Transcript

Elena: Hello and welcome to the Marketing Architects, a research-first podcast dedicated to answering your toughest marketing questions.

I'm Elena Jasper. I run the marketing team here at Marketing Architects, and I'm joined by my co-hosts, Angela Voss, the CEO of Marketing Architects, and Rob DeMars, the chief product architect of Misfits and Machines.

Rob: Hello.

Elena: We're back with our thoughts on some recent marketing news, always trying to root our opinions in data, research, and what drives business results. Today, we're talking about the most effective brands of 2024. We'll start with some data and research to highlight what was popular in marketing effectiveness this year.

We've each come prepared with a couple of brands that we feel demonstrated excellent effectiveness in 2024, as well as one example of a campaign we think might have missed the mark. To tee us up, in the spirit of our show, I have some numbers for you.

Let's start with some of our own data from this show. Our top three main episodes this year were Mark Ritson's interview, followed by Byron Sharp's, and third place went to the episode titled "Media Mix Modeling is Back in Style." Our most popular Nerd Alert episodes were "How Our Brains React to Advertising," "How to Reach the Right Customers," and "Where AB Testing Goes Wrong."

Not surprisingly, marketing effectiveness was definitely a theme in all of those. I also looked into the top Marketing Week articles because we reference that work a lot on this show. The top one was "You Can't Cheat the Fundamentals: Why Prime Has Been Reduced to the Bargain Bin" by Nev Carroll.

That Prime is not Amazon Prime, it's the energy drink Prime, which had a fall from grace this year. It was founded by YouTubers and took a tumble. The second was "Don't Copy KitKat on Your Quest for Double D Marketing" by Mark Ritson, which highlighted KitKat's positioning and how their simple distinctiveness and differentiation has made them successful for a very long time. The third was "Inside Aston Villa's Top to Bottom Club Rebrand" by Molly. I think people in the UK are maybe ahead of us on some of these articles since I don't know what that is. And finally, just for fun, because we are a TV agency, I did some digging into the top national TV spenders of 2024.

I'll say this is just linear national TV. If you look at local TV, it would probably be presidential campaigns. But for national campaigns, it was Progressive, Geico, Verizon, Allstate, State Farm, AT&T, Amazon Prime Video, Domino's, T-Mobile, and Liberty Mutual.

So Angela and Rob, I'd love to get your thoughts on any of that, but I also wanted to ask, how do you feel about the general progress of marketing effectiveness this year? Because that's a topic we hammer home on the show. We care a lot about it. How do you feel like it's gone in 2024?

Angela: It's even hard for me to think about it. I feel like we live at the center of it, especially here on the podcast, so I feel a little biased. I feel like there's more going on related to marketing effectiveness and folks trying to lean into the empirical research that's been done by so many great bodies out there, principles that we're trying to evangelize here on this podcast. But I also recognize that I might be drinking my own Kool-Aid. How do you guys feel?

Rob: I know the U.S. has gotten criticism for not being as good as our peers beyond our borders. I don't think we're as good yet, but I do think we're arguing more than we ever have before. And that's a really good thing. You look at just the amount of debate we have over advanced measurement frameworks. Some of our most spicy debates on LinkedIn when Elena posts things are around measurement.

You look at organizations trying to get together like the ANA and the IAB and getting some actual alignment on what success looks like. Are they there yet? No. But the debates are happening. I think that's really good. And there's just so much debate over the 60/40 and the short-termism, which the U.S. has been pointed at for being way too short-term focused and not as much in the long game. Really healthy debates are happening at the C-suite level within the United States.

Elena: I actually think that Ritson's article commenting on the U.S. and how we were behind helped a lot because he then was invited to speak at Brand Week, which is a pretty big marketing event in the United States. To me, that's a sign - people are seeing Mark Ritson as a thought leader. People want to hear him speak. They're bringing him in.

I agree, Rob. I feel like it's more popular, but I also don't know if it's like when you drive a certain type of car, you start to see that car everywhere. That might be happening to me, but I was also really pleasantly surprised by the marketers that we brought on this show throughout our effectiveness workshop series this year. Just how many of them referenced Byron Sharp, were aware of it. Some weren't, but they were all really smart marketers.

And I think it is becoming more well known. If we're at the point where we're arguing about it, that's also a good thing because there's not a lack of debate in other countries. It's just that they're more familiar with what to debate about to even get there. Let's get into the main topic of this episode.

