The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is reviving a campaign that first launched in 1954. They are using the same agency, the same basic layout, even the same photographer.

The original Ogilvy & Mather print ads caused a buzz because they featured a beautiful, artsy photo accompanies by copious amounts of text. (One of the original ads ran almost 1,000 words!)

But the new campaign is not intended to work on nostalgia. As it was 50 years ago, Puerto Rico is a diverse land with many attractions, and a verbose, visually rich campaign seemed to fit the bill. A new media-rich website mirrors the ads' appearance.

The campaign has just launched in New York. Not sure when it'll make its way to Milwaukee or Indianapolis.


Top: one of the original ads. Bottom: one of the new ones.

If this kind of thing is going to become a trend, boy, are we in luck. With over 40 years' experience, Meyer & Wallis literally has hundreds of great campaigns we could resurrect! Now we've just got to convince all our clients that that fits their retail marketing strategy.

Just kidding. The campaign for Puerto Rico looks pretty nice, though.

There's a new company in Holland called BrandNEW.



BrandNEW manages a chain of retail locations in shopping malls, etc., that can be leased for short periods of time. Their thought is that, sometimes, you want a convenient place where consumers can come get their hands on a new product, but you don't necessarily want a long-term retail location. BrandNEW will let you lease one of their locations for a few weeks or months. It looks like you can brand them however you want, and make use of the healthy dose of interactive technology installed in each to provide an immersive, compelling brand experience for visitors.

It's a pretty cool idea. I wonder when it'll catch on in the States?

Check out www.brandnewstores.com.

I like beer. In fact, Meyer & Wallis likes beer. While our intake falls far short of the kind you see on Mad Men, we've been known to wrap up a busy workweek with a round of ice cold "art supplies." Clever, we know.

And it makes sense, too. Meyer & Wallis started over 40 years ago here in Milwaukee — home to four nationally recognized breweries at the time: Schlitz, Pabst, Blatz and Miller.

But where are they now? Schlitz has just recently returned to brewing in Milwaukee, but is owned by Pabst, now headquartered in Illinois. Blatz is being brewed once again by Miller, but Miller has merged with Coors, and, you may remember if you follow marketing blogs like this one, has moved their marketing headquarters from Milwaukee to Chicago. Yup, of the original four independent, local breweries mentioned above, not one remains. The largest domestic brewery left in the US? Sam Adams.

Now I'm sure these breweries have good reasons for merging and moving as they have, and I'm also sure that product quality, not profit, remains at the top of their lists. (Wink.) But how have consumers responded to the mass production of beer that's happened over the last few years. Well, have you been in a Whole Foods lately?
 


Sure, there's a section for your Big Name Beers, but a gloriously massive amount of space is devoted to smaller, local, craft beers. Why? Because they taste better. Because they manage to get something right that the bigger breweries can't.

What does this have to do with Meyer & Wallis?

There's this assumption that bigger is better, even with Ad Agencies. Bigger means more resources, more talent, more sway. Or so it seems at first. But really, when it comes to Ad Agencies, bigger means that your account is only one of dozens. It means if your ad budget isn't in the tens of millions, your campaign gets crafted by inexperienced interns. It means you get to pay for all that a big agency says they have at their disposal, while getting none of the personal attention required to leverage those benefits for your brand. To revive the metaphor, it'd be like paying $5 to drink a bottle of Schlitz when you could have a bottle of Lakefront East Side Dark Lager for $3.50. You haven't heard of it? It's delicious.

Meyer & Wallis is a small, independent, local ad agency with offices in Milwaukee and Indianapolis. We aren't owned by another company. We have relationships with the media going back decades. Our experience in retail marketing management is second to none. Our UK style account planning approach means every campaign is carefully researched and and planned and executed by the same team of people, utilizing a proprietary planning process. We come to know the unique needs of each of our clients as only a small agency can.

So if you're sick of the watered-down taste of your current ad campaign, and yearn for the full-bodied, unique flavor that only comes from a local agency, give us a call. We're the ad agency that made Milwaukee famous.

