welcome to hip Muldrow i’m your host
afghan carbon solutions show number 29
joining me as harold simkins professor
of marketing at concordia John Wilson
School of Business what I went there was
just Concordia but I guess you guys got
the fancy sponsorship deal so absolutely
thank you very much for joining us April
23rd is the anniversary of coca-cola’s
decision to launch Newcomb so we decided
to do a top 10 marketing miss apps which
is a companion piece to this interview
or doing with you you teach marketing
you teach advertising I think I actually
had you as in the advertising class so I
thought of reaching out to you and
asking you for your opinion on these
so-called marketing and product mishaps
so my first question to you is we’ll
talk specifically about New Coke but is
all PR good PR or is there such a thing
as bad PR when these companies make
these so called mrs. well there’s
absolutely a thing like bad PR just look
at the situation with was owned right
now and there are we suspend of drinks
and having gone after the the person who
has the Oasis brand of soap and taking
her to the Supreme Court and causing her
all kinds of legal problems in terms of
cause that’s all over the social media
right now they’ve something like a
hundred thousand inquiries into it the
PR is horrible they’re in damage control
mode so that’s an example of PR not
working in your favor you know there’s
an old saying there’s no such thing as
bad PR maybe that applies to movie stars
you know just to keep their their face
and name in the limelight and whether it
be because they’ve been good people bad
people whatever but I think when it
comes to products they’re certainly can
be very very bad Pierre okay you raised
social media and celebrities those are
two things I want to expand on how does
social media change this does it really
amplify it or oh contraire does it allow
the marketers a tool to sort of get on
it quickly and address it instead of
waiting for the news cycle to its both
its most I mean marketers can preempt
the snowball effect as they see it
forming in social media but on the other
hand you know consumers
citizens can get together really really
really quickly and share opinions good
bent or indifferent and so marketers
very much have to be on the lookout for
those kinds of things developing and
more and more of course have full-time
social media departments so take us
through a few of the biggest market
actually are all product mishaps
necessarily marketing mishaps more to
take us through that nuance first of all
um I mean you could have a bad prodigal
take one of my favorite products of all
time we take the soft drink industry so
back in the 1980s as the population
started aging the soft drink industry
started declining because you know as
you get older you want to consume fewer
calories less sugar all the forecasts
were for an industry that was going to
disappear almost and then NutraSweet was
invented so now you could have soft
drinks with no calories so coke diet
coke would taste like Coke and Diet
Pepsi like Patrick almost and that
single-handedly revived the soft drink
industry so that whatever your age you
don’t have to worry about putting on
calories because there’s zero calories
in these products one product that I
watched with really close interest
because I like french fries not like
fried chicken I liked right exactly so
if you could come up with a NutraSweet
version of will such that it would have
zero calories so you could be a bit fry
up a potato and there would be no more
calories from those french fries that
there would be in the raw potato and the
same with the chicken on the same with
the fish this would be a homerun ball
well guess who invented the product was
Procter & Gamble and was called olestra
I remember reading in an alesis way
disease so Bob that’s right that was a
great book but it’s fantastic book and
actually products fried in oil Astro
tasted like the real thing but there was
one side effect that elestra head they
knew what going into the marketplace and
that’s that it caused gassiness that
could manifest itself from your mouth or
from the other end so you go out a fart
or burp after your first and Jess you
know but it was only after your first
ingestion is there a see
the above it just look and so and it
didn’t happen with all people but with a
lot of people the first time you eat
something cooked an alert that would
happen but if we never happened again
and P&G believed that you know we get
used to it and overcome that and people
didn’t weren’t bad Pierre got out as a
result of that and the product was
withdrawn from the market and I recall
they spent like a lot of money on this
and lots of time um and then okay so
those are product mistakes so I mean how
does that now translate to marketing
mistakes it’s take us through like a few
of the top marketing mistakes in your
opinion that really make you just say
what were they thinking well you know
it’s always easy to second-guess and
especially in the field of marketing and
advertising work everything is done in
the open right we see the ads we see the
commercials and and you know we’re free
to criticize make our comments then of
course if there is a failure its a
public failure and then of course a lot
of people like myself University
Professors consultant st. we say we told
you so we knew this was going to happen
if you only spoke with to us in the
first place well that’s not always the
case you know companies that are
bringing especially major companies
bringing it new products or new
campaigns test them they have the top
creative mind stop marketing minds
