PardonMyFrench

I'm Nearing The End with Microsoft Windows

When I browse the internet, my browser of choice is Google Chrome.  It used to be Firefox, but I couldn't stand the updates.  My backup browser is Safari and in third place, a distant third, is Internet Explorer.  In fact, the only time I ever used IE was to login into Microsoft's AdCenter and Atlas.  AdCenter is for managing search campaigns on Bing and Atlas is a third party ad server I use to place ads on specific sites for media buys.  You see Microsoft in their infinite wisdom really only allows IE as the acceptable browser.  AdCenter I can get in with Safari and look around but eventually, I have to use IE.

That was until a week ago.  Internet Explorer just stopped working.   I have no clue why. So after uninstalling it, I tried installing IE 9 and after many times I gave up.  I have no clue why it won't install and Microsoft's knowledgebase is only good for serious gear heads.  I installed update after update and upgraded my DirectX and still nothing.  I must have spent 4 hours and all I kept seeing was IE crapping out and the Blue Screen of install. 

So I gave up.  I used my old computer to login into AdCenter and Atlas and moved on.  

I don't understand the logic of forcing advertisers to use a specific browser to manage ad campaigns.

I dont understand why it is so hard to install Internet Explorer.

I dont understand why the KB solutions are so hard to understand.

I dont understand all of the constant updates.

If I wanted something turnkey that I don't really understand how it works, maybe I should just get a MAC and call it a day.  That's saying a lot for someone that used DOS and remembers Windows 1.0.  Plus, back at AT&T I was voluteered to be a Microsoft sales connection for Office products.

Microsoft, you make it really hard to stay a customer. I think I'm done.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

 

I've Unsubscribed from Groupon

It's 7:30 AM and I've just downloaded my emails from last night like a lot of you.  And like I've done for the past 6 or more months I've deleted Groupon emails.  I hardly ever read them so this morning I decided enough is enough and I unsubscribed.  

Groupon right now is just spam - not the illegal kind but the completely useless kind of email and I'm tired of hitting delete.  Their personalization engine does not exist and why should I wait for it to get better?

Unfortunately in all these months I saw one targeted offer but I didn't pull the trigger on it.  It was for a family run sub shop called the Sub Pub in Chester NJ. Everyone in town goes there so you'd think that I would have jumped at it but after going there for as long as I've lived in Long Valley I couldn't bring myself to cash in the coupon. However, that's the only correctly targeted email I've seen.

Coupons for a manicure? No thanks.  Hot stone rock massage? Yah sounds good but no. Dance lessons?  I got married stepping on my wife's toes so why learn now.  Right now Groupon has no personalization.  That makes it Web 1.0 and just spam.  I love trying out new restaurants but the coupons I get for them are for days that don't work or for restaurants that are not close by.

In an era where personalization is becoming a reality and people are worried about what Google and Facebook knows about you and shares with advertisers, Groupon acts like a company from the dotcom bust.  Yes I get that Groupon should get better but I have the feeling that unless you live in a big city and don't have kids, Groupon right now is just spam.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Session Based Searches and Other Wasteful Clicks

A few friends shared this Wall Street Journal article with me yesterday called The Price of Unwanted Clicks and I found it very enlightening and sometimes often laughable.  The biggest discussion was on session based search results and how some advertisers think these clicks are costing them lots of money.  You know what?  They could be, but I'm not sure the average advertiser even knows what's going on and in the case of doctors, lawyers and other expensive click services it can be very costly. First, let's go over what these session based clicks are, how you can minimize them, and why hiring an expert is a good idea.

Session based clicks are a result of ads being shown on potentially unrelated keyword searches when a user has multiple searches within a single session.  Basically it is a way for Google to serve ads to a unique user rather than just a unique search.  The ads are shown below the typical paid sponsored results.  The way these ads are shown are when you use Broad match for your keywords.

Broad match is basically Google's way of expanding the amount of searches your ads appear on by an algorithm.  That of course includes session based searches.  Buying the name "john mccain" on broad match means if you don't know what you are doing, your ads can be shown on "french fries".   Broad can expand your buy to new search terms, cheaper clicks, and more sales, but of course can also generate unwanted useless clicks.

You can manage your broad searches with a number of techniques including negatives, account structure, search query data, and broad match modifiers.  See this is more complicated than what you thought, right?

Of course, Google wants to sell you more ads and wants to simplify the ad buying process for you.  However, paid search is anything but simple.  They want to make it so simple to expand their advertising base, but unless you are paying attention and stay up to date, you will most likely be dissatisfied with Google.  Remember, Google is in this to make money and constantly tries to improve the engineering behind search and marketing, so changes happen all the time.

You want my advice?  Hire an expert to manage your search campaigns.  If you are a business owner, why waste your time keeping up with the changes?  Let someone manage it who lives and breathes this stuff.  If you are paying like $8 per click, why mess around? It can cost you like the advertisers in the article.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Google's AdWords Holiday Offer - Did You Sign Up?

Google has been running what they are calling The Big Small Business Plan where new AdWords users and existing ones who implement conversion tracking  or maintain it, get $100 from Google when they spend $100.

They are even advertising on websites beyond just the AdWords login page - I found this ad on The New York Times. Now before a few opinions, let's take a look at the offer itself

1. The messaging is classic Google.  You don't have to stay small anymore and that you can grow with pay per click only advertising.  
2. They offer free account setup by calling an 800#
3. The sign up offer is good through 1/15 but they extended it at the end of the year (actually they were a little late in extending but anyway)
4. And it is good for the first one million small businesses which sounds great

So you as a small business should jump all over this, right?  Yes of course you should but you need help and not the kind Google is offering although their free setup is a good start. If anyone gives you $100 for free you should jump at it, however, jump in knowing what's happening...

1. Google advertising is much more complicated than the offer suggests.  You actually need professional, non-Google help
2. Google typically looks to manage accounts $10K+ per month and even then that's probably not enough any more.  I have one client billing $40K per month without a Google Account person - what do you think will happen with the small business billing $100 per month?
3. Years ago when Google was just starting out you could have had first mover advantage and just using their simple tools, you could have succeeded.  Now, unless you are entering a completely new market, the odds are there are prior advertisers with account history.
4. Google defaults you to all devices and all sites and recommends this for new advertisers.  Do you understand what this means?
5. Google uses different match types - exact, phrase, broad, negatives and recommends broad match.  Do you know how this impacts your campaign?
6. When you run a search campaign, you obviously get results and most of them are straight forward.  However, they automatically don't include Quality Score and Impression Share. Quality Score is probably the most important data point for you.
7. Quality Score determines whether your ad gets shown, how often, and your CPC.  It is impacted by account history, history of other advertisers, relevancy of keywords and ads, and relevancy of your landing pages.   Guess what?  Broad matches are more difficult to control
8. I could go on and on but I won't.  I'll leave you with this final point.  Text ads in Google's Display network, even though you are paying a CPC, suck and 99% of the time, I don't include them.
9. Oh and one more point.  Google is in this to make a lot of money.  They make money by showing the ads that makes them the most money.  You don't get clicks your ads don't get shown.

Is Google being generous?  Yes.  Should you sign up for the offer?  Yes.  Should you get help before you do any of that?  Yes.  Here's a link to help you find people in your area to help you.  

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

 

Mobile Marketing Is The New Frontier

After my post about what worked and didn't work in political advertising in 2010, a friend dropped me a note that said he found it interesting that back in 2008, people were all excited about text messaging programs, yet now it seems kind of dead.  So I decided to elaborate a little bit on what I think is happening and go a little more in depth into why mobile is working so great.  And, unlike some other posts or articles you might read, this one is not just about political marketing; some of us actually have other clients....

Text messaging is what I consider to be a necessary evil.  I'm not writing about the send a text message to #1234 or #DONATE, because I believe those are expensive programs with a short life span.  Any marketer should be collecting mobile numbers and sending text messages, however if that's your only mobile strategy you are DOA.

The next place a lot of people go to in their mobile strategy is Mobile Search which I think is great place to go to next.  However, based on my experience, mobile search is about 10% of desktop volume and requires different tactics.  Match type and creative strategies are vastly different as is your bidding and keyword strategies.  If you think you can just export your desktop campaign and forget about it, you are wrong.

The game now is mobile display advertising and there are a few places you can go.  

1. Apple has an awesome, yet expensive platform
2. Until Google finally absorbs AdMob, AdMob has the best rates and best results especially when it comes to CTR in mobile apps
3. Google of course has two tactics you can use.  The first is display ads on mobile websites and the next place is ads in Apps.  Display ads on mobile websites are not worth your time unless you like your current display ad's CTRs

The click thru rates and cost per clicks I've seen advertising in Apps are vastly superior than what I've seen on a decent display campaigns; far higher than what many people consider to be a strong CTR campaign of 0.23%.  In fact, through Google, you can buy a Mobile Surge the details I outlined in a post on Michele Bachmann's famous State Fair campaign. Also, I believe that the geo-targeting is far more accurate on mobile phones than desktops and this allows you to precisely target people in a smaller radius. 

Right now advertising on mobile Apps have superior CTRs, lower CPCs, better targeting, and you can send the clicks into any number of destinations including YouTube videos, App download link, mobile websites, Facebook, and etc.  It is not simple at all and there are experts who can help with your strategies and campaigns.  Basically, if you are relying on text messaging as your mobile strategy, you will be left behind THIS YEAR!

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

P.S. If you are anyone but a package goods, retailer QR Codes cause more problems than they are worth, but as usual Google has a solution called Goggles for you.

P.P.S. Still not convinced?  Based on a recent survey of 16K respondents, 75% of YouTube mobile users report that mobile is their primary way of accessing YouTube.

 

 

Why Did Apple Buy Quattro

A month or two back fellow Connell Donatelli employee Ryan Waite and I had a conference call with Apple to discuss their iAd platform. For you non-wireless advertiser that's Apples platform for placing their new rich media ads on iPad and iPhone devices. Anyway we have a few clients that could spend money so we thought let's chat.

Apple told us that unless we were going to spend high 5 figures into 6 in one month we couldn't even see a deck on the platform and then Apple told us to go to their lower end Quattro platform. I won't go into much detail what we are doing but let's just say Google has a good platform.

So I'm a little surprised Apple is no longer accepting orders in the early fall. Either they are ready to allow smaller advertisers in or they are letting other platforms take the business. Clearly Apple bought them as a defensive move but it is curious that they haven't announced how to support the non-super huge advertiser.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Super Bowl 2010 Ads - They Are Just Commercials

Nice short and sweet post.  This year's Super Bowl ads were mostly retreads.  There were a few stand outs but for the most part, they were so uninspiring I can't believe CEOs actually signed off on them. Anyway, here's what I thought. 

WINNERS:

1. Snickers Betty White Ad - reinforced their brand message that grab one when you are down on energy
2. Taco Bell with Sir Charles - just all around clever
3. Career Builder  - Sure it was gross seeing out of shape people in their underwear, but it again reinforced that you can use Career Builder to get out of a bad job.

LOSERS

1. E*Trade - The babies are so played out it; my guess is the Geico Caveman ad is their model
2. Bud/Bud Lite - We get it.  Drink beer.  Drink beer and build a human bridge.  Unimpressive and with all of the ads, Bud just looked wasteful and silly.
3. Go Daddy - Look I can stare at Danica Patrick all day long when my wife isn't around, but the too hot for Super Bowl is also played out.  Plus even the website for a $1 per month isn't special at all.
4. US Census  - Wasting too much money on an ad for the Super Bowl
5. And any other ad that wasted 25 seconds setting up a commercial with a ridiculous story line, leaving only 5 seconds for a product shot.  That's just bad marketing strategy and allowing your Agency to get too creative.

At least the game was entertaining.  BTW - The Who was ok.  Daltrey should stay away from songs where his voice can't even come close to the recorded version.  Pete Townshend although looks old, can still play guitar and because his voice wasn't ever very good, still sounds like the recordings.  I was super impressed with Townshend. 

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Can Apple Save Newspapers?

I don't consider myself an Apple Fanboy, I'm definitely closer to a Google Fanboy, but I have to admit I'm kind of excited at the prospect of Apple's Tablet.  Why?  I think a slimmer version of my laptop will make it much easier for me to read books, newspapers, and magazines; plus I'm willing to bet that the idiots that run the newspaper industry will view Apple's tablet as the last ditch effort to save their industry and put some effort behind it.

Personally, I ditched almost all of my newspaper subscriptions primarily because of the waste of paper and the lack of timely news, relying on the internet for information.  However, I do miss the ability to thumb through a paper and with the outside chance that Apple can make newspapers interactive I think it may breathe life into their currently bad business model.  Up until recently newspapers were hoping for federal government bailout, but with everything else going on in Washington there is no way anyone would stomach such a terrible idea.  

Even subscription marketing scams like the one the Star Ledger tried to slip by me, isn't helping them. And, as their paper subscription and sales volume falls so do their advertising dollars which was already decimated by eBay and Craig's List, plus the smart marketers who already abandoned them for their lack of tracking and their lack of creativity.

Up until a possible Apple Tablet launch, newspapers were trying to replace their declining offline revenues with online advertising.  However, the online dollars weren't large enough to cover their bloated payrolls and paper production, so of course they turned to Google.  First they relied on Google to help them with their sales model, but even Google once in a while flops as is the case with Google Print Ads; Google was trying to keep their content farms alive.  Next, Google continued to make improvements with Google News and then Google offered some tough love as to how these newspapers should change their business model to stop whining about all of that great traffic that Google sends them.  However, the significant traffic Google sends them coupled with using Google to backfill unsold inventory still wasn't enough to save them.

Now instead of turning to Yahoo or MSN to fight Google (neither which can), they now potentially have a savior in Apple who can breathe life into their ancient and outdated product; plus they are a formidable competitor to Google.  An Apple Tablet with interactiveness and flashy graphics might bring back subscriptions.  Also, old school agencies actually might be able to start convincing marketers to start to buy ads in newspapers again.  Plus, a Tablet might actually be retro cool as all of us 40+ year olds who actually grew up with paper can be cool reading the news again. 

As much as I love my iPhone it is hard to read news stories and books on it.  The screen is just a tad bit small, but a Tablet might just be able to bridge the gap and give the newspapers an answer to declining revenues that doesn't rely heavily on Google.  I think it actually might work.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

P.S. Here's an interesting article in PC World that actually goes into more detail my lines of thinking regarding Tablet rescuing newspapers.

Using Disney Parks to Market Princess and The Frog

As some of you readers know, I've always been very impressed with Disney's marketing especially with the way they use their parks.  Well in an awesome display of integrated marketing Disney is really using their parks to pump up their newest movie with their newest princess The Princess and The Frog.   

