The other day I had the opportunity to connect with an old friend who had just returned from a four-year ex-pat assignment in Israel. I was sharing what we’ve been doing with challenger brand clients here in the U.S., and he related a story about how the Kotex brand came into Israel with an all-digital program - and kicked butt. But not only was the Kotex approach all-digital; I found it to be all-meaningful as well.

The story of Kotex in Israel is nicely found on the Effie Award website, where the campaign won the Grand Effie in Israel in 2008. Let me summarize the story through the meaningful marketing lens:

Business Situation

The Israeli feminine care market has seen heavy competition over the years, and has been dominated by P&G’s Always brand with a 58% share and significant product innovations. Kotex entered the market with a fairly traditional marketing program and me-too product in 2004. Not surprisingly, it struggled to secure a 14.5% share after three years and heavy investment.

Marketing Objective

Eventually Kotex decided that it had to do something different. The brand chose to specifically hone in on teenage girls (ages 12 to 15). This is a wise choice, as these girls are coming into the category with a clean slate of brand awareness, but starting to make a lifetime of brand choices. Win their loyalty early, and there is a very long upside. In Israel this was also a relatively untapped approach, as the competition “focused on product innovation for older women.”

Meaningful Marketing

In approaching teens, Kotex first decided that digital is the most meaningful medium to use to touch this audience. This is a great example of how brands should make media choices not just based on what secures the most eyeballs, but rather based on where there is the biggest opportunity to drive true engagement. A few days ago I hit on this topic, using the story of how content that a brand creates can be much more important than getting the right context of advertising interruption.

Kotex’s second major decision was to build a digital creative platform around a virtual girl named Kita. The brand realized that teen girls still like to play and are using safe online environments to explore and grow socially. Kita was first introduced in an unbranded way through a blog, website, and original music. In further phases, girls could edit her music video, dress her, and communicate with her via IM.  Other tactics continued to add meaning, for example, online request sampling and product information and advice.

Results

The Kotex brand enjoyed huge success from this program. In terms of consumer engagement (the key measure of meaning), the site has had 500,000 visitors since August 2007, and more than 65,000 girls signed up for the sample kit. Those are pretty big numbers considering that there are only 230,000 teen girls in Israel.

And the business results closely followed consumer engagement. Kotex market share grew by 34% overall.  The specific Kotex Young line at the focus of this campaign saw 81% positive purchase intent, and it now represents 23% of Kotex total sales (versus the goal of 10%).

Finally, Kotex is using this approach in new market launches around the world. Kita is coming to Turkey, Russia, and South Africa, with others likely on the way.

A few weeks ago I wrote about how in new media like mobile, we are seeing “Leapfrog Marketing” - as advertising approaches in these new technologies skip the “interruption” phase and get right into “meaning” from the start. Similarly, Kimberly-Clark realized that it would have to leapfrog its established competitor by going straight into digital+meaning. It’s a lesson that makes sense for challenger brands everywhere - and a warning for market leaders that have still failed to adjust their approach.

I’ve been pretty rough on Facebook in the past. A few months ago I shared my horrible experience with Facebook ads on my Challenge Dividend blog, in which a targeted ad got .02% click-through. My overall view is that Facebook itself is a very meaningful service, but the company is having problems figuring out how to make money by selling space to marketers. Unfortunately for Facebook and its advertisers, consumers usually don’t find interruptive ads meaningful.

But Facebook seems to get it and is doing some interesting things to improve. A few weeks ago I wrote here about a new system that allows members to rate and comment on the advertising that is served to them. While the ads people are served still might not be meaningful, there is a value for consumers in having a say. This is an idea that is gaining ground on a wider basis as well. For example, Avenue A/Razorfish has teamed with Pluck to create new standard ad units that allow consumer feedback.

Now the company is making a further move by promoting independent applications that are judged to be more valuable for Facebook members. Here’s what the New York Times said:

Facebook announced a series of new incentives for developers to write what it characterized as “meaningful” tools for the service. It said it would pick certain applications that meet a set of Facebook principles to be part of a new “Great Apps” program.”

First, I find it interesting that our use of the word “meaningful” is starting to spread. People are beginning to understand this very basic starting point of deciding how to approach consumer communication.

