Archive for April 6th, 2009

What’s up with the President’s approval ratings ?

April 6, 2009

Excerpted from Rasmussen Reports, Friday, April 03, 2009

Most media reports say that the President has sky high approval rating.  But …

According to the Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll,  35% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President …  32% Strongly Disapprove … That gives Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of +3, his lowest rating to date

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While the President is maintaining his rockhard support among African Americans, more non-African Americans Strongly Disapprove (35%) of the way he is performing as President than Strongly Approve (28%) … giving him a negative PAI (-7) with that group.

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Cap & Trade … and you think mortgage-backed derivatives were risky

April 6, 2009

Excerpted from WSJ, “The Carbon Cap Dilemma”, March 28, 2009

The essence of cap and trade:

“Congress puts a ceiling on emissions, and then allows businesses to sell any of its extra allowances that stand for the right to emit, it is essentially creating the world’s largest commodity market — in carbon-backed securities. These will be extremely valuable, and everything comes down to how the government chooses to distribute them. ”

Full article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123819777143661833.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

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Ken’s Take: Think about it … a financial derivative tied to the amount of carbon that an energy generating facility doesn’t emit.  At least mortgage backed securities were, well, backed by mortgages — albeit risky ones.  These derivatives would be backed by, well, nothing, except a Congressional definition that could change at Barney Frank’s whim.  You’d think that Enron and the current financial mess would have soured folks on those sorts of financial instruments.

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Coke’s Challenger Brand Hopes to Power over Gatorade

April 6, 2009

Excerpted from Ad Age, “Gator Baiter: Powerade Jabs at Powerhouse,” By Natalie Zmuda, Mar 23, 2009

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The billboard shows the vertical half of what appears to be a Gatorade bottle on one side, with the other side open to the bare blue sky. But what might at first be taken for a mistake is explained by the text: “Don’t settle for an incomplete sports drink.” A few feet down the road perches another billboard, this one showing a fully intact bottle of Powerade. It’s tagged: “The complete sports drink.”

It’s a classic challenger strategy, except it comes from one of the world’s biggest marketers, Coca-Cola Co. The company might be a giant when it comes to soda, but in sports drinks, Coke’s Powerade runs in the shadow of PepsiCo’s Gatorade. So in true competitive fashion, the smaller rival is undertaking a bold and innovative print and outdoor effort that positions the category leader as only half the brand Powerade is.

Powerade’s plan is to blitz the market with messaging that Gatorade is an inferior method of hydration, and says it has the science to back it up. Since early last year, Powerade has been in the lab reformulating its trademark sports drink to include four electrolytes — sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium — lost during exercise. Gatorade’s formula contains just two electrolytes, sodium and potassium …

To get its message across, Powerade … developed a clever comparative campaign that pits the brand against PepsiCo’s Gatorade. “They’re the lion in the category, and we wanted to compare what our drink does for you vs. the competition,” Mr. Kahn said. “People associate [Gatorade] with the category. When you’re another brand competing, you want to make sure to give people a point of difference.”

Powerade also … will take over the cover of ESPN The Magazine, marking the first time the publication has mingled editorial properties with advertising on its cover. It will feature a blank flap obscuring half of the cover image but retaining the magazine title. The front of the flap states, “You wouldn’t want an incomplete cover.” And the back of the flap shows half a Gatorade bottle with the text, “Don’t settle for an incomplete sports drink.” Powerade is then held up as the “complete sports drink” on the inside of the front cover …

According to Beverage Digest, Powerade controls 22% of the sports-drink market, while Gatorade has a 77% share … For its part, Gatorade is shrugging off the attack, maintaining that all Powerade has done is create a spinoff of its Gatorade Endurance Formula, developed in 2004 …

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Full Article:
http://adage.com/article?article_id=135436

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Automakers Promote A New Breed of Pony Cars … on the cheap, of course.

April 6, 2009

Excerpted from Ad Age, “How to Get Consumers to Pony up for Pony Cars? With Little Advertising” By Jean Halliday, March 26, 2009

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Question: How do you launch a big ad campaign for sexy sports car in the teeth of a recession? Answer: You don’t.

The pony car is back, as each of Detroit’s three carmakers revs up an entry in the segment for the first time in decades. General Motors is bringing back the Chevrolet Camaro, which it discontinued in 2002; Chrysler revived the Dodge Challenger last fall after a nearly 35-year absence … and Ford, which started the pony-car craze in 1964 with the Mustang, launches the newest version of the coupe in April.

Although the redone versions of the classic cars are getting good reviews from auto-buff books and car enthusiasts … the timing is awful as the industry tries to pull out of its worst sales year in decades. As a result, there won’t be high-profile national TV blitzes for the cars from Chevy or Dodge, which will rely more on nontraditional media.

Chevrolet, which started shipping the 2010-model Camaro to dealerships this week, activated a new microsite for the car … Much of the Camaro’s launch will be online … In addition, Chevrolet will back the new Camaro in co-branded ads for the movie “Transformer: Revenge of the Fallen” …

Ford teamed with the nonprofit Mustang Club of America for a long weekend of events in Birmingham, Ala., to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the pony car … Ford Racing also linked up with Miller Motorsports Park to develop a new racing series with Mustangs that will kick off there, complimented by a street party, a driving cruise for Mustang owners and a banquet …

Mike Accavitti, director-Dodge marketing, said the … there are no dedicated ads for the [Challenger]. He said the automaker plans to keep the car fresh by introducing special, limited-edition colors or racing-stripe packages … He figures the Challenger will get a boost from consumers also shopping for the Camaro. He doesn’t expect Chevrolet to bite into Challenger sales, at least for the first two months it’s on sale, because loyal Camaro fans will be the early buyers. “We’ll see a battleground after that … After 35 years, the three pony cars are back” …

U.S. sales across the entire mid-size sporty coupe segment last year only tallied 150,000 units … That compares to some 575,000 units sold in 1995, or 3.9% of all vehicles sold that year. J.D. Power projects the tally for the coupe category next year will total just more than 200,000 units, or 1.7% of all new vehicles sold.

“There’s been a shift in consumers’ taste, so the larger, sporty, two-door vehicles have fallen out of favor … But these two models are more practical than their predecessors.”

Practical maybe, but not inexpensive. The 2010 Camaro starts at $22,995 and the 2010 Mustang at $20,995, but the latter’s performance GT500 convertible version starts at $51,225. The Challenger starts at $22,545 but the souped-up R/T Classic version that went on sale early this year starts at $34,005.

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Full Article:
http://adage.com/article?article_id=135580

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