Now as anyone knows, Wall Street and the media always look at the openings to see how  successful a movie release is going to be.  Disney of course know this too and that's why they are using one of their tools in their arsenal which most movie studios don't have - tens of thousands of people going into their parks every day and the vast majority of them with young kids.   

So what is Disney doing?  Simple - giving away a ticket for each kid with a corresponding adult.  We picked ours up in Disney Studios and using a simple activation code and website, we picked up our free children's movie ticket guaranteeing that we will see the movie the first three weeks it is open - December 11 - December 31.  

I think this is a simple, yet brilliant integrated marketing tactic and costs Disney very little in the way of promotions.  Sure there are cards to print and marketing materials to put out in the park, but compare that with what you'd expect other marketers to do - direct mail, radio, emails, display ads, etc.  We were already in the park, likely to be their target market, and all we had to do was agree to receive the cards at a counter while we were checking out with a purchase.  That's Disney at its best using integrating marketing.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Rupert Murdoch's Google Battle - Not So Crazy

(A quick small post - longer than Twitter, shorter than my normal posts).

I read a few posts yesterday about News Corp threatening to deny Google's spiders access to their sites and this includes the Wall Street Journal.  Now, I had the pleasure of negotiating with WSJ when I was with AT&T and even though I got the better of them for AT&T"s Personal Network plan, it created a lasting impression with me.  I've also advertised with them many times including during the 2008 General Election. While advertising revenues are important to them, they are clearly focused on subscribers.  So I wasn't surprised when Murdoch threatens to block Google.   

Hitwise's Bill Tancer put out some great charts that shows what they think Google's traffic is to WSJ and it is a whopping 25%; plus they report that 44% of traffic from Google is new.

WSJ knows this too.  WSJ journal sees other print companies who give their content away from free struggle with sales revenue - while it is coming in from the web, it isn't fast enough to replace the crash on the print side.  

WSJ has always been about subscriptions first and advertising second.  They know what the true hit would be by blocking Google.  I bet they don't care about the new traffic number.  I bet people will still know about them and the branding from the traffic doesn't matter to them.  Their advertising rates are still super high, so the traffic hit while bothersome, probably doesn't make a dent in their overall revenue numbers.  Me, I don't think Murdoch is bluffing.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Thanks to Beatles Rock Band for Wii - We are Listening to Beatles 24-7

September 9, 2009 I rushed out at lunch time and picked up Beatles Rock Band for our Wii.  Now the kids were always remotely interested in the Beatles but as you know, we are Springsteen fans (even when I complain about him) so The Beatles were not in rotation.  Lately because of Rock Band I find myself giving my kids copies of the Who Singles, dusting off my Boston CDs, and numerous other classic rock bands.  None of that compares to the impact of Beatles Rock Band.

The kids have literally had me repurchase long sold Beatles CDs. You see back in College my freshmen  year girlfriend was a big Beatles fan so I had almost every CD.  When we broke up I got rid of every one except Abbey Road by selling them to my old favorite record store, Cheap Thrills in New Brunswick (remember record stores?).  I didn't really have a Beatles itch for like 20 years even though while growing up they were everywhere - I guess I got burned out (literally) on them during College.  Then during New Year's eve (12/31/08) we spent the night listening to the fake Beatles Band in Epcot and the itch started to come back, but still it was under control.  That was until Jake and Kaela.

The kids practically melted Abbey Road, so then I ordered my favorites back from Amazon - Sgt Pepper's, Rubber Soul, Help, Magical Mystery Tour, White, and Revolver.  I ripped my favorites to my iPhone and started listening again but the Beatles were not in heavy rotation.  That is until this week - 9/9/09 to be exact.

Beatles Rock Band is brilliant.  Instead of you starting your band, you play the Beatles through the years in different venues with hidden easter eggs along the way. Plus instead of just unlocking songs you also unlock pictures with detailed explanations and embedded videos (like The Beatles Christmas Messages)  These simple changes do a few things all driven by curious little kids...

1. Where did the Beatles start?
2. Who's the guy with the glasses?
3. Why did the Beatles stop touring?
4. Why did the Beatles break up...

Etc.  24/7 Beatles.  It is so bad, that I bought Yellow Submarine remastered and the Beatles Past Masters on Saturday.  Kaela has Sgt Pepper's in her room and Jake still has Abbey Road in his room.  I went to today's Giants game and we listened to Past Masters Volumes 1 and 2 as well as Rubber Soul (round trip = 90 minutes).  Jacob and I got home and we played about 6 songs on Rock Band (BTW -  I do a killer I am The Walrus) until about 10:30 PM.  Mary asked me to find out when McCartney is touring again so I signed up for his newsletter.  Plus more...

24/7 Beatles introduced to kids by parents that stopped listening to them 20 years ago?  Not only did they get the $55 from the game, but probably $100+ in CDs and a potential 4-pack in tickets and Beatles gifts.  If you are say a classic rock band like Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band with an aging fan base, you can instantly reignite your catalog by hooking up with Rock Band - between it and iTunes you can get younger....Amazing....Led Zep next?

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

The GOP Needs A Shore State Strategy

Since the end of the election I've watched people argue over what happened to the Republicans and Senator McCain.  A lot of folks have jumped on the Republican don't get the internet mantra and I've always known that was never the answer.  Some people think it was Governor Palin and once again I never believed that.  I've always known we lost because of an extremely unpopular President, the economy blowing up on 9/15, and running into the great Obama money making machine.  The blow up in the economy was a double whammy with President Bush's unpopularity which continues to haunt Republicans because of out of control spending, Government growth, and lack of fiscal discipline; all things that go against Reagan's strategies for winning elections. 

I attended quite a few AAPC panels and not just the ones where my fellow Campaign Solutions friends were on.  Two in particular were quite fascinating for me and both were recaps of the 2008 courtesy of Whit Ayers, Charlie Cook, and Ron Brownstein.  From that panel I learned a lot of interesting points including (these are my notes and so the exact number below might be incorrect, but directionally...):

• Obama won 80% of the non-white vote and also won like 2/3 of the under 29 year old crowd; there will be 18 million more of them (Millennials) by 2012
• Obama also won white, college educated while the only group that Senator McCain won was non-college educated whites
• Aiming at the South has issues because of the Electoral College vote.  The last non-narrow Republican win that included major Shore states was 1988.
• Since 1992, 14 Shore states representing 69% of 270 Electoral votes have consistently voted for a Democratic Presidential candidate (*exception is NH 2000).  That's basically starting down 190 votes to ZERO putting the pressure on OH, FL, and VA (increasingly going blue) for the GOP to compete.  This means narrow Republican Presidential victories (see 2000 and 2004) when we win if we continue on this strategy; this also only means continuing to focus on the Republican base.

These shore states are WA, OR, CA, ME, NH*, VT, MA, CT, RI, NY, PA, NJ, MD, and DE and they haven't voted for a Republican in 20 years.  Let that sink in for a second.  In 20 years almost 70% of the electoral college hasn't gone to a Republican and that points to a branding and messaging problem in attracting voters in these states.  Simply stated, these states include big businesses like media, agencies, pharma, banking, financial services, internet, ivy league colleges - well you get the idea: targets that the current Republican message falls short.  BTW - would it surprise you that these states are also where the MONEY comes from?

Prior to going off on my own and working with CDI, I spent 15 years in corporate America.  I basically grew up at AT&T and then worked at Harrisdirect.  At AT&T I worked with some of the largest agencies in the world while working on major product launches.  At Harrisdirect, we were the company constantly rebranding as the name switched from DLJdirect to CSFBdirect, to Harrisdirect, and then finally E*Trade. 

What does this all tell me? If a brand was EVER in need of a rebranding it would be the Republican Party and here's where I'd start if this was my product. 

1. I'd start with a hypothesis that Reagan's core messages of a strong economy, job growth, military strength, and smaller government are still valuable.  Other issues while still important would be pushed to the background (see Obama note below).
2. Focus groups and quantitative studies to firm up strategies and tactics.  I'd run these on a monthly basis to watch changes.
3. I'd look for candidates that can pull in Shore states.  That probably means pushing issues that play in the South to the background.  Basically, an Obama messaging strategy of being a liberal in disguise as a centrist.  Behind the scenes work your agenda, but on the surface focus on core issues, #1 above.
4. Engage youth and Latino markets because that's where the new voters are.
5. Stop competing with President Obama on small issues and focus on jobs and economy (tea parties are a great start).  2010 is our key election which puts September 2010 as ground zero.  Obama has offered up a lot of information and I'd track that job forecast and GDP forecast and hammer away.  Eventually even with non-job creating expenditures and pork, the economy will turn around but everything I read says that real growth won't be until 2010.
6. Think Twitter sound bites and explanations (I know this post is long).  If you can't explain why Obama's military budget is wrong, don't give the liberal press and comedians their own sound bite of why Republicans say he cut the budget when the bottom line # went up 4% or so.
7. Ronald Reagan is our brand essence and not a major message.  It is time to stop putting President Reagan in TV ads, debates, and political talking points.  It is time to stop looking for the next Ronald Reagan.  Today's new voters don't care and the ones in between them and 40 year old voters like me, were not voting when Reagan was a political force (Governor to President).  Continuing to mention him in messaging is like Major League Baseball talking about their heritage.
8. Finally, the internet isn't just a fund raising ATM.  It is a way to reach voters in the Shore states cheaply and effectively organize and communicate.  Stop dropping direct mail.

It is time to rebrand and plan for 2010.  It is time to win some Shore States.  It is time that the Republican brand become competitive in these states because that's where the voters are.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Politicos and Private Companies That Still Don't Get Online Advertising

Yes, I'm back from vacation. If you were following me on Twitter or in Facebook you would have received some of my great updates from our almost 9 days in St. Croix.  

As usual we had a big pile of snail mail to go through; I was able to stay up on my email using my iPhone so no big email box.  What still amazes me is how marketers cling to old techniques that every day are becoming more obsolete.  Case study after case study, marketing online and even mobile are where they should be focusing their efforts  Take for example.....

• Steve Lonegan's campaign to be the NJ GOP nominee to take on a vulnerable Gov. Jon Corzine.  Now I don't have anything against Lonegan's campaign and may even vote for him in the Primary, but what I don't understand is how they can WASTE DIRECT MAIL to voters for a branding campaign.  That's right a political campaign was willing to pay upfront mailing, printing, database, and postage costs for the honor of heading to the waste paper bin before it was opened.  All of this while not running a single PAY PER CLICK ad on Google where you get free branding and only pay for clicks when people respond to an ad.
• Comcast - yes that private sector company that bombarded me with direct mail for their triple play.  While they undoubtedly are spending money on the internet, I can't excuse someone of continuing to dump useless mail.  Look, if you are trying to market a triple play of TV, Internet, and Phone and I haven't responded via the internet, what makes you think that direct mail is a better channel?  Why not work on improving your online advertising or segmenting your list better?
• Bank of America, Chase, Citi and all of the other banks on Life Support because they ruined their business.  STOP DUMPING DIRECT MAIL.  Again, focus on segmenting your audience and using your online advertising more efficiently.  Heck, use your modeling and stop direct mail to anyone under say the age of 60 and then take those dollars and expand your internet operations.  How about just marketing to the top decile in your responder models only?
• Protect Fairness aka Stop The Fairness Doctrine - I like the folks behind this petition drive and they have a Facebook group and are already running ads in Google, but they are just targeted right now in specific states (I saw ads in Iowa but not in NJ).  They are looking for donations to run TV ads in Iowa, but who cares?  What kind of audience will that reach?  Why not ask for money to expand the Google campaign beyond a few targeted states?  How about money to run the commercials online in pre-roll positions?  How about expanded click to play video ads?

It is time to dump out the old or massively scale it back and try expanding into new techniques.  I can't wait for the day when I come back from vacation and a big pile of crappy mail doesn't await me.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Other Local News Cos Should Follow The Daily Record into Twitter

I regularly read up to four newspapers during the week.  The Observer Tribune for local Long Valley news, The Daily Record for Morris County and NJ news, The Star Ledger, and The Wall Street Journal.  These companies all have the same problem which is dwindling newspaper subscriptions, advertisers that have become more sophisticated and realize that newspaper advertising is awful (exception is if it is really local advertising), and faster news stories available via blogs and Twitter.  What they've also probably have figured out is that online advertising, though the wave of the now, can't possibly make up for the shortfall in offline advertising.  Hence the cutbacks in staff and for papers like the LA Times, Washington Post, and The New York Times cutbacks in integrity.

Yes that's right, newspapers are figuring out that while the web is really their only future, the future probably won't be filled with as much ad revenue.  In order to get the ad revenue, they need to compete with finicky readers who demand instant news and with local blogs who can get stories out quickly.  This fracturing of the web means less traffic, but that's why I love that The Daily Record took the plunge into Twitter.

Yes Twitter.  The Wall Street Journal gets it, but The Observer Tribune doesn't.  So what does The Daily Record know that other local papers don't...

WHAT LOCAL PAPERS CAN GET FROM TWITTER

1. People demand instant notification when important stories come out
2. People don't hang out on local newspaper sites all day long, so you need to continually drive traffic
3. RSS feeds, believe it or not, are not the desired communication vehicle.  Heck, even if you knew what they are, you'd have realized that you need to visit a page or your outlook to get an alert.  This is so impersonal, yet a Tweet is personal
4. Tweets can actually drive traffic to your website.  I've found I get way more traffic from Tweets than I do from email/RSS subscribers.
5. Eventually there will be a revenue model so the more Twitter subscribers a paper has, the better it will be.
6. The Tweets and re-Tweets have huge pass on value and word can spread quickly and virtually for free

The Daily Records gets it.   Perhaps some day other local newspapers will wake up a realize that just having a website and hoping people show up is not to way to monetize websites or increase traffic.  Embracing new technologies like Twitter, Facebook, and the iPhone will help lead the way to more revenue.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

ARod and Phelps Were Never Good Role Models

In just a few short days some of America's favorite sports figures (some argue role models) were taken down.  First Phelps loses some advertisers because he has a picture taken while doing a bong hit.  Then ARod gets caught as one of the 104 major league baseball players that used steroids during the 2003 supposed confidential drug test.  Phelps' offense is far more minor than ARod's offense.  Phelps didn't hurt anyone but himself.  ARod cheated (and continues to cheat) millions upon millions of baseball fans.

In Phelps' case the media built this guy up to be some wholesome person who delivered 8 gold medals for the US.  Then he does a bong hit, someone takes a picture and wham the media tears this guy down.  He loses sponsorships and costs himself millions of dollars.  You know what?  I don't care if he does pot.  I also support any company (Kellogg) who drops him as a spokesperson.  The company has their brand to protect and if they bought the media imagery originally and now the media has soured on him, they are within their rights to drop them.  Phelps benefited from the imagery and now he is paying a price because he didn't live up to the imagery.  Oh well.

