I ordered pizza recently. It was a two for one deal. Naive as I am, I thought that meant two pizzas for the price of one. Since one pizza was $12, two pizzas for $12 seemed like a pretty good deal.
Imagine my surprise when two pizzas arrived at my door along with an $18 bill. When I asked why two pizzas weren’t $12 in total, I was told that “two for One” means two for “One” price. The one price? $18.
Delicious? Yes. Deceptive? Absolutely!
This leads me to a news story some time back, entitled “Buffet Bans Couple for Eating Too Much”.
Quoting the news source, “A couple on a low-carb diet were kicked out of the Chuck-A-Rama Restaurant after the manager said they’d eaten too much roast beef. Sui Amaama, who along with his wife, have been on the Atkins Diet for two weeks, was asked to leave after he went up to the buffet for his 12th slice of roast beef.”
Amaama’s wife Isabelle, claimed the two were under the impression the restaurant offered an all-you-can-eat buffet, a claim the restaurant’s District Manager, Jack Johanson denied.
Reading this story, I was horrified. After all, who in their right mind would eat at a restaurant named Chuck-A-Rama in the first place?! But I digress...
I was also reminded that on the great marketing highway there are times when misleading advertising claims and consumers meet head-on. The results can be devastating, often more so for the advertiser than the consumer.
Take our friends the Amaamas. While they suffered a few minutes of localized embarassment, good old Chuck-A-Rama made the national news, and not for their outstanding salad bar, which, as I understand, is actually quite good.
Contrary to what many advertisers think, advertising is not a ‘claims’ free-for-all. In fact, claims are very strictly regulated in Canada.
Advertising Standards Canada is responsible for upholding advertising standards as described in the Canadian Competition Act. Small volumes of these rules, each approximately the size of Sweden, have been developed for almost every category of product or service.
I remember having to refrain from using words like fresh or homemade when describing food in restaurant advertising. I was, however, permitted to use fresh and homemade to describe sporting goods.
Should advertisers fear the watchful eyes (and ears) of Advertising Standards Canada?
Possibly.
More importantly, advertisers should consider the most critical watchdog of all...the consumer.
Your business relies on customers. Neglecting them by making outlandish claims may make for compelling advertising, but may also result in hordes of unhappy people running around town criticizing your roast beef buffet.
To avoid being “Amaamanated”, deliver your message with impact but without suggesting or implying a promise you can’t deliver, whether you can argue your way out of it or not.
Call yourself a buffet, and you’d better be prepared to feed the next Amaama family that walks through the door. Otherwise, for the sake of a few slices of roast beef, you could be on the receiving end of thousands of dollars of negative publicity, and maybe even a fine for good measure.
For those of you interested in finding out more about Canadian advertising codes, visit www.adstandards.com.
For those interested in new business ventures, I hear Chuck-A-Rama has a few franchise opportunities opening up. Watch for their “Two for One” Prime Rib special, coming soon!
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Saturday, February 6, 2010
It's Official!
The Winter Olympics are just days away, and I couldn’t be more excited. Two weeks of fierce rivalries and gruelling competition!
And that’s just the battle for sponsorship supremacy!
Event sponsorship is a powerful marketing tool at any level, but few events eclipse the Olympic Games for global exposure and overuse of spandex. This explains why the Olympics is one of the prime targets of Ambush Marketers.
Ambush marketing is not about hiding in the bushes, jumping out to sell shoes to startled, unsuspecting customers, though that does sound like fun. Ambush marketing is about gaining brand exposure on someone else’s dime.
It’s a tactic many marketers use to unofficially ‘attach’ to a major event without having to foot the bill.
Think of it this way. You hold a big party to announce your engagement. You pay for the catering and the decorations, only to have the limelight stolen by a guest who beats you to the punch by announcing they’re pregnant!
That’s ambush marketing, made even more dramatic if the guest happens to be six foot three, has a beard and is named Frank.
Take the 1984 Olympic Games, where Kodak sponsored all television coverage while its competition, Fuji was the official Games sponsor. Despite both company’s efforts however, neither scored well in long jump.
