Classifieds. This time from the Church!

These are actual classified ads released by a few churches from around the world. Note, there is no offence intended on any religion or characters. I am no Tamil Nadu C.M to be barbaric enough to cast aspersions on any religious sentiments.

Just laugh at the gaffes. Over to the church classifieds!

"Open seven days a week and weekends."

"This afternoon there will be a meeting in the South and North ends of the church. Children will be baptized at both ends”.

"For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs”.

"Tuesday at 4:00 PM there will be an ice cream social. All ladies giving milk will please come early”.

"Wednesday the ladies liturgy will meet. Mrs. Johnson will sing "Put me in my little bed" accompanied by the pastor”.

"This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Lewis to come forward and lay an egg on the alter”.

Funny Classified Ads

Supposedly, these are actual classified advertisements that have appeared in papers, unfortunately not in India. Enjoy!

"A superb and inexpensive restaurant. Fine food expertly served by waitresses in appetizing forms”.

"For sale: an antique desk suitable for lady with thick legs and large drawers”.

"Four-poster bed, 101 years old. Perfect for antique lover”.

"Now is your chance to have your ears pierced and get an extra pair to take home, too”.

"Wanted: 50 girls for stripping machine operators in factory”.

"Wanted: Unmarried girls to pick fresh fruit and produce at night”.

"We do not tear your clothing with machinery. We do it carefully by hand”.

"Used cars: Why go elsewhere to be cheated? Come here first”!

"Auto Repair Service. Free pick-up and delivery. Try us once; you'll never go anywhere again”.

"Illiterate? Write today for free help”.

Meet Procter & Gamble

In the vast world of marketing and advertising, James Stengel just may be the king. He is P&G's global marketing officer, a post he has held for six years when the average tenure of a chief marketing officer is less than two. Stengel sat down recently with Fortune 's Geoff Colvin to talk about consumer power, the value of brands, the decline of mass media etc. Edited excerpts follow.

What's the best marketing you've seen lately?

Outside P&G, I think Harry Potter. You had to be dead to miss it. The whole way that Harry Potter has engaged people has been a phenomenon that any brand or business would aspire to.

You are in a great position to evaluate consumer trends. What is the most important thing you are seeing?

The biggest thing going on with consumers is that they want to trust something. They want to be understood, they want to be respected and they want to be listened to. They don't want to be talked to. People really do care what's behind the brand, what's behind the business. They care about the values of a brand and the values of a company. We can never forget that. Businesses and brands that are breaking records are those that inspire trust and affection and loyalty by being authentic, by not being arrogant, and by being empathetic to those they serve.

'Immersion research' means you spend time with consumers in their homes or other settings, rather than in focus groups. Can you explain?

At P&G, we all do that kind of thing. We all go out and really spend time with consumers, especially those who are not like us. I had a wonderful field visit in Latin America on a recent trip - I went into the home of a woman who had very little money. She was tremendously proud of her children and her home. Our brands play an important role in her household, because though she didn't have much disposable income, she spent some of it on the kind of brands that we sell. It was important to understand what role our brands played in her life.

Two years ago P&G was spending 85% of its marketing budget on 30-second TV spots. What is the proportion now, and what will it be in five years?

The trend of the past five years will continue, which is that TV advertising will go down as a percentage of our spending, and we will continue to move money to where the consumers are. The interesting news in all of this is that consumers are spending more time with media than ever. If the content is good, consumers will spend an awful lot of time with media. That is what Harry Potter proved.

It is very difficult to maintain a tangible product advantage for any length of time. Is that a problem for P&G?

No, it's not a problem. I hate it when someone says they're in a commodity category. We don't accept that there are any commodity categories. We are growing Charmin and Bounty very well, and if there is any category that people could say is a commodity, it's paper towels and tissues. We have developed tremendous equities, tremendous loyalties from our consumers. So, no, I think that is a cop-out. That is bad marketing and an excuse.

What gives a brand power?

If you go back at P&G, and in a lot of the industry, we often thought of our brands in terms of functional benefits. But the equity of great brands has to be something that a consumer finds inspirational and an organization finds inspirational. You know, our baby-care business didn't start growing aggressively until we changed Pampers from being about dryness to being about helping mom with her baby's development. That was a sea change. Or look at all the different areas we are in at Olay. That's because Olay is not just about being a pink fluid that moisturizes. It is about helping women look better and feel better as they age.

What's been the biggest change in yourself as you have adapted to this changing world of media and marketing?

There is so much to learn and there are so many interesting things happening, inside and outside the company. It is important to be inquisitive, to be searching. When I travel, I always think, is there a thought leader who is doing something interesting who I can drop in on? I always ask people their reaction to our company and what they are doing.

