AMC's The Pitch and its Lessons

The Pitch is a reality show on AMC about advertising. The premise of the show is two ad agencies meet with a prospective client and are briefed on the terms of marketing expectations for a product/service. The two agencies go back to their companies, within 7 days prepare their marketing pitch, present the pitch to the client and the client hires the agency with the best pitch. We, the audiences, are presented with a candid look at the creative process for agencies as they come up with marketing ideas, strategies, packages, and presentation.

Compared to other reality shows, the show is not dramatic. How many everyday jobs are very dramatic? In 2012, how can advertising replicate Mad Men which takes place in the 1960s? The truth is if The Pitch were a crazy, thrilling, dramatic show, I would think it scripted. The show is a raw look into advertising and unfortunately, for those not interested in the actual content of the show or business media that raw look will be boring. However, if you’re like me, this show is amazing. I love shows and documentaries that explore business and I have an interest in marketing. This show is great at teaching lessons that many across business fields can learn from.

While watching The Pitch, these are the known-but-very-often-forgotten lessons the show presents:

Take and expect criticism

Usually, when the agencies are brainstorming on ideas, the entire agency meets in a room to present ideas in front of everyone. Or, there is one team chosen to work on the project or a few teams that go on their own to brainstorm and expand on a few ideas and then present them as a team. Execs and colleagues will openly criticize these ideas. Presenters can be told the ideas are stupid, illogical, corny, disgusting and/or the insults that fall in between. The only thing to do is to take the criticism and move on to the next possible idea or change the idea criticized. When presenting ideas, expect criticism. Learn to take it and move on.

Expect questions and also ask them

Maybe your idea gets picked. It’s time to work on the ad campaign. Expect that as campaign ideas are presented, people will ask questions.  This isn’t just criticism – an answer is expected. Whether you feel a question is warranted or not, answer it.  If your competitor is trying to sabotage your idea by asking a harsh question, respond to the question in a way that shuts them up. Not answering or being caught off guard seems unprepared. Why wouldn’t you defend a project by answering the obvious, unknown, or insulting questions? Leaving a question unanswered means someone else other than you will answer. That takes control away from you.

If you are the questioner, ask the needed questions. Sometimes that gut feeling or curiosity can lead to an important question that no one else was thinking, but by asking, you let your higher-ups know that you were thinking just as seriously as if it was your project. It keeps you in the game.

Presenting is selling

Whether presenting an idea to fellow colleagues and your boss or presenting a marketing campaign to a prospective client, presenting is selling that which is presented. We all understand selling as attempting to persuade others to buy what you have. Presentations are suppose to sell you to the audience, convincing/persuading them to buy the idea or campaign.

Marketing Firm Wants Your Home for Advertisement

What happens with a mix of a marketing firm, homeowners looking for ways to pay mortgage and a house? According to Brainiacs From Mars, this is a formula for great marketing.  The marketing firm decided that homes could be marketing space and by offering to pay mortgages, homeowners would be willing to offer up theirs. “Exclusive: Mortgage problems? Turn your house into a billboard” by Tim Reid of Reuters.com reports the case of the Hostetlers of Buena Park, CA. They gave their home to Brainiacs From Mars in exchange for “getting their nearly $2,000 monthly mortgage paid.” The result was the company’s name plastered on the home against a green background and the 2^nd part of the home painted orange with a GR code and the Facebook and Twitter symbol.

According to the article, the mortgage payments go “up to a year” but doesn’t clarify the length of time homeowners must keep the advertising on their homes.  The Hostetler’s neighbors were told it would be one month; the couple might push for six months. Speaking of neighbors, some were not fond of the advertisement and color scheme. They complained and city council hasn’t been too agreeable.

The man behind the scheme is Romeo Mendoza, the founder and CEO.  The article reports “his ultimate goal is to turn 1,000 homes across the United States into giant advertisements for his marketing firm”.  Since advertising this format via the company’s website there has been “38,000 applications”.  Mendoza’s contribution to the article was pretty much stating that the scheme helps homeowners and that “he hopes the quirkiness… will convince companies to hire Brainiacs From Mars to run their advertising campaigns”. In the end, he believes the financial need of homeowners will give them the support they need to keep going. Although, Mendoza is aware of the challenge he faces with zoning laws and city council approvals.

Morgan Spurlock's New Documentary is About Advertising and Paid for by Advertising

“This article about advertising is about a documentary about advertising that its makers say is entirely paid for by advertising.” Let this digest for a moment. It sounds like a riddle but it isn’t. It’s a summation and opening line of “Film on Branded Content Examines a Blurred Line” by Stuart Elliott, which is about Morgan Spurlock’s latest documentary, “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold”.

