Playmate


Keely Pledger

Keely Pledger

Project Manager

  • Loves: Tennis, Sausage & Egg McMuffins, Sunshine
  • Hates: Daytime TV, Mushrooms, Jim Carrey
  • Inspired by:
    • Achieving
    • Anything random
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With our industry evolving more towards a digital market and away from print, it begs the question whether print will last. After all, digital is fantastic. It allows you to communicate on a whole new level through the use of the interactivity and playfulness on games and websites, to mass marketing opportunities created with emails, twitter and many more. Communication has never been so fast, and if executed intelligently with the right team, the cost outlays are vastly insignificant when you consider the audience that you can reach with your messaging. 

The traditionally print based market looks to have been left too high and dry; however they too have embraced the digital move and now are able to offer traditional print based products on a digital platform, such as online magazines and downloadable audiobooks. These additions to the market don't necessarily mean that print is coming to an end though. It may be the case that the market is suffering, especially in the current economic climate, however I believe that it won't disappear altogether. Print is something that we have all grown up with and I believe there is quite a lot of nostalgia in all of us that wants to keep it going. There is something comforting about turning pages of a book while sat on the train, or opening your weekly addition of Marketing Week as apposed to reading the email alerts, or even purchasing another new glossy recipe book. 

If anything, I think that print items will gain more respect from the consumer due to the movement of digital. The print quantities may not be as high, but more likely you will find that those who receive print items are likely to read them rather than drop them in the bin.

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I know that this website has been around for a long time, but you should check out www.ted.com if you haven't had chance to have a look at it recently. They currently have some great talks on the website and is well worth a visit every now and then!

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Cadbury relaunched Wispa chocolate bars in 2007 after a Facebook campaign. Following this, Cadbury have reported a 5% growth in sales throughout 2008 which has partly been attributed to the Wispa come back. This is a great example of how social networking is a two way street, yes certainly use it as a business marketing tool, however also make sure that you listen to your consumer - had Cadburys not have done this, their growth would not have been as good in 2008.


There is now a group on Facebook called 'Wispa is back - now bring back Wispa Gold' - Let's see what Cadbury do next...

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Okay, so it hadn't really gone anywhere, but in 2003 Cadbury had taken the decision to realign the chocolate under the Dairy Milk umbrella brand using purple packaging with the aim to create a 'purple patch' on shelves which covered the chocolate variants with the one brand campaign. A good idea in theory, however in practice this didn't work so well. 


Cadbury are now relaunching Cadbury Caramel as a stand alone brand following the success of the return of the Wispa; it is to be relaunched in early 2009 back with its all familiar yellow packaging, however the Caramel bunny will not be returning to our screens (I never did like her anyway).


All I can do is thank Marketing Week for keeping me updated with Cadbury news!


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Christmas isn't Christmas for me until I see the all familiar Coca-Cola ads on TV. I pay no attention to TV adverts throughout the year; in fact I switch channels to avoid them, but there's something about the Coca-Cola Christmas campaign that I love. It could possibly be the jingle and lit up lorries but somehow I suspect that it is more likely to be linked to my familiarisation and nostalgia with Christmas from childhood.

Coca-Cola have an incredibly impressive and strong brand that has been built over decades using campaigns such as "The Holidays Are Coming" Christmas ad campaign. This campaign is perfectly positioned; not only does it appeal strongly to children who are such an important segment of the soft drinks market, but it also cemented Santa Claus into the public consciousness as a Christmas figure for all generations.  It is this successful longevity that has helped fuel stories about Coca-Cola and Santa - which keeps consumers talking and discussing.

However, contrary to the varying legends, Santa Claus wasn't invented by Coca-Cola, nor were Coca-Cola the the first to deck him out in red and white. The image of Santa was already established in the 1920s with his standardised size, red garments, white beard and ruddy cheeks. It wasn't until the 1930s that Coca-Cola started their association with Santa in the hope to increase sales in the winter months. Hadden Sundblom - a commercial illustrator - was commissioned to create a series of memorable illustrations involving Santa Claus, from drinking Coca-Cola to receiving a bottle as a gift. At this time, TV was black and white so Coca-Cola took the red Santa Claus to other media outlets and displayed him in colour on billboards and in magazines.

So here we are in 2008, nearly 80 years on and the ads are to be run again on the lead up to Christmas. This year the illustrations of Santa have been updated by Swedish artist Mikael Erikkson and will be again be used on TV and in a series of outdoor ads. A reworked version of the TV ad "The Holidays Are Coming" will also be launched with the "greatest gift" story line which shows a girl receiving a bottle of Coca-Cola from Santa. In conjunction with the TV ads, Coca-Cola are demonstrating how they can take a long standing traditional campaign and adapt it to todays market by running a digital campaign alongside it (created by AKQA) which will include virtual Christmas cards, a Google Maps application allowing users to decorate their houses with virtual Christmas lights, and a "gift-giving" application on Facebook.

From previously working in advertising, I have developed a complete aversion to ads in all forms - and yet here we have a brand that makes me look forward to viewing their next Christmas campaign - that's impressive. Coca-Cola have played the game well.

