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Quiznos sponge monkeys revisited – Buzz isn’t enough

December 3, 2008

When I say Quizno’s "Spongmonkeys" odds are you know what I am talking about. Considering the short time that campaign ran, that is a very effective demonstration in the power of creating a buzz.

In case you aren’t familiar… back in 2004, Quiznos launched a campaign starring some odd sponge monkeys created in the UK. Apparently someone say the sponge monkeys, shared them with the agency (The Martin Agency) representing Quiznos and voila….buzz was born.

Here’s one of the spots, just to jog your memory. (E-mail and RSS subscribers…click on the headline to see the TV spot)

But the little creepy creatures only lived a short while before the plug was pulled on the campaign.

Why?

While the campaign had us all talking about Quiznos, it did not have us eating their food. Their sales numbers were down. The second and perhaps even more compelling reason is that the franchisees hated the campaign. Although the restaurants’ target audience is 18-34 year olds and the spots were cewated with this audience in mind — they sort of forgot about the other critical audience, their own franchisees. And most of them were over 35+ and have to live with people commenting on the campaign every single day. And the comments weren’t pretty.

Would it have smarter to do a little market research and see if anyone had an adverse reaction to coupling food with rodents? Yes. Would it have been smarter to share the campaign with the front line franchisees, that can make or break a campaign’s success? Yes.

The lesson for all of us? Buzz for buzz sake is just not enough. If the strategy isn’t sound and the key players are not on board, odds are not in your favor.

Put yourself in the Quiznos marketing director’s shoes. You’ve launched the campaign. People are reacting (both positively and negatively) with great emotion. You are getting pressured to pull the plug. What could you do to take advantage of the buzz on both sides of the fence?

Marketing Rocks. You’re A Marketing Leader. Act That Way. (Steve Roesler)

December 2, 2008

While I’m on vacation, I’ve asked some very smart bloggers whom I am fortunate to consider my friends, to share some insights with you. Enjoy their brilliance because before you know it, you’ll be stuck with me again! I’m back tomorrow, so soak up this last bit of smarts.

Last but in no way least, Steve Roesler.

"One measure of leadership is the caliber of people who choose to follow you.”

–Dennis A. Peer

Do you measure your contribution and success by the caliber of the people who follow you? In this case, let’s talk about clients.

I’m betting that most people are simply "happy to have clients." I read the news.

I also read my own financials to find out what’s profitable and who is profitable. Not all clients are created equal. Right now it’s easy to ignore cost-of-doing-business in order to opt for any business at all. So let me ask you this:

Are you in business for the long haul?

If so, you’ve already looked at how to differentiate yourself from the pack "technically." Now it’s time to rise higher above the crowd as a Marketing Leader by the caliber of your clientele.

No Gas But Plenty of Yacht Buyers

In the ’70s I lived in a tiny town in New Jersey whose main employer was Pacemaker Yachts. These 60-foot puppies sold for six figures in 1970s dollars. At the same time, gas was being rationed on odd/even days according to the number on one’s license plate. Bad times, eh?

One morning I walked to the diner (uh, it was New Jersey) for an artery-clogging breakfast. Seated at the table across from me was the Sales Manager of Pacemaker Yachts, comedian Jerry Lewis, and Olympic swimming champ-turned-Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller. A deal was being closed for the purchase of two yachts while I was counting the change in my pocket to make sure I could leave a decent tip.

What I learned was this:

In bad times, people with lots of money still buy lots of expensive, exclusive things.
The publicity from this sale–due to the fame and "quality" of the clients–generated more business from "quality" clients.
The company shut down it’s small-boat, dinghy operation. Not enough buyers, not enough profit margin, and no publicity when someone did make a purchase.

Who Are Your Yacht Buyers and Dinghy Dwellers?

According to a survey of U.S. senior executives, marketing will be the most important area of expertise for the next-generation of leaders.

The study, commissioned by the Institute of International Research, sought to identify key areas for leaders. Marketing was the clear choice, with 31% of votes, followed by 20% for operations and 16% for financial expertise. Sales and engineering were deemed least critical to leadership with 11 and 6% respectively.

