…from Starbucks, Eurostar, Tesco and play.com

Four things happened to me this week.

OK, more than four things, but since you haven’t got all day, I’ll give you the short version.

Extra strong - with wings

First, I hung out at Starbucks, which is better than any serviced office I’ve ever seen.  You can stretch one cup out all afternoon, as you huddle over your laptop.

But this time, I decided to leave my comfort zone. No, not my favourite armchair by the window. But my coffee.

You see, I normally opt for a grande, skinny, decaf, sugar-free hazelnut, extra-hot latte - enough to give any barista RSI as they scramble to tick all the boxes.

But this time, I decided to change. A regular coffee seemed an appropriate departure, so I consulted the board. Americano, I thought. That’ll do the trick.

But wait…what about Freshly Brewed Coffee? It was much cheaper, and that was enough to tip the balance.

So that’s what I ordered. And instantly regretted it.

Americano is basically a diluted espresso, made on the spot from achingly fresh coffee beans. Whereas Freshly Brewed Coffee is, well, not really fresh.

The barista pivoted round, flipped the tap on a big silver urn, and filled the cup with tired old dregs.

So that would be Freshly Stewed Coffee.

Lesson 1: don’t stretch language beyond its limits.

Next stop Paris

From there, where else could the week go? Upwards was the only way, and yesterday, Eurostar put a smile on my face.

I live in Cambridge, and every week, like it or not, the local freesheet newspaper lands on my mat. Usually, it goes straight in to the recycle bin.

But not this time.

Paris - An all hours guide, the cover (which wasn’t really the cover, but a advert wrap) said. Pull out. Fold up. Pocket it.

The inside is crammed full of useful listings - places to eat, relax, and boogie on down. The back has a handy map. There are even Cambridge-Paris train times (via King’s Cross/St Pancras).

And coolest of all, a handy origami-style diagram showing you how to fold it all into a pocket map.

Brilliant. Just brilliant. Why?

It’s targeted, it’s personal and it’s useful. Even if I don’t want to go to Paris tomorrow, I’ll keep it for when I do.

And so Eurostar has achieved the Holy Grail - an advert I’ll never throw away.

Lesson 2: think smart, think targeted, think like a reader.

Bag for life (not)

Tesco delivered my internet shopping this week, all  neatly packed in carrier bags. Re-use this carrier bag and collect Green Clubcard Points, each bag cried out at me.

If only I could.

At least half of the bags had the handles knotted - double-knotted. And they’d been lifted into the crate at the store, then out of the crate on to my doorstep, then again to my kitchen.

Each time the knot got a little tighter. In the end, the only way I could open them was with scissors.

You see the green problem.

When I pointed it out to Tesco customer service, they said they’d put a note on my account.

But what about all the other shopping packed at that store? In fact, at every store countrywide? How many bags were being wasted, I wondered.  Surely they could feed it back to somebody who could change things?

Silence. Then they said they’d put a note on my account.

So I dropped it. Some battles you can’t win.

Lesson 3: make sure everybody in your company shares your values.

Game over

This week I ordered a DVD - La Vie en Rose (it’s known as La Môme in France). 

It’s the fourth French film I’ve ordered in as many weeks, so play.com have a pretty good idea of my tastes. Perfect for marketing purposes.

Or so you’d think.

On the invoice that came with the DVD, they’d conveniently printed a list of other bestselling and upcoming titles. 

Clever. But also not so clever.

For their titles included Knocked Up: Extended and Unprotected Special Edition, along with Hellboy and Superbad. Oh, and Death Note: Limited Edition.

It would have been a simple bit of database programming to pull out the upcoming French titles.

Lesson 4:  try selling what your customers are buying. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Why product placement is big business

Here’s a question for you. What do these brands have in common?

Apple, Aquafina, BlackBerry, Borders, Cadillac, Cisco, Converse, Ferrari, Ford, Fuller’s London Pride, HP, Land Rover, Mayflower, Mercedes, Motorola, MSN, Red Bull, Rolex, Seattle’s Best Coffee, Tracker Boats, Volvo, ZTV.

Answer? They all starred in National Treasure: Book of Secrets, last Christmas’s must-see action film.

Alongside Nicolas Cage, that is.

Product placement is a huge industry. In Europe alone, it’s estimated at $2bn, and is set to grow even bigger after the European Union ruling last year relaxing restrictions.

And it’s incredibly powerful. 

After the break… (what break?)

