Ged Carroll

Category: marketing | 營銷 | 마케팅 | マーケティング

According to the AMA – Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. This has contained a wide range of content as a section over the years including

  • Super Bowl advertising
  • Spanx
  • Content marketing
  • Fake product reviews on Amazon
  • Fear of finding out
  • Genesis the Korean luxury car brand
  • Guo chao – Chinese national pride
  • Harmony Korine’s creative work for 7-Eleven
  • Advertising legend Bill Bernbach
  • Japanese consumer insights
  • Chinese New Year adverts from China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore
  • Doughnutism
  • Consumer Electronics Show (CES)
  • Influencer promotions
  • A media diary
  • Luxe streetwear
  • Consumerology by marketing behaviour expert Phil Graves
  • Payola
  • Dettol’s back to work advertising campaign
  • Eat Your Greens edited by Wiemer Snijders
  • Dove #washtocare advertising campaign
  • The fallacy of generations such as gen-z
  • Cultural marketing with Stüssy
  • How Brands Grow Part 2 by Jenni Romaniuk and Byron Sharp
  • Facebook’s misleading ad metrics
  • The role of salience in advertising
  • SAS – What is truly Scandinavian? advertising campaign
  • Brand winter
  • Treasure hunt as defined by NPD is the process of consumers bargain hunting
  • Lovemarks
  • How Louis Vuitton has re-engineered its business to handle the modern luxury consumer’s needs and tastes
  • Korean TV shopping celebrity Choi Hyun woo
  • qCPM
  • Planning and communications
  • The Jeremy Renner store
  • Cashierless stores
  • BMW NEXTGen
  • Creativity in data event that I spoke at
  • Beauty marketing trends
  • Kraft Mothers Day marketing
  • RESIST – counter disinformation tool
  • Facebook pivots to WeChat’s business model
  • Smartphone launches

  • Easter & things from last week

    Easter Week has mean’t that I’ve been exceptionally busy closing things before taking the long weekend break. Easter isn’t a huge holiday in the Carroll household, but its the first break that we get since the Christmas holiday, so always welcome. For many students in Europe Easter signals a hard push on revision in advance of exams. If you are studying or relaxing Happy Easter and Passover.

    Kerri Chandler went through one of his Dad’s record boxes, that he hadn’t previously opened. His Dad had been a DJ and inspired Chandler to get behind the turntables himself.

    Chandler Senior’s box is an eclectic collection of songs but also had impeccable taste.

    1. Cerrone – Love in C Minor (1976)
    2. Kerri Chandler – Get It Off (1990)
    3. Kerri Chandler – Super Lover (1990)
    4. Kerri Chandler – Drink On Me (1990)
    5. Ronnie Laws – Always There (1975)
    6. The John Coltrane Quartet – Greensleeves (1961)
    7. Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes – Summer Nights (1975)
    8. The Impressions – People Get Ready (1965)
    9. The Delfonics ‎- Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time) (1969)
    10. Crown Heights Affair – Dreaming a Dream (Goes Dancin) (1976)
    11. Crown Heights Affair – Dancin (Special Disco Mix) (1976)
    12. The Dells – Always Together (1968)
    13. The Dells – I Want My Momma (1968)
    14. The Dells – Agatha Van Thurgood (1968)
    15. Bob James – One Mint Julep (1976)
    16. Bob James – Westchester Lady (1976)
    17. Roy Ayers – Searching (1976)
    18. Teena Marie – Portuguese Love (1981)
    19. Jakki – Sun…Sun…Sun.. (1976)
    20. Donald Byrd – Lansana’s Priestess (1973)
    21. Roy Ayers – Running Away (1977) 
    22. Kerri Chandler – Atmosphere E.P. – Track 1 (1993) 
    23. Martin Circus – ‘Disco Circus (Disco Version) (1979)
    24. Quincy Jones – Killer Joe (1969)
    25. Michael Franks – Tell Me All About It (1983)

    You can here it here via Mixmag

    More related posts here.

    Beats in Space put together yet another amazing mix

    Amazon leaving China. Amazon bought into an e-commerce business which at the time had just over 10% of the country’s e-commerce market. At the time I had colleagues in Hong Kong who worked on promoting the newly acquired business. A number of years ago I spent an inordinate amount of time creating a three-page document pitch for the Amazon China business. At that time Amazon’s market share was between 1.5 and 2% of the Chinese e-commerce market place. Five years later and its down to 0.6%.

    1904 - Amazon China

    What’s going on? Like most things there are a wealth of factors impacting foreign competitors in China. But one big one that people probably don’t want to admit is that Silicon Valley isn’t insurmountable. For decades the US technology has managed to concentrate wealth and talent in a small place and then benefited from market scale. Europe has been unable to replicate this success. It’s home market is an aggregation of markets that aren’t as integrated or coalesce as well as the US. And US companies exploit the European single market treating as divisible international components illegally.