I’m choosing to take this as super-encouraging news. It means that organizational leaders are becoming increasingly knowledgeable about, and accountable for, marketing. It also indicates that the importance of marketing won’t be the "sell" that it had to be in the past. Leadership and Marketing now appear on the landscape as intertwined.

With that in mind:

Sit down today and figure out who, in your world, are the Yacht Buyers and the Dinghy Dwellers.
Are you willing to allow those DD’s to float out to sea while you free up time to target your Yacht Buyers?
Will your decision position you as a profitable Marketing Leader or a weekend sailor?

Life is filled with choices. Successful lives are filled with wise choices.

Your choices and the actions that follow will reveal the kind of marketing life you really want.

Drew’s Note: Steve Roesler is one of those guys who just seems to know quite a bit about everything. His blog, All Things Workplace, has won many an award and earned Steve a legion of fans. I’ve always found him to be not only smart as a whip, but incredibly generous and quite witty. Who could ask for more?

The Art Of Listening In Social Media (Jason Falls)

December 1, 2008

I recently posed the question to a group of advertising professionals, “What do you think the first step to social media success is?” The answers I got were varied and some were close to being right but most of them made the common mistake of concentrating on the technology. “Get an IT guy who can translate all that web stuff,” is a common response.

But social media isn’t about technology, it’s about communications. The technology is just a common mechanism that facilitates the message exchange.

The first step to success in social media is listening.

But how do you listen to millions of blogs, posts on social networks and billions of websites? Well, it’s easier than you think. Here’s how:

Google Alerts
Go to http://www.google.com/alerts and type in a search for your brand or company name. Select “Comprehensive” as the type and “Once a day” for how often then put in your email address. Now do the same for your CEO’s name, any variations or additions to your company or brand (sub-brands, divisions, etc.). You’ll get an email once daily for each alert. Click on the links and see what people are saying about you.

You’ll want to refine your search term based on the number of irrelevant links you get. For instance, a search for “fruit loops” may yield lots of posts about fruit or even posts on roller coasters talking about loops. By adding quotation marks in the search term (“fruit loops”) instead of (fruit loops), you’ll get more relevant posts.

If you’d like to keep the links, sign up for and use a bookmarking site like Delicious.com. By using a one-click bookmarklet (or button on your browser’s top frame) and filling out a few simple fields about the page you’re saving, you can organize and save and endless number of pages. (For my bookmarks on public relations, click here.)

You can also take the efficiency one step further and subscribe to the Google Alerts as a feed in your favorite RSS Feed Reader. If you don’t know what an RSS Feed Reader is, go watch the CommonCraft video. It will change how efficiently you surf the web.

Other Listening Mechanisms
Keep in mind Google Alerts doesn’t catch everything. You’ll also want to conduct searches of Twitter and perhaps even a more advanced search of blogs using Bloglines, Icerocket or Technorati. But these results listings come with RSS feeds as well, making it very easy to manage. (Hint: You really ought to figure out that RSS thing.)

For more advanced listening, there are a number of paid services that not only help you identify who is saying what about your company, but also provide analysis and insights to help you … or pretty charts and graphs for the CEO who doesn’t want to try and understand it. Those services range from economical (Radian6, BuzzLogic, BrandWatch) which normally don’t include human analysis, to pricey (Nielsen Online, Cymfony, Collective Intellect). Some, like K.D. Paine & Partners, offer both do-it-yourself solutions and full-service reporting.

I’m Listening. Now What?
Now that you’re keeping up with what the world is saying about you or your product or service, you need to know what to do with it. There are several schools of though here, but let’s look at some examples:

1. Dell Computers was suffering from historically bad PR in 2006 when they decided to start listening to their customers. Now, Lionel Menchaca and others in the blogging/social media effort at Dell try to respond to ever mention of Dell online, be it on a blog, Twitter or elsewhere. All listening has done for Dell is turn their customer service reputation around, 180-degrees.

2. Comcast Cares monitors Twitter for mentions of cable issues, access problems and more when someone mentions the company. Again, the customer service reputation for Comcast, at least within the Twitter community, gets high marks.

3. You can also just choose to respond to only the negative, or at least only those that might be inaccurate. In January, Sara from Breaking Up With Bread posted her concerns that Maker’s Mark bourbon may have aggravated her gluten intolerance and made her sick. When the master distiller posted a comment not only assuring her there were no glutens in the bourbon, but even provided a link to a government study that verified that, the blogger posted an apology and took the entire post off her blog.

