If you had asked who was the big winner the day after the Super Bowl I’d have said the Saints, but now we can see the real winners were Snickers and Betty White.

Hungry for a Good Commercial Grab a Snickers

Somehow Snickers managed to call out a young man in a commercial for performing like he was an old woman and get everyone to laugh at it. On the face this could be the type of comment that could lead to a backlash against the product itself with certain demographics (specifically women) finding the joke offensive. The inclusion of Betty White set the right tone, and turned this commercial into one that will be remembered for quite some time.

For some context:

Facebook has Spoken

Drew Brees the face of the Saints who defied all odds since coming to New Orleans, and managed to lead his team to victory in the Super Bowl.  Yet, Mr. Brees has lost to another improbable face on Facebook.

It’s incredible that Betty White’s write-in campaign has almost 200,000 more fans than Drew Brees, on a site that isn’t even really endorsed or affiliated with the celebrity.

YouTube has Spoken

The most watched video associated with Drew Brees has managed to reach over 909,000 views. The Snickers commercial from the Super Bowl managed close to 1.2 million views.

What’s it All Mean?

There seem to be a lot of engaged potential customers out there for Snickers. The use of a celeb who would likely fall onto the B-list any other week, seems to have been the right choice. The ad campaign seems to have elevated their brand and likely at a pretty manageable cost.

The cost of a Super Bowl commercial is between $2-3 million which gets you in front of 153 million sets of eyes. This large of an audience can’t be ignored, but the impression on the audience is pretty fleeting when you consider they’ve only been served the commercial once alongside dozens of others.

To have the campaign take on legs like it has under the Betty White petition is a wonderful side benefit, that couldn’t have been expected but now can’t be ignored. The question now to marketers everywhere is how can this sort of buzz be replicated without alienating the community it’s feeding off of?

Posts have been few and far between since mid November I know. I’ve been busy getting ready for the holidays, looking for new positions, and most importantly just taking some time for me. During one of these excursions I came across the following sign:

My first immediate thought was how hilarious is it to have a venue advertising Manheim Steamroller and Slayer/Megadeath on the same billboard. My second is why I am going to WAMU theatre when they went the way of the dinosaurs.

We’ve seen lately the huge risk that businesses take when there is any kind of endorsement or sponsorship. I’m curious then why there isn’t an appropriate level of consideration and negotiation in determining mutual escape clauses from these sponsorships.

In thinking on this and Tiger Woods recent experiences I would think that it would be both sides who would wish to end these endorsements. When the media juggernaut is getting a hold of a story there’s nothing worse than opening a fresh wound back up by running a campaign utilizing the person who is in question.

Verizon has come out swinging at AT&T over the extent and availability of their 3G network in response AT&T has solidified a response with actor Luke Wilson as their spokesperson.

The First Spot

The Second Spot

Great use of the TV Commercial
Both spots for AT&T were 30 second commercials as opposed to the longer 1 minute spots Verizon has been running. The tactic AT&T is using is running both spots within the same advertisement break.

By sandwiching a couple of commercials in-between the two AT&T ads they give the impression that Luke Wilson had continued to cover the map with the post cards during the interlude. This type of storytelling really breaks down the fourth wall on the medium and acknowledges the presence of the audience.

AT&T Had to Answer
In addition to the Droid does ads Verizon has been running a series of holiday related ads that show AT&Ts 3G coverage in a poor light. AT&T has had some perceived issues with service mainly due to the strain the unparalleled success the iPhone has achieved has placed on their network. That being said, AT&T felt very strongly that Verizon’s ads on their coverage were missleading so much so they’ve actually filed a lawsuit against Verizon.

Rating the Commercial
I really like the testimonial from Luke Wilson, he comes off as a very down to earth celebrity and is very like-able. The commercial spots really played up this persona as well by having Luke’s dialogue interject a couple personal connections to some of the locations.

The use of the postcard gimmick was also really ingenious. Looking at a coverage map is a rather detached way of making a phone purchase decision. Putting it into perspective that all these places which are important to you, whether they are places where your family and friends are located or a vacation destination, drives a more human connection.

Conclusion
Verizon’s been on a roll with Droid and their aggressive attacks on AT&T, but these ads are a terrific response from AT&T. If the rest of this campaign features this kind of humor and ability to connect with the audience I think Verizon will have a fight on their hands.

Apple’s become quite the fixture in my blog lately much to my chagrin. Here goes another article about them, and all I can say is when you brand products this well it’s deserved when people are talking about.

