P&G dropping Woods as Gillette endorser

Procter & Gamble’s Gillette has decided to end its Champions marketing campaign and cuts ties with Tiger Wood, who started the ad campaign in 2007.

P&G had used Woods, Roger Federer and dozens of other athletes as part of its “Gillette Champions” marketing campaign. Gillette, which plans to phase out its champions marketing program in the first quarter of 2011, will not renew its endorsement contract with golfer Tiger Woods. The endorsement is reported to end on the 31 December as a consequence of which Procter & Gamble will be terminating its Champions marketing campaign. The campaign was scheduled for the first cut up of the upcoming New Year.

According to the announcement made by the Gillette communications director Michael Norton, ‘Gillette’ and Tiger Woods will be parting ways after 2010 ends.

Gillette said, “His contract ran its full term like many other athletes that were part of the Champions program. We are ending the Gillette Champions program after three years. Like any brand, we refresh our marketing efforts to ensure they continue to be relevant for our consumers.”

Woods has lost several corporate sponsorships since news broke of his extra-marital affairs. Woods has earned more than $1 billion from endorsement deals over the years, but last year’s sex scandal and his winless 2010 season scared away many companies, including Gillette owner Procter & Gamble.

Not only Gillette but also Gatorade has planned to end sponsorship deal with Woods. However, there are still eight sponsors that have not entered the infidelity cult. Nike Golf, Upper Deck, EA Sports, Tag Heuer, NetJets, TLC Laser Eye Centres, Golf Digest and the Tiger Woods Dubai Resort thus plan to stand by the golfer who was recently divorced by wife Elin Nordegren and lost the world number one position in world golf ranking.

“One must be very careful with his/her reputation because once you smudge it, the return is quite difficult. It’s a great lesson for every athlete,” said Mike Paul.

Woods is still included in the top 50 highest earning athletes and despite Gillette’s absence, the 34-year-old golfer will still be making more dollars than most of the golfers around

GAP Closes A Gap In The Market

I like shopping for hours without stopping for a rest like many people and Gap Inc is one of my favorite brands although I do not usually prefer to buy something due to high prices. However, I should admit that I take advantage of pictures that are all over the Gap Inc stores while combining my clothes. It’s a common scene in Gap Inc stores for shoppers that have visited the shop’s website, decided what they like and printed off the pictures tell store workers: “I want this”. This is a way from the virtual domain to the real one.

Nowadays customers must be much less willing to shop at Gap store because the US’ largest specialty clothes retailer sells its products on its website and offers a free delivery service. Moreover, customers can find dressing tips and hosts interactive programs in the website.Glenn Murphy, chief executive officer of Gap, thinks that having online store is a fundamental tool in the e-commerce era.

Last month, the online strategy of the fashion brand has been launched in China, which is the world’s fastest-growing economy. There is a Chinese-version website and online store, gap.cn. The virtual shop is a joint venture with a Shanghai-based information technology company managing orders and Gap controlling the e-commerce and storage side.

So far, Gap China’s online store has received orders from places as far apart as Harbin in Northeast China, Kunming in Southwest China, Xinjiang in Northwest China and Guangdong in South China.

Early in November, Gap participated in a platform developed by social website Facebook.com for retailers to provide potential consumers with discount products. The fashion brand immediately launched a marketing initiative by sending free jeans to the first 10,000 netizens who joined and attracted lots of customers to its stores.

Although Gap is a late-comer compared with its global competitors such as Zara and H&M, Murphy said, “We are not in a hurry.” He told that the company would develop multiple channels. “Our online service can help the brand stretch to cities without stores,” he said.

According to Murphy, online stores promote word-of-mouth marketing. “If someone says to his friend, ‘Have you ever heard of Gap? You can find it online’, that’s way more powerful than billboards, television and advertisements in the newspaper. It is really cool,” Murphy said.

On the other hand, Yue Sanfeng, a partner at Hejun Consulting company, said Gap should speed up to enhance brand awareness, otherwise many small companies could seize the market using lower labor costs and imitating successful lines.

Yue said that in the United States, ordinary people only spend 1 percent of their income on a pair of trousers from Gap, but in China it should be about 5 to 10 percent. “Under pressure from high housing and car prices, many middle-income people would rather choose cheaper clothes, only buying a luxury item after saving money for a long period of time,” he added.

Murphy added that the global specialty apparel retail industry was highly competitive and its first month of booming business will not guarantee its future popularity in China. But he said the company was determined to enter China.

