In a marketplace that is becoming more and more competitive, with hundreds of brands vying for the consumer’s attention, it’s not unusual to see well-known brands taking shots at one another through their messaging. This is the first time, however, that I’m seeing men’s body care brands running attack ads comparable to those seen during political campaigns. Nivea going after AXE, Gillette blatantly attacking Dove, and Old Spice putting a hard stop to the use of lady’s body wash by the manly man. This segment is becoming very interesting.
 
With the onslaught of yet another men’s body wash (Dove for Men), a female friend recently asked me, half jokingly, “are American men going to become pansy’s?” Not at all. I believe the American male’s rugged and tough image will stay intact. But image and reality are sometimes miles apart. I think most American men have asked themselves while standing in the shower with a bar of soap, “isn’t there anything better than this bar?” They just haven’t overtly asked for it, but I’m sure in focus groups, this concern has come forth. American men are traditionally not “askers,” unlike some of their female counter parts, excuse me ladies. They are usually more content when it comes to personal hygiene. Sports and gadgetry is a whole other story. The men’s body wash category has always been owned by Gillette, since it is, of course, “the best a man can get,” but lately men are getting some great products elsewhere, by the likes of Nivea, Old Spice, and now Dove. I decided to do a dissection of the products, marketing and cultural significance surrounding this now, highly contested and tensely fought over segment.
 
So to get down to the nitty, gritty details, I decided I first need to try all the products in question, as any good marketer does. Don’t worry, this was not like the scene out of “What Women Want,” were Mel Gibson’s character tried exfoliating, I was in a controlled environment, my shower.
 
Nivea, which smelled great, and what I thought would be my favorite, turned out to have a somewhat slimy consistency and left my skin feeling dry. Although the consistency of Dove was better and felt refreshing, it also dried my skin out. Old Spice’s original formula was, in one word “pungent,” with a scent strong enough to rival the boldest aftershave. I think it lives up to it’s tagline “if you’re grandfather hadn’t used it, you wouldn’t exist.” The big surprise turned out to be Gillette, which I wasn’t expecting. The big difference here is the consistency and color - it looks like blue cookies and cream ice cream but its lather is smooth and refreshing, and amazingly, my skin felt moisturized.
 
Because a body wash is a product that affects two of your strongest senses, touch and smell, it not only needs to be enjoyable to use, but memorable. If I were standing in the aisle at the grocery store, my vote, as far as product attributes are concerned, would go to Gillette.

With the “real human” tests completed, I took a better look at the marketing - how each brand is positioning themselves. Old Spice has become a runaway hit in the aftermath of it’s Super Bowl spot, “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like,” which has turned into a viral phenom, grossing over 7 million views on You Tube. Old Spice’s You Tube channel alone has close to 23 million views. It appears their recent agency switch from Saatchi & Saatchi to Wieden & Kennedy, was a smart move. Wieden, known for it’s iconic Nike ads and male-skewed humorous ESPN ads, has some experience with the target audience and modern masculinity. The “Experience is Everything,” campaign has given the Procter & Gamble brand that dates back to 1938, a bold personality by broadly acknowledging the undertones of commercials aimed at men, to create something hysterically funny.  Old Spice fans have even dubbed the ads manmercials. I won’t debate Old Spice’s marketing success, however, I believe their target is still fixed on the younger demo, where Unilever’s AXE is prominent.
 
Dove, on the other hand, focuses on the more tangible aspects of being a man; the pressures, responsibilities, and accomplishments, in their “Journey to Comfort,” campaign. The spots are clearly aimed at the 35+ demo - a man that has gained a wealth of experience and is now ready to savor the fruits of being a man, and in Dove’s words “be comfortable in his own skin.” It appears that man’s quest to be comfortable begins at birth, and now ends in the shower. The copy made enough of an impression on viewers that some are using it as a ringtone. It attracted Gillette’s attention as well, which started running attack ads against its new rival, using the shape and color of the Dove bottle, with a butterfly draped across it. Not surprisingly, the VO stated “just cause it say’s for men, doesn’t mean it is.” Gillette’s “Wash Like a Man. Feel Like A Man,” campaign is vaguely similar in strategy to Old Spice’s “Experience is Everything” campaign. Strategy is however as close as the two come to each other, as Gillette is more conservative on the execution end, with a less irreverent tone. You simply can’t get any more bizarre than Terry Crews’s berserk biceps yelling at you about the odor protection of Old Spice. Gillette offers some more traditional humor in depicting manly items, such as power tools, footballs and dirty socks as the “man sized odor,” that calls for Gillette body wash.
 
