This is simply brilliant work by the Red Bull team. If you haven’t heard about Red Bull Stratos, do yourself a favor and watch this 4-minute video trailer. In a nutshell:
Felix Baumgartner will attempt to free fall then parachute from 23 miles above Earth
If successful, he will break several 50-year old records held by Colonel Joe Kittinger
This project is completely underwritten and produced by Red Bull
Yes – Red Bull has upped the ante in the content department with a pretty compelling story. In fact, this trailer feels very much like what you’d expect to see as a high quality movie preview. But what’s most amazing here is that Red Bull is producing this alone – no big corporate media halo, no online media partner to ensure distribution, no A-list Hollywood producer name to lean on. It’s Red Bull’s gig and they’re going all-in.
The “safe” thing to do would have been to partner with some big media outlet, if for no other reason than to guarantee coverage and distribution. But the story is so darn compelling, that Red Bull has the license to go direct.
I see this as the wave of the future — brands investing in world-class content that is intimately linked to their equity and serving it straight up to consumers. Not all brands, but those like Red Bull, Porsche, Nintendo and others that have authentic products, a crystal clear positioning and a base of die-hard loyalists.
Kudos to the Red Bull team and to @kdoohan who leads digital marketing (Kevin is also a ConAgra Foods alum). Should be fun to see this unfold.
My friends over at CPGMatters published a roundup perspective of what’s important for industry trade and marketing strategists in the new year. They were also kind enough to quote me several times, alongside folks from McKinsey, PWC, Adesso and Synectics Group.
Not surprisingly, the list of themes is fairly consistent with many of the issues I have written about over the past few quarters. Some of the highlights include: pricing as a strategic lever, planning price and promotion strategies together, co-opetition with private label and maintaining a total category view when selling to retailers.
All in all, an on-target story that frames up some pretty important industry issues for 2010. You can access the full story here.
I love this story: Two unemployed brothers with no formal advertising experience outwit Madison Avenue for the top ranked Super Bowl ad honors. According to the USA Today’s Ad Meter program, the “Free Doritos” spot produced by Joe and Dave Herbert for the Frito Lay ad contest scored an 8.46, beating agencies representing Anheuser Busch, PepsiCo, Coca Cola, Kellogg’s and Taco Bell. Who said consumer generated media couldn’t be taken seriously?
And on a related note, even during this recessionary environment Superbowl ad spending continues to defy all logic. This year we saw record $6MM per minute ($100k/second) rates, among the 28 represented advertisers. While those are some mighty big numbers, I’m fairly certain Frito Lay isn’t complaining about this year’s media spend.
Display ads have worked reasonably well for CPG brands to reach an online audience. This ad format loosely emulates traditional TV media, showcases products well and offers great contextual placement. But the online media world has been waiting (somewhat impatiently) for CPG brands to funnel a piece of the ad budget to paid search. It took a few extra years to materialize, but I now see three compelling use cases for CPG brands to invest in the paid search ad format:
1. Generic category search - While display ads, word-of-mouth and in-store are the more common ways for consumers to discover new brands, online search presents its advantages. Here is a search for “frozen pizza”that shows Kashi and Totino’s brands at the top of the paid results.
2. Solution-oriented search - I view this as the killer app for CPG search investment because it’s an opportunity to reach new consumers during a very influential time. Consumers have problems, and brands have answers. For example a search for “quick and easy meals”returns paid results from Campbell Soup, Betty Crocker and Pillsbury. Note that the word “soup”, “brownies” or “cake” weren’t part of the search term, yet the paid results point to brands offering real solutions in those categories. The search results could easily point to a special offer or coupon for that brand to help drive more immediate trial and consumption.
3. Brand name search – There are two real use cases for investing in brand name search. The first is to influence a loyalist to consider trying a competitive brand — pretty much what Catalina is doing through their printed POS offers. In this example, a search for “eggo” returns a single paid search result for Pillsbury Toaster Strudels. The other use case for brand name search is to redirect traffic to a special promotion, event or loyalty program. The best example of this is found in Coca Cola’s successful loyalty program, MyCokeRewards. A search for “coke” returns a paid search listing for the MyCokeRewards program front and center.
Last fall, Brandweek ran a story outlining paid search adoption in the CPG industry. The story drew comments from a few friends and business associates in the space. I really like Kevin Doohan’s comments (note that Kevin recently left ConAgra for Red Bull) about search being akin to “the electricity in your house, it should always be on.” Just a few short years ago that view would have been a tougher sell, but the industry has come a long way fast.
I’ve become a fan of David Armano, author of the Logic + Emotion blog and VP, Creative / Design Evangelist at Critical Mass. He has an uncanny ability to distill complex thoughts into really simple, informative visuals.
David recently posted a presentation (embedded above) on the social movement of personal brand builders who can influence large spheres of followers. Think Guy Kawasaki and Seth Godin as two prime examples. This introduces some real opportunities in the CPG marketing community, as outspoken individuals who have achieved “micro-celebrity” status online have the power to quickly and efficiently influence a defined market.
Perhaps the strategy for CPG folks is to cultivate relationships with the right micro-celebrities to help proliferate market test opportunities and evangelize new item intros to their vast networks. I’m thinking Phil Lempert can play that role quite well.
A very interesting topic delivered through an easy-to-digest presentation.
My friends over at CPGMatters published a 
Display ads have worked reasonably well for CPG brands to reach an online audience. This ad format loosely emulates traditional TV media, showcases products well and offers great contextual placement. But the online media world has been waiting (somewhat impatiently) for CPG brands to funnel a piece of the ad budget to paid search. It took a few extra years to materialize, but I now see three compelling use cases for CPG brands to invest in the paid search ad format:
