Christmas? Tis' the season to "go doolally"

Well it's 'nearly that time' again. With just over one week to go until Christmas Day, brands are advertising fiercely to compete for our increasingly sparse pounds and pence. 
It's a sad reflection of our current economic climate that we have already seen a plethora of 'Christmas Sale' ads. I mean, what are we going to do on Boxing Day? So other than the 'SALE, SALE, SALE' commercials, which ones have caught your eye?
Here are my thoughts on some of the adverting winners and losers this Christmas...

1. Currys/PC World
Supposedly we are all tightening our belts but I'm amazed to see some of the major brands waste small fortunes on poorly conceived, prime-time commercials.

An example of this 'yuletide craziness' is Curry's/PC Worlds 'Darth Vader' effort. What are we meant to think about their customer services team when they are being trained by the most evil of Jedi knights? Do we really want to be served by those who have gone over to 'the dark side?'

2. 'Smellies'

Perfume and aftershave products always do well at Christmas. Perfect gift for him, perfect gift for her. Why so ideal? Is it because they have a high perceived value? Perhaps. On unwrapping the gift, the receiver feels that a lot of time, thought and expense has gone in to buying the present. In reality though, they are the ideal 'panic purchase' gift that is left until 5 minutes before the shops shut on Christmas Eve - or is that just me?

Regardless of your experience, now is the time for perfume and aftershave brands (more commonly referred to as "smellies") to push their sales. Year on year, we are bombarded with similar, formula-driven, glamorous, seductive, black and white commercials with deep, Franco-Italian voice overs. The likes of Dolce&Gabbana, Gucci and YSL are all at it, not knowing whether the commercial is effective or not... but who cares right? Wrong. Call me cynical but isn't 'stand out' one of the main ingredients of a successful advert? Don't you want to be different from your competitors? Stand out from the crowd? Just ZiG when they zag?  The one commercial that does it for me is the simply executed Lacoste advert. A simple idea where the white Lacoste shirt is folded until it transforms into a bottle of aftershave. Now it might smell like Luis Suarez's after match socks, but I know which 'smelly' I'll be checking out on Christmas Eve at 5.25pm.
And finally, 
several brands have gone for the 'aaaaaaaarh' factor. This is what Christmas is all about, quality family time. It's about going to the school panto and listening to the children singing the praises of 'my mother' (Littlewoods) or sitting down and playing on the Wii with the son who you're too busy to see for 364 days a year (Sainsburys). A little contrived? Well perhaps
3. John Lewis's sentimental, TV commercial has hit your heart? What a nice surprise when the little boy unselfishly rushes to his mum and dad's bedroom with a present for them after you thought he was just another excited kid waiting to open his presents. Nice touch and the remake of The Smiths lyrical classic seems to be doing well in the charts too. Well done John Lewis's marketing team but I think that it's going to take more than a 30 second commercial to reverse the recession? I look forward to seeing how the sales figures do come the end of January.

Merry Christmas everyone and I genuinely wish you all the very best for health and prosperity in 2012.

Direct mail is dead? Don't believe the hype.

In todays marketing arena with interactive Web 2.0 websites, E-commerce, social network marketing, mobile marketing, etc. I'm often asked if anyone still uses direct mail (DM) as a marketing channel.
Factors such as rising postage costs, relatively slower turnaround times and the poor PR of 'junk mail' (thanks to 'blanket bombing' campaigns with poorly targeted offers and 'scamsters'), have meant that direct mail volumes have dropped.  Despite being lower than ten years ago, volumes are still very high so it must be creating a good return of investment. If you think that the medium is dead and buried then think again. To prove my point, I received a direct mail piece from Google only last week.

Despite all of the bad press, I believe that direct mail is as effective and responsive as any other direct response medium and that includes its 'cheaper cousin' E-broadcast. Where DM really comes into the fore is in the business-to-business (B2B) arena. Here you can stand out from the crowd and get ahead of your competitors by sending attention grabbing mailers that can interest, intrigue, inform, interact and delight the recipient. Another plus is that you can mail out almost anything as long as it is relevant and beneficial (and cost-effective). The contents of your mailer can be enjoyed and be kept for longer than any E-broadcast or blog.
Because DM is flexible and measurable, the advice from the ZiG Zone is don't use it instead of digital marketing but use it WITHIN a multi-channel campaign. It is proven time after time that any channel combined and in sync with other channels, will outperform the use of one channel on it's own. By combining your forces you maximise your returns on your marketing investment. For example, you may consider radio, press and dm combined with an E-broadcast to raise the response of your campaign.

For some great examples of effective direct mail and multi-channel campaigns go to http://www.justzig.com where you will find examples of direct mail that were not 'junk' but were well received and responsive. An important point to highlight here is that there is a skill to creating a direct mail piece. A perfect example of this is a mailer that we did for Arsenal Football Club which, in a head-to-head test, actually beat the 'control' mailer and uplifted it's response rate by 400%.
As well as www.justzig.com, another source of inspiration can be found at http://www.mmc.co.uk/
If there are any terms used above that you are unsure of then please don't hesitate to comment or drop me a  line. ZiG are happy to help.

How tough is your marketing brief?

Over the last 23 years in marketing, there's been a few challenges that one wonders "how are we going to tackle this one?". One such challenging brief was to sell Dutch, bull semen to British farmers (I'll save that for another day).

Tough as they may have been, my hat goes off to the chaps at Lowe-SSP3 in Colombia. Their agency brief from the Colombian Government, was to encourage as many of the country's 6000 armed guerilla's to demobilize. I'm sure the creatives were thanking their new business director when that one landed? I'm guessing that you are damned if you do, damned if you don't take this project on?


Anyway, undeterred their solution was an example of lateral thinking and shows how, with a single, simple concept and the use of multi-channel communications, almost any problem can be taken on.


The post-campaign, promotional video on YouTube is nicely art directed (much influenced by Spielberg's 'Band of Brothers') but bear with it as the results are impressive. Over 330 armed guerillas handed in their weapons. Perhaps food for thought for some of our Police forces/ HM Government anti-gang initiatives?


To find out more, please click the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMLoYpy_HFw

Marketing is simple. It's just complicated by fools.

Marketing is simple and has no other function than to grow business.
Below are two books that I would recommend to anyone who wants their marketing to succeed. There is a common thread through both of them and that is that you should always focus on the end customer with your marcomms. Customer-centricity!

• 'Commonsense Direct Marketing' by Drayton Bird, and 
• 'How to do better creative work' by Steve Harrison.

I've had the honour and pleasure of working with both these guru's back in the late 1980's at Ogilvy's.

Of course there are many great books out there to choose from, e.g. more recently 'Purple Cow' by Seth Godin, but I would start with these two.
Happy reading.