What is the X-Factor Missing in Most Marketing Programs?

 

PR agencies and corporate communications may focus on the newness of a product or service when they launch a campaign, when they should instead be focusing on a spokesperson for the brand. The spokesperson is able to give the brand a face and a voice; and the success of a PR campaign will often depend on the efficiency of the spokesperson.

Who should you choose as the voice of your brand?

The CEO, in most cases, is responsible for making or breaking a brand.

  • In the technology industry it would help to have a famous CEO.  Bill Gates is as famous as Microsoft itself and if we look at the South African market, Hirsch’s is a great example.  Allan Hirsch features in many ads himself but in the family run business, Lucy, the darling daughter, features predominantly as the spokesperson for the brand.
  • SA celebrity, Nataniël, endorses supermarket chain Checkers, which is an example of the retail industry.  Nataniël owns the Kaalkop brand and endorses Checkers boerewors (sausage for non-South Africans), Turducken and sosaties (kebabs).  Although there is a close relationship between Nataniël and the Checkers products, not all product relations have successfully increased through this relationship.  Nataniël saw a drop in Kaalkop sales countrywide after Checkers’ chicken sosaties famously went rotten.  The focus was all on Nataniël and his relationship with the brand and not much was mentioned about the sosaties that were left in a car for over two days before they were consumed.
  • The slow food industry is influenced by the same principles.  To gain exposure in the media, one cannot open a fine dining restaurant without having a well-known chef.  If the media does not talk about you, how would a customer know you have a celebrity chef? Reuben’s would merely be a name of a restaurant if Reuben himself was not a famous chef.  Good publicity, and not advertising, is key to these high-end restaurants.  Once a restaurant becomes established, customers will start talking and good old fashioned word of mouth will take care of the rest.

Many branding success stories in history are also PR success stories.

  • Richard Branson, founder and CEO of Virgin, has been and still is the spokesperson of the airline today.
  • Oprah Winfrey started out with a barely watched early morning talk show.  In almost no time at all she had the most successful and most watched show in Chicago.  It was officially named after her and went to become a national and international phenomenon.  Her forever evolving brand has blossomed into her OWN television network: the Oprah Winfrey Network.
  • Zumba Fitness started out as VHS videos made in a garage, and is now distributed to over 12 million fitness instructors around the world.  The brand is still being nursed by its founder Alberto Perez. Beto, as he is known, still features on every single DVD that gets sent out.
  • The fashion industry has endless examples of the necessity celebrity designer.  Coco Chanel, responsible for the little black dress, is the only fashion designer to be named in the Time 100:  The Most Important People of the Century.  She never attended a fashion school and learnt to sew from nuns.

To give your brand a competitive edge it is important to have a public presence and you are not going to achieve that with a marketing programme alone.  You will have to add a personal touch through PR.  You will need articles in industry magazines and you will need the favour of journalists.

The spokesperson should be the one most capable of dealing with the media.  Not all CEOs can do this, in which case you will have to select the best suitable spokesperson carefully.

The media cannot interview a piece of Nando’s Chicken, a Mercedes or an Apple Mac.  They can only interview a real life person.   Products do not have the ability to create publicity but people through the products do.

Source:  The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR – Al Ries and Laura Ries

 

This guest post was written by Eleanor van Niekerk on behalf of a specialist PR company based in South Africa. Eleanor is a freelance writer based in Cape Town, South Africa.

Mobile advertising: two trends that got it right in 2011

A few years ago, before mobiles had internet and SMS texting became fast and easy to do – not to mention technical terms like SMS Aggregator and SMS Gateway Provider became commonplace – it would have been unthinkable that the future of mobile advertising was going to be good. But, with 2011 being seen as a peak year for a number of star campaigns, good is exactly what it is. Even more so, with new apps being launched on all phones, and coverage becoming even better all over the world, everyone now has a chance to take advantage of what the big companies like txtNation.com have to offer, using an SMS service and standard Business Texts.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at 2 winning mobile advertising campaigns that really got it right last year. And if this is any sign of the creativity we are sure to see in the future, then we can all look forward to being in on something which is more fun and interactive than ever before!

1)                  Doing it with style and simplicity, Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door Spas: nobody likes being hassled into buying something, even if it is only through their phone and a Short-Code. The people at Elizabeth Arden Spas obviously knew this only too well, and approached the task of mobile advertising with caution. Instead of sending out a Business Text which forced people to reply if they didn’t want it, they decided on another better approach: have people opt-in only if they liked the sound of what they might win. According to sources, it really hit the spot. People did reply and those SMS messages really did convert into direct sales.

