PardonMyFrench

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

Hi ad:tech I'm Sam Negin

********This post was also cross posted over at The MadAve Journal********

I was thrilled that the folks over at The MadAve Journal asked me to be one of the bloggers to write about the upcoming ad:tech. They gave me the topic of the personal side of technology, how it helps people in their lives, and how companies balanced personal and professional goals.

Sponsors were given a list of 6 questions and the folks at The Madison Avenue Journal collected the responses. Between these responses and my own answers to the questions, I've written this commentary, but you are probably wondering who Sam Negin is and why I named him in this post.

Sam is one of my college roommates from Rutgers (year withheld to protect my age) and when he graduated he joined a program with the Army that paid for medical school with the tradeoff that he had to spend time in the Army as a doctor. Sam always wanted to be a doctor to help people and even offered the roommates charter membership in a medical plan called the Samo in exchange for beer money.

Anyway, the Army deal seemed to have been a good one except that he was shipped off to serve in Iraq to help injured Iraqis as well as our own soldiers. Oh, in case you think this is a sad story it is not - Sam is back from Iraq and is currently stationed in Germany

[Check out: Evening Keynote: Old Warriors Don't Die! Wednesday, April 25, 5:00pm-6:00pm]

However, this doesn't diminish the fact that he gave up years of his life to serve our country so that when he finally paid his dues he can practice being a doctor; not for making money, but to help people which is the kind of person he really is.  I've had numerous careers since Sam and I shared a Silvers apartment at Rutgers and of course I thought that all of them had improved people's lives. Looking back, I can see clearly now when I've impacted people in a positive way and when I was just buying into a company's strategy to deliver a return to their investors or as I like to say, playing the role of George Jetson as a money making cog at Spacely's Space Sprockets.

[Check out: Gamer Nation: Strategies and Tactics for Brand Immersion in the Gaming Universe Tuesday, April 24, 10:45am-11:45am]

While you might think it would be tough to find responses for this subject from technology and online advertising conference sponsors, they were there and their responses really do prove that technology can impact people in a personal way.

Eliminating the Distance Dimension

"Distance no longer has a hold on my life", declared Organic Chairman and Founder Jonathan Nelson and this short quote speaks volumes as how technology impacts every day lives. No more are you tethered to an office or a factory to earn a living and the 9 to 5 days are becoming the latest extinct corporate beast.

[Check out: Mobile Marketing Ecosystem Thursday, April 26, 12:15pm-1:15pm]

My wife Mary once complained "the kids and I don't know when you are working, reading email, or playing World of Warcraft because you always look the same - typing away on your laptop." I work more now than when I did driving to an office and I'm always on; I'm on when I coaching my kid's soccer team, on when I'm looking at hot tubs on a Saturday, and I'm on the night of my daughter's birthday as I type up this post.

[Check out: Tales from the Bleeding Edge: The New Mobility - A Hands On Experience, Tuesday, April 24, 4:00pm-5:00pm]

"Technology often gives us more time to do more work, so the time saving idea is a fallacy," is a quote Harold Mann President of Mann Consulting provides that proves my point with a caveat that while you might not save time, you can squeeze more into the day without wasting your life on Route 78 commuting to NYC.

[Check out: New Media Universe, New Consumer Behavior Thursday, April 26, 12:15pm-1:15pm]

While on the surface it looks like a return to a sweatshop brought about by investors looking to squeeze more minutes out of an employee, it really is the exact opposite. You can work anywhere now and be more efficient. This lets you spend more time, not less with your family and friends. Commuting will (as it has for me) become a thing of the past, allowing you to be instantly available.

Need to attend a teacher's conference - done, because you can make up your time later during the day. The technology companies of today truly make your personal lives better by giving you the ability to reach out and touch the people important to you whenever and wherever you want. My kids no longer remember what it was like for me to commute - they really believe that Daddy has been home forever.

Someone Has To Make Money

Maybe this part of my post sounds very impersonal and perhaps the people that provided me the quotes that I'm referencing are cringing slightly to be associated with it, but I really enjoyed reading the more realistic responses. Stripped away were the party-line responses and left were blunt honest assessments that we provide a service that people or companies need.

