Is your brand an April Fool’s joke?

March 21, 2011

Some brands are better suited at being playful than others.  The same is true of their customers. With the pending arrival of April Fool’s Day, you may be thinking about pulling a fast one on your unsuspecting clients.  Tread slowly…

While most people enjoy a good chuckle… you walk a fine line when it comes to practical jokes.  Some people like to laugh but really hate it when the laugh is on them.

Last year, several big name brands shouted “gotcha” at their loyal followers and it seems like none are any worse for the wear.

Google asked members to sign up to test the newly unveiled “store everything” feature in Google Docs. Google Docs was allowing users to store more than documents; they could store their pet rock collections, winter clothes, apartments and even their pets for a competitive price.

Starbucks announced that in response to customers requesting more beverage sizes, they were introducing the 128-ounce “Plenta” and the 2-ounce “Micra.” Starbucks explained that the additions were a result of direct customer feedback from MyStarbucksIdea.com and a year’s worth of research.

As seen above, Nike released a video revealing the secret behind where they get the air for Nike Air shoes. The video explains that the air is collected from star athletes to help you perform at your best.

GameStation added an “immortal soul clause” into their terms and conditions in which consumers surrendered their souls to the company if they chose not to opt out of the clause. GameStation collected a total of 7,500 souls who decided to skip the terms and conditions (or didn’t mind the new clause).

Coldplay revealed on their website that they had released a perfume called, “Angst.” The  bottle was featured in the band’s online store but unfortunately it was all sold out. Frontman Chris Martin said, “This is something we’ve wanted to do for a long time. People like to smell nice and we thought we could help them out.”

What do you think?

• Is this a gimmick that only works for big consumer brands?
• Can you see this playing well with your customers?
• Is the risk of it backfiring worth taking to create big buzz?

Is retro marketing the way to sell?

March 16, 2011

The retro Mountain Dew can

It makes some sense.  How do you appeal the the 75+ million baby boomers?  You help them take a trip down memory lane by giving your product a retro make-over.

I saw this Mountain Dew can on the shelf a month ago and immediately noticed how blatant they were in their efforts.  They’re calling it a throwback and making no apologies.

An added bonus — teens think retro is cool too.  With one packaging shift, this trend has captured the two buying groups with the most disposable income.  Teens and boomers.  Pretty smart.

And it’s not just a gimmick.  It’s a smart sales strategy. Pepsico is reporting that after a few months, the retro can have added one share point to sales, which equates to about $220 million in annual sales.  (They’ve also released a retro Pepsi can but my Coke preference precludes me from putting the other cola’s picture on my blog!)

It’s not just food products who are jumping on this retro bandwagon.  Nike launched the Air Jordan retro sneakers in February, Disney put huge dollars behind their Tron sequel and look at how many VW beetles you see on the road.

Last month, we had a lively conversation about what sells better — pointing to the past or the future.  How do you think the idea of retro fits into that mixture?

Stellar QR codes example – WorldPark

March 13, 2011

I’ve been writing about and using QR codes quite a bit of late.  I think the potential of this technology is staggering and we’ve only begun to imagine what is possible.

Take a look at what New York City’s Central Park did last Arbor Day and begin to ask yourself… how could QR codes serve my customers, my employees and my business’ growth.  I suspect you’ll find some pretty fascinating answers.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OCyfV_k2_g&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

If you’re wondering who in the world is actually scanning QR codes and using the links — check out this infographic.

Related articles

• 21 Innovative QR Codes – From Hi-Tech Graves to Tortilla QR Codes (TrendHunter.com) (trendhunter.com)
• Who’s scanning all these QR codes? [infographic] (holykaw.alltop.com)
• How to Create QR Codes and Share Them (lockergnome.com)

Why would you want to enchant someone?

March 11, 2011

Guy Kawasaki’s enchanting new book

As you know, I talk about creating love affairs with your customers a lot here on the blog.  Why do I think it’s so critical?  Let’s look at how people behave when they’re in the bloom of a new love.

• They find the other person intoxicating — they crave more.
• They can’t help themselves.  They talk about their new love all the time.  To everyone and anyone who will listen.
• They are very forgiving of missteps or mistakes.
• They want to be good and helpful to their new love — what matters to that person suddenly matters to them as well.

Now translate that back to a customer, donor, employee, volunteer, boss or vendor.  What organization wouldn’t want those very important people to feel that way towards them?

And keep in mind…this isn’t a one way street.  You have to genuinely treat them the same way.  Or the love is very short lived. At McLellan Marketing Group, we call it creating a love affair.  Guy Kawasaki calls it being Enchanting* in his new book of the same title.  Potato, potato. (You did read those two words differently, right?)

The book’s basic premise is this:  “enchantment is not about manipulating people.  It transforms situations and relationships. It converts hostility into civility and civility into affinity.  It changes skeptics and cynics into believers and the undecided into the loyal.”

Again I ask the same question — what organization wouldn’t want to be able to inspire and instill that spirit?

But as you know, I’m not into books that get us fired up to do/be something without telling us how.  (The former is just mean teasing)  Guy’s books pushes past the why and gets to the how before page 10.  In fact, chapters 2-12 all start with the word “how.”  That’s the sign of a book I can use.

You really need to read this book. (You can buy it by clicking here*) With a note pad and pen at hand, because you’re going to get a lot of fresh ideas that you want to capture.

You can also test your own “realistic enchantment aptitude” and if you want an awesome sneak preview…check out this infographic that Guy prepared.

*This is an Amazon affiliate link.  While I am confessing, I should also tell you that Guy sent me a copy of the book for free and I swore twice yesterday.  And I just lied.  I really swore three times.

Fascinating Facebook infographic

March 9, 2011

I think there are few on this planet who don’t recognize that the Facebook phenomenon is staggering in its reach and sheer volume of people.  (One guy just named his baby Facebook!) But it’s hard to not gape at some of these numbers (from SocialHype and OnlineSchools.org) These user statistics are more social proof that this beast is not a fad.

Hard to imagine that there’s not a smart way for every single business to use this tool.  Are you using it?

Via: Online Schools

Add sounds and links to your images

March 8, 2011

Singing pictures?

Picture these scenarios:

In your online store — you want to show a photo of a family room, filled with your products.  You want people to be able to click on each of the items (maybe a lamp or blu-ray player) to purchase them or read reviews.  With ThingLink, you can.

On your static website, you want to include some customer testimonials.  So you post their photos…but you want people to be able to click on them to hear exactly what they have to say.  With ThingLink, you can.

You’re a musician and you want to create a website where beautiful imagery is connected to specific songs or you want to create an online flyer for a concert, offering song samples that people can post on their Facebook page.  With ThingLink, you can.

What’s Thinglink?  It’s brand new technology launched today by ThingLink and SoundCloud. For the first time, it is possible to link a SoundCloud waveform player to any photo or picture, thereby connecting the subject to sounds, music and effects, voice annotations and narrations.

Users can also include links to social networks, blogs, news and commerce web sites, as well as email.  You can also add up to 250 characters to a hover over so you can describe elements of a photo or a product.

This is brand new stuff so there aren’t a lot of examples yet.  But check out these photos from the Stockholm Furniture Fair (click here) or musician Shambhu’s site. (click here)

What’s even cooler is that the links/sounds travel with the images, as they’re passed along.  So imagine the reach that testimonial or band’s flyer can have on Facebook or Twitter!

As is the way of this era, you can grab a free account at www.ThingLink.com.

I’m curious — how can you see marketing folks using this technology?

Direct mail marketing do’s and don’ts

March 7, 2011

I’ve always been a fan of direct mail, especially 3-D direct mail.  It’s pretty tough for someone to ignore a package addressed to them.  Assuming you’re mailing to the right audience — it can be very effective.

I get a fair amount of 3-D direct mail related to the blog and my agency McLellan Marketing Group.  So I thought we could examine two recent efforts and glean some do’s and don’ts.

A party in a box!

The first mailing came in a huge box and as you can see, it was this metal wash basin, filled with microbrew beers and some snacks.   All it needed was some ice and we were ready to go.

My own personalized mini trash can!

The second mailing came in a smaller box and the box itself was part of the message.  Inside the box was a small novelty trash can and a personalized message adhered to the inside lid.  Inside the trash can was the sales letter. (The teaser copy on the lid directed me to open the trash can.)

Let’s dig into the do’s and don’ts and see how these two efforts fared.

The Do’s:

Address it to the right person: Spell their name correctly and be sure you use the right “version” of their name.   My full name is Andrew but no one calls me that.  I know that you don’t have a clue who I am if the label says Andrew McLellan instead of Drew McLellan.

Tie what’s in the package to your message:  Don’t just send me something random.  Help me remember who you are and what you are selling by making the 3-D gift part of the message.

Give me the next step: Once I open the package, it’s my move.  So what do you want me to do?  Visit a website, send in a bounce back card, call you or wait for you to call me?

The Don’ts:

Don’t do a one and done: No matter how clever your mailing is, remember that in  marketing, frequency still matters.   So plan a series (you can mix flat and 3-D mailing to keep the budget in line) or tie the 3-D mailing to some other efforts (e-mail, calls, or even mass media).

Put yourself on the list: Unless you are assembling each package by hand, make sure you are on the recipient list.  You want to see how it looks from the receiver’s point of view.  Did the box get all dinged up?  Was everything still in place or had the contents gotten jumbled in transit?  Was everything that was supposed to be in the package included?

Don’t let the coy thing play out too far: Teaser campaigns can be a lot of fun.  But, they only work if you pay off the tease pretty quickly.  Odds are you’ve invested a fair amount of money in this campaign.  So don’t waste it by not being clear about who it’s from and what should happen next.

So let’s go back and grade our two examples.  The beer basin was addressed correctly, but that’s the only Do it got right.  There was no message included in the box.  I have no idea who it was from or what they wanted me to do next.  Which is a real shame, because I am sure it cost a pretty penny.

On the Don’t list — obviously the coy thing, if the anonymity was intentional, was played out way too long.  It’s been a couple weeks and I still haven’t heard another word.  Which also means, at this point, it’s a one and done.  So while it was an awesome mailing — memorable and something I will remember, it didn’t do much from a direct mail point of view.

On the flip side, the simple trash can mailing, which was clearly less expensive and a little more home grown, got all of the Do’s and Don’ts right.  The message and next steps were very clear.  I’ve already received an e-mail follow up and the mailing came through with everything in place.

You don’t have to spend an arm and a leg to create an effective 3-D mailing campaign.  Far better to do it simply but well.  (And if you send me the beer — please let me know so I can say thank you!)

How about you — what’s the most memorable 3-D direct mail piece you ever received?

Visual creativity

March 2, 2011

Last week, we talked about how we keep our brains firing and stay creative.  Many people offered the tip of reading and absorbing other people’s smart work.  That goes for design work as well — whether you are a writer or artist.

One of the best examples of outdoor creative is this brilliant outdoor campaign. Along the “outdoor” theme…here are some very clever and compelling visuals applied to public spaces/buildings.

Spark any ideas?

Coop’s Paints/Nationwide Insurance

AllState Insurance

Anando Milk

If you enjoyed these…check out all 20 of them by clicking here.

Hat tip to Mike Colwell for sharing this link with me.

Get snipped so you can watch the big game?

February 28, 2011

Is this a mad advertising idea?

I’m all for being fresh and innovative in your creative approach.  And when you sell something like vasectomies, you are no doubt even more challenged.

So I’m intrigued to get your opinion about a local clinic’s latest advertising message.

Here in Iowa, the Iowa Clinics is, according to their own website, “the largest physician owned multi-specialty group in Central Iowa with more than 140 physicians and healthcare providers practicing in 37 specialties. The Iowa Clinic serves a population area of 1.1 million, averaging 400,000 patient visits each year.”

So a large practice with many top rated physicians.  They’re regular advertisers and like many healthcare providers, their marketing tends to be about what you’d expect.  But not their most recent TV spots.

To paraphrase their entire spot — when you get a vasectomy, you have to take a few days off, sit on the couch and recuperate.  So why not time your vasectomy so you can enjoy March Madness?

What do you think?  Good idea?  Will it move people from the thinking about it stage to taking action?  Bad idea?  Is it tacky to tie a medical procedure to watching a sporting event?

I can’t wait to get your take — so please jump into the conversation in the comments section.

Note:  As I discovered, this is clearly not a new approach.  Here are some other articles about the combining of the two:

• NPR story
• A vasectomy, frozen peas, The NCAA tournament and You
• Vasectomy and March Madness?

Congrats to my book winners!

February 27, 2011

I won?  I really won?

Over the past couple weeks, I had 2 copies of Harry Beckwith’s Unthinking* and 3 copies of The Now Revolution* by Amber Naslund and Jay Baer to give away, based on participating in the comments section of the blog.

I’m happy to announce our winners:

Harry Beckwith’s Unthinking:

Steve S. and Jeanne Dininni

Amber & Jay’s The Now Revolution:

Scott Townsend, Kristina Carson and Andy N

If you’ll please e-mail me your mailing address (send it to drew@mclellanmarketing.com) I’ll be sure the book is on it’s way to you!

Thanks for taking the time to add to the conversation!

*These are Amazon affiliate links.