Vice-President of global marketing at Reebok, Micky Pant, implemented a renewal of Reebok branding strategy, especially by developing new media concepts. He was the coordinator of several marketing campaigns, such as the tremendous "Terry Tate, Office linebacker" TV ads, presented in 2003 during Super Bowl breaks. During Micky Pant's tenure as vice president, the athletic footwear company developed novel ways of promoting its brand. The famous Terry Tate TV spot is now considered as one of the first innovative advertisement campaigns using TV has a "hook" and the Internet as a propagation tool. Indeed, at this time, "Viral Marketing" and "Buzz" were only theory concepts, and were not as well understood as today. The annual event Super Bowl is considered to be a premier sport event in the United States. It is also known to have the largest audience on TV of the year. As a consequence, TV channels sell advertising slots at very expensive prices, and advertising campaigns have the reputation of being particularly innovative and funny. People often take a lot of pleasure from these ads. In 2003, Reebok bought a 60 seconds advertising time during the break and broadcasted its campaign "Terry Tate : office linebacker" for first time. This TV spot shows a documentary-like video, occurring in an open-space office. The video is focused on the company's manager who is arguing about his new motivation strategy. This strategy is based on hiring a football linebacker, who loves to tackle and offend people who do not respect office life (does not make coffee when the cup is empty, attend personal phone calls, or play computer game during working time). This spot appears to be particularly surprising, as it is humorous, such as confronting the boring office life and extremely funny sports culture. After viewing this spot on TV, millions of American people rushed to their PC and downloaded Terry Tate's clips. 20 million files downloaded on the first week-end, and on Monday Reebok servers broadcasted several terabits of data in a few seconds.
[...] Did this advertising policy enhanced the recognition of the Reebok brand? a. An expensive project b. Why branding is quasi-absent of ads? c. How can gen-X be captured by the brand instead of that? 3. Was the central message effective? And memorable? According to me, the principle of this media strategy is not to have a message. Or in other words, we could say that the message is: live differently, be your own leader. More than memorable, this message is hugely supported, as it is a major component of Gen-X's social evolution Did it generate a sufficient level of positive attitude towards the brand? [...]
[...] In 2003, Reebok bought a 60 seconds advertising time during the break and broadcasted for the first time its campaign ‘Terry Tate : office linebacker'. This TV spot shows a documentary-like video, occurring in an open-space office. The video is focused on the company's manager which argues about his new motivation strategy. This strategy is based on hiring a football linebacker, who loves to tackle and offense people who do not respect office life (don't make coffee when the cup is empty, have personal phone calls, or play computer games during work hours). [...]
[...] Then we had a Reebok worldwide conference in 2002 and, for a lark, I got Terry Tate and created a fictitious situation. When I got up to speak, my cell phone rang. While I was apologizing, Terry Tate ran up and clogged me. Now, we had rehearsed this the previous day, but on the actual day, Terry got carried away. He came rushing across the stage at me, I went over 360 degrees, landed on my neck, tore my jacket, and cut my hand. [...]
[...] Hotel heiress Paris Hilton dropped in and decided she had to have a pink Reebok Princess T-shirt. Nicole Kidman's personal shopper has been in twice. A DreamWorks SKG costume designer came in last week to pick out a few things for starlet Scarlett Johansson to wear in the upcoming sci-fi thriller Island'. ''Reebok recognizes that culture is part of their products," said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at Port Washington, N.Y., market research firm NPD Group Inc. ''They want to be where culture is being influenced." That means going where the celebrities are. [...]
[...] We've invested a ton of money in an image database but we still need to improve the process. How you integrate is a key question. Also, part of the reason for the success of WhoDunIt was because it was conceived as an Internet initiative with TV supporting it. That rarely happens, and we need to get agencies doing more of that going forward. Agencies tend to ride on the coattails of other areas of advertising. iMedia Connection: What's the next big thing online? [...]
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