This is a tumultuous time period for consumer brands. Large retailers like Walmart and Target are continually squeezing brands’ prices. R&D and manufacturing cycles are getting shorter and shorter, speeding competing products to the market. Supermarkets are pushing private label products over branded ones. Online shoppers can find out just about everything about brands, including the lowest price retailers in the world.

And now Black Friday and the remainder of the Christmas shopping season is getting so competitive that retailers are squeezing out virtually all of their profits to attract customers, who are spending less and less on better and better bargains. Actually, though, retailers are primarily squeezing their suppliers – the packaged goods and other consumer goods companies.

More than ever, manufacturers need to establish their brand positions in the eyes of consumers, and they need to deliver that message in all of the ways that consumers are receptive. People must want and seek out their brands; otherwise, they will get squeezed beyond sustainability. Every marketer today needs to continually ask if they’ve given their brand a reason not to be removed or discounted from retailers’ shelves.

Domus is a full-service marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com for more.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, which means one thing to marketers – the big sales march to Christmas will be fully under way. From now through the end of the year, all of our focus will be on maximizing our market share and pushing product. We need to take advantage of any opportunity this holiday season affords us, especially in this down economy.

Actually, tomorrow is Thanksgiving, which for us at Domus means that we are getting excited about being with our families and being thankful for what we have. So, without further ado, we wish everyone the same Happy Thanksgiving that we will be enjoying.

Sincerely,

All of us here at Domus.

(Barring government intervention) markets are governed by the laws of supply and demand. And in any market there are brands that stake out premium positions and those that stake out low-cost ones. The market of (on-line) news is no different. Most news has been commoditized, partially by the explosion of blog sites, partially by the stampede of traditional news organizations to post their stories online for free (using advertiser-based revenue models), and partly because of news aggregators such as Google News.

But who says news organizations can only survive if they find a way to be profitable by posting their content online for free? In fact, Murdach’s News Corp. has already shown that it can be profitable with its partial pay wall around its Wall Street Journal online site. True, it’s about the only major newspaper that has shown it can be profitable online, but one reason for that is the same reason it has remained profitable off-line – by positioning itself as a premium brand consistently delivering news and opinions that people are willing to pay for.

Now, Rupert Murdoch is considering raising its pay wall around its sites and de-listing them from Google, offering them exclusively to Microsoft’s Bing – for commensurate compensation. It’s a huge gamble, but brands like the Wall Street Journal have consistently proven that they can deliver content that people are willing to pay a premium for. If he does it, sites like the WSJ Online will certainly lose some traffic, but there’s a good chance that the added numbers of paid visitors plus the additional search engine revenue stream will more than make up for the display advertising loss (which is based directly or indirectly on traffic volume).

Moreover, Murdoch will shore up his brands’ premium positions, because they will have removed themselves from the game of giving away their product (news) for free. Murdoch is playing for long term profitability, and he has a good chance of succeeding.

Domus is a full service marketing agency based in Philadelphia. For more information, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

In our last post, we compared the Verizon / AT&T battle over their wireless networks to the recent Manny Pacquio / Migel Cotto fight, with Verizon playing the role of Pacquio (who demolished Cotto). Well, the bell has rung in the next round and a battered Cotto (AT&T), makes a feeble effort at regaining the upper hand.

There’s just no comparison between the two sets of ads. Verizon’s “There’s a Map for That” ads are so simple, so biting, and so memorable – truly classic. But AT&T’s ad (above) just doesn’t have any punch. Great marketing works; poor marketing doesn’t.

Domus is a full-service advertising, PR, and internet marketing agency based in Philadelphia. For more about us, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

If you’re a boxing fan you witnessed last week probably the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world moving up a weight class and taking apart his opponent in a brilliantly fought match. If you’re a marketing fan, you saw one telecommunications company dismantle the reputation of another in a brilliantly aggressive advertising campaign.

Manny Pacquio showed how a skilled practicioner can utlize his better speed, agility, accuracy, power, and timing in a boxing war. Verizon showed how a skilled practicioner can utlize its better speed, agility, accuracy, power, and timing in a marketing war. Manny let Miguel Cotto show what he had to offer in the first round (principally his power), determined Cotto’s weak points, and then picked him apart for the rest of the evening. Verizon let AT&T show what it had to offer these last couple of years (principally the iPhone), and then picked AT&T apart these last couple of weeks with its “There’s A Map For That” ad. (If you haven’t been paying attention to the Verizon/AT&T battle, here’s a synopsis.)

Once Pacquio started his attack, nothing Cotto did worked. Whatever Cotto tried, Pacquio responded better. Pacquio was relentless, knocking Cotto down twice before TKO’ing him in the 12th.

Similarly, AT&T tried sidestepping Verizon’s attack ads. Then they tried to move the fight out of the advertising arena into the court. And they similarly tried to respond with an open letter to their customers. Verizon reponded in court with a brief that opened with:

AT&T did not file this lawsuit because Verizon’s “There’s A Map For That” advertisements are untrue; AT&T sued because Verizon’s ads are true and the truth hurts.

And Verizon continues to respond with their new ad putting the iPhone on the “Island of Misfit Toys”.

So, what has been the result thus far? Daily tracking from YouGov’s BrandIndex shows that Verizon Wireless’ scores have soared while AT&T’s have plummeted. The press and buzz throughout the internet solidly favor Verizon. And sales? We’ll have to see. Is AT&T down for the count or will it get saved by the bell?

Domus is a full-service marketing consulting agency (and boxing fan) based in Philadelphia. We love a good rumble, especially when the marketers take off the heavy gloves. For more about us, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

With last week’s Call Of Duty – Modern Warfare 2 video game shattering all game launch records and this week’s Assassin’s Creed 2 expected to do extremely well also, marketers should be considering the advertising potential that games provide. Although in-game advertising has not yet achieved the growth rates hoped by many, it continues to grow, and new technologies and games continue to appear.

