As a long-time Mac user, I’ve always noticed how many MacBook Pros show up in the films I see – many more than market share would explain. No doubt Apple has been paying for that product placement. In the viral marketing era, however, a mere glimpse at product falls short.
To promote their movie, “I Love You, Beth Cooper,” Twentieth Century Fox hired an L.A. high school valedictorian to create an “incident” during the graduation ceremony. At the end of her valedictory address, M.I.T.-bound Kenya Meija shouted to her boyfriend, “I love you, Jake Minor.” She got $1,800 for creating publicity for the film. FilmJunk reported that the effort (and the movie) bombed, but "incident marketing" looks like a new social-reality-media trend.
In late July, Proctor & Gamble hosted the Swiffer SocialLuxeLounge at the BlogHer 2009 conference in Chicago. In addition to comfort-station amenities like cell-phone chargers, attendees were invited to dress up like Lucille Ball or Marge Simpson and try out the new Swiffer mop. This effort reportedly paid off in viral tweets, Facebook posts, and Flickr uploads.
Expect lots more paid “incidents” as marketers figure out new and ever more dramatic schemes to shock the market into alert. Also expect a fair number of these efforts to backfire. Today's sophisticated (jaundiced?) marketplace appreciates a clever bamboozle, as long as the trick is on somebody else.
-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Leadership Lessons from the Dog Whisperer
I’ve been studying the Dog Whisperer for several months. Like all people with core insights, Cesar Millan’s understanding of dog sociology and psychology borders on the mystical. Quite simply, like no other dog trainer or animal professional I’ve been able to find, Cesar “gets it.” He can be both man and dog.. and when he’s dog he is always alpha-dog, the pack leader.
In the dog world, Cesar understands what it means to be pack leader and demonstrates that understanding in every movement, every decision. Understanding pack leadereship holds clues for human leadership, too. Here are a few leadership lessons from Cesar Millan.
1. Above all, a leader is “calm and assertive.” Unless seriously (and stupidly) challenged, no need to growl, fight, or injure. The leader simply takes charge.
2. The pack wants to follow the leader because – above all- the pack needs the leader for its own survival. If the leader doesn’t take control, another dog will.
3. With leadership goes responsibility. The leader goes first, makes decisions, assumes risk, protects all pack members. Calm and assertive.
4. Leaders see the value of every pack member. With proper leadership, weak members can be made stronger, impetuous pack members can be calmed, over-aggressive pack members can be dominated. The pack wins.
5. When necessary – though rarely -- the leader can follow. In doing so, he accedes nothing permanent, but gains pack control advantage.
Final note: Cesare teaches that dogs are ready and eager to give humans the lead. The vast array of dog “problems” stem from humans who are weak, unwilling to assume the responsibilities of leadership, and choose “bonding” over leadership.
-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo
In the dog world, Cesar understands what it means to be pack leader and demonstrates that understanding in every movement, every decision. Understanding pack leadereship holds clues for human leadership, too. Here are a few leadership lessons from Cesar Millan.
1. Above all, a leader is “calm and assertive.” Unless seriously (and stupidly) challenged, no need to growl, fight, or injure. The leader simply takes charge.
2. The pack wants to follow the leader because – above all- the pack needs the leader for its own survival. If the leader doesn’t take control, another dog will.
3. With leadership goes responsibility. The leader goes first, makes decisions, assumes risk, protects all pack members. Calm and assertive.
4. Leaders see the value of every pack member. With proper leadership, weak members can be made stronger, impetuous pack members can be calmed, over-aggressive pack members can be dominated. The pack wins.
5. When necessary – though rarely -- the leader can follow. In doing so, he accedes nothing permanent, but gains pack control advantage.
Final note: Cesare teaches that dogs are ready and eager to give humans the lead. The vast array of dog “problems” stem from humans who are weak, unwilling to assume the responsibilities of leadership, and choose “bonding” over leadership.
-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo
Friday, August 7, 2009
Marketers Who Master Distribution Channels Will Win
Last week, Hugh MacLeod, author of the recently published Ignore Everybody, tweeted that “One thing I've noticed since the book came out. Different media makes people value the same content differently. So much for RSS....”
