The Marketing Peg

It's all over the entertainment news. Ellen DeGeneres and her legendary Oscar selfie cramped with A-listers featuring Meryl Streep, Jared Leto, Jennifer Lawrence, Channing Tatum, Bradley Cooper (the one holding the phone), Kevin Spacey, Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and Lupita Nyong'o. I've heard and seen so much on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, that same image being shared by my friends in Singapore as well.  Amazing exposure and virality for Samsung - it was a white Samsung Galaxy Note 3 that Cooper used to take the photo.  I've read so many articles on Samsung's $18 million Academy Awards advertising deal and how Ellen's selfie was perhaps not the most spontaneous.  Read Wall Street Journal's take here on Samsung's advertising strategy on the selfie and product placements for the Oscars.  Samsung claimed it was unexpected and it would donate US$1.5million to 2 charities chosen by DeGeneres. This quickly spawned a re...

The Snuggie blanket, launched in October is amazingly selling fast in this recession. What's a Snuggie? It's a blanket with sleeves! Sounds kooky? Well, not to the 4 million plus peeps who are snuggled up in their Snuggie. 4 million have already been sold and more are on the waiting list. Aimed at families who want to keep warm but not increase their electric bill when the days get colder. Snuggie blanket: sportsillustrated.cnn.com Oh! Saving money! No wonder it's selling fast. *The recession probably helps* Practical and all, but the design is really weird I must say. Totally looks like Harry Potter's or Obi Wan's robe. As quoted from someone in a forum, at least you can double it up for cosplay. Haha. I for one, wouldn't wanna look like a monk. *remember Silas from Da Vinci Code?* shudder. Thank goodness I'm in sunny sg. No need for Snuggie. Actually, the Snuggie is not something new. In fact, the first blanket with sleeves is called the Slanket. But it...

This picture was taken not so recently. Been meaning to blog about this but it just slipped my mind until I rummaged through the pictures in my iPhone. Most cab-takers probably already realized that several cabs in Singapore have been installed with TV, more specifically, iCabTV . At first, I thought it was interesting to have some entertainment on the go. So I tried pressing on a few buttons to see how this thing worked. Not too bad... not only is the screen a mobile tv but it also doubles up as a digital street directory, informing passengers of the nearest atm machine, shopping malls etc. I think I played with the buttons for about 5 mins before I stopped. Cos having to sit up and go against the force of a moving vehicle is just too tiring. So I just sat back, relaxed, and tried to focus on whatever was on screen at that moment. Quite difficult when the cab driver had the RADIO on AT THE SAME TIME. Saw an ad where I could win a t-shirt with Luo Zhi Xiang's signature. Vividly rem...

Spotted this ad while I was waiting for the bus. Thought it was quite cute. Not only is the ad funny, IKEA even localized the ad to suit the different locations in Singapore. Cool. IKEA has quite a sense of humor don't you think? ;)

In my promotional management class, I was taught that there are 3 types of ads which will attract attention. Three things that attract people's attention 1) Babies 2) Animals 3) Sex Simple but true right? Remember the last time you saw an advertisement with a baby featured in it? Let me give you an example. A classic ad which uses babies. This ad was from Parmalat milk. Their campaign's slogan was - "Because we're mammals". http://www.ciadvertising.org/sa/spring_03/382J/grace/milk_page_nizan.htm Aren't they cuteeeeee? I especially like the panda baby. Maximum cuteness!! Yea, so, babies. Babies attract attention ;) Next, we'll move on to animals! Animals are always cute aren't they? Imagine an ad with this cute lil' hamster. awwwww..... got this pic from google. link: http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb255/fhat1/hamster.jpg Actually, I did see an ad recently with a hamster. Can't find it now though, but no worries! I found another ad with a h...

Ever seen a commercial which makes you cringe? No? Well, then feast your eyes upon these two videos by Allswell. It's a local made advertisement, which is grossly Singaporean. Not that being Singaporean is bad... No, I definitely don't mean that. But the execution could have been much much better. Having the Singaporean accent is fine (I think), but the actors also looked like this was their first advertisement ever. Maybe that's Allswell's strategy when they made this commercial. They want people to cringe so that they will talk about it. Well, if that's the case, I think they have succeeded. Haha. But if their strategy was to go all out so that the locals can relate to it... then I'm sorry... it just made my goose pimples pop. I first chanced upon the first advertisement on TV mobile. My first thoughts were: "no taste". "cheap ad". Definitely not speaking to my generation. The "auntie" generation perhaps. Then when I saw the secon...

Spotted this ad in Her World magazine recently. Grammatical errors get to me. So when I saw the copy for this, I couldn't help but put this up. "You can't missed it"?? Shouldn't it be: "You can't miss it" instead OR "You couldn't have missed it"? Find it strange that they even published something like this. I mean, people are not perfect, and everyone has made his/her grammatical mistakes before. But the fact that you're going to publish this as an ad, shouldn't someone have checked it? Also, the copy is only a one liner, not like you could have missed the error. Odd. Unless some of you think otherwise--that it isn't a grammatical error. Then you'll have to explain why. Cos I see it... I see it very clearly. It's a mistake there. We can see that Perrier is/was the sponsor for the Her World golf challenge. Didn't the magazine people vet it? Really baffles me. *shrugs* This post is not meant to put any company or a...

