To the Power of the Times - NYT Trade Campaign

On the subject of the NYTMG being pro-active in hard times, I don't think I posted on their new trade campaign.


I'll just make two comments.


If you're the marketing director of the NYTMG and this is your first trade campaign in a decade, you're taking your consumer base for granted. And that's not good, whoever you are.

The FT dominated the international senior business decision making market for as long as I worked in it, and they never took their foot off the pedal with trade campaigns, even if could have done so given their earnings and dominance of the market and market research numbers. Ditto The Economist.

It isn't so much that hard times aren't detering the NYTMG from running a trade campaign now (sorry, yet), it's that good times did. So when the bad times come and you need to advertise, you look weak and out of brand character.

Media buyers smell this sort of thing.

Secondly, what's the spend on this campaign? We don't know. And Denise doesn't know if it will continue into 2009.

I'm going to take a pint of best bitter bet it won't, outside of in-paper/site executions.











Hard times don't deter 'New York Times'
Newspaper launches trade ad campaign, expands online coverage of business
By Marie Griffin
Story posted: October 13, 2008 - 6:01 am EDT
OAS_RICH('Middle1');

At the end of last month, The New York Times launched its first national trade advertising campaign in more than a decade, even as the stock market was tumbling and a financial bailout plan was being hotly debated in Washington.
The media plan was finalized before a string of failures among financial institutions started to shake the nation in mid-September, so the crisis could have justified a reduction, delay or cancellation of the trade campaign, said Denise Warren, senior VP-chief advertising officer of the New York Times Media Group. “We decided not to pull back,” she said. “We said, "This is really the time to send a message of strength and stability to our advertisers and the advertising community.' ” The campaign targets “the whole food chain” of advertising decision-makers, Warren said, from media planners and buyers to CMOs at major companies. The print and online effort includes such vehicles as Advertising Age, AdWeek,WWD and MediaBuyerPlanner.com.
The trade campaign is scheduled to run through the end of the year. “We're still planning budgets for 2009, so I can't say if it will continue,” Warren said. The budget for the campaign was not disclosed. The concept behind the creative is “to the power of the Times,” executed as if it were a mathematical formula in which (nyt) takes the place of a numeral (such as a superscript 2, indicating squared). In the first creative wave, three words are spotlighted: influence, innovation and ROI.
“We really wanted something that was distinctive and flexible . We're very happy with the concepts, the creative and the execution,” Warren said. “There are many other executions that have not yet been seen. You can imagine, for example, "technology to the power of the Times.'

” The trade campaign debuted less than a week after The New York Times made two announcements about its Web site, NYTimes.com. One was the public beta launch of TimesPeople, a social networking feature that allows registered users to share and view each other's thoughts and recommendations on New York Times content. The other was a significant expansion and deeper segmentation of its online business coverage.

On Sept. 23, The New York Times rolled out a redesigned “Technology” section with subsections on enterprise technology, the Internet, venture capital and start-ups, and company-specific news. The Bits blog, backed by an expanded staff, and content from the IDG News Service are more prominently featured. The same day, a new “Economy” section and Green Inc., a blog on energy and the environment, debuted.

Over the coming months, NYTimes.com plans to expand sections on small business, personal technology and Your Money; to deepen coverage within its DealBook franchise; and to continue to add new tools and multimedia features. Frannie Danzinger, VP-media at b-to-b marketing agency HSR Business to Business, said she has delved deeply into the metrics for The New York Times for her clients. “It's very clear to me that the Times truly is a business newspaper, even though that isn't necessarily the general perception,” she said. “The [deeper] vertical segmentation will be helpful because marketers really are honing in on smaller segments within a larger universe. Green is one of the topics they are expanding, and it's really top of mind in business today.”The TimesPeople feature, which is free, includes a toolbar that appears at the top of users' pages on NYTimes.com. The toolbar links to profile pages, which display the public actions of the user and other network members who have opted in. The public activities included in TimesPeople are readers' comments, recommendations, reviews and ratings. Danzinger said social media tools are “extremely important, but they can't become a commodity. If they're everywhere, it takes away from the value social media provides.” As for TimesPeople, Danzinger said, “They're a little late to the game, so they might have an uphill battle.” Vivian Schiller, senior VP-general manager of NYTimes.com, noted that Cisco Systems is the launch partner for TimesPeople. “The long-term business model for monetizing social media is not fully formed, to say the least,” she said. “We want to get the technology right, to get the features and functionality right, and to build an audience now while we're sorting out the business model.”

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Resolved to keep on marketing, even in tight-fisted times (IHT)

I blogged on this exact point yesterday:

Joseph Tripodi, chief marketing and commercial officer at the Coca-Cola Company, whose Coca-Cola brand is the strongest in the world, according to a new survey by Interbrand, evoked imagery from the Great Depression."Don't go to the ledge," Tripodi said. "Don't let the urgent overwhelm the important.""It's very easy now to panic, and we cannot panic," he added. "Invest in your brands now, especially in these dry times. The easiest thing is to shut down, and that's the worst thing."


