WORRIED ABOUT BILL CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
In 2000 the largest tax-preparation company in the Unites States, H&R Block, Inc., was venturing beyond the niche industry in which it had excelled for 45 years. After a series of acquisitions and changes in upper management, the firm known for preparing tax returns began touting its new mortgage and brokerage services, financial-planning services, and line of personal-finance software. The company’s executives also wanted to brand H&R Block as a financial service available to all Americans, not just high-profile businesses. Assimilating all of the company’s changes into one advertising message, H&R Block released its ‘‘Worried about Bill’’ campaign. Created by the advertising agency Young & Rubicam, ‘‘Worried about Bill’’ broke nationally on January 12, 2000. H&R tripled its advertising budget to finance the $100 million campaign, which employed television, radio, print, and outdoor advertisements. Most of the campaign’s 21 television spots featured the fictional character Bill, who, as the April 15 tax deadline approached, grew increasingly anxious while preparing his taxes. The commercials depicted the frazzled Bill becoming so obsessed with the task that he ignored his wife’s attempts at seduction, allowed his daughter to stay out all night, and eventually looked to his daughter’s boyfriend for financial advice. The campaign’s storyline culminated with Bill, delirious from reading his 1099 tax form, incinerating his financial records in the backyard barbecue.
The campaign collected the Best of Show and two Gold awards for the broadcast category at the 32nd annual American Advertising (ADDY) Awards. It also garnered two Gold awards in the television competition at the One Show’s 2001 ceremony. Besides its ad-industry success, the campaign helped H&R Block boost its 2000 sales 38 percent over the previous year’s sales. David Byers, the company’s chief marketing officer, explained to USA Today, ‘‘We’re very happy with the creativity. The feedback we’ve gotten from consumers has been that it’s been enormously successful for us.’’ Much to Young & Rubicam’s astonishment, H&R Block opened its advertising account up for review only a few months after ‘‘Worried About Bill’’ began.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Henry and Richard Bloch, brothers from Kansas City, Missouri, first offered their tax-preparation services in 1946 under the name United Business Company. The business quickly grew after the Bloch brothers franchised it. Wanting to change the name United Business Company but afraid that consumers would pronounce their last name as ‘‘blotch,’’ Henry and Richard renamed the business H&R Block in 1955. Later in the 1970s Henry appeared in television spots for the company and assured his audience that their taxes were safe with H&R Block.
In 1996 Young & Rubicam won the firm’s advertising account. Some of the agency’s early work for H&R Block included a 20-second radio spot titled ‘‘Proctor,’’ which stressed the importance of privacy by humorously featuring a street-corner proctology exam. The magazine Advertising Age deemed ‘‘Proctor’’ the best radio commercial of 1998. That year H&R Block spent an estimated $30 million on advertising. In 1999 the firm spent $28 million on advertising during the first nine months. Believing that his company could offer more services to its preexisting customers, newly elected H&R Block president Mark Ernst wanted to brand the business as more than just a tax preparer. In 1993 the company had purchased the personal-finance-software company MECA Software; to expand its mortgaging services H&R Block purchased Fleet Financial Group’s Option One Mortgage; and in 1999 the company expanded its brokerage services by acquiring discount brokers Olde Financial Discount. By late 1999 the firm wanted Young & Rubicam to unify its services under the H&R Block brand. The Delaney Report quoted H&R Block chief marketing officer David Byers as saying in 1999, ‘‘We’re going through a major transformation—moving from being a one product company to a financial services powerhouse. H&R Block is a brand that is ubiquitous. We want to capitalize on that as well as on the high degree of trust the consumer has in the brand.’’

TARGET MARKET
‘‘Worried about Bill’’ targeted its preexisting small and medium-sized business customers that trusted H&R Block for their tax preparation but that still relied on brokerages such as the Charles Schwab Corp., Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch & Company for financial planning, mortgaging, and investing. In addition to businesses, the campaign also targeted individuals with similar financial needs. Differing from H&R Block’s advertising during the late 1990s, which suggested that H&R Block was the best firm for preparing taxes, ‘‘Worried about Bill’’ communicated to audiences that the firm offered a wider range of financial services. According to Greg Farrell of USA Today, the campaign attempted the transform ‘‘H&R Block from tax preparer to full financial services company for Middle America.’’ By early 2000 the surge of young entrepreneurs within the burgeoning technology sector had expanded America’s newly wealthy crowd. According to market researcher Spectrem Group, the number of U.S. households with more than $1 million in assets had doubled from 3.45 million in 1994 to 7.1 million in 2000. Spectrem Group also reported that 44 percent of this population felt overwhelmed by the amount of time needed to manage their assets. Sixty percent of the same population believed that there was too much information regarding financial planning. ‘‘Worried about Bill’’ suggested that using H&R Block’s services would make organizing their finances easier.

COMPETITION
The ad agency Emmerling Post released a series of print ads for the asset-management branch of financial holding company the Phoenix Companies in 2000. One print ad featured the text ‘‘Money. It’s not what it used to be,’’ above a picture of a queen dressed in ostentatious clothing beside another woman wearing black leather and a tiara. Other print ads stated, ‘‘Some people still inherit wealth, the rest of us have no choice but to earn it.’’ Specifically targeting an audience composed of the newly wealthy, a third print ad featured a casually dressed young man standing beside a dapper-looking gentleman with the copy, ‘‘New money is different than old money. For one thing, it’s younger.’’ Instead of repeating the trends of other asset-management firms that placed print ads in financial magazines, Phoenix Companies placed Henry appeared in television spots for the company and assured his audience that their taxes were safe with H&R Block.
In 1996 Young & Rubicam won the firm’s advertising account. Some of the agency’s early work for H&R Block included a 20-second radio spot titled ‘‘Proctor,’’ which stressed the importance of privacy by humorously featuring a street-corner proctology exam. The magazine Advertising Age deemed ‘‘Proctor’’ the best radio commercial of 1998. That year H&R Block spent an estimated $30 million on advertising. In 1999 the firm spent $28 million on advertising during the first nine months. Believing that his company could offer more services to its preexisting customers, newly elected H&R Block president Mark Ernst wanted to brand the business as more than just a tax preparer. In 1993 the company had purchased the personal-finance-software company MECA Software; to expand its mortgaging services H&R Block purchased Fleet Financial Group’s Option One Mortgage; and in 1999 the company expanded its brokerage services by acquiring discount brokers Olde Financial Discount. By late 1999 the firm wanted Young & Rubicam to unify its services under the H&R Block brand. The Delaney Report quoted H&R Block chief marketing officer David Byers as saying in 1999, ‘‘We’re going through a major transformation—moving from being a one product company to a financial services powerhouse. H&R Block is a brand that is ubiquitous. We want to capitalize on that as well as on the high degree of trust the consumer has in the brand.’’

TARGET MARKET
‘‘Worried about Bill’’ targeted its preexisting small and medium-sized business customers that trusted H&R Block for their tax preparation but that still relied on brokerages such as the Charles Schwab Corp., Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch & Company for financial planning, mortgaging, and investing. In addition to businesses, the campaign also targeted individuals with similar financial needs. Differing from H&R Block’s advertising during the late 1990s, which suggested that H&R Block was the best firm for preparing taxes, ‘‘Worried about Bill’’ communicated to audiences that the firm offered a wider range of financial services. According to Greg Farrell of USA Today, the campaign attempted the transform ‘‘H&R Block from tax preparer to full financial services company for Middle America.’’ By early 2000 the surge of young entrepreneurs within the burgeoning technology sector had expanded America’s newly wealthy crowd. According to market researcher Spectrem Group, the number of U.S. households with more than $1 million in assets had doubled from 3.45 million in 1994 to 7.1 million in 2000. Spectrem Group also reported that 44 percent of this population felt overwhelmed by the amount of time needed to manage their assets. Sixty percent of the same population believed that there was too much information regarding financial planning. ‘‘Worried about Bill’’ suggested that using H&R Block’s services would make organizing their finances easier.

COMPETITION
The ad agency Emmerling Post released a series of print ads for the asset-management branch of financial holding company the Phoenix Companies in 2000. One print ad featured the text ‘‘Money. It’s not what it used to be,’’ above a picture of a queen dressed in ostentatious clothing beside another woman wearing black leather and a tiara. Other print ads stated, ‘‘Some people still inherit wealth, the rest of us have no choice but to earn it.’’ Specifically targeting an audience composed of the newly wealthy, a third print ad featured a casually dressed young man standing beside a dapper-looking gentleman with the copy, ‘‘New money is different than old money.
For one thing, it’s younger.’’ Instead of repeating the
trends of other asset-management firms that placed print
ads in financial magazines, Phoenix Companies placed

