A couple months ago, personal grooming product company Dollar Shave Club, owned by consumer goods giant Unilever, launched a series of ad campaigns to promote its product on Pornhub. The campaign uses humor (as shown below) to engage the audience and direct traffic to its own website.
Coincidentally, a frozen food brand Devour, owned by the large US food company Craft Heinz also launched a one-day ad campaign on the popular pornography site at around the same time. The Devour ads feature an edited Pornhub logo to depict a fork running through it, and the copy reads “see hot food porn now”. A devour company spokesperson claimed in an interview with Wall Street Journal that this ad is a continuation of the brand’s Superbowl ad featuring a humorous depiction of a man’s addiction to “frozen food porn”.
At first glance, these campaigns are smart, funny and seems
to make sense. They should totally be hugely successful and popular, right? Unfortunately,
both brands ended up facing major backlash as a result of these ad campaigns.
Many consumers voiced their concerns for these brands running ads on an adult
content platform, calling the ads inappropriate. In addition, some politicians also
publicly criticized the parent companies Unilever and Kraft Heinz allowing its
subsidiaries to run ads on Pornhub since the site has hosted potentially
illegal content due to the lack of scrutiny for user-uploaded videos.
Following the criticism, Unilever and Kraft representative
both responded to media inquities with promises to cut out ads on adult sites.
According to AdAge,
Kraft Heinz has pledged not to advertise or promote any of its brands on this
site or other similar sites. A Unilever spokesperson told CNBC
that the company does not support advertising on porn websites and is “extremely
concerned” about the reported ads from Dollar Shave Club.
However, what I found to be the most interesting thing about these two cases, are my peers’ reactions to them. When I told my friends in Annenberg about the original campaigns, almost every single person thought that they were great ideas and predicted they would work well. Clearly, these campaigns were far from great marketing hits in real life. This is a perfect example of how marketers could be biased when it comes to understanding the audience and the importance of alignment. My fellow Annenberg friends are perhaps younger, more liberal and media savvy in comparison to an average consumer of Devour or Dollar Shave Club. Therefore, our perspectives are skewed by our own background and experiences. It is critical to really understand the audience and evaluate whether the execution aligns with the brand identity and key messages of the campaign, no matter how smart and funny it sounds.
Before going public in 2020, Airbnb signed a nine-years global sponsorship deal with the International Olympic Committee (ICO) aims to supporting the Olympics to be ‘the most inclusive, accessible and sustainable yet’. Airbnb, as a new partner, falls into the category of ‘unique accommodation products and unique experiences service’.
Apart from providing local accommodation, Airbnb partners with ICO to launch the ‘Airbnb Olympian Experiences’ that will support the athlete directly and promote the sports activity at the same time. The Airbnb Olympian Experiences including training with olympic athletes and touring the city with them. In the Olympian Experience platform, athletes who are interested can become the host of the experience and create revenue stream.
Supporting the Sustainability Objectives
According to Airbnb, in 2016, 85,000 Rio Olympics visitors creates £30m for the host and saves the carbon emissions and material waste as Airbnb provides accommodation equivalent of 257 hotels. In the agreement with ICO, Airbnb highlights how it contribute to the sustainability objectives of Olympics. For the Olympic Game organizers and shareholders, Airbnb provides local accommodation that reduce the need of massive construction of new accommadation and thus cut down the costs. This partnership also promotes the sustainable travel option that emphasizing the economical empowerment and sustainability.
Creating Multilateral Cooperation and Mutual Benefit
Airbnb aims to create a three-win situation that creates a new industry standard. For the hosts, they are provided with opportunity to earn extra income through providing accommodation. For the spectators, Airbnb offers more economical and homely accommodations that give them a chance to experience the local culture. For the city, Airbnb represents the sustainable initiatives that accommodate the visitors in a more environmental friendly way.
“A Reputational Boost”: Rebuilding Trust and Image
Rosie Spinks points out that, Airbnb makes a wise choice as the event “both aligns with the brand’s ethos and will be a boon for its bottom line as it aims to go public in 2020.” Through this global partnership, Airbnb has join the list of global partners alongside with coca-cola and Alibaba.