I noticed the impact of delivery on message, too, when a well-known blogger suggested to a colleague that her digital press release was spam, simply because she hadn’t spend 44 cents sending it. Same info, different channel.
So is that the new deal? Does “information” mean more, say more, talk better, and have gravitas only if it’s in print? Right answer, wrong question.
I keep coming back to the widely reported story of Matthew Robson, a 15-year-old kid who interned at Morgan Stanley. In a report (download the full Morgan Stanley pdf here), Robson said his friends never read newspapers, don’t Tweet, and rarely use their cell phones to actually talk. I wasn’t surprised, since my 19-year old nephew told me the same thing two years ago. According to Brian, teens don’t use email, either – which you know is true if you’ve ever tried to reach an under-22 via email.
So, yes, what any given market segment will embrace or use depends more than ever on the distribution channel.
Back in December 2007, Scott Karp blogged about “The Future of Print Publishing and Paid Content." What this insightful piece boils down to is the dramatic effect of the distribution channel on whether or not a given consumer will use the content. In writing about consumer abandonment of newspapers, Karp notes, “People are willing to pay for certain digital content, but they aren't willing to pay for the distribution — specifically, not the analogue distribution premium.”
Therefore, if Karp is right – and I think he is – a portion of teen attitudes about whether or not information is “useful” has to do with how much it costs. If it's free, it's better. By contrast, in the case of Hugh MacLeod’s readers – a sophisticated, creative, professional, affluent group – the print distribution channel, which costs more, adds value.
I did notice that Matthew Robson’s friends embrace “viral marketing,” which I think means they buy whatever their friends are buying … which also tells me that the nature of humanity hasn’t changed much, even if the distribution channels have. If so, the jury is out on what will happen when these kids grow up. Most certainly, though, their current full-out-digital preferences will influence, if not dominate, distribution channels.
Conclusion: Expect hybrid, hydra-headed distribution systems going forward and look for market opportunities therein. But chop-chop; it’s going to be a multi-rock and media-roll ride.
-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo
I noticed the impact of delivery on message, too, when a well-known blogger suggested to a colleague that her digital press release was spam, simply because she hadn’t spend 44 cents sending it. Same info, different channel.
So is that the new deal? Does “information” mean more, say more, talk better, and have gravitas only if it’s in print? Right answer, wrong question.
I keep coming back to the widely reported story of Matthew Robson, a 15-year-old kid who interned at Morgan Stanley. In a report (download the full Morgan Stanley pdf here), Robson said his friends never read newspapers, don’t Tweet, and rarely use their cell phones to actually talk. I wasn’t surprised, since my 19-year old nephew told me the same thing two years ago. According to Brian, teens don’t use email, either – which you know is true if you’ve ever tried to reach an under-22 via email.
So, yes, what any given market segment will embrace or use depends more than ever on the distribution channel.
Back in December 2007, Scott Karp blogged about “The Future of Print Publishing and Paid Content." What this insightful piece boils down to is the dramatic effect of the distribution channel on whether or not a given consumer will use the content. In writing about consumer abandonment of newspapers, Karp notes, “People are willing to pay for certain digital content, but they aren't willing to pay for the distribution — specifically, not the analogue distribution premium.”
Therefore, if Karp is right – and I think he is – a portion of teen attitudes about whether or not information is “useful” has to do with how much it costs. If it's free, it's better. By contrast, in the case of Hugh MacLeod’s readers – a sophisticated, creative, professional, affluent group – the print distribution channel, which costs more, adds value.
I did notice that Matthew Robson’s friends embrace “viral marketing,” which I think means they buy whatever their friends are buying … which also tells me that the nature of humanity hasn’t changed much, even if the distribution channels have. If so, the jury is out on what will happen when these kids grow up. Most certainly, though, their current full-out-digital preferences will influence, if not dominate, distribution channels.
Conclusion: Expect hybrid, hydra-headed distribution systems going forward and look for market opportunities therein. But chop-chop; it’s going to be a multi-rock and media-roll ride.
-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Lots of Questionable Emails Lately … So What?
I keep getting questionable emails from “PayPal” asking me to click on a link to update my information. Like I’m going to do that.
