Seven Macro-trends to Watch

We are witnessing some interesting transformations in the consumer landscape. They vary in terms of stage of development. Some are nascent and a little blurry, others sharper edged and closer. Stark or subtle, these trends signal the likely shifts in how consumers live and what they want.

1. Redefining Work (i): The information age will spawn self-managed, nomadic knowledge workers. Thanks to 24/7/365 connectivity, people will work without synchronism – anytime and anywhere. As a result, task, not time – a model that dominated employment until a century ago – will be the key building block for work. Consumers will demand real convergence and convenience that is easy to use on their terms. Screen shifting will grow, as consumers will want to move seamlessly from computer to television to mobile.

2. Recasting of Primary Reference Group (ii): The construct of friends and family will be more encompassing, extending to networks not necessarily related by blood or encumbered by geography. The basic need to connect will be fulfilled better by smaller online communities sharing similar interests, aspirations and values. Successful marketers will build a brand commune where like-minded individuals can congregate. Taking a cue, Toyota set up Toyota PlanetKaizen website. Toyota enthusiasts and auto aficionados alike gather and share their experiences, industry grapevine, and auto trivia at the website. Toyota, in turn, rewards them by serving detailed technical information, including Toyota’s innovation and manufacturing procedures.

3. P2P Networks (iii): Many-to-Many flow of information will gain the ascendancy over traditional One-to-Many. Collaborative P2P sharing will engender a self-serve, no-wait world. P2P exchanges will use personal currencies. Information or ideas will be transacted in exchange for counsel, shopping tips and social introductions. Marketers will need to build a genuine symbiotic relationship with “network transmitters” who want to influence, produce and distribute content among members.

As a corollary, P2P networks will build new business opportunities. Peerflix.com is an online service that enables members to legally swap DVDs. Kiva.org lets individuals extend micro-credit to budding entrepreneurs in developing countries.

4. Multisensory Life (iv): On-the-go technology tools with fast online connectivity will become integral parts of everybody’s lives. However, the engagement levels will differ. Millennials will be the most comfortable leading a hyperlife. They are used to overstimulation through multimedia. GenXers will slip in and out, walking a tight line between being plugged-in and a quiet life sans wireless. Many boomers/matures will see hyperlife as part of a love-hate relationship with technology. They will like the convenience but hate the intrusion.

5. Quest for Authenticity (v): Virtualization of life will build a yearning for the real. As the consumers see the world around them turn more contrived, they will want their products to connect them to history or to a cause. Consumers will be guided not only by price, quality and availability, but also authenticity. Consumers will search for authentic experiences complemented by authentic possessions. Corona projects an authentic carefree, fun-in-the-sun image, holding a 30% share of the import beer pie in the U.S.

6. Sustainability Check (vi): Eco-friendly business practices will become a price of entry for reaching mainstream consumers. Plug-in hybrid automobiles with potential to quadruple our miles per gallon will be zealously embraced. Food miles will be regularly checked on packaged foods. EDS has developed a grocery cart system that will provide shoppers with information about the environmental impact of their selections. All these steps will help reduce carbon emissions as well as loss of biodiversity.

7. Thrift Consciousness (vii): American consumers have seen their savings to disposable income ratio decline in the past few years. They are maxed out in mortgage and credit card debt. Conspicuous consumption will slow down, overtaken by conscientious consumption. Less will be the new more.

By Sanjeev Bhatt
Strategic Research Architect, Cheil USA


i. Erickson, Tamara J. “Task, Not Time: Profile of a Gen Y Job.” Harvard Business Review. Feb. 2008, p. 19.
ii. Macro-Trends, www.iconoculture.com.
iii. Macro-Trends, www.iconoculture.com.
iv. Macro-Trends, www.iconoculture.com.
v. Cloud, John. “Synthetic Authenticity.” Time. 24 Mar. 2008, p. 53.
vi. Macro-Trends, www.iconoculture.com.
vii. Fox, Justin. “The New Austerity.” Time. 24 Mar. 2008, p. 56.

Integrated Campaigns for HP and Juke by Samsung

I have only my creative instincts and years of advertising experience when I approach campaigns. Two such campaigns I will attempt to decipher are the HP printer campaign featuring Gwen Stefani and the Samsung Juke campaign featuring the song “Juke Box Hero”. Both these campaigns are considered integrated campaigns. Integrated marketing is defined on Wikipedia as follows:

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC), according to The American Marketing Association, is “a planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time.” Marketing Power Dictiona Integrated marketing communication can be defined as a holistic approach to promote buying and selling in the digital economy. This concept includes many online and offline marketing channels. Online marketing channels include any e-marketing campaigns or programs, from search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click, affiliate, email, banner to latest web-related channels for webinar, blog, RSS, podcast, and Internet TV. Offline marketing channels are traditional print (newspaper, magazine), mail order, public relations, industry analyst relations, billboard, radio and television.

