50 posts tagged “marketing”

I lost count of how many hours it took for the compose screen to come up, but since it is night-time now, and I am pretty sure there was sunlight when I first began clicking ‘Create’, we can say a good quarter of the day has passed, at least.
   The good news is that Daisy at Vox—a.k.a. the only lady who seems to care—has written back to me to say my issue has been passed on to the boffins there. I hope they can sort it out, but I believe that since I have tested Vox on Macs and PCs, and in two different cities using two different ISPs, and all manner of browsers, then we can rule out anything I am doing wrong. I have, after all, been on the web since 1993 and kind of know what I am doing.
   The other good news is that I have something other than technogripes to post.
   First up, the Auckland Savings Bank, which is owned by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, is trying to push how “Kiwi” it is. Kiwibank, in New Zealand, must be a real threat to ASB, because people are conscious of how much Australian banks have been ripping off New Zealand customers. Hence the whole local angle, which is not really convincing anyone except for a few people in the boardroom at ASB. (In fact, a whole Facebook group has been set up to refute these advertisements.)
   Here is the outdoor ad that reminded me of the campaign:

to which Helen Baxter, others and I say, ‘Cobblers!’
   As it is nearly impossible to get a compose screen on Vox, here is a second image I wanted to share. The yellow roses that I posted earlier were the worse for wear after some gales here, but you can’t beat nature. Here’s one of the new arrivals, photographed earlier today:    Like Chance the Gardener, I have other flowers. In the spring. In the garden.    As you can see, the spring weather has finally come, albeit very late in the piece.

Go back one year and this was how Tom Beck was promoted in his first season of Alarm für Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei. There were a few episodes I didn’t see, judging by this RTL promo.

This probably means very little to others, but I thought it was interesting to see some of the fall 2009 US TV shows being advertised on the Lucire site. A couple of years ago, we had Ugly Betty and other shows being pushed heavily on our site; this time around, it’s Eastwick, Cougar Town and Californication, which are a little more adult:

You just have to admire some ad creatives. There are some ads that aren’t particularly relevant which come in through the networks, but this one on Lucire’s website is very entertaining:

This is from the Willis Street site, and I quite like the image and the typeface choice:

   English might be my second language, but I am pretty sure there is no such word as restauranter.
   Unless there’s a new word out there for someone who builds restaurants, and that the 222 Willis Street location is prime for that construction.
   But a website with a non-existent English word, no big deal.
   I mean, it’s not as if there’s a one-storey-high sign in central Wellington with the same mistake. Aw crap.

After dinner, this ad on Autocade still made me hungry. Since I have never heard of this brand Down Under, I thought the Dove soap people had diversified, but it turns out it’s part of the Mars company.

   And the reason I am surfing around is that Facebook is dead again, after Twitter was dead for over a day on Sunday and part of today: I suppose this home page design is better than being falsely accused of copyright infringement every day by Facebook. But it’s not too different, in terms of usage, to when my laptop is switched off. Facebook versus switching off the laptop—it’s actually quite a hard choice.

I have driven past this Toyota billboard a few times and thought, ‘Isn’t that Adobe Systems’ slogan?’

   It’s a bit far away but it reads, ‘We believe if you can dream it, you can do it.’ Adobe’s was identical save for the first two words, which were missing: ‘If you can dream it, you can do it.’
   I have seen ‘Nobody does it better’ for everything from Air New Zealand to Pioneer, but I can understand how that could be reused unwittingly. It’s a common phrase.
   Less common, however, is ‘The pursuit of perfection’, used by Toyota division Lexus. However, ‘In pursuit of perfection’ was used by Jaguar for years.
   I suppose Lexus wanted to ape other brands when it first started, so changing a word in a slogan of a company competing in the same sector might have been part of the strategy.
   I might have hated the ‘Everyday’ slogan for Toyota that was used for some time (who touts their products as ‘everyday’? But then, Toyotas can be boring), but cutting others’ slogans a bit too closely doesn’t sit well with me. Even shortening this one to ‘Dream it—do it’ might have worked, and be a bit more distant to the Adobe one.

This spot from the late 1950s is very charming. And even when the economy wasn’t that fab, Italian people have stilo.

Un pub pour la Fiat 500 en Italie, des années 50.

Robin blogged about the 40th anniversary of the Fiat 128 recently, and it reminded me that there is another 40th birthday this year: the Ford Capri, the car you’ve always promised yourself.
   However, he is better read than me and I do not think I could find any words of wisdom praising the Ford Capri from L. J. K. Setright—since really, the Capri handled like a pig, was impractical and was really the success of the Blue Oval’s marketing department.
   Nevertheless, it won plenty of fans, especially in the UK, thanks to the popularity of the TV show The Professionals. Two million were sold in total.
   On Autocade, I have only managed to get in info about the Capri II, the hatchback follow-up to the original, which was promoted originally with this film, starring none other than Martin Shaw, long before he was cast as Doyle in The Professionals.