Products That Don't Advertise Anymore/Is Advertising A Big Brand Necessary?

"Mr. Badman, you're so miserable. Like, even something as trivial as adverts sends you on a rant-"
"strawberry floatin adWHATCORPORATEFUCKULIZING-"

They may have a point. I can talk about adverts without wanting to fracture the skulls of Saatchi and Saatchi. Well, at least not saying that I want to out loud. Watch:

There's a hypothetical discussion about Coca Cola: if they stopped advertising, would they remain the largest cola company in the world? I think, to be honest, yes, probably. They certainly wouldn't drop much below Pepsi in a worst case scenario. After all, what does a coke ad actually do to advertise the drink? All the bullshit about FRIENDS and LIVING LIFE is an excuse plot, a vehicle to get that red and white logo embedded in your mind, much like a BNP political broadcast with St George's Cross.

Tizer used to advertise on telly all the time with some bloke with no skull cap Max Headrooming at the viewer. They even did a promo where they did a version that "tasted cold" even when warm. Mint extract probably, I forget. Tango used to have a bloke on telly in an orange jumpsuit slapping people about. You rarely see an ad for either now - the occasional billboard for Tango every world cup seems to be all. A far cry from You've Been Tangoed, and from Tizer sponsoring SM:TV Live, and yet you still see both drinks filling the shelves - I even bought some Tango yesterday. I still, as it happens, remember most of their adverts, whereas the current coke ads just get on my nerves and are something I'd much rather avoid. Tango's "OFFICIALLY A DRINK during Euro 2000" though? Witty.

On the other end of the scale, Fallout and the Elder Scrolls were rather niche PC series', yet Fallout 3 and Oblivion/Skyrim were huge, partly due to console ports but also no doubt because (especially in Fallout's case) of the billboards. They were piggin' everywhere. But that folds back into the current discussion: would the Elder Scrolls VI be as successful without any advertising?

Anyway it's all bollocks 'cause the best colas were Virgin Cola and RC Cola and both lasted a total of about 25 minutes in UK shops.

We now return to your regularly scheduled crap (a point to whoever recognises that).

I hardly ever see Tango or Tizer nowadays

RJ Badman wrote:Anyway it's all bollocks 'cause the best colas were Virgin Cola

Do you remember when that first launched? They did a scratchcard promotion (national lottery scratchcards had just then launched and so they joined the bandwagon), and i ended up winning a Virgin Cola t shirt on one.

It was actually pretty neat too.

It's absolutely necessary. I specialise in this area and just got a diploma related to marketing and brand management.

There's a trove of great work out there on the impact of brand growth and maintenance if you're really interested.

One relevant example to yours is recently (IIRC around 2017) Pepsi strawberry floated up their strategy - went too heavily digital, made tactical errors. Their product sales dropped dramatically to lose the number 2 spot in the US to diet coca cola. And that's with heavy investment (albeit misplaced spend). They corrected and sales began to rise again.

Corazon de Leon

Yeah, I look at advertising from the propaganda side of it and just about every theorist you’ll ever read believes that it is absolutely necessary for, essentially, the constant presence of a brand or person in the public eye for the propaganda/advertisement to work. I’m not putting it across very well here but essentially Rocsteady is bang on.

I’ve not even seen Tizer in the shops in years. Or maybe it is there and I’m just glossing over it.

Last time I had something called “Tizer Ice”. The bloke handing them out said it tastes cold without the need of a fridge. It was, categorically, the worst drink I’ve ever tasted in my life. If Putin served you a soft drink it’d be a Tizer Ice.

KK wrote:I’ve not even seen Tizer in the shops in years. Or maybe it is there and I’m just glossing over it.

Last time I had something called “Tizer Ice”. The bloke handing them out said it tastes cold without the need of a fridge. It was, categorically, the worst drink I’ve ever tasted in my life. If Putin served you a soft drink it’d be a Tizer Ice.

KK wrote:I’ve not even seen Tizer in the shops in years. Or maybe it is there and I’m just glossing over it.

Last time I had something called “Tizer Ice”. The bloke handing them out said it tastes cold without the need of a fridge. It was, categorically, the worst drink I’ve ever tasted in my life. If Putin served you a soft drink it’d be a Tizer Ice.

