The Finch Post

The Falling Star of Celebrity Endorsement - Part 4

Can You Hear Me Now, Catherine Zeta-Jones?

If you suffered a heart attack, you’d want an expertly trained Cardiologist at the helm of your recovery, not a glitzy hospital mouthpiece paid to look good while reciting medical references he or she probably doesn’t even understand. The same goes for purchasing products or services. Savvy consumers want to learn about the best and brightest from the best and brightest. Hence, the long-running success of Verizon’s “Can you hear me now?” campaign.

From 2002 to 2011, Verizon aired more than 100 TV spots featuring a bespectacled field tester asking a question familiar to many cell phone users, “Can you hear me now?” Test Man roaming across the country not only visually represented the strength of Verizon’s network, but showcased the spokesperson’s man-on-the-street appeal as well.

In stark contrast to Verizon’s employee endorser, T-Mobile hired starlet Catherine Zeta-Jones to plug the cash-saving benefits of the carrier. With her good looks, fame, and respectability, Zeta-Jones possessed all the hallmarks of a successful spokesperson. The problem, however, was that she lacked a convincing connection to the product she pushed.

In order for celebrity endorsements to be successful, consumers have to buy into the idea that their favorite actor or singer really does use that weight loss program or $5 lipstick. Watching the millionairess promote T-Mobile’s budget-friendly phone plan was as believable as Bill Gates shopping at Shoe Circus (see part 3 of this blog series), it just didn’t ring true.

Today’s audiences demand that A-listers be authentically in sync with the products they sell. This break from our star-struck tradition has celebrities nervous and businesses redefining their criteria for successful spokespeople. Perhaps Verizon should have texted T-Mobile and informed them of the importance of source credibility.

5 Marketing Missteps

We’ve all done it—especially after one too many cocktails—promoted an idea that, in hindsight, is just as ill-conceived as drunk-dialing your ex. When companies exhibit questionable ad campaign judgment, we’re left with unfortunate (although often hilarious) results. Here is a list of our personal favorites:

 

1)      Receptacle-ready underwear from Bic

The throwaway titans at Bic are still scratching their collective heads over what went wrong with this launch. After all, the new product line was in keeping with their brand platform as a provider of disposable products ranging from razors to ballpoint pens. Moreover, as anyone knows who has ever spent time with or been a teenager, sometimes it’s simpler to just use a shovel to clear away and discard forgotten undergarments than painstakingly retrieve them from among the clutter and put them in the wash. Nevertheless, this idea never found a foothold in the market and, to the chagrin of Bic executives, the product wound up where it was ultimately heading anyway, straight in the trash.

 

2)      From Netflix to Please Fix

We wrote about this brand bumbling before, but it bears repeating. After first alienating many of its customers by announcing that the company would split its DVD and movie streaming package into two distinct services, Netflix swiftly declared their plans to create a new affiliated company. Like Smokin’ Joe’s 1-2 combination, this follow-up move left many consumers dazed and off-balance. The new company, Qwikster, would manage all DVD renters while Netflix would retain streaming video customers. After considerable customer criticism that the new model complicated the process and increased the cost for users of both services who would now need to maintain accounts on two separate websites, Netflix abandoned its plans. “We just moved too fast,” explained Steve Swasey, Netflix’s Vice President of Corporate Communications. This is a perfect example of how pursuing an idea without fully considering how it will be received by your customers will always wind up with you in over your head. Perhaps a more apropos name for Qwikster would have been Quicksand.

 

3)      Como se dice “cultural blunder”?

Hindsight may be 20/20, but that sentiment provided little comfort to these companies that succumbed to the ultimate cultural language translation trap. Naming is arguably the cornerstone of branding. From these monikers consumers first begin to equate characteristics to particular products and companies. When businesses fail to account for regional differences, however, they often end up with some unintended implications, such as what occurred in English-speaking countries with IKEA’s release of the “Fartfull” desk. Other examples include:

• Gerber baby food, which you won’t find on the shelves in France, likely due to the fact that there it translates to “vomiting”, and
• U.S.-based Wang Computers’ “Wang Cares” campaign in the UK, where it was pulled after public consensus that it sounded too similar to the expletive “wankers”.