By Stuart Elliott
Monday, October 20, 2008
ORLANDO, Florida: Attendees of a big annual conference for marketers, held here last week, could have been forgiven for believing they had stumbled into a symposium for scholars of American history in the 1930s.
These are some of the words and phrases heard during the conference, the 98th annual meeting of the Association of National Advertisers: "financial crisis," "scary," "foreclosure," "economic crisis," "difficult times," "the chaotic financial markets," "devastating," "under siege" and "unprecedented."
There were even references to "Happy Days Are Here Again," which became the unofficial theme song of those who fought to forestall the effects of the Great Depression, and to "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," the encouraging words of Franklin D. Roosevelt during his first inaugural address, in 1933.
"The consumer is sitting at the bottom of a bunker with his head in his hands, wondering if it's safe to come out," Jez Frampton, global chief executive at Interbrand, an Omnicom Group agency specializing in corporate and brand identity, said during a general session of the conference.
"It's up to us to stimulate demand in the marketplace again," he added.
•
Whether the members of the association — 400 companies that together spend an estimated $100 billion a year on advertising and other forms of marketing — are willing to stick to the spending plans they made "before the globe went mad," as Frampton put it, is a crucial question.
If marketers cut budgets, that could intensify the recent sharp downturn in consumer spending. Conversely, by maintaining, or increasing, spending levels, they just might shorten the length of whatever recession might be coming (if it is not already here).
"Look, everyone is going to want to cut, but no one wants to be first to say it in public," said one attendee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because his company has not completed its planning for 2009.
"That's especially true given that we still have some time before Christmas," the attendee said, referring to the importance of the holiday shopping season for marketers and retailers. "Anyone who says anything now could go down as the Grinch who stole Christmas."
The closest any speaker came to tipping his or her hand was Anne Saunders, brand and advertising executive at Bank of America.
"We aren't done planning '09 yet," Saunders said, so "we're not concluding at the moment that we would necessarily cut" spending.
If a decision is reached to make cuts, "we don't expect to see a substantial cut," she added, because "it would be a mistake to say you don't need to continue to tend your brand, even in a challenging market like this."
Other speakers made the same point, in more emphatic and colorful language.
"It's incredibly important to be risk-takers in the economic climate we're in," said Michael Mendenhall, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Hewlett-Packard, when "people have a tendency to pull back."
"In economic times like these, you don't hunker down and go in the bunker," he added.
Rebecca Saeger, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at the Charles Schwab Corporation, quoted Mendenhall approvingly in her remarks and added: "Let's all go for growth. Let's see this as an opportunity."
Increasing sales and profits has "never been more important," said Saeger, who was elected during the conference as the chairwoman of the association for 2008-10. "There has never been a more crystal-clear realization of why you need a strong brand."
Joseph Tripodi, chief marketing and commercial officer at the Coca-Cola Company — whose Coca-Cola brand is the strongest in the world, according to a new survey by Interbrand — evoked imagery from the Great Depression.
"Don't go to the ledge," Tripodi said. "Don't let the urgent overwhelm the important."
"It's very easy now to panic, and we cannot panic," he added. "Invest in your brands now, especially in these dry times. The easiest thing is to shut down, and that's the worst thing."
James Stengel, who is retiring from his post as global marketing officer at Procter & Gamble, was asked whether consumers seeking to save money might be tempted to switch to private-label products from brand names. That would mean paying less attention to ads for brands — no matter how much marketers spent.
That is unlikely, Stengel replied, if marketers understand that "in these times, people are looking for the right value."
"If we're there for consumers when they need us," he added, "I'm sure we'll be fine."
Procter, the world's largest advertiser, survived "tough times" in countries hit hard by recent economic crises, Stengel said, like Argentina and Russia. He even remarked on how Procter made it through the '30s.
Two speakers described how the upheaval in the American economy is inspiring advertising campaigns.
"Right now, given where America is, people need to go back to the comfort of home," said Mark Addicks, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at General Mills. So a new campaign for the company's Pillsbury brand will carry the theme "Home is calling."
A commercial that Addicks showed, by the Saatchi & Saatchi division of the Publicis Groupe, began with people from all walks of life clicking their heels together like Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz" and ended with a family coming home to a meal with Pillsbury crescent rolls.
•
Claire Bennett, senior vice president for marketing at American Express, said the "challenging environment" gave her brand "a unique opportunity" because of its "legacy of trust and confidence."
"We will be talking about that in the coming months," she added, and "our own card members can speak for us."
The entreaties of the speakers may have influenced the estimated 1,200 attendees at the conference, based on results of instant polls during two general sessions.
Asked about immediate plans, 33 percent of respondents said they would maintain the level of their marketing spending, 33 percent said they would reduce spending and 27 percent said they would spend more. (The rest were unsure.)
And when asked about 2009 compared with 2008, the largest number of respondents, 28 percent, predicted stability, followed by 26 percent who forecast spending increases of more than 10 percent. Nineteen percent predicted decreases of more than 10 percent, 14 percent predicted decreases of less than 10 percent, and 13 percent predicted growth of less than 10 percent.

