Friday, June 28, 2013

Mountain Dew ‘Kickstarts’ Dew Tour In Ocean City

 via http://business.transworld.net


Since the dawn of the catchphrase “Do the Dew,” Mountain Dew has played a huge role in action sports and more specifically the Dew Tour, where it is a founding partner of the event. This year is no different. Mountain Dew has evolved along with the action sports fan base and compiled a team of charismatic and extremely talented athletes. As the Dew Tour continues to draw the masses each and every year, Mountain Dew pulls out all the stops necessary to help make each event bigger and better than the previous.

It’s Dew Tour time again, with the first stop in sunny Ocean City, Maryland on June 20-23. There were a plethora of events to attend over the busy extended weekend including athletes, action sports enthusiasts, and music lovers alike. To help “Kickstart” the East Coast portion of the Dew Tour, Mountain Dew invited their skate athletes and select media to attend a morning media event on Saturday. The athletes, along with the media, were jet skiing, sunning, and sampling Kickstart at OC Jet Skis & The Angler Restaurant in an effort to promote their new unique morning energy drink, Kickstart, offering a little more caffeine than a regular Mountain Dew in addition to 5% real fruit juice and Vitamins B & C.

The attendees included Dew skate athletes Keelan Dadd, Theotis Beasley, Boo Johnson and Nick Tucker. And although athletes Danny Davis and Paul Rodriguez could not attend the OC stop of the Dew Tour, they remained a big part of the event, appearing on the new custom Dew Tour Mountain Dew cans. The cans were featured in a Dew Tour commercial interruption starring Mountain Dew athletes Paul, Danny and Theo. These cans will only be available for a limited time at select 7-Eleven stores.

The Dew Tour will continue on to the next phase of their beach-city-mountain format, touching down in San Francisco in October where Mountain Dew athlete Paul Rodriguez is slated to compete. The competition continues into the mountains of Colorado at Breckenridge Resort in December and will serve as a qualifying Olympic contender event for the upcoming winter Olympics. Mountain Dew athlete Danny Davis is listed as an Olympic hopeful.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Sports Drinks Shifting Ingredients, Marketing Strategies

via http://www.bevnet.com



When Kevin Garnett’s endorsement contract expired with Gatorade in December, 2011, he chose to go in a different direction. Garnett, one of the most prestigious and accomplished forwards in NBA history, wanted to partner with a brand that he felt better represented his healthy, yoga-dependent lifestyle. A few months later, Garnett signed with ZICO, the coconut water brand.

“He believed in his lifestyle,” said Bill Lange, ZICO’s VP of marketing, “And his diet was a better fit with what we were all about than who he was with before us.”

Garnett told reporters that ZICO is light on his stomach because of its low acidity, preventing cramping and allowing him to keep up with the younger stars of the NBA. Garnett’s avowed interest in ZICO also signified a shift – not just regarding the changing perspective of many athletes toward beverage consumption, but also regarding the gradually changing landscape of the sports drink category.

“It comes down to all-natural,” Lange said. “That’s the biggest thing.”
While the initial combination of hydration-oriented ingredients certainly played a vital role in the evolution of sports drinks, it’s an ongoing move toward segmentation – the meshing of a product with an occasion – that seems to be propeling the category forward and broadening the field beyond the traditional two-horse race with Gatorade and Powerade. With products that suit any hour of the day and pack a wider range of ingredients, consumers are now seeking sports drinks during times once reserved for water, juice or carbonated soft drinks. It’s this versatility that is maturing the category and widening its scope and marketability.
And even the big dogs are paying attention. Gatorade, for example, created the G Series to complement this need-specific trend. Gatorade Prime uses a blend of carbohydrates and B vitamins to deliver energy before athletic activity. Gatorade Perform supports athletic activity with carbohydrates and electrolytes. Gatorade Recover follows this activity and supports muscle growth with 16 grams of protein and electrolytes.

The increasing demand for all-natural products has influenced many other developing brands, aside from ZICO, that also market themselves toward active consumers. Lance Collins, founder and CEO of BodyArmor, dubs sports drinks “a flawed category” because of what he identifies as artificial flavoring, a lack of nutritional benefits and high sodium content.

“Sports drinks sell themselves on bright artificial colors,” Collins wrote to BevNET in an email asking to not be included in any sports drink roundup.

BodyArmor, which Collins calls a “superdrink,” claims to contain double the electrolytes of the leading sports drink, also one banana worth of potassium, 50 blueberries worth of polyphenols, and A, C and E antioxidant vitamins. And in case there was any confusion that BodyArmor isn’t a sports drink, the brand has completely wrapped its bottles in packaging, providing the opposite of the colorful, clear bottles of Gatorade and Powerade.