Alex Rodriguez is a cheat.  He lied in a TV interview with Katie Couric that he never did illegal performance drugs.  Clearly he wanted to keep up with everyone else in baseball who was also doing drugs to steal money from fans like us and to steal records from baseball.   I wonder how long he took drugs and if he continues to take drugs.  Is Derek Jeter the only clean baseball player?

In either case Phelps, ARod, and yes Derek Jeter are not role models.  Sports figures shouldn't be role models unless you are well on your way to being a baseball player or Olympic swimmer.  Why?  You are relying on the media to tell you what kind of people they are.  They were given a gift to hit a baseball and there are extremely few people who have this gift.  Watch this ad from Nike where Charles Barkley correctly says I am not a role model.  I am paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court.

Role models should be common people who do extraordinary things.  Has your Dad or Mom started a business and keeps your family safe and well off?  You know all about your Dad, right?  Why isn't he your role model?  How about your Uncle? You get my point.

Perhaps there are bits and pieces of people that you admire.  Maybe someone who is cool under fire.  Maybe someone who can lead people in battle.  Maybe someone who speaks in public well.  Modeling yourself after say General Patton when you need to lead a group of people to reach a common goal is fine, but saying Patton is a role model is a little odd.  You want to swim like Phelps, when you have a 4th grade swim meet, ok.   However, hitting a baseball like ARod now seems totally wrong.

Sports figures were never role models.  I think grabbing characteristics from people that you admire is great, but don't fool yourself that you know who these people are.  Yes, that includes even Derek Jeter (Side note when we go to Yankees games the whole family wears #2 Jeter jerseys).

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Building a YouTube Problem for Obama

I keep reading about how Obama's honeymoon is over or about how long until the press digs into President Obama.  I say who cares about main stream media. 

I think a smart person like Justin Germany (@justingermany) should create a video series in YouTube called "Obama's YouTube Problem" that compares Obama's campaign promises (words) with his current deeds (his actions).  It will be an eyeopener and with enough material will be damaging to his administration and re-election efforts.  Several examples are already available within the first 30 days..

First it started with the bad vetting process Team Obama did on several of the cabinet nominees (see Daschle and Richardson).  Of course President Obama says that their vetting process is fine, but either it is broken or they are arrogant to think that tax cheats and former Governors under ethics investigations can pass a Senate confirmation.  So much for bringing change to Washington.

Next up it was his campaign promise to keep lobbyists away from his administration.  Of course they make exceptions when it is convenient, but that wasn't his campaign promise.  He didn't promise to hire the least amount in the history of politics, he promised to keep them away.  So like he did on taking matching campaign funds, he breaks his word.

Finally, this whole Obama Spending Plan is turning into an absolute nightmare for President Obama and unfortunately the rest of us.  This is a pork infested plan that wastes billions of dollars on such crappy projects like:

• $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion.
• $850 million for Amtrak.
• $6 billion to turn federal buildings into "green" buildings.
• $650 million for the digital television converter box coupon program.

Remember when we dragged the auto industry executives to grill them over billions in loans they wanted?  Well now, President Obama says that we are wasting precious time on haggling over what amounts to 1% of the bill (really closer to 2% but what's a few billions).  It wasn't good enough for Obama to have a supply-side versus demand-side economic argument (spending versus tax cuts) but he had to get in bed with the Liberals in the House who shut out Republicans ruining his bipartisan campaign promise. 

In the Senate where the Liberals don't have a majority he starts to get nasty and irrational, threatening Republicans and using scare tactics.  Today Obama basically said "The time for talk is over and the time for action is now" and then sent his surrogate Claire McCaskill to proclaim "If we do nothing we will lose millions of jobs". 

President Obama has no idea what the economy will do and doesn't want debate on the bill.  This is how we ended up with TARP which President Obama voted for without much debate because it was something we had to do and do quickly.  So, diplomacy is good with the Iranians but a few days of diplomacy with Republicans members of the Senate is a waste?

It is time to fight back and that's just a start.  Obama's Achilles heel is the Change promises he made that unfortunately for him, he needs to rely on the non-change agents currently sitting in Congress to deliver on them.   There will not be the right Change in Washington and we might as well start building the proof now.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Citi Trying to Back Out of Mets Naming Deal

Ha - don't say I didn't call this a bad deal when it was first announced over 2 years ago (see this post called Shea Goodbye to Shea) because I did tell you.  Stadium naming deals are the WORST WASTE OF MARKETING DOLLARS THAT AN ESTABLISHED COMPANY CAN DO.

If you work in a company with excellent brand awareness (and that would mean Citi) these stadium naming deals are just ego boosting programs for the massive egos of the CEOs who run these companies.  Yes these are the same CEOs that will spend millions paying for new carpets in their office, yet take tax payer's money and lay off loyal employees while their company is burning around them.

I even wrote a follow-up post to Citi telling them how to get out of their deal with the Mets and now that they took TARP funds and caught grief for trying to buy a private plan, the marketing folks finally got enough balls to tell their executives that this deal is a piece of crap. 

Trust me when I tell you these types of sponsorship deals are just giant sink holes of money.  They never sign up enough new sales to justify the massive marketing allows and certainly do nothing to promote a company's brand when the company is like Citi, AT&T, Verizon, etc.

I worked for AT&T for 10 years and these deals were always constantly losing money and the marketing folks were always justifying their existence to real marketing managers who had to deliver ROI.  However, they usually got to keep their deal due to the massive executive egos or the cancellation clauses that were written to favor the event owner.

Now that Citi has taken tax payer money, we should insist this crappy deal gets canceled.  And if the Mets don't budge, well let's bring on a PR nightmare for them.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

ABC Releases McCain Draft Reverend Wright Ad

ABC News released a draft copy of a potential John McCain Reverend Wright ad today and I wondered what's the point?  I think it is in poor taste that ABC News even suggested that this was something we were planning to do.  Did a media agency put this ad together?  Yes as did many, many other draft ads and guess what the standard approval tag doesn't mean it was a final ad.  I think this ad would have done NOTHING to change the election results.  Senator McCain was correct when he decided NOT to make Reverend Wright an issue.

Reverend Wright was brought up as an issue during the Primary Season.  What happened?  Obama beat Clinton.  A few other groups ran ads during the General Election Season and what happened?  Obama beat McCain.

Obama beat us due to the following three reasons

1. The most unpopular sitting President in recent history
2. The economy blowing up when it did
3. Obama's huge campaign finance advantage

That's it.  Those are the reasons.  Bringing up Reverend Wright doesn't combat any of those three reasons. I firmly believe if the economy doesn't implode, McCain wins.  The polls showed this.  The linkage to President Bush that the Democrats pushed from the very beginning killed us once they could now prove that what these failed policies and lack of oversight of the economy, wall street, banking industry had on our pocketbooks.

People who were to blind to see Obama as a liberal weren't going to be swayed by a Rev. Wright ad.  People who linked the economy to President Bush weren't going to be swayed by a Rev. Wright ad.  We ought to stop dwelling on this and move on to something constructive.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

 

I Am CNBC - Brilliant Campaign Even With Flaws

Are you a regular watcher of CNBC?  I've always been a fan going back to my Harrisdirect days and since about September it is part of a rotation of programming I leave on while working in my NJ office (that would be first Fox and Friends, Mike and Mike on ESPN, CNN, and then back to CNBC straight through to Mad Money).  Anyway, not sure when they started running the I am CNBC ads (the I Am American Business has been around) but I think the campaign is brilliant even if it does have some flaws.

I Am CNBC is Brilliant

1. It puts personality behind the anchors
2. It gives the anchors a chance to talk about what makes them click giving people more of a chance to bond with them
3. The black and white imagery really makes the ads stand out and really lets you connect with them
4. After all the news business is about the reporters and their opinion/spin and less about the actual reporting of news (this helps, but explain MSNBC)
5. Helps them cross sell between shows so that when you are watching one program they can serve ads with a different personality in them
6. The I Am campaign has legs, but...

I Am CNBC Has Flaws

1. This campaign is screaming social networking
2. Where are the ability to leave comments, post your own video as to why I Am CNBC Viewer, etc
3. Why no Twitter accounts, Facebook links, LinkedIn, YouTube, and etc?  This would be a great way to continue the conversation. Sure you probably think that the majority of your viewers aren't using those products, but I'm willing to bet Twitter and YouTube would be of great use.
4. The I Am American Business doesn't seem to resonate with me.  Maybe it is because I can read/learn about their stories elsewhere and I find it hard to believe that all of them are rabid CNBC watchers, besides those come off as paid endorsements.
5. Why no ability to embed videos or widgets on blogs, websites?
6. Did I write how much more interesting this campaign would be if you let people film their own 30 second video as to why they watch CNBC just to get the chance to have it put up on your website?  Save me the excuses of being serious all of the time...
7. Where's Michelle?

Anyway, I love the I Am CNBC and they passed my TiVo test.  Too bad with a little more effort they could have expanded more into the Social Networking world.  One final note, if they did have links to SocNets out there I couldn't find them on searches or links from their website.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Citi's Bailout Should Exclude Its Bad Print Advertising Strategy

Over the past few weeks I kept seeing bad news on Citi.  53K layoffs, bad loans, stock crashing, and then of course a Government bailout.  Citi is a TOXIC place and of course the marketing geniuses knew this as well as their ad agencies.  That didn't stop them from running a full page ad in today's Wall Street Journal which talked about providing security and securing the future. That ad ran right on the other side of the article about We The People bailing out Citi.

Now before the print zombies come after me, let me write first that yes I get that this ad was made days ago and that it is hard to pull print media at the 11th hour.  HOWEVER, THAT'S WHY PRINT ADVERTISING IS THE WORST FORM OF ADVERTISING THAT YOU CAN (NOW) SPEND TAX DOLLARS ON.

What did that full page ad cost you?  $50K?  Waste of dollars.  How many people saw that ad today?  You HAVE NO IDEA because you can't track print ads.  Subscriber information?  B.S.  Heck if you are still delusional and believe subscriber numbers you still have no idea how many people saw the ad.  There isn't a call to action on the ad so how are you even measuring it?  Some B.S. branding study?  Perhaps GoogleTrends or some site side measurement service?  That is all completely useless at this point.  Maybe you are relying on some useless survey on the site.

Look if you are going to use my money to bail yourself out, stop WASTING IT ON USELESS PRINT ADVERTISING.  You could have cut that money and saved it or plowed a portion of it into your online ad campaign where you can measure and switch out creative in minutes.  I think if you take tax dollars to run your company you should just STOP WASTING IT ON PRINT.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

DCM Services - Watch Out If You Get A Call

****3-2-09 UPDATE Obviously a lot of new visitors will be arriving due to the NY Times story called So You're Dead? That Won't Stop The Debt Collector in which I was interviewed and appeared in the story on DCM Services. The reporter was very professional and the story seems well researched.  However, my post below is 100% accurate and perhaps I might be in the minority on what happened, but it happened as I outlined it below.  Finally, I don't recall being told that I didn't have to pay this debt.*****

I received an odd call today.  It was from DCM Services and they are a collection agency that collects on deceased people's payments.  Seems pretty morbid huh?  Well they called me and refused to give me any information as to why they called.  After digging my heels in and going with some old skills I learned from AT&T (speak with a real supervisor, do not consent to having the call recorded, give zero information out until they identify themselves, get a direct line), it turns out that they are a collections agency for Discover Credit Card.

Hmm, you are probably wondering, well maybe my Dad was late on payments.  Well it turns out that he had a Discover bill that was due on August 6th, 2008 and it has no missed payments on it and the dollar owed amounts to a few cups of coffee.  It seems Discover Card in their infinite wisdom can't even wait 30 days passed when a love one dies and hands over your account to a collection agency who has the phone skills of a 3 year old kid hyped up on too many candy bars. 

Allow me to let that sink in.  For a bill that was not late and totaled a few cups of coffee, Discover Card outsourced my deceased father's account to a collection agency who tried to collect on a bill that wasn't past due.  DCM Services has no prior relationship with me and called a number on a do not call list. 

Discover card is slimy for even handing over a good standing account to a bunch of grave robbers like DCM Services.  DCM Services - avoid them if you can.  They can get your personal information and especially your loved ones.  Discover Card should not be a card you have in your wallet.  They hand over good standing account information to a third party (BTW - that account has been paid in full and closed.  The rep on the phone of course has never heard of DCM Services).

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Google's Peter Greenberger Throws Props To McCain's Paid Search Campaign

While having meetings in Crystal City a savvy sales person (don't get excited that doesn't mean I will cut a deal with you) sent me a link to the latest Kate Kaye article on ClickZ called Clinton Needed More Search: Q&A with Google's Greenberger.  As always you can read the article for yourself but here are my highlights and then commentary.

1. He argues savvy search advertising contributed to the success of both Barack Obama's and John McCain's primary season wins by helping them build supporter lists.
2. Through sponsored links in search results, the McCain and Obama camps have driven users seeking information on the candidates to their official Web sites to register for newsletters, volunteer or to donate money.
3. The McCain campaign was the savviest among the Republican presidential primary campaigns. We think it's not a coincidence that the two savviest primary campaigns with Google are the winning ones.
4. Even in the darkest days of the [McCain] campaign... they never stopped spending on Google AdWords... There were times, corresponding to the political polls, when maybe interest waned in his campaign, but he was ready to capture interest.
5. We saw the use of video and I would highlight the McCain campaign for being ahead of the curve on that...

OK, so why did Peter (and I agree with him) believe that Clinton needed more search?  Pretty simple.  People look for almost an infinite amount of keyword combinations and no matter how savvy you are at SEO you can't possibly optimize for those combinations let alone direct people into new or updated landing pages.  For example, if you were trying to get people to sign a petition for a summer gas tax holiday perhaps you'd buy keywords to send searches into your page instead of either a) letting someone else steal your message or b) letting the searchers fend for themselves via the organic listing.  Notice how the page itself isn't listed on the first page of organic results.  You need a paid search campaign for that. 

#1 is correct, but I'd add in that we get $3 - $4 in donations for every $1 we spend online.  It just isn't about building lists and capturing searchers; we balance generating money for the campaign with other activities.  As Peter said we were ahead of the other campaigns when it came to using using video advertising and while I like to pat myself on the back for that, some times when you have a great TV/media team and when you have money challenges, you do what you can for the limited dollars you have.  That meant click to play video ads on the internet.

