Brand New Day

P&G and Gillette. What Mergers Were Invented For.

P&G buying Gillette. This is one of those deals that makes so much sense , it's scary.

We have a piece in this week's about P&G's strategy to gadget up its profits with products like Swiffer, Febreze Scentstories and Mr. Clean AutoDry. In the story we describe the strategy as following Gillette's razor and blade strategy: sell the consumer a great appliance or gadget and keep them buying the refills. Gillette is in the story too for finally integrating efforts of its Gillette, Oral-B, Braun and Duracell units to produce more and high-margin gadgets like the M3Power razor and Hummingbird flosser.

Now, the two companies will combine efforts and resources on all these fronts, and the strength it will have is hard to miss. This seems like a case of 1+1=5.

It is, of course, in stark contrast to the possible May Department Stores acquisition by Federated Dept. Stores. Yikes. When was the last time either of these companies innovated anything. ANYTHING? Looks more like a case of 1+1= (5) if that deal ever gets done.

IPG vice chairman David Bell told me today that "Mergers created because you have weak entities that you think might be stronger combined are almost never a good idea. Mergers created because you see great growth opportunities are the deals you want to make."

How true.

Advertising. Obesity. Prince Harry. Nazis. And My Kashi Is Getting Soggy.

As reported in The Wall Street Journal: "Ken Powell, an executive vice president at General Mills, said a link between advertising to kids and obesity was "unlikely." He cited statistics showing that rates of obesity vary widely across the country even though marketing to kids blankets the airwaves fairly evenly. "We strongly feel that both the overall trends in advertising and the geographic variance of the incidence of obesity argue against any suggestion that there is a link between advertising and obesity," Mr. Powell said.

He may as well argue that advertising doesn't work at all. Does he want to say that? Then his company is wasting a lot of money. The fact is you can smush such statistics and bend them any way you want to show anything you want.

Food companies are falling all over themselves trying to deflect the obesity problem, especially the childhood obesity problem, away from their shoulders. I can sympathize. To do otherwise would invite an avalanche of hungry lawyers. But General Mills, Kraft, Kellogg and other big food companies have a big responsibility. And it's not to children. They must show quarterly profitability and revenue growth, and must achieve share price appreciation. That is best done these days by selling the most cheaply made, bad-for-you foodstuffs at the greatest profit. Let's not forget that that is what they are in business for. To make money. Not that there's anything wrong with that. After all, magazines are not in business to answer a higher calling of informing the public. Magazines are in business to make money too.

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The Super Bowl Ad Fest is Nearly Upon Us

I think this year's Super Bowl will be known more for the game than the ads. The Eagles and Patriots should be a great game. Then again, I thought the Giants-Ravens 2001 game, one I attended, would be a barn-burner. Not only was I wrong about the game. Not only did the Giants lose big. But while I was in my seat, I learned by cellphone call that my Father had died. It was a bad day all the way around. I hope the ads are great too, but my expectations are a bit watered down.

The last few Super Bowls have been lousey for the ads, though I'm sure I'll get people saying otherwise.
The decision by Anheuser-Bush to not run a spoof of last year's Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction shows wisdom, but it worries me. I'm shocked at the lameness of the idea in the first place. It's not a positive signpost for creativity this year.

The only reason to buy time on the big game is if you have an ad worth showcasing. This is, or at least it should be, the "Fight Club" of Madison Avenue. Leave the lame ads at home. Don't just run an ad, for Pete's sake, just because of the huge number of eyeballs watching and you have a new product to push. This is when you should be flaunting your best idea. Your coolest hat, if you will. This is a day that makes me think of when I was a kid. When we played a big game, I bought some new rolls of tape, and some new piece of padding for my uniform. I tried to find something new to pump up my spirit a little higher. A new pre-game song, maybe. I wore a new tie to school the day of the game. I hope you ad boys and girls have the same attitude. Because, I'll be watching. And I plan to be a harsh grader. By the way, the creative director who produces what I think is the best ad in the game will get from me a shiny new.....................stay tuned.

