Kate Gyorgy's Blog

Even though I never really got into the whole Pepsi vs Coke battle, I found this picture pretty entertaining. Even though both brands made quite a few adjustments to their logo, it seems that Coca Cola stayed fairly loyal to its signature font throughout the years.

Then it got me thinking… Both Pepsi and Coca Cola have come out with numerous variations of their original coke flavour such as Pepsi Blue, Vanilla Coke, Cherry Coke etc. So I was interested to see exactly how many of these variations exist.

When it comes to Pepsi there are over 50 variations! Crazy. They pretty much tried every flavour and name to attract more customers in various parts of the world.

On the other hand, I couldn’t find a similar list for Coca Cola. While I’m sure they also had their fair share of new, not too long lasting flavours, I assume the list was probably shorter.

I was looking through Emily Turner’s blog when I saw her post titled “A little bit of Hollywood” talking about different celebrity endorsements. This reminded me of a conversation I had with a few friends a couple of days ago about people getting ugly tattoos and how Kat Von D recently came out with a concealer which can be used to cover them up. In case you don’t know who Kat Von D is, she is a very talented tattoo artist and a reality star (Miami Ink, LA Ink) famous for having pretty much her whole body covered in tattoos. And yes, some of her tattoos are questionable, as she sometimes even lets random clients tattoo her just for fun.



The concealer is part of her make-up line for Sephora a one-of-a-kind beauty collection which “allows you to indulge your creativity and unleash your inner artist”. It got me thinking about the fact that she is one of the only so called “unconventional” beauties who is used for endorsing make-up. Most beauty product ads feature young, pretty celebrities with glowing clear skin, big smiles and a bubbly personality. Even though the media assumes that these are the people young girls and women look up to and want to be like, many don’t relate to them at all. The line is promoted as an edgy colour collection with an old-Hollywood glamour vibe to it. I believe this was a daring, yet very smart idea by Sephora, recognizing the fact that beauty comes in all different forms. Personally, I would much rather buy this line than any other if I’m looking for darker colours.

The ad for the concealer is very clever and effective too, Kat’s whole body is covered with it so it looks like she has no tattoos at all, pretty amazing if you ask me. No other tattoo cover up has received this much attention. This is a great product, as many people love tattoos but they still recognize the fact that on some occasions it is not appropriate to show them. The concealer provides a solution.

It seems that everywhere I turn there is a new contest being announced or promoted be it through the radio, TV, online or in print. I usually don’t pay much attention to them but when I saw the following video by Carlsberg, I had to admit, this is a pretty cool idea.

So yes, Carlsberg Sweden is on a mission to unbottle the courage that brews in all of us. Not just any courage though, but the kind you need in social situations. Unfortunately, only residents of Sweden can take part in the contest, however; anyone can download the app on their IPhone or Android. The app contains more than 500 missions which each present a social challenge. The goal is to reward Sweden’s most unbottled as Sweden is supposedly one of the most reserved nations in the world. After you complete each challenge and you upload a video or a photo as proof, you earn points. There are some missions which have to get approved by the “social task force”. Contestants have from April 5^th to April 17^th to earn as many points as possible and the top 10 are awarded a place in the final. The jury will then pick the winner of the grand prize (two golden tickets to the party of your life in Hong Kong with travel, hotel and spending money included).

This was a brilliant idea by Carlsberg as it is a fun, interactive contest which provides a challenge that not many people can say no to. Many missions require the use of smart phone features and social media to succeed. It is much more effective than a simple witty commercial (which many beer companies rely on) as participants share their fun adventures with their friends and also spread the word about the contest while completing challenges.

Some of the challenges include:

• Pretend to be a tour guide on the bus
• Offer a tourist a piggyback ride
• Wear a helmet to the gym
• Fill your handbag or pockets with peanuts then ask people at your local bar if they would like some

PR is a way to deliver value to consumers which in turn spreads the word (be it good or bad) about the brand or product. StickerYou is an online sticker company which lets you create your own personalized stickers at an affordable cost, but what’s really interesting about it is that they moved beyond just selling random customized stickers. They paired with big brand names such as Coca-Cola, Ford, Lego and CFL in order to offer customized stickers to their fans. A form of co-branding where StickerYou delivers the customized sticker which still contains the brand name or logo but it is presented in a more fun way. In return, consumers stick these stickers on their backpacks, laptops, electronics etc and behave like walking advertisements for these brands. They tell their friends where they got the cool stickers, which generates more revenue for the site and builds brand equity for the featured brand.



