Returning to the 1%—and sneering at the 47%.
Four more years of birther conspiracy theories.
Next stop: The Celebrity Apprentice or Dancing With The Stars.
How can I leverage this into more book sales?
Wednesday, November 07, 2012
Tuesday, November 06, 2012
10700: This Bud’s Not For You.
Budweiser wants logo removed from ‘Flight’
From ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES — Denzel Washington’s character in “Flight” drinks a lot throughout the film, but his portrayal of a highly functioning alcoholic pilot isn’t going down well with brewing company Anheuser-Busch or the distributor of Stolichnaya vodka.
Anheuser-Busch said Monday that it has asked Paramount Pictures Corp. to obscure or remove the Budweiser logo from the film, which at one point shows Washington’s character drinking the beer while behind the wheel.
Budweiser is hardly the only alcoholic beverage shown in “Flight,” which earned $25 million in its debut weekend and is likely to remain popular with audiences. Washington’s character frequently drinks vodka throughout the film, with several different brands represented. William Grant & Sons, which distributes Stolichnaya in the United States, also said it didn’t license its brand for inclusion in the film and wouldn’t have given permission if asked.
Although product placement, where companies pay producers to have their brands seen on-camera, have become ubiquitous in movies and television, experts say studios are not obligated to get permission before featuring a product in their work.
Rob McCarthy, vice president of Budweiser, wrote in a statement to The Associated Press that the company wasn’t contacted by Paramount or the production company of director Robert Zemeckis for permission to use the beer in “Flight.”
“We would never condone the misuse of our products, and have a long history of promoting responsible drinking and preventing drunk driving,” McCarthy wrote. “We have asked the studio to obscure the Budweiser trademark in current digital copies of the movie and on all subsequent adaptations of the film, including DVD, On Demand, streaming and additional prints not yet distributed to theaters.”
A spokesman for Zemeckis referred questions to Paramount, which did not return an email message seeking comment.
James Curich, a spokesman for Stoli distributor William Grant & Sons, said the company has a strict code for how the vodka is portrayed in films and is committed to marketing it responsibly. “Considering the subject matter of this film, it is not something in which we would have participated,” he wrote in an email.
Despite the companies’ dissatisfaction with their inclusion in the film, experts say there is little they can do about it legally.
Trademark laws “don’t exist to give companies the right to control and censor movies and TV shows that might happen to include real-world items,” said Daniel Nazer, a resident fellow at Stanford Law School’s Fair Use Project. “It is the case that often filmmakers get paid by companies to include their products. I think that’s sort of led to a culture where they expect they’ll have control. That’s not a right the trademark law gives them.”
Jay Dougherty, a professor at Loyola Law School, said the use of brands in films has generally been protected by the courts, even when the companies aren’t pleased with the portrayals.
“It wouldn’t have been as effective a film if they used a bunch of non-generic brands,” said Dougherty, who is also the director of the school’s Entertainment & Media Law Institute. “In a normal situation, if the alcohol were just there as a smaller part of the movie, they might have created an artificial brand for it.”
Other vodka brands, including Absolut and Smirnoff, are also included in the film. Representatives of those companies did not return messages seeking comment.
Paramount has some experience with a company upset with its inclusion in a film. In 2003 the studio won a case after the makers of the “Slip ‘N Slide” sued over the use of the product in the film “Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star.”
In that case, a court found that requiring Paramount to alter the film and its marketing would “generate more hardship than it alleviates.”
Dougherty and Mark Partridge, a Chicago intellectual property lawyer, also noted that a court rejected an effort to get by Caterpillar Inc. to get its logo removed from tractors driven by the villains in 2003’s “George of the Jungle 2.” The company had argued its trademark was harmed by having its product associated with the film’s villains.
Partridge said with the explosion of product placement in recent years, a company might try to make an argument that by the brand appearing in a film, the audience assumed it had granted permission. “You’d have to have proof that people actually making an association and believing it was authorized,” he said.
