FOR EVERY GENERATION CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
In 1999 Gap Inc., with a reputation for offering consumers affordable casual clothing basics such as khakis, jeans, and T-shirts, shifted its marketing focus to teen shoppers. To attract teens to its stores, Gap began offering trendy merchandise such as glitter-decorated denim jackets and body-hugging shirts. The strategy backfired when Gap’s core customers, baby boomers who had relied on the chain’s basic, casual styles, took their clothing dollars elsewhere. Gap’s sales went into a downward spiral, and in April 2002 the company reported a 24 percent drop in sales at stores that had been open for a year or more.
In 2002, in an effort to win back its core customers and reverse its declining sales, Gap again changed its focus. Working with the New York–based advertising agency Laird + Partners, the chain launched a global marketing campaign titled ‘‘For Every Generation,’’ which was aimed at a broader audience. Although executives declined to release the campaign’s budget, a spokesman for Laird + Partners stated that it was one of the largest projects Gap had undertaken in several years. The campaign included television spots, print and billboard ads, and direct mailings. Commercials featured a roster of some 50 celebrities dressed in their own Gap clothes. By the end of 2002 it had become clear that Gap’s marketing strategy had accomplished its goal. Prior to the campaign’s launch, the chain had reported 29 consecutive months of declining sales. Following its launch in October 2002, Gap’s sales were on the rise, up 1 percent compared with a 17 percent drop in the same month the previous year. In addition USA Today’s weekly poll Ad Track concluded that consumers, especially adults between the ages of 25 and 64, found the ads highly appealing.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
In 1969 Doris and Don Fisher opened the first Gap store in San Francisco. According to the company Don Fisher’s motivation for opening the store was ‘‘to make it easier to find a pair of jeans.’’ In an effort to update the look of its merchandise, Gap in the late 1990s turned away from its founder’s original idea and began selling trendy fashions geared toward teens instead of the basics preferred by baby boomers. As a result it lost many of its core customers, sending the company into a financial free fall. In 1999, prior to the shift in product, the company had reported $1.13 billion in earnings. After the switch in 2001 Gap reported a loss of $7.8 million. In early 2002 Gap reported its worst financial performance in its 30-year history.
Gap’s product switch was partly a result of a shift, in the late 1990s, in fashion trends away from basic casual clothes to a flashier look favored by young women. In 2002 the Washington Times described Gap’s product change as a fashion faux pas. The paper stated, ‘‘Gap’s problems started well before this season as the company moved away from the look that made it famous and added trendy clothes like denim jackets with glitter and tight-fitting fashions to its product mix.’’ Customers walking into their favorite Gap store in search of a pair of basic khakis fled when they instead saw orange and turquoise cropped jeans embellished with silver studs. The chain also found itself losing business to its sister chain, Old Navy (also owned by Gap Inc.), which sold products similar to Gap’s but at lower prices. Further confounding Gap Inc. was what many analysts saw as the company’s lack of focus when it came to establishing an identity for the Gap brand that would help distinguish it from Old Navy.
When the brand launched its new campaign in 2002, it returned to its roots and original philosophy of enabling people of all ages to buy Gap products and adapt them to fit their personal styles. The company admitted that chasing fickle teens with trendy clothes was a no-win plan. Kyle Andrew, vice president of marketing for Gap, said in a Women’s Wear Daily interview, ‘‘Let Gap be Gap. Let’s not try to be trendy.’’ For the new campaign, in addition to returning to its offerings of basic jeans, khakis, and tees, the company also revived and slightly modified a slogan it had used in the past but had failed to take full advantage of: ‘‘For every generation, there’s a Gap.’’

TARGET MARKET
Although Gap’s ‘‘For Every Generation’’ campaign alienated trend-obsessed teens, it shifted the company’s focus back to a broader range of customers. The consumers Gap’s new campaign targeted ranged from infants to senior citizens. It also was designed to win back its former core customers, baby boomers who had always relied on the chain’s quality, affordable basic clothing styles. Explaining the new strategy, company president and CEO Millard Drexler told Business Wire, ‘‘Gap speaks a common language that everyone understands, and this campaign reflects the connection that people of all ages have with Gap. Whether you are six, sixteen or sixty, nothing is more universal than a pair of Gap jeans. That’s the kind of classic style, product and message we stand for.’’

COMPETITION
As Gap struggled to reverse more than 22 months of negative same-store sales, one of its top competitors, Abercrombie & Fitch, was embroiled in its own problems related to marketing and product offerings that many considered offensive. Also among Gap’s top competitors was American Eagle Outfitters, which was on the opposite end of the marketing spectrum from Abercrombie, with climbing sales and a reputation for offering wholesome advertising and merchandise. Abercrombie & Fitch was founded in 1892 as a purveyor of quality camping, hunting, and fishing clothing and equipment, and by 1917 it was the world’s largest sporting-goods store. Among the store’s customers were Teddy Roosevelt, who purchased gear at the store before setting off on an African safari, and Ernest Hemingway. In 1988 the chain was bought by the Limited (which also owned Victoria’s Secret) and shifted from selling sporting clothes and equipment to outfitting suburban kids.
The Limited phased out its ownership in 1998, and Abercrombie became an independent public company. The chain’s marketing and merchandise, produced inhouse, turned toward the explicit and sexual. In 2002 the company was listed by PR Newswire as producing one of the 10 worst public relations blunders of the year. The publication reported that Abercrombie had offended the public with its thong underwear for prepubescent girls and its T-shirts that portrayed stereotyped images of Asian-Americans. Despite pulling the controversial merchandise from its product line, the company remained known for the ‘‘sex sells’’ theme in its marketing. The company’s 2002 catalog, titled ‘‘XXX,’’ included sexually suggestive photographs on more than half of its 280 pages. Despite consumer complaints about its merchandise, Abercrombie reported a 21 percent sales increase in October 2002 compared with the same period the previous year. It noted, however, that same-store sales had dropped 5 percent from January through November 2002.
American Eagle Outfitters, founded in 1977, was originally known for selling men’s outdoor gear. In 1992 it underwent a rebranding and became known for its classic American, mainstream style, which successfully appealed to its target market: mature teens and young adults. By 1997 the chain had begun making additional improvements to its selection of merchandise, and it introduced marketing—which included ads in such magazines as Mademoiselle, Seventeen, and Spin—intended to broaden the brand’s customer base by promoting its affordable, casual, and basic clothing. American Eagle reported that first-quarter sales overall in 2002 were up 14.9 percent over the same period in the previous year; however, same-store sales for the first quarter of 2002 were down about 2 percent.

MARKETING STRATEGY
As Gap’s ‘‘For Every Generation’’ campaign was prepared for its launch, a company spokesman said that the new marketing strategy had been created to broaden its appeal to consumers and to attract people of all ages back to the chain. In addition the campaign was the first one the company had used for all Gap divisions, including adult, kids, and baby.
The campaign starred some 50 celebrities of all ages from a variety of fields (such as movies, music, art, and fashion) in TV spots and print ads. The latter included a 48-page portfolio in Vanity Fair magazine. Personalities featured in the print campaign ranged from country music icon Willie Nelson and up-and-coming singer Taryn Manning to comedian Whoopi Goldberg. Among the film stars dressing in their favorite Gap fashions for the ads were Sissy Spacek, Lauren Hutton, Salma Hayek, and Christian Slater. Trey Laird, president and executive creative director of Laird + Partners, explained to Business Wire, ‘‘We selected a broad range of personalities who each have a highly defined individual style. We worked with each person to create their own look in Gap jeans—keeping it personal, authentic and real.’’ Each ad featured a celebrity wearing a pair of Gap jeans combined with other Gap items as well as their own clothes and accessories. Nelson appeared in a TV spot wearing his Gap jeans and performing a guitar version of the Hank Williams classic ‘‘Move It On Over.’’ Another TV spot starred models Shalom Harlow and Alek Wek showing off the comfort and style of their Gap jeans while dancing to the 1960s hit song ‘‘Bend Me, Shape Me.’’ In one print ad Kelly Klein, socialite, photographer, and ex-wife of fashion designer Calvin Klein, paired her Gap jeans with one of her favorite lacy tops.

OUTCOME
With more than two years of negative same-store sales results at the end of 2002, following the launch of its ‘‘For Every Generation’’ campaign, the company reported that, while its earnings remained down, they still came in above expectations. Although in October its same-store sales had been up only 1 percent, this was a turnaround from a 17 percent drop during that month the previous year. A report in USA Today stated that, based on the data, ‘‘It looks like Gap’s more familiar basic merchandise and new ad campaign are working.’’ Gap executives also said that the campaign appeared to be moving the company back in the right direction. According to information gathered by Ad Track, USA Today ’s weekly consumer poll, about 21 percent of those surveyed liked the ads ‘‘a lot.’’ The commercials also scored higher with two key groups—women and adults ages 25 to 64—indicating that Gap was reconnecting with its former core customers. An article in Women’s Wear Daily noted that Gap’s ‘‘increased advertising, and increasingly amusing advertising, [had] helped expand sales in recent months’’ for the retailer. It further noted that, while the chain’s rebirth was not complete, it was clearly occurring.

YOU KNOW YOU KNOW CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
The Game Show Network (GSN), the only 24-hour cable channel in the United States dedicated to game shows and interactive game playing, was founded in 1995. By 2000 its ratings were at an all-time high, and the network said it was attracting a growing number of viewers. Its goal, however, was to expand the number of cable outlets offering GSN and to increase its viewer base from 25 million subscribers to 50 million within three years.
To accomplish this goal, GSN launched its first-ever consumer-marketing and brand-awareness campaign in March 2000. Signed on to create the campaign, which was estimated to cost between $5 million and $10 million, was TBWA\Chiat\Day, an ad agency based in San Francisco. Themed ‘‘You Know You Know,’’ the campaign featured three television spots showing ordinary people in different locations, each shouting the same word. At the end of the spots it was revealed that the people were watching a game show on television and yelling the answer to a question.
Within seven months of the campaign’s launch its success was evident. According to Nielsen Media Research, the Game Show Network had added five million new subscribers. The campaign also garnered a long list of awards, including two Clio Awards, a Cannes Lion Award, and recognition as one of Adweek ’s top 20 spots of the year. The company said, ‘‘The remarkable growth of the network continues to exceed our expectations . . . we have significantly impacted our sales efforts in the past six months.’’

