Liz brought to the table a sound ability to balance strategic perspective with practical, hands-on implementation.
— , Cyber Marketplace
In my last post I begged readers to please send a memo to the North American auto industry asking them to put a little creative thought into their ads. Here’s what I mean…
First, an ad for the Ford Sportka out of the UK:
Here’s another funny ad, though not for the car this time. This one’s from Norway:
Sometimes a product is developed for one use and consumers find a new, completely different use for it — one which the original manufacturer never considered. This is known as product category cross-over.
I witnessed a unique example of the product category cross-over phenomenon, sighted at a local public market. The product was initially developed for small children, however, in this version it is used for small animals.
Customer is king, so he can decide to use the product however he darn well pleases. I couldn’t help thinking though, if dogs weren’t meant to walk, how come they come with four feet?
PS: Do you think his shirt intentionally matches the dog carrier?!
I know a few people think marketing is evil because it’s designed to influence behaviour. Usually I disagree with them, though not categorically.
Marketing can be highly positive where it’s used as a tool to educate people about important issues, like back when we found out that eating a medium size bag of movie popcorn and a soda is equivalent to eating three McDonald’s Quarter Pounders and 12 pats of butter. That’s a good thing to know and educating the movie-popcorn-buying public resulted in immediate changes in how movie popcorn was made. Hurrah marketing.
Or the recent Method cleaning products commercial that educated while making us laugh and squirm, just a little.
Sometimes advertising — mistakenly equated with marketing — IS plain dumb, I’ll give you that. And dumb ads give all advertising, even the clever ads, a bad name.
But sometimes marketing and advertising go way beyond dumb. Take Dace, a local fashion label. Their new anorexic paper doll campaign is sure to be a winner. You can go to their website, download an anorexic paper doll, and then download a set of three fashion plates for your emaciated, famine-ravaged doll to wear.
I’d like a moment with the brilliant minds who ran with this idea and encourage them to give their collective heads a shake. In fact, I sent them an email:
“I’m appalled at your recent anorexic paper doll promotional campaign. Here’s something you may not have considered when you made that choice. Paper dolls are for little girls. Little girls are inundated with images telling them normal size is too big. Little girls grow up into young women who carry those beliefs with them. Are you hoping to reinforce the message?”
Dace blew a really great opportunity to showcase beauty, rather than an impossible beauty standard. I’m pretty disappointed that they haven’t moved beyond that whole illusion and taken a more enlightened stance. Instead, they are using advertising to perpetuate outdated views about beauty.
Two thumbs down for Dace.
If you want to give Dace two thumbs down too, you can email them at info@dace.ca, tell them on Twitter @daceclothing, or let them know via Facebook under “dace clothing.” Oh, and then there’s the old fashioned phone: 1.604.694.2442.
So far we’ve learned that ongoing learning is a MUST for business success.
Yes, you’ll need to learn stuff. But it may surprise you to know that it doesn’t have to be painful. Here’s how you can make your “lessons” a lot more fun than your high school English teacher ever thought possible:
You can ignore or fight the need to learn but it’s you and your business that will suffer. Instead, embrace learning but do it your way, in the kind of classroom that works for you.