“It might be a different world,” he said, adding, “I still think it’s an uphill haul.”
10699: Soda Sucks. Video Does Too.
This banner links to a video that appears to be inspired by Jay Smooth of ill doctrine—except rather than being intelligent, provocative and entertaining, it’s just annoying.
10698: Understanding Your Ta-Ta-Target.
And if you can’t find a date, may we suggest you apply to become a Hooters Girl?
Monday, November 05, 2012
10697: An Interesting Opportunity…?
Campaign reported on an upcoming account pitch:
Agencies suggest an interesting opportunity has arisen for a UK shop to work for the personal healthcare company PZ Cussons in Africa.The company, which has strong operations in Ghana and Nigeria, has brands including Imperial Leather and Premier toilet soap.
Why is it an interesting opportunity? The company boasts European categories and brands on its website.
Seems like the perfect match for diversity champion Sir John Hegarty.
10696: Eurobest Presents The Worst.
10695: Take America Back…Or Forward?
The image above was created by Lowell Thompson, who continues to express his viewpoints with revolutionary flair. The unabridged version of the message can be experienced here and should preferably be read before heading to the voting booths on Tuesday.
10694: Casket Calendar Cuties.
Polish casket maker under fire for using sexy lingerie models to sell product
Women posing topless, in bikini and corsets next to coffins has Catholic Church crying foul.
By Michael Walsh / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Sex can sell anything – even coffins. But what some find drop dead gorgeous is morbidly offensive to others.
Polish casket manufacturer Lindner published a sexy calendar of beautiful models posing seductively beside their products.
The gorgeous women appear topless or don skimpy lingerie, bikinis and corsets in scenes that feature bondage, burial, chalk outlines and other dark subjects.
The company intends to garner publicity and generate revenue with its erotically macabre calendar.
”My son had the idea of creating the company’s calendar,” said the company’s owner Zbigniew Lindner, “so that we could show something half-serious, colorful, beautiful; the beauty of Polish girls and the beauty of our coffins.”
Lindner hopes the sexual pictures will distance the coffin from theological significance in the minds of customers, who will also receive a complementary casket-shaped key ring, reported Reuters.
”We wanted to show that a coffin isn’t a religious symbol. Its a product,” said Lindner. “Why are people afraid of coffins and not of business suits, cosmetics or jewelry?”
One could imagine that a young Gomez Addams would appreciate the beauty of women and coffins together, as Lindner described. But not everyone shares Lindner’s taste, to say the least.
A spokesperson for the Catholic Church said that death should not be treated so lightly and deemed the calendar inappropriate.
Sunday, November 04, 2012
10692: More Proof Allstate’s Mayhem Sucks.
At Advertising Age, Rance Crain pondered the true value of advertising campaigns that generate hype—mostly for the responsible ad agencies—but don’t lead to sales. Crain spotlighted the Allstate Mayhem campaign as an example of the phenomenon. No surprise here, as MultiCultClassics has always questioned its effectiveness, criticized its awfulness and recognized its inherent weaknesses. Leo Burnett has successfully conned others into believing Mayhem is special, which might be the most skillful marketing associated with the campaign. As long as the ad agency’s PR efforts continue, actor Dean Winters is ensured a job. Ditto Dennis Haysbert, as the brand needs someone to sell the services.
Advertising Serves Many Masters, Creating Unintended Results
Famous Campaigns for Allstate, Burger King Have Done More for Agencies Than Marketers’ Bottom Lines
By Rance Crain
Advertising is getting to be a pretty complicated transaction these days. It serves many masters, and sometimes selling goods and services is the least important.
Often popular ads do more for the agency than the client. Or the messages are created with a higher purpose than just moving the merchandise. Or the ads serve as a jumping off place for a post-agency career.