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Game shows were popular programming in the early days of television, but they dropped off the viewing radar in the 1950s when it was revealed that cheating was rampant on such hit shows as The $64,000 Question. By the mid-1960s and 1970s forgiving viewers were again tuning in to game shows, including The Gong Show, The Price Is Right, and The $10,000 Pyramid. Seeing a unique niche, in December 1994 the Game Show Network hit the airwaves. The new network, jointly owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment and Liberty Media Corporation, offered cable subscribers 24 hours of nonstop programming from its library of classic game shows. In addition to The Price is Right, GSN’s library included Match Game, Password, Family Feud, and To Tell the Truth. For insomniac gamers, the network offered Black & White Overnight, a block of programming that featured game shows from the 1950s and 1960s, such as I’ve Got a Secret, Beat the Clock, and What’s My Line? But despite a full programming line up and a base of 25 million subscribers, by 2000 the network was struggling to survive. To attract a broader audience GSN added new programming that allowed viewers to participate in the on-air games; they could win money or other prizes by playing along while watching the program and calling a special telephone number. Noting that game shows were interactive by nature—viewers often shouted answers at their televisions before the on-screen contestants responded—the network also moved playing opportunities to the Internet. Gamers could go online and play a game while it was on television. Other additions were new game shows original to the network, including 3’s a Crowd, and special-event programming such as Y2PLAY, which ran on New Year’s Eve 1999 and featured the final episodes of popular game shows of the past. The ‘‘You Know You Know’’ campaign, the network’s first marketing effort, was launched in 2000 in an attempt to expand GSN’s reach and to increase consumer awareness of the network.

TARGET MARKET
When it was introduced, the Game Show Network struggled under the perception that game shows only attracted older, less-upscale audiences. It also had to change perceptions that successful shows such as Jeopardy were known as ‘‘quiz shows’’ but that programs called ‘‘game shows’’ were losers. GSN founder and president Michael Fleming said that the challenge was getting out the message that game shows had a broad appeal for all audience demographics, from preteens to older viewers. Early in 2000 GSN executives reported that its viewer base of 25 million subscribers was expected to double by 2003. That prediction of increased viewers was based in part on the success of game-show programming on non-cable networks, such as ABC’s Who Wants to be a Millionaire, which pushed cable operators to take a closer look at the Game Show Network. While the ‘‘You Know You Know’’ campaign’s primary target was households with cable providers offering GSN, it was presented in a way that encouraged gameshow fans not receiving the network to request that their cable ompanies add the channel. The campaign also was designed to tickle the secret superiority complex of many average game-show viewers—those viewers who sat on their sofas in front of their televisions and shouted out the correct answers before the game’s on-air contestants.

COMPETITION
In the 1990s viewership of the big-four television networks—ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX—was steadily declining, and cable channels were gaining viewers. In addition, the Game Show Network was in the unusual position of trying to woo viewers away from competing cable networks at a time when viewers were asking for fewer game shows and more educational fare. A 1997 Wall Street Journal poll indicated that 79 percent of respondents wanted television programming to include more documentaries and shows related to history and the arts, while 60 percent wanted to see fewer game shows. As the Game Show Network moved ahead with plans to boost its program lineup with a new game show set in the Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and with interactive gaming options on its website, cable channels Bravo and Discovery were applying similar strategies to attract viewers. Bravo, the artsy cable channel that sent programming into 79 million U.S. homes, turned to England when it decided to add a new show to its offerings. The new series, Cold Feet, was added to the 2001 program mix along with the long-running hit shows Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Inside the Actors Studio. The new program was supported by a marketing campaign that included television, radio, and print advertising as well as Internet marketing. Also in 2001 the network gave a fresh look to its year-old tagline, ‘‘Not your everyday . . . everyday on Bravo Network,’’ which had helped increase viewership by about 30 percent after its introduction. The network’s revamped on-air look was designed to capture the attention of its target audience, viewers between 25 and 54 years old with discriminating tastes. Besides on-air ads that featured images of average people doing everyday things such as answering the phone, the campaign included print ads and website tie-ins. In 2000 the Discovery Channel, a cable network with a subscriber base of 78 million homes and best known for its spectacular documentaries, turned its advertising focus to its Internet division, Discovery.com. The new ‘‘Two Guys’’ campaign, described as humorous and edgy, had the tagline ‘‘Discover something new every day.’’ Although the commercials remained loyal to the Discovery brand, complete with close-ups of insects and flaming meteors, they had a twist designed to appeal to younger viewers. In one spot, mosquitoes landed on a man’s arm, but a closer look revealed the insects to be two men dressed as bugs. As the bug-men began sucking their victim’s blood through straws, one bug was smashed, in true mosquito style, by the victim. Another spot featured two men dressed as meteors. When one man commented that meteors burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere, there was a flash and the camera showed both men bursting into flames. The Discovery.com campaign included TV spots on the Discovery Channel as well as print and online ads. Despite its popularity with viewers—the ads increased the number of Internet users logging onto Discovery.com by one percentage point—the campaign had been canceled by the end of the year, with the network offering no explanation for the decision.
ABC and NBC were also trying to win back defecting viewers and to keep viewers who continued to tune in. Both networks had launched major marketing campaigns in late 1997. ABC’s ‘‘TV Is Good’’ campaign included ads in newspapers and magazines as well as television spots. NBC’s campaign, ‘‘Must See TV,’’ took a similar approach. In addition, ABC offered direct competition to the Game Show Network with its game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, two of the highest-rated first-run syndicated shows on television.

MARKETING STRATEGY
The GSN’s ‘‘You Know You Know’’ campaign was the network’s first foray into consumer marketing since its inception in 1995. The brand-awareness campaign kicked off in March 2000 with three television spots in limited markets that included Boston and Philadelphia. Also a part of the campaign were outdoor ads and other promotional events. The campaign was multipurposed: it was designed to encourage cable operators not offering the network to subscribers to add GSN to their channels, and it was aimed at getting the cable and satellite subscribers who were already receiving the channel to tune in and watch.
‘‘You Know You Know’’ television spots, which ran on cable channels such as Comedy Central, Lifetime, and Nickelodeon (during its ‘‘Nick at Nite’’ programming), featured ordinary people in unusual situations, each repeating the same word. At the end of each commercial it was revealed the people were shouting the answer to a game-show question on television. In one spot a woman getting a massage shouted, ‘‘Sputnik,’’ while another woman checking coats for customers shouted the same word, and a man in an office did also. The camera shifted to show a woman on television asking, ‘‘Sky Lab?’’ A buzzer sounded, the woman on television lost, and it became clear that the correct answer was ‘‘Sputnik.’’ The tagline ‘‘You Know You Know’’ followed. In the ‘‘Botulism’’ spot the incorrect answer was ‘‘salmonella,’’ and the wrong word in the ‘‘Marsupial’’ spot was ‘‘rodent.’’
The television portion of the campaign was supplemented by a live contest that featured a GSN van towing a huge box to different locations with the question, ‘‘What’s in the Box?’’ Clues about what was in the box were announced each day. Contestants were able to register their guesses with either local sponsors of the game or by calling a posted phone number.
In an effort to further promote its brand, in August the campaign was expanded to include seven additional markets: Sacramento, Los Angeles, Saint Louis, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Charlotte, and Raleigh-Durham. The network explained that the decision was made to expand the campaign because it resonated well with cable providers and consumers. ‘‘These spots do an incredible job capturing the fun, unpredictable, and involving nature of game shows. . . . By expanding the reach of the campaign, we can continue to increase GSN awareness and encourage consumers to tune in to GSN,’’ a company spokesman said.

OUTCOME
The ‘‘You Know You Know’’ campaign was named one of the 20 best advertising spots of 2000 by Adweek. Additional accolades for the campaign quickly followed. The ‘‘Botulism’’ television spot won a Silver Lion at the International Advertising Festival in Cannes, France, and the ‘‘Marsupial’’ spot was included on the Cannes Lion Shortlist. The Game Show Network also earned two Promax Judge’s Choice awards, given for overall outstanding work by Promax & BDA, an international association of promotion, marketing, and design professionals in electronic media. Promax presented the entire campaign with a Gold Award in its Branding and Imaging category, and the ‘‘Sputnik’’ spot was recognized separately. Silver and Bronze Clio Awards and a nomination for a Mark Award (an honor given out by the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing) in recognition of excellence in cable-television marketing, were added to the campaign’s honors.
Dena Kaplan, the network’s senior vice president of marketing, said that the success of the campaign exceeded the company’s expectations. Business Wire quoted Kaplan as stating, ‘‘It is exciting to see the ‘You Know You Know’ television campaign play well with consumers as well as the advertising community. Our brand campaign has been successful in expanding the awareness and distribution of the network.’’