    When US companies like Google, Uber and Amazon hit China they come up against:

    • Smart people – Chinese universities churn out huge amounts of developers, engineers, designers and business managers
    • Huge home market scale
    • Equally well motivated entrepreneurs who know their home market better than the foreigners. They are also willing to work very hard with a 996 culture
    • Local market conditions that are divergent from their own. For instance, Google failed to predict how fast it needed to grow its search indexing to match the Chinese web. Baidu kept throwing in the boxes needed. Google had lost when it suddenly changed its mind on censorship
    • Government regulation (but that isn’t as important as they’d have you believe in most cases)

    Amazon thinks that its cross border business where Chinese consumers buy abroad from online will grow. Consumers do this to get products that they can trust. Domestic platforms have made big gains in this market sector too though.

    I wouldn’t buy a Range Rover Evogue, even if I was richer than Bill Gates. But I did love this advert.

    And this old video of Jim Carroll talking about ideas as they relate to account planning.


  • Chinese typing + more things

    The complexity of Chinese typing. Chinese typing relies extensively on predictive text technology. It is even more problematic that Chinese people are forgetting what some characters look like. The idea of memory trade-off is interesting. It is also worthwhile considering when one thinks about Chinese internet behaviour and the popularity of gaming (because chat can be a pain)

    Meet Liam. He has 5000 Instagram followers, but no pulse. | Campaign Asia – Nikuro is Japan’s first male virtual influencer. A 3D computer-sculpted head mapped onto to a live-action body, he seeks work “in the fields of music, fashion, and entertainment, where he will be involved in the production of a wide range of content as a multimedia producer”, according to the company, which also mentions using AI to create innovative content – digital influencers won’t misbehave, have a me too moment or be arrested for a criminal offence.

    An amazing looking Mac-based desktop phone. This was an Apple prototype from 1993. Eventually things went the other way and phones were integrated into computers. This was from back when people were starting to think about VoIP services and Novell Networks integrated telephony solutions. And that’s before we even get to smartphones.

    The quaint industrial case design is classic early 1990s Silicon Valley chic. You can also see aspects of the thinking of General Magic’s connected devices in this computer. More design related posts here.

    Kantar Media has done some qualitative research on consumer attitudes to marketing, media and advertising. You’ve got three reports that are free to download: Dimension 2019 | Kantar 

    Finally: TODAYonline | LVMH shares hit record high as China demand boosts luxury group – luxury is still on a bit of a screamer in China. And this is despite economic growth halving year on year since Premier Xi took power, a clampdown on corruption and gift-giving.

  • Netflix DVD service + more things

    Why 2.7 million Americans still get Netflix DVD service in the mail – CNN – Netflix also has plenty of DVD customers in urban areas who prefer the service for its convenience and selection of movies, spokeswoman Annie Jung says. “People assume that our customers must either be super seniors or folks that live in the boonies with no internet access,” she says. “Actually, our biggest hot spots are the coasts, like the Bay Area and New York.” – Netflix DVD service in the US covers the long tail like arthouse cinema and cult classics that the streaming service doesn’t address. They are two differentiated offerings rather than substitutes now. It is interesting that Blu-Ray hasn’t displace Netflix DVD service. More on Netflix here.

    Audi’s New Electric Car Factory Goes Green | Wired – Electric vehicles consume more energy than gasoline-powered rides during manufacturing and manufacture is 70% of a gasoline powered car’s carbon footprint. Something to think about when you drive a Tesla rather than a classic vintage Land Rover or diesel Mercedes

    Luxury Daily | Jean-Paul Gaultier is the latest brand to collaborate on streetwear – with Supreme. I think the outsider reputation of JPG fits streetwear really well, in its heyday it really got culture (paywall)

    How Rolex Is Revamping Its Digital Channels: 3 Marketing Innovations Not To Miss | Luxury Society – interesting how they are melding brand purpose and product messages

    How US went from telecoms leader to 5G also-ran without challenger to China’s Huawei | South China Morning Post – Interesting how Qualcomm is implicitly being blamed in this op-ed. There is no consideration of the implosion of new telcos following the dot.com bust for instance which took out fixed line equipment etc – Verizon and Sprint chose the CDMA mobile standard, developed by US firm Qualcomm, which operated on different frequencies than GSM, adopted by Europe. After the initial boom in the mobile industry following deregulation, the US telecommunications industry began to decline from 2001

    The Quietus | News | RBMA And Red Bull Radio To Shut Down – “Red Bull will be moving away from a strongly centralized approach, will gradually phase out the existing structure and will implement a new setup which empowers existing Red Bull country teams and utilizes local expertise. Red Bull will continue to explore new ways to support promising and cutting-edge artists wherever they may be.” – major move

    New Huawei phone has a 5x optical zoom, thanks to a periscope lens | Ars Technica – reminds me a lot of Konica Minolta’s pocket digital cameras (the first standalone digital camera that I owned), everything old is new again

    Irish government concludes there is no viable plan B | total telecom – “We still don’t have universal 4G coverage so it’s a bit of a pipe dream to suggest we are going to have universal 5G coverage to deliver the national broadband plan,” the country’s communications minister, Richard Bruton, said. – To be fair, London doesn’t have universal mobile coverage, let alone 4G coverage.

