Teleflora is returning to the Super Bowl next year with a spot that
resurrects the sassy, trash-talking flowers from this years ads. Shawn Weidmann,
president of the online floral service, said TV viewers will see a lot more of
the brand in general in 2010. Weidmann chatted about some of the brands growth
strategies and why the floral industry is actually benefiting from consumer
trade down. Excerpts are below.
Brandweek: Youre launching a new holiday commercial called Christmas Pee this
week. Whats the thinking behind this spot?
Shawn Weidmann: I never thought that I would, at any time in my career, have a
campaign with the word pee in it. [The spot, via in-house agency Fire Station,
shows a Dalmation peeing on an unopened box of flowers.] It started with a trade
campaign we were running called Save a Florist. [In that campaign], we were
raising awareness [within the floral industry] of how much business gets lost to
drop shipping. We think its a really bad experience when you send flowers in
a box to consumers. We have a lot of evidence that consumers just really dont
like that. Oftentimes, the sender of the gift never actually sees what they
send.
BW: OK, so the brands selling pointthe Teleflora difference, as you call
itis flowers artfully arranged and hand delivered in a vase. But are consumers
as willing to pay up in a recession?
SW: It doesnt have to be any more expensive. When you look at some of our
competition, they might have more SKUs at lower price points, but if you compare
them stem for stem and [take into account] fully delivered costs, there is
nothing inherently more expensive about
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