Stupid Marketing, aka Not Suffering Fools Gladly

From the department of “hunh?” – M&M Dark, Addams Family, and Stupid Marketing

2008-07-03T23:31:57Z

I like the creepy old New Yorker cartoons by Chas. Addams, as well as the black & white TV show it inspired, and the movies in turn. (Admittedly I like “The Addams Family” show a bit less than the cartoons – but the movies make up for it. Raoul Julia and Angelica Huston, yow!)

I also like M&Ms. Lots and lots of M&Ms. In any color, really. And the M&M cartoony characters were a brilliant marketing ploy.

But I have to confess that the use of the M&M cartoons ‘costumed’ as Addams Family to introduce the M&M Dark Chocolate brand seems, well, odd.

Or, as the Blonde Bombshell put it, “What point is there to the M&Ms Dark brand using the Addams family song/characters? It seems dumb to me.”

Why is it odd / stupid marketing?

Because it’s an attempt to invoke associations that creates some very strange linkages.

I can almost hear the M&M ad team brainstorming – “We need to link M&Ms with something memorable, that symbolizes ‘dark’ but fun at the same time. Dracula is out. How about... The Addams Family! Yeah, that’ll work!”

Hint: it doesn’t work.

Why not?

1. Wrong target audience. People who identify with the Addams Family are almost universally over 35. Most are over 45. Not the M&M cartoony character (or candy) demographic.

2. Wrong associations. As the theme song goes, The Addams Family is “creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky”. I don’t want my M&Ms creepy or spooky, thanks.

3. No representation of core value. M&M Dark should be associated with RICH, DARK CHOCOLATE. Now, I can understand avoiding certain excessive comparisons, but surely they could have done a visual of the M&M’s tanning on a beach, or of simple chocolate pouring into them, with Barry White as backup...

(Barry White’s voice, now that’s some great associations with rich luscious dark sweetness, no?)

Oh, and to add insult to injury, Mars’ agency appears to have (possibly) stolen the idea. www.nypost.com/seven/04022008/news/regionalnews/creepy__kooky_lawsuit_104631.htm

SO what’s the moral of today’s story? As IBM used to say, “THINK!”. Beware of associations - as you’re not the target audience, you might want to test your marketing before deployment.

Competition, or Your New Best Friend? Proximity, Popovers, Barney Greengrass, and maybe not so stupid marketing.

2008-06-26T18:54:02Z

I was walking around New York City’s Upper West Side the other day when a casual comment, courtesy of the Blonde Bombshell, got me started thinking about competition.

The comment was: “Popovers Café has been around forever. They do really well, they get the overflow from Barney Greengrass next door”.

For the uninitiated, Barney Greengrass is one of New York City’s top contenders for “most popular brunch”.

Popovers is another, similar but effectively unknown café (like many hundred, if not thousand others in the city).

Who in their right mind would open a “me too” location? Would you pick the most popular destination in your neighborhood, and open a no-name shop doing the same thing next door?

If you did, you might be doing something very wise.

Consider: a new market needs education. An old market has draw to a destination (physical or psychologically / expectations-wise). Either way, building that education or draw yourself as a new entrant is costly.

So why not draft behind the existing ice-breaker?

Popovers handles the overflow of Barney Greengrass. Do they have as much traffic? Probably not. But they probably get a lot more traffic than most other cafes – without spending a dime in marketing.

Similarly, generic drugstore brands sell because they’re labeled “like Tylenol” – and that Burger King is opening next to the McDonald’s to take a share of that foot traffic.

So look carefully at your competition. Don’t panic. Ask how you can draft behind them… and then be just different enough to draw your share of the crowd, at a fraction of the cost.

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“Did you get that promise in writing”? Inane statements, Computerworld, and Stupid Marketing.

2008-06-19T17:57:47Z

“Did anyone ever mention (promise, put in writing) that you would get X if you did Y for us?”

This has to be one of the stupidest marketing phrases I’ve encountered. Ever.

In this particular instance, it was spoken by John Vulopas, a “Director of Business Development” (aka sales rep) for Computerworld – but (arguably in his defense), sadly, John is far from alone.

Why is this phrase "stupid marketing"?

Many reasons…

1. The person asking the question knows nothing was put in writing or promised – or they wouldn’t be asking the question.

2. The person asking is making an excuse, weaseling out of an implied commitment. “Gosh, did I crash on your couch for two years rent-free? Hey, yeah, that’s right… but did I ever promise that when I made it big I’d invite you to my premiere?”

3. The essence of a great marketing relationship is that it is based on trust, and mutual exchange… without an explicit contract. The explicit contract is when a sale is made.

In the specific instance above, my company had spent quite a few hours of our and our PR firm’s time persuading one of our huge clients’ executives to speak at a Computerworld event… at Computerworld’s request.

We didn’t specify any fee or desired return on our investment.

But when the exec was accepted, we did apply for two free passes to the event. (Computerworld hands out free passes to large companies attending, on the theory that Computerworld can then sell vendor booth space to companies wishing to market to the attendees).

Note that the event is not “full” from an attendee standpoint – there’s lots of attendee space.

Note as well that my company, as well as being a “vendor” is also a purchaser of quite a lot of hardware and software.

But, in a lovely bit of irony, because at their request we’d helped Computerworld get a speaker, John viewed us as a “Vendor”… and thus it was mandated that we would have to pay $1k per pass to see the speaker we’d arranged for them.

When I pointed out the foolishness of this situation, John replied as above. John's boss, Ann, then attempted to sell me vendor space (admittedly, at a discount. So kind.)

Now, I’ve never been accused of being the most patient individual… but it strikes me that that comment was less than wise.

Why?

1. I feel very little urge to work with Computerworld going forward.

2. I feel a strong urge to share my experience to warn others.

In short, it’s a classic example of fostering negative publicity -- “badword” value. (See my earlier posts on the topic).

Nice move there, Computerworld. How much positive publicity do you need to counter negative publicity… and is it worth the $2k?

Just a thought.

