Thoughts on Marketing
Public Relations
PR is an effort by a company to provide publications and other information outlets with relevant and interesting information for their audiences. The publication will decide whether or not to disseminate the information, and they are in control of the content. The advantage is that it provides publicity and an assumption of expertise. The negative is that the publisher is in complete control of what information is sent out, if any at all.
Loyal Customers Will Buy The End of the World More Than Once
0370 days
Oh, no. May 21 turns out not to be the end of the world. Imagine my embarrassment and disappointment when I awoke to that fact sometime Sunday afternoon. Now clearly, Harold Camping, who went out on the craziest of limbs is now proven to be a lunatic…or perhaps a great marketer.
Among the ways to measure a greatest of marketing campaigns is to see if the language has changed as a result. Xerox is a classic example as is Kleenex. More recently Google and Yahoo are words to gain meanings from marketing. The “gay” lifestyle took the word for their own. It meant something different in the 1920’s, and a tweet was the sound a bird made before Twitter stole it.
Now, search the word “rapture” online. Harold Camping owns it. What is an even better piece of marketing, is that “rapture” is used as a word to describe natural disasters so bad that they kill nearly every person on earth. It takes brilliance to use a word with such a positive definition to describe the most tragic and horrible episode in human history.
Now that the world hasn’t ended, though, what is a marketer to do? Why not reschedule it. That’s right, when the end of the world is inconvenient, just click and drag it down your calendar to a more convenient date.
But it works. I guarantee his popularity increases. One other premise of marketing is never think a tightly defined audience is too small. An overwhelming majority of people think he has no credibility at all. Some are disgusted by his audacity and hold very negative feelings toward him. But why should he care about them? There will be a group to whom he appeals even more. That is his audience.
The publicity he uses to reach them is free, the billboards that triggered it should get nowhere near the views they have received. It has been masterful in that he looks ridiculous to 99% of the people. But by doing so, he can reach that 1% that is his potential audience, and he reaches nearly all of that one percent this way. The only way he doesn’t benefit from such a great marketing plan is if he turns out to be right this time.
Don’t Underestimate the Power of a Strong Brand
0649 days
"Come out with your hands up", and "My fellow Americans." kind of look the same.
“Blagojevich’s target audience is 12 people, and he needs only to deliver a convincing branded message to one of them.” That is how I ended my blog entry on May 19. Today proves the Blago brand is alive and well.
One of the most important marketing tenets, and one of the most difficult to understand is that there is no such thing as bad publicity.
Blago was always out there. He never stopped talking. Day after day, he ate away at the distance between himself and the rest of us. He didn’t need to be a welcome guest. He was an object of our ridicule, and even disgust. But he became a brand we knew.
As I post this, the verdict is an hour old. He may or may not be tried again. His appeal may or may not hold up. But from where I sit, it is pretty clear that he won’t pay for much of a crime, if he does any time at all.
My guess is that he won’t take his own advice. He doesn’t talk too much. In fact, he talks just enough. Another tenet is that just as you are getting sick of your advertising campaign, the audience is just starting to notice it. He will, and should, talk more than ever, and let his brand grow.
“I’ve Got This Apprentice Thing and It is Golden”
0740 days
"One million dollars going once, twice, sold!"
One of the most brilliant marketers of our time has to be former Illinois Governor, Rod Blegojevich. He was abruptly run out of office because he had been caught red handed trying to sell advantages of his position, for his own enrichment. He has managed to turn that situation by rebranding himself as a nice guy being persecuted.
I know the situation is ugly and distasteful, but anyone can market the next great invention. It is a real trick, however, to keep this man out of jail, let alone make him popular and sympathetic…or mabye making him sympathetic is how you keep him out of jail.
But, his most recent actions on “The Apprentice” have us leaning back in our chairs in absolute wonder. He was run off of the show, mostly due to his own apparent incompetence. He couldn’t send an e-mail, couldn’t figure out how to type a single paragraph, and had no idea how to text message. The show highlighted these foibles, and in the end, they led to his defeat on the show.
But did they conribute to his legal defense? Lets face it, the only people who can’t text are today’s thirty somethings, who are too old to have grown up with it and too young to have children who did. But Blogo’s kids are texting, you can guarantee that. Therefore his whole family is, including him. But displaying an inability in all things electronic may help him argue that he couldn’t possibly have written that e-mail or text message himself. If he pulls it off, it will be part of an ingenius plan, brilliantly executed.
So how does he apply marketing principles to this? It is in the audience. When Red Bull first came out, there were no energy drinks, and no demand for them either. But Red Bull identified a segment of the audience that would be receptive to their message, creating that need. The audience doesn’t need to be large. If you are the only one in a category that is right for them, you’ll succeed.
Blogojevich’s target audience is 12 people, and he needs only to deliver a convincing branded message to one of them.
