A Creative Communications Agency

Dr. Pepper has kept its word and is offering every American a free 20 oz.  it will take some time though and time is running out. You have until 6pm EST TODAY to go to www.drpepper.com or call 1-888-DRPEPPER to register for a coupon to get a free pop. Be patient with the site and while you wait the 4-6 weeks for the coupons to be mailed out.

The site has been running slowly due to volume and a hotline had to be openend. I wonder how much of a problem this is generating for the Dr. Pepper marketing people? When they announced the promotion back in March did they have the logistics set up, or know the scope of what would have to be done if this seemingly million-to-one shot came in?

It is definatley too early to mark this promotion as a success but this message on the Dr. Pepper web site seems to speak to the amount of interest they have created:

DR PEPPER EXTENDS FREE COUPON OFFER DUE TO CONSUMER DEMAND

Everyone in America has until 6 PM EST on Monday, November 24 to get a free 20 oz. Dr Pepper

Click here to get a Free Dr Pepper for a limited time.

We are sorry for any delays you have experienced in securing a coupon for a free Dr Pepper. While we had taken additional steps to meet the expected demand for our offer, the response has been greater than anticipated. To resolve this, we are increasing our server capacity and making a toll-free number available (1-888-DRPEPPER or 1-888-377-3773). In addition, as a result of the technical delays, we are extending the offer and will provide more information shortly.

Thanks for your patience and support.

So it looks to be a fairly memorable promotion but how does it rank with the others of late?

What was your favorite? Which received the most mention and generated the most buzz?

- Free Taco (Taco Bell)

- Free Coffee (Starbucks)

- Free Dr. Pepper (Dr. Pepper)

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Over the last few months there have been a few national giveaways to “every American” but does it have an impact? First was the Steal a Base Steal a Taco promotion from Taco Bell during the World Series. The second was Voters get Free Coffee from Starbucks. And finally the promotion that could still fall through; Dr. Pepper promised to give every American a free Dr. Pepper if Guns ‘N Roses releases the album “Chinese Democracy.”  Backed by millions of dollars in media buys, sponsorship costs, TV, web, print and radio spot development do the promotions pan out and really increase revenue for the brands?

That is always the question with advertising - how much revenue will it generate? How much revenue does any TV spot generate? Did the ad in Sports Illustrated drive more customers to your store? It’s difficult to tell but one factor is that these companies have done something that generated a “buzz.” People love that term, create some buzz and get people talking about the product and sales will jump! Right?

The actual dollar equation of cost of promotion to the revenue it generates isn’t a direct line that can be easily tracked. First there are millions of dollars spent to get the promotion out there. Lot’s of money has to go in up-front. Then you can’t be sure how much of you will be giving away. Production needs to go up at the bottling plant, more beef needs to be ordered, more beans need to be ground,  more workers needed to handout the tacos, coffee, or Dr. Pepper.  Considering all of the costs directly and indirectly involved it can get out of hand quickly.

But what is the result, where do you set the goals for success? With Starbucks and Taco Bell, they are giving away something that is fairly small; one taco, one cup of coffee. It’s likely that someone who comes in for the freebie will order something else and thus help offset the cost of the promotion. It’s similar to why grocery stores put milk in the back, you have to walk all the way back there and you will probably think of other things you will need along the way. The message also has a deeper impact in the mind of the consumer. FREE - something is free, let’s go get it! It will draw attention and to think of all the messages that QSR’s send out each hour. Having a message so different will be remembered.

Though in the end, I did know about the Starbucks and Taco Bell promotion but did not partake. Why? I forgot. I knew the promotions were going on and when but when the time came I had other things on my mind and it slipped away.

So all this talk about tacos, coffee, and soda pop has made me hungry; where should we go today? Get a taco and go to Starbucks? Probably not, but the message does have a stronge sense of recall and a long shelf life.

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Once again another nationwide promotion has come to be and everyone in the country, all 50 states, coast-to-coast, even Alaska and Hawaii, but not Puerto Rico; will receive a free crunchy taco from Taco Bell. Oh the joy in free tacos!

Taco Bell has managed a similar promotion as to that of Dr. Pepper  for the new Guns ‘N Roses album where everyone in America will get a free Dr. Pepper if G N R releases their long anticipated album “Chinese Democracy.” The Taco Bell promotion was a more realistic offer than counting on Axle Rose to release an album 15-years in the making. Taco Bell’s offer was; if a base is stolen during the World Series every American would receive a free taco. It didn’t take long for the first base to be stolen last week in Game 1 and today Taco Bell is honoring their offer.

Will this promotion be worth the exposure? Taco Bell has been heavily promoted during the World Series and this promotion has gotten a lot of talk from the announcers during the game and from the players themselves.  There are approximately 330,000,000 Americans and the cost of a crunchy taco is about $0.79 so that is $260,070,000 in free tacos.

Head on down to your local, participating, Taco Bell today (October 28th) between 2-6pm and ask for your free taco. Let’s see how well the promotion worked. Official details are available here: Taco Bell Steal a Base Steal a Taco.