    Google’s work in China benefiting China’s military: U.S. general | Reuters – “The work that Google is doing in China is indirectly benefiting the Chinese military,” Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “We watch with great concern when industry partners work in China knowing that there is that indirect benefit,” he said. “Frankly, ‘indirect’ may be not a full characterization of the way it really is, it is more of a direct benefit to the Chinese military.”

    Increasing The Effectiveness of PR Agency Partnerships in China | Holmes Report – Insight from R3’s China PR Scope Report reveals that though PR agencies are highly regarded in content (23.7%) and media management (17.8%), they are not particularly strong in KOL and celebrity engagement (3.9% and 1.3%) – if I were an international agency I’d be really concerned about this. It shows a failure to adapt that is probably more spectacular than in the west

    U.K. Pub Chain Bans Mobile Phone Use in Bid to Encourage Talking – Bloomberg – our pubs are for social conversation person to person – actually no they’re for drinking

    BrandZ says Huawei is strongest Chinese brand outside China, but why? | Marketing | Campaign Asia – despite lots of documented geopolitical issues, the year was still very good for Huawei in terms of branding, driven by focus on 5G and R&D leading to chip-level AI capabilities, foldable phones and other innovations, said Doreen Wang, global head of BrandZ at Kantar. – for an index that’s looking at marketing and advertising being converted to brand equity this isn’t good news

    KFC Bought a Time Slot on Ultra Music Festival’s Main Stage | Music News | Consequence of Sound – you can see how this would all happen in a William Gibson book plot about the bankruptcy of culture in the near future. A client hungry of innovation and a desire to resonate with millennials and gen-Z. A jaded creative director who liked DeadMau5 and the agency’s news sponsorship and cultural partnerships team. I’m just surprised that there wasn’t a SnapChat tie in somewhere

    Facebook’s most shared story of 2019 is a 119-word local crime brief from Central Texas. | Slate – interesting insight into how Facebook’s algorithms drove this

    What Finally Killed AirPower | iFixit – Apple boxed themselves into an electromagnetic corner. What they wanted to do was physically possible—and they surely had it working in the lab—but they couldn’t consistently meet the rigorous transmission requirements that are designed to keep us safe from our gadgets.

    Report: Huawei Riddled With ‘Long Term Security Risks’ – ExtremeTech – In short, Huawei isn’t trying to riddle its software or hardware with secret back doors, but it’s also really, really bad at security. That’s not a conclusion that’s hard to fathom, particularly given how many companies have been hit by security breaches or had their own poor practices exposed – Huawei aren’t Machiavellian, they’re just incompetent and unwilling or unable to fulfil their infosec commitments?

    T-Mobile Introduces Private Phone Booths for Making Calls, Surfing the Web, Taking Selfies | Frequent Business Traveler – so in the same business as WeWork then

    The Apple Card is great (playing devil’s advocate) | Boarding Area – the money quote in this article ‘Here’s the part where I pretend to love the card and argue why it really is cool and revolutionary.’

    Chupa Chups logo, designed by Salvador Dali | Logo Design Love – Salvador Dali designed the logo, just wow

    Appl Still Hasn’t Fixd Its MacBook Kyboad Problm | WSJ – this is quite shocking (paywall)

  • Qualcomm smart speaker platform + more

    Qualcomm smart speaker platform for AI-enabled devices – Business Insider – will Qualcomm attract the same developer community as Amazon’s Alexa has? The Qualcomm smart speaker platform will find it hard to get audiences wanting high quality audio as Apple found out with the first generation HomePod. It won’t only be Qualcomm chips that boost the cost but the complete component chain

    Google is making antitrust concessions in Europe – Business Insider – reminds me a lot of the European settlement that Microsoft made with the EU that then facilitated the popularity of Firefox (and Chrome)

    The New Zealand shooter finds support in Islamophobic corners of China’s internet — Quartz – many comments reflected the view that the shooting was a by-product of the West’s excessive political correctness, a perspective that has found increasing support on China’s internet in recent years as part of what’s known as the baizuo, or “white left” movement, a derogatory term used to describe Western progressives that is roughly analogous to the term “social justice warrior.”