SINGLE MALT CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
Having established what constituted a high advertising budget for its Glenfiddich brand of scotch, nearly $1.7 million, William Grant & Sons Ltd. at the end of 1998 moved its account from New York-based McCann-Erickson Worldwide to a much smaller firm, Gyro Worldwide in Philadelphia. The change marked the end of McCann’s three-year ‘‘The Friday Scotch’’ campaign. Scotch whisky was not usually a product whose advertising attracted enormous attention in the United States, simply because it was not marketed on television or radio. Nor had Glenfiddich or its family-owned Scottish distillery attained enormous exposure in the American market—despite the fact that it was the world’s leading brand of single-malt scotch. For that matter Glenfiddich’s 1998 advertising itself did not make headlines:
the real story was the gathering resurgence of scotch in general and of single-malt scotch in particular—a trend on which Glenfiddich and its competitors sought to capitalize. ‘‘About five years ago,’’ wrote Jerry Shriver in USA Today in 1998, ‘‘a wave of well-heeled consumers began rebelling against the prevailing low-fat/abstemious lifestyle.’’ Shriver went on to note, ‘‘distinctive and pricey single-malt scotches began elbowing aside generic blend whiskies. Then, cigar smokers helped revive cognac, port, and bourbon sales.’’
Despite the renewed interest in scotch among the youthful set, single-malt scotch whisky still suffered from an association with old age, according to Lisa Buckingham in the Guardian: ‘‘Think of whisky and the picture which most readily springs to mind is that of a greying cardigan wearer, nestled contentedly in a high-backed armchair. It is an impression most distillers would give their right arm to eradicate.’’ Age and the changing of the guard between generations were themes that had animated the advertising of Glenfiddich for many years.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Scotch whisky received its name for a simple reason: it came only from Scotland, which in the 1990s had some 100 distilleries. Most of these were of long standing, though few had remained in the hands of their founders’ descendants from the beginning. Thus William Grant & Sons, established in the 1850s and led some 140 years later by the great-great-grandchildren of the founders, was an exception.
The term ‘‘single-malt scotch’’ had little meaning until the latter part of the nineteenth century. Up until that time all scotch was made from malted barley and was distilled unblended; then a distiller by the name of Usher began blending high-grade scotch with less expensive varieties of whisky, using water to further extend the mixture. The resulting whisky was not only cheaper than single-malt but also weaker, which actually proved to be an advantage since it made it more appealing to a wider range of drinkers.
Another benefit to the distiller was the fact that blends were easier to control. Each batch of single malt tended to have its own level of quality, which was consistent throughout the whole batch but did not extend to future batches. The many variables in a blend actually made it more predictable, since a distiller could use varying mixtures to correct for anomalies such as bitterness.
Thanks to these factors, single-malt had all but disappeared by the end of World War II. Scotch itself continued to be popular, but by the late 1960s liquor consumption began to decline and was increasingly confined to older and older drinkers. The young, who became ever more health-conscious in the 1980s, saw liquor as something their parents drank. Yet in the early to mid-1990s there came a popular backlash against those values of the 1980s. This was accompanied by the stigmatization of ‘‘political correctness’’ and an embracing of fashions from the 1950s and early ‘60s, albeit reinterpreted for the ‘90s. The change in the zeitgeist extended to diet: thus red meat, vilified for many years, was in again. So were martinis, cigars instead of cigarettes, and single-malt scotch.

TARGET MARKET
Driving the new trends toward single-malt scotch and other fashions was the same youthful market that made crooner Tony Bennett one of the most popular performers on MTV. In 1998 James B. Arndorfer of Advertising Age speculated that William Grant would introduce ‘‘shooter-type drinks aimed at young adults,’’ and though a William Grant executive declined to comment on this supposition, vice chairman Grant Gordon—great-grandson of one of the company’s founders—told a reporter for the Indian edition of Business Line that ‘‘Our targetgroup all over the world is the 25-30 age.’’ Gordon went on to add something that seemed to contradict his first statement: ‘‘Whisky is for mature drinkers.’’ What he meant, of course, was that it was not for people who had merely reached legal drinking age, a clientele more inclined toward beer. The youngest drinkers, after all, would not typically be able to afford the prices associated with higher grades of scotch. According to Peter Simoncelli, food and beverage director at the Four Seasons hotel in Chicago, ‘‘the trend is to order the 18-or 25-year-old selections at prices up to $23 a pour.’’ Such prices fit with the upscale ‘‘menus’’ of cigar bars. ‘‘Cigar rooms in restaurants provide a clublike setting,’’ said Curt Burns of Chicago’s Hudson Club, quoted in the Orlando Sentinel, ‘‘and since it takes time to smoke a great cigar, it’s tempting to sip a special spirit too. The need to spend $10 to $18 for a snifter hasn’t scared anyone off.’’ Burns was referring to brandy or cognac, but similar rules applied to single-malt scotches. Yet price, combined with the long-standing image associated with scotch, meant that brands such as Glenfiddich had to overcome resistance among the young. According to Mike Dennis in SuperMarketing, a British survey in 1997 revealed that 62 percent of regular whisky drinkers were 50 years old or older.

COMPETITION
The British study also showed that 61 percent of vodka drinkers, by contrast, were in the 18-to-34 age group. Vodka, the star component in the martini, thus represented one of Glenfiddich’s primary competitors. Then there were the 100-plus makers of scotch whisky. Dominating the scotch industry, in terms of quality appraisal if not sales, were six distilleries that earned a five-star rating from British connoisseur Michael Jackson, arguably the world’s leading authority on scotch. These six distilleries were the Macallan, Auchentoshan, the Glenlivet, Highland Park, Lagavulin, and Springbank. As for the top scotch in terms of U.S. sales, that position was held by Dewar’s; but Glenfiddich still held the lead in Great Britain, with a 22 percent market share, and in the world, where it enjoyed a 27 percent share. According to an October 1998 report in the Herald, three brands had managed to overcome vicissitudes in the market, such as a decline in overall growth of whisky sales in Europe and North America. These three brands were Glenfiddich, Laphroaig, and Glenmorangie, each of which had reached a ‘‘respectable’’ 13 percent increase in sales during the year. Of Glenfiddich, a commentator in Off Licence News (‘‘off licence’’ is the British term for a liquor store) wrote, ‘‘It is sold in 190 nations. Considering [that] the United Nations has just 185 members, that’s pretty impressive brand penetration.’’ Hence William Grant marketing manager Patrick Tully spoke proudly of Glenfiddich as the ‘‘category captain.’’ Certainly maintenance of a distinct identity proved crucial in a heavily segmented industry. William Rice in the Orlando Sentinel quoted Ronny Millar of United Distillers as saying, ‘‘One thing is clear: if you try to duplicate a whisky at another distillery, it won’t work.’’ But in the sudden rush to single-malt brands that characterized the market during the late 1990s, numerous scotch makers either attempted to get on the bandwagon or to shore up existing offerings. Dewar’s announced plans in 1998 to introduce a ‘‘high malt content’’ 12-year-old scotch, and Bowmo represented a ‘‘cask strength’’ malt. The latter had a higher alcohol content than most single malts, up to 120 proof; Glenfiddich also marketed its own cask strength variety.

MARKETING STRATEGY
In 1996 Glenfiddich and McCann-Erickson ran 90-second spots on British television in a campaign that cost 1.5 million pounds, or about $2.5 million. The spots focused on a father and son, whose dialogue emphasized the concept of scotch as a tradition passed down through generations. At the end of the commercial, the two shook hands, and the father handed his son a small bottle of Glenfiddich.
This advertising represented a shift from past Glenfiddich marketing, which was built around images of Scottish heritage and time-honored techniques of distilling.
In the United States at about the same time,
McCann-Erickson launched ‘‘The Friday Scotch,’’ a series of print ads centering around the idea of scotch as an element of good times and celebration. During this period William Grant dramatically increased its advertising, establishing an annual budget as high as $10 million for all its brands. In 1997 it devoted $3 million to Glenfiddich and Frangelico alone, and by 1998 it was spending 1 million pounds, or about $1.68 million, on Glenfiddich.
‘‘We have outstanding brands,’’ Mark Teasdale, senior vice president for marketing, told Advertising Age in April 1998, ‘‘and we’re going to aggressively get back to building their upscale status.’’ At the same time William Grant moved away from its exclusive relationship with McCann, first by signing Grace & Rothschild of New York to handle all brands except for Glenfiddich. Teasdale suggested that the company would be reviewing its ‘‘Friday Scotch’’ campaign but declined to discuss future plans; meanwhile, as Arndorfer reported in Advertising Age, Glenfiddich sales in the stateside market had leveled off at 95,000 cases in 1996, the last year for which sales information was available.
By December 1998 Glenfiddich was running a new campaign in Britain. Posters displayed at bus stops and shopping centers asked ‘‘How much do you love your next-door neighbour?’’ and ‘‘How much do you love your father-in-law?’’ According to a report in Off Licence News, First Drinks Brands, distributor of Glenfiddich in Great Britain, had conducted research which showed that ‘‘consumers hold their beloved bottle of single malt in such high esteem that they are likely to hide it away when expecting a high influx of visitors, and offer their guest less prized drams instead.’’

OUTCOME
William Grant spent one million pounds on the British poster campaign and by the end of 1998 was prepared for a new assault on the U.S. market—with a new advertising agency. Thus on one of the last business days of the year, December 22, the New York Times reported that the company was prepared to drop its ‘‘Friday Scotch’’ campaign. According to Teasdale, the latter had run ‘‘for about three years and delivered some solid numbers,’’ but apparently it was time for a change. That change came with the December selection of Gyro Worldwide as the U.S. agency for Glenfiddich. McCann would still handle other advertising throughout the world, but the choice of Gyro represented a clear desire to appeal to a more youthful, MTV-influenced market. The Philadelphia agency, as the New York Times reported, was ‘‘known for provocative campaigns aimed at consumers in the 20’s and 30’s for such products as clothing, alcoholic beverages, and cigarettes.’’ Gyro’s techniques had not always won praise from critics of advertising: its print ads for clothing retailer Zipper Head, for instance, showed convicted mass murderer Charles Manson along with the headline, ‘‘Everyone has the occasional urge to go wild and do something completely outrageous.’’
In 1999 a new William Grant marketing director, Heather Graham, signaled the company’s interest in a new agency to handle its British advertising, primarily on television. During the spring of that year, it launched an agency review with the help of pitch consultant Agency Assessments, and by July BMP DDB had won the British account for William Grant. Universal McCann would continue to oversee media buying in the British market. If anything was clear about William Grant in general, or its Glenfiddich single-malt advertising in particular, it was the fact that changes were afoot. As Off Licence News reported in November 1998, ‘‘there are clearly busy times ahead for Glenfiddich and William Grant. Whether the brand succeeds in maintaining the momentum in the malt market or not over the next few years, no one will be able to turn around and accuse it of not trying.’’

