New Florence. New Renaissance.

Great recruiting vid

From the SodaStream team, led by CEO Daniel Birnbaum.

Since the ad, it has agreed to be acquired by Pepsi for $ 3.2 billion

The State of Marketing Tech

Marketing technology is increasingly enabling marketers to be more strategic and direct their investments more effectively. But marketers also face challenges as they implement new strategies and integrate new technologies. More than half feel “overwhelmed” by the sheer amount of mar-tech data they’re now confronted with, according to Accenture Research. Meanwhile, only about a third of marketers globally believe the CEO of their company recognizes the revenue and cost-saving potential of investing in mar tech, and the majority think the mar-tech industry itself is evolving faster than their company’s use of it. Still, nearly seven in 10 marketers are turning to mar tech to increase overall ROI, and nearly half are doing so to improve their marketing efficiency.

AdWeek

The best part of the Super Bowl–the commercials

Ad Age has a running tally of all the pre-released SuperBowl commercials including one in which the world’s richest man, moonshines as an actor.

Netflix’s micro-markets

Attracting a global audience isn’t just a matter of luck–nothing at Netflix is. Rather, Yellin and other colleagues go through endless rounds of AB tests and experimentation on everything from how to position the show to different users, how to dub a show in order to maintain authenticity in tone and language, to how to pick the right dubbing actors. (In order to maintain continuity for Winona Ryder fans, the same actor who dubbed Ryder’s voice in Beetlejuice and Bram Stoker’s Dracula dubbed her voice in Stranger Things.) The idea is to personalize the show in as many ways as possible for every single Netflix member, regardless of where they live. In the past, Yellin explains, Netflix thought about its international users more by market. So a user in Morocco, say, would be shown the same poster art and other materials related to a show, as everyone else in Morocco. But Netflix found that “taste communities” transcend borders, and that your own “taste doppelgänger” might live on the opposite side of the globe. Now Netflix instead caters to its 2,000 taste communities. “We want the people who tend to watch the same things,” he says. “If we know that you watched the same thing as a whole other group of people, we’ll put you in the same taste community and we’ll understand how to suggest titles to you and know which ones bubble up to the top.”

Fast Company

 

The In-N-Out secret sauce

The In-N-Out chain is widely known for its simple menu: it offers three different kinds of burgers (the hamburger, the cheeseburger, and the ‘Double-Double’), french fries, fountain drinks, and milkshakes in three flavors (chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla). But over time, for those who chose to embark on a culinary adventure, there evolved an unadvertised ‘Secret Menu’.

It has been common practice for fast food chains to introduce food innovations listed on massive vertigo-inducing menus. By contrast, In-N-Out has kept its Secret Menu items shrouded in a veil of mystique, limiting itself to a word-of-mouth promotion, only for those ‘in the know’.

Ceros Blog

 

The “Velvet-Rope” economy

What is different today, though, is that companies have become much more adept at identifying their top customers and knowing which psychological buttons to push. The goal is to create extravagance and exclusivity for the select few, even if it stirs up resentment elsewhere. In fact, research has shown, a little envy can be good for the bottom line.

When top-dollar travelers switch planes in Atlanta, New York and other cities, Delta ferries them between terminals in a Porsche, what the airline calls a “surprise-and-delight service.” Last month, Walt Disney World began offering after-hours access to visitors who want to avoid the crowds. In other words, you basically get the Magic Kingdom to yourself. When Royal Caribbean ships call at Labadee (pictured below), the cruise line’s private resort in Haiti, elite guests get their own special beach club away from fellow travelers — an enclave within an enclave.

New York Times

Photo Credit

Vehicle warps as promotional media

Ok, sounds low tech compared to mobile and social advertising, but pretty effective in terms of reach per $ of investment

“The message cannot be shut off, as many forms of advertising can, and the message is displayed at all hours of the day and night, depending on where the vehicle is driven and parked. With a vehicle wrap, companies find they reach more than 95 percent of drivers in their geographical region, as most people spend time on the roadways.”

And before you call it low-tech see what this Popular Mechanics slide show says about the advanced chemistry which makes it possible

“Modem adhesive reaches its most sticky state after 24 hours, making it repositionable. The vinyl itself, a highly formable ‘cast” vinyl, has channels to allow air to escape, eliminating bubbles. A factory laminate coating can make the vinyl wrap last up to 10 years. Finally, vinyl called
supercast can stretch up to 40 percent, so it can be molded
around curves and sharp bumper edges.”

The EpiPen success story

In a 2007 purchase of medicines from Merck KGaA, drugmaker Mylan picked up a decades-old product, the EpiPen auto injector for food allergy and bee-sting emergencies. Management first thought to divest the aging device, which logged only $200 million in revenue. Then Heather Bresch, now Mylan’s chief executive officer, hit on the idea of using old-fashioned marketing in part to boost sales among concerned parents of children with allergies. That started EpiPen, which delivers about $1 worth of the hormone epinephrine, on a run that’s resulted in its becoming a $1 billion-a-year product that clobbers its rivals and provides about 40 percent of Mylan’s operating profits, says researcher ABR|Healthco. EpiPen margins were 55 percent in 2014, up from 9 percent in 2008, ABR|Healthco estimates.

BusinessWeek

 

 

 

 

Neuroscience driven marketing

A host of new companies founded or staffed by brain researchers have some advice for advertisers: Read your customers’ minds. In a world of ever-shrinking attention spans, where consumers flit through social media sites and skip right past online ads, advertisers are turning to neuroscience to better understand how to steer buyers toward their products.

“People are not governed by the rational side of their brains, so the majority of purchase decisions are made irrationally,” says Itiel Dror, a Harvard-trained neuroscientist engaged by London consultants BrandOpus to test the redesign of a logo for Canada’s McCain Foods Ltd.

Bloomberg

 

TV ads go digital

For the traditional television industry, that means giving advertisers more data and better ad-buying solutions. Networks are also offering packages that allow advertisers to buy spots for both TV and digital content.

At its event on Monday at Radio City Music Hall, NBC promoted its suite of data-driven ad products, including NBCUx, which enables targeted ad buying. “These platforms and products ensure that your campaigns — your ads — are reaching the right consumers,” Linda Yaccarino, the chairwoman of advertising sales and client partnerships at NBCUniversal, told hundreds of marketers and ad buyers.

Recently, 21st Century Fox — whose broadcast network, Fox, also held its upfront presentation on Monday — acquired a digital ad firm called TrueX, which makes a technology that replaces a series of standard ads or video commercials with one interactive ad.

ABC plans to announce several data-driven products at its upfront event on Tuesday, including tools that allow advertisers to optimize their ad placements for specific audience segments beyond just age and gender. Turner Broadcasting — whose networks include CNN and the Cartoon Network — plans to introduce an ad-targeting product on Wednesday.

And at a series of events this year, Viacom showcased Viacom Vantage, which offers advertisers the ability to target specific consumers across the company’s portfolio of networks.

New York Times

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