Zazou Marketing

Perhaps for the first time, Air New Zealand has managed to created safety videos that people will actually watch.

With a big dose of humor and light-hearted fun, the video speaks to the company’s lack of hidden fees. How? The safety video stars real-life company employees who are clad only in paint. Yes, that’s right: Paint.

While your head turns because of the elaborately painted-on uniforms, it’s the copy that is the punch line. At the beginning of the safety video, the paint-clad flight attendants introduce the video with the following copy:

Flight attendant 1: “Before we lift off, we’d like to give you what we call the bare essentials of safety aboard this flight.”

Flight attendant 2: “Even if you fly with us quite a lot, we’d appreciate it if you take… a second look.”

You won’t be surprised that seat belts, life vests and baggage conceal body parts, as needed.

Perhaps just as compelling as the curiosity factor, though, is that the crew seems to genuinely be having fun — almost laughing — as they impart their safety wisdom. And the music (“Under My Skin,” by New Zealand singer Gin Wigmore ) is upbeat and cheerful. The total effect is that you really do want to watch.

Along with this new in-flight video is a similar ad campaign that has been running for about a month. The advertising campaign’s slogan is, “At Air New Zealand, our fares have nothing to hide. Which is why the price you pay includes everything — up front.”

In this ad, paint-clad staffers help with bags and paint-clad flight attendants offer drinks. Again, the tone is playful and the copy is the punch line. Case in point: The ad closes with two women sitting in the airport, watching as two pilots in their painted-on suits walk through the airport. One of the women says, “Do you love a man in uniform!”

This marketing campaign is successful on many accounts. First of all, the video and advertisement are entertaining (and you won’t be surprised that they have gotten a good viewing on YouTube). But they also effectively deliver a message about the brand. But, for me, perhaps one of the best parts of the marketing campaign is that in this day and age of security lines and cramped legroom, it makes traveling look fun again.

A couple of weeks ago I was driving on the freeway and a billboard caught my eye. There was an elephant walking out of a tar pit. The advertising copy read, “Elephant Odyssey. After 12,000 years, they’re finally back. San Diego Zoo.”

My immediate thought? “I need to go see that.”

And guess where I found myself this morning? Yes, at the zoo. In fact, when I arrived, I bypassed the flamingos, the panda from China and the aviary — my usual favorite. Instead I made a beeline for the Elephant Odyssey.

This is one of the few times that I can directly connect an advertisement to my behavior. And here’s how it worked: The ad design caught my attention; the advertising copy got me intrigued; and the total effect then got me to act on that interest. Bravo to this ad campaign!

Yesterday I wrote about how Dunkin’ Donuts’ new ad campaign successfully differentiates the company from their competition. Today I am writing about a company’s ad campaign that fails to do just that. In fact, this ad campaign simply makes me wonder what they were thinking.

In this ad campaign, Microsoft accuses Google of causing global economic ruin as a narrator says: “While everyone was searching, there was bailing. . . . While everyone was lost in the links, there was collapsing.” The product? Microsoft’s new  search engine, Bing. All I can say to this is, “What?!”

I am not alone in this confusion. The LA Times ran a story about it today, titled “Microsoft’s Bing TV ad: Huh?”

This is my favorite part of the article:

I find many mysteries in this commercial. The first is how an ad firm with an estimated $100 million entrusted to it fails to notice the clumsy grammar (”there was bailing . . . there was collapsing” sounds as if the lines were translated from Zulu). While I’ve got my copy-editing hat on, I’d note that a long stretch of the ad’s narration — “Starting today we need the right information to make the right decisions, decisions that help us feel right, decisions that help us get to the right place at the right time, even if it’s right around the corner. . . . ” — is so vacuous it practically sucked my eyeballs out of their sockets.

Sucking eyeballs out of sockets is probably the last association that Microsoft wanted when they launched this marketing campaign. But I still do wonder what it is that they did want. Maybe the purspose of the campaign is just to turn heads? I suppose simply by getting attention some people will try the search engine. But I can’t help but think that if they gave people a good reason to switch from Google to Bing, many, many more people would give it a try — this is, after all, what any good marketing material should do.

