According to Brandweek, RadioShack is partnering with Facebook to launch MyMosaic which s turning to social networks to raise brand awareness among younger consumers. The application forms a ‘mosaic’ from the Facebook pictures of the user’s friends. The intention is to raise brand awareness and connect with a younger user base.

See also:
A Mosaic Of Praise For Radio Shack's MyMosaic, MediaPost 7/16/08
RadioShack Social Media Application Creates Facebook Photo Mosaics, Reuters 7/7/08

It depends on who you ask.

Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine and author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More explains “The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of ‘hits’ (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.” Anderson predicts that over time, the cumulative demand for all these niche products will cumulatively exceed the demand of mainstream products.

But ”Should You Invest in the Long Tail?” , a just-published article examining the Long Tail theory in the Harvard Business Review by Anita Elberse, an associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School comes to a different conclusion:

“Although no one disputes the lengthening of the tail (clearly, more obscure products are being made available for purchase every day), the tail is likely to be extremely flat and populated by titles that are mostly a diversion for consumers whose appetite for true blockbusters continues to grow. It is therefore highly disputable that much money can be made in the tail. In sales of both videos and recorded music—in many ways the perfect products to test the long-tail theory—we see that hits are and probably will remain dominant. That is the reality that should inform retailers as they struggle to offer their customers a satisfying assortment cost-efficiently. And it’s the unavoidable challenge to producers. The companies that will prosper are the ones most capable of capitalizing on individual best sellers.”

Elberse provides advice on leveraging long-tail demand that’s applicable to producers of media and entertainment goods, online retailers and content aggregators as well as manufacturers and retailers of physical goods. Visit here for the full article. Subscription may be required.

Sources:
”Should You Invest in the Long Tail?” Havard Business Review, July-August 2008
“The Long Tail,” Wired Magazine, October, 2004
The Long Tail Blog

Image:
The Long Tail Blog

See Also:
The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, Amazon Books
“The Long Tail”, Wikipedia

Intent to Purchase is a key metric for analyzing the success of online or offline media spending based on ROI. “It is becoming very important because we constantly have to be able to say if investing in [certain] types of media will drive towards a response,” says an agency researcher in AdAge.

One way to increase intent to purchase is to diversify your media mix---adding print or online to TV for example, according to a study by market researcher Advertiser Perceptions. Their research showed that consumers were more likely to express an intention to buy with multiple media across categories such as consumer electronics, apparel, automobiles, beer and toiletries. 

See Intent to Purchase

The use of celebrity endorsers is a common---and tricky---brand building strategy. Consider these recent ‘incidents’ involving celebrity endorsers:

Christian Dior dropped celebrity spokesperson Sharon Stone from their advertising in China, after the actress suggested that recent earthquakes there were “karmic retribution for Beijing’s treatment of Tibet.”

Conservative bloggers protested a Dunkin Donuts ad that featured Rachel Ray wearing a scarf that they charged resembled keffiyeh, the patterned and fringed scarf that is the traditional headdress of Arab men---and associated by some Americans with terrorism.

A 2007 print ad for Deréon Girls, Beyoncé’s fashion line for young girls, resurfaced as the target of criticism by a new round of bloggers for oversexualizing and ‘tarting up’ young girls. The label is an offshoot of the Hip Hop fashion House of Deréon.

Celebrity endorsements have the potential to significantly raise sales and market share, and introduce the brand to a new target audience. For example, Forbes reports that Chanel’s endorsement deal with spokes icon Nicole Kidman increased business by nearly 16%, without any changes in fragrance or packaging, because “all of a sudden, younger women took notice of the brand.” (Reportedly Nicole Kidman is being replaced by "Amelie" star Audrey Tautou)

But endorsement deals can turn bad in an instant. Who can forget actor Ben Curtis’ famous utterance, “Dude, you’re getting a Dell”? The consumer campaign, was “hugely successful” for Dell Computer Corp. In 2002 Dell began to transition away from Curtis’ character and it’s just as well since the actor was arrested for attempting to buy marijuana on Manhattan’s lower east side.

As a result, the memorable line and character spawned a host of parodies and late night jokes, many of which were at the Dell brand’s expense. (See the left column for a video of one of the Dell ads. If the ad isn’t visible you can view it here.) After Kobe Bryant’s rape arrest, Nutella and McDonald’s hastily dropped their agreements with the basketball star.

Celebrities are human after all; it’s impossible for marketers to remove every bit of risk from a deal. But here are three things every marketer must to enhance the potential for celebrity endorsement success:

Going Global? Make sure you understand cultural sensitivities.
Blogger Daisy Kong asks why Dior would pick Sharon Stone to endorse their brand in China since her pro-Tibet stance is well known. Good question. Brands need to understand cultural sensitivities if they expect to succeed outside familiar turf.