Soup, Art. Art, Soup: McDonalds, Campbells, Co-Branding, and Stupid Marketing

2008-06-12T17:21:57Z

In Lily Tomlin’s famous one-woman show, “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe”, there’s a great moment when she’s pondering Andy Warhol’s even-more-famous paintings of Campbell’s soup cans. Glancing from a real can to the painting, she questions “Soup, Art. Art, soup.” It’s a great moment in branding – when does the brand, the set of associations around the label, transcend the actual product?

This question, along with “What were they thinking?” was much in my mind when my favorite street researcher, the blonde bombshell, commented the other day that she’d noticed McDonalds was now offering Campbells soup.

Now, I think I can understand why these two companies got together.

McDonalds probably thought “Hey, we’re trying to expand our healthy offerings! We can give young people salads and coffee and soup and compete with Subway too!”.

Campbells probably thought something similar. “Hey, we’re trying to reach a new, younger, cooler crowd on an everyday basis! What a huge distribution channel!”

On paper, looking at demographics and pie charts, it probably looks pretty smart.

Problem: no-one considered what these brands represent. They’re not just burgers and soup (and by the way, say that phrase “Burgers and Soup”. Sounds fairly disjointed already, right?).

Let’s pause and consider the two brands.

McDonald’s: fast food. Hot, quick, salty, greasy, and bad for you. But tasty! That said, lately, McDonalds seems targeted less and less and families, more and more at young singles.

Campbells: Mom and apple pie. Soup for eating after a cold day outside. Wholesome, healthy. Trying to upgrade their image to be “Soup, it’s not just for when mom is fattening you up”.

So I’m not sure combining them works. At all. Subway + Campbells = smart. Soup and a sandwich! Or maybe Campbells introduces a new set of packaging (think “Milk Chug” here) and McDonalds sells “Burger Dip, w. Campbell’s Sauce” (like a French Dip sandwich, but with Campbell’s Soup). That said, as they stand, again, I’m puzzled – and a puzzled prospect isn’t a purchaser.

Moral of the story: be cognizant of your brand, and how it interacts with other brands, before co-branding. The partnership’s about more than the demographic – because sometimes soup is soup, and sometimes it’s art.

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Random Numbers: Puppies, Pussies, Charitable Giving, and Stupid Marketing

2008-06-05T13:49:05Z

I really owe a debt to Robert X Cringley, because without his beloved Pammy, my favorite field researcher, the Blonde Bombshell, would never have made it to the virtual pages of this blog – and we’d all be the poorer for it.

For example, the fodder for this week’s entry was provided by tBB based on mail she’d received.

Now, like many of us, tBB is solicited for many great causes, ranging from alumni giving to political agendas to the local humane shelter.

Being a generous, good-hearted person, she has occasionally responded to these pleas. (Come on, what sort of insensitive clod could resist giving a few dollars to help improve the conditions of those pictured tiny puppies and poosle-kitties?)

But in the world of computer-generated appeal letters, no good deed goes unpunished.

After giving, she got more solicitations. And more. And some duplicates, which had handwritten appeals for hundreds of dollars, others of which (in the same form letter) had different scales (one had checkboxes for $40, $60, $80; the other identical letter checkboxes for $90, $135, and $240).

So why does this make today’s column?

Because I’m particularly annoyed that a charity would waste its donations on such stupid marketing.

Let’s consider the points of stupidity:

•   Duplicate letters: There are thousands of de-duping algorithms. If you send someone two letters at the same time, you’re at least doubling your costs – and possibly losing the donation.

•   Sold lists: If you’re soliciting donations, you’re in one business – if you’re collecting names for resale, you’re in another business. I understand charities can sometimes make more money selling the names of people who donate than they can make from the donations… but why not be up front about the process? I’ll bet lots of people would be willing to donate more to not be nagged, and others would be willing to have their name sold if it generated money for a cause.

•   Handwritten appeals: If you’ve got enough volunteers to handwrite appeals, you should be using them more productively (streetcorners, anyone?). If you have enough budget to outsource the ‘handwritten’ part to China or India (as I suspect was the case here), you don’t need the donation.

•   …and last but not least, the numbers: If someone donates $10, why ask them for $500? Again, there are algorithms that can be applied based on zip code and prior donation that should indicate a reasonable ask, if you’re a cynic – and if you’re less of one, you could simply provide some logical statistics (“$50 would provide food for this kitty for a month”) or gimmick (“Support this starving puppy for only $500 per year; we’ll send you a photo of the puppy wearing a collar with your name on it, and you get a private streaming video link to the puppy playing happily in the yard*”).

Again: it makes me snarl to see good people’s money being wasted on stupid marketing, instead of being used to further charitable aims. Marketers, clean up your act – remember, when you market, what you’re marketing, and be true to the product. It does matter.

* Ps: as a random side-note, I’d be happy to loan my trademarked video streaming idea to any charitable business, or even a for-profit venture as long as sufficient funds were donated to charity. After all, pre-schools allow parents to log in and see their children at play; why couldn’t officeworkers “adopt” a pet, where they could log in and see the pet’s growth charts, or watch the pet play, or sleep, etc. Heck, if the nesting falcon-cams get millions of hits, imagine how many hits a live pussy webcam would get

Forever Yours: Stamps, the US Postal Service, and brilliant (not stupid) marketing

2008-05-29T17:16:07Z

I avoid visiting my local Post Office at all costs. The employees embody all the classic civil-service “you can’t possibly get me fired” stereotypes – they’re rude, surly, unhelpful, and sometimes downright abusive.

All that said, I am actually quite impressed by the Postal Service as an overall entity. They quietly run a great online site, deliver my mail and packages anywhere in the world for reasonable rates, generally quickly, and often unharmed (far more often than UPS or FedEx!).

But I’m super-impressed by one of the most brilliant marketing ploys they’ve created in recent memory: the “Forever” stamp.

The Forever stamp is, as its name implies, a first class postage stamp purchasable at today’s rates, good for forever. As in, always. No matter what the rates rise to be. Write some first-class mail, put a Forever stamp that you bought for $0.41 on it when the cost of mail has risen to $5 per envelope, and the USPS says they’ll still deliver your letter.

