The Quisenblog

It’s a tactic so simple, I wonder why more clients don’t take advantage of it.

The tactic I’m speaking of is for a marketer to create/remix/mash-up a commercial message to run exclusively in a specific environment. The latest case in point is Clorox Bleach, who created this television commercial to run during the airing of the acclaimed AMC series “Mad Men.”

“Mad Men” isn’t exactly tearing up in the ratings. The show averages just over a million viewers per episode, which for an original broadcast series is a microscopic audience. So why would Clorox go to the trouble of creating a one-off spot that will only run a few times at most, reach comparatively few people, and might not even index well against its core target audience?

The answer, I believe, is impact. By tongue-in-cheekily tying its creative message to recurring themes of the series, the brand shares an inside joke with the show’s fans, while still honoring the brand promise of the product (gets whites, whiter). The production values of the spot are quite modest, so it didn’t cost a heck of a lot to produce the spot.

Another important thing to note about this spot: people are talking about it. Just Google “Clorox Mad Men Commercial” and you’ll be greeted with more than a page worth of search results, with bloggers, commenters, Facebookers and even news web sites weighing in on the spot. Something tells me that doesn’t happen when Clorox runs one of its one-size-fits-all spots in the pabulum of afternoon programming.

Small investment. Big viewer involvement. Even bigger buzz.

The bigger question is, of course, will the ad help sell more product? Or was it simply a case of clever ad guys talking to each other? Time will tell. But because the spot played up the advertiser’s key sales point, I gotta think it will reinforce that point with viewers.

Advertisers have been creating special ads to run in event programs or one-time specials (such as the Super Bowl) seemingly forever. But what makes this a winner in my book is the special combination of relevant, edgy creative and spot-on placement.

It’s the kind of success you can expect if you really get to know your market and endeavor to make a meaningful connection with them.

Posted by Mickey

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Mickey Creative, Media, New Media, On Clients, Social Media buzz, clorox, Mad Men, TV advertising, viewer engagement

It’s certainly not news that all ads are not created equal. Some grab us by the throats (or the funny bone) the very first time we see them. We remember them. We tell others about them. We might even look them up on YouTube. Other spots? There are many we have been exposed to dozens of times but never paid them any mind. Such is the nature of creativity in advertising.

It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that ads that do a better job of engaging or entertaining us also do a better job of selling. Yet there are some in this business who still tend to discount creativity in advertising to be somewhat of a commodity. They see “entertainment” and “selling” as somehow being mutually exclusive. These folks for whatever reason have yet to buy into the notion that the quality of creative corresponds directly to the success of a marketing program. As support, they may point to the success of spots such as the infomercial-esque “as seen on TV” ads as proof that it’s what the ad says, not how it’s said that matters. And they have a point: interrupt people with $30 million in paid media, and the needle will move.

But more and more, we are moving to a model of opt-in content. Less are we able to interrupt the consumer with whatever message we feel like and expect them to pay attention to it.

The dynamics of Social Media illustrate this perfectly. There are no multi-million “buys” on YouTube, Facebook, blogs or the like. The barrier to entry is non-existent. Access to Social Media platforms has been democratized. Anyone can post anything. And the success of that content isn’t how much the creator puts behind it. It’s on how many users feel inclined to pass it forward and to talk it up.

In the opt-in world, you’re only as good as your content. A great illustration of this point would be to compare the results of a recent Social Media success (The Old Spice “Man Your Man Could Smell Like”) to one that’s not-so-successful (Cisco’s “Ted From Accounting” series).

In the Old Spice campaign, Social Media users were invited to correspond with The Old Spice Guy. Old Spice’s agency (Wieden & Kennedy) then shot nearly 200 “personalized web videos” addressed to fans (and Social Media heavyweights) over a couple of days and posted them online. The resulting buzz generated an estimated 1.4 BILLION views, hits and mentions over the period of a few weeks. (Oh, and sales were up over 100% over that period.) You can view some of the spots here.

On the other hand, Cisco’s “Ted From Accounting” series was launched as a web series in hopes of going viral.

