So what does “’hands on help from’ experienced people” actually mean?

One of the selling points of Blue Horse is the experience of our core group.

Consider that our Director of Media, Narkis Erlichman comes to us having worked at Burnett in Chicago, at McCann in New York and at Optimedia in Seattle.

Laura Rodriguez worked at DDB Needham and McCann in Los Angeles. Our pr folks, Steve Johnstone (winner of the Dorothy Thomas Black Award last year) and Susie Falk both have extensive backgrounds in their category. As does our president Tom Thiede and partner Bill Sheahan.

And if you get past all that, I spent twenty years at Leo Burnett and then some more at EuroRSCG Tatham.

One would hope that all that firepower would be invaluable in terms of strategic thinking about your brand. And you would be right.

But it also comes in handy when you have a quick turnaround situation on your hands. Like our good client Wal-Mart. They are partnering with the Milwaukee Wave soccer team to develop an abandoned piece of property in Cudahy. Naturally, things get contentious and we wanted to make sure that the supporters of the project were well represented at the planning commission meeting.

So Steve Johnstone comes to Bob Welke and together they come up with a direct mailer that is both an invitation and a way to visibly show support at the meeting. The copy is written on a Friday afternoon and by the following Wednesday, it’s been approved, printed and mailed.

And hundreds, yes–hundreds, of people show up at the meeting, cards in hand to support the project.

This was a low-cost, short-turnaround and creative answer to a difficult situation. And while it took two meetings to do it, Wal-Mart finally got the green light.

That’s what “hands on help from experienced people” actually means. It means you get answers that work. As we say in our mission, our job is not to make ourselves look good. Our job is to make our clients look good. So we don’t have to do TV commercials when postcards will work, especially postcards that double as on-site signage.

Our thanks to our good friends at Wal-Mart for giving us this opportunity.

Digg it?

Was the Super Bowl Super?

The game sure was, but what about the Super Spots?

Every year, advertisers ante up to entertain America with their best spots in the Super Bowl. This year was certainly no exception, but was the $2.7 million investment worth it for advertisers?

Of course, you can take a look at any number of polls and critiques of the spots. The morning after the game, opinions are flying all over the place. You can hear from the trade critics, agency bigwigs and of course, football fans.

But at Blue Horse, we wondered about the opinions of marketing executives – the people who might not have an ad in the game, but whose job it is to oversee their own budgets and advertising efforts. What do they think? What spots would work in the marketplace? Which spots were a waste of money?

We sent out a number of invitations to marketing pros to communicate their thoughts to us either online or by phone. Here are the top six things they told us:

1. No one was impressed with the overall quality. While some marketing pros felt the body of work was better than last year, more said things like Larry Weissman of Cousins who remarked that the showing was “poor – run of the mill.” David Andrews of Assurant went so far as to describe the assembly as “terrible.”

2. As testimony to the lack of innovation, nothing really stood out as a favorite. The Doritos “Mouse,” Bridgestone, Budweiser’s “Rocky,” Planters and the Bud Light wine & cheese party all got good reviews. There were others right behind: NFL “Chester Pitt,” selected Bud Light spots, Coke’s “Dueling Balloons” and others were among them.

3. What did stand out as a big loser was the Salesgenie effort. It was almost universally panned by our marketing pros.

4. Not surprisingly, some spots were polarizing: Life Water’s “Lizards,” Planters, Vitamin Water and Audi. Our pros either liked ‘em or hated ‘em. Especially polarizing was the E-Trade baby series. “The gross out award,” said Larry Weissman. “I hated it,” said Hank Hakewill. But for some others, it was a favorite.

5. It was noted by many that a number of spots were, as Bruce Hutchison of Sears noted, “only half the story” because they sought to drive people online. It would only be fair, he said, to check out all the online stories and see if they paid off.

6. Several marketers cited the Hyundai Genesis effort as being laudable in that it elegantly portrayed the car as a Mercedes that is not a Mercedes. Roger Klement felt that this could be the most effective spot for business reasons. David Andrews said he would “withhold judgment until this summer.” He wondered, because of this commercial, “Will people hold off buying a Mercedes? It set expectations high. This is a risky move. The car must be quality and everything must be ready for the launch.”

The question has to be asked: has the escalating cost of production and time made everyone risk adverse? That would include the NFL who, in an effort to stay clear of the FCC, hired a rock musician who was big when some of us were in high school.

Consider the amount of “looking back.” Old music, even old comedic routines like Pepsi’s “Bobbleheads.” Bud Lite working to its “formula” of beer jokes. Then there’s Under Armor trying to break through and succeeding only in being a pale imitation of Apple’s “1984.”

One final note. Given the fact that a large portion of the audience says they watch the game only for the advertising (and with two East Coast teams, that might be particularly true this year), isn’t it rather ironic to note that this contributes so mightily to driving up the cost of the advertising?