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The three best economic indicators in the world to tell you when to buy shares in which companies

My stock picking technique works on a number of variables but my personal favourites are:


a) talking with Black Cabs drives in London - if business is slowing for them time to run;


b) quarterly reports of temporary/interim employment agencies - cut backs show up in real time earnings and reveal more, I believe, than advertising spending and earlier;


c) corporate advertising buys: if a big global company buys a big global campaign buy their stock - they've got money to burn and they know something we don't (The inverse also holds true e.g when did you last see an exspensive brand campaign from the IHT?) That doesn't mean hold their stock, just that there is in MHO a direct correlation between big investor relations/corporate brand campaigns and short-term stock market moves (6-12 months). Someday an economist will do a study on this and I will be proved wrong/right.





However, a big buy in a monthly in a market that is moving faster than magazine delivery trucks does not count. HSBC - big exposure to Asia, big exposure to Asian financial crisis to come/come harder. That said, this campaign began in September...On the edge.





The more dynamic point here is that a) someone thinks print is still a good idea and b) entire print issue/internet inventory for one day or more buys and full page only ads in newspapers might be a model for the future.








October 20, 2008
HSBC Sponsors Entire Issue of New York Magazine
By DOUGLAS QUENQUA
There is more than one way to look at HSBC Bank’s decision to buy 24 ad pages in this week’s New York magazine, making it the largest single-issue advertiser in the magazine’s history.
Given the recent turmoil in the banking industry, one could see it as a case of bad timing. Is the American public really in the mood for an aggressive marketing pitch from a bank right now?
Or one could consider it kismet: Now more than ever, Americans need to be reassured of their financial security and the stability of their financial institutions. The ads in New York center on the idea that people see things differently depending on their position in life, and that HSBC understands that, making it well-suited to work with all kinds of people in all kinds of financial situations.
Not surprisingly HSBC, the largest European bank with operations in 83 countries around the world, is taking the second view. The bank says its domination of the Oct. 27 issue of New York, which has been in the works for several months, delivers the right message at the right time.
“Now more than ever before people are reappraising not just how they manage their money, but what’s important to them,” Tracy Britton, head of marketing for HSBC Bank, North America, said. “This campaign is very timely and appropriate.”
HSBC’s New York presence, which includes every full-page ad in the magazine before the listings section as well as the back cover, extends online as well. The bank will be the sole advertiser on NYMag.com on Monday and Tuesday of this week, with a “significant share of voice” after that. HSBC is also sending e-mail messages to subscribers inviting them to enter a contest to help write the copy for a later ad.
Buying most or all of the ads in a magazine — or on a Web site or TV show — has become a popular tactic in recent years as marketers try to stand out in an increasingly cluttered field. Target bought all the ads in an issue of The New Yorker in 2005, and this year ABC bought all the ads in a single issue of TV Guide.
The single- or dominating-sponsor approach is attractive to publishers at a time when magazine ad sales are falling. Consumer magazine ad pages fell 12.9 percent in the third quarter of this year, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. New York magazine’s ad pages fell 1.7 percent from 2007 to 2008.
Neither HSBC nor New York, which is published by New York Media Holdings, would discuss the cost of the ad package, but according to New York’s rate card, a single full-page ad costs about $64,000, and the back cover is about $81,000, which places the value of HSBC’s buy at about $1.6 million. However, publishers typically give considerable discounts for bulk buying.
The New York ad buy is one part of a global campaign from HSBC that began in September called “Different Values.” The effort is centered on print ads that show a single picture of an everyday object repeated three times, each with a single word offering an interpretation of the image. For example, a picture of a baby is shown with the words “love,” “legacy” and “expense.”
Such ads are running in Vanity Fair, The Week, GQ, Harper’s and others. Of the 15 such ads in this week’s New York 10 were created specifically for the issue.
The campaign also includes a television ad, created as a 90-second spot but shown in 60- and 30-second versions as well, that tells the story of a woman who is arrested in a protest of a logging operation, but is revealed to be romantically involved with a lumberjack. A voiceover says, “We recognize how people value things differently. So what we learn from one customer helps us better serve another.”
The ads were created by HSBC’s agency, JWT of New York and London. JWT is part of the WPP Group.
Although HSBC has largely been absent from the headlines surrounding the banking industry’s troubles, it is facing challenges of its own. It reported a 29 percent decline in profit for the first six months of 2008, and its stock price has fallen about 30 percent in the last year to about $70 a share.
This leads to a third possible interpretation of the New York ad buy: a show of strength.
“HSBC is choosing to make a strong statement when there’s a lot of turmoil” among its competitors, Ellen Oppenheim, chief marketing officer for the Magazine Publishers of America, said.

P.S Corporate identity advertising all about VALUES not FUNCTIONALITY or CONTENT.

Question: what are the love brand values of the New York Times and how do these differ from the IHT?

Answers on an email please....

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Pop up ads on www.iht.com

You're on www.iht.com as I am on a nearly daily basis, you have a subscription to the print paper (I appreciate many Internet users do not) and this advert (see below) pops up as an entire page. Indeed entire page pop-ups even on home pages are common on many media sites.

In the case of these pop-ups, or specifically in the case of the iht.com subscription pop-up, I don't know what the click-through rate is nor the click through to conversion rate is nor the conversion to retention rate is, but either way, they bug the hell out of me.

Is Internet advertising over-rated?

