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I love this ad!

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Who Cares About Facts?

I do!

Apparently, a lot of people don't.

Earlier today, I wrote about Marketing Magazine's Survey that drew conclusions that inflated the popularity of mobile banking apps.

Seth Godin says it best in his blog:

The facts

A statement of fact is insufficient and often not even necessary to persuade someone of your point of view.

[I was going to end the post just like that, but then I realized that I was merely telling you a fact, one that might not resonate. Here's the riff:

Politicians, non-profits and most of all, amateur marketers believe that all they need to do to win the day is to recite a fact. You're playing Monopoly and you say, "I'll trade you Illinois for Connecticut." The other person refuses, which is absurd. I mean, Illinois costs WAY more than Connecticut. It's a fact. There's no room for discussion here. You are right and they are wrong.

But they still have the property you want, and you lose. Because all you had was a fact.

On the other hand, the story wins the day every time. When the youngest son, losing the game, offers to trade his mom Baltic for Boardwalk, she says yes in a heartbeat. Because it feels right, not because it is right.

Your position on just about everything, including, yes, your salary, your stock options, your credit card debt and your mortgage are almost certainly based on the story you tell yourself, not some universal fact from the universal fact database.

Not just you, everyone.

Work with that.]

 According to our local media in Toronto, disputes over facts are also coloring  [City Councillor] Doug & [Mayor] Rob Ford's controversial waterfront shopping mall, monorail, and ferris wheel plans.

          Spacing Toronto:  It ain't about the monorail or Ferris Wheel
     
As for me, I'll stick with the facts.  As a marketer, have always believed that within the truth lie sufficiently compelling facts to effectively communicate a marketing message.

Mobile Banking Apps -- Do We Care Yet?

Last year, I questioned the appeal of mobile banking apps for smartphones amid all the hoopla that CIBC generated for their app launch, the first mobile banking app from a major Canadian financial institution.

Like many marketers, my work in the last year has taken me to the world of mobile apps.  Much of my work and learning has revolved around how kids, especially preschoolers, use mobile apps, but I do stay on top of trends among grownups too.  Like many people, I become a proud first time owner of an iPhone, though I have not downloaded any banking apps.

This summer, Marketing Magazine blared the headline "CANADIANS RAPIDLY ADOPTING MOBILE BANKING".

A new study from Toronto’s Solutions Research Group(SRG) has found that Canadians are increasingly doing their banking on the go, and suggests that paying by plastic – whether debit or credit card – is destined to become obsolete.

The 2011 “Mobile Money & Banking Report” found that more than a third (38%) of all Canadian smartphone users currently use a banking app, including more than half (54%) of all iPhone users.

According to the report, the number of Canadians using a mobile banking app has shot up from zero just 14 months ago to more than 2.5 million today. The TD Canada Trust app is the most popular with Canadians, followed by CIBC, RBC, Scotiabank and BMO.

I was ready to retract my initial skepticism, but then saw that the study to which Marketing Magazine refers surveyed only 419 people, making me question its statistical validity.

Based on a survey of 419 smartphone users 18+, the study found that 63% of banking app users are “very satisfied” with the mobile banking product and an additional 33% are “somewhat satisfied.”

 Meanwhile, The Financial Post's Jonathan Chevreau reported last week that "while two thirds of us prefer online banking to pay bills...only 8% [of Canadians] use mobile banking."  The Financial Post's Environics survey was based on a more meaningful sample size of 1,000.

I have no doubt that it won't be long before smartphone owners (including me) are using our phones to pay for items at retail, and that credit card and debit card use will decline as a result.  But paying for stuff with your phone isn't the same as "doing your banking" with your smartphone, just as paying for stuff with credit or debit cards isn't the same as "doing your banking" with credit or debit cards.  Maybe it's just a matter of semantics, but when I identify and promote a trend, I like it to be backed up with solid facts.

In Kids' TV, I'm a "Whole Foods Gardener"

Josh Selig's "Planet Preschool" blog in Kidscreen Magazine provides an interesting look at the types of people working in kids' media and provides an entertaining and enlightening quiz to let us figure out how we fit into the picture. He looks at the conflicts between achievement of creative excellence and commercial success through L&M (Licensing & Merchandising).

Using gardening analogies, Josh identifies three types of people: the principled "Community Gardener", the balanced "Whole Foods Gardener", and the "Scorched Earth Gardener", who he describes as an excellent business person who is unburdened by conscience.