And that is who do we think were the most effective brands of 2024? Obviously, this is subjective, but we looked at publicly available information about ad spend campaigns and marketing decisions to each find two brands that we believe followed marketing effectiveness principles well this year.

And we also thought they were rewarded for it. I'll go ahead and kick us off. My first brand is Uber Eats and I chose them because I think that their use of marketing and advertising this year made a really big difference for their brand and their company. Now, they aren't a category leader, that would be DoorDash, but they made huge strides this year, and they're likely going to be profitable in 2024 for the first time, which is a big deal for a brand like Uber Eats.

They started off the year with a very popular Super Bowl campaign. It's actually one of the only ones I remember from this year's Super Bowl, and it's a little bit ironic because the campaign was called "Don't Forget," and they had stars like Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, and Victoria and David Beckham that starred in the spots.

The concept was all these celebrities had to forget something in order to remember that Uber Eats delivers almost anything. But what I love most about the campaign is not even the fact that it was in the Super Bowl. It's the fact that they kept it going for the rest of the year. And a lot of Super Bowl brands don't do that. They kind of flame out after their big game, but they reinforce their message through national TV.

They're a huge TV spender in general. According to iSpot, they're going to spend over a hundred million dollars on just national TV alone this year. Now they are a bit smaller than DoorDash, though they're dwarfing DoorDash's TV spend right now. And we all know that share of market follows share of voice. So I am predicting that they will continue to eat into DoorDash's market share.

Rob: Oh, did you stay up all night thinking of that one?

Elena: That is natural, Rob.

Rob: Elena, I've got a question for you on this one, because it's such a great campaign. It's a great example, what a great use of television, especially because their job is harder when you think about it. They have kind of two objectives. One is how do you compete in that category? But then also as Uber, the name Uber, you have to provide clarity on your product because so many people already think of Uber in a different category of transportation.

So do you think the fact that they are Uber Eats helps them, or do you think it makes their job more difficult?

Elena: I agree with you. They have a challenge there, especially because first they had to detach from just Uber and now they're trying to detach from Uber Eats. I know eventually Uber wants to become sort of the everything app, I think. But that is a double challenge. I think it helps them. And the reason I think that comes from when we talked to Jon-Erik, who does the B2B side of marketing for Carfax. We asked him a similar question - does it help or hurt to be attached to such a big consumer brand?

He felt like it helped because it just added credibility. And I think with Uber Eats, when you're going into a category with a monster like DoorDash, their awareness, just like their marketing spend, the size of company - it had to help them. So I think if I had to choose, I'd rather be attached to Uber than be solo at this point with where the market is at.

Angela: That makes a lot of sense. They also have a challenge related to so many restaurants trying to cut them out. They're kind of the Google of the online delivery space, where restaurants want customers coming directly to their own website and ordering from them, instead of bringing them into this app environment where you've got all of these options and you're paying the paid search game of the app world. So they've had a lot of challenges. I agree that the marketing campaign set them up for success. That was super funny. You guys probably remember they received a little drama right ahead of the Super Bowl. One of the cuts was related to someone going, "Oh, I forgot I couldn't eat peanut butter."

Elena: We talked about that.

Angela: So they had to recut the spot right before the Super Bowl, which probably just generated more buzz that probably ended up working in their favor.

Elena: All right, Ange, what about you?

Angela: I'm going with Elf Beauty. They have had a standout year, actually probably the last two years. They're expected to hit over a billion in sales. Just a massive leap, I think, fueled by really smart, effective marketing strategies. Feels like they're following How Brands Grow just from beginning to end, and I think it's paid off big time. They've nailed mental availability.

They're everywhere. I realize I'm the target audience a bit, and so are my girls, but their "Eyes, Lips, Famous" campaign just sticks in people's minds. They've added to that use of viral content, influencers to drive buzz and have just become sort of hard to ignore.

They've dominated physical availability. You can find Elf products in Target, Walmart, CVS, Ulta, my grocery store - they're huge in e-commerce, meeting consumers wherever they shop. And then recently, you know, acquiring a high-growth skincare brand, they've expanded into new categories, just trying to ensure that their products are even easier to buy.

They've got distinctive brand assets: clean, minimalist packaging, bold black and white logo, their acronym ELF. And Rob, I don't know if you know this - Elena, I'm sure you do - what does it stand for? Do you know what it stands for?

Elena: E.L.F. - Eyes, Lips, Face.

