Archive for July 16th, 2007

DESPITE A RETOOLING OF ITS menu and hiring a big-name chef to tout it, Applebee’s couldn’t seem to get off the dime in recent months. Now, an iconic pancake house has “come hungry, left happy” at the acquisition trough, having paid about $2 billion for the lackluster restaurant chain.

Julia Stewart, IHOP’s chair and CEO, told analysts on Monday that IHOP is ready to lead Applebee’s into a new era of accelerated franchisee ownership, cost savings through synergy and a “crystal clear” brand focus.

“The most important thing that we can do with Applebee’s is be crystal clear about where the brand position is and get that firmed down from the consumer research standpoint–make sure everything flows from that clear brand positioning,” she says. “Whether it’s the menu, the advertising that resonates with guests, remodels, prototypes, touchpoints–everything needs to come from that crystal-clear brand focus, everything should go through that brand filter, which is what we did at IHOP so effectively.”

The acquisition makes sense, especially considering that Stewart served Applebee’s as president of its domestic division from 1998 to 2001, when she moved to IHOP, and introduced the bar-and-grill chain to national advertising and an upgraded, innovative menu and taught it to “think and act like a national brand.”

During the call, she spelled out her immediate plans–including taking lessons from Applebee’s supply chain management, which is “far more advanced that at IHOP. We have a huge opportunity to take advantage and link into that, with savings for both brands. That is a really clear example of where you get a win win.

“Applebee’s recently announced it has gone with McCann Erickson, which is our agency as well, so I don’t know what that synergy will look like but we’ll seek to understand that better.”

Over the last five years, IHOP has re-energized its nearly 50-year-old brand while transforming itself into a pure-play franchisor with more than 99% of its 1,319 restaurant system owned and operated by franchisees.

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Increasingly, consumer product companies are using product placement as a part of their overall marketing efforts. According to a recently released PQ Media study, Global paid product placement grew 37.2% to $3.36 billion in 2006 and is forecast to grow 30.3% to $4.38 billion in 2007, driven by relaxed European regulations, emerging Asian markets and shifting American models.

Key drivers of global product placement growth in 2007 and beyond include the relaxation of rules governing paid television placements in European countries through the “Television without Frontiers” directive, particularly in the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy; the evolution and growth of product placement markets in Asia, especially in China, India and Australia; and the continuing transition from non-paid to paid placement models in the Americas, primarily in the United States, Mexico and Brazil.

“As a new media order has emerged in recent years, our research indicates that we are entering an era of alternative advertising and marketing strategies,” said Patrick Quinn, President/CEO, PQ Media. “Brand marketers are seeking to better engage consumers with emotional connections and media companies are searching for new revenue streams as traditional advertising methods suffer from negative perceptions.”

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ATLANTA-BASED NEWELL RUBBERMAID HAS BEEN turning its business around since CEO Mark Ketchum took the reins after joining from Procter & Gamble in 2005.

Now the company, which owns office brands like Sharpie and Paper Mate pens, as well as Rolodex, Graco infant products, Rubbermaid and Calphalon cookware, has snagged another P&G vet. Ted Woehrle, P&G’s vice president/marketing for North America, will become senior vice president/marketing and brand management, a new position at Newell Rubbermaid. Read the rest of this entry »

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Listen up, late-night network hosts: now tell quicker jokes, perhaps with a product placement as part of the comic story.

Meanwhile viewers should start complaining, because now a bunch of commercials will interrupt the usual relatively commercial-free first half hour of your favorite late-night network talk show.

Jokes in those monologues that need a lot time to develop will now need to be rewritten. CBS has already been experimenting in running early-in-the-show commercials this summer during “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” — all because of the coming commercial ratings, which are replacing program ratings as the main currency for TV advertising deals.

Good news: David Letterman typically has only has about three bits in his short monologue. That means early commercials - like those for young-skewing products, theatrical movies, videos, and mobile phone companies — can be easily squeezed into the early part of his show. The same can’t be said for NBC’s Jay Leno, who seems to have an extra-long initial monologue — seven or eight bits for his intro.

Because viewership is higher earlier in the evening, commercials — now subject to commercial ratings — will run earlier.

And so now Ferguson puts the onus totally on the commercials - as if those messages have little to do with what used to be important. “Thank God the programs won’t get rated,” he joked.

Media buying executives also want commercials to run sooner on early-morning news shows, which typically don’t have many commercials during that first hour.

With these shows, network programmers worked on the assumption of the big tease: Give viewers lots of what they want early. Once you have drawn them in, sprinkle in more commercials. The hope is that viewers will make it to the finish.

But it doesn’t work that way; viewers take small bites and move on.

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