Airbnb’s message of ‘creating a world where anyone can belong anywhere’ is in accord with the Olympic spirits of cooperation that brings people together. This partnership also restore its brand image in some extent after recent waves of negative press release as five people died in a shooting in a party hosted in a mansion booked through Airbnb.
TikTok has become one of the biggest social media platforms and attracted numerous users in the US. Also, marketers start to find it a perfect platform to reach teen audience. When users, influencers and marketers all flooded into the platform, the requirement and sponsorship for advertising in TikTok are blurry. As one of the TikTokers Alejandro Baigorri said: “Everyone is doing something different at the moment, it’s like the Wild West.”
While some people tend to regard TikTok as the new Instagram, some believe it is more like YouTube. More and more marketers began to realize that marketing on TikTok sometimes has the same, or even better effects, compared to Instagram marketing, especially when they are targeting the Gen Z.
But the difference is also obvious. TikTok isn’t a place to connect real-world friends, which is more similar to YouTube. Besides, as it is based on short videos and doesn’t need a long period of time to consume, TikTok is more likely to be the choice when people want do kill some time during daily commute.
Besides, creation of video is more complicated than simply posting a photo, which placed a barrier of entry. But TikTok videos are generally easier than YouTube videos, which are usually more than 3 minutes and require some professional equioments. Therefore, more people can get the chance to become a influencer in TikTok, as long as they have a great idea and make some plans to film and edit.
For marketers, TikTok marketing is more about raising awareness and showing Gen Z a younger and more creative side of the brand. The most interesting part of this platform is that users are encouraged to imitate the original video form and use the same music to create their own funny videos. Therefore, besides focusing on the quality of video, marketers also need to make the video easy to imitate so that the possibility of going viral can greatly increase.
Recently, as more money began to pour into the social media platform, TikTok’s marketplace also slowly built up regulations and standards to protect creators. While TikTok continue to gain attention and become the quite trendy, it is still not clear whether it will stay popular like Instagram and YouTube, or it will gradually fade like Vine or Snapchat.
Earned CNY1.5 billion (USD222 million) two years ago thanks to culturally innovative products, the Palace Museum received record attendance with 16.7 million visitors and officially overtook the Louvre as the most visited art institution in the world. Despite the positive outlook, the Forbidden City and the Palace Museum are continuing to look for ways to promote themselves not as just a tourist destination, but as a distinct brand of its own.
Since revitalizing its brand image through introducing new lines of quirky and humorous Wenchuang “文创” products (peripheral products) and distributing them on its online store on Taobao, it has enjoyed major success. As a significant symbol of Chinese culture and heritage, it is perhaps one of the most organic and distinct sources of inspiration to have ever been used to create not only a brand, but also the surrounding intellectual property (IP) associated with it. So what can we learn from its marketing success
Multiple Sales Channels
Online Channels
The online product sales channels are mainly divided into three ways, namely the Forbidden City Mall, the Forbidden City Taobao Store and the Palace Museum Tmall Flagship Store.
The Forbidden City Mall sells more traditional tourist goods, such as postcards, mascots, and notebooks printed with the cultural elements of the Forbidden City. However, the Forbidden City Taobao store is mainly engaged in smart and lively styles of peripheral products, such as the Cold Palace refrigerator stickers, Granny Rong sewing box and so on. The Palace Museum Tmall flagship store contains three sections: Wenchuang boutique, the Forbidden City publishing, and the Forbidden City ticketing. Wenchuang Boutique combines the Forbidden City culture with life aesthetics and contemporary life through creative design techniques, emphasizing more cultural and artistic heritage than the Forbidden City Taobao; The publication selects the best products from the all Forbidden City publications for sale; the Palace Tickets cooperates with Alibaba to establish a ticket online pre-sale reservation system, and visitors can quickly check in through QR code and second-generation ID card.