ON THE WINGS OF GOODYEAR CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
Upon regaining its title as the world’s largest tire manufacturer in 1999, the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company broke sales records and was busy collecting the tattered market shares of its competitors. Its competitor Bridgestone/Firestone Retail & Commercial Operations suffered notably in 2000, when tires made by the company malfunctioned, causing some 200 deaths. In an attempt to gain even more ground over the competition and create a campaign outside of its traditional format, Goodyear decided to embark upon a new campaign. Goodyear awarded its $60 million advertising contract to San Francisco–based Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. The resulting television and print campaign, called ‘‘On the Wings of Goodyear,’’ began over Labor Day weekend in 2001. The agency tailored ‘‘On the Wings of Goodyear’’ for viewers who were previously unresponsive to product-centered tire commercials. ‘‘It really wasn’t about the tires. It was more about the role that tires, and specifically Goodyear tires, play in people’s lives,’’ Cathryn Fischer, Goodyear’s vice president and chief global marketing officer, told the PR Newswire. Three different 30-second spots, all centering on the experience of travel, aired across network and cable programming. The commercials continued into 2003 and focused on universal travel themes; for instance, one spot depicted families from different cultures on road trips, all with children asking, ‘‘Are we there yet?’’ from the backseat. Aiming at a wider target than past campaigns, six print variations of ‘‘On the Wings of Goodyear’’ appeared in consumer magazines.
By 2003 Michelin North America and Bridgestone had rallied back, knocking Goodyear to the number three position. Analysts attributed Goodyear’s market slip to its restructuring attempts, which involved consolidating factories and performing cost-cutting measures. Even though ‘‘On the Wings of Goodyear’’ did not draw many accolades from the ad industry, it forced all tire makers to rethink using a technical pitch to sell their products to Americans. In 2004 Goodyear ended its relationship with Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and reassigned responsibilities to Arnold Worldwide, but the company continued to use the tagline ‘‘On the Wings of Goodyear.’’

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Goodyear was founded in 1898 and led the world’s tire market by 1916. Throughout the twentieth century it oscillated in and out of the number one spot in the tire industry. By 1990, however, Goodyear had been suffering so drastically that it lost money for the first time since the Great Depression. With the help of CEO Stanley Gault, Goodyear by 1999 had rallied back and regained its position as market leader. Gault moved the company’s tire sales outside Goodyear’s retail stores by forging partnerships with Wal-Mart, Kmart, and Sears. Goodyear also benefited from the misfortune of its competitor Firestone when Firestone Wilderness AT tires malfunctioned on Ford Explorers. Ford replaced them with Goodyear-made tires.
In 2001 Goodyear ended its 15-year relationship with ad agency J. Walter Thompson, which had orchestrated Goodyear’s straight-shooting ‘‘Serious Freedom’’ campaign. The campaign included spots that explained to consumers the inner workings of tires. Advertising commentators criticized ‘‘Serious Freedom,’’ along with campaigns launched by Michelin and Bridgestone, for not differentiating the brands from one another. Except for a handful of tire enthusiasts, most consumers described tire commercials ‘‘simply as a lot of tires,’’ Fischer told the PR Newswire. In an attempt to reach a wider audience, Goodyear hired Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to craft its advertising. Saul Ludwig, an industry analyst, said to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, ‘‘Goodyear is getting in with their new ad program, while Firestone is on the sidelines, and Michelin is in the process of changing their advertising. Goodyear hasn’t had a brand problem. Goodyear is acting out of strength, not out of weakness.’’

TARGET MARKET
Goodyear’s new campaign targeted a much broader market than its previous ‘‘Serious Freedom’’ campaign, which had appealed to male, sports-orientated tire consumers. In contrast ‘‘On the Wings of Goodyear’’ focused on safety-minded consumers with an affinity for travel. Awareness about tire-safety issues, however, did not automatically translate into brand awareness. ‘‘Surprisingly, even with all the Firestone stuff, it’s not on people’s minds,’’ Harold Sogard, general manager of Goodby, explained in an interview with the Plain Dealer. ‘‘If you go ask your neighbors what kind they are driving on, they don’t have a clue.’’ Research conducted before the campaign showed that most consumers never purchased tires with a brand in mind. The company concluded that explaining tire safety with a heartfelt narrative would make a more vivid impression.
To make sure the ads connected with consumers, Goodyear first screened the campaign for 20,000 of its employees. A.J. Faught, vice president of Goodyear affiliate Northwest Tire & Service in Flint, Michigan, told Tire Business, ‘‘So many tire ads look so technical, which doesn’t appeal to anyone other than the enthusiast. This campaign goes straight to the point about safety. Safety is a big issue right now with consumers, who don’t want to have to worry about their tires.’’ Goodyear employees felt that the new campaign was more ‘‘touchy-feely’’ and that it would indeed strike a chord with a larger demographic.

COMPETITION
Bridgestone/Firestone had worked its way up to be the world’s largest tire manufacturer by 2003. This was despite the fact that Firestone tires had notoriously shredded on Ford Explorers in 2000, leading to the deaths of more than 200 people. Further investigation into the tragedy’s causes shifted blame onto Ford. One source quoted a Ford Motors spokesperson as admitting, ‘‘Something about the car caused it to roll over and crash, no matter what tires it was riding on.’’ In 2000 Bridgestone/Firestone reported a $2.8 billon loss over the previous year. By 2002 Bridgestone had rebounded with a sales growth of 16.5 percent, reaching almost $19 billion and surpassing Goodyear’s $13.8 billion. Until 2001 Bridgestone had primarily advertised with sponsorships at motor-sports events. After 2000 the company began moving advertising into wider markets, shifted efforts from Firestone to Bridgestone, and premiered two TV spots at the start of the 2002 Olympic Games. For the first six months of 2001 Bridgestone spent $12 million on advertising, a significant increase from the $400,000 the same period the year before. Despite the accidents Bridgestone continued marketing Firestone tires. Grey Worldwide, the advertising firm handling the Bridgestone account, told Advertising Age in 2002, ‘‘We are not going to abandon a more than 100-year-old brand. Firestone has a rich heritage and it’s the tire you can rely on.’’
While Goodyear’s ‘‘On the Wings of Goodyear’’ campaign ran, its competitor Michelin drifted between being the second- and third-largest tire manufacturer in the world. Focusing most of its efforts in North America, the South Carolina corporation had $7 billion in sales during 2002 and grew 14 percent. In 2002 Michelin launched a television, print, and outdoor campaign that featured Michelin’s longtime mascot, Bibendum, the plump character made of white tires. The campaign’s first TV spot, ‘‘Guardian Angels,’’ was created by Palmer Jarvis DDB and capitalized on the consumer’s need for safety. The 30-second commercial featured Bibendum making snow angels, followed by the tagline ‘‘Your guardian angel this winter.’’ Another Michelin spot, ‘‘Shuttle,’’ featured Bibendum entering a NASA space shuttle, which also used Michelin tires, just before its launch. The campaign focused primarily on consumer satisfaction and safety issues, as opposed to tire performance.

MARKETING STRATEGY
Before releasing the ‘‘On the Wings of Goodyear’’ campaign, Goodyear had 20,000 of its employees preview the first television spots in August of 2001. Each 30-second commercial centered on a specific theme: carpooling, family vacations, and the morning commute. All three aired for the public during Labor Day weekend, and six print ads began appearing in consumer magazines such as Time, People, and Newsweek. Goodby, Silverstein & Partners wanted to venture outside Goodyear’s previous target market, sports-centric males. The television spots ran during a wide range of prime-time television programs, including 60 Minutes, The Drew Carey Show, Everybody Loves Raymond, and 48 Hours. Firestone’s disaster had made the public acutely sensitive to tire safety, a concept Goodby drove home with ‘‘On the Wings of Goodyear.’’ The campaign attempted to imply that Goodyear’s tires would keep drivers and passengers safer, which in turn would increase consumer desire for Goodyear tires. One 30-second spot, ‘‘Carpooling,’’ which dwelled exclusively on the theme of safety, featured a young girl being carpooled. The spot’s voice-over warned, ‘‘She’s not your daughter, but if you give her a ride home, she might as well be.’’ Another spot, ‘‘Morning Commute,’’ carried a lighter tone and featured a car full of office workers. The driver was constantly swerving to avoid random furniture and housewares left in the road.
One of the campaign’s most memorable spots, first airing on September 1, 2001, featured four families from different ethnic backgrounds on road trips. The spot, directed by Bryan Buckley of the production company Hungry Man, played on the universality of bored children enduring family road trips. The commercial began with an American family traveling in a midsize sedan. A little girl in the back seat asked, ‘‘Are we there yet?’’ to which the father grunted, ‘‘No.’’ The next shot featured a second family road-tripping through snow-capped mountains, and a similar ‘‘Are we there yet?’’ exchange took place, but in subtitled Russian. A third road trip, in the middle of a rainstorm, unfolded, but this time the family spoke Chinese. The last shot featured an African family all speaking a tribal click dialect and speeding across the desert in a Land Rover. Two young boys in back asked if they had arrived at their destination yet. The mother finally snapped, ‘‘If you ask me that again, I have to stop this car!’’
Later television spots, gravitating around similar themes of safety and introducing Goodyear’s Run-Flat technology, broke in 2003. One television spot, ‘‘Screw,’’ showed a screw tumbling from a skyscraper and onto the street. After a car ran over it, a voice-over explained, ‘‘Sharp steel is no match for smart rubber. Tires with Run-Flat technology.’’ Print ads ran during 2003 as well. Harry Cocciolo, creative director for Goodby, Silverstein & Partners during 2003, told Adweek, ‘‘We tried to find ways to remind people that tires can really make a difference. The Run-Flat technology is being used by Humvees in the military. These are really great proof points that haven’t been taken advantage of.’’ Adweek selected the Goodyear commercial ‘‘Bouncing Balls’’ as one of the best spots of April 2003. The surreal spot featured a driver heading down a street that suddenly filled with bouncing balls. Seconds later children began chasing the balls. The driver slammed on his brakes, and a voice-over remarked, ‘‘The unexpected can be planned for. Tires with proven stopping power.’’

