McDonald’s recently announced that it will be serving specialty coffees like vanilla lattes and caramel cappuccinos at outlets across the U.S., at a fraction of the cost of the same types of drinks at Starbucks.
Wow! As this plays out it will be a great economics case study. Can you compete on price? What value is there in a brand? Will consumers continue to pay more for something that they can get for less someplace else?
Continue reading “McDonald’s vs. Starbucks – the Coffee Wars”
On the way home from teaching a class the other day I heard what I thought was a classicly created radio commercial from OnStar.
The attention-getting premise: “Are you counting on your cell phone to be your lifeline in a crash?” Well, yeah. That’s why I don’t need OnStar, right? Continue reading “In The Minds of Consumers – Brilliant!”
Okay – this headline is not intended to be an expletive. But, after recent experiences with a group of students in a senior-level, project-based, PR campaign class, I’m thinking that maybe the old copywriter’s acronym of WIIFM (“What’s in it for me”?) may be somewhat misleading and result in a lack of focus on the end user – THEM! The better acronym may be WIIFT- “What’s in it for *them*!”) I have been so indoctrinated into “selling” to people since my early childhood that I think I may take certain things for granted – one of which is that, if I want to “sell” or “persuade” somebody about anything – whether it’s buying a product, giving me a job, going to eat where *I* want to go eat, etc., I need to think about WIIFT – “What’s in it for *them*?” And, I need to…
Continue reading “Writing Ad Copy – WIIF*T*!!”