Response to the web videos was less than overwhelming (fewer than 10,000 views, despite a huge PR push). One commenter on their YouTube page summed up reaction to the campaign this way: “I am embarrassed for your marketing department. This is the sad result of a poorly orchestrated attempt at some sort of viral leaching by a room full of middle aged guys, who’s (sic) kids saw something on YouTube that they thought would be a good idea to copy.”

Ouch.

Granted this is hardly an apples-to-apples comparison. The Old Spice campaign started as a mass media campaign and extended to include the digital component. But while “Ted in Accounting” didn’t have that mass media lift, my bet is that you could have put millions behind it and viewers’ reactions wouldn’t have been any different than the YouTube poster above.

The digital world is proving what we who have developed offline content for years have always known: people aren’t going to waste their time with boring content.

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Mickey Creative, Media, New Media, On Customers, Social Media cisco, old spice, Social Media, success stories, ted from accounting, viral video

Early this year, Pepsi announced its “Pepsi Refresh Project,” which was a way of allowing the “followers” of Pepsi in Social Media to nominate worthwhile ideas or public service projects Pepsi could fund.

So far, the program has been a win/win for Pepsi. The soft drink maker received plenty of media attention for its Refresh Project, and it gave it a chance to connect with its fans and followers in a meaningful way.

In light of the recent Gulf disaster, Pepsi expanded its Refresh Project into a “Do Good for the Gulf” Refresh campaign. Pepsi has pledged $1.3 million to consumer submitted ideas that could “refresh the communities of the Gulf states.” Pepsi invited the public to submit ideas through July 16. Starting August 2, consumers can vote on the ideas they like best. Finalists will be announced on September 2, and grants will be awarded on September 22.

On the surface, this initiative seems to hit all the right notes. It’s a natural way to extend Pepsi’s Social Media campaign while doing some much-needed good. But to the skeptical part of me, this just doesn’t smell right. By tying itself to a major disaster, the company has to carefully walk the line between legitimate cause marketing and shameless self promotion. Is the company’s driving intention to help the residents of the Gulf, or is it to promote the Pepsi brand?

Here are a few of my reservations:

1) The amount pledged. Hey $1.3 million isn’t chump change by any stretch of the imagination. But knowing the inner workings of corporate marketing/PR departments, I can easily imagine the company is paying ten times that amount to promote and administer the program. It’s like those solicitations you get to help feed the children of Africa, but when you look into the financials of the organization, you find out that only 5 cents of your dollar goes for food. In other words, if Pepsi’s #1 concern is providing for Gulf residents, it could do better.

2) The company’s involvement in the “crowd sourcing” part of this project. The focus strictly on Social Media means the system will be gamed—heavy users Social Media will have more of a say than your average Gulf resident. While that fits with the original intention and structure of the Refresh Project, it feels somewhat ham-handed for dealing with people’s legitimate needs and concerns.

3) The very public way the company is going about this promotion. It seems a little too “corporate” and well-planned. Disasters are messy. Carefully orchestrated philanthropy feels out of place. For an example of a company that did it right, think back to WalMart in the days following Hurricane Katrina. With no fanfare, the company’s stores loaded tens of thousands of bottles of fresh water on its trucks and delivered them to needy residents before the media even showed up.

There’s nothing wrong with an organization striving to get noticed for its good works. If I were advising Pepsi on how to follow through on this project, here’s what I’d tell them:

1) Find out what the needs are NOW and address them. Why wait until the end of September to actually do something? The days immediately following a disaster are when the needs and opportunities are most critical. Find out what needs aren’t being addressed now, and address them. If there’s a need for more shovels or graders to comb the beaches, provide them. If volunteers need accommodations, equipment, hazmat suits or respirators (or cell phones to call home), provide them. Go ahead and collect nominations from the Facebook crowd, but don’t let them lead you on this.

2) Involve the Pepsi community as a whole. Allow folks beyond the Gulf in California or Nebraska or Idaho to contribute to the cause. Set up a dollar-for-dollar match campaign with specific projects in mind. Or start a general Gulf Fund where the company would handle all administrative expenses so every dollar goes to the cause, whether its shrimp fishermen’s families, bankrupted hotel operators or whatever.

