£85 Burger King, £30 Pot Noodle, $9 Evian bottles - economic metaphor or clever marketing?

Burger King are in the news these week after revealing that they are soon to start selling an £85 burger! This will start to be rolled out in high end London locations next month and is rumoured to be made from imported Japanese wagyu beef (though after pressure, plans to include foie gras have been dropped.)

£85 Burger King burger reported in the Sun

The general consensus is that this is a PR stunt positioning Burger King as a premium alternative to McDonald's. There is widespread debate as to whether this is an astute move, but so far it has been successful in securing widespread press coverage for the brand.

Others have been pursuing similar strategies recently:

Pot Noodle are launching a limited edition 'Poulet-et Champignon' Posh Noodle through Harrods. Limited to 100, supplied in a gold leafed pot with accompanying fork and table linen, this will be priced at £29.95 (with all profits going to charity). Again this has generated widespread PR coverage and aims to change perception of the brand.

Luxury Harrods 'Posh Noodle' - on sale soon (but limited to 100)

Evian have also been seeking to 'premiumise' their product by developing iconic packaging with French designer Christian Lacroix. These can be bought in cases of 12 from the US www.shopevian.com website and the cost is $118.00 per case - $9.83 for a 750ml bottle of water.

Limited edition Christian Lacroix Evian bottles and packaging

This whole area is interesting. In recent times we have seen a reversal in advertising whereby in many areas media is leading the creative process
(http://www.nickburcher.com/2007/11/i-spoke-at-creative-review-click-07.html), however the above examples take it further. The above illustrate how media / PR are able to influence actual product development, with limited editions being produced in order to generate PR inches and viral buzz. There are also examples of products being developed / brought back as a result of consumers using new channels to organise campaigns (eg Facebook and Wispa.)

There is an interesting social angle whereby an £85 burger or a £30 Pot Noodle can be seen as an economic sign of our times. However, the value of these product innovations will not be seen through sales, the value is delivered through the PR / consumer awareness that these initatives generate and the subsequent re-appraisal of the brand by consumers.

Whilst the press keep covering these stories, then I think marketers will continue to consider 'premiumisation strategies' - interesting to see what comes next?

Blendtec (will it blend?), Lonelygirl15 and French Maid TV - 3 great examples of different You Tube business models

Many people (including Google) have been trying to work out how to use You Tube as a revenue generator. I have found 3 unconventional examples:

1) Blendtec and Will It Blend? Blendtec make industrial strength blenders and the CEO was confident that these qualities could be shown off on film. However whilst Blendtec CEO Tom Dickson did not have the budget for a slick TV campaign, he did have $50 and the technical expertise to make his own videos.

A series of videos were made where Mr. Dickson showed Blendtec equipment blending every day technological items. Once uploaded to You Tube the films became hits - especially the film where an iPhone gets blended!

Blendtec claims to have seen an online sales uplift of 650% since this approach was adopted and this is a great example of how it's not what you say, but where and how you say it.

2) Lonelygirl15

Running on Bebo and through You Tube, Lonelygirl15 was a massive success. Bitesized soap episodes engaged youth audiences and developed a cult following with over 3 milllion episode views.

As well as selling more ad inventory from higher site traffic, the producers were able to monetise the content by selling product placement opportunities which were taken up by companies like P&G and Orange.

This concept has been continued through new series like 'Sofias Diary' and Endemol produced 'Gap Year.'

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

3) FrenchmaidTV

A series of how-to-videos with a twist! Instead of traditional product demonstrations, FrenchMaidTV has (as the name would suggest) a number of French maids showing how to do things. Films are again bitesize (3 to 5 minutes) and are based around the French Maids having a bit of an adventure whilst the vocieover gives practical tips.

FrenchmaidTV are offering the chance for companies to get specific products featured as well as offering members of the public the chance to star as French maids in future FrenchmaidTV episodes - again monetising their traffic through things like

FrenchmaidTV is not particularly PC and may not be to everyones taste, but it does seem to work - over 3.6 million YouTube views for the 'How To Share photos' video alone!

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

None of the above examples employ cutting edge video production. These are great examples of how YouTube is changing the rules. Overproduced corporate advertising is a big turn off in this space (see my post on P Diddy and Burger King here) and whilst successful online video can often look amateurish, there is no doubting its ability to engage the You Tube audience!

P Diddy, Burger King and LisaNova on YouTube - Social Media campaigns don't always work out as planned.....

Burger King and P Diddy got together on the DiddyTV on YouTube to announce that they were entering into a partnership. The first episode features Diddy walking through a Burger King, chatting to the camera and ordering a Whopper.

Not everyone on YouTube enjoyed this though. LisaNova became something of a YouTube celebrity after posting her own version of this clip as a video response:



The LisaNova clip has twice as many views as the P Diddy clip! Think this is a good example of how brands now need to engage consumers, rather than just preach at them. The key thing is to operate within the 'rules of the universe' and give consumers something useful - two things that the Diddy clip didn't do.

Bo Hellberg from Ogilvy summed this up nicely at IAB Engage 2007. He says "if brands are going to gatecrash the party, they can at least turn up with some booze."