The Quisenblog

Used to be that those of us in “sales & marketing” had the mindset that once the sale was made, our jobs as marketing professionals was pretty much done.

We succeeded. We got the prospects attention. Intrigued him into considering us. Demonstrated our value to him. Then closed the sale. Let’s order some martinis!

Not so fast, Buckaroo. As anybody who has an expensive piece of workout equipment gathering dust in the basement will tell you, it’s one thing to buy something. It’s something else to extract full value from it. And unless our buyer gets his money’s worth out of it in the form of value, he’s never coming back for another purchase. (And he might tell any friends who are considering it to forget it.)

So what to do? Acknowledge that as marketers, our job isn’t finished when the check clears the bank or the customer loads our product into her car. We need to mindfully help her get the true value out of our offerings. Customer support. Product updates. Advertising. One-to-one communications. All of which support her purchase and help her feel part of the “family.”

Getting value out of our offerings is smart business in a lot of ways. For one, it makes it easy for our customer to justify the purchase. Our product did for him what he expected it to do (and hopefully more). It communicates that we care about our customers and are looking out for them. It elevates our offerings over others in the category. It makes our customers more likely to come back to us in the future. It might even make them (dare we say) more loyal about our products and our company. It will give them a good story to tell others when the subject of your products comes up in conversation.

And compared to the cost of attracting new customers, it costs peanuts.

A customer who uses your product or service a lot is worth way more than one who has paid for it but lapsed or is a casual user. Marketers that realize that—and act on that—are quite a ways down the road to creating a customer for life.

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Mickey On Customers customer support, extracting value, rowing machine

We’ve written often about how the dynamics at play in Social Media aren’t new. Once you get past the nomenclature many have adopted for Social Media (“crowdsourcing,” “the long tail,” “viral buzz” etc.), what you really have are just people sharing something with others, peer to peer. In Social, what you want to “share,” you pretty much just put it out there for everyone to see, and if someone likes it, they can join you, or pass it on to others through their own networks.

The following video probably tells the story of Social Media simpler and better than any blog post I could hope to write. It is an amateur video (approximately 3 minutes in length) taken at last year’s Sasquatch Music Festival at The Gorge.  It starts off with one guy in the crowd doing his own goofy dance. Slowly, a few other join in. After a while, it appears as if the “dancers” outnumber the rest of the crowd.
Check it out.

The first time I viewed this video, I was struck by a couple of things. First, that the original guy was REALLY into his dance. He was doing his own thing, going for it 100%. And he kept at it. He was the only one doing the dancing for quite some time.

Next, there was guy number two. For whatever reason, he thought the dance thing looked fun, so he jumped in. He was key because it provided “permission” for all those that followed to join in. Same for the third guy.

Once this small community got into it, it wasn’t long before people started joining in ever larger numbers. While it took more than half the video to get past the first few guys, the Tipping Point had been reached early in the third minute of the video.

But back to the first guy. Was it his intention to get others to join him, to “start a movement?” Who knows. All we can tell is he was really into it, and he kept at it for quite a spell. I would venture to say his enthusiasm for what he was doing is what attracted others to at first check him out, then join him. The same can be said of creating a Social Media program. If we start out just wanting others to “join” us, we’re doomed to failure. We have to do what we do well—and what we enjoy doing—if we are to get anyone’s attention. And you need to draw attention before you have any hopes of getting anyone to join up.

Note, also, that building a true community takes a while to build. You don’t want to “rent” followers, you want people who really get it. And that’s going to take some time. But if you keep at it, and stay true to your intentions, your community will grow.

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Mickey New Media, Social Media crazy dance, peer to peer, Sasquatch, Social Media

Funny how a scene from a movie set in the 1930s can help provide a lesson for audience engagement in the 21st century.

This 2½ minute scene from Jean Shepard’s classic holiday film “A Christmas Story” provides a great example of how a “worst practice” can kill a community of followers.

Nine-year-old Ralphie is a devoted follower of the “Little Orphan Annie Radio Hour,” and listens to the program religiously. In an effort to build a community of dedicated followers, the program’s sponsor allowed kids to become “members” of a special club: “Annie’s Secret Circle.” Club members received an official-looking letter and a special decoder ring which allowed them to decipher coded messages that were broadcast at the end of each program.

