State of the Brand

Author: Jason Voiovich Ecra Creative Group

Key Points: 1. The US Justice Department fined Pfizer $2.3 billion for illegal marketing practices; taking doctors on golf trips, paying for massages, and the like to encourage off-label prescriptions of popular drugs. 2. With such a hefty penalty, conventional wisdom would say Pfizer’s market perception should suffer. By objective measures, that is not happening. 3. Pfizer has insulated its corporate brand by positioning its blockbuster drugs as the stars, and not marketing itself. That seems to be working. For now.

Remember the dad in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”?

He used Windex® for everything. He went so far as to carry around a bottle at all times, spraying things (and people) at comically inopportune times. Clearly, neither the FDA nor our friends at S.C. Johnson and Company in Racine, Wisconsin endorse Windex for the treatment of cold, flu, arthritis, and acne. The depiction was so ridiculous, most (reasonable consumers) wouldn’t take it seriously.

Now, let’s change the scenario.

Imagine you are recovering from a surgical procedure. Let’s pick appendix removal, but it could be anything. Clearly, you’re in pain, and your attending physician prescribes a medication - in this case, Bextra®. She tells you to take the prescribed dosage as needed and come back in three weeks.

Let me ask you something: In that scenario, do you look up the drug name in the formulary? Did you learn your doctor just prescribed well beyond the recommended dosage? Did you also learn Bextra; was not approved to treat post operative pain? That is was really an arthritis drug? And a Cox-2 inhibitor? The same Cox-2 inhibitor class of drugs you’ve heard about?

But your doctor knows best, right? (more…)

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Author: Jason Voiovich Ecra Creative Group

Key Points: 1. A single print and broadcast ad from the World Wildlife Federation comparing the 9/11 terror attacks to the 2005 Tsunami death toll crosses the line. 2. But it is not that the ad shocks us - that’s not the point - the ad flies in the face of the mission of the organization, and undermines its reputation. 3. Corporate sponsorship, partnerships, and individual membership will likely suffer in the US, perhaps with irreversible damage.

I don’t have a problem with shock advertising.

I really don’t.

In some instances, violently abrupt advertising can help shake us out of our complacency and drive attention (and ideally, action) toward a worthy cause.

But it is so easy to get it wrong. The follow ad from the World Wildlife Federation is a case in point.

(more…)

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Author: Jason Voiovich Ecra Creative Group

Key Points: 1. The US Army spends 10 times what the average college or university spends for each new recruit. That just is not sustainable. 2. A combination of regulatory changes and careful data-mining - combined with smart sponsorship and coaching for the popular video game Halo 3 - are likely to turn the tide. 3. The inevitable targeting of younge r and younger children by recruiting messages could be seen as both a threat to the innocence of youth as well as an opportunity to communicate civic virtue to young citizens.

It costs the US Army, on average, $24,500 for each new recruit.

$24,500.

That may not sound like a lot of money until you consider the average university spends just over $2000 to achieve the same result. Street math: The Army spends 10 times what the U of M spends. Yikes.

Let’s do more math, shall we. (more…)

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Author: Jason Voiovich Ecra Creative Group

Key Points: 1. The Hong Kong airport uses a mix of cheap technology and plain old-fashioned empathy to make its flying experience markedly superior to the US. 2. The US industry, by stark contrast, thinks customer service is something that happens only when convenient for them. 3. Some say airline traffic is down because of the recession. That could be. But a more likely explanation is that most people hate the experience.

I thought my friend Byron was joking.

After all, this story did come off his personal blog after a 16-hour-plus flight from Chicago to Hong Kong. I had every reason to think he was hallucinating.

He wasn’t.

The baggage claim system in the Hong Kong airport is like nothing US domestic airline passengers have ever seen before.

As Byron watched the bags circle the carousel, he noticed they were clumped in groups of three to four bags. In addition, they were all standing upright (on the skinny end). Interesting. Clearly, there was no way bags would magically exit the luggage shoot in this configuration, so Byron (being the enterprising Babson College student that he is) found out why. (more…)

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Author: Jason Voiovich Ecra Creative Group

Key Points: 1. Hemorrhaging job losses in the financial sector make recruiting easier for the CIA’s financial counter-terrorism division. 2. The agency should experience short-term success with a combination of decent pay, patriotic appeals, and challenging work. 3. Long-term image problems remain, however, and the CIA must act to retool its image to retain its young and talented financial agents.

Out of a job in the financial sector?

The CIA wants you. And they know they’ve got your attention.

Times are (comparatively) tough for freshly minted Ivy League MBAs. Hopes of six-figure investment banking careers are gone; this new crop of grad students has entered a brutal Wall Street job market.

