However, with U.S. sales of 3D TVs projected to be in the range of three to four million, this represents merely 10% of overall TV sales.  Not necessarily worth it when you consider the expense to create a 3D commercial – typically 10 – 50% more than a traditional ad.  Cinema networks, which also accept 3D commercials, have a limited number of 3D screens available, only about 8%, according to the National Association of Theatre Owners.

So, with budgets under the microscope, will marketers sacrifice dollars to jump on the next big thing?  It’s hard to tell.  Marketers must constantly be looking for new ways to make products stand out and build brands, but cost always remains the number one issue.  Will seeing a product in 3D actually sell more of them?  Time will tell.

For those advertisers who can use 3D technology to enhance their products, 3D commercials may be an ideal opportunity to get an edge over their competition.  Even just a few years ago, many advertisers were leery of producing ads in HD due to the increased cost and today, the majority of ads are shot in HD.

The true indicator will be how quickly consumers adopt 3D technology for their home.  A 3D commercial playing on a traditional television is essentially worthless. Therefore, advertising agencies will need to closely monitor this trend and advise their clients when, or if, it even makes sense to produce a commercial in 3D. Sure it’s cool, but if only 10% of the population sees it, is it really building any business? The answer is a big, FLAT “no.”

Domus is an innovative marketing communications firm that incorporates state-of-the-art technologies and classic marketing principles into effective marketing campaigns. For more information visit us at Domus, Inc. and Domus Digital.

Similarly, in advertising, the effectiveness of ads is primarily dependent on the content. The more captivating, interesting, memorable, identifiable, and relevant you make your ads, the more effective they will be – whether shown on TV, on the internet, in print, or heard on the radio. Look at any effective advertising campaign today, and the ads will score highly in each of these five adjectives.

Let’s look at each of these individually.

• Captivating – If something about the ad doesn’t jar your attention away from whatever else you were thinking about, and doesn’t hold your attention, then whatever message is conveyed throughout the ad will be lost.
• Interesting – An annoying ad can be captivating, but that doesn’t make it effective. Once captivated, you must also want to keep watching – and also to share and talk about it. This adjective is critical to making an ad go viral. Note that “interesting” can encompass intellectually stimulating, funny, emotional, or other.
• Memorable – For how many ads do you recall part of the jingle or visuals, but can’t remember what brand the ad was for? So ads have to be memorable both for the brand and message being communicated. However, they also have to be memorable in and of themselves. They should pop into people’s heads during the course of the day, during conversations, and especially when shopping.
• Identifiable – This is related to the above, because if the advertised brand is not immediately and clearly identifiable, then the chances of it being memorable are small. In today’s age, though, “identifiable” has more facets than in the past. For example, the brand should still be identifiable if the viewer is fast-forwarding the ad on TV with a DVR.
• Relevant – This is somewhat related to “identifiable”, but is more focused on the message. In addition to being identified with a brand, the ad needs to support and enhance the brand position.

If you are creating ads – display ads, videos, print ads, or whatever – measure your work-in-progress along these five scales. The higher you get on each, the more effective your work will be.

Domus is an exciting marketing agency, combining classic marketing principles with state-of-the-art digital execution to continually deliver effective strategies and campaigns for our clients. For more information, visit us at http://www.domusinc.com or visit our digital and social media site at http://www.domusdigital.com.

When ebooks were first introduced, they were relatively expensive. Both Sony’s and Amazon’s were over $300. Now there is a version of the Barnes and Noble Nook for $149 and a version of the Amazon Kindle for $139. At these price points, they’re starting to make very little on the hardware itself, but hope to make longer term profits on the subsequent ebook sales.

The major implication for the market is that dedicated ebook readers that don’t have an integrated ebook distribution system are not going to fare well. In fact, most of the ebook readers that were announced earlier this year have already folded. The only major player other than B&N or Amazon that is left is Sony and, unfortunately for them, they don’t have a (book) content distribution system that compares with the other two.

Of course, the wild card in the race is the iPad and other up-and-coming non-dedicated ebook readers. And a big wild card it is. Of course, neither Amazon nor B&N are hurt too much by the iPad because both have iPad apps that let their customers read their books on it, but it does damage their exclusivity and force more price competition on the books themselves.

The next twelve months should be interesting.

Domus, Inc. is an integrated digital and traditional marketing communications agency. For more information, please visit us at http://www.domusinc.com.

Compared to the Leaf, which will also be sold in the US by the end of this year, the Volt has a lower capacity battery (40 miles vs. 100 miles) and is more expensive ($41,000 vs. $33,000 – although each qualifies for tax breaks). So, unfortunately for GM, consumers are forced to trade better electric milage and significantly more more money for the peace of mind afforded by the gas engine. It won’t be an easy sell, although it’s possible.