Post Office vending machines ran out of these stamps faster than the workers could restock. (Well, ok, that’s hardly a comment on the demand vs the suppliers… but you get the idea).

Really. Swarms of people pumped millions of dollars in cash into the USPS to get stamps.

So why is this brilliant marketing?

Because, to borrow one of the great phrases of business blogger and skeptic David Cowan, it’s a scheme. The USPS gets a lot of cash now, which it can use or invest, -and- the USPS eases the task of transitioning to the new postal rates (fewer temporary and $0.01 stamps to be processed). The purchasers of the stamps, on the other hand, get a minimal discount – as they’re buying stamps (rate of interest: whatever the USPS dictates as they raise stamp prices) instead of keeping the cash (rate of interest: loosely tied to the Federal Reserve)

Similar schemes are in place in many places – from retail stores offering the “convenience” of automated checkout, to the existence of ATMs, to “paperless” billing statements and automated checking account debits.

So what’s the marketing moral of it all?

Carrots work better than sticks to motivate customers. If you want people to do something for your benefit, it helps to market what you’re proposing as something that will bring them benefit.

Then stand back, and let people beg you to let them do what you wanted them to do in the first place.

Don’t Diet, Diet! Weight watchers, cognitive dissonance, and stupid marketing

2008-05-22T16:23:09Z

My favorite blonde observer of stupid marketing has found another classic example of companies playing the “Made you look” game.

In this case, the bombshell (who is about as far from needing a diet as I am from being a cucumber) noticed that Weight Watchers had a new marketing campaign: “Don’t Diet”.

I call this an example of the “made you look” game because it’s such an unexpected statement – a company called “Weight Watchers” is telling me not to diet? Why, whatever can they mean? I must look and investigate further! (Which of course is their goal).

I think also think it’s stupid marketing.

Why? Because it’s patently false, and thus has negative repercussions.

Now, I like a good head fake as much as the next person. And I love the use of cognitive dissonance in marketing to shake people out of their daily routine. So if Weight Watchers had put out shocker taglines saying something like “Rice Cakes Suck”, or “Does being hungry make you feel good about yourself?” I’d be a huge fan.

But their ads are false. Dieting means “to select or limit the food one eats to improve one's physical condition or to lose weight”. Which is what Weight Watchers helps people do, albeit with additional suggestions about counseling and mental attitude.

What do you think people feel when they spend the time to further investigate Weight Watchers based on the above statement, and then realize it’s false?

I’d suspect that campaign is really annoying quite a few people – and generating some negative word of mouth. Oscar Wilde said “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about” – but I’m not sure that applies to annoying your prospect base.

So what’s the moral for marketers?

Dissonance is fine. Be the noisy kid in the class, say something shocking, get people to break out of their daily grind and start nodding their head in agreement with your message.

But be true to your product. Don’t refute the value you bring, or lure people in under false pretenses. It tends to backfire. Weight Watchers, that loss you feel may be your pocket book getting lighter.

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Brand Symbology: Naked Fat Mermaids, Starbucks, and not so stupid marketing.

2008-05-15T16:35:38Z

Howard Schultz is back, and proponents everywhere of business focus (like yours truly) are rejoicing.

Howard is the once and future king, ah, CEO of Starbucks. This is the man who, in an odd parallel to the McDonalds story, went from purveyer of coffee brewing equipment to builder of the enormous, inescapable chain that managed to market coffee as being worth $4 per cup (vs $0.40).

But Howard’s empire has languished since he left it.

So how do you communicate to your customer base that the king is back, and you’re going back to basics, focusing on them and the things that matter, such as great coffee?

(Tactically, the Starbucks chain is lowering the height of their machines so that baristas can see customers, they’re eliminating smelly bad sandwiches, they’re roasting coffee in stores again, they’re giving extra rewards to Starbucks card users, etc)

You change your flag – but not too much. Specifically, Starbucks changed its logo from its current genericized, cutsey, little-mermaid-esque icon back to the original, slightly funky, definitively topless and pudgy siren.

Still a green circle.

Still says “Starbucks Coffee” (which, with a little whiteout on the s’s, t, a, r, c, e’s, and edge of the B can be made to express morning pre-coffee sentiment).

Still some sort of female mythical sea creature in the middle (Starbucks started on the edge of Seattle’s Pike Place market, looking out at the Sound and the flying fish guys).

But with a small change – like changing the pattern of stars in the US Flag from a circle (original 13 colonies) to a square (modern form) – Howie has beautifully driven home what Starbucks is committed to doing. BACK TO BASICS!

Kudos, Mr Schultz. What a great, simple, powerful marketing tactic and rallying cry.

For the rest of us, there’s a lesson: respect for the brand means that when you do change it, it’s additive, not dilutitive. Quite a thought.

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You are the sum of your network: valuing a customer and not-so-stupid marketing

2008-05-08T18:08:25Z

I recently started teaching a class for Stanford University’s Continuing Studies program. http://stanford.stupidmarketing.com

For the record, this is not an easy task. Take sixty five people of varied marketing experience and professional backgrounds, give them limited study time, and attempt to keep them engaged and you’ll understand what I mean.

For the record, it’s significantly more challenging than lecturing to a room full of engineers, or MBAs, or executives. The students in my class are motivated and sharp.

This means they come up with very hard questions and truly brilliant observations.

For example, one student, Anurag Singh, recently found this link on Ebay, wherein “Andrew Barron” was (at least claiming to be) attempting to auction off his Twitter account. (Twitter is another social network, like Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo Groups, etc).

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160229562828

Let’s ignore the obvious marketing for a moment (Andrew dramatically increased attention to his profile by creating an innovative event / proposition), and instead consider Andrew’s offer as though he were serious.

What a great practical demonstration of the next level of customer value!

But let me back up a moment and provide some context.

One of our greatest challenges, as marketers, is to separate wheat from chaff – to understand which prospective customers have value (and are worth our time), and which will never increase our company’s revenues.

