Delivering Trouble

Purolator is the company that was awarded the Vancouver 2010 Olympics contract to deliver tickets purchased to events. A pretty nice sized contract which gets them a huge amount of exposure (not that they needed it) to people in all works of life. Owners, employees, and every other type of person who no doubt will have something shipped at some point in their life. Now, i'm not saying that if every person had a good experience with Purolator they would all only use this company in the future for their shipping needs.

It's more the opposite side of the coin, i'm guessing anyone that has a negative experience with the process will be extremely unlikely to use Purolator in the future if given a choice. And, from what i've heard so far, there is a lot of negativity around the process. Purolator doesn't seem to have nailed the logistical aspect of this major project. The tickets were put in people's names and the majority marked down their home address to have the tickets delivered to - Purolator delivers during the day, when the majority of these people are at work and therefore not at their home address. People then have to make their way to Purolator's shipping centres to pick up the tickets that they missed delivery of, and you have to have something that matches your name to the address on the tickets (many people will have moved). You have a time limit of 6 days before the tickets are shipped back to VANOC at which point you are unable to collect and will no doubt have to undergo the process all over again.

These time limits and Purolator's hours have led to large lineups at their shipping centres and angry customers who have been turned away because their stores stop serving people at exactly their close time. People are also arriving at the stores and finding that they put down a different address than where they currently live and don't have the proper documents to pick up the tickets. They are being turned away.

Here's a couple of ideas Purolator:

1. Extend you hours slightly so people getting off work have more chance to make it to your store. 7pm is too early a closing time.

2. Write on the little note you leave saying "Sorry we missed you" that people need to ensure they have something that proves they live at the address listed on the tickets.

3. Have more people working on weekends so that your customers can get through the lineups in a somewhat reasonable timeframe.

Winning a big contract is one thing but having the foresight to see the exposure you get as a result is another. Make sure you are prepared to do the job when you are going out to thousands and thousands of potential customers.

Boxing Day....Month??? Year?????

I remember the good old days, when Boxing Day in Canada meant companies heavily discounting prices on all the crappy products that they were trying to get rid of all year but just couldn't. Cue the red tag, red pen, or any other type of redness that can be used to demonstrate a slashing of prices. What? You mean our 8-track/vinyl/cd player all in one didn't move? Mark it down 75 percent and call it a doorcrasher. Then shmucks would line up at the door starting early in the morning and make a run for that 8-track/vinyl/cd 3-in-1 combo they had their eyes on for the last 2 days when the flyer was delivered to their home. I had the pleasure of working in a retail environment on a number of boxing days, that is neither here nor there so i'll save those stories for another time.

What unfortunately has happened with boxing day is companies have captured consumers attention and wallets on that specific day and are now trying to bottle it up and unleash it for longer and longer and now are starting earlier and earlier. Therefore they will eventually erode all the hard work that Boxing Day put into building itself up to being the ultimate shopping day of the year. Now maybe this works better for retailers because they get a longer length of increased sales from customers looking for deals during "Boxing Week" but when you start advertising "Pre-Boxing Day Sales", well, your customers will catch on eventually.

People will either start holding back all their major purchases till "Boxing Month" or they will realize that not everything can be discounted all the time and will theorize that maybe your margins are a little too high and future advertising for boxing day sales will be completely lost in the clutter of regular flyers and regular advertising.

Either way it will be interesting to see how far in front of and behind the 26th of December retailers can move. I look forward to when Boxing Day sales outpace the first Christmas commercial of the year which usually comes around about September 1st.

Overpromise & Underdeliver

That seems to be the mantra of General Motors. They just don't get it.

I've written in the past multiple times about how frustrating GM is to deal with and how they are clearly one of the worst run car companies in the world. But they just leave themselves so open to criticism with their practices it's embarassing.

How long have they been touting their electric car The Volt for? Years and years. The car looks great and is forward thinking......or at least it was back in 2005 or whenever they first launched it. That was cutting edge and they surprised people with the look of it then. As Andy Nulman constantly writes about on his POW! blog using the art of surprise is a great marketing tactic. Unfortunately GM couldn't back up their surprise anytime soon and now everytime the word Volt is used in conversation it is met with a snear.

....and then you get this from Nissan

I didn't even know Nissan was working on an electric vehicle (one however, would assume most smart car companies are working on an electric vehicle)! So what do they do, they role out a model and show it actually being used in the world. Wow! Surprise and the novel concept of showing the car exists and can-in-fact function in the real world. Not just concepts or dreams or figments of someones imagination. A real live test model.

Thumbs up Nissan, and yet another loss for GM. Your culture of losing is getting well established at this point General Motors.

ABC

Forgot to include this with the last post I made. Amazing monologue by Alec Baldwin that i'm sure most salesman have seen.



What will our generation's Glengarry Glen Ross a-typical salesperson look/act like?

Will salesmen Always Be Closing?

I finished reading Chris Anderson's Free a few weeks back and although the book wasn't quite as great a read as I was hoping for it did the job of making my brain whirr away with thoughts and started me thinking on many spinoffs of "Free".

One of the chief thoughts that has been swirling around in my head over the last little while is "What does the future hold for salespeople?"

This thought has been percolating because as is noted in the book, there are so many sources of free information these days and this dearth of info is only getting larger and larger as the internet continues to increase in popularity and more and more people have access to it. You combine that with a younger generation that grows up online reading forums, wikis, and interacting with discussion groups and online friends and you start to see why salesperson could be an interesting occupation to watch the development of down the road. What is a salesperson possibly going to tell people that they haven't already been able to find out on their own or from someone else online?

I, in fact, am a perfect example of this. If i'm looking for something specifically the first thing I will do is go online to try to find it. I'll check out specs, prices, and shop around. One such purchase I made recently was a portable sound dock for an ipod player. I search Future Shop, Best Buy, and London Drugs' websites comparing prices and features, reading the odd review that I could find on products that matched my needs. Once I had finished this part of the purchase cycle, I merely walked into the store, grabbed the product and marched up to the counter. In and out in 2 minutes.

But electronic retail stores aren't the only example of a possible death of the salesman. On the evening news last night they ran a story on how more and more people are using online stock trading tools to do their trading for them instead of using a stock broker. Will this effect the industry? I should think so. Granted stock traders provide a lot more value than people probably give them credit for as they research deep into potential companies to invest in, talk to the owners, and provide personalized recommendations to match your investing style. But more and more people are going to be doing their own research and using eTrade or another online brokerage to make their trades. Some people may not have much luck using this method and therefore end up back in the arms of an awaiting broker, but those that do have success could greatly influence the movement of the stock market as opposed to the traditional powers of brokerages to provide upward and downward momentum on specific stocks based on what they put their word/clients into. Somewhere down the road instead of seeing "Cannacord Capital forecasts targets of $30.00 per share for so and so corp" you may see "Facebook member ChunkyMonkey53 forecasts an increase of $1 per share by the end of the year according to their status update".

At the same time, if you've ever been on the BullBoards on Stockhouse you will realize how much crap there is out there and how it can be tough to trust the majority of information you read on some of these sites. Hence the role of a broker to de-crapify this information and make sure you get the appropriate facts you need.

Recently I even purchased a pre-sale condominium and to be honest, aside from writing up the contract, I'm not sure what the salesperson did to sell me. I found out all the information online, I looked through their display suite on my own, I talked to the bank on my own. So how much value are they really providing to be getting a major cut of the money that the company is getting off me.

Well now that this is seemingly spinning into a rant i'll close off here. My brother is a salesperson, and i've been a salesperson in the past, but I don't know if I would encourage my children to get into the profession in the future. It could be one of those things a few generations down the road that our great grandchildren miss out on, just like stamps, home phones, and paperback books.

Dear (you),.....

There is something to be said for customization and personalization of marketing pieces these days. Especially for companies that you are currently a customer with who have no excuse to not personalize something.

