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Brandcameo Exorcises Some Brands

When Brandcameo went to press on Monday morning, the number one film in the U.S. was The Last Exorcism. The box office numbers have since been revised and Takers ended up, appropriately, taking the weekend by a mere $100,000.

This development doesn't change our analysis of the curious low brand count of the horror genre. It will however change the overall brand count. This means Range Rover (above) will move up a few positions in our 2010 tracker of the big screen's branded product placements and Ford's tie with Apple will, at least temporarily, be in limbo.

Brandcameo numbers and tracking will be revised after this coming Labor Day weekend's new number one film. Will a number one Machete result in another Apple product placement? Or will Going the Distance live up to its name and add a different Apple product placement to our tally?

GMO or No? Aunt Millies Finds We Dont Care

Because healthful eaters have so much to keep track of – is this item organic? All-natural? Gluten-free? Transfat-free? Enhanced with fiber, sterols or anything else? – some things are bound to get lost in the shuffle. And Aunt Millie’s, a regional bread brand in the US, has identified what it wants to lose in that shuffle: GMOs.

It seems that consumers in the Midwest don’t care about whether their food contains GMOs – as in “genetically modified organisms” – the way that they do about most of these other things, and certainly not the way that shoppers in many European countries do.

So after launching its premium-priced Early American bread line featuring “no GMOs” last fall, the Ft. Wayne, Ind.-based company has pulled them from the market.[more]

“They didn’t do well,” Melissa Dunning, director of marketing for Aunt Millie’s Bakeries, tells brandchannel. “We thought that would be a big attribute with consumers, but it wasn’t as much of a draw as we’d hoped.”

Dunning blamed the recession, because American consumers don’t want to pay higher prices for much of anything these days. But she also said that it proved “hard [for consumers] to understand non-GMO. Some people are really into it,” she said, “but it hasn’t gone mainstream.”

Or at least GMO-consciousness hasn’t proven to be a big thing in Flyover Country. Maybe it’s a bigger worry on the coasts.

In any event, Aunt Millie’s is far from bereft. Often the pioneers take the arrows, and while the non-GMO gambit didn’t work out, the brand has been gleaning strong sales from its repositioned line of Aunt Millie’s Hearth breads, which provide boomer-targeted health benefits such as higher fiber content.

“We’re trying to own that fiber positioning,” Dunning says.

Crowdsourcing: Cheap engagement, or cheapening brands?

Does crowdsourcing cheapen brands?

FitFlop: Stepping Up Its Game -- Jennifer Gidmann

Serial entrepreneur Marcia Kilgore leverages her success in launching the Bliss Spa chain and Soap and Glory brands into footwear inspired by her son.

Febreze Targets Football Fans (Psst! They're Women)

If brand marketers have learned anything in the last decade, it's to not make assumptions about where to reach a target audience. Too many times, those assumptions prove to be misguided — and that means a brand may be missing out on media strategy that could grow market share.

Procter & Gamble learned that lesson with the NFL. It's logical to assume professional football is watched by men, and therefore it makes little sense to advertise a brand targeted to women during televised games, right?

Wrong. Turns out that, for the 2009 season, one-third of the viewing audience for a typical NFL game were women, according to Nielsen. About 42 million women watched Super Bowl XLIV last February. Those are significant numbers by any measure, reason enough why Procter & Gamble has managed to get its Febreze air freshener brand selected as "Official Air Freshener of the NFL," and why the company is advertising the product during NFL games this year.[more]

Scott Beal, brand manager for Febreze, tells the New York Times, "Our female target audience is watching the NFL and gathering her family and friends for that football-watching experience. Often when that happens, there's food and there's a crowded room and odors can be there, and that's not the experience you want to have."

A new Febreze television ad focuses on that very scenario, showing a woman sporting a football jersey and spraying the product around her living room. "Febreze Air Effect cleans away tough game-day odors in the air—sweat socks, chicken wings, garlic dip—and leaves a light, fresh scent," says the ad's voiceover.