MEET THE GREENS CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
With the rise of digital photography in the 1990s, Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. found itself in danger of being marginalized as nothing more than a film company despite offering a wide range of digital products and services. In 2000 New York advertising agency Publicis was hired to help reposition Fuji as an image and communications brand. To help achieve this end, Fuji in November 2002 launched a new campaign, ‘‘Meet the Greens,’’ that featured a modern family that used the full range of Fuji products, both digital and traditional. In addition to high-tech Dad and low-tech (and very pregnant) Mom, the family included teenage daughter Kellie and six-year-old Stewart.
The $20 to $25 million multimedia campaign featured three television spots, as well as print ads, newspaper inserts, outdoor advertising, and an online sweepstakes. An example of the humorous approach the campaign took was the television spot ‘‘Miracle,’’ which showed Mrs. Green using her Fuji QuickSnap disposable camera to capture what she and the children considered to be the miracle of all miracles: Dad vacuuming. Fuji hoped to exploit the Green family concept for an extended period of time, but after a second sweepstakes, in which participants were asked to submit names for the Greens’ new twins, the campaign petered out in 2003. The television spots were generally well received, but the concept did not prove to work well in print ads.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
When Publicis took over the Fuji account in 2000 it faced the difficult challenge of expanding the brand beyond an immediate association with film. According to Claudia Deutsch writing in the New York Times in 2001, that association ‘‘galls them. FujiFilm sells developing equipment, photo processing services, printers, coated papers and cameras . . . the many lucrative things that can help film companies survive the encroachments that digital photography is making into the film market.’’ Indeed the emergence of digital technology in the 1990s had turned the photography industry upside down. Traditionally the lion’s share of profits had come from the sale of film. While consumers might buy a camera every few years, they had to regularly purchase film, a highly profitable business for traditional photo companies like Kodak and Fuji. Digital technology brought in a host of new competition from the electronics arena, and as was the case with all consumer electronics, the price of cameras dipped to the point that it was difficult to make money from selling them. And with an increasing number of consumers embracing digital technology, the need for film diminished, forcing an old-line photography company like Fuji to adjust to the new business reality. Having ‘‘film’’ in its name was no longer an advantage, and years of brand development that equated ‘‘Fuji’’ with ‘‘film’’ in the mind of consumers now created a drag on the company’s efforts to advance into the future. ‘‘We have simply got to reposition Fuji as a communications company,’’ Fuji’s vice president for advertising Joan C. Rutherford told Deutsch. Jennifer Garr, chief marketing officer for Publicis, added, ‘‘Pictures aren’t just about archiving, but about communicating . . .We want the Fuji brand to be top of mind when consumers think about using images.’’ According to Deutsch repositioning the Fuji brand was more than a hope: it was a ‘‘survival strategy.’’ From a sales point of view, however, the goal had not changed much. The money in photography had always been on the ‘‘output stream.’’ As Deutsch explained, ‘‘He who dominates the output side—that is, sells the most prints, developing chemicals and such—will rule the market.’’
To begin the process of repositioning the brand, Fuji launched a $20 million campaign in the fall of 2001 that also highlighted the company’s digital cameras, scanners, printers, and new digital developing equipment. The campaign’s three television commercials showed how Fuji products could be used to solve real problems, however exaggerated they might be. In the spot titled ‘‘Poodle’’ a young man in an elevator was enamored with a beautiful lady who clearly adored her pet poodle. He used a Fuji digital camera to take a picture of a pet store poodle and then uploaded the image to the Fuji website. Next he returned to the elevator wearing a sweatshirt with a poodle printed on the front, catching the attention of the young lady. The tagline for all the spots was ‘‘Do you speak Fuji?’’
‘‘The overall theme running throughout the new campaign is that ‘if you speak Fuji your communication will be enhanced,’’’ Rutherford explained in a press release. ‘‘The new campaign extends pictures beyond memories and takes the mystery out of digital imaging. It brings to life the concept of better communication through pictures. What is particularly important is that each ad demonstrates the fun and easy practical benefits of digital imaging and relates those benefits to everyday life.’’
A year later Fuji and Publicis took the concept further by embodying Fuji’s consumers in a single family: the Greens. The name was an allusion to Fuji’s longtime association to the color green in its distinctive packaging.

TARGET MARKET
Because the ‘‘Meet the Greens’’ campaign was part of a larger brand repositioning effort, it was aimed at a wide target audience that included consumer, professional, business, and retail customers. Previous ad campaigns had targeted early adapters of new technologies, but digital photography had moved beyond this stage, prompting Fuji and the competition to appeal to general consumers. On a more specific level the new Fuji ads hoped to reach women, in particular mothers 24 to 41 years of age. According to research conducted by Kodak, 70 to 80 percent of family pictures were taken by women. They were the ones who maintained family photo albums, so they had to be educated about the ways to get prints from their digital cameras, whether it was from home printers, sending the digital files to a lab for development, or using Fuji self-serve kiosks at a drugstore. The use of a family in the new campaign, featuring domestic situations that would have appeal to women, was intended to reach this key demographic. Only to a small extent did the marketers attempt to target men and children, although both were represented in the Green family concept. The younger demographic, for instance, was not of prime concern because they tended to share pictures with one another via E-mail and were less likely to make prints.

COMPETITION
For many years Fuji’s chief competitor had been Eastman Kodak. The two companies vied for film customers. Fuji had done particularly well with lower-priced film and disposable cameras, which it introduced into the market in the mid-1980s. But because Fuji’s product offerings now extended beyond film and disposable cameras to include a wide range of digital cameras and output solutions, it faced a host of new competitors. In the digital camera field Fuji had to contend with old-guard brands like Kodak, Minolta, Olympus, and, to a lesser degree, upscale Nokia. But of equal threat were the newcomers to photography through digital technology, such as Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Sony, and LG, all of which had successful product lines outside of photography and possessed the financial wherewithal to fund aggressive marketing campaigns. It was their combined marketing heft that was a key factor in the speed in which digital photography overtook film, catching both Fuji and Kodak by surprise. In the home printer market Fuji competed against category leader Hewlett-Packard as well as an increasingly aggressive Kodak, which was heavily promoting its EasyShare system and home printing dock. Kodak was also a chief rival in the all-important selfservice digital photo kiosk business. Such units were cropping up at drugstore chains and other retail establishments, allowing customers to select, edit, and print digital pictures on the spot, and were becoming an increasingly important offset to the loss of film sales. Kodak was especially effective in leveraging its brand to become a major force in this category, but Fuji also faced competition in kiosks from major players like Polaroid, Olympus, PMI/KIS, IBM, Mitsubishi, and Sony, as well as from a number of smaller companies.

MARKETING STRATEGY
The Green family—reminiscent of an irreverent suburban television sitcom family, a la The Simpsons or Malcolm in the Middle—was crafted to include every type of picture taker. According to a Fuji press release when the campaign was launched in November 2002, ‘‘Mr. Green is an advanced amateur photographer who loves to shoot with Fujifilm’s range of digital cameras. Mrs. Green likes to use Fujifilm 35 mm and QuickSnap one-time-use cameras. Kellie, their teenaged daughter, is a fan of Fujifilm’s Nexia Q1, a trendy-looking APS film camera. And Stewart, the always-scheming six-year-old, is happy to take pictures with whatever camera he can get his hands on.’’ The ‘‘Do you speak Fuji?’’ tagline of the previous campaign was dropped in favor of ‘‘Get the picture,’’ a slogan Fuji had actually used several years earlier and which the company believed offered more universal appeal. ‘‘Get the picture’’ was also catchy because of its ambiguous meaning. As an imperative, ‘‘Get the picture’’ urged the audience to take pictures as well as to make prints. As a question, ‘‘Get the picture’’ asked the audience if it understood—in essence asking if it was in the know and hip enough to embrace the Fuji message. The multifaceted campaign, estimated to have a budget of $20 to $25 million, included television spots, print ads, newspaper inserts, outdoor advertising, and an online sweepstakes.
The linchpin of the ‘‘Meet the Greens’’ campaign was the three TV spots, which broke on national television during an episode of NBC’s Crossing Jordan. The spots also appeared during other primetime network shows, such as Alias, NYPD Blue, The Practice, ER, Law & Order, and The West Wing. Cable television stations that aired the commercials included Discover, Nick at Nite, TLC, VH1, USA, and TBS. The spots also ran during syndicated reruns of such popular shows as Seinfeld and Just Shoot Me.
The three commercials were structured as humorous, offbeat vignettes, each one highlighting a specific Fuji product or service while showing the Green family involved in everyday picture-taking situations. In the spot called ‘‘Date,’’ Mr. Green and Stewart decided to have fun with Kellie’s nervous young date, Chad. In answer to Mr. Green’s implied question, ‘‘So, Kellie tells me you’re on the football team,’’ bratty Stewart quipped, ‘‘He’s the mascot.’’ Chad then had the misfortune of accepting an offering of messy candy. When Kellie finally made her appearance, he had candy stuck to his braces and smeared around his mouth. ‘‘Let’s get a picture,’’ Mr. Green announced, after which he picked up his Fujifilm FinePix F401 camera to get a candid shot of a smiling Chad and mortified Kellie. The focus of the second spot, ‘‘Miracle,’’ was a Fujifilm QuickSnap Flash disposable camera. The commercial opened with Mrs. Green and the children frantically in search of something. Finally she found a QuickSnap camera buried beneath the cushions of the couch. She and the children then rushed upstairs to capture a picture of a ‘‘miracle,’’ which turned out to be Mr. Green vacuuming. In the last of the three spots, ‘‘Charade,’’ Fuji’s self-serve digital photo kiosk was the centerpiece product. In the ad Mr. Green was shown using an in-store kiosk (the Aladdin Digital Photo Center) to develop pictures of his wife and kids. At home he laid out the pictures on the couch and started playing charades by himself. When the family walked in on him, Stewart offered a guess at the subject of the charade:
‘‘Night of the Living Dead?’’
The ‘‘Meet the Greens’’ campaign also featured a pair of print ads. In one Mr. Green was shown taking a close-up picture of blades of grass, accompanied by the cheeky caption ‘‘Mr. Green Gets Hooked on grass,’’ a marijuana allusion geared toward a baby boomer audience. The ad ran in such publications as Popular Photography and Wired. A second print ad featured Kellie taking a picture of her brother listening to the swollen belly of a very pregnant Mrs. Green. The headline read, ‘‘Stewart listens for a change.’’ The ad appeared in mainstream publications like People. Another print element was an insert in 100 million newspapers that featured the Greens and included coupons for Fuji film and one-time cameras. The ‘‘Meet the Greens’’ campaign also included outdoor advertising that pictured the Greens’ mailbox filled with a complete array of Fujifilm products. The text read, ‘‘What Cool Families Use.’’ The mailbox concept was then carried over into the online sweepstakes that was launched later in November and promoted on the Fujifilm website as well as on Yahoo.com, Nickjr.com, ABCnews.com, Babycenter.com, and a number of other sites.

OUTCOME
The ‘‘Meet the Greens’’ advertising ran through the rest of 2002 and were supposed to be followed with a new series of commercials in the spring of 2003 and a third series in the fall of 2003. In April 2003 Fuji launched another sweepstakes by way of an ad in Good Housekeeping, inviting participants to offer names for the twins Mrs. Green was set to have. The twins were also expected to be featured in new television spots. The spots never materialized, however, as the Green family concept failed to resonate with the audience as well as the marketers had hoped. While the television spots were engaging—‘‘Date’’ was highlighted as one of the best recent spots in a December 2002 issue of Adweek —the concept did not translate well to the print medium. Nevertheless Fuji had made strides in its effort to recast its brand as more than just film.