“It’s a huge market, and we are sure to expand new stores in Hong Kong next year,” Murphy said. “An online store will be opened in advance for promotional purposes.”

New Face Of Shopping With Facebook : ‘Social Shopping’ Of Luxury Brands

Surely, you all have an account in Facebook and visit the website at least once a day not only to watch videos shared by your friends but also to hear the latest gossips about your friends: Who is in a relationship with whom? Which party are your friends attending? And so on. Today Facebook has over 500 million active users spending an average of 700 billion minutes per month. This is a prima facie evidence that many brands and retailers are turning towards ‘Social Shopping’ on the popular networking site. They regard  ‘Social Shopping’ as an effective tool to promote trade and branding.

There is a more severe competition between innumerable luxury brands. As a result of this, e-commerce has been gaining momentum over the last couple of years with many sophisticated e-commerce sites.

With thousands of products launched every month, marketing through traditional platforms are not sufficient to stick out and attract attention of consumers. That’s why brands are looking for ways to connect with consumers on a more personal level.

Nowadays, Facebook is integrating e-Commerce features and options on its pages and building analytical tools to interact with its users. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Facebook is trying to induce companies like J.C.Penney and Delta Airlines to sell products on its pages. In fact, Delta has already established the application through which users can book tickets online.

Levi’s is another major brand which is among the first to turn towards the social networking site for connecting with users through social shopping. It has already integrated with Facebook for online shopping.

However, Facebook is not the only player of the game. Last November, Google also purchased Boutiques.com which includes high range fashion items used by celebrities. Not only users can follow each of these items but also they can determine which items are good for them with a Like/Dislike button.

Maintaining A Brand By Integrating a Brand Management Strategy

Under the strong wind of globalization, it is much more difficult to maintain your brand. However, the findings show that business executives, regardless of company size, have less and less time to maintain their brand’s image and reputation. Instead, a third-party brand management team come on the scene and understand the philosophy behind a company. In order to to preserve the image and operations of a product or service, this team act as a chief marketing officer.

On The Way To Creating and Managing Global Brands

Although CEOs are looking for the financial value when it comes to branding, we cannot ignore the importance of maintaining a brand. Today social media, definitely, is saddling companies with much more responsibility to maintain their brands. Customers, consumers all have an opportunity to comment or participate in the branding of a business and affect its performance to maintain image and reputation.

Not only the face of economy is changing but also the questions being asked by executives are very distinct from the past years when it comes to brand management. The battle field is mobbed by the crowd of many rival brands, so that it is not easy to wangle one’s way through this crowd. As a result, companies are trying to define their business opportunities and challenges while focusing on brand management to solve those issues.

According to Andrea Sullivan Executive Director, Client Services of Global Branding Consultancy for Interbrand, there are three ways to define a great brand: the brand drives demand, commands premium products, and engenders loyalty from clients and/or employees. In order to attain those three elements, companies are in a competitive struggle with how brands work and how to convert a brand strategy into something meaningful for customers.

“Clients are interested in looking at how corporate citizenship can become part of the over-arching theme of a brand and how the company can take on a role as a citizen of the world to make sure what they’re doing is making a positive difference with their branding strategy,” Sullivan says.

Integrating Your Branding Strategy With Social Media

Depending on a company’s budget for brand management services, still traditional advertising, such as commercials, magazine ads, radio spots, and outdoor billboards seems to be the easiest way to reach larger audiences, although not sufficient in today’s fast-moving world. Today the level of interactive relationship with consumers determines the value of a brand. Many companies use social media and the Internet to increase a client’s presence on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google ads. Social media, which is very distinct from conventional communication tools, is becoming more and more a trend in marketing and marketing communication.

Also, global brands are blending social media with more traditional advertising to grow effectiveness even more. However,  global brands are approaching social media more prudently when the effort of social media inclusion is growing. Since it is very important to use social media creatively and effectively, they are analyzing the issue, determining their strategy/a guide for them and then taking action.

For instance, B360 Studios which is a brand management agency specializing in brand development and positioning, licensing, mobile solutions, and Web 2.0 technologies is currently managing Los Angeles-based fbe (Firm Body Evolution) Spa, a high-end holistic fitness center and spa. They leverage new ways to market the business. Not only they use group buying sites like Living Social and Groupon to offer deep discounts for membership but also they have segments on TV shows like ‘Access Hollywood’ and ‘The Doctors’ to share information about fbe to other interested individuals. This is a perfect example of how they maintain their brand by integrating a brand management strategy.

