Can’t Tell Your Cokes Apart? Sue Someone

The new Coke Zero promotion centers around executives from Coke attempting to sue executives from Coke Zero for “taste infringement.”  The campaign uses new media to suggest to consumers Coke Zero is a contemporary brand.

That is important because Coke Zero is aimed primarily at soda drinkers
who are ages 18 to 34, with a tilt toward men. To underscore those
intentions, Coca-Cola describes Coke Zero as a “calorie-free cola”
rather than a “diet cola.” The word “diet” is avoided because it implies — particularly to younger
men — that a beverage is meant only for older, female consumers.

Will it work?

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Can’t Tell Your Cokes Apart? Sue Someone - New York Times
REMEMBER the Three Stooges routine about the law firm called Dewey, Cheatem & Howe? Although the Coca-Cola Company is not using that particular fictional firm, it is updating the make-fun-of-lawyers shtick for new generations in a nontraditional campaign for Coke Zero.

The campaign is based on an oddball thought, that the executives at
Coca-Cola who sell the flagship Coke Classic brand want to hire lawyers
to sue their co-workers who sell Coke Zero. The grounds for the
imaginary lawsuits would be “taste infringement” — that is, it annoys
the Coke Classic executives that no-calorie Coke Zero tastes so much
like their sugared soft drink.

Boutique Backlash: Rethinking Ultra-Chic Hotels

While brands like Starwood Hotels are still thriving, the now-23-year-old segment is finding that some customers - even once loyal ones - are getting tired of their tragically hip ways. Generation X consumers, the tradtional target marketing, are aging and their priorities are changing.

Once smitten with trendy furnishings and achingly cool bars — and
unfazed by inferior amenities, tiny rooms and snooty hotel staff –
boutique customers increasingly say they’re just as interested in good
service and a good room as they are in style.

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Boutique Backlash: Rethinking Ultra-Chic Hotels - WSJ.com
The W Chicago City Center has a stylish lobby and chic guest rooms, with 350-thread count sheets and marble bathrooms. But it doesn’t have a bar Frank Bynum feels comfortable in, or even a phone he can understand.

When traveling, the University of Southern California law student usually likes to grab a drink in the hotel bar before bed. But when he stayed at the W in December, he skipped it. The hotel’s Whiskey Blue bar, with its mirrored walls and clubby scene, was so trendy, he says, he felt he would’ve had to dress up.

Small and Plastic, With an Upscale Tilt

Visa’s latest ad campaign wants to remind certain consumers that it too can be exclusive and upscale.

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Small and Plastic, With an Upscale Tilt - New York Times
IN a new advertising campaign, Visa USA — whose name is almost synonymous with convenient credit — is hoping to remind certain consumers that it can also be a little more exclusive.

In the credit card market, Visa has a reputation for being accepted almost everywhere, and its ads inform consumers at every turn that “Life takes Visa.” The company is the worldwide leader in electronic payments, touching $17 out of every $100 spent. But now Visa is trying to raise awareness of its premium-rewards cards, and to reposition itself as a contender in the high-end credit marketplace.

Marketers Tap Cupid-Bashing Sentiment

This Valentine’s Day is all about anit-Valentine’s Day.

More and more brands, including American Greetings, are jumping on the anti-Valentine’s Day and Cupid Bashing this year.

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MediaPost Publications - Marketers Tap Cupid-Bashing Sentiment - 02/13/2007
ADMIT IT. ALL THOSE DIAMOND-EARRING ads on TV make some people you know cry, and others choke on venomous tales about their ex. And this year, a few companies are showing some extra love to Valentine-averse.

American Greetings, the Cleveland-based card marketer, is selling 10 different “Anti-Valentine’s Day” cards, aimed straight at everyone who will spend this Wednesday at odds with Cupid. “Don’t worry, you won’t be alone forever,” says one, with a picture of a young woman on the front of the card. Inside, the same woman is surrounded by dozens of cats.

After a Slump, Payless Tries On Fashion for Size

Payless ShoeSource–the bargain shoe retailer that’s seen its fortunes flag in
recent year under pressure from Wal-Mart and other discount rivals–is
undergoing a makeover. Long known for cluttered, warehouse-like stores, there is hope that stylish products and spruced-up stores will lure
young, hip consumers.

Payless is offering trendier products, such as
Lucite platform wedges and patent-leather zippered boots by fashion designers. Most of its shoes are still inexpensive, but it is also testing
pairs that cost $40 or even $60.

The company is opening a design office
in New York this summer to focus on original styles, and for the first time, it
has its own design chief. It is also advertising in Vogue, getting
exposure for its shoes on the runways of New York’s Fashion Week, and spending
more than $100 million a year on marketing. Even its logo has been redesigned,
although it still uses the trademark Payless orange.

