We're not so concerned with who wins the game on Sunday. We're more concerned about who has the best commercial. And you can help decide!

Again, we've teamed up with Harvest Research Center to determine who will have the most memorable commercial. Will it be Doritos, Volkswagen, Coca-Cola or will someone else claim the top spot?   The Big Game Advertising Survey will help us decide.

Make sure your opinion gets heard by registering for the Big Game Advertising Survey. You could win one of five $100 VISA gift cards.

In the meantime, check out Honda's early released Ferris Bueller spot.

The GAP has spent the better part of the last two decades building a brand image using its logo. So far it's worked great. It helped the GAP become one of the most recognizable American retail brands. It's a mark that speaks sophisticated yet casual, modern, strong and desired.



But all good things must come to an end, I guess.



This new "thing" (I refuse to call it a logo) looks like something made by the high school yearbook staff using Microsoft Word. And from a brand recognition standpoint, it kills everything they have done for the last 20 years. I acknowledge the need to update a logo... but when all of your advertising and marketing dollars go to building a brand that is recognized for its mark... you better be careful. Or second-guess that decision.

I give this new "thing" a few months. The GAP will realize they should have stuck with tradition instead of trying to "recreate" themselves when they already had something good going.

I came across an article recently that said the average cell phone subscriber now sends/receives an average of 357 text messages per month compared to 204 phone calls. As an avid texter, this is not a surprising statistic. With my friends, texting is the most common form of communication. Frankly, I have almost forgotten what my ringtone even sounds like.

So what does this mean for the future of advertising? And what companies are already having success with text message marketing?

According to Nielsen, approximately 200 million of the 250 million wireless subscribers have text messaging capabilities on their cell phones. For those of us in the industry, that means we now have a much more personal and interactive way to communicate with our target customers. Everything from TV shows, cars, soda and deodorant are being promoted through text message. Nielsen found that 16 percent of texters in the U.S. see some form of text message advertising each month. Of those, 45 percent say they have actually responded in some way.

Coca-Cola has been using text message marketing for its “My Coke Rewards” program with great success. The mobile portion of their campaign allows consumers to enter their codes/points via text message.

Ashley Furniture is another example of a company having success with text message marketing. They sent 6,000 text messages to existing customers and 29,000 emails to the general public promoting a four-day “secret sale” at their local store. The text messages outperformed the email with almost 63 percent of the revenue generated from the sale being attributed to the text message coupon.

What’s your company doing to take advantage of this mobile marketing trend?

Who Is Texting?


Plus:

• 21.1% of texters have a household income between $75,000 and $100,000
• 33% of 25- to 34-year-olds and 26% of 35- to 44-year-olds have opted to receive text messages from a company
• 60.2% of 25- to 34-year-olds and 46.2% of 35- to 44-year-olds have received some form of marketing message via text message

Customer loyalty programs can be a great tool for promoting long-lasting relationships with your current customers. In fact, we spend a lot of time talking with our clients about how it’s often easier to retain and grow your current customer base by getting them to continue service each month, purchase more, upgrade services, etc, than it may be to convert an entirely new customer to your pool. However, while customer loyalty programs are a good tool for increasing satisfaction and retention, they can have the total opposite effect, creating both customer dissatisfaction and disengagement, when they are poorly implemented.

Getting bit for being loyal
My case in point...yesterday we received a letter in the mail from my husband’s cell phone company. The letter thanked us for being one of the company’s “most valuable customers,” and for our “continued loyalty” offered us a special gift at no charge. Okay, cool! The gift, a free mini cell tower, could be picked up at our local cell phone provider store. Here’s what the letter said about the free gift, “The mini cell tower will help boost the bars you receive in your home so if you are not getting the signal you expect in your house, this may be the perfect solution for you.”

My husband gets garbage for signal at our house – too many other places as well. This offer put him on cloud nine. The mini cell tower would be the perfect solution and because of our “loyalty” the company was taking care of it for us. That is, until my husband called to verify pickup of the free gift.

See, while the product was being given to us “free of charge,” the cost to operate the free gift each month would be $10 plus tax. How does that reward us for our loyalty? Where’s the add service, the extra value? How is this company really stepping up to show us their thanks? They’re not.

For this to have worked as a true loyalty reward, the cell tower and service should have both been free – even for a year. Instead it doesn’t work, because essentially while the company tells us we are valued and loyal, it promises we will never be treated as such. By pointing out a real problem and then basically forcing the customer to pay the price to fix it, the cell phone company doesn’t meet the objective of the loyalty letter, to tell the customer “thank you.”

And so, my husband’s response to the customer service representative on the phone after inquiring about his free gift was, “I already pay more than $120 a month for your cell phone service. Now because I’m a loyal customer, I need to pay $10 extra a month just so I can use the service I’m already paying for!? No thanks. I think it is time I made a switch to a carrier with more coverage.”