Tag Archives: Marketing and Advertising

May 23, 2012 · 8:58 am

Bad Decks And Missing Logic

I saw something yesterday that made me laugh out loud. Unfortunately, it was something that was shown to me as part of a media proposal. It involved a social media campaign and the agency that had created the plan (which I was reviewing for another consultant) was going to use Facebook. Based on the client and their objectives, this was probably not the best place for the media placement but let’s put that aside.

Illustration of Facebook mobile interface

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What made me laugh was the projection of the number of impressions both paid and earned that the campaign would generate. It came out to such a ridiculously high number (as in reaching every person on Facebook hundreds of times each) that it called into question everything in the rest of the presentation as well as the agency’s overall competence.

As I thought about it, I became a little scared and then a lot offended.  It bothered me that an agency who has a pretty good list of clients had moved into social media and was treating it the same as broadcast media.  They should know a lot better.  It made me scared because this is the sort of irresponsible behavior we find all too often in digital.  People become digital or social media experts or SEOs overnight and sell an inferior grade of services to clients who will get lousy results.  How can they invest in this form of marketing going forward when the results weren’t there?

The point is this – whether it’s media plans or budgets or a report on manufacturing, we need to ask simple, logical questions.  Why are we using Facebook when our objective is more geared to the broader web and restrictions in Facebook’s policies will prevent us from activating properly?  Do the numbers they’re projecting make sense (and if we’re really going to reach the audience 300+ times each, maybe we’ve gone too far)?

There were a bunch of other issues in the deck and aside from the numbers my general response was “these guys just don’t get it.”  None of us should be offering off the shelf, cookie-cutter solutions to problems that get more complex every day.  The nature of media is changing – the nature of media planning need to change as well, along with the messages.  You’ve experienced it in your own media behavior – why are you thinking everyone else has remained the same?

You with me?

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May 18, 2012 · 9:37 am

The Farmer’s Market

It’s Friday and it’s the time of year when a lot of the Farmer’s Markets open up around here so I thought I’d use our Foodie Friday theme to talk about them a bit.

Farmers Market

(Photo credit: tamaradulva)

As a recent article explained, “farmers’ markets are hot business nowadays. The number of markets shot up 17 percent last year, and in a recent survey from Mintel market researchers, 52 percent of people said it’s more important to buy local produce than organic, which will likely drive the growth even more.”  There are a number of them in my town and the surrounding area, almost one each day of the week.   Most of the vendors are local farmers and the produce is generally pretty good.

There is, however, a dark side to many of these markets.  Some of the produce sold isn’t local even if it appears to be that way (there are no local tomatoes here in Connecticut in May, for example, unless they’re from a hot-house which means they’re less tasty).  There is loose labeling too – local, organic, pesticide-free, no-spray – many vague promises thrown around.  Which is the broader business point today.

We’re in the season of vague promises better known as an election year but we encounter lots of misleading or purposefully vague language from brands every day.  “Natural” or “Earth Friendly” or “Vegan” are meaningless because they’re not regulated, and companies are able to use these terms at will. It’s up to the consumer to differentiate marketing from reality and then to act by refusing to buy products that use misleading claims.

At the risk of stating the obvious, once a brand is outed as using misleading language, all sorts of bad things can and do happen, especially since the newer tools such a social media and the older tool known as a class-action lawsuit empower pissed off customers.  Frito-Lay was sued over the all-natural claims it has made for its Tostito and Sun Chips products.  Colgate had TV commercials for a Sanex bath gel banned for suggesting that it contains no man-made chemical ingredients.  The list gets longer every day.  Guess there’s no quota on stupidity.

We all know I’m big on reading the freaking label even though there aren’t any at the farmer’s market.  I ask a lot of questions instead.  But isn’t it a sad thing that we can’t really believe what we read even when labels are readily available?   What do you think?

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May 15, 2012 · 8:27 am

4 Ways To Anger Customers

A little research today although frankly it falls into the range of that common sense thing we talk about from time to time. The good folks at American Express have published some findings on how social media raises the stakes for customer service. You can read the full release herebut I wanted to focus on one aspect of their work in particular.

YOKOSUKA, Japan (Dec. 1, 2009) Logistics Speci...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Not surprisingly, Americans are growing more frustrated with customer service and businesses are hearing about it as consumers tell an increasing number of people about both their positive and poor service experiences.  How many of the folks you follow have reported on an interaction with a company?  What I found of particular note were the things Amex cited as the big four service gripes:

  • Rudeness:  An insensitive or unresponsive customer service representative – 33%
  • Passing the Buck: Being shuffled around with no resolution of the issue – 26%
  • The Waiting Game: Waiting too long to have an issue resolved – 10%
  • Being Boomeranged: Forced to continually follow-up on an issue – 10%

They’re all sort of cousins in the “we just don’t care about you as much as we do our own bottom line” family.  The key is to align the interests of the folks providing customer service of any sort with the customers themselves.  Pay them based on positive feedback, not on incremental sales.  Nearly half the respondents said that they will use social media to praise a company for a great experience (which sort of flies in the face of the widely held assumption that only complainers go public).  Nearly an equal number will vent publicly about a negative experience.  With other research telling us how most folks now do their pre-purchase research about brands and companies using social tools, none of us can afford to have anything out there that convinces consumers to do business elsewhere.

The study shows that folks who have used social media for customer service in the last year are willing to spend substantially more with companies they believe provide great service. They are also far more vocal about service experiences, both good and bad. Why aren’t we doing everything we can to be sure about the outcome?  Given the above “Big Four,” there’s still a way to go.

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