Usually, the simple ideas are the cleverest

Starbucks. Love em. Hate em. Love em for the easy availability of espresso and the ubiquity of the stores. Hate em for all that ubiquity. However we feel about the $3.00 cup of coffee, I love the company's latest ad ploy. It's a Starbucks cup fixed to the top of a cab roof, making it look like the cabbie or the passenger has left his cuppa Joe on top of the roof. People slowed down to point at the cup and tell the cabbie, etc. It was clever enough to get picked up in the media, which is a good sign for any idea.

This ranks up with some favorites of mine, like when Snapple had a fruit distributor fix Snapple stickers to all the Mangos it sent out to grocery stores to herald the launch of Mango flavored Snapple. Snapple, too, had convinced farm stands far and wide to add a Snapple to the typical sign at such places that listed "Fresh Corn, Peas, Watermelon."

The Starbucks ploy, hatched by Clear Channel Taxi Media, is a far from cry from some advertisers' annoying attempts to cut through the clutter. My least favorite gambit is around the corner--the car dealers who send out offers in brown envelopes in May that look a heckuva lot like Federal Income Tax returns. Man...I hate that one. And I idiotically get sucked in every year. I also disdain the fake money left on the street with the ad on the back of what we think is a $5 bill.

But I'll lift a cup to the originality of the Starbucks on the cab roof idea. Good going.

One Man's Idea of Misinformation is Actually His Own Intellectual Laziness.

According to Advertising Age executive editor Jonah Bloom, weighing in today with his two cents on the media's coverage of the obesity epidemic, "...concerns over the validity of the data ought, at least, to temper the media, much of which has taken an uncritical, sensationalist approach to this epidemic." He further says, "Reports have tended to eschew the complexities of this argument -- such as the woes of a society in which people take no personal responsibility -- and instead blame food companies. This despite the fact we don't know why people might have become fatter."

I love it when people who have considered the obesity problem in the U.S. and globally for about five minutes, and have a public platform, decide to write the "If people would only eat less and exercise more, we wouldn't have this problem" perspective.

Bloom's commentary cites a few scientists saying there are some faulty statistics, and criticizes the government standards for defining obesity. But nowhere in Bloom's column does he mention the heart of the problem--children. As I have written, kids are being conditioned from birth in the U.S. to demand unhealthy, non-nutritional food. Food companies use the very cartoon characters kids are most attracted to to sell the junk. Without the power of their own pocketbook, they react to stimulus embedded in TV, videos, DVDs and the like by turning their juiced up desires into demands, often accompanied by tantrums and resentment. More than ever, the parent-child relationship is defined by parents just trying to counterweight the influence of Mr. Bloom's constituency--advertisers and advertising agencies pushing unhealthy food. Next time you have two-cents to spare, buy a piece of Bazooka, or trot this over-simplified, intellectually lazy crud out on Sean Hannity's TV show.

SpongeBob's Bad Day

SpongeBob SquarePants is having a bad day. Make that a bad week. It's all in the difficult life of a wealthy cartoon character.
The New York Times last week ran a good piece on SpongeBob, reporting how the Center for Science in the Public Interest rounded up all the unhealthy food products aimed at kids donning the SpongeBob logo: Oscar Meyer Lunchables, Pop Tarts, Kraft Macaroni-and-cheese, Cheese-Its and fast food meals. Nickelodeon this week said that it would like to see SpongeBob used on healthier products, but that those pesky advertisers who license the character find it a better gambit to put the cartoon on candy, cookies and pop rather than melon slices and brussels sprouts. Go figure.

This week, Reuters reported on how SpongeBob is now under fire from the American Family Association and Focus on the Family. These are two nutball organizations that pretend to be looking out for families when instead they merely use e-mail, direct mail and the soap-box too frequently given to them by the Fox Network to bully advertisers into restricting freedom of choice among consumers. The last time AFA surfaced was to protest advertisers that had purchased time during Desperate Housewives.