Classified ads....from a small-town daily!

Monday
FOR SALE - R. D. Jones has one sewing machine for sale. Phone 555-0707 after 7 p.m. and ask for Mrs. Kelly who lives with him cheap.

Tuesday
NOTICE - We regret having erred in R. D. Jones’ ad yesterday. It should have read: One sewing machine for sale. Cheap: 555-0707 and ask for Mrs. Kelly who lives with him after 7 p.m.

Wednesday
NOTICE - R. D. Jones has informed us that he has received several annoying telephone calls because of the error we made in his classified ad yesterday. His ad stands corrected as follows:
FOR SALE - R. D. Jones has one sewing machine for sale. Cheap. Phone 555-0707 and ask Mrs. Kelly who loves with him.

Thursday
NOTICE - I, R. D. Jones, have NO sewing machine for sale. I SMASHED IT. Don't call 555-0707, as the telephone has been disconnected. I have not been carrying on with Mrs. Kelly. Until yesterday she was my housekeeper, but she quit."

Job Sense

A taxi passenger tapped the driver on the shoulder to ask him a question. The driver screamed, lost control of the car, nearly hit a bus, went up on the footpath, and stopped few centimeters from a shop window.

For a second everything went quiet in the cab, and then the driver said: "Look mate, don't ever do that again. You scared the daylights out of me!”

The passenger apologized and said, "I didn't realize that a little tap would scare you so much."

The driver replied, "Sorry, actually it's not really your fault. Today is my first day as a cab driver. I have been driving a van carrying dead bodies for the last 25 years.”

A story for workaholics

Last Saturday morning as I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice.

"Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. It's too bad you missed your daughter's dance recital he continued. "Let me tell you something that has helped me keep my own priorities." And he began to explain his theory of a ‘thousand marbles’.

"You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about 75 years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about 75 years. Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in his lifetime.

It took me until I was 55 years old to think about all this in any detail", he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over 2,800 Saturdays." "I got to thinking that if I lived to be 75, I only had about a 1,000 of them left to enjoy. So I went to a toy store and bought 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container."

"Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight."

"Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure that if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time."

"It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band."

You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. "C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast."

"What brought this on?" she asked with a smile.

"It's just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. And hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles."

Customer Care Sense

A crowded United Airlines flight was canceled. A single United Airlines employee was rebooking a long line of inconvenienced travelers.

Suddenly an angry passenger pushed his way to the desk. He slapped his ticket down on the counter and said, "I have to be on this flight and it has to be first class."

The agent replied, "I'm sorry sir. I'll be happy to try to help you, but I've got to help these folks first, and I'm sure we'll be able to work something out."

The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that the passengers behind him could hear, "Do you have any idea who I am?"

Without hesitating, the agent smiled and grabbed her public address microphone. "May I have your attention please," she began her voice heard clearly throughout the terminal. "We have a passenger here at Gate 14 who does not know who he is. If anyone can help him find his identity, please come to Gate 14."

With the folks behind him in line laughing hysterically, the man glared at the United Airlines employee, gritted his teeth and swore. "F*** you!"

Without flinching, she smiled and said, "I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to get in line for that, too."

Economic Sense

A little boy goes to his dad and asks, "What is politics?" Dad says, "Well son, let me try to explain it this way: I'm the head of the family, so call me the Prime Minister. Your mother is the administrator of the money, so call her the Government. We're here to take care of your needs, so we'll call you the people. The maid, we'll consider the working class, and your baby brother, we'll call him the future. Now think about that and see if it makes any sense."

So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what dad had said.

Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parent's room and finds his mother sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the maid's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the maid. He gives up and goes back to bed.

The next morning the little boy says to his father, "Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now."

The father says, "Good, son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about."

The little boy replies, "The Prime Minister is screwing the working class while the government is sound asleep. The people are being ignored and the future is in deep shit.”

Shit Marketing

Some things certain marketers do just amaze me – that they were done at all! I can understand a strategy that’s poorly conceived or a tactic that goes horribly wrong. But self-inflicted stupidity is something that never ceases to amaze me.

For instance, if you travel north on TTK Road from Adyar Park, in Madras, you will find a hotel on the right just before Alwarpet junction. The hotel is named ‘One Way’!

What are they trying to say? That you can go in; but you won’t be able to come out???

But the winners in this game, without a shade of doubt, are the marketing wizards of the brand, Kaya Clinic. What did they do? Nothing. Just that they happen to be lead sponsors of a fantastic programme on Discovery Channel titled ‘Seconds to Disaster’.