Garnett’s role with ZICO helped put coconut water directly at what marketers call the “point of sweat,” but it’s the natural qualities of coconut water overall that serve as a point of differentiation and a possible indicator of the future direction of sports drinks. While still providing hydration via five electrolytes, potassium, sodium, magnesium, calcium and phosphorous, ZICO itself has been heavily marketed toward sports occasions — more so than its two largest competitors, Vita Coco and O.N.E.

ZICO’s pitch has also paid off in the marketplace. Lange said that the company has nearly doubled in sales each year of its existence. And while that will likely become a challenging goal as ZICO continues to grow, Lange feels confident that the still-encouraging growth will be sustainable. As of February, Coke started to distribute ZICO nationally, opening the once-miniscule company to a wider range of consumers.

“That just opens doors to the power of the red truck system,” Lange said.
To comply with this national launch, ZICO had to make a few adjustments in its business plan. When Mark Rampolla founded the company in 2004, he focused exclusively on targeting the Bikram Yoga crowd. Once the product gained some steam, he widened his marketing scope toward endurance athletes. Now, as a national brand, ZICO markets toward what Lange called “try-athletes,” which includes cyclists, distance runners, yoga practitioners and more. This broader demographic fits ZICO’s rapidly growing business.

“It’s much more mainstream,” Lange said. “We don’t want to be just about that hyper-competitive group. We want to be about anybody who sees the value in living a healthy lifestyle.”
This approach coincides with the overall category’s aim for occasion-based consumption; a goal that overlaps other categories, as well. Caffeinated, coffee-flavored coconut waters, such as ZICO Latte, Coco Cafe and a variety of RealBeanz, offer consumers an alternative to a sugar-filled canned coffee. Lange said he’s been told that some consumers choose ZICO chocolate instead of a candy bar; it craves the sweet tooth, but contains less sugar and less calories than standard desserts.

“When you make healthy choices for yourself, you just feel better,” Lange said. “And it’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

On the smaller side of things, Golazo serves as an example of another beverage marketed toward active consumers, but one that banks on soccer (futbol, for all you purists) as its key branding hook. This also follows the idea of occasion-based marketing. A soccer ball sits on the front of Golazo bottles and cans below the brand’s slogan: “born to score.” Even the title, Golazo, has a soccer connection; it’s what some Spanish players scream after scoring a goal.

“We’re not just going after the soccer mom. We’re going after any soccer fan and soccer player. This is the passion brand for soccer,” Golazo co-founder Richard Tait told BevNET. “We live it, breathe it, we want to fuel football.”

Golazo throws another twist into the shifting web of sports drinks; it’s all-natural and contains coconut water, but also uses non-GMO ingredients, offers less sodium than the leading sports drinks, and offers both energy and sports hydration options. It’s this versatility and functionality that seem to be hallmarks of the future of beverages for active consumers.

Golazo has focused on refined markets that have clearly expressed an interest in soccer. Perhaps the company will go national if the U.S. ever fully embraces soccer. Until that unlikely event occurs, Tait has helped place his products in 1,600 stores in eight states throughout the West Coast, including all Safeway and Whole Foods stores in the region. He also believes that because soccer is the world’s most popular sport, in time, Golazo has the potential to become an international brand.

While ZICO and Golazo both source natural electrolytes from coconuts, A-GAME uses sea salt minerals as its alternative to replenish the body’s water and electrolytes. It also offers eight vitamins, minerals and carbohydrates, furthering its role as a functional sports drink. A-GAME, which is based in Orlando, Fla., announced in April that it secured national distribution across 3,000 GNC locations.
A-GAME’s expanding distribution results from the growing demand for products catered toward another kind of consumer; the kind that doesn’t win gold medals or consistently pass finish lines. Similar to ZICO – and to Body Armor – A-GAME markets itself as a cross-functional product compatible for both the health-conscious consumer or the sports enthusiast. These aren’t new kinds of consumers. It’s simply the genesis of brands targeting them in a direct manner.

“You don’t want to just be about elite athletes,” Lange said. “And you look at some of those sports drinks, they feature elite athletes on the TV commercial, but you know that the construction guys and the hungover kids and people are drinking it for all uses.”

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

The Vitamin Water SHINEBRIGHT Campaign Encourages Individuality

via http://www.trendhunter.com

Collaborating with a number of iconic figures of niche culture, the Vitamin Water SHINEBRIGHT campaign sees the outspoken individuals personifying a specific flavor of the refreshing beverage. Decked out in colors that are spot on with the respective flavor, the advertisements of the Vitamin Water SHINEBRIGHT campaign look to celebrate individuality and some seriously inspirational people.

The Vitamin Water SHINEBRIGHT campaign is paired with the #SHINEBRIGHT hashtag to help everyone get involved with the conversation and express their own view or conceptualization of being themselves. The campaign is being paired with a series of video interviews that are behind-the-scenes with the models and help to identify the ways they're contributing positively to the creative industry.