Take Allstate Insurance’s “Mayhem” campaign as an example of ads that help the agency more than the client. It’s attracted a great deal of attention, but it hasn’t really moved the needle for Allstate. The insurer has lost market share for the past five years. As Crain’s Chicago Business pointed out, more ad spending puts more pressure on profits, “a fact not lost on investors wondering how ‘Mayhem’ can garner so much buzz (500,000 Facebook fans and nearly 10 million YouTube views) without boosting Allstate’s sales.”
The ads were intended to create doubt in people’s minds about cheaper competitors. But the endless display of one catastrophe after another drowns out any mention of the claim that the cut-rate boys don’t provide equal protection against mayhem or that there’s any advantage selecting Allstate over anybody else. That edge always goes to the category leader, which Allstate is not.
The commercials did have some beneficial effects. They entered the realm of popular culture, generating lots of publicity for Allstate. And they heightened the profile of the actor who plays Mayhem, Dean Winters.
But the biggest payoff might be for the agency that created the ads, Leo Burnett. When the commercials hit the airwaves in 2010, clients started asking for the agency that did “Mayhem.”
Off the mark
That’s the same reaction CP&B got from its Burger King ads. The campaign—really a series of viral promotions such as “Subservient Chicken”—did far more for CP&B than it ever did for the fast-food chain.
Ad Age named it the Agency of the Decade.
At the time, I thought CP&B’s stuff was off the mark. “The agency prides itself on being media-agnostic, which I’m beginning to think means that it would rather play around with cute little viral promotions than concentrate on one big idea that works powerfully across all media,” I wrote then. I wondered if the agency was a one-trick pony.
But now that former CP&B partner Alex Bogusky has made the move from a “brand advocate to a consumer advocate,” using those cute (if nothing else he always goes for cute) Coca-Cola bears as his foil, I can’t help but wonder if he ever had his heart in creating big-selling ideas for Burger King and other clients.
Burger King pretty much gave the agency carte blanche to do anything it wanted, and Bogusky took advantage of it. Back in 2006, marketers liked to talk about how they were turning over their brands to consumers. Russ Klein, then marketing boss at Burger King, said at an Association of National Advertisers confab that such a move enables “social connectivity” as a means of empowerment.
Can you imagine the mischief agencies can get into with those kinds of squishy directives? And it got squishier still at last month’s ANA conference when one speaker proclaimed that, “We have to stop looking at consumers as armpits that need deodorizing.”
But what, I ask you, could be a nobler mission, than for a product designed to please one’s olfactory nerves, and what could be a more noble cause than a company dedicating itself to anatomical rejuvenation?
What really caught my notice was our online survey indicating that 50% of respondents found Bogusky’s three-minute spot featuring the cola bears going to pot after guzzling sugar-laden soda pop “inspiring.” The other half called it hypocritical.
But if our readers really support such subversive tactics, look for even more mischief-making and nonproductive advertising to complicate the advertising transaction.
10691: Offensive Politics And The Ad Industry.
Can’t wait for Tuesday’s election—mostly because it’s painful to witness the poorly produced propaganda from advertising agency people.
Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein apparently pulled the embarrassingly bad video for The Future Children Project. The iconic duo undoubtedly hoped it would go viral; however, folks reacted like it was a virus. Besides being sophomoric pap, the piece represented everything President Barack Obama opposes about political advertising. The Commander-In-Chief would never have provided the tag, “I’m Barack Obama and I approved this message.” Needless to say, Goodby and Silverstein are no Clint Eastwood. And as others have pointed out, they are no Hal Riney either.
The latest mess—“Obama: Let’s Finish The Job”—comes from a concept initiated by SVA students and executed by Martin Agency CCO Joe Alexander and friends. While being a well-intentioned effort, this video may surpass The Future Children Project for offensiveness. Hyping the notion that Americans don’t leave a job half finished, the video included an image of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and asked, “What if Martin Luther King decided to quit halfway up the mountain?”