Dunkin’ Donuts is rolling out an entertaining and fun new ad campaign. But that’s not what made it noteworthy enough for me to write about here. The reason that I’m mentioning it is because — as all marketing campaigns should — this campaign effectively differentiates the company from their competition.

Dunkin’ Donuts’ “Breakfast NOT Brokefest” advertising campaign introduces the company’s new 99-cent breakfast wrap, which is also in line with their current coffee pricing.

Dunkin' Donuts is rolling out a new "Breakfast NOT Brokefest" ad campaign.

The marketing campaign includes displays of legs that stick out of public fountains, which make it look like someone jumped into the fountain to gather coins. A sign next to the legs read: “Please do not remove change for 99-cent items at Dunkin’ Donuts.”

In a separate TV ad, a man tightens his belt, which prompts a colleague to point out that that won’t save him money.

The price-oriented advertising campaign sets the brand apart from the pricier McDonald’s and Starbucks (who are both trying to tackle the coffee and breakfast market right now).  Considering that people are feeling the need to scale back and let go of luxuries like a $4 latte, the Dunkin’ Donuts campaign may entice more than a few new customers.

By the way, if you want to read more about what Starbucks has been up to recently, read my past posts:

Starbucks vs. Stella: Two beverage companies warn against paying less

Copy Chatter: Starbucks Bucks the Short Copy Trend

If you’re launching an ad campaign, you certainly want a return on your investment. So it’s nice to know that research shows how to make your ad campaign increase sales or profit.

Here are the results of a study done by The Journal of Advertising Research, as published in Ad Age today, which found that the following strategies are most likely to increase sales or profit:

* Focus on hard objectives, such as specific market-share gains, rather than soft ones, such as brand awareness
* Focus on price, not volume
* Focus on penetration (winning new consumers) rather than loyalty
* Influence consumers emotionally rather than rationally
* Create ads with “talk value”
* Have a high share of voice relative to brand market share
* Include TV in the mix
* Include a small number of media channels with a concerted message

Source: Les Binet & Peter Field, June issue, Journal of Advertising Research.

While some of these elements are part of an overall marketing strategy, many of them are very much intertwined with your copy. So remember, for instance, to consider keeping your focus on specific objectives that win new consumers.

Of course, each advertising campaign is different and some “rules” are meant to be broken, but the above list is certainly a good guideline when mapping out your ad campaign — or, for that matter, any marketing materials or marketing campaign.

Just in case anyone at Chase is reading this…. I think that you need to rethink one of your ad campaigns.

Here’s why: One of the first things I tell my clients is to drop the “We’ve been in business for xx years” from the first line of your marketing materials. Why? Two reasons:

• If you are thinking about buying a service or product what do you care about first: Do you care about what the service or product can do for you, or do you care that they have been around for 10 or 20 years? I guarantee you only care about the latter after you know what they can do for you.

• The longevity of your business may or may not be relevant. Need an example? Bear Stearns was founded in 1923; Lehman Brothers was founded in 1850; Washington Mutual was incorporated in 1889**. Need I remind anyone what happened to each of these banks in the last year? Clearly experience doesn’t guarantee success. (And, yes, I’m writing about banks and their marketing campaigns again.)

What does this all have to do with Chase? I was driving down the freeway and saw a billboard that read “Chase. New to California, but not to banking.” (or something close to that — I was driving so not only could I not get a photo, but I also couldn’t write it down.)

If I had seen this advertisement a year ago maybe I would have thought, “Well maybe my rule can be broken in some instances.” But now? I think it just makes my point even clearer. After all, what does the length they have been in business promise or guarantee — especially now that we know huge banks with a long history can go belly up?

So, I’ve said this before and even before that and will say it again: If you are creating marketing materials for your business, I remind you to wait until you’ve made people care before you tell people how long you have been in business.

**These dates are all according to Wikipedia, which is not always accurate. But for the purposes of this blog, the point is that these companies were all around for a loooooong time.