Being released individually and collectively, the Vitamin Water SHINEBRIGHT campaign advertisements can be found in urban hubs on a global scale.

Monday, June 24, 2013

Pepsi to launch new yogurt brand soon

via http://usfinancepost.com
Pepsi to launch new yogurt brand soon

PepsiCo Inc., which is known mostly for products like the carbonated drink Pepsi, and Frito-Lay chips, has decided to go national with its Muller brand of yogurt. This step comes at a time when consumers are turning to healthier alternatives instead of traditional fizzy drinks.

It is apparent that PepsiCo thinks there is plenty of profit to be made through the sale of yogurt, as it happens to be one of the fastest selling items in grocery stores. This has happened because consumers are becoming more health conscious in the wake of an increase in obesity across the nation.
PepsiCo has decided to team up with Germany’s Theo Muller Group, which is well-established in Europe as a producer of dairy goods and has much expertise in the field. This will most likely help enhance PepsiCo’s chances of being successful, and is the same strategy the brand used earlier to gain a share in the market related to hummus and other such healthy dips.

However, experts are of the opinion that even with the expertise of one and the size of the other, Muller Quaker Dairy joint venture will not find the going easy. The yogurt market is very competitive, and consumers are always on the lookout for low prices. Established yogurt producers in the United States, such as General Mills Inc., Yoplait and Danone often sell their products at dizzyingly discounted prices.

In fact, thanks to the fierce competition, Kraft Foods had to withdraw its line of Greek yogurt, Athenos, in 2012. The product had been launched just two years before that.

Some experts seem to think that aggressive use of funds in marketing the yogurt will help make it successful, but the Chief Executive Officer of PepsiCo, Indra Nooyi, has stated that the company will not overdo spending when it comes to the launch of the yogurt. She said that the company believes the product is innovative enough to command premium prices.

The new factory that will handle the producing of the yogurt has been set up in Batavia, New York, and Nooyi was recently on a tour of the same.

Though the yogurt market has grown by leaps and bounds over the last few years in the United States, the consumption of yogurt is not as high there as in Europe. Experts think this means that there is plenty of space for growth still. Yoplait currently sees the highest sales of yogurt.

Friday, June 21, 2013

The Logo Of One Of The World's Biggest Brands Is Hidden In This Beautiful Abstract Art

via http://www.businessinsider.com


"Where's Waldo" fans will love this new German ad campaign in which Pepsi has embedded its logo into intricate, interlaced blue and red blood vessels.
Without any text from ad agency BBDO Dusseldorf, the message of the "Iconic Refreshment" ads appear to be that Pepsi is in your veins.





Coca-Cola actually used the hidden-logo niche a few weeks ago when it hid Danish flags (which are actually hidden in Coke's real logo) on vending machines.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Coca-Cola and Skechers Offer Brands New Halos at Annual Licensing Show

via http://adage.com

The success of Toms Shoes and Warby Parker eyewear, which give their products to the needy whenever they make a sale to consumers, has inspired other businesses to become more social enterprises too. But it's tough for large, established brands to really rethink their business models. So I was excited while walking the Licensing Expo show floor today to see two marketers using licensing in innovative ways to not only give back but to help other brands to do the same.

The first program is called Ekocycle. Created together by The Coca-Cola Company and Will.i.am, Ekocycle is a new brand dedicated in part to helping consumers recognize that items they consider waste today could have a use in another product tomorrow.

Lifestyle brands that are willing to manufacture products with at least 25% of recycled materials can license the Ekocycle logo. Coca-Cola Company makes their recycled plastic bottles and aluminum cans available for use. I saw a pair of Ekocycle Levi's Jeans, for example, made partly from eight plastic Coke bottles. Other brand partners include Beats by Dr. Dre, New Era, Adidas and the NBA.
Standard royalty rates apply, but Coca-Cola is committed to donating a minimum of $1 million over five years to various recycling and sustainability initiatives.


The program is smart on so many levels. First and foremost, it raises awareness of an important issue: waste and our need to live more sustainable lives. Second, it helps The Coca-Cola Company achieve its 2020 goal of becoming a zero waste company. And third, it enables the company, along with its licensees and brand partners, to reach and engage its target millennial audience in a new and authentic way.

The second impressive program I saw on the show floor comes from Skechers. Clearly inspired by Toms Shoes and its "buy-one, give-one" model, Skechers has created an entire sub-brand dedicated to philanthropy: the Bobs Collection line of shoes for women and kids.
The line, which gives a pair of shoes to a needy child for every pair sold, was introduced a little more than two years ago and has already donated some 4.5 million pairs of shoes to children in 30 countries including the U.S.