And you know what, there is nothing wrong with doing a service or providing a product that as Dana Todd co-founder and principal of SiteLab International Inc wrote.... "We're here to make money for the company and for our customers. Our ability to continue to provide a great environment depends wholly on our ability to stay profitable." It may not be something that as Dana wrote, "reduces carbon emissions", but providing people with opportunities in a fun environment does make them have better personal lives.

[Check out: Publishing in the Digital Era: Feast or Famine Thursday, April 26, 12:15pm-1:15pm

"While the dream of becoming a .com millionaire is a driving factor for innovation throughout the internet... without investors desire to make a buck, Google, YouTube, MySpace and other sites would never have gotten off the ground," William Rice, President of Web Marketing Association pointed out. Providing products that don't necessary save the world or solve global warming, but enrich people's lives including the company's employees is a contribution to society. 

 

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

GoogClick - Google Gobbles Up DoubleClick

I've been advertising with Google since way in the beginning of their PPC platform and continue to run very large search marketing campaigns.  I've also run huge (north of $130 million in online advertising) display/banner advertising campaigns since 1997 and always have used an ad server for placing my ads, tracking results, measuring post-click conversions, and etc since 1997.  I've tried them all - MatchLogic, BlueStreak, Atlas, and of course DoubleClick.

So, unlike other blogs that claim to have experience (especially in the political marketing blogosphere), I actually have a ton and continue to work in this space.  One of things that's always been tough is having a single source for reporting, optimization, trafficking, planning, and counting conversions (more on that in a second) and now with a stroke of a pen and $3.1 Billion in cash (yes cash or as Henry Blodget wrote:  a few quarters of free cash flow) Google solves advertisers problems by acquiring DoubleClick.

Now why does this solve a lot of problems?  Simple.  Let's take a look at how this helps advertisers and agencies:

• I've never been a fan of DoubleClick's customer service, although to be perfectly fair, I haven't experienced it in the past 5 years, but combined with Google I may give them another shot
• Counting conversions becomes a lot easier now that I can use one source for tracking display ads and search ads.  Sure, you could have used a combined platform in the past, but that needed long redirects and a PHD in setting up tracking tables; and it gets more complicated with rich media executions
• Double counting of latency conversions should now be a thing of the past because theoretically, GoogClick will have a complete picture of the post-click tracking
• Hopefully, the reporting platforms will become easier to use like Google's today
• One name to present to clients and upper management for reporting and tracking - Google
• Finally, it should be easier for optimization because both the advertiser and Google will have a complete picture of the media buy and the relationship between display and search advertising

For Google, the advantages are huge starting with the fact that they used cash and kept DoubleClick out of Yahoo's and Microsoft's hands.   They can combine search, display, blogs, email and  site targeting into one neat package; plus, retargeting efforts become that much more ubiquitous.   I never bought off on Google's complete search tracking package, but now I might.  Finally, imagine all of that data they now get to go through and analyze; it can only improve their targeting capabilities which is currently top notch, but could use a boost (just check out some of the ads on my blog to see what I mean by targeting mistakes).

Finally, where does it leave Microsoft and Yahoo?  Yahoo, probably not that much worse off because I know they have powerful targeting tools already and analyze the data on the family of websites.  Microsoft?  I think they are fighting against a strong current and looks like every stroke they try to take in the online river, they just end up going back towards that waterfall.  Nice move Google. 

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Amex My oh My

I really wonder why American Express is changing their advertising them from My Life My Card to Are You a Card Member?.  According to AdWeek, their agency Ogilvy is changing their tagline and of course their print, TV, outdoor and online campaigns.  In the article is this quote from John Hayes Amex's CMO:  "The new campaign continues the tradition of defining the value of belonging to the American Express community by showcasing some of our most exceptional cardmembers and the ways in which membership works for them," said AmEx chief marketing officer John Hayes, in a statement. "But the challenge we put forward in our latest campaign ('Are you a Cardmember?'), not only reaffirms for existing members why they belong, it calls to non-members to consider becoming a cardmember."

I'm actually not being terribly critical, but I liked the My Life My Card campaign because it featured famous people in silhouettes while they featured card benefits.  According to the quote, I don't think it changes that aspect of it, but of course the biggest change is the call to action which is much stronger to non-card holders.  I just think it is a little too subtle for the audience, plus when big behemoth marketing companies advertise it takes a while to make the big elephant dance.