4. And, of course, the baby step is to respond to the positive to engender a multiplier effect on the good vibes. By posting thank yous when people mention your brand, it at least sends a message to the writers and readers of that particular post that you are, in fact, listening. But I would caution you that if you do this, people will expect you to respond to the negative as well. Be prepared, even if this method is the toe in the water.

Listening is really the easy part. It’s knowing how to respond and react to what you hear that is the fundamental indicator of how a company will be received in the social media space. While each company or brand will need to develop their own personality in doing so, the key to success is simple:

Respond online the way you would respond to the same thing being said in person and in public and the way you would want to be responded to if you were voicing the concern.

As risky as it might seem, as intimidating as the permanence of the web is, it just takes removing the marketing hat, setting aside your tendency to try and control the message and just have a conversation with people. Try it. It will change the outcomes to your liking.

Drew’s Note: Jason Falls is a stand up guy. He is an natural conversationalist, which may be why he gets social media like nobody’s business. He’s the director of social media at Doe-Anderson, a brand-building agency in Louisville, Ky. He is the author of SocialMediaExplorer.com, a leading social media, public relations, marketing and communications blog. He’s also completely ga ga over his kids. Another reason to like him.

The profit and loss (Anna Farmery)

November 30, 2008

Branding is so often seen as the external face of the company. Yet, in my opinion the brand is not what ‘you say it is’, it is what the ‘consumers feel it is’…….and that feeling is created by the people within your organization. To engage consumers, you need to engage employees first and foremost.

After saying that, we must not over complicate this idea of employee engagement and branding. I remember calling round to see my Dad and talking to him about our new internal branding program, he looked at me and said "Can I give you some advice. Don’t make this complicated. What you are talking about is actually being a good leader, forget trying to ‘create an internal brand’, just do 2 things:

1) Allow communication to flow – make sure everyone is listening, talking with and understanding each other…..make sure that people feel excited by what they can achieve – yes as a person, but also as an important part of the team…and you can only do that if you understand what excites them.

2) Understand you cannot create a brand, you create a product or service and an advertising slogan…it is the consumers, the employees that ultimately decide the real brand promise. So concentrate on what you can control, that is how people feel in every interaction with you and not on what you cannot control, and that is how people think.

And you know Anna, (my Dad went on to say) the profit and loss is not a picture of financial wealth, it is a picture of emotional, brand health."

Is the brand providing continuous perceived value – are sales growing?
Is the brand offering something different in the marketplace – is the margin healthy?
Do you have the right balance between creative and process efficiency? – Value added ?
Is your leadership and management team, leading, managing and engaging – Net Profit?

I went back from that conversation with Dad and worked through the figures. What was interesting, actually startling…was that when you broke that profit and loss down, either into functions or profit centers then the following was true:

The high achieving departments compared to objectives had the highest engagement scores.
The high achieving subsidiaries had the highest engagement scores.
The highest customer satisfaction scores came from units with the highest engagement scores.
The lowest performing unit had the lowest engagement scores and the lowest customer satisfaction scores.
All the breakthrough new products or services had come from the high engagement teams.

Great brands understand that engagement comes from within the organization and great brands understand that the way to value engagement is to measure engagement.

The profit and loss is not just a financial statement, it is also a statement on your brand engagement.

Drew’s Note: Anna spends her days helping clients understand that branding begins at home. One of my favorite aspects of her blog, The Engaging Brand, is when she recalls the wisdom of her dad and how he influenced her world view. She also produces one of the most popular weekly podcasts around. You’ll love every episode and want to go back and listen to all the archived editions too. Check it out here.

Five ways to gain notice without losing your shirt (Steve Woodruff)

November 29, 2008

It’s a major challenge for any small business to get noticed. How do you compete with the marketing budgets of larger, established players in your field? And how do you do it without breaking the bank, while still projecting a quality image?

Happily, we live in a time when there are many tools available for gaining exposure. Let’s take a look at a handful of ways you can get noticed that rely on "cheap creativity," rather than extravagant spending.

1. Share your expertise.
Surely you have something to offer to your target audience – unique perspectives, industry knowledge, a network of connections, learning resources. You become a value resource (and a presumed expert) when you share.

