Tag Archives: Advertising and Marketing

April 7, 2014 · 9:59 am

Don’t Be An Idiot

Over the weekend, CBS and Turner tried an interesting experiment around the Final Four broadcast. They set up “homer” channels which have nothing to do with The Simpsons and everything to do with a particular team. Called TeamCasts, the channel would have announcers who openly rooted for a particular team and called them “us.” There was also a traditional, play it right down the middle broadcast available.
Apparently, not everyone got the message (or managed to decipher what the on-screen graphic meant that said it was a TeamCast) and Twitter filled up with complaints. Leave it to Charles Barkley to explain the problem:


Maybe a little harsh, but Chuck makes an excellent point, one we should remember.  People ARE idiots.  OK, not you and not me.  But there are idiots in the world.  Ever notice when you buy a cup of coffee that it says “this cup is filled with very hot liquid”?  That’s thanks to an idiot.  Ever see a piece of wrapped food that instructs the purchaser to “remove wrapper before consuming”?  Another idiot.

I don’t raise this to degrade my fellow humans.  I’m pointing it out because many of us assume the consumers are a lot smarter than they often demonstrate.  I am very aware of David Ogilvy‘s famous quote – “the consumer is not an idiot; she is your wife” and I agree with his point.  You can’t treat people like idiots.  You also cannot, however, assume that they’re a lot smarter than they are. They may not realize they have a problem that your product solves.  They may believe a competitor’s silly claim  that has no basis in fact because most people are too lazy to seek out the facts (just turn on one of the many news channels and you’ll be able to see hours of undocumented “facts”).

Don’t be an idiot.  As a marketer, strike the balance between respecting consumers and treating them as if they’re not really very bright.  As a consumer yourself, pay attention to facts and don’t go jumping on social media to proclaim your outrage when in fact you’re demonstrating ignorance.    Simple enough, right?

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March 31, 2014 · 8:33 am

Is Push Dead?

Although the drumbeat about content marketing began a few years back, it seems to have become rather loud over the last few months.  We even see content marketing agencies and software pushing (pun intended) their products and services on a daily basis.

The image shows a technology push, mainly driv...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Content marketing is  not a particularly new phenomenon unless you consider the end of the 1890’s new.  That’s right:  as long ago as that companies were creating content they would distribute to consumers in order to give them information as opposed to selling them something.  The theory is that compelling content creates a relationship – engagement – with the consumer and that at some appropriate point the recipient will turn to your company when they’re ready to buy.

I’m a fan of content marketing.  I think most people don’t like being sold to unless they’ve put their hands in the air and said “I’m ready to buy and I need information.”  Those kind of marketing messages – TV and other ads – are push content.  As Imus used to say “I talk, you listen” except what was being said by marketers was manufactured and shoved out the door.  Content marketing is more “pull” marketing.  It’s a newer model than the old push strategy.

But is push dead?  I don’t think so.  Here is why.

The basic definition of pull marketing means that you engage consumers or prospective/current customers.  To do that you need to know something about them.  If they’ve bought, you have that information and they know a bit about you through experiences that have left lasting, positive impressions.   Hopefully you’ve dazzled them with world-class customer service (which I think is push marketing too).  If  they haven’t bought (yet), maybe you’ve been helpful to them in other ways.

The implication is that, of course, is that you need to be discoverable.  You can’t do inbound marketing if you’re invisible.  If you’re trying to give potential customers the idea that they need to engage, they need to know that they have a problem for you to solve first.  Maybe they haven’t done that – defined the problem  – so how can they be considering a solution?

That’s where push comes in.  Sure, it may be intrusive and unfashionable and ridiculed as interruption marketing.  But it has a role in the marketing mix.  Even so, we have to keep a few thoughts in mind.  We can’t spam people – drop unwanted messages on them over and over again.  People have learned to tune those messages out.  Even as we’re talking “at” them, we can try to anticipate their needs and wants even as we’re defining their problems for them.

No, push isn’t dead, but it needs to be changed to match the ways in which consumer expectations have changed.  Then again, if your marketing plan is still very much a function of last century, your revenues might be stuck there too.  Make sense?

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March 24, 2014 · 9:55 am

What Oreo Has Wrought

Let’s begin the week with another entry in the book of social media marketing stupidity.

English: Two regular Oreo cookies. Please chec...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One trend of which you might be aware is real-time content marketing – brands responding to events as they happen. It’s rapid response content creation and the best-known example is Oreo tweeting out a clever marketing message in response to the blackout at last year’s Super Bowl.  This wasn’t the result of a smart intern winging it.  There were ad agency and brand people at Oreo’s social media command center during the game.

The success Oreo had inspired many copy cats.  In fact, a study done around that time found that over half the brand folks surveyed thought they’d be making greater use of real-time data in their marketing.  Fair enough.  Now let’s see what Oreo has wrought.

Yesterday during the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, CBS showed a shot of a young Kansas fan who was crying as his team lost.  Some marketing genius at KFC thought it would be clever to tweet out a screengrab of the teary child along with a marketing message to the 500,000 people following their Twitter account.  After all, what better way to sell fried chicken then on the back of an upset kid! It was such a good idea that KFC pulled the tweet down shortly thereafter as someone woke up and realized that finding a sales message in a crying kid’s unhappiness is way over the offensive line.  Credit them for moving fast to pull it down (although it would have been nice if they’d have issued an apology as well).

Contrast this with something I saw this morning in an online golf publication I read.  The former head of the USGA passed away yesterday – the announcement came late in the day.  Less than 12 hours later, the USGA has a tasteful ad in the publication saluting the man.  Real-time?  Not exactly but certainly quickly after the event.  Different from social media?  Yes, although they certainly could have used this in all of their social channels and they did, in fact, do other things in those channels.

Real time doesn’t mean “speak before you think.”  It means coming across as authentic and relevant (and really funny never hurts either).  That’s not as easy as giving a kid the keys to your social account and a TV to watch what’s going on.  It may not take a lot of planning to be good in real-time – that would kind of negate the purpose.  It does take managing, however, which is clearly what someone did after the KFC tweet went out.  Do you see the difference?

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