When I was at AT&T (the older and better version), I saw plenty of super large advertising campaigns.  I remember the iPlan (still don't know what the heck that was), True, OneRate, and Personal Network.  We spent hundreds of millions of dollars behind these campaigns and while I can't claim to  being part of the marketing communications team to develop these campaigns (I either built offers or ran tactical marketing plans in support of them), I did see how long it takes for a company and employees to embrace the new platform.  Plus, lets not forget the army of copy writers, script writers, and designers employed at multiple agencies.  All of this takes time and of course money.

The best execution of this was AT&T's True strategy.  All of our calling plans, company awards, network, direct mail, creatives, inbound scripts, rewards plans, stationary (you get the idea) were branded True.  TrueVoice, TrueUSA, TrueRewards, TrueChoice (calling card), and of course our highest award TrueSpirit (on a side note, I'm still pissed off at Joe Nacchio for moving the awards ceremony, the year I finally won the award, from exotic get aways for your spouse to a dinner at the friggin New Brunswick NJ towers in the scenic area off of Route F&CKIN% 18).  However, these executions take time to reach all aspects of the company.

Back in the True days, we advertisers didn't have to fight for such a small share of our audience's attention.  The net was dial-up, DVRs were not around, satellite radio wasn't around, folks actually read the daily newspaper in paper form, and people actually had to listen to our ads.  Now it takes time to reach your audience and you have to do it well across multiple channels.  It isn't as simple as dropping a few hundred million dollars on network TV and then watch the cash register ring.

So, the short question is, I really wonder what is driving Amex to change their campaign other than change for the sake of change or tweaking a giant ad campaign with a new call to action?

PardonMyFrench (sm),

Eric

Imus Deserves Whatever Backlash He Gets

I had another post ready to go, but all of my good friends asked me to make a post on Don Imus.  Why?  Those of you that know me for a while, know that I've been a huge supporter of The Rutgers Women's Basketball Team since about 1986 or so. 

Back in my college days, the men's basketball team was absolutely putrid so the only good basketball to watch was Theresa's Grentz's Lady Knights basketball team (yes - they were called the Lady Knights back then).  The Lady Knights were so popular that they played after the men so it boosted the men's basketball attendance.  My college roommates and I sat behind the band, painted our faces, and raised the noise level several decibels at the RAC.  We went on road trips with the team, spent a few nights partying with them (one was a late night Pizza party at Pattie's partially funded by my friend Sam N who graduated a semester early and had cash to burn), and generally hung out with them when we could.  So, needless to say, we still follow them to this day.

When I first heard about the racially charged comments by Don Imus, my first reaction was - that guy is still alive?  My second reaction was, this guy is a clueless jerk.  Why on earth would he degrade these college students after they had such a great run through the NCAAs when at the beginning of the year they looked like they were in for a rough season (like the Yankees, we RU women's BBall fans are accustomed to winning).  That was rude, uncalled for, and degrading.

And, like most people I heard or read about it a week later.  You know why that is?  I know ABSOLUTELY nobody that listens to his drivel.  Not one person.  Not one person in the past 15 years that listens to his garbage.  My parents?  No.  Friends?  No.  And don't forget my friends are now unfortunately in the coveted 30+ age group with money demographic.  I commuted for 5 years to Jersey City during prime drive time and none of my fellow commuters ever mentioned him.  Howard Stern?  Yes.  Opie and Anthony?  Outrageous and disgusting, but yes.  Mike and Mike in the Morning.  Sure - I have them on my first position.  WDHA for rock music and then of course the AM static news channels of WINS, CBS, and Bloomberg.  WFAN in the morning?  Never.  WFAN in the PM, sure if you can stand the static you have Mike and The Mad Dog. 

Imus? Seriously, I thought he passed away.  That's why I was shocked to see he had advertisers and according to this NY Times article he generates $50 million in revenue each year when you include MSNBC.   Also as you probably know, there are several advertisers bailing on him now, which calls into question what were people doing advertising with him in the first place? 

CSFBdirect used to advertise with him and thankfully we canceled it years ago due to lack of traffic and results.  However, who is listening to him now?  As Townhall pointed out (and  beat me to the punch with that title BTW) his ratings in the DC area are anemic and as far as I can tell in the NYC area he gets like a 2, which is pathetic.