The tools now available for systematic sharing blogs, e-newsletters, social media platforms) are ridiculously inexpensive – oftentimes free – so the only barrier to entry is your commitment of time and energy.

My consulting business is founded on an industry blog and newsletter, and a determination to create new connections. No extraordinary technical or artistic talent is needed to establish yourself as a helpful expert. But in the long haul, nothing is more effective!

2. Create a memorable "signature."
Incorporate something in the way that you deal with people that makes you outstandingly memorable. In a past job, one of my co-workers would receive correspondence from a business person who always included a stick of gum in each letter. Memorable.

I remember one conference speaker (male) who came out wearing red shoes. Memorable.

I have a caricature that is included in my e-mail signature – the best $50 I ever spent starting up my business. Memorable. There is a lot of noise out there, and you can find a way to rise above it with something simple and creative.

3. Create a unique and enduring "giveaway."
I’ve seen a thousand forgettable giveaways from many years of going to conferences and doing business. But the best ones are outstandingly unique, or they last a long time.

Candy bars and pens have a short-shelf life. Unique mugs, branded ear buds, classy business card holders, or other such items stand a better chance of keeping your identity and message in front of prospects.

I just came back from an exhibit area where a company had hired folks to roll cigars right on the booth – and was giving them away with lighters and cigar cutters! Bingo!

4. Network.
Be part of professional organizations, go to local meetings, volunteer your time. Be involved, and help get your clients involved.

Consider professional networking platforms, such as LinkedIn. Your best marketing is word-of-mouth recommendations from those who like you and your company, and as you add value to others by networking and sharing resources, they will do the same for you.

Yes, it takes time and effort – but you will have no more effective marketing strategy than building a supportive group of cheerleaders.

5. Finally, and most importantly, have a simple message.
This can’t be underscored enough. You will not be remembered if you blend into the background of a hundred other companies saying the same thing. Work hard with a branding expert to refine your message and your identity, and find a way to occupy your niche in a unique way.

Don’t try to be all things to all people. Seek to be the best thing for a small number of people. Succeed at that, then grow outward as you are able.

These simple steps can help you jump-start a business with very little (green) capital expenditure. And if you want others, here are five steps Drew outlined earlier this year. Do these 10 things and you’ll be well on your way to business success!

Drew’s Note: Steve Woodruff is one of those guys who is constantly a surprise. He’s an entrepreneur and consultant, focusing on helping his pharmaceutical clients develop optimal training and communications programs (His pharma blog). But then he’s also the guy posting some hysterical work on his StickyFigure blog as he probes social media. A man of mystery, of many sons and of wide feet. That is my friend, Steve.

Once again…your brand is not your logo

November 28, 2008

Image by Will Lion via Flickr

I travel all over the country, speaking at conferences and conventions on marketing, branding and social media. One of my most popular and requested presentations for the past couple years is Your Brand Is Not Your Logo.

And yet, I find so many people still mis-define branding. Your logo, tagline, color palette etc. are simply tools you use to connect people to your brand.

So, I always enjoy conversations with other marketing pros who share my take on branding. I recently had the opportunity to ask Bobby Riley, CEO of Soldier Design, a few questions. As you’ll see Bobby gets branding. I have to say — Bobby could come work at McLellan Marketing Group any time. He walks our talk. In fact, it’s the basis of our entire proprietary branding process.

Without further ado….Bobby Riley.

Why is branding such a difficult concept for business leaders to wrap their arms around?

Often business leaders get murked in the details and lose sight of the true brand when looking from the inside out. They sometimes forget that brands are about more intrinsic needs and emotions and connecting with the consumer than about the specific details of the product or service. Often these leaders need someone to help them to step outside of the day-to-day to gain perspective on what their brand means to consumers.

Difficulty can come with the inability to see the big picture in terms of relate-ability. Brand is so much more than a logo and a website showcasing a product or service. Brand is the true essence of the company; it should motivate all aspects of the business because it is what the company stands for.

By approaching “brand” as the core of the business, as the path to gaining a deeper connection to customers, constituents and employees, a loyal and lasting relationship can be born.

How is the Brandseeking process different from how most agencies approach branding?

