Lipton Ice Tea (Pepsi Lipton International is a joint venture between PepsiCo and Unilever), will launch a global marketing campaign in March featuring new ambassador and Hollywood A-lister Hugh Jackman, the Wolverine, X-Men and Australia star.

As part of the UK campaign, the drinks brand is attempting to change the negative perception of cold tea made by UK drinkers who traditionally prefer hot tea beverages. Lipton said 53% of UK consumers claimed they did not like the taste of the drink, without evening trying it.

The global TV campaign launching in March features Jackman and the strap line ‘Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it’ and will be supported through other marketing channels including possibly outdoor advertising.

BMC – I am not sure Jackman is the right choice to front a cold, tea drink or that trying to change perception will be successful. I would have thought that DDB Paris would have selected a female ambassador and looked at high profile product placement as a possible initiative (Eastenders, as they are always drinking tea!?). We’ll see what happens.

Any comments?

Short for Web log, a blog is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.

Think about a “normal Web site.” It usually has a home page, with links to lots of sub-pages that have more detail. A small business site follows the same format — it might have a home pag­e and five or 10 sub-pages. Most traditional Web sites follow this format. If the site is small, it is sort of like an online brochure. If it is large, it is like an electronic encyclopedia.

­A blog is much simpler:

A typical blog has a main page and nothing else. On the main page, there is a set of entries. Each entry is a little text blurb that may contain embedded links out to other sites, news stories, etc. When the author adds a new entry, it goes at the top, pushing all the older entries down which are then ‘archived’ according to the settings made at set up stage.

Basically, a blog is a lot like an online journal or diary. The author can talk about anything and everything. Many blogs are full of interesting links that the author has found. Blogs often contain stories or little snippets of information that are interesting to the author and can generate debate through ‘comments’ made by other people.
Many blogs have a focus. For example, if a blogger is interested in marketing, the blogger might go to the main publisher marketing sites and then show and post entries of the things of interest he/she sees there. If a blogger is interested in a certain disease, he/she might post every news article and every piece of research he/she finds on the disease. If a blogger is interested in economic issues, he/she might post links to articles that discuss the economy and then offer commentary on them.

There are people who use their blogs simply as a scrapbook — a form of online memory. Whenever the author finds a link or a snippet of information that he/she wants to remember, it gets posted in the blog. Even if no one else ever looks at it, it is still useful to the author because the blog is a searchable electronic medium that the author can access with a Web browser anywhere in the world.

In other words, a blog can be anything the author wants it to be! In marketing terms, I see them as an add-on to your website that can replace the need for CMS functionality on a website, act as a link building tool, demonstrate credibility in your chosen sector AND they can be linked to aid social media. So……if you don’t have a Blog, get in touch with Bath Marketing Consultancy asap.

I was reviewing sponsorship as a marketing initiative earlier as
Bath Marketing Consultancy is in talks with Cancer Research UK and I remembered that MasterCard is a major sponsor of a number of high profile events such as UEFA Champions League and the Brit Awards.

It also agreed a deal to become the Official Worldwide Partner and official payment system of the 2011 Rugby World Cup back in February 2009 as the last RWC, which saw South Africa crowned world champions for the second time, hosted by France two years ago, attracted a cumulative global audience of more than 4.3bn viewers.

What do you think of corporate sponsorship? Is this an initiative that has yielded the required objectives such as brand recognition?

Drop me an email or leave me a comment.

On 15th December, I Blogged about the new Nexus mobile phone from Google. Well…..here is what it looks like –

There is also a promo vid on YouTube.

Vodafone will be Google\’s first UK operator partner to offer the phone but on a non-exclusive basis. The phone is set to go on sale in the US, Singapore and Hong Kong initially and will later be rolled out in the UK. Costs are approx £110.00.

Bath Marketing Consultancy will keep an eye out for ratings and let you know.

On 15th December, I Blogged about the new Nexus mobile phone from Google. Well…..here is what it looks like –

There is also a promo vid on YouTube.

Vodafone will be Google’s first UK operator partner to offer the phone but on a non-exclusive basis. The phone is set to go on sale in the US, Singapore and Hong Kong initially and will later be rolled out in the UK. Costs are approx £110.00.

Bath Marketing Consultancy will keep an eye out for ratings and let you know.

This, I feel, is a cracking bit of online marketing by one of the big brands – Guinness.

Any thoughts on this initiative folks? paul@bathmarketingconsultancy.co.uk or leave me a comment.

Despite reading that over 250,000 people were made redundant in 2009 with predictions by People Management of some 2.8 million unemployed in 2010, there still seems to be an abundance of jobs in the marketing & comms sector being advertised.

For example, I looked at Brand Republic this morning and found ‘1079 jobs in Advertising, Marketing, PR and Media.’ However, the trend seems to be leaning towards people with digital experience and/or business development skills rather than the more traditional account manager type role.

If you are trying to break into marketing there are a number of tips and sites that could help. One of which is http://www.about.com/

If you are a buisiness looking to hire a marketing person, why not outsource to an experienced Consultant in the short term? I can think of one who is very well qualified and could lay the platforms for your business!! Why not get in touch with me via my website?

I was about to Blog about yet another TV advert for a compare insurance type site when I checked Brand Republic\’s site and saw that Joe Thomas had beaten me to it!!

His article was more factual, but, in a nutshell, Omid Djalili is now fronting Moneysupermarket.com replacing the previous ad fronted by Peter Jones being a prat on a shopping trolley and fiddling uncomfortably with his tie. (BMC – did he really need the money that badly?)

The campaign started on 1st January 2010 and is backed by a £15m media spend that will see the ad running with a series of 60-second TV spots, supported by press, online and cinema.
It supposedly plays on British people\’s embarrassment at haggling on price when buying products or services.

David Osborne, marketing director at moneysupermarket.com, said: ‘Our message to our financial services partners is that we will be the only price comparison site to continue to support a wide range of product areas, not just car insurance, with advertising during 2010.\’

BMC, great, really looking forward to 12 months of this type of advert fighting for space with a fake soprano signing fat man pushing the competitor site – not!

I was about to Blog about yet another TV advert for a compare insurance type site when I checked Brand Republic’s site and saw that Joe Thomas had beaten me to it!!

His article was more factual, but, in a nutshell, Omid Djalili is now fronting Moneysupermarket.com replacing the previous ad fronted by Peter Jones being a prat on a shopping trolley and fiddling uncomfortably with his tie. (BMC – did he really need the money that badly?)

The campaign started on 1st January 2010 and is backed by a £15m media spend that will see the ad running with a series of 60-second TV spots, supported by press, online and cinema.
It supposedly plays on British people’s embarrassment at haggling on price when buying products or services.

David Osborne, marketing director at moneysupermarket.com, said: ‘Our message to our financial services partners is that we will be the only price comparison site to continue to support a wide range of product areas, not just car insurance, with advertising during 2010.’

BMC, great, really looking forward to 12 months of this type of advert fighting for space with a fake soprano signing fat man pushing the competitor site – not!