I'll Have Some of That, Please

Okay, okay so there has been so much written about the Old Spice guy lately...you know the one on the horse...that it seems like there really isn't much more to say.

But I did have an interesting experience with Old Spice just the other day that prompted me to really stop and think about what Old Spice has done that is way cooler than their stunningly good use of social media and pretty nice looking Old Spice man.

I was cleaning out the sports duffle bag that one of our girls uses for soccer and came across a stick of Old Spice deodorant. At first it caught me off guard and I have to admit I started to wonder who she was hanging out with and why his deodorant was in her bag.

Then I realized that she and her brothers have been watching and talking about the Isiah Mustafa campaign now for months. It started when one of the kids came home from school talking about the funny ads, which they all promptly sat down to watch on You Tube over and over again. They loved the fact that he would respond to tweets he got from fans with videos on You Tube. Now just like so many others, they are watching and waiting to see what he does next.

But what's really noticeable is that now we have several sticks of Old Spice deodorant and bottles of body wash in the house. The boys are using it. The girls are using it. I've even tried it. Before this brand was invisible to us and now it has a front and center role in the household.

So it struck me.

What's way cooler than a couple of great commercials, You Tube videos and Twitter campaign?

Old Spice has gotten its mojo back.

Hope For Sale

I think that most people who have read my blog know that I have fairly high standards when it comes to marketing messages and brands that clearly are getting involved with something in order to boost sales rather than because they really care.

However, I am a fan of Hyundai's Hope on Wheels program for one simple reason - in their TV. commercial they say one line that makes all the difference - 'You Don't Have To Buy A Hyundai to Help'.

I loved that - it made me feel so much better about the brand and what it is trying to do. It gave me the impression that Hyundai really cared because they were asking people to get involved even if they didn't want to drive one of their vehicles. It felt altruistic and honest - it really stuck in my mind and made me want to find out more about the program.

I wonder whether this is actually an example of reverse psychology - that they told me that I didn't have to buy into the brand in order to care and the actual effect it had on me was to make me more inclined to think about buying a Hyundai.

Clever - and effective - also a great cause that has not been over-marketed.

No Female Appeal

I found myself having a very mixed reaction when I first saw the AT&T 'Blanket' commercial.

On the positive side, I definitely was impressed by the visual magnificence of seeing all those buildings and bridges being covered by the orange silk and wondered - as I am sure I was meant to do - how on earth they managed to do it. Amazing! The music was also something that had a real 'feel good' quality to it and made the commercial a pleasure to watch.

However, as a female consumer, it left me cold in a couple of pretty important ways.

Firstly, the message that AT&T covers 93% of Americans made me feel like it was another classic example of the big boys not giving the little guys a chance. I know that the commercial wasn't actually saying that AT&T controlled 93% of all cell phone business, but it came across that way to me. As women, we really don't like the language of 'mine is bigger than yours' and this commercial definitely made me feel like this is what AT&T were saying.

Secondly, although I can totally see that not all women would feel this way, it felt distinctly un-environmentally friendly. In this day and age when we are all tightening our belts and trying to do our bit for the environment, it felt inappropriate to be spending thousands of dollars on creating the impression of buildings being covered by silk. Whether they actually did some of it or it was all computer generated, it certainly made you feel that they were doing it and it smacked of an enormous amount of waste.

I wished I liked it better. I would have unequivocally appreciated its aesthetic beauty and sense of achievement when I was younger, but I guess I have become a little more cynical than I used to be!

Paper Or Plastic??

I know that this is going to seem like I am splitting hairs this week but bear with me.

Having returned from a much more environmentally friendly culture this summer, I became painfully aware of how we are still not doing enough to 'be greener' over here. I mean I know that every company you can think of has jumped on the green bandwagon from an opportunistic sense, but are they putting themselves out there - or are we for that matter - to make a difference, even when it hurts our pocketbooks.

A typical case in point can be experienced at my local supermarket.

When you check out the cashier asks you 'is plastic okay?'

Not a big deal right?

However, the question is framed up very differently from 'would you prefer paper or plastic'?

The latter question allows the shopper to answer one of two ways 'plastic' or 'paper'.

The former question makes shoppers respond with a 'yes' - the easy answer - or 'no' which requires a negative response and then a follow up request for paper.

