JUMBO advertisement - The best marketing campaign I've ever seen (well.. heard) Brand Awareness

Hello there,

I was on a long drive home on Wednesday night after I came back from the UK and I heard a new advertisement which caught my attention.  It was a "silly-song" like a rap type song and immediately, I thought "this should be Jumbo" (Jumbo for those who don't know, is the largest retail company in Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria for toys, baby products, stationary, home products etc.)  In the end I was wrong and the advertisement was from another company (wont mention which; for legal issues).  I thought it should be Jumbo's because its been a few years now that they keep the same strategy and "template" on their advertisement and it seems that the specific type of silly-song advertisements is linked to Jumbo.

I will start with "brand awareness" to help me to support my argument.  According to all the marketing gurus, there are two types of brand awareness, the Aided awareness and the top of mind awareness.  To begin, aided awareness is when a consumer recognises your brand, for example, when you see apple's logo, you recognise it and you know what the brand is about.  On the other hand, top of mind awareness is when a researcher ask you to mention the first brand that comes to your mind; lets say, for soft drinks (Which would be coca cola? I guess so! ).  Second one is more important because its more likely that the consumer that have your product/brand top of his mind will purchase your product over the competitors one.

So when you hear a Jumbo advertisement and you immediately recognise it, its Aided awareness, if its top of mind or not; I have no proof to say so (not any research to support this) .  Although when another brand's advertisement reminds the consumer of another brand too, then your marketing plan is OVER SUCCESSFUL  (at this point I would like to say that its not only my experience but few other friends said the same)  In the end you have (well, Jumbo does) more advertisement for your company than you pay for!

Furthermore, some silly quotes that Jumbo uses in these advertisements, are used daily by people (eg. E ρε Jumbo που σας χρειάζεται, Jumboσακούλες [sorry guys can't translate that]) which will remind you of.. Jumbo without any advertisement at the time! 

That's enough about Jumbo and brand awareness, I have tried to analyse Jumbo's marketing approach (I have no idea if it was intentional or with a plan but it seems to be successful) and until next time, thanks for reading and please leave your comments. (positive or negative)

EXTRA (Select the free space between the * or ctrl+a to see my top of mind selection)

Whats the first brand that comes in to your mind for:
Vacuum cleaner: *Hoover*
Web search engine: *Google*
Beer: *Carlsberg*
Sport Clothing: *Nike*
Men deodorant: *Nivea*
Toy retailer: *JUMBO*

The clever approach of Hard Rock Cafe

Since I have knowledge in both the Hospitality industry and marketing I believe I can explain a thing or two about "reservations" in this world known cafe.(I won't say anything bad, so no legal issues here)

How does Hard Rock Cafe works: You can't make a reservation, you just wait for your turn!

I had an argument recently with some friends about the new franchise cafe in Cyprus.  They told me that they believe they should have changed the franchise regulations according to the culture. (I don't really believe we have this attitude in our culture, we are never on time and reservations are not our thing. but I will just agree for the purpose of this argument)

So here are the possible scenarios if you have a reservation.

You will most probably go at peak time when most people go.  The peak time is part of a culture, in some countries it might be early for example at eight o clock, while in some others it might be later for example around ten (you can argue against me if you want or disagree with the timing but continue reading and you will understand my point, it doesn't really matter if the peak hour is at 22:00 or 20:00).

On the contrary 

Since you have a good name and a good cafe you will expect full nights. Owners and managers know this fact and because tables are not a product that can be stored and sold later on, (what we call perishability) you want to find a way to fill those tables by expanding that peak time from 3-4 hours to 6-7 hours which will almost double the customers.

I heard many people saying "yes we should go to hard rock cafe but we have to go early to find available tables".

So what happens here? automatically the peak time expands and you end up with something like this:

In order to find available tables, you go earlier, (you will most probably stay for a couple of hours) and you change the peak hour to an earlier time.  If you go there at 22:00 for 2-3 hours you will occupy the table until 12:00-01:00 so it's unlikely somebody else will come at that time since there is not much time left in the night. On the other hand, if you go at 20:00 in order to find available seats, and stay for 2-3 hours as usual, you will leave at 11? So the one who did not go early and had to wait for his turn will have a couple of hours more to stay and enjoy his/her night too.

Results-sum?
The cafe stays completely full longer which means more customers per night!

The importance of shelf placement: a simple example

"Shelf placement is the art of stocking related products on store shelves in such a way that sales are increased." (Devilla, 2012)  

Since I am not going to analyse the shelf placement here in depth; here is a good article that simply explains it.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2010-01-20/news/27572872_1_shelf-space-product-shelves

and here is a short study

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2741065/

Such examples are: 

• daily products in the far end of the shop in order to force you to walk through the whole shop(you will see something that tempts you on your way!) ;
• Products at "eye level".  It is more likely that you will see the products that are at your height level instead of those in the bottom;
• Chocolates and gums at checkout while you wait.  How many times did you buy products that you didn't want to buy?;
• Have you ever wondered why chocolates, ice cream, games and everything that kids like are on lower shelves? 

All these are examples that you usually hear but since you don't have any sale statistics you don't understand the importance of the placement.  The follow example though, shows the difference between a good placement and a not so good "product" placement.

In one particular supermarket in the UK they give plastic coins to the customers who on their way out have three options to choose from to deposit the coins which in turn will be converted to real money that go to the three charities.

Exit door

The one nearest to the exit has more plastic coins(green), and the second one has more than the third box.  Is that the choice of the consumer or is it all about placement?