Concerning all acts of initiative and creation,
there is one elementary truth the ignorance
of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:
that the moment one definitely commits oneself,
then providence moves too. All sorts of things
occur to help one that would never otherwise
have occurred. A whole stream of events issues
from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner
of unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material
assistance which mo man could have dreamed
would have come his way.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

So have you watched that nice little spoof that we posted that is a parity of Windows vs. Apple?

Consistent with some of our recent posts about truth being a prerequisite foundation for satire, here are a few interesting spots that support the Gates vs. Jobs parity.

First, this is Steve Jobs on the originality and creativity that fuels the success of Microsoft – Not!

Next is a nice little spot featuring Steve Ballmer representing Microsofts’ take on the Apple iPhone and its’ entry into the marketplace. From a marketing point of view, it’s about positioning. As you consider Ballmers’ remarks, be mindful of the underlying marketing strategy that really speaks to Microsofts’ success – strategy not product per se.

Finally, this last spot is from iMedia Group. Nice little juxtaposition that fits in with this whole Microsoft vs. Apple theme. Do you think that this message is the least bit manipulative? So what’s the intent of the videos’ creators? (You may have to click on this video a couple of times which will take you to the iMedia profile at youtube)

The Chairman of IBM has been quoted as prognosticating that, in his estimation, “there is a world market for approximately five computers.”

Aah, that would be the presiding IBM Chairman back in 1943 who reportedly made such an insightful prediction!

In 1949, Popular Mechanics boldly forecast that with the advances of science, computers in the future would weigh no more than 1.5 Tons.

In 1899, Charles H. Duell from the US Office of Patents went on record to inform the world that; “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” … and he should know, right?

Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society back in 1895 let it be known that; “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”

Years earlier in 1872, Pierre Pachet, a Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, set the record straight when he informed; “Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction”.

And way back in the first century, a Roman engineer by the name of Julius Frontinus was recorded as proclaiming; “inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.

Well now, armed with this information, you may want to review your marketing strategy and take a much closer look at that advertising budget. You’ll want to judiciously determine how to get those ad dollars really working for you before it’s too late. Good Luck!

I do not know what I may appear to the world;
but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy
playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now
and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier
shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth
lay all undiscovered before me.

Sir Isaac Newton

If Caffeine Marketing brings anything to the table, it’s perspective. We strive to feature a healthy dose of marketing news coupled with interesting tid bits of strategy, information and business insight.

This includes humour. We could talk about the effectiveness of humour in selling and advertising. We could even go and get all scientific and stuff and talk about how laughter causes a release of endorphins in your brain and how that’s a good thing. Caffeine is a stimulant too - but we digress.

Our readers tend to be creative and critical thinkers and we’re just part of the mix in terms of advocating “death to conventional thinking”. In the process, we hope to have some fun!

Going with the theme of our last two posts, following is another excellent video that serves up a satirical take on the world of corporate advertising, brand building, marketing and big business. You might even catch yourself quietly relating to this parity because you can picture real people or situations that would fit right into this corporate culture.

Go ahead and watch it now. The Truth In Ad Sales

Well so far we’ve only received one email expressing disappointment with the “appropriateness” of our last post “Death of a Salesman Isn’t Enough?”

Our emailer wondered: “aside from this comedian tasteless obscenity laced diatribe, I don’t see how this youtube video fits with your website. I enjoy checking in with your website for topical marketing news but this video is pretty bad taste and I am wondering about its appropriateness”.

Well our thoughts are as follows: Firstly, the post does begin with a pseudo disclaimer when we offered that “we weren’t too sure about this one” and secondly, we did post a pretty clear warning about the foul language.

Humour is a dish best served when it reflects some semblance of truth. Satire, especially the scathing variety, requires an underlying basis of truth. The more complex and sublime the comedians’ critical thinking skills, the more likely it is that their message will emotionally engage their audience. The real talent is in the delivery – or the packaging - of their message (aka – marketing).

For the record, “this comedian” is Bill Hicks who was a very talented and funny guy. If you’re not familiar with his work, you can read a pretty good bio of him at wikipedia. Just click Bill Hicks to go there. Bill died from pancreatic cancer in 1994 at the age of 32.

Concerning the idea of appropriateness, we’ll say this. Bills’ rant is about marketing as a mechanism to reframe an issue and manipulate a target audience. His sites are set on those whose motivation is predicated on greed. We do agree that marketing and advertising are completely based upon strategies to manipulate.

When you think of the word manipulation, what comes to mind? The connotation generally is negative – manipulation is a bad thing. Well, we think not! Manipulation as a concept is neither good nor bad. The distinction lies in the intent behind the act of manipulation.

If a business really made arsenic into a baby food and tried to advertise and sell their product, then clearly, they have bad intentions. The last time we checked, eating arsenic is generally, a very bad thing.

