Power of advertising

What comes to your mind when anybody mentions Santa Claus- Father Christmas?

This image?

A jolly, portly old man with big white beard and wearing a red suit.

But Look closely at the image. What is he drinking?

"In 1931, Coca‑Cola commissioned Swedish-American artist Haddon Sundblom to paint Santa Claus for the company's Christmas adverts. Prior to this, Santa had been portrayed in a variety of ways throughout history: tall and gaunt; short and elfin; distinguished and intellectual; even downright frightening." - Source.



I always use this example to highlight the power of marketing (and advertising).

Santa was not created by Coca Cola, but the cultural icon we have come to associate with him was indeed created by Coca Cola. 

Also read: 5 Things You Never Knew About Santa Claus and Coca-Cola.

Shop by video. Review of the HUGO BOSS movie - Shanghai Affairs

I received an interesting email about an innovative form of advertising yesterday. Hugo Boss has come up with an innovative way to show off their BOSS summers 2013 collection - a short movie (advertorial with a story-line?) called Shanghai Affairs starring Taiwanese model and actress Lin Chiling and Spanish model, Jon Kortajarena.

Supposedly, customers can shop products from the collection directly from the movie. At certain points on the movie, text links titled "discover this look" appears. Clicking the link takes you to a page listing the products shown in that particular scene.

However, contrary to their promise, you cannot buy the products directly online from the movie. I found out the links take you to their main web page and not to the products. In other words, if you are interested in any of the products, you have to find the the nearest HUGO BOSS outlet and buy it from there or have to search whether the product is available on their online shop.

I wonder if this a wonderful plan that was not clearly thought out in the beginning, when they realised that most of their customers prefer to shop at their outlets rather than online.

Of course I would have preferred it if the products in the movie had direct links to the product pages on their online store.

What do you think of the idea?

What are the key issues?

Would love to hear your comments.

Click here to watch the video Shanghai Affairs.

The new Mercede-Benz interactive ad campaign

Check out the late advertising campaign from Mercedes-Benz promoting their new A-Class model. It is the first to use Twitter, the micro-blogging tool, in this way.

They are asking Twitter users to determine the outcome of a TV ad which will be aired for the first time during this weeks X Factor.

According to the storyline, a young musician and his female friend is trying to get to a gig driving the new Mercedes and chased by the police. There are several possible endings and Twitter users decide the outcome using the tag #YOUDRIVE in their tweets.

Ordinary Consumers as Brand Ambassadors

We normally associate Brand Ambassadors with actors and actresses, models and sports personalities. However, you might be surprised to learn that Edaran Tan Chong Motor, the official distributors of Nissan cars in Malaysia have recently selected four lucky people out of hundreds of applicants as Nissan LEAF Ambassadors. These lucky guys are using the Nissan Leaf for six weeks and are sharing their experiences.

However, when I looked at who these lucky ambassadors were, I noticed a few familiar names. they are definitely not ordinary - at least two of them are well known bloggers in Malaysia. Jason Goh who blogs at Smashin' Popstar and Daniel Yap who blogs at Eternal hobbyist.

It does make perfect sense and is not something new as companies have been using bloggers to review (and promote) their products (and services) for a while. Bloggers are opinion leaders and several blogs have readerships that run into thousands. Studies have shown that they are perceived as more credible than even traditional media, including newspapers and may be the reason that websites of newspapers are increasingly looking like blogs. And unlike other celebrities, they do not require you to pay them millions to become a brand ambassador. Plus you get fantastic original and creative consumer generated content followed by online word-of-mouth marketing.

However, it can be risky as well. Many bloggers are known to be quite independent and speaking their mind. They might end up rubbishing your product and your brand name, if they had a bad experience using them.

VW engaging customers via social media

Volkswagen, the German car maker is actively targeting customers on Facebook by getting them involved in their advertising campaigns. No, I am not talking about customer generated advertising which is a popular buzz word today but rather about getting customers to say nice things about the brand or product (positive testimonials) and using these in their advertising campaigns.

This is not a new concept in advertising and businesses and organisations often use positive testimonials to promote their products. However, it is the way that VW is actively soliciting and appealing to the "ego" of customers or the novelty effect and making innovative use of the technology, which is quite interesting.

I took part in two of their campaigns - just for the experience.

The first one was the " Beetle Billboard Times Square Experience". All I had to do was "like" the new Beetle (targeted at Men) and my face appeared live on the Volkswagen Beetle Billboard in Times Square, New York for a few seconds. This was in October last year.

The second campaign was the Volkswagen "Big up the up!". All we had to do was say something nice about the new VW up! car ("bigged up the new up!") and they would then feature your FB profile on huge digital posters across the UK.

A great way to get customers engaged with the brand and product. Do you agree? Any possible issues?