Drug Advertising Boom

In this week's Brandweek there was an article discussing the increasing drug advertisements due to the increase in diabetes drugs and the diabetes epidemic. Some people view branded drug advertisements in poor taste. While it is a shame that the number of people with diabetes is increasing, I think that it is good for the number of drugs available to increase. Certain drugs are better suited for certain people, and with the increase in drugs, as well as improvements from new research, people receive better treatment. As for the advertising for these drugs, I believe it is good to inform consumers about their treatment options. They might see a drug on a commercial that is better suited for them that they can then ask their doctor about.

-Danielle DeBenedetto

Who is Gateway Anyway?

Sandra recently posted a message about the website given to us by a guest speaker which allows us to see some of the new logos and designs of several companies over the years. Although Barbie has made changes to their logo our team wants to save that information for the presentation. However, I found it interesting that Gateway has made two changes to their logo’s design within two consecutive years: 2002 and 2003. In 2002, there lacked a real need for altering the logo, although management shifted to the friendlier cow print, which seemed to consume Microsoft. Their reasoning was driven by a new ad campaign; perhaps some of you remember the commercials of employees running through green fields trying to deliver their computers to the consumers.

Exactly one year later the cow theme was abandoned only to be transformed into the plain, pine-green word, Gateway. Lacking all creativity and no possible strategy or vision, their newest logo felt awkward, standard, and most importantly boring! The truth of the matter is that a standard logo combined with a lack of imaginative advertising moved Gateway even below IBM’s stuffy business image.

Currently, Gateway has moved back to the cow print, but is now a standard and boring grey on grey combination. To marvel in Gateway’s lack of creativity check out their homepage: http://www.gateway.com/index.shtml.

Hopefully Gateway can get a hold of their brand identity, and fast!

New Identities

I wanted to talk about a website that the lat guest speaker brought up during the lunch meeting.
Identityworks.com
It’s a website dedicated to showing how the logos of many companies have changed, why they have changed, what they think of the new one, etc. You can look through the different companies by year. My favotite one is Kodak’s logo that was changed in 2006. Their new logo has been taken out of the traditional yellow box, and is now a more contemporary look, with distinctive letters. It was definitely a time for change especially with the change in photography use to digital. Kodak needed a new and fresh, yet clean look.

Take a look at your website? Which is your favorite? Has your Project’s brand made a change recently?

-Sandra Sanieoff

Mcdonald's - healthy in Japan, now healthy in America

Recently Shauny posted a blog entry about Mcdonald's trying to revamp its image in Japan...well now, according to today's issue of the Boston Globe, Mcdonald's is now trying to change its image in the United States, starting with Massachusetts.

According to the article, the newest Mcdonald's are looking to take their image away from fatty on the go fast food to the more upscale images achieved by places like Starbucks and Panera Bread. The new Mcdonalds will feature leather chairs, plasma televisions and wireless internet access...so you can work on business reports with the sweet smell of hamburgers surrounding you. The change is being made to attract young adults and families who normaly eat at Starbuck's, Applebee's and Chipotle. The repositioning also comes with a steep price, franchises pay up to $400,000 to renovate or $1 million to knock it down and start from scratch.

I think Mcdonald's might be forgetting what industry they are competing in. It is not a sit down restaurant with waiters like Applebees and it's not a coffee house, it's fast food. 65% of it's revenue comes from the drive-through. $400,000 per store is a hefty price to pay for a restuarant where 65% of the customers are not even stepping through the door. Some of these new rennovations don't even have the traditional Mcdonald's play area. The vice president of the Boston region of Mcdonald's claim it's "in the best interest of the brand," but is it? Do you think Mcdonald's could ever achieve an upscale Starbucks like image?

--Heather Campbell

Starbucks..and a failed promotion

In Brandweek No.: 33 there was an interesting article on Starbucks, one of the strongest brands in the US. The article “Lessons Learned From Starbucks’ Coupon Snafu” portrays a situation where Starbucks let down their customers. Starbucks emailed coupons for free iced coffee, though, the distribution was supposed to be limited to the Southeast. Evidently, this limitation was not feasible in practice, and soon coffee coupons were emailed across the country, thus, causing Starbucks to cancel the offer three weeks before the initial expiration date. Customers were outraged and accused Starbucks of fraud, which resulted in a $114 million lawsuit. -was this really a wise decision?

Can the US population really consume $114 million worth of iced coffee in three weeks??

Apart from the $114 million financial loss, their competitor, Caribou Coffee, managed to take advantage of the situation and ridicule Starbucks by accepting the Starbucks coupons in the Caribou Coffee shops.