The article that Kate mentioned (darkest days) includes quotes from me about our online advertising just when the campaign was switching the team around.  I gave that interview in Crystal City that week and I told Kate that the campaign was more charged than ever and it wasn't doom and gloom.  We just had to focus on the early primary states and focus on the Senator.  During that week I was just formulating ideas for how to approach the primary states and hinted as much in the interview "Whether he's buying keywords specifically to counteract the negative press and commentary about the campaign, however, he wouldn't say specifically. "There is a strategy that I'm' working on….I wouldn't call it trying to counteract negativity," he said"  I can't tell you exactly what we did because that was just a warm-up act for the big show.  BTW - we are in the midst of a new approach right now.

Anyway, I thought the article by Kate was very insightful and Peter Greenberger was pretty much on the money with his interview.  One of the things that amazes me is how far we've come since I started with Connell Donatelli 30+ months ago.  I've met a lot of great people and I'm getting the chance to work on a Presidential Campaign which was unfathomable a few years back.  It still amazes me today to see how many people are now working on the campaign.  And it all started because my Yahoo account executive Adrienne Skinner set up a lunch meeting with Becki Donatelli in the summer of 2004.  I still can't believe that I actually do this for a living.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

I'm Bullish on Google TV

Now this is a new Google product I can get into.  At first I thought it was a dog of a product like Google Print or a product like Google Audio that political campaigns couldn't use, but alas I was wrong when it comes to Google TV.  I had a meeting in Crystal City and I came out of the meeting very impressed.  Here's what I liked about it:

1. I can run TV on the Dish network for very little cost ($150 per day?)
2. The Dish network covers like 15% of the US
3. I can pick the channels as well as the content using what amounts to a searchable TV guide
4. It is an auction based CPM model where I get to name my own price and adjust accordingly; of course my ads may not run at the price I choose, but that's ok.
5. You only pay when the ad runs and according to the meeting, DVR playbacks are not included in the cost.
6. You get some great reporting from the TV buy including where and when the ads ran, impressions, paid CPM, # impressions that watched the entire ad, and total/avg seconds viewed.

I walked away from that meeting very excited.  This puts the power of TV, albeit on Dish Network only, into the hands of small advertisers.  And, if you don't have any commercials, Google will give you a $2K credit to spend on building the ads if you agree to spend $2K per week for 4 weeks on Google TV.

If you have the money and don't get the attention you need from your media agency, you should give this a shot yourself.  It is also great for testing content and ads on different shows before you go big nationally.

The only problems I can find with Google TV are that there is limited geo-targeting available today and it is just available on Dish.  The geo-targeting is more problematic since it excludes local markets, but there might be a way to get around it by choosing a specific network (New England Sports Network), but that is a poor method for approximating geo-targeting.  Other than that, I'm so pumped on Google TV that I might run my own ads!

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

BTW - I know I'm about a month behind on this, but I didn't think it was a big deal because of the problems we ran into with Google Audio.  After the meeting last week, I'm a believer.

Drug Advertising and Me

I saw this editorial in today's Star Ledger called End Drug Ad Deception and I had to laugh, not because the article was funny, but because I had the exact same discussion with a friend of mine on our way to a meeting on Friday. My friend Jim and I spoke about this exact editorial of course before it was written and discussed the three drugs mentioned in the article - Lipitor, Procrit, and Vytorin.  All three of these drugs my immediate family has had experience in, but the one thing that was constant was that our doctor's recommended them and hopefully not based on direct to consumer ads.

I'm not going to sit here and write to you that I'm some smart pharmaceutical marketer but I am a consumer in the market for these drugs and I know a thing or two about advertising; plus I just had this discussion on Friday.  Basically the article failed to point out some good pharma has done when they advertise around medical problems you could be having that would cause you to go to a doctor about your problem.  Think about ED (I'm not spelling it out because of spam fear).  According to Jim there are numerous studies that show ED drove a lot of male patients into their doctor's office because of possible problems and this led to other diagnoses. The Star Ledger article failed to mention that, but that was a key discussion point with my friend Jim who is in the pharmaceutical industry.

Now I don't have all the answers but it seems to me that pharma opens themselves up to a lot of criticism, lawsuits, and government regulation with ads that are trying to drive patients into the doctor's office asking for a specific drug.  Do you really know the difference between Lipitor or Vytorin?  Feel a little down in the dumps from your cancer treatment, forget about whether your oncologist recommends your drugs, perhaps you should talk with him/her about Procrit.  Seems like a stretch to me, but perhaps someone has benefited because they were more educated than their doctor. 

However if pharma stuck to advertising around health symptoms, problems that patients could be experiencing they could use their advertising budgets to drive people to doctor's offices and let the professionals figure out which drug they should get.  By the time a patient shows up in the office, big pharma's sales force should have already explained their latest and greatest drugs to the doctor.  The ads could even be sponsored by the latest and greatest drug to get some name recognition out there and working with their sales force could show a tremendous amount of marketing synergy.

Anyway, that was the basis for my Friday conversation with my friend Jim.  Perhaps a shift towards advertising around potential health problems they'd spend a little less on ad dollars but what they did advertise would help patients with potential health problems; thus indirectly driving product sales...That's probably old fashion of me, but why not?

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Ford's New Ad Slogan "Drive One" May Drive Store Traffic

I found this article in the Wall Street Journal called Ford's Latest Better Idea really interesting.  Again you can read the article yourself (I don't like restating articles), but what I found fascinating is that the latest slogan "Drive One" was built with dealers at the marketing table. 

Ford puts a lot of weight into their slogans as witnessed by the chart in the article which tracks them going back to 1979's "Quality is Job 1".  Me, I think the slogan is brilliant as well as what I can guess their strategy is too, but in the end I don't think this will save Ford.  Cars are expensive and people want to make sure the product is up to their par.  Allow me to explain why I think the marketing strategy is brilliant but will fall short.

Back in my brokerage days we were competing with E*Trade, TD Waterhouse, Fidelity, and Scottrade.    Scottrade was always a bit of a mystery to me because they spent big bucks and they couldn't be converting new accounts at the rate Harrisdirect was.  It wasn't until we dug into their competitive advertising that we realized their strategy was to use their marketing to drive qualified traffic into their branch managers who did the follow up sales closing.  The online advertising director was only concerned with driving quality traffic into the correct branch manager and that's it.  I always thought that was pretty sweet.  Now back to Ford...

Guessing by what I read in the Journal I'm thinking that Ford is borrowing from the Scottrade play book.  I could just imagine those meetings with the dealers where the dealers said to the marketing team "just drive traffic into our dealerships and we'll take care of the rest". 

Ford had two slogans from 1979 - 1998 and then from 2000 - 2008 they've used a whopping 6.  If a marketing campaign doesn't drive awareness which in tune drives purchase interest than clearly there is a problem before a dealer (or website site) can sell a car.  If those ads weren't doing their branding job than that would manifest itself in low dealer traffic and dealerships complaining that the marketing campaigns aren't working.  Now enter "Drive One".

"Drive One" to me not only conjures up driving a car but more importantly coming in to the dealership to test drive one.  This tactic drives traffic into the dealer's hands but in turn puts more pressure on them to close sales.  Not saying they are not up to it, but really that's the point of having a physical location.

I think Ford's new campaign slogan is brilliant and if the strategy is to put pressure on the dealers to close sales than that's where it should be.  Let the marketing build awareness and drive interest and the physical locations close the sale.  Unfortunately for Ford the product is where their issues are and I wrote that back when I critiqued their Bold Moves website.  If their car products are good the new slogan will work, if they continue to be below average it won't help them.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

AAPC Question - Is It Unethical for A Vendor to Influence Dollars to Make Money

I'm home after spending a few days at the American Associate of Political Consultants collecting a few awards, being on an awesome panel, smoking cigars with Rich Kosinski and Michel Bassik on the boards in Santa Monica, and meeting a lot of smart people.  I really had a great time and attended quite a lot of good panels.  One of the panels produced one of the more electrifying moments between a sponsor and two attendees, both sitting near me.  This made me wonder, what is the responsibility, if anything, from vendors when it comes to helping themselves but potentially influencing voters?  Here are the details before you answer....

Saturday morning a much anticipated workshop/panel sponsored by HCD Research took place with presentation from basically the HCD team (hence workshop versus pure panel).  HCD (based on my notes) uses a panel to provide real time creative evaluation of TV commercials and records their impressions over the length of the ad.  They primarily provide data to the Pharmaceutical industry, but are dabbling in the political space.    HCD showed a lot of interesting information and while I was excited to go to the meeting at first, they still don't quite have the grasp as to why politicians runs ads (more on that later).   Things got heated when HCD's Glenn Kessler recapped their Swift Boat analysis.

Basically Glenn said that they tested the Swift Boat ads before it was really picked up by the national media and showed that they would be damaging to John Kerry among independents.   Glenn boasted that this analysis was picked up by the MSM and this fueled getting the ad shown on news networks boosting the amount of media exposure out of the ads (I think the ads were only paid to run in three states). This got a person sitting in my row quite agitated and he mumbled something under his breath obviously because he not only worked on Kerry's campaign but still harbored strong feelings.

During the Q&As my neighbor who was still pissed off ask the following question directed at Glenn Kessler which caused the following heated exchange based on my memory so the actual wording is probably not accurate but the meaning is very close to what happened.

Agitated Neighbor:  "As a Democrat do you feel any responsibility from helping fuel the earned media exposure regarding the Swift Boat ad?"

This caused a bigger and slightly more angrier person to ask my neighbor "Are you serious?'

Agitated Neighbor:  "Yes I'm serious.  He helped take down Kerry" (or something like that)

Big Angry Man: "That's the most offensive question I've ever heard."  Before these two got into a fist fight, Glenn Kessler basically answered.

Glenn Kessler:  "Well my mother was quite upset with me" which calmed these two political gladiators down.  Glenn continued to say that they basically were sharing the data and just because they were the first to break it doesn't mean that someone else wouldn't have found it and released it too.  Which caused me to wonder, when should a vendor have some responsibility?

Clearly HCD was trying to get earned media exposure and help their company.  Nothing wrong with that and HCD now tries to white label their products to companies that are involved in politics so they don't choose sides.  However, if you want to be in this business and you claim you are a Democrat you have to be a lot more careful about boasting about an ad like the Swift Boat ads.  It shows a lack of understanding that you have to choose sides no matter if the side you really are in is making money side

After that point, HCD lost the audience but primarily not due to the "picking sides" point but due to not understanding the industry.  It showed later on again when he analyzed Hillary's latest 3AM ad broadcast in Texas and concluded that at a national level it didn't motivate Independents, but upset Obama supporters, and got Hillary supporters feeling very positive.  His mistakes were:

1. Defending using a national panel instead of just Texans
2. Not understanding that perhaps the Clinton campaign was trying to motivate Hillary supporters to GOTV or firm up their support
3. Maybe the Clinton campaign was trying to win voters over in major DMAs

Anyway, I don't have a problem with what HCD did, but then again that's not something that I'd personally ever do since I'm already involved with Republican campaigns.  I think HCD has a great product that provides a lot of interesting data, but they are missing an understanding as to what motivates campaigns to run ads.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric   

Newspaper's Declining Circ Numbers Hopefully Speed More Ad Dollar Shifts

Here's a news flash, newspapers continue to have declining circulation numbers over the past 4 years courtesy of editor and publisher.  It totals about 1.4 million per day and with the exception of USA Today and the NY Post these guys are getting killed.  WSJ which I still subscribe to ($99 for both paper and online) lost 3.8% but some of my favorite losers were NY Times at 7.2 and LA Times at 20.2.  One I still subscribe to also The Star Ledger got whacked by 13.6%.  Me, I think it couldn't have happened to a nice bunch of laggards than the newspaper industry.

I've hated print advertising for years for its lack of direct tracking, lack of animation, and lack of visual pleasantness.  If you are spending money for a print campaign you are 100% better off online and it has been that way for a while.  You can track, finely target, run better looking ads, and you are guaranteed to have your ad shown to people.  Print, none of that is true. 

I've actually been thrown out of a couple of meetings because I argued so hard against print.  The only valid reason I've ever seen for wasting money in print ads is that our executives want to see the ads on the back cover of Barron's or some paper.  The only real exception I'd make for print advertising is your local community newspaper, but even that is going away especially when they do a nice site overhaul like my local one just did over at the Observer Tribune.  For fun and to revisit a post I made a few years back check out this oldie but goodie post I made called Ketel One Marketers Need to Go Back to The Drawing Bar and read the comments where I was under fire from agency folks defending their livelihood. 

So what do I think is going on?  Simple.  You get your news faster online, RSS feeds, Twitter if that's your flavor, and round the clock news on TV.  It isn't that the content is bad (unless it is filled with garbage like The NY Times these days) it is really yesterday's news by the time you get it.  Something like the Journal still interests me because I get in depth analysis and the print format of the WSJ is preferable to me than online.  The Star Ledger, well that's my early morning read and men's room read, but I'd give it up in a second if NJO.com wasn't so archaic.  USA Today and The NY Post deliver that quick news story and their format feeds America's need for news as entertainment.

Newspaper circulation has been disappearing for years and will continue to dwindle.   Move your ad budgets out ASAP and put them to work in a better medium like the internet.  It is about time you did.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Google Won't Put Agencies Out Of Business Unless of Course An Agency Provides No Value

I'm still catching up on my RSS feeds but I saw this post by MEDIAWEEK called Google Goes On Charm Offensive at AAAA Media and I really had to laugh; hence the need for a post.  Google's Tim Armstrong went out of his way to point out that Google is not the enemy to agencies, at least in my opinion to agencies that provide value.  Allow me to explain.

As a client and now as a political agency executive and consultant, I've always purchased my media.  Whether that was search marketing or display buys I always had the media buy under my control (for a brief time DLJdirect used Modem Media to purchase media before my time, but I ended up taking it back).  So I think I have an interesting reference point.  Google as well as most online advertising publishers are geared towards a self-servicing  or client centric model; that's the way it was built as compared with TV, Print, DM, and Radio which were built around an agency model. 

Google to me is the premier self-servicing model.  You as an individual, small business, or eCampaign manager can go right in, pop-in a billing option (or wait for credit), pick your keywords, design your text ads, use their targeting, and finally implement their tracking package.  The thing that makes Google so great is that it gives small marketers the tools historically unavailable to you unless you had huge marketing budgets.  Hence the perceived agency threat.

For me there were only three reasons why a client would hire an agency; creative, media, or consultant.  These reasons are:

1. A Guru at the agency that can move your business forward
2. Client does not have the time or resources
3. Client does not have the resident expertise in-house

That's it.  Three simple reasons and if your agency doesn't have a guru you can make a great living at #2 and #3.  And if you continue to provide value and services, you'll keep your clients assuming you don't get lazy. 