WikiLeaks Inspires Feminine Hygiene Ad Campaign

Although leaked government documents, diplomacy cables and passwords seem to be in sober earnest, they are a mere instrument in the hands of a creative advertising man who make fun of the issue.

In Pakistan Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks controversy has inspired a maxipad company’s latest ad campaign. The ad agency has turned this controversy into an insanely humorous ad for a feminine hygiene product, with the slogan “WikiLeaks…Butterfly doesn’t.” The billboards were erected in Karachi, Pakistan earlier this week, and for everyone who can appreciate the crude humor here, be happy to know that a print campaign to accompany this ad is already in the works.

So far, the agency behind the campaign, RG Blue Communications, has had no regrets about the new campaign. Head of business development, Amjad Hussain, says that it has “received a very good response” to the billboards. He also laughingly told The Express Tribune, “Nobody has said it’s in bad taste yet!”

According to Hussain, Butterfly was a new client that had recently come on board. They loved the idea when it was pitched to them and so the campaign rolled out very quickly

Munir Bhatti, the agency’s art director, told Pakistan’s Express Tribune that although he’s been swamped with phone calls about the ad, it’s achieved precisely what he intended it to. “I could have also shown a girl like other ads have. But the idea was to make it very different and to use the word WikiLeaks — and that’s what this is,” Bhatti explained.

IKEA Creates A Living-Room In The Heart of Paris

Most of us is going to IKEA to taste the wonderful meatballs while shopping at the same time. IKEA continues to mesmerize not only the market but also the streets by extending the limits of advertising. To reach more consumers, IKEA goes outside and is furnishing street sidewalks with bright and comfortable pieces from its stores.

From 10 through 24 March 2010, the iconic furniture retailer, IKEA is providing great installations by creating home environment in the space of a Paris underground stations. Last year the home products retailer organized a similar campaign in Lyon, and this time the company is surprising Parisians and guests of the capital by creating a warm spot just in the middle of the busy place.

Even it continues the movement by taking sofas to the streets of the capital by focusing on areas that are heavily trafficked during the holiday season (such as the Champs-Elysées and the Latin Quarter). IKEA invites passengers to sit and rest on one of the sofas in a cozy environment. It’s simple to make yourself at home wherever you are with the help of IKEA. The unique installations occupying bus shelters around the city have been on display from December 15 through December 21. Not only Parisians but also visitors to the city taking the bus have a very different experience while waiting for their ride to arrive. Sofas, shelves, lighting and decorations are now part of the trip.

Although the idea of converting bus-shelters is not new, there’s something worth telling. One of the latest projects of this kind was created by Absolut, which turned the places where people wait for their bus into lounges decorated in style of the brand’s drinks. This new initiative by IKEA is not dedicated to some specific product, however it seems compatible with the brand’s philosophy in general: with IKEA furniture, virtually any place becomes your home.

Along with the street component of the campaign, IKEA also launched an online competition on Facebook. On its French page, the brand encourages fans of comfortable interiors to join the ‘The Race to the Bus Shelter’ contest by photographing each of the 12 destinations around the city. The brand is giving out € 100gift card to the entrants, who will be the first 10 to complete the task and will also give the contestant with the most original and surprising stills a special prize.

It won’t be truism to claim that this will result in more people using the bus. But the Swedish furniture giant gives people a pleasant experience of making public transportation.

Battle Field Smelling The Coffee

Cafe Coffee Day is ramping up fast to meet its biggest challenge: the entry of Starbucks

Instead of giving interviews, The Coffee Day Chairman; namely V G Siddhartha wants his brand to do the talking. Approach him for a meeting and the standard response is: he is more focused on building his business. The secret recipe for his success is its strategy which is all about a keen focus on the consumer and his wants, needs, desires and aspirations at the front-end, and a matching delivery in terms of quality and brand experience at the back end.

Last month, Café Coffee day opened its 1000th café. It has also been able to outsmart Indian peers such as Barista, which has gone through multiple ownership changes since its launch in 2000, and global players such as Costa Coffee and Gloria Jeans.

However, Siddhartha may be facing the biggest challenge of his career in its 14th year of operation, as Starbucks is planning to enter India next year. The global retailer is in the final stages of discussions to select an Indian partner to roll out cafes in India. That would create a new battle field smelling the coffee. As a result of this, the Coffee Day Group is feverishly putting together a global plan for marketing and communications. It has also been building its network at a steady pace and has now reached an average of opening a café once every three days. And it is likely that the average will be once a day, pretty soon. And not a single of its 1020 cafes is franchised out.

