Like water into wine, Pabst Blue Ribbon went seriously upscale for its product launch in China, demonstrating the power of positioning. Though the dynamic of consumers’ definitions of who you are and how you relate to competitors is always a factor, opportunities arise for brands to make that definition and claim that mental space for themselves. The jury’s still out since this story’s only a couple weeks old, but I’m anxious to know how this works out for PBR.
A brief history of Pabst Blue Ribbon in America from my perspective:
born in the late 1800’s in the upper midwest
a blue collar beer for most of my lifetime
sales peak in 1977 then fall off dramatically
enjoying a resurgence among urban hipsters who can’t resist the great taste of irony
overall a decent brand for its overlord, Miller Brewing
As if from water into wine, PBR goes luxury for China launch.
A brief introduction of Pabst Blue Ribbon in China:
now called “Blue Ribbon 1844” (reference to Pabst founding date)
now a luxury brand, a “world famous spirit”
now sells for $44 per bottle (720-ml bottle, more detailed brew)
Pabst launches "Blue Ribbon 1844" in China
What a clever way to take advantage of a huge, new market – completely re-position the brand for introduction to an audience largely ignorant of PBR’s unpretentious past.
As noted above, this isn’t simply a repackaging of the same product. The March 5 edition of Modern Brewery Age describes the person and process nicely. They hired Alan Kornhauser, of Jos. Huber, Anchor Brewing, Portland Brewing, August Schell and others, to work in China six months of the year. “We just produced China’s first real specialty beer, an all-malt, reddish brown strong (15.7 plato) ale, dry hopped with Cascade (38 IBU) and aged in new uncharred American whiskey barrels,” MBA quotes him. They’re only selling Blue Ribbon 1844 in China.
So they’ve re-positioned the Pabst Blue Ribbon brand in an honest and meaningful way. That’s even better than clever.
Here are the before and after images (actually arranged as after and before):
Before and After Photoshop: BP Command Center
I’ve seen two primary, polar reactions to this story:
“It’s no surprise coming from those no-good, lying, reckless, corner-cutting, profit-hoarding goons!”
“What’s the big deal? They’ve obviously got bigger fish to fry!” (or fish to slick and suffocate, as it were)
I’ll take a minute to stand more toward the middle, but clearly on one side.
Altering an image is directly opposed to fundamental principles of management and public relations. For the past 5 years, you couldn’t spend 5 minutes with any Harvard Business Review publication without feeling the movement toward transparency and authenticity.
Social media, in particular, has really brought these concepts in practice to the fore. Fold in some Seth Godin-style storytelling-as-marketing and the picture is even more clear: every individual and organization has the opportunity to tell the world who they are, what they’re about, where they’re from, why they’re here. Beyond that, they can always share what they know, when they know it, directly with people who care.
If, however, these efforts are not received as honest and forthright from a good corporate citizen, this may be done for you (witness: BPGlobalPR on Twitter). Regardless, companies of all sizes have embraced this opportunity and grown as a result.
As small an infraction as filling in a few Command Center monitors with some action shots may seem, it’s not honest. When your every move is under the most extreme scrutiny you’ll ever enjoy, why doctor the images that are helping tell your story of response and recovery? Apparently, trucking in workers for a Presidential photo op isn’t enough.
The BP spokesperson’s response to this story wasn’t awful: “Normally, we only use Photoshop for the typical purposes of color correction and cropping.” Transparency, authenticity and honesty should be employed constantly, not “normally.” Yes, it’s asking a lot, but truth is ultimately easier and best.
Original estimates on the amount of oil pouring into the Gulf (5,000 revised to 50-100,000) now seem as ridiculous as the original cost estimates of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ($50-60,000,000,000 revised to $2-3,000,000,000,000).
BP continues to buy pay-per-click campaigns (Google, Bing, Yahoo, YouTube) to try to steer searches to BP-produced information (to be fair, it’s a fine idea – I mention it because they took some heat for it).
BP withheld video of the leak for weeks, only released it through government mandate and continued to withhold HD video from scientists working on the problem.
Though off-point with regard to honesty, Hayward’s “I want my life back” and weekend of yachting earned charges of being aloof, insensitive and out of touch (um, 11 people lost their lives permanently in the initial explosion). He even described the spill as “relatively tiny.”
The list goes on and the point remains: the PR response to the worst oil spill in U.S. history has been neither excellent nor honest. The scope of this disaster is unprecedented. It could have happened to any oil company working off shore. Some PR blunders and gaffes can be reasonably expected. Active obfuscation, however, is beyond “blunder.”
Bottom line: I find the Photoshopped image to be a micro-representation of an attitude, philosophy and practice completely opposed to the best path forward: transparency and authenticity.