working on their behalf so how come how
could you end up with failures let me
give you one of my favorite failures of
all time there was a beer in the States
called Rheingold and you’ll the beer
market particularly back then it was all
about branding because all beers tasted
this unlike today where we had craft
beers and imported beers and whatever so
Ryan Gauld was looking for a way to
differentiate itself from budweiser and
Shaffer and she’ll it’s the big brands
of the time and I remember seeing these
commercials as a teenager coming up
coming up from the states over cable so
you would see this beautiful Greek
winning celebration you know in a hall
and the bride and the groom and everyone
having a good time and the tagline was
in Chicago where there are more Greeks
than in Athens that number one beer is
wrangled
there was one with a Jewish wedding in
New York City in New York City where
they’re more Jews than in Tel Aviv
number one beer is fine gold and I
forget which city was the Italian one
but I get an Italian Wedding they like
beautiful beautiful beautiful
photography and the number one beer was
Rheingold and I thought to myself at the
time as this is really really beautiful
stuff and showing different cultures and
you know and how they’ve adopted
Rheingold beer and what a neat way to
differentiate yourself that campaign
killed the brain why and it killed the
bank Greek people living in Chicago
didn’t want to be seen those Greeks and
they don’t want to be identified there
won’t be Americans plus the Italian
people didn’t want to drink with the
Greek people were drinking and the Jews
didn’t want a drink with the Italian
people were drinking and it was just a
big mess and I guess at the core of it
was the American melting pot idea yeah
that you know down everybody melts in
your American first and by singling out
these groups it blew up in their face
and I don’t know if testing would have
picked up let me ask you a question if
that ad campaign would it cause a
different kind of reaction ie an uproar
today because you’re even like sitting
here you know in 2012 hearing that I’m
like I’m sure the first time that you
know the Greek Italian Jewish Korean
whatever there’s somebody going oh my
god why are we even not discriminating
but maybe I mean you could be some
somebody’s going to be and it’s not
politically correct to do that but but
this was really tastefully done okay you
mentioned something grade which is going
in the CMOS the adviser gonna take a
short break we’re going to come back
afterwards I want to talk to you about
CMOS when they basically sit there chief
marketing officers VP of Marketing
researchers whoever and say to the CEO
this is a bad idea I want to ask you if
that ever means anything we’ll be right
back want to get your opinion I’ll be
right back after this
afghan carbon solutions show number 29
joining me as harold simkins professor
of marketing at concordia John Wilson
School of Business what I went there was
just Concordia but I guess you guys got
the fancy sponsorship deal so absolutely
thank you very much for joining us April
23rd is the anniversary of coca-cola’s
decision to launch Newcomb so we decided
to do a top 10 marketing miss apps which
is a companion piece to this interview
or doing with you you teach marketing
you teach advertising I think I actually
had you as in the advertising class so I
thought of reaching out to you and
asking you for your opinion on these
so-called marketing and product mishaps
so my first question to you is we’ll
talk specifically about New Coke but is
all PR good PR or is there such a thing
as bad PR when these companies make
these so called mrs. well there’s
absolutely a thing like bad PR just look
at the situation with was owned right
now and there are we suspend of drinks
and having gone after the the person who
has the Oasis brand of soap and taking
her to the Supreme Court and causing her
all kinds of legal problems in terms of
cause that’s all over the social media
right now they’ve something like a
hundred thousand inquiries into it the
PR is horrible they’re in damage control
mode so that’s an example of PR not
working in your favor you know there’s
an old saying there’s no such thing as
bad PR maybe that applies to movie stars
you know just to keep their their face
and name in the limelight and whether it
be because they’ve been good people bad
people whatever but I think when it
comes to products they’re certainly can
be very very bad Pierre okay you raised
social media and celebrities those are
two things I want to expand on how does
social media change this does it really
amplify it or oh contraire does it allow
the marketers a tool to sort of get on
it quickly and address it instead of
waiting for the news cycle to its both
its most I mean marketers can preempt
the snowball effect as they see it
forming in social media but on the other
hand you know consumers
citizens can get together really really
really quickly and share opinions good
bent or indifferent and so marketers
very much have to be on the lookout for
those kinds of things developing and
more and more of course have full-time
social media departments so take us
through a few of the biggest market
actually are all product mishaps
necessarily marketing mishaps more to
take us through that nuance first of all
um I mean you could have a bad prodigal
take one of my favorite products of all
time we take the soft drink industry so
back in the 1980s as the population
started aging the soft drink industry
started declining because you know as
you get older you want to consume fewer
calories less sugar all the forecasts
