Archive for the 'Marketing' Category

Feb6th2008

What does $2.8 Million get you today?

Published
by
geoff
9 months, 2 weeks ago
in Marketing
. 0 Comments

It just doesn’t buy you what it used to. Lets see, you could buy 2.8 million junior bacon cheeseburgers and help Brad & Angelina feed small African nations. How about half ownership of Baske Afair, the Arabian stallion that is supposed to fetch $5M (stud farm anyone) later this month? Maybe you want to grab a fleet of 10 Bentley Continental GT’s or maybe splurge and get a 1997 Beechcraft Beechjet 400A so you and your friends can globetrot in style. Whatever it is, I bet it will last longer that :30 seconds.

Is advertising during the Super Bowl worth it? When you think about it, you kind of had this “spray and pray” mentality with the message and the audience. I mean your demographic is between 9-90 years old, slightly skewed male, with a median income somewhere in the $15k-900K range. Targeted. For any of you that work in advertising, try passing off a creative brief with that information on it. Lets not forget that 50% of the true watchers (fans of the two combatants) are going to be drunk or pissed and the other half are doing to be drunk and going to want to run off immediately after the game and have post-victory super bowl sex (with the jersey on). That leaves the rest of us are just hanging out, eating for finger food, and maybe catching a glimpse of greatness (nice catch David Tyree!) or history made (ouch…18-1) and just maybe winning a box on the score grid pool.

What did you remember? Hank? The Screaming Critters? How about Go Daddy sexing it up? Maybe Shaq on a horse? Here’s the full list and the “ratings” as judged by USA Today. Take a look and see what you recall. And while you are doing that, try to think which ones you’ve seen since then. A couple of these spots only ran once.

We just aren’t seeing anything memorable these days. Where is Terry Tate, office linebacker? How about Wazzzzup!?? Maybe we should just take all the good ads since 1995 and play them during next year’s superbowl. That’s what Doritos did this year – remember the UGC contest they had last year, well, one of the spots that didn’t win, they ran it during the 2nd quarter – the big rat.

There is a positive side-effect to crappy commercials, at least I have time to go to the bathroom and not worry about missing anything.

Oct28th2007

And now a word from our sponsor…

Published
by
geoff
1 year ago
in Marketing and Sports
. 0 Comments

cbspiggybank.jpgI’m not sure if its just me. Probably is. Normally is. I think sometimes I notice this just because I spend so much time working and thinking about this stuff… But CBS has got to be the biggest money whore in college football.

I spent my saturday watching the UGA/FLA game - “the worlds largest cocktail party” (I’m sure that was dubbed by a proud alumni - half the attendees are in college and underage. There’s no drinking going on!). Couple things you are guaranteed: 1) a pretty good/heated/trashtalking on the field, 2) some colorful outfits, and 3) two sets of the most ANNOYING fans in college football (the funny part about that is they each call the other the most annoying). My favorite line heard on saturday - “Who are you rooting for?” “Mother nature or god. I want a hole to open up and swallow both teams and especially their fans”.

Anyway, while watching the game, I started taking notice of everything that was “brought to you by”. Its nice how fluidly the sportscasters let “Liberty Mutual” or “Tampax” roll off their tongue while sending us off to halftime or a game break. Do you think some guy at CBS is sitting in his office going “hmmm…what else can we sell?”. Nothing like bringing in a little secondary income from the game. This is what I ended up with:

  • Pizza Hut Pregame
  • Pontiac Keys to the game (CLEVER!)
  • Applebee’s Starting line ups
  • Home Depot instant replay (complete with a flying HD logo)
  • Geico Halftime Report
  • Liberty Mutual Game Break
  • VzW game ticker
  • The NEW AT&T Sportsdesk
  • Geico Scoring Recap (who doesn’t love that gecko)
  • Sonic Heisman Watch
  • Wrangler 5 Star Play of the Game
  • Ruby Tuesday Player of the Game
  • Red Lobster Scholar Athlete (oh, the slobster. tasty vittles. I dream of Shrimp fest)

Did I miss anything? How about the “Depends Bathroom Break”? Or would that be better sponsored by FloMax? “This two minute snack run is brought to you by Fritos.” That’s it! Sponsored commercial breaks. Brilllll-YANT! (Patent Pending) We’re talking about slight overkill here people. Take it down a notch CBS. I know we want to maximize dollars, but maybe do a little study after the game. What do people remember? When you leave a 4-hour party after having thirteen 30 second conversations mixed in with drinks and casual chit-chat how much to you recall? When spread thin, the effectiveness and recall comes close to ZERO. Why don’t you act like responsible marketers and help your clients. And let me enjoy the game without the barrage of products.

Oct23rd2007

I deserve a star on the walk of fame

Published
by
geoff
1 year, 1 month ago
in Hollywood and Marketing
. 0 Comments

yourName2a.jpgIs the Hollywood Walk of Fame for real? Do people really take this seriously? If I hadn’t seen it myself, I’d think it was some mythical place that you needed some type of credential to get in. But NO! It does exist. And its more fun when you see an absolutely hammered homeless guy piss all over someones star (true story!).

