Personalisation: putting people in your marketing strategy

Just two of the 150 names available on Coke products this summer.

By now we are sure that you have all seen Coca Cola's latest marketing campaign: "Share a Coke with..." It appears that personalisation is a big thing in the food and drink industry at present.

Personalisation can be as simple as using a lead or client's first name on an email, or you could go to the extreme like Coke, and put your customers' names on the products.

Coca Cola have used the top 150 names in the UK to create personalised bottles of regular Coke, Diet Coke and Coke Zero, the idea being that you share the bottles with friends and family.  The campaign is set to be around all summer, and Coke are even hosting events for those whose name do not appear on the shelves, allowing them to have personalised bottles printed.

The one and only name featuring on an Irn-Bru can

HP Sauce are also jumping on the personalisation bandwagon specifically for Fathers Day (June 16th). Using a Facebook competition, HP are allowing 100 of their biggest fans to win personalised bottles of sauce for their dads. No surprises that your chances of winning are doubled if you choose to share the campaign on your Facebook timeline. HP Sauce state that the reasoning behind the campaign is to reward their most loyal fans (and their dads) in "a new and exciting way".

A slightly tongue-in-cheek nod to personalisation is Irn-Bru's new can. Following on from their TV campaign, the scottish soft drink has released pictures of a personalised can, but it's only suitable if your name is Fanny. Unfortunately the can is not available in stores, and there is no word as yet that it ever will be.

An example from the HP Sauce campaign.

Personalisation is a rewarding strategy, both from the prospective of the
business, and your audience. The customer feels that they are being given something back from the company, and the company is able to encourage loyalty and advocacy.

Do you use personalisation in your marketing strategy?





Sources of Information:
http://www.thedrum.com/news/2013/05/31/hp-sauce-offers-facebook-fans-chance-win-personalised-bottles-father-s-day
http://www.thedrum.com/stuff/2013/05/31/irn-bru-jumps-personalised-can-bandwagon-suitable-only-people-called-fanny
http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/faq/products/share-a-coke.html

Owen's View: Looking to extend brand reach – at the cinema

Robert Downy Jnr. as Tony Stark in Iron Man 3.

Having just watched Iron Man 3, which I really enjoyed, I found myself particularly drawn to those brands and their products both obviously (Audi and Oracle) and subtly (ABB and FIOS products) injected into the movie. I even missed some, which others have since highlighted.

It is almost laughable now how brand product placement is something we come to expect as part of our movie experience. Not since Minority Report have I been blown away how cinema can exploit the captive audience of the cinema. 

Do you know what this little icon means?
 

The 'PP' icon used in the UK for programmes
containing product placement.

Product placement has been common on UK television since February 2011, when the 'PP' symbol was introduced. The EU define product placement as "any form of audiovisual commercial communication consisting of the inclusion of or reference to a product, a service or the trade mark thereof so that it is featured within a programme".

This form of advertising is popular due to its ability to show products in context, for example how people interact with products, and how a product interacts with its environment. This facilitates an emotional connection between the product and the audience. Product placement on commercial television has been common practice in the US for a lot longer than in the UK.

However, long before television entered our homes, product placement was already taking place in the cinema, with the earliest instances taking place around 1895! More recent, and much more well-known, instances of product placement include a Capital One credit card in 127 Hours, Domino's Pizzas in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Nike trainers in The Terminator, and Heineken lager in Skyfall.

Is product placement effective?

One of the sarcastically obvious product placements in
'Wayne's World'.

Quite simply, yes it is. There are several ways to measure the effectiveness of product placement, one being implicit memory. A study used the film 'Home Alone' to test the product placement of Pepsi. One group of children watched a clip of the film featuring Pepsi, and when asked to pick between Pepsi and Coke, 67% of the children chose Pepsi. Out of a group of children who watched clip of 'Home Alone' which did not feature the soft drink, only 42% chose Pepsi.

Studies have also shown that a number of factors can affect the success of a product placement, including the attractiveness of the characters, and the degree of subtlety used when placing the product. The 1992 film 'Wayne's World' did a great job of highlighting how to do product placement badly in their parody. In the scene both Wayne and Garth decry product placement while at the same time blatantly promoting many products by looking directly at the camera, holding up the product, smiling widely, and sometimes giving a thumbs-up. 

And as for Iron Man 3...

The main product that I was drawn towards through the excitement, action, thrill and MARVEL madness was the Audi R8. This is more than likely why I really like the super car and Audi as a brand but one thing I did not notice was the fact that Audi appear to have category exclusivity in the film. It has been pointed out that one of the cars in the film is a Mustang, however does not carry the Mustang logo.

Audi take centre stage in the Iron Man movies.

I was also intrigued by some of the sunglasses Tony Stark was wearing. Several eyewear brands were represented throughout the film but the one that caught my eye was the luxury brand Matsuda, who have a very cool website! You can also check them out on Twitter.