Can he recover?  Sure, but I'm not sure why.  Was this a stunt to re-position himself to hate-mongering folks?  Who knows.  I'd say stop listening to him if I could find anyone I know that still tunes him in.  Maybe this will get advertisers to re-look at their sponsorships and figure out why they were there in the first place.  Picking on college students in their moment of glory for what he believes are professional gains is wrong.  Does he have freedom of speech?  Sure, but that has to do with being arrested by the Government, not having advertisers and listeners send him to media purgatory which is where I thought he was in the first place.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

First Life Companies I'd Like to See in Second Life

On my drive home the other night from Seder I got to thinking about the types of first life companies and products I'd like to see in Second Life.  Seems like I had a lot of time on my hands, right?  Well, have you ever tried driving back to NJ from Long Island on a Jewish Holiday while your entire family was asleep in the car?  If you have, then you know that plenty of ideas will jump into your head. 

One of the things that disappoint me when it comes to first life companies jumping into SL is that they just view it as an extension of their web presence or as a place where they have to be before it becomes big.  You know what I've seen when this happens?  No traffic, no reason to visit, and of course a place that doesn't take advantage of a place where anyone can live a fantasy, be what they want to be, or a have real-time conversations instead of boring conference calls.  Anyway, thanks to questions from my friend Jim over the weekend, here's a list of first life companies and their project that I'd like to see in Second Life.

1. Following up on Coldwell Banker's launch, I'd like to see Bank of America either buy one of the SL banks or start up their own.  I have about L$6,000 sitting in my account and I'd like to earn a little interest, but one of the things I learned in the official guide to SL is buyer beware and you might lose your money.  A real life bank with a nice branding budget can make a lot of inroads in SL.
2. GQ - yes the men's magazine.  What I'd like to see is GQ with a men's store in SL for hair, skins, clothing, animations, etc - pretty much anything for men in SL because if you've ever tried to outfit yourself you are limited to urban, boring, or gangster looks.  And, try and find some decent hair if you are a man and you spend all of your time searching, searching, and searching.
3. Speaking of search, I think Yahoo should figure out a way to power the search in SL and make improvements to it.  The search functionality is cumbersome at best and forget about searching on 3 term words.  Plus, the business owners of the retail locations can include anything they want in a descriptions leading to a lot of wasted visits.  So, besides revamping the search, I'd like to be able to have users tag the results with what they've found there and how accurate the search was.
4. University of Phoenix - yes that pop-under, button placements, network buying online teaching institute.  SL would be a great place for teaching classes and as opposed to boring screens, you can have an actual class, with people in the class room raising their hand, and streaming video of a lecture.
5. Donald Trump - no I'm not insane.  Think about what he can bring to SL in the way of products.  First, Starwood has a hotel in SL and it is a great idea.  You know why?  Because getting a feel for a room you are going to book is difficult in a flat environment.  How big is the room?  Can you move around in it?  How about the view?  SL is perfect for this type of booking.  Second, Trump can bring an instant credibility to gambling houses in SL which can best be described as buyer beware.  A first life Casino owner can legitimize SL Casinos and at the same time provide a lot of branding opportunities for them.

Those are just my 5 favorite ideas.  I thought of many more on my boring trip back from Long Island and of course have other ideas that I've presented to clients which I can't print here.  Needless to say, just putting up a Second Life office will disappoint the marketer and the  community.  Building places and products that enhance  the SL  experience will pay big dividends over the long term.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

I'm A Little Bullish on Google TV

Google announced a partnership with Echostar to power their advertising system and I'm slightly bullish on this offline strategy for Google as opposed to Radio or Print.  According to the press release here are the highlights:

• Introduce(d) the first automated system for buying, selling, delivering and measuring television ads on EchoStar DISH Network's 125 national satellite programming networks.
• EchoStar and Google are working together to provide automated online campaign planning, scheduling, delivery and measurement of ads on the DISH Network.
• "We (Google) think we can add value to this important medium by delivering more relevant ads to viewers, providing better accountability for advertisers and better monetize inventory for TV operators and programmers."