Only Official Club Members with the official decoder ring could decipher these messages. Once you opted-in, you were part of a community of kids who also followed Little Orphan Annie and her adventures. You could identify fellow members by the ring they proudly wore. Suddenly, you had a connection to kids you didn’t even know through membership and shared allegiance to a radio show. Only this community had the ability to decipher Annie’s secret messages.

While this was a great way to build and engage a community, the sponsor ended up blowing it. As demonstrated in this scene, as Ralphie was decoding his first much anticipated secret message (hoping no doubt to discover the location of a hidden treasure or find a clue to next week’s adventure), he was let down to find the coded “messages” were no more than “lousy commercials” from the show’s sponsor, Ovaltine. In frustration, he threw his decoder ring away.

This scene dramatizes an important point in engaging your audience. Once you have a community, be sure the content you send them is relevant, useful and wanted. If your content becomes about “you” and not about “them,” you’ll see followers drop off and fall away, just as Ralphie did.

From a content standpoint, it always helps to be thinking in terms of the next engagement. Filter your content by asking, “Is what I’m about to send enough to get my followers to come back the next time?”

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Mickey New Media, On Customers, Social Media, Uncategorized audience engagement, building community, Christmas Story, Little Orphan Annie, Ralphie

Last week I read a post from Jay Baer (in his excellent blog, Convince and Convert) where he introduced something he called The Law of Boundless Brevity.

The Law of Boundless Brevity holds that over time, our communications will become ever truncated, shortened, distilled, condensed. Take written works, for example. Over the last hundred years or so, we’ve gone from really, really, really long books (The Iliad, after all, is a POEM), to short books, to reader’s-Digest-style summaries on web sites like www.sparknotes.com. On PBS Frontline’s “Digital Nation” a few weeks ago, college students were actually boasting that they haven’t read a “real” book in years.

Take also personal communication. We’ve gone from lengthy, hand-written letters, to postcards, to emails, to shorter emails, to texts, to 140-character tweets written to no one in particular.

Even phone calls are truncated. How many 60 minute calls have you made in the last year?  Rather than talking to people, we feel more comfortable leaving a voicemail. Many of us would actually prefer not to use our phones for voice calls.

The Law of Boundless Brevity has affected the way we consume media as well. TV news segments are much shorter, as are newspaper stories. What used to be told in a well-crafted press release can now be covered in a few bullet points on Pitch Engine.

Thoughtful argument has given way to the bumper sticker. It is rumored that Sir Richard Branson only accepts venture capital requests via 140-character tweets.

So what does this “fast food communication style” mean to marketers? Other than the obvious necessity for brevity and uber simplicity, it also speaks to the need of finding ways to communicate beyond the obvious marketing channels. How can you communicate your values without having to “say” anything? These days, demonstration trumps declaration.

Think about how your values can be communicated through package design? Through the choice of music and voiceover on your commercials? Through the color palate and graphics of your web site? Through the tone of your communications—not so much what you say but the voice you say it in. All of these less-literal elements contribute mightily to the perceived image of your brand.

A great example of this is BMW. For decades, the “intangibles” of the automaker’s campaign helped form a position that no individual communication could hope to do.

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Mickey Creative, Social Media brevity in advertising, fast food communication, Jay Baer, marketing, package design

What does it take to attract a half million fans to a Facebook page in the span of seven days? A celebrity? An event? A monstrous give-a-way? A cause, like donate to Haiti or breast cancer awareness? A Super Brand?

Not necessarily.  What has attracted over 500,000 fans (and growing) is…a pickle.

That’s right, a pickle. On a Facebook page titled “Can This Pickle Get More Fans Than Nickleback?”  fans are signing up at the rate of about 3,000 per hour.

Pickle Facebook page

Silly? Definitely. But it speaks to the power of Social Media, and how a simple premise with a unifying hook can spread like a virus through social communities in a blink of an eye.

What brought people to the page? Was it a deep-seated hatred of Nickleback? A curiosity? A desire to belong to a group of like-minded people? A hunger for controversy? A chance to be silly? Or did they come just because their friends did?

