"campaign" news and stories

As a company, once you find a marketing strategy that works, you usually stick with it. Nike had the swoosh, milk has the mustaches, and PETA? Well, they have naked women.

Over the years, PETA has used women celebs like Alicia Silverstone, Eva Mendes, and Cindy Crawford to encourage the masses not to wear fur or eat meat. And while they've gotten a lot of flak, they continue to pay women to drop trou for the good of the animals.

Today in Philadelphia, PETA's "lettuce ladies" (women wearing little more than lettuce-shaped undergarments) will be handing out soy turkey sandwiches to promote the company's "Turn over a new leaf: go vegetarian" campaign.

A few points that should be noted, here: PETA rarely uses men to advertise its messages. It did use MTV Jackass' Steve-O, who was nude, but the ad a) only showed his backside and b) was quite obviously in jest, poking fun at the typical oversexed PETA model and keeping in vein with the show's brand of humor. Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix have also done commercial spots for the organization - fully clothed. Somehow, I wonder if the effectiveness of the message is lost when we're too busy ogling Pam Anderson's generous chest to worry about what she's promoting.

Now, I'm all for soy products, either as meat replacements or as an addition to a healthy diet. Isn't it fascinating how, in campaigning to stop exploiting one living thing, another is exploited in its place? Maybe PETA should stop pointing its fingers at others for a second and turn the magnifying glass on itself.

Food for thought.

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Have you been to Starbucks lately? If so, you have probably noticed that their signature holiday red cups are in use, but if you are lucky, you might have noticed something else was happening in the stores, too. Starbucks just launched their cheer-pass movement. The company's goal is to start a chain of cheer this season by passing on good things to some of their customers, in the hopes that they, in turn, will pass that good cheer on to someone else by doing something thoughtful for another person. To kick off the program, last week some Manhattan commuters were given free subway MetroCards and free movie tickets were given away in Chicago. Other bits of cheer from the company might include free samples of the chain's holiday beverages, bags of coffee and $5 Starbucks Cards.

The only "catch", such as it is, is that the cheer spread by the company is accompanied by cheer passes, which are numbered cards that you are supposed to pass on if and when you "pay it forward" and do something good for another person this season. They have the Starbucks logo, but the real purpose of the passes is to track the chain of good deeds. By entering the number of the card on the cheer pass website, you can enter your good deed and see what other ones were associated with that particular card before you received it.

The company hopes to distribute 10,000 pieces of cheer daily for the next eight weeks to see, in the holiday spirit, just how far one good deed can go.

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Up until a few minutes ago, I had no idea what it meant to slay a burger. Now that I've visited the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's websites, I'm wiser in that respect. I think. The sister chains have challenged customers to take photos of themselves slaying their burgers. What does a burger slayer do, exactly? According to Carl's Jr.: "They attack and destroy it. They conquer it and leave no remains." Entries are voted on by site visitors and the entry voted the best burger slayer wins a month of free burgers. As you might expect of anything with the word "slayer," the sites definitely have a certain head-banger feel to them. The campaign is the work of a Los Angeles-based agency called Spacedog, according to Restaurant News Resource. Somehow, the idea of going into a Carl's Jr. or Hardee's and rubbing elbows with anyone hell-bent on killing their lunch makes the drive-through look mighty appealing. I honestly can't do the sites justice. You'll have to see for yourselves.

Coca-Cola is hoping that the UK release of Coke Zero, nicknamed "Bloke Coke" because it targets a young, male audience, will help reverse a decline in the sales of carbonated beverages in the country. When Coke Zero was launched in Australia with a similar marketing strategy, total sales skyrocketed 19% in only two months. Its marketing campaign, which included a fake blog and other tricks that were decried by media watchdogs, worked well and didn't seem to put consumers off, meaning that Coke actually has its strategy down well for selling Coke Zero.

Coke Zero is, if you haven't had it, a calorie-free soda that is meant to taste more like regular Coke and fill a gap in the marketplace left by Diet Coke, which some perceive as a girly product.

Speaking of girly vs non-girly, Coke Zero was released with black cans and labels in Australia, but white in the US. Which is it in the UK?

 

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Folgers Coffee is trying to increase its visibility with a younger generation of consumers, the generation that grew up with Starbucks and other coffee shops on every corner. The company's slogan has long been "the best part of waking up, is Folgers in your cup," but they perceive that their new target audience views the best part of waking up as going back to sleep. As such, their strategy is not only to develop ads - launched all over the internet in a viral campaign - that are hip, but that appeal to those who believe that caffeine exists to get the to work in the morning after staying out until 3am. The updated slogan is "tolerate mornings."

"Tolerate mornings" is far less catchy than the lyrical older slogan, but is the new ad format more effective than the old one? You be the judge, but somehow the implication that you should drink the product because it's there, and not necessarily because you like, it is a less-than-convincing sales pitch. The new ad features creepy yellow people who are meant to embody the morning while singing an irritating jingle: 

(video after the jump)