The brand is British born but has always carried a kind of a sexy glamor internationally.

The famous Jaguar SS 100 made it’s debut in the late 30s.

https://tinyurl.com/bdhpdw9m
And several models have subsequently served as transportation for British royalty over the years. Queen Elisabeth II “…was also particularly taken with a humble Jaguar X-Type family five-door– clocking up a healthy 70,000 miles, more often than not taking the wheel herself.” https://tinyurl.com/mv7teap7

Here, in the U.S., Steve McQueen drove a Jag XKSS

While Frank Sinatra drove a model XJS

And like one of the one of the funniest comics of all time, Peter Sellers, who bought an E Type Jag for his then wife, Britt Ekland, I too bought a Jag (coupe) for my wife in the 90s.

But that’s a story for another issue. The reason I have shared a bit of background about this classic auto brand is to comment on the commercial Jaguar put out a few months ago.
I intended to write an article covering both the Cracker Barrel logo fiasco and the Jaguar commercial as well. But I just got the first part done and sent it out.
I had a lot of feedback on that article. Not all of which was simpatico with my point of view. Which, of course, is what makes the world go round.
I will be charitable; the Cracker Barrel logo change was an error in judgement. A mistake, a bad mistake, a $100 million dollar mistake. Still, they scrambled and fixed the logo and cancelled the remodel and we’ll see what happens to the stock.

But the Jaguar commercial wasn’t a mistake, it was…(take a deep breath) an intention to crash the brand. I know, harsh comment.
But then, I am presuming you saw this commercial. In case you missed it or want to see it again, here it is: https://tinyurl.com/2wxurj78
The picture below is a still from the commercial, which is essentially these people in various poses. No words are spoken. No cars are shown. Just some of these people silently placed in different positions. At the very end of the 30 second commercial are the words Copy Nothing and then the word Jaguar.
I repeat, no dialogue, no cars. Just humanoids of varying skin colors dressed in loudly colored outfits.

The blowback on showing the commercial was helacious. Still, the General Manager of Jaguar sought to justify it, noting that the “COPY NOTHING” line is to ensure the public knows that Jaguar is original.

I monitor marketing mercilessly. I love good commercials. Modesty aside, I have made a few based on positioning we have conducted. But I have a problem when the landscape is littered with commercials that damage brands. It doesn’t matter that the advertiser is not my client, schluby ads make me mad. It’s like there’s a beautifully maintained landscape and someone comes along and throws trash on it.

And recently there have been these two commercials that dirtied the park, and I wanted to say something. Cracker Barrel was a bad mistake, but they reverted. The Jaguar commercial was an intentional degrade of the brand. You may find that a stretch. I don’t.
I have no idea why, but whoever created that commercial did so with malevolent intent.

Jaguar is very capable of great commercials.
Try this one: https://tinyurl.com/sn75kxcp

Very cool!

And to prove that truly great car commercials can be made. This one gets my vote for the winner of the academy award for the best auto commercials of all time. https://tinyurl.com/3e4fnxps

It was the bizarre Jaguar commercial that prompted this brief article, but let me close with an offer of help: one doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that shoddy marketing damages sales or the corollary that effective marketing that talks to your customers at their level drives sales and income.
If you’d like me to take a look at your marketing – your website, email marketing or other issues, let me know. I’ll be happy to review how you are promoting and give you my viewpoint at no charge. I have been helping companies market their products for 30 years. I’ll be happy to share with you what I have seen work.
Just contact me via the info below.

Best,
Bruce

Many years ago, some friends of mine and I took a trip down the west coast of Mexico over a Spring break. We made a few important stops for educational purposes, such as at the manufacturing facility of Carta Blanca beer in Sinaloa (this for a serious study of manufacturing and  production of one of the world’s oldest beers).

Study concluded, we continued south and wound up in the little town of San Blas, just a bit North of Acapulco.

Not much more than a village at the time, San Blas has an historical significance in that it was one of the key points for the Manila galleon trade in the 16^th and 17^th Centuries whereby Mexico sent silver to the Far East on Manila galleons, which then returned with porcelain, spices, silk, and other exotic goods from the Philippines and China. Much of which was then sent overland across Mexico and on to Spain. (Both Mexico and the Philippines were Spanish colonies at the time.)