Febreze isn't about to overlook the men who watch football games, though. Febreze Sport, a product for controlling odors in shoes and sports gear, is being advertised in Men's Health magazine. During ESPN's locker room interviews with NFL players, the product can be seen on the players' locker shelves — a subtle yet effective product placement.

But women seem to be getting most of the promotional attention. In addition to ads, there's the requisite website and Facebook page — plus a "Febreze Game Day Freshness Tour."

A special tour bus will travel around to various football stadiums during the regular season. On the bus will be Olivia Manning, mother of Peyton (Indianapolis Colts' quarterback) and Eli (New York Giants' quarterback). Ms. Manning will not just be pitching Febreze — she'll also tells fans how to host game days and offer game-day recipes, too.

Brand Sarah Palin vs. Brand Alaska

Has Sarah Palin ruined Alaska's brand? It may sound like a joke, but it's a real question posed by Alaskan native Marty Beckerman at The Awl. Actually, it's not so much a question as a statement, as the piece is titled "How Sarah Palin Ruined Alaska." If he's right, Alaska doesn't have much hope of getting its brand back anytime soon.[more]

The author reminisces about a time when saying you were from Alaska brought questions of "Did you mush dogs instead of driving a car?" "Did your family live in an igloo?" And "Did you have a pet polar bear?" Stereotypical questions indeed, but all framing a similar definition in many people's minds of what the Alaskan brand was. In fact, the author states that "Saying 'I'm from Alaska' was the best conversation starter imaginable."

Now, the author laments, the same mention of Alaska brings only questions and jokes about Palin and that "suddenly no one asked about months of darkness or snowboarding to school—only about her." Some now hate Alaska solely for its association with her. He adds, "Palin doesn't merely represent the Alaskan archetype in the national consciousness; she is Alaska."

The author is right. Nearly overnight, Alaska went from a brand identified by a smattering of insulting and complementary stereotypes to one big one, insulting and complementary at the same time, dependent on who you are.

Regardless if you are a fan or enemy of Palin, this cult of personality association is bad for Alaska's image. The brand has lost control of itself and is depended on the behavior of a single person in its definition. It's a terrible spot for any brand to find itself. If Alaska's reputation and image were more diverse, like California's, the brand may be able to withstand a force such as Palin. Defined by a singular popular cultural touchpoint, Alaska can maybe find some solace with North Dakota's relationship with the film Fargo.

Alaska has some hope of returning to its old brand though. A recent Vanity Fair piece on Palin compared the family to the Clintons. There, at least, Alaska might find some relief. The Clintons' tight association with Arkansas melted away as they family moved north to New York, embedded there, and became New Englanders. The Clintons are now more associated with Hillary's New York Senate seat, Bill's Harlem office and Chelsea's wedding in upstate New York. Arkansas, for better or worse, is back to its old brand.

But Alaska's deliverance from Palin probably won't happen anytime soon. The Palin brand right now depends on leveraging the Alaska outsider, frontier mystique. This means that even if she has zero political influence or power in the state anymore, she will continue to strongly identify with it as part of her image. In fact, Alaska's brand may be about to get much, much worse.

The word is that Sarah Palin has booked Alaska's largest venue to host a live event on September 11 with Fox News host, and organizer of the recent "Restoring Honor" Washington DC religious event, Glenn Beck. It's a guaranteed media meat-grinder, and it will have Alaska's name all over it.

Crowdsourcing: Cheap Engagement, or Cheapening Brands?

Consumers are doing it for themselves — but designers and creatives don't have to quit their day jobs just yet. A checkered path of twists and turns has led to an unholy alliance: brands soliciting user-generated content, incentivizing users with prizes, and essentially doing an end run around agencies and specialists trained in the arts of creating and selling.

