by Next Wave Team | Jun 13, 2005 | Advertising, BMW Advertising, Brand Relevancy, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising
I ride a BMW motorcycle. I think they may make one of the finest touring motorcycles in the world. Smooth, quiet, responsive, reliable and a joy to ride, that’s my bike. (mine is an 1996 R1100RS)
They’ve been making BMW motorcycles since 1923. Not quite as long as Harley Davidson, but long enough. So, invariably, I’m out riding, meet someone, and they say “I didn’t know BMW made motorcycles.”
Which says to me, someone in advertising dropped the ball.
That’s the sentiments of the people I know who work at BMW motorcycle dealerships- the ads suck. I’ve seen a few, and frankly, I agree. But, what’s even more amazing is that a few years ago, someone caught on to the “universal truth” about BMW motorcycles, and crafted a line for a t-shirt that worked: “I didn’t know BMW made cars until I passed one” BMW motorcycles.
Yeah, every BMW rider who didn’t own a BMW car (and there are quite a few) wanted one. Unfortunately, someone at BMW marketing in the car division thought that this campaign concept was blasphemous. No more t-shirts.
Way to kill a great idea. So, even if I ride the ultimate riding machine, I can’t proudly proclaim my love of my bike in an entertaining way, that solves one of their major marketing problems, because some brand manager just doesn’t get what makes this advertising stuff work.
If anyone at BMW motorrad in Woodcliff Lake NJ is interested in talking to an agency that might be able to explain how to make BMW motorcycle advertising work, give us a call.
What do you think?
by Next Wave Team | Jun 1, 2005 | Advertising, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Guerrilla Campaigns, Marketing & the Web
Checking your site stats can tell you things. Lo and behold, our top-referring page for May 05 was from Adrants.com, and that came at the end of the month.
Adrants is an advertising industry site with constantly updated news and opinion. Named the number one advertising blog by Fast Company, and AdAge named it the number one “website you should bookmark” it’s an interesting site to keep you informed on the latest trends in advertising, including guerrilla campaigns by The Next Wave.
Found another article- from an Italian site called www.ninjamarketing.it- the Google translation is entertaining:
Agency makes publicity with techniques from road
“An agency of the Ohio has made publicity using technical of guerrilla marketing to a held seminary gives to the Lautenslager, Co-author of the book “Guerrilla Marketing in 30 days”. The participants to the seminary, clearly professionals interested to the not conventional techniques, have been received from numerous simply written provocative messages with of the gessetti color to you on the walls. In this way agency The Next Wave has intentional to above all demonstrate to the own creativity and the ability to create campaigns of impact to low budget.”
see the whole thing in Googlish- here: ninjamarketing
If you want to know what it really says- my father provided a proper translation from the Italian (he’s fluent in 5 languages)
“Agency uses street marketing to plug itself
An Ohio agency advertised itself by using guerrilla marketing at a seminar held by Al Lautenslager, co-author of “Guerrilla Marketing in 30 days.” Participants at the seminar, clearly professionals interested in unconventional techniques, ran into numerous provocative message simply scribbled on the walls (sic) with chalk. In this way, The Next Wave agency wanted to demonstrate its own creativity and, above all, how to run a campaign at a low budget.”
Note- Google is great for finding things, not so good as a translator.
See, this guerrilla stuff really works. Our ideas have always been too big for Dayton, now we’re proving it.
Yeah, we know what you think on this one…
by Next Wave Team | May 30, 2005 | Advertising, BMW Advertising, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising
Yes, you heard it here first. After the amazing success of relaunching a car based on a car that only the British could love, what do you do for an encore? Well, the obvious was the convertible, and then maybe a 4 door version- a mini-wagon, but, the real brilliant next move is for BMW to launch their scooter- which “sips, not guzzles” (to steal the ad line from the campaign by the ad godz at Crispin Porter Bogusky) with the best of them.
