Category Archives: marketing and promotion

messing with icons – sometimes it’s necessary

Hello! What’s this? Decades of caramel colored soda showing through green glass is out, aluminum bottles with ultra-fresh graphics is in. Or at least alongside, for now.

Design firm Turner Duckworth’s responsible for the who’d have guessed red sells best brand makeover that just won the Cannes Best Design Gold Lion Award.

When it comes to brand projection – and it does – the perennial member of the world’s most identifiable top ten brands list shows it’s not afraid to throw the dice. We can just see this combo as an end capper that draws crowds in the wire cage locked horns battle for soda surpremcy.

scooters ride the wave

Cha-ching goes the gas pump and another pissed off motorist does the long hard look at the increasingly not that crazy scooter buzzing by at 70-mpg. All over America these two-wheeled sippers are hitting mainstream stride, cashing in on a flurry of coverage from editors eager to exploit Top Ten lists on how to beat the prices at the pump.

For instance. Last week the local paper’s Saturday automotive section front page was devoted to scooters. Can’t imagine the stalwart page advertisers were too thrilled, but there it was, a four-color shoutout to the virtues of minimalism. And style, and just plain hipness. We call it pr on a platter, there for the plucking.

where creative juice really comes from

England’s South West Creative Growers’ Association finally pulled back the wraps and let the world see where some of the finest ideas on the planet come from. We learn that freshly squeezed creative juice should never be consumed without first diluting – and that you really can’t go wrong with a good idea.

Creativity – where nature meets the needs of a thirsty globe. If they’re out of fresh juice where you normally shop we always rotate our stock.

we’re back online – and a little wiser

Here’s what every webmaster has nightmares about. A freak explosion at the server farm that hosts our site, along with an estimated 700,000 others, knocked us off the net for three days and in the process delivered a near-miss dose of reality about the absolute necessity to have a redundancy plan as a backup for the unexpected.

What else? All site addressed email was immediately bounced back to the senders, and because it was the first of the month web crawlers from Google and others hit a brick wall of domain not found – and that translates into loss of ranking. Not critical for us, very critical for others, especially eCommerce sites. Continue reading →

virtual marketing awaits – inside sims 2

$if sims can drive, why can\'t they ride?$ If you’re not familiar with the online virtual reality game the Sims, it’s a monumental time consumer featuring humanesque avatars whose daily lives are guided by the player. That’s right, it’s just like real life, only fake from inside a computer.

Today’s New York Times reports that wood pulp furniture giant Ikea announced a tie-in with the popular vid game making their product line available to players. For a price. That’s correct – game players can purchase with real money access to a pretend Ikea catalog in order to decorate their pretend two-dimensional homes with pretend collapsable furniture.

The real news here is that other marketers, including Ford and McDonalds, are already on board, either with free, downloadable content or product placement already imbedded in the games.

Here’s the question: shouldn’t the Sims community have the option to ride – sport, cruiser, chop, tour or dirt – instead of drive? Seems to us like an opportunity waiting to happen.

the (product) info highway

How do consumers gather product information as part of the purchase decision? The folks at SEMA produced an interesting set of numbers from their 2007 Automotive Lifestyles Survey and frankly we were surprised at how strong the consumer print category turned out to be.

Ad reps take heart. With a response rating of over 80%, that info channel clearly led the other four categories as an influencer in the purchasing process. The survey rated responses based on product reviews, and it’s clear from these results that editorial sway isn’t dead yet. (Not clear is to what extent the respondents were influenced, if at all, by subjective bias if detected.)

esposito out at global

In a not totally unexpected development, former Global president Frank Esposito was uncerimoniously sacked by the new management group led by original Custom Chrome founder Nace Panzica.

Esposito, here with Cycle World ad manager Paul LaBella at the start of 2007’s Cycle World Trek, was recruited in 2002 to steer CC and its subsidiaries, including Jammer and Motorcycle Stuff, into calmer waters. That didn’t happen.

Esposito says he was escorted from the Morgan Hill headquarters by security with no advance notice of the elimination of his position. Apparantly, new management wanted to send a message, although the purpose is unclear, as is the future fortune of a reconstituted yet again Global Motorsports.

got geico? get over it.