In the early days, prospective customer value was primary purchase value: how much will this person buy from me, how quickly?

As marketers became more sophisticated, we began to assess lifetime value: how much will this person buy from me, over the course of their total set of transactions with me?

But we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of recognizing and measuring a tertiary value – network value: how much will the people this customer strongly influences buy from me?

Andrew’s auction attempted to explicitly recognize (and value) at least one aspect of that tertiary value. Good on you, Andrew!

Similarly, smart marketers will recognize that network value, find ways of assessing it (referrals and affiliate programs are a good start, or use more complex programs merging CRM with social networking), and use it.

So while smiling at bit at Andrew’s auction, ask yourself: do you have a way of measuring your prospective customers’ network value? Maybe you should start…

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Evil in Good's Name: “for profit professional fundraisers”, GotBooks.com, and stupid marketing

2008-05-01T16:07:32Z

It’s hard to make me really angry. I’m more the Hawaiian type of Volcano than Mount Saint Helens or Krakatoa – in that I tend to gently vent a lot (see this blog, for example) rather than exploding with any real violence.

But like my street researcher the Blonde Bombshell, who is normally quiet, but turns into “an avenging angel” at the sight of injustice, my buttons really get pushed when I see marketing used for legalized fraud – to obfuscate the truth, hide behind legitimate causes, and separate good people from their money, thus simultaneously stealing from honest citizens and depriving the truly needy of help.

I speak, of course, of “For profit professional fundraisers” – the folks who solicit your assistance under the guise of a charity (“for the firefighters… for 9/11… for Katrina victims…”) and then make off with 90%+ of the money and goods given.

The most recent example of this is operating in the New England area, a company called “Gotbooks.com” (registered under community book solutions, robert ticehurst, 25 Springwell Rd, Billerica, Massachusetts 01821 -- bob@communitybooksolutions.com ).

Now GotBooks looks like a great group of people doing work for a noble cause. Their radio and print advertisements (and their website) touts their work as “a local organization whose primary mission is to support the community through books”.

They talk about saving books through donation vs books getting thrown away, giving away books to libraries, sending books overseas to soldiers, and partnering with local charitable groups (like schools) to help fundraise.

Here’s the problem.

Buried far, far down in the FAQ on their website, barely meeting the legal requirements for disclosure, is this statement: “Got Books is a for-profit professional fundraiser and used book seller”.

Yes, that’s right. They’re a company with the goal of making money.

So what’s actually going on?

Answers [With notes from my email conversation with 30-year old Bob Ticehurst, their El Presidente -- who, by the way, also is enough of shill to spam-post for himself, talking about himself in the third person, see http://www.yelp.com/topic/woburn-got-books--advertising-reviews ]:

Step 1. You give GotBooks books for free. [No disagreement from Bob]

Step 2. GotBooks has a weekend booksale at their warehouse, half of the profits of which "go to non-profit groups". Sounds good, but let's figure out how much money this could be.

Ignoring the accounting distinction between "profits" and "proceeds" (and Bob, who was an accountant, knows the difference very well), given a 10 hour day of busy selling, and using comparable proceeds from other bookstores, this could be as much as $20k (tax deductible) to charity per year (and $20k to Bob) (Bob doesn't reveal numbers)

BUT GotBooks is greedy.

All seven days per week (not just saturday mornings), they list and sell books on Amazon, Alibris, and half.com. [Bob phrases this differently on the website, but it's what they do].

Published numbers here http://www.endicia.com/CaseStudies/GotBooks/ show 1500 packages per day.

Assuming only $5 per book, and one package per book, we're seeing another $2.73 million dollars of proceeds per year.

So GotBooks is generously donating (for a deduction) slightly more than half of one percent per year. Wow. Impressive generosity... NOT.

Step 3. But wait! A few of the leftovers are given to the troops! Their site shows almost 5k books given to troops...

...of the (1500 per day = 550,000 per year) they sell -- again, almost a generous 1%.

Wow. Impressively cheap and sleazy.

[Bob also states that GotBooks ships directly to the troops -- but didn't provide any evidence of this. In fact, as he acknowledged on Yelp, he also / possibly exclusively uses existing charities that ship overseas to satisfy the nominal “donate books to soldiers”] (again, cost to Gotbooks.com = approx zero)

Step 4. The remainder of the books, that they can't sell, are dumped on (excuse me, Bob prefers the term 'given to') libraries, who are saddled with the cost of pulping books so worthless they can’t be sold.

Once more, cost to Gotbooks.com = zero. Cost to local libraries = substantial, doubling the insult of GotBooks having just stripped library volunteer groups of their previous valuable, salable donations.

Step 5. GotBooks can then take the tax deduction from their library donation -- tripling the taxpayer support they're nursing.

That's right -- libraries depend on your tax dollars, so increasing their costs costs you; GotBooks' tax deductions reduce collected taxes, increasing tax burden on you too.)(Bob claims this is not the case, but refused to provide documentation to this effect)

Other marketers, take a lesson – you can always make money by misleading people. But if you’re going to do that, why not just engage in ID theft, or 3-card monte on a street corner – it’s more honest.

In closing -- there's more than a bit of irony here...

...as Bob's former domain name, which still redirects to his business, is "marinebob.com". (I'll refrain from commenting on the use of one's service to the country, all of who have performed such I appreciate, as a marketing tool to sell used books...)

Assuming Bob was referring to a branch of the armed services, not "sealife", I'd simply ask Bob whether he can look at himself in the mirror, and really believe that GotBooks' marketing holds true to the USMC leadership trait and code of "integrity: uprightness of character and soundness of moral principles; includes the qualities of truthfulness and honesty".

(Is that 1% donation enough to soothe your conscience about the sleazy, misleading-at-best, evil marketing? Really?).

Dear readers, what do you think?

The Value of a First Impression: Gaylord Hotels and Stupid Marketing

2008-04-24T16:57:48Z

Prospective customers make significant value judgments based on first impressions.

Like it or not, whether it’s a first date, job interview, visit to a restaurant, view of a packaged product, or even just a web banner ad or voice on a phone, your product is can be 50% accepted (or 100% rejected) in just a few minutes or seconds of first impression.