Even though it was only a smaller percentage of the Starbucks customers who became “disloyal”, it cost them a lot more than three more weeks of free iced coffee would have. Starbucks, being such a strong brand, survived the episode without losing much of its brand strengths. But imagine the loss it could have been for smaller competitors.


/Christina Fahrenholtz

McDonald's in Japan

Despite McDonald’s presence all over the world and their varying menus that adapt to each country’s consumers, they continue to hold an all American value to their brand. In an article I read in BusinessWeek, the September 2006 issue, there was an article written about McDonald’s in Japan and how the CEO Harada, the former CEO of apple, came on board to fight falling sales in its “2nd biggest market, after the US.” The author of the article, Ian Rowley, analyzes Harada’s strategy to rebuild the McDonalds brand image via pricing, new sandwiches, and “fancier menus.” This overall strategy to rebuild McDonald’s image is an effort to retain customers who are now less concerned about price and more concerned about quality.

In my opinion, it would be extremely difficult to play off McDonalds as being a high quality restaurant when years of building a cheap fast food alternative has generated their success.Instead, they should focus on differentiating itself from the convenience stores that produce high sales in this industry. Not once in the article, was it mentioned that people in Japan were becoming more health conscious. I would think the McDonalds unhealthy menu would be the reason for their decline in sales. In the article, Rowley mentions that Harada introduces new food options such as the shrimp burger and new salad plates to create a higher quality image that proved successful at a $5 price, inconsistent with their cheap fast food image. Aside from adding upscale food items, McDonald’s is adding internet access in their restaurants and redecorating their interiors and menus. Clearly McDonald’s must adjust their brand images based on the countries they are in. The differences in culture, consumer tastes, and spending behavior vary in each country. In the US, as people are becoming more and more concerned about what they eat and what their kids eat, McDonald’s is introducing healthier food options but still retains its fast, convenient, and cheap food image. In Japan, cheap food is no longer attractive, rather people want unique and fancy food.

-Shauny Lamba

Cocaine...the legal alternative

Grocery stores in New York have now begun to sell an energy drink called Cocaine. It has about 350% more caffeine than Red Bull, but don’t worry doctors claim it doesn’t violate a person’s health. The New York Times claimed that the mayor and members of the city council are calling for a ban on this product. Redux Beverages, the company that owns Cocaine, claims the negative attention has boosted sales, exponentially.
Cocaine has made me wonder whether a brand can benefit from ill publicity. Can controversy and negative attention towards a brand help in building it quicker?
In class, the professor mentioned that in developing a brand, marketers have criteria for creating a “good name.” The criteria included protectable, durable, brief, etc. Should controversial be on that list. Cocaine has proven that it has a “good name” because it has generated GOOD SALES so far.
I see controvery being used in other products. The “material girl” Madonna incorporates crucifixions in her shows to draw attention and controversy to boost ticket sales for her concerts. The Madonna brand is huge, but is it her controversial image or perhaps the wonders of Kabbalah? What if you could avoid the whole building of an image and just have the name of the brand define it all?
You can apply a controversial name for anything. Lollipops targeting teens can be branded with the word Wee-Wee (or something much, much more vulgar). Even cologne can be given the name DateRape :( to target college nerds. The possibilities are endless.
Should this strategy be recommended for a company seeking to attract a younger audience for immediate recognition and sales?

- Jose Diaz

An unusual cover

Did anyone notice anything out of the ordinary on the cover of Brandweek for the week of October 3? How about the fact that the entire cover page was an ad! It certainly is an interesting choice for a magazine to forgoe promoting its own articles in the name of selling very prime ad space to a client. Granted, Brandweek isn't often seen on the shelves, at least not in grocery and drugstores, perhaps the larger bookstores, so much of its readership would come from subscribers. Still, is this a wise move? It's great for TVland to get such exposure for it's Mr. T series. But subscribers still need to be reminded to actually read the magazine. Without featuring its articles on the front page, wouldn't more subscribers be inclined to let the magazine sit on their coffee table? I know I've barely touched this week's issue... I've let Mr. T stare at me while I've been at my computer, but he hardly motivates me to read one interesting story or another. Do you think we'll see more of these front-cover, full-page magazine ads in the future? For whom would it be successful and for whom wouldn't it?

~Mandy Murphy

More on Facebook

Hey Guys,

I was just glancing through this week's brandweek and noticed a very brief article on facebook (p 11) and I, like Dave, am a facebook fiend. Dave posted a blog a few weeks ago about the facebook newsfeed comparing it to new coke because everyone got very upset over the news feed. Well now it seems that facebook has decided to open up the newsfeed to advertisers, so next month ur newsfeed will not only update you about every little thing your friends are doing, it will also feature advertisements. I understand the need for advertisement sponsors, but I think updated advertisements in the newsfeed all the time is obnoxious.