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Paid Content at WSJ

Group think says there's no future in paid content. The WSJ begs to differ and it was while visiting their site for my normal first two paras free of charge that I was presented with a full article under this header.

This prompted me just to take a look at their current offers and marketing. This house ad on top right hand corner of their home page.

This adclick takes you through to three offers, off a 2 week free trial automatic renewal offer:

2 Weeks Free(54 weeks in total) with your payment when you purchase

1 year of WSJ.com + the Print Journal

Print Journal
1 year for $89

WSJ.com
1 year for $89

WSJ.com +Print Journal
1 year for $99

All looking good. I'm in Europe, the dollar is a peso; I've had a subscription before but I can get round that - marginally alter my name and new address. Old trick.

They nearly had me.

Before I read the small print:

This is a special offer made available only for first time annual subscribers. Thereafter, your subscription will be renewed automatically at the then-current annual rate. You will be notified of any rate changes in advance. Savings percentage based on 52-week newsstand price for The Journal print edition plus the standard 1-year rate for The Online Journal. Offers good for new subscriptions for a limited time only. Newspaper delivery is only available in the contiguous U.S. Sales tax may apply.

Good, simple, clear marketing and a timely moment given the financial crisis to tempt me in with a full sample article (we can argue about pros and cons of automatic renewal offers subject to seeing their conversion data - as a consumer I personally never bite, but as a marketer I know they work).

However, they've forgotton one rather important fact: this offer is on something called the world wide web, their offer is for contiguous U.S only, I live in France and no option to click through to WSJE.

Mr. Murdoch, your subscription marketing people are asleep on the job. In Manhattan-centricitis land.

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Think. Again. About perspective too.

Where to start with this one?

a) When the NYT took over the IHT, the IHT had a brand campaign called Think! spelt (with reversed KN) KNIHT! The current campaign for The Atlantic, with a budget estimated at $1.5 million, carries the theme "Think. Again."

The word from the NYT was they hated the Think! campaign, didn't 'get it'. They got in their own agency to do the job for the next brand campaign, a big Madison Avenue global agency. Their work was rubbish. I know, I saw it.

Even the then CEO of the NYT Newspaper (now CEO of the NYT Company), Janet Robinson's personal entreaties to the CEO of their agency and that agency's involvement of creative teams from its entire global network, not just NY, couldn't get their agency to deliver a new brand campaign for the IHT.

So three weeks before production deadlines, the people behind the Think! Campaign - the London boutique agency Bagshawe Associates and myself, then a consultant - were invited to come up with a new campaign. We were given 3 days and delivered a concept the IHT/NYT liked in two. And the entire artwork (outdoor, taxis, magazines, newspapers etc) in 3 weeks.

The Broader Business Perspective we themed it, as the then target was business people. For the first time at the IHT, The Broader Business Perspective helped internalise, at the IHT, what its editors were doing and popped up in numerous speeches given by advertising directors, editors and the publisher: the relevance of a general interest international perspective newspaper for a business readership.

b) After we did this, we were let go - again. The next brand campaign was absolute crap. We now have some motif based on a compass (N,E,S,W) which is about NEWS, which isn't what the IHT is about because news is free and the idea doesn't even work because as much as their copywriters and designers would like to wish it were so, the sun rises in the east and does not set in the south. First thought idea (a compass for a global newspaper - very original, not) allowed all the way through to an actual brand campaign. Umm.

c) This was 2003. Now, in 2008 thinking and perspective seem to be back in vogue, witness this quote from the article below: "If you look at some of the titles that compete with The Economist, their perspective is from the U.S. looking at the world," he [Andrew Robertson, chief executive at BBDO] added, "whereas with The Economist, the focus is the world view." (see article below)

d) In a crisis, like WWII, the NYT kept their news hole as large as ever, even if their advertising dropped off. In this crisis, MSM (especially) needs to market itself as The Atlantic and The Economist are trying to do.

e) The IHT had every opportunity - twice - to own global perspective and the value of thinking which is shorthand for being more than a suit. They blew it.

f) The IHT needs to keep its foot on the pedal, it needs to invest in brand and content, it needs money. Otherwise it, along with the NYT, will die.

Sail to steam, sail to steam.

Can't make the transition without investment.