The town itself was settled by a mixture of native ethnic groups, many of whom were still encamped in the jungle-like terrain of the surrounding community.

Against this touch of historical Mexican background come four college students (all members of the wildest fraternity at San Jose State (which was ranked as the #2 party school in the United States by Playboy magazine at the time). So, on an Easter break, they landed, God knows how, on a deserted stretch of beach belonging to a community of ethnic natives at around 4:00am on a Saturday morning.

We crashed.

The sound of the surf and a horde of predatory fleas combined to wake me a few hours later. I glanced at the morning sun, my eyes burned, my head ached, and my mouth was so dry my tongue stuck to the roof of it.

I pushed myself up, leaned on one shoulder and looked down the beach. No one. My comrades had abandoned me.  To where, I had no idea. I did recall that there was a tribe of natives back off the beach located in the underbrush.

But what would my comrades do there?

The mind ran wild as one of my fraternity brothers with whom we were traveling was a few bottles short of a six pack.

I turned and looked in the other direction.

There, about 100 yards down the sun-kissed beach was a little….stand… I guess you’d call it. It was rather like a grill on a stand of metal. The grill sat under a thatched roof and a woman – maybe 5’2”, round midsection (very round) and long black hair blowing in a morning breeze – was tending to something on the grill.

I stood. The sand under my feet seemed to shift as if it were on water. And then it stopped.

I made for the thatched hut and grill.

When I got there, the woman smiled. A front tooth was missing; another was in dire need of dental work. She motioned to the grill where several tortillas were roasting.

“Queres?” (You want some?)

“Si.”

“Quantos?” (How many?)

“Dos.”

More smiles as she reached into a large steel tub filled with water and ice cubes and extracted…wait for it…a can of Coke.

“Queres Coke?”

Here I was, 2,651 miles south of San Jose, 1,407 miles South of the U.S. border on a Mexican beach no one had used or been aware of in hundreds of years, and a Mexican woman cooking tortillas on a make-shift grill asks me if I want a Coke.

“Si.”

But, for a moment, think of the brand extension. Because it was a unique series of surveys and market research that got me the Coke on that hot, Mexican morning at the port of the long-gone Manilla galleon trade.

In the 1960s, the Coca-Cola company was expanding its markets globally. And in doing so, Mexico became one of its most significant international markets. The company employed innovative strategies for market research and surveys that reached deeply into the native population to understand consumer behavior and preferences.

As part of this research, they also studied consumption patterns in rural areas and designed targeted distribution strategies into these areas.

And, thus, my thatched-hut hostess offered me a Coke on this lonelybeach where magnificent Manilla galleons used to depart for the orient loaded with tons of silver.

Courtesy Kitco.com

By the 1970s, Mexico became one of Coke’s largest global markets.

The Coca Cola company currently spends $5 billion a year on advertising and is well known for its extensive use of research and surveys. I don’t know exactly how much of that $5 billion is spent on surveys and research but it is known to be a great deal. Whatever the cost, it is stunningly effective as it generates $44 billion a year in sales.

Of course, the Coca-Cola company is not the only company that uses surveys and research to provide a foundation for their marketing and advertising. Apple is also famous for their surveys and their deep research and understanding of their public. And they haven’t done so badly with $3.7 trillion in market capitalization making them the largest corporation in the world.

Indeed, I would be shocked if every member of the DJIA were not mega-users of surveys.

Why is that? Why does the corporate world conduct surveys of their customers and potential customers?

This, of course, is not rocket science: if you are selling something to a public, you ideally need to market what it is that your targeted public needs and wants from the product or service that you provide.

When you ask them, when you survey them, you find out the answer to that question or those questions. There is skill and expertise in creating the survey questions so that you don’t get “social” answers to the question.

What is it that your prospective public thinks is valuable about what you sell? You want to know the benefit they see in buying your product or service and state that “benefit” in their own words.

Too many corporations offer their prospective public answers to the survey questions and ask them to choose one.

No.

Let the respondents answer in their own words. It may be a similar concept, but your buying public may state it differently. And it is their wording on how the public phrases the benefit that you want to use in your advertising and marketing. It is this wording that parallels the minds of your buyers and prompts them to purchase.