These are real life examples in Singapore. Of cos, some people may beg to differ, but nonetheless, just some opinions of mine so that others can probably create better and more sensible ads =) P.S. This is of no offense to any of the sponsors/companies/advertising agencies or anyone who created the ads below. L'Oreal UV perfect This is how the overall ad looks like in a female magazine Notice this part of the ad. The copy says "30 years old without UV care" for the left one and the one on the right says "30 years old with UV care" You probably can't see if from the pic, but they did use DI to create a difference. Yea, I know that most (or can I say all?) ads use digital imaging, but do you have to make it so obvious? By using the same person and depending on DI to convince consumers, I don't think it really works. In fact... the ad probably will look better without this section. Kellogg's - Special K Saw this ad at the bus stop. So what does this m...

We all know that localization is important. Because it will be more relevant to the people looking at the ad. You can even see that from online marketing. For example, I signed up for Yahoo! email using yahoo.com instead of yahoo.com.sg, just because I thought the "sg" didn't look as cool. However, the ads that I got were all related to the US, which I learnt how to ignore in time. The good news it: recently, I was given the choice to change the ads to Singapore based ones, which were definitely better and more interesting. We've also seen the localization of musicals, which I have written about in another blog. The example was a personal experience of mine while watching the musical "We Will Rock You", where parts of the actors' scripts were changed to suit the Singapore culture. Evidence of localization in "We will Rock You" - adapted from pegpeg.wordpress.com 1. When the lead “accidentally” knocked into one of the audience down stage, he sa...

Interning at a prestigious FMCG really is an eye-opener and made me understand more about the marketing obligations and activities of marketing in Singapore. (I'm actually referring more to those who are working for huge MNCs with the headquarters situated in a country with 4 seasons). "Obligations" is the word used because marketers in Singapore... well... don't really have a lot of say in the marketing mix. For non-marketers, marketing mix means the 4Ps which equate to Product, Price, Promotion and Place. We are mostly told what to do... in a way.. I'll explain. Product I've learned, that when working with a large MNC, there are regulations and guidelines which have to be (strictly?) adhered to. Let's talk about the first P - Product. The headquarters (let's just assume that this is the US for convenience sake) sends you the product that they have come up with - the product is not fully developed yet, of course. Excellent, you get to try it out and g...

We all know how tough it is to attract consumers' attention amongst all other competing advertisements on the streets today. But this one thing never fails - sex appeal. And HBO Asia has used just that... well, sorta. HBO Asia has launched an advertising campaign, featuring a red brassiere hanging over its bus shelter creatives, for the latest season of Entourage . Around 400 bus shelters will carry the advertisements which feature the cast of Entourage with the slogan, "The Naked Truth of Superstar Life" but only eight will feature the racy brassiere versions. Timmerman & Tan helped with the creative while Mindshare did the media planning. - Marketing Interactive If you wanna catch a glimpse of those racy red bras in action head downtown soon! (my guess is that a couple will be placed in Orchard Road - it only makes sense since it's bustling during the weekends) Campaign ends mid-may. I can't wait to see the reaction of people who pass by those bus shelter...

Something I found in my email a while back which I like to share. Life-size stickers of people were pasted on automatic sliding doors at a mall in Mumbai , India. When someone approaches, the doors move apart and it feels like the people on the door are moving away. The person entering finds the message, 'People move away when you have body odour' . Advertisements for a job-recruiting company in Berlin , Germany depict people working in vending machines and ATMs. It delivers the message, 'Life is too short for the wrong job' . A creative ad by Mini Cooper placed at the Zurich , Switzerland train station, shows people climbing into or out of the car, when they are actually entering or exiting stairs. Singapore should really have some of these awesome ads, don't you think?

Please refer to The Manila Times for the whole article. The draft Spam Control Act aims to control the electronic commercial messages sent in bulk by email or to mobile phones, according to the bill seen on Tuesday. It was introduced to parliament on Monday and must undergo further consideration by legislators. Unsolicited messages will have to include an address or number to allow the recipient to unsubscribe and messages must clearly identify themselves as advertisements, the bill says. This bill has been working OK so far with majority of the advertisers whose ads I've received from my mobile phone. ALL... except one. Anyone ever received Spam ads from The Arena??? I figure from its ads that it's a local club of some sort. Where the hell is that place anyway? I've received so many of its ads (the frequency probably that of about 2-3 times a month) and its pissing me off. Yes, it has that advertisement sign at the beginning of its message, but it doesn't allow me to...

The video above is an ad made by Apple to show consumers the differences between a Mac and PC (or rather, more specifically, Windows OS). This was supposed to generate good publicity and sales I would guess. Cos I doubt that they will hire the famous guy to act as the Mac "just for the fun of it". Using YouTube as the advertising medium is a good way of generating publicity, especially when 900,000 odd views have already been clocked for this ad. But is this good publicity that we're getting at? Looking at the comments , you would find that most of it are not exactly "pro mac". " Pcs cant do anything fun.... there are hardly any mac games and the few that r arent very good" "How the hell is Mac better than Windows AND Linux. Windows = Program compatibility. Linux = Stability, performance, security, open source, free, eye candy. Mac's positives are about the same as Linux except its costly and not open source. The only reason I see to u...

I have always been interested in the mobile industry. Even more so after my internship with Y! in the mobile department. Recently, I have noticed an interesting news on opportunities for advertising hotspots in Singapore. I would gather that it's roughly similar to wireless hotspots for internet - once you're in a certain area that has wireless infrastructure, you are able to log onto the internet. And for location based advertising (LBA), when a shopper is in an area of a certain store, an sms would be sent to them alerting them of a certain promotion or offer of that store. "When shoppers are within the advertisers' catchment areas, they are more likely to respond positively to their messages, it will appeal to a nation passionate about shopping and our customers will be the first to benefit from a variety of attractive offers and discounts exclusive to them through this new marketing channel." I can totally imagine this working. Imagine I walk past Starbucks. T...