Political Branding

With the presidential races heating up, Two West decided to delve into the world of political branding. Check out the podcast to listen to our interview with Joe Erwin, president and co-founder of Erwin-Penland and former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party. Joe discusses how politicians are building a brand and how “user generated” politics is playing a part in this brand.

In the Brand Spotlight, Two West celebrated television commercials that won Effies. Here are the links to those videos. Check them out and let us know what you think.

• Vaseline’s “Keeping Skin Amazing”
• Dove’s “Pro-Age”

There was a lot that we didn’t get to with this show. We briefly touched on an article that was in Ad Week discussing how media contributes to political campaigns in hopes that their candidate will win and remember them when legislation comes around that can help or hinder them. Check out the top companies within different mediums that have contributed to campaigns this year:

Top contributors among Book/magazine/newspaper publishers include:
News Corp. - $113,350
Reed Elsevier - $66,850
Paisano Publications - $54,300
Provincetown Banner - $43,350
Newsweb Corp. - $43,000

Top Internet/Computer Contributors include:
Microsoft Corp. - $741,751
Cisco Systems - $523,943
Google, Inc. - $283,328
Hewlett Packard - $239,328
EDS Corp. - $195,085

Top TV/Radio Contributors include:
National Association of Broadcasters - $317,915
Clear Channel Communications - $299,150
Chartwell Partners - $134,600

Top Cable and Satellite TV Contributors include:
Comcast - $1 million
National Cable & Telecommunications Association - $486,873
Cablevision Systems Corp. - $228,363
Echostar Communications - $205,118
Time Warner Cable - $192,735

Two West also touched on a politician, Steve Novick, which is using differentiation to his advantage for his Senate race in Oregon. We love these spots and if he were running for Senate in our state, we’d vote for him. He even has his own lager now. How can you not love that? Check out the logo, the lager and spots and let us know what you think.

Marketing to Women

Women control more than 85 percent of all household purchases, meaning that marketers are looking for new ways to appeal to women consumers. On this week’s show, we talk about how some companies are taking a more direct approach to appeal to female consumers. Also, the accounting firm Deloitte is even instructing its employees to approach women clients differently than men.

This week’s Brand Rant discusses how Unilever is under attack by consumer groups for its Axe product. Groups claim that Unilever is running conflicting advertising when it praises women in its Dove campaign while it degrades them through the Axe campaign. And in the Brand Spotlight, we look into the MillerCoors merger and its attempt to challenge Anheuser-Busch for supremacy in the beer market. Holly Buchanan joins us to discuss how marketers have changed tactics in approaching women consumers.

Related Topics:

Link to an article that discusses a consumer groups letter-writing campaign against Unilever.
http://www.latimes.com/business/custom/admark/la-fi-unilever10oct10,1,373981.story?coll=la-headlines-business-advert

Miller and Coors have merged, likely leading to a more aggressive campaign against Anheuser-Busch.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8S5ND980.html

The accounting firm Deloitte is training its employees to approach women clients differently than men.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119180210846051773.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Nintendo has found that the majority of its users in Japan are actually women, likely leading to a different advertising approach.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/japan/article2629649.ece

NBC Universal has acquired the Oxygen network.
http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=68902