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Rumor has it that the Guns N Roses album that was a teasing every rock fan for more than a decade is finally going to happen. Chinese Democracy is scheduled to release on November 23 and every American is going to get a free can of Dr. Pepper. Yes that is what Dr. Pepper promised!

In a statement from March of this year Dr. Pepper put a challenge out and said that if Guns N Roses release the long, long, long awaited album Chinese Democracy this year Dr. Pepper will give every American a can of pop. What might have been a funny idea and a safe bet back in March is now looking to be cashed in, and Dr. Pepper had better be ready to pay up. I wonder if the album will be available on cassette?

Read the March AdAge.com article - Free Dr. Pepper for All if ‘Chinese Democracy’ happens in 2008 

See the news from MSN.com  - Finally! New Guns N’ Roses Album on Nov. 23

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You ever heard someone say (or said yourself) - “I wonder how so-and-so is doing? I haven’t heard from them in a while.” That is something that businesses need to consider as well. This is a time when many companies are reigning in their marketing budgets and laying low while the storm blows through. Well, while you are laying low your consumers are changing and they might not be in the same place you left them. They might not even come back when you call.

Advertising budgets seem to be the first sacrifice to the God of Falling Economics, but why? If this is such a quick reaction why does anyone advertise in the first place? Why don’t companies eliminate advertising completely and just focus on making good products and customer service?

Why!? Because advertising and marketing are informative and necessary to build a brand and increase sales. That is the point, get the people interested in buying what you are making. Think of like stopping all the maintenance work and never stepping outside of your house; stop mowing the lawn, leave the mail and papers to pile up, forget about watering the plants; and just focusing on vacuuming the carpets so they look nice. Not many people are likely to come over and some may be wondering if you are still around. That’s what it’s like when companies pull advertising. People start to wonder if you’re still around.

Cutting back is fine but it is important to maintain a presence. Keep your customers informed of what is going on so that they know you are still around and what your plans are to continue on. Otherwise, while you waiting for things to clear up the grass may have overgrown your entire position and there will be a lot of work to get back on track and restore you image to where it was before.

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Make me laugh funny man. Tell me why I should buy from you. The exercise of creating marketing that captures the attention of the audience and creates a boost to buying habits is not that easy.

Entertainment is delightful and helps us pass the time. People find different things entertaining and remember different parts of an episode. How often have you seen a commercial that was really funny but you don’t know what it was for. Even if you can recall the logo that was slapped on the end you may have though of why are they related? Someone famous in the ad world once said something along the lines of - “don’t tell me my ads were entertaining, tell me there were effective.” That was from David Olgivy. He was right; it isn’t just about being funny or entertaining, people need to remember your ad and be compelled to make a purchase or other directed action. That is where the engagement comes in.

Engaging marketing gets the audience to take action.  It is something that is easier to measure now and becoming an element that all media’s are trying to incorporate. Whether it’s banner ads that get clicks online or an outdoor piece that can recognize a person looking at the ad; we all want to know if it was seen and then if action was taken.

So where do we end up? Well if you want to be entertaining you need to know what your in for-possiblity for creating something that is memorable to the audience but not creating the action you wanted. Or if you want to be engaging the information may need to be in a fact-forward format-the data and information is most important. Not necessarily memorable as a “wassup” campaign but it gets the job done, consumers are taking action.

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I just started noticing that the corporate giant is going through a name change and am not sure why.

Wal-Mart was the beginning, from what I remember, and then they decided to drop the - and add a *. That’s nice, it gives more style to the name. Now I am seeing Walmart as one word. In TV, print and web, the name has been amended to one word. Why would they change this seemingly insignificant factor? I’m sure it wasn’t done without some serious research and data backing up the decision.

Could it be the web factor? If you have ever done a search on the web you probably misspelled or entered what you thought was the correct name for a brand or company. Sometimes we don’t include the hyphens, spaces, or creative spellings of names. If you were searching the web for Wal-Mart would you add the hyphen? probably not. Google search data can show you what words people are searching to find your company. Wal-Mart could have seen that ‘walmart’ was a higher search and used that as the reasoning.

Or, is Wal-Mart too corporate looking? K-Mart has removed the - in most instances. The competition could have influenced the change as well. Target is a word, easy to type and looks good in a logo. Walmart looks like a nice name, easier to type and doesn’t have that intrusive hyphen in the middle.

Along with tweak to the name it looks like Wal-Mart is updating its visual image as well. Colors seem to have been changed slightly, the logo has been changed slightly, and the style of their ads has changed - slightly. I’m not sure what they are up to but something is going on - slightly.

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Like any company in the 21st century you probably have your website all spiffy and ready to turn your enterprise into the greatest thing since someone sliced a loaf of bread. But, how do you get yourself ranked in Google and for what terms?

Google runs the show right now for web searches and is devoted to provide the best results for any search entered on Internet. What makes Google successful is the way they calculate, search and organize the information on the web. They continually update and change the process of reviewing websites with their robots. They are so good at it that they don’t tell anyone how they do it or how to get yourself ranked higher. That is the secret of breaking into the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) fortress.