I feel that this is worth pointing out because the subtle difference in the questions leads most shoppers to say that plastic is fine which is what the store wants in the first place, because it is cheaper for them to produce.

However, it is not better for the environment which is food for thought.

Janie

Enjoy The Go?

I know I should like this advertising idea from Charmin - after all, aren't us Brits totally obsessed with bathroom humor? I don't know though - I am really struggling with this one.

I think like many women, I feel that my bathroom habits are safest behind closed doors, and I mean this literally as well as figuratively. So when a company comes along and tells me to 'enjoy the go', I feel really squeamish. I mean somethings in life are just a matter of necessity and can't be made into a good time no matter how hard you try.

Perhaps more importantly, no matter how soft the toilet paper, I am still not going to be having my own private party in the washroom - it just isn't going to happen.

Maybe I am just a little too cynical for this type of stuff, but the best it is going to get for me is that my bum will enjoy not being red and irritated.

I will be interested to see what other reactions Charmin gets to this campaign.

Back to School with a Mattress?

Okay - come on now - a back to school mattress sale?

I have never heard about a kid going back to school with a mattress - infact I was under the distinct impression that the teachers preferred to keep everyone awake at school.

I know that in this economy, almost any excuse is good enough for a sale, but surely the product has to match the occasion at least to some degree. I mean are we now going to start to see sales for carpets for Valentine's Day or Weight Watchers for Christmas?

I don't know but at least where I am concerned I like the idea of getting a good deal on something that I am actually looking to buy related to the occasion in question, and when it comes to back to school I am not usually adding a mattress to my shopping cart along with the pencils and pads.

The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same

While this has gotten a lot of play already in the press, it was just too juicy to pass up commenting on it.

I am sure that many of you have noticed the story that recently hit the airwaves about Ann Taylor's most recent run-in with the evils of airbrushing. In case you haven't, here's the story.

Essentially the company was caught air brushing (once again) a model wearing their new Chiffon Trim Tank . Apparently, the model's image appeared on their website as photographed. And she is quite a beautiful woman. Then literally before your eyes the airbrushing occurs whittling her waist down to an impossibly small size and rendering her as something akin to a Gumby doll.

And to make matters worse, this is the second time Ann Taylor has been caught doing this type of airbrushing. The first incident was in May. In that instance, when they were caught doing it, they issued a formal apology on Twitter that said "We have been overzealous on retouching but as we go forward we'll be sure to feature more real, beautiful images. We want to support and celebrate the natural beauty of women and we apologize if in the process of retouching that was lost."

I just have to say as a woman and as a marketer, this most recent incident of presenting false images of women is just all kinds of disheartening. But I have an idea for how to make good on your promise, Ann Taylor.

It's easy. Retire the retoucher!

200% of what?

Although I pride myself on being a right brain thinker - creative, intuitive, conceptual - there are times when I find myself not being able to think creatively enough.

The latest marketing gimmick of offering a 200% guarantee is one of those times when I feel like the cogs in my head are starting to whir too fast and that something is going to pop right off my brain's internal gadgetry.

Am I the only one out here who is asking '200% of what?'?

I most recently saw it in relation to a company that does home inspections.

Apparently the 200% was in relation to the fact that they would give you your money back and pay you for an inspection of your choice......okay, so in reality I do get it but it is pretty obscure if you ask me.

I have also seen it on a carton of milk.....I guess that means that if you don't like the milk that is inside the carton that they will give you two back.....really?

I always thought that a 100% guarantee meant that I would be 100% satisfied. A bit of a tall order but it sounded good and certainly showed that the company in question was confident about the quality of its product.

With the 200% guarantee, I find myself feeling less reassured rather than more reassured because I start thinking 'come on, now they are just making it up as they go along'.

I look forward to the first company that ventures into the unchartered waters of the 300% guarantee!

The Sharing Cup

We went to the movies recently as a family. We find ourselves doing that a lot lately now that we are into these lazy days of summer when the kids have too much time on their hands and are stunningly creative about finding ways to bug the crap out of me and each other.

After buying the tickets...all seven of them...and complaining once again about how expensive it is to do the simple things nowadays, like take the family out to the movies, we headed into the show.