While Josh is reluctant to state where he fits into the picture, I'm happy to say that, as I expected, I am a "Whole Foods Gardener." Despite the tensions he highlights, I've found that an approach that recognizes creative excellence and still has the ability to exploit commercial opportunities is plausible and desirable. As a licensor and as a licensee, I've always welcomed the challenge of staying true to the characters and storyline on which I'm working while still figuring out how to make money.

How to Eat Breakfast Cereal

I think it's great to come up with distinct positioning for any product, but sometimes it can be a little out there. Does your breakfast cereal "meal replacement" come with directions for use?

The product is delicious, by the way.

Green Beans vs. Garbanzos

Here's a follow up to a post I wrote last fall about Walmart's private label packaging for their Great Value house brand, suggesting that Walmart ought to give a little more thought to how they approach packaging for their Great Value brand before someone makes their morning pancakes with furniture polish. This photo exemplified the issue.

It turns out that Walmart agrees, as newmarketbuilders' Carol Spieckerman writes:

Walmart’s new quest for color isn’t just about store shelf navigation—they’re now thinking about how products look in shoppers’ pantry shelves. It stands to reason that if you’re buying more Great Value than ever, telling your green beans from your garbanzos would become problematic as the sea of white stacked up on your shelves!

Loblaws Marketing - Smart or Sleazy?

Loblaws' new approach to promoting their baked good as being made with grains is either brilliant or ridiculous, depending on your point of view. We all know that all baked goods are made with grains. Careful choice of words in their flyer copy has Loblaws' new "Go with the Grains" slogan supported by the claim that their products contain "wholesome grains," potentially confusing consumers with truly beneficial whole grains.

For many years I've been an admirer or Loblaws' approach to marketing, particularly with their no name and Presidents Choice house brands. Now, however, I'm a little suspicious of their claims, and their credibility is diminished in my eyes.

What do you think?

Tasty Furniture? Lemon Scented Breakfast?

I'm all for developing line looks for packaging that are "on brand", but sometimes striving for consistency to achieve the same look in branded packaging isn't a good idea. I think Walmart ought to give a little more thought to how they approach packaging for their Great Value brand before someone makes their morning pancakes with furniture polish.

Franklin, Barbie, and Calliou - LIVE!

Live entertainment for kids' brands is often a key component of a solid marketing strategy. For leading brands, live shows in theaters and malls are a great source of revenue. For other brands, live shows can heighten awareness and appeal among kids and their parents.

By coincidence, I have worked closely on all the brands featured in ad in this weekend's Toronto Star for Toronto's Sony Centre for the Performing Arts. I started my career in the toy industry working on Barbie branded products. Franklin the Turtle was every kids' best friend when I worked at Nelvana for four years, and it was like he became my friend too. It appears that the Franklin live show is similar (identical?) to the "Franklin and the Green Knight" program that I worked on at Nelvana. Finally, I got to know Caillou as master toy licensee when I was Marketing Director at Irwin Toy.

It's nice to see how these classic brands continue to entertain kids and gratifying to know that I played a part.

Sesame Street's Grover as "The Old Spice Guy"

As someone who works in marketing and entertainment, I've also thought that one of the greatest honors is to be parodied on Sesame Street. An even bigger achievement is to have Sesame Street parodying a parody, which is exactly what they've done with Grover's take on the Old Spice Guy:

Marketing Monday: Regulation or Responsible Parenting?

The US government is to be commended for trying to improve the lives of its citizens, but with all the things they could do to make the country a better place, it hardly seems that regulating advertising on sugary cereals ought to be a high priority.

This weekend, the New York Times reported that the US government is stalled in its push to limit food ads aimed at children.

Government regulation shouldn't be the way to promote responsible choices by parents and kids.

Marketing Monday: Fair Skin & Facebook

Unfamiliar with cultural norms among men in India, I'm holding back judgment on the value of Unilever's "Vaseline for Men" skin whitening products. I will, however, applaud Unilever's clever marketing campaign, which includes this TV commercial (it's in Hindi -- I don't understand the words).

There's even a Facebook app that takes your current profile picture on Facebook and automatically lightens the skin color of the face in the picture.

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Marketing Monday: Microsoft Recreates Online Scam

Just came across this very clever video from Microsoft, where they show how easily some people can share their personal information online, created a fake bank in the Manhattan area that worked just like any other online phishing scam.

Unsuspecting customers handed over their credit card numbers, SSNs, ATM Pin numbers and even their hair samples for DNA tests to the “fake” bank authorities.

Microsoft followed up with with another scam, an “inheritance store” that works like those Nigerian email promising millions of dollars in inheritance.

Their points about online security are compelling, and they try to tie it all to Internet Explorer 8. While Microsoft's story is strong and entertaining, the connection to IE8 eludes me. Still, it's fun to watch.