Offline Channel
The Forbidden City Cultural and Creative Museum is the main offline sales channel of the Palace Museum. It is divided into eight different exhibition halls, such as the Silk Pavilion, the Clothing Pavilion, the Living Hall and the Image Gallery. Visitors can not only experience the Qing Palace, but also bring the cultural creative products back to home. The development of this museum reflects the overall transformation of the Forbidden City from the “souvenir” to the “cultural creative product”
2. Online Marketing
There are three main marketing channels for
the Palace Museum: Weibo, WeChat public account, and APP platform. Using the
approachable image to break the serious impression the Forbidden City, these
platforms let the Palace Museum sprout new vitality, and attract fans to
actively participate in the spread of the Forbidden City culture. Compared with
the original news and advertisements, the social media content seems much more
impersonal.
The Forbidden City Weibo is an official
account that serves the promotion of the Forbidden City culture and its
products. In the early days of its opening, the account posted mostly popular
science and promotion articles with only tens to hundreds of reading and
reposting. Then in 2015, it began to change its mindset and released marketing advertorials
with popular phrases and current topics, and the number of fans and reposts
skyrocketed, also the market. The WeChat official account complements the
Forbidden City’s Weibo and uses the circle of friends for cultural exchanges
and diffusion.
The development of a series of Apps has realized the innovative spread of the Forbidden City culture. The first App of the Forbidden City was the “People’s Figure” on the iPad in 2013. The beautiful screen of Yongzheng Emperor is divided into 12 beautiful pictures. The furniture, books and costumes in the painting can be enlarged and read to discover the underlying machine. This App was rewarded as “China’s Excellent APP” in 2013. In addition, there are well-made “Han Xi Zai Night Banquet” and “Daily Palace”, which won the 2015 “Best APP of the Year” and “Excellent APP of the Year” respectively.
3. Current Trend Sensitive
Taking advantage of the online current events has become an effective network marketing method to increase social attention. In January 2015, the marriage news of Wu Qilong and Liu Shishi (both are top tier Chinese actor and actress) boarded the popular microblogging list. A week later, the official WeChat account of Forbidden City Taobao launched an article “She is even busier than Si Ye”, which was actually a product promotion article. It quickly triggered a reading of 100,000+ users and was reposted by the People’s Daily and a large number of netizens; In March, the robot Baymax in the movie “Big Hero 6” became really popular, and the Forbidden City immediately launched the “Baymax” version of Emperor” HD illustration wallpaper.
It can be said that the glory of the Forbidden
City derives from the accumulation of thousands of years Chinese history. The
combination of new media and cultural creative products help the younger
generation to better accept the culture. Even so, getting attention by creating
cute version of the history figures is not a long-term road, nor is it the only
way. The same product design pattern or marketing method is easy for consumers
to produce aesthetic fatigue.
In the future, more and more Wenchuang products will appear. How can we retain this sense of weight and awe, and let more and more ordinary people become aware of and fall in love with cultural products? Shan Yuxiang, the director of the Palace Museum, said: The museum should develop cultural and creative products by studying people’s lives and understanding their cultural resources thoroughly. The number of cultural and creative products developed by the Forbidden City has reached more than 9,000, and now it is changing from quantity growth to quality improvement.
it is said in China that 2019 is the beginning of the era of e-commerce livestream. The biggest live-streamer, Li Jiaqi, has more than 40 million fans on Taobao (Chinese version of Amazon). And his sale during 11.11 was over 100 million RMB. Xinba, a female live-streamer, sold the most products over 400 million RMB. These numbers can show you how powerful the e-commerce live streaming is. As a result, now almost every e-commerce platform in China is started to launch livestream function.
The magic of e-commerce live stream comes from three parts. First, it is entertaining. Every successful live streamer is attractive. They are either good-looking or funny and humorous. Therefore, people can have fun and get relaxed when watching live stream. Second, live stream can provide a sense of intimacy for audience with live streamer. It is real-time, and audience and interact with live streamer pretty easily. Therefore, it is of high possibility to build trust between them. In other words, people are more easily convinced to purchase compared to other means of marketing. Third, it is super simple and easy to make a purchase at e-commerce livestream platform. And the products promoted during e-commerce live stream are usually at a low price so customers are easily to make an impulse purchase.
