When Advertising Fails – Part 1

Welcome to the 1st post of When Advertising Fails.

The following advertisement was taken from my local paper a few weeks ago, the Whitehorse Leader. It illustrates how a low budget can cost greatly in effectively delivering your message. The lack of budget being the lack of colour in the ad.

Below, is how the Fire Danger Ratings are expressed effectively on the Country Fire Authority (CFA) website.

The lesson to be learned: don’t skimp on the budget when advertising. Or if you must, at least review the ad prior to it going live. The lack of colour in said advertisement renders it virtually useless.

Advertisement Effectiveness: 3/10 (for lack of proofreading)

Coca-Cola gets a GRIP on marketing

Recently in Australia, the Coca-Cola Company has launched its new ‘Contour Grip bottle’ which has already been rolled out across the world. Looking beyond Coca-Cola’s useless claim of being more environmentally friendly by reducing the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in their bottles by 5% compared to the previous design[1] (5% is hardly a commitment to sustainability), I do think that Coca-Cola is onto something here.

There are two reasons why this is a great innovation:

1. The new contour design of the bottle gives the impression that the new bottle contains more liquid.

Sure, consumers are not idiots and realise that it’s still a 600mL bottle as it always has been. However, one of the reasons Coca-Cola gained such a massive market share many years ago was from the visual illusion their contour bottle provided in their original design, released back in 1916[2].

2. I realised that when I used to hold a bottle of Coke, I used to hold it around the neck and/or label. By creating a section to ‘grip’, it essentially forces customers to grip the bottle in that section, and leave the label (i.e. brand advertising) freely unobstructed to the view of onlookers.

I don’t know whether these were two ideas Coca-Cola considered when developing the new design, but well done nonetheless.

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References:
[1] The Coca-Cola Company. (4 September, 2007). News Release: GET A GRIP ON THE NEW COCA-COLA CONTOUR BOTTLE. Retrieved 21 March, 2010, from The Coca-Cola Company: Press Centre: Press Releases: http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/presscenter/nr_20070904_ccna_grip_bottles.html

[2] The Coca-Cola Company. (26 March, 2008). Get a Grip. Retrieved 21 March, 2010, from Coca-Cola Conversations: http://www.coca-colaconversations.com/my_weblog/2008/03/get-a-grip-1.html

Attitude

I’ve been listening to a podcast recently by a motivational speaker/sales training coach by the name of Zig Ziglar. I came across this quote and believe it to be quite true:

“You’re not going to change anybody else, until you change you; everything really does begin with you.” – Zig Ziglar

Check out the video it came from below. You can also access the podcast here.