We are humbled to share some more exciting news with you.
Invesp’s list of the Top 100 Branding Blogs includes DuetsBlog, here. Thank you very much!
OnlineDegree Blog has named the 50 Best Blogs for Creative Thinking, and ranked DuetsBlog as #10 on the list. Many thanks for the kind words and the strong vote
—by David Mitchel, Vice President of Marketing at Norton Mitchel Marketing
Now that the NBA regular season has ended and the playoffs have begun, it is the perfect time to reflect on some of the more notable occurrences in the league this year. In terms of marketing, one of the more notable occurrences was Noche Latina (Latin Night in Spanish). Noche Latina is the NBA’s flagship Hispanic marketing initiative. In various NBA arenas in the month of March, teams in cities with high Hispanic populations (Los Angeles, Miami, Orlando, Phoenix, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, Chicago and New York) celebrated Latin culture through a multitude of game night activities. The 2009-2010 season was the fourth consecutive season that the NBA engaged in the Noche Latina promotion. It will likely be back for a fifth season next year. With Noche Latina, the league has a quality basic idea in how to conduct a multicultural marketing initiative. However, the league has taken actions with Noche Latina that have diminished its effectiveness in the Hispanic community. If Noche Latina is to have the effect of increasing brand awareness and fostering positive brand beliefs about the NBA amongst Hispanics, it must change for next season.
The NBA must be recognized for its understanding of the importance of the Hispanic marketplace. In the press release that announced Noche Latina events for March 2010, Saskia Sorrosa, the NBA’s Senior Director of Hispanic Marketing, said “With Hispanics comprising 15 percent of our fan base, we have a responsibility to connect with them in meaningful ways.” The first step in creating successful Hispanic marketing initiatives is to understand the importance of the group. At the 2000 Census, Hispanics made up 12.5% of the United States population. This is when Hispanics officially became the largest minority group in the US, surpassing the 12.3% African American population. This data fulfilled a controversial 1978 prediction by Time Magazine that Hispanics would soon become the largest minority group. By 2005, Hispanics accounted for 14% of the US population. When the 2010 Census information is released, it is likely that Hispanics will comprise at least 15% of the US population. With 15% of the NBA fans reportedly Hispanic and Hispanics likely comprising 15% of the US population at the present time, one could surmise that the NBA is doing at least an adequate job in building the brand amongst Hispanics.
With Noche Latina, the league is doing many positive things. Noche Latina consists of events such as pre, post and in-game Hispanic/Latino cultural celebrations and the launch of www.nba.com/enebea in Spanish. As an example, when the Miami Heat hosted Noche Latina, they featured salsa dancers outside the arena at halftime, Latin routines/performances by the Heat dancers during timeouts and a performance by Latin Jazz artist Tito Puente Jr. during player introductions. The website, www.nba.com/enebea, is the best part of the NBA’s Hispanic marketing strategy. It is a resource that is available every day, covering the league in Spanish. A true marketing initiative must be a consistent focus, not an isolated event.
The Miami Heat are a shining example of this. Eric Woolworth, President of Business Operations for the Heat, said “Because Miami has the largest Hispanic fan base in the NBA, for us, every night is a Latin night.” Of all the teams that participated in Noche Latina, the Miami Heat appeared to be the most organized. The Heat had the most information about their Noche Latina events posted on their English language website in comparison with other NBA teams. For Noche Latina to be truly meaningful across markets, all teams should promote Noche Latina by following the standard set by the Heat.Continue Reading NBA Off the Mark in Hispanic Marketing
—by David Mitchel, Vice President of Marketing at Norton Mitchel Marketing
Branding is an intricate and complicated process. Every aspect of the marketing mix must be handled with care. Brand managers watch their brands in the same manner that most parents care for a newborn child. However, there is an element of marketing communications that brand management teams are unable to directly control: pop culture references about the brands in what appear to be non product placement contexts. These pop culture references can come from both old and new media. They are often found in music, and frequently occur in the hip hop genre. In recent years, brands have been prominent parts of popular YouTube videos. As social media evolves, it has the potential to present new threats for brands. With regard to pop culture references, it is a challenging minefield that brands must negotiate carefully in order to prevent them from detracting from marketing strategy.
