Sage Advice, LLC

Paul Sage's Marketing Work and Observations

recent posts

MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS LEADER skilled at planning, creating, implementing and measuring communications in consumer and business markets. Industry experience includes telecom, banking, utilities, business services, building materials and healthcare. Key Capabilities • Fractional Marketing Director • Marketing Communications Project Management • Marketing Research and Communications Measurement • Agency and Vendor Selection, Direction and Evaluation; Vendor Contract Optimization and Cost Reduction • Writing: Brand Definitions, Creative Briefs, Proposals, Online and Offline Content • Coaching and Training

  • The Value of a Seven-Million-Dollar Minute

    With the college national championship behind us and only eight teams remaining in the NFL playoffs, followers of American football are now fixing their eyes on February 3rd, Super Bowl Sunday. 

    CBS has already sold out its inventory at an average price of around $3.7 million per 30-second spot (is that net or gross, might I ask?).   That’s right – over $7 million a minute.

    http://adage.com/article/special-report-super-bowl/cbs-sells-super-bowl-inventory/239064/

    Is it worth it?  In an era of retweeting, rehashing and reality imitating art ad nauseam, perhaps it is worth it now more than ever.  As long as the advertiser gives us something to tweet or Facebook or LinkIn about.  When done right, a Super Bowl ad can generate endless “free” repetition, replay on cable news, podcast chatter and social media buzz.

    Remember the irreverent, unleashed wildness of the 2000 Super Bowl ads at the height of the dot-com boom, when E-Trade’s spot with a cha-cha-ing chimp boasted “We just wasted two million dollars.  What are you doing with your money?”

    E-Trade chimp

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Crq3FJ_vE2Q

    Thirteen years later the price of a Super Bowl spot has nearly doubled and the opportunities for exposure through social media have gone from zero to everybody.   I’m expecting some killer work from big brands on February 3rd.  If you’re like me, you’ll get up to get your favorite food and beverage only at certain moments of the game – when they’re actually playing football.

  • A New Year’s Brand

    Class of '13

    Can anybody get excited about 2013?  It’s just not a pretty number.  Odd-numbered years roll in with a yawn – no Olympics, presidential elections or World Cups.  Odd years are the mortar between the even-numbered bricks.

    I’m surprised I haven’t seen more chatter about fear of 13, aka triskaidekaphobia .  Maybe we’re just avoiding the discussion.

    “Naturally, it’s 13. Why 13?”

    “It comes after 12, hon.”

               – Marilyn Lovell (Kathleen Quinlan) and Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) in “Apollo 13.”

    Every year has a brand.  Some years arrive amid great expectations: 1976, 1984, 2000.   Others just sit there like the quiet kid in class (name one big thing that happened in 1993).  .

    What’ll we see in 2013?  A better economy?  Less red-blue divisiveness?  More time spent thinking about today’s opportunities instead of tomorrow’s problems?  I’m hopeful for all of that and more.  Even Apollo 13 was, in the words of Tom Hanks/Jim Lovell, “a successful failure.”  Unlucky Apollo 13 was very lucky.  

    Let’s all make something special out of 13.

  • How Elvis Met Nixon Is How Branding Leads to Sales


    Elvis meets Nixon 12 21 1970    Maybe you’ve heard the story.  Maybe you’ve seen the photos. In case you haven’t, here’s the recap:

    Forty-two years ago today, early in the morning of December 21, 1970, Elvis Presley showed up, unannounced, at the gates of the White House to deliver a letter he had written to President Richard Nixon.

    Elvis Letter Page 1

    Transcript of letter from Elvis to President Nixon 12 21 1970

    Elvis wanted to meet with the President and he wanted the title and badge of Federal Agent for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.  Elvis got everything he asked for.  By lunchtime.  That day.

    How did Elvis do it?

    THE BRAND:   By 1970, sixteen years into his show biz career, Elvis Presley had evolved into Elvis.  The bejeweled, cape-wearing, “See See Rider” singing, Vegas-playing Elvis.  Elvis was a brand that everybody recognized and many respected.   When Elvis showed up at the door — even the door of the White House — the door was open.

    THE ANGLE:  Even if you’re well known, and even if you say “please,” you need a selling proposition, a unique brand attribute.  Elvis had one:  Elvis could relate to everyone.  In his letter to President Nixon, Elvis wrote: The drug culture, the hippie elements …do not consider me as their enemy… I will help out by doing it my way through my communications with people of all ages.

    THE ASK:  Elvis didn’t beat around the bush.  He asked specifically for what he wanted.  When you don’t ask, you don’t get.

    THE LIMITED TIME OFFER:  When Elvis showed up at the White House gates four days before Christmas, the Nixon staff knew they had to move quickly.  Elvis was a limited time offer.  Better act now.

    THE CLOSE:  Elvis wasn’t going to leave the White House without a new badge.  He knew better than to take “We’ll get back to you” for an answer.  Elvis was persistent.

    A brand built over time, a unique and well-timed offer and a clear call to action set the stage, and a well-prepared, confident salesman brought home the badge.

    Elvis BNDD Badge

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Elvis has left the White House.

  • I miss Hal Riney this time of year

    This 60-second holiday TV spot from JP Morgan Chase is beautiful.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLCWmKfi1Vw

     All it’s missing is the voice of the late, great Hal Riney.    26riney.190

  • Decompartmentalizing Digital

    http://www.digiday.com/agencies/time-to-retire-the-digital-jedi/
    Digital media have lost their mystery, and that’s a good thing. I thought it quaint that Sterling Cooper, the 1960s agency on “Mad Men,” appointed a man as “Head of Television.” Someday soon we’ll look back and wonder why we needed a subcategory called “digital marketing.”

  • Co-promotions make strange bedfellows

    NM Target

    Neiman Marcus and Target?   Denny’s and “The Hobbit” movie?   And here in my hunting-crazy state,  a local jeweler and Benelli shotguns.  We’re seeing brands paired up that don’t seem to go together at first blush, but maybe that’s the point.  Maybe this is a way to stretch the public perception of a brand by knocking down old mental fences and letting new associations develop.  

    Diamond and Shotgun

  • I love Helvetica

    There are typefaces, and then there’s Helvetica.  The only font I know that was worthy of its own documentary.  Helvetica clarifies, simplifies, keeps chaos less chaotic.IMG_4054_helvetica

  • So-Called “Emerald” is Pantone’s 2013 Color of the Year

    Color #17-5641 is the Color of the Year, according to the commercial epicenter of all things colorful, Pantone. Does what Pantone calls “Emerald” look like Emerald to you? emerald See for yourself:

    http://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/fashion-news/newsdetails.aspx?news_id=118773