After establishing its growing network in India, Café Coffee Days is brewing an active overseas expansion plan. It has set up cafes in Vienna, Austria, Karachi and has plans to spread its presence across West Asia, Eastern Europe, Eurasia, Egypt and South East Asia in the near future. In fact, Café Coffee Day recently acquired a chain of cafes in Czech Republic as part of this global expansion.

”Competition will come and competition will go, but the brand stays forever…”

Harish Bijoor, a noted brand consultant and who has had a long stint in the coffee industry believes that companies must not be obsessed with competition from outside. “Competition will come and competition will go, but the brand stays forever. I do believe the company needs to set for itself very high standards. Standards those are higher than what one witnesses today. This will insulate it from every type of competition,” he says.

According to him, Café Coffee Day has the ability to put Starbucks into a corner of a niche. “It has the ability of emerging the mass cafe brand, pushing Starbucks into a niche in a country where true-blue brand success is measured in mass,” he says.

When a brand is able to connect with its target group, it builds an umbilical brand connect. According to brand experts, Café Coffee Day has been able to build such an umbilical brand connect in a relatively short period of time. When such a connect exists, brands can milk margins and more. The coffee chain’s strength is its ability to manage prices even when the going is tough.

The brand positioning of Café Coffee Day is all about being a common man’s not-so- common coffee, industry analysts say. “The brand is in the street, and not on the high street alone. It is accessible by all,” Bijoor says.

“I do believe India is a crucible market for the best of innovation and the best of service delivery. What works here, will work everywhere else,” notes Bijoor.

Advertisement of Café Coffee Day:

All-Star Game Most Valuable Player to promote THY brand

Most probably you all remember the last motto of Turkish Airlines (THY)  vocalized by Sertap Erener. “We are Turkish Airlines” is enough for you to complete it as “we are globally yours”. Although the word “globally” seems a big claim, THY is acting in accordance with this statement as if it wants to confirm this statement. In order to promote the THY brand, Turkish Airlines (THY) has signed a contract with Kobe Bryant, the three-time winner of the National Basketball Association (NBA) All-Star Game Most Valuable Player award.

The contract was signed at a ceremony in Los Angeles on Saturday and Bryant commited to appear in THY advertisements for the next two years. According to the statement from THY, the commercials with Bryant will be shown globally with a focus on the US market and on the Far East and the Middle East, where the player has more popularity. Furthermore, the airline, which has been flying to New York and Chicago for a long time, is improving by adding to its destinations in the Americas. After Toronto and Sao Paolo added a couple of years ago, THY has recently added Washington, D.C., as a destination, with Los Angeles coming soon. Also, the company aims to add 23 new aircraft to the fleet by the end of 2011 and increase the frequency of flights on existing routes.

Under this contract, Bryant will promote the THY brand by participating in a number of public relations events for THY and special gatherings with his fans around the world.

THY Chairman Hamdi Topçu said “In line with our strategy of conducting communication through the field of sports, we have shaken hands with Kobe Bryant, the most popular figure in basketball and whose career is full of success, to effectively promote our major boost in capacity and new products to our customers both in target markets and the whole world,”

Bryant also voiced his thoughts that he was filled with “a great joy” to be the one to try THY’s “excellent service” before everyone else.

New Special K Mobile Application Helps You Stay on Track For Weight Management Success When You’re on the Go

I am sure that everybody knows Kellogg Company, which is the world’s leading producer of cereal and a leading producer of convenience foods, including cookies, crackers, toaster pastries, cereal bars, fruit-flavored snacks, frozen waffles and veggie foods.

Special K® is only one of the brands of this company. However, not only the word “Special” but also its first-mover position makes this brand special. Special K® is launching its first mobile app in the U.S. market for iPhone and Android mobile devices. The app, called myPlan, offers people a new way to take the Special K Challenge™ and stay on track with weight loss goals by accessing their plan from their mobile device.  The myPlan app was created with the help of global ad agency Leo Burnett, in partnership with premier U.S. mobile media agency MediaMob.

“The Special K brand is excited to introduce the myPlan app to make our popular Special K Challenge content available in places and devices where weight managers can easily access and benefit from the information.” said Jesper Lund Jacobsen, Associate Director for the Special K brand at the Kellogg Company. “We are excited to be launching myPlan at the end of the year when consumers are looking for ways to maintain a healthy diet and prepare their New Year’s resolutions.”