If Obama would have panned the garbage by Goodby and Silverstein, how might MLK have reacted to the work of ad students and professionals? After all, the famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech was made in protest of discriminatory labor practices. Plus, MLK literally targeted prominent brands in his call for justice:
And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy—what is the other bread?—Wonder Bread. And what is the other bread company, Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart’s bread. As Jesse Jackson has said, up to now, only the garbage men have been feeling pain; now we must kind of redistribute the pain. We are choosing these companies because they haven’t been fair in their hiring policies; and we are choosing them because they can begin the process of saying they are going to support the needs and the rights of these men who are on strike. And then they can move on town—downtown and tell Mayor Loeb to do what is right.
It all begs questions like:
• How would MLK feel about appearing in such a video brought to you by the advertising industry?
• Has Madison Avenue made any progress in the areas of diversity and non-discriminatory hiring practices since MLK delivered speeches and led marches?
• Would MLK denounce the separate-but-unequal conditions experienced by minority advertising agencies—and perpetuated by White advertising agencies and clients?
“Obama: Let’s Finish The Job” declared, “Americans don’t quit. We finish the job.” Yet regarding diversity—the very heart of MLK’s legacy—the video’s proposition does not hold up in the U.S. advertising field. On Madison Avenue, the job is far from finished and not even halfway started. Hell, it could be argued the job hasn’t begun. And history shows the problem won’t be adequately addressed, no matter which candidate emerges victorious on Tuesday.
Saturday, November 03, 2012
10690: Chicago’s New Black Firefighters.
Time for celebration: Black firefighter candidates graduate
By Fran Spielman | City Hall Reporter
Seventeen years is a long time to wait to realize a dream, but it was worth it for Jerry Jones III.
On Thursday, Jones strode across the grand ballroom stage at Navy Pier, shook hands with Mayor Rahm Emanuel and other dignitaries and proudly joined the family of Chicago firefighters that includes Jones’ father, a retired assistant commissioner who attended the graduation in his old uniform.
Jones, 40, is one of 98 new firefighters, 86 of whom had been waiting for the chance to join the Chicago Fire Department since 1995. They are among nearly 6,000 African-Americans bypassed by the city’s discriminatory handling of a 1995 firefighters entrance exam.
The oldest man was 56. The oldest woman was 54. The candidates admit there was a lot of huffing and puffing as they made it through the grueling fire academy training.
“It was challenging at times, but everything happens for a reason. I just took it to mean this is my time and that time was probably not the best time for me to come” on the job, said Jones, who was working as a cement finisher when the legal odyssey ended.
“I did four years in the Marine Corps. I got out in 1995 to take the test. I didn’t re-up because of the test. But, I’m probably more ready now than I was back then. Psychologically, I understand it’s more than a good idea because your dad did it. And I hold the sense of duty a little bit more dear than the benefits.”
Jones said he never once thought about taking a cash settlement as high as $11,000 over the chance to work for the Fire Department.
“I have a son behind me who’s gonna be old enough to test in a couple of years, so I might want to show him the way. And I get joy out of helping other people,” he said.
Arguing that the Chicago Fire Department should be “as diverse as the city it defends,” Emanuel relished the opportunity to close the book on an injustice, he said, never should have taken 17 years to correct.
When results of the ’95 exam were disappointing for minorities, the city established a cut-off score of 89 and hired randomly from the top 1,800 “well-qualified” candidates.
In 2005, a federal judge ruled that had the effect of perpetuating the predominantly white status quo because 78 percent of those “well-qualified” candidates were white.
Instead of accepting the ruling, hiring the 111 bypassed black candidates and compensating thousands of others, former Mayor Richard M. Daley fought the lawsuit on a technicality.
The city gave up the fight, only after the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously agreed in 2010 that African-American candidates did not wait too long before filing their lawsuit.