In 2003, hip hop artist 50 Cent became a huge sensation with the album “Get Rich or Die Tryin’”. One of the many hit songs from that album was “In Da Club”. Near the beginning of the song, the lyric “we gon’ sip Bacardi like it’s your birthday” appears. This is not the only time that the Bacardi brand has been mentioned in song lyrics, but it is certainly one of the more prominent references. In its advertising over the years, Bacardi has crafted an image of being a fun brand, as their ads often feature a party scene. This may have inspired 50 Cent to write the lyric in the way that he did. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Bacardi featured a “Bacardi By Night” print advertising campaign. These ads clearly targeted individuals with serious jobs and emphasized that Bacardi was a part of their work-life balance. Additionally, Bacardi has also used their long standing and rich history as a selling proposition in advertising. Bacardi’s association with fun and partying may have attracted the hip hop element, as extravagant partying is a common theme of hip hop imagery. However, this association is tenuous at best and does not appear to be widely perceived. Bacardi has strongly withstood unsolicited pop culture references and its well refined marketing communication messages have helped to ensure that they remain the world’s largest spirits brand.Continue Reading Branding in Pop Culture: How Brands Avoid Negative Associations
In December, PepsiCo introduced the United States market to a new, special limited time offer. From December 28-February 22, the Pepsi brand would offer Pepsi Throwback. This version of Pepsi contains real sugar, just as Pepsi products did until the early 1980s. This is the second market trial of Pepsi Throwback, as it had originally been on store shelves in the spring of 2009. As we near the end of this limited time offer, I urge Pepsi to make Pepsi Throwback the standard Pepsi product permanently. Offering a cola product with real sugar and 1970s era nostalgia packaging will benefit the brand. It is a healthier product that will foster goodwill in the marketplace, it evokes positive memories and it gives the brand an advantage over Coca-Cola.
The best decision that Pepsi can make from a product standpoint is to remove high fructose corn syrup. Until the last 2-3 decades, the vast majority of colas were sweetened with sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. Since high fructose corn syrup was introduced, the nutrition value (or lack thereof) has been intensely debated, particularly in recent years. Many attribute high fructose corn syrup to causing higher rates of obesity. It is not smart strategy to use an ingredient that can be perceived as harmful to health. By removing high fructose corn syrup, Pepsi gains a competitive advantage over chief category rival Coca-Cola, assuming that Coca-Cola doesn’t revert back to sugar as well. Even if Coca-Cola does make the move, Pepsi would retain first mover advantage, and would still be more positively perceived. This move of returning a product to the original formula evokes nostalgia feelings. When a brand can be associated with positive, nostalgic feelings, it is usually a beneficial occurrence.Continue Reading Pepsi Throwback: The Renewed Choice of a Generation
The Super Bowl is much more than a football game to determine a champion; it is a cultural phenomenon. One of the most important elements of Super Bowl Sunday isn’t the on the field action; it is the commercials on television during the breaks in the action. For companies that want to advertise during the game, it is quite costly to partake in this action. A 30 second spot during Super Bowl XLIV will cost $2.5-2.8 million. That figure only includes paying the television network for the time. It doesn’t include costs to produce the ad. The final cost for a 30 second Super Bowl ad could easily run $4 million +. With this in mind, there’s one glaring question. Is Super Bowl advertising worth the cost?
The answer to this question isn’t a simple and definitive yes or no. Advertising during the Super Bowl can raise brand awareness. It also can be used simply to remind a target market of the importance of a brand within a product category. Using an ad in this manner would reinforce existing brand beliefs and hopefully induce a desire to purchase. However, a Super Bowl advertisement can affect a company negatively if not executed correctly. The effectiveness of Super Bowl advertising depends on the perspective of the advertiser, a brand’s strategic objectives and other marketing mix elements.