First Pizza Hut became The Hut. Now Radio Shack, the retailer I'm perennially shocked to see is still in business, is also opting to focus its corporate identity on a type of primitive structure:



Following a big rebranding event call the Netogether, RadioShack will rebrand itself as, simply, The Shack.

Granted, analog radio isn't as big a deal as it was when radio shack got its start in 1921, but at least it suggests technology, or media, or gadgetry. At least, it always has to me. So it remains to be seen how successful this will be. It also remains to be seen what the new logo/brand strategy will be.

Original story via engaget.

One of our clients recently unveiled a new campaign that we're really proud of, and I though I'd share a bit of it with you.

Carpet town is a local retailer that may have started as a carpet store years ago, but today, they have one of the best selections of carpet, wood and vinyl flooring, and window treatments in the area. And yet, their name — Carpet Town — is so well known, they're hesitant to change it. Understandable. So we wanted to communicate to consumers that their trusted source for Carpet is also a great place to buy other home decorating products at similarly great prices with similarly great service. How'd we do that? Here's a couple examples:


A mirror graphic in the bathroom


We decorated the exposed elevator shaft in the lobby of this mall with curtains and a "rug" floor graphic.

This has been a fun project for us. In store media is one thing... In MALL media is another. It's been fun to work with the unique opportunities Mayfair mall has given us. More on this campaign later this week.

Ok. I am NOT easily offended. Or at least I don' think I am. Anyway, this recent Microsoft ad has been pulled in response to an inundation of complaints. And I have to say, with it's repeated depiction of vomiting and not-subtle-at-all suggestions of pornographic fetishes, I think it's safe to say that this spot crosses the line from provocative to poor taste.

Don't believe me?




So what's Microsoft's strategy, anyway? Do they have one consistent message they're trying to get across? What's the message of this spot in particular? "Use our browser to keep secrets from your spouse"? Incidentally, there are a handful of other browsers that already have this "private browsing" feature, so Microsoft isn't even making a unique claim here. Honestly, what were they thinking??

My best guess is that Microsoft sees Apple — its main competition — as elitist and expensive, and thinks that if they market to the less sophisticated Joe Normals of the world, they're getting to some customers that Apple hasn't gotten to yet. But you have to wonder if Microsoft considered all the people they might offend with this spot. What about them? Won't their negative impression of Microsoft somehow hurt the company?

Why do I feel like I'm thinking about this harder than Microsoft did?

A funny/clever/witty/edgy ad gets people's attention. But the point of good advertising is not just to engage consumers, but to engage them and then deliver a message. The idea for the set-up in this Microsoft spot took precedent over carefully considering what they had to say. The only point they sell about their browser is a weak one, so the payoff of the spot is weak. And instead of remembering it at the end of the spot, most people, it seems, just remember being offended.

Offensiveness. Nah... that's not a sound retail marketing strategy.

Whole Foods added its one millionth follower on Twitter. So what, you say? This makes them the first retail brand to do so. How did they build such a monstrous following? Buy tying in a promotion to following them on Twitter, of course. If you still have any doubts that Twitter can be a viable retail marketing tool, perhaps you should read the rest of the story here.

Now that our nation's Independence Day is out of the way, your thoughts have probably turned to upcoming events throughout the rest of the year. Like the rest of summer, for example. If you're real Type-A, maybe you're already planning your Labor Day celebration. Maybe.

Then again, Sears and Kmart would like you to know that now's the perfect time to get ready for Christmas.

That's right.

Yesterday, 372 Sears stores put out a limited selection of Christmas gear. Also, Sears.com and Kmart.com launched dedicated Christmas areas on their websites.

No need to check your calendar — Christmas still falls on the 25th of December this year. It's just that sales are slow right now, and retailers all over are losing money. Sears and Kmart know that holiday shopping is a relative sure thing, so they've decided to start letting people make holiday purchases now. They've also reintroduced the layaway program: start slowly paying for your Christmas stuff today, and take it home by December. Sears and Kmart supplement their summer sales, and you get that herd of festive sheep you've always wanted. Everybody wins!