Nivea’s message, in the “What Men Want” campaign emphasizes the “men” in “men’s body wash.” New on the soap scene last year, they differentiated their product by suggesting that it’s the “body wash for grownups.” Their approach demonstrates that it’s a body wash for grown men, without the college-mating-scent that eau de AXE offers. Although the AXE brand has award-winning marketing, I’m not including them in this analysis because their target is high school and college boys, not men. That’s not to say that there isn’t some amount of spillover. I’m sure some 30 year olds out there are using it. I believe that the consumer and industry as a whole are moving away from men’s sex appeal and going towards men’s care, at least within the 30+ demo.
 
Old Spice has 17 varieties of body wash under 4 product lines, from High Endurance to Odor Blocker to Red Zone. Sounds somewhat confusing right? Unlike the Ikea bookshelf, men might actually need a manual to know what to do with this many options. Following Old Spice, is Gillette with 5 varieties, Nivea with 4 and newbie Dove, with a meager three varieties. An interesting innovation is Nivea’s new 3 in 1. The 2 in 1 hair and body wash is old news, but Nivea’s 3 in 1 lets you shower, shave and shampoo, and is being dubbed Active 3.
 
Eventually, if they’re successful and find some loyal “pit-washers,” Dove will also have a line of 10 or 20 different men’s body wash products. I believe they’re still testing the waters, or showers I should say, to see if men are ready for what some consider too close to a feminine experience. The obvious question of course, will such a product jive with the American male stereotype - strong, stubborn, and über-manly? I don’t believe most American men are benching 400lbs and building 2000 square foot tree houses, but male peer pressure telling them, “don’t be a girly-man,” can easily render a man-aimed product, “un-sellable.” Logically, this seems ridiculous, but many men feel the compulsion to uphold a certain manly image and be perceived as an alpha male. Image aside, I believe that more men are finding a comfortable middle ground between being a man and taking care of oneself. I’ll reference my grocer, Bobby, who is happily married, has 3 large tattoos, builds hot rods in his spare time and likes getting manicures.
 
The current attributes of men’s body wash in the U.S., such as the packaging, smell, and consistency, have been prevalent in Europe for the past 25 years. Therefore, for future trends in this segment, look to Europe. So what’s next? My guess is men’s moisturizers. It’ll be interesting to watch the leading brands duke it out to soften a man’s skin. Hey, even the toughest man needs soft skin!

Every year, the American Dialect Society chooses their word of the year, the one that’s wiggled its way into everybody’s conversations. “Tweet” was 2009’s word. In many cases, the word of the year and the long list of word “nominees,” are frequently uttered, almost overused, in the advertising industry. As a pop culture influencer, the ad industry projects many of these words at the consumer. The simple reason why - they think it will make the brand or product they are advertising look cool and innovative. But beyond the objectives of inserting choice catchy copy into ads, it is the people within the industry that promote those words before they become mainstream enough to hit the general population. Some words are lauded for their fresh take on an old concept and some are despised for their blind ignorance of previous words that did a fine job of explaining things.
 
Now that we’re well into 2010, I decided to keep my eyes open for words that stood out thus far. In my online and offline readings, from new media blogs to standard industry rags, I’ve been seeing one word in particular, frequently popping up. Aggregate. I myself have been using it for a year or two, in describing blog aggregators, but I’ve never seen it used this commonly and across such a broad range of topics. Its textbook description per Merriam-Webster is, “taking all units as a whole” or “combination of a collection.” Its use is fairly diverse, with references to everything from construction to Buddhism to material sciences. Next stops, advertising and pop-culture?
 

 
As a verb, which is often how it’s used, it means to bring together or to unite. So for instance, you could say you’re “aggregating a devoted audience.” But why not just say accumulate, assemble or combine when referring to the actions you’re taking regarding the “collection” or “whole enchilada,” as I like to call it. I’ll tell you why - the scholarly opinion is that aggregate is unique from its synonyms because it literally means, “to collect together” at once, not like “accumulation,” which occurs over time.
 
Although aggregate may not be 2010’s word of the year, or even make it outside the agency walls, I think it’s still a worthy contender and a great descriptor for what’s happening in the realm of consumer acquisition. Now read the aggregate of my memos on the blog!

