One too many burgers to the brain

Okay, we've all seen ridiculous expansions of product lines and names into areas that don't need it. Think Donald Trump water. Mike Weir Wines. MC Hammer parachute pants.

But this story/idea is just utterly ridiculous. I know that just about every famous person wants to have their own cologne so that everyone can smell just like them.......unless of course you are made of 100% beef.

Burger King has officially launched a cologne...

Wow. The economy is in a downturn and BK has decided to pick up sales and profits by pushing out some meat stink. Maybe not the smartest move guys, i'm guessing you were going for the shock/viral campaign but I think this one might not have the engine behind it. First off, a huge portion of men's colognes are bought for them by girls.....which girl would buy a BK smell???? It might as well come with a meat baster for application. Secondly, aside from a gag gift what regular guy would actually buy a BK cologne.

Hey dude, what's the smell?
Oh that? thats just my new Eau de Fast Food by BK.

To me this was a ridiculous stunt and not a good use of money, others may think otherwise. But i'd like to hear why someone might think this a good idea.

Helloooo.....are you listening?

The music industry is in a tough spot right now.....well part of it is. The record companies. With peer-to-peer networks providing the world with a free way to trade music and grab the latest hot single their profits are in peril. So instead of complaining and suing 1 person for every 100,000 that download music "illegally" they should look for solutions and maybe change the way they do business.

With the new generation the CD and traditional way of releasing music is going the way of the 8-track and cassette tape. Maybe there is a better way to do it.

Bands still need the music labels to help them promote their songs/albums and get it played on radio stations, etc. There will always be a need for this, only a small handful of bands have the power to not require a label at all, ie. Radiohead, Coldplay, etc.

So why don't the music labels move away from the CD system and directly into digital version only. Forget the now standard approach of release an album once every year or two years and move to a contract that encourages bands to release a new single track every 3 months or 4 months. The label could actually invest in a sales oriented website of their own so people could buy the music directly from them and other online stores such as iTunes. This lowers the labels overhead and should help to increase profits, plus when you are just buying a single song it seems like so much less. $1 for that new single I love instead of $10-15 for the single and a bunch of filler.

Listen to your customers music labels and adapt.

Is Stephen Colbert the most powerful man in America?

Last night I was watching Late Night with Conan O'Brien and his first guest was Stephen Colbert. The talk led to Stephen Colbert's group of staunch supporters who he calls the "Colbert Nation". Stephen Colbert knows his target market, teens and young adults probably aged 17-35 or so. He knows that they are tech saavy and he knows that they enjoy a chance to disrupt the status quo. That is why when he calls on his "Colbert Nation" to do something such as change wikipedia entries to reflect his comical views, the website later has to adapt and alter itself due to the work of the "Colbert Nation".

Fortunately, it seems as if Stephen Colbert will not be having the Colbert Nation drinking special Kool-Aid anytime soon so they can visit the mothership. But this community of people seems to be developing into more of a religious cult following. The church of Colbert is up and running and people listen and hang on his every word.

Does that make him the most powerful man in America, or is he just a crack marketer? He knows his target, he knows how to keep them involved in his brand, he has developed an incredible following. Any brand/tv show/company would love to be in the position he is in.

Will he use it for good or evil? Only time will tell.

The Return of Goodwill

A couple of months back someone mentioned to me that lawyers, dentists, doctors, etc were all having tough times selling their practices/clients as they moved into retirement. This is because the economy was so good that a brand new Doogie Howser could form his own office and have clients banging on the door as soon as he flipped that little sign to "Open".

Purchasing someone's business, it's clients and throwing in some goodwill for those that had worked tirelessly to form that business seemed to be a fading idea.

What about now though? Wouldn't a start up rather have an established client base than having to form their own by pumping money into advertising and promoting. I think that with the current economic state goodwill shall be brought back into the game. Maybe as a result some of those that were hit in the pocket book by the crashing stock market will be able to retire sooner than later.

