Friday, June 24, 2005
SVRA Savannah 2004 Group 8
Holding off the pack into turn 1. Did not last but a great race to the last lap, finished 4th running quicker times than 2&3rd finishers
Monday, June 20, 2005
BMW Update
BMW AND FALLON PART, ACCOUNT GOES INTO REVIEW
Ends 10-Year Relationship That Created Ad Film Series
June 17, 2005
By James B. Arndorfer
CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Fallon Worldwide, Minneapolis, and BMW of North America are parting ways after a 10-year relationship that featured the highly touted and revolutionary BMW Films branded-entertainment effort, agency CEO Pat Fallon said.
BMW is putting its account into review following a change in marketing leadership. The automaker got a new marketing vice president in April when longtime marketing chief Jim McDowell moved over to head BMW's Mini USA arm as vice president of sales and marketing.
New CMO
His successor is Jack Pitney, 42, with whom he switched places. Mr. Pitney is in an all-day offsite meeting with other BMW executives, his secretary said, and unavailable for comment. A BMW spokeswoman had no comment.
Fallon declined to participate in the review. "We don't believe there's a need for a review," Mr. Fallon said.
Groundbreaking ad work
Fallon won acclaim for the groundbreaking BMW Films it created for the automaker. The online films, featuring A-list directors and Clive Owen as the mysterious driver for hire, were designed to reach BMW's affluent clientele, which increasingly didn't watch TV. Launched in 2001, they set the standard for the emerging branded entertainment field.
BMW spent $165.4 million in 2004 in measured media, essentially flat from 2003, according to figures from TNS Media Services.
Media is handled by Publicis' Optimedia, New York.
Jean Halliday contributed to this report.
Ends 10-Year Relationship That Created Ad Film Series
June 17, 2005
By James B. Arndorfer
CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Fallon Worldwide, Minneapolis, and BMW of North America are parting ways after a 10-year relationship that featured the highly touted and revolutionary BMW Films branded-entertainment effort, agency CEO Pat Fallon said.
BMW is putting its account into review following a change in marketing leadership. The automaker got a new marketing vice president in April when longtime marketing chief Jim McDowell moved over to head BMW's Mini USA arm as vice president of sales and marketing.
New CMO
His successor is Jack Pitney, 42, with whom he switched places. Mr. Pitney is in an all-day offsite meeting with other BMW executives, his secretary said, and unavailable for comment. A BMW spokeswoman had no comment.
Fallon declined to participate in the review. "We don't believe there's a need for a review," Mr. Fallon said.
Groundbreaking ad work
Fallon won acclaim for the groundbreaking BMW Films it created for the automaker. The online films, featuring A-list directors and Clive Owen as the mysterious driver for hire, were designed to reach BMW's affluent clientele, which increasingly didn't watch TV. Launched in 2001, they set the standard for the emerging branded entertainment field.
BMW spent $165.4 million in 2004 in measured media, essentially flat from 2003, according to figures from TNS Media Services.
Media is handled by Publicis' Optimedia, New York.
Jean Halliday contributed to this report.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Jeff-Schur-and-722
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Back to the Future
This week we go back to Omnicom University for the Post Graduate Program. I attended the undergraduate program in 2001 and the graduate program in 2002
It is a rare privilege to be invited back to this intensive "Scrimmage" and it is a pleasure to meet 50 or so of the world's best advertising brains and wrestle with real world problems.
This year's highlight is the Nissan turnaround by Carlos Ghosn, who is CEO of both Nissan and Renault, not bad for a Brazilian native in two Xenophobic cultures. Jan Thompson, my ex-boss who joined Nissan last year will be the main protagonist in the scrimmage. Should be fun.
What exactly is Omnicom University?
In 1995, Tom Watson, Vice Chairman Emeritus of Omnicom Group Inc., in conjunction with Harvard Business School professor Len Schlesinger, created the Omnicom University Senior Management Program for professional service firm management education and development. The University offers undergraduate and graduate programs that are taught at The Babson Executive Conference Center in Wellesley, Massachusetts, in June and July.SMP is the global leadership development program designed to reinforce the values, vision and mission of OmnicomGroup to explore management/client issues and strengthen team-building skills. By invitation only to senior executives and leaders of OmnicomGroup companies, it provides the opportunity to learn the best contemporary management thinking available on professional service firm management.The curriculum is a two-year commitment customized with real world Omnicom Group operating company cases taught using the HBS case method that address issues facing our companies in a highly competitive and fast-changing global marketplace. The program also includes action learning and peer problem-solving dialogues. Students are required to identify and implement a Strategic Change Initiative between the undergraduate and graduate programs that will have significant impact within their organization. These initiatives are a source of potential new cases each year.The OmnicomUniversity faculty includes current and former HBS professors Jeffrey Rayport, Tom DeLong, David Maister and Nancy Koehn, all leading authors and authorities with particular expertise on managing professional service firms.