Focus on the Family is after SpongeBob, alleging that a video aimed at school children featuring the character promoting multi-cultural tolerance and diversity is a covert plot to "brainwash" kids into accepting homosexuality as an acceptable alternative lifestyle. This group and the AFA complain that they don't want such a video distributed in public schools. AFA and FOF further argue that SpongeBob is an icon in the gay community, and thus is being used to drive a gay agenda into the classroom.

Where do I start? First of all, the two groups are well-known paranoid gay bashers. They aren't focused on the family at all. They are focused on trying to force their own right-wing ideology on people who don't agree with them. Secondly, their alleged detection of a gay tolerance message is right up there with alleged messages on the Beatles White Album if you play the record backwards. SpongeBob is gay? The evidence of this is supposed to derive from the fact that Bob is sometimes seen holding hands with another male cartoon character. My three-year old son frequently reaches out to hold hands, hug or even kiss his playmates on the cheek, both male and female. I think it's sweet, as do the other parents I know. I have begun to talk to him about the need sometimes to ask before you hug or peck a child you don't know. But perhaps the "ministers" at AFA and Focus on the Family are uncomfortable with such a subtle approach, preferring that I cane my son.

What strikes me as so idiotic about AFA and FOF's paranoid ravings about SpongeBob as a possible conduit for pro-gay messaging to kids is their timing. I find it hilarious. The childhood obesity problem in the U.S. is becoming epidemic. Kraft and other food companies who already license SpongeBob to push an array of food unhealthy for kids, as well as adults, are about to use SpongeBob as a conduit for nutritional and fitness related "Nicktritional" labeling on their foods aimed at kids. This is a joint promotion with Nickelodeon. Got that? While SpongeBob is selling macaroni and fake cheese on one box, he's going to be advocating healthier eating and exercise on another box of food.

My problem with SpongeBob is not that he may, in the twisted minds of the AFA and FOF "leadership," be gay. I have utterly no problem with that. In fact, as a new board member of a public library, I hope to make sure that we have ample books that positively depict gay people in books for all ages. My real problem with Spongey is that he's a hypocrite. He's sending totally mixed messages about good healthy eating to kids who are being diagnosed with obesity and Type 2 Diabetes at an alarming rate. Funny that Focus on the Family and the AFA didn't pick up on SpongeBob as hyprocrite. I wonder why. Hmmmm.

Scion's Success Surprises Me...A Little

When Toyota announced plans to launch a "youth" brand, called Scion, with two small budget-priced products, I had the temerity to tell Toyota COO Jim Press that it was a bad idea. Jim makes a lot more money than I do, and there is logic in that. This is what I'm thinking.

Toyota launched the brand because young people were not flocking to Toyota as baby boomers had. Children of Camry buying parents would rather walk than buy a new Camry or Corolla (though I am guessing they would take Mom and Dad's used Camry for free). Scion, I thought, would be a ham-fisted way of trying to look cool to Gen Xers and Gen Y. It wouldn't work, I guessed.
Last year, Toyota sold almost 100,000 Scions and sold almost 11,000 in December. That puts the brand on track to sell 130,000 or more this year. That's called a success.

But here is one thing I want to point out for you kids at home. Yes, the boxy Scion Xb, is a big success, and looks cool. Heck, I even want one. The Xa has its good points, too. Jim Farley, Scion's marketing chief, told me back before the launch that the Scion name had tested very well with the target audience. The vehicles, too, had tested very well. But when I asked if the vehicles had been focus grouped with Toyota badging on them instead of Scion, he told me Toyota hadn't done such a test. Then how did you know you needed a new brand? Maybe the products would sell just as well under the Toyota brand. He said they hadn't done it because the decision had already been made to launch another brand.

Despite Scion's success, I still think it represents a great example of how the wrong questions frequently get asked by marketers. Perhaps if Toyota had tested the way I suggested, it could have saved itself a bunch of money on launching a new brand, and the new Xb and Xa would be casting a bit of "hip-dust" on the rest of the Toyota brand.

All Politics is Marketing

There is an old saw that says "All Politics is Retail." I'm not saying that isn't true. But I think it can be said nowadays that all politics is also marketing. Or, as Yogi Berra says, "90% of winning in baseball is pitching, and the other half is defense."

