Marketing visuals with impactMarketing visuals with impact

Laura

Why are some visuals —the Marlboro cowboy, Colonel Sanders — so powerful and other visuals — Taco Bell’s Chihuahua — pretty much a disaster?


Because many marketing people misunderstand the role of a visual. 


The role of a visual is not just to attract attention. Consider Taco Bell’s talking Chihuahua, launched in 1997. Few advertising programs created as much attention as the Chihuahua and its catchphrase, “Yo Quiero Taco Bell!” 


At the time, the Chihuahua campaign ranked among the three most popular ads ever rated by Ad Track, USA Today’s consumer poll, and among the Top 10 by Entertainment Weekly. 


Gidget the Chihuahua was on the cover of TV Guide and starred in a TV spot for Geico. In 1998 Taco Bell sold 13 million talking toy Chihuahuas. 


Said Taco Bell’s president at the time, “That dog is critical to our success. It happens maybe once in a lifetime that you get a nation talking about you.”


Three years after the dog made its debut, however, Taco Bell’s president was fired along with the advertising agency that created the campaign. The reason: a 6-percent drop in same-store sales, marking the fourth consecutive quarter of flat or declining comparable-unit sales at Taco Bell.


Taco Bell’s agency didn’t take its firing quietly. 


“We did outstanding work for this brand over the last three years,” said the agency chief executive. “And we take the bullet? It’s hard to swallow.”


So if not to attract attention, what is the role of a visual? 


A visual is like a hammer, perhaps the most important tool in a carpenter’s toolbox. But as important as a hammer is, it’s useless without a nail.


The nail is the brand’s position. The cowboy is Marlboro’s hammer, but the verbal nail is Marlboro’s position as the “first masculine cigarette.” Together the two have created the world’s best-selling cigarette brand.


What verbal nail did the Chihuahua try to hammer in the minds of consumers? That they ought to associate Taco Bell with dog food? Or because Chihuahuas are Mexican dogs, that Taco Bell is a Mexican chain? But that’s already obvious from the name “Taco Bell” and its reputation as the leading Mexican fast-food chain.


No matter how unique, how interesting and how shocking a visual is, if it doesn’t say something positive about the brand itself, the visual is likely ineffective.


Consider two other brands associated with Mexico that took different, more effective approaches with their visuals.


First, Corona, which until 1979 was an inexpensive, Mexican working-class beer with a painted label. That year Grupo Modelo started to export it to the American market.


It’s difficult to build a brand with cheap prices, so the importers gave Corona a premium price and insisted that restaurants serve the beer with a slice of lime. 


The lime was the hammer, but what was the nail?


The nail, or the verbal idea that the lime communicated, was the fact that Corona is an “authentic” Mexican beer. America is a lemon and lemonade country. Lime is associated with Mexico and tequila and margaritas.


Similarly, Lime Fresh Mexican Grill, in both its name and logo, also harnesses the positive associations of freshness and authenticity that come with the lime.


In both cases, the lime offers a visual connected with Mexico that also features positive associations of freshness and authenticity. Taco Bell’s Chihuahua, while also Mexican, lacks those associations — and is therefore less powerful.


If they hit the nail, hammers can be remarkably effective. 


Thanks in part to its marketing efforts, Lime Fresh Mexican Grill has been busy opening its fast-casual restaurants in Florida and even has one in my hometown, Atlanta, with two more on the way. Lime Fresh also has a license agreement with Ruby Tuesday that gives the casual-dining chain rights to expand the concept.


Corona has become the best-selling imported beer in America, the best-selling Mexican beer on the global market and one of the 100 most valuable brands in the world.


Thanks to a lime.


According to Interbrand, a global branding consultancy, Corona is the 86th most valuable global brand, worth $3.9 billion. In the United States, Corona outsells the No. 2 imported beer brand, Heineken, by about 50 percent.


And just last month Anheuser-
Busch InBev announced the acquisition of the half of Grupo Modelo it didn’t already own for $20.1 billion. That effectively values the owner of Corona as worth some $40 billion. To put that number in perspective, InBev acquired Anheuser-Busch in 2008 for $52 billion. 


You might think marketing people would agree that a consistent long-term visual that hammers in a singular verbal idea would be the most important element in a marketing plan. But apparently not.


Marketing people seem to be enamored with verbal approaches that often can’t be visualized. Why do so many brands depend solely on a verbal approach in their marketing programs?


Blame the Chihuahua. The little fellow has apparently frightened the marketing community out of taking a chance on a more visual approach. 


Laura Ries is president of Ries & Ries, a marketing consulting firm in Atlanta. She can be reached at [email protected].