“The arc of history always bends towards justice,” Emanuel told the graduates. “Today is what Dr. [Martin Luther] King meant when he said you would not be judged by the color of your skin but by the content of your character.”
The Chicago Sun-Times reported last week it will cost Chicago taxpayers $78.4 million to settle the case — twice as much as anticipated — and that Chicago will borrow the money, compounding the cost.
But, Thursday was not about the money. It was about dreams.
“When you deal with something painful from the past, justice is served by being upfront about it. We are a stronger city for having dealt with it,” the mayor said.
“Dreams are deferred but never defeated. After two decades we are correcting that mistake, and it is my hope that we never, ever make that mistake again. The Chicago Fire Department should be as diverse as the city it defends.”
The mayor advised the middle-aged firefighters that they bear a special responsibility for getting a long-delayed chance that thousands of others never got.
“This is a symbolic class. You carry that burden Do not let that go to waste,” he said.
No chance of that fo rookie firefighter Sherman Taylor, who waited for justice while working as a civilian lock-up employee at the Chicago Police Department.
“It was very, very hard, mainly because I hadn’t been to school in so long and I went from being in authority to having [to answer to authority] like I was when I was 18 years old,” said Taylor, 43.
“It wasn’t easy. Body don’t heal as fast. But, I feel like it was my calling. All we wanted was a chance — and we got it. Seventeen years later, but we did it.”
Fellow graduate Andre Williams, 46, who worked as a painter while waiting, added, “I’ve always wanted to be a firefighter since I was a little kid. Every little boy wants to be a firefighter. Some don’t give it up. So, this is a dream come true.”
The Rev. Dr. Zenobia Brooks was bursting with pride as she watched her 44-year-old son, Frank Edward Harris, shake the mayor’s hand.
“He stands on the shoulders of his ancestors, who have been discriminated against for many, many generations. So, this was so important to him. … He has two African-American sons. This means, if he can achieve it, they can achieve it,” she said.
Friday, November 02, 2012
10689: Empower Citizens Nutwork.
Late Super PAC Ad Buy Urges African Americans In Ohio To Vote Republican Because Lincoln Freed The Slaves
By Evan McMorris-Santoro
In the final days of the campaign in Ohio, the stops have been pulled out in the scramble to eke out a win. And that means one super PAC calling on African Americans to vote against President Obama because Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves.
Cable viewers in several markets across the state are being treated to ads by an obscure self-described “alternative conservative” super PAC called the Empower Citizens Network. One of the group’s ads accuses Obama and Democrats of imploding the economy by forcing mortgage companies to lend to “unqualified borrowers” while the Soviet national anthem plays. Another promises welfare recipients that “Republicans can save your money source” by reducing regulations on business.
And then there’s the ad which one viewer told TPM is airing in the Columbus area on cable. Our source caught it a couple of times on MSNBC. That ad is the Empower Citizens Network spot that tells African Americans it’s a “lie” that Democrats support them and cites the Emancipation Proclamation as evidence.
Details on Empower Citizens Network are sketchy. It was formed in June, according to its FEC filing, but its quarterly filings in July and October showed the group had neither raised nor spent any money. FEC filings made by the group last week (here and here) show it spending about $98,000 on campaign advertising in Ohio, mostly for newspaper ads.
Documents filed by the group with Time Warner Cable in Ohio identified Akron-area financial planner Bob Warther as the point of contact for Empower Citizens Network. Warther is listed as the group’s treasurer in FEC filings (although it is spelled “Walther” in one letter to the FEC that he signed). Warther’s office referred questions about the super PAC to Lance Davis at Akron-based Universal Marketing Industries. Davis did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The newspaper ad taken out by Empower Citizens Network was similarly over-the-top, as described by the Toledo Blade:
Among the claims made by the ad is that the Obamas throw lavish parties at the White House for “socialist friends” that include flying in $100-per-pound Kobe beef from Japan; the President’s $800 billion stimulus did not produce any net jobs, and that “this deep recession was not caused by the Bush tax cuts, Republican lax regulation, or Wall Street greed.”