Understanding this puts a premium on the tabulation of the survey responses. A professional tabulator knows how to look for those key phrases and create the tabulation that, when used in Marketing and/or PR, gets the person to pull out their credit card.

At On Target Research, we have been conducting surveys for our clients for more than 30 years. Some of those clients have been the giant brands that you are more than familiar with, but our biggest customer base is the smaller to medium size companies as they often don’t have the internal expertise to create and conduct and then utilize the results of survey findings.

We can get you those key phrases by properly wording your surveys and properly tabulating the responses. It is doing these steps correctly that makes your marketing to customers or prospects sing and impels new leads, sales and income.

Interested?

Call or email me using the contact information below.

Best,

Bruce

Bruce Wiseman

President & CEO

On Target Research

www.ontargetresearch.com

Br***@**********an.net

1-818-397-1401

A few days ago, I wrote an article about how Apple used market research and surveys to help them become the largest corporation in the world with a market cap of $3 Trillion. Three trillion!!

Let’s look at another world leader: Starbucks. Starbucks is the largest and most successful coffee chain in the world.

With a market cap of $113 million, Starbucks doesn’t have Apple’s market cap – nobody does. But the company has 35,711 units operating worldwide, generating $25.3 billion a year in revenue.

That’s a lot of Joe.

Apple, the world’s largest corporation, and Starbucks, the world’s largest coffee chain, have one thing in common…

“However, it is no secret how they became the number one coffee company in the world …

“Starbucks became the largest coffeehouse chain in the world because of its value for market research.

“Over the past 14 years, Starbucks has used market research by obtaining consumer feedback…

“These ideas can range anywhere from new offerings to minor changes in a current product. Starbucks considers all customer feedback for its business and marketing strategy.”

https://www.driveresearch.com/market-research-company-blog/4-famous-brands-that-depend-on-market-research/

How about you and your business? Are you charging toward the top?

Have you surveyed your customers lately? Your prospects?

You might be surprised with what you find.

Surveys drive sales and income.

We have been conducting surveys for more than 25 years.

We get results.

Do what the most successful companies in the world do to drive sales and income? They SURVEY.

“On Target is fantastic. Their ability to extract relevant and powerful data from C-level executives is remarkable. In a short period of time we were able to get profound insight into the hearts and minds of our potential clients. Their research is invaluable for all of our marketing, branding and sales initiatives.”

Call or email me with any questions about surveys for your company.

Best,

Bruce

Bruce Wiseman

President & CEO

On Target Research

www.ontargetresearch.com

Br***@**********an.net

1-818-397-1401

There are countless definitions of the word “genius” online and elsewhere. The one below is a good one.
– Genius is a characteristic of original and exceptional insight in the performance of some art or endeavor that surpasses expectations, sets new standards for the future, establishes better methods of operation, or remains outside the capabilities of competitors.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/genius

– A person having such capacity.
These days one can’t help but think of Elon Musk. Scanning back through recent history, Nelson Mandela, who’s managing of South Africa after his release from prison can’t be deemed anything less, or Winston Churchill during the Second World War.

These are people that demonstrated political genius as opposed to the more common academic genius like today’s news article about the 13-year-old who just graduated college with separate degrees.

https://local12.com/news/offbeat/gallery/13-year-old-graduates-four-diplomas-elijah-muhammad-osu-computer-science-cybersecurity-oklahoma-cincinnati-ibm-google-it-langston-intelligence?photo=7

In October of last year, a genius passed from  the world in which I operate – market research, marketing and PR – the genius was Al Ries.
“Al Ries was the father of positioning, a legendary marketing strategist, a global brand in his own right and the bestselling author of 12 books that have sold over 4 million copies worldwide.”

https://www.alries.com/

After reading Ries’ marketing classic, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, decades ago I was “hooked” and followed his writings via his many subsequent books and had the privilege of communicating with him on some marketing ideas. I keep his validations of some of my marketing ideas in a secure location on my computer.