OUTCOME
By 2003 Goodyear had again slipped to number three among tire makers. But despite the fact that ‘‘On the Wings of Goodyear’’ coincided with a decline in Goodyear’s sales (from $14.1 billion to $13.8 billion in one year), the campaign was important for reshaping the advertising paradigm that tire makers had used for years. As John Polhemus, president of Goodyear’s North American operations, told Tire Business, ‘‘It’s a dramatic departure from the type of product-and-technologyfocused advertising that Goodyear has used in the past, and quite frankly, a departure for the tire industry itself.’’ In 2002 Michelin and Bridgestone began tailoring advertising efforts around safety and brand awareness instead of product design.
The majority of industry analysts blamed Goodyear’s 2002 backslide on the company’s restructuring efforts rather than on Goodby’s campaign work. The closing of factories and laying off of thousands of workers resulted in an $85 million decrease in annual operating costs. In 2003 Goodyear also sold most of its stock in Sumitomo Rubber Industries, which had sustained the company for decades. To exacerbate Goodyear’s problems even further, it became entangled in an agediscrimination lawsuit.
‘‘On the Wings of Goodyear’’ did score minor adindustry points when Adweek chose the ‘‘Bouncing Balls’’ commercial as one of the best spots of April 2003. By 2004 Goodyear had signed its creative efforts over to Arnold Worldwide, but it continued using the tagline ‘‘On the Wings of Goodyear.’’

GODADDY.COM SUPER BOWL COMMERCIAL CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
By 2004 Go Daddy Software had become a leader in the Internet domain-name registration industry, buying available domain names and then selling themto individuals and businesses for a yearly fee. In 2004 the company embarked on its first national marketing effort, contracting New York agency the Ad Store to help make Go Daddy and the GoDaddy.com website known to mainstream America via a TV spot for Super Bowl XXXIX. That Super Bowl, played on February 6, 2005, was the first since the infamous ‘‘wardrobe malfunction’’ that had resulted in pop singer Janet Jackson’s breast being exposed on the air during the previous year’s halftime show. Among the results of the public outcry following the incidentwas increased pressure on Super Bowl advertisers to avoid risque´ images and themes. Go Daddy chose to fly in the face of this pressure by running a sexually suggestive commercial that lampooned the prevailing climate of censorship.
With a 30-second Super Bowl spot costing $2.4 million, Go Daddy’s decision to advertise twice during the game represented a considerable risk for such an unknown company. Additional production expenses approached $1 million. The spot featured a buxom woman undergoing Congressional questioning in order to gain approval to appear in a commercial for GoDaddy.com. As the woman pointed to the GoDaddy.com logo on the front of her tight tank top, one of the shirt’s straps broke, a wardrobe malfunction that was met with camera flashes and shocked exclamations as the woman continued to explain what GoDaddy.com was. The commercial aired as planned during the first quarter of the Super Bowl, but then, apparently because of the protests of a National Football League executive, Fox neglected to run the spot during the second on-air slot that Go Daddy had purchased. The spot was rated one of the Super Bowl’s most memorable, but it was the controversy surrounding the network’s refusal to air it a second time that proved to be Go Daddy’s true marketing coup. The numerous media stories about Fox’s censorship of a commercial about censorship gave Go Daddy nearly $12 million in free publicity. The company continued to run TV spots featuring the tank-top-clad woman, including a spot during Super Bowl XL that made reference to the previous year’s commercial.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Bob Parsons sold his first successful company, Parsons Technology, in 1994, and in 1997 he used the proceeds to start a new company, Jomax Technologies. Unsatisfied with the Jomax name, Parsons and his staff came up with the more arresting moniker Go Daddy. As Parsons told Wall Street Transcripts, the name worked ‘‘because the domain name GoDaddy.com was available, but we also noticed that when people hear that name, two things happen. First, they smile. Second, they remember it.’’ After an unsuccessful attempt to establish the company as a source for website-building software, Parsons reinvented Go Daddy as a registrar of Internet domain names, buying unused website names and then reselling them to individuals and businesses in need of an online presence. Go Daddy also offered auxiliary services and products enabling customers to launch their sites after the domain-name purchase, including (as in the company’s early days) software for building sites. Domain-name registration, however, was a burgeoning industry as America became increasingly wired and more and more businesses found it essential to establish a Web presence. By 2004 Go Daddy had sold nearly seven million domain names and was the world’s leading registrar of domain names. Up to that point the company had done little marketing, relying primarily on word-of-mouth buzz and low prices; Go Daddy offered domain names for $8.95, compared with fees of $35 at the industry’s high end.
In late 2004 Go Daddy enlisted New York agency the Ad Store for its first sustained offline advertising campaign. The company announced that the campaign would make its TV debut during the 2005 Super Bowl, a move that drew widespread criticism, partly because of the recent history of Super Bowl advertising undertaken by dot-com companies. Dot-com advertising on the Super Bowl had been prevalent in the late 1990s and in the first few years of the new century but had been nearly absent from the game since the bursting of the Internet bubble, leading many industry observers to connect such Super Bowl airtime purchases with the fiscal irresponsibility characteristic of failed dot-coms. Parsons argued that his company was different. As he told Brandweek, ‘‘Back in ‘99 . . . dot-coms raised money on ideas that weren’t viable. But we are the leader in our industry and actually do make money.’’
The 2005 Super Bowl presented a uniquely restrictive environment for advertisers. During the previous year’s Super Bowl halftime show a much-publicized ‘‘wardrobe malfunction’’ had occurred that resulted in the on-air exposure of pop singer Janet Jackson’s breast. The uproar surrounding this incident led some critics to address what they saw as the related indecency of much of that year’s Super Bowl advertising. 2004 Super Bowl commercials singled out for censure had included a Budweiser spot featuring flatulent Clydesdale horses and numerous commercials promoting erectiledysfunction drugs. Both the National Football League and the Federal Communications Commission were exerting pressure on Fox, the broadcaster carrying the 2005 game, to ensure that newly rigorous standards of decency were upheld during Super Bowl XXXIX.

TARGET MARKET
Parsons told Brandweek that Go Daddy targeted ‘‘everyone who wants a [W]eb presence.’’ Go Daddy’s domainname prices were among the industry’s least expensive, and it offered a range of website-management services that comparably priced competitors did not; therefore, Parsons and his colleagues believed that the company would continue to grow rapidly as long as it could make a wider public aware of its brand. The Super Bowl, of course, offered one of the last giant television audiences in an age of fragmenting viewership, and it was annually the most watched television program in America by a wide margin. Super Bowl XXXIX was expected to reach 130 million U.S. viewers, though the actual number of viewers watching the game at any given time was estimated at closer to 90 million.
If Go Daddy could make a splash with an audience of this size, it could count on a much greater degree of brand awareness among the American population at large. Though that year’s restrictions on the content of Super Bowl commercials limited the degree to which advertisers could use provocative imagery and messages, Go Daddy and the Ad Store nevertheless charted an intentionally controversial course as a means of standing out from the field of high-profile advertisers. The Go Daddy commercial thus featured an attractive female model in sexually suggestive attire and in a context that directly parodied the political hysteria surrounding the previous year’s halftime incident.

COMPETITION
Among Go Daddy’s top competitors was Network Solutions, which was introduced as a technologyconsulting company in 1979, making it a veritable ancient in the online world. Network Solutions was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation in 1993 to create a single domain-name registration service for the Internet, which effectively gave the company a monopoly in the industry of domain-name registration until 1999, when the field was opened to competition. The Internet-security and telecommunications company VeriSign acquired Network Solutions at the height of the dot-com bubble in 2000, for $15 billion (the largest Internet merger in history at that point). The company’s 2003 sale to Pivotal Equity was a measure of the changes in the dot-com world in the interim: the purchase price this time was $100 million.
Register.com was another of Go Daddy’s rival domain-name registrars. The company was founded as a domain-name registrar in 1994, and it was one of the five original companies selected for entry into the newly opened market in 1999. Like Network Solutions, Register.com had Internet-bubble baggage. The company made its initial public offering on March 3, 2000, a week before the Nasdaq peaked, at a price of $24 per share; by the end of that first trading day, Register.com was priced at $57.25 per share. Register.com shares climbed to $116 before the dot-com bubble definitively burst. By 2005 the company’s shares were hovering between $5 and $6 and were considered by many analysts to be a good value for the money.

MARKETING STRATEGY
The official price for 30 seconds of Super Bowl XXXIX airtime was $2.4 million, and Go Daddy bought two such blocks of time, intending to run the same commercial twice, once in the first quarter of the game and once just before the two-minute warning at the game’s end. (Media-industry insiders contended, however, that publicized Super Bowl advertising rates were akin to sticker prices on automobiles and that advertisers ultimately did not pay the full amount.) Go Daddy’s expenses were not limited to the media-buying cost; the company invested close to $1 million in production of its Super Bowl commercial, an amount of money equivalent to the yearly marketing budget of comparably sized companies. Part of this expense was a result of unforeseen problems with Fox in the weeks leading up to the game. As Tim Arnold, managing partner at the Ad Store, recounted after the fact in Adweek, Fox approved storyboards of the Go Daddy commercial on December 3, 2004 (just over two months prior to the Super Bowl, which was played on February 6, 2005), only to withdraw that approval on December 22, after the commercial was already in preproduction. After Fox placed new restrictions on the commercial—including a demand that the words ‘‘wardrobe malfunction’’ be removed from the script—the Ad Store shot ‘‘16 and a half’’ versions of the spot to account for all possible objections the network might yet make. The network continued to reject proposed versions of the commercial until the week before the game, at which point Go Daddy finally received grudging permission to use the airtime for which it had already paid in excess of $4 million.
The commercial reproduced the look of the C-SPAN network (known for its live coverage of Congressional matters), with a banner at the bottom of the screen informing viewers that they were witnessing ‘‘Broadcast Censorship Hearings’’ in Salem, Massachusetts. A woman named Nikki Cappelli (played by Candice Michelle), wearing a tight-fitting tank top and jeans in an otherwise formally dressed crowd, explained to the Congressional committee that she wanted to be in a commercial. When asked what she was advertising, she stood and pointed to the chest of her tank top, on which the GoDaddy.com name was printed, and as she began to inform the panelists about the company’s identity, a strap on her top snapped, threatening to reveal her breasts and triggering a flurry of camera flashes and gasps from onlookers. Asked what she would do in the commercial, Cappelli stood and performed a dance with her arms in the air, again triggering shocked gasps and camera flashes. A Congressional panelist then said, ‘‘Surely by now you must realize that you’re upsetting the committee.’’ Cappelli earnestly replied, ‘‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset the committee,’’ as an elderly committee member was shown putting an oxygen mask to his face. A black screen featuring the message ‘‘See more coverage at GoDaddy.com’’ then appeared—a reference to an uncensored and more sexually suggestive version of the ‘‘hearings’’ that was available for viewing on the website—and the commercial closed with the voice of a female committee member saying, ‘‘May I suggest a turtleneck?’’ The commercial never made its second appearance on the Super Bowl. After airing it in its assigned firstquarter spot, Fox decided not to run it in the fourth quarter, reportedly because of complaints made by a high-level National Football League executive.