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After a Slump, Payless Tries On Fashion for Size - WSJ.com
The storied merchants of Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue have a neighbor with a new look these days: Payless ShoeSource Inc., the retailer long known for cluttered, warehouse-like stores, budget shoppers and shoes that rarely cost more than $15 a pair. Across from Lord & Taylor at 39th Street, the Payless store sports a new sleek design and shoes such as a $22 platform pump with a bow tie.

The store is part of a gamble for the Topeka, Kan.,
company and Chief Executive Matthew E. Rubel. He believes stylish
products and spruced-up stores will lure young, hip consumers and
persuade longtime customers to spend more.

Once a feared force, Payless saw its performance sag
in recent years under pressure from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other
discount rivals. Its image suffered too. One analyst said it sold “some
of the ugliest shoes in America.” Before Mr. Rubel accepted the job in
2005, he toured Payless stores with his son, then 11, who he says
described them as looking “kind of like Mom’s dirty closet.”

Russell Stover Plans to be a Chic Chocolatier

When you think of Russell Stover chocolates, you think of grandmas. Russell Stover is trying to change that, with a complete image overhaul. More sophisticated lines, upscale flavors and trendy packaging is all part of the new marketing push.

How will consumers respond to the revamping and repositioning of a standard?

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Advertising Age - Russell Stover Plans to be a Chic Chocolatier
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Want to give your loved one a trendy, exciting and sexy gift for Valentine’s Day? Pick up some Russell Stover candy. Stop laughing. We’ll wait.

Burger King of Cool?

Burger King is looking to be the King of Cool, a strategy that seems to be working according to its sales figures.

The chain is using tools to reach its consumers, like its iconic plastic-faced King, online, on TV and in print - all in a meaningful way to its trendy consumers who “get it.”

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Burger King of Cool? - USATODAY.com
MIAMI — Burger King is desperately seeking pop culture’s holy grail: to be cool.

So cool it can sell more than 3 million Burger-King-branded Xbox video games in two months. So cool that The King, its masked icon-with-attitude, showed up in Jay Leno skits 17 times in two months. So cool that The King’s got an ultra-popular profile on MySpace.com.

A Word From Our Sponsor

Cosmetics brand Clinique is aligning itself more with doctors. Clinique will open a Clinique Skin Wellness Center at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in Manhattan.

Critics say aligning a skin care brand with academic medicine diminishes doctors’ unbais  authority.

Does a brand aligning promoting wellness differ in any way from pharmaceutical companies paying for research on diseases that
can be treated by their own products, with the studies frequently
published in influential medical journals?

More importantly, do either of these add a significant weight to the consumer’s decision making process?

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A Word From Our Sponsor - New York Times
WHEN Clinique made its debut in 1968, the cosmetics brand altered America’s beauty landscape by using scientific language and clinical iconography at a time when highly perfumed, elaborately packaged creams dominated department stores.

Clinique hired a prominent dermatologist, Dr. Norman Orentreich of
Manhattan, to help develop the line. It outfitted its sales force in
pristine white lab coats and installed them at cosmetics counters where
they diagnosed the skin types of customers. Even its name carried a
clinical aura.

Uncruel Beauty

With the popularity of chains like Whole Foods and boutiques and online stores vegan marketers are courting to the kind of consumers who shop at these kinds of places.

Although the almost-vegan consumers aren’t ready to give up animal products outright (like leather wallets, for example) marketers are seeing dollar signs in “vegan-chic.”

Clothing and fashion has transitioned from “what you need to survive” to “how to make this a fun lifestyle that other people can relate to.”

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Uncruel Beauty - New York Times
HADASS KANTOROWICZ is on the fence. “I eat less meat than I used to,” said Ms. Kantorowicz, a self-described tantric healer who stopped in last week at Organic Avenue, a vegan general store in downtown Manhattan. “I’m definitely a lot more conscious than I used to be.” While she appreciates the virtues of a meat-free diet, she stops short of embracing a vegan way of life, one that would ask her to forsake a croc-embossed bag or patent leather pumps. “And I’m not ready to wear hemp,” she confided.

IAG: Helping Consumers Lifts Product Placement Effectiveness

When it comes to product placement, consumers react strongly to positive and helping messages.

Research from a recent IAG Research study shows people warm to brand integrations when the marketer provides a clear benefit, for example, Sears’ tie in with the TV show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

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MediaPost Publications - IAG: Helping Consumers Lifts Product Placement Effectiveness - 01/08/2007
TO SUCCEED AT PRODUCT PLACEMENT, consider this advice: Help the consumer. That’s what IAG Research data found when measuring the most effective placements in 2006. People warm to brand integrations when a marketer provides a clear benefit.

The research shows that the year’s most effective brand integration–in terms of generating a shift in positive brand opinion–occurred on ABC’s now-cancelled “Miracle Workers” reality show, in which physicians tried novel, life-changing surgeries.