Sound ridiculous? How many for instances can you think of where a product, service or concept is well packaged, well advertised, well marketed but is an otherwise bad deal for the intended consumer? Your list might include cigarettes, alcohol, lottery tickets, gambling … you get the point.

On the other hand, if a product, service or concept is potentially beneficial for an intended target audience, then manipulation through the mechanisms of marketing could be considered a good thing. Messages that convince us to eat better, to exercise and to be nice to each other have good intentions – even if the merchant and the marketers are attempting to make money in the process. Win/win as it were - doing well by doing good.

We’re not taking a moral high ground here. It’s just that we get the perspective that Bill Hicks is offering us. We think his rant is pretty funny because it has an underlying basis of truth in general and depending on the context, his rant could be viewed as spot on.

Well … we weren’t too sure about this one. But it’s a Friday and we’re always interested in a well rounded perspective. You know …. both sides of the coin so to speak.

You should not watch the following video if you are offended by foul language. Or if you take yourself or your marketing news and information too seriously for that matter - really - skip this one.

For the open minded, it’s pretty funny stuff about those in the world of marketing and advertising. And it’s true how you can re-frame just about anything when you think like a marketer.

This is ‘Bill Hicks on Marketing” and it is COMEDY. Nuf said! View at your own risk!

So, have you been brain storming creative ideas about your proposition – your compelling offer? We’ve received several emails – especially from folks with a small business marketing focus - concerned about being able to write good copy.

No worries, we have suggestions and solutions that we’ll be passing your way. We have expert copy writing information that we will be featuring on a regular basis. And most of these insights will be short and snappy – kinda like a weekly golf tip.

But you’ll need to stay tuned. The easiest way to do that is to subscribe - over there to the right – where it says Newsletter. Just type in you email and each time we post to this site, you’ll get a notice. Go ahead – try it – don’t be scared!

If your interest is in writing good copy, keep your eye out for any post titled “Copy That”. And if you haven’t already, you can scroll down and look for other “Copy That” posts. Now, here is our short and snappy “Copy That” thought for the day. Drum roll please ….

A great offer with poor copy will always perform better than a poor offer with great copy.

That’s it. You know, something Steven Covey might describe as principled centered. But we haven’t asked him so we don’t know for certain. But you can read what Steven Covey thinks in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Version 2.0

Regardless, focus on what you are offering and your marketing message will become much easier to create. Add value, improve your guarantees, reduce - better still eliminate - your customer’s risk. Be steadfast in making your selling proposition - or your offer - as compelling as possible.

Copy That!

You’ve more than likely seen the television commercial that was featured as number one on AdCracker’s Top 10 Ads Worldwide. You can scroll down to see the full AdCracker press release if you missed it.

This following video is a highly creative spoof of that number one advertisement. It’s also an amusingly nostalgic review of the evolution of Windows vs. Apple. If you don’t mind a little bit of entertainment, check it out:

If you haven’t seen any in the theme of PC vs. Mac TV spots that this video spoofs, go ahead and check out AdCracker’s number one advert winner by going here: AdCracker’s Top 10 Ads Worldwide

Even if you are familiar with the original series of commercials, it’s worth a visit to AdCracker to get their perspective on what makes an ad great. And if you agree with Jobs’ proclamation in the Gates vs. Jobs video, AdCracker even offers a nice solution for - “death to conventional thinking!”

Go ahead…take a chance…get creative…and prosper!

An important lesson from our last post, “Sneak Peak”, is that even major, global conglomerates, with massive marketing budgets, focus their strategies on geographic or regional target markets. This is a strategy that can be highly efficient and effective for small business marketing efforts.

Clearly, it depends on what type of product or service you are promoting and how you want to market or advertise your message. If you have a digital information product such as an e-book or an audio-book, the world may very well be your oyster but it still makes sense to focus your ad dollars regionally – just like Mazda does.

If you run a traditional bricks and mortar business or profession, you may only want to market locally. Two ways to approach your market are by geography and by customer category. For instance, a local Financial Advisor may have two or three different Chiropractors as clients. It would be prudent for the Financial Advisor to focus on marketing to all Chiropractors within their local area for several reasons. Social proof is one of the big ones.

The Advisor can get testimonials from their satisfied Chiropractor clients and include those testimonials as part of their outgoing marketing message. And the existing client Chiropractors can also become an excellent source of referrals or as centers of influence. The strategy is for the Advisor to target market both regionally and by customer category.

If you’re a small business selling an e-book on the other hand, Google Adwords can allow you to target your ads both geographically and by customer category as well. Your Adwords campaign can achieve a global reach but nonetheless, still be highly focused by a region or customer category that you hope to reach.

Google does an excellent job – and is getting progressively better – at matching your ads to appropriate, content rich, websites that will suit both your desired region and targeted customer category. Technology allowing even small business marketing campaigns to act like those of a global conglomerate.