Second, for businesses this could help create a “market” in added-value applications. One of the biggest challenges we have seen with some early Facebook application work for our clients is the issue of driving awareness of our applications. By promoting the best tools, we have a better chance of breaking through the clutter. I expect Facebook will eventually charge marketers for this privilege (like iTunes does), but as long as members do find value it’s a win-win-win.

Let’s face it: A lot of nonprofit marketing campaigns are horrible, despite the fact that their messages can and should be very meaningful - and their media placement and advertising development are often provided pro bono. Too often, nonprofits cannot decide if they want to raise money or raise awareness. And they tend to start the creative process by going straight to print ads or 30-second commercials, because, well, it’s free. Pro-bono creative work often means that the agency goes into la-la land with its work.

But some nonprofits are understanding how to make a bigger impact by starting with the needs of their audiences. My current favorite is the two-minute video above from the British Heart Foundation. Here, the group recognized that they need to add value to the audience by educating them on what a heart attack feels like.

That in itself is an outstanding creative brief for an advertising agency to receive. And Grey in the UK took this assignment to an amazing place. Instead of checklists or cuteness, Grey went for the jugular with a very realistic, first-person, long-format video. The acting is great, the editing is outstanding, and there is a real, emotional pull with the first-person view. It’s not really a video; it’s an experience.

I’m a little disappointed that this has less than 100,000 total views on YouTube, which suggests this hasn’t hit the viral takeoff point yet. But I’m not privy to how this is airing and being received in the UK.

Kudos to the British Heart Foundation and Grey UK for going way beyond the typical, and giving us killer creative that makes meaning in people’s lives.

I discovered upon returning from vacation yesterday that this very blog has been ranked as #39 on Junta’s list of the top 42 content marketing blogs. Just a few weeks ago, one of my star Group Account Directors, Jason Ruebel, nominated Marketing with Meaning for the list, and sure enough here we are. It’s a great sign that we’re onto something, and I’m proud to share the honor with everyone at our agency.

I think this blog and the overall concept of Meaningful Marketing fits pretty well under the category of “content marketing.“ Wikipedia confirms a general definition of “content” in new media circles. At the time of this posting, it called content “information and experiences that may provide value for an end-user/audience.”

It is ironic that just today another team of mine at Bridge Worldwide was discussing how we could help a key client build meaningful marketing into its existing process of brand planning. We talked about how this client is a big believer in maximizing the “Context” of communication; in other words, picking media placement where the target consumer is most willing to pay attention to and act on the brand’s message. This is a smart approach, and likely results in higher return on the media investment. But it’s missing something…

I believe Marketing with Meaning is less about “context” - or finding the best time to get in front of a consumer’s eyeballs - and more about “content” - or creating something that people find valuable in itself. By definition, a good “Content Strategy” must be meaningful and is judged by consumers’ engagement level rather than eyeball impressions. We’ll be helping this client create a meaningful content strategy that should take marketing planning to an even higher return on investment.

Thinking about what content a brand can provide for its consumers is the kind of exercise that leads to best-in-class work like Nike+ or Wrigley’s Candystand. It gets brands to move out of the routine of 3-month initiatives and TV copy, and more into long-term relationships, services, and, well, meaning.

Please indulge me in a somewhat off-topic post that I think will nevertheless be interesting to the business thinkers who come to this site each day. Last weekend I was shocked to come across the photo above in a BusinessWeek article about U.S. companies that are enjoying a taste of the $6.5 billion China is spending just on security for this month’s Olympic Games.

I was personally shocked by this image of paramilitary forces in slick black Segways “gliding” down a training ground with aimed firearms in hand. I went through a mental reassessment of this brand, which is still establishing itself in my mind. On one hand, I felt that this was a big step away from how Segway seems to position itself as a forward-thinking fun brand. A look at its official website and community portal confirm that this is an optimistic, positive company. Selling military equipment to a country with human rights issues seems to run counter to what Segway aims to stand for.

On the other hand, use of Segways for critical military work sends a message that the product is reliable and useful. If police in your city and the Chinese government use Segways, then they must be good enough for us to invest in this pricey and unusual form of transportation. It also brings a cool factor to the brand, suggesting that Segway is not all fun and games, but rather a serious vehicle.

