Lucky Beer for the Ox!

Building a marketing campaign on cultural believes is a good way to get closer to the target customer. The coming year 2009 will be the year of the Ox in the Chinese calender and Carlsberg is launching in Singapore a festive campaign for Christmas, New Year, and the the Chinese New Year. During times of economic hardship they try to built on the luck factor associated with the Year of the Ox, a good way to make Carlsberg the "lucky beer" that will bring good times back. In my opinion an interesting way to work with associations and I am curious to see what else this campaign encompasses and how they will promote their brand. If you know about any examples where marketers based their branding efforts on similar cultural believes, please share them with us.

The link to the short article


Picture courtesy of: www.brandrepublic.com

Consumer Brands from the Muslim World

Companies with roots in the Muslim world have been coming up more and more over the last years. In particular Dubai and its neighbors have been signaling that there is more to come and the market is getting more competitive each day. However, many people might just have heard about Malaysia Airlines, Emirates, or Petronas, and are not aware about other important brands that command significant marketshare and recognition in their sector. I have found an interesting article and encourage you to take a look at a few more consumer brands that seem to have a promising future. If you have any experience or knowledge about brands from the Muslim world, we would love to hear from you.

Check out the link to the article

Brand Packaging in Japan!

When it comes to branding it is crucial to reflect the right company image in the marketplace and an integral part of this is product packaging. If it is a tangible product the packaging is the thing the customer can see or feel immediately in the store and as in other aspects of life, a first impression can be made only once. Be it color, shape, or the labeling of the packaging, these are all aspects that have to further enhance and match the strategic message the brand is trying to project. Furthermore, practicality and convenience are other important factors of packaging that are gaining importance as a distinctive feature.

Oi Och Matsch ready to drink green tea, from Japanese tea brand Ito En, shows how innovative packaging can be presented, but in this case the innovative feature is just a tool to provide the consumer with the freshest product possible, which is one of the goals of the brand, stand for freshness and quality. Their PET bottle contains natural water and a cap filled with green tea powder. When ready to consume the beverage the cap is turned, which enables the powder to fall into the bottle and after some shaking a freshly mixed tea is ready to drink. It’s a simple process with a big payoff for the product and brand. Somehow it seems that especially in the Japanese market brand packaging is a crucial aspect of a companies overall strategy. I still remember from my time in Japan that if you bought some random cookies, often each cookie within the box was packed individually to assure freshness every time, and not only with highly priced products, this was quite common in Japan for products from different price segments. Maybe it was not the most environmentally way of doing things, but from a marketing perspective arguably a smart choice, even if packaging costs were high.

Below is a link to a number of interesting pictures about brand packaging that I found in www.businessweek.com. Check it out, and let us know if you have encountered some interesting examples around the world.

Check link here


photo courtesy GNPD, www.gnpd.com

Incognito Burger!

McDonald's Japan has temporarily remodeled two of its chain stores in Tokyo by stripping away any branding and just offering their quarter pounder in a red and black box. According to a spokesperson their aim is to offer the consumer a blind taste test without the preconception of who made the burger - pretty much with the thought "let the quality and taste speak for itself". However, I believe that it is more a stunt to get some press instead of a real taste test. Regular by walkers know that this is a MCD store, even if they changed their decor for a while, and the writting on the box seems to use a common MCDonalds font, which should be a hint about who made this burger. Anyway, I still thought it was an interesting idea and wanted to share this with all of you. Below is the link to the original text.

Check the link here