Marketing Mistakes - International marketing

One of the biggest problems that develops a marketing mistake, especially in international marketing, is translations.

So many big organisations have had these problems when entering new markets, where campaign slogans or names of products have been translated into offensive messages. Here are just a few of the marketing blunders caused by the translation issue:

Pepsi - "Pepsi brings your ancestors back to life"

Pepsi are one of the big brands that suffered this marketing flaw, when trying to expand into China. Pepsi marketing campaign to penetrate the far east focused on the motto "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" , which translated into "Pepsi Brings your ancestors back to life" . Although this may seem funny, expanding internationally is very costly, and a campaign which offers such a "bold statement" and absurd message from the view of the Chinese population could have cost Pepsi millions of pounds. This mistake is worse compared to many other campaigns that are translated internationally because of  the opportunities  of China's dramatically rising economy.

Coors Light - "Suffer from Diarrhoea"

Coors Light, the American beer company, decided to use the slogan "Turn it loose" when advertising its product in Spain. Unfortunately for Coors, the translation of their popular slogan in Spanish meant "Suffer from Diarrhoea". Slightly more hilarious than the Pepsi mishap, the Coors Light slogan could have potentially damaged their reputation in Spain, especially when comparing a consumable good as something that will potentially make you "Suffer from Diarrhoea"

KFC- Finger licking good, or eat your fingers off?

The final brand that will be covered in this marketing mistakes post will be Kentucky Fried Chicken. KFC decided to branch out into the Asian markets like many other companies have done before, and like many other companies, they did not do their research into how their slogan would be translated. In 1985, KFC hit mainland China, bringing their slogan  with them which is just as famous as the brand itself  -"Finger licking good". Little did they know that when translated into Chinese lettering, their slogan would state "Eating your fingers off". Now this marketing mistake could have cost KFC millions of pounds just like Pepsi, but because of their brands strength, they succeeded in china after changing their slogan and proceeed to have over 900 outlets in China.

Conclusion

Whether a business large or small (but most likely large) when moving into international waters, make sure that you pull our your new dictionary and get translating! Although the said companies managed to get away with their marketing mistakes, others may not be so lucky!

Advertisement of the week : Ant & Dec

This is a belated advertisement of the week which was wrote several weeks back, but because of assignments and exam revision I was unable to finish it, but here it is now!

Our advertisements of the week include both a Christmas theme and TV show advertisement,both featuring two hilarious men from the north east of England, Ant and Dec!

I'm a celebrity get me out of here

As a lot of you will all know, the very popular ITV show "I'm a celebrity GET ME OUT OF HERE!" has just started this past Sunday, and to get people on board, the faces of the show Ant and Dec featured in a short 1 minute advert on ITV to promote the show! But they aren't the reason I enjoyed this short clip, the reason is the Aussie driver who picks them up...check it out and see why!

Christmas with Morrisons

 The second advert in my advertisements of the week this week is the Morrison's Christmas Advert. this little number features the "be our guest" song which famously stars in the well known Disney classic Beauty and the Beast, with the main stars being Ant, Dec and the gingerbread man! This advert differs from the John Lewis advert included in advert of the week last week as it uses celebrity endorsement, Ant & Dec.

Marketing Mistakes - New Coke

Marketing is used by all companies, from large Plc.'s too small sole traders, so occasionally, things are can wrong.

This series of blog posts will highlight various marketing mistakes, large and small, and how the companies that made these mistakes dealt with the situation they put themselves in.

New Coke

One of the biggest marketing mistakes from all time happens to come from one of the largest companies in the world, The Coca-Cola Company. This marketing disaster occurred in one of the most important times in Coca-Cola's history, when the "coke wars" between themselves and Pepsi Cola was bigger than ever before.

Coca-Cola, the worlds no.1 drink, was to be re-released as "New Coke". New branding, new taste and serious faces to promote the brand was to be put into the member of the publics eyes, little did Coke know that they were going to be making one of the biggest marketing mistakes known to man!

New coke, source: www.coca-colacompany.com

New coke was introduced in 1985 to try and increase Coke's market share, which had been slipping over the past 15 years closer and closer to Pepsi, their nearest rivals. (http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/coke-lore-new-coke, 2013). Celebrities such as Bill Cosby were brought in to promote what was meant to be the "new tasting phenomenon"... although this was not the case. By June 1985, The Coca-Cola Company was receiving on average 1,500 calls a day on the consumer hotline, this being compared to the 400 a day before the taste change, showed that Coca-Cola had made a big mistake, some would even say the worse marketing blunder of the century.

By July, Coca-Cola announced that the original Coca-Cola would be put back into store's, meaning those who had been rationing their Coca-Cola bottles would be free to start drinking that taste they ever so loved.

BUT.... the question by many people is, was this actually a marketing mistake?

Since this "marketing epidemic" Coca-Cola have been the leading soft drink in almost every country in the world, as well as "Coke" being the second most used word, second to "OK".

New Coke happened to not tingle those Coca-Cola lovers taste buds, but when they decided to bring back the original Coca-Cola, those who loved the product before fell in love right away, and this is the reason why they have continued to be the leading soft drink.

Although Coca-Cola got away with this mishap, it does not mean any other company can.

The strength of The Coca-Cola Company's brand, and the acquired taste of the original Coca-Cola just goes to show that a highly reputable brand with one of the best products in a market can get away with the stupidest of marketing ploys ... But I wouldn't advise it for any other company

Quick update : Intergrated Marketing Communications

Part of one of my modules, Integrated Marketing Communications, is to produce a blog and complete 3 articles focusing on these topics. Luckily, starting this blog several months ago I'm already slightly ahead of my peers, and sort of have the hang of this "Blogging" malarkey!