However, e-commerce livestream also encountered some problems. For example, the quality of the products could not be guaranteed. live streamers often exaggerate the quality or the feature of the product. Second, there are a lot of people condemning the e-commerce livestream. They regard it as the new version of TV shopping. They think the content is meaningless and the product is often problematic and that audience who watch it are stupid.
Even though there are other problems of this new form of marketing and selling, it is growing rapidly since 2019. And it will not cease to grow in the near future.
What is your thought on this? It is going to replace the traditional marketing or retail? How would it affect the current selling landscape?
The once acclaimed toy store giant, Toys “R” Us, has
announced that they are reopening stores across the United States. After
numerous years of declining profits, the toy store announced two years ago that
they were forced to close their stores nationwide and go into liquidation. However,
due to recent partnerships with Target and others, Toys “R’ Us is slowly making
a come back with their brick and mortar stores.
For many Americans, Toys “R” Us represents the nostalgic
memories of childhood and the opportunity for parents and their children to
spend time within a store filled with games both new and old. Unfortunately,
with the rapid popularity of online shopping and e-commerce giants like Amazon,
brick and mortar stores in general have failed to keep the doors open. Within
the past decade, numerous stores have disappeared or filed for bankruptcy due
to the inability to compete with the scale of Amazon in the marketplace. Toys “R”
us was one of the victims, as more and more consumers opted to buy toys online instead
of within the store.
Toys “R” Us is beginning open “experimental” stores that
encourage their consumers to engage and interact with their products, an opportunity
that Amazon cannot fulfill. Additionally, Toys “R” Us has teamed up with retail
leader Target to allow further online shopping opportunities. The question is,
will this revamped strategy allow Toys “R” Us to compete with Amazon? Will the
brand legacy of Toys “R” Us help stabilize the company while they unveil their experimental
stores?
Nowadays, more and more people start watching live-streaming platforms. With the advantage of real-time, quick, and interactive, live-streaming has been well welcome by Gen Z in China. Several days ago in the shopping festival 11.11, China’s most famous liver-streamer, Jiaqi Li, a male who is famous for making lipstick try-on, had about 37 million audience watching his live-streaming about his discounts on 11.11. This number was huge, which should arise the marketers’ attention.
Will live-streaming platform be a potential marketing place? With the characteristics of strong interactions between liver-streamers and audience, it’s easier for live-streamers to get real-time and quick responses from consumers. For example, it’s easy for marketers to utilize live-streaming to advertise their big sales since liver-streamers can explain the rules clearly in their live-streaming and can answer any questions from audience quickly.
Additionally, live-streaming could stimulate audience’s desire to make a purchase. Since lots of live-streamers in China mainly use live-streaming platform to sell discounted products, audience are very willing to watch their live-streaming in order to make a cheaper purchase. And under this circumstances, chances are that some audience may make a purchase decision merely because others are rushing to make a purchase or because the products are so cheap. In this way, one live-streaming may create huge profit for brands.
However, it’s still risky for brands to adopt live-streaming to advertise. For luxury brands, it definitely will hurt the brand image by adopting this kind of way to advertise. Therefore, live-streaming might be a good way for small or new companies to advertise their brands and boost sales with the collaboration with streamers. Till now, live-streaming platforms in U.S. such as YouTube live-stream still have not step into using that to market or boost sales. Do you think it’s a chance for American brands or do you think it’s still risky?
Growing up in a non-western culture
means that Christmas means nothing more than another chance to catch some sales
and a long break from school (although I feel like this is true for most people
now). So, personally, Christmas has never been anything special that I look
forward to.
Until I saw a small little video called Monty the Penguin.
Screenshot from the “Monty the Penguin” Christmas Ad
It’s an animated character from a John
Lewis Christmas brand. If you don’t know John Lewis, it’s a British department
store. It is posh, upscaled, and filled with all kinds of goodies. Perhaps it
was because of all the annual Christmas ads that I’d seen, John Lewis became my
favorite department store when I lived in London.
If you look at the advertisements, especially those from recent years, there is really nothing about the store itself. The advertisements are more like adorable short films that make you feel fuzzy and warm on the inside. They often feature animated characters like Monty the Penguin, a journeying snowman, and Moz the monster.