Has UGC run amok? Let's take a look at the latest fad in crowdsourcing: contests for product labels, as exemplified by Chiquita and Knorr, Unilever's largest brand, as MediaPost points out.[more]

Chiquita's sticker design contest is inviting consumers to put their spin its 50-year-old iconic blue sticker. Narrowed to 50 finalists’ submissions, Chiquita fans are voting through September 12. Eighteen winners will be chosen and featured on bananas in November.

EatAChiquita.com has seen more than 500,000 visitors since the contest's October 2009 launch. Users create and post their versions of faces in the oval brand sticker, with some 25,000 faces were posted in the first six months.

Chiquita's Facebook page has almost 20,000 fans, many of them clamoring for their favorite stickers. And over at @ChiquitaChatter, 400 or so Twitter fans are doing the same.

The most committed fans can apply the stickers on their photos and posts, or “Shop A Peel” on Zazzle.com and buy products sporting those custom stickers. There’s also a "Banana Boogie Battle" video game.

The second example: Knorr Bouillon, a 100-year-old brand is soliciting consumer-generated content for its labels – in the form of recipes. Launched earlier this year, "Recetas Arrozísimas" targets Knorr's Latino consumer base of Hispanics – 50% of whom use Knorr in cooking four dishes daily from scratch, of which 14% are rice dishes.

The Spanish-language community site, KnorrSabor.com, received thousands of rice-centric recipes from which three semifinalists won $2,000 each and the opportunity for their faces to appear on Knorr's 2.2-pound bouillon jar labels. Their personal recipes will appear on on-cap stickers, in-store signage, danglers and flyers, as well as the website. A grand prize winner will receive $5,000.

"Recipes with Knorr products have been passed down from mother to daughter, from friend to friend — it is a multigenerational, everlasting tradition," comments Knorr Marketing Director Donna Barker.

"This has become more apparent with the explosion and growing influence of the Latino blogosphere — and our efforts, like Recetas Arrozísimas, are conducive to taking these conversations and recipe-sharing online."

With all the interest in crowdsourcing, it isn't suprising that ideation platforms like Salesforce Ideas and Lithium Ideas have attracted major brands like Dell, Starbucks and Best Buy.

As the practice grows – the question remains: does crowdsourcing, which is relatively cheap, cheapen a brand ... or expand it by putting it in the hands of customers? We'd love to hear your thoughts in our debate forum.

Virgin GetsLoopt!

Virgin America’s recent foray into social media-mapping-marketing scored a home run.

Partnering with Loopt, a location-based mobile check-in app, Virgin offered two-for-one plane tickets from California to Los Cabos or Cancun. The only criteria for eligibility was for a customer to check-in via Loopt at an airport (LAX or SFO) or one of several taco trucks in San Francisco and LA during a four-hour window.

That's right -- a taco truck. In fact, an astounding 1,300 people checked-in just at one taco truck, in San Francisco, while 80% bought Virgin America tickets. The results indicate that checking in, socially, could be a smart precursor to checking in, physically, at an airport.[more]

Loopt, it should be noted, is only available for downloading as an iPhone app at this point, so all those customers were a prerequisite for the tickets or the tacos.

“The Loopt reward activation, as part of Virgin America’s nationwide Mexico launch system wide fare sale that day and the significant online buzz circulating about the promotion, helped make it the fifth highest sales day in VX (Virgin America) history," notes TechCrunch.

Loopt’s 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. PST window generated "urgency buzz," apparently.

"By 11 a.m., we had hundreds of people already in line. We had a bride-to-be who was going to honeymoon in Cancun who came down to check in. We had whole groups of college-aged folks spilling out of minivans saying, 'We all heard about this and we're going to get our tickets for Spring Break [2011],'" said Alice Lankester, VP of marketing for Virgin America.