 

4)      Complex solutions for simple problems

There’s an old Cold War story about American ingenuity versus Soviet resourcefulness. In zero gravity standard ballpoint pens don’t work. After an exhaustive and expensive investment in research and development, NASA came up with a pen that writes in space. The Soviet Space Program’s solution? Use a pencil. Likewise, two similar products, the Xenote and the Sony E-marker, were launched to solve the age-old dilemma of hearing a song you like on the radio, but not knowing what it is called or who performs it. These devices would bookmark the song and match it to an auditory lineup. Who knew that someone would come along and put out radios that display song names, making the Xenote and E-marker obsolete?

 

5)      He who smelled it DELL-d it

Similar in concept to the Smell-O-Vision, the unfortunately-named iSmell was a computer peripheral device developed by DigiScents in 2001. Designed to replicate natural and man-made odors and emit “theme-appropriate” aromas when users visited websites or opened emails, the iSmell was recognized in 2006 by PC World Magazine as one of the 25 worst tech products of all time. Makes you wonder, though, what type of scent it would have produced for IKEA’s “Fartfull” desk.

 

Netflix tests the power of brand

All the missteps of Netflix have been interesting to follow if you’re in to watching just how fast a brand can self-destruct. We surely take no joy in any brand’s challenges; but we watch these things closely to hone our ever sharpening expertise on brand dynamics through studying real life cases. A few things to take from Netflix’s current events, and from this article in particular:

1. Building brand fanatics is obviously a brand’s most meaningful triumph. But, it’s also a tremendous responsibility and fundamentally undermining that relationship comes with grave consequences.
2. The turn on a dime, pivot mentality that is so essential to the emergence of an early stage company can become a liability at a more mature stage of life. Once you have customers to answer to, you better make sure their perspectives are understood before decisions are made.
3. In this article, the author writes, “…the move might have been good for Netflix, but not ideal for Netflix’s customers.” We go on record as saying the paradox of that sentence can never prove true (at least long-term). In the end, what’s good for your brand by definition must be good for your customers.
4. It turns out that Saturday Night Live can, in fact, still be funny.

Windows Phone 7 - Big idea or big disaster?

Though we understand the need to balance business risk and reward when launching a new concept, I must admit to being a sucker for big ideas.  Line and flavor extensions are fine, but what really gets the juices flowing is when a brand advances a compelling and original system of belief, which happens so rarely.
 
Enter the Windows Phone 7, the new mobile phone operating system from Microsoft - introduced with sprawling and beautiful brand advertising promising to 'save us from our phones.'  While spouses across the world pump their fist, let's pause to truly contemplate the size of this idea.  Since the beginning of the smartphone revolution, iPhone, Blackberry and Droid have taken the complete opposite tack - that our phones can do more for us in our professional and personal lives, simplifying and enhancing our existence, but implicitly suggesting that we invest more time into using the devices (and less on our laptops, gaming systems, GPS, etc.).
 
Now Microsoft boldly proclaims that what we really want from our mobile phones is the ability to access the information we need and complete tasks quickly and easily so we can go on (or back) to living our real lives.  That the point of technology is to enhance not entrance.  Powerful indeed.  So is Microsoft onto something (finally) in the digital space?  Product reviews are mixed and the company and media are fighting the expectations game when it comes to sales results.  The data is inconclusive.   
 
Hype aside, I could predict the ultimate answer if we knew how this campaign came about.  At what juncture was the insight discovered that led to this declaration of mobile independence?  If Microsoft learned through research that we are on the cusp of a backlash against all the thrilling but frivolous apps, that consumers are yearning to untether as quickly as possible and go outside or enjoy a low-tech dinner, then maybe this is not just a big idea, but the right idea.  Conversely, if the engineers developed the OS and Microsoft's marketing team and ad agency searched their synapses for how to spin it, retrofitting the message to the technology, Windows Phone 7 will perish in a blaze of rhetorical glory.
 
The point is that the right sequence to yield a big idea that also wins financially begins with consumer insight.  The product this process outputs and, last in the chain, the marketing campaign created to support it, must deliver on the philosophy that undergirds the entire proposition.  Perhaps the reason there are so few big ideas - beyond understandable risk aversion - is that the process to yield one is perceived to be complex, intellectually rigorous and investment-rich.  Far easier to flavor an existing beer with lime and throw up some ads that are evocative of summertime.
 
This need not be the case, by the way, if the proper sequence is followed and the big idea is truly that, not just the empty sizzle of a big campaign.  There is room for brands to think big if they are oriented to see the world through the eyes of the consumer - insight, product, advertising.  So did Microsoft nail it this time?  We'll soon find out - and if we knew how this all came about, we'd have a strong indicator.