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I can't find a way to tie this blog to anything relevant to Playgroup, but I need to get this moan out of my system. 

If children and animals can be taught that a red light means STOP - why can't London cyclists crack this code? It's hardly the Krypton Factor. London would be a safer place if cyclists stopped mowing people down at pedestrian crossings.

Moan over.

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Currently there is a fantastic exhibition at the 02 called Body Worlds. Scientist Gunther von Hagens has used the groundbreaking science of Plastination to allow the human body to be preserved and presented in dramatic ways. His exhibition is incredibly informative on every aspect of the human body from anatomy, physiology and health at every stage of the life cycle from fetal development through to old age and death. The bodies have been presented in varying poses from riding a horse to playing chess - making the exhibition not only fascinating yet strangely appealing.


This is definitely an exhibition worth visiting!

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Cadbury are apparently reducing the amount of promo spend on the run up to Christmas for their sharing ranges, which includes Snaps and Cadbury Melts. This is because the range hasn’t made an impact with the customers.

My guessing is that a large proportion of Cadbury customers are female. And speaking on behalf of women across the land, we don’t like to be made to feel guilty about eating chocolate. So why on earth Cadbury thought we’d appreciate a sharing range is beyond me; after all we don’t share chocolate, therefore we feel guilty when we eat the whole ‘sharing’ box in one sitting on our own.  That is why we don’t buy them; too much guilt.  Give me the Dairy Milk bars any day. 

No pressure to share = no guilt = more sales. 

It's not rocket science.

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2009 will be Barbie's 50th year on planet earth – that’s quite an achievement for a plastic doll!

Barbie has survived an ever growing competitive market over the past half century and has adapted well to keep at the top throughout her existence, from the introduction of her dream house, infamous boyfriend Ken, Latino and African American Barbie and all of the accessories a plastic doll could ever dream of. But as you would anticipate, competition is growing fiercer and Barbie is once again having to adapt to the changing market to keep popular with the children of the world.

It’s a tough market having to appeal to the new generation of girls time and time again as your existing customers grow up and leave your marketplace. Maybe it’s the growth of all things digital that have had an impact on Barbie; after all her 2007 sales growth was 1% in comparison to the Bratz 8%. Don’t get me wrong, Barbie has become digital with the launch of her interactive website www.Barbie.com in 2001 and her debut animated movie ‘Barbie In The Nut Cracker’ and in 2007 she established an online virtual community www.BarbieGirls.com plus video games; however the Bratz are taking it one step further with fully embracing all things digital which are no doubt instrumental in the market growth they have achieved in comparison to Barbie – and lets face it, technology is the way forward. Nowadays kids have Nintendo DS Lites, iPods and mobile phones to play with rather than the conventional (if not rather boring) plastic doll that previous generations had.

So here we are 50 years down the line and she’s looking good with age, but how long will it last? For me the question mark over the future success of Barbie is not so much how she embraces the digital world, but more so how the market continues to embrace her. Lets face it, she’s a size zero blonde with a complexion most would kill for and is perceived as a bit of an airhead (sorry Barbie!). Then you have the Bratz with their edgy fashion sense, television programme and attitude to boot – slightly more in tune with todays kids I’m thinking. I can’t for the life of me imagine an evolution resulting in Barbie tossing her tiara to the side and adopting a rougher/edgier look – and to be quite frank I hope that this doesn’t happen. However if the gap between the kids of today and Barbie continues to increase, what option does she have?

It's no coincidence that the top three brand performers in the recent supplement released by Marketing Week ‘Your Best Brand Performers 2008’ have gained more respect from the public than other companies. The brands in question are Amazon, Google and the BBC and they all have the customer experience coupled with innovation as a high importance in building their brand. 

Amazon have spent their budgets on adding features to their website and reduced advertising spend; Google placements are based not only on bid value but on customer relevance and the BBC are using the high quality programming benchmark that they have set to be built into their global brand reputation.

These three companies have set a good precedent for the way that consumers view brands, and it is now important for other companies to follow suit by giving customers an experience when visiting their brand. 

They say that the consumer market is becoming more and more consumer driven. We as consumers have historically been told what what we need and what we should be purchasing and in turn we have followed their wishes. However with tools such as the internet we have started to ask more questions and are educating ourselves before we commit to parting with our hard earned cash. But is this case with everything we buy? 

How much impact does a brand have on us either consciously or subconsciously? When I go shopping I am happy to admit that I will buy whatever shampoo is on offer; there are of course the odd one or two that I will avoid (mentioning no names) but that’s because I have tried them and dislike them, but on a whole I don’t care what brand goes in my basket. But then I venture over to the toothpaste aisle and it’s a different story, it’s a given that I will purchase Colgate. I don’t know why, all I know is that I grew up with Colgate as a child and will grow old using Colgate. So is it right to really consider the market as a consumers market? One statistic states that 50% of advertising doesn’t work - no-one actually knows which 50% does work but does that really matter? There are many products that we purchase as individuals on a daily basis that we don’t research or question, so how in control are consumers really with their spend?

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