Angela: Yes, there you go. So just recognizable on shelves and on screens. And then I think what sets them apart is their ability to blend value and quality. Their products are affordable, but they have this premium feel to them. And I think it helps them appeal to a broad audience of light buyers. High quality and accessible price just allowed them to grow their base and not just rely on that loyal consumer set that I think so many beauty brands fall into.

Elena: I love Elf. I think they're a great example. And if you're going to enter the beauty category when you've got these heavyweights like Cover Girl that have been part of it forever, I think that must be so hard. So they've been so bold. You're right. They've done everything right.

And speaking of light buyers, I own one product from Elf, which would be some like eyebrow gel. But I'm a light buyer from them. I probably buy from them once a year and that's it. But they're getting the light buyers.

Rob: I probably need some, I don't even realize.

Elena: Eyebrow gel. Yeah.

Rob: It is a great name. Just when you think about the categories and it's so confusing out there, especially as someone who doesn't shop at all in those spaces. You go down there and there's just so many different names and they're all fanciful. To go out there with Elf, but also have the story behind it, that's great.

Elena: Very distinctive. I love their CMO. She's very passionate about the brand, very outward facing, which I think aligns really well with them.

Rob: So okay, go back in the time machine to 2020, it's the pandemic and we're all doing these zoom calls and Angela pulls in this tall boy into frame and starts to drink from it, and I'm like, are you drinking malt liquor? I mean, I know it's a pandemic and everything, but what is going on? It's noon.

Angela: You're showing your age when you use a term like malt liquor.

Elena: I know, are people going to know what that is?

Rob: Colt 45 gets the job done. Remember that? Okay, so no, I'm like, what's the deal? And you're like, "Rob, it's this Liquid Death. It's water." And I'm like, what? And you know, you talk about differentiation in a category - like you're just talking about cosmetics - what could be more in need of differentiation than water?

And that's why Liquid Death is my call out for 2024 because they just continue to teach a master class in earned media. And I think some of their latest examples, one in particular was their casket cooler that they did leaning into the Halloween season where they did a co-branded effort with Yeti. They created a casket that was also a Yeti cooler and of course, it just fits so well with the brand of Liquid Death. They're aligning with another real high-quality commodity brand of a cooler.

They ended up selling the one casket, which was another great earned media event, for $68,000. Like now that's probably the most expensive cooler in the history of coolers. Obviously it just did a great job in terms of earning buzz and social media. They're masters at it, so much so that when I was prepping for this podcast, that was the example I wanted to bring. And then of course I wake up yesterday to new headlines being generated by Liquid Death regarding their pit diaper, which is a diaper that you wear when you're in a mosh pit at a concert.

So you can recycle your Liquid Death, right? They did a co-branded effort with Depends. They charged $75 for this pit diaper. You have to look it up online. It's very leather and it's got chains and all that kind of stuff on it. They're selling it for $75 and they sold out. But I think it's another great example - you're going into the holiday season, what a fun gift idea.

Obviously, this isn't a revenue play for them, selling the diaper, but it's just hilarious. The news jacking that this did was because recently at the Sabrina Carpenter concert - she's a big thing, I don't listen to her, but...

Elena: She's a big thing, yeah.

Rob: She's a big thing. Everyone was talking about the viral video of one of her fans in the front area of the concert squatting and peeing, and it went viral and of course, this tied in perfectly with that. You can't make this stuff up. So it's great. It's a great brand, just great tactics. And I'm actually excited to see what they pull off in 2025.

Elena: Yeah, it's funny. We've talked on the show before about earned media and how marketers can't just go out and predictably create that over and over again. It's so hard. Liquid Death calls it into question for me because they have a formula. I think for their team, they probably have momentum they can build on.

The idea that sounds so crazy to another brand, like when you've made a mosh pit diaper, why not do something else that's totally crazy? And I know Mark Ritson has commented on their brand a bit and their product. I think they are a great example of just the power of advertising and marketing. They're doing everything they can to disrupt the water category. And I also love the co-branded stuff they've done. That seems like a theme this year too. And that's a great way to increase your reach is by partnering with another brand.

Rob: And hats off to Kimberly-Clark for a minute, because if you think about the Yeti partnership, that made sense for Yeti because obviously it's a beverage. They're both quality brands. But for Kimberly-Clark to go, "Yeah, we're going to do this tie-in with Liquid Death" was bold. That probably wasn't a real easy one for them to make. There's not as much potential upside. So hats off to them.