Of course, we got sidetracked by the snack bar for a bucket of popcorn and a bunch of sodas. We bought one of those jumbo sized buckets that is enough to feed a small village and several drinks. At check out, after spending $40.00 on popcorn and soda, I asked if we could get some of their small drinking cups or a couple of paper bags so we could divvy up the popcorn into individual, more reasonably sized servings for the kids to share. Well you would have thought I was asking for something extraordinary and never before seen. Just a few small drinking cups to pour the popcorn into and I lit the place abuzz.

After 10 minutes, three counter attendants and the theater manager later, I was informed that they were unable to give me any extra cups unless I bought them. You know inventory and all that?

I thought the guy was kidding. I had just spent almost $100.00 at the theater on movie tickets, popcorn and soda and they couldn't give me a couple of extra cups so the kids could share their popcorn without fighting. And, oh by the way, be more disruptive to the other theater goers than any cell phone disturbance during show time ever could be!

Now as women, we've all heard about the worrisome trends in our country around increasing isolationism as we get more attached to our cell phones and gaming systems and less attached to each other. So we look for opportunities to get out of the house, spend time together and...here's a new idea...actually share an experience together.

And as a marketer, I see the theater industry trying hard to expand their repertoire to be a place for shared experiences, not just movies. And they are spending millions to do so. They are hosting musical performances, interactive shows, even scheduling mom's weekday gatherings. And they are on to something. I'd much rather schedule a family night at the movies than have everyone in my house go their separate ways and disappear behind a computer screen or the earphones.

But as is so often the case in marketing, they are missing the forest for the trees. I would be so much more inclined to visit my local theater for all kinds of activities...you know, become a more regular customer...if they could just get the little things right.

Like providing a sharing cup.

Not So Global

I know that there is nothing worse than listening to people who weren't born in the States moan about the fact that the US isn't aware that anything exists outside its own borders.

Well, I admit that this is a slight exaggeration, but when it comes to getting international service from a cell phone company, it might as well be true.

I am going to Europe for a couple of weeks - bon voyage everyone! - and I wanted to get international email service on my Blackberry. Personally, I think it should be automatically available, but that is just me.

So I went to the customer service center - a nightmare in itself - only to be told that they couldn't add the feature for me, I had to go to the special 'INTERNATIONAL' division. So having waited a lifetime to get to customer service, I had to wait another lifetime - I am practicing to be a cat with nine lives - to reach someone in the international division.

When I finally got through, I told them what I wanted and they said that they couldn't start the service on my departure date - why not for goodness sake? - they had to start it immediately, charging me almost double for the days that I was still going to be in the States.

When I asked what I had to do to only pay for the days I was away, the customer service rep. told me to call back when I was about to leave.

So.......I was about to hang up in frustration, when the woman I was talking to asked me if she had resolved my problem. Huh? "Well....no" I replied.

This seemed to catch her off guard because she had obviously been told to ask that question no matter what the circumstances and to expect a standard 'yes' as a response.

I guess I threw her off kilter, but she certainly ruined my day so I guess we are even!

Lost in Translation?

I am hoping that there are a few other women out there who are seriously scratching their heads over this commercial for Bayer birth control pills.

Having worked in an advertising agency for many years, I actually have no trouble imagining how this idea was cooked up. A bunch of young, keen creatives are sitting around a table scratching their own heads about how to come up with an idea for a clutter busting commercial that will carry the message that Bayer is a solid, corporate citizen despite some of the bad publicity around its birth control products like Yaz.

So they land on this concept of 'things are not always how they appear' but instead of letting Bayer communicate the message in the serious tone that it deserves, they have a bunch of blindfolded women touching a rhinoceros and trying to guess what it is.

Not only is the idea totally irrelevant and disconnected from the back the half of the commercial that suddenly wisks us to a Bayer laboratory, and consequently leaving us wondering 'where are we now?', but the tone is completely inappropriate for the message they are trying to convey.

Unfortunately for Bayer, the end result is that the viewer, who may or may not have had the mental space previously to wonder about Bayer's ethics, is certainly wondering about them now.

Fixing The Wobbly Parts

I have been fascinated by the swimwear that started to appear about two years ago that claimed to make you look 10 lbs thinner. In actual fact, it does make one's torso tighter and trimmer, so from that perspective it does do what it claims to do.