We think these ads will keep running until everyone’s a customer. That goes for the stupid lizard, too.

screw it? lets ride? to where? man’s town?

The cats at Quad Cam Bastards were first out of the gate with their dead on parody (above) of Willie G’s latest what the hell is this all about “Screw It, Lets Ride” marketing come-on. You’ve got to wonder what the kiddie kopyriters at longtime HD agency Carmichael Lynch were thinking when they pitched this bozo campaign to TMC. Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends.

I can picture the scene where, hunched over a highly polished mahogany bar with their Stella Artois avec slice, they busied themselves by channeling “Hells Angels On Wheels” as a totally out of gas inspiration for this smarmy Ken and Barbie Stick It To The Man offering. Right on! Power to the people! Quittin’ time! When, as expected, this latest theme gets skewered on The Daily Show, you’ll better understand the down side of viral.

In all fairness – we want to make sure we understand where the scorn should be directed – this is the vision of former GM/Pontiac CMO Mark-Hans Richer, whose inspiration was feedback gleaned from “road research” of customers. While with Pontiac, Richer coordinated the Oprah Winfrey audience car giveaway; that pr coup was what led to his hire as HD’s first CMO, albeit with a marketing budget one-tenth of what he controlled at Pontiac.

According to a May 6 piece by Ad Age, Mr. Richer said research with “real people in the real world is probably more meaningful than getting 12 people in a room” for a focus group. He didn’t pre-test the ads because the work reflects how Harley’s customers think and feel. Hmmm. Not so many of us as he thinks, apparantly. I have to wonder, how long has Mr. Richer been riding?

Lets be clear: Marlon Brando was dangerous as Johnny when he responded to the rhetorical, “What are you rebelling against?” line from The Wild Ones with “Whattaya got?”. Uh, but that was so last century. Back when three channels of black and white tv ownership was an exclusive club and over a half century before random drive-bys were moved to a few inches worth of mention deep inside the metro section.

This massively out of touch with the base attempt to reverse the irreversable strikes out on all counts. For decades HD’s politely pushed away any notion of – shock shock horror horror – a connection between outlaw gangs and their iconic product sold to the masses. With “Screw It,” that hypocrisy’s finally laid to rest, albeit a day late to actually cash in on the connection.

The premium promo is hysterical – just visit your local dealer and walk out with your very own limited edition “Screw It!” doo-rag! You heard right, tough guy and tough gal bikers – an Officially Licensed HD “Screw It!” bandana of your very own. Now who wouldn’t be proud to get caught profiling with that Made In China rag wrapped around their dome. And as if nobody gets the snicker effect of the euphamism “Screw It” in lieu of it’s graphic inspiration.

This – and I can’t use the adjective “creative” in all good conscience – effort, minimal at best, was approved for use by HD, which sorta’ gives an insight into how they view their troubled market. I remember when AMF bailed them out, and when the Reagan administration bailed them out again with a historic one-time only tariff slap down of metric heavyweights. Nobody was sneering then, that’s for sure.

“Screw It – Lets Ride” Really Sucks. Our prediction is that the laughingstock factor will actually have a measurable negative effect. Especially as the readers of dirt bike pub Racer X wonder what the weirded out insert that falls in their lap from the latest issue’s all about.

the magic 8 ball says…

Look for one, possibly more, progressive lid maker to institute online ordering of highly personalized graphics, and perhaps limited dimensional mods, on basic models. Nike offers online individualized shoe options now. It’s a way to recover otherwise lost revenue while protecting dealer margins and marginalizing independent online resellers.

There’s serious discussion, if not outright implementation, of a breakout dealer show. Among some of the top tier exhibitors there’s palpable dissatisfaction with Advan$tar’s Dealer Expo management and priorities.

What’ll it take for TMC to survive over the long haul? One word – scooters. Not another Topper, no, God no, but a fully fledged family of domestically designed durables for boomers, commuters and high schoolers anxious over gas prices and global warming. We see totally separate badging that’s identified with but not totally divorced from the iconic bar and shield’s heritage. Scooters kicking ass? Could happen. A million units annually? Why not?