Picture a badly battered woman on crutches who is being pressed by a cop to pick a suspect out of a police lineup of five African-American males and a goat named Felicia.   The goat Felicia—in a male voice—taunts the battered woman with phrases like "snitches get stitches, fool," "keep your mouth shut" and "I'm going to get out of here and do you up."

I wonder if any of the "smartest guys in the room" signing off on this actually thought this one through.  But I guess we already know the answer - which is obvious to pretty much everyone except these people.

PepsiCo says it's pulling this Mountain Dew commercial which offended online viewers due to sensitivities towards racism and violence toward women. Duh!

The actors are members of the music group Odd Future whose alternative hip-hop ensemble's co-founder, Tyler, The Creator, developed the ad.  The only redeeming factor in this sordid episode is the ad was created by a black man.  Double standard? 

PepsiCo stated, "We understand how this video could be perceived by some as offensive, and we apologize to those who were offended."  Only "some" might perceive this as offensive?  Seems drinking Pepsi and Mountain Dew is not only bad for your health, but also your brain.

Source:
"Mountain Dew Pulls 'Most Racist Commercial in History", AdWeek, May 1, 2013
http://www.adweek.com/news/television/mountain-dew-pulls-most-racist-commercial-history-149061

CKB Solutions is all about real solutions for the real world.  To learn how we can help your business, contact Greg Kovacic in Hong Kong.

There seems to be no shortage of offensive ads from MNCs and their ad agencies these days.  Makes one wonder how disconnected from reality are these people?  This example is from GM's Chevrolet's Trax's retro-styled ad titled "After Midnight".

The ad refers to China as "the land of Fu Manchu", where people say "ching-ching, chop suey".  While this might have been considered acceptable, even amusing, when the lyrics were originally penned in the US in the 1930s, times have changed.  And China is now GM largest market.  

"The giant carmaker is now pulling the advertisement from worldwide markets, saying it had received complaints about the "offensive content"."  Duh! 

In today's media-is-everywhere environment, anything which can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as insensitive or offensive, certainly will be.  And the media will be there to pick up on it and carry the story globally.

Source:
"GM pulls 'racist' Chevrolet 'ching-ching, chop suey' ad", SCMP, May 3, 2013
http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1227375/exclusive-general-motors-pulls-racist-chevrolet-ad-over-ching-ching-chop

CKB Solutions is all about real solutions for the real world.  To learn how we can help your business, contact Greg Kovacic in Hong Kong.

In order to distance itself from disgraced founder Lance Armstrong and his scandals, the Livestrong Foundation unveiled a new logo.  The new logo emphasizes the "foundation" and removes references to Lance Armstrong.

The designers of the new logo remained tied to the old logo by using the original same "LIVESTRONG".  They could have used lower case letters to de-emphasize this.  E.g. "LiveStrong".  This would also make the "FOUNDATION" part stand out.  They could also have added a tagline to reinforce the message of what they do and why they are still relevant without a relationship with Lance Armstrong.  For example: "Helping Families with Cancer LiveStrong".  Most importantly, they could have changed the bold emphasis to "live" instead of "strong" to reinforce the "living" message".

In explaining the new logo, the EVP of operations stated, "The positioning of the bars suggests forward and dynamic movement.".  Brand logos are all about showing and not telling.  If you have to explain your logo, it will be lost on the typical person.  The best brand logos reinforce emotional connections to the audience.  This does not happen when one has to  explain those connections so people "get it".

Summary:

• Indian's are increasingly hiring MNC food brands to cater and make their weddings stand out from the rest.
• This provides MNC food brands with fantastic opportunity to connect with their target customers - while being paid to do so.
• But MNCs need to be selective and make sure the weddings they cater match the brands' objectives.
• If you cannot maintain the quality of your product in a wedding setting, then the only winning move is not to play.
• The key India marriage seasons are November-February and April-May.
  

Imagine having MNC fast-food chains such as Domino's, Costa Coffee, Haagen-Dazs and Baskin Robbins entertaining guests at your wedding.  The Indians are doing it.  India definitely sets the standard for wedding ceremonies.  One way the rich marriage hosts now seek to make their wedding stand apart from the rest is to have MNC branded food and beverage stalls at the wedding ceremony.  Some even go so far as to replicate their outlets in malls, complete with similar seating arrangements.

A Fantastic Consumer Connect

MNCs are attracted to this trend because it provides them a direct channel to their target audience.  They are in effect being paid to promote themselves to the wedding audience, which just happens to be their target demographic.

A Haagen-Dazs parlour costs 5-8 lakh (INR 500,000 - 800,000) for one evening.  A Costa Coffee bar costs about 3 lakh (INR300,000).

New and Growing Business Channel

Caterers and wedding planners say the demand for branded food has gathered pace in the last 2 years.  15-20% of weddings these days demand branded stalls along with traditional snacks and cuisines. Demand for branded outlets is a growing trend all over the country, particularly in Chennai, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Mumbai, Punjab and Delhi. 

Dominos is taking advantage of this growing demand by forming a separate vertical for outdoor catering with dedicated staff, cold vans, pizza ovens and other paraphernalia in select markets such as Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, cities in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. Domino's says wedding accounts for 50% of the outdoor catering vertical's revenues during the marriage seasons of November-February and April-May.

