The retail chain is spending a huge dent of its $200 million ad budget for this year on new TV and Web Ads to introduce “The Shack” as its new name for advertising and marketing purposes. Signs outside of stores will remain RadioShack. The company hopes this popular rebranding technique will allow it to hold onto to its brand heritage and attract more tech-savvy shoppers.

“When a brand becomes a friend, it often gets a nickname — take FedEx or Coke, for example,” said Lee Applbaum, RadioShack’s chief marketing officer, in a statement. “This creative is not about changing our name. Rather, we’re contemporizing the way we want people to think about our brand.”

As part of its new branding, the chain recently expanded its own proprietary brands and added more national brands such as T-Mobile. It’s also signed a marketing agreement with Lance Armstrong, who next year will compete in the Tour de France and other races under Team RadioShack. “We have an iconic American legacy brand,” says Lee Applbaum, chief marketing officer at RadioShack. “This is a way to ensure that customers understand our innovation in products with a focus on mobility, leading brands and knowledgeable associates.”

This year, those numbers have become zero. Instead, they have decided to spend their entire budget on digital media, including Facebook, Spin, Fader, Pitchfork, Thrillist, and Hulu.

They have decided to focus more on ages 21-29, and TV has become less effective in reaching that audience. The major shift has been caused by this group, the youngest legal-drinking-age consumers.

The internet is the place to stretch a $10 million budget. SoCo will be able to  create brand awareness in bars, retail, and even events. The recession has caused different consumer trends. “Consumers are less inclined to make complicated drinks,” says CEO Don Berg of Brown-Forman.

They are also able to escape the restrictive rules from cable networks, and leave a more significant footprint against competitors. Remember, many national networks still do not accept liquor advertising.

The new prototype has a 10 inch screen. It will also have built in 3G wireless. Recent reports have also indicated that Apple will be producing its own, custom-tailored chips, which will power the device. Supposedly, it will handle the device’s power consumption better than Intel’s Atom chips.

We’re still not clear on what operating system it will run. AppleInsider has stated that it will run apps like the iPod Touch and iPhone, which suggests a version of the iPhone OS, rather than Mac OS X. However, that is just a mockup. A low-power chip would have an easier time running the iPhone OS, but this would take away their advantage against other mobile devices.

The price point is still up in the air, with speculations of $699 to $799. The most important issues to note are whichever wireless carrier Apple decides to partner with, and whether people will be willing to pay a monthly fee for a device that is not a mobile phone. Highly unlikely for this market.

The only thing that is certain is Steve Jobs’ seal of approval, which is the determining factor as to whether a rumor becomes a product. He supposedly likes the new device so much that he has “cemented” it into the company’s 2010 roadmap of products.

Over the next few months, it will be interesting to see how the rumors progress.

The inability to define “success” from social media efforts has caused some ambiguity among its affects on revenue and profit. The results are hard to quantify, and many companies have been peer-pressured into blindly hopping on the bandwagon, just because everyone’s doing it. Although there is no “right” approach, the top brands that have been successful utilizing their own unique strategies all have one thing in common: quantifiable results. 

A study on the top 100 global brands using social media has concluded that there is a direct correlation between top financial performance and deep social media engagement. Not just having a Facebook or Twitter account, but deep engagement is key here, and by deep engagement, I mean interacting and responding to others, instigating discussions, and updating often.

With a social media team of only six people, Starbucks has managed to rank #1. Their ability to view social media as a relationship-building and listening tool, instead of a sales method, is surely the reason behind their success. Alexandra Wheeler, Director of Digital Strategy, explains:

“We live in the physical world with thousands of natural touch points, so when we laid out the vision for our social strategy, it felt like home for the brand. it’s about the relationships we form with our customers, not marketing.”

The important issue at hand, is to realize that every social media channel is different, and requires developing different facets of the relationships with that unique audience. Social media cannot be approached with a “one size fits all” mentality. 

This study, done by Wetpaint, is a great analysis of the top 10 brands scoring the highest across social media channels. It categorizes the brand into one of four types (Mavens, Butterflies, Selectives, and Wallflowers), and uses these to describe the affects of social media presence on revenue and profit.

Click below to view the entire report in further detail.