As consumers become more sceptical and overwhelmed with different types of advertisements everywhere, this is a creative and settle way to promote brands.

The StickerYou Community also represents a diverse collection of stores from artists, organizations and businesses. For example they feature John Ross Robertson Jr Public School, which provides stickers of the school mascot, colours etc. So basically, any organization can upload their designs and make the stickers available to the public.

StickerYou prints, cuts and delivers its products in about a week and offers a refund if you don’t like what you received. They offer a huge amount of stickers and the website is pretty fun to play around with.

I watched this video for the first time today, and I’m not sure if it’s because of the personal connections that I have to the country, but I instantly fell in love. Basically, what it does is, it walks you through a couple’s tourist experience in Hungary, while at the same time also noting all the technology that was invented by Hungarians. The music, the scenery, the activities, it just all captures the culture perfectly.

We have all heard of E-Marketing and E-Commerce, but the term F-Commerce was new to me until I stumbled upon a blog post written by Mitch Joel in his blog “Six Pixels of Separation”. The post was titled “F-Commerce- Rise of the Facebook Consumer”. So yes… F-Commerce refers to Facebook Commerce. I know that pretty much every marketing related blog mentions Facebook in at least one post, and I really didn’t want to fall into that category, but what was written in this article was new and interesting to me.

Along with gift cards for restaurant, clothing stores, music stores etc, it is now possible to purchase Facebook gift cards which translate into Facebook Credits which then can be used to buy (useless) things such as machines for Farmville and other online games. As the article mentions, these are the early days of the virtual goods economy. Never mind the fact that some people don’t even have enough money to buy necessities, we are spending money on virtual goods to better our virtual farms in a virtual world.

Of course, it is not only virtual goods that Facebook is good at selling. A recent survey of digital media habits reported that 75% of Facebook users have “liked” a brand. It is a well known fact that people like to display the brands they enjoy and use, and they rely heavily on their friends’ opinions when it comes to making purchasing decisions. At the end of last year, Facebook allowed its now infamous “like” button to be placed on anything online – from products to services to brands. Through this, they are collecting all kinds of invaluable information about consumers. Smart move.

Best Buy’s Fan Page let’s you “Shop + Share”; you can buy products, read reviews and share your experience with your online social network without ever leaving Facebook.

The virtual economy of Facebook (aka “the third largest country on Earth”) is in fact rapidly growing, and it is showing no sign of slowing down.

The Benetton Group is a global fashion brand based in Treviso, Italy. The company’s core business is its clothing lines, the casual “United Colors of Benetton”; the more glamour oriented “Sisley” division and “Playlife” leisurewear. Upon further research on the company, I found several aspects that I found worthy of writing about. A large emphasis on innovation has always characterized the company’s communications, IT, research and integrated logistics.

Benetton has direct control of the logistics phase for both own manufactured and sourced products. It has invested in the organization and automation of logistic processes in order to completely integrate the entire production cycle, from client orders, to packing and delivery. They succeeded in managing the entire supply chain as a single entity. The state-of-the-art logistics operation at Castrette (Italy) has a fully automated innovative sorting system, capable of handling individual orders for around 6,000 Benetton shops worldwide. As well, The Automated Distribution Center is able to handle 120,000 incoming/outgoing boxes daily with a workforce of only 28. The finished product is sent directly to the Group’s retail outlets in 120 countries worldwide.

When it comes to marketing, the Benetton Group caused quite a stir with its provocative “United Colors” Campaign, featuring billboard sized ads such as the following:

Benetton’s latest IT’S MY TIME interactive multimedia communication campaign was an online casting session calling young people from all over the world who wanted to express their personal style and possibly be featured in the Fall/Winter 2010 product campaign. It was innovative because for the first time this campaign highlighted personal styles, which are not necessarily the latest trend, and the desire to be unique, using the new media and high-tech tools which are rapidly changing our world.