Spurlock is best known for “Super Size Me”, which contributed to the debate about the role of fast food chains in unhealthy diets. “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” is about branded content, “which is reshaping popular culture by blurring the line between entertainment and advertising in realms like movies, TV shows, songs, video games and online gaming.” In the documentary, Spurlock shows how he got advertisement funding by selling a movie about branding. Advertisers paid for advertising space and this film is going to have a lot of product placement. I haven’t seen the trailer but according to Elliott the trailer states, “everything from top to bottom is branded from beginning to end”.

Taco Bell Launches New Campaign to Remind You of Their Lawsuit

Have you seen Taco Bell’s new commercial? In the commercial, employees of Taco Bell speak “candidly” into the camera about how they use real seasoned beef, consisting of 88% beef and 12% seasoning. Then the commercial ends with a request to visit their website to know the exact ingredients of the food. But wait! The commercial included a promotion for one of the quesadillas for 88 cents. The commercial is a response to a lawsuit against the company claiming they don’t serve real beef in their food.

First, the lawsuit was about 1 month ago. Within that time, Taco Bell hadn’t done any major public campaign to “tell their side”. Either consumers have forgotten, decided to not go to Taco Bell, or still go but won’t eat their beef. This commercial is late and for those who have forgotten, it has reminded them of the lawsuit. Even if viewers don’t think about the lawsuit, the overemphasis on proving they use beef makes people wonder, “Were they not using beef before?”

Second, if the message is to completely focus on proving the beef is real and “setting the record straight”, why was a promotion thrown in. Granted, business is business, but promotions shouldn’t be combined with public campaigns in response to lawsuits. Either way, the choice to still eat at Taco Bell will most likely not be persuaded by an 88 cents quesadilla (after all, they have $1 items).

Good luck to Taco Bell considering they have made such a great effort to remind us of their problems while also promoting cheaper food.

Groupon is Going to China!

After becoming a high valued company, experiencing doubts about that value, a Super Bowl commercial fiasco, and a host of consumers frustrated with the service, Groupon is keeping it moving by going into a new market. “Groupon Gears Up to Expand Into China” by Loretta Chao reports the company has made preparations for the arrival. The article reported the domain Gaopeng.com is registered in China and the Beijing office is established. China is a good market considering China has the highest Internet user population in the world. The problem for Groupon might be the fact that there already exists group coupon websites in China. Other things to consider are that Groupon has been having some rocky moments.

The most obvious of such moments is Super Bowl. Groupon surprised everyone by entering the Super Bowl ad market. The ads came a few months after Google offered $6 billion for the company, giving the company a very high value. There was this aura surrounding the company about the reasons Google would offer so much. Were they worth that much money? CEO Andrew Mason gave an interview in which he spoke highly of his company but refused to give a numbered value. His strategy was to feed into the excitement about their potential value; essentially, the company rode high on their suspected value. Within this excitement they enter Super Bowl despite Super Bowl usually being for bigger companies well established.

Well… we should all know how Super Bowl turned out for Groupon. CEO Andrew Mason is quirky and sarcastic but that does not translate well in 30 second commercials. The commercials were a parody on celebrity endorsed PSAs. The commercials were received as insults on the charities or social issues mentioned in the commercials. Despite Groupon actually donating money to these charities, it was not translated to the audience. Long story short, Groupon pulled the ads; not a good introduction into a major ad market.

Walgreens Competes Directly with Major Brands

Walgreens is stepping up their game to get you to buy their store brand products. The company is starting a national campaign for their store brands. According to “Walgreens Launches Campaign to Push Store-Brand Products” by Tanzina Vega, the campaign will consist of ad commercials placed before popular shows, website ad comparing their products to other well known brands, sponsoring bloggers for post reviews, and their continuing print ads.

For most of the commercials, the star will be the Walgreen pharmacist. The message will be that if a pharmacist can recommend Walgreen brand products, they must be just as effective as other brand products. Other aspects of ads will include direct comparison to other brands in areas such as price and ingredients. According to article, many bloggers have been given free samples of Walgreens brand product and/or payment in exchange for their honest review.

Store brand products have gained some consumers as a consequence of the bad economy and a lost in confidence from major brands, such as Johnson & Johnson who experienced a year full of recalls.  I think the campaign will do well as I too find myself buying store brand over major brand. But I tend to also compare store brand prices amongst different stores. While Walgreens may convince consumers to stop depending highly on major brands, how will they compete against Walmart store brands or CVS store brands?

Quick News: Groupon Enters Superbowl Advertising & Dow Jones bounces to 12,000

"Groupon buys Super Bowl Ad" by Laurie Segall reports…

At Sundays’ Superbowl, Groupon will enter the roster of Superbowl ads.  Ads are running about $3 million dollars. With recent fundng of about $950 million and an estimated value of over a billion, Groupon has placed themselves in an ad spot worthy of its supposed value. Groupon has not given the cost of the ad.