Unapologetically, Nike is the ultimate ambush marketer. Nike refrains from sponsoring events, choosing instead to sponsor teams and individuals. The company’s sponsorship of the 2002 US Olympic hockey team earned as much exposure as any official sponsor without Nike ever having to pay the Olympic Organizing Committee a penny.
And Ambush marketing isn’t proprietary to brand giants.
To become the official sponsor of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Anheuser-Busch paid more than $50 million. In return they received exclusive rights to use the word ‘Olympic’ in their advertising.
Schirf Brewery, the small, local brewer of Wasutch Beer, ingeniously worked around copyright regulations. The company marked its trucks with “Wasutch Beers. The Official Beer. 2002 Winter Games.” By avoiding using the word ‘Olympic’, they connected to the games without having to purchase official status as a sponsor.
Is there anything wrong with ambush marketing? Technically, no. But considering the top nine global Olympic sponsors paid $900 million for sponsorship rights, it’s understandable why some companies frown on being punked by ambush marketers.
If conventional marketing is like beating the competition over the head with a stick, ambush marketing is like beating the competition over the head with their own stick, while they’re not looking...
So, come February 12th, as you watch a grown man in spandex race down an icy track passing by a succession of blurred official Coca Cola banners, keep your eyes open for the big unofficial Pepsi logo tacked to the side of his helmet, always in focus and always on the screen.
Take it from me, the unofficial marketing columnist of the 2010 Winter Games, ambush marketing may not be ‘the real thing’, but it works.
And that’s just the battle for sponsorship supremacy!
Event sponsorship is a powerful marketing tool at any level, but few events eclipse the Olympic Games for global exposure and overuse of spandex. This explains why the Olympics is one of the prime targets of Ambush Marketers.
Ambush marketing is not about hiding in the bushes, jumping out to sell shoes to startled, unsuspecting customers, though that does sound like fun. Ambush marketing is about gaining brand exposure on someone else’s dime.
It’s a tactic many marketers use to unofficially ‘attach’ to a major event without having to foot the bill.
Think of it this way. You hold a big party to announce your engagement. You pay for the catering and the decorations, only to have the limelight stolen by a guest who beats you to the punch by announcing they’re pregnant!
That’s ambush marketing, made even more dramatic if the guest happens to be six foot three, has a beard and is named Frank.
Take the 1984 Olympic Games, where Kodak sponsored all television coverage while its competition, Fuji was the official Games sponsor. Despite both company’s efforts however, neither scored well in long jump.
Unapologetically, Nike is the ultimate ambush marketer. Nike refrains from sponsoring events, choosing instead to sponsor teams and individuals. The company’s sponsorship of the 2002 US Olympic hockey team earned as much exposure as any official sponsor without Nike ever having to pay the Olympic Organizing Committee a penny.
And Ambush marketing isn’t proprietary to brand giants.
To become the official sponsor of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Anheuser-Busch paid more than $50 million. In return they received exclusive rights to use the word ‘Olympic’ in their advertising.
Schirf Brewery, the small, local brewer of Wasutch Beer, ingeniously worked around copyright regulations. The company marked its trucks with “Wasutch Beers. The Official Beer. 2002 Winter Games.” By avoiding using the word ‘Olympic’, they connected to the games without having to purchase official status as a sponsor.
Is there anything wrong with ambush marketing? Technically, no. But considering the top nine global Olympic sponsors paid $900 million for sponsorship rights, it’s understandable why some companies frown on being punked by ambush marketers.
If conventional marketing is like beating the competition over the head with a stick, ambush marketing is like beating the competition over the head with their own stick, while they’re not looking...
So, come February 12th, as you watch a grown man in spandex race down an icy track passing by a succession of blurred official Coca Cola banners, keep your eyes open for the big unofficial Pepsi logo tacked to the side of his helmet, always in focus and always on the screen.
Take it from me, the unofficial marketing columnist of the 2010 Winter Games, ambush marketing may not be ‘the real thing’, but it works.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