The huge success of the campaign turned It’s my time into a global fashion community. Instead of stopping the submissions at the end of the campaign, Benetton made It’s my time timeless. They want to keep discovering and featuring talented, unique individuals. All you have to do is create a profile that expresses your style and submit a picture. There are ways to interact with others, “like” their profiles or just share thoughts. It’s like facebook for the more fashion forward.

Defined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his book Guerrilla Marketing:

an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget.

Guerrilla advertising is a way to create unusual, surreal or even shocking images in order to create a long lasting impression on those who see it. We are bombarded by ads almost every minute of every day, everywhere we look there’s a sign, a poster, a brand, a promotion. The following are all excellent examples of guerrilla marketing, and while I’m usually pretty neutral when I see ads, the creativity that went into these just amazed me.

• the bench that turns you into a walking advertisement for superette short shorts

• Manhole + Advertising? Folgers Coffee in New York

• Smart Cars fit everywhere

• A new way to try on watches…

• Ruuuunnnnnn…

• Volkswagen – extra spacious

• Gone in 60 seconds

So Sunday night I decided to watch the Academy Awards for a bit, of course the “a bit” part turned into about two hours. Before every commercial break, they announced that an important category would be coming up soon so I couldn’t make myself leave. And they did this a lot… so as a result, I ended up watching a lot of commercials when I really should have used that time for something more productive. But the commercials got me thinking; first of all, a large majority of them were cosmetics ads, which makes perfect sense. After seeing all the celebrities at the ceremony, of course we all wish to look as fabulous as they do, and these commercials give us the tools to do that. Second, it also occurred to me that several ads featured celebrities.

In her post “Are Celebrity Endorsements Really Worth the Hefty Price Tag?” Jasna Kamenjas talked about the fact that when it comes to increasing revenues, celebrity endorsements are just a “big waste of money”. However, according to the GreenLight Ad Gauge, 24% of the ads during the Oscars featured celebrity endorsements, a 500% increase from the previous year.

From my perspective, the strategy behind using more celebrity endorsement during a television program like the Academy Awards, is that after we see the stars in that formal setting, we see them in a commercial where they are giving us their “personal” advice on how to look as good as they do. If there was ever a great time to use celebrity endorsement, this would be it.

With a cost of $1.7 million for a 30 second commercial, I guess we’ll soon find out if it was really worth it.

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Also, on a side note, since Hyundai was the exclusive automotive sponsor, in total 9 Hyundai commercials were aired during the pre-show and the awards ceremony. One of them being this one, a 2 for 1, advertising both Hyundai and the IPad.

Google has always been somewhat artistic with their ever changing logo, but they really stepped it up with the introduction of this new project.

The Google Art Project was launched on February 1^st, 2011 and it features virtual tours of 17 world famous museums such as the Palace of Versailles, the National Gallery (London, England) and the Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam, Netherlands). Google used its signature Street View technology to allow the public to visit the world’s finest museums without having to actually travel there. Of course, there are limitations of how far and which way you can navigate, but it provides an excellent idea of what the inside of the museum looks and feels like. Beyond this, Google Art Project also offers high resolution images of famous works, some over one gigapixel in size (over 1 billion pixels!).

Google took its original Street View technology and moved it inside the building. Not only is it extending its line, but it is also extending its brand. Street view already existed before, but it is now presented in a different form, you are able to see what’s inside. As well, Google was never really associated with fine arts or visual arts before, but showcasing these galleries completely changes that.

From the museums’ point of view, this is a brilliant marketing technique. Yes, many people are happy with just looking at these places and images through their computers, but for people like me, this really just makes me want to get on a plane and fly over there. In today’s world, with the changing cultural and technological factors, people (especially the younger generations) with their fast paced lives are becoming more tech-savvy and less interested in subjects such as art and history. Google found a way to bring back life into art and I really hope the project will be a success.