The great thing about a page like this one is that you can come and join for whatever reason. You don’t have to say. You don’t even really need to be aware of the reason why. Just know that it’s possible. Something catches the fancy of America, and boom! The amplifier of Social Media gives you the tools to spread it instantaneously. Past phenomena were inhibited by the lack of  “social viscosity” of the time. Think back to the seventies. How long did it take to sell 500,000 pet rocks?

Because Social Media works quickly, it helps to be prepared to work quickly as well. Opportunities appear then disappear with the frequency of the critters in a game of whack-a-mole. Deep reflection is not something that is rewarded when it comes to Social Media.

That doesn’t mean you have to fall back to a ready-shoot-aim model of dealing with Social Media. It primarily means once you understand your purpose, what your value is to your followers, and discover your voice, the reactions should come naturally. You won’t have to make an executive decision every time you see an opportunity come out of the woodwork, whether in the form of a user comment, a shout-out from a blogger or a quirky social phenomena.

After all, if a pickle can do it, so can you.

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Mickey New Media, Ramblings, Social Media Facebook fans, Nickelback, Pickle Facebook, Social Media

If there were a national holiday to honor those of us in the ad biz, it would have be Super Bowl Sunday.

It’s the one day of the year where 100+ million people sit in front of their TVs IN EAGER ANTICIPATION of seeing our handiwork. They dare not miss a commercial, lest they be out of the loop during the water cooler discussions that inevitably take place starting on Super Bowl Monday.

Too bad this isn’t how folks view advertising the other 364 days of the year. Most of the time, it’s seen as an intrusion. Something to be avoided, either through channel surfing, the DVR fast-forward button, a trip to the kitchen, hitting the mute button or just by flat-out ignoring it.

So what makes Super Bowl advertising so different? How did we get to this point where viewers actually go to the bathroom during the game action so they won’t miss a commercial?

In a word, the content.

Since the Apple “1984″ spot more than two decades ago, the Big Game has been a showcase for engaging and entertaining spots. Marketers figured out early on that to maximize impact with a diverse audience that size, you don’t run the same old tired focused-grouped-to-death spots you’d run on “Desperate Housewives” or “Dancing With The Stars.” No, you needed something outrageous. Something that was “more” than what was considered acceptable on network TV. Something that translated well to the office water cooler patter. Here’s one of my favorites of recent years, for Ameriquest.

In short, Super Bowl marketers were thinking in terms of viral video, even years before that term really existed.

Of course, over the years, there has been quite a fair amount of “Creative Malpractice” done in the name of Super Bowl advertising. Just as many attempts at viral videos fall flat and fail to resonate, so do some Super Bowl spots. GoDaddy comes to mind. So does some of the more recent Budweiser work, for example the spot featuring the marketing guy getting tossed out the 5th floor window because he dared suggest the company cut back on its Bud Light budget. And, in the soulless quest for being named “the top-rated spot”, advertisers have resorted to some questionable examples of borrowed interest, such as shooting gerbils from a cannon.

Inevitably, there are some spots that will show up Sunday that will engage us and be talked about for quite a while to come. And there’ll be some (too many, I’m afraid to say) that will warrant no more than a collective, “Meh.”

The good news is, all these marketers are reaching. And on the national day of advertising, that is a good thing.

Come back Monday and let us know what your favorite spot(s) were.

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Mickey Media Ameriquest, audience engagement, Budweiser, Dancing With The Stars, Desperate Housewives, GoDaddy, Super Bowl advertising, Super Bowl commercials, Super Bowl Monday, Super Bowl Sunday, viral video, water cooler

A lot is being said and written about Toyota’s recall of thousands of its units due to faulty accelerator pedals. The media is talking. Customers are talking. Late-night talk show hosts are talking. But Toyota itself? It’s not talking.

To be fair, Toyota spokespeople are talking. It’s just that they’re not saying anything. Peruse this ad that ran in this Sunday’s paper, and you’ll see what I mean.

While I have no doubt that Toyota’s intentions are good and that the company’s priority is the safety and satisfaction of its customers, one would never know that from the way the company is behaving. Its take-it-slow, let’s-get-to-the-bottom-of-this-and-have-all-the-pieces-in-place-before-we-go-public approach isn’t doing much in the way of maintaining trust. Customers have urgent questions now. Is my car affected? Is it safe to drive? When will it be fixed? What assurances can the automaker give me it is safe?