Both these campaigns approach this integration model differently. I will look at both examples and see what they tried to accomplish. Then I will conclude what to leverage for future ad campaigns.

First, I will look at HP. The challenge of HP, as Kate Maddox points out in her article, was to focus on delivering a next-generation digital printing platform to consumers, small businesses and enterprise customers. The global ad campaign, developed by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, includes TV, online and outdoor. Kate Maddox quotes Kathy Stromberg, VP at HP’s Imaging and Printing Group, “We really want to think beyond printers to the world of printing. We want people to think about printing in terms of the web and what the web is enabling.” The campaign brings to life the strategic shift that not only HP wants to make, but what our customers are driving.” This campaign is supported with a hefty $300 million global ad campaign aimed at getting consumers to better use the web to custom produce everything from invitations and greeting cards to concert souvenir books – and, of course, print those using HP products.

A growing trend: Stromberg adds, “For the first time in our history, we are having at least 50% of our media online versus traditional media.”

Central to the campaign are microsites featuring celebrity entrepreneurs, with applications that let users express themselves by mashing, creating and publishing digital content in innovative ways. As part of the campaign, these celebrities were the focal points to highlight different printing possibilities one can achieve by using an HP printer. For example, at hp.com/gwen, users can combine their personal content with free designs from Gwen Stefani to print greeting cards, CD labels and paper dolls. Based on snowboard developer Jake Burton’s style, one can go on hp.com/burton and create small and midsize businesses with online tools to help them build their own brands. And at hp.com/paula, entrepreneurs can use free customizable tools to print business cards, letterheads and brochures based on graphic artists’ designs. (source: Kate Maddox)

The online campaign also featured banner ads that let users create content such as business cards within the ads. The campaign kicked off with distinctive out-of-home placements, including a billboard in Times Square that displayed user-generated content created online. To provide a printing toolbar as well as Snapfish printing service to its Windows Live Spaces community, HP has partnered with Yahoo and Microsoft.

As posted on the blog by geeksugar, the basis of this campaign, as referenced by The Utility Belt, was to encourage people to experiment with demanding print jobs at home and at work. In doing so, consumers will be able to add photos to Gwen’s Sweet Escape tour shots to create their very own album. Gwen will also be showcasing Harajuku Lovers paper dolls that can be customized online and printed at home. HP’s new logo for these designs inspired by Gwen will be called “Gwen Stefani for you”. Additionally mentioned in the Adage article about the HP campaign, Ms. Stromberg explains an aspect of the campaign, “We are focusing on what the end result is rather than hardware products.”

One of Gwen Stefani's customizable paper dolls.

She continues in the Adage article by saying, “The campaign is the culmination of an integrated HP strategy to make web-based printing simpler than before and to build itself as not just a computer manufacturer, but a next-generation printing platform. We’re looking at platforms that cross into the enterprise space, the high-end graphic arts, and every venue where customers are going to want to create and publish that digital content.”

What has not been noted throughout my research was the onslaught of Mrs. Stefani’s image in fashion magazines, as well as the fact that she just happened to launch a perfume around the same time period as this campaign.

The challenge of the Juke campaign was to tap into this youth market, while still trying to create appeal to consumers up to their forties. As reported in an Adweek article, the Juke is described as:

“…a phone for high school kids and college students who are tired of carrying around two devices and don’t have a lot of money,” said Roger Entner, an analyst at telecom research firm Ovum, Boston. The fact that the Juke carries as much music as an iPod Nano doesn’t necessarily make it an iPhone killer, but it does give parents an alternative that might pacify their kids. At $99, it is a quarter of the price of the iPhone. “It’s a tremendous product for the price,” said Bill Ogle, the new CMO of Samsung Telecommunications America, Dallas. “Samsung brought the first music-capable phone to the U.S. and is continuing that history by launching the Juke by Samsung.”


The additional challenge of the Juke campaign was not only to create a highly visible integrated campaign, but to do it with $20 million, compared to the $300 million budget of HP. Cheil decided an iconic, very product-focused approach would help the Juke cut through the clutter, and help it stand apart from the Verizon advertising that was launching simultaneously. How do you drive an iconic, product-focused ad? The thought was to drive it with a very iconic song that just happened to reinforce the product name: Foreigner’s classic, “Juke Box Hero”.