And of course MARVEL did not forget to advertise the Avengers franchise with their trademark bonus clip after the credits!

However, it has been questioned whether product placement was taken too far in Iron Man 3, especially in the chinese version. Chinese audiences we treated to an extra 4 minutes of footage, but from the reviews it seems that most of this footage was used to promote a cheap chinese milk brand!

What about the future?

Product placement occurs everywhere; in our streets, on our screens, in our books, everywhere. Are we as creatives going to be asked to persue further avenues to promote and advertise a brand's products and services? Red Bull have already gone to the heady heights of space to push the boundaries, we're pretty sure that if practicality hadn't have gotten in the way Felix would have been enjoying a can just before he jumped to earth...

Notice how his suit is Red Bull branded.

We'd love to hear what you thought of Iron Man 3, and what you think about product placement in general. Leave us a comment or tweet us @ubd_studio.

Sources of Information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement#Product_Placement_in_Historical_Cinema
http://brandsandfilms.com/2013/05/product-placement-slideshow-iron-man-3/
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/JoshWildingNewsAndReviews/news/?a=78666
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/20/ofcom-product-placement-uk-tv
http://www.slashfilm.com/5-things-that-bothered-me-about-iron-man-3/

Is austerity the new luxury?

An example of the austerity trend from
local jewellery brand, Twopenny Lane.

The financial climate is still tough, and the trends in the economy have been reflected in trends within the packaging industry. Design has been stripped back, muted and simplified, initially to reduce cost in packaging production, but it appears now this has become accepted as 'trendy', but why? Because we think it sits well our price sensitive audience, or conversely, because we think it's the new sign of luxury?








As with everything, there are several sides to this debate. First let's assume that we are designing with the cash strapped economy in mind. Let's suggest that gold still means luxurious and that

Benefit's 'Great Gatsby' inspired collection.

flamboyancy is the way to sell luxury products. Look at The Great Gatsby for example. The Guardian hit the nail on the head when they said that Baz Luhrmann's latest offering is "celebrating opulence". The jewellery for the film was designed by Tiffany, the costumes by Prada, everything about the film screams luxury, and some companies are riding on that wave. Take Benefit cosmetics and their 1920's-inspired limited edition packaging. The luxury cosmetics industry never ditched their metallic, intricately designed boxes, velvet covers and superfluous layers of packaging, for butchers twine and a brown paper bag, yet they are still selling products by the bucket load. They know their products have value and people will pay for it. Fact. So with that said, luxury is the new luxury.

The new Leona Lewis collection from The Body Shop.

So now let's look at another side of the argument. This might be a little controversial, but are we the only ones who think that some of the Benefit packaging looks a little cheap? When you compare it to a brand like The Bodyshop, who have stripped their packaging right back to allow the product to take centre stage, Benefit's packaging just looks a bit much. The Bodyshop have not lost their personality by being more reserved with their designs, they have simply aligned themselves with the austerity trend. Although it is not technically a luxury brand, the price point is towards the higher end of high street make-up brands, making this brand a bit of a luxury when financial times are hard.






Looking at some of the greats in graphic design, such as Herb Lubalin, it's easy to see why design austerity can be such a successful strategy for a brand.  He has been described as proving that "to be effective, all you need is a typeface and a good idea" (Adrian Shaughnessy), removing the need for all the excessive elements of design. Furthermore, it has been argued that because of a change in attitudes towards 'organic' and 'pure' products, (both of which are becoming increasingly important in the cosmetics industry), consumers now associate luxury products with packaging featuring quirky graphics, hand-written styles of text, less focus on colour, and more on texture. In times of austerity, brand loyalty is easily swayed. Packaging plays such a huge role in consumer decision making, and getting that right for your potential, (and existing), customers is paramount.

The power of the typeface. The development of the food wall, designed by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase for Lou Dorfsman, director of design at CBS in 1966.

Finally there's the argument that people will buy what people will buy, regardless of the economic situation, or trends in packaging. Suppose that with or without the pomp and ceremony of the golden YSL box that people would still buy the product because they "simply can't live without it", ask the majority of women who own Touche Éclat how many they have bought, and whether they pay that much attention to the packaging!

However we believe that, when a consumer is in the market for a new product, your packaging plays too much of a part in purchasing decisions to be ignored. Once that purchase becomes habit, packaging plays a lesser role. But surely you always want to be attracting new customers, so packaging always matters.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this, how do you think the economy has affected luxury packaging, if at all? Are you more attracted to the 'shiny' or the quirky?

Sources of information:
http://www.packagingnews.co.uk/design/markets/a-quest-for-luxury-in-austere-times-markets-luxury-packaging/ 
http://www.printmag.com/interviews/designer-for-the-age-of-austerity-adrian-shaughnessy-on-herb-lubalins-life-and-work/  
http://www.jkrglobal.com/design-gazette/flapper-fabulous/#comments