"Stocks drift as Dow holds 12,000" by Ben Rooney reports…

After the Dow Jones experienced a bad Friday, it came back by closing over 12,000 two days in a row. The S&P 500 closed yesterday above 1,300. February has started off great for the market but there is still some caution. On one hand, the economy is going better than expected but people are watching out for the impact from the crisis in Egypt.

Of course, everyone is watching for oil; it is expected to increase as the Egypt crisis escalates. The article listed some companies who made a name for themselves after yesterday’s closing. Notable ones: Time Warner and Electronic Arts with reports of good earnings and Borders, whose stock has been plunging.

Facebook Allows Advertisers to Use Your Posts

I previously wrote “Facebook and Japan: The Story of Clashing Cultures” about Japan’s rejection of the social site. Japan’s social networkers are very private. They belong to social networking sites which allow them to use fake names and avatars and give little to no personal information. Facebook is completely public and with previous privacy issues, it has been hard for the company to enter the Japanese market. Now, there might be another problem halting privacy advocates from the site. “Facebook’s ‘Sponsered Stories’ Turns Your Posts into Ads” by Laurie Segall reports Facebook will be taking posts mentioning particular brands, products, or services and allowing advertisers to use them as “sponsored stories” to post on your friends pages.

There is a video posted by Facebook to explain the advertising procedure. As of now hundreds of users have liked the video with some exclaiming they can’t wait. The problem with the advertising plan is no one can opt out. The video assures only friends will see the "sponsored story" but how does this help Facebook’s privacy image?

It is expected that sites like Facebook would use advertising to make money. But to allow advertisers to use posts without giving users the ability to protect their posts is ridiculous. Many have private pages and strict privacy settings to prevent such a thing from happening. And yet, it seems, Facebook is going to ignore the privacy settings it claims to respect.

My Competitor Copied Me: Simmons vs. Sealy

If imitation is the greatest form of flattery, companies should be very flattered when competitors copy products or technology. Well, Simmons Mattresses isn’t gleaming with flattery. Sealy, the mattress company recently revealed new Posturepedic mattresses with “coils tucked into fabric cylinders”; the same coil technology used by Simmons. “Sealy Adopts a Simmons Technology, and a Mattress Battle Erupts” by Stephanie Clifford reports Simmons is infuriated.

While Sealy and Simmons are not fighting for first place in the industry, that belongs to Sealy, both are looking for ways to stay ahead of other successful manufacturers, Tempur-Pedic and Select Comfort. For Simmons, their coil technology was a differentiating factor, central to their success in the industry. Seeing Sealy copy the technology has Simmons worried they can no longer build their brand around such technology.

Some in the industry see Sealy’s move as counterintuitive as it can prove to consumers that Simmons might have had better technology. But the move brings about two important points:

First, Simmons may have promoted their coil technology as their own but they don’t own it.  Sealy is not the first manufacturer other than Simmons to use the technology.

Second, Simmons and Sealy should focus their attention on Tempur-Pedic and Select Comfort. The latter two companies have had gradual increasing sales and are going to rival sales of Sealy and Simmons. Tempur-Pedic and Select Comfort have changed the mattress industry. They have introduced transparency with an open discussion about their manufacturing, eliminated the salesperson and its environment with online sales, and invested heavily in direct advertising. The result has been consumers willing to pay expensive prices for the technology of a Tempur-Pedic and/or Select Comfort.  

At the midst of this rivalry, Simmons is wasting time. In the not-too-distant future, Tempur-Pedic, and any other coil-less mattresses will lead the industry. The article reports Sealy plans to copy Tempur-Pedic’s advertising methods with investment in direct advertising. Unlike Simmons, Rick Anderson, President of Tempur-Pedic, responded: “Growth spawns a lot of imitation”. It seems Sealy is taking notes from competitors and making a strong fight to stay at the top. Simmons should take a cue, accept flattery and make plans to beat out the competition.

MTV's Provocative Investment: Stupid or Smart?

Unless you enjoy teen sex driven shows, you might not know about “Skins”. “Skins” is MTV’s latest late night show. The show is about sex-crazed teens and has a TV-MA rating. While TV-MA means teenagers are not suppose to watch, not many adults have an interest in teen sex lives – but other teens do. It’s pretty obvious the show about teens, not rated for teens, is going to be liked by teens. I haven’t watched the show but I did catch some news on the concerns about the show. I recently read “MTV’s Naked Calculation Gone Bad” by David Carr which talks about the ways the show has crossed the line.