James Heskett,Chairman of the Omnicom University Faculty, is Baker Foundation Professor at HBS Graduate School of Business Administration and author of several books, including co-authorship of The Value Profit Chain with Len Schlesinger, President & Chief Operating Officer of Limited Brands and OmnicomUniversity SMP Advisor.Harvard Alumni Dan O’Brien and Dan Maher of Quest Partners develop the customized curriculum and manage the program. Tom Watson is the Dean of OmnicomUniversity.
It is a rare privilege to be invited back to this intensive "Scrimmage" and it is a pleasure to meet 50 or so of the world's best advertising brains and wrestle with real world problems.
This year's highlight is the Nissan turnaround by Carlos Ghosn, who is CEO of both Nissan and Renault, not bad for a Brazilian native in two Xenophobic cultures. Jan Thompson, my ex-boss who joined Nissan last year will be the main protagonist in the scrimmage. Should be fun.
What exactly is Omnicom University?
In 1995, Tom Watson, Vice Chairman Emeritus of Omnicom Group Inc., in conjunction with Harvard Business School professor Len Schlesinger, created the Omnicom University Senior Management Program for professional service firm management education and development. The University offers undergraduate and graduate programs that are taught at The Babson Executive Conference Center in Wellesley, Massachusetts, in June and July.SMP is the global leadership development program designed to reinforce the values, vision and mission of OmnicomGroup to explore management/client issues and strengthen team-building skills. By invitation only to senior executives and leaders of OmnicomGroup companies, it provides the opportunity to learn the best contemporary management thinking available on professional service firm management.The curriculum is a two-year commitment customized with real world Omnicom Group operating company cases taught using the HBS case method that address issues facing our companies in a highly competitive and fast-changing global marketplace. The program also includes action learning and peer problem-solving dialogues. Students are required to identify and implement a Strategic Change Initiative between the undergraduate and graduate programs that will have significant impact within their organization. These initiatives are a source of potential new cases each year.The OmnicomUniversity faculty includes current and former HBS professors Jeffrey Rayport, Tom DeLong, David Maister and Nancy Koehn, all leading authors and authorities with particular expertise on managing professional service firms.
James Heskett,Chairman of the Omnicom University Faculty, is Baker Foundation Professor at HBS Graduate School of Business Administration and author of several books, including co-authorship of The Value Profit Chain with Len Schlesinger, President & Chief Operating Officer of Limited Brands and OmnicomUniversity SMP Advisor.Harvard Alumni Dan O’Brien and Dan Maher of Quest Partners develop the customized curriculum and manage the program. Tom Watson is the Dean of OmnicomUniversity.
BMW. Right or Wrong?
This is a provacative posting by Laura Trout on her great weblog.
You decide whether she or BMW is right.
The Origin of Brands Blog
BMW bungles the brand.
BMW Keeping a brand focused is not an exciting or glamorous job. That’s why so many successful brands fall into trouble. As soon as we write up a great case history of how a brand narrowed its focus, owns a word in the mind and dominates a market, the brand’s managers go out and expand the brand which greatly weakens its power and many times destroys it. Great brands like Toys R Us, Mercedes-Benz, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s have all fallen victim to this tragedy.
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
The latest casuality is BMW. See The Wall Street Journal front page story Monday, January 10, 2005 BMW’s Push to Broaden Line Hits Some Bumps in the Road.
BMW is one of the most powerful brands in the world. A brand focused on single market: premium priced cars. A brand that owns a word in mind: driving. A brand that has the best automotive advertising slogan ever written: “The ultimate driving machine.” And a brand that has been highly profitable. In 2003, BMW’s automotive operations generated $3.5 billion in operating profit, more than that of General Motors, Ford, Volkswagen and Renault combined.
Despite this amazing success, Sigma, a German research firm, told BMW management after an exhaustive consumer study by that there would be little growth in the company’s future if it stuck with serving just its hard-core customers. Sigma dubbed these customers “social-climbers”, a group of people categorized by their motivation for professional success. (As a seven-year owner of a black 328i BMW, I guess you could say I fit the brand profile.)
No future growth from keeping a company focused on its core strength? What are they drinking over there in Germany? Short-term growth may at times be achieved by line extension but long-term success can only be sustained by having a brand stand for something in the mind. In other words, a brand that focuses on its hard-core consumers.