So why do we flub the marketing so many times?

Today’s example is courtesy of my field researcher, the Blonde Bombshell, who, even though she claims to be no marketer herself, has a huge amount of common sense.

Seems there’s a large annual convention for companies related to the hospitality industry. (Think “Attendees are thousands of people in key management and executive roles at companies like Starbucks, McDonalds, etc).

Imagine you’re the lucky hotel and convention center chain who gets chosen to host this event.

If you’re on the marketing side, you have quite a windfall. Thousands of your target customers are actually –paying- to experience your property!

One would imagine that you’d steer them to the best-run, best-proven property you had, and do whatever it took to ensure that their experience was stellar.

Apparently this common sense was lost on Gaylord Hotels, who booked the event into their newly opened Prince George MD convention center… except the word “newly opened” should probably have read “almost ready to open, but not quite”.

Guests were treated to rooms missing toilets, no cell phone coverage, no local restaurants, mice in rooms (lots: http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=708&sid=1384462 ), missing basic services like spa and health club facilities, staffing shortages… in short, something close to what one would expect at a mid-range truck-stop motel.

All for the discounted rate of $299 per night. That they paid the hotel, not the other way around.

If I’m a guest, what’s my first impression of this hotel?

Will I ever return?

What will I tell my friends? My company?

How much money, in other forms of marketing, do you think it will take to recover from this black eye?

Think about this story the next time you’re planning a marketing campaign. What’s the first impression you’re going to create? Check for that spinach in your teeth, spelling mistakes on your resume, and make the impression a great one.

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bRandom: random branding observations and stupid (?) marketing

2008-04-17T17:47:06Z

Maybe it’s the odd weather (67 in New York while it’s 46 in Palo Alto, then reversed in 24 hours, ugh), but my mind at times like these turns to random observations about branding.

Good, bad, stupid, you decide. I was just wondering if anyone noticed that…

• The larger the company, the shorter the corporate brand name. HP. IBM. 3M. FedEx. The opposite is also true, quite often. (TransGlobalMegaConglomerated is actually two teens in a garage).

• Speaking of FedEx, how many people don’t see that dynamic arrow in the middle of the brand name, but are subconsciously influenced by it? (Yes, it was a deliberate inclusion)

• Another deliberate inclusion: Stephen “Steve” King named his Randall Flagg villain (The Stand, The Dark Tower series) after the roach spray, Black Flag. True story. Ask the Master himself.

• Speaking of roach sprays, anyone else notice that the animated television commercial for “Raid” and “Raisin Nuts” cereal are the same? (Small critters. “Raaaaaaid?!” “Raaaaiiisssin Nuts?!”)

• Some designer out there should be given an award for amazingly great hidden satire, for designing an Enzyte (“Natural Male Enhancement”) commercial series, featuring “Smilin’ Bob” that simultaneously pays homage to Bob Dole’s Viagra commercials (probably intended) and more closely to Bob Dobbs of “The Church of the SubGenius” fame.

…aaaaand to finish off…

• You can buy NASCAR-brand vegetables. I hear the tomatoes are fairly good, if you’re into that kind of thing. No kidding. http://www.castellinicompany.com/nascar.html

That’s all for now – we’ll return to our regularly scheduled broadcast next week…

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Truth in Advertising, aka Why Salespeople Aren’t Marketers: Serta and Stupid Marketing

2008-04-11T18:21:06Z

Over the last few months, I’ve noticed that the mattress I’ve been sleeping on isn’t really flat any more. It has a distinct topography, which persists even after sliding a board under it.

Luckily, after consulting the mattress tag, internet, and original chooser of the mattress (not me, long story), it turned out that the mattress was covered by a guarantee.

Unfortunately, that word – “guarantee” – is one of the most abused marketing terms ever.

For example, who determines that a mattress has failed, and is eligible for replacement under the guarantee?

Answer: a third-party verification company (no kidding, I’ve met a for-real certified mattress inspector). This is good. Not so good, it took five phone calls, extensive paperwork, location of obscure 10-year old documents (really!) and a discussion over whether the $35 inspection fee would be paid by Serta.

That said, Serta agreed that the mattress would be replaced under its guarantee.

But Serta Mattress Company’s “guarantee” states in part that “…the manufacturer reserves the right to substitute materials of equal quality”.

Which resulted in an interesting conversation between me and the local sales rep, Darrow Crowe, in which Mr. Crowe quoted that phrase and stated that the replacement mattress would have a lower coil count, unless I’d like to pay for an “upgrade” to my current mattress’ coil count. (!)

Of course, Mr. Crowe didn’t want to put that statement in writing.

Again, let’s look at the situation:

1. Marketing goal of a guarantee: make the consumer feel safe in purchasing an item. The fear of making a “bad choice” and being cheated goes away with a guarantee. Smart.

2. Legal language in the guarantee: designed for Serta’s protection, so that an evil consumer can’t demand replacement of a ten-year old mattress with materials not made in ten years. Reasonable.

3. Salesperson interpretation of the guarantee: an opportunity to upsell and increase commissions for that quarter.

So where am I going with this, and what’s the marketing moral?

My point is that if a marketing term like “guarantee” is to keep its value, it must be honored. Otherwise it becomes simply noise, like the phrase “new and improved”.

Having the sales team administer the “guarantee” is effectively a “guarantee” that the term won’t be honored.

Moral of the story: Don’t ask sales to market – they’re there to close. Marketing, and only marketing, should ultimately own and be responsible for fulfilling on the implied – or “guaranteed” truth behind marketing promises.

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Sometimes a Donut is just a Donut: Dunkin’ Donuts and Brilliant Marketing

2008-04-03T15:47:06Z

It’s wonderful when a marketing department shows they’re thinking – and the folks over at Dunkin’ Donuts are doing a wonderful job.

Specifically, instead of following the herd mentality (“let’s copy whatever competitors are doing for ads”), they’ve beautifully identified their strengths, chosen their target market accordingly, and pursued it with a vengeance.