Ladies and Gentlemen, here is exactly how the sponsorship sounds on the channel:

‘SECONDS TO DISASTER’ IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY KAYA CLINIC.

Now, what are the respected Indian Ivy League MBA’s running the brand trying to tell us? Entering Kaya Clinic is just seconds to disaster???

Shit Marketing!

Ah Marketing!

Boeing recently launched a new brand of airplane – 787 Dreamliner – in its headquarters, Seattle. In an unprecedented move – for marketing in general and Boeing in particular – the launch event was broadcast live via webcast in nine languages across 45 countries.

In all, the 787 premiere potentially reached 100 million or more viewers, making it one of the largest corporate TV and Internet broadcasts in history.

To date, 47 customers worldwide have ordered 677 airplanes worth a staggering $110 billion making the Dreamliner the most successful commercial airplane launch in history.

What’s the big deal, you wonder.

The launch was meticulously designed to be on 8th July 2007.

So? You ask.

The 787 was launched on 7-8-07.

Ah marketing!


P.S: Americans use month first and then the date. Remember 9-11.

Advertising Sense

An ad team is working very late at night on a project due the next morning. Suddenly, a Genie appears before them and offers to grant them all one wish.

The Copywriter says: "I've always dreamed of writing the great American novel and having my work studied in schools across the land. I'd like to go to a tropical island where I can concentrate and write my masterpiece." The Genie says "No problem!" And poof! The Copywriter is gone.

The Art Director says: "I want to create a painting so beautiful that it would hang in the Lourve Museum in Paris for all the world to admire. I want to go to the French countryside to work on my painting." The Genie says, "Your wish is granted! And poof! The Art Director is gone.

The Genie then turns to the Account Executive and says "And what is your wish?" The poor hapless Account Executive who is fighting a client deadline says with a stern face, "I want those two assholes back here right now."

Retail Sense

A retailer was dismayed when a competitor selling the same type of product opened next-door to him, displaying a large sign proclaiming ‘Best Deals’.

Not long after he was horrified to find yet another competitor move in next-door, on the other side if his store. Its large sign was even more disturbing- ‘Lowest Prices’.

After his initial panic, and concern that he would be driven out of business, he looked for a way to turn the situation to his marketing advantage. Finally, an idea came to him. Next day, he proudly unveiled a new and huge sign over his front door.

It read, ‘Main Entrance’!

Sales Sense

A keen Texas lad applied for a salesman's job at a city department store. The store was the biggest in the world and sold everything under the sun.

"Have you ever been a salesman before?" the boss asked during his interview.

"Yes, I was a salesman in Texas," the lad answered. The boss took an immediate liking to him and told him he could start the next day. "I'll come and see how you made out after we close up," the boss said.

The day was long and hard for the young man, but finally it was 5 o'clock. The boss closed up the store and found the lad sitting slumped and exhausted, in a chair. "How many sales did you make today?" the boss asked.

"One," said the lad.

"One?" said the boss, obviously displeased. "Most of the sales people on my staff make 20 or 30 sales a day. How much was the sale worth?"

"Exactly $101,334,533," said the young man.

"How did you manage that?" asked the boss, flabbergasted.

"Well," said the lad, "this man came in and I sold him a small fish hook, then a medium fish hook, and finally a really large hook. Then I sold him a small fishing line, a medium one, and huge one. I asked him where he was going fishing, and he said he was going down the coast. I said he'd probably need a boat, so I took him down to the boat department and sold him that fancy 22-foot Chris Craft with twin engines. Then he said his Honda Civic probably wouldn't be able to handle the load, so I took him to the vehicle department and sold him new GMC 1-ton pickup truck."

"You sold all that to guy who came in for a fish hook?" the boss asked in astonishment.

"He came in to buy a box of sanitary napkins for his wife, and I said to him, "your weekend's shot. You might as well go fishing."

Business Sense

A factory’s marketing manager takes a visiting customer on a tour of a latex products factory.

At the first stop, he's shown the machine that manufactures baby-bottle nipples. The machine makes a loud hiss-pop noise.

"The hiss is the rubber being injected into the mold," explains the marketer. "The popping sound is a needle poking a hole in the end of the nipple."

Later, the tour reaches the part of the factory where condoms are manufactured. The machine makes a noise: "Hiss. Hiss. Hiss. Hiss-pop!"

"Wait a minute!" says the customer. "I understand what the 'hiss, hiss,' is, but what's that 'pop!' every so often?"

"Oh, it's just the same as in the baby-bottle nipple machine," says the guide. "It pokes a hole in every fourth condom."

"Well, that can't be good for the condoms!"