3) Make a long-term pledge. Don’t bug out as soon as the story falls off the front page. Commit that “five cents of every Pepsi product purchased will go to Gulf aid,” or something like that.

4) Don’t focus on getting attention. No need to string huge Pepsi banners on the beaches, put logos everywhere and arrange for press briefings. Just get out there and do what you know needs done. People will notice. Stories will spread. This will be more powerful than an orchestrated Social Media campaign.

Public skepticism of corporations is high right now. The first question many consumers will ask of your good works is “What’s in it for you?” It pays to be as transparent as possible. If your #1 intention is to do good, then do good. Don’t worry about how you can milk your efforts.

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Mickey New Media, On Clients, Ramblings, Social Media cause marketing, crowd sourcing, gulf clean up, Pepsi, Pepsi refresh

It’s been nearly 80 days since the beginning of the BP spill in the Gulf. Volumes have already been written about how BP’s spinning of the facts and less than transparent communications have blown back on the company big time.

That’s not what this post is about.

Instead, I thought I’d take a look at some of the unfortunate collateral victims of the biggest environmental disaster in our nation’s history, and ask, Is there anything marketing can do to help?

I read this week where Florida beach communities are poised to run a multi-million dollar campaign aimed at vacationers telling them their beaches are okay.

The problem, of course, is that their beaches are not okay. Photos like this one, taken on a Pensacola beach, are making the rounds in news reports and via Social Media.

Running a campaign that says, in essence, “Tarballs, schmarballs, our beaches are just peachy” might make residents and businesses of beach communities feel good, but such a campaign would, unfortunately, be no more transparent than what we’ve seen from BP.

Okay, so throwing millions at an ad campaign showing pristine white beaches while folks in hazmat suits are shoveling stinking tarballs from the sands isn’t such a great idea. Still, is there any role for marketing?

Perhaps. I would advise these communities to relax, take a deep breath, and remember a few key facts. Number one, people are still going to take holidays. The folks who normally flock to your beaches in the summer will be going somewhere. You can count on this.

A second fact worth considering is that their entire communities have been set up to accommodate tourists. The beaches may be the top-of-mind draw, but most of these beach communities have a lot going for them, from Pensacola’s National Naval Aviation Museum to Biloxi’s riverboat casinos and famous antique row.

As a model for success, I would point them to what has happened over the last few years in Las Vegas. That community saw its tourism revenues drop mightily, as the economy convinced folks to stay home. Vegas’s major players responded by collectively cutting prices and adding value in order to keep occupancy at acceptable levels. That strategy appears to have worked. While venues have yet to see their margins return to the days of old, occupancy is holding at around 80%. And the stories being told back home about Las Vegas are good ones, which will serve the community well, both in the immediate future and as things recover.

Gulf communities could borrow much the of same tactics. Cut prices. Offer packages. Tie in with other communities to create vacation experiences. Above all, appeal to the folks who’ve established some sort of connection with these communities that they could really use their business. In the wake of 9/11 when no one was flying, Southwest Airlines received hundreds of letters from customers saying they were committed to flying on Southwest because they were concerned for the company.

Let’s not be sanguine about the prospects of these communities. They’ll be hurting, possibly for years to come. But hopefully, these communities will learn from BP’s missteps and understand a transparent approach will deliver better long-term results than trying to ignore the 800-lbs gorilla in the room.

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Mickey Media, New Media, On Clients, Ramblings BP, Florida beaches, oil spill, Pensacola, transparency

It’s been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. While I’m not sure of the exact number, one thing I can say is this four-minute video does a heck of a lot more to parse the impact of Social Media than a 400-word blog post could. Enjoy.

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Mickey New Media, On Customers, Social Media Facebook, fatboy slim, social media growth, social media revolution, Social media video

In case you haven’t noticed, the era of “telling” has ended. The era of “trying” is upon us.