Empower Citizens Network’s TV ad is one of a group that have emerged on the scene in the closing days of the election in Ohio, according to Kathy Kiley, who studies political ad buys at the Sunlight Foundation.
“They’re a late spender, part of the October Surprise Club,” she said. Public records on file with Time Warner show all of Empower Citizens Network’s ad buys have been placed to cover the last week of the election.
The Empower Citizens Network ad uses some old Republican rhetoric to try and earn African American support for the GOP. “Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act while Democrats opposed it,” the narrator says at one point in the Empower Citizens Network ad.
Many African American Republicans will say their party still hasn’t figured out how to expand its support among black voters. John Sununu, a prominent surrogate for Mitt Romney, recently posited the Colin Powell only endorsed Obama because he’s black. In Florida, a move by the Republican-led state government to eliminate early voting on the Sunday before Election Day was seen by African American churches as aimed squarely at them.
Smaller ad buys targeted at African Americans by Republicans are not only limited to Empower Citizens Network. A super PAC named Pivot Point put an ad on BET in Cleveland and Seattle this month featuring an African American calling Obama’s support for same-sex marriage “a slap in the face.”
Polls show African American voters have yet to be convinced the GOP is the party for them. The PollTracker Average shows Obama leading Mitt Romney by a margin of 92 to 5.5 among African American voters. African Americans voters are overwhelmingly registered Democratic, a split that’s held for decades.
10688: Mercedes-Benz-Bullshit.
This Mercedes-Benz campaign hypes the B-Class’ spaciousness with big stereotypes.
10687: Check The Soon-To-Be Chessmaster.
Rochelle Ballantyne poised to become the first African-American female chessmaster
The 17 year old Brooklyn student is the star of the film ‘Brooklyn Castle,’ a new documentary about the chess club at Williamsburg’s I.S. 318.
By Lindsay Goldwert / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Rochelle Ballantyne is getting ready to the chess world in check.
The 17 year-old Brooklyn high school senior and graduate of I.S. 318, a middle school famous for churning out chess champs, is working toward becoming the first African-American female chess master.
Ballantyne, who is the lone female star of the recent documentary ‘Brooklyn Castle,’ which sheds light on the Williamsburg middle school’s chess program and its impact on its students.
Filmmakers spent the 2009-2010 school year following the kids at I.S. 318 — where 70% of the students live below the poverty line.
Ballantyne, who was an eighth-grader when the documentary was shot, is set to graduate from Brooklyn Tech high school, with applications to the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford in the mail.
She told Teen Vogue that she owes her drive, skill and ambition to the woman who taught her chess: Her grandmother.
“[She] taught me to play when I was in the third grade,” she said “I was really active as a child, and she wanted to find a way to keep me relaxed and get my brain going.”
The top-ranked Ballentyne, who often plays with her iPod playing, said that it was her grandmother’s influence that kept her competing after winning her first chess championship in fifth grade.
Her grandmother’s death gave her life a purpose—to become the first African-American female chessmaster.
“After she died, that really affected me, because she was the one person that always had confidence in me,” she said. “She never pushed me, and she always respected me for who I was. I have to reach that goal for her.”
While the documentary showed Ballentyne playing mostly among her male classmates, she said she’s glad to see more women picked up the chess pieces and starting to play.
Playing against men has its rewards, she says.
“I like the idea of being the only girl! Winning is just that much more glorious because everyone expects me to lose,” she said. “The girls who play chess and go to national tournaments with me are my support system. The boys that I play with don’t understand.”
The documentary has earned her some pretty fancy friends—Actors Jon Hamm and Jennifer Westfeldt celebrated along with Ballantyne upon the film’s release at tony Soho House.
She admits that her rising status is the world of chess can be a lot to handle.