"Yeah, but it's great for the baby-bottle nipple business!"

The Power of PR

I just finished reading ‘The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR’. The title actually is a misnomer. The authors, Al Ries and Laura Ries, are not proposing that advertising is dead and buried. Instead they claim advertising isn’t as powerful as it used to be and should be used more as a support to a well-orchestrated PR plan.

Their theory is simple: Build brands with PR and once it is established maintain it with advertising. They give enough and more case studies of brands that have taken this route: Microsoft, Starbucks, Body Shop, Linux, PlayStation, Viagra etc.,

I would strongly recommend this book to you irrespective of where you are - advertising, marketing or PR. Nicely written, neatly presented with powerful examples…the book could be described with the clichéd word ‘unputdownable’!

And as irony would have it, the next book I just picked up to read (which is still work under progress) is an old classic (all classics are old, right!) - All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. A book that became popular not by advertising but by brilliant PR and word of mouth. The story of its popularity is presented in the front flap cover of the book itself. I quote it verbatim:

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten began as Robert Fulghum’s attempt to write a simple credo. In his capacity as a Unitarian minister, he shared his statement of belief with his congregation and then read it at a primary school celebration. As fate would have it, Washington’s Senator Dan Evans was in the audience. Impressed and touched by what he had heard, he requested a copy of Robert Fulghum’s speech and took it back with him to Washington, D.C., where it was eventually read into the Congressional Record.

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten made its way from Washington to the Kansas City Times, which ran Robert Fulghum’s observations in its Sunday edition. The response was overwhelming.

The snowball of enthusiasm keeps building. Portions of the piece were printed in ‘Dear Abby’ and Reader’s Digest. Paul Harvey and Larry King read it to millions on their radio shows and Southwestern Bell sold hundreds of thousands of copies as a poster to its customers. Robert Fulghum’s simple credo was photocopied, sent to loved ones and posted on bulletin boards at schools throughout the country.

The book went on to sell more than millions around the world. All this and more accomplished without a single shred of advertising!

Marketers Vs Accountants

Three marketers and three accountants are traveling by train to a conference. At the station, the three accountants each buy tickets and watch as the three marketers buy only a single ticket. "How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?" asks an accountant.

"Watch and you'll see," answers a marketer.

They all board the train. The accountants take their respective seats but all three marketers cram into a restroom and close the door behind them. Shortly after the train has departed, the conductor comes around collecting tickets. He knocks on the restroom door and says, "Ticket, please." The door opens just a crack and a single arm emerges with a ticket in hand. The conductor takes it and moves on.

The accountants saw this and agreed it was quite a clever idea. So after the conference, the accountants decide to copy the marketers on the return trip and save some money (being clever with money, and all that). When they get to the station, they buy a single ticket for the return trip. To their astonishment, the marketers don't buy a ticket at all.

"How are you going to travel without a ticket?" says one perplexed accountant.

"Watch and you'll see," answers a marketer.

When they board the train, the three accountants cram into a restroom and the three marketers cram into another one nearby. The train departs. Shortly afterward, one of the marketers leaves his restroom and walks over to the restroom where the accountants are hiding.

He knocks on the door and says, "Ticket, please."

Is economics boring?

I find it surprising when most students I meet say economics is a boring subject. I find it even more appalling when MBA’s and marketing majors say it. Well, they would do well to know that economics is the mother of marketing. Most marketing theories be it consumer behaviour, market dynamics, competition, pricing and more have all been derived from economic theory.

If you subscribe to the view that economics is boring, or even worse, that economics is not for me, I intend correcting your opinion about economics. Not by telling how economics is useful but by telling you how it is not boring…by listing a few hilarious quotes from economics. Enjoy!

An economist is somebody who sees something happen in practice and wonders if it will work in theory.

A man explained inflation to his wife thus: 'When we married, you measured 36-24-36. Now you're 42-42-42. There's more of you, but you are not worth as much.'

All the great economic ills the world has faced can be directly traced back to the London School of Economics.

Making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg. It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else.

The first law of economists: For every economist, there exists an equal and opposite economist. The second law of economists: They're both wrong.

The economy depends about as much on economists as the weather does on weather forecasters.

Inflation is when you pay fifteen dollars for the ten-dollar haircut you used to get for five dollars when you had hair.

The trouble with unemployment is that the minute you wake up in the morning you're on the job.

An economist is a man who knows a hundred ways of making love but doesn’t know any women.

Government's view of the economy could be summed up thus: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidise it.

