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Web gossip’s ablaze about the ads that played during the most watched program in television history – Sunday night’s Super Bowl. (That’s right, it beat the ratings record held by the series finale of “M-A-S-H” back in 1983). And while it remains to be seen which, if any, of this year’s ads may be remembered as one of history’s best Super Bowl spots, that isn’t stopping people from choosing favorites. And it isn't stopping me from asking an oft-debated question in marketing: when is the expense of a Super Bowl campaign worth it? It's about the sales, right? And if so, how is the sight of seeing Betty White getting sacked going to sell more Snickers bars?

Continue reading "The Super Bowl Spot: When is it Worth it?" »

Posted by Piet at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Without further ado

Winner

I’ll keep the winner short.

Ford and General Motors get the crown for re-organizing themselves, getting on the track to recovery and not throwing their brands out with the bathwater.

The very fact that Ford and General Motors have remained brand companies has insulated them from the kind of mass destruction that Toyota is currently experiencing.

As I wrote last week about Toyota:

With the exception of their branding master-stroke of Lexus, Toyota cross-labels every one of its car brands with its corporate brand.

The problem with this kind of corporate brand strategy? Well, when one product in the corporate line-up has a problem, so does the entire corporate brand and all of the individual brands under the corporate umbrella.

Continue reading "Jon Tantillo's Winners & Loser: Ford, GM Win; Uncle Sam Loses" »

Posted by John at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kathy Button Bell, CMO and vice president at Emerson, had some useful tips for B-to-B marketers when she spoke last week at a Business Marketing Association Chicago chapter luncheon.

Fair disclosure here, I’ve written about Kathy and marketing she’s done going back to the 1990s when she was in Chicago, so I’m a long-time fan. She joined St. Louis-based Emerson in 1999 and has been transforming the engineer-centric company into one that knows how to do B-to-B marketing. Part of what she discussed was a new Emerson campaign that started in 2009, “It’s Never Been Done Before…Consider it Solved”

As a B-to-B marketer, you “have to be a better pied piper than a marketing person,” she says, meaning you have to be able to lead senior management to the marketing world you want them to embrace.

Continue reading "B-to-B Marketers, Get out Your Flutes" »

Posted by John at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Maybe it’s mid-winter blues, but I’ve decided to accentuate the negative by pulling a first: two losers. And, frankly, these two were such obvious marketing victims I simply had to do it. They say that with pride there is a fall and these two companies’ most recent debacles seem to prove the adage.

Loser Number One:

Toyota.

This car company was on the cusp of becoming the biggest and, arguably, the best worldwide.

But now Toyota’s on the hook for one of the biggest recalls in automotive history and their reputation for great quality at a great price is in tatters.

Continue reading "John Tantillo’s Two Losers of The Week: Toyota & Apple" »

Posted by John at 4:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Folks, without further ado.

The Winner:

Conan O’Brien is our winner of the week for sticking to his ground, recognizing the changing television environment and getting paid an enormous amount of money simply to walk away from The Tonight Show.

Along the way, he also won new supporters and fans by showing that he cared about those he worked for by insisting that even his non-contractual co-workers were taken care off under NBC’s multi-million dollar settlement.

Continue reading "Tantillo’s Weekly Winner and Loser: O'Brien & the Republican Party" »

Posted by John at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)