You know you have arrived when your ad campaign gets press in the New York Times. The team at Cloudveil did just that, working with TDA out of Boulder. A solid read on how to think outside the box and really make an impact with your ad budget:
September 14, 2009
Campaign Spotlight
Saying ‘I’m Sorry’ With Tongue Firmly in Cheek
By
STUART ELLIOTT At a time when many public figures who ought to say “I’m sorry” offer at best non-apology apologies, a marketer of sportswear for dedicated outdoors enthusiasts is offering a cheeky alternative.
Cloudveil Mountain Works, which sells apparel to people ardent about skiing, climbing or fishing in the mountains, is presenting its customers a chance to order apology merchandise -- gifts to give to those they have angered, offended or disappointed by spending so much time skiing, climbing or fishing in the mountains.
The twist in the print, online and social media campaign, now getting under way, is that the merchandise is not from Cloudveil but from other companies. The Cloudveil agency, TDA Advertising and Design in Boulder, Colo., arranged cross-promotions with three online marketers --
1-800-Flowers, Zazzle and Kool Dog Kafe -- to provide Cloudveil customers with ways to express how sorry they may be that their priorities are more outdoor- than indoor-oriented.
The offers are made with a tongue-in-cheek tone, but they are real; consumers can order the appeasement gifts on sections of the
Cloudveil Web site .
To keep the humorous tone going, the campaign pretends to play down the actual products that Cloudveil sells. They appear in bottom corners of the print ads under a headline typically used for the softest of soft sells: “You might also like.”
One print ad offers ski-aholics the chance to apologize with the “Fresh-powder-made-me-miss-lunch-with-your-parents” bouquet for $39.99.
“Nothing says ‘Sorry,’ ‘I’m so sorry,’ ‘No, I really mean it’ better than the Fresh-powder-made-me-miss-lunch-with-your-parents bouquet,” reads a description on a section of the Cloudveil Web site (
cloudveil.com/powder). Fulfillment of the order will be made by 1-800-Flowers.
“With the perfect combination of color and flair,” the description goes on, “this stunning arrangement will surely draw attention away from your beaming smile that resulted from an amazing day on the slopes.”
At the bottom left corner of the ad is an actual Cloudveil product, the RZ Series RPK jacket.
A second print ad gives fishers the opportunity to make amends with the “Sorry-I-missed-the-meeting-because-of-the-stonefly-hatch” coffee mug, which reads, “No. 1 boss.” (Trout love to bite at stoneflies – at least, that is what
Google tells me.)
The mug, which costs $12.99, “is the sincerest microwave-safe apology on the market,” reads a description on another section of the Web site (
cloudveil.com/stonefly). The order will be fulfilled by
zazzle.com.
“Field-tested with 11 ounces of liquid, your boss is sure to forgive your absence while sipping on his or her favorite workplace beverage,” the description continues, adding that the mug is “also available in stein or frosted-glass version for post-work happy hour enjoyment.”
At the bottom of that ad is another real Cloudveil clothing item, the SR Series 8X Pro jacket.
In the third ad, climbers are provided a way to assuage the guilt they feel from ignoring their pets, by ordering the “Sorry-I-went-climbing-again-instead-of-taking-you-for-a-walk” dog treats.
Because “man’s best friend gets mad too,” reads a description on another section of the Cloudveil Web site (
cloudveil.com/sorry), the dog bones, at $5.99 from
kooldogkafe.com, are “the perfect cross-species apology gift.”
The treats are “specially designed knowing that canines forget negligence best when distracted with real chicken, peanut butter and BBQ flavor,” the description concludes.
The actual Cloudveil product at the bottom of that ad is the JH Series Serendipity jacket.
The print ads will appear in magazines like Drake, Outside and Powder. The budget for the campaign is estimated at $200,000 to $300,000.
No money is changing hands between Cloudveil and the three online marketers, which get to keep the revenue from whatever merchandise sales are generated by the campaign. Plans call for the merchandise to arrive with “sorry” cards bearing the Cloudveil brand name.