So, if I was an apple shape, I would be totally happy right now, having had this swimwear successfully reduce me from a large Macintosh to a small Fuji.

Unfortunately, I am not a Macintosh apple, I am a Barlett Pear.

That means that although I work quite hard at keeping in shape, what excess baggage I do carry around, sits contentedly at the top of my thighs. So you can imagine what I look like when I put on a piece of this Longitude Swimwear. Totally trim and beautiful through the torso and hips, with a couple of small protuberances laughing gleefully at me from the top of my thighs.

However, I have to admit that Longitude has done its best. After all, to resolve all the shape problems that women have to face, we would have to return to the bathing wear of the 1920's in which we were covered from shoulder to mid-calf, and I am not sure that even I am ready for that.

Come to think of it, if I did 100 laps of the pool a day, rather than my regular 50, I might not even be concerned about which parts of me can be artificially reduced by wearing super tight swimwear.

Double Disaster

OK, so I have been away for a while, but if anything could shake the Frustrated Female out of the bushes, it is KFC's Double D sandwich.

As a woman and a mom, I know that I am not alone in trying to keep my daughter on a positive path to a healthy lifestyle. She is a beautiful girl who is a little on the portly side, so I am constantly walking that fine line between wanting to help her make healthy food choices and not wanting to give her a complex about her weight.

So it is of no small matter to me when a company as large as KFC - and my daughter loves it by the way - instead of introducing a healthier option to their incredibly greasy chicken, goes the other way and launches the Double D. For any of you that haven't encountered this gastronomic delight, it is basically two large pieces of fried chicken that have replaced a regular bun, sandwiching a combination of bacon, mayonnaise and a number of other delights in between them. Alone, it contains more salt than it is recommended the average person consumes in a day, and almost 40% of the calories.

So far, I have managed to keep the Double D off my daughter's radar screen, but if KFC is going to convince me that it is a restaurant and a brand that I should keep in my repetoire and have warm, fuzzy feelings about, it is definitely on the wrong track. Especially since women account for over 60% of all fast food visits - either with or without their kids.

A Lovely Commercial

The Frustrated Female is definitely more oriented towards pointing out what marketers do wrong, but I also really enjoy making note of the good things as well. I have already been a big fan of Tide's Loads of Hope program because it is cause marketing at its best. It gives disaster victim's back some of their self respect and pride by giving them clean clothes. Tide is doing what it does best; washing clothes.

I feel the same way but even more so about this Dawn commercial - also a Procter and Gamble brand. Dawn is being used in this commercial to wash the oil off small animals like penguins and otters who have been caught in oil spills. It is beautiful to watch and it doesn't leave one feeling desperately cynical about the role that Dawn is playing. Like the Tide concept before it, Dawn isn't making huge claims about the brand saving the world and preventing oil spills in the first place - although that would be nice too. Instead it is simply and beautifully showing us that it plays a significant role in helping clean up the mess afterward and rescue some of the animals that get caught in these disasters.

I find myself really liking Dawn for doing this - and yes it does tell me that it is an effective and yet gentle product at the same time - but the message is communicated so well and so indirectly that I am more receptive to it anyway.

Well done Dawn Team!

A Hot Car & The Hot Girl

I have shared this commercial for the Lexus IS Convertible, and although not every woman I have spoken to finds it as offensive as I do, I don't think any of us are inclined to 'hop into' one of them any time soon.

I know that the men who run automotive companies are deaf to the idea that women influence over 80% of all car purchases and that some of us actually earn more than our spouses which allows us to buy the convertible rather than them. Outrageous, I know. Nor am I saying as a result of this information, that the roles should have been reversed so that two hunky guys were running along beside the car and a woman was driving it - although come to think of it, that might have resulted in me liking the spot more.

What I do think, is that this commercial misses the mark. I guess it might appeal to young men - and perhaps Lexus would shoot back that this was the intent in the first place - but unfortunately, the rest of us have to watch it as well. The way I interpreted it was that the lucky guy was driving along in his cool convertible and comes across a couple of beautiful young women who are running alongside the car, just waiting to be 'picked' or 'picked up' by the driver. He decides that the first one isn't cute enough for his taste, so he drives on and chooses the second one instead. I don't know too many women who fantasize about running along the road, waiting to be picked by a guy who decides that they are cute enough to jump into his car.