This rings true for TD Canada Trust. I do most of my banking with them and I have for a while. They are great. They have friendly staff when I go in to a branch and their online banking system hasn't given me any problems so far. I also have a Visa card through them, a rewards card to be more exact....a travel rewards card (TD Infinite Visa Rewards Travel Card I believe is the longwinded title of it). I love it, and they have a pretty good Travel Rewards website that lets you book travel, research flights, etc. All signs point to great. In fact, I just booked a flight and car rental through them recently.

Then this morning I got an email newsletter from them, I hadn't opted in to receive it but no big deal, they are technically my travel agent after all and if they have deals then i'll look at them of course.

Jamaica for $500 + taxes! What a deal!

Oh it's only leaving from Toronto. Next.

Mayan Riviera for $430 + taxes! Wow, another great deal!

Wait, it leaves from Calgary. Useless.

I live in Vancouver, and if anyone knows this it is my bank and my credit card company. They know my address, they know the exact apartment I live in. I know they know this because they send me bills and statements. So why would you waste your time and mine showing off amazing deals that fly out of cities i'm nowhere near???

That just comes down to bad marketing execution and bad use of your database resources. And we had such a good thing going!

Beer companies do brilliant marketing

It never ceases to amaze me some of the marketing/advertising strategies that come out of beer companies and their agencies. From the original patriotic inspiring Joe Canadian rant, the now popular Dos Equis Most Interesting Man in the World, to a simple Kokanee radio commercial I remember from about 12 years ago that made a poke at Molson for always handing out free t-shirts:

Announcer: Everybody loves winning, and now in every 18 bottle case of Kokanee glacier beer you will find a special prize.
Person rattling and opening a box
Male Voice: It's a box.....and there's beer inside!!!! (cheering noises)

Well, I just saw an ad on TV the other day for a brilliant new Molson Canadian campaign that is perfectly timed and i'm guaranteeing it will be adding to their sales numbers for the next while as it runs.

The Give'R campaign offers people a chance to buy specially marked boxes of their beer and on the box is a pin code that you can enter online. Now traditionally companies use the pin code system as a way for people to enter their contest, then the company gets that person's data, etc. This time Molson threw in a wrinkle because everytime you enter one of those codes Molson donates $5 to Canadian olympic and paralympic athletes. Genius. It makes the consumer feel even better about drinking their product and allows them to feel like they have helped contribute to their country's athletes. What a great way to sell a whole bunch of product, portray a patriotic, charitable brand image, AND get valuable information on every consumer to add to your growing database. Pure genius, and the person behind the campaign should be given a serious bonus.

I predict big things as a result of this campaign, way better than just giving away a t-shirt or offering the chance to win something.

Salesperson Species

Every once in a while I have the joy of dealing with a salesperson coming into my company's office and pitching me a new service/product/business. As a result I have been able to determine two major species of salesperson.

Professional Rex

This person will show up dressed sharp. Whether it is the more relaxed salesperson look of jeans with a sharp shirt and blazer or a full out suit this person reeks of someone who is successful at their job. They realize that this life is their profession and your first impression of them is an important part of moving you to a sale. This person will also have done some research on your company, probably by visiting your website. That being said, they typically haven't gone too in depth into your company and can't really talk the talk with you.

Stereotypicus Salespernicus

This guy arrives at your office in a somewhat professional outfit and typically rolls in with a coffee in their hand. They reek.......of smoke, you can smell it from across the boardroom table, seriously. It happens again and again to me. It's shocking and immediately gives off the aura of them being one level below the professional salesperson. Now this isn't to mean that this salesperson is any worse at their job than the Professional Rex, but they have to do a lot more work to do the sale. Also they are usually much less prepared, including not having a business card and choosing to wing the appointment which becomes obvious immediately.

Now there are various categories of salesperson that fall below each species, but that is for another time when i've thought about the various people. I just find it interesting that you can lump the majority of salespeople into these two species. And for reference, if I can smell the smoke on a salesperson from across the table I immediately start to become questionable about the product/service they are selling.

My favourite new tv ad

Without a doubt the new "Scents for gents" Old Spice commercial is one of the best i've seen on tv lately.



It's a rather brash commercial but seems to be taking up the steam that was created by the Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man in the World". These style of advertisements target the male ego and show off the bravado/confidence that every man dreams of possessing. Very well done in my opinion. Any other thoughts?

Non-personalized can work too

Often you hear that everything should be as personalized as possible to make customers feel like you are talking directly with them. But that might not always be the case.

99.3 CFOX is a local rock station in Vancouver and easily has the wittiest and sharpest morning show in the province, if not the nation. They have established a brand for the Jeff O'Neill Show that never veers from its true character. They know when they will get in trouble from the lawyers, execs, and government agencies and they will do whatever they feel like anyways.

So, what would you expect from them when you submit an email comment to the show? A standard autoresponse personalized with your name? Nope...something more like this.

A well thought out and pretty hilarious way of telling people that you got their email and you are interested in what they wrote. Works with their brand and leaves a smile on their consumers faces. I wonder how many times this has been forwarded to people's friends.

Re-gifting your terrible sports team

There are a lot of cliches in sports and the athletic world...

"Give it 120%"

"This sport is 20% physical and 80% mental"

"We've just got to show up and play our game"

But far and away the best one and the most marketing relatable one is

"These guys now get the chance to play the role of spoilers"

Translation, these guys have sucked all year and we don't want attendance/viewership to fall off so tune in or show up to see them suck some more.

But it is still an artful and ingenius way to re-gift a sports team, let's hypothetically call them the Soronto Purple Jays, that has no aspirations of a playoff appearance yet still has a month and a half of games to play. Thats when the communications department kicks in and your messaging immediately changes from "Watch as the Purple Jays battle it out for a playoff spot in the tough NL East" to "Watch the young guns play as they look to ruin other teams playoff runs".

A very crafty way of attempting to keep people interested after your 15th year in a row of struggling through a long season.

Of course there is another option for a sports team........learn how to draft and sign players so you actually have a good team, but where's the fun in that?

Cold reception, but worth millions

Now my blog thusfar has been loaded with entries regarding General Motors and people are probably tired of reading them (those 2 that actually read this blog) (sorry thats an exageration, the 1 that reads this blog). Well i'm going to try to turn to a new topic that will dominate the blog.
Beer.

And what better way to go than probably one of the most covered news stories in all of Canada.......a beer billboard.

Yes, thats right. The wildfires and gangshootings in British Columbia have taken a backseat to a national crisis involving a Coors Light billboard. For full disclosure I am a coors light drinker and avid silver bullet fan. I am also a life west-coaster and find this whole matter hilarious.

Have a look and see if you can see whats making this newsworthy....



















If you guessed "Someone from Toronto saw it and took it personally" you are correct!

Yes, as soon as the complaints started pouring in, one of the complainees was smart enough to go to the papers and give Coors Light millions of dollars worth of free advertising because this story is literally in every paper, every blog, every news show i've seen yesterday and today. Not only that but there is a serious dislike for Toronto in general in British Columbia and many other provinces throughout Canada, so all this news is getting them serious street cred among the population.

The best part I think is that Coors Light is a Molson brand who is headquartered in Ontario and the creative was also done by a Toronto firm. Lets just say that this is brilliant execution in my mind and I don't think Coors Light is disappointed at all by the result.

I look forward to the response from a Toronto based beer company that actually has the balls to fire back at this ad. It won't be Sleeman's or another national brand that could turn BC residents off its beer, but i'm guessing a micro brew or a smaller company will have an answer.

I also think that Coors Light should turn this into a social media opportunity and have some contests for "What is the coolest Colder than slogan you have".

Here's my entry "Colder than your girlfriends stare when you crack your 6th coors light post game"

Communicating with Guerillas

Came across this article on CBC and it just goes to show you that guerilla, grassroots or any other type of marketing takes just as much coordination as putting together a mailing campaign or radio advertisement. It talks about a new campaign that Ikea has been trying throughout Canada where they spray paint "Any space can be beautiful" on a bland, high-trafficked area around the city. These spaces send people to the http://www.anyspacecanbebeautiful.ca/ website which allows consumers to post photos of the rooms they need a makeover on. Other people that go to the website can vote on which space they think deserves to win a $15,000 makeover. Seems like a pretty well thought out concept.