Google is not a threat to any of those reasons.  As an agency do you have a digital strategy and search guru you can pimp out?  If yes, then no worries your sales pitch is we have this expert you'll love and then charge your premium.  Isn't that how most agencies started anyway; hence the old agency name with the founder in the company title (my all time favorite agency names wa Messner Veter Berger McNamee Schmetterer).

Agencies should stop being scared of Google and embrace it.  Google helps your business model and even if you have a smart client that runs media, often they don't have the time or dedicated resources to devote to it.  There are a lot more clients in that model than the old Harrisdirect model of buying direct.  This is a time where the agencies should stop being threatened and get on board with the search/digital strategy.  That's where a huge share of the marketing budget is going, so instead of fighting it, join it and get a bigger share of the budget.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Disney Still The One To Beat On Customer Service

So the Frenchmans are back from our annual pilgrimage to the house that Walt Disney built in Florida and I usually come back with some marketing factoids that I notice that Disney Corp does better than anyone else.  This year was no exception, but pretty much the marketing tips centered around customer service, marketing, and defending your competitive turf.  Seriously, year after year I don't really looks for these things, but as is the case with Disney they pretty much smack you in the face with their marketing prowess.

1. Personalized Service That Makes You Feel Special - After the second full day in the park which was spent at The Animal Kingdom we went to one of our favorite restaurants Boma.  Boma is the only dinner buffet we will ever go to because the food doesn't sit at all in chafing dishes, the food is unique, and is brought out fresh as soon as it is finished cooking.  We noticed the head chef TJ making the rounds in the dining area and he stopped by our table when we told him how special we thought Boma was.   Next thing we know TJ sends out a special plate of ribs and a version of mushroom tempura for us and then later on he sent us a dessert he made for us.  We didn't realize it but evidently Disney considers him their best chef and he refuses to go anywhere else but Boma.  He said we have a new friend at Boma and we should ask for him next time we come in - I can only imagine how many people TJ has told that to in a year.
2. Pirate and Princess Party In The Rain Shows Their Training - So the last two times we went to Disney we paid an extra fee (yes) to go to a special party at the Magic Kingdom at night.  They close the park early and then in order to enter the party you need this special pass.  Sure they hand out cheap beads at special locations marked via an X, but the park is virtually empty and you can walk on rides as often as you want with no wait (unlike Magic Hours).   This year it started to rain about 2 and half hours into the party chasing us and a bunch of other families.  However, the Cast Members went right along with their jobs and business not even flinching when the rain was slamming them.  Personally, I thought it was a masterful example of their training and the focus of their employees;  I think 99% of companies would crave for that level of dedication.
3. They Listen to Customer Feedback - One of the many complaints over the years with Disney Dining was that they didn't have your typical reservation system and you were often seated within 15-30 minutes of check-in which most people (your truly) complained about; it always reminded me about that Seinfeld skit (taking a reservation is easy, holding the reservation is what counts).  This year I noticed that they took no walk-ins and we were always seated within 2 minutes of checking in.  Clearly someone figured out that the old reservation system was upsetting the people who planned in advance while walk-ins were treated on the same level unlike any other restaurant scenario (tough luck).  Not saying it is right, but that's the way reservations work outside Disney.  BTW - they also improved the Magical Express service, but more on that below.
4. Protecting Your Customer From The Competition - On the way back to the airport (we took a cab to spend more time in the park), I noticed that the cab driver was not taking I-4 back so I asked him why not.  He explained that as part of their Disney training, they are told not to take I-4 back to the airport because the other highway is just as short and you don't take the customers by Sea World or past Universal billboards.  I thought this was brilliant on Disney's part but what I thought was even more amazing was that this cab driver had Disney training.  According to the cabbie, Disney's Magical Express, the cabs that are found on property, as well as any limos you may rent are all owned and operated by Mears Transportation.  You remember Mears, don't you?  They were the bus transportation company that you thought Disney put out of business with Magical Express.  Nope.  They are the exclusive ground transportation for Disney.  Talk about a) getting a sweet deal for both companies b) making sure that the Disney customer is cared for to and from the airport c) making it seem that Disney does not have complete control over you, when they ummm really do.  Brilliant!

There weren't many things to complain about.  Heck the concierge had access to the latest radar readings to help us make an informed decision about spending extra money to go to a water park.  Since Disney seems to have their Mouse Ears up - here are three things I'd like for them to fix for me besides lowering the cost....

• Equip people with some sort of text message, social network space, early warning system so that we can make informed decisions regarding which park to travel to.  One day Disney Studios was invaded by a cheerleader competition swelling the park population so I could be heard mumbling "I used to like cheerleaders..."
• Instruct parents that every kid that has ever been to a Disney park has been cute at least once in their life.  I was so annoyed with a father who let his younger kids sit in a wheelchair row with the look back to the crowd of "look how cute my kids are I can't control them".  EVERY KID IN DISNEY HAS BEEN CUTE AND YOUR LITTLE CRITTERS ARE NO DIFFERENT (actually the complaint is to please leave the wheelchair accessible rows open until instructed by a cast member.  No person who can sit there should have to ask someone who should not be there to move)
• More butter and less margarine.  One day for breakfast at the counter service location in the hotel (a deluxe one) I decided to have pancakes.  All I could find were some chemical enhanced butter substitutes which really upset me.  Come on Disney.  How much money do I need to pay per day to have a friggin pat of butter.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

(BTW - if I seem off tonight it is because I had to put my 15 year old cat to sleep today.  RIP Puglsey)

Team McCain's Response Sends The NY Times Spinning Out of Control

The response to the NY Times hit story on Senator McCain showcases why the campaign is a well oiled machine and has such high quality individuals running it.  People say to me all the time how remarkable the turn around was from the summer and those that spoke with me back then were surprised that I kept saying the old team is back, everything will be fine, and we have plenty of time.  The campaign team is so amazingly great that as someone that really watches from a far, but gets an occasional inside view, they never cease to impress with the strategy and tactics they employ.

There were tons of articles on the NY Times forgetting (personally I think they forgot long ago) their journalistic integrity, which I will list below, but my favorite is the recap from Politico which outlines the response chronologically.  If you read one story and want to see the team in action, read the story entitled McCain turns tables on Times.  Oh and one more just came through from Marc Ambinder which adds more commentary to the McCain response.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

• Washington Post N.Y. Times Gets Flak From All Sides on Explosive Story

• NY Post DRIVE-BY JOURNALISM - shocking when the Post can rip on you.
• Boston Herald When innuendo passes as ‘news’
• Washington Times: A vast left-wing conspiracy?

• And one final word from the NY Post ALL NEWS FIT TO SMEAR

Circuit City Is In More Trouble Than The WSJ Portrays

So this weekend I decided to replace my old Sony Cybershot 5.0 Mega Pixel camera.  It was a total impulse buy otherwise I would have shopped online.  What caused this impulse?  I was upset that during the McCain Hamilton NJ event I just didn't get enough good pictures out of my camera and the delay between shots with the flash on was taking an eternity.  The kids were at a birthday party so Mary and I ran a few errands and one of our first stops was Circuit City in Ledgewood NJ.

The camera sales person was very helpful and steered me away from the latest Sony cameras over to the Canons.  Based on my needs he recommended the Canon Titanium 12 MP version but sadly after "closing the sale" he had no inventory.  He also "sold me" on the 8 MP version too, but gave the nod to the casing on the Titanium version.  Not wanting to give up, he checked all of the Circuit Citys (note:  Do you spell that Cities or Citys since City is a proper name?  I too comfy in front of my fireplace to go look that up).  Guess what none of them had any inventory either and didn't have any inventory on the 8 MP versions either.  So, we walked out without a camera.

After we picked up the munchkins we headed down to my Father's house and stopped off at Best Buy in Bridgewater.  The camera sales man there was not as helpful and when I walked in asking for the Titanium he said they didn't carry them because it was too expensive.  And guess what?  He didn't carry the 8 MP version either because it was too expensive.  So, we left Best Buy without a camera.

So like a good internet junkie I researched the cameras on CNET and found that not only don't I want the Canon Titanium, the Sony camera still had the annoying slow delay, and some of the newer Sonys had touch screens which were not recommended.  So even though CNET recommended one of the non-touch screen Sony cameras I was going for the Canon Power Shot 8 MP. 

OK, now I'm back to the local Circuit City in Eatontown where they not only didn't have the Titanium or the 8MP they also didn't have the Sony.  Mind you they were showing all of these cameras but didn't have any inventory.  The inexperienced sales man tried to sell me a 7 MP Canon that was on sale, but I just walked out totally frustrated and confused by Circuit City.  Besides the sales process which can be hit or miss, they had no inventory yet continued to try to sell me cameras.  Seriously, what's the purpose of a retail store in 2008 if you can't make an impulse purchase?

All was not lost and I walked into the 6th Avenue Electronics who had inventory and the smart sales person closed an easy sale (me).  They sold me camera case and a 2GB memory stick and I was out of there in 15 minutes with the camera that the original Circuit City person introduced me to - the Canon 8 MP camera that I'm playing with right now.

I was perplexed about Circuit City's sales process and obvious inventory problem until I read this article in today's WSJ called Can Circuit City Survive Boss's Cure?  The entire article talked about cost cutting, layoffs, and closing stores.  Based on my experience this weekend, I give an enthusiastic answer of NO to the article's question.  At least now I have the answer.  Circuit City with its beaten down employees and cost cutting have cut too much inventory, too much experience, and ruined what is the only reason to shop at big retailers in today's internet world - an impulse shopping experience. 

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Feb 3 - Feb 4 2008 - Giants and John McCain in NJ

Wow - that was two awesome days for me.  First, watching the Giants beat the Patriots for my third Super Bowl win as a Giants fan and then to Hamilton NJ with my son Jacob to watch history being made with John McCain in Hamilton, NJ.  So let's take my weekend in order

1. Giants Game - what more can I say but it was the greatest football game I've ever witnessed.  I thought the 1990 Super Bowl was my best game but this one topped that game.  BTW - my wife bought me an Eli Manning jersey during his first season with the Giants and I NEVER STOPPED WEARING IT even after his 6 interception game versus the Vikings
2. Tiki Barber - This might be sour grapes, but I think every Giants fan should donate their Barber jerseys and buy Eli Manning jerseys.  Tiki showed his lack of class when he became a distraction last season, bad mouthed Coach Coughlin, and then ripped Eli Manning at the beginning of this year.
3. Super Bowl commercials - finally a year when these ads were shown to be what they always were - not entertainment but commercials.  For the most part they were not very good.  I thought the Bud and Bud Lite ads were very well done and I liked the Doritos mouse ad, but I question the value of buying an ad on the Super Bowl at $2.7 million per 30 seconds for a snack chip.  I thought the E*Trade baby ad was not funny at all and a step back for them.
4. John McCain in Hamilton NJ - It was a really great event today.  Jacob got a seat right on the stage with a home made sign that Kaela and my wife made; we were the only ones who were able to bring a homemade sign in.  I was all the way on the right with a spot right below Rudy.  The event was a who's who in NJ and National politics and had the energy of a Springsteen concert.  Tom Kean Jr, Gov. Tom Kean, Rudy, John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Phil Gramm, Lindsey Graham, Gov Crist, Cindy McCain, and Roberta McCain, plus more.  Jacob was patted on the head by Gov Crist, Senators Lieberman and Graham which caused Jacob to ask "why do they always pat me on the head?".  If you watched the event on TV you had to look for Jacob because he was blocked by as he said (I'm not making this up) "a bunch of celebrity butts!". Enjoy the Flickr photos below.

It doesn't get much better than this in the Frenchman household.

www.flickr.com

This is a Flickr badge showing photos in a set called John McCain GOTV in Hamilton NJ. Make your own badge here.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Beware of Rachel from Cardholder Services

Within the same day (today) I received two calls from Rachel from Cardholder Services.  One on my business line and one on my home line.  The one on my business line I ignored but my home line has been on the national do not call list from Day 1.  So, I'm not sure how they legally got my number.  I got so annoyed from getting out of my chair, I pressed one to yell at the rep on the end of the line.

As a person that used outbound telemarketing while at AT&T, I usually have sympathy for call reps, but not this guy.  They have to know they must be breaking a Do Not Call law since I'm pretty sure I don't have a relationship with Cardholder Services and my number is on the list.  Plus, the way the call came through on my CID as Private Number is also fishy and I wonder if that is breaking the law.  Hitting one means that the telemarketing company got paid by Card holder Services whomever they are.

Personally, I smell a scam.  They pitch an offer to lower my rates but not saying which card it is.  The Private Number looks fishy as is the unknown company.  The rep didn't get a chance to tell me more, because I was rude.  My suggestion is to beware of Cardholder Services.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

AT&T's TrueVoice Wished They Got The Light Bulb Treatment

I saw this article in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal called Bye Bye Light Bulb and it got me thinking about AT&T's TrueVoice "product".  Basically the article says how lucky manufacturers like GE and Phillips are that the US Government passed a law to outlaw the old version of the light bulb in favor of energy saver versions by 2012/2014.  These new bulbs already available on the market costs $3 instead of the 50 cents for the old ones, but theoretically save you money in electrical bills.  According to the article:

"Yes, the $3 bulb lasts longer. Yes, it cuts your electricity bill. Mr. Moorehead says that when every one of those four billion light sockets has an energy-saving bulb in it, the country will be saving $18 billion a year on its electric bill. That's $4.50 per bulb -- and the bulb makers are standing by to make sure a substantial portion of those "savings" get transformed into profits for them."

Wow isn't that convenient.  A product that nobody wants (5% market share) convinces the government of passing a new law and wham, you have instant product sales.  Now, the problem (and the link to TrueVoice) is that their selling proposition is that these new bulbs will help you save money on your electrical bill.  Pay more upfront for future savings, but if the savings was so good why aren't the sales there now?  Perhaps the American public doesn't want to pay for phantom product results.  Now to AT&T TrueVoice.

When I first came over to the marketing side at AT&T they were promoting TrueVoice.  TrueVoice which as I recall was being promoted by a new AT&T Marketing VP Dan Clarke as producing better call quality from your home phone.  This call quality proved by Bell Labs would allow AT&T to charge more money for a long distance call.  Problem was customers didn't think their home call quality was bad and when compared with the competition MCI and Sprint (remember them) the difference wasn't discernible.  Sure Bell Labs could prove it, but people just didn't care.  And, AT&T stopped promoting it because it didn't make a difference.

Unlike the light bulb guys, AT&T couldn't have the government mandate acceptable call quality.  Think about it.  Companies that have products that you just buy and are tough to differentiate (milk, light bulbs, pencils, coffee filters, home phone service) just need to somehow convince the government that it is to the American people's benefit to own their new product instead of the old one. Think Organic Milk industry.    Having the US Government speak up on an industry's sales woes is a true voice that anyone can hear a difference in.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Is The 30 Second TV Ad Dead Based on Huckabee's Iowa Win?

