Reblanding Lessons
"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." – John Wanamaker
If the father of modern advertising were alive right now, I’m sure he would have even choicer words for the Spirited Energy campaign. It was interesting to hear Jim Rondeau on the air yesterday attempting in vain to defend the NDP’s pet project by asserting that venerable names such as Coca-Cola also have branding initiatives.
The better analogy would be the New Coke fiasco. To Coca-Cola’s credit, at least THEY had market research SHOWING that people actually preferred the taste of New Coke to Pepsi. What they missed was the psychological attachment people had to the Classic Coke brand. When terms such as “nauseating” are volleyed about during the Spirited Energy focus group sessions, it would seem that our provincial government had no impetus to go forward with this initiative at all without some semblance of a major overhaul.
Are we perhaps as sentimentally attached to “Friendly Manitoba” as we are to Classic Coke? At least the Manitobans participating in the market research process had the courtesy to give the branding mandarins their take on Spirited Energy campaign from the get-go. If only someone would have listened…
posted by Unapologetic Ex-Winnipegger @ 8:20 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
The spirited energy fiasco should have people angry.
Interesting story, I'm surprised you didn't make more of the fact that the province hired a New York firm rather than a local or national firm to do the campaign.
Given all the maple boosterism we're subjected to as Canadians, I'm surprised our mandarins don't put their money where their mouth is when it comes to their hiring practices.
I guess the local marketing agencies were supposed to FUND their out-of-town competitors and not derive a pecuniary benefit from the initiative.
There is something curiously suspect about using a foreign agency to encourage out of province businesses to set up shop here - it sends a signal that we don't have the in-province business resources. Exactly the kind of thing a business would look at when deciding where to locate.
On the plus side, it must be heartening to Manitoba ad businesses to see that the almighty New York firms anted up quite a stinker...
Well, I can be quite down on Winnipeg sometimes. However, I do route for the home team when it comes to the creative community in Winnipeg - there are enough great writers and artists in the city who could have done the job "in house" so to speak.
And I bet you root for them too...
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