Do the VO, music, and bold visuals in the ads below (see previous post), seem vaguely familiar? Anthemic ads are back in fashion, as a recession solution to drive sales and reengineer stale brand imagery. Beyond the overall message, which is similar in both ads, it’s the strategy behind the ads that is identical - empowering young consumers, Millennials for the most part, through their first big recession. Although the eldest of this generation were alive during the early 80’s recession, they were too young to really understand it. Millennials are a generation that came into their own during a time of economic prosperity and were born to boomers, who spoiled them with more than a few material items. They are independent minded, but in many cases don’t act very independent. Now that many are on their own, the recession is causing them to make tougher decisions, not as much as say the Gen Xer with a family, but more than they’ve had to make before. A recent culprit of anthemic advertising to Millennials is Miracle Whip.
 
Touted as Miracle Whip’s “hipster” ad campaign and mocked by Stephen Colbert, the spot below doesn’t focus on the health attributes of the product, which has half the fat and calories of regular mayonnaise, but instead on Millennial’s form of self expression. Miracle Whip even went as far as to create a branded social application dubbed Zingr, which works with Facebook and Twitter. Similarly, Mazda has plunged into the social world of Millenials in its launch of the 2010 Mazda 3. The spot below incorporates Facebook pages, street art, tattoos and a pair of Chucks, all depicting the new Mazda 3 checkered motif. Although some automotive brands have advertised to the Millennial demographic in various nuances, Mazda is the first to cater to this generation. In fact, Mazda went a step further with a MySpace takeover last week, which allowed visitors to download free music and explore the 2010 Mazda 3 online. Justin Smith, the interactive director at Mazda’s agency of record, Donner, explained, “The youth market doesn’t like to be advertised to and this creates a way that invites them to experience the Mazda3. It gives them value for their attention.”
 
VO from both ads - switch the pronouns and voilà, virtually interchangeable.
 

 
Levis “Go Forth” campaign that debuted last year, can be put in the anthemic ad genre as well. Although it’s stylistically different, edgier, and draws on history rather than the “now,” it still applies to Millennials. Its use of Walt Whitman’s motivational poem, “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” which speaks to pioneers, not just of the old American west, but those that “say no to a life of ease and complacency” and “blaze their own trail,” embodies the same anthemic and empowering character as the Mazda and Miracle Whip ads.
 
Although I’m not a fan of anthemic ads, I give credit to these brands for being different and actually trying to engage a younger demographic on their terms, rather than the brand’s. Given the nature of the economy and the growing purchasing power of Millennials, I believe we’re going to see a lot more of these ads to come. 

I’ve never liked the taste of Red Bull, and many people don’t. Nevertheless since I’ve known about the brand, I’ve enjoyed their guerilla marketing and “über” sponsorships. After a stint in the action sports industry a few years ago, I’ve become more than a brand supporter; I’m a Red Bull loyalist. The brand’s iconic success is evidenced by its many holdings, from soccer teams and athlete sponsorships to aircraft racing. In the process, Red Bull has become a well-rounded brand that has built its founder, Dietrich Mateschitz, a small empire.
 
There are many comparisons you can draw between the Red Bull brand and Richard Branson’s Virgin brand, starting with the founders. They both enjoy extreme sports, don’t work a full week, and own brand empires. In fact, Branson and Mateschitz are ranked 2nd and 3rd, respectively, on Forbes list of worst dressed billionaires.
 
 While you can draw more than a few parallels between the founders of Red Bull and Virgin, there are also key differences. The major difference between the two billionaires lies in their history. Branson began as an entrepreneur, at age 20 selling records out of the back of his car, and opening his first Virgin record store at the ripe age of 22. Unlike Branson, Mateschitz was a closet entrepreneur. He was a marketing manager for P&G on the Blendax brand of toothpaste in Germany. It wasn’t until he was 40 that he founded Red Bull. He was on a business trip to Thailand and discovered the drink Krating Daeng, loosely translated “red water buffalo,” which cured his jetlag, and gave him the idea to create something similar in his Austrian homeland. The brand however would not have been created without the help of one of Mateschitz’s agency colleagues, who offered to front some of the startup capital if Mateschitz gave the advertising contract to the agency.