THE LOUDEST TASTE ON EARTH CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
Frito-Lay Inc., the world’s largest maker of snack foods, launched an advertising campaign in 1997 to focus on a narrow market for its Doritos brand of flavored tortilla chips, to introduce new Doritos products, and to increase the international sales of tortilla chips. Doritos were the top-selling tortilla chips in the United States, but previous advertising had targeted a broad audience, and public awareness of the brand had begun to decline. With ‘‘The Loudest Taste on Earth’’ campaign, the company targeted consumers who were 16 to 21 years old and who appreciated the freedom to make noise. The campaign emphasized that Doritos were flavorful, that they made a loud crunch when they were eaten, and that it was acceptable for young people to be exuberant and uninhibited. One television commercial showed a middle-aged man going berserk because three young men were eating Doritos to the accompaniment of deafening rock and roll. The older man cried out in frustration as he rushed past the young men to unplug their stereo, but the music continued. He then cut down a power pole, causing a citywide blackout. The music stopped abruptly, and he looked relieved. The young men glanced mischievously at each other while one of them crumpled an empty Doritos bag. He then ripped open a new bag, the music started again, and the older man bellowed in exasperation. The voice-over said, ‘‘Doritos tortilla chips. The loudest taste on earth.’’
The campaign, which was launched in April 1977 and ran into 1998, was developed by BBDO Worldwide, New York, an agency that had been doing business with Frito-Lay’s parent company, PepsiCo, for decades. In 1997 the ad budget for Doritos was increased significantly, to $40 million. ‘‘The Loudest Taste on Earth’’ campaign ran in the United States, where Doritos were already popular, and then in several other countries. PepsiCo’s net sales increased during 1997, with the Doritos brand showing particularly strong growth.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The Frito Company began operations in San Antonio, Texas, in 1932 and merged with H. W. Lay & Company to form Frito-Lay in 1961. Four years later, Frito-Lay merged with the Pepsi-Cola Company to form PepsiCo, and during the 1990s the snack food division became known as the Frito-Lay Company. In 1997 Frito-Lay expanded its product lines in Europe, Australia, and South America by purchasing salty snack brands in countries there, and in the United States it acquired the Cracker Jack brand of candy-coated popcorn and peanuts. Frito-Lay made nine of the 10 top-selling brands of snack chips in the United States, including Lay’s and Ruffles potato chips, Cheetos cheese puffs, Rold Gold pretzels, and Tostitos and Doritos tortilla chips. The company’s first product had been Fritos corn chips, which were promoted for years by a character called the Frito Kid and later with the tag line ‘‘Munch a Bunch! of Fritos Brand Corn Chips.’’ Humor had worked well in marketing for various Frito-Lay brands. A 1996 ad campaign for Baked Lay’s potato crisps featured a popular puppet character named Miss Piggy and three fashion models devouring the low-fat snack without worrying about gaining weight. The ads produced a rush to buy the product, and Baked Lay’s went on to become the most successful new product in Frito-Lay’s history, generating more than $250 million in sales in its first year. Another campaign that began in 1994 and ran for several years featured comedian Chris Elliott as a good-natured man who could liven up any occasion by producing a bag of Tostitos tortilla chips. The tag line was ‘‘You Got Tostitos, You Got a Party.’’ In one spot Elliott displayed Tostitos in an attempt to impress women, but the women took the Tostitos and rejected him. Frito-Lay’s ‘‘better-for-you’’ low-fat products generated $1 billion annually, but controversy arose in 1996 when some consumers reported gastrointestinal problems after eating foods that contained olestra, a fat replacer also known by the brand name Olean. A one-ounce serving of Doritos MAX Tortilla Chips with Olean had one gram of fat and 90 calories, compared to seven grams of fat and 140 calories in a serving of original Doritos. ‘‘The idea of no-fat snacks is hugely appealing to millions of people,’’ said Dennis Heard, Frito-Lay’s senior vice president of technology and operations. ‘‘Our testing of olestra is to determine whether this new ingredient can be made to work and deliver that important benefit to our customers. As with any new product, ultimately the consumer must decide.’’ He added that ‘‘Frito-Lay would never make any product that intentionally could cause people to become sick.’’
In 1995 and 1996 Frito-Lay’s low-fat products accounted for 47 percent of the company’s growth, and they figured prominently in its marketing plans. A campaign for Reduced Fat Doritos debuted on the telecast of the Summer Olympics in 1996 and extended into 1997. The commercials showed physicians examining a man who had tried the new tortilla chips and was so startled by their good flavor that an expression of surprise had frozen on his face. In addition to the advertising campaign, Frito-Lay launched a nationwide promotion in which 5 million consumers in 4,500 supermarkets were given ‘‘mystery samples,’’ black bags that contained Reduced Fat Doritos. The words ‘‘So . . . what is it? The answer is in the bag!’’ were printed next to a bright yellow and red question mark on the front of the package. On the back were the words ‘‘It’s not what you think it is.’’ Inside was a coupon and a printed message identifying the tortilla chips as Reduced Fat Doritos.

TARGET MARKET
In 1997 Frito-Lay decided to reposition Doritos as the snack of choice for a specific group of consumers. A 1996 campaign called ‘‘Get a Life’’ had targeted a broad market, primarily consumers 12 to 34 years old, with the message that Doritos was ‘‘everybody’s snack.’’ One spot, for example, featured a masseur who was energized by snacking on Doritos. In contrast, ‘‘The Loudest Taste on Earth’’ campaign was intended to appeal to a narrower market of consumers, people 16 to 21 years old. These consumers, known as Generation Xers, tended to enjoy alternative music and had grown up watching rock videos on MTV.
Tortilla chips were particularly popular in the United States, where per capita consumption of the crunchy corn snack was nearly five pounds a year. In an average month one bag of Doritos was sold for each household in the country. Many consumers snacked on tortilla chips instead of cooking, a practice that Frito-Lay hoped to encourage by positioning its chips and dips as convenience meals. For consumers who were concerned about gaining weight, Frito-Lay promoted its low-calorie lines during the same months ‘‘The Loudest Taste on Earth’’ campaign was being broadcast.

COMPETITION
With more than $1 billion in annual sales, Doritos was the top-selling brand in the flavored tortilla chip category and was popular throughout North and South America. Doritos accounted for 10 percent of Frito-Lay’s annual sales of about $10 billion worldwide. The company sold its products in 40 countries, was the leader in five of the 10 largest snack food markets, and had 54 percent of the salty snack market in the United States. Its closest competitors, Procter & Gamble and Borden, had 4 percent each. Pringles potato crisps, made by Proctor & Gamble, were the only top 10 snack chips in the United States not made by Frito-Lay. A third competitor, Anheuser-Busch, had given up the snack food business in 1996, selling its processing plants to Frito-Lay and its Eagle brand to Procter & Gamble.
Thus, Procter & Gamble constituted Frito-Lay’s principal competition in the United States. During 1997 Procter & Gamble continued a $40 million television advertising campaign for Pringles that had been running since 1995. The commercials originally had featured young people drumming on the cans in which Pringles were packaged, but eventually the campaign included people of all ages. The tag line, ‘‘Once You Pop, You Can’t Stop,’’ called attention to the brand’s unusual packaging, complete with lids that could be popped open and snapped shut again. Procter & Gamble said that the commercials helped increase brand awareness and improved sales of Pringles, which was the third most popular brand of potato snack in the country. According to the Snack Food Association, the brand gained 1.5 percentage points of market share in supermarkets during 1997, up from 10.2 percent in 1996. Procter & Gamble had introduced a tortilla chip line of Pringles in 1996 and was preparing to launch Fat Free Pringles, made with Olean, in 1998. Pringles containing Olean had been tested in a few markets in 1996, and within a year the brand’s sales in those markets had risen by 25 percent.

MARKETING STRATEGY
Frito-Lay planned to make Doritos a priority in 1997 by introducing new lines and airing blockbuster commercials in the United States and in other countries. In January the company asked ad agency BBDO Worldwide, New York, and affiliated agency DDB Needham Worldwide to present ideas for a new Doritos campaign. DDB Needham had been handling the company’s Cheetos, Rold Gold, and Fritos accounts. BBDO had been doing business with Pepsi-Cola for more than 30 years and was handling Frito-Lay’s Tostitos, Ruffles, and Lay’s accounts, among others. BBDO was awarded the Doritos account and developed ‘‘The Loudest Taste on Earth’’ campaign, with the Lay’s account given to DDB Needham soon afterward. At the end of the year, however, PepsiCo reviewed the way its national television commercials, worth about $170 million annually, were being planned and purchased. Several ad agencies were considered, but in the end all of the Frito-Lay accounts were consolidated with BBDO. ‘‘The Loudest Taste on Earth’’ campaign stressed that Doritos were flavorful tortilla chips that made a loud crunch when they were eaten. Because making a noise while eating was frowned upon in many social situations, the joy of being ‘‘allowed to be loud’’ was intended to appeal to young people, who liked to challenge the rules of etiquette. With their driving rock and roll sound tracks, the commercials also brought to mind the many times such young people had heard their parents tell them to lower the volume of their music. Above all, the campaign conveyed an attitude of unrestrained exhilaration. The people in the ads were having a good time with their friends as they snacked on Doritos. ‘‘The Loudest Taste on Earth’’ campaign was launched in April. The first of 20 spots, ‘‘Boy,’’ opened with an angelic looking woman with short, platinum blond hair. In a clear, sweet voice she sang, ‘‘There once was a boy who wanted everything to be loud.’’ The camera showed a long-haired teenager tearing open a bag of Doritos, with the words ‘‘LOUD LOUD LOUD’’ flashed across the screen as the music changed into pounding rock and roll. ‘‘You’re allowed to be loud,’’ the song continued, as a series of wildly colorful music video images followed. The boy began to fly, a plastic cow fell down, a walking Doritos bag paraded along a runway like a fashion model, people rode Doritos bags through city streets, and an enormous Doritos tortilla chip tumbled down an avenue. ‘‘The hundred decibel, in-your-face taste of Doritos,’’ said the voice-over, and the singer concluded, ‘‘The loudest taste on earth.’’ The woman in the ad was Crushing Underground’s Mary Wood, a performer and jingle producer who had helped write the music for ‘‘Boy.’’ She also performed in another spot in the campaign, introducing a line called Spicy Nacho Doritos. In addition to spots that looked like music videos, the campaign featured three television commercials that focused on the Doritos logo. sales of about $10 billion worldwide. The company sold its products in 40 countries, was the leader in five of the 10 largest snack food markets, and had 54 percent of the salty snack market in the United States. Its closest competitors, Procter & Gamble and Borden, had 4 percent each. Pringles potato crisps, made by Proctor & Gamble, were the only top 10 snack chips in the United States not made by Frito-Lay. A third competitor, Anheuser-Busch, had given up the snack food business in 1996, selling its processing plants to Frito-Lay and its Eagle brand to Procter & Gamble.
Thus, Procter & Gamble constituted Frito-Lay’s principal competition in the United States. During 1997 Procter & Gamble continued a $40 million television advertising campaign for Pringles that had been running since 1995. The commercials originally had featured young people drumming on the cans in which Pringles were packaged, but eventually the campaign included people of all ages. The tag line, ‘‘Once You Pop, You Can’t Stop,’’ called attention to the brand’s unusual packaging, complete with lids that could be popped open and snapped shut again. Procter & Gamble said that the commercials helped increase brand awareness and improved sales of Pringles, which was the third most popular brand of potato snack in the country. According to the Snack Food Association, the brand gained 1.5 percentage points of market share in supermarkets during 1997, up from 10.2 percent in 1996. Procter & Gamble had introduced a tortilla chip line of Pringles in 1996 and was preparing to launch Fat Free Pringles, made with Olean, in 1998. Pringles containing Olean had been tested in a few markets in 1996, and within a year the brand’s sales in those markets had risen by 25 percent.

