4 Very Honest Ad Campaigns

Published on by Paige Dolton1 Comment

It’s no secret that I love advertising. Instead of telling people to be quiet during the actual television program, I am the person that is shhhhing the room as soon as the commercials begin. Going out to a sports bar? You can find me with my eyes glued to the television during the time that people are supposed to be social just to watch the commercials. I prefer magazines that have more advertisements than actual content. In fact, I own several issues of Communication Arts magazine, which solely comprises of advertisements. Heading to the movie theater? The previews are the most exciting part of going to see a movie, DUH. Hopefully you get the point by now.

So, yes, Spring is one of my favorite times of year not because of the Super Bowl but because of the incredible and highly anticipated commercials that come along with it. Speaking of the big game, check out my article in The Tiger from last year on my Top 5 Super Bowl commercials.

Let’s get back to the focus of this post. As I have been watching my various favorite television shows recently, I have noticed an increasing trend among advertisers: honesty. When I say ‘honesty,’ I mean that the purpose of the advertisement is to speak directly to the consumers who choose not to purchase their product by clearly identifying a problem, misconception, or a needed change. In doing this, the advertisement is doing so much more than just trying to entice the viewer to purchase the product. In my opinion, these advertisements bring a brand new type of marketing to the table: one where the advertiser is very obviously in tune to the opinions of the consumer. It will be interesting to look at the success and failures of these four campaigns, but in the mean time, I present to you four very honest current advertising campaigns, in the order of personal relevance and interest.

1. Triscuit’s Gone Topless
A product of Nabisco, Triscuit has been around since 1902 (according to their Facebook page), and has been a classic on the cracker aisle ever since. Only did I really think about the actual packaging until their most recent advertising campaign, but apparently they had heard otherwise. Triscuits’ packaging has traditionally always had a picture of Triscuits topped with something, to show that the cracker was the perfect party dish. Now, however, they are wiping the toppings clean from the packaging after realizing that people didn’t know they could eat Triscuits without them being topped with something. The premise of Triscuit’s newest marketing campaign is “Topper’s Tantrums,” in that “angry satisfied” customers exclaim how angry they are that they had never thought of Triscuits like this before.

This is Triscuit’s first advertising campaign with Crispin Porter + Bogusky, an agency well-known for it’s A-list clientele and it’s innovative campaigns. Not only are there new TV spots and print advertisements, but Triscuit has integrated the new “toppingless” packaging campaign completely into it’s presence on Facebook. I think this ad campaign is extremely interesting because instead of trying to differentiate themselves from other cracker products, the entire goal of this campaign is to announce that Triscuit is just the same as other crackers in that they can be eaten plain. By completely changing their packaging design, Triscuit is really going the distance to communicate with their consumers.

2. Kraft Mac n’ Cheese, not Craft time
This next advertising campaign, also by CP+B, is for Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and addresses something that anyone who has ever attended Elementary School can resonate with. Remember in kindergarten when we would create art projects comprising of noodles glued to a piece of construction paper, or strung on a piece of string? Well, the whole premise of Kraft’s ad campaign is that macaroni and cheese is “Dinner, Not Art.” While consumers purchasing macaroni and cheese for craft projects isn’t necessarily hurting the profitability of the product, it is clearly not an objective of the brand. What this specific campaign shows is that Kraft is aware of what is going on in the consumer world and wanted to respond to consumers by essentially saying, “Hey, we’re proud of our macaroni. Don’t waste it by gluing it together.” [I mean, not literally, but that’s essentially what they are saying.]

In addition to the adorable television spots, Kraft actually went above and beyond by turning this simple idea into a full-blown socially responsible campaign. Kraft created an app for the iPad, in addition to the website DinnerNotArt.com, where users can actually use Kraft Macaroni noodles to create digital art, asking users to “save the real noodles for dinner.” And on top of that, Kraft announced that for every noodle used in the digital macaroni art, they would donate 10 noodles to Feeding America. Now THAT’S corporate social responsibility if I’ve ever seen it.

3. Don’t be surprised- it’s from Sears

This might be one of my favorite commercials from the past year, to be quite honest. This was the commercial that really started drawing my attention to these sorts of advertisements. From the very beginning of the clip, you know the exact message the brand is trying to send- and the message is phenomenal. Sears is essentially saying, “hey, we get it, we’re not known for cute clothes and you’ve probably made an effort to avoid clothes-shopping with us.” The woman is obviously embarrassed when asked where she purchased her top, and stunned when she receives a compliment for it. For the rest of the advertisement, the woman is thrilled to show off her clothing and equally as excited to tell others that her outfit is from Sears, which comes as a shock to everyone she meets. This. is. RICH. Complete re-branding at it’s finest. Just like addiction, the first step is admitting you have a problem; and, ladies and gentlemen, Sears has done this flawlessly.

