So I’m minding my own business, and I get a call from my daughter, who wants me to look at her Facebook page. I do, and what do I find, but some friend of hers has sent her a “Best Friend Quiz” (twice), asking the questions ‘Is she smart?’ and ‘do you think she takes drugs.’
Pause with me whilst I do a slow boil.
My kid on drugs? Nope. Never. This is a newly-12-year-old that is pure as the driven snow. She won’t take so much as a Tylenol without parental permission. So, naturally, I suspect it’s a ‘friend’ pranking her. Nope. Guess again. I went ahead and clicked on the supposed “quiz” to find out that it’s one of these Facebook games, that you must agree to install on your own home page before you can play.
Denny’s Restaurants has been around for…well…for a long time. Long as I can remember, anyway. And they’ve been largely interchangeable, between their competition. I mean, can you really tell me how Denny’s differs from iHOP, Shoneys, or any of the other places that cater to big appetites with small wallets? I can’t. But Denny’s may have found a way to cut through the clutter and make a name for themselves. And it involves, of all things, television. Read the rest of this entry »
Like many brick and mortar businesses, Starbucks seems to be struggling with new media – specifically, how to treat WiFi. Is it a cost center? A profit center? A way to retain customers? A way to fill seats without monetizing them? The results are decidedly mixed. If the WiFi experience for coffee shops was a Magic 8 Ball, it would report “ANSWER HAZY…TRY AGAIN LATER.” But with any endeavor that involves customers, it’s a rule of thumb to keep things consistent. Nothing ticks off customers more than finding a situation where you pay for something at store A, and find it for free at store B – especially when the two stores are selling under the same corporate entity. Which is what makes a generally marketing-savvy company like Starbucks’ latest moves all the more puzzling. Read the rest of this entry »
When I was a kid, I was in the Boy Scouts. I came home one day, with a bag full of supplies for my first Boy Scout camping trip. Giddy with a new find, I proudly regaled my Dad with the wonders of SPAM, not realizing that there was a reason that he was busy turning green as I talked. Seems he’d been well-acquainted with the joys of SPAM in WWII. Poor guy couldn’t think about SPAM without getting seriously queasy. He literally turned a pale shade of green.
I feel that way about Spam. There’s few things I can think of that bother me more than unsolicited intrusions into my online activities. What’s worse, is I’m now dealing with some Spammer that thinks it’s acceptable to hack into this blog and insert code so he can pump Spam to my readers.
I hate Spam. But I hate Spammers – and hackers – even more.
I can tell you it’s not been a problem for any of you – because this clueless hack is such a moron, he apparently doesn’t know how to properly hack a blog – his code simply makes my blog disappear. No code. Just a blank page. Mind you, I still don’t know how the little bastard is getting in…I’ve taken all the precautions I know, and I’m still getting several pages changed without permission.
I can promise you, though, that my patience is wearing thin. And I have a buddy who has a buddy that does high-level contract work for the code spooks at the NSA. I may call in a favor. Or three. And then we’ll see how much this little twerp likes it when HIS computer gets hacked.
As a creative guy, I love coming up with creative ways to market things. Nothing jazzes me more than to come up with an ad concept, a slogan, or a logo that will resonate with the public. But I’ve learned something about successful marketing over the years – repetition is the key to turning a great idea into effective marketing.
Repetition. Sounds simple. Just create your message, and repeat it, ad nauseum, until it works. Think of it as the marketers version of the Rinse, Lather, and Repeat instructions you find on shampoo bottles. Of course there’s more to it than that. If your message doesn’t resonate, it will get lost in the noise. But it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that if you don’t repeat your message enough, even the best marketing simply won’t work.
I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve had that either don’t commit to a big enough media buy, or they get bored with their spots and want to change them before it’s appropriate to do so. When you see a commercial enough to get bored with it, you’ve just witnessed marketing penetration. Everybody wants to run commercials or ads that get people talking, but successful marketing is not built on a momentary “buzz” (i.e.: “did you see that new ad for ________”), but on effective ads that are repeated over and over.
Another point that may have escaped your notice is that in life, everybody is a marketer. I’m dealing with a situation in my personal life right now that has brought that lesson home. Just like what the world learned in WWII, if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes indistinguishable from the truth. Having the truth on your side is nice, but it’s no guarantee that you’ll prevail. No, I’ve learned that repetition of a marketing message can overcome the truth, even when I have the truth on my side.