In Soviet Russia, fridge doesn't ice Tizer, Tizer ices fridge

Cigarettes still sell

The lesson here is to make your product chemically addictive

I haven't seen an advert for Pepsi Max in probably 10 years and yet I still drink infinity billion gallons of the stuff every day! :toot:

OrangeRKN wrote:Cigarettes still sell

If you stopped someone in the street and asked them to name as many cigarette brands as they could, they would be able to name fewer than someone could on the same street twenty years ago.

That's what advertising does. Advertisers don't sell a product; they sell their product. Coca Cola don't want you to watch their ad and think "ooh, I now fancy that Pepsi in the fridge". They want you to watch their ad and think "nevermind the fridge, I'm off out to buy Coca Cola".

Most people would probably name Laramie cigarettes because of the Simpsons! :lol:

a dan from grcade wrote:
OrangeRKN wrote:Cigarettes still sell

If you stopped someone in the street and asked them to name as many cigarette brands as they could, they would be able to name fewer than someone could on the same street twenty years ago.

That's what advertising does. Advertisers don't sell a product; they sell their product. Coca Cola don't want you to watch their ad and think "ooh, I now fancy that Pepsi in the fridge". They want you to watch their ad and think "nevermind the fridge, I'm off out to buy Coca Cola".

Exactly. Product categories can remain popular but that's not the same thing.

Weed in Canada is a great current example. It's selling by the bucketload but no brand has yet reached sufficient penetration to be seen as the consistent market leader.

Well cigarettes are obviously a special case because you legally can't advertise them. I think it was on QI or something that cigarette company profits all went up when those laws came in because most of the marketing money was a zero-sum game competing with each other?

Also, while I agree in general, I was just reading about diamonds on wikipedia the other day (as one does find themselves on seemingly random subjects on wikipedia) and it was interesting to read about De Beers advertising diamonds in general as opposed to their own specific products in order to alter public perceptions.

This is probably grossly simplified, but I always thought of it in two ways: making people aware of your product, and then keeping your product in people's minds.

Brands like McDonald's and Coca Cola generally don't need to advertise because so they're so huge and ubiquitous (unless they bring out a new burger or flavour I guess), but keeping the brand in the public consciousness and such is why they sponsor huge events and keep adverts on TV and billboards.

OrangeRKN wrote:Well cigarettes are obviously a special case because you legally can't advertise them. I think it was on QI or something that cigarette company profits all went up when those laws came in because most of the marketing money was a zero-sum game competing with each other?

Also, while I agree in general, I was just reading about diamonds on wikipedia the other day (as one does find themselves on seemingly random subjects on wikipedia) and it was interesting to read about De Beers advertising diamonds in general as opposed to their own specific products in order to alter public perceptions.

That's quite common to advertise the category when you're the market leader. If you have 80% market share then by growing the category you're automatically going to reap the benefits, even if your competitors pick up some of the scraps.

Lotus wrote:This is probably grossly simplified, but I always thought of it in two ways: making people aware of your product, and then keeping your product in people's minds.

Brands like McDonald's and Coca Cola generally don't need to advertise because so they're so huge and ubiquitous (unless they bring out a new burger or flavour I guess), but keeping the brand in the public consciousness and such is why they sponsor huge events and keep adverts on TV and billboards.

Your first para is pretty much spot on - ensuring mental and physical availability is basically all marketing is.

With Coke - I'm thirsty, I want something sweet, the local shop I'm walking by sells coke. Due to the brand work they've done previously, amongst other factors of course, I'll probably get a coke rather than a competitor.

Even huge brands still need to advertise though, in order to remain as huge/ to grow further.

Jenuall wrote:I haven't seen an advert for Pepsi Max in probably 10 years and yet I still drink infinity billion gallons of the stuff every day!

Don't know how you've managed to avoid the adverts with all the footballers in, but well done you.

OrangeRKN wrote:Well cigarettes are obviously a special case because you legally can't advertise them. I think it was on QI or something that cigarette company profits all went up when those laws came in because most of the marketing money was a zero-sum game competing with each other?

Also, while I agree in general, I was just reading about diamonds on wikipedia the other day (as one does find themselves on seemingly random subjects on wikipedia) and it was interesting to read about De Beers advertising diamonds in general as opposed to their own specific products in order to alter public perceptions.

De Beers literally created a multi-billion industry with their marketing campaign for diamonds, it must be one of the most successful ever.

Products That Don't Advertise Anymore/Is Advertising A Big Brand Necessary?

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