Attention Economy

Earlier this week I attended Marketing Magazine's Marketing Week conference at the Westin Harbour Castle Toronto. First a random thought from the conference, the food at the Westin was bar none the best I have ever had at a large conference/dinner/luncheon.

Now on to the important stuff.

I attended a very interesting and important panel event called "The Attention Economy" which was based on the aspect of there are so many marketing messages that bombard consumers each day how do you ensure you get their attention with your message. Here are some of the interesting points that came from the panelists and will make you think:

• Consumers have attention deficit disorder. They are cynical and demanding of marketing messages that they see nowadays. They hold the power and when they want something they want it now and they want it fast. Which means as a business you have to have your product available to them 24/7, 365 days a year.


• Your marketing cannot be intrusive and annoying moving forward. It used to be you could buy a 30 second spot and mash it into peoples brains. You used to have to have 5 parts of a marketing mix, now you have to consider at least 20 different pieces in your marketing plan.


• An example of a non-intrusive ingenius idea was for the macy's day parade M&Ms used their billboard to have their m&ms watching the parade instead of having a blatant sign saying "Buy m & ms". This created a huge amount of buzz and got a tonne of media attention


• Here are some stats that were thrown out by a few of the panelists: 60% of consumers that have an "experience" with a brand convert into a sale. In a poll 92% of marketers polled found experiential marketing successful in branding a product and converting leads to sales


• Consumers are looking for more than just the features & benefits of a product, they want to know what the experience is that comes along with it.


• You need to constantly be trying new things, measuring them, and then assessing whether they are worth the investment. Is this idea working with our target? You need to find out where your target is and what works for them.

Some of these seem like pretty obvious points but its always something we as marketers should be looking back on and reminding ourselves. Its not just a simple game anymore. And one of the messages that came up throughout the event was "This is an exciting time to be a marketer, you have to be creative and your job isn't as easy anymore. But thats what makes it exciting."

Positive Reinforcement

This just in......The economy is in the shitter. Maybe you have heard.

Now take a deep breath and lets start to think about this a new way.

The world is not ending, there are still a number of positive stories out there that are very good for the economy.....they just aren't getting as much press because the negative stories are grabbing peoples attention more, which means the media is much more interested in telling us about them (see my previous post about wildfire).

Here are a few positives that I have heard over the last little while:

• The Canadian dollar is getting hammered (Negative). However out of this comes some positive also. The movie industry in Canada just got a lot more interesting to american companies, could this be the re-emergence of Hollywood North? What about tourism? With our dollar dropping every day a trip to Canada starts to become a bargain once people start travelling again.
• Housing prices have plummeted. Well guess what, they weren't affordable for the younger generation before and everyone has been waiting for them to come down. Now this generation that is invigorating the work force and business in general will soon be investing in property as the prices fall to a level that works for them. That sounds like a good thing for the economy.

Let's start spreading some of the good stories, because that is another way we can help ourselves get out of this situation. With more positive reinforcement people will be more willing to contribute and help build the world economy back up. But until then the more and more negative we get the darker the world appears. So share your positive perspective on the economy here.

Wildfire

The economic crisis moving throughout the entire world has easily become the single item at the forefront of everybody's mind. Everyone is concerned and eagerly waiting to see how it folds out. It affects everyone and therefore is being talked about non-stop between friends, in newspapers, on radio and tv and in the blogosphere. It literally is the biggest wildfire I have seen in my entire lifetime.

As an example I was in Seattle on the weekend and went out to a nightclub one night. The bouncer looked at our IDs and literally thanked us for coming down and stated that they needed our help to boost their economy.....Pardon. A bouncer? We are talking about the stereotypical slow, beefy, pure muscle no brains type of person right. Well with this economic wildfire spreading everyone knows about it and it can pretty much make it into any conversation between 2 people.