Just one problem.....it was not communicated/coordinated well between the parties involved.

The ads were spraypainted on city property without city approval, okay no problem that is part of guerilla marketing.

But then they painted them on the storefronts of other businesses, why would another business allow you to get away with advertising on it???? Not well executed. There definately needed to be more direction or more hands on supervision from the creative agency over the painting company. Now they have to power wash all the ads off at their own cost, while losing some of the impact of the campaign.

Now some of the points of the article are completely irrelevant such as the business owners claim that Ikea can afford billboards and tv so they shouldn't be using such a tactic. As a small owner it's understandable that he was frustrated with them advertising on his space but they probably paid a good chunk of money for this campaign. And just because you are a large corporation does not mean you are excluded from using different/inventive marketing tactics.

Sex saves the environment

This is one of my favourite marketing stories of the year and it comes out of the Fast Company blog. Everybody knows that marketing with a green twist is a great way to show your business is socially responsible and get brownie points from consumers. You may have thought in the past "I don't know if my company can take advantage of this marketing fad to help us engage customers."

......and then this story came along

"You know Thomas, this economic downturn has really affected our brothel. Not nearly as many people these days are paying for sex! It's like they realized it was an unnecessary cost, so they are now going to the bars and trying to pick up girls with the rest of the male population."

"I know. But don't worry I have a way to get press, make our brothel appear environmentally concious, and get more guys in the door. We'll offer a $7 discount for anyone who bike or take the train to their chikka chikka bow wow."

"Next step..........carpool discount!"

GM still singing the blue

In an update to my post from yesterday GM has decided to thankfully stay with the blue background for its logo. Smart decision i'd say.

Here's the post from Marketing News.

All in all Mr. Henderson seems to be making sense, my only problem came with this line

The new company will focus on three top priorities, customers, cars and culture, Henderson said

Okay.......either that is the dumbest statement ever or that just goes to show you why this company is in such trouble. They didn't even know that "Cars" or "Customers" should have been a top priority!!!!! It took a trip to bankruptcy to make this obvious????

Why are Bentleys so expensive?

They have style, tradition, and exclusiveness going for them, along with top of the line parts and performance. But here is one reason that they don't advertise...




I wouldn't be surprised if this video starts getting some pretty good viral action going for itself. Who doesn't enjoy watching an incredibly committed crackhead attempting to break into a luxury car at 3 in the morning.

But that being said, this is the kind of video that brands dream about people posting to youtube. They didn't have to do anything and their customer is happy and bragging to all of his no-doubt equally rich friends about how his Bentley can't be stolen. It's interesting to think about how a brand can utilize such great social marketing material such as this video. In Bentley's case, a page on their website where their customers can upload videos/pictures/stories of their favourite Bentley moments, like Tim Horton's did with everycup.ca, would not fit their upscale, posh brand image. But wouldn't a marketing video made up of amateur videos such as this one showing off the cars' impressive unknown characteristics be a great in-house sales tool? Or a great way to go even more viral?

Oh and here is what the car looked like after that fellows repeated attempts to gain entry.

GM to turn tides from Blue to Green?

Let me start by saying this isn't confirmed, nor does it sound like its anywhere near officially occuring for GM, but according to Marketing News a source has told them that GM is considering switching the blue background of their logo to green.

Firstly, I think this is a bad idea because I don't see GM being able to back up this change, which would in essence symbolize the movement to a greener, more efficient car company. There is a scene in the hilarious tv sitcom It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia when Dennis attempts to become an environmentalist by showing up at a dump in a cashmere sweater and Range Rover to help people recycle products that have been thrown away. He is immediately called out by the environmentalists as a part-time enviro and ridiculed.

That is how I see that GM experiment working. Everyone would see right through the plan and they would be further ridiculed for trying to talk the talk without walking the walk.

Now, that being said, if GM were to switch their logo to green and then immediately back it up by putting the Volt and other seemingly green cars on the market then I think they would stand a better chance of pulling it off.

Check out It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia if you haven't already, definately better than another GM blog post from yours truly.

My 2 cents on Free

There is a large discussion going on in the marketing world these days about Chris Anderson's new book Free - The Future of a Radical Price. Now, I haven't read the book yet but you can basically get a sense of what it is about by reading some of the reviews/postings about it (they are all available on this squidoo page). Some of the biggest names out there have chimed in including Seth Godin, Malcolm Gladwell, and Mitch Joel. This clearly is a topic of great interest/debate.

From what i've read so far, the book is about the idea/marketing of Free as opposed to charging for something. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a review that didn't take Chris' side and has sparked Godin, Joel and others to come out on Anderson's side. These blogs actually provide some fascinating reading and some very interesting points of view regarding how the digital landscape is taking the world towards getting most anything "Free".

In my mind the process of moving towards a Free world is essentially already happening as we speak. More and more companies are making things available to their consumers without charge, and many of them are finding this as a great way to build brand loyalty, cross-sell, and up-sell. Now, they aren't giving away everything for free but they are providing value to their consumers without charging for it. Maybe Coca-cola has a water park set up for a weekend for children to enjoy free of charge or as discussed in the book Amazon gives away Free shipping for purchases over a certain amount. Free is being leveraged everywhere and is a great way for your company to keep your customers engaged and satisfied. Mitch Joel and Seth Godin are giving away their marketing/digital/management opinions for free on their blogs, would any company have given away their intelletual property 50 years ago? 25 years ago? 10 years ago? The digital landscape and the transfer of information as a result have changed business dramatically and your company had better be willing to adapt and take advantage of this new world. Otherwise your competitors will snag your customers for Free.

Manners when you have a monopoly

Here's the situation: In a north american city (let's call it Vancouver), the taxi cab companies essentially have a deal with each other that means specific companies rule over areas of the city. For example, if you need a cab in North Vancouver you have to go through North Shore Taxi. So they drop you off downtown and now you want a ride home from this same cab company that offered good service to get you downtown. Not possible. The only way for them to pick you up downtown is if one of their cabs happens to be driving by and someone flags it down while its empty. An odd system which leads to a sort of monopoly mentality amongst the cab companies.

Here's the main problem that comes with all this, the customer service is downright embarassing and the majority of that can probably be attributed to the monopolistic way of this business.

So if you have a monopoly should you really treat your customers any different than if there is fierce competition in your business area???

No, you shouldn't. Especially not in this day and age. Consumers will find a way to call you out and eventually something will enter the market that removes the need for your service. 2 such things entering the market in this fictional city of Vancouver are Zip Car and Keys Please.

Zip Car allows people without cars a way to basically rent a car for an hourly rate. The gas, insurance and kilometers are included in the hourly price which comes in at a reasonable $9.75 during the week and $10.25 on weekends. Compare that to a taxi which can cost someone upwards of $30 for a 20 minute ride. It sells itself really.

Another common reason for needing a cab is if you have driven your car to a friends place and one Zima soon turns into 12. Now you need to get home without endangering yourself or others on the road. Well, you can call Keys Please and have your car driven home right behind you as you get a ride. So instead of having to deal with a cab company and then somehow reaquire your car in the morning, your car is waiting for you in your driveway the next morning. Now you just have to remember how it got there.

So, these alternatives may have arrived on the scene whether the taxi companies' customer service was exceptional or not, but I guarantee you they will have more success due to customers frustration in dealing with the monopolistic cab companies. We'll see how this plays out but if the cab companies had the attitude of building customer loyalty instead of providing the bare minimum level of service then they might have more success in the future.

What is Bing bringing to the table?

