Captain Morgan is Running for President

By now, most of American knows that Barack Obama, John McCain, and a slew of others are running for the presidency of the United States. Did you know, however, that Captain Morgan is running for President? Yes, this is Captain Morgan’s second time running for president (his first wasn’t that successful). According to Susan Gunelius’ blog, Brand Curve – Captain Morgan launched a new social media marketing campaign on August 22nd. The campaign includes content with social media heavyweights YouTube and Facebook. According to the Captain’s Facebook page, his interests include Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. What type of music does he like? LOUD. What is his solution for the economy? Two day workweeks (hmmm, that just might work). In a nutshell, Captain Morgan is doing his all to strengthen his brand image.

Captain Morgan’s parent company, Diageo, is the official wine and spirits company of the Republican National Convention and the preferred wine and spirits company of the Democratic National Convention according to Ad Age. The marketing campaign includes a costumed Captain Morgan who is making appearances at bars near both convention sites.

Overall, I think the campaign is fun and fresh. It definitely speaks volumes about the Captain Morgan brand. Here is what I think about the marketing campaign:

Value Proposition – Let’s see, Captain Morgan’s is fun. That is the only value proposition that I gather from this marketing campaign, and to be honest I guess that is what they are trying to project. It would be interesting to see Captain Morgan debating versus the other less fun spirits. It would coincide with real Presidential debate, and if position correctly, could be great for late night TV. Who can argue with two day work weeks?

Differentiation - With the reemergence of pirates in popular culture, a pirate, in and of itself is not hardly different. Captain Morgan, however, is very interesting. Bringing the Captain to life will help potential consumers connect fun and crazy with it’s brand. How about some “negative” ads about Captain Morgan? What if Captain Morgan had a scandal? These are a few ways that the brand managers could build on Captain Morgan’s differentiation. If does in fact speard well, it will go a long way to building the brand and awareness about the product.

Marketability – Most people in the target market might consider this cool, but why should they care? To extend this campaign the brand should try promotions to really drive home the point of the Captain Morgan brand. Why not have a contest or promotion via YouTube for Captain Morgan to pick a running mate? Not only would people like to be on YouTube, but they would quickly forward their video to family and friends as well.

Overall, I believe that the person (or people) that came up with this campaign have a really good idea. Although the campaign has not been a viral marketing star (only 300 supporters on Facebook, 6,500 views on YouTube) it has the ground work to really pick up, if they tweak it just a little bit. It is an interesting strategy to build brand awareness, especially for a product that has strong following. Check out Captain Morgan on YouTube:

Marketing and Social Media – Are We All Fools?

Facebook, mySpace, LinkedIN, YouTube and other social media are quickly exploding in popularity. Marketers everywhere are looking for ways to exploit these “social networks” for their advantage.

Recently, I discussed how amazing Burger King’s Whopper Freakout campaign has been. The idea of using a combination of real people and the Internet is simply amazing. Like most website that I enjoy, I gave it a thumbs up on StumbleUpon. Great idea, Burger King deserves the credit for thinking outside of the box. Then it dawned upon me. How far will marketers go to reach their consumers? When do marketers cross the line with deceptive marketing.

First, I am not accusing Burger King of deceptive marketing. In fact, with their new campaign I have not seen a lot of traffic, until late about its viral campaign. A few weeks ago, there was very little on the Internet about it. There were no videos on YouTube. No silly games on Facebook to share with friends. Very few blogs spreading the word about the campaign. In my opinion, it really seems like a great effort to use its biggest customers in promoting it’s number one product, the Whopper. While some may question the customers and/or employees, it delivered a relevant message, the Whopper is good and every loves it.

Other companies, however, have continued to push the edge when it comes to social media. Consider the reviews that are posted on amazon.com. They provide very good information about the product a person is looking to purchase. Supposedly, this is an individuals personal opinion. Nonetheless, there are numerous occurrences of people giving favorable reviews due to a connection with the author, company, or product. Are these reviews really helping anyone out? What about the videos on YouTube that are appear to be real, but secretly ad machines for the big companies (remember Cadbury’s Gorilla ad campaign, now Wonderbra is taking a similar approach)? They come dangerously close to deceive consumers with their “realistic” feel.

The spread of social media will most likely continue to strengthen existing brands. On Facebook, I constantly find myself taking quizzes, or promoting products (especially music and movies) for free. Now imagine how many people are getting paid to do these same things. Then consider this, the web has given marketers an easy way of promoting their products. Marketers would be wise to look at how social media can expand the current business.

What ways do you market your brand with social media?

What If Burger King’s Whopper Disappeared?

The title question dawned upon me while watching football on yesterday. There was a short commercial produced by Burger King called Whopper FreakOut. The commercial provides hidden camera footage of a single Burger King location that proclaimed to have stopped selling the restaurant’s famous Whopper. The ad is good for a variety of reasons, its funny, fresh, and informative. Before you start thinking about how bad or unhealthy a Whopper may be let’s consider why this commercial could be effective.