A recent email from “Lowe”s invited me to visit a website to “track the status of your mail-in savings submission.” Except it came from an incredibly weird url: BounceBack_5733_7456045@FulfillmentProcessing.com.
Lately, I even got nervous when Bank of America prods me on my credit card statement. How can I be sure the email is really from Bank of America – or from any cited source? Not long ago, I got an email ostensibly from a close friend who's name and email address I recognized immediately. The email (subject line "lvoeyou" [sic]) suggested I go to http://evenguile.com (close, but not the real url.. hey, no way I’m spreading this virus).
The bottom line is, increasingly I’m disinclined to click on any link that comes via email, especially when it has something to do with money. Which is not to say I’m criticizing the value of email. Far from it: I more or less live by email. Which leads me to wonder why some influential commentators hate direct mail so much?
Yesterday Seth Godin posted a blog piece that put direct mail – he calls it “postal mail” – on the scrap heap, along with “graffiti” and “art” – all of which he declared of “little commercial value.” Godin’s post left me speechless, but not too dumbstruck to share his viewpoint with LinkedIn’s Direct Mail Group. Quite a few people were as astonished as I that one of the most respected voices in marketing – albeit, author of All Marketers Are Liars -- would denigrate the commercial force that is direct mail. According to The DMA, direct mail drives 9.9% of America’s gross domestic product and results in 2.06 trillon dollars in sales. Even adjusted for bias, these are commercially viable numbers.
With the rising threat of cyber attacks, a lot of us may be looking back fondly on the lazy, hazy days of “junk mail.” At least USPS-charitable solicitations don’t explode in our mailboxes, try to steal our identities, hunt our computers for passwords, or spam everybody in our address books.
Look, every marketing and advertising strategy has its squishy spots -- and the bigger the tool gets (like direct mail and, now, email), the more susceptible to abuse it becomes. The problem doesn’t lie with the any particular marketing strategy, but with the bottom feeders who try to exploit all of them.
--scrubbed by Marketing Brillo
A recent email from “Lowe”s invited me to visit a website to “track the status of your mail-in savings submission.” Except it came from an incredibly weird url: BounceBack_5733_7456045@FulfillmentProcessing.com.
Lately, I even got nervous when Bank of America prods me on my credit card statement. How can I be sure the email is really from Bank of America – or from any cited source? Not long ago, I got an email ostensibly from a close friend who's name and email address I recognized immediately. The email (subject line "lvoeyou" [sic]) suggested I go to http://evenguile.com (close, but not the real url.. hey, no way I’m spreading this virus).
The bottom line is, increasingly I’m disinclined to click on any link that comes via email, especially when it has something to do with money. Which is not to say I’m criticizing the value of email. Far from it: I more or less live by email. Which leads me to wonder why some influential commentators hate direct mail so much?
Yesterday Seth Godin posted a blog piece that put direct mail – he calls it “postal mail” – on the scrap heap, along with “graffiti” and “art” – all of which he declared of “little commercial value.” Godin’s post left me speechless, but not too dumbstruck to share his viewpoint with LinkedIn’s Direct Mail Group. Quite a few people were as astonished as I that one of the most respected voices in marketing – albeit, author of All Marketers Are Liars -- would denigrate the commercial force that is direct mail. According to The DMA, direct mail drives 9.9% of America’s gross domestic product and results in 2.06 trillon dollars in sales. Even adjusted for bias, these are commercially viable numbers.
With the rising threat of cyber attacks, a lot of us may be looking back fondly on the lazy, hazy days of “junk mail.” At least USPS-charitable solicitations don’t explode in our mailboxes, try to steal our identities, hunt our computers for passwords, or spam everybody in our address books.
Look, every marketing and advertising strategy has its squishy spots -- and the bigger the tool gets (like direct mail and, now, email), the more susceptible to abuse it becomes. The problem doesn’t lie with the any particular marketing strategy, but with the bottom feeders who try to exploit all of them.