The biggest problem with line extension is that it undermines the power of a brand in the mind. Mercedes-Benz is a powerful brand because it owns prestige in the mind of consumers. When they come out with cheap Mercedes cars, it slowly erodes this perception of prestige. Initially they might sell a lot of cheap cars, but long term the power of the brand is crushed. Which is exactly what has happened at Mercedes. Why would BMW want to follow down this same path?
To appear to a wider audience than just the social-climbers (and attract such groups as the upper liberals, post-moderns and upper conservatives), BMW underwent a dramatic and radical redesign of its 3, 5 and 7 series cars, the company’s core products. The reactions to the new designs have not been favorable. Major glitches in the 7 series and iDrive electronics have severely dented BMW’s reputation for quality. Consumer Reports did not judge a single BMW as reliable enough to include on its 2005 recommended list.
Despite these problems, the new models and redesigns keep on coming including the Z4 roadsters, X5 SUV, X3 SUV, 6-series and 1-series. And there is even talk of introducing a minivan! No minivan on earth could ever be called the ultimate driving machine; what an oxymoron!
But that’s just the point. The more models BMW makes, the more consumers they target and the more markets they enter, the less valuable the brand becomes. Only a small range of cars can be classified as ultimate driving machines. And that is the standard by which BMW should drive its business. Otherwise they run the risk of driving the brand right off the autobahn and into a ditch.
January 11, 2005 in Branding blunders | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/1679756
You decide whether she or BMW is right.
The Origin of Brands Blog
BMW bungles the brand.
BMW Keeping a brand focused is not an exciting or glamorous job. That’s why so many successful brands fall into trouble. As soon as we write up a great case history of how a brand narrowed its focus, owns a word in the mind and dominates a market, the brand’s managers go out and expand the brand which greatly weakens its power and many times destroys it. Great brands like Toys R Us, Mercedes-Benz, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s have all fallen victim to this tragedy.
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
The latest casuality is BMW. See The Wall Street Journal front page story Monday, January 10, 2005 BMW’s Push to Broaden Line Hits Some Bumps in the Road.
BMW is one of the most powerful brands in the world. A brand focused on single market: premium priced cars. A brand that owns a word in mind: driving. A brand that has the best automotive advertising slogan ever written: “The ultimate driving machine.” And a brand that has been highly profitable. In 2003, BMW’s automotive operations generated $3.5 billion in operating profit, more than that of General Motors, Ford, Volkswagen and Renault combined.
Despite this amazing success, Sigma, a German research firm, told BMW management after an exhaustive consumer study by that there would be little growth in the company’s future if it stuck with serving just its hard-core customers. Sigma dubbed these customers “social-climbers”, a group of people categorized by their motivation for professional success. (As a seven-year owner of a black 328i BMW, I guess you could say I fit the brand profile.)
No future growth from keeping a company focused on its core strength? What are they drinking over there in Germany? Short-term growth may at times be achieved by line extension but long-term success can only be sustained by having a brand stand for something in the mind. In other words, a brand that focuses on its hard-core consumers.
The biggest problem with line extension is that it undermines the power of a brand in the mind. Mercedes-Benz is a powerful brand because it owns prestige in the mind of consumers. When they come out with cheap Mercedes cars, it slowly erodes this perception of prestige. Initially they might sell a lot of cheap cars, but long term the power of the brand is crushed. Which is exactly what has happened at Mercedes. Why would BMW want to follow down this same path?
To appear to a wider audience than just the social-climbers (and attract such groups as the upper liberals, post-moderns and upper conservatives), BMW underwent a dramatic and radical redesign of its 3, 5 and 7 series cars, the company’s core products. The reactions to the new designs have not been favorable. Major glitches in the 7 series and iDrive electronics have severely dented BMW’s reputation for quality. Consumer Reports did not judge a single BMW as reliable enough to include on its 2005 recommended list.
Despite these problems, the new models and redesigns keep on coming including the Z4 roadsters, X5 SUV, X3 SUV, 6-series and 1-series. And there is even talk of introducing a minivan! No minivan on earth could ever be called the ultimate driving machine; what an oxymoron!
But that’s just the point. The more models BMW makes, the more consumers they target and the more markets they enter, the less valuable the brand becomes. Only a small range of cars can be classified as ultimate driving machines. And that is the standard by which BMW should drive its business. Otherwise they run the risk of driving the brand right off the autobahn and into a ditch.
January 11, 2005 in Branding blunders | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/1679756