My task is to produce three blog posts covering certain topics, which are:

• Marketing Mistakes
• Guerrilla Marketing
• Advertising to Children
• Digital Media

Although I am only required too complete three post on said topics, I will aim to cover all of the topics is several different blog posts, so keep your eyes peeled!

Cheers,

Kyle.

Advertisements of the week - John Lewis & Marks and Spencers

Coming into the winter months, and just over a month to go till Christmas, I'm sure this will be one of many adverts of the week that includes a Christmas theme!

This week's Advertisements of the week come from two well known UK retailers; M&S and John Lewis!

John Lewis - The Bear and the Hare

First we will start with the John Lewis Bear and the Hare advert. This advert focus' on an emotional message, using a short cartoon that pictures a hare introducing a bear to his very first Christmas, as he had hibernated through it every other year! :)

BUT the story doesn't end their, as well as being broadcast on TV, the advertisement is also online, and John Lewis have made it interactive! The option allows you to continue the story, which you can do here!

This very cute advert ends with a small message, "Give someone a Christmas they'll never forget", now who wouldn't want to do that for a loved one :) !

M&S - Alice in Wonderland

The second advert that caught my eye this week is the M&S advert. Fairly similar to the John Lewis advert, with a slight story being the advertisement. M&S use the well known Alice in Wonderland theme, where the main character falls down a rabbit hole into a "Magic and Sparkle" wonderland.

This advert, unlike the John Lewis one, promotes some of the season collection available at M&S this holiday season, and with several well known actors being included in this high budget promotional video, I can clearly say they've created a memorable advert which will catch your eye with ease!

Now I apologise for blogging about these adverts as i'm sure they will get you into the Christmas Mood!

Cheers

Kyle :) !

Ohhh and one more thing.....Still waiting to see that Coca-Cola ad if you know what I mean!!

.

You know when you've been Ron Burgundy'ed - Stay Classy Tango

Just a quick blog post about a small advertising campaign I noticed by Tango the other day featuring Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell)!

As some of you may know, the much anticipated Anchorman 2 will be released in Cinemas this December in the UK, and one of the brands to join up with Ron Burgundy himself is tango!!

"Anchorman 2: The legend continues", has attracted so much attention, with several trailers being shown across you tube thousands of twitter followers , and being the sequel to the multi-million pound making "Anchorman: The legend of Ron Burgundy", its bound to have you bad laughing! Featuring actors such as Steve Carell from 40 year old virgin & The Office, Will Ferrell and many more, how could you not love this film?

Tango sporting Ron Burgundy

As you can see from the picture located to the right, Tango have positioned your favourite news anchor Ron Burgundy onto their cans and bottles. BUT the question is, does "celebrity endorsement" such as this work on products such as tango? A convenience good with very little too no thinking time to decide whether to purchase the product.... Well usually i would agree with theory in saying that celebrity endorsement is a very good tool for items such as speciality good but not convenience. as I personally would not buy Tango, but just because it had Ron's charming picture on it,I had to snap it up, and I didn't even look at the price!

Stay Classy Blogger!!

Kyle

Advertisements of the week - Taco Bell & Xbox One

Pondering on where to go next with my blog, I've decided to start a "off the week" style post. Obviously a lot of these can be seen in many fashion blogs, but with this showing no relation to what I post about, the idea of Adverts of the week came into my head, so once a week I will be babbling on about some interesting adverts I've seen over the week, whether they be fairly recent advertisements or something I've found browsing the internet. Todays will feature a comical advert from Taco Bell and an advert showing insight into the Xbox One. Enjoy!

Taco Bell

While browsing the web  I found this advert from the fast food giants Taco Bell. This is an American based commercial that is promoting their power protein menu, using humour and some celebrity endorsement.

The main reason this caught my eye was purely the fact it was hilarious, obviously not having Taco Bells in the UK, the advertisement was not shown on TV, but because it also went viral, I've came across it a few times and I'm bad laughing every time!

Taco Bell's Power protein (burrito)

http://www.whitehousepost.com/editors/los-angeles/lucas-spaulding/reel/taco-bell-power-beach/

The advert, as you can see from the link above ( I was unable to find a YouTube version to upload), involved kali muscle, a well known bodybuilder and Mr Olympia contender, and some other rather large men drinking and shouting about protein,

The advert aims to try and persuade the target audience to have one of Taco Bells Power Protein products over a typical protein shake, which is portrayed to not taste nice at all (which is quiet accurate.)

Taco Bell are utilising the market with this product, with a large amount of people focusing upon eating more healthy, and more males wanting to get "bigger", hence the emphasis on the protein, and the word "POWER".

Xbox One

Yes I know I got on about the next generation consoles a lot , but their release dates are just around the corner and I'm still undecided on which product to buy. The second advertisement that caught my eye this week was the Xbox Ones.

Up until this advert, I was still unaware of the reasons for the name of Microsoft's new console, but as you can see from this short advert, Microsoft have tried to make an "all-in-one" system which allows you to do anything and everything, turning your tv into a smart TV, with voice activation and hands-free features, what else could was ask for?

People such as Steven Gerard and Spock star in this 1:40 minute commercial, which shows both the features of the new console and some of their exclusive games.

Well done Microsoft, your pulling me closer and closer towards your product!



Xbox One Invitation