So while watching the Iowa results on CNN and Politico.com I couldn't help but think about TV ads and of course negative campaign ads.  Is the 30 second political TV ad dead?  Can you still use traditional marketing to win an election?  Do negative ads work? 

Mitt Romney spent millions and millions of dollars on TV ads in Iowa but it turned out to be a poor investment.  I know some of you are cynical but if you outspend your opponent by a ton and lose an election it was a poor investment, period.  The trend in Iowa showed Romney leading for a long time and then Huckabee coming out of almost nowhere to close on the win. 

So what was the playbook that Romney used?   He went negative with his TV ads when he saw the trend.  At one point according to Politico he was running 1000s of GRPs to push his message with Huckabee spending what he could, but at a much reduced rate.  Huckabee even went so far as to prepare a negative ad to counter Romney's negativity, called a press conference to show it, and then changed his mind to say he won't run it because he was tired of negativity.  A lot of people ridiculed Huckabee for it.  Me?  I just thought it was part of his charm that helped carry him to a win in Iowa.   BTW - he did continue to run this ad, but I didn't spend enough time trying to figure out whether it was shipped and couldn't get removed or he just changed his mind.

According to an article on Townhall, Romney will continue running his negative TV ads and we are already experiencing them in NH.  Why?  Because he believes they will work.  Romney believes that the ads are contrast ads, but when a contrast ad doesn't contain truths isn't that the same as a negative ad?  That really was a question, but see this link from Factcheck.org to make your own decision.  I have mine.

What does Huckabee's win in Iowa say about political marketing?  A lot and a little.  From my 2 years of experience, political victories are still won via retail politics.  Going door to door, kissing babies, getting signatures, and putting up signs (yes we all hate them when they come to town).  Staying on message, resonating with voters, and bringing your opinions and experience are of course extremely important -always has been.

TV ads still can move numbers.  Huckabee ran them, albeit at much lower levels than Romney.  However, the internet plays a strong role.  Huckabee's website traffic numbers (see chart below) were a leading indicator of his increasing popularity. 

My personal observations in the political blogosphere (for another post, but it is just downright disgusting) shows that there are tons of reasons to have an internet strategy.  And of course there is search marketing and online advertising.  (BTW - as shown with my previous post, Romney spent the most in online advertising and we already know who has the most efficient search marketing - McCain.)  A modern political campaign can't just rely on pounding the airwaves any more with negative ads.  You need to resonate with voters, mobilize your base of support, raise money, advertise - off and online, and then get your people to the polls.  All aspects of your marketing campaigns come into play; politics 2008 is just no longer about who can run the most TV ads.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Why Politics is Not Like Marketing

I normally never make posts over a weekend, but I figured with Monday being Christmas Eve I might as well fire away.  One of my favorite political blogs www.eyeon08.com had a write up on a recent blogger conference call with my Presidential candidate John McCain and before you stop reading, don't worry this is about marketing.  According to Soren when asked about a brokered Republican Convention, Senator McCain said this "You get so much of a bounce out of the early primaries, I just don’t think it is true. … No matter how rich you are, no one can buy enough media. It is done with earned media."  Couple that quote with a leaked comment to Talking Points Memo that McCain's Online Fundraising is up 500% and that my friends got me thinking about this blog post.

After spending 15 years working in telecom, wireless, and financial services I joined Connell Donatelli 2 years ago and now work in political marketing.  When I first joined, I was pretty much like any marketer that thought - "well why don't we market in this manner", but unlike others that have tried to crack this industry from the outside I had some real players in this space like Mike and Becki that could explain how things work.  In the private sector I believed in a simple marketing formula for success which I derived from my direct mail and OTM days at AT&T.  While I still use this formula for arranging programs, it doesn't carry the same weight in the political industry.  The formula goes like this:

Marketing Success = Creatives+Offer+Targeting

What I believed is that you could have a successful program if you got 2 out of the 3 variables correct.  Good creatives and good targeting can save a lousy product or offer and the same goes for a great offer with great targeting.  If you only have one thing right, your campaign is guaranteed to fail.  Later on with online advertising I added in optimization as a secondary variable, but in politics it is much more complicated than that.  Let's take a look at why for you "why don't campaigns do it this way" marketers....

Why Political Marketing Is Not Like Selling Phone Service

1. Earned Media Is An Extremely Important Component - As Senator McCain said "no matter how rich you are, no one can buy enough media" which is definitely a switch from your private sector advertisers.  Marketing budgets are huge in the private sector, but at the end of the day it is advertising, not someone on your local news or national paper promoting your service.
2. Your Product Serves Numerous Purposes - Private Sector Marketers like to boil down an offer or product to maybe 1 or 2 secondary benefits; you know what I'm talking about if you've ever read a marketing brief.  Politicians mean many things to different people and while you hope your candidate plays well with the most important issues, they can never please everyone 100% of the time.
3. When The Elections Are Over, You Are Really Done - It is hard to live to another day. All marketers start fresh in the new year and can potentially make up for a bad one.  In politics once the election is over, your job is done.  Plus, you can't fudge the numbers because you need a certain percentage of votes or Electoral votes to win; there is no room for rounding up.
4. Word of Mouth Marketing Marketers Would Kill For - I read somewhere recently on a marketing blog (can't remember which one) where the writer predicted that blogs would be important in 2008.  The prediction is laughable because political blogs have been around for years and were critical back in 2004.  They are everywhere, good and bad, drumming up stories true or false and sometimes even anonymous.  Imagine 1000s of people waiting to see what you do, say, or when you make a mistake.  You can't hide.
5. You Can't Just Win with Marketing - As Marc Ambinder discovered when he interviewed Senator McCain's national political director Mike Dennehy you need a lot of face to face time with your voters or as they say, retail politics.  I personally discovered this when I gathered 100 signatures in NJ to get Senator McCain on the ballot (btw - #90 was former Governor Tom Kean before he endorsed Senator McCain).  When was the last time you got 100 of your friends together to listen to a pitch from AT&T?  If you can't extend your online support to additional voters outside the internet, you end up as Howard Dean (Ron Paul next?)
6. External Factors That You Can't Forecast - Even when you have everything correct in your marketing, your campaign can still fail.  A new issue may pop up that your candidate is on the wrong side, you just might not have enough buzz to make anything pop, or your opponents may just start hammering your candidate for something they said 10 years ago.
7. Polling Causes Up and Down Swings - Every summer in the financial services sector they get ready for Smart Money's Brokerage Rankings, but after a month or two nobody cares unless you market your rating.  Every day and multiple times per day polling companies publish how your candidate is doing.  While I personally believe polling data is slightly interesting there are so many different ways of polling people and getting results that you can get confused.  My favorite poll data to ignore now is National Presidential Polls; here's a flash Wall Street Journal, we don't elect Presidents in this manner so your poll is interesting but not relevant.

Marketing for a campaign is nothing like what you are doing today.  It never shuts off and you have so many factors that influence your results that it is difficult to apply the same old techniques.  If you think you are a hot shot marketer that wants to enter the space, tread carefully because as my old boss once said to me "we ain't selling phone service here, Eric".

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

CMO's Fail Because The Rest of the CXO's Don't Respect the M

I just read this article in the December 10th edition of Business Week called "The Short Life of the Chief Marketing Officer" and it really fired me up; it fired me up so much that I'm writing a second post tonight.  Personally I think it was a hatchet job on the CMOs with tidbits like these:

• CMOs last 26 months on average in a job versus 44 months for CEOs (personally I think it is an apples and oranges comparison; CEOs are picked by the board and often the CMO is picked by the CEO)
• New media options are "bewildering"
• CMOs are second guessed and have people looking over their shoulders
• It is a fuzzy assignment (what isn't these days)
• On the heals of former Cingular CMO Marc Lefar talking about  how he needed to get his head around "a geeky marketing tool" called SEO (un-friggin-believable), he was quoted saying "the average 45 year-old chief marketing officer cannot possibly figure out what's cool"

It paints a horrifying picture of the state of CMOs; regrettably I can't find it online for you to read.  However, it neglected one important aspect of the CMO that I've seen make the strongest ones crack.  It is the micro-manager CEO/Chairman that thinks they understand marketing because they read a book, founded a company, or watched Donny Deutsch's The Big Idea (BTW - not a shot on Deutsch or the show which I enjoy).  Here are sure signs if your CEO/Chairman/Founder is a micro managing wanna be CMO:

• Demands that you run useless news paper ads especially in papers that are just good for their ego (ex - The Wall Street Journal)
• Believes marketing is brochure ware
• Won't let you hire a copy writer and insists you do it yourself
• Keeps laying off your staff and has some "wiz kid" in operations/execution write your ads
• Wants you to take creative direction from the head sales guy because he knows what they need in the field
• Insists on proof reading your ads and then offers to re-write your copy or change colors
• Wants to be part of the decision making process in picking your agency or said another way, wants to pick the agency but doesn't respect the process
• Forwards you SPAM solicitation emails about how to get high rankings in search
• Assuming they know something about search, writes your text ads or refuses to let you have landing pages
• Takes sales calls for websites, newspapers, and TV but neglects to include you in the discussion
• Goes around your back to your subordinates to make your life miserable

I could go on and on, but you get the picture.  I'm not saying the CMO is perfect and lord knows if you don't understand SEO you probably shouldn't be a CMO any more.  I hate to write it, but if you are one of these TV and Newspaper first kind of CMO's then I hope you are marketing a product that skews way older or towards non-internet savvy customers.  Otherwise, your days in the CMO chair are over. 

The article makes it seem like blogs, social networking, YouTube are scary things, but how about just plain online advertising which is proven to deliver results through the years.  Why do you think Financial Services Companies pay like $8-$10 million per year for the Yahoo Quotes Results package?  If you aren't advertising online then you couldn't spell ROI if someone spotted you the "R" and the "O".

From what I've seen during my 18 years of marketing, CMOs and other Senior Marketing Execs fails because of

1. micro-managing CEO or founder
2. market forces which the CXO team failed to recognize and the CMO takes it on the chin
3. an over zealous sales exec who doesn't get his way
4. loses a beauty contest to peers or some up and coming manager
5. The CEO changes the direction of the firm
6. Doesn't know a thing about the internet (mentioned in the BW article)

Enough of this rant...PardonMyFrench,

Eric

WSJ Ad Editors Let Deceptive Ballistic Rolls Coin Ad Run

I was flipping through today's paper edition of the Wall Street Journal specifically looking for the McCain article on how well he did on the MTV/MySpace debate from the other day when I stumbled across this shocking ad from these apparent shady characters at the Ballistic Rolls company which redirects to the World Reserve Monetary Exchange.  Now before I hammer these people, the kind that I can't stand let me tell you why I'm so upset with the Journal.

Back towards the end of our run at Harrisdirect we were running print, TV, and online ads for our new advertising campaign.  Much to my chagrin, I wasn't able to prevent the print from running and got myself kicked out of a meeting or two.  After I calmed down, they let me participate again just in time for the Wall Street Journal's ad editorial review to reject one of our print ads for language we used.  Not that the ad was misleading, but they didn't like the use of one of our words, so we had to redo the ad.  However, it was NOTHING compared with these totally misleading ads from Ballistic Rolls aka the World Reserve Monetary Exchange.

You see the Wall Street Journal let through an ad that promotes how you can get your FREE COINS!  FREE COINS in nice big print so even a partially blind person could read it.  However, in order to get your free counts you must cover the $98 vault release fee.  Wow some free offer.  I can't believe they got away with running this ad, let alone trying to promote them as government coins.  Of course they have this great fine print which I typed in by hand to see how awful this "promotion" is:  THE INCREASE IN COLLECTIBLE VALUE OF CERTAIN PRIOR ISSES OF U.S. COUNTS AND CURRENCY DOES NOT GUARANTEE THAT CURRENT ISSUES WILL ALSO INCREASE IN VALUE.  THE WORLD RESERVE MONETARY EXCHANGE IS NOT AFFILIATE WITH THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT OR ANY GOVERNMENT AGENCY.  OH RESIDENTS PLEASE ADD SIX PERCENT SALES TAX AND SORRY NO SHIPMENTS TO MA AND VT RESIDENTS.  ALL TRANSACTIONS LESS SHIPPING ARE BACKED BY THE WORLD RESERVE MONETARY EXCHANGE WITH A MONEY BACK GUARANTEE OF THE PURCHASE PRICE UP TO $10,000.

As you can see from that second photo the coins are "free" so it appears to any person that the World Reserve Monetary Exchange is giving you a money back guarantee of a "free" purchase price.  I personally doubt that the $98 vault release fee would be returned.  Clearly the coins are NOT FREE because you need to PAY the $98 vault release fee and then if you aren't satisfied you get nothing back in return, right?  Oh, when I went to www.ballisticrolls.com and put in the claim authorization code shown in the ad SR1949 I got "The access code you have entered is invalid" and if you continue on without a code there is NO MENTION of this "offer" on their website.

Isn't this the type of ad scam that should have never slipped through the WSJ's ad review process?  Perhaps they got rid of that, but this kind of ad should not be in the marketplace.  I wonder what the FTC would say about this?

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Subway's Convoluted Advertising Campaign

I went over my friend Jim's house today for his child's birthday party and thankfully he put the Giants-Lions football game on.  He doesn't have a DVR so we had to watch the game "live" which really put me at a disadvantage because I can't remember the last time I watched TV live with commercials.  I couldn't go to the bathroom and I wasn't sure when I should get my soda filled up (being a little funny).  So basically, I sat through commercials and got a good look at what I've been missing lately which of course was a bunch of garbage.

What did get me a little confused and not because they were poorly designed were the Subway commercials.  The ads themselves look like one of my least favorite creatives to review in a meeting with an agency.  The classic "Beautiful ad execution that is off strategy" version.  Of course I don't know what Subway's strategy is but it looked to me like they were drifting away from their "eat fresh/eat healthy" strategy with their new ads.

Everyone knows about Subway's Jared Fogel, their tie in with the American Heart Association, and if you've ever eaten in one, their dedication to helping people make healthier fast food selections.  They do have a campaign on their website regarding New Fresh and Fit which includes a diet coke, healthier sandwich and Dannon yogurt.   What surprised me today was Subway's The Family Guy ad that featured a "less than" healthy sub called "The Subway Feast" composed of pepperoni, ham, roast beef, salami, and cheese piled high on bread.  Definitely a very "un-Jared-like" sandwich which surprised me (see the ad I uploaded).  They do say at the end "take that Jared".