I'm seeing candidates, God help us all, start to position for the 2008 Presidential run. These are the early brand positionings:

Senator Joe Biden: "I'm passionate, smart, experienced. I have the gravitas of a Dick Cheney, but the sensitivity of Bill Clinton."

Senator Bill Frist: "I'm a caring conservative physician. I'm pro-life, anti-war (unless the President thinks otherwise). I'm just what the doctor ordered."

Newt Gingrich: As amazing as this sounds, Gingrich is serious comer. Watch him on TV and it's clear he is positioning himself as the only logical torch carrier of George W. Bush's brand of conservativism. He's almost lockstep with W on the war, Social Security and Medicare. He puts forth meaningless platitudes about re-making healthcare like a pro. And he sees a personality void in the GOP when W retires that he naturally thinks only he can fill. He may actually be right. So what if he married his high school Math teacher.

Jeb Bush: The evangelicals don't like him as much as they do Frist and Gingrich. And he hasn't the same stomach for pandering to religious radicals as his brother. With McCain and Frist in the fray, it becomes hard for Jeb to distinguish his own brand, which is different from his brother's. Jeb is waiting for the party to come to him. He's the reluctant Bush.

John McCain: The great conciliator. The Democrats' favorite Republican. Only if Iraq is still raging will the GOP draft McCain who has no appeal with the Christian Right. And McCain lost many Democratic backers by propping up Bish instead of sitting quietly on the sidelines.

Rudolph Giuliani: "I'm the new John McCain. I will make a handsome living from everyone believing I will run for President, even though I never will.

John Kerry: Next time its Viet Who? Viet What? Kerry will try again to define himself, and he will fail.

Al Gore: You didn't think I would run again, but I feel the country needs me.

Hillary Clinton: I do not choose to run.

Better Living Through M&Ms?

The decision by Kraft Foods this week to limit the marketing of junk food to children via TV is sure to ignite many food marketers to follow the lead. But it all reminds me of an old joke. What do you call 100 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean floor? A good start.

Big food companies for years have been doing anything they can to target kids at the earliest stages of life with food that wise parents find unhealthy. I recall my next-door neighbor's nephew--and this is 30 years ago--being hooked on diet soda at the age of four. My own son, three years old in a few weeks, gets to watch a little TV, but only PBSKids and Noggin. He is disturbingly conversant about McDonald's, despite the fact that he has never been in one except to get his diaper changed. This week he said to me, "Daddy...M&M's are for better living." I inquired where he had heard it, but he couldn't say. But the message was implanted.

I wish I could say I was one of those parents who pulled the TV out of the house and that my kid doesn't watch any. But we don't have that kind of house. Since my son is surely genetically pre-disposed to obesity (it runs in both my family and wife's), instilling good eating habits and exercise habits is crucial.

Children's reactions to ads are very different from those of adults. If an adult sees a product advertised and doesn't see it at the store, they are apt to forget about it. Since children do not have their own spending power until they are at least teenagers (in my house anyway) children intuit the purpose of ads, react to the stimulus and start making demands. "I want to go to Applebees!!!!!!...NOW!!!!"

This is why the more regulations and knuckle slapping over this issue the better. The obesity epidemic among adults is bad enough. It's worse among kids. And the Type 2 Diabetes that is rampant among children (I am a former sufferer before I lost a great deal of weight) is a devastating national trend that needs to be attacked from all corners--parents, schools, advertisers, regulators.

My kid doesn't get fake cheese. He gets only whole grain bread, no additive laden peanut butter, no sauces with high frutcose corn syrups. We are ardent label readers in my house. Frankly, none of the foods that are getting new labels would even be coming into my house. But, still, my kid thinks better living comes through M&Ms.

