Thoughts on Marketing
Uncategorized
We’re not sure where these fall. But they are too good to leave out just because we can’t figure out where to put them.
Unsure About Social Media? Then Your Problem is Strategy
0301 days
Your audience is never as widely defined as you think. Your success depends on it being narrow.
There continues to be a lot of attention paid to social media. If you are not sure if social media is right for your company, your problems go deeper than whether your answer is yes or no. Despite the fact that social media requires a whole new way of looking at your relationship with customers (it is a conversation that the audience controls, not you just sending out a message you hope they receive), the fact is, it is just a medium. Just a tactic.
If you are unsure of its value to your company, that means your marketing strategy is not clear to you. When you understand your strategy, decisions on tactics and media almost make themselves. To see if your strategy is clear, answer these three questions.
- Think of your two closest competitors. What sets you apart from them?
- Create a profile of your primary audience?
- What is it about your company that makes you the best choice for that audience?
Now your score. Which is your longest answer? It should be question 2. You should be able to give an instant and fast answer to questions one and three. No more than two sentences should be necessary to state your brand promise, and it should roll off your tongue as easily as does your own name. But defining your audience should take more of an explanation, because a lot of things distinguish them from the overall audience of those who use a product like the one you offer. If you make tool kits for instance, they may be for automotive professionals, roofers, handymen, single women, do-it-yourselfers or those not handy at all. Your tool kits might be packaged for easy apartment storage, for accessibility from a pickup truck, etc. Meaning that despite the fact that most people need tools, yours are best suited for some very specific group of people.
Are the answers to question 1 and three the same? They should be. What makes your offering unique should come as an automatic answer to any question of that type. What makes you different from your competitors should be as easy to identify as that which sets you apart in the eyes of your audience. After all, how you appear in the eyes of your primary audience is all that counts.
Once you understand your audience, and your place among them, forming a strong message and delivering it is easy. You can make a strong case for or against the use of various media as long as you make your brand the priority.
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.
This TV Icon Should Create Icons
1672 days
Even the show itself has an advertising icon.
Here we are with another season of Mad Men. Of course I enjoy the show. How could I not? I live it here, right down to smoking in the office (don’t tell the city please). We even have a retro martini bar that is our favorite stop after work.
But there is one thing about the show that bugs me. In advertising, the era of the 60s was famous for its use of advertising icons. In fact, many of those icons have endured until today. Tony the Tiger, The Green Giant and Mr. Whipple were but a few still in use. But Josephine the Plumber, the Ajax White Knight and the Frito Bandito were all icons created in the Sixties as well.
So why do we never see Don Draper pitching the use of an icon in the show? It almost seems deliberate that they ignore that part of 1960s advertising. Perhaps an episode that showed Don Draper pitching Cap’n Crunch would be bad for his image. More likely, creating an advertising icon is a lot more work than can be whipped out in a show that has enough realism on its plate to begin with. Either way, to me it is the most glaring omission in an otherwise wonderfully realistic show.
In case you wonder just how prevalent these icons were in that era, here is a list of some that were either created or had their most popular days in that era.
Tony the Tiger Norelco Santa NBC Peacock
Jolly Green Giant The Pillsbury Dough Boy Speedy Alka-Seltzer
Marlboro Man Aunt Jemima Betty Crocker
Madge from Palmolive Josephine the Plumber Mr. Clean
Cap’n Crunch Count Chocula Quisp and Quake
Frankenberry White Knight from Ajax Frito Bandito
Hawaiian Punchy Mr. Whipple Maytag Repairman
Juan Valdez Mr. Peanut Campbell Kids
Charlie Tuna Elsie the Borden Cow Lucky Charm Leprechaun
Sonny of Cocoa Puffs Toucan Sam Cornelius the Kellogs Corn Flakes Rooster
Trix Rabbit Geoffery The Giraffe Mrs. Olson
Raisin Bran Sun Quaker Oats Man Ronald McDonald
Wendy of Wendy’s Morris the Cat Choo-Choo Charlie
