How much does it cost to get elected? According to the Politico.com, $5.3 billion. Yes, billion. With a “b.” It is estimated that as much as $5.3 billion was spent this fall on all political ads this year. This total includes campaign ads for all elections, party ads, and issue ads. Some estimates suggest that the two presidential campaigns, alone, spent over $1 billion. According to ClickZ, about $110 million was spent on internet advertising alone.
It’s a staggering amount of money.
In Pennsylvania, totals are still coming in. But it is certainly no secret that Obama and McCain targeted our commonwealth. It was well reported that the McCain campaign believed Pennsylvania to be a swing state vital to their elector success. As it turns out, this wasn’t the case. Obama won decisively. Urban and suburban counties and even a number of rural counties went for Obama, despite McCain’s intense efforts. By all early projections, though, Obama still outspent McCain in Pennsylvania. Obama also outspent McCain in certain Florida Counties by a 3:1 margin, only to eek out a win.
The recent, historic election is replete with learning opportunities. Political scientists and pundits will be studying the November 4, 2008 for years. For those of us in the ad industry, one thing is clear: Advertising works. TV has replaced the bully pulpit and the :30 spot is today’s version of the whistle stop tour. Obama, with unprecedented funding, was able to out-advertise McCain. Now, don’t get me wrong, Obama had a simple, consistent message that resonated with voters. He had a disciplined campaign apparatus as well. The ad-spend became an extension of his well-run campaign and the platform for his message.
Advertisers in any category can learn from recent events. With a clear and simple message, targeting the consumer in a “big way”, advertisers will increase their share of voice, grow market share and succeed. This simple truth may be easy to overlook, however, with the current economic situation looming on the horizon.
Everyone caught the fever because it was highly contagious. All symptoms started on Wednesday, October 22nd and ended on Friday, October 31st, with the three plus hour parade of Champions. The Phillies week long run to obtain the World Series Championship not only helped the city of brotherly love celebrate a long over due championship title, it helped FOX ring in a more profitable year. What would you do with $50,000 – buy a :30 ad in the World Series of course. In Philadelphia as the excitement grew watching the Fighting Phil’s play each game, so did the ratings. Starting out with Game 1 with household ratings in the mid 20’s to 30’s peaking during the last game, the second part of game 5, with a 55 household rating. In addition to great ratings, during most games FOX enjoyed a 50 share – which means that of the people watching TV half or more of them were tuned to FOX. The station was able to capitalize on the high ratings and advertiser desire to be part of this, what could be for some, a once in a lifetime opportunity. We thought NBC had the run with the Olympics and their star athletes. August is history and the Olympians of the past are replaced with Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins. Now on to the Eagles to see what they can bring to the party this year!
In the last newsletter, we discussed the newest Microsoft campaign - I’m a PC. In mid-September, Microsoft started a questionable campaign featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. The first two commercials had very little to do with Microsoft, and maybe therefore, raised a lot of eyebrows. They were hammered by the critics in the advertising industry. Despite a lot of controversies surrounding the Gates/Seinfeld commercials, Microsoft rolled out the second part of their I’m a PC campaign as originally planned. These commercials focused on creating a sense of community among the PC owners - Microsoft employees, celebrities as well as regular people from around the world are featured in these new commercials. The creative strategy seems to have taken dead aim at Apple. In the Apple campaign, the two types of computers are personified: Mac is cool, hip and easy going. PC is erratic, nervous and geeky. With Microsoft’s 2nd wave of image ads, they are trying to inspire a popular personification of their product. After Microsoft launched its new campaign, quite a few articles discussed the possibility of Apple returning the favor and responding to Microsoft’s commercials. Well, less than a month later, Apple came out with two new “I’m a PC, I’m a Mac” spots.
The first one of the series features the geeky personification of a PC dividing money for advertising and money for fixing Vista. The advertising expenditure is of course much higher than the expenses for fixing Vista. It’s also quite funny - Whatch it here The second commercial shows PC raising money for Vista repairs and upgrades since the marketing guys spent everything on advertising – here.
The Apple commercials are doing two things – giving a definite answer to Microsoft‘s ads but also continuing to discredit Vista as an operating system. Apple is using the cool personification of their product to accentuate its positives while continuing to point out PC’s negatives. One question that comes to mind, however, is this: What is the point of the Microsoft ads? All they are doing is showing different people doing their job and saying “I’m a PC”. Well, that’s all nice and good, but I’m a MAC user and Microsoft’s commercials don’t make me want to buy a PC. I’m part of a loyal brand community, already. So, what’s the purpose of spending $10 million on an advertising campaign like this? Brand awareness? Maybe, but Microsoft doesn’t really need that. Create a better image? If so, then I have to say that Microsoft and its advertising agency Crispin, Porter & Bogusky isn’t using all the potential they have.
Microsoft probably isn’t so interested in fixing Vista after all – their engineers are already working on Windows 7 that should drop some of the most annoying features. Check out Apple’s spoof at here. Either way, Apple is still a step ahead in both their development strategy as well as in their advertising strategy.