The search engine wars have heated up recently with Microsoft's Bing joining the game. Make no mistake, Microsoft is trying to take Google down and is putting some major money and resources behind it, ie. the creative team that basically stole the Google "concept" of using a distinct sounding, simple name for a search engine. Can you imagine if they named it Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious? Anyways, Microsoft seems to be pleased with the early results and are calling it a success so far.

As we all know, humans are creatures of habit and the habit for most humans the past number of years has been to log onto Google when needing to find anything online. How is Bing going to change people's habits? One way would be to make their search engine different, and I know that Microsoft probably has different bots that run behind the scenes and filter results, etc., etc. But 90% of people don't really know how a search engine works, or really care to find out. They want something that that provides value to them that they can see/use. Now in their latest advertisements (which are actually pretty good) Bing makes itself seem like it is different, calling itself a decision engine and adding an airplane, shopping cart, buildings, and medical symbol next to its logo........ohhhhkay. Don't really understand the significance of those but i'll let you run with it. Here's one of the commercials


What does a decision engine get me? Let's go to Bing to check it out. Okay i'll type in Hawaii Tickets as per their commercial. Bing! Make my decision for me decision engine.......oh. The results are pretty typical of Google's. Hmmm. Thats not really following through on your promise, or maybe you just haven't explained well enough what makes your search engine a "Decision" engine. Might want to think about that, or at least explain it somewhere on your page. Just a thought.

I wonder what "Decision Engine" even means, I think i'll Google it.

Twitter Teetering??

I've written a few posts about Twitter and can personally say that I'm not a huge fan of Twitter. I have used it for my company in the past and to be honest, it did a good job at what we were using it for. But we were using it to help spread political insight leading up to a provincial election as opposed to our day-to-day marketing of health plans. Twitter certainly has its share of success stories including this one that Marketing Magazine shares with us.

That being said, I think Twitter has peaked and is heading for a steady decline. Much like Second Life and a couple of other social networking sites that were big for a while. I read a FastCompany article a few weeks ago saying that 60% of new Twitter users were not logging on again after a month on the site. That's not a good sign. Then just yesterday I read Mitch Joel's post about Twitter and one of the telling quotes from it was this:

At the bare minimum 70% of the people on Twitter won't tell you who they are, where they are located or how to connect to them. That doesn't sound very "social" at all.

On top of that, over half of those people don't follow anyone, have never tweeted and how no followers. So, what's the point? Are most of these "people" not really "people" and simply bots? Or, do the majority of people who sign up for Twitter have no idea what they're getting themselves into, what the point is or how to really use it?

This makes it extremely hard for you to use Twitter as a targeted marketing effort. With 70% of the people not sharing their information your entire list of followers could, in effect, be completely wrong for your business. Take my company for example, we focus largely on British Columbia and sometimes all of Canada. Well anyone that would follow an account of ours in the States or elsewhere on the globe would not be any value to us, nor would we really be providing value to them.

I still don't really see the sustainability of Twitter and don't expect it to have the same buzz about it in the future. However, there clearly is some value for specific companies and individuals but I wouldn't bank my entire marketing efforts on it.

As you can tell, I can relate much more to the brownhaired guy in this video

Pour a little beer on that wildfire

Last year I wrote a post on an event/product/brand catching on like a wildfire (you can read that post here) and recently I have noticed such an event in the Canadian marketplace. Now maybe i've only taken notice because I enjoy beer, but hey it's not a crime were not in the prohibition era so stop giving me the stink eye. Anyways, it's for the Bud Light Lime product that was introduced to the canadian marketplace a month or so ago. It has literally been a wildfire for Labatt since then (Labatt markets and sells the product in Canada). I'm not sure how well they have handled/fanned the wildfire though.

First off, the product got plenty of press before its entry because a Facebook group had been created to encourage the beer be brought to Canada, so they already had a passionate following. According to Labbatt's, they usually only release one new product per season and had already introduced Alexander Keith's White Ale to the masses. Then they did the right thing and took notice of what these hardcore customers wanted and brought Bud-Light Lime in at the same time which went against company SOP. Smart decision. Listen to your customers.

The launch has been a success i'd say (to say the least), but it may turn bad for them soon if they can't bump up production on the hugely poplar drink. Here is an image for the BC Liquor Stores website which shows real time inventory of the product.

If you can't see the inventory numbers it shows exactly 3 cases of the product in all of British Columbia. So there are goods and bads of this obviously. Good, the product is basically sold out which means it has been received very well by the masses. Bad, the product is sold out which means your customers who would be loyal to the product can't get it anywhere.

Now maybe this will be effective in helping build up another buzz around the product and generating more excitement for when they actually get some shipments in, but I think their customers would rather whet their whistle than twiddle their thumbs. To me it shows a lack of wildfire protection planning.

When people have had enough of your antics

Yes, this is yet another post on General Motors. I can't help it, I read Jaffe Juice or watch Jaffe TV and he makes nothing but logical points about the mess that they are in and I can't help but blog about it myself.

However, this blog post is about how with the internet people now have the power to knock companies down a couple of pegs. It's an obvious statement and anyone that knows the power of social media and the internet realizes how disastrous one person with a vendetta can be to your brand. Unfortunately GM has many haters, which leads to things such as this:



This is not what GM was hoping for following their Chapter 1 television ad and the launching of the "Reinvention" website. They have also taken strides to be very prevalent throughout social media (including their head commenting on my blog), but no matter how hard you work the internet balancing the playing field. GM has spent millions and millions of dollars on their latest campaign and whoever started this website probably spent a couple of hundred. In terms of which has more impact, it may even be the GM Retardation site.

Unfortunate for GM but a humbling lesson that many marketers know.

Lack of Creativity

In an earlier post I talked about the lack of creativity of car companies.

Well, turns out they aren't the only ones who aren't creative. Lately there has been a lot of "combination" commercials, where one thing is mixing with another to create this "new" idea. Unfortunately the companies and their agencies haven't put much thought into a "new" idea for the advertising.

Car commercial exhibit A



Burger commercial exhibit B



Exhibit C: Arby's Fajita flatbread commercials which feature a mexican guitarist meeting a chef and embracing. Can't find them on Youtube because no doubt they aren't that proud of them.

Could this lack of creativity be the result of creative companies not getting as much work because more and more companies are encouraging their consumers to come up with marketing ideas? Is this leading to a brain drain from the creative area of the advertising/marketing world?In Canada, Doritos consumers were asked to name a new chip for them and come up with an ad for it. I've seen numerous requests for consumers to help work on a new packaging look for products (Pepsi, Kokanee, etc.). Is this costing us good creative? Who knows, I certainly don't have any stats to back it up.

Maybe its just companies being less willing to step out on a ledge and actually stand out from the crowd. Play it safe and hope for the best. Seems like a waste of money to me.

The death of print media

This topic is pretty prevalent in the news these days and is at the forefront of marketing discussions everywhere. Print media is dying and newspapers are not adapting to the new world quick enough to survive. I was watching the Daily Show with Jon Stewart the other day and as much as they create a satirical news program, they still do a good job reporting on some of the major issues in the world (albeit in a different form from traditional newscasts).

The show in question had a segment done by correspondent Jason Jones, fast forward to 4:30 of the clip, http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart/full-episodes/june-10-2009/#clip180782 (canadian version, for american go to Comedy Central June 10th, part 1). He went to the New York Times and talked with employees about the newspaper situation. He summed up the entire segment with this question to the Assistant Managing Editor of the paper "Why is aged news better than real time news?" and then asks the editor to "Give me one thing in there that happened today." He then finishes the interview by asking an editor "What's black and white and red all over?" the answer being the New York Times financial statements.

As entertaining as the clip is it raises good points for both sides of the argument. Newspapers don't deliver news in a timely enough manner for the new generation, they use rss feeds, blogs, online video, etc. From the newspapers point of view, you get people on the ground where the action is happening, experts in their area, and well versed/researched in the subject they are writing about. Which often times is not the case with a blog.