The TV teaser and thirty-second spot were supported by traditional outdoor and print execution. Additionally, Cheil created an online video contest to continue the momentum built by the TV and print campaign. The purpose of the contest was to attract amateur musicians who were invited to participate in an original music video contest, rightly named “Juke Box Hero”, to vie for $10,000. Ultimately, being part of an online jukebox. In response, Bill Ogle said the Juke campaign will “undoubtedly be the largest initiative of its kind for Samsung in the U.S. market.” Samsung spent $59 million behind its phones in 2006 with $19 million doled out in Q4, per Nielsen Monitor. Plus, Verizon spent more than a billion dollars on media last year with a little less than a third of its budget dedicated to Q4.


The online contest via YouTube, attracted a respectable number of participants whom eventually ended up on an online jukebox. The second mechanism of the “Juke Box Hero” contest was to engage the consumer to create playlists on samsungjuke.com to help crown the Juke Box Hero. Creating a playlist was also supported with a Facebook widget, which is embedded in a person’s page. This widget highlighted the participant’s choices to be the Juke Box Hero. Additionally, consumers were encouraged on IMEEM to create a music playlist of untapped talent to listen to.

Stepping back and looking at both campaigns, I can appreciate what they were both trying to accomplish. Both had the challenge of cutting through the clutter of their respective product categories. HP took a more traditional path — using a celebrity to attract consumers to engage with the product. I only noticed their online campaign, which seems to support their proclamation of 50% of their media being online. From a creative standpoint, it packed a powerful punch. It was attention-getting and had a consistent voice. I would only say for an integrated campaign, it seems odd I noticed the online more than anything else.

Perhaps being closer to the Juke project, I saw the impact a bit clearer. I couldn’t miss the TV, the print was in the New York Times, and Cheil used Samsung’s electronic billboard. Online was prominent with banners and ad placements on YouTube. I feel Cheil was the David against the Goliath Verizon campaign. Cheil had a smaller budget than both Verizon and HP, and was thereby challenged to maximize every media dollar possible. In the end, we must all step back and see what a fully integrated campaign can be. The traditional route of TV and print combined with online is still an effective model, but it cannot be the only one available to us. Recently, we have been exploring the possibilities of social networking as an untapped resource we have not fully utilized.

In the end I think both campaigns are worthy of recognition, whether they sold a million plus units or not isn’t always in the lap of the creative execution. We can only hope Juke helped build brand awareness from our previous campaigns. And the next time one considers a phone, they’ll consider Samsung.

By Jeffrey Babson Interactive Copywriter, Cheil USA

Polygamous Weddings

Connection Planning, while still in its infancy (born in the late ‘90s) compared with other disciplines in advertising, has spurred a passionate debate as to how the process should be implemented.

Curious to learn how other advertising agencies structure this discipline and thought process internally, I headed down to New Orleans to attend the first ever Connection Planning conference to find out.

The conference was titled “Polygamous Weddings” a suitable name considering we were all there to “celebrate the union” of three departments — Strategy, Media and Creative.

The conferences were hosted by a “brand studio” called Trumpet, an agency in New Orleans, that commenced the day by stating that our obligation to our clients is not to simply advertise to people, but rather to connect with people.

The speakers included a diverse mix of people from a range of companies, including traditional advertising agencies, digital agencies, communication planning agencies, design shops, brand studios, consultants and media properties.

It was a day filled with sincere, provocative and passion-filled presentations that each lasted a maximum of 20 minutes. There was a willingness to share ideas and tools with one another in ways never seen before. Agencies “invited” us to go to their “back rooms” and reveal how they’ve adopted this discipline.

One of the boldest speakers was Lisa Seward of Mod Communications. “Connection Planning is starting with the REAL problem,” she said. “Yesterday, media budgets were used to ‘buy an audience’. Today it’s about developing actionable ideas that attract audiences to your brand - investing in ideas that bring people to your brand. Many agencies are tired of being asked for ‘New Media’ opportunities. Connection Planning today is the New Creative. New Creative means that ideas are the medium, not the message and not the media channel. However, media channel recommendations can’t be absent from the idea,” she explained.

Today, Connection Planning is a marriage between media, creative and account planning. Its specialty is “invention” and its deliverable is “actionable ideas”.

There is a shift from the creation of a message to the creation of content. Connection Planning is a protocol to ensure different creative output that doesn’t have to always stem from the creative department. In her mind, giving a team or an individual the title of Connection Planning misses the point — as it’s a way of thinking, free of titles, job descriptions and processes.