MARKETING STRATEGY
Frito-Lay planned to make Doritos a priority in 1997 by introducing new lines and airing blockbuster commercials in the United States and in other countries. In January the company asked ad agency BBDO Worldwide, New York, and affiliated agency DDB Needham Worldwide to present ideas for a new Doritos campaign. DDB Needham had been handling the company’s Cheetos, Rold Gold, and Fritos accounts. BBDO had been doing business with Pepsi-Cola for more than 30 years and was handling Frito-Lay’s Tostitos, Ruffles, and Lay’s accounts, among others. BBDO was awarded the Doritos account and developed ‘‘The Loudest Taste on Earth’’ campaign, with the Lay’s account given to DDB Needham soon afterward. At the end of the year, however, PepsiCo reviewed the way its national television commercials, worth about $170 million annually, were being planned and purchased. Several ad agencies were considered, but in the end all of the Frito-Lay accounts were consolidated with BBDO. ‘‘The Loudest Taste on Earth’’ campaign stressed that Doritos were flavorful tortilla chips that made a loud crunch when they were eaten. Because making a noise while eating was frowned upon in many social situations, the joy of being ‘‘allowed to be loud’’ was intended to appeal to young people, who liked to challenge the rules of etiquette. With their driving rock and roll sound tracks, the commercials also brought to mind the many times such young people had heard their parents tell them to lower the volume of their music. Above all, the campaign conveyed an attitude of unrestrained exhilaration. The people in the ads were having a good time with their friends as they snacked on Doritos. ‘‘The Loudest Taste on Earth’’ campaign was launched in April. The first of 20 spots, ‘‘Boy,’’ opened with an angelic looking woman with short, platinum blond hair. In a clear, sweet voice she sang, ‘‘There once was a boy who wanted everything to be loud.’’ The camera showed a long-haired teenager tearing open a bag of Doritos, with the words ‘‘LOUD LOUD LOUD’’ flashed across the screen as the music changed into pounding rock and roll. ‘‘You’re allowed to be loud,’’ the song continued, as a series of wildly colorful music video images followed. The boy began to fly, a plastic cow fell down, a walking Doritos bag paraded along a runway like a fashion model, people rode Doritos bags through city streets, and an enormous Doritos tortilla chip tumbled down an avenue. ‘‘The hundred decibel, in-your-face taste of Doritos,’’ said the voice-over, and the singer concluded, ‘‘The loudest taste on earth.’’ The woman in the ad was Crushing Underground’s Mary Wood, a performer and jingle producer who had helped write the music for ‘‘Boy.’’ She also performed in another spot in the campaign, introducing a line called Spicy Nacho Doritos. In addition to spots that looked like music videos, the campaign featured three television commercials that focused on the Doritos logo. One of Frito-Lay’s goals was to make sure that its advertising budget went toward campaigns consumers would remember and discuss. ‘‘It’s got to be a great idea first—that’s where the dollars will flow,’’ said Roger Berdusco, Frito-Lay’s vice president of marketing. To place its messages before the largest number of consumers, the company tended to run commercials during major media events, such as the Super Bowl or the Academy Awards, but some of ‘‘The Loudest Taste on Earth’’ spots aired during programs with young audiences, such as science fiction programs on cable.

OUTCOME
With the relaunch of Doritos and the introduction of less fattening lines of several brands, including Baked Lay’s and Reduced Fat Doritos, Frito-Lay’s sales had been increasing for several years. The Doritos brand showed particularly strong growth in 1997, the year ‘‘The Loudest Taste on Earth’’ campaign was launched. According to Hoover’s Company Capsules, Frito-Lay experienced growth of 7.2 percent in 1997. Sales totaled $10.4 billion, up from $9.7 billion in 1996. ‘‘The Loudest Taste on Earth’’ campaign continued to run into 1998, even as Frito-Lay prepared to keep the brand’s momentum going with the launch of two more lines, Doritos 3D’s Tortilla Chips and Doritos WOW! Nacho Cheesier Tortilla Chips, made with Olean. In addition, ‘‘The Loudest Taste on Earth’’ campaign was scheduled to be broadcast in several other countries as Frito-Lay attempted to position the brand as the most popular snack for young adults around the world.

SCENT TO BED CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
In 1997 the French Connection Group PLC embarked on a rebranding of its flagship French Connection line of clothing, which was sold in both department stores and stand-alone company stores throughout the world. The company’s agency, TBWA\London, used an internal company moniker, FCUK (French Connection United Kingdom), as the conceptual basis for a newly brash brand image. Featured on product labels, storefronts, and in advertising that overtly encouraged the subliminal rearrangement of the acronym, the letters FCUK proved an immensely successful marketing device. The brand name was exported to North America in 1998, and subsequent advertising campaigns used the near-obscenity to incite predictable and, for French Connection, lucrative controversies. A 2003 print and promotional campaign on behalf of a line of FCUK fragrances, however, was bolder than previous FCUK campaigns, and it met with more mixed results.
The 2003 campaign, called ‘‘Scent to Bed,’’ leveraged a projected $10 million budget to introduce American teens and young adults to the fragrances FCUK Him and FCUK Her. The obvious implications of the tagline and product name were bolstered by an image, in print ads, of an attractive, nearly nude couple in an intimate bedroom situation. The ads ran in men’s and women’s fashion magazines as well as in teen magazines. Planned promotional tie-ins included in-store handouts labeled ‘‘License to FCUK,’’ which touted a ‘‘Scent to Bed’’ website.
French Connection was not, however, able to mobilize the campaign’s full budget or promotional capacities. Widespread protests by religious and concerned-citizens’ groups led the country’s largest department-store company—Federated, the owner of Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, and Goldsmith’s—to remove all FCUK products from its inventories, and the ‘‘Scent to Bed’’ ads were pulled from the teen magazines in which they had been placed. Though French Connection reported strong sales of the FCUK fragrances, the marketing campaign was put on hold. The company’s next American advertising campaign did not use the FCUK acronym at all.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Stephen Marks worked in the British fashion industry in the 1960s before starting his own company in 1972.
Named after Marks’s favorite movie, French Connection established itself as a British wholesaler of midpriced, upscale, casual clothing aimed at a fashionconscious target market consisting primarily of teens and young adults. The French Connection brand expanded to continental European, Asian, and North American markets. Marks took the company public in 1984. In the 1990s French Connection shifted its emphasis from wholesale to retail operations; the company undertook a corresponding broadening of its product offerings and renovation of its stores’ appearance. The retail fashion market was highly competitive and fragmented, however, and French Connection needed a clearer market positioning. In 1997 founder Marks enlisted TBWA\London’s Trevor Beattie, a creative director who had achieved fame in the advertising industry for creating an overtly provocative (and very successful) campaign for Wonderbra, to helm a rebranding of French Connection. Beattie decided that the company needed to promote an image of irreverent hipness in keeping with its core target market, but he had not settled on any unifying icon for the rebranding project when, while at French Connection headquarters, he noticed the letters ‘‘FCUK’’ in a company fax header. The letters stood for ‘‘French Connection United Kingdom’’ and were used in communications with the company’s Hong Kong office (FCHK), but Beattie immediately saw the brand-building potential of the nearobscenity. French Connection was rebranded as FCUK, a move that generated extensive controversy while fueling unprecedented company growth. Outdoor advertisements in London, tagged ‘‘FCUK fashion,’’ were outlawed by Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority after widespread outrage; the company responded with ads whose tagline, ‘‘FCUK advertising,’’ did little to quell citizens’ complaints.
In 1998 the FCUK logo began appearing in the United States, on T-shirts and on the company’s U.S. storefronts. Print ads explicitly encouraged the logo’s subliminal associations, using transposed language such as ‘‘night all long’’ and ‘‘I you want.’’ An outdoor campaign that ran on top of New York City taxicabs paired the brand name with the tag ‘‘Think your clothes off ’’; it was pulled after only a few days. Another New York print and taxi-top campaign followed, using copy that stated, ‘‘Brave but not free / FCUK censorship.’’

