October 23rd, 2008
Since a game has been played by advertising agency and marketing department, it is much easier to find balance between creativity and sales. One of the advertising business old men has said:”Nobody’s watching TV to see your ad”. This thought was much stronger when television was at its dawn, not its decline. At the time when torrent revolution and online videos hadn’t started to overflow the entertainment business and I had been playing for several years behind the scenes of an advertising agency and marketing department, I took part in a project related to a brand which had been known in the market for years and for which I had worked on both sides, and in the given case I was exactly in the middle. The client had signed a contract for the exclusive presence of his range of products with the biggest film distributor in Bulgaria, holding a chain of cinema halls and video stores. It was about building up a consumer habit - Chips and Movies.
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October 22nd, 2008
Yellow or golden? They’re both pretty much the same to me, but when it comes to brands competing in one and the same branch, the matter is more of a “Coca-Cola or Pepsi?” kind. During the last two years quite many players entered the business directories and guides field. At present the leader in the market are Yellow pages and Golden pages, as the latter are by default placed in a slight image shadow. I’ve known the first ones’ representative for years and he’s among the few friends of mine who like to work at night like me. Several months ago we chatted about the ability to lead or to follow the way. An infinite philosophic theme that you can dwell upon for hours over a nice coffee and aromatic tobacco with utmost pleasure. The history of telephone directories with yellow pages started at the time of the most renowned detective of all times and will soon celebrate its 130th jubilee. Yes, my thought brought me right there, to the recesses of the so called ME2 brands, to my former experience with such cases and positioning based on traditions. “Imitate or Innovate?” is one of my favourite cliches in marketing, which I decided to clean from the dust for this project and add some character to this specific search in the yellow-golden guides.
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September 9th, 2008
Have you ever heard of an Account Executive? This is the attractive position they give to all freshmen in the advertising agencies which includes coordinating a mess of several dozens activities happening between rushed clients, spaced-out artists, focused media planners and a ton of financial paperwork. In the end of 2001 I joined Ogilvy & Mather in such type of position and one of my first projects was Zagorka Gold.
Positioning and communicating a brand in a market of young and dynamic people is not an easy job especially when the client’s portfolio includes brands like Heineken, Amstel, Murphy’s and 4-5 more local brands. On top of this you add the portfolios of the two other strongest world beer leaders, some alcoholic mixed drinks as well as a whole additional universe of all cool brands popular among the young status seekers and then you get a good idea about the task. One of the toughest details was that for many years this beer was known under the name Zagorka Gold to one generation, and now the company wanted to bring up only Gold for people like me. The umbrella brand Zagorka, the elder brother Heineken and the Brewinvest corporation had to keep a low profile, an approach that has been used by many customers before. And so… to summarize… Local Premium segment representing 1.5% of the total market volume and 3.6% of the market value… approximately 700,000 people target market, 25 to 30 years old, men and women, progressive and expressive. The brand to them needed to have the emotional appeal of … “it demonstrates my personal sophistication, status, success and refined style” but the naked truth was closer to “am I cool enough to drink Zagorka Gold, instead of some of the world brands from the Premium segment (Stella Artois, Grolsh, Carlsberg, Beck’s, Tuborg, Corona etc.)”
I’ve always thought that the key to the successful advertisement is in the ability to get into your target market’s skin, but at this time I was drinking really cheap liquor on the streets and the brands closest to my heart included Volcom and Burton, and I couldn’t care less about what kind of beer I was drinking as long as it was cold enough. While seeking sufficiently emotional meaning combined with a sexy and fashionable taste we concluded that we needed people with unique charisma who would be the opinion leaders in their communities. A fashion model from the cover of a lifestyle magazine, chocolates and alcoholic beverages promoter, a face control person from a popular night club and a Mig-29 pilot… 4 people, 4 print layouts, 4 outdoor layouts… Go 4 Gold!
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