The goal of your site is to get ranked for the search terms that the customers are looking for; shoes, new cars, home loans, Halloween costumes; whatever it may be. The complicated part comes in dealing with the competition and your own logistics or geographical limitations. If someone is looking to get a Halloween costume tonight, he/she doesn’t need search results from 8 different states. The Internet is worldwide but many times people are looking for a local solution to a general question.

If you can’t compete against the big kahuna’s then be in control of what you can. If you are in one city or a specific geographical location, own that market of search. Include the city or area into the copy and meta tags of your site. Or be more specific with the description of what you offer; childrens Halloween costumes in Atlanta, designer mens shoes in Charleston, home loans in Nashville. You don’t need to talk to the billions of people searching the web, you just need to be in touch with the ones that can actually become customers.

There are a number of steps to get ranked on the first page of Google and Google is always changing the rules. It’s an ongoing project to keep up with Google and stay ahead of your competition. It’s something we work on every day.

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Gas is getting expensive, we know. Car/truck companies are trying to make the best out of a bad situation and have been recently running advertisements where they boast about how far you can drive on a tank of gas with their larger size vehicles. Is this something to boast about or just a misleading statement that consumers may not clearly understand?

Who’s making these type of statements; mostly the automakers who are trying to unload the large volume of trucks and SUV’s that are sitting around, taking up lot space at dealerships and, if you’ve been around Detroit, any vacant lot where they can put them.

But what kind of statement are they making. Typically car makers have always included the Miles Per Gallon (MPG) a vehicle gets as a feature. It’s the biggest type on the window sticker and something that the consumers are focusing on now even more. Stay focused. The new trick is to talk about Miles Per Fill-up (MPF) or Miles Per Tank (MPT), this way it sound like you can drive really far and fill up fewer times with an SUV or truck. “462 miles per fill-up” , or something close to that, was one quote I heard on TV. That sound good right? Well you better do some thinking and get a calculator.

Here is the problem with that statement; SUV’s, trucks, big cars, and every car to be accurate, have different gas tank sizes. That is what you are filling up, the whole tank. A small car that gets a high number of miles per gallon; a Toyota Corolla gets 35-36 miles per gallon and, as I can attest to, only takes about 11 gallons to fill-up. In the new language a Corolla only gets 385-396 Miles Per Fill-up. That must be bad because that SUV gets well over 400 gallons per fill-up! Truth be told any big SUV probably has twice the size tank of a Corolla, thus costing twice as much to fill. Let’s do the work backwards:

Said SUV gets: 462 miles per fill-up

Divided by: 22 gallon tank (complete guess but probably close)

Equals: 21 miles per gallon! That sound about right in most of the larger vehicles, could even be considered good in some cases.

Remember always look to Miles Per Gallon for an honest number to calculate costs. Filling up the tank all comes down to the cost of the fill. Those are the numbers you’re watching go higher and higher into that expansive tank in your SUV. Does it really make you feel better knowing you drove a little farther between fill-ups when it costs around $100?

It is a creative spin on how to make something sound better than it really is. Stay alert people, the ads are trying to distract you from the more important issue; Miles Per Gallon - Live by it, Drive by it, Fill by it.

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Well, it has been a while since there was a major complaint about an ad so here is the latest creation that has twisted the stick in the butts of certain groups.

Verizon Wireless has a new ad out for their LG Dare phone (watch it here) that shows a young man taking a chance, just to touch the new phone that is located in a junkyard being guarded by two pit-bulls who look like they want to bite his face off. Animal rights groups, including the ASPCA and PETA, are furious over the fact that the pit-bulls are shown in a bad light as aggressive dogs. Even though there are still major cities in this country of ours that don’t allow individuals to own the historically aggressive breed, Miami being one.

From what the complaints seem to be most upset about is that the dogs used in the ads were pit-bulls, so if they were dobermans or labs this wouldn’t have been a problem? The main message is that strange dogs, no matter where they are, could be dangerous. Many of us learned that we should stay away from a strange dog as a child because they could be dangerous. So that is what the ad seems to be implying, these are dangerous, junkyard dogs that could bite your face off, and Verizon dares you to touch the phone.

The people making these complaints just want to complain. There are individuals and small groups in our society that thinks it is their responsibility to protect everyone else. Give it a rest. This is one of the most annoying parts of working in any type of public creative medium. Someone will always be offended by everything; and people think they can go after advertisers because there is an idea of controlling the profitability and financial status of a company. If someone gets upset with a piece of art, the painter isn’t going to take it as bad as a company who could lose millions of dollars.

One thing that the complaints have done is drawn more attention to the ad; way to go. Your little, petty complaints have just added millions of dollars in exposure to Verizon and the basis of your complaint is weak at best. Get over yourself and stop ruining things for the rest of us.

I could be completely wrong though, is the ad “dispicable” in your opinion?

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