Now that technologies like Sky+ and TiVo allow people to skip ads, product placement is more important than ever.

Sometimes, it’s obvious. IKEA regularly features in home-improvement programmes, for example.

But other times, it’s less noticeable. From a car driven on ITV’s Emmerdale to the PlayStation incidentally featured in Channel 4’s You Are What You Eat, products are subtly introduced so they pass below our radar.

They’re even on the BBC, where advertising is banned. Next time you watch an episode of the tense spy-drama Spooks, make sure you check out the Cisco phones on their desks.

They’re not there by accident.

Neither was the Moët & Chandon brandished by con artist Danny in Hustle, or the Toyota Landcruiser in BBC2’s Manchild.

All product placements.

And because we’re not being ‘advertised’ to, the message passes subliminally into our brains.

It doesn’t always go according to plan, however. Just this week, TV chef Jamie Oliver got into trouble for giving undue prominence to Jamie’s Flavour Shaker on Channel 4’s Jamie at Home. 

He crossed the line fom subtle to flagrant, and the spell was broken.

The red pill or the blue pill?

Despite these occasional hiccups, product placement remains a powerful advertising force.

Some years back, a friend of mine got the latest Nokia - a shiny, sliding, high-tech marvel.  It wasn’t the bright display, the ergonomic buttons or the extensive address book that did it for him. So what was the reason?

“Neo had one,” he said, beaming with uncontained pride.

Yes, my friend Jack (not his real name - that’s Alex) bought a Nokia because Keanu Reeves had one in The Matrix.

He’d even perfected the wrist action, deftly sliding the top section into place as he barked those famous words.

“Get me a portal!”

(Note to self: get some new friends.)

Find out more:

• Want to see who’s advertising what in your favourite films? Check out Brand Cameo, on brandchannel.com.
• Get the lowdown on the latest deals from Product Placement News.
• Shake it all about with Jamie’s Flavour Shaker - it crushes, grinds, mixes and more (honest, guv).

Recently, this flyer landed on my mat. It’s for a local gym (I’ve removed their name to avoid embarrassment).

My first reaction? It’s a bit tasteless. But even worse, it’s probably likely to alienate half its readership. Don’t think so? You’re probably male. Imagine a tanned male bottom in a pair of tight briefs. Now would you feel as comfortable?

So I didn’t join, right? Yes and no.

You see, I was already a member. But If I’d got this back when I was looking for a gym, I’d have wondered if it was really the one for me.

It’s crucial when you’re writing to keep your audience in mind. It’s one of my Top 10 tips. Also, remember, it’s not about you, it’s about them (that’s another one of my tips).

What this ad is really trying to say is that you can get into great shape at the gym. So why now have somebody who’s smiling, happy and obviously healthy, looking straight at the viewer? Better still, why not have a man and a woman to cover all bases?

Whoever designed this probably thought:

• women would think they’d get a desirable bottom by working out at the gym
• men would would get to see lots of those desirable bottoms while they worked out

But it’s more likely that:

• women felt insulted and wondered if they’d really feel comfortable at the gym
• while some men felt attracted, others were deterred by the sexual overtones

Not forgetting gay men, who probably didn’t react at all to the picture.

So what were the gym marketing gurus thinking?

Easy. They saw a sexy picture with a tanned, svelte woman against an azure sky and thought it would say ‘get ready for summer’. Then, all they had to do was think up a really bad pun. And voilà, the mailshot was ready. They probably even joked about the campaign improving their bottom line.

Take it from someone who’s been there: if you find yourself smiling at the thought of how clever you’ve been, and want to pat yourself on the back, think again. The only smile that matters is the reader’s. If it doesn’t strike the right note for your audience, stop and go back to the drawing board.

You won’t regret it.

Why people sell products

Let’s play a word-association game.

BlackBerry. Quick – what comes to mind?

Stressed exec, working 18 hours a day, sitting up in bed, pecking at the keyboard to go long on pork bellies while his wife is propped up beside him, lost in the latest Penny Vincenzi?

Think again.

Olivia’s a funky fashion designer, who jets between Milan, London and New York. And Duncan is a millionaire tycoon and star of BBC2’s Dragons’ Den.

They’re the new face of BlackBerry, in a high-profile campaign called Blackberry People. So you’re not just buying a gizmo, you’re aspiring to a lifestyle. And you’re making a connection with other people.

It’s not about the technology - it’s never about the technology. It’s about what you can do with it, where you can go, and who you can become.