--scrubbed by Marketing Brillo
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Twitter’s Trash-or-Trust Treatment Goes to the Movies
Buzz has always driven film success and Twitter has put buzz on steroids. Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno, for example “tanked” from the “Twitter Effect,” becoming what Time magazine called “a One-Day Wonder.” [see opinion commentary below]
Word-of-mouth now flies at warp speed and the worst thing film studios can do is oversell a movie in hopes to rake in first-weekend money. It just doesn't work. Todd Phillips, director of Hangover (the top-grossing R-rated comedy of all time, according to Warner Bros.) told The Canadian Press that, “In the old days, it used to be the water cooler effect… Now people get on their thing Friday night when they leave [the theater] and talk to 8,000 people.”
Films may be particularly susceptible to the Twitter Effect because they release widely and simultaneously, but any new product release can falter from Twitter’s trash-or-trust treatment. Keeping expectations in line with reality is key. Jeff Otto, blogging about Hangover at MovieSet notes that, “For all the great bits they gave away in the endless WB marketing campaign leading up to this week’s release, there’s still loads of great material they managed to hide from audiences. See this one before your idiot coworkers ruin it for you at the water cooler..”
Too late for that, Jeff. They already tweeted.. and the tweet was good.
-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo
IMHO, Sacha Baron Cohen's work is an intellectual tour de force. Above all others, Cohen takes a thorough, courageous, unflinching look at our lowest human preconceptions, preoccupations, and misconceptions. Borat was for the xenophobic and Bruno is for the homophobic. And -- even when it's distasteful and hideous to watch, which it often is -- Cohen's work is art, definitely art.
Word-of-mouth now flies at warp speed and the worst thing film studios can do is oversell a movie in hopes to rake in first-weekend money. It just doesn't work. Todd Phillips, director of Hangover (the top-grossing R-rated comedy of all time, according to Warner Bros.) told The Canadian Press that, “In the old days, it used to be the water cooler effect… Now people get on their thing Friday night when they leave [the theater] and talk to 8,000 people.”
Films may be particularly susceptible to the Twitter Effect because they release widely and simultaneously, but any new product release can falter from Twitter’s trash-or-trust treatment. Keeping expectations in line with reality is key. Jeff Otto, blogging about Hangover at MovieSet notes that, “For all the great bits they gave away in the endless WB marketing campaign leading up to this week’s release, there’s still loads of great material they managed to hide from audiences. See this one before your idiot coworkers ruin it for you at the water cooler..”
Too late for that, Jeff. They already tweeted.. and the tweet was good.
-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo
IMHO, Sacha Baron Cohen's work is an intellectual tour de force. Above all others, Cohen takes a thorough, courageous, unflinching look at our lowest human preconceptions, preoccupations, and misconceptions. Borat was for the xenophobic and Bruno is for the homophobic. And -- even when it's distasteful and hideous to watch, which it often is -- Cohen's work is art, definitely art.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Here's WHY Direct Mail Is Alive and Well
I’ve noticed something since the recession rose to top of mind in January. I’m receiving regular direct mail appeals from 10 to 12 progressive nonprofits – both ones I’ve supported in the past and new charities committed to similar causes. For these campaigners, direct mail is working and it’s working well. This we know because direct marketers only keep mailing as long as they’re making money. Direct mail is a science.
On July 28, MAGNA released its Media Advertising Forecast. Not surprisingly, the figures predicted a fall-off in traditional advertising across the board. Only a segment called “direct online media” (search, lead generation, and Internet yellow pages) was projected to enjoy a modest boost in spending (2.9%). Every other media spend – television, newspaper, magazine, radio, directory, direct mail, and outdoor advertising – was projected to drop off.
The big surprise here is the modest decline (11.2%) projected for direct mail. Except it's not a surprise.
Actually, direct mail doesn't belong on this list at all. Direct mail is nothing like traditional advertising—it's measurable, testable, adjustable, person-to-person, delivery-targeted, multi-functional, returns-based marketing. It’s marketing that can be fixed very quickly when it’s not working. Direct mail is a science.
Some people may throw around the cute term “junk mail,” but smart marketers know this medium can do what no other advertising can: hit exactly where it’s meant to strike.
Don't worry. We're never again going to see the multi-million piece mailings that flooded households in the 90s. Today, shotgun campaigns are both too costly and too eco-damaging to be of any use to informed direct mailers. The Christmas of a Thousand Catalogs is gone as well (also, too costly). But make no mistake: we’re still going to get direct mail.
