Jetblue passengers to get free breakfast in February*

by Grant Martin on

Free breakfast provided by Kraft that is.

This month, the mega-food-conglomerate is teaming up with Jetblue in a new sort of viral marketing campaign: they’re providing free breakfast to passengers on select flights across the nation with their new special low-fat cream cheese that they hope they can sucker people into buying.

In today’s Marketplace segment, members of Kraft’s PR team say that the “captive audience” on an airplane are an excellent market to which companies can now pitch ads. After all, where are the passengers going to go?

Perhaps if this campaign is successful we’ll be seeing more of these adverts from the likes of Countrywide Financial and Gap.

While I am pleased that tired, hungry passengers will be getting free breakfast (low fat, no less!) from Kraft, what concerns me more is the direction in which advertising in general is moving. Put it into perspective: we are now officially being strapped down and force fed corporate drivel. What will they serve up next?

Hocking countries as products

by Neil Woodburn on

There are a lot of different factors that go into deciding which country will be the next you visit. In an attempt to influence this decision and direct you towards visiting a place eager for your tourist dollars, many local tourist boards have hired international marketing agencies to package and sell their homeland as though it were just another soft drink or pair of sneakers.

Branding a country is an important step towards identifying it with the things a potential visitor might love. In other words, making it an attractive enough place that an undecided traveler might add it to his itinerary. In some cases, this might mean putting lipstick on a pig, but for the most part it simply means highlighting the positive aspects of a nation that might have otherwise been unknown to the world at large.

Branding countries has become a lucrative advertising niche these days as the battle for tourist dollars continues to heat up. NPR reporter Eric Weiner tackles this interesting concept with a recent interview of marketing guru Sherif Sabri. My favorite part of the article is when Sabri addresses the results of a recent survey indicating that Australia has the best brand. He points towards Crocodile Dundee as the primary cause of such positive feelings towards the Land Down Under. “It’s a magical combination of a great deal of ignorance,” he says, “and a small amount of very positive and probably skewed belief.” Marketers love that type of environment and will capitalize on it every time.

Spain’s (unofficial) national symbol is 50!

by Abha Malpani on

It used to be the trademark of the popular Spanish sherry company “Osborne”. A random marketing whim 50-years ago made the company erect about 90 14-meter high metallic silhouettes of a bull on all major highways across Spain; now they resemble the country. What a lucky fluke for Osborne, I doubt their marketing prowess foresaw that.

Around 1988, Spain introduced a law where there couldn’t be any publicity on the highways. Osborne got rid of their branding on the bull so they could still stand. Obviously, campaigners protested, but apparently public demand to keep the silhouette is what saved Osborne’s metallic structures, and it is still referred to as the “El Toro De Osborne” (The Osborne Bull).

Other than pointing it out to grandchildren on road-trips, the Spaniards I spoke to about this bull had neutral sentiments. “They chose a bull to represent their brand, then blew it up and put it all around the country,” is what they said; far from an ingenious plan I suppose.

In Catalunya, groups have protested: “we don’t want Spanish symbols in our territory”, and post many attempts to knock down the bulls; now there are none in that region.

Other than Catalunya, Cantabria and Murcia are the other two provinces without the bull; Alicante and Cádiz have the most. It’s the same bull you see on T-shirts, key-chains, stickers, posters and Spanish flags that you can buy in souvenir shops.

In celebration of the bull’s 50-years of existence, an art competition has been launched in the country where you can submit your artistic representations of the bull to win theme park tickets valid for 2008 (yaay?), Sony PlayStation 3, or a 100cc Motorcycle.

You Tube Becomes New (Zealand) Tube

by Brett Atkinson on

When you’re a tiny country of just 4 million people at the bottom of the world, you need to be innovative in your marketing activities. We’ve already reported on Air New Zealand’s innovative gay-themed flight and high-altitude fashion show.

Now Tourism New Zealand have set up the world’s first You Tube channel dedicated to a single country. It’s a follow on from the deal earlier this week when the team behind the Pure NZ marketing campaign took over all the home page advertising on You Tube for the entire day of September 18.

Check out the channel for loads of NZ-themed content about the country I’m proud (and very lucky) to call home.

The pic is of dusk under the Kaikoura Ranges in New Zealand’s South Island.

Urban Lowdown Seeking Interns

by Adrienne Wilson on

Now I’m not one to gossip (usually), but word around the web is Urban Lowdown is looking for people with interests in marketing, developing, design, and writing to contribute to their website. If you’ve been searching for a travel website to contribute to this could very well be the one provided you fall into what I imagine to be a strict clique of travel know-it-alls or insiders as they like to put it. Go now for the lowdown on being apart of the Lowdown.