What a great ad. What a great message. What a great brand.
I loved where Toyota was with this:
The automotive branding textbook example is “Volvo = Safety.”
A runner up: “Toyota = Reliability.”
Once the darling of the automotive world for its efficient production, fantastic sales and extreme reliability, however, Toyota‘s taken quite a hit over the past year.
Result: a hard tack away from reliability toward …
Wow! That’s a ton of “safety.” A quick count has them at seven mentions per :30 spot – nearly one time every four seconds!
On the upside: message is loud and clear, yet casual and clean. Also, safety is not wholly separate from reliability; I consider the two concepts quite compatible. It’s also timely and topical, if not a little bold given the state of all things Toyota.
On the downside: if you’re a Toyota owner (which I’ve never been), you may not buy the message – especially if the recalls have been particularly inconvenient. This “safety” onslaught (I’ve seen several full-page print ads to match these spots) is not even fresh on the heels of the safety and reliability problems – it’s amid them. I feel strongly, though, that something often enough repeated comes to be believed (for better and for worse).
I feel like this direction could really work … but they’re already giving up on it.
“They’re Already Giving Up” Exhibit A:
In short: “smart, young go-getter gets a helping hand from a good corporate citizen.” Two notes: “Erica” does say the word “reliable” and it’s the same voice as the safety campaign.
The “safety” sell, though, seems to have expired. They must have research that suggests their problems with perceived safety and reliability are over – or that those perception/imaging problems were never too deep.
If not, I’m considering Toyota lost in the wilderness.
Disclaimer: Toyota is obviously a highly sophisticated marketer. My observations are based strictly in mainstream television and magazine messages. I expect fully that they’ve got many targeted, niche campaigns striking exactly where needed that are beyond my view.
In a way, this functions as a follow-up to the previous post about a marketing tactic employed by the Zeitgeist Movement of Colorado. As in that case, the ideas marketed here lie outside the mainstream. Unlike the Zeitgeist folks, the organization at work here is extremely well funded and celebrity fronted.
We experienced today in Colorado Springs the same thing many have experienced in cities across the country – a protest of the cruel “entertainment” that is Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which happens to be coming to town.
Protesting is PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. As the elephant’s sign reads: Circuses are No Fun for Animals. The message is directed toward elementary school children and delivered on public property.
Here’s a shallow analysis.
PETA Circus Protest - Colorado Springs - Elephant
How it’s executed (approximately):
PETA gets Ringling Brothers tour schedule
PETA precedes the circus, city to city
PETA distributes material outside a local elementary school in each city
PETA alerts the local media in advance of protest
Local media swarms, story’s a good “talker” that elicits strong opinions
Conversation ensues
This execution is nicely focused. They’re timely and topical with the elephant costume, signs, coloring books and more. Preceding the circus with this message should influence the buying decision.
Commercials to get people to the circus have been running heavily on television here for at least a week; the circus is due in town in a week and a half. As school’s wrapping up, kids may be talking about the circus. Parents are probably in active consideration of whether or not to cough up the $100+ it costs to take a family of four to the circus.
There’s no question that this is effective in drawing attention to PETA and to the circus. What is in question is what kind of attention does it draw – what kind of conversation does it start?
PETA Circus Protest - Colorado Springs
This strikes me as a case in which the discussion is limited to the organization itself, rather than to the specific topic and its related issues. Alignments are basic:
People who believe animals are grossly mistreated and need a human voice for justice and protection
People who think animal rights people are moronic nut jobs and are perfectly satisfied with the status quo
People who take issue with directing the message toward young children outside their schools
Meanwhile, just how humane or horrific is the treatment of animals within the circus? What are the consequences of training of large, wild beasts to perform unnatural tasks for our amusement? What amount of money or entertainment value justifies any form of mistreatment? The discussion never gets this deep.
Instead, it’s more basically about PETA – simply a love ’emorhate ’emalignment, plus a faction against their tactics in general. It’s provocative. It’s a continuation and refinement of their guerilla tactics.
This is not necessarily a bad outcome for PETA, especially if you subscribe to the “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” philosophy. Their name passed thousands of lips yesterday. Because of the timely and topical nature of their message, some share of those people whose attention they got may have “converted” – evaluating the “circus is cruel” message and tending to accept or agree.
In conclusion and a bit from left field: the difference between zealotry and simply spreading the word is defined by whether or not we agree with the message.
I’m as tired of the Tiger Woods story as you are. Really.
However, I’ve seen a ton of nonsense about the first Tiger Woods ad to appear since the revelation of his extensive sexual indiscretions.
