Jekami advertising
Advertising Trends: In the U.S., the public is allowed to design ads for their favorite brands.
Karlsberg has found a new way to obtain commercial orders.
come: Namely, to shoot commercials "on spec", i.e. on speculation,
in the hope that a large corporation will buy them and use them in the
television. Karlsberg's calculation actually worked out when the
agency of the Nike brand Converse, BSSP in California, the customer
proposed to launch one of its new advertising campaigns with the support of customers.
to design. Anyone who had a camera could take a 60-second
long clip with his personal associations with the sneaker
to send in. The best entries have since been published on the website
to see.
The response was overwhelming. Together with hundreds of other
consumers, Karlsberg and its partner Gary Nardino sent several
Converse commercials. Two of these were accepted and do not appear
only on the Nike website. They were also shown on MTV and in
Poster form pasted onto billboards. The reward for the work: 10,000
dollars, a mere pittance compared to the roughly 300,000 dollars that a
is what a professionally produced commercial usually costs. "This is how
got my career rolling," says Karlsberg.
Brand Democratization is in
However, the advertising companies benefit even more from the
new trend. Brand democratization, i.e. the influence of consumers
on the design and advertising of brands, is the new buzzword
in the USA in terms of customer loyalty. It is a reaction to the
Increasing fear on the part of manufacturers that their commercials in the
Flood of commercialization. "As soon as a company has a brand
the world, it no longer owns this brand, but the
public owns it," says Cory Treffiletti, Senior Vice President
President of the Carat Fusion agency. "If you don't listen to your customers
that can backfire."
The trend only really came into being thanks to the possibilities of the Internet.
rolling. Consumers can provide direct feedback in the forums.
give. And companies can ask consumers to do so,
to send in personal stories about how they got to know the brand
interact.
The Japanese car manufacturer Mazda, for example, asked its customers via
Internet to find the best photos matching Mazda's "Zoom-Zoom" slogan
to send in. "Zoom-Zoom" conveys the sound of movement and the
Photos published on the website (
)
are to be seen,
all suggest movement. Most customers who sent in photos,
have nothing to do with the brand, but only with the slogan.
The entrants with the best images had the chance to win a camcorder.
win
Competitions as the talk of the town
The strategy also has another effect for marketers: more
to attract visitors to their websites. The General Motors brand
Cadillac, which carried out a similar campaign to Nike, was able to
Increase number of clicks by 300 percent. "Customers are more deeply involved in branding today than they were in the
times of focus groups, where they were asked how they would like to see a new product.
like," says Martyn Tipping from the branding agency TippingSprung in
New York. "Of course, this means that a company gives up the
control over his product, but if you are smart, you can make this
and generates conversation about its product."
If done correctly, brand democratization has enormous potential,
the professionals believe. "Most of the traditional means of
marketing campaign in the past, today generate at most
falling sales," says Eric Block, founder of the branding agency Duffy
and Partners in Minneapolis. "You have to engage consumers directly today.
and brand democratization is one way to achieve this.
achieve." Block himself has another aspect of the
democratization: He created a kind of experience gallery for
the Sony Group, which spoiled those with even less technology,
future consumers in Shanghai into the world of
consumer electronics. Here, customers can choose any
product for as long as you like. The range extends from the
the latest video cameras through to computers. "Sony is thus becoming a
term for them," Block is convinced.
Creativity at all levels
The creativity of consumers is not just something that brand manufacturers
increasingly flow into the design of their advertising campaigns. The
The urge for individualization in modern societies leads to the
The goods industry also helps to put the tools in the hands of the end consumer.
so that they can buy the desired product themselves right away.
tailors together.
With such customizing, top brands like Nike
(
)
customers to buy individually designed
Sneakers with personal logos, cuts and colors.
And chocolate bar manufacturer Mars even allows customers to make their own
to have slogans and greetings printed on their M&Ms
().
Who would want to
be reminded that he is only eating a mass-produced product.
Gerti Schön
Popular customer competitions
Even in the age of viral marketing and reality TV formats
the Swiss consumer pool has little to report when it comes to the
design of advertising measures. On the one hand, the
low-budget design is not suitable for all products. On the other hand, the
market is too small even for suitable brands, which means that the
has shown that with the often modest response rates, there is hardly any mass
advertising material. One of the few exceptions for that certain community feeling are
therefore the customer competitions, as in the case of the almost
history-making Toni yogurt campaign, in which even people like
Markus Ruf and Danielle Lanz took part successfully.
More recent examples include the Siemens or Gruyère campaign
to count. For the latter, the audience was asked to send in MMS messages
and to choose the funniest shots from them. For Cailler's chocolate brand Frigor, the people addressed were allowed to
practicing as a copywriter with passionate declarations of love. How to
was to be expected, only a few suggestions could be used as posters.
become. (la)