On a lighter note, wouldn't it be great if you could make your product/business/service into a wildfire that everyone talked about. Granted you aren't going to have politicians making points about your widget during nationally televised debates broadcast on every possible television station. But how can you start a wildfire marketing campaign? As is often discussed these days, social media has made it a lot easier for you, but there are many other factors you need to line up that will ignite the forest of consumers/businesses. Here are some things to think about:

1. Why should anyone care about your brand?
You say its the greatest or the lowest priced on the market, well that's fine. Prove it to them, every consumer has heard this before. Once people experience it for themselves and have a positive experience then they are more likely to fan the flames

2. Do something new
With the internet people are exposing themselves to so many more ridiculous and crazy things each day that a mundane advertisement will not even register on them. Therefore you need to think more creatively, let your imagination run wild and truly there are no bad ideas at this stage.

What else would you do to fan the flames and start a wildfire?

Change when no change is required

Why do some people/companies feel the need to do something, just for the sake of showing they are actually doing something. Granted this is how everyone remains employed, gets their annual budget, keeps the investors happy, etc. But sometimes there really isn't a need to make the changes that are made.

A perfect example is Facebook. The social networking site was growing by leaps and bounds and had millions and millions of members. Members were enjoying the ease of using it and were becoming actively involved in the community, creating applications, games, groups and widgets. Then they decided to change the interface for some reason. Now granted the change was not exceptionally harsh but even in my group of friends who's status' I see daily I have seen more than a few grumbles and groans. Why chance angering and alienting your members by making a change that doesn't appear necessary. Why not focus on improving the interactions among members and creating more and more cool applications to keep people interested in the site.

Another angle on this would be the stubborness of humans and how we hate when things we know are changed on us. We will adapt to it, but the majority of the population will mutter under their breath while they do.

Just makes you think the next time you are changing something.

Is there a need for this? What is the strategy behind this decision? What will our customers reaction be?

Lightning strikes

It seems that Milk is trying to capitalize on the concept of energy renewal and replenishment these days. Probably a smart idea since there is a get in shape craze going on and around that comes a need for post exercise nourishment. Good tactic.

Unfortunately, it looks like their creative company has dropped the ball on this one. Take a look at this new campaign's identity




Hmmm lets see, this reminds me of something......

Oh yeah, an energy replenisher that has been around for a long long time and has marketed itself as that much....



Whoopsie....

I'm guessing that Gatorade is not going to adhere to the age old adage of not crying over spilled milk. Anyone else sense a lawsuit coming?

Other than this rather monumental mistake I do quite like milk's tactic of branching out and trying to grab a piece of the work out market. They do a great job with the website.

Earthquake preparedness

Today marked the launch of the national Do Not Call Registry in Canada, which as many marketers know is a speedbump in your overall marketing mix and a wee bit of a pain in the ass. But i'm sure more than a few are chuckling to themselves as the government drops the ball again on this one and is completely overwhelmed by the number of calls/hits going on their website (note to self: probably shouldn't be laughing at the fact that so many people are rushing to sign up). But I mean come on, there is some humour in the typical dropping of the ball and lack of preparation. It's not quite to the level of FEMA, but have some kind of a disaster response in place CRTC!

And I think the most ironic thing is that all marketers work to get this kind of a reaction to a campaign they are doing and this campaign is an anti-marketing initiative. Congratulations CRTC, a job well done. Now enjoy the rewards of angered people who were angered already and thus filling their name out to not receive marketing again.

Out of this comes an interesting thought though...what happens if your marketing campaign all of a sudden hits a home-run?

Are you prepared for the onslaught? Do you have the right people in place? Will your website crash?

It's important to have a disaster response (for lack of a better term) in place in case you do get flooded. Nothing turns a customer off more than when they want to learn more about you and get a "Cannot display website" result.

Say goodbye to that sale.

Organize me please

Everyday we get bombarded with thousands of messages, while at the same time we are trying to get our errands, work, hobbies done. With so many things being processed by our brains it's no wonder we don't forget more of the little things that need to be done. This is where your electronic calendar comes in handy and why a lot of people find Outlook/other software so valuable. Combine that with a mobile device that can download this information and you have less chance of forgetting those important smaller things such as "Pay off Credit Card", "Send Shirley Birthday card", etc.