Anyway, the article also mentions, as you may have noticed, that recently facebook has been opened up to everyone, you no longer need to be in college or in high school. Personally, I liked facebook better when it was only college kids, i felt it added some sense of differentiation from other web communities like myspace. I feel that facebook's rapid expansion is eventually going to hurt its brand image. It loved it when it was only for the college educated, then high school kids got in on the action and now everyone? What's the difference between facebook and myspace now? Tell me what you guys think. Do you think facebook has gone too far?

Heather Campbell

America: The Brand

Hello,

I recently read an article in Businessweek about the World Economic Forum's annual Global Competitiveness Index. The Global Competitive Index uses statistics and a survey of 11,000 business executives worldwide. The United States were ranked sixth behind Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Singapore, dropping 6 places from 2005. With the sub-par response to Hurricane Katrina coupled with the inertia surrounding the Iraq War, it seems that the Brand known as America is a falling star.

This brings me to my point: If Brand America continues its recession beyond the end of President Bush's term, should consumer brands that characterize themselves as slices of the proverbial American pie distance themselves from being American? In other words, would it be ok if global brands such as Nike, Coke, and Gap renounced the values that made them what they are today in order to appease the rest of the world?

Dearest bloggers, pray tell, how do you feel about this?

Until next time,
Ryan Chung

Sports and Advertising (Part 1) - Corporate Sponsors

Advertising is a huge part of sports now, more than it ever has been. This advertising includes, not only the actual advertising/commercials you see during sporting events, but also stadium names, team names, background advertising during games, college bowl game names, athlete endorsements, etc... I'll just focus mainly on corporate sponsors this time around.

I want to start by talking about stadium names. Pink Taco, an Arizona restaurant chain offered the Arizona Cardinals a ten year - $30 million deal to name the new Arizona stadium after them, unfortunately to the sadness of us all who love a good joke, the Cardinals turned it down. Here's the article itself if you would like to look at it.


This is nothing new. There are many stadiums and arenas named after companies. Just in MLB, NBA, and the NFL there are 58 teams with stadiums/arenas named after corporate sponsors. Just look at Boston sports: the Patriots play at Gillette stadium and the Celtics and Bruins play at TD Banknorth Garden (formerly Fleet Center). There are very few teams remaining that don't have a corporate sponsor. Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium are rarities now. Some companies are taking it a step further and naming the teams after themselves. This year the New York Metrostars changed their name to the New York Red Bulls, and their logo now is basically the Red Bull logo. This isn't a completely new idea. Founded in 1919, the Green Bay Packers were so named after the Indian Packing Company. It's an easy way for the team to be supported and it's an easy way for a company to increase its brand strength. If you are an MLS fan, especially a New York fan (which I'm sure no one in our class is), then you're constantly seeing the Red Bulls logo. Imagine walking through the streets of Boston, but instead of everyone having a hat with a "B" on it, you're seeing Sam Adams on everyone's hat and jersey because Boston signed a contract with the Boston Beer Company to become the Boston Lagers (Boston Beers was too easy). Now, it's probably not going to happen anytime soon, but it is an interesting concept. Almost every stadium and arena is named after a corporate sponsor now, the team names are next. Worldwide, this has already caught on. A lot of the Japanese professional teams are named after companies. In my native Ukraine, where there isn't much sports related revenue, almost every team has turned to a corporate sponsor already. This is quickly catching on with semi-pro and minor league teams in the United States also. I honestly believe that eventually more professional teams will go down that route as well.

What does this mean for brands? Well if the Denver Nuggets who already play at the Pepsi Center go ahead and name themselves Denver Pepsi after a huge offer by Pepsi, I wouldn't be that surprised. It gets your brand name out there, it strengthens it for the large part, and it increases brand awareness enormously. If you were associated with a great team, let's say the Yankees were actually the New York Times (just giving an example), imagine how much brand value the actual NY Times newspaper would have. I guess you can take your chance and the team named after you doesn't do as well, well it still gets your name mentioned every night on Sportscenter and how many companies can say that? It is an easy means to success as far as I'm concerned, but the teams don't want to sell out, at least not until the companies up their offers.

And may-be in a few years the Arizona Cardinals will accept the deal and then just may-be they will become the Phoenix Pink Tacos that play in Pink Taco Stadium. I know I'm excited for that moment. How can anyone not root for them?

Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. There will be a part 2 to this, I promise. For now, I would greatly appreciate your feedback on this topic.

- Daniil