Click To Play

I'm a little surprised that they are trying to deviate from their healthy alternative platform.  Sure it seems like a line extension of their brand, but lets face it, their sandwiches aren't very good if you are going the fatty, unhealthy route.  They were always on the thin side when it came to the meats and to really make it filling you had to load it up with veggies, black olives, and etc.  Throw on top of that a diet coke and baked chips and you had a decent healthy lunch for a good price.  The meats themselves never looked up to or tasted as well as say a Boar's Head but like I wrote you were ok with that because it was better than going to get some greasy burger joint.

I don't have an ax to grind with them and I really hope they do well.  I just find it interesting that they are trying to move away from their healthy alternative to compete in the fatty fast food world.  Sometimes trying to appease investors by expanding outside your core strengths looks great on paper (well if we just capture 5% of blah blah we'll make more money) but often dilutes the overall brand message.   It is tough to try and reverse a good position in the market with a brand new message that deviates from the successful Jared healthy sandwich brand position.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

P.S.  Just saw the Subway Big Philly Cheese steak which again is definitely not Jared friendly.  Clearly Subway is embarking on a less than healthy path for the brand going forward.

Where Are Those Online Advertising Dollars Going?

I saw this post today from Steve Rubel called Five Reasons Why A Pay Per Click Recession Looms and it got me thinking about a post I've been meaning to write.  Couple that with the announcement that AOL is laying off 2,000 people (see this analysis by Kara Swisher over at BoomTown) and I think you can see a post forming.  Also Reuters has an article called Ad dollars flood web, but will they go far enough that talks about how web advertising may be over-hyped.  So between those articles and the New York Times article that Steve referenced it got me thinking having we seen this movie before?  Now, I won't get tit for tat with Steve because he brings up a lot of valid observations, but I don't think a PPC Recession is coming, definitely a slow down in growth rates.  I also don't believe CPAs will push CPC aside and that's mainly because I've seen this movie before. 

Steve's 5 reasons are Clutter, Declining Relevance of Traffic unless it results in an action, Rising Costs, Marketers Spread The Ball Around, and Search Ads Are Viewed As Untrustworthy and all of them can be extrapolated to advertising in general, not just search.  Let's use Steve's reasons with my own historical perspective of why a recession isn't looming, but a revaluation of the expectations of online advertising is going to occur.

1. CLUTTER:  Way back in my early days of online advertising at AT&T circa 1998, we had a theory that said "if you bought all of the major portals (aka on ramps to the internet) you can reduce the amount of competitive ads that a user could see" and thus AT&T had deals with Yahoo, Excite, Lycos, and iVillage (AOL had a deal with MCI).  AT&T paid through the nose for these deals and I had the honor of canceling them one by one as the deals didn't pan out.  Basically, advertisers, who only now are discovering the internet, are shifting ad dollars away from more traditional vehicles to online; this means that inventory will tighten, costs will rise, and then advertisers will start to wonder, why did I shift those dollars in the first place.
2. DECLINING OF RELEVANT TRAFFIC:  Back in the old days people wanted to know about eyeballs - how many people saw my ad or how many people visited my website.  Personally because I grew up in a direct response, results oriented world I always wanted to know about conversions and what my CPA was.  In fact, it let me buy on a CPA basis even back in 1998.  CPA dealsc peaked around 2002 when inventory supplies were easy.  CPCs, CPMs, CPAs don't matter all that much because what really matters is whether you are hitting your goals (a poorly performing CPA deal means you get nothing and that includes impressions).
3. RISING COSTS:  See above and I don't just think it is a search problem, but search has probably the most to lose.  When costs rise advertisers will start to turn back to Direct Mail (yes I wrote that) for a segment of customers and even TV ads.  A very smart person (Norm Lehoullier formerly of Grey Interactive) once told me that every medium has its place and for direct mail it might be for an older audience. 
4. SEARCH ADS ARE VIEWED AS UNTRUSTWORTHY:  What ad isn't?  Search just seems to be more trusting probably due to relevancy factors as well as mixing up of organic search with paid search.  That's always been an erroneous observation.
5. MARKETERS SPREAD THE BALL AROUND:  This is probably the most significant problem for any site owner and not just search.  There are so many sites out there that try to have specific content to attract more ad dollars (proof see the multitudes of social networking sites) that it becomes harder and harder to figure out where to place your dollars.  Blogs, social networks, Google, Yahoo, ad networkers the list goes on and on.  Try figuring out which ad network to place your dollars with.  All of them claim they have the best sites, the cheapest inventory, the best behavioral targeting, the best results, etc.  This is a widespread problem for the industry and the way it will shake out will be marketers will stick with the bigger sites and the bigger networks only because they hopefully will control more of a user's time during a day and they have less attention to spend on the one highly relevant site that delivers little volume.   Why do you think MSN, AOL, Yahoo, and Google are gobbling up other sites?  The battle will be not for users but for average time spent on a site.

Really, this movie has been seen before.  It will shake out like it always does which is a few big players controlling as much of the ad dollars as they can.  That's why there is a consolidation occurring and when you can't get enough of your forecasted share of revenue, big layoffs can occur like they are at AOL.  Google, Yahoo, and even MSN will survive because they will make the acquisitions that are needed to keep going.  I'm not ready to forecast doom for Google or search, not when there are still more advertisers to jump into the mix (small business and local merchants).

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Marketing Rapid Fire 10-14-07

Its been a while since I did a marketing rapid fire and since my posts have been far and few between this past week due to attending 2 Springsteen concerts and working to midnight a few days, so let's catch up a bit with a little Marketing Rapid fire.

1. Speaking (really writing) of Springsteen, I am sick and tired of the Conservative Media ripping on my rock and roll hero.  First O'Reilly and now Colbert.  I am so tired of this and it is almost embarrassing that these reporters comment on Magic when they don't really understand Springsteen or even listen/read the word.  Did he campaign for John Kerry?  Yes.  Is he anti-Bush?  Yes.  Is he anti-war?  Yes.  How does a Conservative Republican like myself wrestle with being a Springsteen fan?  Simple.  Everyone needs another voice and everyone should listen to opposing views, otherwise you get no diversity and will be satisfied with status quo.  Springsteen is many things, but he believes in the working class and in charitable groups and if that's not good enough for you, than perhaps you haven't really heard the Boss.  BTW - I had an American Flag shirt next day aired to my house so I can wear it to my 40 something Springsteen concert Thursday Night in MSG.
2. Why do they sell power drill that have to have the battery fully charged before you can use it?  I have three drills in my house and NONE of them would work off a power cord.  If we can put a man on the moon, why would they ever sell a power drill that can't work when plugged in?  Just complaining because it took me way too long to get under my deck because none of the batteries were charged.  UGH
3. I received my first media proposal from Yahoo that include RightMedia's Network impressions and I was very impressed.  I wrote a while back that I thought Yahoo's purchase of RightMedia and BlueLithium was all about competing with Google's content network and now that I received my first proposal I'm even more convinced that they are making the right moves to compete with Google.  Now if they can do something with their search platform, they might have something.
4. On the personal side, I've been using Earthlink for like 10 years courtesy of my DSL service via Sprint now Embarq, the worst brand name ever.  Embarq severed their relationship with Earthlink so all these customers like myself had to move their email and address book to Embarq mail.  So, instead of losing the information I've accumulated over the years and since Embarqmail is free, I agreed to the move.  No harm right?  I was planning on using my pardonmyfrench email address as my main, but noooo.  Embarq as a service to me, blasted an email to every person on my address book who of course now updated their address.  <SIGH>  Not only did that drive me crazy, but I'm hearing from people that I had written off years ago.
5. I loved this ad from Toyota which features the Tacoma in World of Warcraft.  The creative execution is well done, but what I wonder is how much of an overlap they believe they are getting between men watching NFL and gamers.  You need to be a gamer to even get that ad, but I'm sure they know more than I do when it comes to their target audience.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

The Prudential Center Marketing Team Should Stop Abusing the .COM

(CAVEAT BEFORE THIS POST.  I LIKE BON JOVI.  THIS IS NO REFLECTION OF HIM AS AN ARTIST.  HE DOES A LOT OF CHARITABLE WORK TOO IN CASE YOU DIDN'T KNOW)

So, riding the Path the other day I saw the following poster and it really annoyed me.  As you can see it is promoting Bon Jovi's 10 night stand in the new Prudential Center in Newark, but what really gets me is the BONJOVI.COM in the title.  Come on, couldn't you have just put the URL at the bottom.  BonJovi.com isn't at the Prudential Center.  I know some of you are thinking, heck at least they put the URL in there, but that's just pathetic.   It doesn't look right and it isn't cute.

Besides, I think the Prudential Center needs to kick up the marketing some more.  There are grumblings that people don't want to go to Newark for shows like this and if you go into Ticket Master right now you can pull lower levels on the first night for these concerts.  They are not sold out and while Bon Jovi can't quite put the butts in seats like The Boss, he should be able to sell out a few nights.  What even gets me more fired up about this was the use of public funds to build this arena.  If a home grown, major superstar like Bon Jovi can't sell out in Newark than who can except maybe Springsteen, but sadly Bruce can't play there every night during the year.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

All The News That's Fit To Print If It Is Fit To Sell

I've written a lot in the past of understanding what your writer's rationale is for reporting news or writing posts.  I always think it is important to have their frame of reference in mind because it explains a lot of what they are reporting and how they are reporting it. 

First question you should always ask yourself is why are they making news?  Is it to make money for their corporate masters or for some other purpose?  I really believe no matter what your political leanings are - ALL OF YOUR NEWS IS SLANTED even if it is just slanted to make more money.  If you don't understand that you are living in the 1950s.  Take this small but humorous example from this morning's Sports Page on The Newark Star Ledger.

Back at the end of June, Dan Graziano wrote an article that said the Yankees were finished and wouldn't make the playoffs.  It really pissed me off for the reason that it was way too early to write my Yankees off.  That article so upset me that I basically started to ignore his ramblings, but I did believe he was entitled to his own opinion.  That is until he wrote his poor explanation for it in the article called Eating My Words.  See below as today's exhibit as to why News "reporters" should NOT be trusted anymore to report clean stories and all they care about is making money for their Corporation:

"So when former deputy business editor Kevin Shinkle (who's still getting used to this whole sports thing) had come to me a couple of days earlier suggesting we do a column saying, "It's Over. What's Next?" I'd protested only briefly. I wrote them off in 2005, I said, and I swore I'd never do it again. But Shinkle said it would be fun, and I agreed. This is sports, after all, and it's supposed to be fun. Besides, they were done. No way were they coming back. Not this time. Not from this."

"we got cute. Dredged up a year-old trade deadline quote from Brian Cashman about how he'd always wondered what it would be like to be a seller at the deadline, and wrote, "Well, Brian, now's your chance." Went through the whole roster, basically, and took a look at what the Yankees could get for their various players if they decided to deal them and build for the future. Splashed it on the front page of the sports section under a brilliant, over-the-top Mike Scott cartoon of a guy in a Yankees uniform lying face-down on the ground, holding a white flag, with a giant fork sticking out of his back. It was fun."

Look at the words he used.  We got cute, it was fun, dredged up a year-old quote.  Does that sound like unbiased reporting to you?  It was all about selling newspapers that's it (period).   To me it doesn't even look like it was based on his real opinion (I said, and I swore I'd never do it again. But Shinkle said it would be fun, and I agreed).

To me this is a great example of why you need multiple sources of information.  You need to form your own opinion by getting as much information you can on a subject that matters to you.  Think about how many more headlines and stories you have read that were just written to have some fun with you or just written to get you to buy a paper or tune into a TV show.  Do yourself a favor and be an informed reader.  Otherwise, you'll just end up a $1 poorer and less informed than you were before you read some news.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

This Nike Ad Passes The TiVo Test

The Nike Football ad running all weekend long is absolutely brilliant.  It is the first ad in a while that not only passed my TiVo test, but I actually saved it and replied it again for the family.  It is so entertaining, the kids wanted to know if they owned Nike shoes (which they don't) and if Mary and I did (we do).  That's good marketing and good conversational marketing.  I'm happy to join other bloggers who think this is a brilliant ad.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Sure, I'd Love to Charge $1,000 Per Hour

I saw this article over at AdAge called The $1,000 An Hour Advertising Executive or How We Catch Up with Lawyers and I found it very thought provoking.  However, before I dive into that let me get something out of the way first; a good lawyer can charge that amount because the downside to not paying for the best lawyer you can is that you go to jail.  There I said it.  Let's move on.

Marc gives some ideas how to start moving towards higher fees and I list them below, edited by me to save some space (you can read it all yourself).  Marc's ideas are:

1. Stop giving away our strategic thinking. And then some agencies charge too much for the tactical stuff, which usually doesn't command the same high rates.
2. Recruit smarter talent. Let them loose on behalf of your clients. Deliver game-changing ideas.
3. Don't worry about billable rates, and charge for the VALUE of the idea more consistently.
   
4. If you are concerned that you won't be fairly compensated for successful work, write incentive clauses into your agency-client agreement in advance.
5. Become more important to your client. When the CEO of your client sees you, does she/he see a "crazy ad type" or a respected consultant?

Now I've been on both sides of the aisle after spending 15 years in corporate America and now the last 2 years on the agency/consulting side so I think I have an interesting perspective.  I've run my own agency selection processes, managed very large and very small agencies, both interactive and offline, and had multi-million dollar agency budgets in a year.  Generally speaking, I've had great agency relationships except for one that blew up towards the end due to an inappropriate email received by yours truly from a former account executive.  So, let's take Marc's ideas from the top from a client perspective.

1. Yes, I don't mind paying people for strategic thinking and I certainly don't mind paying for expertise which I don't have in-house even if that is for more tactical stuff; I just want it done correctly.  However, $1,000 per hour for a junior media planner is a little tough to swallow (we'll come back to that in a second). 
2. Who doesn't want smarter talent?  In fact, when I go through the agency process I want to know who is going to be working on my business and I've often insisted on certain people in the pitch process that I fell in love with (work wise PIGS) to be on my team or else they wouldn't have received the contract (ex - Joan Zulawski when she was with Grey Interactive).  However, that $1,000 per hour often doesn't go to experts like Joan, but to overhead, cool buildings, the junior media planner, etc.  If I thought Joan was going to get that in her paycheck and forgo working on other clients, I might be willing to pay something much higher.
3. Charging for ideas is the way to go.  I'm sure the agencies that came up with Priceless, Burger King's Subservient Chicken, Caveman, Aflac Duck, and etc wished they did, but how do you put a price on the idea?  I personally would prefer this method because than an agency can staff as they see fit to deliver.
4. All agencies should have incentives built in, but often they shy away from it for fear of leaving money on the table.  If they did, then how do you explain the staffing on the project to your CFO when you are betting on the idea?  This is more for the small hungry agency rather than the big established one.
5. Yes, I want someone that sits side by side with me, but then at the end of the day, who does the CEO credit?  Me, me for choosing the agency, or the agency?