Angela: That's a great one.

Elena: I've got my second one. I wanted to pick a brand that's maybe not quite as well known. So I'm choosing Olipop. They're expected to hit half a billion in revenue this year, which is big growth for a brand that's only been around for a handful of years and they have absolutely nailed physical availability.

They're in over 35,000 stores across the U.S., including Walmart, Target, Whole Foods, and Costco. So their product is first to mind, it's very easy to buy. And they've carved out their own space in the soda category by marketing themselves as a healthy soda. They position their product as not just a fun drink, but something that's actually good for you.

So they've tapped into that health-conscious consumer without losing the joy that people associate with drinking soda. And their ads, their branding, it's colorful, approachable, it's consistent. And that's helped them stand out in what is now a crowded healthy soda category. They didn't just compete in the soda market, they created this new healthy soda category, and I think that's what makes them so effective. And they also advertise on TV, which we know is the clear choice of channel for brands who want to invest in effectiveness.

Angela: Have you guys had Olipop?

Rob: I haven't.

Elena: I have.

Angela: I'm definitely a light buyer. I think I've had it once maybe twice, but it's good. I feel like Kombucha really started the focus around kind of healthy but yet fun drinks and there's been all sorts of offshoots and growth in this area that probably still has quite a bit more to grow.

Rob: I would agree. It's such an interesting space to be in right now in terms of healthy beverages, but fun beverages. And yeah, Kombucha definitely kicked off a whole other sector.

Elena: Well, Rob, you're right. Like all the sparkling water has become very competitive, very crowded. I think what's smart about them is they carved out the healthy soda category that didn't even exist and it definitely tastes different than sparkling water. Like it does taste like soda. And now you can see a lot of other brands are entering the category, but they're the category leader. So they're definitely going to capitalize on just the general interest in it.

Rob: Yeah, that idea of healthy indulgence, when you think of like Magic Spoon, the cereal company and how they're going to take your favorite kids' cereals and make them somewhat healthy. You could just see that really taking off, especially as us older folks get a little nostalgic and still want our treats, but they're just not as good for us anymore. That whole category could be interesting to watch.

Elena: All right, Ange, what's your second brand?

Angela: I'm playing the beauty game today because I have two additional brands that really leaned into a partnership strategy that I think is so interesting. I'm talking about Ulta and Sephora. These two beauty powerhouses are among the most effective brands of this year.

What's interesting is their success stems again from embracing these marketing effectiveness principles, but in different ways, and both were rewarded for it. Starting with Ulta: physical availability by continuing their partnership and expansion with Target. This shop-in-shop presence - have you guys, does your Target that you visit have an Ulta in it? Mine does.

Elena: I was going to say no, I don't think so.

Angela: Really? Okay. So it's like front and center. I mean, it's right by the registers and it's a pretty sizable footprint. And then moving on to Sephora - so while Ulta expanded through Target, Sephora leaned into its growing partnership with Kohl's. Sephora shop-in-shops in over 850 Kohl's this year.

Angela: Sephora helps tap into the suburban and middle market shoppers who might have not visited standalone Sephora stores, which I fall into myself. I've been in both Ulta and Sephora across Kohl's and Target and otherwise wouldn't have.

Rob: I've got data to support your choices. And that is the credit card statement of our house. My wife and daughter frequent them - I've never stepped into one, maybe I have stepped into one because I had to, but man, do they love it. They shop there. They're doing such a good job with physical availability. They're everywhere.

Angela: Well, I think my favorite of the two is probably Sephora Kohl's because personally, I'm trying to be at Target less. Ulta gets the win there - I am just there far too often, but I probably otherwise wouldn't be at Kohl's and I have bought a lot of product at Kohl's because of venturing into Sephora, usually for my children, there. So it's a win both ways for them.

Elena: Some people thought that physical availability wouldn't matter anymore. It turns out it does.

Angela: Yeah. And Kohl's - I mean, this is their second partnership. They're the ones that also did the Amazon return partnership, which brought me into Kohl's as well. Like it just makes a ton of sense.

Elena: All right, Rob.

Rob: Well, how hard is it to create a beloved holiday campaign? Like that's the pinnacle, right? Just pinnacle of branding, the pinnacle of cultural relevance. And Aldi just continues to knock that ball out of the park with their Kevin the Carrot campaign. I mean, you just talk about a memorable character and emotional storytelling. They're beautiful ads to watch. They do such a great job of using that character to interact with all of their products.