So, while the battle rages on, its becoming more and more evident that not long down the road the majority of newspaper presses will be coming to a stop as more and more people get their news electronically.

Google makes my life easier

Maybe thats why their stock is completely overpriced?

Last week I talked about how Google sent me this great offer that made me feel like an important part of their monstrous engine. I blogged about it. This week I had the follow up call with a competent, nice, helpful optimization strategist to further discuss their offer. Here's what she told me the offer is:
- They will come up with an optimized adwords campaign for our main line of business
- 3 different text ads and the keywords that go along with each ad
- Using a qualified adwords strategy team that will work personally to help improve the value of our adwords
- Will return the proposal with the completed campaign in 5 working days

oh, and did I forget to mention that this is all.....FREE. All my company has to do is promise to use their proposed ads for a month since they will be putting their time into it.

Yeah, as in doesn't cost my company a dime, and hopefully will help return a greater ROI with the current money we are spending on adwords.

She was basically daring me to say no. How can you possibly turn that down.

I'm getting Google's search expertice, their knowledge in adwords, and a finished marketing campaign for $0. If I didn't know they had more money than God himself, I would feel sorry for them.

But it just goes to show you how well Google knows how to play the game. I can't even imagine the number of companies that use Adwords as a main source of their marketing, so when they are offered a way to use this chunk of their marketing budget more effectively they might just be a little excited. Hmm maybe that will lead to some goodwill towards Google, a blog entry, a mention to a colleague in passing. Well played Google, i'm thoroughly impressed.

When you add that to the list of other things that Google does for me for free (Analytics, maps, etc.) it makes one wonder: Why Bing! when you can Google?

What's your motivation to buy GM.....Ever?

I am a GM owner. I bought a Chevy, partly because my Dzedo worked for them practically his whole life, and partly because I got a good deal.

Why would I ever buy a GM again? Why would anyone buy a GM?

They have one of the toughest tracks back to significance ahead of them. The people that buy their cars "bailed" them out 6 months ago, now they are bankrupt. Thats left a rather bitter taste in their mouth I'd say.

They probably have the worst vision of any car company ever, partly because they are locked in to certain things by their unions, and i'm guessing a huge part is poor management. Why have they not changed their course of action? Stop selling trucks, suvs, high gas-guzzling vehicles! Okay maybe not all of them, but start focusing on what people want now, anticipate the future. Smaller, economical, greener. Easy buzzwords and it doesn't take a genius to recognize that. So what does GM do? They flash around the Chevy Volt, an electric car that has style and looks groundbreaking. And they flash it some more, then a little more, and finally a little more. Where is the Volt???? Make it a priority to get that car on the road! Can you imagine the impact/goodwill you would get by being that first major car company to roll out an electric vehicle? Nope, they will just continue to tease and annoy their customers with it.

Everybody is getting frustrated by this GM saga and the ridiculous deal the unions have been able to manage over the years is completely absurd and coming to the forefront nowadays. Isn't it time the union members go to their leaders and say...."Uh, i'd like to keep my job why don't we roll back salaries to a reasonable level?" Never going to happen I realize.

Joseph Jaffe also made a similar post ranting about GM's timing of their new commercial (commerical can be viewed by clicking the link) and got some serious response from GMs guys pretty quickly, although the GM posters were taking it much much much to personally. Makes for good reading though. I think Christopher Barger (GMs director of Social Media) made the right decision in inviting Jaffe to join Fritz on Thursday, but at the same time he came off as an arrogant dick.

This is the kind of attitude that wanes a lot of my motivation to buy GM again, they think they are ENTITLED to us buying cars from them because they are a large employer and have been around for so long, whereas they should be working their asses off to prove to us why we should support such an obvious collasal failure. Maybe this is their starting point though.

Google, making the smallest customer feel important

I opened my Outlook today and saw an email from Erica F., subject Google Adwords: Optimization Offer for ICBA (my company).

Oh great i'm thinking, they are trying to upsell me, saying their standard "You could be getting more clicks by increasing your budget." Which is a pretty obvious statement.

Then I read through the email and got to this part:

"Based on a preliminary look at your website and account, i've attached a short presentation to this email wtih some examples of the types of changes we might propose. In order to ensure that the optimization is tailored to your exact needs, I would love to schedule a time to speak with you to hear more about ICBA's marketing goals and objectives. Please let me know when you are available, and I will give you a call at your earliest convenience."

Wow.

Now I know Google has all sorts of fancy databases, and electronic mail systems, etc, etc. But this email is probably one of the best marketing emails i've ever received.

a. They make us feel important even though our tiny account is no doubt just a drop in the bucket, and personalize the email to such an amazingly deep extent
b. They provide me with something that shows value, trying to help me improve my campaign
c. They do a great job of making the massive Google seem smaller by personalizing the email from "Erica"

Just another reason why Google is taking over the world, they are able to make even the smallest person feel important and needed. Now if only I can get over the fear of the possibility of a virus and open the PPT attachment with their "suggested changes".

Social Strategy for Boring Brands

Was flipping through my monthly Marketing News magazine from the American Marketing Association and found and interesting article called "Social Strategy for exciting (and not so exciting) brands", written by Josh Bernoff, VP at Forrester Research.

The article discusses how "talkable" or popular brands have an easier go with social networking because people already want to discuss them and talk about them. In a recent survey of theirs they asked online consumers whether they'd like to interact with various forms of social applications with their favourite brands. 42% of respondents said they would like to. Thats a pretty nice number. When it came to how they preferred to interact it was a little different
- 1 in 4 would prefer a discussion forum
- 1 in 6 would be interested in connecting through a social network profile (ie. Facebook)
- 1 in 5 would prefer watching online videos
- Only 12% would want to read a blog about the brand

Interesting stuff.

Now onto the "boring", non-talkable brands that no one really cares about or wants to interact with (much like insurance, which is the sector I primarily work within).

"Boring brands have a different problem, but social applications can help them, too. The key with boring brands is to get people talking about their problems, since they won't talk about your brand. In advertising, you can force messages on people watchiing other things. In a social context, this fails miserably."

An interesting point, and one that I agree with wholeheartedly. Ie. the post that I did earlier on the pharmacy centre advertisement. If they wanted to get into social networking they could provide a place where people could talk about what ails them, etc. and help provide health advice and that sort of stuff.

An interesting article, its not up yet on the http://www.marketingpower.com/ website but check back here soon and it should be http://www.marketingpower.com/AboutAMA/Pages/AMA%20Publications/Marketing%20News/MarketingNews.aspx

The Discount Economic Indicator

As I mentioned in an early post (and as is obvious to most everyone) retailers have been using sales/discounted items to try and entice customers to keep buying during these rather tough economic times. Walking through a mall it is tough to get a look into a store because of all the discount/sale signs cluttering the front windows. You can practically see the invisible hand lunging out and grabbing at people's wallets as they walk buy.

But, according to my freshly developed economic measuring tool - The Discount Economic Indicator, we may be starting an upward turn. Now my tool is not something Al Einstein would be proud of, and really when you think about it, its just me taking notice of one thing. In fact maybe I should call it the Banana Republic Economic Indicator, because it is based off of the email flyers they send me. Here's a breakdown of how it works:

• The higher the discount they offer me, the worse off we are economically

Simple eh?

So here's what i've seen so far:
1. First signed up: 10% discount and let me know when new items arrived
2. Last fall: 20% discount flyer
3. Christmas: 30% off flyer
4. Christmas: 40% off flyer
5. End of winter: 35% off flyer
6. Spring: 30% off flyer
7. Today: 20% off flyer

Now i'm sure everyone will want to pat me on the back, call me a genius, and give me an honorary doctorate, but it is interesting to see how their sales have pretty much followed the economic outlook for Canadians. Plus, good work by the marketing team at Banana Republic to continually offer sales to their best customers (the ones that gave them their email) encouraging them to buy.

Although I stand by my Discount Economic Indicator, i'm not quite as optimistic about the economy rebounding this quickly and I think we have some more downtime ahead, but this appears to be a good sign.

