Marketing

Most Important Brands for Women: Marketing Works!

by Kathryn Ciano on October 25, 2010

in Economy, Odds & Ends

Today NBC Universal releases the results of their survey tallying the most important brands for women. Wal-Mart, Target, and eBay are women’s favorite brands:

September results for its new monthly brand index rates — in order, after Wal-Mart, Target, and eBay — Verizon, Ford, Coca-Cola, iPhone, AT&T, Honda, Pepsi, iPod, Amazon, Toyota, Sears, Similac, Bank of America, Microsoft, Netflix, Tylenol, McDonald’s, Sprint, Kohl’s, Chevrolet, Samsung, and Comcast.

Perhaps more interesting than which brands women prefer is the advertising methods that best capture women’s attention. Evidently whatever brands satisfy women’s default preferences in the summertime, television reruns doldrums fall to the wayside as soon as prime time reminds us what we really prefer:

Getting a big push from the start of the broadcast TV season, a number of brands showed lift. Dr. Pepper, was one of the biggest gainers moving up, gaining 19 places to 64th-best brand for women from 83. The soft drink had a high-profile mention on Fox’s “Glee,” for example. Sears, a major sponsor CBS’ “Survivor: Nicaragua,” gained 5 spots from 19 to 14. Netflix, with a big overall NBC Universal online video sponsorship, gained 2 spots from 20 to 18.

We’re all just keeping up with the Joneses, yo. Says NBCU Women & Lifestyle Entertainment Networks strategic research insights vice president Tony Cardinale: “Social media campaigns continue to spark a lot of dialogue and move the needle, and television remains a powerful influence. We saw multiple cases where strategic TV exposures corresponded with more brand activity.”

Good for Ford, Verizon, Coca Cola, et al. for boosting sales via product placement rather than tax-funded bailouts!

More Behavorial Advertising Adventures

by Nick Brown on February 24, 2009 · 1 comment

in Regulation, Tech & Telecom

Back in January I wrote about several advertising industry trade associations coming together to impose self-regulation in an attempt to deter federal regulation of behavioral advertising under the Obama administration. I pointed out that the Federal Trade Commission had advised the advertising industry back in December 2007 that it were pushing the envelope on what the FTC considered to be reasonable behavioral advertising. It seems as though the industry may have viewed this as an idle threat under the Bush administration, but got wind that the new administration would be looking at the issue with renewed vigor.

Last week, the FTC released its Staff Report on the issue entitled FTC STAFF REPORT: Self-Regulatory Principles For Online Behavorial Advertising.  The report succinctly defines the issues at hand and examines the stakes of all sides.  Importantly, the FTC has refined its Principles for Behavioral Advertising self-regulation within the document.

These Principles, a summary of the issues and concerns surrounding behavioral advertising, are divided up into four key points:

1) Transparency and Consumer Control

2) Reasonable Security, and Limited Data Retention, for Consumer Data

3) Affirmative Express Consent for Material Changes to Existing Privacy Promises

4) Affirmative Express Consent to (or Prohibition Against) Using Sensitive Data for Behavioral Advertising

In other words, these are the concerns that need to be addressed in self-regulation.  The FTC concludes its report by saying that the Commission staff will monitor efforts of the industry to self-regulate over the next year keeping an open dialogue with all parties involved.

Federally Sanctioned Propaganda Machine

by Gary Howard on December 11, 2008 · 1 comment

in Bailout Watch, Economy, Intellectual Property, Nanny State, Odds & Ends, Privacy, Regulation, Tech & Telecom

 

Apple's 1984 "Big Brother" commercial.

Apple's 1984 "Big Brother" ad

An article over at Ad Age brings up an angle on the whole auto industry bailout probably not considered much before.  The fact that a yet-to-be-appointed “car czar” will have control over a multibillion dollar advertising budget for the big three.  Under the guise of “oversight,” this would effectively “Create World’s Most Powerful Marketing Exec[utive].”  

The draft rescue plan for Detroit sent to the White House by Congress yesterday calls for the appointment of a “car czar” who will oversee the Big Three automakers’ expenses over $25 million — which, by extension, would include media buys. Based on Advertising Age’s estimates of spending by General Motors Corp., Chrysler and Ford Motor Co., that would give the as-yet-unnamed car czar control over some $7.3 billion in marketing spending in the U.S. alone.

The most disturbing thoughts about this (particularly to those concerned with liberty) are provoked here: 

The car czar would wield a budget more than double those of AT&T, Verizon, Unilever and Johnson & Johnson, which round out the nation’s top five marketing spenders, and give the car czar more clout with media and agencies than such famed names in marketing as Walmart Chief Marketing Officer Stephen Quinn and Anheuser-Busch VP-Marketing Dave Peacock.

…If the bailout goes through, agencies that work for the Big Three will essentially be toiling on a government account, with all the associated red tape and strictures that involves.

So there you have it.  We should all be concerned about this for many reasons.  As mentioned, the large ad budget that comes with a czar-controlled U.S. auto industry will allow a government bureaucrat to wield unbalanced and unchecked influence over not only who gets ad contracts, but what media outlets get ad money. The czar can simply refuse to give business to an advertising agency who works for a foreign competitor of the big three (or a “non-compliant” corporation), or refuse to pay money to show ads on outlets that they deem “unfriendly” to the administration or its mission.   This will be an unequivocal disaster.  We have already seen the lengths to which administrations (and pre-administrations) have gone to influence and/or silence media they do not like.  What kind of power plays do you think are possible when the administration’s appointee controls a major source of media outlets’ ad revenue? Whatever it ends up being, it won’t be pretty.