    Google Stadia is a Net Neutrality Nightmare – Variety – the numerous unknowns and uncertainties of Stadia, from pricing to game library to concerns over internet latency and speed requirements, what’s truly disconcerting is the unspoken assumption that forgoing hardware is a net positive for consumers and creators alike. Ultimately, the adult in all of us is sick of having to repurchase video game boxes just to keep up (at least, I am). But if a PC is like a puppy in how it brings you some kind of joy or entertainment, you have to ask yourself one question. Would you rent a puppy?

    MoviePass co-founder’s new app rewards you with movie tickets for watching ads | BGR – how many ads would you have to watch and what kind of personal information is being used in targeting? Also what kind of incentives does this set up and is that the kind of demographic an advertiser wants to reach?

    APAC accounts for less than 15% of revenue for holding companies, says R3 – really interesting, especially when I remember Sir Martin (Sorrell) saying at Stream Asia a number of years ago that APAC had more WPP employees than Europe in his state of the union type speech

    The 2019 Lincoln Nautilus | Morning Run :60 | Lincoln – YouTube – interesting ad how Ford’s Lincoln brand is trying to associate the in-car information with the utility (in fitness terms at least) with wearable tech

    Why I’m Swapping My iPhone for an Alarm Clock From 1939 – WSJ – focused design rather than convergence (paywall)

    ThoughtfulGiftCards.com – Is It a Scam, or Just Shady Marketing? | JoAnna Wahlund – interesting marketing tactic / social engineering – I respect the thinking, if not the use that it was put to

    Can a Facebook Post Make Your Insurance Cost More? – WSJ – in Wadds book Brand Vandals I warned that this was inevitable. Seven years later and its now an issue

    Swiss Watchmakers Say Slowing Growth in China Won’t Hurt Sales | News & Analysis | BoF – Switzerland’s watch industry is going through a period of profound change, notably in distribution, as brands focus on developing their own boutiques — brick and mortar or online — while reducing their network of third-party retailers

    Amazon Beauty: Who Is Selling What? An Exclusive Analysis of Over 200,000 Beauty and Personal Care Listings on Amazon.com | Coreinsight – interesting read (PDF) particularly in light of Amazon Kicks Off Spring with the Launch of Belei, its First Dedicated Skincare Line | Amazon.com, Inc. – Press Room – 12 products including moisturisers, serums, eye cream, spot treatments and more

    Most Amazon Brands Are Duds, Not Disrupters, Study Finds – Bloomberg – but then most new consumer product launches are duds

    How Baselworld Can Establish its Relevance Once More | Luxury Society – interesting case study from the Digital Luxury Group. More luxury-related posts here.

    Why “Drop” Retail Is the Future of Luxury Sales in China – “Drops have been popular in China because consumers want to feel that brands are making an effort to design or offer product specifically for them and drop retailing gives brands the opportunity to show that they are focused on doing something special specifically for China”

    Luxury Marketers Can no Longer View Chinese Consumers as a Monolith | Luxury Society – they shouldn’t have ever viewed Chinese consumers as a monolith in the first place

    Walmart Builds a Secret Weapon to Battle Amazon for Retail’s Future – WSJ – (paywall)

    US Army applying new areas of math | John D Cook – expect homotopy type theory (HoTT) to be the new machine learning in a few years

    China’s middle class stress over debt payments as unemployment hits two-year high | SCMP – only a matter of time before this happened due to overheated property market and slowing economic growth

  • Robot launch + more things

    Automata Eve robot launch

    I went along to the Automata Eve robot launch. More about the robot launch in more detail once I get around to write the post. Eve is a robotic arm aimed for light industrial usage.

    Untitled

    Everything else

    Moleskine Now Offers Retreats for People Who Work Remotely – Condé Nast Traveler – I get why they may be focusing on freelancers as the creative industries sees agencies using an increasing amount of freelancers. But there is also an opportunity for a luxury experience offering.

    Japanese porn company Soft on Demand wants to use virgin power to create electricity for romantic Tokyo event – Japanese marketers never fail to surprise me with these odd campaigns. The power comes from stationary exercise bikes. I couldn’t do any better than Sora News 24 at explaining how this campaign all comes together, so go and read it all there. Soft on Demand is the Japan’s largest adult entertainment media company and are putting a lot of money into marketing VR content

    Why Canon is helping users rent their kit to each other | Marketing | Campaign Asia – interesting idea but I could foresee a lot of problems with an AirBnB for camera bodies and lens, or maybe I am just a low trust individual. More marketing related content here.

    I hadn’t realised that population ageing and decline is a bigger issue in Bulgaria than it is in western European countries like Germany or the Nordics. In terms of population decline it even outstrips Korea and Japan.

    This seems to have been driven by the economic hardship caused in the immediate aftermath of the economic collapse of the Comintern (Communist International) group members and break up of the Soviet Union into Russia and members of the CIS.

    Very interesting documentary on the day-to-day impact by showing the lives of villagers that have been hit hard through this decline.