“Selling by Telling” is how we in advertising and marketing communications have made our livings since the days of Marconi. We told people why our products were just what they were looking for. How their whites would be whiter, their floors would be shinier and their hair more manageable. We skillfully created an itch with the consumer that could be salved with our product. We totally controlled all aspects of the messaging. The customer role in this process was to listen. She only heard what we wanted her to hear.

Time to wave those days bye-bye. Today, we’re not the only source of information for our customers. They’re hearing about us from their friends. From their peers. From media sources. From bloggers. From message boards. From third-party review sites.

No matter how you try to spin it, the information control we used to enjoy has gone the way of the 14.4 modem. What it comes down to for consumers is, who can I trust when making purchase decisions? In an era of perpetual spin, of misleading and manipulative messaging, of being misled and mistreated by marketers, who can blame them for not accepting as gospel everything we say?

I’m convinced that today, the best way to sell to a consumer is to allow them to sell to themselves. Instead of relying on puffery and unsubstantiated claims to win over consumers, let them discover what our product can deliver on their own. Enable communication between peers. Monitor customer reviews. Make information on your products easily available.

This changes the way we would approach marketing communications. Instead of relying on a check list of copy points, we would start with a core platform of a single, understandable believable promise, and a shared set of values. Less argument, more promise.

It also assumes that communication alone is not going to “complete the sale.” To allow someone to sell herself she needs to try our product. We need to do whatever it takes to get it into her hands and let her discover for herself that the promise we are making is true. Old-school tools like coupons, trial sizes, in-store demos and free trial periods take on a more prominent role in the marketing process. Instead of giving us a short-term competitive advantage, those things actually are critical in moving customers up the decision ladder.

Research over the past year (from Nielson and others) shows that coupon redemption is at record highs among consumers of all demos. While one can chalk this up to the stuttering economy, he must also be open to the idea that consumer behavior has made a permanent change to where “trial” has become amplified in the purchase decision process.

As part of your long-term marketing strategy, it makes sense to include initiatives that will allow consumers to use product trial as a way of selling themselves.

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Mickey Creative, New Media, On Clients, On Customers, Ramblings

Chances are if you sat through an agency creative presentation back in the days BSM (Before Social Media), you probably heard your fill of the importance of “breaking through the clutter.” The idea being that because the consumer is exposed to as many as 4,000 marketing messages (primarily via mass media)  per day, we need to create something amazing that is going to be among the 12 or so he will remember the next day.

Funny how you don’t really hear much anymore about “breaking through the clutter.” Today, we preach the gospel of “going viral.” No longer is the high-bar creating content our audience sees, remembers and likes, but creating something that folks actually pass on to their own personal networks.

So how do we approach the creative challenge when our goal is to not only have our audience remember our messages, but spread them as well?

My take is that not much has changed. The messages that we lauded as “breaking through the clutter” have way more in common with today’s “viral campaigns” than you might think. In both cases, successful messages can be described as being both “sticky” and “slippery.” The “sticky” part is pretty straight forward—it means there is an idea or concept that captured the audience’s imagination and helped them remember the message. It made an impression with them, got them involved in the message.

The “slippery” part is a little trickier to understand. It relates to the ease at which that idea is spread to others. It’s easy to describe (or pass on) to someone else.

“Hey, did you see the E-Trade spot with the talking baby?” “What do you think of that Old Spice spot with the guy on the horse?” “How about the FedEx spot where the company tried to save money with Nordic Tuesdays?” (see below) These conversations are viral. They’re an opportunity to share something you like with others. Conversations like this are nothing new.

What is new are the tools of Social Media. You don’t have to meet at the water cooler or wait for some sort of invitation to join a conversation. You can simple post it on your Facebook wall, for all your friends to see.  You can even link the spot as part of the conversation. And everytime one of them reacts to it, that messages gets even more slippery.

Content that is both “sticky and slippery.” This is where your emphasis should be. These are the filters you should use when creating or evaluating content.

My advice is, don’t get so hung up on the tools you’re relying on to spread the message. Get hung up on the message itself.

