Christmas with Tiger, the ultimate PR stunt

According to this article in the Guardian, PR experts question Tiger Wood’s wisdom of hiding away as sponsors ads vanish from TV screens, raising the question that perhaps it is not the smartest move to sit this one out. Tiger is (or was) a very lucrative commodity that is associated with some of the world’s biggest brands like Nike, Gillette and Gatorade. Gatorade decided to revoke their 100 million dollar contract but said it had nothing to do with his personal life.  But he isn’t the first athlete to be caught cheating on his wife so he will probably be back.

But how does a celebrity regain his former status as a valuable brand, you might ask? Well I am glad you did. I have sent an idea to his people and I am waiting for a call from them as we speak. Here is my plan:

Nike, Tigers biggest sponsor, should start a contest called “Christmas with Tiger” where you can win all sorts of Nike golf products, but the grand prize would be to spend Christmas with the golf legend himself! Thousands of families will enter the competition for the once in a lifetime chance! Tiger will go along with it to keep Nike happy and besides his wife left him so he has nothing better to do. The media will tear this campaign apart and calling it a pathetic attempt to buy him some goodwill.

But wait, there is a twist! On Christmas Eve they announce the winner of the competition and guess what? It is his wife Elin that comes forward and says she entered the competition and claiming she can’t spend Christmas without him. This will be the beginning of Nikes new campaign “Nike, family first” or “Nike, bringing families closer together”. The campaign will feature families playing golf together and enjoying each other’s company.

Families will buy golf clubs in bulk to be like the happy family in the commercial. Nike will make millions and the public will forgive and forget all about Tigers’ infidelity.

On second thought, maybe he should just wait this one out.

“WASSUP?” – Top 10 ad campaigns of the noughties

The Brand Republic is publishing various “top 10″ lists where they’ve chosen their favourite ad campaigns of the noughties in various genres.

Their list of top 10 viral campaigns includes the classic Budweiser “WASSUP” ad which found its way into popular culture, popping up in a Friends episode amongst other places (without anyone paying for it presumably). As sushi lovers we also recommend the Wasabi version: “WASSAAAABI“.

Of course, we don’t agree with every item on their list and are perplexed as to why their Top 10 worst celebrity ads would include Alice Cooper throwing TVs from his hotel room. Who doesn’t like Alice Cooper?

Transmit software featured in an Internet Marketing book

A new Icelandic marketing book is has just been published and is called “Internet marketing” (in Icelandic: Markaðssetning á netinu). The authors are Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson who is the head of the Icelandair marketing team in Iceland and Kristján Már Hauksson who founded Nordic eMarketing. The Icelandic internet market is quite interesting; here are some figures that are revealed in the book:

• 93% of Icelanders are connected to the internet.
• Around 80% of those connected to the internet are on Facebook.
• Around 72% of Icelanders less than 54 years old turn to search engines before making a purchase.
• 90% of internet users trust the advice from people connected to the internet that they know.
• 70% trust the advice from strangers and companies on the internet.

Since Transmit has been developing software that monitors and helps its clients increase the efficiency of their online banners, the authors contacted us about our software, Smelltu (e. Click Capital), and the collaboration resulted in a section in the book on how to use Smelltu to maximize return on investment with online advertisements.

I flipped through the book and I must say it is very accessible to the reader and practical as well. It’s an essential addition to the library of marketing enthusiasts.

From a branding point of view, the book will definitely help you increase the visibility of your brand and that alone justifies the purchase. Check out the books website on www.online.is , It is in Icelandic, so I suggest you learn the language … or not.

Branding by association

The software company 37signals got a bit of flack recently regarding how they communicate with security experts about their products.

This brought our attention to one thing they are doing very well. Below is a screenshot of their security page:

The message doesn’t get much clearer: Adidas, Kelllogs and Sun trust us, so can you.

It’s a nice example of “association branding”, i.e. conveying trustworthyness by associating your own brand with brands people are already familiar with.

As soon as Barack Obama starts using Brand Capital, we will certainly make sure that as many as people as possible will find out.

Kaupthing has been rebranded

It‘s official, the Bank formerly known as Kaupthing is reading my blog. A few months ago I wrote that Kaupthing was in need of a new brand. I also wrote about their internal branding. You might say I am obsessed with the bank but in my defence, it is the bank where I conduct all my banking. The bank took “my” advice and changed its name and is now called Arion Bank. The name is controversial; some people like it while others hate it. The new name comes from Greek mythology and it symbolizes persistency, cooperation and comeback.