Two main categories of nonsense:
The ad is an expression of greed by Tiger Woods and Nike
The ad is a personal message from Tiger Woods himself
First: of course it’s greed! The primary reason any athlete signs an endorsement deal and the primary reason any company extends one is, not surprisingly, profit motive on mutually acceptable terms. The athlete provides associations the brand, product or company wants in order to increase sales. The brand, product or company provides the athlete money in exchange. It’s really that simple, so I won’t go any further with this ridiculously easy criticism of the ad and its existence.
Second: an agency (Wieden+Kenney) carefully created this message on behalf of Nike and Tiger Woods. It’s not a personal message to you from Tiger Woods; do not accept it as such, narcissist. It’s not a public acknowledgment of indiscretion by Tiger Woods – he’s provided one (sadly, by force). It’s not a public apology by Tiger Woods – he’s already provided this, too.
So what is it? It’s polarizing. It’s talked-about. It’s the beginning of the reconstruction of Tiger Woods’ image by a brand that stuck with him through the debacle.
Most of the negative remarks are the rightful result of Tiger-fatigue, so nonsense gets a pass.
Here’s the ad:
Here’s a transcription: “Tiger … I am more prone to be inquisitive … to promote discussion. I want to find out what your thinking was. I want to find out what your feelings are. And did you learn anything.”
Though it would have beenthe safest option, the absence of a Tiger Woods ad altogether during The Masters would have been quite conspicuous.
Since Nike decided instead to be present, their agency was presented a serious creative challenge. Nike needs to turn back on as soon as possible the Tiger Woods cash machine they’ve built over the past decade or so. The challenge: where and how does the reconstruction of the TW personal and brand images begin!?
A few thoughts about this execution:
Took the situation head on (did not gloss over it, ignore it or jump past it)
Visually simple and clean (no amazing shots, cheering crowds, triumphant victories)
Audibly simple and clean (no music, a couple bird chirps, dad’s voice)
Dad-as-conscience device works (no one wants to hear from Tiger or generic voiceguy)
Message is vague, curious and sensitive (no bold statements or declarations)
White logos over black vest and cap absolutely jump off (clearly present with being in your face)
All things considered, an above-average starting point (where would you have started!?)
I personally abhor Woods’ selfish and unfaithful behavior. Though I know nothing about the science behind it, “sexual addiction” strikes me as a weak excuse for weak-minded, shameful behavior. Climbing down off my moral high horse, as too few are wont to do, I accept this commercial message as the start of the reconstruction.
The commercial doesn’t “speak” to me. It does not feel to me significant, impressive or provocative in any way. It does feel a bit human, which is a good start.
Bottom line: Tiger Woods is a living case study that will eventually be published in formal marketing texts. I don’t know how it will read or how I will feel about this commercial a year or two from now, but today it feels OK. Nike’s got to fire back up that cash machine slowly and carefully.
Related: I’m quite curious about the original context of the recording, as Earl Woods passed away in 2006.
Also related: considering the financial stakes, “Brand Tiger Woods” moved far too slowly as the PR crisis rolled out and built up. They had no control over public perception as more and more women emerged with allegations. The online, print and television tabloids went burned wildly with the story. To control the flames, it’s always best to be firstand to be honest and to in times of crisis.
This 4-year-old’s name is Ethan Beute. He lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This photo of him was published to the Grand Rapids Press website earlier this year.
Coincidentally, my name is Ethan Beute and I lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan for at least 20 years of my life. I would add that he looks a little bit like I did as a child.
The day a friend of mine posted this as a link on my Facebook page, I knew I had to buy ethanbeute.com. What parent of an Ethan Beute wouldn’t want to give his or her child ownership rights to “ethanbeute.com” as a fifth birthday gift!? A stretch, I know, but I didn’t want to risk it.
With regard to my surname, my wife and I were the only “Beute” in the Chicago phone book for the 4 years we lived there. When I witnessed a child with my name living in my hometown, however, I knew that I had to claim my online real estate immediately.
I’m Ethan Beute on Facebook and LinkedIn. I’m ethanbeute on Twitter and Flickr. As a natural extension of my personal brand, ethanbeute.com is the only way to go.
Claiming a url is a simple process; my technical knowledge and skills are limited, yet I had no problem doing it. I used GoDaddy.com and paid $10/year for the rights. I set it up to redirect to this blog site.
I have no idea where all this is going – and by “all this” I mean life online in a very general sense. I do know that I need to be easily found online. This online presence is necessary if I’m to have any future in promotion, marketing, and branding.
Recommendation: consider your personal brand. As a primer, here’s a years-old article from Fast Company (1997!) from the exceptional business mind of Tom Peters (yes, that’s a link to tompeters.com).