But Need to be Selective

A company must be selective about the kind of marriages they go to.  Revenue is not huge, so one must balance the consumer visibility, the wedding profile and the number of wedding guests.

And Not For Every Company - Must Be Able To Maintain Product Quality

McDonald's India does not do outdoor catering.  Creating and relocating a full store at weddings is logistically very difficult.  More importantly though, it is difficult to maintain the quality of its products outside its outlets.  In this situation, the only winning move is not to play.

Why India?

People are willing to spend to make theirs a grand Indian wedding.  Wedding hosts want the snob value and the bragging rights to have famous MNC brands at their weddings.  Indian weddings are becoming more and more about ostentatious showmanship with hosts wanting emphasize the specialness of the wedding event.

Source: "MNC food giants like Domino's, Costa Coffee, Haagen-Dazs eye a fast buck at Indian weddings", Economic Times of India, February 21, 2013
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-02-21/news/37221580_1_weddings-future-brands-sushil-wadhwa

CKB Solutions is all about real solutions for the real world.  To learn how we can help your business, contact Greg Kovacic in Hong Kong.

Summary:

• A company's name and brand should be consistent with each other and consistent with how its consumers view it: i.e. consistent with its marketing communications, products, and customer experiences.
• A strong brand name is no substitute for a compelling product.
• Less is more:  A company and brand name should be short and to the point.

The best brands are built around mutually reinforcement.  Marketing communications, product, customer experience all reinforce the brand.  Recently some big names have changed their company names.  Royal Philips Electronics is going to become Royal Philips.  Research In Motion (RIM) became Blackberry.  These 2 companies are good examples where the product brand IS the company brand in the consumers' mind, but the corporate name is inconsistent.

Philips is making the right move to remove "Electronics" from its name since it recently divested the consumer electronics business.  But Philips should go even further.  CEO Frans Van Houten in a recent statement about the proposed name change stated, “Philips is a diversified technology company focused on delivering meaningful innovation in healthcare, energy-efficient lighting and consumer health and well-being.”  Notice the CEO of Philips itself referred to the company as Philips and not Royal Philips Electronics.  This is because in people's minds, the brand is Philips.  So why not change the company name to just Philips instead of Royal Philips?  Philips can add sub-brands like Philips Healthcare, Philips Lighting, and Philips Well-Being.

RIM did it right changing its name to Blackberry, its well-known product, but the change probably came too late. Blackberry was always the much more well-known moniker, even becoming part of people's vernacular.  At the end of the day, however, a company and brand name is no substitute for a compelling product.  Even if RIM changed its name to Blackberry years ago, it would still have missed the smartphone revolution, despite having a front row seat.

Sources:

• "RIM changes name to BlackBerry, unveils 2 phones", the Wall Street Journal, January 30, 2013. http://online.wsj.com/article/APcf657d7bad8340c38efa06b77283db0c.html
  
• "When it comes to branding, Why Philips plans to drop 'Electronics' from its name", CampaignAsia February 26, 2013.
  http://www.campaignasia.com/Article/334582,why-philips-plans-to-drop-electronics-from-its-name.aspx

CKB Solutions is all about real solutions for the real world.  To learn how we can help your business, contact Greg Kovacic in Hong Kong.

In order to draw attention to environmental pollution in his area, Jin Zengming, a Zhejiang entrepreneur offered a RMB200,000 reward to the environmental protection bureau chief if he swims in the polluted Ruian river for 20 minutes.

By posting this on Sina Weibo, he is sure to garner a lot of attention from China's netizens.  He did 3 very smart things:

• Tapped into popular sentiments and emotions
  [China's chronic environment pollution and government official corruption]
• Headline grabbing amount of money
  [for China]
• A daring challenge which puts challenged person in a lose-lose situation:
  [the government minister with specific responsibility for the problem is in a lose-lose situation because if he does the swim, he will lose face; if he does not do the swim, he will also lose face.  In either situation, China's netizens are going to have a field day keeping attention focused on this.  Do not be surprised if this official is replaced shortly]

If you want to draw attention to your cause, this is a smart example to learn from.

Source: 
"Chinese official offered huge reward... if he can swim in polluted river", South Cina Morning Post, February 18, 2013.
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1153028/chinese-official-offered-huge-reward-if-he-can-swim-polluted-river

CKB Solutions is all about real solutions for the real world.  To learn how we can help your business, contact Greg Kovacic in Hong Kong.

2XU makes great products.  I know from personal experience.  For the past year using their swim shorts and cycling shorts training for an Ironman, I thought the brand was pronounced "2 ex you".  Then a friend who has worked with the brand recently told me the correct way to read the brand name is "2 times you".  This makes sense since the tag line is "Human performance multiplied".  Like the punchline to a joke, a brand logo must be crystal clear and require zero explanation, or it runs the risk of losing or reducing its desired effect, impact and meaning.

As a freebie, I have recommended to 2XU they change their brand to "2xU".  The brand's meaning is much clearer and requires no explanation.  They would not have to change any website domains and would probably only have to file an extension to existing trademark copyrights, if any.  They could gradually incorporate the new brand logo into their lineup of gear and other items minimizing the conversion expense.

To see their great products, visit www.2XU.com.

CKB Solutions is all about real solutions for the real world.  To learn how we can help your business, contact Greg Kovacic in Hong Kong.