But let’s take a step back and review. For the uninitiated, Dunkin’ Donuts is a popular chain with its roots in the Northeast. Having grown up in the Boston and New York areas, I’m a huge fan of their core product offerings – namely industrial-strength donuts and coffee. Their donuts and coffee are the platonic ideal “cop” food. They’re dependable, consistent, greasy and leaden. The chocolate glazed, particularly, may be compared favorably with the lead shielding on a nuclear reactor – and the beverages are sufficiently hot to have come from the inside of said reactor. The food is great, reasonably priced, and perfect for a New England winter.

That said, in the last decade, Dunkin’ Donuts faced significant competition – from Krispy Kreme (whose Donuts I also love, though it’s an apples-to-oranges comparison, Krispy is for hot climates), and more significantly from Starbucks, who was somehow able to charge obscenely more for worse coffee and dried out pastries, because they were “chic”.

Now, for a while, the folks over at Dunkin’ fell into the McDonalds / Burger King (or Coke / Pepsi) trap, where the current follower’s marketing mimics that of the current leader until no-one can tell the difference – or cares. Dunkin’ tried to upscale their outlets, introduced new flavored coffees and pastries, and in general, tried to be ‘chic’. It was a miserable failure. They didn’t capture the ‘chic’ crowd, who laughed at them, and Dunkin’ annoyed their core “real worker” clientele.

But the Dunkin’ marketers have turned it around. Their latest TV commercial says it all, making fun of the hordes and huge lines at Starbucks trying to figure out which of the 50 italian-named coffee choices they should order – while a happy Dunkin’ customer (a “regular-lookin joe”) grabs his COFFEE (no fancy smackaccinos here!) and zips past them in a fraction of the time.

What can I do but applaud. Kudos, kudos, kudos!

So the moral of the story?

Be true to your brand. Your offering has value to a customer segment – so don’t hide it. Celebrate it.

With that, adieu until next week, I’m off to find a (quick) donut.

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Packaging Creates Reality: Image, Truth, and Not-so-Stupid Marketing

2008-03-28T16:23:22Z

I recently wrote about Draegers and Costco, and how sometimes, packaging is the product being sold.

Amusingly, thanks largely to my trusted field researcher, she who turns heads wherever she goes, the blonde bombshell, who needs no artifice, we have two new examples of packaging, staging and “personal staging”…

The first situation, staging, should be familiar to anyone who’s ever bought or sold real estate.

“Staging” is derived from the term in theater “setting the stage” – in real estate, taking a property that’s for sale and painting it, cleaning up the lawn, cleaning it, emptying out all the crappy possessions that you, the owner, had accumulated and replacing them with beautiful art and furniture.

Some stagers even go as far as to have cookies baking (or even just a pot of water, cinnamon, and vanilla boiling on the stove or in the microwave) when prospective purchasers visit – to create the appropriate olefactory as well as visual experience.

The goal: make your property more attractive to prospective purchasers.

Staging is marketing: it’s packaging, the art and science of taking a concrete item (often concrete – paths, house, apartment) and changing people’s perception of its inherent value purely by changing the packaging surrounding it – the context in which the item is presented to the purchaser. Arguably, this is why the same food seems worth more to purchasers in different contexts – and, as a recent study proved, even tastes better. (The same chicken nuggets were rated as tasting better when tasters were told the nuggets were from McDonald’s).

But I was flummoxed when the Bombshell told me about the latest trend in personal staging.

No, we’re not talking about clothing, makeup, or hairstyles (all elements of “personal staging”).

We’re talking about the practice of hiring “personal paparazzi”.

Really.

Now you too, in many cities in the US and UK, can –pay- to have a pack of photographers follow you around as though you’re famous.

Heck, it’s more than mainstream – you know it’s a positively passé trend when it’s featured in Time magazine… www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1704698,00.html

But before you dismiss this trend as foolish, consider – what a great example of “personal” staging. How better to persuade club bouncers of your fame, moving you to the front of the line?

And yes, I know it’s silly, but is it really that different than real estate staging, or the look & feel of your website, or store, or flyers, or physical product packaging?

So the moral of today is that Packaging is marketing. And it’s everywhere – anything has packaging. And it works.

So ask yourself, how are your offerings packaged?

Everbank and WaMu / Neverbank and WTFMu: Actively Hostile and Stupid Marketing

2008-03-21T16:21:18Z

I’m depressed.

Given the recession, I was hoping to see banks actively reaching out with great marketing to compete for customers.

Instead, I have two banks today as my prime examples of “hostile marketing” – that is, examples of marketers so intent on a process that they’ve failed to consider what the process feels like from a customer perspective.

Example #1 is Everbank, aka “Neverbank” after this experience.

Lured by their advertising, I attempted to open an internet CD. I have opened internet CDs before, and most banks simply have you fill out an online form and wire money. Takes about 10 minutes.

Neverbank asks for the full online application… which they then print and physically mail you. You sign it, and it goes back to them, where they “approve” it, and open your account. Unless, like me, you’ve forbidden institutions to do random credit checks on your social security number (anti-fraud measure), at which point Neverbank won’t open an account for you.

Really.

Even though you’re giving them money (and so should be more concerned about their financial state than them about yours), they demand a credit check, because their marketing department (under cover of the DHS ‘know your customer’ directive) has demanded the status for cross-marketing purposes. Wow. Hostile marketing: the added information-gathering steps look good on paper to greedy cross-marketers, but they actually drive away customers.

Example #2, similarly, is Washington Mutual, or as they are now known, WaMu.

WaMu, aka “WTF”, I suspect has larger issues, based on the fact that this is the same bank chain where I once had my lapels shaken by an angry bank manager, for my temerity in attempting to cash a personal check (given to me by a colleague, drawn on their WaMu account) while I was not a customer of the bank…

…but the specific point in question occurred the other day, when I was again attempting to cash a check.

This check was a bank check. It was drawn on WaMu. But after furnishing my drivers license, passport, and signing the check, the teller asked me to ink my fingerprints on to the check.