Microsoft vs. Apple

One of the most interesting business battles going on is the PC vs. Mac feud. PC was dominating until Steve Jobs came back and turned Apple into the current powerhouse it is, making it the hip and trendy company with teens, young adults, hipsters and artsy style people. PC continues to dominate the workplace computer landscape with no real signs of Apple breaking in.

But PC isn't happy with the big chunk of personal use sales that Mac has grabbed from it thanks to their amazingly effective television advertising campaigns including these:





Microsoft/Windows waited a couple of years and then countered with this:



Which led apple to easily come back with this:



But now Microsoft seems to have taken a different approach, one that I think is quite brilliant and well thought out. They continue to plug away softly at the young adult market, but are now focusing on the young child market and seemingly trying to create lifelong PC enthusiasts from a young age. Also they probably casted the cutest little girl in the world.



Who knows whats coming next but this advertising battle is definately one of the most entertaining in the world. Apple was dominating, but PC has started to put more money in and is making it a closer race.

Marketing.....nothing

What happens when your company has no competitive advantage? What happens when your company is in an industry where acheiving a competitive advantage is near impossible? When differentiating yourself from your competitors is a tough thing to do.

Do you fold up shop? Do you spend oodles of money marketing your brand?

This blog idea came to me yesterday as I was watching TV and saw an add for Wal-Greens pharmacy. The entire ad didn't really say anything and seemed like an incredible waste of time (would post it if I could find it on youtube but a cursory glance returned nothing for obvious reasons). Then I started thinking, well how else are they going to get customers to get their prescriptions there, because lets be honest there is a lot of money to be made in prescription filling. But the question behind their commercial/marketing campaign should have been "Why would customers get their prescriptions filled with us?" and they should have developed it based on that question.

Maybe answering it is the tough part and will take a lot of research or getting everyone together for an entire day of brainstorming, but its probably better than burning your marketing dollars on a commercial just to say your doing something. Use your customers, find out what they would like in a pharmacy, maybe its speediness, price, comfort, customer service, knowledge, you never know until you ask.

But that is the challenge that their marketing department should accept greedily as this is their e=mc squared.

How long can you make sex sell?

I've never really liked the Go Daddy.com commercials that use sexy female celebrities to encourage people to go to their website and check out a "exposed" video of the celeb making it seem like they will be exposing themselves. Go Daddy's business is selling domain names to people so I can only assume that they feel people hoping for a naked Danica Patrick will then feel inclined to purchase a random domain name.



They have been using this tactic for quite a while and I wonder how much longer it can really work? Does it really work for their business, sure they probably get a lot of views on youtube and from viral views but I question whether all the money they spend on celebrity sponsorships and production/placement of these commercials will really result in enough $10/year domain name sales. Here is another Go Daddy commercial that I feel had better messaging.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JHGCd_9U5E

Car Industry Creative Bailout part 2

Further evidence of my earlier post on the lack of creativity by auto companies and their creative agencies. It's like the pepsi taste challenge, can you tell the difference between these two brands?

Looking at these two ads you would think they were for the same company, only problem is one company is German the other is Japanese.

Pepsi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEg-0uE-6iM

Coca-Cola
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsJ6uLWPu78

I haven't looked into which agencies are behind the creative for each company, but the entire concept is the exact same. Rather embarassing for all the dough they dished out for them.

Second Chance Sponsorships provide big return

It seems like a lot of the sponsorships of conferences or events or athletes don't provide a tonne of value to a company. That being said these sponsorships are important to the party that is being sponsored otherwise they would not be able to do what they do. But is it really a good use of your company's valuable marketing dollars, especially in these penny-pinching times?

Here are a couple of sponsorships that i've seen recently that were clearly a well thought out, strategic use of their money to create goodwill among their customers.

The Keg Restaurant - Celebration of Light

Each year, Vancouver has a fireworks competition that brings teams from around the world to the city to compete and provides 4 nights of free entertainment for locals while at the same time keeping restaurants, bars, and shops in the downtown area packed with people. Over the years the event has had trouble finding sponsors and entering this year they were a sponsor short of being able to put the show on. It was announced as being cancelled. Well within a short period of time of this announcement The Keg Restaurant (a canadian steakhouse chain) stepped up to the plate and contributed what i'm sure is not a huge chunk of their advertising dollars. The event was back on, all because of the Keg. So what happens? They get countless value out of the blogs/media coverage of their sponsorship that easily makes the amount of their sponsorship seem minimal.

Here's one such blog that published the event http://vancitybuzz.blogspot.com/2009/03/2009-celebration-of-light-vancouver.html


Vancouver Canucks playoff games in HD - Save-on-Foods

Being a Canadian city, Vancouver has some of the most passionate hockey fans in the world (if not the most passionate ie. i'm one of said fans). This year they are in the playoffs after missing last year and the city is buzzing with excitement. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is a public television network that has first rights to air canadian teams playoff games. They aired the first game from Vancouver in High Definition and it was found out after that games 3 and 4 to be played in St. Louis would not be televised in HD due to the extra cost associated with it $100,000. They had just gone through some rounds of layoffs and felt they could not justify the cost (weak excuse). Cue Save-on-Foods, a lower mainland based supermarket chain, who jumped in and basically said "$100,000??? That's it. We'll pay for you to have HD for our consumers." Boom! Now not everyone in the province has HD but even those without are going to be happy with Save-On for stepping up to the plate. This was a great sponsorship move and got buzz all over the radios and television stations throughout the province.

So maybe a sponsorship investment isn't the worst thing in the world for your company. Especially if it is for something that has a passionate following. Your generosity will fuel a lot of goodwill with those followers and they are quite likely to be pleased enough to spread the word to their network......especially if that something was on the verge of going kaput.

The automotive industry needs an advertising bailout

If you have seen one car commecial, you have seen them all. They all blend in to one soupy monotonous mash of person announcing that this "amazing car" gets you so many miles to the gallon, handles like a gem, and is as quiet as their empty showrooms. Well news to car companies, your not fooling anyone and you are all saying the exact same thing. So why would you continue to waste so much money on basically promoting the exact same car as your competition. Here's a crazy idea:

a) Design a car that is different from your competitors, get crazy with the look of a car
b) Have something in the car that differentiates you from every other car company out there and is actually of use to someone (just spitballing but apple is a pretty hip company maybe you can make an arrangement like Nike did with the ipod shoes)
c) Market the crap out of your unique offering (this is pretty much the first lesson in any marketing class)

It baffles me that car companies haven't been able to come up with something like this. As much as I don't really like Scion, at least they are thinking slightly outside the box and not trying to be everything to everyone. GM, Ford, and Chrysler seem to be mailing it in like a lot of the union workers that are on the line.

It also seems like none of these poor advertisements are available on YouTube which is definately a great way to help not drive traffic virally. Good thing they have now gotten to the point where they are appealing for national pride "Over half of these quality Pontiac products are made right here in Canada including......"

Well that did it, i'm sold. I'll buy a car for my country. And full disclosure, I own a GM product currently that I bought brand new 4 years ago and can say that it is not really the "quality" that a lot of these commercials tell me it is. My family has always owned GM so we are pretty loyal, but I can tell you this much, the loyalty ends after this car is done.

The easiest/most effective marketing tool

Happy employees who enjoy what they do.

That leads them to tell their network of friends about your company and also creates amazing viral opportunities such as this one shown on the Velopig blog (a daily breakfast blog expressing the blogger's feelings through pictures of his coffee and muffin).

Southwest Airlines gives their employees that ability to have fun instead of adhering to a strict corporate code heaved upon them by the higher-ups. The net result is an employee that has found a way to do his job which entertains him and at the same time entertains his audience (Southwest's customers). It's almost a guarantee that a good portion of the people walking off that airplane will then be passing on this unique experience to the person that picks them up and asks "How was your flight?". Great word of mouth marketing through a companies employees.

