Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s crowdsourcing experiment backfires

Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s always rattling the ad-industry’s cage–whether through disturbing ads for Burger King, or roundly lambasted ads for Microsoft. But recently, they just lost the Volkswagen account–one of their marquees–while Burger King franchisees are blaming Crispin for flagging sales. And their latest experiment may have overstepped the line with designers, who usually pay them a grudging respect.

To create a logo for the electric motorcycle start-up Brammo, they’re crowdsourcing the design, for a reward of $1000. The winner will be announced in six days, and over 700 people have submitted work. But no matter: To many professional designers, so-called “spec” assignments–that is, exploratory work, done for free–is taboo. Many designers think it undercuts them, and denigrates the profession. Designis.ms was among the aggrieved, and they’ve started a Twitter campaign (#nospec) against Crispin.

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Filed under: Crowdsourcing, Innovation, Marketing , Advertising, Clients, Crowdsourcing, Design, Marketing

Customers drive change

Akio Toyoda spoke in Michigan yesterday. We’ve been part of this process for 10 years now and can testify to how it works making products, services and companies better and more valuable.

From Automotive News:
In his keynote speech at the Management Briefing Seminars, Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda challenged the auto industry to reinvent the automobile and told the gathered executives that they are not in charge of deciding how to to do it.

“All of us in this room might think we are driving change in our companies and in our industry,” Toyoda said. “But we are not.

“It is the customer who is driving change. And if we want to make something happen, we’d better listen and learn the customer’s habits.”

Doing so could allow the industry to discover “a need so big that it calls for a true breakthrough idea,” Toyoda said. “Something bigger than just worrying about how many cupholders our competitor has in their new model.”

‘Contribute to society’

Toyoda said his vision for Toyota follows that of his grandfather, Kiichiro Toyoda, who founded the company in 1937. His grandfather insisted that the automaker should “contribute to society through manufacturing cars,” Akio Toyoda said. That calls upon Toyota staffers “to aspire to a higher cause than just building cars and making money,” he said.

Toyoda admitted, though, that “the severe drop in the economy and auto market has created some of the most challenging times Toyota has ever faced.” Toyota posted its third-straight quarterly loss in the three months that ended June 30 and is on track for its second-straight fiscal year of operating losses.

Toyoda also noted that General Motors Co.’s decision to withdraw from the two automakers’ joint venture in Fremont, Calif., New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., “has created some extremely difficult issues for us to resolve.”

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Filed under: Automotive , Automotive, Clients, Consumers, Future, Innovation, Partnerships

It’s official: BMW will launch electric car sub-brand

Automotive New reports:

BMW will launch a new class of environmentally friendly vehicles under its own brand, signaling that even premium automakers are ready to embrace electric vehicles as a mainstream product.

Without new concepts and technologies, certain carmakers “may no longer be in the market” soon after the advent of a raft of tax penalties and incentives designed to force the auto industry to go green, CEO Norbert Reithofer said.

BMW’s board decided to create a new sub-brand — similar to its “M” label for its high-performance cars — to label a new range of sustainable vehicles, Reithofer said on a conference call on Tuesday.

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Filed under: Automotive, Innovation, Marketing , Automotive, Cars, Clients, Energy, Innovation

Toyota creates global marketing subsidiary

Da da daaaa:

Toyota Motor Corp. is creating a fully owned subsidiary to coordinate marketing and advertising at home and abroad as it aims to tailor its vehicles to local markets.

The yet-to-be-named company will start operation Jan. 1, Toyota announced today. It will be headed by Toyota President Akio Toyoda and Hiroshi Takada a recent Toyota retiree.

The move makes the Japanese automaker’s marketing and advertising operation a free-standing entity empowered to make quicker decisions, Toyota spokeswoman Ririko Takeuchi said.

“It will handle advertising, sales promotion and global marketing strategy,” Takeuchi said. “It will focus on marketing issues globally and help create a unified message.”

Toyoda took office last month, pledging to improve the fit of the Toyota line to different markets. He also wanted to push decision making closer to the front lines.

Takada, co-president of the new marketing company, retired during the June boardroom overhaul as senior managing director in charge of global planning. His marketing experience dates back to 1995-2001, when he was general manager of domestic marketing and advertising.

