Ged Carroll

Category: fmcg | 雜貨業務 | 소비재 | 食料品事業

FMCG or fast moving consumer goods sprang out of the mass industrialisation. Brands sprang up originally as a guarantee of quality. Later on as these brands needed to be promoted, we saw the foundation of the what we think of as modern marketing and advertising.

Today media and entertainment takes up an increasing amount of the household spend, as does housing, but FMCGs are a crucial part of their essential and disposable income spend.

They have nostalgia wrapped up in them, distinctive aromas, taste and packaging designs. From the smell of my Granny using so much Pledge on the TV that I was surprised it didn’t burst into flame to the taste of Cidona and texture of Boland’s Fig Roll biscuits in my mouth.

The sound of their advertising jingles was the soundtrack of my childhood. Digital advertising is largely rationale, it lacks the fluent devices that provide the centre to advertising and made FMCG advertising iconic. Fluent devices like the Peperami ‘Animal’, the M&M characters or the Cadbury Smash robots were embedded in deep marketing research. FMCG brands still sponsor the best research in marketing science.

I had the good fortune to work inhouse at Unilever and agency-side for their brands. I also managed to work on Coca-Cola and Colgate during my time in Hong Kong.

  • High production values & things from last week

    If there was one theme that ran through most of the things in this week’s post its high production values in content creation

    The thing that blew me about this advert is how old school it feels and I mean it in a good way. High production values, great copywriting and beautifully shot. Pretty much everything that modern day adverts tend not to be with production being commoditised with the constant focus on how it can be used on Istagram / Facebook / Snap / Twitter Video – good enough rather than doing things well. These changes are symptomatic of all the forces affecting the ad industry at the moment. More on quality related issues here.

    While we’re talking about ad making, I also love this ad done for McDonalds Hong Kong in the early 1990s. Such a simple idea really well executed – you don’t need to speak Cantonese to get it. It is apparently based on this advert screened during the Super Bowl in the US. The creative was done during Leo Burnett’s 35-year run as creative agency for the fast food chain.

    Scott Galloway tends to polarise opinions, so I’d ask you to put aside any feelings you have and listen to this interview with Mr Bags – one of the biggest influencers in the luxury sector for Chinese netizens at the moment.

    Amazing photos and insight into the Yakuza life: Behind the Yakuza: documenting the women of Japan’s mafia | Dazed Digital

    Currently reading City of Devils : A Shanghai Noir by Paul French. It is a true crime story about Shanghai during the Warlord period prior to World War Two. I’m only a little bit into the book but it’s very obvious why the young Chinese Communist Party would have held a passionate dislike for western powers interfering in their country.

  • Uniqlo IQ + more things

    あなた専用のお買い物アシスタントが、ついに登場！UNIQLO IQ – UNIQLO ユニクロ – voice enabled digital shopping assistant Uniqlo IQ, more information here: How Uniqlo developed its ‘digital concierge’ voice service | Analysis | Campaign Asia – the initiative was developed through a collaboration between Party and Inamoto & Co. Campaign asked the people behind the project to explain how they did it. Rei Inamoto, founder of Inamoto & Co, said his company first presented the idea of an “AI-powered customer service engagement platform” two years ago. He said the main aim was to help Uniqlo manage inventory more efficiently, which is deceptively difficult in the retail business. “It’s a question of how you manage expectations and predict what kinds of products will be popular and sell more,” he said. IQ sits within Uniqlo’s mobile application and is also integrated into Google Assistant. It is connected to real-time store inventory data and uses text and voice interaction to help would-be customers find products to buy via the app or in the outlets closest to them. It is also designed to be used during the physical shopping process, and recommends new products based on individual searches, hourly product rankings, occasions and personal specifications such as daily horoscopes – Uniqlo IQ is a fascinating development that is Alexa before Alexa. Uniqlo has been a technology innovator in terms of consumer facing experiences and Uniqlo IQ builds on this work. It is a shame that Uniqlo IQ didn’t make it beyond the Japanese market though. More related content here.

    China Properties Group Limited (PDF) via Google Drive – the money quote – 10 years ago, the U.S. printed money like crazy and exported U.S. dollars all over the world. Now, the U.S. has become a global enemy, trying to bring back the exported U.S. dollars (the U.S. dollar debt of the emerging market in the first quarter was close to 3.7 trillion) and supply chains, as well as to undermine the asset markets of other countries and the global supply chain order. No wonder the U.S. has made a lot of enemies. Fortunately, Trump does not have the same wisdom as Mao Zedong in making alliance with one while fighting another. He wants to fight the world. But to defeat the U.S. hegemony is not an easy task. The history told us that those who wanted to kick out the big brother would run the risk of being wiped out. Nevertheless, Chinese are savvy and resourceful. Deng Xiaoping said, “we should grope our way across the river, going one step at a time”. Jiang Zemin said, “keep a low profile to make a big fortune”. Han Xin demonstrated his immense ability to endure humility in order to preserve his existence for future accomplishments. Such wisdoms contributed to the creation of incredible historical achievements one after the other. Today, the U.S. is pushing the trade war to the limit. Yet, it is not easy to cripple the China model, even with Trump’s wisdom. With a looming war, there are risks as well as opportunities. Therefore, the Group’s established policies will remain unchanged. While some projects are delayed pending for the government’s new plan, the Group will always ensure that Shareholders’ benefits are well taken care of.