So it's not like it's some sort of completely irrelevant character. It truly fits with their brand. They're able to use Kevin the Carrot across all of their platforms. And then the data supports it - they continue to be ranked as the number one holiday campaign. I believe it's System1 for like 6 years in a row. You look at the foot traffic and the sales that they report from it - it's the perfect combination of great branding, great storytelling year after year memorability. And at the end of the day, it's driving ROI for Aldi.

Elena: And I believe their main kind of work with that is usually a spot, right? A commercial? Yeah. So, hey, video, consistency, a mascot, cute name.

Rob: Yeah, and it's Hollywood quality too. Sometimes production value can not be that impressive in a campaign. You're like, okay, great, you just spent a lot of money to make something look good, but it's just gorgeous. Everything that they do with that character is just cinematic and beautiful. Great campaign.

Elena: All right. Enough positivity. We're going to learn from what we think could be kind of a brand blunder this year. And this is just looking through a lens of marketing effectiveness. And I will say, we aren't saying that these aren't successful brands or incredibly smart marketers. There are a lot of reasons why a brand might make any given decision. And sometimes those decisions have nothing to do with the marketing teams.

And we just don't know exactly what's going on there. We also don't know for sure how any of these choices this year will pan out in the long run. So open to being wrong, but that being said, Rob, why don't you go first?

Rob: I have a two-sided answer. Obviously Coca-Cola got a lot of grief over their AI holiday campaign. And one might look at that as a massive blunder, massive backlash. Obviously no brand wants that.

However, I do think that you have to look at it in the context of the time period that it was delivered in. AI is going to be something we're going to be talking about, how it was first introduced into popular culture. And I believe that ad students 10 years from now will be talking about this ad �.

And so there is something to the weight at which Coca-Cola is saying, look, we're going to take our most beloved moment, our most beloved equity, which is the holiday, and we're going to layer it with the future technology of AI. Definitely was a blunder. Definitely gave them way more negative feedback than they were hoping for. But I'm also going to put an asterisk next to it and say, I think we'll still be talking about that ad 10 years from now.

Angela: I agree. It was hard for me to even put that in the blunder category. I put that in the win category for them. All the brands that are dismissing this new way of thinking and this new form of innovation - I think that's going to be the blunder. I don't know if this exists in other industries as well, but the marketing world loves to tear apart new thinking.

Rob: Oh, loves it.

Angela: I get it. There's a lot of energy and emotion around job displacements and things like that, which is all to be considered without question. But it just feels to me like we're taking ourselves far too seriously. If you go back and look at the polar bear commercials that Coca-Cola used to put out back in 1995 and compare them to some of the work that was just done via AI - it's just a great ad. It's warm. It's holiday. It's magical. And people sitting on couches eating their holiday food and enjoying their holiday period are not going, "What the heck was that?"

Rob: 100%.

Elena: I agree. I have a first-hand example of this, which is a couple of weeks ago. I was watching football with my husband and he didn't know any of this Coca-Cola drama because he's a normal human. And that spot came on and it was the only spot throughout the hours we're watching football games where he - I was looking the other way - he's like, "Look at the spot." It's Coca-Cola and he thought it was beautiful and it was the only spot the whole day that he called out. And I love this spot. I don't know why people are complaining about it. I think it's really beautiful. It's full of distinctive assets and just makes me think of Christmas.

Angela: Okay, well, mine's not a toss up. I don't think - I don't know, maybe you guys will disagree. Mine's Jaguar and their plan to abandon their heritage to become this hyper luxury EV brand. They're repositioning themselves as this ultra-exclusive, electric-only brand car, starting at $100,000, double their current price points. They've shared they expect to retain only 10 to 15% of their existing customers and instead focus on "cash-rich, time-poor, design-minded, younger buyers."

Elena: Who would that be?

Rob: Not me.

Angela: I don't know who that is, but this move is going to dramatically reduce their physical availability. They're scaling down to just 20 locations in the UK, a small number of curated brand stores in global cities. They do have to stop production for over a year. So that obviously makes it harder to find and buy. They're narrowing their focus to this niche target audience - wealthy, design-minded, alienating 85 to 90% of their current buyers.

We know that goes against marketing effectiveness principles. And then the brand refresh - they introduced this completely new set of brand assets, a more modernist minimalist logo. Got a ton of bad press when it happened. It just abandons their legacy and introduces this generic disconnected asset. Just dilutes what makes Jaguar recognizable. It's hard to see - I'm sure there was a vision there, but from the outside looking in, it's a head scratcher for me.