Magazines get clever with their advertising
By Stuart Elliott
Sunday, October 5, 2008
NEW YORK: A financial crisis, two wars, a presidential election - when there is so much for readers to think about, how do magazines aimed at thoughtful readers attract their attention?
In a new U.S. marketing push, one such magazine, The Economist, is spoofing the game Twister, distributing pizza boxes that improbably bear its name and sponsoring a performance of political satire.
Another such magazine, The Atlantic, plans to advertise on the muffin displays in New York City convenience stores, on restaurant menu boards and on the shampoo shelves of drugstores.
The Atlantic is also producing video clips that show what happens when people on city streets are invited to answer questions like "Is Google making us stupid?" and "Why do presidents lie?" - questions that, to make them stand out, have also been reproduced as neon signs.
In seeking readers and advertisers, publications like The Atlantic and The Economist - alongside competitors like Harper's, Mother Jones, The Nation, The New Republic and The New Yorker - have long tried to make up in cleverness what they lacked in wallet power.
The campaign for The Atlantic, with a budget estimated at $1.5 million, carries the theme "Think. Again." The campaign, which will also include a section of the magazine's Web site (theatlantic.com/thinkagain), is to begin Monday.
The campaign for The Economist is arriving this week in Philadelphia after stopping in eight other markets, including Boston and Washington. The campaign, with an estimated budget of $5 million, carries the theme "Get a world view."
Both campaigns are indicative of the increasingly unusual efforts by the traditional media to catch the wandering eyes of younger readers as well as younger employees of media agencies who help decide where marketers buy ads.
The theory is that they "should be jolted," said Justin Smith, president for consumer media at Atlantic Media in Washington. "We felt there was a great opportunity, right now, to further inspire our readers and advertisers."
His counterpart at The Economist, Paul Rossi, who is based in New York, echoed Smith's decision to seize the moment, fraught as it might be with uncertainty. "I think it's the best possible time" for a campaign, said Rossi, executive vice president and managing director for the Americas at The Economist. "What we have to say has never been more relevant. We write about the world, about connections between business and politics."
The questions appearing in the campaign for The Atlantic are from articles published in the magazine.
The ads are meant to reach media buyers where they eat, buy takeout food and shop. Those are "places where people's brains are most at rest," said Michael Fanuele, managing director for strategy at the magazine's creative agency, Euro RSCG Worldwide in New York, part of Havas.
The video clips, aimed at readers as well as advertisers, will be available on the Think Again section of The Atlantic Web site, and plans call for additional content to be added monthly.
Previews of the clips offer a variety of responses from the passers-by on the streets. On the question "Why do presidents lie?" the replies ranged from "Why do we let them?" to "There'd be more problems if we told the truth."
The neon signs, which also appear in print ads and posters, will decorate events sponsored by The Atlantic and eventually end up at the magazine's offices. "We hope to keep one or two for ourselves," said Jose Cabaco, chief creative officer for North America at Euro RSCG.
Other agencies working on the campaign for The Atlantic are Cleverworks, for media buying, and the Rosen Group, for public relations.
Several agencies are working on the campaign for The Economist: BBDO Worldwide, part of the Omnicom Group, for the creative content; PHD, also part of Omnicom, for media buying; Kinetic, a unit of the WPP Group, for outdoor ads; and Tentpole N.Y. for public relations and events like the satire performance, by the Second City theatrical troupe.
"It's always a good time to read The Economist," said Andrew Robertson, chief executive at BBDO, "but if there ever was a good time to be reading The Economist, it's now."
Originally, the ads run by The Economist in the United States were adapted from a popular campaign for the magazine created in London by the Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO unit of BBDO. Headlines from that campaign - called the "white-on-red campaign" for its color scheme, borrowed from the logo of The Economist - include "Great minds like a think" and Robertson's favorite, "Would you like to sit next to you at dinner?"
The idea behind the British campaign "is that if you read it, you'd be better informed, and therefore more successful," he said, "which evolved into, you'd be better informed, and therefore more interesting."
The new ads with the Twister parody and the like are from the BBDO office in New York, so they will more directly address American sensibilities, Robertson said, and provide "a more specific explanation of what you'll get from reading The Economist."
"If you look at some of the titles that compete with The Economist, their perspective is from the U.S. looking at the world," he added, "whereas with The Economist, the focus is the world view."

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The IHT Brand Paradox: When you want to be edgy, modern, audacious but your brand holds most of its value in its history