When one talks of Al Ries, one must talk of positioning.
There are countless definitions of positioning and how it works.
Simply put, positioning makes the unfamiliar* familiar by tying it to something that is already familiar in the mind.
(*Think of the unfamiliar as your product or service).
This facilitates instant communication (because what you are tying your product to with marketing or PR is already in the recipient’s mind).
Positioning has long been used in politics – usually negatively.
“The famous speaker and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC), for instance, when he defended his supporter Sestius, did not shrink from publicly accusing the enemy Clodius of incest with brothers and sisters,”

Political Debates In Ancient Rome: Great Harshness, Personal Attacks And Unpleasant Atmosphere

(Positioning the enemy with incest.)”

This kind of positioning goes on daily in the U.S. Congress.  One is no longer just a Kennedy Democrat or Reagan Republican today. The campaign, sourced by the Democrats, driven by the media, the intelligence community and the Justice Department to position Donald Trump with Vladimir Putin was one of the most vicious and well organized I have ever seen.
Of course, Cicero did not have access to Twitter, Facebook or any of today’s digital weapons. But he had an enormous presence and ability to communicate. His presence and oratory in the Roman Senate is easily compared to modern social media.

“Cicero was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, writer and academic skeptic who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman empire.  He is considered one of Rome’s greatest orators and prose stylists and the innovator of what became known as Ciceronian rhetoric.
His influence on the Latin language was immense. He wrote more than three-quarters of extant Latin literature that is known to have existed in his lifetime.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicero

But politics is far from the only use of positioning. When used correctly in marketing and PR, positioning can not only drive business sales, but, more importantly, establish your brand as an industry leader.
Here are some excellent examples of positioning.

Here’s a commercial for strong cheese that uses positioning very cleverly. Click the link.

One of Burger King’s cleverest commercials starts with a shot from the back of a Burger King restaurant. There is a number of people standing in a single line waiting to order.
In the middle of the line is someone with a hat with orange hair sprouting out of the sides. The person is wearing an overcoat, collar up, obviously trying not to be recognized. He turns his head for a moment and his identity becomes obvious: this is Ronald MacDonald who has snuck into Burger King to get a hamburger, trying not to be recognized.
This is, of course, Burger King cleverly positioning against Mac Donald’s.
One I had a great time creating was some years back. Around 2000, Internet service was largely done via dial up. Remember that?
High speed broad band was just beginning to roll out.
ISPs (Internet Service providers) were just beginning to provide high-speed Internet. Our client, an ISP in the Southeastern United States was just introducing their high-speed service, as was their chief competitor, Time Warner.
Positioning takes two surveys. The first survey that we conducted of small to medium-sized businesses (our client’s public) in that region, found that the main thing businesses wanted from Internet service providers was speed . No surprise.
Time Warner had a visual icon going for it that they could use to promote speed, the Road Runner (a type of bird known for running at high speeds, that was always being chased in a cartoon series by a coyote [Wiley Coyote]. Wiley Coyote was always just about to catch him, but the Road Runner was always too fast).

Road Runner Rd., Runner clip art related keywords to dash wikiclipartwikiclipart.com

When we did the follow-up positioning survey, we found that what represented speed to this public was a Daytona racing car (the client was headquartered in Florida).
The advertisement?

A Daytona racing car with the client’s name on it roaring down the highway. Off to the side of the road bent over and panting is the Road Runner.
Positioning.

Here’s feedback from a couple of startups we positioned.

“The positioning that grew out of your research was nothing short of stellar work. We now have a strategically researched, laser like position that will dramatically assist us in rolling out our new brand.”
J.D. – President

“ In launching our new company, I considered one of the most important things we would do is brand and position the company. Your work to help us get into the minds of our customers and prospects really pinpointed – with precision – what our brand should represent. And the rest fell in place from there.  …I feel confident that we have hit on a position and brand that impinges on our public and will have lasting value. I look forward to continuing to work with On Target as we build our company.”    M.D.  – EVP

This came after we implemented an in-depth market research program followed by positioning surveys.
“When we implemented On Target’s research survey findings, our profits increased and marketing cost decreased. From a financial analysis of our company, we discovered that over a two-year period, On Target Research saved our firm over $300,000 a month or, ballpark, a total of $7.2 million so far.”      R.C. – President

Does your company have a position that drives sales? If not, give me a call. We can discuss what would be involved.

Bruce Wiseman
President & CEO
On Target Research
www.ontargetresearch.com
Br***@**********an.net
1-818-397-1401