Considering the flack retailers (and radio stations) seem to get each year with the competition to be the "first" to market with Christmas stuff, this is a bold move, indeed. I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures, but is this really the best way to increase revenue in a down economy? Aren't Sears and Kmart essentially stealing from their future revenues? It seems to me that the soundest retail marketing strategy would be to make the most of every retail season, not borrowing from future ones. That's robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Maybe what they really need is to call one of the most experienced retail advertising agencies around. And clearly, I'm not talking about Young and Rubicam.

Read more about this story here.

A few weeks ago, I wrote on this blog about the growing number of "older" users on Facebook. All of a sudden, the fastest growing demographic on the site that used to be exclusively for college students had become adults in their 40s and above. Facebook has clearly been tweaking their feature set and user interface to be — how do I say this? — more approachable to the computer skill level of, say, my mother. Facebook probably thought this was great news; they've been trying to figure out how to make more money through advertising, and adding a new demographic certainly can't hurt.

Right?

Well, looky here:



Look at the growth broken down by "Current Enrollment," at the bottom of the chart. Turns out, kids of all ages dislike having their parents and grandparents commenting on photos of an evening spent bar hopping, or reading their "wall," or, God forbid, friending their friends. In it's effort to be all inclusive, Facebook might have alienated the demographic on which it built its business. And if the kids leave, will the parents stick around?

We've often worked with retail clients who are convinced the only way to grow their business is to please everybody they can possibly reach. But that's just not possible. If you try to be everything to everybody, you're going to wind up spread too thin and you risk losing any kind of discernable identity. Our favorite retail marketing strategy is to identify a client's key strengths, and directly target the consumers who'd be most interested in those strengths. Why direct your retail advertising toward consumers who, based on their needs and preferences, really wouldn't chose your store over the one they already prefer?

In their bid to appeal to everyone, Facebook may see a new startup do to them what they did to MySpace not long ago. Sometimes, it's best not to please everybody, as long as you can be okay with that.

Chart found via Read Write Web.

There's been a fresh wave of line extensions amid this recession (Kentucky GRILLED chicken, anyone?), but that still doesn't mean it's a good idea. While reason would seem to dictate that if your category's business is shrinking, you should expand your wares, sound retail marketing insight dictates otherwise, as this excellent article over at Ries' Pieces articulates. Check it out.

Though we're but a local Milwaukee ad agency, we've had several supermarkets as clients over the years — located throughout the midwest and beyond. You could call retail marketing one of our core competencies.

Anyway, many of them offer private label brands along side the local and national ones. As private labels are less expensive by nature, the recession has caused many to consider them. And a new study indicates that 91% of people who have recently switched to store brands because of the economy think they'll make the switch permanent.

WOW.

now if only supermarkets actively advertised their private labels.

When it comes time for us to dream up a retail marketing strategy for your brand, our precise and painstaking brainstorming techniques have not been made well-known. And that's intentional. Sure, everyone knows we like to "think inside the circle." But what does that mean???

Well, the secret's out.

Bob Meyer, our CEO, has been known to say this about advertising: "When all else fails, tell the truth." At Meyer & Wallis, we'd like to think the strongest story we can tell about your brand is a true one. It' the story most likely to connect with consumers. But this is proving to be more true than ever.

This afternoon, I got a call from my wife at home. A nice young man had come to the door, she said. He represented a home security company, and noticed that our house was on a very visible corner lot. Since they're looking to make their company more visible in our area anyway, his story went, he wanted to offer us a free security system and free installation if we'd just put a little sign representing his company in our front yard.

Since this is 2009, my wife asked him to come back later, so that she and I could "talk about it." And by talk about it, she meant research the company online. And what did we find?

They make the same offer to everyone. Free system and free installation, lovely corner lot or not. You know what else? They're one of the more expensive options out there. You know what else? Customer reviews paint them in a rather "sketchy" light, at best.

It's really, really risky to try to get away with this kind of thing as a retailer these days. Social networking has all but eliminated a large company from pulling the wool over anyone's internet savvy eyes. Now, when he comes back later tonight, I'm going to be more suspicious of his claims than ever.

Sometimes, your strongest marketing message is to just tell the truth. Even if it's not as great as you'd like it to be. If your claim can't be tested (and it will be), it's just not a safe claim anymore.