At this year's Licensing Expo, however, Skechers is introducing an interesting licensing program. It is meeting with manufacturers hoping to secure Bobs licensees in a variety of categories including apparel, bedding, luggage and accessories such as bags and eyewear. Licensees will help cover the costs associated with gifting Bobs Collection shoes with each purchase of a licensed product. So if a consumer purchased a Bobs Collection bag, for example, a needy child would still receive a pair of Bobs Collection shoes from Skechers thanks to support from the licensee.
Like Ekocycle, the Skechers program works on multiple levels. It allows Skechers to help more children and inspire more people than they possibly could on their own. And it gives licensees an easy way to give back.

I hope both of these initiatives will inspire other licensors and licensees here in Las Vegas to think of new ways to achieve not just their marketing and sales goals but also to achieve some good.
Because of its hybrid nature combining marketing and manufacturing, the licensing world may be perhaps more aware of global poverty and unsustainable manufacturing processes than other marketing disciplines. That makes it our responsibility to help tackle these problems too. It's actually an exciting challenge.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Mentorship as a Marketing Tool: Glacéau Vitaminwater Hires Cultural Entrepreneurs to Nurture Creativity in Youth

via http://popsop.com/

Discovering rising stars among aspiring young creatives is a method many youth-targeting brands embrace to reach and engage with their audience—Fanta, Levi’s, Montain Dew, Nike to name a few.
The new long-term communication campaign #Shinebright of GlacĂ©au Vitaminwater, a Coca Cola-owned brand of enhanced water, is also based on the idea of cultural mentorship that should nurture creativity and talent in younger generation.
Photo: Imagery feature on billboards across the UK, France, Denmark and Sweden. Photoshoot by Matt Irwin, styled by Anna Trevelyan.

To launch the #Shinebright campaign, the brand has hired six prominent figures from the worlds of fashion, music, design and media, who will teach selected lucky teens their craft during one-to-one creative workshops and collaborative projects. Among the invited cultural mentors there are world-renowned fashion blogger Susie Lau of Style Bubble; Mikey Trapstar, the founder of legendary urban streetwear label Trapstar; a French street photography expert Theo Gosselin; and an architect/designer Jenny Grettve from Sweden. The brand currently doesn’t disclose the other two names, inviting  the audience to follow @vitaminwater_uk on Twitter to find out more about the collaborations.

The types of projects and workshops vary depending on the specifics of the mentors’ expertise. For example, Susie will offer the one-to-one chance to work with her at London Fashion Week. Mikey invites a group of young fashion designers  to showcase their designs in an international streetwear event. Jenny will tell the tricks of the architect trade at her studio in Stockholm, while Theo will hold a one-to-one photography workshop in Paris.
The six opportunities to join the #Shinebright  project are open throughout Europe until August 16th, 2013. The campaign is supported through media partnerships, sampling, social media, social advertising and OOH.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Spotted: Special Edition Coke At Cannes

via http://creativity-online.com


To mark its presence at Cannes as Creative Marketer of the Year, Coke has designed these special edition bottles emblazoned with the festival's logo. It's a neat idea, and for thirsty delegates will no doubt prove a welcome change from all that champagne.

Friday, June 14, 2013

Fanta goes Play with digital graphic novel

via http://www.afaqs.com

The campaign is launched with a vision to bring 'Play' back into the lives of consumers.