In 2009, the folks who are mailing to us know exactly who we are and what we tend to buy or believe in. We’re carefully screened before we're mailed to. And the truth is, most of us not only don’t mind, we appreciate coupons and product announcements from stores where we shop, appeals from charities in which we believe, information about service-providers in our area, catalogs from municipal governments, and -- when we have a junior in high school -- promotional material from colleges and universities.
People who hate direct mail probably think a protest of the masses killed it. Actually, the shrinkage is primarily related to external forces: the industry itself, which is focused on getting better results from fewer pieces; the severe financial troubles of the U.S. Postal Service, which have made mailing far more expensive for everybody; improvements in printing technology, which have nudged mailers to smaller, more personalized campaigns with targeted text and images; and leapfrog improvements in data collection, data analysis, modeling, and list selection and tweaking. Again, direct mail is a science.
Don’t expect direct mail to disappear. Do expect it to get better.
--scrubbed by Marketing Brillo
On July 28, MAGNA released its Media Advertising Forecast. Not surprisingly, the figures predicted a fall-off in traditional advertising across the board. Only a segment called “direct online media” (search, lead generation, and Internet yellow pages) was projected to enjoy a modest boost in spending (2.9%). Every other media spend – television, newspaper, magazine, radio, directory, direct mail, and outdoor advertising – was projected to drop off.
The big surprise here is the modest decline (11.2%) projected for direct mail. Except it's not a surprise.
Actually, direct mail doesn't belong on this list at all. Direct mail is nothing like traditional advertising—it's measurable, testable, adjustable, person-to-person, delivery-targeted, multi-functional, returns-based marketing. It’s marketing that can be fixed very quickly when it’s not working. Direct mail is a science.
Some people may throw around the cute term “junk mail,” but smart marketers know this medium can do what no other advertising can: hit exactly where it’s meant to strike.
Don't worry. We're never again going to see the multi-million piece mailings that flooded households in the 90s. Today, shotgun campaigns are both too costly and too eco-damaging to be of any use to informed direct mailers. The Christmas of a Thousand Catalogs is gone as well (also, too costly). But make no mistake: we’re still going to get direct mail.
In 2009, the folks who are mailing to us know exactly who we are and what we tend to buy or believe in. We’re carefully screened before we're mailed to. And the truth is, most of us not only don’t mind, we appreciate coupons and product announcements from stores where we shop, appeals from charities in which we believe, information about service-providers in our area, catalogs from municipal governments, and -- when we have a junior in high school -- promotional material from colleges and universities.
People who hate direct mail probably think a protest of the masses killed it. Actually, the shrinkage is primarily related to external forces: the industry itself, which is focused on getting better results from fewer pieces; the severe financial troubles of the U.S. Postal Service, which have made mailing far more expensive for everybody; improvements in printing technology, which have nudged mailers to smaller, more personalized campaigns with targeted text and images; and leapfrog improvements in data collection, data analysis, modeling, and list selection and tweaking. Again, direct mail is a science.
Don’t expect direct mail to disappear. Do expect it to get better.
--scrubbed by Marketing Brillo
Monday, August 3, 2009
Self-Employed? Laid-Off? "Co-Working" Fights Isolation
As a sole proprietor working at home since 1984, lonely is something I never get. But over the years a lot of people have said to me, “I couldn’t work at home by myself. I need people around me.” With thousands of middle- and upper-management level “information workers” put out of a job in this recession, co-working is a growing trend that may also be the best of all worlds.
Co-working got its name in 2005 when software engineer Brad Neuberg organized a gathering spot called the “Hat Factory,” where people could hang-out to work independently, but side by side. A July 26 Washington Post article talked about“digital nomads" self-employed folks in the Nation's Capitol who seek the energy of other people and multiple places: the Dulles corridor, Adams Morgan, Embassy Row, hotel lobbies downtown, etc. Post staff writer Michael Rosenwald says, “They work -- clad in shorts, T-shirts and sandals -- wherever they find a wireless Web connection to reach their colleagues via instant messaging, Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, and occasionally by voice on their iPhones or Skype.”