To put it in real terms, the Financial Times reports over 130,000 financial sector jobs have been shed in the past 12 months. And as employment is often a lagging indicator of economic growth, this summer’s (and this fall’s) graduates had better keep their options open.

As (comparatively) sad as this situation may sound, the news is music to the ears of hiring managers at the Central Intelligence Agency. (more…)

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Author: Jason Voiovich Ecra Creative Group

Key Points: 1. The pork industry feels the use of the word “swine” flu to describe this latest outbreak will hurt consumption. 2. In addition to short-term market data, they cite other examples of virus-induced hysteria. 3. All that said, long-term data for public health shocks in the poultry, tomato, and spinach markets (and even the last swine flu in 1976) show little impact.

Hog farmers were hog-raving mad.

Scientists just did what scientists do: In the midst of a cacophony of technical language most journalists wouldn’t understand, they mentioned the words “swine flu” to describe this latest swine virus that was able to mutate - just enough - to infect humans. Admittedly, the term “swine flu” is a bit inaccurate, but it’s catchier than H1N1, for sure.

Guess what name stuck? (more…)

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Author: Jason Voiovich Ecra Creative Group

Key Points: 1. United Airlines policy to charge overweight passengers for two seats caused an uproar that hardly acknowledges the raw facts of the situation. 2. The industry has responded with a mix of increased fees and reduced capacity, setting up a situation where airlines have few friends. 3. It would have been better had United not released the policy at all, but rather handled it on a discreet case-by-case basis. United over-communicated.

This has to be the mother of all touchy subjects.

Last week, United Airlines announced it would begin charging its heftiest customers for two seats if they could not easily fit into one. As a cringe-worthy sidebar, overweight couples could “save” by purchasing one extra seat between them if the seating layout and flight capacity allowed it. Otherwise, you’re bumped.

You can read the official policy on United’s website, but this crass announcement could have hardly been made worse. My only suggestion would have been to include a reference that applied to religious and political beliefs.

Luckily, I was not consulted.

However, the extra insult was hardly necessary. (more…)

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Author: Jason Voiovich Ecra Creative Group

Key Points: 1. Increased violence along the U.S./Mexico border has led the U.S. State Department to issue a travel advisory. 2. The warning has spooked some parents, but many younger spring break travelers are taking it all in stride. For now. 3. This issue has the potential to damage the image of Mexico as a tourist destination; they should act now to inoculate the issue.

Ordinarily, spring break preparation does not include a warning from the U.S. State Department.

But this year is different. With violence on the rise in Mexico - especially along the U.S./Mexico border - the State Department issued a travel advisory notice to American citizens. And the timing (just before the surging ’spring break’ travel season) undoubtedly was intentional.

The notice opens in the standard perfunctory way: For most people in most circumstances, travel in and about Mexico is safe. However, the text quickly takes an abrupt and ominous turn. One of the more parent-spooking phrases reads, “Mexican and foreign bystanders have been injured or killed in violent attacks in cities across the country, demonstrating the heightened risk of violence in public places. In recent years, dozens of U.S. citizens have been kidnapped across Mexico. Many of these cases remain unresolved.” (more…)

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Author: Jason Voiovich Ecra Creative Group

Key Points: 1. Photos of Michael Phelps smoking marijuana seriously damaged his brand - and the potential that came with it. Some sponsors are staying on, but the damage is done. 2. Arguing Michael Phelps is “just a kid” or “just an athlete” does a disservice to his life of high expectations, but nonetheless highlights the inherent risk in corporate sponsorship. 3. Michael Jordan provides a suitable athletic role model, managing top-tier success and all the expectations and trappings that come with it, to create a top global brand.

This has nothing to do with Marijuana, or your feelings about it.

Let’s not have an argument over therapeutic benefits, medicinal use, a comparison to alcohol, the war on drugs, or the implied morality. Let’s reserve that discussion for some other forum.

We are here to talk about the fantastic dichotomy of skill and foolishness that is Michael Phelps. More specifically, we’ll explore what a few pictures and a few joints means to the Michael Phelps brand, and his direct ability to make something good come from it. (more…)

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Author: Jason Voiovich Ecra Creative Group

Key Points: 1. Beg bug infestations are on the rise in hotels in the United States. And not just the cheap dives. 2. For chain hotels, the problem is particularly troublesome: Strong brand association spreads bad news fast. 3. The industry should stay quiet - for now - but begin an aggressive strategy to address the problem before it gets worse.

Just a warning: The following story may give you the creeps.

Last month, I traveled to Los Angeles to attend a conference at one of the local Universities. After a long flight, and dinner with a friend, I drove from West Hollywood to Claremont (in surprisingly heavy traffic for 1:30 a.m.). Yes, that meant I checked in at 3:30 a.m. “Jason time”. Needless to say, I was very tired.

(more…)

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