“Standard Policy” for non-customers.

Now, I could attempt to rationalize this as a security measure, except for the fact that this was a WaMu check – and bank customers don’t have to provide fingerprints.

In fact, as we demonstrated in the next 15 minutes, it’s possible to instantly open a bank account using the two forms of ID I’d just presented to cash the check – then cash the check without fingerprints (as a customer) – and then close the bank account. All of which leads me to believe that the whole “customer / non-customer” difference in treatment is purely a marketing ploy to increase customer signups, vs any real security issue.

Again: looks good on paper (hey, lets create some incentives to get people to sign up), but manifests as poorly executed hostile marketing – “hey, let’s artificially penalize non-customers, so their experience of our bank is poor… that’ll really make ‘em want to sign up!”.

Moral of the story? Put down your grand ambitions as a marketer – and try the experience as a customer.

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A tale of two truffle oils: Draegers, Costco, Brand Sabotage, and Stupid (?) Marketing

2008-03-13T16:34:50Z

When you buy something in an expensive specialty food market (Draegers, in my case), you’d expect its quality to be at least as good as the same item purchased in a warehouse store (Costco), no?

I mean, the Draegers item is carefully displayed, elegantly packaged in a beautiful glass bottle, has an Italian label, and costs more per ounce than gold. The Costco item comes in a 20oz plastic bottle, is sitting with 200 others on a forklift pallet, and is cheaper than maple syrup.

So the Draegers item should be higher quality than the Costco item, right?

Nope. Apparently I am oh so wrong to believe this. At least in the case of white truffle oil.

[A digression: white truffle oil is typically mixed with olive oil to be packaged and sold. The combination is a wonderful substance, used for many purposes, among them being the “Philadelphia Truffle Surprise” appetizer, featured at Alta in New York City, much loved by the Blonde Bombshell, at least 20 other people I know, and yours truly.][To make ‘em, combine 1-3T Philly cream cheese, white truffle oil, and a hint of garlic oil, then wrap in Phyllo dough and bake.]

Turns out Costco oil is magnificent, while Draegers tastes like strong, stale olive oil. Barely a truffle in evidence.

So what’s going on?

My first instinct is to believe, as the Beastie Boys say, “Oh My, It's A Mirage / I'm Tellin' Y'all It's a Sabotage”. (Or, borrowing Stephen King’s Gunslinger series, “Draegers… has forgotten the face of their father”).

In other words, Draegers is relying on their brand to justify the price markup on their food, forgetting that their brand was built on providing truly excellent, markup-worthy food.

This would be strongly reminiscent of the Harley Davidson story of a few decades ago, where the brand cut quality and nearly destroyed itself selling crappy motorcycles.

But just as I was winding up to deliver a full soap-box lecture on the stupidity of one more brand growing fat and arrogant and self-destructing by hollowing out its core value proposition, I stopped, and reconsidered (hence the question mark in my title): maybe Draegers brand isn’t about quality.

Maybe Draegers brand is about the brand: it’s about beautiful packaging and expense, not the thing inside the package.

Consider: by giving someone something from Draegers, you’re saying “I care enough about you to spend on the most beautiful, pricey thing I can find”. It’s very Japanese-gift-giving. http://www.temarikai.com/giftgivinginjapan.html

So I’m puzzled, and have to end today’s blog on an uncertain note, perhaps with two morals:

1. Don’t get lazy with your brand. If your brand is built on (and symbolizes) quality, or value, or speed, or whatever core proposition people have come to expect – be sure you continue to deliver on that value.

2. That said, brands don’t have to have traditional core values. Sometimes a brand is just that: a brand. It can be faddish, but intangible values are still values.

With that, I’m off to Costco. I’ll stick with the tangibles, thanks.

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Piracy or Proliferation? Hasbro, Scrabulous, and Stupid Marketing

2008-03-06T17:46:23Z

Ah, first we saw the controversy over software piracy, with public video of CD raids. Then there was music, as the RIAA sued anyone whistling more than three bars of their favorite tune. Now, things are getting ugly, as we turn to game makers suing slackers. When will the madness end?

I’d suggest the first step in ending the madness is understanding that piracy, if managed correctly, is actually free marketing.

Let’s consider software. In my early days at VMware, we faced a choice: spend significant engineering cycles building a more complex license key mechanism, in an effort to deter piracy, or use the time more productively elsewhere.

Having cut my product management teeth at Netscape, I was a staunch proponent of “elsewhere”. After all, we wanted more people to use and find out about VMware. Large companies would always pay us – and for them, the licensing mechanism was more an audit and liability tool. If, on the margin, we faced a choice between an individual user choosing to experiment for free with our workstation product or gaining the $100 in revenue but losing another 5 potential trialists… any marketer will tell you to sacrifice the money.

[How much does marketing spend trying to convince people to try the product and act as an evangelist for it? How many affinity programs do we set up? And yet we’re willing to burn more engineering resources stopping people from trying the product via licensing schemes…?]

Which brings us to today’s stupid marketing entry, courtesy of my field researcher, the blonde bombshell, who has no time to spend on gaming (but nonetheless found this).

Seems a pair of bright young slackers, who had far too much time to kill working at their office jobs, created an online version of the popular game, Scrabble.

Not being marketers, they named it “Scrabulous” (rhymes with scaberous), but nonetheless attracted a sufficient online following that they were soon making $25k per month just on the online ads shown on the site.

Sadly, Hasbro, who had just licensed the game rights to RealNetworks and Electronic Arts, does not think that piracy is good marketing.

Hasbro has moved to shut Scrabulous down.

What idiocy.

Marketers at Hasbro, cast off your chains. Call Scrabulous. Make them an offer: for 95% of the equity, they can keep their $25k / month, and be an officially licensed site too (player #3).

Then embed cross-sales of Hasbro products into the site, as well as information collection – and then sell off shares to AOL, Yahoo, and any other portal desperate for that community. (Heck, I’m betting RealNetworks would pay a few million for the site!)