PR Agencies Will Do Almost Anything

This week's controversy over the Department of Education, via Ketchum Communications, paying African-American conservative commentator Armstrong Williams to flog "No Child Left Behind" during his various talking-head appearances comes as little surprise. My hat is off to USA Today for breaking the story. But New York Times advertising columnist Stuart Elliott did the best job of going after PR practitioners. I especially liked how Stuart unearthed damning corporate governance minutia on Ketchum's website that leaves the PR agency little room to wiggle.
Many PR practitioners are weighing in with their indignation. But as a former practitioner myself, and as someone who has seen these things before, let me say this is not new. It's not much different than a pharmaceutical company funding some instant public service entity to warn consumers, for example, about driving after taking cold medicine, only to find out the doctors who run the enterprise and are getting free public service ads are paid by a drug company with a non-drowsy cold medicine. If it looks like duck...

Williams being caught, of course, is made worse by the fact that, as a black conservative media personality, he is the member of a tiny club and looks utterly used by the Bush White House. But, he let it happen to himself.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. An advertising director of a major multi-billion company told me this week that the idea of a separation of church and state--the separarion between the editorial and sales side of magazines and newspapers--is an old fashioned idea. I'm still shivering over that one.

Subaru's Transformation to Johnny Town Mouse

More from the North American International Auto Show.

Subaru is a brand clearly trying to go from a country mouse to a city mouse. Beatrix Potter readers know what I mean. Those who don't can buy a book. Subaru has long starved its customer base, rabidly loyal to the brand's utility and all-wheel drive, of a decent size SUV or minivan. Take my family, for instance. We had a 1998 Subaru Outback. Our son Henry came along and the station-wagon got frightfully small with his child seat anchored in the middle. Go on a Christmas trip with luggage and presents, and we were murmuring..."we gotta get a minivan." And we did--a Honda Odyssey. If Subaru had a minivan or some such seven-passenger equivalent, we would have bought it.
Now, Subaru does have one, the B9 Tribeca.

Subaru has long been known as the Birkenstock shoe of the auto industry. Not too pretty, but extremely capable and of high quality. To its followers, Subaru is a cool brand. It's like a cheaper, better-in-the-snow version of Volvo. And very reliable. But its Japanese owners are not happy with this image. There is pride involved, you see. What's Japanese for "not comfortable in your own skin." They have been moving to take Subaru upscale, to compete more evenly with Acura and Volvo. It has been introducing speed and performance into the lineup the last few years with the WRX, which is a terrific car and enthusiastically embraced by auto writers. A loaded Outback is now above $30,000. The Tribeca will be priced well above $30,000. And the name--Tribeca--of course refers to a trendy neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. The Outback, by comparison, refers to the Australian Outback. I hear some bloke at Subaru suggested calling it the "Flushing" for the neighborhood in Queens where the Mets play, but that it was shot down in focus groups. Do the denizens of Garrison Keillor's Lake Woebegone and Rocky Mountain mail carriers who have been loyally buying Subarus for decades even know what Tribeca is?

At the auto show, the Tribeca was launched to the crowd with Champagne, fancy chocolates and stinky imported cheese. I was looking for a hot cup of coffee and an energy bar maybe. That's Subaru's image. The head of design at Subaru, Andreas Zapatinas, came to Suabru from Alfa Romeo to set the new design direction at Subaru. And the Tribeca, frankly, looks like the European designers won every debate they had with the practical packaging engineers on this project. That third row of seats we all wanted in a Subaru is so far smooshed back in the vehicle as to make you not want to use it. The space behind the third row would hardly hold $200 worth of groceries from Whole Foods--two bags. It's too fancy for this brand, it seems to me. Call me a Subaru enthusiast, which I am. It's not that I don't like to see my brands grow up. But it's at times like this I recall what my Mother always told me when we Kileys were going out the door. It's advice that has served me well, and serves marketers well when they heed the advice. "Remember Who You Are." Yep. That's what she always told us before we ventured out of range of her protective eyes.