The Volt’s price, though, presents GM with a much bigger sales problem because of Chevy’s brand positioning. Chevy has always been GM’s lower cost, every man’s car (separate from the iconic Corvette). Virtually all of its car models have starting prices of between $10,000 and $20,000. People expect Chevy’s to be less expensive. So the Volt’s price will be its albatross – it doesn’t fit Chevy’s brand positioning. Moreover, people don’t associate the Chevrolet brand with leading edge technology and innovations, which clearly GM is trying to do with the Volt.

GM would have been much better off if they had launched the Volt under the Buick or Cadillac brand. In addition to better lining up the car with the brand’s established position in people’s minds, GM could even have raised the price a little to include a larger electric engine. It would then have a car that beats the competition on all fronts.

The time is coming soon, though, when we’ll see how well GM’s strategy worked. By the end of this year the Volt will be on the market, along with competitors like the Nissan Leaf. As an early indicator, though, consider a few interesting statistics. The Nissan Leaf is significantly ahead of the Chevy Volt in terms of internet search volume (Google Trends) and Facebook fans (Nissan Leaf Facebook page vs. Chevy Volt Facebook page).

Domus is a marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. For more information, visit us at http://www.domusinc.com.

The questions of why the phone failed and even whether the phone failed are even more interesting, though. We’ll never know for sure, but here are some thoughts.

First, assuming the phone did fail (which we’ll come back to later), one possible reason is that Google did not pay enough attention to its four marketing Ps – product, price, promotion, and place (distribution). Let’s assume that the phone itself was good, so that leaves the other Ps.

First let’s look at the distribution channel (place). Cell phones – more than most other products – are inextricably entwined with their service provider, so attempting to bypass the service provider was already a daunting gamble by Google. Even Apple, which garnered enough interest in its phone independent of the network, still chose a service provider with whom to partner.

The cell phone distribution channel is especially important because of the marketing effort that the service providers put into their phones. First, there’s the next P, price. As everyone knows, you can always get phones for less than the retail price when you buy from the wireless carrier (as long as you accept the two-year commitment). So why buy outside of the wireless carrier? We’ve all been conditioned to think that way.

And finally, let’s consider the last P, promotion. Google didn’t just introduce a branded phone. More importantly, it also introduced a phone operating system (Android) that it hoped to induce others to use in their phones. One of those manufacturers who immediately decided to do so was Motorola. They, in conjunction with Verizon (as opposed to Google’s approach of going it alone), launched a huge advertising campaign for the new Droid phone (“Droid Does”) at the same time that Google started selling its Nexus One. With Verizon’s massive marketing push, everyone knew about Droid, everyone got a good price for Droid, and everyone associated the name, “Droid”, with “Android”. Where did that leave Nexus One? Apparently nowhere.

However, all of the above was based on the assumption that Google did fail with the Nexus One. What if, though, the primary purpose of the Nexus One was to generate enough buzz about the Android operating system to propel all Android-based phones (i.e., Google-based phones) to mainstream success? Once the buzz did its work, the Nexus could happily be retired. In that sense, maybe the Nexus One was an outstanding success. Android-based phones are quickly challening the iPhone for smartphone market share. Google never was in the physical product business anyway.

Domus, Inc. is a marketing communications agency specializing in integrating the digital and social media worlds with classic marketing principles to deliver high returns on investment for our clients. For more information, please visit us at http://www.domusinc.com.

So, if you’re not already monitoring these sites and honestly addressing posted concerns, you might want to think hard about your current marketing allocations.

Domus is a full service marketing communications agency that combines classic marketing experience with digital marketing expertise to effectively deliver improved business performance for our customers. For more information, please visit use at http://www.domusinc.com.

Now, “Kinect” is actually a good name for the product, and the device has the potential to be incredibly successful, but that’s not the point of this blog post. Rather, I’d like to muse about the strategy to use one name for the many months leading up to the actual launch, and then change the name just before the launch. Microsoft has always done that with its operating systems. For example, Windows Server 2008 was referred to as “Codename Longhorn” from early 2005 through August, 2007, when Bill Gates announced its official name in anticipation of its February, 2008 release.

Although that might be fine with operating systems, especially those designed for the corporate server market, Project Natal – er, uh, Kinect – is different. It is a consumer product, not a corporate one. And 2010 is not 2005. When Microsoft announced Project Natal in 2009, it released a video showcasing its capabilities. That video has been on the Top 10 viral video charts every month since then. It has received millions of views, and virtually every gamer has heard about it. Moreover, forums and social media sites have been abuzz over it non-stop.