With all the questions that abound, not just from Toyota owners but from dealers, the media and the general public, this close-lipped approach is proving to be a violation of the trust Toyota has spent decades earning among the car-buying public.

The reality is this: if you’re not out there telling your story, somebody else will be. And you never know who that’s going to be. In these days of Social Media, where anyone with an Internet connection has a microphone, there’s going to be no shortage of commentary. But without a corporate voice, there’s no filter for this information, and the public is left with the uncomfortable feeling that, “There’s something Toyota’s not saying.”

Why is it when there is some major auto recall that the manufacturer gets sweaty palms about the whole notion of transparency? It is the ONLY thing that will contribute to maintaining/rebuilding the trust that is necessary to regain its former position. One need only go back to the Tylenol tampering episode of 1982 to see how it can be successful.

Adopting a “you-know-what-we-know” stance, if taken with the interests of the customer in mind, would go a long way to soothing buyer/owner/dealer anxieties and also nip a lot of the media finger-pointing and speculation in the bud. Accept the fact that you’re going to be fodder for late-night comedians for a while. Don’t stress the fact that some of the answers you’re giving are uncomfortable or uncertain. Trying to do business behind a curtain during a time of crisis management is opening the door to long-term erosion of loyalty.

Toyota’s #1 asset during this time is its base of loyal customers. But how can your most passionate owners stand up for you if they don’t know what’s going on?

From a practical standpoint, there’s a lot Toyota could commit to in order to minimize the damage to its reputation. Offering a 10% discount on new models when owners trade up from a recalled model. Offering an industry-best 10-year warranty, retroactive to 2009 models. Offering free upgraded loaners immediately to those affected.

But above all, be transparent. Take the attitude of, “If I were a customer, how would I expect the company to take care of me?”

It’s the feeling that “there’s something they’re not telling me” from all stakeholders here that is sewing the seeds for discontent.

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Mickey On Customers crisis management, customer satisfaction, incentives, loyal customers, Social Media, Toyota recall, transparency, trust

“Our product sucked!”

Not exactly a textbook way of launching an upgraded product image, but definitely attention getting. That’s exactly what Domino’s Pizza is doing. The brand started running spots with clips (I suppose actual verbatims) from customer focus groups where the people panned their pizza: “The crust tastes like cardboard.” “The sauce is like ketchup.” And on and on.

Here’s a 4-minute corporate video that launched the same time as the new campaign.

The brutal honesty of the campaign is refreshing. While many client-types would deem such a strategy “risky,” to me it makes sense on so many levels. For one, Domino’s own research showed that 67% of ITS CUSTOMERS thought its product was in dire need of an upgrade. People didn’t order Domino’s for the quality of the pie. They ordered for the convenience, price and reliability. When you set out to launch a new campaign, you have to start with where your customers are.

Secondly, by taking such a non-conformist tone, Domino’s has been able to attract a ton of attention outside the advertising space. Over 700 daily newspapers covered the campaign. Late night talk show hosts have jumped on board. The campaign has been a trending topic on the Social Media circuit. Any idea what the “value” of this media coverage and conversation is worth?

Most importantly, this campaign provides a “sea change” moment for the brand. Rather than soft pedal a new formulation, the brand is jumping in with both feet, drawing a line in the sand. From this day forward, the brand seems to be saying, we will stand for something different.

Now, of course, the pressure is on Domino’s to pay it off. The proof is in the pizza, to borrow a metaphor. If the “big changes” the brand is promising turn out to be temporary or not so big, and customers’ perceptions of it remain the same, then all this publicity will have been wasted. Worse, they will alienate any new customers that may have come over as the result of this campaign. The brand will have damaged itself but good.

Then again, small risks limit you to small rewards. Bold steps can lead to “curve-jumping” results.

Only time will tell if this campaign from Domino’s is a success. But for the sake of all brands who are content to sell a below-average product, I sincerely hope it will be.

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Mickey On Customers brand association, Customers, Domino's Pizza, focus groups, new campaign, product, successful campaign, Value

This is an actual Facebook entry posted by a friend of mine a few weeks ago. He was referencing the AT&T TV spots featuring Luke Wilson.