“Chess is emotionally burdening, but when I win, it makes me feel a whole lot better about myself. I feel like I can accomplish so much more, and so that’s helped me through the years,” she said.
She admits there’s a lot pressure for her excel, not just on the chessboard but in every aspect of life—on top of being an academic role model.
To maintain that number one spot and excel in other aspects of life besides chess puts a lot of pressure on me,” she said. “But I don’t want to reach the mark of becoming the first female African-American chess master for other people; I want to reach it for my grandmother and me.”
10686: Eyeing Stereotypes.
Why do these ads from India depict dark-skinned people as the needy ones who cannot afford eye care?
Thursday, November 01, 2012
10685: Defensive Advertising.
Are the Chicago Bears actually living up to their advertising—or is the headline predicting the cruel fate of an early exit in the playoffs?
10684: Multicultural Marketing Mumblings.
Advertising Age reported on extra happenings from the ANA Multicultural Marketing and Diversity Conference. Can’t help but think this annual event must feel like some sort of Alcoholics Anonymous convention, with people admitting to their character defects and relapses in behavior. Kellogg apparently fell off the wagon with its multicultural marketing. “In 2009, we’d gone from supporting nine brands to one,” confessed Kellogg North America President Brad Davidson. “And 1% of our marketing budget went to Hispanic.” As a result, the food maker got beat like a piñata by competitors. Plus, Kellogg’s attempts to repurpose advertising from other markets didn’t fare too well. Now Davidson claims to have experienced enlightenment and is committed to doing the right thing. Of course, he probably allocated just a few additional pesos to the renewed effort. Meanwhile, Ram Truck Brand’s President-CEO Fred Diaz announced things are muy bueno with his multicultural marketing. However, the man is working with The Richards Group and its minority wing, Richards Lerma. Not sure how successful a company can be conspiring with those wonderful folks who gave you talking vaginas. Diaz said Ram truck sales jumped 12% in 2011 among Blacks and women. Did the marketing budgets for the groups see equal raises? According to Diaz, while Chrysler enjoys a 10.2% share of the car market, the automaker only owns 8.8% of the Hispanic car market. Diaz declared, “The goal is for share to be equal to or higher than the general market.” Um, try making sure the multicultural marketing budget is equal to or higher than the general market. Otherwise, you’ll just look like a stumbling, stammering drunk.
Ram Truck, Kellogg Presidents Outline Hispanic Strategies at ANA
While Kellogg Rebuilds, Ram Uses Bilingual Ads and Shares U.S. Leader With Mexico
By Laurel Wentz
Two very different leaders of very different brands—the president of Kellogg North America and the president-CEO of Chrysler Group’s Ram Truck Brand—took the stage to describe their struggles and successes with multicultural marketing. Kellogg is making its way back after losing its way in multicultural marketing for a while and Ram is pursuing bilingual advertising and finding synergies with Mexico.
In an unusual dual role, Ram Truck Brand’s President-CEO Fred Diaz is also president-CEO of Chrysler de Mexico. He and Kellogg’s Brad Davidson spoke at the ANA’s annual multicultural marketing conference in Miami.
Mr. Diaz works with Richards Group in the U.S. and uses that agency’s U.S. Hispanic unit Richards Lerma for U.S. Hispanic work.
“Now that I have responsibility in Mexico, Richards Lerma also has a team in Mexico,” Mr. Diaz said. “Now we’re busting down that wall.”
Elsewhere at the company, Mr. Diaz said Chrysler is developing spots for Asian-American consumers in the U.S. based on a highly successful campaign airing in China.
Tip of the iceberg
Currently, Ram is producing Spanish and English-language commercials starring Latin music star Juanes. Both versions of each spot end with the Spanish-language tagline “A todo. Con Todo.” (“For everything. With Everything.”)
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg for what we’re about to do,” Mr. Diaz said. “We’ll follow up with digital, print, radio and social media. We’ll also look at extensions to other groups such as African-Americans—Ram truck sales were up 12% last year to African-Americans—and women.”