Both brands, Virgin America and Loopt, leveraged their social media presence: Virgin America's Facebook "likers" (65,800) and Twitter followers (114,400), as well as Loopt’s Facebook “likers” (4,900) and Twitter fan base (4,400 followers) were notified via posts and tweets – and the blogosphere lit up.

"I was down there at the San Francisco truck myself, and we had a nice long line around the block. Everyone was checking in using Loopt Star…Fifty-three percent of our customers bring a laptop with them on flights and all of our flights have WiFi," said Jill Fletcher, social media manager for Virgin.

Average midweek roundtrip flights from San Francisco to Cancun on the airline's website are around $465 price tag for coach; San Francisco to Los Cabos costs $366.

To put this in context, Gap’s recent Groupon campaign raised the bar on social media discount campaigns, generating $11 million in sales in one day. Virgin also used a loss-leader initiative on Twitter via Loopt to launch its Toronto service in April.

Burger King, Starbucks, Paul Frank, and Universal Music Group have all used Loopt for geo-social campaigns, but according to Lankester, Virgin America's promotion takes the taco. "I feel like this has been definitely our most successful campaign," she comments. "I think it speaks to the fact that people become motivated when there's really something of value there. Some check-in rewards can be so-so. They are not as generous as this. [These participants] were motivated to move from point A to point B to get the reward."

Loopt CEO Sam Altman said to TechCrunch, “You should also mention that we are on fire.” By statement he means that, with more than four million users, Loopt is steadily gaining on smaller (but more media ubiquitous) Foursquare.

The proceeds raised from the two-for-one tacos sold at the local trucks, by the way, will be given to a California-based Chihuahua rescue organization. So a win-win situation all around, and one more example of Virgin’s brilliance in redefining the power of being a loss leader.

GM Banks on Range Anxiety to Propel Chevy Volt

In the battle for the hearts and minds of early-adopting "green" car buyers, Nissan has emerged with a few potential advantages for its Leaf compared with Chevrolet’s upcoming Volt.

Leaf will be all-electric, while Volt will be only a new form of hybrid – that’s one big green point for Nissan. Leaf will be introduced several weeks sooner than Volt – that’s another big green point for Nissan. And Leaf’s styling will be cooler than Volt’s – that’s still a third big green point for Nissan, especially considering that cutting-edge vehicle buyers also tend to appreciate cutting-edge styling.

But Volt may have one advantage over Leaf that could be big enough to offset even these multiple disadvantages.[more]

Chevy's Volt will have a gasoline-powered generator on board, while Leaf doesn’t. That difference could be a deal-breaker to some consumers.

It means a Volt driver won’t have to rely only on keeping the battery charged to get from Point A to Point B. If the power runs out at Point “A.5,” at the end of Volt’s 40-mile electric-only range, gasoline power can complete the trip just like with a conventional internal-combustion engine – up to an additional 300 miles.

Leaf owners, on the other hand, will have to rely on completing their trip within the car’s 100-mile range or finding, along the way, one of what promises to be a relatively very sparse number of electrical charging stations on the byways and highways.

This has come to be known in the trade as “range anxiety.” And GM is so confident that it’s a trump card in marketing Volt – especially, explicitly or implicitly, in its initial rivalry with Leaf – that the company has sought to patent commercial uses of the phrase.

GM has said that it wants to “promot[e] public awareness of electric vehicle capabilities.” In other words, it wants everyone to know that Leaf will give drivers range anxiety – and Volt will cure it.

Joel Ewanick, GM’s new CMO, alluded to GM’s plans to highlight range anxiety in a recent interview. "Until there's a robust infrastructure" for all-electric cars, Ewanick told Edmunds.com’s Green Car Advisor, there will be Volt, which "won't ask the average person to make huge compromises in their lifestyle."

However, Ewanick added, "there is a hard-core group that will be first buyers" of all-electric vehicles and put up with potential inconveniences.

Expect GM to do all it can to make sure potential Leaf owners know exactly what “inconveniences” they might be buying.

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