TARGET MARKET
The primary target for the FCUK Her and FCUK Him fragrance lines was 18- to 25-year-olds, but FCUK also placed ‘‘Scent to Bed’’ advertisements in publications primarily read by much younger teenage girls. Given the ubiquity of sexual imagery in the media at the time, sexual appeals to young people had to be extremely explicit or daring to stand out. FCUK’s ability to make a splash in a hypersexual environment was primarily a function of its products’ brand name, which, in combination with the clear sexual implications of the ad imagery and the ‘‘Scent to Bed’’ tagline, amounted to one of the bluntest sexual appeals in recent mainstream U.S. advertising.
Given FCUK’s history of courting controversy as a means of spurring sales, industry observers took it for granted that the company welcomed the inevitable public uproar surrounding the fragrances’ launch. As religious and concerned-citizens’ groups began to mount predictable protests, Michael Wood, vice president of the media consultancy Teenage Research Unlimited, told USA Today, ‘‘The more people say, ‘How dare them,’ the more interest they get from the teen market.’’ Other analysts pointed out a potential pitfall of this approach: teens were dependent on their parents for the money required to make most of their purchases.

COMPETITION
The American fashion-industry standard for sexually explicit marketing had arguably been established by Abercrombie & Fitch (A & F) in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Indeed, one of the most prominent groups protesting the ‘‘Scent to Bed’’ campaign, Concerned Women for America, described the FCUK campaign as ‘‘Abercrombie & Fitch on Viagra.’’ Despite the suggestion that A & F’s marketing was tame by comparison, the popular retailer of clothing for college-age young adults had become one of the most roundly protested advertisers of the time, regularly provoking the ire of concerned citizens across the political spectrum. Most of this outrage centered on the company’s signature ‘‘magalog’’ (a hybrid of magazine and mail-order catalog), the ‘‘A & F Quarterly,’’ which integrated racy editorial content with art-quality photos of nearly nude young men and women. An early issue of the magalog ran a widely condemned feature called ‘‘Drinking 101,’’ which encouraged college students to ‘‘drink creatively’’ and provided recipes for such cocktails as the ‘‘Brain Hemorrhage.’’ Another notorious issue, from the 1999 holiday season, featured a cover image that included a male model’s pubic hair as well as an image of Santa and Mrs. Claus engaging in sadomasochistic sex acts. A 2003 Christmas issue touting ‘‘group sex and more’’ generated a last round of outrage but proved the last installment of the publication; it was retired amid ongoing controversy and, perhaps more to the point, flagging in-store sales. American Apparel, an upstart wholesaler of highquality T-shirts and other basic knitwear, was responsible for another prominent advertising campaigns that flirted with pornography. The American Apparel print and outdoor campaign, introduced to coincide with the opening of the brand’s first retail outlets in late 2003, was largely masterminded and executed by the company’s founder, Dov Charney. It featured overtly sexual, casual snapshots of employees and other nonprofessional models. Balancing this pronounced appeal to sexual appetites with a sweatshop-free corporate model, American Apparel successfully targeted young, fashion-conscious urban progressives. Regularly outpacing the garment industry in yearly sales, American Apparel grew rapidly, expanding its stable of retail stores from two to more than 50 during the first two years of the campaign’s run.

MARKETING STRATEGY
FCUK Him and FCUK Her were the company’s first global fragrance products, and they became available worldwide in French Connection stores and department stores starting with a September 2003 launch in the United States. The ‘‘Scent to Bed’’ print and promotional campaign, developed by TBWA\London (FCUK’s agency of record since the 1997 rebranding), was a U.S.-specific element of the global push that was timed to coincide with the fragrances’ introduction. The projected campaign budget at the start of the campaign was $10 million.
Print ads ran in magazines that included
Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Maxim, and FHM as well as in the magazines Seventeen and Teen People, whose readerships consisted primarily of girls in their early and middle teenage years. The ‘‘Scent to Bed’’ tagline was superimposed over an attractive young couple in an intimate bedroom situation. This combination of imagery and text, supported by the subliminal reading of the accompanying brand name, sent an unmistakable sexual message to young people. Many assumed, judging from FCUK’s history of parlaying controversy into sales gains, that the company was hoping for some amount of buzz-generating backlash. The company itself remained coy about its strategies. ‘‘Whether it shocks you or amuses you,’’ Andrea Hyde, president of French Connection Holdings, told USA Today, ‘‘FCUK certainly makes the consumer think.’’
Promotional elements of the campaign included invitations to a FCUK fragrance launch party that were shaped like ‘‘do not disturb’’ signs for hotel doorknobs and that read, ‘‘FCUK in progress.’’ At the time of the campaign’s September release, plans were in place for a holiday promotion involving ‘‘License to FCUK’’ cards to be distributed by stores that carried the fragrance. The cards were to include a code to be used at a ‘‘Scent to Bed’’ website, allowing consumers access to a list of effective pickup lines and the chance to win a free sixperson Club Med vacation.

OUTCOME
A ‘‘Scent to Bed’’ backlash gained steam immediately upon the FCUK fragrances’ American introduction. ‘‘It’s very disgusting and highly offensive,’’ Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America, told USA Today. ‘‘It’s a sad day when people have to do this type of advertising, especially toward our youth.’’ The American Family Association initiated a large-scale E-mail and phone drive to file complaints with participating department-store chains, and French Connection began experiencing trouble with the department stores that carried the FCUK brand. In the first two weeks after the fragrances were introduced, they ranked no lower than eighth among top-selling fragrances at Sephora stores and no lower than fourth at Bloomingdale’s. The controversy soon began to affect stores, however. The department store Kaufmann’s ceased using in-store ‘‘Scent to Bed’’ displays, while the largest department-store corporation in America, Federated Department Stores—which owned Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, and Goldsmith’s, among others—pulled not just the FCUK fragrances but all FCUK-labeled products from its stores within a month after the campaign’s launch. In October 2003 the magazines Seventeen and Teen People both announced that they would no longer run FCUK ads, and French Connection discontinued the campaign.
The fragrances remained available in French Connection stand-alone stores and sold well. According to Zirh International, the company that manufactured the fragrances for French Connection, the launch exceeded sales expectations as well as production capacities. Unused portions of the campaign budget were redirected to in-store initiatives and to other international markets. In November the company submitted to a relabeling of its products as ‘‘French Connection United Kingdom’’ in an attempt to get them back on Federated Department Stores shelves. The advertising campaign on behalf of the fragrances remained on hold indefinitely. According to Advertising Age, chairman and CEO Marks remained convinced that the campaign was right for its target market. French Connection’s North American sales continued to grow, reaching $84 million for 2003, more than double the company’s sales figures for 1997. After a separate 2004 controversy in Great Britain resulted in an order by the Advertising Standards Authority that all FCUK outdoor advertising be preinspected, French Connection temporarily discontinued the use of its notorious acronym. A 2004 U.S. campaign featuring TV, print, and outdoor components used models posing as bikers in the American desert. The campaign’s copy included, ‘‘Something beginning with F,’’ and ‘‘Don’t make us say it.’’ ‘‘We think it’s revolutionary,’’ Marks told Women’s Wear Daily. ‘‘Who else would advertise without using their name?’’

NHL ON FOX CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
The Fox Entertainment Group was a division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, a global media and entertainment empire. News Corporation published newspapers (including the Times of London), magazines (including The Weekly Standard ), and books (HarperCollins). The company owned an 81 percent stake in the Fox Entertainment Group, one of the largest entertainment conglomerates in the world. Fox Entertainment Group produced, developed, and distributed TV and motion picture programming (including Ally McBeal, The X-Files, and Titanic) through its Fox Filmed Entertainment and Twentieth Century Fox units. It also owned America’s Fox Television Network as well as 22 TV stations across the United States. In addition, Fox Entertainment had interests in cable TV channels and major league sports teams.
Fox Entertainment’s Fox Sports division gained instant credibility in 1993 when it acquired the rights to broadcast National Football League (NFL) games. While the exorbitant rights fees the league commanded made the property a ‘‘loss leader’’ for the network, the cachet of professional football—especially among Fox’s core youthful male demographic—made the acquisition worthwhile. Using ultramodern graphics, ‘‘in your face’’ promos, and a highly energetic pregame show, Fox took over an already successful product and enhanced it. Two years later Fox took a bigger gamble when it paid $155 million for broadcast rights to National Hockey League (NHL) games for the next five years. In doing so the network had acquired an underperforming TV property that traditionally drew lower ratings than bowling. It hoped to repeat its NFL success on the ice. For the first three years of Fox coverage, ads for the NHL were handled by various agencies on a project basis. Then in late 1997 Fox Sports named the New Yorkbased advertising agency of Cliff Freeman & Partners to handle advertising for its broadcast coverage of NHL games. The agency immediately initiated a campaign designed to win hockey a wider audience through the use of offbeat humorous promos.
The Fox NHL promo campaign, directed by Christopher Guest through bicoastal Moxie Pictures, was composed of five ads based on the premise that many sports would be better if they were played like hockey. In one typical spot a female bowler was knocked to the floor by a competitor trying to prevent her from making a game-winning strike. Other spots depicted hockey’s violence and aggression applied to the sports of billiards, golf, and squash. The spots proved enormously popular with viewers and critics alike, earning Cliff Freeman & Partners a host of advertising industry awards. Fox continued to struggle to broaden the viewership for professional hockey, however, and in 1998 when the network’s contract ran out, ABC acquired the NHL broadcast rights for the 1999–2000 season and beyond.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Fox Sports acquired the right to telecast professional hockey at a time of great promise, when the NHL’s ratings on other networks were rising. Ratings for ESPN’s Sunday night NHL games were up 67 percent in 1993–94, while the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s telecasts were up 59 percent. Fox officials believed they could increase the average rating for hockey telecasts to a 2, which would represent a 12 percent increase over the 1.6 rating earned by ABC in a limited number of games in 1993-94.
The NHL was also optimistic about the partnership. ‘‘This is our first over-the-air contract in 20 years,’’ said Bernadette Mansur, NHL vice president for corporate communications. ‘‘There’s no doubt that ESPN has done a tremendous job in producing and promoting the NHL, but Fox gives us a national network contract. It takes us to another level.’’
A labor dispute between the league’s owners and players unfortunately delayed the start of the 1994–95 NHL season. When the lockout finally ended in January 1995, Fox Sports aired its first slate of promotional ads for its broadcasts of NHL games. The spots featured the offbeat humor that would become a hallmark of Fox hockey ads over the next few years. In one ad New York Islanders winger Benoit Hogue was shown shooting raisin bagels at a goal. In another Florida goalie John Vanbiesbrouck parodied 1950s child icon Jerry Mathers for a spot called ‘‘Leave It to Beezer.’’ The ads aired frequently, paving the way for Fox’s initial broadcast on April 2, 1995. That Sunday’s slate of six regional games boasted a panoply of new technical innovations designed to enhance the viewing experience. These ‘‘bells and whistles’’ included animated graphics, a theme song, five to eight cameras (with a robotic camera at the main game site), Dolby surround sound, super slow motion, and the ‘‘Fox Box,’’ a score/clock graphic that Fox had previously introduced during its NFL broadcasts. The broadcast was preceded by a 15-minute pregame show hosted by former basketball player James Brown, with commentary from former NHL player Dave Maloney. The anchors returned during intermissions for analysis that featured a few unconventional touches, including an in-studio roller rink, which analysts used to demonstrate skills and techniques.
After a shaky first season ratings-wise, the NHL on Fox, as it was dubbed, began to show signs of success over the ensuing seasons. During the 1996–97 NHL season, for example, national television demographic results posted increases in key areas. There was a 36 percent increase in NHL on Fox viewership among women aged 18 to 24, with an 86 percent increase during the Stanley Cup Finals. At the same time there was a 5 percent increase in NHL on Fox viewership among men aged 18 to 34, with a 32 percent increase during the Stanley Cup Finals. There was a 3 percent increase in viewership among male teens 12 to 17, with a 22 percent increase during the Stanley Cup Finals. The demographic improvements, however, may have had more to do with a renewed interest in hockey generally rather than a reflection of Fox’s broadcasts or promotional strategy. During the same season, by contrast, NHL on ESPN viewership rose 22 percent among women 18 to 24, with a 106 percent increase during the Stanley Cup Finals. There was a 14 percent increase in NHL on ESPN viewership among men 18 to 34, with a 52 percent increase during the Stanley Cup Finals.
Ratings did not continue to improve over the next season, however, and in the fall of 1997 Cliff Freeman & Partners of New York was awarded the Fox NHL account after a presentation to Neal Tiles, senior vice president for marketing at Fox Sports in Los Angeles. Spike DDB, owned by filmmaker Spike Lee and the DDB Needham Worldwide unit of Omnicom Group, continued to handle advertising for NHL games on Fox Sports Net, a cable television joint venture of News Corporation, Tele-Communications Inc., and Liberty Media, a unit of Tele-Communications.