In other words, social media is the name of the game in 2009/2010, for those companies who know how to use it well. Microsoft certainly did use it well this past year, getting the whole gaming world knowing about and discussing their upcoming product. But they didn’t hit a home run because of their naming tactic. Some of that branding value will now disappear because the word “Natal” no longer exists for Microsoft. They absolutely can – and will – spend lots of money to imprint the new name in people’s minds, but a more nimble and cost-conscious company might have come up with the final brand name a year ago. Then they could have gotten their branding done for them without a massive advertising campaign (allowing that money to be used more effectively elsewhere).

Domus is a marketing communications agency specializing in integrating social media, digital, and traditional advertising and PR into effective brand strategies. For more information, please visit us at http://www.domusinc.com.

“We’d ask that whether you’re talking to a dealer, reviewing dealer advertising, or speaking with friends and family, that you communicate our brand as Chevrolet moving forward,” said the memo, which was signed by Alan Batey, vice president for Chevrolet sales and service, and Jim Campbell, the G.M. division’s vice president for marketing.

“When you look at the most recognized brands throughout the world, such as Coke or Apple for instance, one of the things they all focus on is the consistency of their branding,” the memo said. “Why is this consistency so important? The more consistent a brand becomes, the more prominent and recognizable it is with the consumer.”

Every once in a while some piece of news leaks out that just offers so much opportunity for fun. Everyone is talking about how stupid this is. Just as a few examples:

• Do they truly think that Chevy is made or lost as a brand by refusing to use the name that most of the public regularly uses?
• Might the GM executives have considered that the inconsistency of using “Coke” as an example of why they shouldn’t use a brand nickname?
• If they wanted to tell their employees not to use “Chevy”, might they have also considered changing their web sites, TV, and other advertising? All of them still use “Chevy” throughout. (In fact, tonight every TV commercial that I saw referenced “Chevy” exclusively – not a single mention of “Chevrolet”. And the web site presented was chevydealer.com, not chevrolet.com.)

Did Alan Batey and Jim Campbell not think that in today’s internet-based social media world, their ridiculous directive wouldn’t be discussed by everyone around the world? Did they not realize that they would be mocked and that Chevy’s (and GM’s) brand image would be hurt>

Isn’t the internet fun? Too bad not everyone knows yet how to play in it.

Domus is a digital agency and a full service marketing agency that combines expertise in marketing and technology to effectively communicate brand platforms. For more information visit us at http://www.domusinc.com.

Here’s one initial observation. Prior to the spill, BP’s overall reputation was generally neutral – relatively evenly split between people who had positive, neutral, and negative opinions about them. However, since the spill opinions are strongly skewed to the negative.

Also, prior to the explosion, BP had very litle presence on major social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. They did a lot of advertising (“Beyond Petroleum”), but not much engagement with the public, especially the online public.

So, whatever they have tried to do since then cannot be effective because they have no initial base of fans from which to draw help and support. As a counter example, consider what would happen if some disaster involved a company such as Starbucks. Excluding all discussions of the nature of the disaster itself, Starbucks would at least have a couple of million people with whom it has established an online relationship and who could (and would) join the discussions from an initially positive perspective.

So, one lesson to be learned is that engagement in social media is not just for ongoing brand strength; it’s also an insurance policy against unanticipated problems – even on scales much less than BP’s disaster.

Domus is a creative and digital marketing agency based in Philadelphia. We combine expertise in classic marketing, social media trends, technology, and business acumen to provide effective short- and long-term solutions for our customers’ marketing needs. For more information, please visit us at http://www.domusinc.com.

For 25 years (and especially over the last 10) the brand has declined. As such it is a good business decision for Ford to cut its losses and move on. After a certain point, there is not much that can be done to revive a dying brand, no different than a dying person.

That doesn’t mean that there is no room in Ford’s line-up for another brand – Volkswagen does very well with multiple brands – but just no longer Mercury. Mercury’s demise began when it no longer stood for anything special, unless you consider replicating a Ford sister car with fancier trim as something special.

As such, hopefully Ford Motor Company has learned the importance of brand management for its future. Good brand management means that you don’t only declare and communicate the position in the consumers’ minds that you intend to hold, but that you consistently and exclusively deliver products and/or services that meet the consumers’ changing ideas of what that position means. Mercury failed to do so.

Moreover, it’s a recognition that sometimes a brand position can be squeezed into non-existence by other brand positions. Ford, Mercury, and Lincoln represented a “ladder of brands” strategy, giving people smaller stepping stones between levels of prestige. But when foreign auto makers started selling higher quality cars with more standard features at lower price points, Ford had to respond by improving its main Ford brand, which squeezed Mercury from the bottom. Similarly as Lincoln offerred cars at lower price points, it squeezed Mercury from the top. That has left no distinguishing position for Mercury.

Domus is a Philadelphia-based advertising and PR firm as well as a digitial and social media marketing agency. For more information, visit us at http://www.domusinc.com.