests will star in TV spots as part of the "Let the Memories Begin" campaign. For the first time in its 55-year history, Disney Parks is featuring the home videos and snapshots of real guests in TV spots, print ads, online and in other marketing efforts. The campaign kicks off with a TV commercial created from videos posted online in social media forums. For future TV spots and other advertising and marketing programs, Disney Parks is asking guests to share their memories by uploading photos and videos at www.DisneyParks.com/Memories. Participants can register on the new site and then are offered the ability to opt-in for future Disney e-mails that include "Let the Memories Begin" updates and other information on the parks. The campaign is being promoted on the Disney park pages on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and MySpace. Beginning in January, Disney guests also will become the stars of a nightly spectacular when photos taken in the park during the day become larger-than-life projections on Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World Resort or "it's a small world" at Disneyland Resort. In both locations, Disney PhotoPass photographers will capture guests caught up in the Disney experience with up to 500 photos used in each location every day, producers estimate. The nighttime show will use the latest in high-intensity projection technology to create vivid visuals that seem to defy the architecture of the building. A new song commissioned for the show will provide an emotional context for these images of the Disney guest experience. Both the broader campaign and in-park efforts will spotlight those "only-at-Disney" moments, said Tom Staggs, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, in a statement. The user-generated campaign sprung from a survey conducted for Disney Parks by Ypartnership. It shows that vacation memories hold a special place in family history. Nine out of 10 parents said they planned their vacations with the express hope that they would result in a lasting family memory, the survey showed. And those memories stuck with them -- nearly three-quarters said they think back "often" or "very often" on their favorite vacation experiences.
People head to electronics companies' Web sites for two main reasons: to get information when considering a purchase or to find out how to use a product once it has been bought. With those objectives in mind, Samsung has relaunched its corporate Web site to focus on bringing those elements closer to the consumer. "There's a lot of change going on with the ways consumers interact with each other and with products," Kris Narayanan, vice president of digital marketing at Samsung Electronics America, tells Marketing Daily. "This Web site is a culmination of a rigorous process of identifying what drives consumer interaction and experience." The relaunch is born out of the insight that the buying process for electronics isn't as linear as previously thought. Rather than beginning a search on the Web, for instance, many people may first go to a retailer for a look at what's available before turning to the Web for further guidance. "It became evident that they don't come to manufacturers' Web sites until fairly late in the process," he says. "The problem is that consumers looking for more from manufacturers' Web sites are not getting it." The revamped site, Narayanan says, provides information that helps people to understand Samsung products and features. The site contains articles written in a more vernacular tone that are "less techie and more consumer-friendly," he says. Content is largely consumer-generated, such as including contributed images and videos, consumer-posted Q&A's on products and topics and the ability to comment on third-party reviews and articles. The site also employs social networking, tracking trending topics on Twitter and linking to Facebook posts. "There's a lot of sharing [among consumers] going on, and facilitating that is the first step," Narayanan says. "Now, we have a process for consumers to post questions and answers, and occasionally one of our experts will come in and post an answer or provide some context." The new site, which launched in mid-September, will also serve as the digital hub for all of Samsung's products and product launches. Rather than create a series of separate microsites for each product, new products and lines will be more easily accessible and identified from the main site, he says.
The Federal Trade Commission has issued a complaint charging the makers of POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice and POMx supplements with making false and unsubstantiated health claims. The agency charges that POM Wonderful LLC and sister corporation Roll International Corp. and principals Stewart Resnick, Lynda Resnick and Matthew Tupper violated the FTC Act by making claims that their products will prevent or treat heart disease, prostate cancer and erectile dysfunction. "When a company touts scientific research in its advertising, the research must squarely support the claims made," said David Vladeck, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "Contrary to POM Wonderful's advertising, the available scientific information does not prove that POM Juice or POMx effectively treat or prevent these illnesses." The complaint cites numerous claims made in national publications such as Parade, Fitness, The New York Times and Prevention, on the company's Web sites, in out-of-home advertising and on tags attached to the products. Some ads, for instance, state that POM juice is "backed by $25 million in medical research" and is "proven to fight for cardiovascular, prostate and erectile health." The complaint includes a proposed order that would prohibit the companies from making any health claims without "competent and reliable scientific evidence." It would also require that any future claims of disease prevention or treatment for pomegranate-based products comply with Food and Drug Administration claim regulations, and specifically require FDA pre-approval of such claims. (FDA approval of health claims is not normally required for compliance with the FTC Act.) In a related case, the FTC also announced a settlement with Mark Dreher, POM Wonderful's former head of scientific and regulatory affairs and "expert endorser." The settlement bars Dreher from making disease prevention or treatment claims in advertising for POM products unless the claim meets FDA requirements and is not misleading. He is also prohibited from making other health claims for foods, drugs or supplements without proper scientific evidence. An FTC administrative complaint is not an actual ruling that the law has been violated. The complaint is followed by a hearing before the administrative law judge. Consent agreements do not constitute an admission of guilt by the respondent. According to the FTC complaint, POM Wonderful is a Delaware limited-liability company and Roll International is a Delaware corporation, and the two share a principal place of business in Los Angeles. Roll provides POM with shared services such as legal, consulting and human resources and works with POM through an in-house agency to create ads and determine media placement. POM did not immediately respond to a call for comment from Marketing Daily.