Is there an opportunity for marketers/companies to further utilize this powerful tool? I would say so.

As a member of the BC Chapter of the American Marketing Association I am sent emails advertising upcoming webcasts. When I sign-up for one of these webcasts, 2 minutes later I get a confirmation email with a meeting request that puts the date into my calendar. Perfect. Two weeks later when I am scrambling about my office and no doubt have forgot about the informative webcast, ta-da! A reminder comes up. It's just like Ron Popeil used to say "Set it and Forget it". Granted that was for some kind of a rotisserie cooker, but a great slogan none-the-less.

So why aren't more companies taking advantage of these electronic planners to increase focus from prospects? Here are some examples I thought of that i'd like to see.

1. Television Shows - When Fox spends millions of dollars creating Fringe and then promoting it, they want people to show up for their premieres right? Well since there are now about 3000 channels to choose from and 100 new shows happening each night, why not give people the option of accepting a meeting request to watch this new show if they visit the website. So when 9pm on that Tuesday evening rolls around and you have no idea what is on...ta-da! Your calendar reminds you that this new show you were interested in is premiering.

2. Dentist/Doctor/Auto Repair - Would it be that hard to implement a system that used email to send out confirmations for all of your appointments such as these? I realize that most of these businesses would have their own appointment scheduling software, but there must be some way to work it so they can kick out electronic attendance reminders.

3. Vacations - When you receive a confirmation email from Expedia after booking a two-week holiday with your Gramma in Rappahannock County wouldn't it be a nice touch for them to include a calendar placement that tells you your flight details on the days you fly out and return?

Seems like these type of things should be rather simple and incredibly handy for your customers, but not enough companies are taking advantage of them.....which means i'm gonna keep forgetting to send Shirley a birthday card while taking my car in for servicing before my dentist appointment.

TWEET! 2 Minutes for Greed

Let me preface this post by saying I am a huge hockey fan and have been my whole life. I have played the game since I was 6 years old and I hold season tickets to the Vancouver Canucks, my local National Hockey League team. Needless to say, I am a devout hockey lover.

Well, the NHL needs to change things. They have no business plan except make as much money as possible, as quickly as possible. Which in the long run is not going to pay off for them. Let me backtrack before I go off on a big rant here. It was announced today that the NHL signed a contract to air games in Asia........huh?

No offense or anything but maybe you should spend some money on growing the game in North America before you charge all over the globe. I believe the term is walk before you run, or perhaps baby steps. The NHL was greedy enough to expand to such non-hockey markets as North Carolina, Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Nashville, and Columbus. None of these towns have turned into hockey markets, shocking I know. So the game is obviously not being picked up in one of the largest markets in the world, which also happens to have cities like Detroit, New York, and Minnesota that are in love with their hockey teams and have great knowledge of the game. So why not walk before you run NHL? Why not build the game in the U.S. before you charge all over the world? Why not work on what should be a more welcome audience open to the concept of hockey than one in China, which doesn't really have any exposure to the game? Build a nice core following, you already have one in Canada and part of the states, you should have an easier time working on the hesitant areas of the U.S.

No there is nothing wrong behind making money, in fact it is encouraged. But you have to set aside the greed and realize that by building your base, it makes expansion a lot better and you have more evangelists and product lovers to spread the word. The NHL in my opinion just has no concept of what it is doing. It is like a hungry hippo just trying to grab as many little bags of money as it can before everything implodes on it.....and unfortunately it will, it's inevitable at this pace.

Writer's Block...or just Lazy Brain

Why can I not think of a new blog posting? It's just the same old thoughts that keep coming up in my head. Writer's block? I have no imagination? No creativity????.........

Nope, my brain is just lazy according to an article from Fast Company Magazine.