At the center of the advertisements are also children, who play with these animated characters. Sometimes these characters might be an old man on the moon, a piano, or more. The essence is that all these advertisements create a fantasy, like something from a children’s storybook.
Moz the monster.
But here’s the question. If it’s an advertisement for a department store, why does it seem like a kid’s movie? Shouldn’t it target adults who pay for things?
And I think here’s the trick.
At some point in the advertisement, you will find out that most often these fun, unrealistic characters are from the children’s imagination. It’s a common blow to the dreamy, imaginary environment that the story tries so hard to create, but that’s the case with John Lewis’. Somehow the advertisements return to reality without stripping away the sense of warmth. The emotion stays—emotions that can be transferred to objects, which you can buy at John Lewis.
At the end of the day, John Lewis is still selling the holiday spirit—family, friendship, imagination, childhood—just like many others. The noble thing that John Lewis does is that they don’t push products in their short films. Unlike other holiday season advertisements that are filled with sales information and product displays, John Lewis just tells a story.
Here’s my favorite ever – Man On The Moon
The John Lewis Christmas advertisements, to me, are just like modern Disney movies. Yes, they are PG and kid-friendly, but they are also for adults. Kids will see cute characters, magic, prince and princess, and good guys fighting bad guys. Adults see love, betrayal, friendship, loneliness, and more. The advertisements create a world for adults who want to be kids again, looking at this world a little more simple and a little more warmly. Because when’s a better time in the year to treat yourself with a dreamy world than Christmas?
Honorary mention of H&M’s Holiday film directed by Wes Anderson
Although I still don’t celebrate Christmas and I fully understand that Christmas is just as commercial as it is traditional, I can’t help but expect it every year. And every holiday season, I go ahead and watch through all the Christmas Ads, and then buy something I don’t need just because I am in the holiday mood.
Mega-Conglomerate, Coty recently added Make up Mogul, Kylie Jenner’s Kylie cosmetics and Kylie skin care brands in a 600 Million Dollar Deal. This was a rather big move by the company as it adds a new make-up brand to its already existing make and skin care portfolios. The deal, which values the young entrepreneur’s namesake beauty brand at $1.2 billion, will enable “global expansion and entry into new beauty categories,” the companies said in announcing the deal on Monday 18thNovember.
Jenner, whom Forbes magazine has labelled as the youngest “self-made billionaire,” will continue to be the Core Ambassador of both of her companies, i.e. Kylie Cosmetics as well as Kylie Skin. The 22-year old has developed a reputation as one of the most significant celebrities, amassing over 270 million followers on various social media site combined. The youngest family member of the Kardashian clan founded the company in 2015, when she was still a young teenager.
In an interview, Kylie was quoted saying the following “I’m excited to partner with Coty to continue to reach even more fans of Kylie Cosmetics and Kylie Skin around the world,” Jenner said in a statement. “This partnership will allow me and my team to stay focused on the creation and development of each product while building the brand into an international beauty powerhouse.” This definitely is a rather brilliant move on her part as she can focus solely on the creative and marketing strategies and can leave more logistical and finance related issues to the team at Coty. Furthermore, just as she mentioned, the brand will be able to have a much larger reach and can even expand globally giving rise to interest in new markets.
Coty also said it would be utilising its research and development, manufacturing, distribution and commercial resources to expand Jenner’s business. Which works perfectly for her brand and she would still remain the name, face and creative head for the brand. Jenner’s team will continue to handle her creative and communication efforts, which is notable because she’s one of the most-followed people on social media. She has 150 million followers on Instagram and 30 million Twitter (TWTR) followers.
“Combining Kylie’s creative vision and unparalleled consumer interest with Coty’s expertise and leadership in prestige beauty products is an exciting next step in our transformation,” Coty CEO Pierre Laubies mentioned in an announcement regarding the merger. He also mentioned that the deal is, “an exciting next step in our transformation and will leverage our core strengths around fragrances, cosmetics and skincare, allowing Kylie’s brands to reach their full potential.”