So instead of the consumers thinking about how little room they have and how they don't get a meal on the plane, they have a positive feeling after being engaged in an out-of-the box routine announcement.

Effective Email Creative webcast

I heard about this webinar through the AMA and found it incredibly informative so I will now pass it on to the 1 or 2 people that have miraculously found my blog.

It was titled "Top 10 things you need to know about effective email creative" and was put on by Jordan Ayan, CEO of SubscriberMail.

I recommend if your business runs email marketing campaigns you have a listen as Jordan brings up some interesting issues that could help you with future emailings.

I was especially intrigued by the information around optimizing an email so when the recipients have images turned off you are still able to get your message to them. I have had the problem in the past where i've received emails back from people saying our messages are tough to read, etc., etc. and the returned emails always show the recipient as having images turned off. As Jordan also points out, the majority of business consumers (90%) have their images disabled on their email accounts. As my company is primarily in the B2B field this is a huge portion of our targets that may be having trouble viewing our emails. I think its time to optimize!

Here is the full presentation: http://blog.subscribermail.com/2009/03/30/video-webinar-top-10-things-you-need-to-know-about-developing-effective-email-creative/

True Service

Kal-Tire has got it right.

And their brand/image is incredible for an industry that is typically seen as a bunch of grease pigs that rip off the consumers.

Kal-Tire's slogan,"True Service.", is a bold statement. But one they back up.. To be honest, I have never heard anyone say anything bad about them because they treat each customer great, and clearly have a strategy of building an ongoing relationship with every individual that walks through the door. Everyone needs tires, and they will need tires throughout their lives. Why not build a good relationship with every customer.

Now when someone walks through a tire store's door they are at the company's mercy, they are more than likely frustrated, and they are probably irritable.

Yesterday I had the good fortune of waking up to a flat tire and after figure out my jack and lugnut wrench I threw on the magnificent looking donut of a spare tire. With this in place I headed to Kal-Tire to see about repairing the flat or getting a new one. I dropped it off and heard from them after 2 hours. "Your front one is not repairable, but we were able to fix your right rear tire which also needed it." So they went above and beyond to make sure the rest of my tires were okay, fine i'll gladly pay the extra amount for that service. They didn't have the tire I needed to replace the damaged front tire but were quick to refer me to a place that would have them. Perfect.

So I went in after work to pick up my car and got to the counter, "Here is your total charge and that includes a discount too." Huh? What did I do to deserve a discount? Nothing, I chose Kal-Tire and they know the value in having a happy customer who will bring their car back to them for any future tire problems.

That my friends is True Service, and truly an impressively run company.

Something to think about the next time you are trying to figure out what image your brand should project in your customers minds. How can you build a better relationship with customers to extend your customer lifecycle?

Powerpoint, the rubix cube of technology? I don't think so

I am from the younger generation, the web saavy generation if you will so it is tougher for me to grasp the concept of not being able to work technology. But is there really an excuse for not knowing how to work a powerpoint presentation???? It really should be unfathomable. It's not like as a presenter you don't think about the talk you are going to give and maybe write out some notes in preparation. So why would you not take the 5 minutes to learn how to use powerpoint? I say this because I was at a symposium yesterday and 1 out of 6 speakers seemed fully capable of using their powerpoint. 1 out of 6!!!!! That is an embarassing number. These were all BUSINESS PROFESSIONALS who were experts in their field, yet they struggled with issues such as exiting a presentation and opening their own.....come on. There is no excuse for not knowing how to work a powerpoint presentation on a laptop. You could put a monkey up there with 30 minutes of instructions and he could pull it off almost flawlessly. His hands might mash the keyboard a little too much but he would get through his presentation on climate change.

Just a little bit of ranting on a hump-day from this guy.

Sales promotion a true art form

With the recession in full force across North America it is tough to walk down a street and not see some kind of sign in a businesses window offering a sales promotion to entice prospects into purchasing. But what happens as we start to work our way out of the recession? People will have become addicted to sales because thats all they will know. Will there be a worldwide Intervention by major retailers to inform you that the sales no longer apply???? If so, I hope Jack Von Vonderen runs it, now thats an interventionist. Great mustache too.

What is the effect that these sales promotions will have on a company's brand image?

For example, I am part of Banana Republic Canada's e-mail database and they send me information on sales, etc. For the first 4 to 6 months that I was on the list I got maybe one offer for a 20% off one day only sale, which still seemed like a good offer. They make good quality, fashionable merchandise, at a mid-level price. There clothes are not cheaply priced, nor are they in the league of a Harry Rosen. That was until now. In the last 3 months I believe I have gotten at least one offer every month for a MINIMUM of 30% off, most of the time for an entire week or weekend.

Now obviously most people understand why they are doing this, the economic times mean you have to entice more consumers to purchase your products to meet your organizations sales goals. So you put items on sale and get more people in the door that way, including those that are not usually your regular market.

So what does that mean for the future, does this erode Banana Republic's brand image now that more and more people can afford to buy it? What happens when the sales dry-up? How many customers will they lose and will it lead to a counter-effect where they need to start producing clothes cheaper to hold on to these consumers that expect their items to be cheaper.

I assume there is quite a struggle going on between marketing and the sales teams at Banana Republic these days, but it is probably overshadowed by the increased volume they do everytime they push out another sale. I just wonder what the future consequences may be.

Magnifique Re-Gift!

After I just created my post on re-gifting your brand yesterday, this pops up

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/mar/02/pompidou-centre-vides-exhibition

An exhibit of nothing!

Now from what i've heard it is normal for there to be some empty rooms at the Pompidou Exhibition Centre because they don't always have pieces to put in them. So why not combine them all together and turn it into a PR landslide, by claiming it is actually a new exhibit!

No its not, it's an empty set of rooms. You can have as many artists saying it is a radical concept and explaining in their ramblings that it allows people to be "free for a moment to think about what we are going to do".

It's a series of empty rooms, because you didn't have anything to put there. Congratulations to your marketing team, a brilliant Re-gift. Not many people can pull off the re-gift of nothingness and turn it into a huge win for their company.

Re-Gifting your product

As I was watching commercials the other night and a Bounty select-a-size ad came on, I was struck by what must be one of marketings most impressive feats. The Re-Gift, or re-package, or re-whatever you want to call it. Basically taking your regular product and re-packaging it or re-marketing it as a brand new entity. The Bounty select-a-size isn't the greatest example because there is some innovation in the product, but it does offer a bit of a re-gift. Select a size basically takes paper towels and cuts the regular sheet in half and allows it to be tearable every half sheet instead of a full sheet. This is not a remarkable new technology or even a genius piece of engineering, it's a simple well thought out way to market their product that makes people feel like they are saving money by using less paper towels while at the same time their conscience gets a pat on the back because that means they are throwing out less garbage too. Thats win-win for the customers and definately a win for the marketing team.

But think about it, being able to re-market your product to an entirely new market or for an entirely new purpose is extraordinarily genius and creative, even if some may think of it as pulling the wool over someones eyes. But the majority of the time these new applications for your product/brand provide something to the target market your aimed at, otherwise they would fail miserably.

Probably the best ever representation of this was when Arm & Hammer realized that people were using their baking soda to neutralize the smells in their fridges. They now have a variety of products that are directly designed just for putting in your fridge/freezer to help keep them odor free. Genius.

Now unfortunately not all products/brands provide marketers with the ability to re-gift them to consumers, but maybe yours does. Does it?

Twitter Update

Earlier this week I wrote about Twitter and whether it would become too much for a lot of people in the near future.

While scanning my google reader today I came across this FastCompany, The Week that Twitter Tipped, talking about how there has been a huge boom in the notoriety of Twitter in recent months and especially this current week.

The one thing in the article I really found interesting was one company's attempt to create an ad format that will allow Twitterers to put advertising in their tweets

Web advertising company Adjix has announced that it's creating a new ad format that will allow individual Twitter users to embed ads in their tweets and monetize their popularity on the service.