Whether the goal is to shed unwanted holiday pounds or become more fit and fabulous in the New Year, Special K’s myPlan app is a great way to kick-start a new you. Users can design a unique weight management plan, access daily menus, track progress, receive helpful tips, find Challenge-friendly recipes and access Special K’s full suite of products. For users looking for additional community support, they can share their progress and celebrate their victories with friends on Facebook.

“As a brand, we’re always looking for new ways to help women maintain their weight loss goals. The New Year is a key time to remind them it’s easier than ever to start,” said Joseph Bartolucci, SVP, Creative Director at Leo Burnett. “The myPlan app is just another way to make the Challenge more accessible, and easier to take than ever.”

“We’re thrilled to work with Special K and the Kellogg Company to put the Special K Challenge into the hands of the mobile consumer,” said Matt Snyder, CEO of MediaMob. “Leading brands like Special K are constantly innovating and we’re delighted to work with them to develop a mobile experience that provides a new way for women to interact with a brand they love.”

myPlan will be promoted to consumers through localized events, social media, online, search and mobile channels. The app can be downloaded for free from the App Store or through the Android Market.

myPlan in the App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id404697089?mt=8

On The Way To Club Management By Focusing Brand…

Today football enthusiasts are everywhere around the world. This enthusiam is just like an illness for some of us. There are many people (especially my boy friend) planning their weekends according to the hours of matches. Even the rest of weekend can be on the verge of disaster due to the bad result which spoils enthusiast’s good mood. Therefore, the importance of branding in sports cannot be ignored.

Like one of Turkish writers puts into the words; probably, club  managers did not realise or handle this branding approach. Because they generally became champion once in every three years with their traditional management style, otherwise they accused of referees or dismissed the coach. They regarded marketing as selling of licenced products. For years, in media everybody was telling stories about brand value, however nobody understood what was told. There was nobody guiding or leading by example.

As Anatolian teams of Turkey realised this tendency in branding and started to take an action, raising the bar has become inevitable for “Elders”, in other words, big teams. So these suggestions below will more likely attract attention. I am writing what should be done step by step by quoting from Güven Borça:

1)      First of all, we will  make a comprehensive research: Who we are, what we are, how we differentiate ourselves, what basic values and motivations that differentiate us from our competitors we have. So we will develop propositions in order to increase emotional motivation of fans.

2)      How wide are our scope of activities; in which sports branches what kind of local and global aims should we have? Whether we will take all of us or focus on certain scopes? Which consumer group will we cover in branches we focused on? Then in which event will we take place? Whether we will have TV, radio, store, restaurant and hotel or not? In which products will we allow licence usage and why?

3)      Who is our core target audience? Who will we bring to the matches, who will we reach by television, internet, mobile phone? In which channel what message will we give? Who will we sell goods? How many people are they?

4)      What are our foreign branding and communication aims? Will there global aims and touching points in our positioning? In Muslim world, Asia, Balkans do we have specific aims and how will we organize?

5)      What are our commitment, message, identity, character? We will discuss at length and put into documents like Markod. We will share these strategic documents with all business partners, organize trainings and try to internalize them.

6)      We will hold a consultation with technical team to form a team which is appropriate for our brand style. Even we will result in hiring of a coach who is appropriate for our brand style. Will ambition or fun stick out, individualism or sharing?

7)      We will develop visual identity, logo, emblem, symbols. We will design new uniforms by working together with important designers of the country. We will revise logos, symbols if it is needed. We will try alternative colours and get rid of commonness.

8)      We will develop slogan, music, expressions. We will forestall abusive language. Our expressions will be appropriate for our brand commitment.

9)      We will determine communication points and spokesmen. We will identify key spokesmen and plan communication around them.

10)  We will dress our bus, stadium, training field, press conference room according to brand identity. Not only club colours but also symbols, expressions will be emphasized.

11)  We will work together with professional business partners in implementation.We will have regular advertising agency, PR company and media planning company.

12)  We will establish a professional team that is responsible for the brand. This team will work not only to sell licensed products and tickets but also to protect brand values and implement them. All branding issues will be worked and submitted for the administration by this team.

13)  We will employ coaches, image makers, psychologists for football players. We will teach them to dress, speak, pose.

14)  We will make fan trainings. We will organize fan groups and make brand activities. Together with them, we will plan brand architecture.

15)  Professionally, we will manage media relations. We won’t establish a relationship out of personal relations of president and love/hate.

And all of these won’t exceed the cost of a middle football player you’ve hired this year.