For example, on Xbox Live, Microsoft has started to emphasize advertising around games vs. dynamically inserted content within them. Using the new approach, Microsoft’s video game ad insertion subsidiary, Massive, grew in 2009 while most of the rest of the advertising industry contracted.

Microsoft is also releasing a new game this week called “1 vs. 100″, which is a live, scheduled game show that will be available over the Xbox Live network. Gamers who “tune in” at the scheduled time can all participate and instantly see their statistics compared to the other tens of thousands of viewers/gamers worldwide. Microsoft already has planned 15- and 30-second spots for the game, which is in line with what people would expect of a game show. So, if this game is successful, it might spawn even more advertising opportunities. This might be the beginning of a whole new gaming genre, merging television and video gaming.

Even outside of the in-game advertising arena, there are many potential marketing opportunities for tie-ins with the games, no different than how companies tie their advertising to upcoming theatrical blockbusters. We’re at the beginning of the era of game advertising, but the demographics of the audience are attractive and the possibilities continue to grow.

Domus is a full-service advertising, public relations, and internet marketing agency based in Philadelphia. For more information, please visit our main web site.

Sometimes marketers get too cute and too smart in their ads, camouflaging their intended message behind innuendo, indirection, and allusion, or hiding it behind veils of comedy or artistry. The result is generally an ad that wins awards in the minds of those limited number of people in the know, but misses the mark with the mass audiences of people who were truly the target of the ad. If the intent was to deliver the desired message to a given audience size, the marketer, in essence, paid for many more effective impressions than actually occurred.

As an example, Advertising Age has an article on Caribou Coffee’s new TV ad, taking aim at Starbucks. The ad has marionettes sitting in a mall, acting like fake, snobbish people. When they see someone with a Caribou coffee, one asks, “Why don’t we ever get Caribou Coffee?” and the other responds, “Because we’re not real.” According to the ad’s creator, in addition to emphasizing that Caribou Coffee uses real ingredients, the ad conveys the message that they have a “real genuine vibe – it’s what separates them from their competitors” (i.e., the snobs at Starbucks).

Of the pool of people who think of Starbucks afficionados as snobbish, “unreal” people, how many of them would get the implied dig at Starbucks? And if they really did have something against Starbucks, might not they be more interested in turning towards McDonald’s or Dunkin’ Donuts instead instead of towards another “specialty coffee and espresso retailer” (as Caribou writes about themselves in their Wikipedia entry)? So, the audience who actually gets the intended message is a tiny fraction of the overall viewing audience.

Moreover, with that dig at Starbucks undelivered, what message remains in the head of the viewers – that this gourmet coffee shop uses real ingredients? (Like the other specialty coffee shop doesn’t?) If Caribou truly decided to stake out their brand position as the down-to-earth shop that sells gourmet coffees, they might not have effectively delivered that message.

That’s not to say that the spot is a failure. It might become successful if there are enough messages out there that clearly emphasize their brand position. That would allow the subtlety of this message to be more easily inferred by larger audiences.

Domus is a full-service marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. We define sound brand positions and effectively communicate them using the available mixes of media, technology, and social trends, as appropriate. For more information, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

Ensure that you have a solid brand position, both in product/service and in message, and then attack. That’s the formula for a very effective form of advertising. Pundits regularly say that people don’t like to see attack ads – whether for political campaigns or for commercial brands – but they work. A recent case in point is Verizon’s newest set of ads attacking AT&T. At the same time Verizon was running ads for the new Motorola Droid that attacked the iPhone, but their really effective ads are the “They’ve got a map for that” ones. They went after AT&T at AT&T’s weakest point (their network coverage) vis-à-vis their own. YouGov’s BrandIndex is reporting that Verizon’s score has been rising while AT&T’s brand perception has dropped. In fact, AT&T has been hurt so much they filed a lawsuit against Verizon. They might serve themselves better by speeding up their network upgrade instead.

Domus is a Philadelphia-based marketing communications agency offering a full range of services. For more, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.

Microsoft consistently scores well in its overall internet marketing efforts. It’s regularly has one or two videos in the top-10 viewing lists; it gets wide-ranging online news coverage; and it has large social networking interaction. But a close look at their traditional advertising campaigns shows where they are lacking.

Often, brand management’s marketing intentions are hidden on the internet because there are so many things going on at once and so many of them are outside of the control of them. However, in the offline world, where marketers have total control over their message and its distribution, their strategies and tactics become much more transparent.

And that’s where we see Microsoft’s strengths and weaknesses. Let’s look at three of their current campaigns.

• Bing – I actually like this campaign a lot. It stakes out a brand position for Bing vs. Google – Bing is a “Decision Engine”, not a search engine. And it tries to make the claim that there is too much clutter in results pages with search as we know it, but not so with Bing. Microsoft has a number of hurdles to overcome with their product vs. Google and with Google’s overall presence, but at least they have focused their product design and their marketing effort around a grounded brand position.
• Windows 7 – I don’t know what to say about this. What is their brand position? What is their message? People are PCs? People designed Windows 7 while showering? (And of course, who can forget those memorable Windows 7 launch parties that they promoted?) Contrast their ads to Apple’s. Enough said.
• Xbox – For a company locked in a major battle for supremacy in the gaming console business, Microsoft has been relatively quiet on this front. Their gaming division is finally profitable and they have a great product, especially with their Xbox Live service. I would think that now’s the time to ramp up their efforts. No effort is sometimes worse than bad effort.

Domus is a classically trained marketing agency with an innovative and technological focus. For more information, visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.