Overall, it seems like advertising through these social networks has not been hugely beneficial for most companies or the network itself. Things such as display ads on Facebook have not been announced to pull huge numbers or huge revenues, and MySpace does well in terms of ad revenue but the effectiveness of it has never blown anyones socks off.

The real question is, will advertising in people's messages end up hurting Twitter in the long run? Twitter obviously needs some revenue because as the article points out they have had $55 million in venture capital invested and don't have much revenue to speak of. But at what cost? Will tweets with advertising included end up angering a large portion of the users and therefore pushing them to a newer and greater Twitter clone that has just risen?

I personally think that companies will get more value from using Twitter like they would a Facebook application, give the consumers something to do with it. In the article it mentioned Skittles and what they are doing with Twitter, but instead of them paying someone to include a skittles logo in their tweet, create a Twitter feed that allows people to "Tell us what your doing as you eat your skittles" or something along those lines. I'm sure consumers will get a kick out of some of the crazy shenanigans going on as people taste the rainbow.

Hope floats

Reading through the various FastCompany postings and came across Barack Obama doing some more marketing work. Check out the new logo that will be floating around the U.S. and stamped on anything that is part of their stimulus package.

As strong as marketing is, apparently the new logo leant no help to the financial markets which dipped lower again today. Damn those financial people and their numbers! Come on! They've got a new logo, what more do you want?

Tweet Tweet Too Much

When does Twitter become too much?

I am a fairly new user of the much vaunted Twitter and it has made me think about a few things.

Firstly, what happens when every single company you know starts Tweeting? Remember that thing about why advertising is working as well, because everybody gets harassed by 8,000 messages a day or whatever the number was? Well with Twitter you could seemingly receive 8,000 messages in a matter of an hour depending on who you are following. Granted, Twitter offers consumers the power to select who they follow and don't follow but the majority of them probably won't pare down their list once they have added someone.

So what happens when everyone is on Twitter???? I think it will probably lose the a major chunk of its appeal because how do you cut through the clutter of the hundreds of messages you receive to find the good stuff? How do you follow hundreds if not thousands of people?

Twitter is definately still in the beginning stages of its adoption, but it is starting to go like fire. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next year or so and how long of a life it has as a result of its success.

Using your blog for good or evil

Let me preface this post by saying I understand writing your own personal blog is about building your brand and promoting yourself. But if you have developed a loyal following of people reading your entries when does too much selling yourself lead to a drop off.

I have followed the Pow! Andy Nulman blog for 7 or 8 months now and there was often some very interesting entries. He would talk about recent marketing campaigns that had used the Power of surprise to catch peoples attention and thus land themselves a good return. It was thoroughly interesting and I always looked forward to his newest post until.......

He got a book deal.

Now pretty much every single post is selling his book. Now he does mask it with promotions he is offering with the book, and contests he is running, and how he is trying to Pow! sell his book. But it all feeds back to being about his book, and in reality trying to sell more copies of his book.

Fair enough. You built your blog up, you built the brand of it, you got a book deal out of it so why not use your blog readers to sell copies. But what's going to happen when those loyal readers start to tire of seemingly the same thing every day. I know I am.

It's just like an overused advertisement. Wassssssupppp!!!!

Too early for greediness

These days on television it is rare to find a commercial not touting some way to bust the recession through pricing or financing that they have. One of these such offers was observed and taken up by yours truly.....it was for Quizno's. Quizno's typically offers a higher priced sandwich than Subway because they have the ever sneaky oven to toast your sandwich along with probably using higher grade ingredients. Well, Quizno's saw what was going on with the economy (and i'm sure their sales department also took note of it as people started eating less there) and decided to offer our fair population of Canada a stellar deal. Their Real Deal sandwiches would be $5 for a large one. Wow! Great deal, and especially for an above average sandwich. Now granted the Real Deal sandwiches only offer 5 different selections but it is still a great deal for someone looking for a tasty lunch at a great price. I partook in this deal multiple times, they had won at least one customer.

Then the other day I went back for another $5 sub.......

The price had been raised to $6.49 for a large!

Wait a minute does that mean we are out of the recession????? Hooray.....wait no we aren't. So they weren't really willing to help us then? First off this seems a little like a bait and switch tactic and i'm sure I wasn't the only customer a little chagrined by the 30% increase in price all of a sudden. But the worst part is that you say you are there to help out people when they need it, and then all of a sudden your greedy again. Now maybe the $5 price point didn't leave enough margin, okay I can understand raising it slightly, but 30%!!!!! Come on. We aren't out of this economic trouble yet and if you have found a promotion that works and helps bring customers into your store during these tough times, then it is a good way to build loyalty as we work our way out of these tough days.

You know you've got a great ad concept when.....

It's the same as anything else, copycatting is the most sincere form of flattery. And it rings true in the advertising/marketing world as well. In general once some creative tactic or ad or media buy or initiative proves to be a huge success there will be people everywhere copying it. Trying to make lightning strike twice.

One of the most successful television advertisements in recent years has been the Apple - Get a Mac ads. These ads have transcended the likes of being an annoyance in between parts of your program to something that people look forward to seeing. They may be some of the most powerful/popular advertisements ever, and they are still able to pump out new ones without it seeming like too much of the same.

Now of course people have caught onto this and the commercials are so well known that people are piggy backing on the concept.

Here is a Mac ad:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=DDuB8NLTj_I

Now check out this video regarding a provincial election in British Columbia, Canada
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9nhHsFKato

Very similar concept and pretty good execution. When someone sees this commercial they may be more friendly and open to it because they recognize the format (unless of course they are voting for the other party).

The Idiocy of Man

We live in a world where you basically have eyes on you all the time whether you like it or not. Cell phone cameras, webcams, security cams, bloggers, twitterers, facebookers and all have the power to capture and spread something throughout the world in a matter of minutes if not seconds.

So why have people not caught on? Why are there so many morons out there that can't seem to get this through their thick skulls. How come every day when I watch the news or turn on my computer it seems another person has been caught in an act of idiocy. And its not like these people tend to be the unwashed/uneducated percentage of the population. Today it was police officers in Australia making a drunk aboriginal dance for them.....ON CAMERA. Okay mates, heres the deal:

a. You are morons
b. Why would you actually film your moronicness
c. Do you really think that in this digital age you will be able to control the spread of your video???
d. You are such morons
e. You are more than likely fired, congratulations.

Maybe this is a positive to take out of the digital age, morons will expose themselves and everyone will know who they are. They will end up paying for their uncaring, idiotic, racist tendencies and thats about the best result possible.

There's always time for email

As late night show host Craig Ferguson says daily "Yes, there's always time for email". Of course he says it with more pizzazz and flashy graphics, but hey when you working with a budget of $0 a title is all you get.

As I found myself preparing a mass email to send out to our prospects today I got wondering, What is the best time to schedule the email to be sent? Research places the best days to send marketing emails as Tuesday and Wednesday but what time of day do you want it to drop. Most would probably think just send it sometime early morning. Here is the issue, with blackberries and other smart phones in the marketplace many people have them rigged to beep when new mail comes in. Do you want to be the company waking up your prospect or client at 4 in the morning because you scheduled an email to go out then? I certainly don't want to be. Thats why I tend to schedule mine to arrive starting at 7am local time. My situation is a little easier because our targets are purely on the west coast, so only one time zone to deal with. But we are starting to push across Canada, and when we do more and more what do I do then? Obviously the easiest option is to segment my list based on provincial location and have a few seperate email lists. What if all I had was a big opt-in email list? Then I think I would probably try to shoot for a 9am delivery on the east coast which would put the mail into my west coast prospects hands at 6am, a reasonable time that is not too early.

I'm not sure if it has even come up that much because I am constantly getting emails from Marketing Associations anywhere from 2 - 5 am. I've had to alter my phone settings so emails come through silently.

Has anyone else run into this problem or thought deeply about their email distribution times?