Creating a gentle revolution in Champagne
By Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop
Friday, October 3, 2008
SINGAPORE: Cécile Bonnefond doesn't look like a revolutionary, but this 54-year-old Frenchwoman sounds a little like one when she describes some of the ways in which she has marketed Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, the Champagne house of which she became chief executive in 2001.
There was the collaboration with Emilio Pucci, who dressed a 9,000-bottle limited series in his flamboyantly colored prints. The interior designer Andrée Putman made a Champagne box that doubles as an ice bucket, decorated with her signature checkerboard pattern. Karim Rashid, a designer from Egypt, created the Globalight, an orb-shaped lamp that is also an Isotherm bottle carrier.
Innovation of any kind is tricky when the company you are running dates to 1772, and it can seem superfluous when your sales are rising even in tough economic times.
Yet Bonnefond, who has managed some of the best-known brands in Europe at companies like Groupe Danone and Grand Metropolitan (now Diageo), sees innovation as necessary to preserving Veuve Clicquot's place in a changing world.
"I see my job as really managing a paradox," Bonnefond said on a recent business trip to Singapore. "With Veuve Clicquot, you have history, but we also want to be the most edgy, modern, audacious, 'in' name in Champagne."
Audacity is part of Veuve Clicquot's heritage. In 1814, Barbe Nicole Ponsardin, the original Veuve, or Widow, Clicquot, defied Napoleon's nautical blockade of Russia by secretly shipping 10,550 bottles of Champagne to Königsberg (now Kaliningrad). By the 1860s, the czarist court and aristocracy were drinking 700,000 bottles per year, or 75 percent of Clicquot's production.
With the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, sales of Champagne to Russia abruptly halted. It wasn't until recently, with the rising wealth in Russia, that sales have picked up to the point where Bonnefond can say that "for the first time, this year, we've finally sold more bottles in Russia than Madame Clicquot."
Despite the emerging global economic slowdown, Bonnefond said the company had record sales in 2007 and was "only feeling a small pinch" this year, an accomplishment she attributes to " a very loyal core consumer group."
Marlous Kuiper, head of alcoholic beverages research at Euromonitor International, said Veuve Clicquot had outpaced growth in the global Champagne market in recent years, sometimes by as much as five percentage points.
Veuve Clicquot comes under the umbrella of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, along with the Champagne brands Moët & Chandon, Dom Perignon, Krug, Mercier and Ruinart. Although LVMH does not release a breakdown of production or sales among its wine and spirit brands, the division had total net sales of €3.2 billion, or about $4.4 billion, in 2007, up 7 percent over the previous year, with 62.2 million bottles of Champagne sold in 2007, a 3.8 percent increase over 2006.
According to the latest LVHM results report, Veuve Clicquot and Moët & Chandon have had so far this year a "good performance." Bonnefond said, "I have to make my shareholders happy and they are very happy."
A native of Paris and a graduate of the European Business School with a degree in marketing, Bonnefond joined Danone's marketing division in 1979 before moving to Kellogg's in 1984 as marketing manager for France. Over the next 10 years, she held growing responsibilities across Europe in sales, marketing and general management. In 1995, she joined Grand Metropolitan as chairman and chief executive of a new unit overseeing the activities of Grand Met food brands including Brossard baked goods, Häagen-Dazs ice cream, Green Giant frozen foods and Old El Paso Mexican products.
When Grand Met sold its bakery business to Sara Lee in 1997, she joined that company as chief executive of the bakery division in France and Italy.
At Veuve Clicquot, Bonnefond has shown some of the qualities that helped the original owner propel the company, including a knack for seizing the moment. Soon after she joined, she introduced a Veuve Clicquot Rosé nonvintage Champagne. "Knowing that 90 percent of the rosé Champagne drunk in the world was nonvintage, there was a feeling that we were missing a business opportunity," she said.
Bonnefond chose Japan as a test market for the first limited production of the new Champagne. The response was so enthusiastic that the company did not have enough bottles to test it in Hong Kong and Belgium as planned. After increasing production, she took nonvintage rosé international in 2006. Today the product represents around 10 percent of the company's overall sales.
Bonnefond has also moved into other product extensions. There's the Clicquot gift carton that unfolds into an insulated Champagne bucket, a neoprene jacket to keep the bottle cool, and an ice bucket in the bold orange of the brand.
She said that she was not recruited to Veuve Clicquot to "bring in a revolution" but that she was "accelerating" business.
"We've just pushed the boundaries further," Bonnefond said.

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Question of the day: What have handbags got to do with newspapers?

I know. Do you?

Handbag heaven
By Leah Greengarten
Thursday, October 2, 2008
ANTIBES, France: As dawn breaks a golden brown over the French Riveria, Caroline Calabria, owner of the Vintage Art Gallery, is often one of the first arrivals at a local market.
She combs the jumbled stalls for vintage handbags because, she says, "People in this area are renowned travelers, so I can find bags from Argentina to Africa and anything in between."
Calabria's shop, just a year old, is sandwiched between a hairdresser and a little French restaurant on the cobbled pedestrian street of Rue Thuret. But during the summer high season, it displays 600 or more bags - this season mostly clutches, but it all depends on what she finds.
Calabria says she always has loved handbags. At first, "I brought vintage handbags for myself and then after years of collecting and lots of bags, I had this idea to open my own store." She moved from Paris to Antibes five years ago - "to increase the collection, so I could be closer to the markets."
There is a small collection of vintage clothing at the store entrance. Miranda Richardson, a Londoner, bought a parrot-colored 1960s frock this summer and says she "loves it so much and wore it all the time on holidays in Ibiza."
But the rest of the three-room shop is just handbags. There is every color of the rainbow and all the dark hues of the ocean, as well as the smell of old leather.
"Crocodile bags have been really popular this summer," says Calabria - they range from €150 to €500, or $210 to $705.
As for designers, it has been "Chanel and Louis Vuitton," she said. "I sold a '70s vintage sports bag by Louis Vuitton this morning for €1,200."
Richardson's mother, Madeline Richardson of Grasse, France, bought a handbag at the shop earlier this year. "I really love my crocodile clutch bag," she said. "It's elegant and classic and it was good value for money, too."
With no Web site, no telephone number and just a brown paper bag with the word "vintage" hanging on the front of the store, Calabria says that kind of word-of-mouth has been her most powerful marketing tool.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/02/style/rantibes.php

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The biggest marketing failure in history?

I used to think it was Coke's attempts to sell bottled water from the River Thames. Now I've changed my mind.