Publicly traded Coty Inc. is one of the world’s leading beauty companies, with roughly $9 billion in net revenue. Its portfolio of brands includes mainstream, luxury and professional beauty brands like Covergirl, Burberry fragrances, Marc Jacobs Fragrances and more.
Coty’s stock price rose about 1% Monday 18th November, to around $12 a share, on the news of the Kylie Cosmetics and Kylie Skin acquisition. The deal also helps the company future proof itself as younger shoppers are increasingly buying direct-to-consumer brands, like Glossier
It’s official. Victoria’s Secret has cancelled its annual fashion show this year, which used to be a trendsetter in the industry, and a feast for both fashion and pop culture lovers. According to the CFO of L Brands, the parent company of Victoria’s Secret, Stuart Burgdoerfer, the company thinks that “it’s important to evolve the messaging” in order to resonate with the every-changing consumers. Instead of grand gestures and magnificent runways, the brand will now re-center its marketing and advertising strategies onto other channels such as social media.
Victoria’s Secret has been the largest lingerie retailer in the United States for decades. The brand provided an ultimate definition for a sexy woman in the modern age through its advertisements and a lavish runway fashion show featuring top models in underwear walking down the runway. The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show launched in 1995 as a way to showcase the standardized sexiness and beauty of a woman, a defining pop culture event and a marketing stunt in the United States. Top models such as Gisele Bündchen, Tyra banks, Heidi Klum and Miranda Kerr were all famous “Angels” in the beginning of their modeling career, giving some of their best runway performances in its heyday. For decades, this extravagant spectacle has helped the retailer to create an impossible fantasy full of hot women in lingerie with delicate “wings” and pop stars performing in the back.
However, what was once a quite successful strategy start to show its problems. The brand’s executive board—nearly all of them are men—failed to cater to women’s practical needs, and erroneously understood the trends and values in this day. According to Lisa Hayes, program director of Drexel University’s fashion department and associate professor in Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, “they had completely 100% missed the mark on where everyone in the world is now”. The negligence took its toll on the company’s brand image and finances. The sales dropped 7n percent during the latest quarter in comparison with the same period last year, with its market share shrinking from 31.7% in 2013 to 24% in 2019. The ratings of the fashion show also declined in accordance, with only 3.3 million viewers—half the number in 2016.
Why is the message not working anymore? Two major reasons are identified for its failure. First of all, the fantasy looks dated after #MeToo, and Victoria’s Secret has picked the wrong target audience. For so long the company has been catering to the taste of man who like to see sexy models in their underwear. Yet they are not the ones buying the products; women are. The skinny models with enviable body curves carrying angel wings running down runways nearly naked seem to be conveying the wrong message about what is the beauty of women in this day and age.
Countless behind-the-scene articles on how models have diet, exercise and struggle to keep extremely thin serve as negative press for the company, for women are now sick of such excruciating way of living to fit the patriarchal stereotype of a perfect woman. Women start to realize this is not what they want; instead this is objectification and oppression imposed by males who are indulging themselves in such “pornified aesthetics”. What women care more, in stark contrast, is comfort. Women want to take control of their bodies, and feel confident and empowered.
Secondly, more and more competitor brands who understand what women are looking for in underwear are attracting more and more customers. Inclusive upstart brands such as Aerie, Third Love and Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty has made wearing comfortable underwear possible for women. These brands also put forward the idea of self-confidence and diversity in aesthetics, marketing themselves as something inclusive and empowering to women. ThirdLove even claimed to be the “antithesis of Victoria’s Secret”. Apparently, it worked just fine.
Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty, in addition, also hosted a fashion show in 2018. It was also a huge spectacle, but it had included different races, body shapes and one-of-a-kind edginess. The brand still conveys sexy appeals, but it’s no longer for men; instead, it serves to empower women to realize their unique beauty. Bella Hadid said in an interview that she had “never felt powerful” waking in lingerie until she walked for Rihanna’s Fenty.
Of course, the brand has attempted to change its identity multiple times. They have put photos of a plus-size model in September in a campaign, but the usual comments on social media would always be “too little too late”, as if the brand is only trying to patronize its consumers. Although it still is the biggest lingerie retailer in the US, the future remains unclear.