TARGET MARKET
Having inherited rights to broadcast hockey at a point of record viewer interest in the sport, Fox marketing officials believed the only way to ‘‘grow’’ the audience for its broadcasts was to appeal to casual fans of the sport. ‘‘If we put on a production for purists, hockey is going to fail,’’ declared Ed Goren, an executive in the Fox Sports division. ‘‘A lot of people have done it well, but the bottom line is that hockey hasn’t been able to attract a national audience. The most important mission we have is broadening the audience. If we do the greatest show in the world and all we get is a 1.6 [rating], we’ve failed.’’ To capture a youthful audience, Fox from the beginning relied on humor, high-tech effects, and the lure of larger-than-life personalities to sell hockey to fans who rarely watched the sport on TV. ‘‘Right now, hockey is like soccer,’’ said Goren. ‘‘Millions of kids play it, but they don’t watch it, because there are no heroes. We have to give them heroes. We have to sell these players as athletes and as personalities.’’

COMPETITION
Despite a major marketing push in recent years, the NHL, as far as the major professional team sports went, remained a decided fourth among viewers, behind the NFL, Major League Baseball, and the NBA. Hockey remained a low-rated sport that nevertheless had solid advertiser appeal for companies seeking a young, male demographic target. Hockey’s major competitor in the fall/winter sports market was the NBA, which had arguably surpassed baseball as the second most popular sport after the NFL in the United States. Its ability to reach 18- to 34-year-old males made it an attractive property for those wishing to sell autos, soft drinks, and athletic shoes. Like hockey, though, the league had some problems—lower scoring games, the threat of labor strife, growing pains for the new breed of players, and the aging of its longtime current star system. As of 1999, however, the NBA appeared unthreatened by the NHL as a television property.

MARKETING STRATEGY
From the day it won the rights to broadcast NHL hockey games, Fox Sports pursued an aggressive promotional strategy designed to whip up interest among viewers who had previously not tuned in to hockey telecasts. From the ads to the broadcasts themselves, this strategy was marked by innovation, risk taking, and a ‘‘rewriting the rules’’ approach. ‘‘We’re telling our people there is no right or wrong,’’ said Goren.
There was, of course, an inherent danger in this strategy. If Fox reached too far to pull in new fans, it could alienate hard-core fans who preferred a more traditional approach. The network was willing to take that risk, however, betting that hard-core hockey fans would realize that the TV audience for the sport must expand if it were to grow in the next century.
To promote its 1997–98 slate of telecasts, Fox Sports turned to Cliff Freeman & Partners. Cliff Freeman landed the assignment from Fox Sports personally after making a presentation to Tiles, the senior vice president of marketing for the sports division of Fox. ‘‘I’m a big fan of Cliff Freeman’s work,’’ said Tiles. ‘‘We need a highly creative message to break through the clutter, because we are the clutter.’’ Freeman’s first ads broke in fall 1997, while the main campaign kicked off in January during Fox’s broadcast of the annual NHL All-Star Game. The new campaign consisted of four spots, all conceived by copywriter Eric Silver. In the first, ‘‘Bowling,’’ a woman bowler was shown about to make a crucial shot to win a match. From behind her back her opponent suddenly charged into her and knocked her to the floor, causing her to drop the bowling ball. ‘‘Bowling would be better,’’ a caption declared, ‘‘if it were hockey.’’ The other three ads played off the same juxtaposition. In ‘‘Billiards’’ a pool player needing to make one final shot was assaulted from the side by his opponent, who went on to sink the ball himself. ‘‘Golf ’’ playfully sent up the solemnity of TV golf broadcasts, as a golfer’s rolling putt was shown being swatted away from the hole by another player, hockey goalie style. ‘‘Very smoothly done,’’ commented the unseen announcers dryly. And in ‘‘Squash’’ two elderly competitors were shown ferociously checking each other into the court’s walls as they traded shots. The spot concluded with one man savagely pressing the other’s face into a clear glass pane. Once again, a caption proclaimed that the sport would be better ‘‘if it were hockey.’’
All four spots were designed to capture viewer interest with what looked like a real sporting event, then concluded with a humorous twist in which the violent ethos of hockey was introduced. This style was in keeping with research that showed that young viewers—jaded by a lifetime of watching conventional TV commercials—responded most favorably to offbeat ads marked by humor and surprising and violent twists.

OUTCOME
Cliff Freeman & Partners won numerous awards for its ‘‘NHL on Fox’’ campaign. An entry comprised of ‘‘Billiards,’’ ‘‘Bowling,’’ and ‘‘Golf’’ earned the agency the Grand Clio in television at the 1998 Clio Awards Gala, held at Lincoln Center. Freeman’s work for Fox collected four Golds in various TV categories. The Fox ads were also awarded a Gold Lion as a media campaign at the 45th annual International Advertising Festival in Cannes, France, in July 1998.
Despite all the accolades, the quirky spots did little to boost the ratings for Fox’s NHL telecasts. The network’s NHL ratings plummeted to a 1.4, the lowest in four years. Fox admitted to losing a fortune on its $155 million rights fees. As a consequence, in August 1998 Fox lost its NHL rights to Disney (ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2) for a staggering five-year, $600 million bid. ‘‘In our own way, I guess we elevated the awareness of the game to a point where the folks at Disney decided it was worth a lot of money,’’ commented Fox Sports’ Goren.
The outcome of the ‘‘NHL on Fox’’ was more favorable for at least one player in the campaign. The ad shop of Cliff Freeman & Partners was kept on by Fox to create a series of offbeat commercials for the network’s game of the week baseball broadcasts. The slapstick spots retained the same wacky perspective and odd, cartoonlike characters of the agency’s NHL campaign.

HOW TO SPEAK AUSTRALIAN CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
In 1990 Foster’s Lager, owned by Foster’s Group Limited (previously Foster’s Brewing Group) and distributed and marketed by Miller Brewing Company in the United States, began pursuing a U.S. strategy of associating itself with ‘‘Australianness.’’ After a detour away from this marketing strategy, Miller and its Foster’s agency, Angotti, Thomas, Hedge of New York, in 1994 released ‘‘How to Speak Australian,’’ which became one of the longest-running and most popular beer advertising campaigns of its time.
‘‘How to Speak Australian’’ began with spot placements in regional markets and an estimated budget of $3 million. In 1997 Miller made it a national campaign and increased the budget to approximately $10 million. From 1994 to 2001 the campaign’s central idea remained consistent.
TV spots introduced a word or term, such as ‘‘Room Service,’’ and then showed what that term meant in Australia; in this case, it meant a live chicken and a meat cleaver delivered to a hotel guest’s room. Following such arresting redefinitions of commonplace terms was an image of the Foster’s can, labeled ‘‘Beer.’’ The commercials closed with the tagline ‘‘Fosters. Australian for Beer.’’ Print, outdoor, and radio executions followed this basic model, which seemed virtually inexhaustible. Four to six new TV spots were crafted each year, and the consistency of the platform also meant that old spots could be recycled as long as they remained fresh. ‘‘How to Speak Australian’’ won a Silver EFFIE Award in 1994 and a Gold EFFIE in 1995, and the Foster’s brand grew rapidly in the United States through 1998. The campaign remained popular, and the brand continued to grow, but by 2000 Foster’s sales had begun to be eclipsed by other beers in the imported-beer market. Some analysts believed that Miller had missed an opportunity to turn Foster’s into an import stalwart along the lines of category-leading Corona Extra. After the dissolution of Angotti, Thomas, Hedge in 2001 Miller assigned the Foster’s advertising account to Chicago’s J. Walter Thompson agency. J. Walter Thompson made an unsuccessful attempt to reinterpret what was by then a classic advertising campaign, and in the following years Miller continued searching for the right agency to update the Foster’s identity.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
In the 1980s the Foster’s Brewing Group (which later bought heavily into wine brands and dropped ‘‘Brewing’’ from its name) set out to make its undistinguished namesake brew stand out from the pack of Australian beers by raising its profile internationally. As the brand attained status outside of Australia, Australians themselves began drinking it in larger numbers. By the mid-1980s Foster’s was at the top of the Australian beer heap, and its international image was strengthened by a series of commercials in the United Kingdom featuring the actor Paul Hogan, then a TV personality trafficking in the supposedly quintessential Australianness that he would go on to parlay into international fame in the movie Crocodile Dundee (1986). Foreign sales became a prime source of Foster’s revenue, and in the early 1990s the company set out to brand itself in the United States by playing up its Australian roots. An unproductive detour away from this strategy was scuttled in 1994, when Foster’s U.S. agency, Angotti, Thomas, Hedge, settled on the ‘‘How to Speak Australian’’ platform that, together with the tagline ‘‘Australian for Beer,’’ would define the brand’s marketing for years to come.
During the 1990s and into the first half of the following decade, Foster’s was distributed and marketed in the United States according to a succession of complex corporate arrangements in which its Australian parent company partnered with the Canadian beer maker Molson and the United States’ Miller Brewing. Although the specific terms of these agreements shifted over the course of the ‘‘How to Speak Australian’’ campaign, Miller was, practically speaking, responsible for Foster’s marketing in the United States. The arrangement allowed Foster’s to take advantage of Miller’s extensive distribution network, but at the same time Foster’s parent company did not have control over the brand’s marketing. This became cause for concern when, because of the terms of the three-way partnership, Foster’s advertising budget was calibrated not just according to its own performance but according to the performance of Molson, whose fortunes were then in decline in the United States. Thus, despite Foster’s sales growth, Miller capped spending on ‘‘How To Speak Australian’’ at approximately $10 million annually through 2000.