AT&T launched the campaign in response to Verizon’s “We’ve Got a Map For That” campaign, which uses red and blue maps to highlight AT&T’s 3G “dead spots” across the country. AT&T felt the need to counter punch, and thus came up with this tactical campaign.

The problem is, as the aforementioned Facebook entry alludes to, in its attempt to spin the facts, AT&T has dabbled in some untruths. Not that they lied, exactly—the lawyers must have racked up the billable hours splitting legal hairs. Seems the company’s idea of “coverage” isn’t what Verizon was talking about.

Here’s where it gets sticky for AT&T. If you lead your market to believe something, you better pay it off. Dancing around the facts may make you feel better, but it will just turn your audience off. And turn them against you.

As proof, a quick Google blog search on “AT&T 3G” finds verbatims from bloggers and AT&T customers alike saying “AT&T Lies Again”, “AT&T Moves the Goal Post”, and “Dude, where’s my 3G coverage?”

What’s more? While a marketer can contribute to the conversation, he very likely won’t get the last word. Case in point, here’s what Luke Wilson says…

And here’s what a non-paid Verizon customer says…

This can’t be the kind of word of mouth AT&T was hoping for. But that’s what happens when your audience catches you trying to mislead.

So what could AT&T have done to counter Verizon without bordering on the misleading? My advice would be to speak only about their strengths. Focus on markets where their 3G coverage is strong, and remind customers why they chose AT&T in the first place. Maybe even play off the ridiculousness of the more-places-is-better foundation of Verizon’s maps:

“True, Verizon has 3G coverage in Pierre, South Dakota.
But how often do you find yourself in Pierre, South Dakota?”

For many marketers, there are times you need to get out there and counter punch when a competitor starts eating your lunch. At such times, it is imperative that you do so transparently from your Brand Vision. And to do everything in your power to ensure the bond of trust between you and your customers is never compromised.

Trust is the currency of success.

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Mickey Media, On Customers 3G, AT&T, brand vision, campaign, cell phone coverage, Facebook, factual information, Luke Wilson, success, trust, Verizon, We’ve Got a Map For That

Let’s say you are a start-up company with a new product in a competitive category and a very limited marketing budget. Where would you start? Which of the following would you guess would give you the most “bang for the buck”? Which is the most likely to make you famous?

A) Develop a visually appealing logo.
B) Develop some distinctive packaging.
C) Develop a friendly web site.
D) Develop a smart, descriptive tag line.

So what would it be? The logo? The tag line?

If it were my money, I would invest it in “B.” I’d first put emphasis on developing distinctive packaging. Why? Two reasons. First, product packaging is the key touchpoint the customer will have (at least initially) with the brand. With the packaging, you have the opportunity to define the brand for the customer. It is the chance to compete on a level playing field, head-to-head with your competitors.

And secondly, at its best, package design can elicit an emotional reaction from the consumer. It can make him feel happy. Or smart. Or frugal. Or luxurious. A package can infer the values of the brand and engage all the physical senses. The consumer can see it, touch it, smell it, all of which goes into forming a lasting impression of the brand. Instantly, it helps him form a decision about it: yes, this is a useful product I should consider, or no, this is not a product I would be comfortable with or it looks like what I’m already using.

In fact, stop for a moment and think of a product you love. Chances are the mental picture in your mind is of the packaging.

Sorry to say, but I’ve yet to hear of anyone getting teary-eyed over a logo or getting inspired by a tag line.

What is it that makes a package stand out in the sea of 45,000+ items shoppers are confronted with in some retail environments? Four words: respect for the eye. A pleasing color palate. Eye-attracting negative space. Clean, uncluttered type and graphics treatment. And finally, some sort of visual “hook” that makes it stand out amongst its competitors.

I don’t mean this to diminish the need for a crisp logo and a thoughtful tag line. It’s just that as far as impact goes, organizations owe it to themselves to spend a proportionate amount of time and resources on the part of their business that wins sales.

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Mickey Media, On Customers aesthetic, brand association, brand emotion, business sales, competition, distinctive packaging, logo, marketing budget, start-up company, tag line