Prosecute the protectionists

One of the many things that dominate the marketing scene these days has got nothing to do with marketing. It’s got to do with stupid politics (well, when was politics anything else). It’s the increasing clamour by politicians and spineless businessmen and some stupid sections of public who get swayed by the formers’ arguments – a clamour for protection – ‘save the small retailer from the threat of multinational monsters, ‘protect small industry from the tyranny of foreign competition’ etc.

All the arguments bandied about in support of protection could be rebutted with impeccable economic logic but allow me to quote a funny anecdote from the annals of economic history. It’s called ‘the Candlemakers’ Petition’.

The Candlemakers' Petition is a well-known satire of protectionism written and published in 1845 by the French economist Frédéric Bastiat as part of his Economic Fallacies. In the Candlemakers' petition, the candle makers and industrialists from other parts of the lighting industry petition the Chamber of Deputies of the French July Monarchy (1830–1848) to protect their trade from the unfair competition of a foreign power.

Guess who the foreign power is? Therein lies the satire! I have abridged the actual petition here. Enjoy.


“We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our sales cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of French industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation.

This rival is none other than the sun!

We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all windows, dormers, skylights, inside and outside shutters, curtains, casements, bull's-eyes, deadlights, and blinds -- in short, all openings, holes, chinks, and fissures through which the light of the sun is wont to enter houses, to the detriment of the candle industry.

Be good enough, honourable deputies, to take our request seriously, and do not reject it without at least hearing the reason. If you shut off as much as possible all access to natural light, and thereby create a need for artificial light, the candle industry in France will ultimately be encouraged.

Will you tell us that, though we may gain by this protection, France will not gain at all, because the consumer will bear the expense?

We have our answer ready: You no longer have the right to invoke the interests of the consumer. You have sacrificed him whenever you have found his interests opposed to those of the producer. You have done so in order to encourage industry and to increase employment. For the same reason you ought to do so this time too.”


If you wish to read the entire petition here is the place to find it:
http://www.ccsindia.org/ccsindia/lacs/25candlemakers_petition.pdf

Read this, especially the next time you feel there should be some industry that needs to be protected from competition.

Is more the merrier?

…. maybe in life, but definitely not while your are positioning your brand or offering a promise. Brevity is the soul of wit and brand positioning.

Lux is glamour.
Dettol is protection.
Axe is sexual attraction.
Close Up is fresh breath.

What is Colgate? Yup, protection.

And what is Pepsodent? Protection, again?

How can two brands in the same category have the same positioning and still survive to tell the tale? They both did, didn’t they? Colgate has around 40% market share and Pepsodent has around 20% or so.

Pepsodent was younger; has far more modern imageries and is probably more kiddish than Colgate, which is older, serious and motherly. And Pepsodent has a strong ‘reason to believe’ – Germi-check formula (whatever that meant!).

And then something happened. The marketing whiz kids at Levers relaunched Pepsodent aka giving the brand a face-lift.

‘Dus nahi toh bas nahi’ – Pepsodent now fights 10!

The more the merrier!

Why just fight germs. Now let your toothpaste fight ……wait a minute. What are the 10 things that Pepsodent fights with?

Do you remember…..at least one of them? That’s the point. And that’s Pepsodent’s problem today.

Give the human mind one thing to remember and chances are high it would. Give it more than one, and it remembers none. Give it ten, and recalling them is anything but fun!

Germi-check was easy to remember. ‘Dus nahi toh bas nahi’ is easy to remember too but what’s difficult to remember is what those 10 things are. Consumers can’t recall. And when consumers can’t recall they don’t realize why they should buy the brand. And when they don’t realize that, they don’t actually buy the brand. Period.

It is already being evident. A recent press report quotes industry figures and states Pepsodent grew only 2% last year. The industry, though, grew by 14%.

A new growing brand like Pepsodent has stopped growing and is almost stagnating.

Surprised? I am. Not that it is stagnating but that it actually managed to grow in spite of the confused revamp.

By the way, Colgate grew, thank you. They have just one thing to establish – protection. And they are doing it well and doing fine in the market too.

More, in the context of brand positioning or promise, is no merry. Just a cause for worry!

Generic Brands

A few weeks back I had asked if there are any other brands other than FedEx that have become generic and moved into the English dictionary.


Ram has come out with a whole bunch of brands (or should we call words) that have become generic and part of the lexicon.

Here is the list of brands that he has sent. Thanx Ram!

Roller blade
Walkman
Chap Stick
Dumpster
Velcro
Biro
Gramophone
Laser
Kerosene
Frisbee
Windsurfer
Escalator
Formica
Thermos
Linoleum


P.S: Ram, you addressed me as ‘Sir’ in your comments. Are you one of my unfortunate students or are you one of this blog's readers who is just being nice?