2)                  Land Rover: they’re not the first company you’d think of in terms of utilising mobile advertising and an SMS Gateway Provider, right? Well, if you think that Land Rover are behind in this game then you can think again! Their campaign saw an interactive stylish banner sent out to mobile users, which they could then use to investigate the new Evoque model from wherever they were. It was this coolness – which involved getting behind the camera to see all angles – that really made an impact, and that’s hardly surprising.

For a taste of what you could be doing with an award winning set of SMS marketing solutions, view the advancement in technology txtNation has reached with it’s pure, flexible  SMS gateway solution utilising available Premium Rate SMS services and short-codes.

 

 

 

 

Carlton Communications Plc

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Carlton Communications Plc is a leading UK media company with businesses in free-to-air television broadcasting and advertising sales, content production and distribution and cinema advertising.

DIRECTORATE

The Board of Carlton Communications Plc today announces that upon the Merger of Carlton and Granada becoming effective (which is expected on 2 February 2004), non-executive directors, David Green, Leslie Hill and Sir Sydney Lipworth will resign as directors of Carlton and will not join the Board of ITV plc, the newly merged company.

David Green became a non-executive director in 1990. Leslie Hill joined Carlton as a director in 1994 and became a non-executive director in 1996. He was Chairman of the ITV Network until June 2002. Sir Sydney Lipworth QC joined as a non-executive director in 1993.

 

Further information: 020 7663 6363
Peter Rushton PRESS

Presentations & Speeches

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To view the PDFs you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader version 5.

2003 Second Interim Results presentation, 26 Nov 2003
webcast 2003 Second Interim Results presentation webcast, 26th Nov 2003
2003 Second Interim Results presentation, 26th Nov 2003
2003 Interim Results presentation, 21 May 2003
2003 Interim Results presentation, 21st May 2003
Presentation by Michael Green, Chairman of Carlton, at the SG conference, 5th December 2002, 05 Dec 2002
Presentation by Michael Green, Chairman of Carlton, at the SG conference, 5th December 2002
Final Results presentation 2002, 26 Nov 2002
2002 Final Results presentation
Carlton / Granada merger – One company, One management, One focus, 16 Oct 2002
Carlton / Granada merger – One company, One management, One focus
Interim Results presentation 2002
Interim Results presentation 2002
Presentation by Michael Green, Chairman of Carlton, at the Schroder Salomon Smith Barney conference, 18th Sep 2002
Presentation by Michael Green, Chairman of Carlton, at the Schroder Salomon Smith Barney conference, 18th Sep 2002

RESULT OF SHAREHOLDER MEETINGS

The Board of Carlton Communications Plc announces that at the Carlton Ordinary Shareholder Court Meeting and the Carlton Extraordinary General Meeting held earlier today, both of the resolutions approving the merger with Granada plc were duly passed.All of the resolutions proposed at the EGM to approve the ITV plc employee share plans were also duly passed.The results of the poll on the resolution to approve the Carlton Ordinary Shareholder Scheme held at the Carlton Ordinary Shareholder Court Meeting were 402,315,704 shares for the resolution (representing 99.99% of shares voted) and 29,986 shares against the resolution (representing 0.01% of shares voted). The votes for the resolution were cast by 1,823 shareholders representing 98.27% in number of those voting.At the Carlton Preference Shareholder Court Meeting also held earlier today, a resolution was proposed to approve the cancellation of Carlton’s 6.5p Convertible Preference Shares in consideration of the payment in cash by ITV plc of 102 pence per share (plus accrued dividend). The merger is not conditional on the passing of this resolution. The resolution required approval by a simple majority in number representing three-fourths in value of those Carlton Preference Shareholders present and voting in person or by proxy, and was not passed. The results of the poll on the resolution were 37,767,160 shares for the resolution (representing 56.04% of shares voted) and 29,622,383 shares against the resolution (representing 43.96% of shares voted). The votes for the resolution were cast by 406 shareholders representing 78.23% in number of those voting. Carlton Preference Shareholders will therefore continue to hold their Carlton Preference Shares following completion of the merger.The merger remains subject, amongst other things, to approval by Granada plc shareholders at meetings to be held later today and to the sanction of the High Court (expected on 30 January 2004). It is expected that the merger will become effective and trading in shares in ITV plc will commence on 2 February 2004.

Further information: 020 7663 6363
Peter Rushton PRESS
Cliff Hide ANALYSTS

DISCLOSURE NOTICE: The information contained in this press release is as of 13 January 2004. Carlton assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information for future events or developments.

In order to utilise the “Safe Harbor” provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Carlton is providing the following cautionary statement: This document contains certain statements that are or may be forward-looking with respect to the expected timing and completion of the merger between Carlton and Granada. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future. There are a number of factors that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors include, but are not limited to, statements made elsewhere in the press release, as well as material changes in tax laws and regulations and the ability of Granada and Carlton to obtain Court sanctioning of the schemes without unforeseen delay.