 
Rather than focusing on traditional advertising techniques like TV and print, Red Bull used events, quirky stunts, and unconventional publicity to build itself up, then still a novel idea. In similar fashion, a recent trend of ad agency folk advocating product development rather than the usual brand development is taking hold. On the topic of creating products, Robbie Vitrano, the principal at Trumpet, a New Orleans-based ad shop comments, “The purest form of marketing is in product development.” And with agencies like Anomaly and BBH, creating products ranging from pizza to women’s skin-care creme, it’s signaling a change of direction for some agencies. The surprise is that they’re not spending a penny on advertising their “babies”. As Carl Johnson from Anomaly mentions, “you can do so much if you know what you’re doing with product placement, sponsorship, digital PR. It’s that whole “I haven’t got any money, so I’ll have to think.” Red Bull is the poster child for this marketing strategy and Mateschitz acknowledges it, “we probably did an excellent marketing job…but the key is the product itself.” Marketers realize that the product will always be at the core and they know how to build a brand around it, and do so on a daily basis. The enormous thought potential found in agencies and marketing departments make them perfect product fabrication shops. Who knows, with a few ideas and some follow through, the next Red Bull could come from BBDO or DDB.
 
What sets Red Bull apart from it’s competition, Coca-Cola’s Rockstar or Pepsi’s SoBe, is not it’s sales, although they account for 65% of the energy drink business, but what the brand represents. Similar to Virgin, Red Bull is selling a culture - youth, action and originality. Just as brand enthusiasts see Virgin as a lifestyle, Red Bull is perceived as such in the action/extreme sports community. A testament to the culture they have created is their brand magazine, Red Bulletin. The magazine is a glossy 100-page piece of literature, delving into sports, music, fashion, travel, food and general enjoyment. It serves to better broadcast their adventurous image and show the passion that exists for a brand that takes athletes to the ends of the earth and provides them with the fuel and gusto to perform hair-raising stunts.
 
I see Red Bull’s “wings” taking them far in the future. As the action sports, motorsports, and extreme sports markets continue to grow - so will Red Bull. And I believe Mateschitz agrees, “Coca-Cola has had 100 years of history. We have 100 years of the future.” In the meantime, Branson has sold Virgin records, and now Mateschitz is selling records under the Red Bull label, go figure.

Picture the future for a moment - How will the world look in 2050? How will people travel from point A to B? With what energy source?  With what vehicles?  From what countries? Will people everywhere drive as much as we do in the developed world today? Will the Earth be able to support 2 or 3 billion automobiles? Read on to find the answers to some of these questions.
 
Historically, automobiles have been built with the consumer in mind, not the environment, urban public planning, or social concerns.  The consumer will remain the top priority; however, the latter issues will become, and to some effect, are becoming important as well. Although many consumers feel that automotive brands have neglected their wants and needs, due to the slow integration of new digital technologies into many vehicles, manufacturers are tightly bound to a long product cycle which limits innovation. Unlike an iPhone, whose product cycle is 1 to 2 years, a vehicle’s can be 5 to 7 years, due to the complexities of such a large piece of machinery. In the near future, manufacturers will shrink product cycles and consumers will see a great deal of change in the vehicles being offered - with a greater emphasis on not just the consumer, but the world around them.
 
For automotive manufactures, this means greater costs in expanding their line of vehicles in less time. However, this is something that they’ll have to contend with if they want to survive in a highly competitive market.  R&D costs are already sizable, especially for some manufactures making their way into the electric engine segment. Many are partnering with battery manufacturers, such as Sanyo, LG and Samsung to lighten the financial load, but regardless of partnerships, the industry will become more competitive with new manufacturers from BRIC economies gaining greater recognition in the coming years. Hybrid or all electric vehicles, however, will not be the only option in the future. The future consumer will be able to choose from highly efficient gas, diesel, hybrid, pure electric, bio, fuel cell, and hydrogen engines.
 
This being said, the next decades will be the “era of options” in the automobile industry. Vehicle categories and engine variants, which currently seem very niche, are just the tip of the iceberg of the product palette that will be offered in years to come.
 
Currently, many manufacturers are intently focused on electric, but some are still trying to leverage the power of hydrogen. The notion of a hydrogen engine is part blasphemy, part punch line in the automotive industry, due to the high cost and energy required to create a suitable economical hydrogen platform. However, the technology is not dead to many engineers, who believe anything is possible. Although, BMW has parked the technology in the garage for the moment, Mercedes is pushing forward and plans to launch their first en mass hydrogen vehicle, the F-Cell, in 2015 on the European A series platform. Additionally, Germany is investing 30 million Euros in a hydrogen highway system, encompassing roughly 1800 kilometers of road, with hydrogen pumps every 50 km. In the meantime, Mercedes is focusing on their next major launch in 2014, the E-Cell, a full electric vehicle. Daimler-Mercedes boss Dr. Dieter Zetsche recently said, “We want to be winners in the green movement and focus on sustainability, not just speed and horsepower.”
 