Which brings us to the moral of today’s story: Again, a (single) pirate is an evangelist. An evangelist is someone marketing for you. For free. Ergo: Piracy = good marketing.

With that, good day to all, I’m off to play some Scrabulous.

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Scientology: say what you will about ‘em, but they’ve got powerful marketing

2008-02-28T17:10:35Z

I hesitated before posting this. I think that’s a sign of respect for a marketing organization, when you worry about posting anything about them, for fear of generating a (very) strong reaction. It’s like posting about Savage Nation – I halfway expect (very polite, writ-armed) screaming hordes of barbarians at my (virtual) gates.

That said, the irony is that whatever my personal feelings about the “Religion” of Scientology, and cults in general (ooops, did I give away my opinion there? Hey, in the spirit of the topic, I can change that opinion if someone’s willing to buy enough of my books) I have to admire their marketing success. They’ve built an empire around… something. A set of ideas. Not even a service or a product per se. Wow.

In the spirit of my “top 10” list post on Ikea, here are the top 10 lessons you can learn about amazingly powerful marketing by looking at the Scientologists.

10. Get Endorsements. Yes, it certainly helps to have movie stars talking about your product – and even better when they do it "for free". You can do this too – create a product that lets people connect on some level with the stars. The stars feel good about themselves, they get support staff, fans – and the fans feel good about associating with the stars. It’s like any good indie film = fame generates fame, aka PR.

9. Be Non-Intrusive. As religions / organizations / cults / businesses / whatever go, the Scientologists are wonderfully non-intrusive. They don’t ring your doorbell on Saturday mornings. They don’t stand on street-corners and shout at you. They’re not in your face. Most people have an instinctive negative reaction to pushed product. Subtlty is powerful.

8. Be Persistent. Number 9 said, they are persistent. Once on a mailing list, you’ll get small, inexpensive reminders and invitations for an unusually long time. Like water dripping, the product tickler is always there. Persistence can work well, as long as the payoff balances the total marketing spend.

7. Be Ubiquitous. When you can’t escape the product presence – when reminders and samples of it are easily available on every corner, postered on every wall, in every bookstore, your awareness and eventual ascension to the product is inevitable. Just ask Starbucks, McDonalds, or Coca-Cola.

6. More channels = more sales. When your product comes in multiple forms – books, movies, storefronts, people – it has just that many more ways to reach you. Drug dealers learned this years ago, and coffee-vendors caught on shortly thereafter. How many coffee-flavored things can you name… edible or otherwise?

5. Get Personal. People respond best to people. If you can engage an army of marketers & salespeople at zero cost to your company, you’ll have good success. For even better success, as Cutco has demonstrated, have your salespeople pay you (by buying their own display kits) to join.

4. Exert Tight Message Control. Any major brand knows that the secret to great PR is to ensure any and all images of them as portrayed in “official” media are consistent and positive – and negative views are sufficiently controlled and suppressed that they end up all being rumors.

3. Ensure Your Sales Pitch Is Inoffensive. If there’s nothing to object to, there’s no objections to your beginning a relationship with a potential sale. Who wouldn’t want a free demo of that vacuum cleaner, a chance to win $1mm – or a free stress test?

2. Ensure Your Sales Pitch Has Universal Appeal. A stress test? Guidance? Help? Who wouldn’t want these things!

1. Last but not least, Be Well Funded. Given two marketing campaigns otherwise identical, the one with more coverage wins (just watch the presidential elections). Remember, when all else is put aside, money talks.

Enjoy, and say hi to L. Ron Hubbard and those nice people down at the bookstore for me…

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Cars as Billboards: Flowered Taxis, Marketing Vehicles, and not-so Stupid Marketing

2008-02-21T22:05:55Z

It had to happen. Vehicles have become a marketing vehicle.

First, there were signs on the tops of taxis and the sides of trucks. (It makes sense, you have a big white truck that you’re paying for anyway, might as well use the space to talk about what’s in the truck… or anything else that would appeal to people who’d see the truck).

Then, it morphed to wrapping or magnetic-signing busses. Then private cars. Then, the creation of true mobile billboards – large trucks or trailers that were nothing but the sign, no cargo, hired to drive around in target demographic areas.

Now we’ve come full circle, and we’re back to taxi cabs… only this time, it’s inside the cabs. Television and web has migrated to flatscreen televison displays inside the taxis in New York city.

I love this.

Why?

It’s almost perfect marketing, in that it is:

• Targeted: Taxi users are typically business or wealthy customer end-consumers. This is a proven market for advertising via fixed-channel television – see the results of studies done on “elevator TV” in manhatten.

• In accordance with the vehicle: Yellow Cabs are like the Empire State Building – they’re an icon of New York. So one has to be careful when tinkering with their brand –as- a yellow cab. Even the recent (temporary) painting of many cabs with flower designs generated some controversy. But the television screen simply replaces the ubiquitous radio of last decade – it appeals to the (otherwise bored) riders… and it can be turned off.

• Multifunctional: Unlike the radio, the touch-sensitive screen units deliver your immediate location via map and GPS, CNN news, local information, weather, and more.

• Benefits the target prospect: I had a colleague say “I love the live-updated map, it makes me feel more secure”. I like the news and credit-card payment function – no more carrying wads and wads of cash. I don’t mind the ads… what else am I going to do?

• Benefits the vehicle: Ignoring the benefit to the taxi company from selling ad space, and the controversy about GPS (some drivers felt that they’d be tracked too closely) – the fact is that from a tipping perspective, the units work in the drivers favor. Tip is automatically suggested with a set of large one-touch buttons – and the lowest tip is the larger of two dollars or 20% of the ride… that has to add up!

So what’s the moral of the story, beyond “I love New York, touch-screens, and taxis”?

The moral is about win-win marketing. Look at the marketing you’re doing, and vehicles you’re using, from direct mail to radio & TV to webinars. Are your vehicles providing benefit to everyone involved? Are they multifunctional, easily changeable to new messages? Are they targeted?

If you don’t know, go look – and if you still can’t tell what “the right way” looks like, come take a ride in a New York cab. Last mile’s on me.

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