I recently read an article online (sorry — no link... it was a while ago) about how several mainstay food companies — Kraft, Bird's Eye, etc. — have begun marketing the frugality of their products, complete with recipes for delicious, dirt-cheap meals. They're positioning themselves as fitting right in with the average consumer's concerns in this down economy. And since it's not going anywhere anytime soon, that's really smart (and relatively easy to do when you already sell boxes of macaroni for 89 cents).

But imagine for a moment that you're a different kind of food retailer: a retailer that everyone has come to love — nay, physically depend on, but that was born in an economic climate of excess and personal luxury. Imagine that you're Starbucks.

There's a great article here by Jon Talton of the Seattle Times on the dilemma they find themselves in. He wonders if Starbucks isn't just "an artifact of an economy that's not coming back." Ouch.

You know, it's not just the designer coffee industry that could be easily associated with the boom years of the late 90s and 00s. Everyone from realtors to restauranteurs, jewelers and car dealers are now being looked upon with a suspicious gaze that seems to say, "you want HOW MUCH for THIS?"

I don't have to tell you that this economy has already killed plenty of great companies, along with their great brands. And I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that I've been known to privately predict the fall of Starbucks in hypothetical economic circumstances much like our present.

So what is your brand doing about it? Time is of the essence. Every day that Starbucks adds another gimmicky item to their menu to entice you to get that $6 20-oz. beverage is another day you're getting a McMocha instead.

Meyer & Wallis has been called a turnaround specialist before and loved it. We love taking dying brands — not dying because of the quality of the product but dying because of the industry's changing landscape — and surprising everyone by reviving the brand to become a leader in its category. Don't believe us? Call. We'd love to talk examples with you.

When it comes to retail advertising, sometimes reaction time can make all the difference.

If you're a parent, there's a good chance you've found yourself in this dilemma: Your little one is begging from the back seat for the latest Bratz doll, but you really need to pick up some penne pasta and marinara sauce for dinner. You only have time for one stop.

Oh, what is a parent to do?

Well, Toys "R" Us thinks they've got a solution for you.

In a move to make shopping more convenient, they are unveiling "R" Market in about half of their US retail locations. Within the "R" Market, you can find cereal, canned goods, beverages, paper towels — anything you might need to pick up in a pinch that could otherwise keep you from visiting Toys "R" Us.

Interesting, hmm? While Toys "R" Us isn't the first retail store to expand their selection past their core products (virtually all Target and Walmart stores now offer a vast selection of foods), it is perhaps one of the most... interesting pairings.

There's no clear segue here, so I'll just put it like this: If you own a regional chain of automotive tire and lube service locations, and you're thinking of adding some integrated bowling alleys and family dental practices, Meyer & Wallis would love to help. At least let us buy your media.

Oh, Convenience, you're an alluring muse. What will you make us think of next?

We're not the smartest bunch, you and I. As consumers, we tend to gravitate towards specific selling angles, even if we haven't completely thought them out.

For example, I've often been in Target and other "Big Box" stores and found some kind of item — let's say t-shirts — "bargain priced" at three for $20. If you look at the tag, however, you may find that each shirt is individually priced at $7.50. If you buy three, you're only saving $2.50. But it sounds good. "3 for $20" just sounds like the original price of the shirts has been drastically rounded down.

In the current economy, retailers are finding that consumers are reacting more to the percentage of the discount than the actual price. They want to know exactly what they are saving.

For example, you might be running a promotion right now, selling an item at $14.99 that regularly sells for $49.99. You might even have big signs proclaiming this deep discount to your customers. The funny thing is, it seems they'd be more likely to make a purchase if you simply told them the item was "70% OFF!!!"

Perhaps our collective math skills ain't so good, or maybe seeing the percent off better prepares us for the inevitable conversation with our better half. ("But honey, it was seventy percent off!") Either way, it's an interesting finding. Read more about it in the New York Times here.

Speaking of deep discounts, did you know Meyer & Wallis can save you money on advertising? Over 40 years, we've developed some special relationships with suppliers, producers, publishers, tv and radio stations. These allow us to keep our costs controlled in ways younger agencies just can't. When it comes to media buying and production costs, we can offer you world-class work at some seriously competitive prices. Get in touch with us to find out more.

