Orchids and Onions: Nespresso does go big

One of the reasons that Nespresso has become the top dog in the capsule coffee market is that, when it comes to marketing, the brand follows the dictate “Go big, or go home”.

And, as far as “brand ambassadors” or headliners for your commercials go, they don’t come any bigger than George Clooney. He has been with the brand for some years now, punting its elegant and convenient coffee dispensing machines.

In all of the ads he has done, Clooney has brought a touch of self-deprecating humour to his roles – at once being a superstar and an ordinary Joe, a bit bemused at his success … but always determined to get his shot of Nespresso. You do wonder, sometimes – as you watch the ads – whether Clooney isn’t inwardly giggling and having a laugh at the Nespresso brand people for the obviously obscene amounts of money they pay for his presence.

The latest one in the series starts with a medieval fantasy scene of a brave, armoured knight returning to the princess after slaying the dragon. Asked what he wants as a reward, he thinks for the briefest moment before jumping out of the scene – and through a cinema screen – into the audience and heading into the big city outside. As he clanks around the metropolis trying to hail a cab but then taking a bus, he gets strange looks.

Then he finds a Nespresso place, walks in and has his desire satisfied as a cup of steaming expresso is delivered in double-quick time, thanks to the machine. Payment time and he asks: “Can you break a farthing?” Then he’s back to the past and soon drags the courtiers and princess off to the Nespresso shop.

It’s different. It’s Clooney. And it shows off the efficiency of the Nespresso machine. That’s good advertising – never mind the cost – and it gets an Orchid from me.

However, I must note that I wonder how long these sort of machines will continue to enjoy success as more and more people ask whether the capsules are biodegradable after use (most of them aren’t).

There was a breathless little “exclusive exposé” in News24 last week, revealing to us how – shock!, horror! – many South African companies’ online ads were ending up on dodgy fake news sites, as well as racist websites. All because of programmatic advertising buying!

Most of the people in the marketing business already know this and, if they haven’t put in mechanisms to reduce that phenomenon – where your ads are placed according to the “intelligence” of the computer programme, which assesses a potential target audience, then they should.

And let’s not even go into the equally sordid – and potentially even more wasteful – issue of online fraud. Sites, bloggers and “influencers” can all inflate their audience figures so advertisers really are buying the proverbial “pig in a poke’’.

Some hold out Facebook as a great alternative. Now that the all-snooping social media platform, which probably knows more about you than you do yourself, is able to predict what you will be interested in, it’s telling advertisers it is the new “silver bullet” in marketing with little to no wastage because of the so-called precise targeting.

Here’s one of my recent experiences with Facebook’s clever algorithms and targetting. Dawdling through my timeline the other day, I saw an ad.

“Write better sermons” it shouted. What? Not only do I not do that, do I look like a pastor? I don’t think I have ever used the word “sermon” anywhere on any computer device I have used in recent memory.

As I write this, though, I am torn, dear Facebook, between deciding which of the 10 commandments you violate most as you pick up this week’s Onion. The one about “thou shalt not steal” or “thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour?’’

I do hope you repent though because otherwise your users are headed down the road to data hell …

Brendan Seery.

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