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Mickey Creative, New Media, Social Media content, e-trade, FedEx, old spice, slippery, sticky, strategy, viral video

Social Media has been a trending topic for quite some time now. Tomes have been written (here and elsewhere) about the quick assimilation of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, et al into the lives and media habits of Americans of basically every stripe. And plenty of examples exist of how mainstream companies and products have scored big paydays by immersing themselves into Social Media. Yet, despite all of this, only about a quarter of American businesses have jumped into the deep end of Social Media.

So what’s the hold up? Well, as the accompanying graph (courtesy of eMarketer.com) points out, the big hiccup in the eyes of many organizations (more than 1/3) relates to ROI. How will they know if the expenditures on Social Media will pay off? Is Social Media truly a brave new world where the tools are free and your followers do all the “selling?” Or, is it a giant black hole that’s going to demand more and more resources with precious little to show for it?

Business leaders can be excused for their skepticism of Social Media as a platform for selling more widgets. They see how their teenagers use Facebook. They read about people tweeting what they had for lunch. They see YouTube as a venue for cute cat videos. And, unfortunately, folks in my position haven’t been a ton of help when we talk about Social Media as a forum for “engagement,” not for “selling” (without explaining in down-to-earth language how that engagement is a critical element in the selling process).

One way to approach the ROI barrier is to take a look at how we determine it with traditional media like TV, radio, magazine, outdoor, etc. that we know works. None of the ROI is up front. It’s all after the fact. We spent so-and-so on media for the quarter, and our sales were such-and-such. You can chart year-over-year incremental sales and attribute the extra sales (or increased margin) to your ad expenditure.

In other words, you’re doing it on faith. Not ill-placed faith to be sure. But the naked truth is that you are betting numbers with lots of zeros behind them on projections. On forecasts. The same way you decide how to dress based on a weather forecast. It is only after-the-fact that you see if your projections were correct.

But for many business leaders, this kind of faith has no place in the discussion of Social Media. What we need are hard numbers.

The irony is, of course, is that Social Media gives you access to plenty of hard numbers. Hard accurate numbers. Even free analytic tools allow you to measure your impact in Social Media with a real-time accuracy that would be the envy of any offline media, which still pretty much rely on historical data from set-top boxes and diaries.

Analytics can show you how many people are talking about you, what they are saying (positive, negative or neutral), how many are joining your communities, how many site visits you have, how many downloads you’ve issued, where your visitors come from, how many times they’ve come to you, how many thought leaders have linked to you, and so on.

But alas, even these numbers have little to do with sales or ROI. In fact, I would submit that the most important aspects of a Social Media program will never be measured. Because Social Media is conducted on a one-to-one basis (in front of thousands of spectators), Social Media’s strength is its ability to strengthen the relationship between marketer and customer. To resolve customer service issues before the customer decides to take a powder (or vent elsewhere). To reward frequent and loyal customers with special access and considerations (and giving them the tools and permission to talk you up in their communities). To get input from customers on possible product offerings and initiatives. To conduct quick-and-dirty surveys. To work casual customers up the loyalty ladder. To provide several new portals through which to engage the organization.

Just because you can’t measure stuff like this doesn’t mean it won’t have a huge impact on your business’s bottom line.

All it takes is a little faith.

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Mickey Media, New Media, On Clients, On Customers, Social Media eMarketing, faith, ROI, Social Media

There are some things you just sort of take for granted that most (if not all) people see the same way. The sun always rises in the east. It only rains after you’ve washed your car. And the volume of online sales is only going to grow.

Then you find out about a company like Hunter Douglas.

Hunter Douglas is a manufacturer and marketer of high-end customized blinds. An article I read over the weekend reported that the company’s management recently made a decision to stop selling product online.

I have to admit this one has me scratching my head.
I understand the intent of the company to prop up the integrity of its dealer network, and the desire to not get booted for the sake of another exclusive brand. The fundamental problem here is that Hunter Douglas is not looking at its situation through the eyes and experiences of its customers; it is looking at it through the eyes of its distributors and retailers. The oldest rule in the marketing book is to “drop your line where the fish are,” and today the fish are online. More than 70% of consumers describe themselves as “web first” shoppers, researching product and price online before any buying decision is made. And once they decide to purchase, in most categories it is easy for them to comparison shop online with just a few mouse clicks. Even categories that one wouldn’t consider to be popular with online shoppers are showing explosive growth (one example would be women’s fashions).