Design by Committee:

Stories are flooding the internet of consumers who look right past this container in their search for their beloved Tropicana Orange Juice, consistently mistaking it for a generic store brand. Why? Because it looks like a generic store brand. I'm sure the Arnell Group (the group also responsible for Pepsi's new logo) has plenty of research to suggest that this packaging had broad appeal in focus groups. Vanilla has broad appeal, too. Because it's vanilla.

Whose idea was this? One guy? An entire design team? What do you think they had in mind — current Tropicana consumers and the product they'd come to know and love, or expressing their own ideas about branding via their clients? (Remember the new Pepsi logo?)















Design by Strategy:


This is one of several packaging designs we did for one of our clients, Palermo's pizza. They're a family owned business based right here in Milwaukee, and they make some of the finest frozen pizza money can buy. (And I'm not just saying that. It's good.)

Their pizza is good because it's based on generations-old family recipes from Italy.
What other regional frozen pizza company can make that claim? Probably not a one. So we wanted their packaging to reflect their unique offer — frozen pizza that tastes like authentic pizzeria pizza because it actually is. So the packaging is imbued with subtle, rustic Italian imagery. Nothing groundbreaking, really. Just stubbornly on target. We wanted the package to really suggest the taste of the product and the ethos of the company that makes it.

And what happened in both of these examples? Well, sales of Palermo's Frozen Pizza have pretty much been steadily up since. More than any other regional frozen pizza maker. They've launched in new markets and introduced new pizzas. (There's even reason to suspect other manufacturers have tried to copy their packaging layout and color scheme.) As for Tropicana, they've pulled the new packaging in favor of the old, familiar carton we'd all recognize. That was an expensive experiment!

Here at Meyer & Wallis, we don't just do retail advertising (although you should hear the radio spots we've done for Palermo's). We're also a graphic design company. We're media buyers. And we're good at all this stuff. We won't run an experiment on your brand. Instead, we'll leverage our 40+ years of experience to achieve exactly what you need us to. That's how we roll.

New research out today shows that consumers are more likely to have confidence in those financial institutions that are still advertising, whether they're actually struggling financially or not.

While I'm guessing that no one at AIG is reading this post, these findings have definite implications in the retail world. Further down in the article appears this gem:

“This research shows that ‘out of sight’ can mean ‘out of business.’”

So, simply put, remember that if your business is not a daily destination for your customers, the only thing letting them know you're just as open for business as you were last time they visited you may be your advertising.

This is a good time to be fiscally wise, but not a good time to stop advertising.

They say history repeats itself. And, for sure, America has seen the likes of this economic recession before. Your parents or grandparents might even have well-known stories about their experiences in past economic hardships (walking uphill both ways, etc.). But they’ve got nothing on what recently went down here in Milwaukee, WI. This ain’t your grandma’s recession.

 

Meyer & Wallis has been hard at work on an ad campaign and event for Milwaukee area retailers for several months. See, we realized that most of the dire economic news we’d hear about was happening elsewhere, yet was being presented as if it were happening everywhere. Bank closings in New York, foreclosures in California, unemployment in Detroit, etc. Maybe it isn’t as bad in Milwaukee, we thought. So we did some research, and sure enough: business IS better here.

 

So to make a long story short, a couple weeks ago, more than 250 local retailers gathered to hear speakers from across the country talk to them about how to market in this down economy using every media at their disposal. We had a doctor of consumer psychology, the mayor and county executive of Milwauke, representatives from Meyer & Wallis, and speakers from each of the major media bureaus. As far as we know, they’d never been gathered together for one event before. Ever. The day was jam-packed with insight and information designed to help area retailers stay afloat and weather this economy, coming out stronger on the other side.

 

But in addition to the great speakers, we unveiled an ad campaign we’ve been working on for some time, designed to instill confidence and optimism in Milwaukee consumers. Because, after all, business is better here!

 

So here’s one of the ads we did for this campaign. I’ll be unveiling more as the days go by. But be sure to also check out the website at businessisbetterhere.net