    With Goals, FAST Beats SMART – MIT Sloan Management Review – I need to read this properly, skimmed it and thought it was worthy of a further read

    How the wheels came off Ford | Business | The Sunday Times – not so sure that Jaguar Land Rover will be as good a deal in the longer term

    Branded in the 80s | Remembering what it was like to be a kid!  – A couple of quotes from this piece that got me:

    What I’m realizing as I try and look at this trend from outside of my own nostalgia is that this is a sign of the end of the golden era for my own generation. I can’t count how many times I sat and listened to my father talk about how different the world seemed in the first 40 years of his life. How much seemed to change during the 70s and 80s that obliterated the world that he was accustomed to growing up in the 40s and 50s. Institutions that he imagined would be around forever that had disappeared almost overnight. Soda fountains, local pharmacies, 5 & Dimes, seasonal burger or fry stands, car hops, diners, drive-ins…

    Amazon is basically a virtual Toys R Us. And probably one of the biggest realizations that we as adults have to come to grips with? Kids just don’t play with toys the same way that we did 20 and 30 years ago. Video games, television and Youtube have superseded toys in a lot of households. Sure, we still buy a lot of toys for kids, but I’ve watched first-hand has nieces and nephews receive the kind of toys that I had as a kid and they just sit in their rooms collecting dust.

    PHD retains Unilever business across Greater China region | Media | Campaign Asia – great news for Phd and lost opportunity for Mindshare who cleaned up on last years global pitch

    Publicis, VCCP named winners in Cathay Pacific’s first pitch in 25 years | Advertising | Campaign Asia – big loss for McCann who were unassailable just a few years ago and major lost opportunity for WPP

    The Ecological Impact of Browser Diversity | CSS-Tricks – a little disappointed that KDE’s work that would go into Konqueror didn’t get credit as the starting point for WebKit . Otherwise a great read

    FCC to invest $1.5 billion over 10 years in expansion of rural broadband – will US carriers just trouser the cash like they did last time?

    Farmland (@farmlandfoods) • Instagram photos and videos – love the way that they put their farmers in Supreme; though the gains will be marginal at best

    Starbucks’ Frappuccino Gets a Sugar Makeover – WSJ – makes complete sense given regulatory push back on sugar (paywall)

    Philip Kotler’s influence in the Soviet Union and Russia | European Business Review | Vol 20, No 2 – pay walled but just reading the abstract about marketing coming to Russia in 1980 via a highly censored bootleg translation of Philip Kotler’s Marketing Management is nuts

    Apple buys startup focused on lenses for AR glasses | Reuters – also interesting for cameras

    Old ads come back to haunt Didi Hitch following rape-murder cases | PR | Campaign Asia – The past ads are suggestive, always showing a male driver and a female passenger and using romantic analogies between car-pooling, movie-watching or trying out clothes in private fitting rooms. “Such obvious sexual hints,” remarked one online commenter. The copywriting follows suit with the images. One ad reads [translation by Campaign]: Is it really a coincidence? Oh, we met again. It’s [the Didi system] so smart. In fact, I already knew your little secret, your car is actually not on the way. But this is such a sweet show, I want to continue acting with you. – you can see why netizens think that the ads promoted instances of rape and murder

    Unbowed by Brexit, Swiss Bank Seeks Clients in `Red Hot’ North – Bloomberg – capital flight opportunity? Footballers (and their WAGs) looking to hedge against a post-Brexit pound?

    What The Hell Was The Microsoft Network? – early online service a la CompuServe or Aol

  • RXBar + more things

    RXBar runs anti-ad with quirky campaign featuring Ice-T | CMO Strategy – Ad Age – the brutal honesty is likely to get old fast, but shows how breaking the rules works. RXBar being a challenger brand can afford to get away with this in order to build (temporary) brand salience

    From laboratory in far west, China’s surveillance state spreads quietly | Reuters – The scanners are hand-held or desktop devices that can break into smartphones and extract and analyze contact lists, photos, videos, social media posts and email. – Apparently works on iPhones as well as domestic Android handsets

    CEO pay: How the pay-for-performance model fails — Quartz at Work – In the 1970s, shareholders took out about 50% of a company’s profits, while the rest was reinvested in the productive capacity of the firm, including R&D to employee training and rewards. Today, the shareholder gets over 90% between dividends and share buybacks. Today, a 60% or greater weight on equity or equivalents is the norm in pay packages. – this isn’t new Will Hutton was writing about this in The State We’re In over two decades ago

    Hong Kong separatist party leader Andy Chan Ho-tin calls China ‘a threat to all free peoples in the world’ in fiery Foreign Correspondents’ Club speech | South China Morning Post  – The FCC website was down on Tuesday afternoon because of a suspected malware attack. – subtle China, subtle. I’d be very surprised if China doesn’t dial up emphasis on China patriotism over Hong Kong patriotism. More related posts here.

