Media

Vote in SuperBowl Ads Poll — What had buzz?

February 4, 2007

It’s finally time.  The SuperBowl. All the hype has led to this.  Ready or not.

Vote here on which SuperBowl ad you believe will have the biggest buzz.  UPDATE:  If you’d like, view all the ads here.

And…just to get you in the mood, here’s a snippet from one of Anheuser-Busch‘s amazing tally of 9 spots.

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Let’s get really personal

January 30, 2007

Remember when it was cool when we got a personalized pen in the mail?  Or when the magazine came with our name printed on the cover photo?

Personalization used to be noteworthy.  But like all marketing tactics, after awhile they go from "wow" to "ho hum."   Eventually, we barely notice.

Unless of course, they get it wrong.

Probably like you, I get a lot of those free mailing labels from non-profits seeking a donation.   They know my name, address, and if I have sent them money before.  No doubt, they know much more than that.  They probably have my income range, my giving patterns, whether I have children and what magazines we subscribe to.  They probably know what we had for dinner last night.

And yet, even know they know all of that…they sent me labels decorated with flowers sprouting out of watering cans and other fresh bloom images.  Hardly the kind of labels most men would find valuable.  (I know, I am generalizing.  Stay with me for the marketing message.)

Is this a big deal? Not in the grand scheme of things. 

But remember, they are competing with the other 3 non-profits that also sent me labels that very same day.   All of them are fine charities, doing good work for our world.  But like most people, I don’t send money to everyone who asks. So I am going to make a choice.

You see…that’s the reality we live in today.  Our products and services are not going up against companies who are incompetent and unable to meet the customers’ needs.  The nuances between our offerings and theirs are minuscule.  So every detail matters.

It’s not the big things that win or lose business for us. It’s in the details.

These two sets of labels came on the same day.  Both from reputable and worthy organizations.  Wouldn’t it be a shame if the first charity lost a donation over something as trivial as  flowers versus flies?

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:60 ticks marketing tip: How many words?

January 23, 2007

Grab it fast…it’s gone in about a minute.  A :60 ticks marketing tip is 150 words or less…so read it in a minute and implement it in the next!

When it comes to writing compelling radio, you need to pace yourself.   Too often, copywriters shove about 50% too many words into their scripts.  Here’s a good rule of thumb:

60 seconds — 150 word count

30 seconds — 75 word count

15 seconds — 36 word count

That’s it….go put it into action!

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Numbers, numbers and more numbers

January 20, 2007

One of the threads that I found most interesting over at MarketingProfs book club (stored in the know-how exchange) was when CK (the club’s hostess with the mostest) asked what are the biggest hurdles to getting clients/CMOs/companies to embrace citizen (read social) marketing?  We’re mulling over the book Citizen Marketers by Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell.  It’s an excellent read, by the way.

Anyway, in the thread, one of the reasons we all point to is that we have not yet found a way to demonstrate how social media spills down to the bottom line.  It’s hard to measure and validate, we agreed.

I find that a fascinating juxtaposition to the amazing array of ways we can track, count, quantify, justify, enumerate and calculate how our blog’s doing.  And of course, in a post by BizInformer, I just found another.

This site, seomoz.org, allows you to plug in your URL and then gives you a ranking of your visibility on the web.  What I think is a little different and cool about it is that it shows you all the elements it used to create your ranking and explains a little about how each work.

So in short, we can measure many things.  But we haven’t figured out how to measure what matters.  I think the real question is this:  maybe we just need to stop trying to measure something that is, by its nature, unmeasurable.

I can’t really measure the value of a client’s faith in me, or a customer who will drive an extra 10 minutes to go to their store of choice, or the power of someone giving a specific book to 50 of their clients with a note that says, "You’ve got to read this.  It will change how you think."

But I sure know I want a whole lot of it.

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Perk up those ears!

January 6, 2007

I like to absorb and learn in a lot of different ways.  I’m a big believer in reading (more on that in a bit), love to learn by doing and talking through ideas outloud and I love to learn by listening.

There are some really insightful marketing podcasts/audio files being put together and I thought I’d just point you to a few of them.

Viral Garden’s Mack Collier has started a new podcast series called Minding the Gap.  The premise of this new weekly series is that Mack will identify a specific company and their communities and the gap between the two.