I am sure that this is not exactly what Lexus wanted to say with their commercial. The problem is that even if they meant something different, it is way too open to be negatively interpreted by the hapless viewer who doesn't have the benefit of a campaign set-up from the advertising agency's account director.

Thoughts anyone?

Selling Cell Phones with Sex

The commercial I have included here for everyone's viewing pleasure is the first of two absolutely appalling T-Mobile commercials with Catherine Zeta-Jones. Firstly, let me say that I like Catherine Zeta-Jones. She has always impressed me as a good actress but also as being a level-headed, intelligent person who rose above some of the really mindless Hollywood women. So to start with I am somewhat amazed that she would even agree to do a series of commercials for a cell phone company - it seems like a real come down.

However, be that as it may, I am very disappointed that she would chose to do a series of commercials in which she so blatantly is there as a sex object. The one above has a series of professors going door to door to find out about people's cell phone habits. After the doors are all slammed in their faces and they are exposed to other, random humiliations, T-Mobile decides to send in Catherine Zeta Jones instead. She rings a guy's door bell and asks in a sex kittenish voice whether he would like a mobile makeover.

It is all so desperately stereotyped and the viewer is left imagining what the lucky guy whose door bell she rang is going to get to do with her once she enters his home. Apart from the stereotyping, the advertisers who created this campaign have to have been men, because it is a total turn off to any women who happen to be watching.

The second commercial that I saw has Catherine Zeta Jones talking to a couple in their living room. She has positioned herself for maximum sex appeal on the sofa, while the husband drools all over her and the wife looks on being a good sport about the whole thing. The final line in the commercial is the husband saying to Catherine 'I am married - well technically speaking.' Most self-respecting wives would have thrown their husbands out on the sidewalk after a humiliating remark of that type, but clearly the guys who wrote this thought that it would be funny to position Catherine Zeta Jones as the quasi mistress in this little set up. Apart from anything else, I imagine that most viewers find the whole scenario so distracting that they can't remember a word that was said about the actual cell phones.

Easy open (for others)

You know those little packets of soy sauce that you get when you get take-away sushi? The ones that contain about half a thimble full of soy sauce that once you have actually got the packet open there is hardly any left because the rest is on your fingers? Yes - those ones. Well, I don't get it because all of them have these handy dandy little arrows on them pointing to the place that you are meant to gently open the packet. Some of them even say 'easy open packet'. However, no matter how I prepare my hands - specifically by washing and drying them so thoroughly that there can't be a smidgen of grease left on them - I am still fumbling with those packets like I had dunked my hands in olive oil. I have been reduced to poking holes in the sides with the prong of a fork or jabbing them with a pencil and nothing works.

Surely there has to be an easier way to serve up soy sauce to go than putting them in these little packets. Actually, come to think of it, the slippery little packets they put ketchup and mustard in aren't much better, and they come with the added aggravation of having my daughter waiting not so patiently for me to break into them. 'Come on mom, hurry up - it can't be that difficult. Here let me.' So she grabs one of them and starts wrestling with it, usually with the same result as mine; she is hot, sweaty and frustrated but the little packet of ketchup is still firmly intact.

I mean seriously, the result is way out of proportion with the process. The process being the pawing and struggling with a hideously resistant piece of plastic for a minimum of 10 minutes. The result being obtaining a drop of ketchup, mustard or soy sauce that usually lasts about one mouthful or in equivalent time ratios - 10 seconds.

Please can someone put me out of my misery and invent a packet that really is 'easy open' - I would be eternally grateful.

Appearances Do Matter!

Okay, so maybe this is just me, but I am not sure whether I like the new layout that has been adopted by the print edition of Newsweek. I realize that it has probably been re-designed with a new layout and font due to the increasing tendency of readers to want bite sized pieces of information. Nothing too long or ardous to read and broken up with lots of pictures. In fact, I am sure that magazines feel that they have to do this in order to compete with on line sources of news and information which are in many ways more easily digestible.

However, I also realize that there is something to be said for sitting down with a good cup of tea and enjoying a really meaty news article. The master of the meaty article must of course be The Economist that has the least digestible form of news on the market. However, their articles are unfailingly good and once one sits down and concentrates, they are always worth reading.