were for an industry that was going to
disappear almost and then NutraSweet was
invented so now you could have soft
drinks with no calories so coke diet
coke would taste like Coke and Diet
Pepsi like Patrick almost and that
single-handedly revived the soft drink
industry so that whatever your age you
don’t have to worry about putting on
calories because there’s zero calories
in these products one product that I
watched with really close interest
because I like french fries not like
fried chicken I liked right exactly so
if you could come up with a NutraSweet
version of will such that it would have
zero calories so you could be a bit fry
up a potato and there would be no more
calories from those french fries that
there would be in the raw potato and the
same with the chicken on the same with
the fish this would be a homerun ball
well guess who invented the product was
Procter & Gamble and was called olestra
I remember reading in an alesis way
disease so Bob that’s right that was a
great book but it’s fantastic book and
actually products fried in oil Astro
tasted like the real thing but there was
one side effect that elestra head they
knew what going into the marketplace and
that’s that it caused gassiness that
could manifest itself from your mouth or
from the other end so you go out a fart
or burp after your first and Jess you
know but it was only after your first
ingestion is there a see
the above it just look and so and it
didn’t happen with all people but with a
lot of people the first time you eat
something cooked an alert that would
happen but if we never happened again
and P&G believed that you know we get
used to it and overcome that and people
didn’t weren’t bad Pierre got out as a
result of that and the product was
withdrawn from the market and I recall
they spent like a lot of money on this
and lots of time um and then okay so
those are product mistakes so I mean how
does that now translate to marketing
mistakes it’s take us through like a few
of the top marketing mistakes in your
opinion that really make you just say
what were they thinking well you know
it’s always easy to second-guess and
especially in the field of marketing and
advertising work everything is done in
the open right we see the ads we see the
commercials and and you know we’re free
to criticize make our comments then of
course if there is a failure its a
public failure and then of course a lot
of people like myself University
Professors consultant st. we say we told
you so we knew this was going to happen
if you only spoke with to us in the
first place well that’s not always the
case you know companies that are
bringing especially major companies
bringing it new products or new
campaigns test them they have the top
creative mind stop marketing minds
working on their behalf so how come how
could you end up with failures let me
give you one of my favorite failures of
all time there was a beer in the States
called Rheingold and you’ll the beer
market particularly back then it was all
about branding because all beers tasted
this unlike today where we had craft
beers and imported beers and whatever so
Ryan Gauld was looking for a way to
differentiate itself from budweiser and
Shaffer and she’ll it’s the big brands
of the time and I remember seeing these
commercials as a teenager coming up
coming up from the states over cable so
you would see this beautiful Greek
winning celebration you know in a hall
and the bride and the groom and everyone
having a good time and the tagline was
in Chicago where there are more Greeks
than in Athens that number one beer is
wrangled
there was one with a Jewish wedding in
New York City in New York City where
they’re more Jews than in Tel Aviv
number one beer is fine gold and I
forget which city was the Italian one
but I get an Italian Wedding they like
beautiful beautiful beautiful
photography and the number one beer was
Rheingold and I thought to myself at the
time as this is really really beautiful
stuff and showing different cultures and
you know and how they’ve adopted
Rheingold beer and what a neat way to
differentiate yourself that campaign
killed the brain why and it killed the
bank Greek people living in Chicago
didn’t want to be seen those Greeks and
they don’t want to be identified there
won’t be Americans plus the Italian
people didn’t want to drink with the
Greek people were drinking and the Jews
didn’t want a drink with the Italian
people were drinking and it was just a
big mess and I guess at the core of it
was the American melting pot idea yeah
that you know down everybody melts in
your American first and by singling out
these groups it blew up in their face
and I don’t know if testing would have
picked up let me ask you a question if
that ad campaign would it cause a
different kind of reaction ie an uproar
today because you’re even like sitting
here you know in 2012 hearing that I’m
like I’m sure the first time that you
know the Greek Italian Jewish Korean
whatever there’s somebody going oh my
god why are we even not discriminating
but maybe I mean you could be some
somebody’s going to be and it’s not
politically correct to do that but but
this was really tastefully done okay you
mentioned something grade which is going
in the CMOS the adviser gonna take a
short break we’re going to come back
afterwards I want to talk to you about
CMOS when they basically sit there chief
marketing officers VP of Marketing
researchers whoever and say to the CEO
this is a bad idea I want to ask you if
that ever means anything we’ll be right
back want to get your opinion I’ll be
right back after this
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