A separate news article via Yahoo News called Google to sell EchoStar satellite TV ads provided these two juicy tidbits:

• Each day, Google will analyze anonymous data culled from the set-top boxes of the Dish network subscribers and only bill advertisers for the segment of the audience that watched a commercial a designated amount of time
• Because of strict privacy laws governing cable and satellite TV, Google isn't trying to divine the interests of individual viewers or households, although company officials have said they eventually hope to win permission to do something along those lines some day.

Now why am I a little more bullish on this effort as opposed to radio or print?  Simple, if Google can work with EchoStar to figure out if someone actually watched an ad for a period of time, that's HUGE news.  This allows the advertiser to know if people are actually watching the ads and then they can optimize accordingly assuming that the results are published in a reasonable amount of time.  Note, I didn't say real-time because based on the tidbits above it looks like it would be delayed 24 hours.  Plus, the other upside is the auction based style on buying and selling ads on a CPM basis and only billing advertisers for what has been viewed.  This makes me bullish.

Now, on the other side, I agree part of the way with Donna Bogatin  that they haven't been able to extend the platform into the offline world, won't have complete control over the platform, and Google will be acting as a middle man all under the guise of making the process more efficient. 

Plus, the biggest negative is that they still have a ways to go specifically on results tracking.  While it is great to know if someone watched an ad (impression) and then optimize accordingly, I really want to know as a big advertiser whether someone actually responded to the ad (click) and if they took an action based on the ad (conversion).  Only then, will I really be able to judge the effectiveness of my ads.  Wouldn't it great to actually optimize offline ads appropriately and figure on a CPC or CPA?

While this is a better model than radio or print, it still has a long way to go to even approach online's optimization and results tracking abilities.  Up until now, they've had mixed and in my opinion sub-par results extending the buying model to radio and print. For example, I wonder when Google will finally power XM Radio's ads in a more targeted fashion? Until they can crack that results and targeting code, Google TV will be a nascent step towards improving the offline advertising process and that's why I'm slightly more bullish on it.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Good Times at Politics Online Conference

Sorry for the infrequent posts over the past few days.  Not only have I been fighting a cold (and the cold/snow), but I was down in DC since Wednesday for meetings and the Politics Online Conference.  Besides running into practically the entire Campaign Solutions and Connell Donatelli agencies, I spent quality time with my friend Richard K from Yahoo as well as Adrienne S from Comcast.  Anyway, here's my wrap-up from the conference.

• So Do You Have a Blog? - Michael Bassik from MSHC and Henry Copeland from Blogads threw a party in my hotel and it was a blast to talk about politics and online advertising over drinks.   One person throughout most of the party introduced himself by asking if you had a blog and then proceeded to tell stories on blogging.  While the opening and the follow-up conversation was a little dull, it did illustrate the importance that blogging has in politics.  We all blog for various reasons (mine is to just talk with people in the same fashion I used to in an office), but the impact this channel has in this marketing category is much greater than seen elsewhere.  Later on in the conference, I introduced myself to Mary Katharine Ham from Townhall's Hamnation video blog who was one of the many blog luminaries in attendance.  I also spent a fair amount of time discussing online marketing via blogs with Henry Copeland.  Finally, a few folks that I've only known by links or comments to my site, introduced themselves to me which was great fun.
• Lounging with Google -  Google had the biggest  presence of any vendor at the conference which was thin when compared with AdTech or similar internet conferences.  The exhibit hall was very sparse, which surprised me a little since 2008 is a very important election with hundreds of millions of advertising dollars available.  Google had a lounge and I spent a fair amount of time there with the Google AdWords sale/account team whom I know very well going back to my online brokerage days; plus, it doesn't hurt running a major search campaign or two.  I thought the keynote was ok, but enjoyed the questions asked by the audience when it came to challenging Google on click fraud as well as YouTube-Viacom.  I still don't like Google's click fraud stance which is - trust us we catch a lot.
• Hello, I'm Johnny Cash - That's how I introduced myself during my 5 minute presentation on Just Stream It during my panel.  If you know me or know how I dress, that was a funny opening, but as a few people told me afterwards, I stepped on the joke when I didn't hear the audience laugh.  The biggest thing I learned, especially when discussing online advertising with Michael Bassik, is that all political marketers from both sides of the political aisle face the same challenges - not enough budget and not enough wide acceptance of what online marketing can do for them.  The only real difference as pointed out by Chuck DeFeo from Townhall, is that the liberal blogosphere is dominated by about 3 sites while the conservative blogosphere is spread out among many different voices.