This particular advertisement was part of a total re-branding for Sears that started in the summer of 2012. The campaign is titled ‘This is Sears,’ and was an attempt to really change the way people viewed the department store. It was crafted at the hands of mcgarrybowen, and includes several other popular ads, including the recent clip for a fake dance competition show (you know, the one where the dancers run right into the appliances?), but none that are really as brutally honest as this one. They don’t have to specifically say, “we want to change your minds about us,” but they simply end the advertisement with the following- “Surprised? Don’t be?” So, while this is just one particular advertisement among a whole campaign, Sears really nailed it with this one.

4. We promise, we’re not as bad as we used to be.

In terms of re-branding and providing a really honest marketing campaign, Internet Explorer takes the cake. Their campaign for the new Internet Explorer 9 was appropriately titled ‘The Browser You Loved To Hate.’ And that’s because we all did (and many of us still do). The only thing IE was good for when we got out first Microsoft laptop was for downloading Mozilla Firefox, or more recently, Google Chrome. In fact, I personally remember uninstalling my Internet Explorer once Mozilla was on my desktop. Quite frankly, it sucked. And that’s what made the marketing campaign for Internet Explorer 9 so incredible- Microsoft agreed with us. They knew how horrible the browser was. The consumer’s hatred for Internet Explorer was just the right fuel for a flawless marketing campaign.

The first advertisement that was released for the campaign was called ‘Child of the 90’s,’ and hit every twenty-something with a wave of nostalgia. The premise of this particular advertisement was that just like we grew up, so did Internet Explorer. If this isn’t honesty, I don’t know what is. They are directly targeting the people that hated Internet Explorer growing up, the people who had all started using different browsers, and saying, “we know we were bad, but give us another chance.” The implementation of this first clip was genius. The video went viral very quickly, filling up everyone’s Facebook news feed and reaching over 25 million views on YouTube. But Microsoft knew it needed more than just a viral video.

This marketing campaign is also the product of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, and was even more successful because it was more than just a single successful advertisement. There were several other clips blatantly bashing IE that really showed the consumer that Microsoft understood; they knew how bad they were and they were doing something to change that. In addition to the video advertisements, they created a tumblr called ‘The Browser You Loved To Hate.’ Here, they addressed all skepticism for the new IE. The top row of the micro-site even has two tabs titled ‘It’s Good Now,’ and ‘No, Really.’ The target marketing for this was spot on. The average tumblr user is  a teenager or twenty-something, so this was a brilliant move. With Apple as their main competitor, Microsoft knew they needed to bring out the big guns, so they did.

If you’re not into advertising nearly as much as I am and you made it through this whole post, bravo, my friend. I hope this gave you a better insight to the workings of my brain. Maybe next time you’re watching a sports game or your favorite show, you’ll stop and think a little bit about the advertisements and why in the world anyone would pay millions of dollars just for that one thirty second spot.

Basic Editing: It’s not that difficult.

Published on by Paige Dolton4 Comments

Before I get into this relevant and most necessary post, I would like to start off by welcoming both my fellow Comm. Studies major Emily Tumlin and my fabulous roommate Lauren Reddeck to the wonderful world of Wordpress! I am so glad to have convinced you both to join in on the fun.

Now on to the good stuff.

Y’ALL. As someone so passionate about writing, marketing, and social media, I feel the need to shed light on something that has been driving me up the wall. I have been absolutely dumbfounded and, to put it more eloquently, perturbed, at some of the not only public but promoted material being pushed out by brands on various social media outlets. For the most part, companies and brands are pretty good about making sure that their content is error-free. It has to be, right? I mean, this is how brands are connecting with their customers. Their social media handles are a direct extension and representation of the company. This stuff is kind of important. And I understand that mistakes happen, but come on. It is not that difficult to proofread something before publishing it directly to the newsfeeds of thousands of customers/potential customers.

The following are four examples that I have found solely through my own personal presence on social media. I did not go searching for these mistakes, I simply came across them on my various feeds. And they are not even the biggest or most obvious mistakes, but nonetheless, they exist. Also, I am 100% aware of the fact that I sound like the world’s ultimate social media nerd. I am okay with that.

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This first gem was posted on the ABC Family hit television show Pretty Little Liars‘ Facebook page, and it is probably the least harmful of the four examples. Let me just also say that 9,924,729 people are Facebook fans of PLL. Yes, this post was sent out to almost 10 million people. I will give them some credit, however. They’re using bit.ly, which, for those of you that don’t know, is a URL shortening and bookmarking service that tracks data from whoever clicks on the URL. And if you check out their Facebook page, they actually have a really strong and successful social media plan.Their interaction level with their fans is off the charts, and is evidenced by their close to 10 million fans. But let’s be serious; if one more person would have looked at this post, this tiny little error could have been prevented. I’m not letting you off the hook that easy. -A

samsungTaking it up a notch on the stupidity scale of mistakes is this specific action via twitter by Samsung Mobile US. A little background on Samsung’s presence on twitter: they have 4,313,729 followers, are verified, and have over 24,000 tweets, which is evidence of the fact that not only do they use twitter to promote their brand, but to create conversations by responding to their followers. But this….this tweet is just unacceptable. First of all, from a marketing perspective, it’s really never a good idea to actually ask users to ‘RT’ or ‘like’ something. If your content is actually good, people should do that stuff anyway. Second of all, it’s not just one letter that is off. Whoever wrote this used an entirely incorrect word (even if it is only two letters long). And third of all, and most importantly, SAMSUNG PAID TO PROMOTE THIS. Seriously? Samsung spent actual real dollars to have this tweet come up in every twitter users’ timeline. This is what my nightmares are made of.

