The "Bad" – not using a real/meaningful customer insight to build your ad campaign. Sorry, another consumer marketing example but I couldn’t resist.
I
watched a lot of football this weekend (Go Bears!) and really got tired
of seeing the same commercials over and over and over. One that really
perplexed me was the Wendy’s
commercial for their value meal. It features two guys sitting in a
library eating value meals … one is eating a Wendy’s value meal with
normal size burger/fries/drink and the other is eating an unknown brand
that is miniature in size. Of course the guy eating the Wendy’s meal
gloats that he has the better deal since both are the same $2.99 price.
First
of all, is a library the best setting for a battle of value meals?
Secondly, the message makes no sense. Wendy’s is trying to say that
their meals are a better value but does anyone really think that
McDonald’s or Burger King value meals are small compared to Wendy’s. If
anything those two chains have built huge brand awareness around "super
size." So why is Wendy’s trying to compete on size/value when they
aren’t differentiated at all on those attributes? The Wendy’s marketing
folks should ask themselves if there really is a large group of
consumers that have a problem with the value they are getting from
McDonalds, Burger King, et. al. Obviously I don’t have Wendy’s reams of
market research but my gut tells me there isn’t, and in fact both Micky
D’s and BK were running commercials about their dollar menus during the
same broadcasts. Instead of trying to manufacture a differentiation
where one doesn’t exist, Wendy’s should look at what their customers
really value about their restaurant and then try to build the
awareness/preference on that attribute … perhaps quality, taste or
freshness.
In contrast, during the same football games Subway
was running their commercial poking fun of ALL burger chain value
meals. The commercial shows a woman ordering a #6 value meal at a drab
burger counter and then changing her mind to order a #9 value meal. The
smug server takes the #6 box and turns it around to become a #9 and
then pushes it back to the customer. The commercial then shows the
Subway fresh value meal and mentions the variety of choices customers
have (bread, meats, veggies, etc.). It ends with the tag line "where
freshness meets value." Subway gets it. They understand their real
differentiation from the burger joints and have consistently reinforced
it in their commercials year after year.