OUTCOME
During the Super Bowl traffic to GoDaddy.com spiked by 378 percent, and a survey conducted one and then two days after the Super Bowl found that the Go Daddy commercial was the most memorable of all spots that ran during the game. It was the story of Fox’s decision not to air the commercial a second time, however, that proved most useful to the company. The censorship of a commercial that itself poked fun at overzealous censorship proved irresistible to the media, especially in the context of the ongoing commentary about standards of broadcast decency. As word of this incident spread, Go Daddy became by far the most talked-about Super Bowl advertiser. The buzz surrounding the brand in the game’s aftermath—measured as ‘‘share of voice,’’ the percentage of times that Go Daddy was mentioned in stories about the Super Bowl that ran on national, cable, and the top 50 local TV networks—was calculated at 51.4 percent between February 7 and 11, 2005. Go Daddy received nearly $12 million in free publicity, and many of the TV stories about the incident replayed portions of the commercial. Bob Parsons said in a press release, ‘‘Go Daddy accomplished exactly what it set out to achieve with its first-ever Super Bowl ad—increased brand awareness. Today, millions of people now know about GoDaddy.com, which in turn has generated significant new business.’’ The magazine Business 2.0 declared the Go Daddy Super Bowl effort the ‘‘Smartest Ad Campaign’’ of 2005.
Though Go Daddy allowed its contract with the Ad Store to expire soon after the 2005 Super Bowl, moving its creative duties in-house, the company’s subsequent advertising conformed closely to the model established by the Super Bowl commercial. The actress who played Nikki Cappelli, Candice Michelle, continued to appear in Go Daddy spots that drew overt attention to her sexual appeal, and she became known as the ‘‘Go Daddy Girl.’’ In 2006 she appeared in a Go Daddy spot that ran during the NFL Playoffs, and Go Daddy again struggled to get a spot approved for the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl XL commercial, which rehashed material from the previous year’s spot, again ran in an extended form on the company website, as did alternate versions of other Go Daddy commercials. Website visitors could read a detailed history of Go Daddy’s attempt to gain approval for its 2006 Super Bowl entry and could also view numerous spots that had been denied, suggesting that the company’s battles against censorship had become increasingly self-conscious and premeditated. Go Daddy continued to grow rapidly.

ANYTHING ELSE WOULD BE UNCIVILIZED CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
The Gillette Company enjoyed a position of dominance in men’s toiletries, a broad category that included not only deodorants and antiperspirants but also such items as pre- and aftershave products. Deodorants and antiperspirants, however, remained the largest product categories in toiletries, with Gillette’s Right Guard brand among the leaders. Gillette had attained its leadership in the market through a combination of new product development, technological innovation, and an expanding global presence.
By the mid-1990s marketers of deodorants and antiperspirants were no longer emphasizing protection against odor but rather various aesthetic factors. New developments included products that were clear and that left no residue on clothing as well as protectants that were formulated to glide on easily. This new approach in product development and marketing came at a time when sales of antiperspirants and deodorants had begun to stagnate, a sign that the market was saturated. With the advent of clear gels and sticks, however, the market began growing again. Not unexpectedly, industry leader Gillette was in the forefront of the growth. Seeking continuity in its marketing, it rolled out its clear stick and clear gel products under the banner of its long-running ‘‘Anything Else Would Be Uncivilized’’ campaign, using famous athletes in unlikely situations to promote the new items. Although response to the campaign was mixed, Gillette was able to maintain and even improve upon its market share.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
For almost a century Gillette had been the worldwide leader in products for male grooming, a category originally comprising blades, razors, and other shaving accoutrements. But toiletries for men came to form only a portion of the company’s vast global sales. Gillette also achieved a dominant market position in writing implements, correction products, and toothbrushes and oral care appliances. Relying on its traditional strengths of research and development, advertising, and geographic expansion, the company managed to continue to sustain its growth. Founded in Boston in 1901 by King C. Gillette, the company introduced the world’s first safety razor two years later. A patent for the device followed in 1904. In 1905 Gillette expanded outside the United States, establishing a sales office in London and a manufacturing operation in Paris. The famous Gillette Blue Blade was introduced in 1932 and an innovative dispenser that eliminated the need to unwrap razor blades after World War II. Gillette diversified its operations after the war. In 1955 it acquired the Paper Mate Pen Company, an expansion into the area of stationery that it has maintained since. Hoping to secure its grip on the toiletries market, Gillette introduced Right Guard aerosol deodorant in 1960. Brisk sales of the deodorant, along with innovations in shaving products, pushed annual Gillette sales past the $1 billion mark for the first time in 1973. In the 1980s Gillette continued to expand by acquiring Liquid Paper Corp., a maker of correction products, and Oral-B Laboratories, a toothbrush manufacturer. But the company had to fend off numerous hostile takeover bids, and it embarked on a dramatic restructuring program in order to increase profitability. In 1990 the company introduced the Sensor shaving system in 16 countries. Since that time Gillette has continued to seek competitive advantage in its three businesses: personal grooming products, stationery products, and small electrical appliances. By 1997 sales exceeded $10 billion. With a workforce of 44,000 in 63 facilities worldwide, the company distributed its products in more than 200 countries and territories around the globe.
By sharing resources among its units to optimize performance, Gillette hoped to nurture sustained sales and profit growth. Its plan was to maintain its market dominance by shrewdly investing in the technologies that were vital to success in each of its core businesses. This strategy informed the 1993 launch of Gillette Series Clear Gel antiperspirant. This product was followed in 1996 by the introduction of clear stick products under the Gillette and Right Guard brand names. The company’s stated mission, however, remained unchanged—
‘‘to offer consumers products of the highest level of performance for value.’’

TARGET MARKET
‘‘Anything Else Would Be Uncivilized’’ was first introduced as the tag line in Right Guard ads in 1986. The New York advertising agency NW Ayer & Partners had created the commercials to appeal to sports-loving male consumers. Early spots featured such sports celebrities as the basketball player Charles Barkley, football’s Brian Bosworth, baseball player Kirk Gibson, boxer Marvin Hagler, and wrestler Terry ‘‘Hulk’’ Hogan, along with action film star Chuck Norris. The common trait of these celebrity spokesmen was an aggressive nature and tough-guy demeanor.
With the launch of Right Guard Clear Stick Antiperspirant and Deodorant in 1996, Gillette again turned to NW Ayer to create an appeal to the active male. The agency developed a new print and television ad campaign featuring Scottie Pippen of the National Basketball Association (NBA) champion Chicago Bulls. By placing a highly recognizable sports star in an unfamiliar visual context—in this case on a croquet lawn—the ad team hoped to provide a juxtaposition that would grab the attention of the male sports fans who bought Right Guard.

COMPETITION
By the mid-1990s Gillette had reasons to be concerned about its toiletries business. According to data from Information Resources, sales of deodorants and antiperspirants in food, drug, and mass-merchandising stores fell 1.1 percent in 1996 to $1.4 billion. Among the top five leading brands, only Procter & Gamble’s Secret and Colgate-Palmolive’s Mennen registered sales gains. The dollar sales of Secret rose 3 percent, while Mennen’s sales increased 13.1 percent. According to Mennen’s own figures, its Speed Stick grew two to three times faster than its other brands.
The tremendous rise in Speed Stick sales could be explained by three key factors: the introduction of Speed Stick gel in March 1996, improvements to the traditional stick formula that kept cannibalization of existing products to a minimum, and an aggressive marketing program that motivated consumers. Because of the success of Speed Stick, Gillette moved quickly to replicate the formula.

MARKETING STRATEGY
In the category of clear antiperspirants, Gillette chose to focus its efforts on promoting its existing line instead of launching a new one. Accordingly, in 1996, when Peter Clay was named vice president for business management of Gillette toiletries, he was given a simple mission—to take the technology already in use on Gillette Series Clear Gel and put it into an antiperspirant stick form. Gillette poured $30 million into research and development on the clear stick.
The first fruit of Clay’s mandate was Gillette Series Clear Stick, introduced in the summer of 1996. This was followed later in the year by Right Guard Clear Stick. Together the two products were the first truly clear antiperspirant sticks on the market that did not leave white residue on the body or clothes. ‘‘It’s an antiperspirant formula that’s a challenge because it’s hard to get the efficaciousness of a stick without white residue,’’ Clay explained to Advertising Age. To emphasize the difference, Clay decided to make the packaging clear, and, to drive home the distinction even further, he had stickers bearing the legend ‘‘No White Residue’’ placed on every package. Under the aegis of Clay and his staff, NW Ayer created the product’s $25 million ad campaign. For its national ad campaign Gillette commissioned the agency to create a series of television commercials using the slogan ‘‘Anything Else Would Be Uncivilized.’’ The tag line had been a staple of Right Guard spots since 1986. Industry veteran Stan Schofield was selected to direct the ads, and Scottie Pippen of the NBA champion Chicago Bulls was chosen to appear in the spots as celebrity spokesman. The sports connection was obvious, since many previous Right Guard spots had used superstar athletes. But Gillette had other reasons for choosing Pippen. ‘‘We decided to utilize Scottie because he is a driving force on the most powerful team in the NBA and truly embodies the spirit of Right Guard,’’ Carole Johnson, Gillette’s vice president for personal care products, told PR Newswire.
To provide humor that would help make the ad memorable, NW Ayer’s creative team attired Pippen demurely in an Edwardian cable knit sweater vest and placed him on a croquet lawn. His mouthing of the campaign’s tag line thus became the blithe comment of a sophisticate who has finally found a deodorant that will not jeopardize the aesthetics of his leisure ensemble. For Gillette’s Johnson, the use of a basketball player was winningly apropos. ‘‘On the court, he’s a tough competitor and a highly respected player,’’ she told PR Newswire. ‘‘Portraying him in an unexpectedly gentle and reserved manner provides a contrast that is both attention-getting and humorous.’’ The first ads of the new campaign began airing in January 1997. The commercials appeared in prime time on broadcast networks and cable television outlets in 15- and 30-second versions. The accompanying print campaign ran in sports and general-interest publications.
In January 1997 the 10-year relationship between Right Guard and NW Ayer & Partners came to an end. Gillette shifted its account, whose value was estimated at $10 million, to New York-based Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising. The new agency now faced the challenge of putting a fresh twist on the ‘‘Anything Else Would Be Uncivilized’’ campaign. In January 1998, Saatchi & Saatchi debuted its first television commercials. The 15-and 30-second spots were shown during NBC’s national telecast of the FedEx Orange Bowl college football game. Retaining the ‘‘Anything Else Would Be Uncivilized’’ tag line, the new spots again placed a prominent athlete in an unlikely situation, this time Dallas Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith as the master of a team of show dogs. ‘‘When one is competing for the eye of the judges,’’ Smith remarked in the 30-second spot, as he held a pack of bulldogs at bay, ‘‘one must keep a firm leash on odor and perspiration.’’ The dogs then performed tricks at Smith’s command. The spot ended with Smith accepting a trophy for best of show as he uttered the tag line. The commercials were followed by print ads in sports and general-interest periodicals. Some critics questioned the choice of Smith, a veteran on the downside of his career, as the new spokesman. But Gillette was quick to offer a defense of its new standard bearer. ‘‘Emmitt’s championship attitude and tenacious style of play mirror the Right Guard image and make him a great candidate for the campaign,’’ said Clay. ‘‘He is a driving force on the field and a highly respected player by both teammates and fans; depicting him as reserved and genteel is a contradiction that is entertaining and humorous.’’