Does the endorser/endorsee relationship make sense?
Seriously, when you think brand extensions for sexy, R&B star Beyoncé, do you immediately think children’s clothing line?  Strategically smart celebrity/brand pairings enhance the core brand equities of each partner---and this doesn’t work for either.

Put fires out quickly. Despite a marketer's best efforts, sometimes stuff just happens. In the case of Rachel Ray’s scarf, most critics were also fans--- even the most vocal doubted she was trying to make a political statement. (Personally, the only reaction that I had to Ray’s scarf was that it was unattractive. The connection between it and a keffiyeh didn’t occur to me.)

While it's absurd to suggest that Dunkin Donuts was promoting a terrorism symbol, the company was right not to provide fodder for those bloggers who live for controversy. The company simply pulled the ad and got back to making donuts.   

Credits
Rachel Ray photo from AdAge
Dereon Girls Print ad from BrownSista
Dell Dude Screen Shot from YouTube

We’ve talked about how to keep your brand vibrant and healthy---but what can you do if it’s out of date---or even dead?

According to a ‘retro marketing’ expert quoted in “Can a Dead Brand Live Again?” published by the New York Times, ”’There’s no real reason that a brand needs to die…unless it is attached to a product that ‘functionally doesn’t work.’ That is, as long as a given product can change to meet contemporary performance standards, ‘your success is really dependent on how skillful you are in managing the brand’s story so that it resonates with meaning that consumers like.’”

This article about marketers who specialize in reviving dead and dying brands provides valuable insight for marketers, regardless of where your brand is in the product lifecycle.

Some highlights:

• How the faultiness of consumer memory provides an opportunity “not just in what we remember but also in what we misremember. For example, Stanley  never produced ladders but when they discovered that many consumers 'remembered' they did, they began to produce ladders.
• The rebirth of White Cloud toilet tissue as (essentially) a Wal-Mart store brand.
• How updating the Volkswagen Beetle brand helped make it, according to the article, one of the most successful reanimated brands of all time.
• The newly relaunched Salon Selectives hair care brand illustrates how the new brand owner hopes to attract nostalgic fans of the brand as well as new consumers who aren’t familiar with it, providing great learning for marketers of mature brands.

This article isn’t a quick read but it’s a very worthwhile one and will provide some great thought starters on strategies to better manage your own brands. 

“Only 25% of all African-American and Hispanic consumers find marketing and advertising personally and culturally relevant,” says Yankelovich. What that means is that many brands are not connecting with a significant and growing portion of U.S. consumers.

What should marketers do? Display cultural relevance that is more than superficial, says Yankelovich. For example, don’t run a special ad for, say, Black History Month, and then ignore African-American customers in your general market advertising.

Source: Yankelovich MONITOR

See Cross-Channel.

Cross-channel shopping, also referred to as ‘precision shopping,’ ‘multi-channel shopping,’ or ‘web-influenced offline sales,’ describes the practice of shoppers researching a product or service online, e.g. keyword search, retail websites, etc., and then purchasing the product or service at a bricks and mortar store.

Both eMarketer and Forrester Research highlight the growing importance of utilizing web marketing to reach cross-channel shoppers because of the appeal of cross-channels shopping to buyers; they can obtain a product immediately, see and touch it before they buy, and avoid shipping costs.

Last week an online brouhaha erupted as copies of a poster advertising campaign running across Mexico City last week for Swedish vodka company Absolut, surfaced on the internet. The ads depicted California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico and other U.S. states as part of Mexico, with the headline "In An Absolut World."

The posters created by TERAN\TBWA, the Mexican branch of global advertising agency TBWA, are part of Absolut’s long-running campaign depicting ‘perfect’ situations and positioning Absolut as the perfect vodka.

Many commenters at AdFreak, Absolutads, Mexico Reporter and MichelleMalkin deemed the ad offensive, swore at and off the brand, and variously blamed its creation on Americans Who Hate America, Mexicans Who Hate America, Swedes Who Hate America, Advertising Agencies Who Hate America, Clueless Marketers Who Also Hate America, People Who Are Totally Ignorant, and possibly even Finns Who Hate Swedes Masquerading As Swedes Working At Absolut Vodka Who Hate America.

Parodies of the ad have sprouted all over the Internet with a few suggesting Sweden should be under the control of a Nazi Germany, or at very least, Finland. And of course, the marketing team should be fired and flogged. Or, perhaps flogged first. Hmmm. I'll have to think about that, but in any case they should never have the right to work at anything but menial labor for the rest of their lives.

Yesterday, Absolut apologized for the ad and noted that it had been cancelled, saying “ In no way was the ad meant to offend or disparage, or advocate an altering of borders, lend support to any anti-American sentiment, or to reflect immigration issues….To ensure that we avoid future similar mistakes, we are adjusting our internal advertising approval process…” Blah, blah, blah.

But some pretty thorny issues for brand marketers remain.

Photos from MexicoReporter Flickr