I don’t want to talk about whether it exists, but its legitimacy. Can you just buy a star? PR stunt? Xmas gift from an agent? Ricky Martin recently received his “star”, #2,351 on the boulevard recently. I’m going to make it my sparetime task to get a star. Hey, I did a voice-over for the animated series Cubix, as the DJ Robot. That’s gotta be worth something.

This past year, the walk was decorated with such screen luminaries as Erik Estrada (yes, Officer Frank Poncherelo), thespian Donald Trump, and Miss America (ooops, I mean Playboy Centerfold) Vanessa Williams. With that crew, makes me wonder - what is the criteria to get your own star? I mean, who could forget Estrada’s work on “The Surreal Life” and “Armed & Famous”? Did you know they really aired?? How about Vanessa Williams? Her body of work (no pun intended. haha - I’m funny…HI FIVE!) includes blockbusters “Johnson Family Vacation”, “A Diva’s Christmas Carol” (I heard she really got into her character), and I’m sure if you dig deep into your DVD collection, you will find a copy of “Eraser”, where she shared the screen with Ahhhnold. I believe the academy got it wrong when they bypassed this classic. You might as well line up Paris Hilton. She’s got her Emmy performance on “The Simple Life” (I think she was already recognized by AVN for “One Night in Paris”).

So, who is the selection committee? Is it the same as the MPAA rating committee? A bunch of soccer moms and PTA presidents? I mean, Big Bird and Pee Wee Herman have stars. Really? Now, here’s the confusing part, Pee Wee is a character (beee-leeeve it!). Paul Ruebens is the actor who brought Pee Wee to life (literally). So, we got a bird and a kid/man/pervert. Thank god the boulevard is balanced by the likes of Motley Crue, Kiss and Alice Cooper. Two guys that I can think of that don’t have a star - Robert Redford & Clint Eastwood. Why not? I would think their body of work and contributions to entertainment would far exceed that of Vanna White (ooohh Vanna) and Destiny’s Child (WHAT?! Didn’t they burn down houses or something?). Now, for Clint Eastwood, if you follow the Paul Ruebens philosophy, would “Dirty Harry” get the star? And would he get to blow someone away (please say Britney Spears, or at least feed her to a temperamental cougar) at the ceremony?

Anyway, so here’s your part. I want in. Here’s the nomination page. The committee doesn’t meet until next June (worky work busy bee!), so we have a little time. I need to raise $25K. Yes, you have to pay for these things. So, your dollars will be put to good use (if not, I’ll throw a big party). I promise to thank all the little people. By little, I mean those who give me money. Help now! I’m racing against Weird Al Jankovic for the beginning of 2009, so start filling out the nomination sheet!

Jul14th2007

Here come the Simpsons!

Published
by
geoff
1 year, 4 months ago
in Hollywood and Marketing
. 0 Comments

gf_simpson2.gifI’m super excited. I love The Simpsons. Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa & Maggie have been part of the household for some 14 years and the crazy part, is that some of my friends kids are now watching The Simpsons. During college, it was a sunday night ritual

But, are you ready world? Simpsons-mania has officially arrived (well, actually a couple weeks ago). 20th Century Fox obviously has their best people on it. No matter where you turn, there’s something. Ask yourself this, how many times have you caught yourself singing “Spiderpig” over the last week (speaking from experience here people). I can only imagine the media dollars that were spent and what it cost to support this. I go on…

Let’s see, you have 7-Eleven make-overs in numerous towns (I read somewhere that it cost the slurpee shop a cool $10 Mil), special edition Vans shoes, a “Like Springfield” contest, a Samsung mobile phone (do I have to pay extra for the Homer ringtone?), xbox 360 is doing a special yellow console, Jet Blue is hosting a contest but not giving away any flights (weird!) and last but not least, a partnership with Burger King of which produced the online sensation of the day - Simpsonizeme. You can see my attempt right before your eyes, I’ll admit, a little embelishment with the hair and the six pack abs, but it came out alright. It took about 10 tries just to get my photo uploaded, and now, it says the site is down. Hmm… good one.

Is this not a little overkill? Why doesn’t Miller Lite step in for a co-branded effort with Duff beer? Basically, the only thing we are missing is a partnership with Huggies or Luvs for the Maggie line of diapers. How about Marge & Emeril whip up some Springfield style cuisine for Food Network? Maybe a Hairclub & Homer sponsorship. I digress…

My advice? Ease off the throttle a little bit 20 Centuy Fox. People will come. You have a strong brand. I think you could have limited the reach on this one and not flooded the market. Its not like the Simpson’s is a mystery - some crazy concept that you are birthing to the public (just do your best French accent - “Who are these…Simp-sons?”). Is someone going to lose their job for sticking their neck out? NOT POSSIBLE! Unless the movie is 96 minutes of Apu fixing the slurpee machine, I think it might even give Harry Potter Spiderman Transformers Die Hard a run.

So, in the meantime, I’m going to sit back with my bowl of KrustyO’s, chew and humm “Spiderpig, Spiderpig, does whatever a spiderpig does… “