OUTCOME
Despite favorable reaction in the media, the Right Guard ‘‘Anything Else Would Be Uncivilized’’ ads failed to impress consumers. USA Today’s Ad Track measured the popularity and effectiveness of the Pippen commercials in the spring of 1997. A scant 11 percent of respondents who had seen the spots at least three times reported that they liked them a great deal. The Right Guard commercials thus ranked among the least popular campaigns measured by Ad Track in its first two years of polling.
There also were mixed results among demographic groups. Older consumers tended to like the ads, with 19 percent responding very favorably. The spots were clearly targeted at the young, however. But only 14 percent of those polled between the ages of 18 and 24 gave high popularity marks to the ads. Even more vexing for Right Guard’s marketers was the lukewarm response of male consumers, the campaign’s core market. Only 9 percent of men liked the ads a lot, compared with 14 percent of women.
When Ad Track sought to measure consumer recall, the Right Guard ads elicited more positive responses. More than 60 percent of those surveyed reported that they had seen an ‘‘Anything Else Would Be Uncivilized’’ ad on more than one occasion. Industry observers credited the campaign’s high recall numbers to its effective use of humor.
It remained to be seen whether the Saatchi & Saatchi ads featuring Smith would do anything to improve the poll numbers. The initial critical response to the ads was less than encouraging. At best, Gillette was faulted for bad timing in choosing Smith to do the ads. For the first time in seven seasons the Dallas Cowboys had failed to make the National Football League play-offs, and Smith himself was widely seen as being headed for retirement. ‘‘Smith is a likable athlete,’’ said Denise Gellene in the Los Angeles Times, ‘‘but for now, at least, he isn’t a winner.’’
Although the deodorant category as a whole was flat in 1997, Gillette, along with other top brands, posted sizable gains. According to Information Resources, sales of Gillette’s Right Guard grew 4.9 percent during the year.

SOCIAL ANXIETY DISORDER CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
In 1999 Paxil, manufactured by SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline plc), was third among the pharmaceutical industry’s best-selling SSRIs, a class of drugs then used primarily to treat depression and anxietyrelated maladies. The drugmaker’s strategy for gaining ground on rivals Prozac and Zoloft included extending Paxil’s market by winning approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat other forms of mental illness. When, in May of that year, the FDA made Paxil its only approved treatment for social anxiety disorder, the drug finally found itself in a position, after seven years on the market, to outsell its rivals. Social anxiety disorder was a little-known condition at the time, but estimates by SmithKline Beecham put the number of potential Paxil customers in the United States at close to 10 million. Enlisting the public relations firm Cohn & Wolfe as well as Paxil’s advertising agency of record, McCann Erickson Consumer Health, SmithKline Beecham mounted a combined physician, PR, and directto-consumer branded campaign that was meant to inform Americans about social anxiety disorder and to let them know that Paxil alone had been approved to treat it.
Immediately after learning of the FDA ruling,
SmithKline Beecham increased its spending on physician-targeted ads to get the word out about the new Paxil designation. Meanwhile, the drugmaker funded a public-service campaign meant to spread awareness of social anxiety disorder. Then, in September 1999, a $30 million push of the Paxil brand began its run on television and in magazines with national circulations. SmithKline Beecham focused its message about social anxiety disorder on professionals between the ages of 18 and 34, with an emphasis on men, who were believed more likely to seek help for the condition because of career concerns.
The PR campaign resulted in more than a billion media references to social anxiety disorder, up from roughly 50 in previous years, almost all of which mentioned that Paxil was the only approved treatment for the condition. Seven months after its launch, the campaign had made the Paxil brand name one of the most recognized prescription drugs in the United States, and the drug was responsible for a sizeable increase in the anxiety medication category. Paxil gained on its SSRI rivals and experienced sustained sales growth, a trend that continued as the drug won further treatment designations, and the company adapted its marketing accordingly in the following years.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
In 1987 Eli Lilly and Company won U.S. approval to sell Prozac, the first among a class of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) that treated clinical depression by elevating levels of serotonin—a chemical believed crucial to regulating mood—in the brain. Prozac’s effectiveness and lack of side effects compared to existing medications for depression revolutionized not only the way mental illness was treated by psychiatrists but also the way it was perceived by the public. By 1992, when Pfizer and SmithKline Beecham introduced their own SSRIs, Zoloft and Paxil, respectively, depression had lost much of its stigma in the United States. In the following years SSRIs became one of the best-selling prescription drug categories.
For its first several years on the market, Paxil remained in third place among SSRIs, and SmithKline Beecham set its sights on new markets for the drug. In the mid-1990s Paxil won FDA approval for the treatment of anxiety-related conditions like panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Though these markets led to substantial growth for the brand, it was the FDA’s approval of Paxil in 1999 as a treatment for a little-known condition called social anxiety disorder that gave the drug its first significant advantage over competitors. Social anxiety disorder, or debilitating shyness, was a condition that, according to SmithKline Beecham, affected as many as 10 million Americans, and Paxil was the only FDA-approved treatment. SmithKline Beecham was aided in its attempt to reach this untapped market by an easing of FDA regulations in 1997 that governed the advertising of prescription drugs. The policy shift almost immediately changed the nature of the advertising of prescription drugs, as pharmaceutical companies, which traditionally had focused on physicians and other medical professionals in their marketing efforts, began to rely on advertising their products directly to consumers, much as was done with other consumer goods. Though restrictions remained regarding the disclosure of side effects and though the FDA retained a role in approving advertisements, directto-consumer pharmaceutical marketing quickly became ubiquitous in the United States, increasingly putting patients rather than their doctors in the position of deciding which drugs might best satisfy their needs.

TARGET MARKET
The social anxiety disorder campaign targeted professionals aged 18–34 who, despite appearing normal, experienced overwhelming fear in social or work-related situations. SmithKline Beecham estimated that the total number of people suffering from the condition in the United States numbered 10 million, and the company believed that only 5 percent of these people were being treated. The company thus set out to define social anxiety disorder for an enormous untapped market, to let people know that they were not alone in their suffering, and to urge people to seek out Paxil, the only available FDAapproved treatment. As the Paxil product director, Barry Brand, told Advertising Age, ‘‘Every marketer’s dream is to find an unidentified or unknown market and develop it. That’s what we were able to do with social anxiety disorder.’’
The National Institute of Mental Health, however, placed the number of sufferers from social anxiety disorder at around 5 million. This discrepancy pointed to a controversy surrounding the subjectivity of diagnosis and, by extension, SmithKline Beecham’s marketing of Paxil. While SmithKline Beecham argued that it was catering to an overwhelming need and helping relieve previously untreated suffering, critics believed that the drugmaker was artificially creating a market for Paxil by encouraging the merely shy to diagnose themselves with the more debilitating form of social phobia. It was estimated that twice as many women suffered from social anxiety disorder as men, but in a departure from conventional wisdom men appeared more likely to seek treatment for the condition. In most medical matters men were less likely to seek treatment, but as McCann Erickson’s Nan Dillon told Advertising Age, ‘‘This tends to be the exception because social anxiety disorder can actually damage a man’s career.’’

COMPETITION
When the Paxil social anxiety campaign was launched, Prozac was the SSRI market leader and Eli Lilly’s biggest earner, with annual sales approaching $3 billion. In the summer of 1999 a Prozac campaign narrowly preceded Paxil’s social anxiety disorder ads to become the first-ever TV marketing of a psychiatric drug. The centerpiece of the Prozac campaign was a 30-minute infomercial that aired on local and cable networks late at night and on weekends, when people with untreated depression were believed likely to be watching. The infomercial featured a mostly female cast of Prozac users giving testimonials, as well as imagery of presumably depressed people and informational segments with doctors talking about depression and its treatment. Mental health experts were divided on the question of whether it was appropriate to pitch Prozac under the cover of public-service programming. The company supported the infomercial with 30-second TV spots offering a toll-free number to call for more information.
Paxil’s other major competitor in the SSRI market, Pfizer’s Zoloft, whose 1999 sales were estimated at $2 billion, had not yet used direct-to-consumer advertising. In early 2000, however, Pfizer initiated an account review with the intention of moving the duties for Zoloft advertising away from health care specialists Lyons Lavey Nickel Swift to a general-market agency. Deutsch Inc. won the review and began preparing a Zoloft direct-toconsumer message. Having already won approval for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, Zoloft was well positioned to benefit from the dramatic increase in SSRI prescriptions following the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001. direct-to-consumer campaign supporting BuSpar. One of only two drugs approved to treat generalized anxiety disorder at the time, BuSpar was also used to treat depression. Unlike its competitors among psychiatric drugs, BuSpar was not associated with such side effects as drowsiness and loss of libido. The BuSpar campaign targeted women via magazines like Good Housekeeping and People and, using an image of a cartoon female with symptoms of anxiety, on broadcast and cable TV.