Now, I won't go item by item from the agency/consulting side.  However, I do think there are a few critical items that all agencies should do in order to charge more and/or get more money from clients.

• Lower your overhead.  When not working on Connell Donatelli projects, I have a few clients mostly in finance and I have next to zero overhead.  That allows me to keep more money and be even more competitive on the pricing.
• Figure out a way to charge for upside - I've offered to take a bounty bonus for every sale and if you build a back end commerce engine, take a % of the sales that goes through the process.
• Hire people that your clients would want to see and work with.  If you have someone running numbers for you or pulling reports, that's probably not the person they want to meet with.  If you are part of the pitch than you are part of the account; don't run a bait and switch.

Anyway, I have a few more ideas but the post is long enough.  I think for the most part the large agency has shot themselves in the foot.  Its not that there aren't good ideas at large agencies or smart media folks, its just that there is too much overhead and too much pressure to view clients as mindless revenue generating (to the firm) drones rather than what clients really are - smart people that came to you for your opinion or to fill valuable slots with your expertise.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

American Express - Killing You Softly with Fees?

Yes I ranted regarding all of the direct mail that American Express generates as the Junk Mail King and begged them to try email out.  Well, I've been receiving weekly emails from them now, but all of them come from their Rewards group which I think is perfect.  Besides getting on board with this email thing, using email/web for Rewards program is key because you don't have to print up pages and pages of junk to describe all of the redemption options.  However, just like their sign and travel options and hosts of other fees, you MUST READ THE FINE PRINT on Amex's offers.  Case in point, take a look at this offer I received this morning.

The email looks very enticing and tells you that you can pay your business taxes online using American Express.   Basically the pitch is "hey pay your taxes with your Amex card and get get rewards points that you can use to get valuable prizes."  It also direct you to "officially" approved websites to make payments.  These websites of course have that schlocky US Government looking graphics and titles like official payments or 1040.  Its enough to fool anyone except for those footnotes.

The first footnote at the top which I'm sure the Amex lawyers insisted on putting above the fold says "These tax payment companies charge a convenience fee of approximately 2.49%. This fee may be tax-deductible. Check with your tax advisor".    Well, I did at the end of tax season and my accountant told me, why would you want to pay that fee.  So, as a service to you readers, I checked over with the IRS official site and here's what I found regarding the fee: "Credit card service providers charge a fee for their service.  This fee can be deducted as a business expense, when paid or incurred by the business."  Ok, so the fee is charged by these "official" looking companies that can assist with your tax payments.

So, here's what we know.  1) Use your Amex card to pay your taxes and get whacked with a 2.49% fee  2) The IRS says  you can deduct this as a business expense 3) According to American Express you can get an $100 Amex Gift card for 20,000 points.  4) Depending on your card you earn 1 point for every $1 spent; there are other options but that's the base card. 5) I'll come back to that earning points thing because it is very confusing.

Let's do some math.  In order to get 20K points you need to charge at a maximum $20,000.  If you paid $20K in taxes using this offer it costs you $498.  However, you may get some tax benefit since you can claim this is a business expense, so lets knock 30% off that $498 to get some tax savings.  Therefore charging $20K in taxes costs you $349 and that gets you $100 in cash from Amex.  Woot, that's some losing proposition and that's on the low end assuming you get 30% in tax savings.

Now to be fair to Amex since I used the lowest points earning option lets see what your break even points earning option you would need to pay for these fees.  I personally can't figure out the levels because the pages on their websites are confusing, so let's stick with the math. 

Let's keep the tax benefit the same at 30%.  So, in order to break even on the $100 you need to have a cost of $143 charged on your Amex card for the service ($143*.7=$100.1).  To get a charge on your Amex card of $143 you need to have paid $5,743 ($143/.0249) in taxes, but in order to get the 20,000 points on that $5,743 charged you need to earn 3.48 points per dollar charged (20,000/5743).

What am I missing here?  Unless you know for sure that you are earning at least 3.5 points per dollar charged, this is a lose, lose scenario for you just like my accountant told me a few months back.  Are you earning 3.5 points per dollar spent?  Do you even know what you are earning or can you even figure it out?  Looks to me for the convenience of not writing out a check you are getting hit over the head in fees.  Seriously, did I make a mistake?  Is this wrong?  I'll be more than happy to correct this post, but it looks to me like this is not a good offer at all.  Some things are just better the old fashioned way - PAPER and CHECKS; that is until that fee comes down!

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

What's Springsteen's Magic Marketing Plan

As you can tell from some of my past link posts, I'm a huge Springsteen fan.  I've seen him over 35 times since 1985, own every one of his releases except for the Seeger Sessions (like Barry Bonds' HR "record" I like to make believe it never occurred), have plenty of signed pictures in my office, and boxes and boxes of bootleg CDs traded over the internet.  Plus, I made sure my son saw him on The Rising Tour even though he was 3 and I plan on taking the whole family to one of the shows.

Springsteen just announced a new studio release slated for October 2nd and it also is an E Street Band CD which is the first one since The Rising.  That is huge news, but besides his dwindling fan base (more on that in a second) does anyone else think it is huge news?  The two major fan sites Backstreets and Greasylake saw huge spikes in traffic with the news, but that is probably fans that have only just started to return from Bruce's E Street Band hiatus (I've been missing since Seeger).  You see, Bruce followed The Rising with Devils and Dust which was mostly an acoustic CD and then toured solo.  He then returned with the folk CD of non-Springsteen covers called the The Seeger Sessions and then toured with a non-E Street Band.  So, it has been a while in between Bruce's rock sound.

So on Friday I looked around the internet to see what buzz I could find and for a while I was excited.  In the middle of the day searches for Bruce Springsteen Magic peaked to 91  according to Google trends, but by the end of the day, Bruce faded away and was no longer in the top 100 searches.  Who ended up ahead of Bruce for the day?  How about?

• John Blewett
• Zach Efron
• Wily Mo Pena (that's pathetic)

Then while experimenting in Facebook I clicked on one of those polls that runs in the margin and decided to construct my own.  So for fun I constructed one on Springsteen to see if Facebook users were excited about the new CD.  Even though it cost me $50, I wanted to test out the Facebook survey service.   Here are the results:

• 8% of users will buy the CD and about 7% might download a song
• 20% don't know who Bruce is
• and 66% said they were not excited about the new release

I don't know if those numbers are good or bad because I've never run a music survey before, but what surprised me the most were the 20% of users who didn't know who Bruce is.  The people that didn't know were more likely to be younger  (13-24 years old), but if you looked at the # of people that are excited they are also more likely to be younger (the chart adds to 100% by age group not by answer) followed by the oldest group of responders.  Clearly there is an opportunity to capture both sets of age groups on the internet.

Clearly with a great sounding CD Bruce can grab tons of fans that can be introduced to him for the first time.  And, if the CD works its Magic Bruce can bring a lot of old fans back into the fold.  I'd love to see what his marketing plan looks like and whether he will use some of the tactics he used the last time for The Seeger Sessions which included music downloads, concert footage, as well as email blasts. 

If I had to guess, Bruce goes out like he has done in the past and tours behind the release, hoping that the greatest live performer in Rock History lifts sales.  However sometime in 2008, Bruce can't resist another Presidential Election and jumps in to support the Democrat Nominee which really introduces him to a new, younger audience that doesn't know who the Boss is; that's the boost to his CD sales.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

So, I've Been Watching TV without TiVo

We've migrated to our shore home and of course the house we have doesn't have TiVo which is quite a rude awakening for my kids, especially my daughter.  She has never watched any significant amount of TV without the use of TiVo which has been in my house for like 4 years. 

Just the other day, she missed a part of a cartoon and asked my Mother to rewind it.  My Mom said we can't which was met with boos and hisses from the kids.  Wow, imagine if they had to get up to switch a channel or watch only about 5 stations.  Anyway, speaking of rude awakenings, we've also had to endure TV commercials and these are my observations.

1. The new, new, new really it is new AT&T runs a lot of commercials for its wireless business.  Sadly, I've seen ZERO ads around the iPhone since the launch which leads me to believe as a veteran of the old and better AT&T and as a veteran of wireless marketing that the folks that are in charge of determining what goes on air are worried about wasting (my guess, not what I feel) TV dollars on a very high priced phone that may not help them hit their objectives.  Why else would AT&T stop running ads for the iPhone? BTW, if you think I'm just some dope blogger, guess again.  I've participated in conversations just like this at the old AT&T.
2. I L-O-V-E the Maytag ads that are running right now.  Not only are they funny,  but they are far superior to the old Maytag ads.  The old ones showed a sad repairman with nothing to do because the Maytag appliances never broke.  However the new Maytag ads, in addition to reinforcing that they don't break down, now have the Maytag repairman fixing things that do break - like your cable system.  Freaking brilliant.
3. I can't believe Hamburger helper still advertises on TV.
4. Transformers are EVERYWHERE including I think it was Burger King.

And those are all I remembered even though I was forced to watch commercials for the past week.  Nothing else resonated or caused me to take any action.  Without TiVo I was forced to endure hours of crap and all I have to show for it is AT&T wasting dollars promoting phones that are sub par to the iPhone, Maytag ads for someone that doesn't need their appliances right now, a food additive to help meatloaf taste better (I don't need it because my wife's double secret meatloaf recipe is yummy), and Transformers.  That's it.  It's too bad the Maytag repairman can't fix what ails the vast majority of TV advertisers - go od creatives that drive action.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

AdAge's Brand Origin Poll

Yesterday morning I got this very thought provoking (at least in my mind) question from AdAge which I reprinted below: 

A beer that hailed from Germany once had a certain cachet -- as did chocolate from Belgium or an electronic device from Japan. But recent research from Anderson Analytics has found that when it comes to college-age consumers, a brand's country of origin is unimportant. In a world where the internet is a great leveler, geographic boundaries -- and heritage -- are a lot less relevant, at least among campus-age consumers. And in fact, many of those surveyed incorrectly identified where certain brands came from. All of which begs the question whether the days of jingoism and flag-waving are numbered -- and whether marketing tactics such as the "Heartbeat of America" are flat-lining. Is the time for evoking a brand's country of origin in its marketing over?

Now before I jump into the question, I Googled the survey mentioned in the question and after I read the results, I had a different spin on it.  You can find the link to the summary of the survey from Anderson Analytics here and you can actually download their results from this link.  The conclusion in the summary is this: For the most part, this next generation of educated American consumers either have no clue where the brands they  use come from or simply assume everything comes from the United States, Japan, or Germany said Tom H. C. Anderson, Managing Partner, Anderson Analytics,

While I have no doubt that conclusion is true, what I didn't see in the report was how clueless these college students really were versus the general population.  Now that would have been interesting to see if college students really don't care or are they just as clueless as the rest of us.  To test your knowledge, take the three question poll below.  Anyway, back to the AdAge poll.

While I do agree that the internet is breaking down time and distance boundaries, however country of origin still should matter.  Fine wine from Napa, CA or video games from Japan do help a brand with instilling certain values into the product.  Are you more likely to buy a wine made in NJ or from a certain region in France?  I sometimes drink a Texas hand made vodka called Tito's and it tastes great, but people turn their nose up when they hear it is from Texas instead of France or Russia. 

If college students can't identify a product's country of origin maybe it is up to the marketer to figure out a better way of reaching out to them rather than using the same old marketing techniques that don't work any more.  Maybe the reason people are so confused is that the battle for our attention is so complex these days that they can't figure out a way to break through.  The marketer needs to maximize every opportunity to push their key product attributes and for certain products that means country of origin.  Sure the internet is awesome for making the world a lot smaller, but that doesn't mean the world at large wants the same boring homogenized products.  (take the poll below and see post continuation for answers to see how you did)

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Vonage, Completely Clueless and Wasting Marketing Dollars

Ok, so this isn't exactly fresh news and has been reported in a number of places including the Wall Street Journal a few days back, but I just have to make this post critiquing Vonage's lame attempt at running a print ad campaign to highlight how they are champions of competition.  Let's take a look at the almost always ridiculous Vonage press release:

• Vonage today launched a national grassroots communications campaign to educate and mobilize consumers about preserving the freedom to choose their phone service provider. The campaign, called "Free to Compete," will raise awareness of the importance of consumer choice.
• "We want to highlight the choice that Vonage offers to the public: a choice to receive great phone service at a great price," said Jeffrey Citron, Vonage's chairman, chief strategist and interim chief executive officer. "We think this issue warrants national attention because when competition is stifled, consumers literally pay the price. Vonage is the target today, but what other innovative companies might be next?"

First of all as Wikipedia points out: "A grassroots political movement is one driven by the constituents of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it is natural and spontaneous highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures." Some grassroots movement right?  Plus, it is ridiculous to think that Vonage needs to point out the importance of consumer choice.  So, let's see how important the community thinks of this grassroots movement:

1. As you can see from the Alexa chart, their movement peaked back on April 26th which coincides with their ad campaign and now like their stock price is sliding down.
2. As of right now they have two customer videos loaded and three email submissions on the site; these are probably all friends of their PR manager.  Notice how the videos are professionally edited and how they look into the camera?  That is really smooth looking consumer generated content isn't?  Maryann looks like a professional actress...
3. Their awesome CGC videos on YouTube have 732 and 3,240 views proving once again that just loading up commercials in YouTube is a worthless endeavor.  What's even funnier is this real consumer generated content that shows up in the toolbar to the right of their videos (because it is related) ripping on Vonage.  Of course this video has twice as many views.
4. Their news and press section is completely lame
5. There are a whopping 60 links according to Technorati
6. I wonder how many people have actually signed their petition when you remove friends, family and agency testers..

So not only is this not a grassroots movement it looks like it is not resonating with people anywhere.  Plus, as I noticed when I saw one of their wasteful ads in WSJ but GigaOM beat me to the punch with a post, they had their ads edited by the Wall Street Journal before they allowed it to run.  The line removed was "Now, Verizon has chosen to attack Vonage in the courts. Why? Could it be all about the money?"  As someone that has been dragged kicking and screaming into print campaigns, this garbage ad cost them at least $90K per page and to top it all off they were so quick to flush their marketing dollars down the drain, they couldn't even work in a day or two for WSJ approvals and re-edits.

Some grassroots movement huh?  The money wasted on this could have gone to keeping someone's job until the company goes bankrupt or is bought by Sprint, or improving whatever is left of their service, or just trying to flow it to the bottom line to give any investors a little bit of a surprise bump in stock price.  This just another desperate attempt by a company that is hopelessly lost and if I had to guess this is just their CEO trying to save face with investors...

PardonMyFrench,

Eric