In the world of $7 a gallon gas (the rest of the world for those of you who don’t travel much) scooters rule the streets. Just starting to catch on here on the coasts, scooters are a very efficient, fun way to get one person almost anywhere, as long as it’s not raining, snowing, or idiots in cars on cell phones aren’t trying to run you over.
Enter the BMW solution- the BMW C-1, not available in the USA, yet, and you have a scooter with a roll cage, roof… just what the doctor ordered- safe, dry, visible, and another fun vehicle to bring customers into the Mini showroom.
When I was in Europe, I lusted after one of these. Even if Mini didn’t want to bring in the C-1, a Mini branded scooter of the more conventional sort, would fit the brand mystique quite well.
The next Mini?
What do you think?
by Next Wave Team | May 19, 2005 | Advertising, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Guerrilla Campaigns
It was supposed to be a seminar, hosted by the Dayton Ad Club and Books and Company, to teach local agencies and marketers about “Guerrilla Marketing.” The speaker, Al Lautenslager, co-author of “Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days” arrived at the Think TV studio to be greeted with chalk on the sidewalk “You can read a book about “Guerrilla Marketers” or you can hire one- www.thenextwave.biz.”
Then comes the next one, and the next one, with lines like “Big ideas, so little sidewalk” and “it’s only chalk- not like we spent thousands to get your attention. You probably can’t imagine what we’d do with real money” all followed by the agency URL.
Seminar participants saw the same thing. The local ad agency, The Next Wave, reached the people most interested in guerrilla marketing by demonstrating their creativity, without spending big money- or as they put it in one of the sidewalk headlines “It costs big money to put your name here or here (with arrows pointing to the names of Think TV donors engraved in marble along the sidewalk) but chalk is cheap.”
It’s that last tag that didn’t sit well with Think TV, or at least that’s what they said as they started hosing the sidewalk off, 3 hours before the seminar. Not to be daunted, the agency came back and re-chalked the walk in time for the event, and then arrived at the event as the agency logo- a man in a “blues brothers” costume, carrying a briefcase and a surfboard. Vinyl adhesive logos were added to the chalked walk as insurance against a second hose wash.
As a marketing stunt, the quick campaign achieved 2 of its three goals: while the seminar was in progress, a call came in about a piece of new business. It also cemented an internal goal of positioning the agency as the cutting edge creative firm to students from the School of Advertising Art who came to the second seminar session guaranteeing the agency that calls itself The Next Wave getting the pick of the best future talent. The last goal of reaching potential clients who attended the seminar has yet to happen. Maybe after they read the book, they will be more inclined to contact the agency about a guerrilla campaign of their own.
you can click on the pictures for a larger view.
You can read a book about "Guerrilla Marketers" or you can hire one.
Want to know the secrets of great advertising?
Big Ideas- little chalk
So many ideas, so little sidewalk
You can trust this man to come up with the next big ideas marketing.
People don’t read ads, they read what interests them- sometimes it’s an ad- and if it’s by us- they probably will remember it!
ThinkTV needs a sense of humor.
What do you think?
by Next Wave Team | Feb 17, 2005 | Advertising, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, VW advertising
I had an interesting meeting yesterday with a struggling arts group (and, no, they don’t have to be synonymous: struggling/arts group).
They are a performance organization and tour globally. They can draw at the Kennedy Center, but not at home. Could marketing be an issue? Of course.
For years a graphic designer has handled their advertising. Beautiful ads, exquisite imagery, no sales. (Isn’t that the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?)
So, of course, we can do better advertising (a snappy headline, a call to action, some emotional tinkering, the whole create lust- evoke trust® thing). But, a little informal research told me there was a deeper problem- the brand isn’t delivering the goods.
Suppose you went to buy a pair of Nike track shoes, but the store wouldn’t let you have them without buying a pair of really ugly shit-kicker boots.
That’s what this group was doing in their performances. Come to a show to see an emotionally uplifting, amazing good time, great show-but, to get that, you have to sit through the “culture lesson” they think you need which is going to go over like a root canal without anesthesia.