Way ahead of the European electric competition, but still trying to muster up an environmental image is Nissan, which just launched the Leaf stateside, the first full electric vehicle in their lineup. A few third party automotive suppliers have become engaged in electric as well. One of those is Micro-Vett, located just outside Bologna, Italy, which transforms ordinary Fiats, into plug-ins, by swapping out engines, transmissions, and exhaust systems. So far they’ve “greened” 5000 vehicles which are mostly sold to state and local agencies around Europe. In the world of electric, China is ahead, as the largest manufacturer of lithium ion batteries. Urban mobility is of extreme importance in Shanghai and Beijing, where 50% of all two-wheel vehicles are completely electric. Furthermore, China has the world’s largest reserves of Lithium and Neodymium, the building blocks for the creation of electric motors and battery cells. Currently, 90% of the world’s batteries come from Asia. China is the industry and world leader in batteries, not however, in automobiles. But that could change quickly.
 
Electric Hybrids have proved themselves on the road, making them a contender for future success, but not all roads are alike. Hybrids have been most successful in two cities, Los Angeles and Tokyo. Why? Traffic. Hybrids are extremely well suited for stop and go traffic scenarios over long distances. Much to the Toyota engineers’ surprise, when tested on the Autobahn in Germany, they were actually less efficient than a Volkswagen clean diesel.
 
However, the image of electric hybrid technology, especially in the United States, remains superior. This is one reason why German manufacturers are quickly warming up to the hybrid strategy of the Japanese. In 2010, VW will launch the Touareg Hybrid and the Porsche Cayenne and Audi Q7 will follow. The 7 Series and X6 will represent BMW’s commitment to the hybrid strategy this coming year. Mercedes will have the S400 Hybrid with an M class hybrid to follow. These vehicles will all be priced at least 20% higher than their oil-slurping contemporaries, however government subsidies might help the consumer.

In my opinion, manufacturers who focus too intently on electric might end up harming themselves in the long run by morphing into a battery company rather than a forward thinking automobile company. Toyota has proclaimed that they will completely eradicate the combustion engine and only offer electric vehicles in the future. This seems counterintuitive, as new technologies, regardless of their source, need to be considered. The best strategy is providing variety. Most successful consumer brands know this and use such product planning to their advantage by building a range of options so that the consumer can choose what fits his or her lifestyle. Currently, the world’s largest manufacturer, Volkswagen, is creating the broadest assortment of engine technology.
 
Martin Winterkorn, VW’s man at the helm recently stated, “We don’t have the ambition to be the first, but rather the ambition to be the best.” Making the traditional combustion engine smaller and more efficient, making Diesel cleaner, creating synthetic fuels as well as bio-fuels, creating hybrids out of diesel and regular gas engines, and bringing full electric vehicles to the market are ventures VW is undertaking on their quest to be the best.
 

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In 2005, USA Today boasted that blogs are: “the new way teens interact.” However, in the meantime teens seem to have lost their enthusiasm for blogging. Recent results from a Pew Research Center study show that the number of 12-17 year olds that blog, has decreased by half since 2006. They’ve traded writing longer, more regular portions of text, for short and quick messaging formats, which allow for better access on their mobile devices.

No surprise that the growing popularity of Facebook and the rise of micro blogging with Twitter has had some major impact on these statistics. Blogging means creating longer entries, which in effect means that you have to invest a considerable amount of time. This is one reason why teenagers, who are known to be a bit lazy, are less interested in blogs. Twitter, however is not capitalizing on this, as many social media experts believed it would.

Although many teens are gravitating toward social networks and microblogs in their journey away from blogs, they’re not embracing Twitter. The Pew Research Center study confirmed that Twitter was a “last resort” for the 12-17 demographic, which uses all other social platforms, including Facebook and MySpace, more frequently.

By Nielsen’s estimates, Twitter’s teen demographic represents a paltry 5% of their total users. One of the major reasons teens are underrepresented on Twitter is the limited sharing capacity, which makes it seem quaint versus say, Facebook. One common reaction from teens is, “so where do I put my favorite song on here?” Additionally, teen opinion indicates that such a service already exists - text messaging, which already fulfills the micro-communications they want. Twitter is also not rich in features, leaving many teens to ask “is that it?” when experiencing it for the first time. Moreover, Twitter is already populated by an older audience, which makes it not cool by association.

Status updates, or what I call “attention bursts,” have become the choice online activity for teens. So as teen’s blogging behavior and habits change, I’ll pick up the slack, hit submit on this memo and keep blogging.