What is Blue Ocean Branding?
I’m stepping a bit outside of what was intended in the Blue Ocean strategic product management philosophies outlined by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. Their focuses were more on how an all up approach to creating a product that moved from a heavily fought area into an area where competitors had missed a market segment wherein their product with a unique value proposition could allow them to capture this segment.

My idea on Blue Ocean Branding is taking an existing product without changing it or with relatively minor changes refocusing the branding and messaging at a blue ocean space. This is not the same as what they’ve discussed previously and some may call it a “tacked-on approach” but we’ll see what value this kind of branding has given the example listed below.

Launching of the iPod Touch
When the Touch was released in September of 2007 it was focused primarily on updating the device look and feel for a music player, along with a secondary focus on a mobile browser and ability to receive content on the go with YouTube integration and iTunes Wi-Fi Music store.

Playing on the strengths of the iPhone the iPod Touch offered much of the value of the iPhone minus the cellular connection and AT&T service.

Personal Music Player Market Trends
This category has come under increased pressure due to 3 things:
• Apple’s previous success and large installed player base that is content with the product they already have.
• Zune and other lower cost device manufacturers trying to grab market-share placing downward pricing pressure on the entire category
• Phones and Mobile Internet Devices making huge inroads into this space

Where would the iPod Touch go?
The building blocks for this branding shift were available in the product from the day the iPod Touch was announced. but the ecosystem wasn’t in place until a full year after the launch.

Where was the iPod Touch going to go as the mp3 player was coming under attack? Into gaming.

Take a look at the current product pillars:
A great iPod
A great pocket computer
A great portable game player

There is hardly even a mention of the music player anymore in their marketing text. People already know the iPod plays music, the brand is synonymous with it in-fact.

Take a look into how they’re even defining iPod now:
iPod touch is music, movies, games, and apps. All at your fingertips.

Music may come first but its only one of four software/content offerings now.

iPod Touch as a Blue Ocean Branding Example
The product hasn’t changed since day one. The ecosystem built itself up around the product (I’m sure with more than a little bit of encouragement from Apple), but I really think the direction they went wasn’t a planned Blue Ocean strategy for this product. The focus and decision making has always been leading out with the phone but with 20 million iPod touches sold that’s too big of a market not to tap into.

In this case Apple looked around and had to wonder we have this shrinking product space, we have a device with some mobile computing power and capabilities where should we go with this? As the AppStore became attractive and developers rushed to be a part of this space they were given an opportunity to transition into a new space. This move by Apple created a blue ocean not just in the world of music players but also in the world of mobile gaming.

Conclusion
While there are some assumptions in this post (mainly around product planning of the iPod Touch) I do think this is a valid example of what I’m trying to get at. Unfortunately much like in the Blue Ocean Strategy book it is extremely hard to validate the assumption outside of the examples of reviewing publically available information (which I provided a link to above).

In this case, with minimal investment of time on product management, or new product design Apple has unlocked a new cash cow. By keeping the iPod Touch specs in-line with the iPhone from day one this opportunity was created.

All has been quiet on the site for the last week or so. Life comes at you fast sometimes; last week was a rather zany vacation in Las Vegas and followed by a transition today out of Microsoft.  In-between my blog suffered.
So topic of the day similar to my “Cult of Personality Post”:

You are your business.
In Vegas as you can plainly see from above I had the opportunity to go and see the magic/comedy duo that is Penn & Teller. I absolutely loved the show and if anyone had asked me what act I’d seen in Vegas that they should go see it would have been there’s.
I’m not going to stop there though, with recommending when prompted. The first thing I did after getting a picture was post on Facebook how everyone should go see Penn & Teller, and now find myself devoting an entire post to them.

Push Further
You see Penn & Teller have gone past the boundaries I would associate with normal celebrities and other Vegas acts and established a close connection with their audience.

Beyond the audience participation bits of the show I was shocked to see an after-show free autograph and picture session. I saw lines gathering and expected to see a sign denoting what the charge for a single picture would be; instead I saw none and was almost perplexed.
Don’t Give Up On What Got You There
Pen n & Teller get it; the same deal that they used to climb the ranks will keep propelling their business forward.  You don’t stop doing the things that made you successful, that’s a lesson everyone should get.

Conclusion
Readership was way up because I was posting compelling articles daily, and I went 5 days between posts. Lesson learned Penn & Teller, be a better steward of my brand. With the recent career shift I’m reinvigorated by the opportunity the blog presents, to be heard, to influence, and to make for better products and services.
Looking forward to a renewed readership base.
Nick