But I’m not a Segway owner, and I wanted to get perspective from some of the brand’s biggest fans. So I took some time to ask for the opinions of members of Segway Chat, “the world’s oldest and largest independent Segway community.” People in these groups are usually full of opinions. After a few days I gathered only 6 responses among 143 viewers (holding fairly close to the 1/10/89 rule that in online communities 1% produce content, 10% comment, and 89% read). Here’s what the community said:

• “Well, remembering Tiananmen Square, and the Cultural Revolution, there’s more evil to China’s police activities than makes me comfortable, but I’m sure there’s good mixed in there as well.”
• “My own feeling about this is that it’s normal. Segway has marketed to security forces since the beginning. It is a tool and it can and should be used in any way that is effective in fighting crime and ensuring safety. You can attach politics to it if you want, but any other country or security forces, including our own, would be smart to develop tactics to take advantage of the Segway abilities.”
• “I suppose it’s supposed to look scary, and I guess it sort of does, but if *I* were one of those guys, the first thing I’d do is get OFF, lay the Segway down, and get behind it. And hope the Saphion batteries are as safe as they claim… or stick on a skidplate as armor.”

So some pretty interesting reactions, but clearly this was not too polarizing to serious Segway owners.

What do you think? Has your brand ever experienced military-related news coverage like this?

It appears that great minds think alike when it comes to meaningful marketing, as I share the second example this week of a brand that aims to improve our brains. Yesterday I wrote about how Sanyo is marketing its new batteries with crossword puzzles to recharge your brain. Today I share how Westin is making customers smarter in the bathroom.

Over the weekend I was at the Westin hotel in the Dallas Galleria, and when reaching for a glass of water I noticed a very unique take on the classic paper coaster. As seen above (answer below), Westin has used this previously wasted white space to make us smarter. It’s a very small but enjoyable way for Westin to show its commitment to improving our stay in many ways.

There are other, more obvious ways the hotel has done this, such as an outstanding gym, but I’m probably more impressed by little details like this one. As a marketer, I know that, while this seems easy, it actually can be tough. Items like this coaster are usually considered cost centers rather than marketing opportunities. I can see a huge internal debate with the finance guy about whether the incremental $.03 per hotel room per day for this special printing is going to drive ROI. But smart service organizations are starting to realize that every detail of the consumer experience can drive satisfaction.

And unlike Sanyo, Westin follows up on its concept with a nice digital presence with additional content.  There are further brain builders, a memory assessment, workout recommendations, and a 5-Day Challenge to promote healthy brain and body habits.

Many hotels are the same, so even a 30-second interaction with a 3-cent coaster can drive people back to spend another $300 per night at the Westin Galleria.

Yesterday I wrote about how next-generation gaming consoles are allowing for meaningful marketing by brands that figure out how to add value to the gaming experience. Over the weekend I discovered a current-generation advertising platform that hosts an added-value game for readers.

While enjoying my Saturday ritual of coffee, bagels, and The Week magazine, my eyes stopped at a crossword puzzle in the middle of the issue. A crossword puzzle is fairly unusual in this magazine, and while I’m not really a crossword guy, seeing it here with the headline “Recharge Your Brain!” certainly earned my attention. I soon discovered that this puzzle was actually a paid advertisement by Sanyo in support of its new line of ready-to-use rechargeable batteries under the sub-brand “eneloop.” Far from being a gimmick, this was a legitimate crossword puzzle that sent readers to theweekdaily.com/eneloop for answers.

Overall, I think it’s a pretty clever marketing idea for a new product coming into a crowded category. The idea of a free crossword puzzle as a way to recharge your brain certainly opens people’s minds to learn about a new type of rechargeable battery. It got my attention and made me respect the brand in a way that “just another battery print ad” could never do. There’s also a nice tie to positioning Sanyo rechargeable batteries as “smarter” than the existing competition.

I do wish Sanyo would have gone farther with its “recharge your brain” idea. A trip to its website leads the interested consumer to just a regular piece of brochureware. For very little cost, Sanyo could have invited readers to participate in other mental challenges or to sign up for something like a daily trivia contest. The brand could have invited people to challenge their friends–thereby spurring word-of-mouth.

But at the end of the day it took a lot of guts for Sanyo to launch its new battery with a national print ad that gives more than 90% of its space to consumer enjoyment.

I’m not too ashamed that I have become a fairly serious gamer in the past couple of years. I was raised on Atari 2600, spent college with Sega Genesis, and recently jumped headlong into the Xbox 360. You could say I have a relationship with games such as Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Call of Duty 4. I find these games to keep my mind sharp while providing me a disconnection from what went on at the office all day. Of course, I cannot completely disconnect from my day job in advertising, which means I have been a close observer of how these games have tried to inject advertising into my field of vision.

The marketing world is becoming extremely interested in the rising amount of time people are spending with video games. “Interested” in this case means both: (1) worried about the fact that eyeballs are moving away from ad-supported media (e.g., young men are watching less Monday Night Football and playing more Madden ‘08); and (2) excited by the chance to put a marketing message into a gaming space where people are extremely passionate and paying close attention. Video games join new media options such as mobile and podcasts as a place where different marketing strategies are playing out quickly. I believe these approaches are breaking down broadly into interruptive vs. meaningful marketing.  Today I share two examples of companies that are taking these different routes, and show us that the meaningful path makes more sense to both players and brands.

The first example comes from Guitar Hero 3.  In case you just landed on the planet a few days ago, Guitar Hero and its close follower, Rock Band, have become the biggest brands in the gaming universe over the past few years. They have given millions of players the chance to take a tiny taste of what it feels like to rock, and they now have a channel directly into the home through Internet connections that provide a way to play with friends or download additional songs. This is a very, very tempting target for marketers. Since its beginning, Guitar Hero used real musical equipment brands such as Gibson in the game. It’s a modest type of product placement marketing that makes sense. But a few months ago I noticed something different in my field of vision - an advertisement. See if you can find it in the screen shot below:

It’s hard to find in this shot in the upper left corner, but it doesn’t look that much clearer on my 50″ HD plasma either. This is an ad for Microsoft’s Sync in-car audio system. The brand has bought ad space in the display monitor at a concert venue where your Guitar Hero song is being played. I saw another ad for the new Fox TV show Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The ads are barely visible on screen, and even less so when you’re concentrating on hitting notes that are coming down your screen (i.e., playing the game).

This in-game ad approach is hardly offensive and barely interruptive, but it sure isn’t meaningful, and I cannot see how it drives sales. These ad examples are likely targeted perfectly, but they are unrelated to the game itself.  Just as experts are saying with mobile marketing, I believe in-game marketing must add value to the experience in order to be tolerated by players and drive sales. This is no fun for the advertiser, the game producer, or (especially) the consumer.  At best, it’s ignored wallpaper.  At worst, the game owner feels that he needs a refund on the $60 he paid for the product.

On the other hand, a friend pointed me to another compelling approach where the in-game marketing adds value to the customer’s experience. Paramount Pictures has partnered with Ubisoft to “inject” a scavenger hunt into the game Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 in support of the release of its movie Tropic Thunder. In this game-within-the-game, players are invited to search for a series of nine branded clues. Those who complete the mission get a chance to win prizes such as a VIP game map and other Ubisoft games. Here’s a screen shot from the game:

Unlike the Guitar Hero example, Ubisoft and Paramount have created an experience that adds value to their customers’ lives. They understand the insight that many first-person-shooter gamers love the chance to try new missions and maps. And they know that word of such freebies travels fast among the connected game communities. Of course, they’ve also nailed the demographic targeting for the movie, and timed the promotion perfectly to start the critical release weekend buzz.

Leapfrogging Interruption into Meaning

The term “leapfrog technology” is increasingly used to show that developing nations may skip intermediate steps of technology use and go straight for the best-in-class standard. In Africa, for example, villages are going straight from no phones to mobile phones, not bothering to put up telephone lines. In Brazil, consumers shifted straight to debit cards. In Pakistan, rural villages are going straight to solar. In these and other cases, it simply makes sense to go straight to the most advanced technology.

Perhaps new media will similarly represent “leapfrog technology” for marketers. Instead of going to the old way of interruptive advertising when these new media options arise, we will “leapfrog” straight to meaningful marketing because it simply makes too much sense for consumers and companies.

(Side note: Look me up on Xbox 360, screen name: Barbobus.)

Each of us has been disappointed by under-the-cap contests hundreds of times in our lives. I specifically remember being a kid and collecting Coke caps in a contest that awarded a grand prize if you spelled something like “Coke Is It.” My favorite contest as a kid was with McDonald’s during the 1984 Olympics - the Soviets are out and everyone’s a winner!

It’s debatable whether such contests are truly meaningful. My guess is that, like most advertising tactics that have been overdone, people are mainly immune to the long-shot odds afforded by such contests. Meanwhile, people are outsmarting the contests and sharing how with everyone thanks to the Internet.

The other day I heard a fresh take on under-the-cap contests from Comedian Mitch Hedberg. Enjoy:

“I opened up a yogurt; underneath the lid it said, ‘Please try again,’ because they were having a contest I was unaware of. But I thought I might have opened the yogurt wrong. Or maybe Yoplait was trying to inspire me. ‘Come on Mitchell, don’t give up! Please try again.’ A message of inspiration from your friends at Yoplait: fruit on the bottom, hope on top.”

In Monday’s post I mentioned that Marketing with Meaning can apply to any business, not just the large brands with multimillion-dollar marketing budgets. I shared an example of a book publisher that is uniquely connecting with its target readers. Today I wanted to share how even local restaurants can win by directing a targeted campaign using a single insight about its target market - at a very low cost.

To simplify a core part of our Marketing with Meaning model: Companies must begin by establishing a business objective they hope to reach. Once this specific business objective is set, the company then can put more focused thinking around how they can do something meaningful for customers that helps achieve the business objective. With these focused customer insights, they are then able to start crafting strategies and creative ideas around meaningful marketing.

In the restaurant business, a common business objective is to drive loyalty and visits from existing customers. Most of us know that in nearly every business, 80% of profits come from the 20% of loyal customers. My friends in the restaurant business tell me this holds for their industry as well. Their challenge is that there are many, many dining options for people to choose from, and any number of them can provide a similarly pleasing experience. So they must work hard to achieve a high “share of mind” with their customers. People also have a natural desire to “try something new,” so retaining loyal customers is a critical need.

Historically, most local advertising spending tends to consist of a stagnant group of traditional tactics. There are the Yellow Pages, Val-Pak direct mail coupons, and ads in the local city restaurant guides. Everybody in the business does these same things - which is another negative of such marketing. Part of the reason restaurants (and many, many other small local businesses) use these tools is that they don’t know what to do instead, and they worry that traffic will dry up when dollars are shifted. These businesses can’t afford to wait for a year for a new marketing approach to pay out. But, I’ve spotted two great examples in the past few months.

First up is Palomino , a “drop-in downtown restaurant” chain with about 10 locations across the country. At the end of each meal, Palomino provides a feedback card with an offer to join an email list for special events and offers. This is not too unusual. What is special is that Palomino asks a single question on the registration form: “What’s you birthday?”

With this information, Palomino sends an email to its customers once per year, about two weeks before this big day. Palomino knows that this is when people start to make plans to get a babysitter and hit the town. It includes a $20 voucher with the email to sweeten the offer, again, knowing that a birthday will result in extra revenue splurges such as dessert and bottle(s) of wine. For the customer, this email comes at the right time with a compelling discount. We customers feel inclined to repay the business that remembered our special day. The cost of putting together this offer is negligible, and the results can be tracked through email clicks and voucher redemptions.

The second example is from a local pizza chain called Donatos. It’s one of several large citywide chains and competes with the big guys such as Papa John’s and Domino’s. As I detailed on my Challenge Dividend blog a few months ago, I was pleasantly surprised one weekend to get a call from the manager of my neighborhood Donatos store. She saw that I placed an order during the past week, and called to ask for any feedback.

I was pretty blown away that a store manager would bother to make such a phone call. This small, focused, and personal effort makes a big difference in my mind when my wife asks me where we should order from on pizza night. I now know that someone appreciates my business and sees that I am important. Further, results of this effort can be tracked by simply looking at whether I order more often in the months ahead.

I love that both of these examples use specific insights to add value to consumers’ lives, they take very little time or money investment, and they are completely measurable back to the original business objective of driving loyalty. So if these guys can do it, what’s holding you back?