The Zeus Jones Company, which approaches communication strategy as a service, also brought forth a unique perspective on how they connect brands with people. Considering that many people who live in major metropolitan cities across the United States are exposed to over 3,000 messages every day, people have become good at looking past the messages that bombard us, and instead focus on real experiences and interactions with brands they want in their lives. Knowing that brand interactions are more powerful to many people than traditional branding communications, Zeus Jones focuses on designing interactions instead of designing communications.

Another arresting approach came from how Modernista, an independent ad agency, approaches Connection Planning. The agency practices the philosophy that there is no such thing as “the big idea”. Brand and product advertising should not exist in only one medium or consumer touchpoint. If brands are like molecules, each with a multitude of various consumer touch points and interactions, then why do companies create only one or two touch points and expect instant success?

After all was said and done, there was one point that stuck with me — replacing the word “integration” with the word “interaction”. Many companies want to run an integrated marketing campaign. The issue with this approach is that too much time and effort is spent on the media mix, while ignoring the real business or marketing problem, as mentioned earlier. Instead, companies should be thinking about the interaction between the things a brand does and stands for, and how people can interact with the brand and its products.

By Marc Allen
Connections Planning Manager, Cheil USA

Green Marketing Will Influence Consumer’s Next Purchase

The topic of Green marketing continues to grow among brands and their agencies worldwide, so can Samsung be expected to join-in in the near future? If so, it is important that all of us at Cheil become more aware of the “what, why and where” of Green marketing for our clients.

What is Green marketing?

Green marketing is any effort by a product or service to communicate to their consumers information about the brand’s effect on the environment. This communication can focus on sustainable manufacturing processes, product materials selection and recycling, product design – including packaging, and even the logistics of getting the product to the consumer.

Why has Green marketing become so important?

The overall market for Green products and services is growing rapidly and is increasingly influencing consumers’ purchase decisions. According to Mintel research (2006-2008), 36% of consumers across all industries “always/almost always” or “regularly” buy Green products. In the consumer electronics category, consumers say that Green will more heavily influence their next purchase; for major appliances – 87%; for TVs, stereos, PCs and other CE devices – 75%.

Two factors are driving this trend. One, energy costs are rising rapidly and consumers are looking for ways to save money on electricity. First, consider that a large-screen plasma TV uses more energy than your refrigerator, and imagine how a consumer would react to that knowledge when weighing a purchase decision. Second, people are increasingly aware of environmental concerns and are adopting eco-friendly attitudes as a way of doing their part to “help the environment globally by acting locally”.

Where are we seeing Green marketing communications?

In a word, everywhere. Green communications can be found in annual reports on corporate websites, product packaging, dedicated websites, print and television campaigns. Many brands have orchestrated public relations campaigns and partnerships with eco-involved NGOs (non-governmental organizations) such as World Wildlife Fund, Live Earth and others. Some of the best can be seen by going to the Toyota or Subaru websites for a look at their current TV spots, and for an outstanding web experience, check out Dell Earth. And, of course, keep Green on your radar as you look at product packaging and retail displays. Great Green ideas are everywhere, so start thinking of some of your own!

What can you do?

If you haven’t already done so, start by learning more about how you can go Green or greener for yourself and your family. Check out www.treehugger.com as a great resource for information and advice about Green products and services. Next, get informed about how Green marketing is growing in importance for business strategies. You can go to the online version of the Harvard Business Review to their dedicated HBR Green site for current articles, archives and webcasts.

And, finally, watch this space for more on Green and feel free to contact ISG - Joy Fournier in New Jersey for help with any Green projects that come up in your offices.

By Joy Fournier
Customer Engagement Planner, Cheil USA

Communication Arts (CA) selected Samsung’s P2 Microsite as its Webpick of the Day on Thursday, March 13, 2008. Founded in 1959, CA is the largest creative magazine in the world which showcases the top work in graphic design, advertising, illustration, photography and interactive design. The Webpicks feature outstanding examples of web design based on superior aesthetics, technical expertise, functionality and overall site experience.

Congratulations to the Interactive Creative Team!

Cheil moving up the ADDY foodchain

Our two ADDY local winners "David and Goliath" and "Press Conference" are moving up the ladder. "David and Goliath" has won Gold, and "Press Conference" has won Silver in the district ADDY. Now we're on to the nationals. Congrats again Lisa and Brin!

Juke wins a Webby!

Juke by Samsung has been selected as an Official Honoree for the Telecommunications category in The 12th Annual Webby Awards. Kudos to the team. Great work!