Fanta, the fruit-flavoured carbonated soft drink from The Coca-Cola Company, has launched an interactive graphic novel featuring the animated Fanta crew that appears in the brand's television commercials. Called the Play Fanta franchise, the characters connect with the core consumer base of teens through the graphic novel's digital storytelling on Playfanta.com. The novel also features games moulded to fit the story.
The Fanta graphic novel
The PlayFanta campaign is being rolled out in more than 190 markets globally this year. Ogilvy & Mather New York was tasked by Fanta to lead the PlayFanta creative vision and turn the 3D Fanta world and its well-loved characters into a global franchise.
Fanta is also looking at attracting teens from popular social hangouts, portals and their preferred engagement platforms on social media, such as Facebook and YouTube. PlayFanta was released in India on April 29, parallel to its global release. The initiative has also been released on Fanta's Facebook page and via apps available across all app stores. Besides, TVCs and an online video will also be used to promote the graphic novel and the campaign.
The graphic novel titled 'Saving the Source' has the characters Todd, Tristan, Andy, Floyd, Lola, Maude, Gigi and the Lhava Twins as they set out on a journey to find and fix the source of Play in their town, after it mysteriously disappears one day, turning the community into sad, grey characters known as the 'Playless'.
Anupama Ahluwalia
Speaking on the initiative, Anupama Ahluwalia, vice-president, marketing, Coca-Cola India, says, "PlayFanta is a very dynamic concept with embedded layers of storytelling and adventure that we believe will appeal to our teen demographic across the spectrum. The narrative tells a universal story with elements that the Indian youth will also identify with, and coupled with state of the art technology, this will surely be one of our most exciting initiatives."
The novel was developed by Hollywood scriptwriting studio The Alchemists, with animation by Psyop. According to Marianne Pizzi, executive group director, Ogilvy & Mather, the brief was to create a platform where every piece of the communication was playable. It could have been anything -- a film, too -- but for the sake of interactivity, it was turned into a nine-chapter graphic novel with hidden games and elements.
This is the second time that Fanta is taking its TVC crew out of the TV in India. In 2011, Fanta's television commercial was taken outdoors by creative agency Encyclomedia Networks with a building wrap innovation in Chennai that featured Fanta's characters -- better known as the 'Fanta Crew'. Five surfaces of the commercial office building, Ameer Plaza in Nungambakkam, Chennai, were wrapped up in such a way with 3D creatives that a bright orange visual story continued across all of them.
In the same year, Fanta decided to use the occasion of Holi as it launched the 'Fanta - Funmasters Hunt', a consumer engagement initiative, which was rolled out in over 60 cities across 13 states in the country. Consumers got to win cash prizes worth Rs 4,999 every day, and a grand cash prize worth Rs 5 lakh was awarded for presenting ideas on how to have fun and be less serious.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Pepsi Recruits Blake Shelton for 'Iconic Summer' Campaign, Preps Exclusive Giveaways for Beyonce Tour, MLB All-Star Game

via http://www.billboard.com

Pepsi Recruits Blake Shelton for 'Iconic Summer' Campaign, Preps Exclusive Giveaways for Beyonce Tour, MLB All-Star Game

Between a top 5 album, his first major headlining tour and coaching his fourth season of NBC’s “The Voice,” Blake Shelton is already having a pretty iconic summer. But when Pepsi approached him to be the lead spokesman for its Iconic Summer program at last week’s CMA Fest in Nashville, it gave him a chance to do another thing he loves -- hang out one-on-one with his fans.
In a surprise appearance at CMA Fan Fest last week, Shelton played a few rounds of Pepsi Speed Sketch, a Pictionary-type game where he and fans tried to guess different makeshift drawings. A video from the event is available below.

“The cool thing about country artists and country fans is the connection that we have. I don’t look at them as fans, I look at them as buddies and we’re all hanging out together in a concert situation,” Shelton told Billboard at the top of CMA Week. “Pepsi wants music fans to have a chance to have a summer they won’t forget, and that’s how I felt about this summer going out on my first really big headlining tour -- that’s something I won’t forget. They’re also giving away tons of prizes and I even saw somebody in there is gonna win a trip to the Super Bowl. You think I won’t be trying to enter that one? I’ll be putting my name in for that one.”

In addition to Shelton, who will continue to make appearances for Iconic Summer throughout the season, Pepsi will support the new program through its sponsorships of BeyoncĂ©’s The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour, which arrives in North America June 28 at Los Angeles’ Staples Center, the MLB All Star Game in July, the MTV Video Music Awards in September at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas, the Pepsi Gulf Coast Jam in Florida this September, and Pepsi spokesman Hunter Hayes’ fall tour with CMT. For each event, Pepsi fans will have a chance to win exclusive tickets and meet-and-greets by uploading their iconic photos and participating in other fan engagements at www.pepsi.com/iconicsummermoments.

“We wanted to give fans the opportunity to share their iconic moments and create experiences only Pepsi can give them,” says Bozoma Saint John, Pepsi’s director of cultural branding, music and entertainment.

Iconic Summer is the latest seasonal music program for Pepsi, following its 2012 Summer Beats concert series. Created in partnership with Billboard, the program featured exclusive concerts from Katy Perry, Gloriana, Nicki Minaj and an all-star tribute to Michael Jackson with Ne-Yo and Melanie Fiona.

Music has been an increased focus for Pepsi in recent years, particularly North America, where increased pricing and a focus on entertainment marketing were key pillars of the company's 2012 strategy. The results paid off with mixed results in the first quarter of 2013, with PepsiCo reporting an 8% increase in operating profit for its American beverage unit, despite a 1% decrease in revenue and a 3% decrease in sales volume. PepsiCo also increased global ad spend by 11% in the first quarter.
As for what else will make Shelton’s summer iconic? Some much-needed time off around the 4th of July at his home in Oklahoma, a state he recently helped raise $6 million for with his Healing in the Heartland concert.

“It’ll be nice to experience the summer how everyone else does for a few days,” he says. “I’ve got a house near the lake, I’ve got a boat, so I’m looking forward to me and Miranda [Lambert] and her family our friends dropping the anchor, playing some times and hang out all day. I’ve had some of the most fun memories there the last two summers.”


Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Eat Doritos, Drink Mt. Dew, Win an Xbox One



In the surprise marketing deal of the century, Doritos and Mountain Dew have teamed up with Microsoft to promote the Xbox One.

Like Doritos and Mountain Dew? Geoff Keighley sure does, and he's a respectable journalist-type! Now you can turn your unhealthy addiction for equally unhealthy snack food into a profit, with the chance to win one of Microsoft's new Xbox One consoles! This fall, Dew and Doritos will offer thousands of Xbox One systems in what will be "the biggest gaming promotion in the brands' history."

So how exactly can you turn munching chips and "doing the Dew" into an Xbox One? We're not quite sure yet. Distinctly lacking in the announcement of the promotion was an explanation of how it would actually work. We are told to register for updates on the promotion at www.DEWandDORITOS.com, and that the companies involved will be sharing more news throughout the summer.

"The Mountain Dew and Doritos brands are going to reward gamers in the biggest way possible this year with a variety of opportunities to get their hands on the new Xbox One," said Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb. "We'll be sharing more details throughout the summer, but rest assured that DEW and Doritos are creating something that is truly befitting of our epic new generation hardware."

Mountain Dew and Doritos are no strangers to teaming up with Xbox producer Microsoft, having teamed up in the past to promote the Halo franchise (when our friend Geoff first acquired his tasted for the delicious snacks). Mountain Dew even dipped its paws into Blizzard's coffers, appearing in a World of Warcraft cross-promotion some time ago.

After Microsoft's embarrassing defeat by Sony at this year's E3, giving Xbox Ones away with packets of Doritos may be the only way they will be able to move the damn things.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

How the World's Most Iconic Brand Was Saved From Itself: Coke is the Cannes Advertiser of the Year

via http://www.adweek.com

David Turner and Dan Wieden, whose agencies have created some of the most memorable creative for Coca-Cola in recent years, actually came close to snubbing the world's most famous brand.

Coca-Cola had approached Turner Duckworth seven years ago about redesigning the packaging for the marketer's flagship brand, but the firm’s co-founder harbored doubts he could do good work and didn’t want to hurt his company’s reputation or staff morale. Wieden, whose agency already worked on some other Coca-Cola brands, was more blunt in his hesitation a year earlier, telling Coke marketing exec Pio Schunker he thought the brand’s advertising was terrible and needed to get back on track.

In the biggest surprise, the client agreed.

"Certainly at that point, our creative really didn't have much value to it because it wasn’t very good across the board," says Schunker, now svp, head of integrated marketing. "We were looked at as a money machine. An agency came to Coke because it was a great name to have on the door and it was a great paycheck. It wasn’t like you came to Coke because we were known for doing ground-breaking creativity."
Schunker, who joined Coca-Cola in 2003 from Ogilvy New York, and then-North America CMO Katie Bayne knew they had to convince potential marketing partners that attitudes were changing at the beverage giant known more for watering down inspired ideas than producing them. Coke needed to get back into the cultural conversation, to become more relevant and modern to appeal to a new generation while retaining an emotional bond with older consumers. "Knowing that creativity could impact our business, we set out to work with the best agencies," Schunker says, admitting he knew attracting them wouldn't be easy. "We had such a bad reputation back then, jumping from agency to agency. In moving forward, we would need to have our agencies challenge our thinking, to let them know they could call bullshit, push back—and we would be receptive to hear that. That didn’t mean we wouldn’t push back at them, but they needed to know we trusted them to try, fail, succeed and innovate."

That open, more collaborative approach won over W+K and Turner Duckworth, leading them to create some of the flagship brand's most innovative recent initiatives, work that has Coca-Cola being honored as Cannes Creative Marketer of the Year for 2013. The brand picked up close to 30 Lions at the ad festival in 2012, its most successful haul ever. Outside Cannes, other accolades include the Clio Awards (sister brand of Adweek) this year selecting Coca-Cola for its inaugural Brand Icon Award.

Schunker loves the creative recognition but is just as proud of the business success driven by it. He was brought in to revitalize Coca-Cola's signature product, a drink that defines the company and has a halo effect on its extensions. Recognition wasn’t a problem—that’s so valuable it’s carried on the company’s balance sheet as an intangible asset. Consumer excitement about Coke was another matter, meaning marketing would have to serve as the secret ingredient to refreshing a drink that hasn’t changed in 127 years.

It seems to have worked. From 2001 to 2006, Coke saw U.S. sales dip, but last year, in a carbonated soft-drink category where sales slumped 1.2 percent (the eighth straight year of declines), Coca-Cola's sales rose nearly 1 percent, even as arch rival Pepsico fell by 1.5 percent, according to Beverage Digest. (Even more dramatically, in 2011 Diet Coke edged out Pepsi as the industry’s second-most popular soda.) Interbrand, which put Coca-Cola at No. 1 in its 2012 Best Global Brands Report, put its value at $77.8 billion, up 8 percent year over year.