Just like Time Out’s property edition, personalising a message makes it more powerful.

So powerful, in fact, that a friend of mine was convinced he was a BlackBerry person. So he went out and got one. A few days later, I emailed him to ask how his new gadget was shaping up.

Not very well, apparently. He’d just missed a vital meeting.

“Al my appntsmenst were 1 day out,” he jabbed. “Dont knw hw that hapend.”

I think I do. Let’s play the word-association game again.

BlackBerry?

Manual.

• Are you a BlackBerry person? Find out at BlackBerry People: click here.

Why shock tactics in advertising work – most of the time

Recently, I came downstairs and saw a leaflet that had landed on my mat.

(Sunday morning, I thought. Don’t these people ever rest?)

At first glance, it looked like just another advert, to join the growing pile, for everything from pizza-delivery to garden services, from estate agents to charity collections.

‘Chris Jenning Photography’, it was headed. And under a picture of mum, dad and the three kids, it said ‘family portraits’.

So far so normal.

Then I looked closer: Dad was grimacing, and mum was looking off to the right, forlorn and disconsolate. Both the girls were crying, one with mascara running messily down her cheeks. Their younger brother was also sobbing uncontrollably.

So what did I do? I flipped it over and read on, of course.

I’d been hooked.

‘Take a risk at a level crossing and it’s not just your life on the line,’ it started. ‘If you’re hit by a train, your loved ones will be hit just as hard.’

What the FCUK?

Shock tactics in advertising are nothing new. French Connection in the UK has been doing it for years with its now-famous FCUK campaign. At one point, FCUK t-shirts were selling at the rate of one million a year.

But in order to work, shock tactics need to do one thing – shock. And over time, that gets harder, as the ante is raised.

Benetton has been consistently good at shocking, with ads featuring AIDS patients, copulating horses, and three identical hearts (labelled ‘black’, ‘white’ and ‘yellow’). Not to mention the hugely controversial Death Row campaign.

Even when shocking ads are withdrawn, they continue to do their job. Sophie Dahl’s provocative pose for the perfume Opium was pulled, but is still remembered and luridly discussed (and viewed – if you dare - at her website www.sophie-dahl.com).

Ryanair, the low-cost airline, consistently pushes the boundaries of good taste with its advertising. Just last month, it ran an advert in a Belfast newspaper to coincide with the British army’s withdrawal after almost 40 years.

It showed a picture of Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Féin leader, with a speech bubble saying, “The company’s fares are so low even the army flew home”.

It’s not true, of course, that the army flew Ryanair – but why let the truth get in the way of a good line? In any case, the tactic worked: it caused outrage and the advert was withdrawn.

And Ryanair, not for the first time, got lots of free publicity.

They’re no stranger to this. In 2006, Channel 4’s Dispatches programme went undercover to show what it alleged was the shocking truth behind the success of Ryanair (vomit quickly mopped up from a seat during the 25-minute turnaround, pilots flying right to the limit of the maximum hours allowed).

And what happened? Bookings went up, of course. (As they did when a Ryanair pilot landed at the wrong airport in Northern Ireland, mistaking Ballykelly military airbase for City of Derry airport. It seems there really is no such thing as bad publicity.)

Do it if you dare

So how far can you push shock tactics? Well that’s the million-dollar question. At some stage, you’ll probably reach the point of diminishing returns, where the loss of goodwill and the negative sentiment will outweigh the free publicity.

Meanwhile, companies keep pushing. When Hell, a New Zealand pizza franchise, sent out a direct mail to advertise its new ‘Lust’ pizza, it thoughtfully included unusual topping – a condom.

It also ran an advert with Hitler giving the Nazi salute with the quote from Mein Kampf: ‘It is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell’. When Jewish groups objected, the ad was pulled.

Sometimes, though, shock tactics simply don’t work.

A while back, I had lunch with a friend, before the smoking ban in England came into force. As he puffed his way through an intercoursal ciggie, my eyes wandered to the packet.

‘SMOKING KILLS!’ it screamed.

“Doesn’t that worry you?” I asked.

He blew a perfectly formed smoke ring and waved his hand dismissively. Obviously not.

And the proposal to put photos of rotting gums, black lungs and stained teeth on cigarette packs? Would that scare him?

“Not a bit,” he said with his gravelly smoker’s drawl. “They could put dead bodies on cigarette packs and it wouldn’t stop me.”

I can’t say I was surprised. But I was just a little bit shocked.