National Post from Toronto, Ontario, Canada • 36

CM FINANCIAL POST, MONDAY, JANUARY ih, mf) MARKETING Some very Canadian ads from Canadian 'IV spots portray an airline of few surprises Patrick Ai.i.osskry Marketing Watch 1 CANADIAN Mill IM One of a scries of TV spots features a Canadian Airlines plane sporting the company's newly resurrected Canada goose logo. Super Bowl is just another game here designed staff uniforms, Canadian Airlines, together with ad agency Gee Jeffery Partners of Toronto, sets out to rekindle the waning perception among business travellers that it's the country's leading carrier in terms of customer service. A sequence of print ads that have begun appearing in major publications imparts the hard facts of the matter: Improved meals, more legroom, lap-top plug-ins, and so forth. But it's the job of the five TV spots to establish a brand character travellers will respond to with confidence and loyalty. Three of the spots are vignettes of ordinary people in non-travelling contexts, while one depicts a businessman in a crowded airport and another features a Canadian Airlines plane with the company's newly resurrected Canada goose logo.

In each, the male narrator asks several questions intended to demonstrate that the airline understands people lead complex lives and also that it realizes the best role it can play in their lives is to provide them with a positive, stress-free flight experience. Here's the narration from a spot entitled Time Together, showing a man and women canoeing along a river: "Are we here because someone needs to challenge the status quo? Or is it to keep things simple? Or are we here so that you can get back to the things that matter most?" The ad ends with a shot of the man sound asleep in his plane seat Another spot, entitled Hockey, depicts a father with his kids, who are playing outdoor hockey. Narrator: "Are we here because someone has to find a better way? Or is it to keep things honest? Or are we here because if you weren't back to tie up their skates, who would?" The concluding frames show the father in his plane seat, con-tently sipping a cup of coffee. The spots, which were directed by American Carlton Chase, who shot a series of languid image ads for Norwegian Cruise Lines in 1996, do an effective job of associating the airline with notions of serenity and peacefulness. The narration, too, delivered in a quiet, unassuming manner, conveys a sense of calm and tranquility.

This is a brand you can relax with, a contemplative brand, a brand of few surprises. How very like us. How very Canadian. Financial Post TV ADS CHEAPER THAN U.S. morning of the entire Global TV winter lineup.

Canadians will see few of the multi-million-dollar spectacle ads that end up being more captivating than the big game, which is usually a blowout by half-time. They will see lots of shots of the Global "blimp" a computer generated gas bag that will fly across the screen when Fox broadcasters are reading out commercial messages, while a real blimp broadcasts shots of the stadium in Miami. If you are a student of advertising or want to see the big-budget campaigns, you may want to visit the local bar. Global insists its viewers are not losing out. "I'm not convinced you are missing out on the ads, because most of the U.S.

companies participate up here as well," said Ken Johnson, vice-president of sales. Global said the Super Bowl is sold out, but Why do we choose the airlines we do? Is it because they have flights to where we want to go, when we want to go? Or because they have prices we can afford? Is it the bonus travel miles? Or the seating? Or the food? Or the free booze in the airport lounge? Or is it something else? Something beyond the tangible. Something that resides deep inside us, right next to that something that makes us root for the home team even when it's a loser. Is it just plain loyalty? Fact is, all tangibles being equal, or at least perceived as being generally equal, the product or service with the strongest intangibles is likely to emerge the winner in any given marketing battle. Consider your own experience as a consumer.

If you're like most people, you don't exactly have the free time to spend breaking down your every purchasing decision, tracking down loose facts, making comparisons. Nor, in many instances, do you have the qualifications. It is for this reason that brand image plays such a significant role in marketing. Brand image acts as a kind of human skin enveloping the bones and sinew of a rational product proposition: Not only does it hide away the messy details, but also it gives the product an identity people can relate to on an emotional, intuitive level. Some brands are hip, some are funny, some are rude, some are folksy, but all are created with the intention of capturing the attention, goodwill, trust, and ultimately, repeat business of a consumer audience.

In its new $38-million marketing campaign, which includes a new logo, fresh paint job, and re have gone so far as to lay their entire yearly ad budget out for a few bowl spots. But in Canada, where Can West Global Communications Inc. broadcasts the game, it's just another football game as far as advertisers are concerned. Even though it attracts more than three million viewers, making it the most-watched single sporting event according to CanWest, viewers will be treated mostly to the same old spots they've watched all year. Expect lots of RRSP ads, health and beauty product spots and complete viewer recall Monday could not say which advertisers, if any, are introducing new commercials during the game.