"The brain is fundamentally a lazy piece of meat. It doesn't want to waste energy. That's why there is a striking lack of imagination in most people's visualization of a beach sunset. It's an iconic image, so your brain simply takes the path of least resistance and reactivates neurons that have been optimized to process this sort of scene."

So thats great. Now I have to work out to stay in shape and somehow find the time to work out my brain also! Sheesh it is never ending. But according to the article the more you experiment and enjoy new experiences the more workout your brain undergoes because it has to process all this crazy, out of place stuff. So that is why social networks, and reading blogs, and heck even travelling and experiencing new things is so important for marketers and other creative types. It allows you to exercise your brain. Now I think i've stumbled onto a way to expense a trip to Thailand.

Viral Via Music

One of the most underrated aspects for videos is the musical selection. You find that perfect song and combine it with amazing production and creative and you have an instant hit, heck the production/creative don't even have to be that good. Take the Free Hug's Campaign for example. It's also win/win for the musician(s) because they get exposure to new audiences from their song being forwarded as the video goes viral (I mean come on, who doesn't type 3 lyrics from a song in google and hit search everyday).

I have recently seen the roll out of a 100% New Zealand ad campaign and they found the perfect music to accompany a wonderful commercial. I would never have gone to the website or thought twice about the commercial if they hadn't used this song, which I couldn't get out of my head (and i've even traveled to New Zealand and know how amazing it is). The use of the song to connect with the viewers helps carry them to the magical place that is exhibited throughout the ad.

If you are trying to create a viral video, finding a great song that is not necessarily well known yet, is a great way to go viral. Or, find something that matches the tone, feel, and rhythm of the rest of the video and works perfectly in harmony with it. And if you are a band trying to make it, I suggest you have a creative person in your group that can make a cool video to attach your music to. Then watch the sleazy record label guys come running.

Here are some other videos that employed this technique:

Apple does this better than anyone: Did you know who Yael Naim was or Feist before these ads?

Telus has caught the buzz recently, but use well established bands like White Snake

Heineken, i've never heard of Chris Knox but i'm sure he got a lot more hits after people tracked him down from this ad.

This is a commercial for Swedish Berries, I was actually trying to track down this song for a long time.....until I learned it was a jingle just for the commercial. Well lo and behold there was so much interest for it, they turned it into an entire song!

Creating communities

Two things are on my mind right now...

1. The Real Estate market (leisure related)
2. Social networking (work related)

The concept behind residential real estate is essentially "joining a community" and the concept behind social networking (as Mitch Joel likes to tell us) is "building a community" and he says it can't be bought...... but when you are selling a community, aren't you essentially buying one too?

I have been looking at some of the new residential developments throughout my area lately and it struck me, why not have a virtual neighbourhood while your development is being built? People are buying condos in these massive buildings 2 years or more before completion date. Why not reduce the buyer's remorse through a little community building? Get people excited about where they have just sunk a major wad of cash. Let people get to know their neighbours and interact with them. Won't this be a great way to create a good feeling about those that have purchased in the building, and maybe, just maybe they will tell their friends about it.......and the community will grow.

Maybe its been done before, but I haven't seen it anywhere i've been. Seems pretty simple to me.

The best thing since.....

Well maybe this blog isn't the best thing since sliced bread, but hidden in the blog will be some ideas that possibly are. My head always seems to be full of them....with no outlet, well now I have found somewhere to dump them all. Hopefully people enjoy the random thoughts and ideas that pour unfiltered from my brain and maybe this current of ramblings has some nuggets of uber-genius (personally I think they all are) flowing through it. For too long these wonderful little lightbulbs have been burning and then slowly finding their way into that little lightbulb graveyard in the netherworld. Well, No longer! I am a marketing guy and therefore see the world in a slightly different hue, i'm constantly analyzing the purpose behind advertising campaigns and ranking and critiquing them, finding niches, seeing "TBAs" in the world that need something to fill them. So let's uncrank the floodgates and see what comes pouring out.