outbackBranching out to a primarily mobile platform for social media mishaps is Outback Steakhouse with this lovely error on their Foursquare page. If you are not familiar with Foursquare, it is a mobile social networking app where users can check into the various places they visit and collect points, leave tips and recommendations, and see what kinds of places their friends are visiting, as well. It’s a pretty handy little app for both chain stores and local businesses because not only can they see who is visiting and what they are saying about their visit, but they can also offer users specials and discounts.

This error particularly got my teeth grinding for a variety of reasons. First of all, as a Clemson fan and student, I am not particularly proud of the fact that I cashed in on South Carolina’s win over Michigan at the Outback Bowl. All I have to say is that no matter the circumstance, if there is a free Bloomin’ Onion involved, you can count me in. However, I was going out on a limb by publicly stating that I was reaping the benefits of a USC win and Outback really let me down. I genuinely do not even know what they were trying to say. “…thanks the a USC win yesterday.” I mean, seriously? If your company is going to take the time to implement a social marketing campaign, you have got to at least make sure that it makes sense. I will admit, though, that  Outback was very quick to respond to me via twitter when I publicly called them out on their mistake. Just tryin’ to help a brotha out.

And last, but most definitely not least, is, in my case, the editing (or lack thereof) mistake that broke the camel’s back. Should we discuss the time that the website for the White House (you know, the home of the President of the United States, the leader of the free world, the ruler of our government and country?) posted this on their live video feed? Should we talk about it? Or should we just try to move on with our lives and pretend that this never happened?  Because at this point, my blood is boiling and I might hurt someone.

white house

In essence, just get it together people. Think before you post. Especially if you’re a nation-wide restaurant chain, or, you know, the President of the United States. You can do it. I have faith in you.

The Shopping Site that Didn’t Know How to Make Money

Published on by Paige DoltonLeave a comment

Ladies, let’s face it: we do the majority of our online shopping, even if it’s just ‘window shopping’ or browsing, via Pinterest. We discover new clothes we might not have come across if we were simply looking at the store’s website, and more importantly, we discover new online shops and boutiques that we definitely would have never found by simply browsing – come on, we all know how hard it is to find a new shop online.

Okay, so we use Pinterest to shop. And, well, most of us use Pinterest everyday. So how does the social media site generate any profit? Think about it: it’s not like we’re pinning or buying products created by Pinterest. The things we pin all come either from an individual user or, in most cases, from an external site (like the aforementioned little boutique or shop). Apparently, shortly after the site’s inception, Pinterest claimed that “they weren’t sure about how they make money” but that they wold eventually get to it. Hmm… does this sound extremely fishy to anyone else?

So, in typical Paige fashion, I did a little digging.

According to Forbes, the social media site is valued at a staggering $7.7 billion. Let’s compare that to the other social media juggernauts for a second, shall we? Facebook is valued at $1.26 billion, Twitter claims it is worth $8 billion, and, as the recent news of Facebook purchasing Instagram tells us, Facebook values Instagram at $1 billion.

But, seriously, how is this possible?

From a marketing perspective, it actually might be easy to see how Pinterest is valued at so much and how it generates a profit. Essentially, Pinterest is a gigantic hub for product advertising without pinners really realizing it. Well, that is, as long as its users pin your company’s products. So, one way that Pinterest potentially generates profit is through partnerships with other companies trying to advertise their product. In doing this, Pinterest would then promote the pins of said company to initially get the ball rolling and get the company’s pin travelling through the site at warped speed. Once the first pin is promoted, then users re-pin the product and promote it to their friends, who then, in turn, promote it to their friends, and the beat goes on…

Another way Pinterest could potentially generate profit through partnerships with companies is through promoting a company’s pins in the category sections on the site. This way, the first thing users would see when they click on a specific category would be the promoted pin (without them realizing that it is being promoted, of course).

Additionally, I did some more research and found out that Pinterest generating profit by modifying user-submitted pins by altering the links. I find this extremely interesting because this is something, that, if I would have never researched, I would have had absolutely no clue was being done. Who am I to care that Pinterest is generating money from what I pin from my favorite online boutique? It’s not affecting me in any way, so, personally, it doesn’t really matter to me (in terms of my usability with the site). But, as the article also states, it is a little fishy now that I know about it.

So, there you have it. Even though you probably never thought about it, Pinterest must be generating some sort of profit in order to be running at the high capacity that it does. Even though it technically doesn’t really affect us all that much, it’s still something to think about.