TARGET MARKET
As Foster’s beer became established in numerous countries, advertising for the brand was no longer aimed chiefly at Australians but at a broader audience of people who may not have known much about the Australian way of life. In the United States in 1997 the ‘‘How to Speak Australian’’ campaign was directed primarily at male consumers of legal drinking age, 21 to 34 years old, who favored imported beer. That group of consumers had been the main target for the brand’s U.S. advertisements for some time. ‘‘This audience is very advertising-savvy. They want commercials to not only give them a reason to drink Foster’s, but they also want to be entertained. We feel these ads succeed on both levels. Our Foster’s ads try to entertain, show the product attributes, and provide a humorous look into the Australian lifestyle,’’ said Marino. ‘‘Our research shows that Foster’s is viewed as a very unassuming, approachable brand that appeals to both blue-collar and whitecollar audiences.’’

COMPETITION
When, in 1997, the ‘‘How to Speak Australian’’ campaign moved from spot and regional placements to become a national campaign, the leading imported beer brands in the United States were Heineken and Corona Extra. In 1997 Heineken ran an advertising campaign to establish the company’s symbol—a red star on a green background—as a widely recognized icon. One print ad featured a red star floating on the Chicago River, which had been turned green for Saint Patrick’s Day. Another showed a star-shaped display of red Christmas lights against green electrical cord. The campaign had been launched in 1996 with a teaser that consisted of a solitary, unidentified red star on buildings and outdoor billboards. The campaign’s broadcast advertisements showed the Heineken star on objects such as sunglasses and cocktail napkins. Actual conversations among people drinking beer in social situations were recorded and then performed by actors for the commercials. In one spot a man expressed his amazement that his date did not know who wrote Moby Dick, and the woman snapped at him in return. In another spot a man boasted about his state-ofthe-art computer system. His companion commented, ‘‘That’s psychotic. What are you gonna do with all that?’’ The man answered, ‘‘I don’t know. Go online. Meet girls.’’ Another spot showed people discussing the significance of a white radiator on display at an exhibit of modern art. The commercials were intended to convey the message that Heineken was ‘‘authentic’’ while faddish microbrews were not. Heineken spent more than $30 million on print and broadcast advertising in 1997, an increase of 55 percent over its budget for 1996. Another competitor, the top-selling import brand Corona Extra, had experienced slow sales during the late 1980s but had seen a 35.7 percent sales surge in 1996. The Mexican beer was marketed in the United States by two companies, Barton Beers and Gambrinus Co., that operated separate regional promotions. The brand’s U.S. advertising, which revolved around fun and sun at the beach, was widely viewed as instrumental in the brand’s rise to the top of the U.S. import market. Corona’s unwavering commitment to this marketing strategy through the end of the century and beyond was rivaled, among beer advertisers, only by the consistency of Foster’s positioning.
The leading American beers during this time were Budweiser, Bud Light, Miller Lite, and Coors Light. These brands, led by the Bud sibling brands, leveraged marketing budgets 5 to 15 times larger than that of Foster’s.

MARKETING STRATEGY
Foster’s U.S. marketers and the agency Angotti, Thomas, Hedge initially grappled with the problem of creating brand awareness in an environment dominated by bigbudget domestic-beer campaigns. The campaign ran during 1994, 1995, and 1996 in markets including San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Denver, Atlanta, and New York. A warm reception and sales gains led Miller, in 1997, to take the effort national, raising the initial budget from an estimated $3 million to the $10 million figure that was to remain constant, with slight variations, through 2001. During this time the campaign remained extremely faithful to the original concept developed by Angotti, Thomas, Hedge. ‘‘What we’re trying to do is position Foster’s for both a domestic audience and an imported audience,’’ Angotti account director Michael Stoner told Brandweek. ‘‘It has an easygoing, laid back personality. We tried to get that through in the ads.’’ The TV, print, outdoor, and radio executions used Australia’s reputation as a refreshingly untamed land inhabited by tough, no-nonsense, offbeat men and women as a corollary to the values Angotti hoped to attach to the Foster’s brand identity.
The 15-second television commercials opened with an announcer saying in a thick Australian accent, ‘‘How to Speak Australian.’’ The announcer pronounced a word or phrase, and then the commercial illustrated a humorous definition. For example, the spot that defined ‘‘room service’’ showed a live chicken and a meat cleaver being delivered to a guest’s motel room. Another early spot showed the Australian definition of ‘‘No’’: a woman casually tossing a man out of a bar. The spots each ended with an image of a can of Foster’s and the caption ‘‘Beer,’’ followed by a close-up of the brand’s logo and the tagline ‘‘Foster’s. Australian for Beer.’’ Similarly, a billboard used a picture of a dagger labeled ‘‘Australian for dental floss’’ and a picture of a Foster’s can labeled ‘‘Australian for beer.’’ The tagline made it sound as if Australians were so fond of Foster’s that they equated it with the word ‘‘beer’’ and would drink no other brand. Although this was not strictly true—Foster’s was, during the 1990s, Australia’s second-biggest beer brand—all of the various executions during the campaign’s life worked together to convey that single brand message. As the campaign became well known across America, Angotti’s challenge became to keep the commercials fresh through consistently surprising and humorous interpretations of the central conceit. ‘‘Witness Protection Program’’ featured a man dressed in a kangaroo suit living with a gang of kangaroos in the desert. In ‘‘Wake-Up Call’’ an innkeeper tossed an alarm clock through an open motel window, striking a rugged male guest, who grinned as he awoke and sat upright. ‘‘Marriage Counselor’’ depicted a woman winning an arm-wrestling match with a man in a bar, after which a referee said, ‘‘That settles it, mate. Her mum moves in.’’ Another spot showed a great white shark with the caption ‘‘Guppy.’’ Each year Angotti typically produced four to six new executions, and because of the campaign’s consistency, commercials from previous years could be reused seamlessly alongside new spots. The campaign became so successful that the parent company of Foster’s adapted it for use in Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, the Caribbean, and numerous European countries.

OUTCOME
The ‘‘How to Speak Australian’’ campaign won a Silver EFFIE Award for advertising effectiveness and creativity in 1994 and a Gold EFFIE in 1995. Consumers tended to be more familiar with the Foster’s brand than any other brand except Budweiser, and Foster’s commercials were the most popular among brands in the category, according to the Australian American Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles. Jim Mullahy, senior brand manager for Foster’s lager, said, ‘‘We have a lot of fun with Foster’s advertising, and viewers clearly enjoy that humor. Research indicates that ‘How to Speak Australian’ is one of the most widely recognized and memorable ad campaigns for beer. The strong brandbuilding advertising was integral to Foster’s tremendous sales growth, which has been in the double digits for the last five years. In 1997 alone the brand increased more than 25 percent.’’
Foster’s sales again handily outpaced those of the fast-growing import segment as a whole in 1998, ending the year up 20.6 percent, but 1999 saw the brand’s growth slow markedly, to 9.2 percent. By 2000 Foster’s was growing more slowly than the imported-beer category as a whole, and beer-industry analysts routinely spoke of the brew as a missed opportunity for Miller. Because of the Miller-Molson-Foster’s agreement, Miller had never raised spending on Foster’s to the levels that the immense popularity of ‘‘How to Speak Australian’’ seemed to warrant. By the time this restrictive corporate arrangement was reconfigured in late 2000, analysts wondered whether Foster’s might not have missed its chance for sustained success. Although spending was raised to more than $15 million in 2001 and was projected to rise in future years as high as $25 million, Foster’s was not able to capitalize on these increases. By 2003 the brand was in decline in the United States, with sales losses of 7 percent.
In 2000 Angotti, Thomas, Hedge was dissolved. Miller awarded the Foster’s account to J. Walter Thompson of Chicago, and the new agency crafted a 2001 reinterpretation of the ‘‘How to Speak Australian’’ that applied the original campaign concept to urbandwelling Australians. J. Walter Thompson had lost the account by 2002, however, and its successor, WiedenþKennedy, held the Foster’s account for 10 months without selling Miller on any of its ‘‘How to Speak Australian’’ executions. In June 2004 Miller gave the account to another of its roster agencies, Ogilvy & Mather, which was charged with the job of applying the ‘‘Australian for Beer’’ tagline to escapist imagery of the sort that had propelled Foster’s competitor Corona to its spot at the top of the imported-beer market in the United States.