One of the appealing elements of advertising during the Super Bowl is the fact that it consistently draws a significant audience. More than 90 million people in the United States have watched each of the last 4 Super Bowls. Every Super Bowl since Super Bowl XXVII in January 1993 has drawn at least 80 million viewers. This is noteworthy because television audiences have become far more fragmented over time. The proliferation of television networks with cable/satellite TV, video entertainment options such as video games and DVDs and the vast array of Internet content have been the primary causes of audience fragmentation. The Super Bowl has been one of the few television programs that has been relatively unscathed by audience fragmentation. As a result, the network broadcasting the game (CBS this year) can charge premium pricing for advertising.Continue Reading Super Bowl Advertising: A Super Media Buy?
The impact of the Tiger Woods scandal in branding can be viewed from two different perspectives. The first perspective comes from the point of view of the companies that paid Woods to endorse their products. The second perspective is how the personal brand of Tiger Woods will be impacted as the smoke clears from this series of events.
Two professors in University of California-Davis’ Economics Department attempted to measure the impact from the first perspective. They claimed that shareholders in publicly traded companies that Woods endorsed lost $5-12 billion in the weeks that followed the car accident in Florida that set off the scandal. They undoubtedly have an interesting perspective, but there are limiting factors in their research. However, an undisputable fact of the Tiger Woods scandal is that it put a lot of brand management teams in a very delicate situation. Brand managers at firms where Woods served as an endorser had to consider how their brands would be perceived by their target consumers if they were to continue the relationship. It is not an enviable position.
When a brand chooses to link arms with a celebrity endorser, it must consider which celebrities will be effective endorsers. It is essential to select celebrities that will positively contribute to revenue growth and profitability. I believe that a celebrity endorser is most effective when the target consumer perceives them as attractive or desirable in some fashion and the product is related to the expertise of the celebrity. For example, Michael Jordan was an effective endorser of both Nike and Gatorade because of his status as an elite athlete and the fact that both brands are related to athletic performance. Gisele Bundchen is an effective endorser for Dolce & Gabbana fragrances because scent is an important aspect of appearance and she is the embodiment of phenomenal appearance. She would be far less effective as a celebrity endorser for the Toyota Camry. With regards to Tiger Woods, he is most effective in endorsing Nike Golf products and any other golf related brands. His effect is diminished for brands like Gillette and AT&T.Continue Reading The Roar of Tiger Woods in Branding
In November, I wrote about how Gatorade’s 2009 re-branding as G has been a complete failure. G was an ill-conceived approach to slowing sales in 2007 and 2008. It damaged brand equity, confused consumers and didn’t reverse the trend of falling unit sales.
In the final paragraph of my last blog, I noted that PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi said the company is planning a “massive Gatorade transformation” for 2010. I recommended that Gatorade should follow the model of Coca-Cola when they decided to retire New Coke. By doing this, Coca-Cola admitted their mistake and moved on by hitting the reset button on their brand.
Initial details of PepsiCo’s 2010 “massive Gatorade transformation” have been made publicly known here, here and here. Gatorade’s brand strategy for 2010 seems mediocre. Although they are making some positive changes, other moves indicate that they still don’t understand how to successfully market their brand.Continue Reading G Doesn’t Grasp Successful Marketing
Gatorade’s efforts to re-brand as “G” have been a dismal failure. It seems as if the brand management staff at Gatorade consumed a few too many cold beverages while making this decision, and I’m not referring to refrigerated Gatorades.
The history of the G re-brand has its roots in 2007. Unit sales were flat in 2007 compared with 2006, after three years of double digit growth, according to market research firm Information Resources Inc (IRI). More poor results followed in 2008 despite product innovations and brand revitalization efforts (here and here). In January 2009, Gatorade started the G re-brand. The G re-brand has done nothing to improve Gatorade’s bottom line. In fact, it has harmed the bottom line.
The decision to modify a brand name should not be taken lightly. A brand name communicates the essence of the brand to consumers. According to Rick Baer, Professor of Marketing at Thunderbird School of Global Management and former Global Brand Manager with Colgate-Palmolive and Dial Corporation, a brand name “should conjure up all the associations and images you want for your brand”. Does G accomplish that? The answer is a resounding no.Continue Reading What’s G? For Gatorade, G is Gruesome
