How to waste marketing $ on bad, bad offline placement
Martin L Aug 12th
A way to use your marketing budget is by sponsoring a TV show, it´s actually for some reason seen more and more. A TV Show of one hour would in average (for a Danish TV channel) mention your name / brand 3 to 4 times, in the beginning, in the end and after each commercial break, for a American channel would it properly mention you name 10 times within one hour.
I often see TV Shows with Gordon Ramsay since I love gourmet food. For those of you who don’t know the guy can I add that he is ranked as number two in the world, in terms of Michelin stars with 14 just behind Allan Ducasse. Ramsay is a master to use his brand and he is a brilliant chef.
The show I saw is called Kitchen Nightmares. In each episode, Ramsay visits failing restaurants which very often only serve frozen food or to say in another way no fresh food based on fresh ingredients at all. I wonder why there are failing, but Ramsey turns up and acts as a troublemaker by introducing new menus, new restaurant interior, tips and tricks so the personnel including the owner can act as top professional giving customers a good gourmet experience. So the essence of the show is all about how to make great food in a simple way and earn money, make a business turnaround.
What actually surprised or let´s say shocked me was the brand which were sponsoring the show. Take a guess….
A Frozen pizza (brand) … Dr. Oetker
Let’s take it one more time; we have a show which is all about how to teach people to make Good, Tasty and Fresh food instead of crappy frozen food.
I would really like to understand how the marketing person or the media agency came to this crazy idea? Imagine you have just seen how easy it is to make good, fresh and tasty food and Mr. Ramsey has just brainwashed you for one hour with the fact that frozen food sucks, what is the odds that you buy a frozen pizza next time you go the supermarket, properly close to zero.
The agency / marketing manager misunderstood the placement, the target audience, and the whole idea of doing effective and thoughtful media placement, I really hope that they are good at negotiating and buying and if anybody mention the fact that it’s a food product sponsoring a TV show about food, then again forget it, the placement is wrong, I believe that they haven’t seen the show?
The positive thing is that the placement has been removed, hopefully because a clever agency called Dr. Oetker and said “Hey guys you need some help here, you are wasting your money, let me tell you why”
Dr. Oetker turn you head towards online, I really believe that you can gain, at least can you measure how people interact with you brand, people can give you feedback regarding your product etc. etc.
Good Luck
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Talk about marketing - Ramsay has done a job on you!
In my industry, the restaurant business, guys like Ramsay, Rocco and Irvin are media creations. There is nothing real about their TV shows or anything else they do. Have you noticed the restaurants they close down?
People don’t eat Michelin Stars. Better do a little checking before jumping on the Ramsay bandwagon - or did you like Rocco too?
Do you own a Omega watch? How about a Tag Heuer?
These brands use super cool movie stars in their marketing.
How does Brad Pitt relate to a stone-age old SWISS company that produce exclusive watches? Apart from the fact that he fits the bill of being Exclusive, not much.
I would argue that Omega/Tag they do it because they want to be associated with stardom, uniqueness etc. They piggyback on the stars.
I guess, the marketing dept. of Dr. Oetker thought they same thing about their product. To be associated with great food. Makes a lot of sense to me.
And, I bet it works.
Hi Martin!
Man nehme Dr. Oetker! I remember the expression from German grammar classes — exemplifying the subjunctive mood….
I digress — sorry.
I wonder what kind of media consultant would recommend teaming Dr. Oetker up with Ramsay. Not much positional energy in that meeting of contrasts.
/Kasper