While international sales over the past decade have held up, Coca-Cola's biggest challenges have been in the contracting North American market. Aside from getting the right agencies on board, Schunker attributes Coke’s turnaround success in its home and largest market to internal support from former CMO Bayne, now president of Coca-Cola’s North American soda business and someone Schunker continues to talk with on a weekly basis.

Coca-Cola is serious about that, enough so that making it happen—or failing to—impacts everyone's paycheck. Both the compensation of outside partners and that of the company’s 100-plus integrated marketing employees is based largely on how well they collaborate and innovate. The scoring system was implemented over the last 18 months, no easy feat considering that it affects stock options and merit bonuses. Additionally, Coke has a monthly agency council meeting. "It keeps us honest, helps us have an open dialogue and have us ask how we, as a client, can do better," explains Schunker.

"It's hard for different companies to work together," admits W+K creative director Hal Curtis, who heads up the Coke business. "Early in the relationship, we resisted it or didn’t think of it. It’s a credit to Pio that he’s made it all work with everyone."

Since taking on brand Coke in 2005, W+K has created standout work dating back to early spots in North America like 2007's "Video Game," modeled on Grand Theft Auto, in which a tough character has a change of heart after drinking a Coke, and 2008’s "It’s Mine," featuring inflatables from a Thanksgiving parade who become untethered and fight over a floating Coke bottle (in 2009, Adweek selected it as the decade’s best Super Bowl spot).



Still, that wasn't enough in a company of this size, one whose siloed marketing approach had to become more holistic. "We have to make sure our vision is well articulated around game-changing marketing, but how do you facilitate that vision through structure and process?" muses Alison Lewis, svp, Coca-Cola North America Marketing. "We need to integrate all of our functions—taking creative, digital, media, design, content and building it into one integrated group which can drive a big idea, soup to nuts, all the way down to the store shelf."

W+K's Curtis remembers the nerves on that day but goes on to credit the client’s resolve. "One of the great things about Coca-Cola is they have the courage to try really frightening, innovative things on big stages," he says. Nine million consumers followed the bears, spending 28 minutes on average, the equivalent of 56 30-second commercials, compared to the two minutes Coke had anticipated. Critical recognition followed, including five Lions at Cannes in 2012.


A turning point came with the 2012 Super Bowl, in which W+K used a two-screen strategy. Through TV and other media, viewers were directed to a livestreaming digital site where Coke's iconic polar bears reacted in real time to the game, the halftime entertainment, ads and fans. Right up to the day of the game, the technology had to be tweaked. "If things were going to go wrong, they would go wrong live," recalls Schunker. "We did a lot of advance testing, but the only thing we couldn’t test was success."

During this year's game, the company aired W+K’s "Chase," which had consumers voting on the outcome of a desert chase for a Coke involving cowboys, showgirls and motorcycle toughs. The brand followed up with a coupon through the My Coke Rewards website, giving away 50,000 free drinks. Thirty percent of those redeemed were from new users.

From the start, designer David Turner told his new client what he thought about the ubiquitous brand's packaging: It had all the impact of cultural wallpaper. "David said our can looked like crap, which hurt a lot of feelings—it’s like a child here," recalls Schunker. Nevertheless, he returned the favor by supporting Turner Duckworth’s clean, simplified redesign, selling it up the corporate food chain even when early testing wasn’t great.

"A lot of what we wanted to do was logical, but it also involved courage—a lot of early research went against the 'refreshing' score," says Turner. "Pio said, ‘We can get a refreshing in other ways. We don’t need that as much as the higher marks on cool and modern or the stronger emotional connection for older people.’"

Turner says it's easier for brand managers to add elements to packaging rather than take them away, which contributed to Coke’s look becoming cluttered over the years. In the firm’s reductionist pursuit, the stakeholders reduced Coke’s palette (which had grown to include five colors) to emphasize red, a color the brand legitimately owned. Turner Duckworth argued for the removal of pictures of bubbles on the can, saying consumers already knew it was a carbonated beverage—and that proved to be one of the harder battles the firm faced with Coca-Cola.

Promotional tactics, the dull stuff of cents-off or event tie-ins, became brand-building opportunities. Whether a seasonal strategy like the current summer-themed cans, the Olympics or fundraising for polar bears, the design of the Coke cans today is visually much more minimalist and simplified.

Turner says turning down Coke would have been the biggest mistake of his career: "Pio comes to us and says, 'If you see a brief from us you don't like, don’t do the work. You can tell us it’s not right.’ That level of trust and respect rarely exists with a client." The design overhaul won Cannes’ first ever Design Grand Prix in 2008. The brand picked up a Gold Lion as well that year for its aluminum bottle.