The campaign is an example of a popular trend on Madison Avenue known as cross-marketing, or co-branding. The idea is that one (brand) plus one (brand) equals three, amplifying the power of well-known names to help ads break through the clutter.
The concept began with products like Betty Crocker cake mixes that use Hershey chocolate or Post Raisin Bran cereal that uses Sun-Maid raisins. The tie-ins are called out prominently on the product packages.
It has since been expanded to ad campaigns, among them a 2002 commercial for Chevrolet that featured the Maytag repairman, to promote the dependability of the Chevrolet Impala, and a current commercial for Sprint that shows football players drinking — and their coach being drenched with — Gatorade.
The campaign for Cloudveil is “funny, inspired and irreverent,” says Stephen Sullivan, president at Cloudveil in Jackson, Wyo., a division of Spyder Active Sports, “and it’s perfectly tied through” in that “you can actually order the flowers, dog biscuits or mug.”
“It was really cool these outside vendors are willing to participate,” he adds.
Another reason Mr. Sullivan praises the campaign is because it is in keeping with the Cloudveil brand’s DNA of celebrating what he calls “the mountain culture.”
TDA’s most recent campaign for Cloudveil before this, from 2006, took a different tack to illustrate the priorities of devotees of mountain sports. One ad showed a man in a Cloudveil jacket carrying a tray in a restaurant, loaded with saltine crackers, ketchup, relish and a glass of water — or, in other words, spending on lunch is far less important than spending on mountain pursuits.
The new campaign “continues on with our effort under the tag line ‘Inspired mountain apparel,’ ” Mr. Sullivan says, and costs less than the previous campaign.
“It’s a tight year,” he adds.
The genesis of the campaign is the mindset of Cloudveil customers. Jonathan Schoenberg, partner and creative director at TDA, describes them as “hard-core” aficionados of mountain sports along with those “who used to live the life.”
They are people who “abuse etiquette in pursuit of recreation,” says Mr. Schoenberg, who is also a creative director on the Cloudveil account, and they may have “lost a job or a girlfriend or boyfriend” in their quest for fulfillment outdoors.
The apology merchandise recognizes that “whatever things we enjoy, when they lead to tardiness with a spouse or employer, become problematic,” says Mr. Schoenberg, “and there are excuses we have to make.”
He concedes he was once among those ranks, in that “I used to fly-fish 150 days a year when I first moved to Colorado,” he says.
“I’m curious how many people will use” the Web site to order the merchandise, Mr. Schoenberg says, adding that he believes “a lot will check it out to see if it’s real” and then say: “Can I really send flowers? Alright, that’s pretty cool. I might stay out an extra day.’ ”
In considering online merchants that could take part in the campaign, Mr. Schoenberg says that 1-800-Flowers is “a natural” because the company is “the big player” in ordering floral gifts.
Zazzle was included, he adds, because the agency has worked with that company before.
“We had a little bit of a harder time finding” a supplier for the pet gifts, Mr. Schoenberg says, before discovering Kool Dog Kafe.
Why did the agency want to include merchandise to apologize to non-humans? “Because every mountain town has a ton of dogs,” Mr. Schoenberg replies.
Chris Arvay, chief marketing officer at Kool Dog Kafe in Rio Rancho, N.M., a unit of KDK Enterprises, says his company is “excited” about the cross-promotion.
“I’ve always been an advocate of partnerships,” he adds, “positioning your business with the right people in the right places.”
In this case, “it makes sense to partner up” with Cloudveil, Mr. Arvay says, because “to some degree, their customers who have dogs, or who have friends with dogs, would be our customers.”
“The climber who is leaving the wife behind, leaving the boss behind,” he adds, is also likely to be “leaving the dog behind,” too.
To take full advantage of the co-branding, Mr. Arvay says, “anyone who comes from the Cloudveil site to our site will come to a special landing page.”
Kool Dog Kafe also plans to talk about the campaign on
Twitter, he adds .
Cloudveil also has plans to extend the campaign into social media like
Facebook, Mr. Sullivan says, as he and Suzie Hultman, senior marketing manager, work with TDA; Friend2Friend in Palo Alto, Calif.; and Backbone Media in Waltham, Mass.
