It’s easy to be cynical about BMW’s Joy campaign, especially for those of us in the marketing industry. However in many respects it is a bit of masterstroke in asking people to reconsider the brand and what it represents, and in the current social and economic climate arguably this is a very cleaver thing for BMW to have done.

In the UK during the boom years, when many people wanted to show how successful they were, one of the easiest and most obvious ways to so was through the car you drove. In this respect nothing played up to an Alpha male mid-level businessman’s ego more than a shiny 5 Series and more junior executives would feel their 3 Series put them ahead of their Mondeo counterparts.

Which was great in terms of sales for BMW, however the world is changing, not just in terms of the recession but also in the way the media has been encouraging people to economise, consume less and be less ostentatious. On this basis if BMW continued to market itself as a prestige brand its messages would increasingly become out of kilter with consumers. Further, with industry under increasing pressure no doubt there would have been a concern that fleet sales would suffer.

So with Joy essentially BMW have in a single swipe given consumers a new reason to consider BMW, and most importantly it is an emotional reason. After all time and again emotion beats logic in the consumer decision making process. No longer does owning a BMW mean “look at me I’m a big cheese” instead the brand is now suggesting it is for people who enjoy life and enjoy living it, with their BMW being one the joy factors in their world.

This is where the campaign really does smart in so much as whilst many people have lost their jobs, the biggest problem the recession has caused for the economy is the undermining of peoples confidence. By doing so, and adding the media’s rush to make thrifty trendy, it is in BMW’s interest to give people permission to enter the showroom, take the plunge and buy the car. Essentially, the Joy campaign does this by telling people “Its OK to enjoy yourself”, it is giving consumers permission to stay loyal to the brand, it is blowing away the businessman stigma and reinventing the brand.

The next masterstroke for campaign comes from the fact that the competition will really struggle to compete on the same basis. Ultimately BMW have grabbed emotion as their USP, and the emotion they have grabbed is Joy. You can’t really see Audi pitching up with “Happy” or Mercedes with “Elated” or Jaguar with “Chuffed to bits” can you?

Overall the timing and execution of GSD&M’s work for BMW has been exceptional.

The Christmas ad campaigns are coming thick and fast, and generally they are disappointing. Many retailers are going straight for the “cut price” message which seems to kick the stuffing out of  the season. With Littlewoods ”Christmas in manageable bits” campaign being one of the most patronising and sole destroying of them all. We’re in the middle of a recession and they want to encourage people who can’t afford a big spend at Christmas to burden themselves with debt just for one day of indulgence – seems so wrong on every level.

Meanwhile, over the last few years M&S have landed some great ads but unfortunately this years TV ad just fails to get the party started, seems to lack any sense of imagination and wastes their line-up of big names.

However John Lewis and the Cooperative have done a much better job with their TV ads.

Lets see what happens in the coming weeks. 

Have you noticed how simple it is to write loads and loads of content, whereas the real skill comes in being able to say what you need to say and to gain a response in as few words as possible.

Even better if you can do it in just one word….

T H I N K

Oh dear its not looking too good, after Welsh Water called me on August 5th to tell me that someone would be contacting me to arrange a visit, guess what – no one has called.

Just to add to the confusion on August 5th I was told they would contact me within 5 working days, so I called back on the 13th only to be told they have up to to 10 working days to contact me and arrange to come out.

So today their 10 working days are up and you guessed it I’ve still not been contacted. I’ve just called Welsh Water and am now waiting for the Customer Service Agent I am dealing with to call me back. So far he has provided a good service, but it seems their systems aren’t very customer centric.

One annoying point to this is that back on August 5th I had contacted my plumber for him to come out and see if he could find a leak, but on Welsh Waters advice I was told to put him on hold.

So essentially in the space of the last 2 weeks this matter is no further towards being resolved.

I do get the feeling this will become a protracted matter, oh dear!

OK I’ve just come to the end of a three monthly mega wrangle with a major mobile phone company trying to sort out a series of simple problems with my father’s account.

Thankfully I won’t bore you with any of  the details as this was quite simply one of the most horrendous experiences of non-customer service I have ever experienced. Only by a 4 page letter to the Chief Executive’s office have I at last managed to resolve it.

So guess what last Monday on my door mat was my water bill, that quite simply was enormous, huge, massive and wrong. Three calls later still no closer to resolution and I’m currently waiting on a call from their team to arrange for a visit to my cottage to find out where – wait for it – 333 litres of water are disappearing every day. Scary thing being I can’t see a drip anywhere.

I have decided in this case to put their Customer Service On Trial and will provide an ongoing update of this matter through my blog. Stay tuned for the next installment.

Its always good to see things that make you think, so for a little inspiration take a look at:

www.booneoakley.com

Let me know what you think!

So far 2009 has been a very epic year for me, and just today I’ve approved the branding for booguru my new marketing consultancy.
And of course I’m setting up a blog for booguru here on WordPress, so do feel free to take a peek at over the coming weeks.

Maybe because of the well documented cases of celebrity Twitters, there is certainly no avoiding this latest Internet must use social networking site.

What I really think is clever about Twitter is that it gives you just 140 characters to say what you are doing, this is a great challenge as it makes you focus on what you are going to write. Without this limit people would be free to just ramble on and on and on, which itself is counter to the way many people are living their lives these days. For example, with the Internet and email now easy to carry in the palm of your hand, an application such as Twitter makes more sense as you can update on the move, so short sharp entries make sense.

Of course whether other people will be interested in what you Twitter is a different matter!

It will be interesting to see just how big Twitter gets, and how people use and benefit from the application.

Even more interesting will be to see what comes after Twitter.

Well I’ve not blogged for a while, mainly because I have been busy preparing to set-up my own business. Still lots to do on that front and at the moment I’m keeping things under wraps until I’m ready to bring the beast to life.

So watch this space!

Something got me angry last night!

So I get home the phone rings and a wonderful computer generated voice greets me with:

 “Hello, when was the last time you reviewed your gas and electricity charges…..”

No surprise I hung up without bothering to listen to the rest of this call.

This type of marketing activity undermines the marketing profession, and importantly shows a lack of care or consideration for the potential customer, and ultimately such practices should not be allowed.

The problem with telephone marketing is that you are interrupting people in their own homes, you are forcing them to pick-up the phone. So to not even have the common decency of having a real human at the end of the phone is simply disrespectful.

You could argue this is no more than the telephone equivalent of DM, but I can choose when to open my mail so the irritation factor involved in opening a poorly executed piece of DM (I don’t mind good, intelligent and creative DM) is nowhere near as irritating as forcing me to go and answer my phone.

I’ve never been a fan of telemarketing but arguably there can be a time and a place for it. However, as for automated telemarketing messages, the message is simple – No.