Rob: I think they could do a tie-in with Liquid Death - the brand is going to be dead.

Elena: Oh my gosh!

Rob: It's sad actually. And I didn't even know some of the details you shared about where they're going. That was super interesting, but I've seen the concept car that they've introduced, which is horrendously ugly. The fact that they've gotten rid of the leaping Jaguar - come on. I still miss the fact that they removed the hood ornament. That was such a classic part of the car back in the eighties and it's just sad. It just smells of desperation.

Elena: Yeah, they're burning the boats for sure.

Angela: Yeah, certainly must be fueled by opportunity they're trying to find in some white space, which we all are to some degree, but just thinking through what makes brands grow? It's hard to see how this is going to play out in a way that is positive for them.

Elena: I agree with you, Rob. I was just straight up sad when I saw the Jaguar was gone. As a marketer and a consumer, I was just depressed. Oh, we're doing this really? It's gone. You couldn't have kept it in some way? I've seen people redesign their distinctive assets in a smart, nice way.

Rob: Yeah, I don't understand. And they are owned by the same company that owns Land Rover. So I just don't know if it's some sort of portfolio play that they're doing here saying, we're going to leave Land Rover to the broader audience and then we're going to make this super exclusive. I don't know.

Elena: Because it does seem like Land Rover has been making a lot better marketing decisions. They've kind of been expanding.

Rob: They've been going the opposite direction.

Angela: This new logo looks like it belongs in the beauty aisle. It's so simplistic. It's almost juvenile in my view.

Elena: I would love to see like a Netflix series on these big brand changes and track and interview people how these changes got to where they did. I'd be really curious because they're kind of doubling down on it. Marketing team is standing behind it. And I would just love to know the strategy and the steps or the politics. I'm not sure how you end up with something like that, because it happens more often than you think.

Angela: Well, and I think so much time, money and energy goes into something like that, that sometimes brands get so far down the path, they can't see a way out. They're just like "just keep going".

Rob: Just double down.

Elena: They should take some notes from what's that movie Rob? You probably know this. They're making this big movie with some sort of cartoon character. He has like blue hair and he's like a fireball.

Rob: Oh, Sonic the Hedgehog.

Elena: And remember people reacted to the initial trailer and they're like, you can't do this to Sonic. And they redid the whole movie.

Rob: Well, he had fangs in the original version. No, I'm serious. He had like these sharp teeth and it freaked everybody out. And so they ended up making his teeth square. They had to go back and fix it before they released it.

Elena: But they went back and they decided like, "Hey, all right, you're right." And it's really hard to do that when you're already in that deep. Okay, so mine is actually sort of related to Jaguar because this brand made an initial marketing mistake that's now an example and it has to do with abandoning their distinctive assets and that is Tropicana.

So Marketing Effectiveness fans, you probably already know about their 2009 rebrand. They invested $35 million into this redesign and they replaced their iconic orange with a straw image, and they changed that to a glass of orange juice. And they repositioned the logo vertically. In 2009, it led to a 20% drop in sales within just two months equating to over a $30 million loss.

And the backlash was so severe that Tropicana actually went back to its original design shortly thereafter. Now this year they were in the marketing news again, because they redesigned their bottle again. They took it into a more conventional plastic shape and they reduced the size from 52 ounces to 46. There are reasons behind this - they wanted to improve user friendliness and environmental sustainability, but they were immediately accused of shrinkflation because they're giving people a smaller quantity without a corresponding price decrease.

This led to an 8.3 percent decline of sales in July and a 10.9 percent drop in August, which is likely also a tens of millions of dollar loss. They responded by emphasizing that this redesign was based on feedback. They want to improve the customer experience. And they said, "Hey, changes like this take time to be embraced." And I will say this rebrand, they kept their original distinctive asset of the orange with a straw. But original packaging - that's also a distinctive asset, which maybe brands don't always think about. So changing that design had a negative impact.

That's still a distinctive asset. So I think that combined with inflation concerns and the timing of this just didn't set them up well for success. But I know that this is where they think they want to go long term. I thought it was funny when I first saw them in the news again, I thought, "Oh no, did they kill the orange with the straw again? Who walked in there and recommended that for the second time?" But they didn't. The orange and the straw is still there. But still people, that's a pretty big loss. People are still upset about it.