It really was a great time and well worth the trip even if the trip home was difficult with the snow storm.  One final thought - to everyone that put down Second Life, you really don't understand where it is going and what it can do.  I don't disagree that the current versions of the unofficial SL spots are not up to par and probably have no shot at making an impact, but 2008 is a long way off to count Second Life out.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

AdAge's Skewed Political Poll

I got this email today from AdAge called Poll: Premature Presidents and I found it very misleading.  Here's the question:

The next president won't step into the White House until January 2009, but candidates have been jockeying since late last year and a number have already made it official. Some political watchers -- Newt Gingrich among them -- say it's entirely too soon and potentially harmful to democracy. Others, including consultants, say it boils down to a mix of needed fundraising and advances in technology that results in a democratization of the political process.

THIS WEEK'S POLL QUESTION: Do you think political candidates for the presidential race are beginning their marketing too early?

Here's what's misleading about it:

1. The 2009 mention skews the entire question - sure they won't take office until 2009, but the vote is November 2008
2. The first important vote doesn't just happen in November 2008, it actually occurs in January 2008 in Iowa which is 9 months away
3. Mentioning Newt skews the question because who would you believe, a named person in a survey or unknown consultants?
4. Finally, it assumes you read the article....

Of course the poll relates to this AdAge article called Too Soon? Two-Year Prez Race Could Lead to Marketing Miscues which is actually a well written article.  Commenting on the article, I don't see how candidates can sit on the sidelines and why as Americans we shouldn't take our time learning as much as possible about the people who lead our country. 

Media now is expensive.  Have you tried to buy TV ads lately?  How about online advertising on the New York Times?  Last time I looked that wasn't cheap either.  Google costs money as does social marketing, although not very expensive even if done correctly. 

Campaigns need to work all channels now, not just trying to have a debate on Channel 2 at 7:30 PM that reaches 50% of a viewing audience.  Cable, internet, network, video games, social marketing all have contributed to a fragmentation of American's attention span and to play in all of them, costs time, money, and people.  And, given that it is less than 9 months away, how would you expect to raise $100 million in as little time as possible? 

Raising funds, gathering email messages, building social networks, signing up state support takes time.  It just doesn't pop up over night anymore.  Our attention span is too fragmented, the media channels are too spread out and costly, and with the non-stop news from MSM and bloggers means you just can't wait until the last minute. 

I worked in corporate America for 15 years and I never once saw a plan that required this much money and was successfully launched and delivered objectives in a short time span.  Besides, isn't it our duty to get involved instead of blindly sitting on the sidelines and lazily casting a vote, if you get around to it?  If they make mistakes along the way, isn't it better to see what they are and how they react, rather than wait until something very important comes along.  How someone reacts in a pressure situation is an important trait, no?

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Only The News That's Fit to Sell

This morning I did my usual routine - helped my son get ready for school and then I sat down to read newspapers and my RSS feeds while my daughter watched Sesame Street (BTW - I like the Mr Noodle version that was eaten by a dinosaur in Jurassic Park 3).  Anyway buried on page 6 of the Newark Star Ledger in a page with snips of Associated Press articles was this title White House board clears surveillance, which I of course read.  The small article with little fanfare wrote about how the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board setup to investigate the White House's electronic eavesdropping and financial tracking found that the White House did not violate citizen's civil liberties.  Now whether this board did a thorough job or not, I can't tell from this article, but what I can see is that this wasn't featured on the front pages of newspapers.  Hmmm?

Not to hold the Star Ledger up as a pillar of fair news reporting, I looked in the WSJ and found nothing.  How about the NY Times?  Well, I did find an article with a little more meat in it called Privacy Board Clears US Spy Programs, but that was only after I searched for it.  It had no link from the main US News page.  How about the USA Today that was involved in reporting of the wiretapping story?  Nothing but the AP article and once again only after I searched for it.  Am I missing something here?  Maybe because this wasn't a scientific experiment and just a casual browsing of news sites.

People, the news world has one mission in life  - to sell more advertising by upping circulation numbers and only articles that can do that get your attention.  There must be so much pressure to go after falling circulation numbers and advertising revenues that perhaps the news you are reading is not as perfect as you once thought it was.