Marketing flaw played big role in House rejection of 'bailout'
WASHINGTON: The surprise rejection of President George W. Bush's $700 billion proposal to stanch the bleeding in American markets underscored the failure of the White House and the congressional leadership to sell the country on the need for such a massive program.
As they scrambled to put together a plan authorizing the government to dive headfirst into the private sector, the president and his allies in both parties never managed to find a way to explain it to the public in a compelling way. By the time Bush addressed the nation on behalf of his "rescue plan," it was already tagged a "bailout."
As a result, the administration and Congress were left to play catch-up as critics on the Internet and talk radio succeeded in framing the debate. On conservative Web sites and airwaves, the plan was cast as nothing less than socialism. On liberal blogs and commentary shows, it was portrayed as a boon for Wall Street fat cats who gambled away other people's money.
"It's really unfortunate shorthand for a very complicated issue," the White House deputy press secretary, Tony Fratto, said Tuesday about the "bailout" term. "Our critics took the language of 'a bailout for Wall Street' and I think it's undeniable that the media chose that labeling for this debate."
Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, summed up the marketing mistake during an interview on CNN.
"The first thing I'd do is say, 'Let's not call it a bailout. Let's call it a rescue,"' he said. "Because it is a rescue. It's a rescue of Main Street America."
On Peachtree Street, the equivalent of Main Street in downtown Atlanta, people said Tuesday that they wanted the government to do something - but not to bail out Wall Street.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/30/business/voters.php



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Death of newspapers? Fight it through persuasion, charm and threats.

Here's a new one on me for newspaper marketing, but if extreme left wing French alternative media is your thing, this is for you.

This is the first direct (e-) mail I have received bringing my attention to the fact that Charlie Hebdo (France's Private Eye) "est à la gauche ce que le Komitern fut pour l'espagne anarchiste."

It's also the first one that invites readers of a newspaper to persuade, charm or threaten their friends into subscribing.

Good stuff! Is this the way forward for IHT/NYT/Newspaper direct mail?


From:
To: "Undisclosed-Recipient:;"@orange.fr
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2008 4:54 PM
Subject: CQFD...

Une petite introduction, puisque vous avec compris que Le Monde, Libé, Courrier Inter, Panda magazine sont tous possédes par des marchands d'armes et consorts.
Que Marianne sent aussi bon que Paris Match ou VSD, que Charlie Hebdo est à la gauche ce que le Komitern fut pour l'espagne anarchiste, que mëme les grands et beaux journaux d'extreme gauche pro-cubaine sont remplis de publicité pour EADS ou Nissan, que Politis vous offre, pour la gôche et la regauche verte de Cohn bendit à Bové et Eva Joly, un tour en mongolfière et qu'enfin Siné Hebdo tout rempli des meilleurs talents dessinatoires débauchés à CQFD, ne vous a toujours rien appris la semaine dernière...(on espère qu'il fasse mieux.)
enfin merci à tous ceux qui s'abonnent ce mois-ci...on devrait pouvoir tirer à 40 000 ex dés que toutes vos mémés auront envoyé leur livret A avant le grand Krach qui est pour demain...
christophe.
CQFD est en kiosque cherchez bien...

L’ABONNEMENT OU L’ABANDON
.
Après cinq ans de critique sociale acharnée, les joyeux galériens de CQFD ont atteint les limites de l’abnégation. Maintenant, faut du pognon ! Sans banque ni pub, une seule solution : 2 000 abonnés supplémentaires.
FLÛTE, Y A PLUS DE BIÈRE… Fin août, nous débarquons dans les locaux du journal la tête pleine du souvenir du sable qui nous chatouille encore les arpions, nous ouvrons le frigo et… y a plus de bière. À peine un fragment de fromage fossilisé datant, à vue de nez, du bouclage de juillet. C’est la rentrée, il faut aller fissa au ravitaillement et p’têt’ bien racheter un frigo propre. Nous jetons un oeil sur le courrier accumulé : quelques réabonnements, des factures, un relevé de compte… Nous ouvrons la missive de La Poste d’un air faussement détaché pour découvrir, horreur, que le chiffre en bas à droite est presque aussi sec que nos gosiers !C’est la mousse qui fait déborder le vase. Dans ce foutu canard, nous n’avons pas un seul vrai salarié, la cheville ouvrière empoche à peine quelques cacahuètes occasionnelles, nous nous usons sur des écrans aussi efficaces qu’une séance d’UV pour te griller les mirettes, nous peignons des cages d’escalier pour épargner nos finances, les dessinateurs gribouillent pour la gloire, les rédacteurs collectionnent les queues de cerise, et y a pas un kopeck pour acheter un pack !CQFD, nous le tenons à bout de bras – et de foie – depuis plus de cinq ans. Onze mois par an à faire vivre ce journal avec les moyens du bord, soit un peu de votre oseille et beaucoup de notre huile de coude. Comme dit le Méhu à chaque fois qu’il se radine pour siroter un canon en nous regardant trimer : « J’ai jamais vu des chômeurs bosser autant ! » Seulement voilà… Depuis quelques mois, quand l’un d’entre nous évoque un éventuel sabordage, plus personne ne répond : « Arrête tes conneries ! Passe-moi plutôt l’clacos pour finir mon godet… »
Pourtant, les raisons qui nous ont poussés à créer CQFD sont toujours d’actualité. En 2003, les bandits au pouvoir n’étaient pas vraiment complexés et leurs opposants les plus en vue aussi exaltants que des endives pataugeant dans la béchamel. Cinq ans plus tard, il est vital de continuer à se serrer les coudes. Notre chien rouge désire rester une erreur dans leur système comptable, à ronger le trognon de la droite bling-bling comme de la gauche en toc, gronder au mollet des fanatiques du boulot et des hallucinés de la négociation bidon, sans oublier de courser la bave aux lèvres les faux impertinents et les rebelles de plateaux télé… Mais plus dans les mêmes conditions.Vous êtes cinq mille à acheter CQFD, dont deux mille abonnés. Nous savons pertinemment que vous ne rechignez pas à gonfler vos chèques de quelques euros de soutien. Nous savons aussi qu’autocollants et affiches ornent les murs de vos contrées. Nous vous remercions chaleureusement de votre complicité, sans laquelle nous n’aurions pu tenir.
Mais si vous souhaitez que l’aventure mensuelle se poursuive, il est impératif que vous soyez deux fois plus nombreux à acheter ce canard. Nous devons engranger de toute urgence deux mille abonnés supplémentaires. Attention, il ne s’agit pas de convertir les ventes en kiosque en abonnement, mais bien de dégoter deux mille nouveaux lecteurs d’ici novembre. Alors débrouillez-vous, cessez de faire circuler votre CQFD, usez de persuasion, de vos charmes, de menaces, mais obligez vos mémés, voisines, amis et ennemis à glisser une piécette dans la gamelle du clebs rouge.Il a soif.
L’équipe de CQFD
Article publié dans CQFD n°59, septembre 2008.