No amount of great advertising can overcome delivering a product that is only half what’s promised, at least on a repeat basis.
So, before you think your advertising needs help, do a little brand check up. Ask customers what they expect from you when they buy (our client the Pizza Factory delivers not only amazing imaginative pizzas, they deliver peace of mind that when you order the office lunch from them that you will get an amazing dining experience which will make you look like a hero to your boss) and then deliver that PLUS something extra special. It’s not up to you to decide what their expectations are, it’s up to you to know them and exceed them.
When you have figured out what they expect, then check your brand to see if it fits their perception: Apple- easy to use technology, Harley Davidson- macho motorcycles for true Americans, and see if you fit with your brand.
This arts organization is killing itself by trying to tell its audiences what they should know instead of giving them what they want. Not a model for success.
That’s why Volkswagen is going to have a hard time selling it’s Phaeton (a $70,000 luxury car) and Honda never moved a lot of S2000 2 seat sports cars (why this car wasn’t an Acura I’ll never know).
And that’s why Apple computer would be in deep trouble if them made a computer that was as complicated as a windows PC.
Make sure your brand performs what it’s supposed to.
What do you think?
by Next Wave Team | Feb 12, 2005 | Advertising, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising
It’s always easy to see what someone should have done, when you’re not the one having to do it with a few million people watching.
Advertising is the same way. Come up with the greatest TV spot since Mean Joe Green for Coke or Apple’s 1984 ad. Everyone has an opinion, thinks they have a great idea, and then says “Wow, advertising would be a fun job to have.”
Well, it is fun, except for clients who want everything yesterday, and want to pay you a week from next Tuesday for the work they got 3 months ago. And, oh yeah, the potential client who passed your shop up because you told him the truth about what he should buy with his budget, only to go to some big lame shop who had him spend 3x more for half the creative- and then the guy tells you that your ideas are too “big city” and that you should teach his wife how it’s done.
And then, there’s The Apprentice, the TV show, where the Donald sends teams of amateurs out to create an ad campaign in a couple of days. You know, there’s nothing to advertising anyway. Well, last night, the “street smarts” and the “book smarts” both failed miserably in creating a campaign for the new Dove body wash.
Yeah, millions of eyes on them, real pros to help them, and two absolutely terrible ads were produced. So, what does this prove?
Does it prove that there is something to this business; a craft, an art, a bit of psychology, science, that great ads aren’t done by committee? The easy answer is yes- it proves it.
But, let’s look at the flip side, probably 20 million people watched this train wreck production of two crappy ads, and Dove body wash is probably better known now than it was on Thursday morning. That even bad advertising works. Yeah, that explains why a certain local Honda dealer who has done the ads people love to hate for years keeps doing them. It explains why that potential client is happy with an agency that does crap for him. It explains why everyone and their mother think they can do this (yet I have to admit that every once in a while my Mother comes up with a good idea).
I had a new client this week ask me about their new “logo.” I tried to explain to them that it wasn’t really a logo; that it wasn’t something I could see from 10 feet away that I would recognize instantly for what it was. I told a logo is something you recognize, a brand is something you would be willing to pay extra to wear, or even want to tattoo on your body.
And while there are lots of ads out there that are perfectly adequate, how many do you really want to watch over and over? How many would you pay to see? Me, I buy books of great ads, I have a collection on our server, and I even asked the Nike Store if there was a way to buy the reel that was running on the 4th floor in the theater.
I’m a freak. The rest of you love to skip the ads (except on most Super Bowls).
And then after the Super Bowl, you all think you can come up with something better.
So, would all of you out there who think what we do is easy, go watch this episode of the Apprentice. Lucky for the budding apprentices, Donald only fires one of you. For us, they fire the whole team.
Does it still sound like fun?
Thank you Donald for showing the world that advertising isn’t something for amateurs.