And to this, Hunter Douglas simply says, “To heck with people’s preferences, we’ll go back to the way we did things in the 1950s.”

While I’m sure Hunter Douglas’s management would defend this decision to pull the plug on online sales by saying they are intent on “protecting the brand” (which is code for protecting retailers’ margins), they are doing it in a way that is only going to be detrimental to the brand. The “brand” is defined by the consumers’ experiences with it. And turning its back on consumer preferences and trends is the move of an organization that is company-centric, not customer-centric. Right now, Hunter Douglas customers might describe the company as “a manufacturer of quality, custom window treatments.” But by failing to listen to customer preferences, over time it risks being known as “a company that is a pain to do business with.”

Hunter Douglas’s dilemma is a problem that’s familiar to a lot of manufacturers these days: how do I grow my sales without cutting out my established dealer network? In our estimation, there are a few things you could do to add consumer value to the retail experience. Partner with retailers to certify installers. Provide exclusive higher-end product or design options that would benefit from a more hands-on approach and allow for increased retailer margins. You could even agree to pay a small commission on each online sale to a customer within the retailer’s footprint.

Our main advice to Hunter Douglas would be, if you are serious about growing the business, look out for the customer’s preferences first, not the company’s.

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Mickey Creative, New Media, On Clients, On Customers blinds, customer-centric, hunter douglas, online shopping

How many times have you heard yourself say that? Where do people find the time to spend 6 hours a day on Facebook? Or send 1,500 Tweets a day? Or watch 12 hours of television?

Conceivably, the only way you could spend this amount of time interacting with the media is to have a lot of time on your hands. In this video, Prof. Clay Shirky calls this a “Cognitive Surplus“.

According to Shirky, the reason we waste so much time with media is because we all have more time than we know what to do with. Say what? I mean, if you’re anything like me, that sounds like a total disconnect. How many times have I left a couple hours of stuff on my daily to-do list because of “lack of time”. And I’m not alone: studies show one of the top complaints people have these days is a “I don’t have enough time!”

Shirky, though, makes a very good point. We actually do have an enormous amount of discretionary time. Technology has afforded us that. Tasks that used to take minutes now take seconds. Activities that once required significant segments of our days now require very little effort. So why do we feel as if we’re being short-changed of time?

Here’s the rub, according to Shirky: if you were to keep a moment-by-moment log of how we spend our days, we’d realize that we pretty much suck as time managers.

It’s like we all have ADD, and are just waiting to be seduced by whatever reflecting ball of tin foil momentarily catches our attention. Our subconscious mind is not very discriminating. It is easily distracted. It wants immediate gratification. And it doesn’t want to work very hard.

In other words, it’s an easy mark for what passes as content in today’s media (especially, I would argue, today’s new media).

Our ability to be so easily distracted leads to all sorts of paradoxes. We decry not having enough time to spend with our families, yet we spend hours a day watching YouTube. We can’t seem to get around to fixing that leak in the bathroom, but we’re up to date on who’s-doing-what on Facebook. We can’t seem to finish that blog post, but no way we’re missing that “Law & Order” marathon.

Shirky also points out how the shift towards Social Media and the Internet is giving us the power to take back the control of our time. Instead of interacting with media on their terms, we now have the ability to interact with them on ours. As media once conspired to suck up our time, it now gives us unprecedented control over it.

The key, though, is to recognize that the choices we make on how we use our time are just that—choices. When we allow ourselves to get sucked into the latest Internet phenomenon or check in on Facebook ten times a day, those are choices. We need to plan our media use with the exacting detail we plan a family vacation to Disneyworld.

So now that we know how we have all this time, the question is, how are we going to use it?

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Mickey New Media, On Customers, Social Media Clay Shirky, Cognitive Surplus, time management, too much time