MARKETING STRATEGY
Soon after the FDA decision in May 1999 allowing Paxil to be marketed as a treatment for social anxiety disorder, SmithKline Beecham increased its spending on physician-targeted ads by $1 million, according to Medical Marketing and Media. The company changed the copy in medical journals from ‘‘Paxil means peace . . . in depression, panic disorder, and OCD’’ to ‘‘Show them they can . . . the first and only approved treatment for social anxiety disorder.’’
Meanwhile, SmithKline Beecham funded an informational and public relations campaign to spread awareness about social anxiety disorder. Sponsored by a trio of advocacy organizations—the American Psychiatry Association, the Anxiety Disorders Association of America, and Freedom From Fear—the campaign was orchestrated by the New York PR firm Cohn & Wolfe and was designed, according to PR News, ‘‘to educate reporters, consumers, and, in some cases, physicians, in an effort to encourage diagnosis and treatment.’’ Featuring posters placed at bus stops across the country and the tagline ‘‘Imagine being allergic to people,’’ the PR campaign did not explicitly mention Paxil or SmithKline Beecham. Likewise, Cohn & Wolfe technically represented the nonprofit organizations and the doctors involved, even though SmithKline Beecham paid for the campaign. Virtually all of the sizeable media coverage Cohn & Wolfe generated mentioned not just the Paxil name but also the fact that it was the only FDAapproved treatment for the condition.
In September 1999 SmithKline Beecham launched its first Paxil direct-to-consumer ads, a TV and print campaign crafted by McCann Erickson Consumer Health and with an estimated cost of $30 million. Like the public relations efforts, the branded advertising was intended to define the condition for potential Paxil users and to give afflicted Americans comfort by sending the message that they were not alone. This portion of the campaign also sought more directly to raise awareness of the Paxil name.
In an attempt to reach its core target of 18- to 34-year-old professionals, SmithKline Beecham bought airtime on prime-time shows like Ally McBeal and ran the print ads in magazines that included Rolling Stone and Sports Illustrated. Both the television spots and the print ads used the tagline ‘‘Your life is waiting,’’ and they directed consumers to ask themselves whether they experienced anxiety that made them avoid social interaction, that resembled a panic attack, or that was detrimental to their social or professional life. The 60-second TV spot informed viewers that more than 10 million Americans suffered from social anxiety disorder and that sufferers were a mix of male and female professionals engaged in productive office and social activities. In keeping with the belief that men were more likely to seek treatment for social anxiety disorder, the print ads primarily targeted male professionals, with the primary image being a distraught man in business clothes.

OUTCOME
PR News reported that, as a result of the campaign to advertise social anxiety disorder, media references to the condition climbed to more than 1 billion articles, up from 50 in 1997 and 1998, with 96 percent conveying the information that Paxil was the only FDA-approved treatment then available. After the campaign had been running for seven months, according to Medical Marketing and Media, Paxil scored third among advertised prescription drugs in unaided recall, behind Viagra and Claritin. Paxil’s market share among anxiety drugs from December 1998 to May 1999, the months immediately preceding the campaign, was 9.3 percent of 6.7 million prescriptions. From June to October 1999, as the campaign ran, Paxil’s market share not only grew to 11.5 percent but was responsible for half of the increase in the entire market, which grew to 7.2 million prescriptions. In 2000 British rival Glaxo Wellcome merged with SmithKline Beecham. In its 2000 annual report the new entity, GlaxoSmithKline, claimed that Paxil ‘‘became number one in the U.S. selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor market for new retail prescriptions in 2000.’’ In 2001 GlaxoSmithKline won FDA approval to market Paxil for both generalized anxiety disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder. Paxil continued to outpace its rivals in sales growth. The terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, resulted in a dramatic increase in prescriptions for all antidepressants and anxiety drugs. During this time Paxil’s advertising positioned it as an answer to the uncontrollable feelings of fear and helplessness that many people felt in the aftermath of the attacks.

POWER TO QUIT CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
NicoDerm CQ, a sticky patch that adhered to the skin and delivered a steady flow of nicotine to help ease the physical withdrawal symptoms associated with quitting smoking, was introduced by its manufacturer, the pharmaceutical company SmithKline Beecham, as a prescription drug in 1991. The product was a success, climbing to the top of the prescription smoking-cessation market and winning a prestigious R&D 100 Award for 1992. By the mid-1990s, however, NicoDerm’s sales had flattened, and SmithKline decided that the product’s future lay in the over-the-counter drug market. The company received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in mid-1996 to sell NicoDerm as an over-the-counter medication rather than by prescription only. Hoping to attract the broad base of American smokers who had either been unsuccessful in prior attempts to quit smoking or who were contemplating quitting for the first time, SmithKline hired the advertising agency Jordan, McGrath, Case, Taylor, New York to design its initial advertising blitz. The pharmaceutical company dedicated $35 million to advertise NicoDerm and in August 1996 launched a multimedia campaign featuring a barrage of print, radio, and television spots.
The campaign pitted NicoDerm most directly against its main competitor—Johnson & Johnson subsidiary McNeil Consumer Products Company’s Nicotrol, another transdermal nicotine replacement product. Both products vied for the vast market of smokers of either gender between the ages of 25 and 64. The two companies vigorously sought to win over consumers. SmithKline’s NicoDerm campaign consisted of two kinds of advertisements, one that focused on NicoDerm’s effectiveness and the other that favorably compared its product to Nicotrol. For example, the commercial ‘‘Morning Break’’ relates the fate of two office workers who both recently quit smoking. One used NicoDerm while the other tried to give up the habit ‘‘cold turkey.’’ The man who used the patch remains calm and collected, but his co-worker suffers from constant cravings, nervousness, and an inability to concentrate. Another spot, ‘‘Pharmacy,’’ shows NicoDerm spokesperson, Carolyn McCormick, explaining the differences between NicoDerm and Nicotrol. Because NicoDerm supplied three different dosages of nicotine patches and Nicotrol only one, she emphasizes that NicoDerm is the better product because it allows smokers to taper. Testimonial ads—which featured personal accounts of how NicoDerm had eased the difficulties in quitting smoking—were often used as well. All of the ads bore the same tag line, ‘‘The power to quit, the power to comfort, the power to quit successfully,’’ and were careful not to understate the difficulty of quitting. Instead, they emphasized that with NicoDerm it was possible to do so. The campaign was a resounding success. Marketing surveys discovered that consumers considered the ads highly effective. Backed by its ubiquitous commercials, NicoDerm quickly assumed a dominant position in the over-the-counter smoking-cessation aid market. By 1998 the product’s power had nearly forced Nicotrol to abandon the field. McNeil severely curtailed Nicotrol’s advertising budget and chose to refocus its promotional efforts on a new antismoking nasal spray available only with a prescription. SmithKline, on the other hand, intended to continue its broad-based advertising campaign in order to protect NicoDerm’s position in the field against encroachment by other antismoking products.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
In 1991 SmithKline Beecham released its prescriptiononly nicotine patch, which was designed to be attached—rather like an adhesive bandage—to the skin of a person attempting to quit smoking. NicoDerm delivered a steady flow of nicotine, the highly addictive substance in tobacco, transdermally so that the ex-smoker did not experience the uncomfortable symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. The product came in three dosages: 21, 14, and 7 milligram patches. Heavy smokers began using the 21 milligram patch and, through the full ten weeks of the ‘‘three step’’ NicoDerm program, progressively decreased their dosage of nicotine until they were not only smokefree but also patch-free. Those who smoked less could begin the regime with the 14 milligram or 7 milligram patch. Although early sales for this prescription program were strong, demand for the patch tapered off by the mid-1990s, and its revenues plateaued. NicoDerm was, however, the clear leader in this sector of the prescription drug market.
In a major policy shift the FDA decided to approve nicotine replacement products for over-the-counter use in 1996. NicoDerm was the second patch to become available after this development, following McNeil Consumer Products’ Nicotrol. SmithKline’s own Nicorette, a nicotine-laced chewing gum that served the same end as the transdermal patches, also hit the over-the-counter market before NicoDerm. Although its chief competitor, Nicotrol, became available to consumers first, NicoDerm had the advantage of having controlled nearly 40 percent of the prescription market.
Analysts expected nicotine replacement therapies to sell well over the counter. ‘‘Once you eliminate the need to visit a doctor, sales will increase dramatically,’’ George Quesnelle, a SmithKline Beecham marketing executive, told the September 13, 1996, edition of USA Today. ‘‘The ability to walk into the local pharmacy and buy these products will make a world of difference.’’ Still, experts concurred that advertising would play a substantial role in determining which of the nicotine patch brands would win over smokers.