Click on the posters above for a better look! This is a sneak peak of sorts. Our Mazda “marketing insider” sent us these posters with a bit of additional perspective and insight about the logistics that go into the actual production of a major ad campaign.

Whether your interests are those of a major ad agency executive, a marketing student or those of a small business marketing manager, it’s interesting to watch a new marketing campaign of a major global corporation unfold.

And while Mazda’s consumer reach is global, these advertisements are geographically targeted to a region - the European consumer. The lesson with small business marketing in mind is that, it can be a very effective use of your ad dollars - even corporations with massive marketing budgets - to market to a specific geographical region.

This concept, or strategy, is something that is very scalable for small business marketers and we’ll be adding some content on regional marketing for small business in our next post - so stayed tuned.

This is what our insider told us!

“Regarding the print work, I’m sending along two additional adverts for the “Desert Treasure” phase of the campaign. As of yet, they’ve only been published in the paper edition of a Swedish advertising magazine as the actual film is having the finishing touches made in post-production in London… So these adverts are still somewhat “exclusive”…

The photo-shoot itself happened alongside the film production in South Africa. Despite the fact that the films were being shot around-the-clock (“Desert Treasure” by day and “Casino” by night) the photo-team and film-team worked perfectly together and the entire project was as uneventful as a successful shoot should be…There are actually several additional versions of the “Casino” adverts, the differences being if the Mazda MX-5 is shot from the front or the back with the hardtop up or down… We’ve sent you the ones we like best…

The photographer was the same that we used for the “12 Second Thriller” posters; a German by the name of Peer Brecht. And all the “models” in the shoot were also the actors in the films. And the sets were the same too.”

Scroll down to our Zoom Zoom Grows Up post if you haven’t already and you can check out more of the new ads targeted at the European car buyer.

If marketing is about anything, it’s about communication. Understanding your target audience and knowing how to “speak their language” is integral to gaining rapport and ultimately, the trust of your intended customer.

Trust leads to sales and if your proposition and delivery are irresistible enough, repeat sales over time from a loyal base of happy customers. That is the essence of brand. Brand is not your product or service per se. It has more to do with your consumer’s relationship to your product or service over time. And the relationship starts with some form of communication.

There are copious amounts of theories, opinions and information about what you should communicate and how you should deliver your message. In our last post, Zoom Zoom Grows Up, we quoted the Communications Manager for Mazda Motor Europe.

“At Mazda Europe, we work with 22 markets across the entire continent. And they all have their special cultural idiosyncrasies. So it’s important that our communications appeal to everyone and excite all of our owners and customers, no matter where they live.”

This following video is a pretty compelling demonstration of a creative communication strategy aimed at a broad and diverse market. But we DON’T RECCOMEND that you try this approach with your target audience.

WARNING… The following video may make you smile – or pee you pants laughing – watch at your own risk!

Mazda continues to get good mileage from its brilliant and ubiquitous zoom zoom branding strategy. The car maker’s marketing brain trust is producing advertisements that have a more sophisticated and mature appeal.

“Every Drive’s a Thriller” is the new advertising campaign from Mazda Motor Europe and JWT-Düsseldorf for the new generation Mazda MX-5. The campaign features two commercials, “Casino” and “Desert Treasure” that create a sort of ninja noir vibe – imagine Black Rain meets Kill Bill vol 1.

The Black Rain reference is no small coincidence given that the two commercial set was directed by Luke Scott, the son or Sir Ridley Scott who is the award-winning director of the 1989 thriller Black Rain.

According to Damian Donnellan, Communications Manager at Mazda Motor Europe, “At Mazda Europe, we work with 22 markets across the entire continent. And they all have their special cultural idiosyncrasies. So it’s important that our communications appeal to everyone and excite all of our owners and customers, no matter where they live. The Mazda MX-5 and the “Every drive’s a thriller” campaign achieve that.”

Go ahead and watch the commercial spot below:

AdCracker has released its’ selections for the world’s ten most creative ads during 2006. Nominations were open to all commercial communications with persuasive intent and published during 2006.
“Huggies Rock” is the title of AdCracker’s number two winner. It’s a charming television commercial created by McCann Erickson, Tel Aviv, Israel. The spot features toddlers living out adult roles at work and at home.
This engaging commercial goes beyond the obvious cute babies and the familiar Bobby McFerrin “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” tune. There is the clear philosophical message about life and attitude. You may not control what happens to you in life but you do get to choose how you respond.
It’s hard not to feel pretty good about life and just a little more empowered after you watch this spot. And the branding effect is in full force.
Scroll down a couple of posts to read the full AdCracker press release and check out their site to see the
AdCracker top ten list.

In the meantime, you can watch the full Huggies Rock commercial [more than once :)] below: