Kellogg's Guidelines for Ethical Advertising to Kids

Kellogg's has published a lot about their ethical guidelines for advertising - particularly to children (i.e. people 12 years old and younger). They have various sites which provide a whole bunch of good guidelines:

• Their overall advertising purpose and standards
• Marketing to Children Practices

Kellogg's advertise across media, but its core focus is on TV. Their TV ads focus on individual brands, and TV ads are targeted based on shows, time, and consequently audience to aim the message directly at the target market. On top of that the in-store advertising is predominantly the packaging. Again - and not surprisingly - the packaging is designed to appeal to the appropriate target market.

Back in 2007, Kellogg's changed their advertising principles when targetting children. Among other things, their new policy was aimed at ensuring that their breakfast cereals met specific minimum nutrition guidelines. If they didn't then Kellogg's determined not to advertise the product.

Kellogg's did this voluntarily. Did Kellogg's do this just because they are good people? Well, it would be nice to think they did. But the impetus to doing it was that they were threatened with a lawsuit for their advertising practices.

One thing that I really respect about Kellogg's is that they published their Marketing to Children Practices. This is good because with Kellogg's model in hand, other companies can benefit from their deep thinking.

(If you want a brief backgrounder on Kellogg's advertising or background you can find it on Kellogg's site or in an article in the New York Times, or some general information on Wikipedia, or you can watch David MacKay, their President & CEO talk about this in 2007, below.)

Kellogg Strengthens Marketing To Children Practices - Free videos are just a click away

Another one begins to bite the dust

The National Post will stop publishing their Monday edition throughout the summer. Will anyone notice? Will Tuesday be next? Followed by Wednesday ...

Their competition doesn't seem to mind:

• The Globe & Mail bragged about it,
  
• CBC.ca reported on it,
• CTV.ca didn't miss it.

I feel bad for the old traditional media. It is a dead business model. But, it is dying a slow and painful death.

Here's a great (and green) idea

Mannequin Madness in Oakland, California sells and rents used mannequins.

Their business strategy seems sound, following Porter's generic business strategy of cost leadership. Mix in a green and fun brand, and you get a great business. Plus, you get to hang out in an office full of co-workers like this:

I added the bikinis using The Gimp. Hey, this is a family-oriented blog (most of the time).

Another bad move by GM?

Yesterday GM announced that they are going to axe the Pontiac brand.
My guess is that it won't take long for two things to happen:

• GM will notice that it no longer has a "sporty" line.
  
• GM will increase the line-up of Chevrolet cars to compensate for not having the crazy variety of vehicles they currently sell.

That is to say that the Chevy line (entry-level family cars) will suddenly have more sporty cars. Existing models will be supplemented with new models. The Buick line (um ... upscale family? ... really, what does Buick stand for? ... what the hell are they thinking with keeping that alive?) will suddenly have more sporty cars. The Buick line-up will get bigger. The Cadillac line (snobby luxury, which is just what it ought to be) will have cheaper sporty cars added to it, perhaps as an "entry level Caddy" (anyone remember the Cimarron? Watch for an instant replay). In every case my money would be on GM growing the line-up of each of these brands. In the end, they won't narrow their focus and win the markets. They will extend these brands to death.

GM has lost touch with their brands. I don't think they need to cut their sub-brands as dramatically as they need to cut hard at the models in each of those sub-brands. What they should do is carefully and tightly define what each of their main sub-brands is all about, then hack out everything in the brand line that isn't inside the very tight definition of that brand.

GM needs to apply the "Keep it Simple Stupid" principles. There are two things that really define a company. The first is the brand - what does the company stand for and how do they support that on a daily basis. The second is the basic business strategy - cost leadership, segmentation, or differentiation.

At this point, I'd recommend that the GM management team should read:

• 22 Immutable Laws Of Branding by Al Ries, and
• Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors by Michael Porter.

Then again, I think it's too late. Maybe they should be reading What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles.

Look out GM & Chrysler ... Here comes China

In a video story by on CNN.com today, they tell an interesting story about China's roaring fast development of an electric car industry. It makes sense:

• They have the cash to do it,
• It is a top-down government mandate to do it, and
  
• They need to make their own cities cleaner, so they need to do it.
  

Will they have viable and cheap electric cars to market before the fools in Detroit manage to figure out their own brands and models? Not likely.

$1 Billion Invested in 35 Virtual-World Companies in Past 12 Months

Because the real world doesn't suck enough and suck up enough of my real time, it appears that lots of money is getting stuffed into Virtual Worlds, according to MarketingCharts.com (and Virtual Worlds Management).

Boston Globe choking

As evidence that newspapers face an unfortunate but certain end ... The New York Times which owns the Boston Globe is talking about shutting down the Boston Globe.

Other newspapers that recently have, gone bankrupt, closed or have made noise that they are drastically cutting back and could possibly get out of the print business include:

• The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
• Tucson Citizen
• Ann Arbor News
  
• Miami Beach SunPost
• Rocky Mountain News
• Halifax Daily News
• Tribune Company (owner of The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, & The Los Angeles Times, plus a whole bunch of other things)
• Minneapolis Star Tribune
• The Philadelphia Inquirer
• The Philadelphia Daily News
  
• San Francisco Chronicle
• Sun-Times Media Group (owner of the Chicago Sun-Times, & dozens of suburban newspapers, etc.)

There must be a good comprehensive list like this somewhere. Have you seen it?

Saving the company. Slashing GM's Brands and Sub-brands.

The Chevrolet line goes from the Aveo (starting at about $12k), to the Malibu ($26k+), to the Express passenger van ($33k+), to Avalanche truck ($36k+), to the Corvette ($106k+). Also, you'll find some really ugly things in there too like the "HHR" and the "HHR Panel" ($19k+). Remind me again ... what does the Chevy brand stand for?

If I were in GM's shoes, I'd redefine each of my master brands with a big butcher knife. I'd be really clear about what each of them mean. Then I'd cut the snot out of their sub-brands that don't support that. For instance:

• Chevrolet = Affordable cars, whether you're a young kid buying a first car, or a family buying a practical car.
• Axe the Avalance truck, HHR, Equinox, Traverse, Cargo Van, Passenger Vans, Suburban, Tahoe, Colorado, Silverado, Avalanche, Equinox, Traverse, and ...
• I might be left with the Cobalt, the Aveo, the Malibu, and the Impala. I might include one family-sized SUV/ Crossover, like a modified Trailblazer, or a redesigned (and good) mini-van that could reasonably compete against the Honda Odyssey, Toyota Sienna, and the Kia Sedona (I don't think GM even makes a mini-van anymore. All you'd have to do is look at any school drop-off zone between 8:30 and 9:00am to get an understanding of the importance of a mini-van).
  
• I'd cut down the options on those - for instance the Cobalt would only come in a 4 door model. (The two door model would only be available as a Pontiac ... and Pontiac would only sell the two door model.)
  
• I may even axe the legendary Corvette. At a minimum I'd change it dramatically so that it fit into the brand mold of "affordable". It might be sporty and affordable, which would mean dumbing it down a lot. Alternatively, I might toss it over to the Cadillac label.

Chevrolet would drop from a confusing 32 vehicle line-up to a sensible 5 to 7 vehicle line.

Let's pick apart the Pontiacs. They currently have 12 models.

• Pontiac - Sporty fun, performance cars.
• Axe the G3, the Vibe, the G5 Coupe (too similar to the G6 coupe), the G6 Sedan, Torrent (an SUV in the Pontiac line - blech),
• You'd be left with the G8 (a sporty sedan), G6 Convertible, G6 Coupe, and the Solstice. I'm on the fence on an SUV/Crossover on this line. Maybe the Torrent could make sense, but not in its current format.

Pontiac had 12 models ... now they have 4 or 5.

The 3 Buick's would die. Why bother with them. 3 models down to zero!

Cadillac currently has 14 models. 14! Are they nuts. What is a Cadillac when you have 14 versions of the darn thing.

• Cadillac - "You've made it." People will notice you've made it.
  
• Axe the SRX Crossover (it's just ugly and isn't premium enough), the Esclade EXT (buy a truck if you want a truck), the Esclade (which competes with the Esclade ESV), the DTS (it competes against the better looking STS, and isn't premium enough), the XLR convertible (don't worry, there's another model that will be kept)
  
• Keep the STS V6 only ($47k+), the CTS-V ($60k+), the STS -V ($84k+), maybe the Escalade ESV & Hybrid (SUVs) ($65k), and the convertible XLR-V ($106k+)
• I might even swap the Corvette into the Cadillac line up and dump the XLR line.
  

Cadillac would drop from 14 models to 5 or 6.

A quick slash at their other brands ...

• GMC = Trucks. They currently have 21 different models. I'd slash that to 7 or 8, including: a large passenger van, a cargo van, a smallish SUV, a large SUV, a small pickup, a mid-size pickup, and a large pickup. There may be more options in this line, including 2 or 4 door cabs on the larger truck.
• Hummer = GONE. (3 models down to 0)
  
• Saab = GONE. (6 models down to 0)
  
• Saturn = Technology leader. The brand would become the "Smart" or "Mini" for GM. They currently have 8 vehicles. That would be slashed to 2 to 3, along the lines of a 2-seat zippy fun electric commuter, a 4-seat zippy fun hybrid, and a flying car (just kidding on that one ... but if GM wanted to play, Saturn would be the "play" brand).
  

Total ... GM started with something around 100 vehicle brands. I'd have them down to about 28. On top of that, each sub-brand would have its own standard power train, and those would at a minimum be hybrids. Power trains could be shared across product lines. For instance the 4-door Chevy Cobalt could use the same power train as the Pontiac G6. GM could limit the engines if necessary to allow the brands to be differentiated.

Recognizing that the dealerships want to be able to sell a variety of different vehicles so that they can attract a variety of customers, there are options available to make things work for them. If you look at how Mini is sold by BMW in Canada, there are many BMW dealers who carve off a piece of their showroom and make it an entirely stand-alone Mini dealership. GM dealers could do a similar thing with their big and ancient showrooms. Throw up some glass walls, and make "boutiques". In a given dealership, one boutique would sell Chevy cars, another would sell GM trucks, and another might sell the Saturn line.

There are lots of advantages to this slash and burn practice:

• Focuses the brand. The general result of focusing the brand is that you end up selling more. So, production may not go down at all. GM's production and sales may actually go up!
  
• Reduces cost dramatically. You don't have to design, engineer, repair, and warranty the dramaticly huge number of product variations. It would be cheaper and easier to build, sell, and service cars. This strategy wouldn't make GM the low cost producer. The reality is that they still have lots of legacy costs, and are competing against startups from Korea and elsewhere with lower cost structures. But, it goes a long way to helping them survive.
  

What do you know, there are Michael Porter's business strategies showing up again. Focus and Cost Leadership.

There you go President Obama. :^)

Saving the company. What should GM do with its Brands and Sub-brands?

• Is the problem with GM that they've screwed themselves over by giving up way too much to their unions over the years? Yes, partly I'm sure it is.
• Is the problem with GM that they're costs are out of line with their selling prices, and consequently they just aren't making a dime on any car they produce? Yes, partly I'm sure it is.
• Is the problem with GM mostly that GM has screwed up their brands? ABSOLUTELY.

Let's look at some of GM's North American brands, and take a shot at what they should mean: (it should be noted that they have several others serving the rest of the world)

• Chevrolet - Affordable cars, whether you're a young person buying a first car, or a family buying a practical car.
  
• Pontiac - Sporty fun, performance cars.
  
• Cadillac - "You've made it." People will notice you've made it.
  
• GMC - Trucks
  
• Buick - Um... what does that stand for? I think it is supposed to come somewhere between the "affordable" and "you've made it" lines.
  
• Hummer - "I'm an idiot" ... whoops I meant to say rough and tough upper class.
  
• Saab - "You've made it ... and you have European taste". (Sounds a lot like Cadillac)
  
• Saturn - Modern, affordable cars for young people or families. (Sounds a lot like Chevrolet)
  

Now, the interesting thing is that when you plug away at each of those brands there are glaring exceptions to how they have managed the sub-brands in each of those products. For instance, the Chevy line has something like 32 vehicles in it. It is like everytime someone from an Executive to a Janitor thought "Hey, what if we made a ...", they went ahead and made it. Think about the expense of designing, producing, and building each one of those models.

Does Chevy stand for an Aveo? It is a cheap "first" car. It would seem to me that Chevy does stand for that. What about a Cobalt? Yes again. A Malibu? Yes - that's a good affordable family car. How about the Cargo Van, Tahoe, Colorado, Silverado, Avalanche, Equinox, Traverse, and ... HHR (yuck). I can't imagine that Chevrolet really stands for any of those.

I'll pick on GM's SUV line-up for a moment. I feel bad doing this ... it is too easy.
Here's what GM makes for SUVs:

• Chevy HHR ($19k+)
• Saturn Vue ($23k+)
• Chevy Equinox ($25k+)
• Pontiac Torrent ($25k+)
• Saturn VUE Hybrid ($28k+)
• Chevy TrailBlazer ($29k+)
• Saturn Outlook ($31k+)
• GMC Envoy ($31k+)
• Hummer H3T ($31k+)
• Buick Enclave ($35k+)
• Chevy Avalanche ($36k+)
• GMC Envoy Denali ($37k+)
• Chevy Tahoe ($37k+)
• GMC Yukon ($38k+)
• Cadillac SRX V6 ($41k+)
• ... Etc. There are 34 of the damn things! Topping out with the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid at $74k+

Pickup trucks? 14 models across their brands.
Crossovers? 13 models.
Vans? 12 models (and you can't tell me that there is any significant difference between the Chevy Savana Passenger 2500 ($30k+) and the Chevy Express Passenger ($30k+)).

And they wonder why they're in trouble.

What should GM do? GM should tightly define each of their brands, and then slash and burn the sub-brands to ensure that the line-up of vehicles closely matches their master brand.

GM's withering ways.

In the good old days - and I am talking about the 1950s here - GM targeted brands to different segments, and it distinguished each of its brands for that purpose. The brands had shared components but completely unique styling. The branding created a clear upgrade path throughout a consumer's life. You'd start with an affordable Chevy, and then as you became more affluent, you'd move to a Pontiac, a Buick, an Oldsmobile, and ultimately a Cadillac.

Around the 80s, the GM and its peers screwed up. They decided that they'd fool the idiot consumer and start selling the same car with different labels. The Chevy Citation (my family had one), the Oldsmobile Omega, and the Pontiac Phoenix were all almost identical. Similarly in the mid-90s when GM upgraded its popular Chevy Cavalier model, they introduced the new Cavalier and the Pontiac Sunfire. Again, nearly identical. I had a taxi driver tell me once that his opinion was that GM intended the Cavalier for men, and the Sunfire for women. Whatever, it was still a bad choice to make virtually identical cars.

But, perhaps the best example of GM's worst branding practice was the introduction of the Cimarron. Their hope was that they could attract younger buyers to the Cadillac brand (hmmm ... everything Cadillac doesn't stand for). The Cimarron was based on the same platform as the Chevrolet Cavalier, Buick Skyhawk, Oldsmobile Firenza, Pontiac J2000, etc.. Out of the gate Cadillac only had a four-cylinder engine and minimal styling differences from the considerably cheaper Cavalier. Yet it was almost twice as expensive at the Cavalier!

Has GM learned? Apparently not. All you have to do is look at their line up of SUVs and Trucks to see that they are as confused as ever.

Over the next couple of days I'm going to review the GM brands and suggest a major strategy shift that would lead them back to profitability and success.

(Here's a hint ... Look at the strategy of the 50s to restore their prominence in 2010 and on. Narrow the focus of each brand, and then slash and narrow the focus of each sub-brand.)

Are you reading this blog on a small screen?

Did you know that the US is now the #1 consumer of mobile browsing? I wouldn't have guessed it, but the February 2009 mobile browsing rankings compiled by Bango are:

• USA 29.3%
• UK 20.3%
• India 11.1%
• Indonesia 5.5%
• South Africa 5.4%
• ...
• Portugal 1.2%
  
• Sweden 1.1%
  
• and on, and on, and on.

To put that in some context for Canadians ... South Africa has a population of about 44 million. Portugal 10 million, Sweden has a population 9 million. Canada has a population of 33 million. Yet, we don't even rank in this report. Well - I assume we are lumped in with the 198 other countries that make up the 21.6% of mobile browsing traffic.

Why haven't Canadians hit the mobile web yet? It isn't due to a lack of mobile handsets that can browse the web. It is more to do with the outrageous fees that our mobile service providers are charging.

Some interesting statements in the report on MarketingCharts.com:

"Bango also said that this growth in traffic is being matched by a corresponding growth in users paying for content on the mobile web, in part because of publicity behind the Apple iPhone, as well as increasingly improving payment experiences that encourage more people to buy mobile content.

"Though the use of the mobile web is growing quickly, the increase in mobile browsing has taken many businesses by surprise, Bango noted, adding that a large number of companies do not yet have mobile websites.

"The statistics also show that while some countries such as India and Indonesia have a good appetite for browsing on their mobiles, it doesn’t always convert into purchases. In fact, only five countries in the Top 10 browsing chart are also in the Top 10 payments chart - USA, UK, Portugal, South Africa and Spain.

"No matter how high the browsing rate, it is only converted into a high purchase rate where people have a good disposable income and can pay for content on their phone bills, Bango said. In regions such as India, South Africa, Indonesia and Egypt the driver for mobile browsing is a lack of fixed-line broadband and PCs for accessing the internet which means that the mobile device is the only way people can get onto the internet."

For Marketers in the US this report should convince you of the immediate imperative to optimize your website for mobile browsing, and also to start measuring mobile traffic. Perhaps you should check out Bango for the analytics component.

For Marketers in Canada (and the rest of the world) this report should remind you that:

1. The world is round. If some of the 245 million people from the US currently access your site through the web, you can bet they are also visiting it from their mobile devices.
   
2. The wave will hit. It is only a matter of a time before our wireless service providers drop their outrageous fees and Canucks follow the behaviour patterns of the rest of the world. We will be doing some heavy mobile browsing and spending in short order.
   

The coming death of Facebook

Do you "Facebook"? CTV.ca reported recently on "Death by boredom -- the slow demise of Facebook." I get this. How many times do you need to know that your buddy is eating chips, watching bad TV, or countless other tidbits of personal hygiene that people post as updates?

Most of us who are on Facebook went on there to find out about friends from the past (and maybe more to the point, significant others like girlfriends). Once the thrill of that is gone, you don't have much left.

Something will eclipse the Facebook fad at some point in the not too distant future ... and we'll all be back on there too.

For marketers the point is that you shouldn't blow your entire marketing budget on something like Facebook, and you definitely shouldn't look to it as a long-term strategy. It can make up a piece of your advertising strategy for now. But that's all.

Looking for some SEO Software. Here's a shortlist.

Not that this is the "right" shortlist. It is really just my results from a simple Google Search of "SEO Software".

Some of the tools that I'm going to look at as options to help me with my SEO are:

• HubSpot (who also provide the HubSpot Grader for free)
• SEO Suite by Apex Promotion (this site includes a complete hack job on the next product in the list. They lose points on the "classy scale". Still, I'm going to check into their accusations.)
• WebPosition by WebTrends (A pretty thin site. Well promoted through affiliates. Hardcore on the call to action.)
• Web CEO (Probably the best site. Already, I'm leaning towards using them)
• SEO Elite
• SEO Suite
• Internet Business Promoter (IBP)
• lotusjump (This is Software as a Service, i.e. you pay a subscription and use their website to optimize your site)

Watch for a few more posts on this subject over the next few days. I'm getting closer to selecting a SEO software package. In the next couple of days I can tell you what I've chosen and why. After that, I'll let you know how it is working.

Have you used SEO Software? Please post a comment to this blog to tell me what you chose, why, and how it has worked out.

Looking for some SEO Software. But I don't want to wear a Black Hat.

My mission to find the right SEO system continues...

The one thing to be really careful when selecting (or using) SEO software, are Black Hat SEO techniques. These are techniques that were once legitimate, but have been heavily abused by SEO practitioners, and consequently are hated by the search engine companies. Additionally, they are hated by you, me, and everyone else who uses search engines to find what we are looking for quickly.

Once the search engines discover you are using Black Hat techniques (and they will), they will heavily penalize your rankings. Black Hat techniques include: Keyword stuffing, Spamdexing, Spam blogs, Cookie stuffing, Page indexing, Invisible text, Page cloaking, and Doorway pages. You can find out more at About.com or on Wikipedia.

In short, if you ensure that every page you generate has great content on it, and follows basic rules, then you will end up ranking well.

Watch for a few more posts on this subject over the next few days. Ultimately, I'm going to select some SEO software and kick its tires. My intent with the SEO software is to help me ensure that I am following the basic content rules. I'm excited to give it a whirl.

Have you used SEO Software? Please post a comment to this blog to tell me what you chose, why, and how it has worked out.

Looking for some SEO Software. A big extra is SEM capability.

I'm still searching for the right SEO software for me. Yesterday I listed out what SEO software should do, and talked about some of the extras I'd like to have. Today I'm hitting on one big "extra". It would be nice if the SEO software has SEM capabilities.

SEM is Search Engine Marketing. That means that you bid on keywords - sponsored links and the like - on the search engines like Google. Using SEM you pay only when someone clicks on your ad.

SEM capabilites include:

• Submit and manage your user name and profile setting in one place for multiple search engines
• Manage your account settings
• Manage account funding, billing, and so on
• Synchronize PPC accounts - Download campaigns and keywords from your existing PPC accounts
• Manage multiple PPC campaigns with a single interface
• Make recommendations about words that are working and words that aren't
• Campaign budgeting - make recommendations on where budgets should be spent, and change your daily budget setting
  
• Manage campaign status - set campaign online or offline
• Search Network management - change your campaign coverage for Search Network or Content Network
• Create and add AdGroups - create multiple Adgroups or import Adgroups from the program directly
• Create and edit Ad Creatives - from the program directly
• Disable and Enable Adgroups
• Preview Ad creative - improve your Ad Creative quality score
• Maximize your keyword coverage - Keyword Builder to help you to generate more relevant keywords
• Add or Remove keywords - allows you to add new keywords or remove keywords directly from your account
• Keyword forecasting - provides you a quick overview of your Minimum and Maximum position and CPC
• Set keywords online or offline
• URL bidding strategy - allows you to bid above or below a particular URL, enabling you to always be on top of your competitor, or below (if you choose)
• ROI bidding strategy for CPA and ROAS
• URL verification to make sure the url you have entered in you ads is correct.
• Automated email notification when your bids or position have been changed
• Comprehensive bidding & ROI performance reports
  
• Export keywords and ranking results to Excel database
• Competitor Analysis - determine competitors' detailed information and approximate PPC bidding price

Watch for a few more posts on this subject over the next few days. Ultimately, I'm going to select some SEO software and kick its tires. It would be great if it does SEM as well. That's something that I haven't done for Market GoGo yet. I know SEM kicks butt, so I need to get that done.

Have you used SEO Software or SEM Software? Please post a comment to this blog to tell me what you chose, why, and how it has worked out.