Rob: It's interesting when someone builds such love for a brand that when you change something, people revolt. There's something admirable about it - like when Coca-Cola switched their flavor, it was like a scandal. And it garnered its own press, but at least someone like Tropicana or Coca-Cola, they can walk themselves back out of it. Maybe even build on that - "Oh, we heard our loyal customers." Versus a Jaguar is just basically saying you're all out.

Elena: It's like a big middle finger to everybody.

Rob: We don't really care.

Elena: Yeah, I think they're going to be fine, but I thought it was interesting because I didn't think of packaging shape as a distinctive asset as well. But it is. I was reading about it - yeah, packaging shape, when you're that well known, packaging shape is also an asset that you should protect or really consider before you change it.

Rob: Absolutely.

Elena: All right, final question to wrap us up. What ad comes to mind for you as most effective in 2024? I'm talking personally, if you can remember what ad drove you to buy something or do something that you think was due to effective advertising.

Rob: The Reese's Peanut Butter Cup campaign continues to be my favorite campaign and continues to drive me to buy more. Will Arnett's amazing voice in that campaign series, the distinctive brand coloring that they use. It's the one campaign where I can be in a room and close my eyes, and I know it's a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup campaign, or the volume can be off and I know it's a Reese's campaign.

It's just so good. And it appeals - it always does such a good job of introducing humor yet product focus, where you just see that peanut butter cup that's been bitten into. And you're like, I wish that was my mouth that just took that bite out of the peanut butter cup. So it has driven me personally to stop by gas stations just to buy peanut butter cups.

Angela: They're so good.

Elena: If you can see an ad and hear it and you know it's for the same brand, it's good.

Angela: All right. I had to think hard about this one. Brand is super important. How often can you correlate your buying behavior to something that you just saw? I really had to think about this one. So what I came up with was Disney Cruise Line. Got me to bite again. We did a Disney cruise a couple of years back and don't get me wrong, it's a great experience. If you've done one, you probably will do another one, but they have a campaign out that's been running for the majority of the year.

And just Disney - they're just a kaleidoscope of creativity and this vivid, immersive imagery, emotional-driven storytelling just brought me right back into the magic again. Ended up booking another Disney cruise.

Elena: You should be like a Disney ambassador!

Angela: Disney - I really do love them. And they've made it harder to love them recently with some of their moves, but I still do love them. It's been hard. Can you imagine being this entertainment conglomerate through COVID and stuff? I don't envy their position as a business leader.

Rob: Their ads do a great job though, of capturing that classic Disney magic. Helps them in a category where it's probably harder and harder to differentiate yourself. It's all about bigger, badder, whatever this ship now has, but you can't compete with Disney. Nobody can put on a ship what Disney can.

Angela: Well, and they've got such a cross-generational appeal where my kids can see the ads and go, "I want a Disney cruise again," but you could also have grandparents go, "Gosh, you know what would be amazing?" So I love that about what they're doing - what are all those category entry points to getting that family back on the ship?

Elena: Love it. So mine, Angela, is also hard to think about. I do really think about what commercial or advertisement really changed my buying behavior? I'm a little ashamed of this one, but the Temu Super Bowl ads definitely worked on me. I'm a light buyer of Temu. I bought from them once. I know they're like number one in the app store now. However, it worked. I know everybody dunked on their commercial and they showed the same one a few times.

However, they use TV to reach a really broad audience with a distinctive, clear, memorable message, whether you liked it or not. It did cause me to download the app and buy some strange things from Temu that I probably won't use. I think a lot of people looked at that and poked fun at them. But it did make a lot of people aware of Temu that weren't before. And now look at that - they're number one in the app store.

Rob: And the data from the DeMars house would support that one as well. The amount of Temu charges. I'm like, who's this Temu? What is this Temu thing? We seem like we're our own port in front of our house right now with the amount of shipments coming in.

Angela: Well, if you just get off the app, Rob, they'll stop showing up.

Rob: That's not me. I'm telling you.

Angela: Sure. We know that you've fallen into the world of Temu.

Rob: My wife will be like, "Oh, look at this amazing sweater." And it is a great sweater. And she's like, it was like $4 on Temu. I'm like, what is that? Like, how is that even possible?

Elena: Yeah, there's something else happening with Temu, but we don't need to predict that. We'll find out soon enough why it's actually $4.

Angela: Boy.

Elena: That's it.