Two high-powered marketing execs raced hot rods along a desert road in front of a packed house at the Internet Ad Bureau's MIXX Conference that kicked off Advertising Week in New York on Monday. Paul Edwards, executive director of marketing strategy for General Motors, and Darren Huston, corporate VP of global consumer and online marketing for Microsoft, strapped themselves into competing Chevys and shrieked in glee as they plowed through barrels, doing sick air as they took hills too fast. But they finished the course in one piece -- on Xbox. Instead of using a real steering wheel, the two -- who were playing the new Microsoft Kinect-powered game -- controlled their vehicles with body movements. The game was a demonstration not only of natural user interface (NUI), which uses movements and touch instead of keys and wants to navigate digital media, but of how the companies are partnering to launch Chevrolet's Volt electric car, which goes on sale in November. The campaign beginning this fall uses a multi-screen marketing approach that includes Chevrolet branding and vehicles in the game, powered by Microsoft's new Kinetic NUI platform, Chevy's use of Pivot to create a visually compelling way to winnow one's car shopping list based on things like mileage, size, and emissions, and test-drive events linked to users' mobile devices. Huston said the growth of this kind of marketing reflects consumer behavior; the average American home now has 30 digital devices." "The transformation we are seeing is a landscape that won't be made of banner ads and links. It's a landscape of bits and bytes," said Huston, adding that Microsoft is putting more than half of its own marketing on digital platforms. A Microsoft consumer study of advertising perception found that 69% of consumers embrace the concept of multi-screen advertising, he said, adding: "Another interesting fact is that TV combined with online improves recall by more than half. Media consumption continues to increase -- up 197 hours per month, partly because people are time-shifting and place-shifting. "Young people rarely watch TV without another screen around them," said Huston. Edwards said Chevrolet is using Pivot, built off of Excel and Silverlight, to give vehicle shoppers a visual interface that graphically narrows, categorizes, eliminates or expands the field of possibilities from a large matrix of hundreds of vehicles based on choices. Chevrolet is also putting virtual vehicle demonstrations on multi-touch PCs that allow people to customize the Volt.
Dunkin' Donuts and CareerBuilder have identified the Top 10 professions with the highest proportions of workers stating they are less productive without coffee. You are No. 9! (What, no journalists?): 1 Nurses 2 Physicians 3 Hotel workers 4 Designers/Architects 5 Financial/Insurance sales representatives 6 Food preparers 7 Engineers 8 Teachers 9 Marketing/Public Relations professionals 10 Scientists
Are we about to witness the break-up of the once sacrosanct editorial/advertising Maginot Line as Forbes' editor-turned-"chief product officer" Lewis D'Vorkin plans to sell Forbes' blogs to advertisers? Are we, both PR pros and advertisers, about to enter a new land in which "anything can appear in any place as long as it's contextual?" Recently, some of the remaining Forbes editors and writers were given blogs, from which solicitations have been made to outsider contributions, which appear under the Forbes banner. To formalize the new design/product program, called "AdVoice, Forbes will launch a redesigned magazine and website this week which will give "advocacy groups or corporations such as Ford or Pfizer the same voice and same distribution tools as Forbes staffers, not to mention the Forbes brand," according to Advertising Age's Michael Learmonth. But D'Vorkin says it's just a more "scalable content-creation model ... [in which] the marketer or advertiser is part of the Forbes environment, the news environment." This may sound like heresy coming, as it does, from a veteran journalist, but he takes the position that in a world of fewer journalists and a shrinking pool of business media, how can companies get the word out? AdVoice intends to facilitate the communications process by enabling corporations to become participants in the publishing process (and take another step toward becoming media companies; something yours truly has discussed in earlier columns). Again to quote Ad Age, "For the last, however many, decades of traditional media ... You're an advertiser so stuff can only go here. And our stuff? It goes right here. But there's a flow of content that's contextual. Anything can appear in any place as long as it's contextual -- that's the web, and we are bringing that sensibility to the magazine." Is "context," then, to become the dominant editorial criterion of our age? Will ad agencies and PR shops be allowed to buy, on behalf of their clients (i.e., Johnson & Johnson, the Egg Board, BP, Toyota, Citicorp, etc.) editorial space in order to pen and publish contextual rebuttals not subject to journalistic scrutiny? Forbes even plans to offer assistance to help position marketers' content so it becomes contextually compatible. Sure seems like the dawning of a brand new day to me.