Breaking Classic Ad Trends for Success

We've all seen a commercial for a man's razor before. It generally consists of some man, often a celebrity, showing off his perfectly shaven face and a description of how great it feels. Or maybe a man just out of the shower shaving his face to perfect precision and going out with some ladies. Either way they are always predictable.

When you think about it, this kind of advertising may be effective, but it also makes it difficult to set yourself apart from the competition. This seems to be the classic way to market a razor or razor blade, with the only variation being the celebrity featured, the setting of the ad, or the humor in the ad.

With the Dollar Shave Club you can kiss all that goodbye. This unique concept of paying as little as a dollar (plus shipping & handling) for a months worth of razor blades, is something that demands attention. They offer three types of blades with fun and unique names for a slightly higher price. No matter if you want "The Humble Twin," "The 4X," or "The Executive" the price is competitive and they deliver the blades right to your door.

The real unique part of the business is the video advertisements which hardly feature their product.



Their advertisements explain how great the blades are and at the same time emphasize the simplicity of them. They market their product as a cheap, convenient, high quality product that is simplified so you don't have to worry about all the extra bells and whistles.

The ad is extremely humorous, clever, and at the same time makes absolute sense. It explains to consumers why they should join the Dollar Shave Club and what they get out of it. Simply a great shave for a great price.

Dollar Shave Club's latest product - One Wipe Charlies are marketed in a similarly clever way emphasizing , ease, convenience, and practicality in a very impractical way.


Shave Time. Shave Money.

A Dynamic Banner Ad is Changing the Game

My first two blogs were about Red Bull & GoPro. Their position as an active company easily coincides with their advertising. It's "simple" for them. The focus is obvious, because they SHOULD coincide with one another. This focus is not as simple for many other companies.

As I was watching Mad Men recently I watched Peggy wrestle for a great Heinz Beans' campaign. By the time Heinz was satisfied it seemed they had been shown everything under the sun. From "The Art of Supper" with a bean ballet to "Some Things Never Change" pitching a tradition idea of passing meals across generations. Many companies these days are forced to be more creative with their advertising, to branch out and try something bold, unique, new, and fun.

With digital advertising banner ads and pay per click (PPC) ads being the overwhelming majority of advertising online today it also brings a new dilemma to certain companies. Many food companies for example aren't trying to make sales online, a click to their website isn't worth as much as it is to any Ecommerce site. Their ads are more to keep the brand name in mind when the consumer makes their next visit to the store.

Instead of measuring what most companies have found to be the more important online advertising metric - click through rate (CTR) and cost per conversion - these companies would rather focus on the old school metric - impressions.


This dynamic ad by Pringles is a flawless example of this. A consumer can click through the story for 5 or more minutes and still not generate a conversion or even a higher click through rate. In fact the banner ad won't even take you to Pringles' website, but for Pringles this is okay.

How much benefit is a visit to the Pringles home page going to give them anyways? That visit is really only valuable to the consumer if they are looking for additional product flavors, nutritional information, or want to receive email updates about their favorite snack. It is only valuable to Pringles if the consumer is searching for a place to sign up for those email updates.

The point is, Pringles would much rather stick in the consumers' head than to have a high average amount of time spent on their website, and this ad will do that!

Enjoy!

Red Bull Stratos - A Marketing Marvel

A year ago today (Oct. 14 2012) Felix Baumgartner made a free fall jump 24 miles back to solid ground. This stunt sponsored by Red Bull broke 5 records according to Guinness World Records and has been seen by millions of people.

This jump gave true meaning to Red Bull's slogan: "Red Bull Gives You Wings." The company is very well known for pushing the limits of sports and marketing. It's buzz-oriented marketing is geared toward youth and extreme sports. Red Bull puts on events such as the Red Bull Air Race, Red Bull Flugtag, Red Bull Rampage, as well as owning the international Red Bull soccer team.

Red Bull Stratos put a twinkle in the eye of small business marketers showing them if something extraordinary is done and done well, you can hit it big. Since Red Bull Stratos this has been mirrored by the numerous viral videos and new unique marketing strategies since. It shows that if you take the right risks it can really pay off. 

This stunt certainly paid off better than most. The event was carried on close to 80 TV stations in 50 countries. It was broadcast live through 280 digital partners and had 52 million views. This made the Red Bull Stratos jump the most-watched live stream in history. On social media it did extremely well raking in 216,000 likes, 10,000 comments, and over 29,000 shares within 40 minutes of the jump. On twitter more than half of the trending topics at the time were related to Red Bull Stratos.

Because Red Bull does not release sales records, is estimated by the research firm IRI that in the six months after Stratos, Red Bull sales rose 7% to over $1.5 billion  in the U.S. According to Red Bull they sold 5.2 Billion cans worldwide last year which is a 13% increase over the previous year. In the U.S. alone sales jumped 17% year over year. Clearly Red Bull Stratos had some positive effect as well as Red Bull's other marketing efforts since (this includes adding flavored Red Bull as a product).

This type of advertising goes unmatched. According to Ben Sturner, the CEO of a sports entertainment and media marketing company "When you're in the Super Bowl, you're one of 70 ads or so. When you go around the NASCAR track, you're one of 44 teams..." 

Obviously a stunt such as Red Bull Stratos is difficult to match.

Check out the highlights of the jump:




And also this rare 10 minute clip of the jump released today (Oct. 14 2013)

Social Media & Engagement at it's Finest: Red Bull & GoPro

With social media becoming an ever increasing part of a companies marketing toolbox, everybody wants to know how to do it right. Obviously for every company there is a different answer to this question, however there are some great examples to follow.

Nobody wants to "follow" that guy on who tweets 1,000 time a day and there is no need to follow anyone who tweets once a week. So where is the happy medium? People on Facebook may "like" a company because they enjoy their product, but they aren't going to be engaged with the company if they are inactive. Likewise if their news feed is getting blown up by updates a consumer won't appreciate that much either.

Red Bull and GoPro are very effective at using social media to engage with their consumer and keep their brand image in mind. They use intriguing content such as pictures and videos, or quotes to get you thinking.

Never taking a day off. #givesyouwings
— Red Bull (@redbull) October 1, 2013

GoPro Specifically has contests such as the "Photo of the Day," "Video of the Day," and  "Everything we Make" contests. In the Everything they make contest, each participant fills out a very simple survey on their site and each day a participant wins everything GoPro makes. In the Photo/Video of the Day contests, people submit their own unique images and photos (taken with a GoPro camera of course) to GoPro. If they win, their photo is broadcast to all of GoPro's fans and followers on Facebook and Twitter:

Photo of the Day! On top of the world at Horsehoe Bend in Arizona. Photo by Dustin Thompson. #GoPro pic.twitter.com/ZRBLrbgdcJ
— GoPro® (@GoPro) October 3, 2013

Obviously the example of giving things away can get expensive and isn't feasible for everybody, however the photo/video of the day is relatively simple and drives consumer involvement with the company and the products and services it provides.

Red Bull also has twitter accounts for most of the big U.S. cities to make sure the content they are talking about is relevant to the users around them. This way they also make sure not to blow up your twitter feed!

With these constant social media campaigns in place consumers always know what to expect, that is fun and exciting pictures, videos, quotes, and ideas. On the other hand Red Bull and GoPro get awesome (free) content from their fans like the photo/videos of the day.

I'm not sure what more you could want.