TARGET MARKET
NicoDerm’s big-budget campaign had a wide audience to reach. Of the 48 million American smokers, nearly 16 million tried to give up smoking each year. According to Brandweek, NicoDerm’s ads especially targeted those smokers aged 25 to 64. Not all who tried NicoDerm were first-time quitters. The Centers for Disease Control declared that only 2 million of the 16 million people who attempted to kick the habit each year actually succeeded. Moreover, nearly a quarter of those who did had made up to five attempts at quitting. ‘‘The consumer has to have made a very important decision about his own health and welfare before he ever considers this kind of product,’’ a marketing analyst told USA Today.
Appealing to this target market could be a delicate task at times. Instead of creating slick ads that downplayed the enormity of the challenge facing the soon to be ex-smoker, Jordan, McGrath focused on relating to the concerns of its desired audience. Joe Martin, a senior brand equity manager for NicoDerm CQ, told the March 31, 1997, edition of USA Today that the ads wanted to reassure consumers that ‘‘it is difficult to quit smoking.’’ The commercials and print ads never trivialized the symptoms such as anxiety, restlessness, and withdrawal that might have been experienced by NicoDerm’s potential users during past attempts at quitting smoking. The campaign also strove to appeal to its target market by not being pejorative. Smokers had come to inhabit a world that increasingly condemned their habit. Not only were most smokers fully aware of the negative health risks associated with the vice, they were also constantly reminded of these by their doctors, spouses, co-workers, newspaper articles, and the antismoking commercials funded by some states. Jordan, McGrath realized that harping on this theme would not boost NicoDerm’s sales. ‘‘We aren’t here to preach the horrors of smoking; we’re here to advertise a product that is available to smokers once they’ve convinced themselves it’s time to quit,’’ Ilon Specht of Jordan, McGrath told USA Today.
Although the ads did not seek to impress the viewer like some of the more flashy campaigns for athletic shoes or cars, they did try to capture a certain earnestness in an attempt to win the trust of their audience. ‘‘A key motivating factor is for consumers to feel comfortable purchasing a product without a doctor’s prescription or advice,’’ said Don Stuart of the marketing-consulting firm Cannondale Associates. The ads did need to motivate viewers, though. Since so many people had unsuccessfully attempted to stop smoking in the past, the NicoDerm spots explicitly stated that their product, and theirs alone, could help end an ongoing struggle to become tobacco-free. Jordan, McGrath’s testimonial ads were designed to serve this purpose. The message conveyed in these was: ‘‘If I could do it, so can you.’’

COMPETITION
The smoking-cessation aid market exploded after NicoDerm and Nicotrol began being sold over the counter in 1996. Total revenues for the industry in 1997 reached nearly $650 million, more than double the previous year’s volume. Analysts believed this expansion would continue. ‘‘I still see growth in the [smokingcessation aid] category,’’ Barbara Kuhn, a buyer for a major drug-store chain, told the October 6, 1997, edition of Drug Store News. ‘‘I don’t think it’s peaked yet, with more companies going to non-smoking policies and more public places being restricted.’’ On the strength of its 40 percent share of the prescription drug market at the time of its shift to over-the-counter status, coupled with a $50 million advertising blitz, NicoDerm surged to a commanding lead in the field. Its 1996 sales were more than $134 million, as compared to $52 million for its most direct competitor, Nicotrol.
Nicotrol, however, had no intention of remaining in second place and decided that advertising was its key to success. McNeil Consumer Products unleashed a fullscale advertising barrage on behalf of its brand, spending more than $53 million between March 1996 and March 1997 alone. Nicotrol was promoted via print, radio, and television spots, coupon offers, and brochures sent directly to doctors. The company bought air-time for commercials on such highly rated network television shows as ER. Some of these ads featured celebrities such as actress Patricia Kalember, who had appeared in the television shows Sisters and thirtysomething. Others were ‘‘reality-based’’ spots that tracked the progress of three Ann Arbor, Michigan, residents as they used Nicotrol to help themselves quit smoking. These testimonial commercials in particular proved to be quite popular with consumers. ‘‘We discovered that the best way to reach smokers who are ready to quit is to have other smokers talk to them,’’ McNeil Consumer Products spokesman Ron Schmid told The Detroit News.
Although Nicotrol was the only other transdermal patch available over the counter, NicoDerm faced competition from prescription smoking-cessation aids as well. In June 1997 pharmaceutical titan Glaxo Wellcome introduced an oral tablet designed to curb smokers’ cravings for nicotine. It supported this new product, called Zyban, with a strong direct-to-consumer marketing campaign. Novaritis’s Habitrol, which did not make the shift from prescription to over-the-counter status with NicoDerm and Nicotrol, remained a market player as well. Although its sales were relatively small compared to NicoDerm, the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus (NAD) noted that the prescription/over-the-counter distinction ‘‘does not remove competition between [NicoDerm and Habitrol] or reduce Habitrol to bit player status.’’ Johnson & Johnson was also developing an antismoking nasal spray.
The increased competition had an impact on NicoDerm’s share of the market. By the second quarter of 1998 NicoDerm’s sales had dropped 18 percent, although sales of Nicorette, SmithKline Beecham’s nicotine gum, continued to rise. SmithKline’s NicoDerm, though, still enjoyed a substantial lead over its rivals.
The battle between the manufacturers of these smoking-cessation aids was heated. McNeil Consumer Products and Novaritis both filed complaints with the NAD, which served as a watchdog agency monitoring the accuracy of consumer advertising; the companies alleged that SmithKline Beecham had made misrepresentations in its advertising for NicoDerm. SmithKline filed two complaints against Nicotrol as well. The NAD sustained both of the complaints against NicoDerm and admonished to alter some of its ads. It rejected one of the complaints against McNeil Consumer Products but sustained the other, mandating changes in ad copy.SmithKline and McNeil also went to court over one of these disputes, eventually reaching a confidential settlement on the matter.

MARKETING STRATEGY
Because its target market—adult smokers between the ages of 25 and 64—was so broad, NicoDerm employed a range of strategies to appeal to its potential customers. It ran ads directed at narrow segments of the market, such as smoking couples who were thinking about having children. One commercial featured a young couple using NicoDerm to stop smoking before trying to get pregnant in order to have a healthier baby. SmithKline also secured an exclusive sponsorship deal with the American Cancer Society (ACS) in August 1996. In return for payments of at least $1 million per year in sales royalties over the three years of the arrangement, the ACS permitted NicoDerm packages to be emblazoned with the society’s logo as well as with a reference to the partnership between NicoDerm and the ACS for promoting the cessation of smoking. The company also sought to increase NicoDerm’s sales through its association with special television programming.
NicoDerm was a primary sponsor of New
Year’s-themed programming on the TBS, Nickelodeon, and Family Channel cable networks that ran on and around New Year’s Eve 1997. For example, NicoDerm’s sponsorship earned it very visible signs on stage during ‘‘Comedy Cure II,’’ a movie marathon on the TBS channel hosted by comedian Rodney Dangerfield. Whenever Dangerfield or other comedians performed, NicoDerm’s logo was prominently displayed. In addition, the product received further billing during the course of interviews with passers-by about their new year’s resolutions. As NicoDerm’s media manager Nancy Louvre explained to the December 16, 1996, edition of Adweek, ‘‘It made sense for us to partner with programming that would showcase our product. This is our most critical time of the year, and we’re very heavy in both TV and print ads with a New Year’s resolution theme.’’
Creating effective advertising was a challenge, however. A writer in USA Today remarked on September 13, 1996: ‘‘Glitzy ad campaigns, attractive coupon offers, scare tactics, and other tried-and-true marketing tactics that help sell other over-the-counter medications may not work with heavy smokers.’’ SmithKline decided that emphasis on a simple, straight-forward message was the best way to promote the product. ‘‘Smokers know the problem with smoking,’’ said George Quesnelle, a vicepresident of medical marketing and sales for SmithKline Beecham’s consumer-health unit, in the May 22, 1996, edition of The Wall Street Journal Europe. ‘‘You might say they’ve been beaten over the head by it. What they need to know is that [quitting] is possible.’’
Building on this message, Jordan, McGrath devised two classes of ads to increase NicoDerm’s sales. The first, termed ‘‘equity ads,’’ strove to strengthen the cachet of the NicoDerm brand, stressing that NicoDerm was a product capable of helping even the most addicted smoker break the habit. The second type of ad, dubbed ‘‘competitive ads,’’ focused on distinguishing NicoDerm most directly from Nicotrol but also from its other competitors.
It was these ads, with their specific claims about
NicoDerm in contrast to other smoking-cessation products, that gave rise to the complaints that Nicotrol and Novaritis filed with the NAD. While NicoDerm was forced to alter particular statements in two of its ads in response, it continued to employ ‘‘competitive ads’’ as a way of defending and increasing its share of the market. NicoDerm employed a saturation strategy for these ads across television, radio, and print media. On television NicoDerm sought to reach all segments of its target market. It advertised on soap operas and other daytime shows, early morning programming such as the Today show, late night chat shows, and even syndicated and cable television broadcasts. Although SmithKline did make the occasional ad-purchase on prime-time shows, the company felt that the cost of such slots generally outweighed the benefits they brought in return.
NicoDerm ads also ran frequently on an assortment of radio broadcasts. SmithKline liked radio spots because they were comparatively inexpensive, allowing the company to bombard listeners with information about NicoDerm. Additionally, SmithKline advertised heavily in large-circulation magazines, such as Life, Better Homes and Gardens, Sports Illustrated, Readers Digest, and U.S. News & World Report. The company’s goal for this multimedia approach was to reach the maximum possible number of consumers.

OUTCOME
NicoDerm’s advertising campaign was a tremendous success. Despite the handicap of coming onto the over-thecounter market a month after its closest competitor, NicoDerm was backed by SmithKline’s marketing muscle and quickly established itself as the leading brand in the field. It continually refused to relinquish this position, even as other smoking-cessation aids came on the market or strove to challenge its supremacy. By mid-1998, in fact, Nicotrol had effectively ceded the patch field to NicoDerm. A health-care marketing consultant told the June 8, 1998, edition of Advertising Age: ‘‘There comes a time when you’re spending more than you’re selling, and you cut your losses.’’ McNeil slashed its advertising budget for Nicotrol and shifted its focus promoting a new antismoking inhaler available only by prescription. But NicoDerm’s drop in sales volume through the early part of 1998, coupled with the $15 million McNeil planned to spend advertising its new product, as well as Glaxo’s heavy spending on Zyban—
$20 million in the fourth quarter of 1997 alone—indicated that NicoDerm would need to continue to fight to maintain its primacy in the field.
Although the ads promoting NicoDerm were not particularly innovative or cutting edge, surveys demonstrated their value. USA Today ’s ‘‘Ad Track’’ poll on advertising success reported that only 14 percent of consumers gave NicoDerm’s ads high popularity marks. But more then 20 percent of the people exposed to NicoDerm commercials said the ads were effective, an impressive response level for the industry. Buoyed by feedback such as this, SmithKline planned to continue its multimedia campaign in order to support and expand NicoDerm’s share of the smoking-cessation aid market