Is Stephen Colbert the most powerful man in America?

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

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

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

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

The Return of Goodwill

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

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

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

Attention Economy

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

Now on to the important stuff.

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

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


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


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


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


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


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

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

Positive Reinforcement

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wildfire

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

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

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

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

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

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

Change when no change is required

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

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

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

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

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

Lightning strikes

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

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




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

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



Whoopsie....

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

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