As reported by Automotive News

Filed under: Marketing , Advertising, Automotive, Clients, Marketing

More creative shops creating their own product rather than tout clients’ offering

With major advertisers cutting costs, creative shops are increasingly commercializing their own product ideas.

When Coca-Cola acquired Vitaminwater for $4.1 billion in 2007, it wasn’t for the breakthrough electrolyte-drink technology. It paid for breakthrough marketing, and that epiphany rippled through Adland. Why shouldn’t agencies launch their own brands rather than solely focus on other people’s prodcts? Consultancy PSFK recently invited FAST COMPANY writer Danielle Sacks to moderate a panel featuring four creative chiefs running what PSFK calls New Idea Agencies. In this edited transcript of the conversation, they explore what it’s like for ad people to go beyond branding into the messy world of product creation. Will what they learn improve advertising for the rest of us?

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Filed under: Innovation, Marketing , Advertising, Clients, Consumers, Design, ideas, Innovation, Marketing

Samsung is #1

Reuters has this story. They forget to mention great user experience and superior handset design…..

HELSINKI: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd passed Motorola Inc in the third quarter to become the leading cellphone handset vendor in the United States, research firm Strategy Analytics said on Friday.

The research firm said handset shipments in the United States — the largest cellphone market in the world — defied the economic gloom and grew 6.2 per cent from a year before to 47.4 million phones in the quarter.

“Attractive bundling schemes from operators, healthy subsidies and aggressive pre-stocking by distributors ahead of the holiday season helped to lift volumes,” said Neil Mawston, director at Strategy Analytics.

South Korean vendors Samsung and LG Electronics Inc both won more of the market, controlling 22.4 per cent and 20.5 per cent respectively.

“Samsung’s growing retail presence and an attractive high-tier handset portfolio for all of the big four operators have proved crucial in grabbing the prestigious title of the No. 1 vendor in the world’s single largest handset market,” analyst Bonny Joy said in a statement.

At the same time, Motorola, which had been the top vendor in its home market since 2004, saw market share drop to 21.1 per cent from 32.7 per cent a year before.

Last week Motorola warned that its fourth-quarter results would miss expectations and said its struggling mobile phone business would weaken further in the first half of 2009.

Still, all three in total sell less phones globally than Finland’s Nokia, which dominates emerging markets and has a global market share of around 38 percent.

In the U.S. market, Nokia saw its share fall from a year ago to 8.4 per cent — which was still up from levels seen earlier this year.

“It doesn’t feel to us like a sustained recovery. Nokia is still struggling,” Strategy Analytics’ Mawston said. In the U.S. market Nokia also trailed Blackberry-maker Research in Motion Ltd, which had more than 10 percent share for the second quarter in a row.

Filed under: Market Research, Marketing , Clients, Innovation, Mobile, Samsung

Small car wars

A couple of years ago (actually four) we visited with a potential automotive client, and during our conversations argued that they needed to speed up their small car programs and get to market faster. Normally the product development cycle is at least six years, but in this case the client had vehicles around the world that would fit the North American market well with minor tweaks easily accomplished over a 12-24 month period. The client did not take our advice as seriously as we wanted (they did not hire us at the time).

I met with them again last week, to talk about something else – namely: “How do you help consumers imagine a future that is vastly different than today?” During that meeting the most senior person on their team brought up the meeting four years earlier and said: “I remember four years ago you pointed out that we should focus more on small cars – how did you have that foresight?” It is always nice when clients (and potential clients) commend you for past predictions that have played out as you said they would.

So after saying “thank you!” I explained that the reason small cars made sense then (and now) is that, as American’s go from having 2.1 vehicles per household to closer to three, that third vehicle will be a smaller commuter, grocery, soccer practice (if you do not carpool), and/or dinner date kind of car. It is not only because of gasoline prices that small cars make sense. There is actually great utility in them when you have already covered your other needs with the two other cars in your garage.

Gasoline prices will continue to fluctuate, and probably upward more than downward, and so the small vehicles in the carpool will be used more, and the big cars are still needed… but they just will be driven a little less. Overall mileage will continue to increase. American driving habits over the long run will not change – we still need to get around.

Filed under: Automotive, Information, Market Research , Cars, Clients, Gasoline, Research