'Friday the 13th' for Advertising
Do you know what was the worst day for the advertising industry?
On April 2, 1993, advertising itself was called into question by the very brands the industry had been building, in some cases, for over two centuries. That day is known in marketing circles as 'Marlboro Friday'. And it became real 'Friday the 13th' for advertising.
'Marlboro Friday' refers to a sudden announcement from Philip Morris that it would slash the price of Marlboro cigarettes by 20% in an attempt to compete with bargain brands that were eating into its market.
The pundits went nuts, announcing in frenzied unison that not only was Marlboro dead, all brand names were dead. The reasoning was that if a 'prestige' brand like Marlboro, whose image had been carefully groomed, preened and enhanced with more than a billion advertising dollars, was desperate enough to compete with no-names, then clearly the whole concept of branding had lost its currency.
Since the Marlboro man was an image that stood since 1954, it was considered one of the biggest marketing icons, investors reasoned that to see the Marlboro icon give in to a price war, the marketing itself must be ineffective.
As a result, Philip Morris's stock fell 26%, and the share value of other branded consumer product companies, including Coca-Cola and RJR Nabisco, fell as well. The broad index fell 1.98% that day. Fortune magazine deemed Marlboro Friday "the day the Marlboro Man fell off his horse."
Bob Stanojev, national director of consumer products marketing for Ernst and Young, explained the logic behind Wall Street's panic, "If one or two powerhouse consumer products companies start to cut prices for good, there's going to be an avalanche. Welcome to the value generation."
This view soon proved to be incorrect, with the rest of the decade's economy being dominated by brands and driven by high-budget marketing campaigns.
Запоминаем:
to slash the price - снизить цену
to eat into - въедаться
a pundit - эксперт
to go nuts - сходить с ума
share value - стоимость акций
consumer products - потребительские товары
an avalanche - лавина, обвал