I’d love to tell you that truth will win in the long run. I’d love to tell you that if you have a superior product, or a message that resonates, you’ll win. But while being right or building a better mousetrap is good and important, remember that it’s no guarantee of success. Without repetition as a key component of your marketing, you’re fighting a battle where you are, effectively, an unarmed combatant.
Yes, today is my birthday. Nothing remarkable there…everybody’s got one per year. For those who don’t like birthdays, consider the alternative. I’ve had some bad birthdays before, but never one so bad I’d consider death as a way to avoid another.
Since this is a marketing blog (and I’d like to get back to enjoying my “special day” [insert ironic pause here]), I’ll simply remark that I find that the leaders in one-to-one marketing seem to be…online forums?
Yep. That’s right. Online forums. When you sign up for one of these online forums, they routinely ask for your birthdate. The software then obligingly kicks out a “happy birthday” email automagically. Nice. It’s a great way for the board to remind you that they exist, and a nice thing for the recipient, even if you know it’s not the thought, but the programming that counts.
Honorable mention in the birthday email sweepstakes: Jack in the Box. I received a “personal” email from Jack Box today, along with a coupon for a free desert. Way to extend your brand – and your tongue-in-cheek marketing attitude to Jack-lovers around the country. Nice job, Jack!
I recently fell prey to the marketing campaign staged by Classmates.com. You know…the site that purports that they will help you reconnect with all the friends you had in high school.
Balderdash.
It turns out, Classmates.com is (as far as I can tell) a complete waste of time – unless you pony up for the monthly membership charges for their “Gold Membership” package. Now tiered membership levels are nothing new. Lots of social networking sites do something similar. However, other social network sites with dual-level memberships actually give you something of value at the “free membership” level.
Robert Metcalfe (founder of 3Com and inventor of Ethernet) identified what’s come to be known Metcalfe’s Law: The value of a network increases exponentially with the number of users connected to the system. Read the rest of this entry »
There’s reality. And then there’s perception. And when you’re talking about business, there’s ulterior motive. Nowhere is this more blatantly true (and less obvious) than in the rush to “green” products.
Think back to when the “green” movement was known as the “ecology” movement. Remember the brouhaha about grocery bags? First, we were told that paper sacks resulted in killing too many trees, so grocers switched to plastic bags. Then the ecoNazis preached that the plastic bags were bad, as they used fossil fuels, and were therefore killing the planet – not to mention their inability to gracefully decompose in landfills. Today, most supermarkets offer your choice of “paper or plastic,” and have recently started shilling “reusable” bags. A recent episode of the wickedly funny ABC prime time cartoon The Goode Family, the social-climbing mom forgot her reusable totes (6:43 to 7:40 in the clip above) when shopping at the grocery store. Faced with disapproving looks from the other greenies at the market, she finally blurted out, “Load me up…I know a lot of people are comfortable with reusable bags, but I’m not. Those bags are made in sweatshops.” The other shoppers are promptly stricken by kind of Liberal Guilt only someone who is desperately trying to live up to an impossible, illogical standard can feel. Read the rest of this entry »
Unless you’re over the age of 40, you remember Ed (IF you remember Ed) as a one-note joke, one of the over-the-hill Publisher’s Clearing House pitchmen. Or perhaps as a news item, last year, when he was losing his palatial home.
If you’re over 40, you remember him as Johnny Carson’s (pictured left, with McMahon) second banana, a fixture on the Tonight Show, or perhaps as the host of a pre-Simon Cowell talent show.
McMahon was one of those guys who was famous for being famous. In thinking back on his career, he was just sort of always there…like wallpaper, he never seemed to NOT be there. Until he – and Carson – were gone. But just because McMahon was famous for being famous, does not mean he was not a valuable asset to Carson, or didn’t have talent on his own.
On Friday, June 19th, I was fortunate enough to score a new, black 32GB iPhone. No, I didn’t wait in line at the crack of dawn. I didn’t pre-order it. I just walked into an AT&T store around 2PM, and waited (only about 30 minutes) and walked out with my new phone. When I’m gonna buy into something that requires a (2 year) commitment, I typically wait for version 3.0. This is because I’ve learned – the hard way – that the first release of anything is usually the “one-point-UH-oh” release. In version 2, they get the bugs worked out from the first one, but it’s version three where the product really hits the sweet spot. So I waited to jump on the iPhone bandwagon until the 3G s was released (a.k.a. iPhone version 3.0/iPhone OS 3.0). I’m happy to report that the product lives up to it’s marketing hype – and then some. Read the rest of this entry »
They announced that Ed McMahon died today.
Entries (RSS)