At Soldier Design we have worked for years to develop a method that can assist companies in discovering their true brand. What we have found is that the hardest part of branding is to break away the layers of jargon and attempts at branding to expose the driving force of the business.

With the Brandseeking™ approach, we help management and everyone involved to overcome those obstacles. We look at the brand from a consumer perspective to focus on the elements that connect with the audience on a profound level. This allows us to help the company to rise above the sea of brands, go beyond simply understanding the aesthetics of brand to determine what drives all of its interdependencies.

Ultimately Soldier helps companies connect on an emotional level with their consumers. We utilize exercises for creating Brand Bonds that address mystery, intimacy, performance and trust. These elements lead us to arriving at what we call B.A.N.D.S. – Brands Achieving a Noble Disposition Successfully. With the B.A.N.D.S. perspective we can develop a direction for the company to move forward and fulfill a noble, honest, and trusting relationship with its consumers.

What is the role of the rank and file employees when it comes to brand? How should the company’s leaders engage them with the brand?

We help companies pull together a “brand counsel” that is responsible for maintaining and propelling the established brand and branding initiatives. This counsel is a great way to establish accountability within the organization because everyone must work together to push forward.

In terms of the rank and file employees it is imperative that they are represented in the brand counsel and feel accountability to the brand. The average Joes and Janes often can have greater clarity than executives deeply involved with specific aspects of the company, and that clarity offers an especially important perspective to the process which can also be important in driving the brand home to the consumer.

Indulging in my own gratitude (2008)

November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving! Even if you’re not in the states — why not take a moment today and remember some of the blessings you have in your life?

I try very hard to make every post in this blog about you. I want to infuse value, insights and fresh ideas in every post.

So I hope you’ll forgive me this annual self-indulgent post.

What I would love is to have you add to it with your own self-indulgent gratitude. That would make me feel better. (Does that make this post even more self-centered?)

Anyway…enough prelude.

In 2006 at the Balanced Life Center blog, Nneka created the Season of Gratitude. She invited other bloggers to share “a gratitude moment” and I couldn’t resist joining in back then and I can’t resist making this my annual Thanksgiving post.

Rather than create a laundry list of the incredible and plentiful blessings that I am surrounded with every day, I decided to narrow my focus to my greatest gift.

My daughter. She is quite simply the best part of me.

Her questions force me to find my own clarity. Her humor is the perfect salve for a stressful day. Her fears remind me of my own humanity and her teen-induced insecurities keep my heart tender.

Her zest for life’s delights feeds my spirit and her need to re-charge urges me to slow down now and then. Her laughter triggers my own (sometimes in the most inappropriate places and times) and her tears show me the depth of my own vulnerability.

Her drive to succeed tempers my own so we can talk about balance and her sense of discovery (both academic and of self) lets me indulge in the same.

Her need to learn about the responsibilities that come along with being given a good life allows me to share my talents unselfishly and take her along for the ride.

Her presence gives me purpose. Her future gives me hope. And her faith in me inspires me to be a better person.

She is my Jiminy Cricket. She is my legacy. And she is, every single day, my season of gratitude.

How about you….will you take a moment and share your season of gratitude with us?

I love lists (Todd Andrlik)

November 26, 2008

A wise man on YouTube once said Americans love lists. According to that man…

“A lot of people on the net are saying they’re sick of lists. They say lists are a cheap ‘link bait tactic.’ Oh you don’t like lists, huh? How about these lists:

1. The Civil Rights Act
2. The Bill of Rights
3. The Constitution

“You know who else didn’t like lists? Joseph Stalin. We don’t need less lists. We need more lists. We need lists of lists. We need lists within lists. We lists of lists of lists within lists of lists with an index, which is a list. Lists are the zero emission, renewable energy source that fuels the USA.”

So, in support of lists, here is my List of Lists (That Smart Marketing Pros Should Bookmark):

1. Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008

2. 50 Websites You’ll Wonder How You Lived Without

3. Top 10 Social Media Tools for PR Pros and Journalists

4. 10 Successful Logo Redesigns

5. 35+ Examples of Corporate Social Media in Action

6. 50 of the Best Websites for Writers

7. 13 Reasons Why Social Media Marketing is Worth Your Time

8. 10 Tactics That Could Save Your Online Reputation

9. 25 Free Stock Photo Sites

10. 11 Habits of the Worst Boss I Ever Had

11. 59 Things You Should Be Doing But Probably Aren’t

12. Top 10 Business Applications for Facebook

Drew’s Note: Todd Andrlik should be on a list by himself! This smart marketer painstakingly created the Power 150 list long before AdAge heard about it and invited him to share it with their readers. He’s a community advocate and also a collector of rare and historic newspapers.