    A $40 Billion Plan to Cash Out Of Bitcoin – Bloomberg – Bitcoin: A digital currency that’s spent nowhere, a commodity that’s used for nothing, and a libertarian dream that’s effectively run by elites. – Bitmain’s chips are apparently more of interest to machine learning processes in the future than the bitcoin mining that they currently do. They also run the biggest bitcoin mining collectives. There is also a key concern over rising energy requirement per bitcoin ‘mind’

  • Batteries + more things

    How Batteries Went From Primitive Power to Global Domination – Bloomberg – but has the technology moved on at a pace to really justify this upsurge? The chemistry in lithium ion batteries was developed back in the 1970s and commercialised by Sony and Asahi Kansei, with the first batteries appearing in 1991.

    Beans – pretty sure that this isn’t an ad, but nicely played. It looks and feels more like a creative calling card that are usually sent to agencies. In this case the video effects house that created this animation. You have a mix of computer animation, green screen backdrop for the moon and . More related content here.

    Fifa threatens action against BeoutQ for infringement of broadcast rights | The Drum – this is interesting. beoutQ is a pirate pay television broadcaster serving Saudi Arabia. Established in 2017, the service primarily simulcasts the programming of Qatar-based broadcaster beIN Sports, with beoutQ on-air logos overlaid over the original ones. beoutQ has similarly taken content from other broadcasters, and its set-top boxes also contain access to various IPTV services carrying other forms of live channels and entertainment content. The service launched shortly after beIN was forced to stop selling its services in Saudi Arabia, due to the then-ongoing diplomatic crisis between Qatar and other Arab countries over alleged government support of terrorist groups. beoutQ set-top boxes and subscriptions have since become widely available in Saudi Arabia. The owners of beoutQ aren’t known. It is suspected that they may have a connection to the Saudi government as it was considered to be a way of attacking Qatar-owned media that come under the gulf states stand off with Qatar.

    Opinion | Hey Boss, You Don’t Want Your Employees to Meditate – The New York Times – nails it. Why mindfulness and meditation isn’t great for a lot of businesses.  (paywall)

  • Three and Superdrug + more

    Three and Superdrug launch new UK MVNO | total telecom – the MVNO deal with Three and Superdrug is a natural deal. Three and Superdrug are both owned by CK Hutchinson Holdings. The interesting bit is the cross business CRM where Three and Superdrug have got together to Superdrug drive loyalty card adoption. More retail related content here.

    THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT needs THE WRONG AND THE SHIT OF IT – BBH – interesting essay. The challenge is where do you get ‘crap’ campaign data from and how well will it be documented?

    Meet Kakao: How Korea’s Largest Mobile Giant Is Embracing Blockchain – CoinDesk – some smart critical thinking

    The Canard About Falling Incomes – WSJ – not an argument that I agree with, but Kessler argues that increasing digital features (like ABS on cars) compensate for the hollowing out of the middle classes (paywall)

    Tesla Model 3 Gets CR Recommendation After Braking Update – Consumer Reports – Teslas inspire a ‘true believer’ type following. I am leery of their ‘always in beta’ car software approach because its a car. So I am more concerned rather than delighted the that company managed to bring its braking distance closer to standard using an other-the-air software update

    Right Media, Creators of the First Ad Exchange | NYMag.com – the rise and fall of Right Media

    Chinese firms pile in to sponsor World Cup 2018 amid Fifa fallout-Sino-US – “Chinese companies get two things from sponsoring the World Cup. The first is access to western audiences that they will sooner or later be trying to win over, as their companies expand. The other is a cosmopolitan veneer to their brands, which they hope will resonate with their sizeable domestic markets.” – interesting that BBK’s youth brand Vivo rather than Huawei is the smartphone sponsor

    Grace Dent: ‘The processed food debate is MSG-sprinkled class war’ | Life and style | The Guardian – I would align it more with a Neo Victorian patrician attitude towards the working class

    Cross border insights finder – handy Facebook ad tool

    ‘I make £45k a month buying clothes for other people’ – The FT catches up with diagou 15 years after everyone else. China’s changes in luxury tax, increased travel of consumers, restrictions on capital flight, clampdown on corruption and e-tailing has had its toll on diagou

    Smart bulbs turn dumb: Lights out for Philips as Hue API goes dark • The Register – I get the benefits of technology but why does heating, lighting or other smart home controls have to be mediated through the cloud?

    Holiday Rentals, Homes, Experiences & Places – Airbnb – AirBnB launches stories which seems to be a continuation of its magazines

    What is a smartphone? | ASSA – really nice essay on smartphones and consumer behaviour

    Shenzhen’s tech innovation hothouse overheats – it’s been going on for the decade or so that I have travelled there. The unaffordability, maker spaces which are a real estate ruse to suck government grants and a grinding life pace. Financial services and design have already moved in. Your in less need of maker spaces when workshops can build working prototypes for you