Media buyers, who advise companies on the best way to advertise to consumers, say there is good reason for the cross-border fall-off in advertiser interest. "Viewing levels are great in but business isn't great in said Janet Callaghan, corporate media director with Media Buying Services Inc. of Toronto. To be sure, advertisers are paying a premium to be on the big game, about $55,000 for a 30-second slot, compared to $25,000 to $30,000 for a space during the Stanley Cup playoffs in the more desirable months of May and June. "It is beautiful if you are selling soft drinks, beverages, anything else this is a lead-in to your huge-volume time of year." The only advertiser Global could say is definitely unveiling new commercials geared for the Super Bowl is Labatt Brewing which makes and markets Budweiser in Canada.

The brewer has been the main sponsor of the NFL in Canada this season with its "It's a big game" series of ads produced by Bozell Worldwide of Toronto. Labatt has a series of seven 15-second spots under the "unsung heroes" umbrella that honour less-celebrated position players such as the centre, guard, corner back, and special teams player. "We're going to do some pretty innovative stuff this year and we're hoping to create the same interest in the ads that you have in the U.S.," said Gino Cantalini, Budweiser marketing manager at Labatt. "We are hoping some other advertisers will step up to the plate as well and deliver equally as good creative." Financial Post U.S. advertisers plan launches, but we'll get same old spots By Paul Brknt South of the border the day-long football orgy known as the Super Bowl is as widely anticipated by advertisers and television executives as hardcore pigskin fans.

Super Bowl broadcaster Fox predicts it will sell $150-million (US) in ad time, with a 30-sec-ond spot during the game on Sunday commanding a hall of fame price of (US). Despite the steep price, corporate America is lining up like never before for the annual game. Anheuser-Busch the game's exclusive beer sponsor, is reportedly paying as much as $2-million (US) for each of the nine 30-second slots it plans to run. Busch is using the most-viewed sporting event to end the long-running talking frogs campaign. For advertisers, the NFL finale has traditionally been the event to launch new products or showcase new ad campaigns for venerable brands.

Fox, which expects about 130 million U.S. viewers to tune in, begins its coverage at 11 a.m., a full seven hours before kickoff time. A few smaller U.S. advertisers Budweiser 'It's a big game' ads will share limelight with new creative. Putting a tangible price on intangible Gucci CANADIAN AIRMNKS Ads aim to associate Canadian Airlines with peacefulness and serenity.

Unusual career move for TV's hottest voice-over talent Arab-backed Invcstcorp. Two years later, he was shot dead. In November his ex-wife Patrizia Reggiani was found guilty of plotting his murder. The company recovered its poise under Harvard-trained lawyer Domenico de Sole, who became chairman in 1994, and Texan chief designer Tom Ford. Sales are expected to be about $1-billion this year, doubling their level when Gucci went public in 1996.

The firm's total stock market capitalization stands at roughly twice its level of just three months ago, thanks to takeover speculation and solid results. "The history of the Gucci brand has shown that it is not invulnerable," said Interbrand's Mr. Perrier. "But the brand has really bounced back in the past few years." For LVMH's Mr. Arnault, the risk now is in paying too much if he tries to add the Gucci tag to his designer labels collection, filled over 20 years of steady shopping with names such as Givenchy, Christian Dior, Guerlain, and Louis Vuitton.

But Mr. Perrier said the chief of LVMH, the world's largest luxury brands concern, is an experienced buyer with a knack for sensing a brand's intrinsic value. "Bernard Arnault is a canny man," Mr. Perrier said. "I think he knows what he's doing." Reuters patrons such as Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, and Queen Elizabeth to command such a high price demonstrates both the power and the mystery of a strong brand.

"Gucci is an icon. When we talk about Gucci, we're at the very far end of the spectrum in intangible asset value," said David Haigh, managing director of London consultancy Brand Finance and author of a newly published book titled Brand Valuation. The business world has long struggled with the question of "brand value," or assigning a financial worth to a name or image associated with a particular product. No consensus method exists for valuing a brand. Elaborate models involving consumer surveys and advertising costs are gaining acceptance.