Finnur Sveinbjörnsson the CEO of Arion Bank, says that it was about time to make these changes:

“New name, policy and value marks the new beginning with the bank, we are in a certain way saying goodbye to the old and are determined to face the challenges that our community is facing with force. Our goal is to create a solid and trustworthy bank that works with and for the people.”

The cost of the rebranding is said to be very little, they will even use the remainder of the old stationary and use the old debit and credit cards labeled Kaupthing.

This is a huge step towards the future of the bank. Whether you like the name or not, it isn’t connected to Iceland and its’ failed banking system. In a few years we might have a functional banking system once again!

New blog for Smelltu (soon to launch in English as Click Capital)

We’ve launched a new blog for one of our products Smelltu (which wil launch as Click Capital once we’ve translated it) at blog.smelltu.is. Like the product, the blog is in Icelandic.

As soon as we’ve gone live with the translated product, we’ll be blogging about it in English as well.

Meanwhile, our Icelandic readers can follow our progress with Smelltu at the new blog.

Morgan Freeman uses Visa

Visa is one of the most well known credit cards in the world. I must admit that their ads always look professional and well thought out. Their newest ad is called “anthem” and it focuses on the winter Olympics in Vancouver 2010 and that more and more people are choosing Visa.

And it’s almost hypnotic when Morgan Freeman narrates;”more people go with Visa”. Yes Mr. Freeman I will get my Visa Immediately!  You can check out the campaign on http://goworld.visa.com/

Bing brand guidelines and Jay Leno

We’ve covered Brand Guidelines before on the Transmit blog so it gives us great pleasure to introduce to you: The brand guidelines for Microsoft’s Bing search engine. The image on the right is from the essential do’s and don’ts part of the guidelines which show various ways of how not to use the logo.

Recently, Jay Leno ran a gag called “Bing photo search”, presumably a placement paid for by Microsoft in order to promote the search engine which still lags far behind Google in market share.

The brand guidelines don’t mention Google or Safari, but Jay Leno’s show featured both fairly prominently in the spoof “search results” from Bing.

As shown above, the browser that displayed the results on Jay’s show was Apple’s Safari and the default search engine selected for said browser was Google – not Bing. You just can’t buy that kind of advertisement.

Billionaire Branding

There are many ways to demonstrate your wealth to others. You might drive a fancy car, live in a big apartment, eat out a lot etc. Some people might envy your lifestyle but some don’t care how you live your life or spend your money.

I was browsing http://billionairexchange.com (not that I can buy anything there), and I came across a very interesting champagne brand – to say the least! The champagne is called (brace yourself) “Le Billionaire Champagne”. Don’t let the promotional video fool you, this is, according to the manufacturer, “the world’s most expensive and luxurious champagne of all times.”

I am not sure if this will get the attention of the key demographic, which according to the name, are billionaires. After the recession hit, my estimate is there are only about 700 left! And I don’t think this champagne will be served in the parties of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet or Ingvar Kamprad. That leaves only 697. Now, I have nothing against finding your niche, but this one seems a bit small.

The regular sized bottle costs $2.500 and it doesn’t exactly have an elegant or refined look. It looks like the carcass of a Muppet character with fake diamonds glued on it. To me “Le Billionaire Champagne” has nothing to do with luxury even though it is priced as such and the name “Le Garbage Blanc” should be more fitting for this product.

Haagen-Dazs’ social media “cause marketing” creates a buzz – literally

Haagen-Dazs has recently been running a campaign called Help the Honey Bees. This kind of marketing is often called “cause marketing” where big brands team up with charitable causes for mutual profit.

This particular campaign, created by San Francisco’s Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, is about saving honey bees (apparently, bee colonies in the US are declining rapidly).

The company’s target for the first phase of the campaign, which ran in August and September, was 1 million impressions. It generated more than 13 million impressions.

The second phase of the campaign will rely heavily on social media. Haagen-Dazs teamed up with ExperienceProject.com and used their TwitCause site to promote the campaign, offering to pay $1 per tweet generated (up to a maximum of $1000 per day).

Whether the social media phase is as successful as generating impressions as the first phase remains to be seen but if a Twitter storm gathers around the honey bee cause, which seems likely judging by the campaign’s initial success, Haagen-Dazs will have created quite a buzz for the bees – and their brand.