Converstations’s Mike Sansone is sharing his insights via BlogTalk Radio.  His most recent episode talks about finding your authentic voice and asks the question “would Rocky Balboa blog the way he talks?”

Managing the Gray’s C.C. Chapman explores new media, “no control” PR and consumer created content in his podcast series.  His most recent postcast talks about blasting off in ’07.

These are all great ways to infuse your thinking with new ideas, new voices and best of all, you can listen to them while you are sweating on the treadmill to honor that New Year’s Resolution!

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5 Things meme makes AdAge

January 3, 2007

The blog meme "five things you didn’t know about me" has been circling the blogosphere for several weeks.  I got tagged and ponied my five answers and as the game suggests, tagged a few other folks.

Well, our little game has made the big time.  AdAge’s Digital Media Morph has referred to the game as"bringing a human side to online chatter."  You can check out the story here or  Download adage.pdf .

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Tell me again why you don’t blog?

December 18, 2006

Dear corporate America…little one man business…and everyone in between,

You’ve heard it before.  New media, blogging, YouTube, text messaging  etc. etc. etc.  We’ve talked about how the power is shifting from you to the consumer and how you’d better get your voice back in the conversation.  Well guess what, now it’s official.

Time has named their Person of the Year.  And it’s you.  And me.  And all the other voices out there.  No doubt this will be discussed and re-discussed among the blogging community as a sort of triumphant validation for being an innovator.  Interesting but not relevant for 99% of the businesses out there.

The only part of the whole discussion that you need to pay attention to is this:

How long can you afford to be silent?

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No friend of mine

December 16, 2006

We know the drill.  A company wants to do a little one-to-one marketing.  They determine their right audience, design their direct mail piece and buy a list.

My full name is Andrew.  But really, unless you’re my mom and I’m in trouble, no one calls me that.  So when I get a letter  addressed to Andrew, I know its no friend of mine.

Here are the options available to the mailer (not counting the option of not sending the piece.)

• They can address each letter individually, knowing that some Kathryns, Andrews, and Elizabeths are going to be on to them.

• They can "guess" on nicknames.  In my case, they’d guess Andy.  And they’d be wrong.  Kathryn could be Kate not Kathy and Elizabeth could be Betsy, not Liz.  So perhaps risky business but odds are they’d be right as often as they’d be wrong.  So have they reduced their risk by 50%?

• They can address the envelope but not personalize the letter (just use a letter block format) and reduce the impact of potentially using the wrong name.

What do you think?  Do consumers excuse the misuse of their name?   Or does it make them feel less kindly towards the sender?   Do you think they even notice?  In a recent post, Seth Godin suggests that people thrive on seeing their name.  Does that mean it really ticks them off to see it incorrect?

Salutation or irritation?  That’s my question.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Noticed Once, Never Forgotten.
• Condensed Seth Godin – Flattery by Imitation

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You are boring me.

November 24, 2006

I sat across from a potential client this week while he bemoaned the fact that he kept sending news releases but no one, not TV, radio or print, would pick up his stories. 

He wasn’t happy with me when I told him the reason he wasn’t getting coverage was because he was boring the reporters.  (I was more kind in the delivery. ..but the point was the same.)

He was sending them information that mattered to him.  But not to the reporters.  It’s not their job to help him sell his wares.  It’s their job to engage their audience.

Before you send your next news release, ask yourself why anyone but you would care.  If you can answer the question — there’s your lead sentence.  If you can’t — think twice before you bore them.

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Hey Scrooge, is that you?

November 15, 2006

Every year it seems to get earlier and earlier.  This year, some of the major marketers launched their holiday campaign before Halloween.  They argue that over 40% of us begin our shopping by then, so why shouldn’t they be out there.  Maybe they’re right.

Advertising Age (a trade pub for the advertising industry) is doing a survey this week.  I thought we’d borrow their question.

Do you think consumers will be resentful of retailers and other marketers that begin Christmas advertising before the end of October or even before Thanksgiving?

Share your thoughts here and also…if you are a marketer, do you market any differently during a holiday season?  Are you a President’s Day special kind of business?  What do you think of that as an advertising strategy?

(After we vote, I’ll tell you what the Ad Age readers have said.)

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