Santa's Favourite Drink
Sundblom's Coca-Cola Santa
It is often presumed that the modern image and perception of Santa was created and popularized through the Coca-Cola Company's advertising. Indeed, Coca-Cola takes the credit and as written on their website: ``Starting in 1931, magazine ads for Coca-Cola feature St. Nick as a kind, jolly man in red suit. Because magazines were so widely viewed, and because this image of Santa appeared for more than three decades, the image of Santa most people have today is largely based on our advertising.” (http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/heritage/cokelore_santa.html)
However, Coca-Cola also admits that Santa's colours, which are identical to the brand's colours, were initially adopted by Coca-Cola from Thomas Nast's* illustrations, depicting his own interpretation of Santa. But later on, Haddon Sundbloom** created the jolly Santa we are all familiar with.
Coca-Cola was not the first beverage company to use that image of Santa for their advertisements. The White Rock Beverage Company (who used to dominate the beverage market) featured a very similar image of Santa early in the 1920s - a decade before Coca-Cola presented theirs. White Rock never claimed creating Santa's modern look and just seemed to be using a perception of Santa that was already established by that time. Just like Coca-Cola's Santa, White Rock's could be seen jolly, enjoying a drink, reading letters and bringing gifts.
Having Santa in Coca-Cola's ads served a very important purpose of inspiring people to buy the beverage in winter, conveying the message that it is good for all seasons. By that time, Santa was already a well-known and admired character that brought along only good associations. Using his character to promote winter sales was only natural. Many companies followed Coca-Cola's steps and adopted the lovable Santa for their own campaigns.
There is no doubt that Santa is a timeless icon and perhaps one of the best global brands out there. But even though we’ve all known Santa since our childhood, we will probably never know what his favourite drink is.
* A civil war cartoonist who worked for Harper's Weekly.
** An illustrator who painted Santa for Coca-Cola.
Winnipeggers love their festivals!
Posted by
Lorraine
At Fusion we love to support local, whether it be buying local produce, supporting local artists or taking part in local events. This is why it was very exciting to work with the Downtown Winnipeg Biz on the naming identity for ManyFest.
ManyFest, formally known as Five Events One Weekend, was renamed this year to better represent the event for years to come as it grows and changes. And is it ever growing! The event was estimated to have 35,000 attendees this year, up from last year’s estimated 30,000. Every year it seems to just get bigger and better, so if you missed it, don't fret, there is always next year!
Interested? Read more: Downtown Biz Press Release or visit www.manyfest.ca
Advertising Winnipeg
Posted by
Barrett
Some people would say that advertising the City of Winnipeg is a tough job. And while it's true our city has some faults (mosquitoes and cold are probably at the top of the list), like any one or any place you truly love, we Winnipeggers know how to look past them. One of the great things about working at Fusion, is the people in our office truly love Winnipeg and our province. From great restaurants, to festivals, cabins and farmer's markets, we really try to take advantage of everything Winnipeg (and Manitoba) has to offer. In fact, we often refer to ourselves as Manitoba boosters. So we're always up for the challenge of promoting our city and our province. Well, our job just got a little easier.
Today's Winnipeg Free Press featured an article highlighting Winnipeg's ranking of third in the summer edition of the quarterly CIBC World Markets Canadian Metropolitan Economic Activity Index. This is quite an improvement for Winnipeg and it's so great to see our city's momentum being recognized. If you didn't see the article, you can check it out here. While this is great to see from a personal standpoint, it's also very rewarding professionally.
Because local pride is important to us at Fusion, we intentionally go after work that let's us promote the great place we live. And we've definitely had our chance to do that. In my time at Fusion, we 've been fortunate enough to develop brands and/or campaigns with the Manitoba Moose, Downtown Winnipeg Biz, Manitoba Homecoming, Travel Manitoba, Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and Economic Development Winnipeg (formerly Destination Winnipeg). They all have one thing in common - adding to the dynamic and eclectic nature of our city and province. And we're so glad to be able to help these organizations put the place we call home on the map.
I think for anyone who lives in Winnipeg, the survey only confirms what we already knew. Winnipeg is a great place to live, and it's only going to get better. And I'm happy to say that I've been a part of it, personally and professionally.
Go Winnipeg Go!
Communicating on your Facebook Business Page
Posted by
Dave
Red Bull "Like" Page on Facebook
Your Facebook business page can be addictive and very time-consuming, and it can also be sadly neglected and left for dead. Of course, some where in the middle is where you need to be.
Posting updates more than once, or maybe twice per day is about the most we suggest you do. If you are always on your fans’ walls, and your message isn’t always titillating and timely, they’ll drop you quickly.
Being “liked” on Facebook, as a business, is a privilege. It is an offer from a customer or prospect to communicate and it must be taken seriously. While it can be a place for sales notices and company information, the more of that you do, the more you look like spam and the faster they’ll drop you.
Facebook is your opportunity to build a customer relationship that can become quite intimate, one-on-one. It is your chance to listen to your customers and to share information that they desire to make better buying decisions and to maintain loyalty.
As a person’s Facebook wall continues to scroll and messages fall out of sight, it is useful to find the most opportune posting times of the day. Look at posts that got the most comments and determine the time of day they were posted. You should also use Facebook Insights, which let’s you monitor interactions on your page over a set time period.
Two other quick tips, after ensuring that you have a Facebook “business page”, not a personal profile page, is to create a strong call-to-action for visitors to “like” you (the Red Bull example above is an excellent one with nothing but a call-to-action), thereby opening the door to communication, and include keywords as often as you can in your status updates, photo captions and anywhere else you can. Talk to your community, speak their language, thank them, reward them and listen to them.
At Fusion, we help our clients manage their Facebook, Twitter and other social networking accounts, ensuring that we create a strong and consumer-oriented brand voice and messaging strategy.
Is Social Media taking over Traditional Media?
Posted by
Dave
It appears not. At least not yet.
Social media, while growing in influence, may not be as influential as many believe after listening to Twitter and Facebook media coverage. A recent study by ForeSee Results, which I read about in Marketing Profs, an exceptional marketing information website, shows that email and most traditional media, such as TV, Newspaper, Radio and Magazine ads still beat social media by more than double.
The interesting finding was that the 5% of shoppers who were influenced by social media are highly likely to purchase.
The study also found that previous familiarity with a brand is most likely to create a high score in positive experience (80 on a scale of 100). Promotional emails and word-of-mouth both scored 79 as did both ads on social networks and instant messages from friends. You can find more on this study at Marketing Profs.
Facebook way ahead
It seems that online shoppers like Facebook the most, even if they say it doesn't influence them much. Facebook was visited regularly by 66% of online shoppers, followed by Youtube at 22%, Twitter at 11% and MySpace at 10%. All are up by 11 to 22%, except MySpace, which is down by 33% in preference by online shoppers.
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Posted by: Dave | December 23, 2011
Posted by: | December 23, 2011
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