It catches your attention

Most people receive upwards of 10,000 marketing messages on any given day. For the most part, we automatically tune out about 99.9% of these messages and they are forgotten forever. What about the 0.1% of marketing messages that we do remember? What makes these messages so special? They capture your attention. That is what was beautiful about this advertisement, it catches your attention. It presents a funny situation, and uses real life people. In America, we love reality TV and a commercial that follows this premise is interesting. In addition, the words Whopper Freakout would peak just about any person’s interest.

It makes you think

After watching this commercial, you begin to think “Man, I really DO like Burger King’s Whopper“? Immediately I began to place myself in the shoes of those real life people. How would I react? What would I do? How would I have reacted differently? Not only do many people start to ponder these questions, but often you feel compelled to share with your family, friends, co-workers, and etc. With the popularity of social networks, viral campaign’s like Burger King’s are quick to take off, and become popular. While other fast food restaurants have taken a similar approach (think Subway with Jarret or those cool Sonic commercials) this commercial makes you want to tell someone.

It is funny

Should you be alarmed or amused at people’s reaction to the Whopper being discontinued? Well after watching the commercial I will say that I was amused. People act as if it is an American right to order a Whopper. The people were absolutely livid!! No Whopper?! Everyone had a different unique reaction to the bad news. Some reminiscence about ordering a Whopper as a child. Others lament about the bad customer service. A few even get downright violent! Each case provides another funny reason about why Burger King’s Whopper is so great.

In all, I think this viral marketing campaign will be very effective for Burger King. It catches your attention, makes you want talk, and is funny. It should do a lot to help Burger King build a brand that has not really has its own personality and flair. With the King makes appearance everywhere from skyscrapers to NFL games, Burger King is still all over the place in build its brand promise, but they sure are trying. Long live the King…until they catch me on camera.

What do you think about Burger King’s new viral marketing campaign?

An Interesting Ad…

Isn’t this just a beautiful ad? It extends the Nationwide tag, while providing great elements that would draw a reader in. Found this on Ads of the World blog. Yesterday, I confirmed that this is in fact real! No photoshop! No visual enhancement! The cars are in the parking lot covered with paint. This can be found in Columbus, Ohio near High Street and Spring Street. Very interesting indeed!

Viruses in today’s marketplace

There are a wealth of opportunities in viral marketing. The more I read about the benefits of this “new” marketing practice, the more my interest peaks. As the online communities grow more popular, the need to infect others with current marketing efforts increases. How does viral marketing fit in today’s marketplace?

The term viral has so many negative connotations. According to the American Heritage Dictionary viral is means of, pertaining to, or caused by a virus. So how could a virus be related to a good marketing plan?

Dr. Ralph F. Wilson produced an excellent article explaining this phenomenon, and how it can be used successfully. In The Six Principles of Viral Marketing Dr. Wilson uses a simple illustration to explain why viral marketing techniques can be so useful:

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A virus is unique because it does not require a mate to replica itself. It just doubles in size with each infection. According to marketingterms.com this practice can be better described as a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message. The best part is that a viral marketing campaign can be launched at a fraction of the cost of your every day run-of-the-mill marketing campaigns.

For example, take the wildly popular movie The Blair Witch Project was promoted with viral marketing. The film was extremely low-budget, but went on to gross approximately $248MILLION. How was this movie able to garner so much interest? By infecting thousands of users with the idea that this was an actually a documentary. The film’s promoters used a variety of tools to communicate this message. An interesting site was built to support the idea of those three missing students. They even went so far as to list the actors as being presumed dead on iMDB! Furthermore, a fake documentary was created and produce on the Sci-Fi Channel to advance these claims. The movie was such a huge success because they were able to get people talking.

The promotion of this movie used several important elements in establishing a viral marketing strategy (according to Dr. Ralph F. Wilson) :

• Gave away free info
• Provided avenue to effortless transfer message
• Reached a wide audience
• Hones in on people’s motivations and behaviors
• Utilized existing communications networks
• Maximizes the use of others’ resources

Traditional marketers beware! Viral marketing and similar techniques (i.e. buzz marketing, word-of-mouth marketing) are slowly becoming the norm in today’s market place. The challenge is to develop ways successfully infect your end-user, while maximizing the effect of marketing to a wide audience and keeping marketing costs down.

A New Me!?

Decided to change the whole site! Hope you like the redesign, for the small amount of vistors I recieve on a daily basis (it will not always be that way mind you..) I offer a whole new experience. Offer any suggestions or complaints. Not much to write about at the moment….

Check this out for fun, my LinkedIn Q & A about buzz/viral marketing.

We will be back soon!