Maybe if we just eliminated the game. Ah, but then Larry Weissman, the self-described “only Giants fan in Wisconsin,” wouldn’t have had nearly as much fun.

Subs, sportscasters and some seriously great news.

Everyone here at Blue Horse is very proud (and hungry) to announce that Cousins Subs has selected us as their new agency.

After working on fried chicken, fish, tacos, hamburgers, cereals, biscuits, pickles, milk, sausage, popcorn, ketchup, salad dressing, cheese, ice cream and oh yes, lobsters, we are truly excited to be working on something brand new (and very, very popular): Cousins Subs.

That is no exaggeration. When we first started talking with the folks at Cousins, our office manager, the beloved and underpaid Constance Venezia opined very loudly, “Tell them never, ever to change the tuna salad!” Constance is a veteran of the catering business and a bit of a gourmet. She can tell you all the best restaurants in Milwaukee and what to order when you go there. Her ringing endorsement of Cousins Tuna Salad Sub is high praise indeed.

It’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t like Cousins. And with good reason. Their sandwiches are typically bigger, made better and oh, that bread! So it’s nice to partner up with someone that has such a great offering. Not to mention a big fan in Dan Patrick.

But fast food is a tough category. The out-of-home food biz has had 15 consecutive years of growth. You have to run faster and perform better than ever to get your share – even if your product is as good as Cousins. Increased competition has brought increased ad spending. In 2006, restaurants spent $2.7 billion on ads. That was up 6.3% from 2005. And huge of amounts of money are being poured into product placement messaging as media choices proliferate.

Our job is clear. If we can’t outspend ‘em, we have to outthink ‘em. We have to forge a real connection with the Cousins loyalist – and create more of them. We have to listen carefully to all stakeholders, from guests to franchisees. Then we have to execute our work in a smart, on time and on budget manner.

The things we’ll do for a great tuna sub.

(Thank you, Cousins! Let’s get started!)

Suuuurrrge!!

This may be the age of the Internet, but there are still many books to be read. One that I’ve been into of late is Citizen Marketers – When People are the Message by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba. I highly recommend it.

Arriving at chapter five of this fine effort, I was amazed to find the story of something out of my own murky past. It’s described very accurately in the book as “an alien-green, highly-caffeinated soda called Surge…MIA since 2002.”

The story unfolds that a gentleman by the name of Eric Karakovack from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, whom the book describes as a “genial, outgoing, and sincere” web developer is a passionate fan of Surge. He teamed up with another Surge fan by the name of Avery Lund and together they launched SaveSurge.org. The site features “500 pages of Surge testimonials, photographs of Surge marketing paraphernalia, and recipes for Surge Jell-O and Surge Cookies.”

And get this: “Twelve-packs of the soda four years past their expiration date have sold for $152 on eBay.”

Back in 1996, I was a creative director at Leo Burnett. At Leo, everyone worked together as a cohesive team. Not. No, what really happened was that creative groups basically mauled, kicked and outworked each other trying to win assignments. To win meant glory, money, promotions. To lose meant going to work at J. Walter Thompson.

Our group won a few and lost a few. But one of our victories was an assignment from Coca-Cola for the introduction of Surge. Developed to drive a wedge into the very successful Pepsi brand of Mountain Dew, Surge was indeed an “alien-green, highly-caffeinated” liquid.

The creative team of Phil Gayter and Joe Gallo authored, and with producer Stuart Kramer, filmed a series of spots for the brand. They were a bit ahead of their time, featuring groups of urban guys who set up over-the-top competitions to get their hands on the brand.

How did the spots do? This from Citizen Marketers: “For a while, Surge did OK as a product: 69 million cases sold in its first year. A respectable number for a niche soda. Two years later, Surge lost its marketing fizz. Sales dropped 25 percent, to 51.8 million cases. A year after that, Surge sales didn’t, and they slid another 48 percent. Bottlers across the country reevaluated their investment in the brand. The publisher of Beverage Digest suspected that the demise was caused by marketing inattention, saying Coke did not dedicate enough resources for it to escape the formidable shadow of Mountain Dew, which is made by Coke’s archenemy, PepsiCo. Like a rolling blackout, Surge disappeared from store shelves. By February 2002, most bottlers had stopped producing it.”

Now there is not only SaveSurge.com, but also a SaveSurge Hall of Fame and “Save Surge-The Movie,” 28 minutes worth of soda hunting. There is also a new test market brand from Coca-Cola called Vault, which the Surgers seem to like a lot. This in turn has caused Mr. Karkovack to build and launch VaultKicks.org. So it looks like Fort Dew will again be under surge, er, siege.

You might want to check out SaveSurge.org and VaultKicks.org. Obviously these are great examples of “citizen marketers” who are leading companies like Coca-Cola into the brave new world of economic democracy.

As for my part, I’m glad to have played a small role in the whole thing. You see, when I was presented with the idea from Gayter and Gallo, I fortunately did a very smart thing.

I didn’t kill it.