Mr. Diaz pointed out that Hispanic consumers are more likely to use online video—64% compared with 56% of general-market consumers—and have the highest adoption rate for smartphones—66% of Hispanic consumers, much higher than the 49% of non-Hispanics who use smartphones.
“By the end of November, all Chrysler’s mobile sites will also be available in Spanish,” he said.
Right now, Chrysler has a 10.2% share of the car market, but only 8.8% of the Hispanic car market, he said. “The goal is for share to be equal to or higher than the general market.”
Mr. Diaz said that in his 23 years at Chrysler, including a stint as director of advertising for the Dodge brand, when budgets got tight, multicultural marketing is the first thing to go. “I will not allow that to happen,” he said emphatically. “We find other things to cut.”
Kellogg gets crushed
Kellogg’s president is taking a very different journey through Hispanic marketing.
“In 2009, we’d gone from supporting nine brands to one,” Mr. Davidson said. “And 1% of our marketing budget went to Hispanic.”
Competitors, meanwhile, were crushing Kellogg in the Hispanic market, he said. When he complained to Leo Burnett, whose Hispanic shop Lapiz is Kellogg’s longtime Latino agency, he said he was told, “We pushed you Kellogg and you didn’t listen.”
To catch up, Kellogg developed more culturally relevant Hispanic advertising (after importing spots from Mexico didn’t work too well). The company also tapped into its Hispanic resource group Ola, even showing its members Kellogg and competitors’ commercials. In one employee’s critique, “one Latin mom said the mother (in the commercial) is holding the baby wrong,” Mr. Davidson said. He also spent time with Hispanic and African-American consumers in their homes.
Kellogg studied retail, and went to the Mexican American Grocers Association conference. “We were too Midwest conservative,” he said. “Their point-of-sale was more compelling, spicier.”
It was clear Kellogg’s Hispanic ads were getting better when the person who runs the company’s Answerline asked for more resources after being besieged by Hispanic moms.
Mr. Davidson’s advice for marketers still lagging in the Hispanic market: “If you’re just beginning, hurry up. Because your competitors are doing it. If you’re not there, you can’t say a year from now, we didn’t see this coming.”
10683: Delayed WTF 21—Why Walmart Sucks.
MultiCultClassics is often occupied with real work. As a result, a handful of events occur without the expected blog commentary. This limited series—Delayed WTF—seeks to make belated amends for the absence of malice.
Wanted to revisit the Walmart post featuring the happenings at the ANA Multicultural Marketing and Diversity Conference—specifically, the words and deeds of Walmart Senior VP-Brand Marketing and Advertising Tony Rogers.
Rogers boldly announced, “One hundred percent of the growth [in sales] is going to come from multicultural customers. … Our spending against multicultural customers will grow by at least 100%.” Forget the fact that doubling the budget is still painfully inadequate. There’s actually quite a bit of bullshit behind Rogers’ proclamations.
For starters, if 100% of the sales growth will come from minority customers, why aren’t the minority agencies handling 100% of the account? Rogers and Walmart VP Creative Marketing Greg Warren claimed they’ve given the minority partners “a seat at the table”—yet the sales figures indicate they deserve the whole table and dinette set.
In 2011, Rogers boomed about blowing up multicultural marketing budgets and deconstructing silos. Now he has the opportunity to detonate the entire budgetary scheme and decimate the segregated, separate-but-unequal hierarchy present with his advertising agencies. And he can do it for legitimate, revenue-based reasons.
Rogers and Warren clearly recognize the face of America is changing; however, the two are content to conspire with a “general market” agency whose complexion does not reflect the new mainstream. A bump in the underfunding is not revolutionary—it’s simply rational. If you want to measure progress and performance review objectives, do something original.
It’s time to completely overturn and overhaul the Walmart advertising org chart. You’ll probably save money—and live better.
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