So what has appearances got to do with all of this? Well, I have a sneaking suspicion that most Economist readers secretly enjoy reading the magazine in public places because it says 'I'm smart enough to read this incredibly dense, hard to read publication and have a global outlook to go along with it.'

So what about the new appearance of Newsweek?

Well a lot of people probably really like it because it definitely seems to make it easier to read. I on the other hand, feel somewhat offended that such a worthy publication feels the need to spoon feed me political and economic information in such a lightweight format that they clearly think that none of us have more than the attention span of a gnat. If I want to read something light weight, I can go to the supermarket and buy one of Jackie Collin's latest musings on the life of the rich and boring.

So that is my reaction. It probably sounds desperately snobby but I just can't help myself. I don't believe news should be served up in a format that caters to the shortest attention span on the planet - there are other people out there that like it to be slightly hard to read. After all, that's the point isn't it?

The One Week Discount

I am a bit of a pill popper when it comes to vitamins. I have no idea whether they are actually making me healthier/keeping me fitter/adding to my youthful aura, but if there is a link between how feverishly one believes in these things and how much they actually work, then I am on to a good thing. The downside to swallowing all these vitamins every day is that the price tag can get pretty high, which is why I am a gold card carrier at GNC. For those of you not familiar with the program, it allows you to get 20% off your purchase the first week of every month.

So you can imagine what happens. As I get to the bottom of one of my vitamin bottles I start obsessing about whether I have enough to get me through to the first week of the following month. Will I have to start cutting some of them in two to make them go further? Or find a friend who takes the same vitamins and ask to borrow a few until I can replenish my supply?

However, what usually happens is that I get so busy that I don't have the time to get to GNC in the first week of the month, so I end up having to pay full price. This happened to me this month, when I rushed into the store on the 8th of the month and tried to beg to be allowed to use my gold card since I was only one day late. The sales associate gravely told me that the promotion had ended the day before and that there were no exceptions. Damn.

So this made me ask myself why GNC limits the offer to the first week of every month anyway. I mean if you pay your annual dues to have a gold card then you are probably a loyal customer so what does it matter what day of the month you shop the store? It probably results in the majority of gold card customers flooding the store the first week of the month and then hardly darkening its doorstep for the other three weeks. Unless they are like me and find that they have annoyingly missed the first week and have to forego the discount and then they are dissatisfied shoppers anyway.

So I guess I am one of their frequent shoppers who needs this loyalty program explained to me, because I really don't understand the benefit to the shopper of this one week a month deal. In the meantime, I am still grumbling about having missed the cut off date by one day......

Robotic Service.

Firstly, let me say, that I am actually a big fan of Biscuitville. I try to stay away from cooked breakfasts, but when I do give in to temptation, they really do have excellent biscuits which you can watch being made from scratch. Sometimes, I will just get an order of scrambled eggs, which are always hot and moist - yum.

However, there is one thing that diminishes my pleasure a degree or two. Every time my daughter and I go through the drive thru they start the conversation by saying 'do you want to try a combo?' This statement, not only seems vaguely meaningless to me, but also very impersonal. We go through the drive thru at least 1-2 times a week and they know us personally at this point. When we actually get up to the pick-up window, they are always very welcoming and cheerful. They even recognize my voice - which I guess isn't too hard because of the British accent. So why still inflict the robotic 'do you want to try a combo' on me every time I go there? How about asking something a little more personal such as 'what looks good to you today?'

When I went through the drive thru most recently, I couldn't help myself asking the women at the cash register why she had to say 'do you want to try a combo?' every time anyone came through. She admitted that she hated saying it, but that Biscuitville management would really have her butt if she didn't say it. Yikes!

The whole experience left me feeling how out of touch with consumers many companies really are. Trying to force a combo down my throat - "if you don't get one this time, by golly we are going to keep asking until you do" - does not make me feel like a valued and special customer to them. There are so many things that they could ask their customers that would feel a great deal more personal and interested in providing the food that will deliver exactly against each individual customer's needs.

I don't think that it is possible to approach service in any category from a 'one size fits all' perspective - or at least that's how I see it. Hmmm.....maybe it is time for some scrambled eggs......