Luscious lips. A kissable mouth. A sensuous smile. Advertisers are now exploring the potency of physical attraction to compel consumers towards their products. Recently, Diageo approached the bio-statistician Dr. Kendra Schmid of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, as Diageo looked to perfect their Baileys brand “Listen to your lips” campaign; selecting lips that had the most, well, sex appeal.

Dr. Schmid is uniquely qualified to help having developed cutting edge research on the science of attraction, including identifying the characteristics that identify faces and lips to which we are most attracted. (more…)

I almost exclusively watch T.V. shows online, either on hulu.com or a network’s Web site. I am never at home when shows are typically aired and I like the format of short 30 to 15 second ads rather than 2 minute blocks that interrupt the show you are watching. The commercial that was constantly on was a new advertising spot for Frito Lays’ healthy line of snack food.

This advertising is directed exclusively at women. The segments end with a little flag that says “only in a woman’s world.”

I have to admit when I first saw these commercials I was offended. I think that so often advertisers end up talking at women rather then developing a conversation with them. I also think that advertisers play to the typical stereotypes about men and women. See Stuart’s previous blog post “Men are stupid and women are scheming” here and then watch Webisode 7, where the husband is played as well meaning but stupid and the wife as harried yet indulgent. I don’t see myself in these ads. (more…)

A compelling interview recently on National Public Radio (read/listen to it here) got me thinking about the power of language to influence the way we think. Lera Boroditsky, a cognitive scientist at Stanford, asserted a connection between the language that we use and the way it makes us perceive the world around us. Her experiment involved testing how separate groups who spoke German and Spanish used verbs to describe a bridge. The German speakers, in whose language a “bridge” has a feminine gender, used words like “beautiful,” “slender” and “elegant,” while the Spanish speakers, in whose language a “bridge” has a masculine gender used words like “strong,” “sturdy” and “towering.”

To further test her hypothesis that people’s thoughts were impacted by their language, Boroditsky invented a language called Gumbuzi. Her findings indicated that people’s grammatical understanding did affect their sense of the world around them.

This is a developing area of science and there are a number of viewpoints on this topic. For marketers, it does raise the issue about how we can use language as part of our copy messaging to arouse or induce certain unconscious perspectives in our target audience, especially where regional dialects may be in play. I’d be interested if you copy writers out there have any experience or opinion of this phenomenon. Let me know …

In January we delivered our “Brand Bailout” stimulus presentation to the local Young Presidents Organization. One of our key assertions was that now, during depressed economic circumstances, is precisely the time to invest in and nurture your brand. Consider that one valuation of Coca-Cola’s business comprises 60% attributable just to the brand value.

As one Coca-Cola executive is quoted as saying:

“If Coca-Cola were to lose all of its production-related assets in a disaster, the company would [survive]. By contrast, if all consumers were to have 
a sudden lapse of memory and forget everything related to Coca-Cola the company would go out of business.”

I was recently asked if the first instinct of businesses to cut marketing and brand budgets was wise. Our opinion we now know accords with that of Walmart and their results as articulated in this February 17 New York Times article are illustrative. (more…)

Confession number one is that last night was the first time that I had ever bothered to watch an Oscars ceremony, and I rather enjoyed it. I especially enjoyed the couture commentary from my fashion maven wife. Confession number two is that we have not owned a television for more than a decade, so I found myself riveted to the advertisements as well as the show.

It is a little early to comment on effectiveness of the TV spots, which must await a few months, at least, of consumer impact and business results. Clearly, even with typical media buy costs being slashed, several companies felt the buy not to be a good return on investment or an appropriate media placement. However, in this post I can offer up just a few subjective thoughts on the day after.

I really enjoyed the TrueNorth TV spot stories, especially the one about The Inspiration Café serving food, support and advice to Chicago’s homeless. Unfortunately, I found the transition from those amazing stories to an image of snack food to be disconcerting. I assume the intention was to create some indelible connection between those illustrations of charitable community selflessness and the brand for a bag of nuts. However, the message as presented seemed discordant to me rather than harmonious. (more…)