Marketing Monday: Oil Spills, Google, and You

The Consumerist reports that BP isn't too fond of people using search engines to check up on its Gulf of Mexico misadventures. The company has bought up some Google and Yahoo phrases in order to scuttle efforts to find news reports using such words.

Here's what they learned from a detailed piece from ABC News:

A simple Google search of "oil spill" turns up several thousand news results, but the first link, highlighted at the very top of the page, is from BP. "Learn more about how BP is helping," the link's tagline reads.

A spokesman for the company confirmed to ABC News that it had, in fact, bought these search terms to make information on the spill more accessible to the public.

I suppose I might have done the same thing if I was in BP's situation. On the other hand, I can't imagine that I'd ever be involved in anything like BP's situation. I'm proud of the ethical approach to safety that has been part of my work in product marketing from the very beginning.

Marketing Monday: Print ad simplicity, Print ad confusion

This week, I'm calling out two print ads, one for its simplicity and one for the confusion (deceit?) that it conveys.

First, the good:

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This ad from Modern Dog Magazine speaks for itself, does a great job of communicating features and benefits, and throws in a little humor too.


Now, the bad:

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This ad is typically of the types of information provided by many Canadian retailers. Even though the metric system has been in place in Canada since the 1970s, this retailer uses three different systems of measurement for the same class of products. Don't know if they're deliberately making it confusing or if they're just lazy. Is it just me, or is it difficult to compare the value you get with each of these products?

Marketing Monday: The Process

Came across this very funny video about the process of designing a stop sign that will mean a lot to ad agencies and designers. Not sure who created it, but it's clearly done by someone here in Toronto. Enjoy!

Marketing Monday: Clever or Greedy?

Just renewed a one year magazine subscription, and received this notice from the publisher:


What is Canadian House & Home trying to achieve here? Why would anyone renew an annual subscription 11 months in advance in order to save $2.00 in tax? Will their direct mail piece generate sufficient response to encourage many early renewals?

Love the magazine, but my take is that it's a greedy move rather than a clever one. I would never bother my clients with an aggressive pitch that yields minimal benefit to the customer, and would counsel them to focus on benefits that are truly meaningful to the consumer that will genuinely enhance their relationship with a brand or product.

Marketing Monday: Compelling Commercial

Entertaining. Eye opening. Effective.

Enjoy!

Marketing Monday: Banking by iPhone - Who Cares?

Most of the time when I see a TV commercial I can figure out the advertiser's objectives and strategy, but with CIBC's new commercials touting their iPhone app, I'm at a loss.

While Marketing 101 tells us that we should have a USP (unique selling proposition), CIBC's "the only Canadian bank to offer a mobile banking app for iPhone" may be unique, but I'm not sure that it's compelling.Who really wants to do their banking by mobile phone? Not me!

• It's difficult to find reliable statistics about iPhone penetration in Canada, but I'd be surprised if there are as many as 1 million users. Extrapolating from info provided by Rogers, the country's largest mobile provider, suggests that there may be even fewer.
• If someone doesn't have (or plan to have) an iPhone, would they think more favourably about CIBC because they are alone in offering mobile banking by iPhone?
• Why spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on prime-time TV advertising for a service that's likely to have such limited appeal?

This is one marketing program that presents me with more questions than answers, but maybe CIBC knows something that I don't.

Marketing Monday: Closing Ceremonies

As the Vancouver Olympics come to an end, it's likely that some of the great Olympics and Olympics-inspired advertising that's been running in Canada for the last few weeks will come to an end too. I recently wrote about official Vancouver Olympics merchandise and unauthorized "Olympics-inspired" merchandise. Some marketers have been active as official Olympic sponsors, while others have given us "winter sports competition inspired" advertising.

As someone who has done a lot of work on commercials for kids' products, I was very impressed with Wonder Bread's commercial and their accompanying website. They did a great job of making meaningful tie-ins with the Olympics and their product.

Wonder Bread commercial

Among the most patriotic Canadian commercials I've ever seen were some from a huge American multinational. Coca-Cola's commercials captured Olympic values and associated them with their brand.

Coca-Cola commercial

Air Canada's "Go Far" campaign has lots of Canadian spirit, and they've developed a campaign that has legs that will go beyond the Olympics.

Air Canada commercial

Of course, there are dozens of Olympic interlopers who don't have official sponsorship rights but have been capitalizing on the Olympics anyway. Interestingly, the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario), a government agency, is even doing it with in-store POP material and on their website:

LCBO website

Sad to see the Olympics end, but happy that the competition, entertainment, and even the marketing programs were around to show the great stuff that is Canada.