Todd blogs at ToddAnd.com and cheers for the mighty Cubs. But I love him any way!

Do you make time to refuel?

November 25, 2008

Okay, I can see my co-workers, clients and the many people who receive e-mail from me at 2 am rolling their eyes as they read the headline. I’m sure someone is muttering something about a pot or a kettle.

But ignore them and hear me out. I admit it…I work too much, too hard and burn the midnight oil too often. But come on now — so do you. True?

The truth of the matter is…we’re all working too hard, too long and too much. Which means that it’s even more important for us to re-fill the tank now and then. We can’t possibly keep up the pace if we don’t pull in for a pit stop now and then.

If you’ve read this blog for more than a week or two, you know that I am a bit of a Disneyophile.

For me, there is no more relaxing, rejuvenating, refreshing and utterly peaceful place to be than in the middle of Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom with 20,000 of my fellow human beings.

I literally stand on that hallowed ground and take one of the deepest, most cleansing breaths of the year. And then it’s play time.

But have no fear…I have lined up a stellar cast of guest bloggers who are going to keep you thinking, wondering, planning and hopefully talking. Please give them a Marketing Minute welcome and jump into their conversations.

If you want to live vicariously with me as I stroll down Main Street, check out my free e-book, Marketing Lessons From Walt Disney.

And do me a favor….take a little time for yourself over the next few days and re-fill your tank. I want you to be ready to jump right back in when I get home in a week or so.

Name a medium and I’ve got a learning tool for you!

November 24, 2008

Sure, there’s a 4-day weekend coming up. At least for us Americans. You bet — lots of turkey and pumpkin pie. And football. Let’s not forget football. Or, if you prefer — shopping.

But sooner or later, your brain is going to ask for of a jump start. And I’ve got just the thing for you…no matter how you like to learn.

Special Report: Rain Today’s Face to Face Networking Guide: A Primer for Relationship Building

Rain Today is one of my favorite resources. Tons of good information, webinars, research reports and smart writing. They’re offering this free report as part of their 7-day free trial. Here’s how it works.

Sign up for their 7-day free trial.
Download the Networking Guide.
Explore all of their other resources, download all the articles, reports, etc. that you want/can.
Decide if you want to remain a member or cancel without any financial obligation.

E-book: Back to Basics by Deborah Chaddock Brown

Deborah’s e-book is a great marketing 101 primer. She asked me to review her manuscript and provide a quote for her cover. Here’s what I said:

"Deborah Chaddock Brown is a bold-faced LIAR!! She promises 30 tips to market your small business in her new book, Back to Basics.

But there have to be at least 50 of them in there! With easy to grasp examples, Deborah offers the small business owner a cornucopia of marketing tips, tricks and best of all, proven techniques for building a rock solid marketing foundation.

Read this book with pencil in hand because you’ll be taking notes in the margins as you plan your way to smarter, more effective marketing."

Software: Marketing Plan Pro by PaloAlto Software and Duct Tape Marketing

This interactive software takes the small business owner through a step-by-step process that helps them identify their target audience, key messages, forecast sales and expenses, and track your progress once you’ve completed the plan.

John Jantsch, founder of Duct Tape Marketing, has been serving the small business owner and helping them wrap their arms around marketing for a long time. His involvement with this project means you can count on receiving a quality product.

Web-based video learning: Web Video University

Through a virtual classroom online, you can learn how to craft, script and create high quality web videos to use on your website or blog.

The Web Video University course is broken down into four weekly lessons which will cover everything from content to the technical aspects like lighting and sound. Dave Kaminski walks you through all of the basics and often offers some cost-savings alternatives to going out and buying big ticket equipment.

There you have it…and if none of these trip your trigger — be sure to check out the Amazon widget in the sidebar. It’s filled with books that I highly recommend.

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