ENGAGEMENTdb: Most Engaged Brands On Social Media -

They are the first to develop an IPhone app in their category. The top three pizza chains, Pizza Hut, Dominos, and Papa John’s (the first to offer online ordering), are in a race to go digital, and hope to do about half their business online. Pizza Hut’s goal is to pass $1 billion in online sales in 2012.

Pizza Hut’s digital efforts consist of mobile, text, and web-based ordering, as well as an ordering application on their Facebook page, which has been a tremendous success with 1 million fans. They even offer a “twinternship,” for someone whose responsibility is to tweet everything. They have managed to fain 14,000+ followers on their Twitter page.

Pizza Hut chief marketer, Brian Niccol, believes that the iPhone market will only continue to grow, and they have first-mover advantage. Ultimately, he hopes online ordering efforts will contribute a large percentage to overall sales.

As for the application features, you can zoom in on your virtual fridge for hot deals, find a location, and save your favorite orders.

The search engine fight has just begun, and there is no question that it will take a long time for Bing to make Google shake in its boots anytime soon. And, even though Yahoo has about twice as much search market share in the U.S as Bing, it should still be a little worried. Bing’s growth has been impressive in its first month. They are also giving Google a run for its money with Microsoft Office on the web.

The most important competitor though of course, is Apple. Microsoft has just announced that they will be opening up retail stores. Their locations? Right next to Apple stores.

Microsoft was never eager to run an advertising campaign, until Apple did. Fortunately for them, Apple never had a large enough market share to really threaten Microsoft. That is, until the Apple “Get a Mac” campaign, a huge hit, highlighted an array of features supporting its clear superiority.

Last year, Microsoft responded with its “I’m a PC” campaign, which got some attention, but not enough. The new Laptop Hunters campaign has achieved tremendous success, which can be measured by Apple’s response: calling Microsoft and begging them to stop the ads. More specifically, they argued the ads were inaccurate and must be pulled immediately.

Microsoft’s COO Kevin Turner, when asked about the new ad campaign, offered this bit of information:

“And you know why I know [the commercials are] working? Because two weeks ago, we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, hey - this is a true story - saying, ‘Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices.’ They took like $100 off or something. It was the greatest single phone call in the history that I’ve ever taken in business. I did cartwheels down the hallway. At first I said, ‘Is this a joke? Who are you?’ Not understanding what an opportunity. And so, we’re going to just keep running them and running them and running them.”

As the battle gets hotter, consumers should not only look forward to more creative campaigns, but their counter replies to each other!

BMW Z4 Roadster in Action

Although art has been used in advertising for centuries, it is unique to see a car company commission a work of art and promote it as its main ad campaign for the season. BMW is no stranger to their contributions to the world of art. Over the three decades their cars have been the object of art and design to renowned artists like Alexander Calder, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. It is an interesting strategy that BMW uses to draw attention to their sports cars; to which some people may argue has the design like a work of art itself. Using a car to help create vibrant, modern art piece showcases the artistic and free spirit prowess that the car possesses.

BMW chose to promote their campaign for the Z4 Roadster in cinematic style, along with the documentary style short film that will run on the Discovery HD channel until late June. They are also doing heavy web promotion with video banners that will run on website venues for CNN, Dow Jones, Yahoo, Conde Nast and Wired and even the takeover of the MSN homepage for one day in May.

As far as print goes, page-spreads have been published in several popular, target audience magazines such as Art & Antiques, ArtNews Esquire, W and Elle Decor. There will also be an eight-page insert running in the June issue of Vanity Fair, and a cover-page slated for the June issue of Dwell magazine.

Creating a Masterpiece

External coverage includes airports in 10 key markets with billboards that show the painting headlines such as, “Not all artists are depressed” and “Rarely does the paintbrush rival the painting,” and in cinema advertising (before the trailers start) which is where I first noticed the BMW Z4 “Expression of Joy” campaign.

Art will always find its place within advertising because it adds certain emotions and gives a significant life to an otherwise ordinary product.

Without the art work campaign, the BMW Z4 Roadster would be just another head turning BMW – very fleeting and typical. The art work of Robin Rhode and the special promotion that went into this campaign removes the ethereal aspect of sports car advertising. It adds lasting power in the marketplace and solidifies its place in the art community.

Aerial View of "Expression of Joy"

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