[ Summer Movies: More Sequels ]
At the end of the 2007 summer movie season, movie industry reporters and insiders proclaimed that the 2008 summer season would be much different. After a summer of movie sequels last year, the new crop of films for 2008 was originally considered to be sequel-light. If the summer of 2008 was intended as a unique opportunity to showcase new ideas and the ingenuity of the creative energy at the studios, then Hollywood is in trouble. The past summer did enable the re-birth of one lucrative franchise (Indiana Jones) and a new treatment of a film released just five years ago (Hulk). But how long will movie goers be willing to watch the same six or seven movies over and over again, summer after summer?
Here are the sequels from the summer of 2008:
"Indiana Jones 4"
"The Dark Knight"
"The Chronicles of Narnia 2: Prince Caspian"
"The Incredible Hulk
"The Mummy 3"
"The X-Files 2
"Hellboy 2"
“Harold & Kumar 2"The list of original summer titles included…
"WALL-E"
"Kung Fu Panda"
"Iron Man"
"Hancock"
"The Love Guru"
"Meet Dave"
"Get Smart"
"Speed Racer"
…and of these, the first two are animated / CGI and the final two are well known properties from television.
If the summer of 2008 allowed studios a chance to build new franchises, then critics will have more fuel to bash Hollywood for developing one sequel after another. Sequels have built-in brand awareness and the results are staggering box office receipts. "WALL-E" (Pixar/Disney), "Kung Fu Panda" (DreamWorks Animation) and "Iron Man" (Paramount) are sure bets for sequels. The three high profile summer films that were glaring disappointments are "The Love Guru", "Meet Dave" and "Speed Racer". The four pleasant box office surprises to their studios were "Sex and the City", "Mamma Mia!", "Tropic Thunder" and "Step Brothers".
The top films of 2008 through Labor Day:
"The Dark Knight" $518,974,853
"Iron Man" $318,160,117
"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" $316,542,583
"Hancock" $227,946,274
"WALL-E" $220,193,137
"Kung Fu Panda" $214,700,999
"Dr. Seuss Horton Hears a Who" $154,529,439
"Sex and the City" $152,647,258
"The Chronicle of Narnia: Prince Caspian" $141,621,490
"Mamma Mia!" $140,145,715
"The Incredible Hulk" $134,533,885
"Wanted" $134,327,125
"Get Smart" $129,160,674
"Tropic Thunder" $104,249,481
"The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" $101,776,310
"Step Brothers" $100,266,579
Summer 2008 matched the record breaking domestic box office of summer 2007, which crossed the $4 billion mark for the first time. Expect the studios to make the safe bet and provide movie audiences with many sequels in the summers to come.
[ Digital Outdoor: What Does the Future Hold? ]
The definition of Digital media usually refers to electronic media that work on digital codes. Digital media represents a profound change from previous analog media. With that being noted …
A little over a year ago the digital outdoor concept was introduced when Clear Channel Outdoor constructed 8 units around the Philadelphia Area. On these faces, no more are the days where you need two – three weeks lead time to print a piece of vinyl. You can change the message as quickly as you want with a hit of the send button on your email.
In addition to other outdoor board companies, others want to get into the act. Titan, the outdoor company that handles all of the ad sales for Septa is now joining the party. Titan is working to launch digital bus kings (the units located on the side of busses). The units will be located on the curb side of each bus. Similar to the digital outdoor boards, the units will rotate every 6-8 seconds. However, unique to Titan, each unit will have a GPS system so that ads can be geotargeted to certain areas surrounding a certain location. The digital kings will be installed on 100 busses that will serve, primarily, the Center City region. Take a look: www.titanoutdoor.com/digital/digitalking_music
Additionally, Titan will be installing HDTV’s in main rail stations across the region, using the same concept. Look for all of this early first quarter of 2009.
Recently, Pepsi redesigned its famous logo causing a variety of opinions across the globe. The new logo is being described as a “series of smiles”. Experts estimate that Pepsi spent hundreds of millions to roll out the new look and feel.
PepsiCo said it would pour some $1.2 billion over three years into a push that will include sweeping changes to its brands, including what Chairman-CEO Nooyi characterized as a revamp of “every aspect of the brand proposition for our key (carbonated soft drink) brands. How they look, how they’re packaged, how they will be merchandized on the shelves, and how they connect with consumers.”
Is this the right move for Pepsi? The Pepsi logo has been recognizable since its creation. It’s a classic that loyal consumers can identify with. The history of the Pepsi design is traced back to the late 1800’s. There are many experts who claim that Pepsi may be feeling the pressure to be more modern in this ever changing world.
Whatever may be the reason, the redesign has caused mixed reviews from marketers and advertisers to reporters and consumers. Perhaps the beverage giant should focus on a better global strategy and pay closer attention to what loyal consumers think and want.
As if the Pepsi logo redesign is not shocking enough, Pepsi plans to rebrand Mountain Dew as simply “Mtn Dew.” It is obvious that Pepsi is planning for major changes but will this new strategy work?
