Viagra-ing your brand

Newfoundland and Labrador don't claim to offer visitors a big city experience, in fact they market themselves as the exact opposite of that - quiet, small, and friendly. Have a look at some of their most recent television ads. The scenery is breathtaking, the music is calming and it makes you want to hop on the next flight to take it all in for yourself.





But they save the best for last, and enhance their brand image at the same time, by offering a personalized telephone number on the last screen. Sure it's a 1-800 number, but you have an actual person's name to speak too. How small town is that? How personal and special do you feel calling a specific person as opposed to a main phone line? Simply brilliant marketing, and no doubt leaves a smile on peoples faces - exactly the way they want people to react.

Bragging

With the Olympics in Canada this year many of the nation's businesses, big and small, helped fundraise and donate money to our athlete's with hopes of helping them make it to the podium. This marketing/communication tactic is great because it works for everyone, consumers feel warm and fuzzy about a company that coordinates a fundraiser like that, the athlete gets funding, and the sponsor gets good, positive exposure.

But is there a need to brag about all you've done for these people? It's not the quote-unquote "canadian way", and it certainly takes away some of the good will of what you've done. Take a look at this Shaw website and definately have a play of their advertisement.

Here are my problems with it:

1. Shaw is asking for donations for the athletes, which people have gratefully done, and then Shaw spins it to sound as if they have given it themselves (maybe they have given a large chunk themselves, but the numbers they advertise on their cheesy "we are the world" type ad match up with those of their ticker on the page)


2. It's all about them. "their" company and what "they" have done for the athletes. The oldest team sport saying in the world has got to be "There's no 'I' in Team", well clearly Shaw forgot about that


3. The tone of the tv spot is just way too over-the-top cheesy. I saw it on television the other day and laughed out loud. It doesn't make one feel patriotic, it makes one embarassed to be a Shaw subscriber. Trying to copy the "we are the world" style for a patriotic commercial is just shoddy.

It's great that companies like Shaw support our athletes and help raise donations towards a relevant cause, but don't brag about it. People know you have been helping athletes, thats why they are donating. They know you have been putting in the effort, so don't act like a 10 year old kid that needs recognition. Are you going to throw a tantrum if we don't acknowledge you? You don't see Molson Canadian bragging about all the money they raised.

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.

The new 30 second spot is a 10 minute spot

According to a recent Joseph Jaffe post, Only Poor People Watch 30-second spots, the American Idol key demographic is getting older, along with also trending to lower income earners. Maybe that is why they have added a rather attractive young female judge to be the 4th on the panel this year. But more importantly in his post was this fact:

"A new survey suggests that upscale households account for a disproportionate slice of the DVR distribution pie, as more than half of all U.S. homes with incomes of $100,000+ subscribe to some form of time-shifting device"

Advertising revenues are already down across the board for the traditional mass media outlets, so it's not like this has anyone shocked. But what are the companies that pander to these high income earners going to do to get their target markets attention. What is the future for television advertising as a result of the TIVO/PVR technology. This took me back to a session I attended at the Marketing Week conference in Toronto last November. It was on the lack of attention that people pay to traditional media nowadays and one of the panelists was Ian MacLean from Etc.tv

Etc.tv is a company that does on demand advertising in Canada, which basically puts the power of advertising in the consumers hands. They are allowed to click on a commercial or product and be taken to a more in depth longer commercial or experience with the product. This could mean a reverse in thinking, instead of people be less interested in a commercial they could be fully engulfed for as long as 1o minutes by a product advertisement. The only difference is they are choosing when and how they want to view the ad which is quite an ingenius concept. Although this concept is a long way from being in the mainstream, it does seem like a movement in the right direction. Technically this is where we are already heading with people able to youtube advertisements they like, so it seems like a natural evolution. The only problem is the set up to allow consumers to view this on demand advertising. Right now it is only available in Quebec through Etc.tv so look for it to expand in the future.

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.

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.