Minivan Is Not A Dirty Word For Those Who Know How To Spell It

Just back from the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, an industry show where one gets the latest interpretation of where American tastes are headed. There are new production cars that will soon show up in dealerships, as well as the "concepts" that foretell a company's thinking about a new vehicle it hopes to build. One of my favorites from this show was a Ford vehicle called the Fairlane. It has three rows of seats and would perhaps serve in the role of a minivan for families or couples with active weekend lifestyles (antique hunting and trips to the country house). Nissan, too, has a similar non-minivan idea, the Infiniti Kurazo. Like Ford, Nissan has never put a real minivan contender on the street, struggling now with its second version of the Quest. Both concepts are updates on the old classic Jeep Grand Wagoneer.

The word around auto circles is that fewer and fewer people will want minivans in the coming years. It seems those kids who grew up riding in the backseat want no part of them when they have their own kids. What cracks me up about Ford is how this company--this icon of family transportation--has never been able to get the minivan right. It has had the Ford Windstar, and now the Freestar. It had the Mercury Villager and now the Mercury Monterey. None of the Ford minivans ever broke into the top three preferred minvans in any ranking I have ever seen. Chrysler successfully reinterpreted the Volkswagen Microbus as the Dodge Caravan, and Honda followed up with an Odyssey minivan that tops most rankings and Toyota has scored a bulls-eye with its third try at a minivan in the latest Sienna. "Minivan" certainly isn't a dirty word to those companies. Just to Ford, who could never get it right.

Saturn's Curious Orbit

Colleague David Welch this week penned a nice piece in Businessweek on Saturn's gambit to go upscale with new designs influenced by General Motors's European styling studio. The irony here, though, is as thick as a phone-company help-desk associate.

For years, Saturn had a crystal clear brand image. It was the helpful, no-haggle, customer-comes-first brand. The product was so-so. But the brand image was unique and smithed like iron. That's a contrast to GM's other children--Buick, the defunct Oldsmobile, Chevy cars and Pontiac. Now, GM is lavishing new product on Saturn, including the new minivan, a Roadster, a future slick sedan and a full-size SUV. But where is Saturn's image now? Prices went up. Incentives have been laid on. And advertising has rambled around themes as diverse as a woman gassing up her car that's occupied by a younger beau to people pretending to be cars. Saturn's advertising was once a benchmark of Madison Avenue: the young girl buying her first car; the teacher whose letter and picture were handled by the people on the assembly line as they built her car; the Saturn owners gathering at Spring Hill, Tennessee. These ads are remembered ten years after they stopped running and are in text books on advertising. What made Saturn special was the feeling owners had about belonging to a better brand. That's gold in the universe of brand management. It's a pity that the caretakers at GM didn't see it and appreciate what they had. By starving the brand of new product, they starved the customers of reward.

So, now they are showering Saturn with new product over the next two years to make up for lost time. But, as advertising over the last two years shows, the company seems to have almost no idea what to do with the brand. Ads are no longer memorable or special. Despite being created by a first-rate agency--Goodby Silverstein, San Francisco--the advertising drifts to the background, just like Pontiac's and Buick's. Taking a brand from extraordinary to ordinary just before investing $3 billion in new product is a pretty poor strategy.

Brands Abroad Under Fire

There has been a belief among some executives we've talked with that over the last two years that there is a slow but definite weakening of U.S. brands abroad as a result of what some might term an "arrogant" view of the world by the current White House and political power elite in Washington. Results of a survey by Global Market Insite seem to support the thesis.

The most recent survey of overseas consumers by Global Market Insite about attitudes toward American brands shows mounting distrust of things American. Almost 80% of consumers surveyed abroad, for example, say they distrust the U.S. government, while 50% distrust U.S. companies and 39% distrust the American people. Sixty-eight percent said they've formed a negative view as a result of the U.S. war on terror and the war in Iraq. The brands drawing negative feelings: McDonalds, American Express, Barbie, Starbucks, American Airlines. The brands insulated from U.S. foreign policy: Ralph Lauren, Kleenex, Calvin Klein among others.

What's been interesting to me is the reluctance of many CEOs to speak on the record about their concerns. It's as if they are either afraid of fueling the fire by admitting concern, or they don't want to be heard, perhaps, off-key from the Bush Administrations steady song of optimism.

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