It was previously reported by Brian Stelter in his article “A Racy Show With Teenagers Steps Back From a Boundary” that MTV executives had to question if the show which employs teen actors/actresses crossed the line into child pornography. Both Carr and Stelter reports MTV plans to edit out more scenes in order not to scare advertisers and the public from thinking they promoted such content. Taco Bell withdrew their advertising from the show but there hasn’t been a complete advertising boycott from the show. Carr reports that MTV had a great marketing plan for its show which resulted in 3.3 million viewers for the first episode. While many will say the show is a depiction of actual teen life or just crossing the line, the subject of his article is business ethics.

Russia Wanted a Makeover, an Ad Makeover

Does a country need an ad/marketing agency? I didn’t think so until I read “Selling the World on Russia (Leaving Out the Spies)” by Andrew Kramer. It turns out that Russian Officials were so concerned about it’s worldly image and the affect the image had on opportunities that, a few years, they hired various agencies to work on this image. The article profiled one of those agencies, Adore Creative, and Rupert Wainwright's, its CEO, adventure working with Russia.  Adore Creative’s job was to create a video for the 2013 World University Games, the 2014 Winter Olympics,  and the 2018 World Cup, three videos in total.

Russia wanted to shed the stereotypical images of its country. Wainwright wanted to “normalize” the country within the ads because “If people see that sense of normalness, he said, ‘the country will de-demonize itself’” But it wasn’t so simple for Wainwright. The Russian Officials were zealous on shedding Cold War images that their idea for the Olympic video was “a black-and-white montage of post-Soviet street protests and the Berlin Wall falling down…”, not very appealing as a promotional video. They also wanted to include a host of their philosophical ideas and imagery. Wainwright eventually worked with the tough demeanor of the officials to create videos which, along with the other work from the other agencies, helped Russia to earn rights to host all three of the games they submitted videos to.

The article presents a country as a client as a potential clash of ideals and a challenge for the agency.  Having contributed to Russia’s win to host all games is an accomplishment for Russia and the ad/marketing agencies which took them as a client. Wainwright stuck well to his guns; giving the Russian officials what they hired Adore Creative for, the ability to host three international games, three opportunities for Russia to reshape its image on a Worldly stage.

DVR Users & Advertisers

DVR users are watching commercials. When DVRs emerged, the marketing industry believed consumers would take advantage of the fast forward button and skip commercials. “The Myth of Fast Forwarding Past the Ads” by Brian Stelter reports the Nielsen Company clarified to marketers that DVR users, who playback programs within 3 days of recording, have increased their commercial viewings by 44%.  

This is great news for advertisers. The only issue is they must modify their advertising to appeal to those users watching commercials up to 3 days after their intended viewing. The article reports some advertisers are advertising early – using ads relevant for longer periods of time. The other tool has been to use contextual ads, ads using aspects of shows during which they advertise. The example used by Stelter is Toyota commercials during “The Walking Dead”. The commercials use zombies, the main subject of the show. The other great example is the various Superbowl commercials which all connect by using some reference to football.

The best part of this DVR user demographic: it is the ideal audience for advertisers. According to the article, the demographic includes young watchers and more financially set consumers, as DVR users are cable subscribers. Now, advertisers can rest assure that they have an audience and we, the audience, will watch more relevant, interesting ads. 

Blockbuster! Where Have You Been?

I live about five minutes from a Blockbuster and Redbox, both within the same shopping center. Blockbuster is only useful for my boyfriend who rents video games. Other than that, Redbox fulfills my need for movies. As proven by the popularity of Netflix and Redbox, blockbuster is not considered part of the movie rental market anymore. I’m only reminded of them when I pass the store on the way to Redbox or the grocery store. Then “Blockbuster to Launch first national ad campaign in three year” by Ben Fritz arrived in my LA Times Business Daily email. The gist of the article was about Blockbuster going through “Chapter 11 reorganization” and the almost $20 million federal court approved ad campaign the company launched.

I always root for the underdog and appreciate an amazing comeback but by the end of the article, I was left thinking “Blockbuster where have you been?”. I don’t know if there is some legal trap that prevented the company from putting out a campaign in three years but for three years, their competitors have gained a three year head start complete with upgraded movie rental methods. Though Blockbuster has been around longer than Redbox and Netflix, their comeback seems like a catch up. For those not familiar with Blockbuster (trust me, there are some), the company seems like the new kid on the block.

The only slight of hand for Blockbuster is getting new releases almost a month before Redbox and Netflix. Ben Fritz revealed this is only possible because “Blockbuster charges higher prices… generating more money for studios that share in the revenue.” Is it possible that a $20 million campaign, earlier releases, and higher charge will steal Netflix subscribers and Redbox consumers? Will it hand Blockbuster control of the company from bondholders? Will it keep stores open? I think not, although miracles can happen. Three years is a good head start for competitors and Blockbuster isn’t playing a good hand. For such miracles, Blockbuster is going to have to bet cautiously or hope that the river exposes some better cards.

Note: River refers to the extra two cards dealt in Texas hold ‘em poker which the player uses if it gives them a better hand