Why go to the trouble? The Arizona Republic describes the struggle of Steven Shaffer, an entrepreneur who started his own company, but had issues with working at home. “Isolation set in and he struggled to stay focused.” For some, the answer to the work-at-home lonelies is to take it on the road.
That road could lead to WiFi retailers like Starbucks or Panera Bread, but in some communities, co-working has become more formalized. Localities like Pheonix are actively supporting communal work environments where the self-employed can gather. For example, dubbed “gangplank,” the Arizona Republic describes one idyllic meet-up in Phoenix as “... Ikea office tables dot the concrete-floor in a room filled with natural light. The building includes a research library, conference space, and a podcasting and video studio. Couches and an air-hockey table occupy an area where free small-business workshops take place each week.”
Online support for co-working is huge and growing. For example:
• Co-workers can gather srategies at the Coworking Blog, which cites ten ways to get involved;
• Google has a coworking group, as do Yahoo and LinkedIn;
• Tweeple can gather at Twitter's #coworking hashtag on Twitter;
• Work At Jelly helps co-workers find spots around the country where people are gathering;
• For some, the co-working movement segues with the green/eco movement—Raines Cohen bills himself as a “co-working coach," who travels to help people and municipalities set up co-working sites.
• Double Happiness in New York City has announced August events scheduled at the SALT artspace (even for an isolationist like me, that's tempting).
Two decades ago, "home office" was a dirty word. In the 1990s, we heard that "telecommuting" would -- at last -- replace driving to work. This time change is, indeed, blowing in the wind. Probably we're in the Perfect Storm, brewed from the convergence of affordable, portable technology that actually works, the decline of jobs for middle and upper managers, an irreversible shift to an information economy, a weakening of the corporate stranglehold on all fronts, and growing acceptance of cloud computing, which lets us both create and back-up elsewhere.
Bring it on.
-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo
Co-working got its name in 2005 when software engineer Brad Neuberg organized a gathering spot called the “Hat Factory,” where people could hang-out to work independently, but side by side. A July 26 Washington Post article talked about“digital nomads" self-employed folks in the Nation's Capitol who seek the energy of other people and multiple places: the Dulles corridor, Adams Morgan, Embassy Row, hotel lobbies downtown, etc. Post staff writer Michael Rosenwald says, “They work -- clad in shorts, T-shirts and sandals -- wherever they find a wireless Web connection to reach their colleagues via instant messaging, Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, and occasionally by voice on their iPhones or Skype.”
Why go to the trouble? The Arizona Republic describes the struggle of Steven Shaffer, an entrepreneur who started his own company, but had issues with working at home. “Isolation set in and he struggled to stay focused.” For some, the answer to the work-at-home lonelies is to take it on the road.
That road could lead to WiFi retailers like Starbucks or Panera Bread, but in some communities, co-working has become more formalized. Localities like Pheonix are actively supporting communal work environments where the self-employed can gather. For example, dubbed “gangplank,” the Arizona Republic describes one idyllic meet-up in Phoenix as “... Ikea office tables dot the concrete-floor in a room filled with natural light. The building includes a research library, conference space, and a podcasting and video studio. Couches and an air-hockey table occupy an area where free small-business workshops take place each week.”
Online support for co-working is huge and growing. For example:
• Co-workers can gather srategies at the Coworking Blog, which cites ten ways to get involved;
• Google has a coworking group, as do Yahoo and LinkedIn;
• Tweeple can gather at Twitter's #coworking hashtag on Twitter;
• Work At Jelly helps co-workers find spots around the country where people are gathering;
• For some, the co-working movement segues with the green/eco movement—Raines Cohen bills himself as a “co-working coach," who travels to help people and municipalities set up co-working sites.
• Double Happiness in New York City has announced August events scheduled at the SALT artspace (even for an isolationist like me, that's tempting).
Two decades ago, "home office" was a dirty word. In the 1990s, we heard that "telecommuting" would -- at last -- replace driving to work. This time change is, indeed, blowing in the wind. Probably we're in the Perfect Storm, brewed from the convergence of affordable, portable technology that actually works, the decline of jobs for middle and upper managers, an irreversible shift to an information economy, a weakening of the corporate stranglehold on all fronts, and growing acceptance of cloud computing, which lets us both create and back-up elsewhere.
Bring it on.
-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo
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