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We have no money and we're going to tell you.

Normally Media Bistro is pretty on the money for its commentary about the newspaper trade, but this one made me laugh.

WSJ Spends 20x LAT to Promote Editorial Content

Given the Los Angeles Times' recent financial trouble, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the paper barely has the money to promote its editorial content. According to a recent RFP (that's Request for Proposal in layman's terms. Thanks Wikipedia.) sent out by LAT media buyers, the paper will spend $5,000 to highlight its "Super Sunday" section in September.
Now compare this number with the $100,000 that Wall Street Journal — flush with Mr. Rupert Murdoch cash — plans to spend to achieve its goal of "communicating to the media community about the upcoming changes to the newspaper and driving 're-appraisal' for the paper as a media vehicle." How can Sam Zell hope to compete if he's getting outspent 20 to 1?
Granted, these likely aren't the only campaigns being held by each paper, but at the very least the discrepancy in scale is worth noting
http://www.mediabistro.com:80/fishbowlny/newspapers/wsj_spends_20x_lat_to_promote_editorial_content_90831.asp

Firstly, if the LAT's own media buyers are seriously sending out RFP to agencies to pitch for a piece of business worth $5000 to tell media buyers about their new supplement, frankly why bother? What serious agency is going to write up a proposal and whack it off back to them? All it will tell /has told the media community, via the grapevine to their own media buying arms, is that the LAT is spending a bag of beans on their new supplement. So why bother advertising in it?

As to Rupes spending $100,000 "communicating to the media community about the upcoming changes to the newspaper and driving 're-appraisal' for the paper as a media vehicle", this is small change in the world of consolidated marketing budgets for big newspapers - or at least used to be.

What this phrase means is that Rupes is trying to tell the trade (in typical media BS) that he's made some changes and they really ought to advertise.

Now I freely and happily admit I haven't budgeted a trade advertising or promotional campaign in the U.S.A/world recently but I can tell you 100k is more or less a couple of crappy ads in a couple of crappy trade mags, a cocktail party and a new brochure. So Rupes is hardly flush with cash either when it comes to "communicating to the media community about the upcoming changes to the newspaper and driving 're-appraisal' for the paper as a media vehicle." And he's talking about an entire re-launch, not one supplement in September.

I don't think this will have the advertising and marketing directors of the IHT/NYT quaking in their boots.

What both figures reveal is that neither is spending on promotion, anymore they are on edit hires.

The wider issue is this: this is Reagan vs USSR.

I think Murdoch/someone is going to try - eventually - to outspend their rivals. Who is going to back their belief in their 'value system' to put the other one out of business? Because at the end of this, and when that is I don't know, only one of the WSJ and the NYT will still be standing.

Let's hope it's the latter.

But smart spending/investment is going to save one of them, and it's going to be a period of severe losses before getting on a war footing for the very long and hopefully profitable recalibrated future, starting with Newspaper 2.0.

He who wins out will be the one is not limited by the modesty of their own ambition, and can persuade their shareholders that they have a world conquering plan.

As yet, neither have. But the smart money, sadly, has to be on the most globally diversified, and the most diversified not in just the Internet but TV aswell.

I've always felt it would take the NYT about 5 years they had to spend 25s of millions of dollars on the IHT to make it fly. At which point they either would or they would sell it, or they'd just run it as before: a showcase for NYT journalism worldwide to help their foreign bureaus gain access to people for whom the NYT is not available to be dropped on their desk on Day A. Just break even and spend any profit on a good Christmas party.

But global conquest don't come cheap. Especially when like the NYT buying out the WP and Murdoch buying out the Bancrofts - who must be delighted - you massively overpaid and failed comprehensively to read the tea leaves.

(BTW: Pretty pathetic figures, and hard to keep good marketing talent when that's all the pesos you give them to play with.)





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