But it remains a dodgy proposition to put a price on what exactly motivates well-heeled consumers to splash out, say, $1,000 for a leather bag with a bamboo handle. "It is difficult to value a luxury brand There is no approved model. A lot of it is psychology or intuition," said Sagra Maceira de Rosen, luxury goods analyst at J.P. Morgan. Brands are sometimes classified as "intangible assets" in accounting terms.

In some countries, they may be given a financial value and carried on the books, but only if they have been acquired from someone else. The acquisition price, along with projected earnings, provides the estimated value. No such entry appears on the balance sheet at Gucci, whose brand has been developed in-house over decades. There are accounting lines for inventory, equipment, cash, receivables, and the like, but none for the single asset that is by far Gucci's most valuable: The world-beating cachet of its name. "Ninety per cent of the value of the Gucci business is in intangibles.

That's also true of LVMH You'd expect it to be true of a luxury products business," said Raymond Perrier, global brand valuation director at London consulting firm Interbrand Newell Sorrell. Founded in the 1920s by leather craftsman Guccio Gucci, the Gucci name has become synonymous not just with glamour but with scandal. Its handbags and mens' loafers endure as status symbols, and it has branched into scarves, watches, jewellery, eyewear, fashion, and perfume. Worn by film stars and royalty, Gucci products sustained their upper-crust appeal into the 1980s, when ugly feuding erupted among family members and the business suffered. The Gucci name began appearing on decidedly down-market items, production slowed, suppliers, went unpaid, and bankruptcy loomed.

Then Maurizio Gucci, the last family member involved in the enterprise, sold out in 1993 to By Kkvin Dkawbauch LONDON The glass cases in the Leather Room at London's exclusive Harrods department store are filled with sleek black handbags, prompting one shopper to ask which ones were as good as a Gucci, but less expensive. The sales clerk responded that similarly elegant accessories were indeed available for less money, but only at a certain sacrifice in style. "There's a definite Gucci look and if it's not a Gucci, it's not a Gucci," she said coolly. Italian fashion house Gucci Group NV possesses one of the world's top brand names and few know that better than Bernard Arnault, chairman of French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, which in recent weeks has snapped up 26.7 of Gucci's stock. The investment is firing intense market speculation of an impending buyout, with much attention focused on the true worth of the Florentine leather goods dynasty and its glamorous name.

Industry analysts price Gucci at to a deluxe price tag nearing five times annual sales, versus normal consumer goods buyout ratios of one to two times sales. (All figures in U.S. dollars.) The ability of Gucci made famous in the 1950s by luminous Royal Appliance Manufacturing Co. brought Fred Astaire back to life to dance with a Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner, the Coca-Cola Co. used James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart to pitch Diet Coke and Adolph Coors Co.

exhumed John Wayne. Advertisers such as Royal Appliance and Coors Light used special effects wizardry to engineer the reincarnations of Mr. Astaire and Mr. Wayne. In the case of Mr.

Facenda's voice, the NFL made its appropriation a lot easier by developing a roster of sound-alike voice-overs to replace him after he died. NFL Films now uses Harry Kalas, Jeff Kaye and Earl Mann to narrate the league's football movies. Mr. Kalas supplied the voice-over for the and Sunny Delight ads; Mr. Kaye did the Tostitos spot, and Mr.

Mann narrated the Letterman promotions. All of these commercials are spoofs that play off the association of Mr. Facenda's masculine, authoritative intonations "In driving rain, pro football is played" to make a light-hearted point. The New York Times To those who have been watching football on television in recent weeks, the hottest voice-over talent in corporate America seems to be John Facenda. He narrates some of the National Football League's Feel the Power spots, which ran during the playoffs.

Voices that sound like his have been popping up on commercials for Tostitos tortilla chips, and the Sunny Delight juice drink, as well as on promotions for The Late Show With David Letterman on CBS. Mr. Facenda's popularity during the height of the professional football season should not be a surprise: He made his name as the long-time narrator for NFL Films. Because of the rich timbre of his voice, he is revered in some football circles as "the voice of God." The only thing unusual about Mr. Facenda's current success as a corporate pitchman is that he has been dead for almost 15 years.

For Madison Avenue, death is no longer the impediment it used to be. In the last several years, the.