Leo Burnett works on Coca-Cola's "Live Positively" social responsibility and sustainability program, and for the brand in global markets including China, Southeast Asia and India. Earlier this year, the company introduced its "Small World Machines," developed by Burnett, in a pair of malls in India and Pakistan, aiming to bring together consumers in that divisive part of the world. The vending machines sport webcams whereby consumers in each country come face-to-face and can interact with one another by drawing peace, love and happiness symbols, each earning a free Coke in the process. “That’s a great example of our collaboration with Coca-Cola,” says Mark Tutssel, chief creative officer of Leo Burnett Worldwide. “This is a true partnership that has liberated creativity around the world and across channels. They’ve given us all freedom and a great sense of shared goals.”

Coke's enduring association with bears, dating back to an ad in 1922, crosses over to entertainment in ways beyond even the polar bears of the 2012 Super Bowl. Schunker’s team had a film idea last year and took it to CAA; producer Ridley Scott and Dave Reynolds, writer of Finding Nemo and Toy Story 3, signed on. Even with that star power, no one at the company was sure the Coke bear film would work. Launching in Europe, it didn’t take long to find out. Sky TV in Britain aired it over Christmas, attracting a newer, younger generation to the brand. "That’s how we’re shaping integrated content in a new way," says Schunker. "There was no product featured. It was about brand values, the idea that family always has your back."

It seems Coke's current family of agencies has its back, as well.






Monday, June 10, 2013

Never Mind the Lawsuits: People Are Drinking More Monster Energy




Despite some negative headlines in recent months, people just can’t seem to get enough of energy drinks — consumers and investors alike. Recent numbers suggest sales of the caffeinated Monster Energy drink rose by double-digits in the last month compared to a year prior, and today shares in the company were up nearly as much.
Monster Beverage Corp. MNST -0.28% has had a tough few months on the regulatory front, with San Francisco’s city attorney accusing the company of marketing to children despite alleged health risks. On a federal level, regulators are investigating whether energy drinks as a whole pose “significant” risks if drunk in excess or by vulnerable groups such as young people. A similar probe is underway in New York, as is a lawsuit in Maryland over the death of a teenager.
But sales are going strong, according to a note out today from analysts at Stifel, who attended the company’s recent shareholder meeting:
The company said gross sales in April and May increased 9% y/y [year-on-year], implying May y/y sales growth of 12%-13%, an acceleration from 6% y/y growth in April. Relatedly, the company cited U.S. scanner data indicating a similar acceleration in y/y growth for the latest 4-week period, through May 25, 2013, up 9.7% for Monster, compared to up 7.5% for the 13-week period.
We believe the acceleration is encouraging, particularly given disappointing 1Q13 and April sales, relative to Street expectations. It also indicates overall sales growth remains solid and that end-demand has not worsened, in spite of concerns that negative publicity from regulatory noise has impacted category and company sales growth. Further, y/y comparisons become increasingly favorable in June (lapping +15% y/y sales growth in June, compared to +39% and +33% in April and May, respectively) and in 2H13, implying a sales growth acceleration over the balance of 2013.
Monster’s international sales, which account for 20% of the total, were up by 17% in April and May.
The company’s defense of its product has been pretty simple: it says it contains significantly less caffeine than coffee, which is more popular among both teenagers and adults. Here’s Monster Chairman Rodney C. Sacks on the company’s most recent earnings call:
Unfortunately, inaccurate, speculative and biased articles continue to be published in the media regarding energy drinks and, in particular, the caffeine levels therein. The simplest and most effective way of addressing those comments is to compare the caffeine levels in Monster Energy drinks from all sources to the caffeine levels of coffeehouse coffee such as, for example Starbucks SBUX +1.41% or Caribou, as this comparison is easily understood by and is meaningful to consumers.
Coffee has been and continues to be extensively and safely consumed every day in the U.S. by many tens of millions of consumers, many of whom are teenagers. In making such comparison we believe it is appropriate to use Starbucks’ 16-ounce medium-sized brewed coffee, which is the same size as a regular 16-ounce Monster Energy drink. A Starbucks 16-ounce brewed coffee contains approximately 330 milligrams of caffeine, which is double the approximate 160 milligrams of caffeine in the same-size Monster Energy drink. A 16-ounce Caribou brewed coffee contains between 305 and 370 milligrams of caffeine. Based on statistics provided by the research firm NPD, we believe that coffee consumption in the U.S. by teens under 18 is significantly higher than their consumption of energy drinks.
Consumers don’t seem too worried about the risk for now, hence the sales growth. And that helped the company’s shares, which were up 10.5% today. The stock is still down about 15% from where it was a year ago.