Just like the blogging world where one of your best tools to get an audience is to be controversial, the MSM has to do the same.  Call it the J.Jonah Jameson of Spider-man fame (hyphen included as that was the original version of the name) strategy.  Jonah would only print articles or photos that he thought would describe Spider-man as a menace, whether he really believed it or not.  Why?  Because he was solely focused on selling newspapers.

Am I writing that you should ignore main stream media (MSM)? No.  What I am writing is to not stay so focused on reading only one source of information.  To really be involved in a subject try reading multiple media sources in a day including blogs and other online news sites.  Perhaps with enough versions of the same article, you'll actually get a better view of what is the truth.  Reading multiple views of the same subject (liberal and conservative) will only help you understand and see the only truth which is that All The News That's Fit Print Are The Ones That Are Fit to Sell.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

BTW - on the front page of the Star Ledger is an article about a pretty wife's trial for murder and dismemberment of her husband.  Very interesting article and one that I've been personally following.  The title of the article is No one saw her chop him up, state admits - nicely done.

Why Selling Widgets Doesn't Help You With Political Marketing

I have a confession to make and it dawned on me when I was working on a presentation Monday night in my Hotel's restaurant that it should be today's post.  When I first became introduced to political marketing back in 2004 (introduced, not actually doing any work), I was like everyone else that dips a toe into this murky water; the skills that I've developed will translate into this market.  Heck, I did major consumer marketing for AT&T, marketed wireless plans, long distance, 800 service, WorldNet (BTW - how is that still in existence?), a super calling bundle launched on a Super Bowl, and a brokerage account linked to a checking  account marketed out of its territory, so I thought I was prepared.  Wrong.

Sure, I've forgotten more about online advertising than most people know (tongue and cheek of course), and that makes running political online campaigns easier.  I can tap into people in the internet industry at large and get help from experts when I need it.  The big differences that private sector wanna be political marketers don't realize are:

• Real Deadlines - not the kind that you promise your boss that have no discernible  impact on your bottom line if it launched on a Monday or a Friday.  I had an old boss (name and date withheld to protect, well me) that would scream if I missed a launch date even though I rarely missed an objective. In politics you have real deadlines - like a vote that you must get because there may not be a tomorrow.
• Marketing a Moving Target - In the private sector the brand quantities infused into your product don't change often; sure external forces can impact your product over time, but in politics, issues and crisis arrive hourly and candidates provide opinions that change perception.  You are constantly making changes even when someone makes an announcement on David Letterman that you weren't expecting (see links tomorrow).
• MSM and Blogs - The higher the profile, the more press coverage and if you say buy one bad word, make a typo on a banner (you've never done that right) it will show up.  Guaranteed.  I remember a time at AT&T when by error a new trafficking coordinator at Excite ran our One Rate 5 Cent banners run of site and they ended up in Club Excite (serious porn).  Sure a customer alerted us, but it didn't end up in the newspapers or on a blog.

Political marketing is not like selling the typical marketing textbook widget.  There are so many traps along the way and an army of people to point out your errors and critique your marketing plans that it takes a thick skin and dedication to make it work.  It is definitely not something that you jump in blind or without someone to guide you.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Because Raising $100 Million Takes Time

I'm sitting here in a great hotel in Alexandria (Old Town) Virginia, writing this post and all I can keep thinking of is why some people are already upset about all the media coverage given to the 2008 Presidential Election.  Mitt Romney has launched his first television ad (boring but launched) Hillary and Obama are fighting it out over raising hollywood donations, and all candidates are pretty much active using one method or another online.  Why should anyone complain?  As Rudy's documents showed, if you had to raise or sell $100 million by January 2008 you wouldn't wait either; that is of course assuming you like your job.

I've run plenty of marketing campaigns in telecommunications, wireless, politics, and brokerage service and one thing you can never have enough of (besides marketing dollars) is time.  Why wait until the last minute to get your numbers in when you can start now.  A very smart and wise VP (real one, not the fake banker titles) at AT&T named Jack McMaster once said to have a good year, you need to win the 1st quarter.  You know why?  Because you have the money for the most amount of time or said another way a sale in January is worth more in, in year revenue than a sale in December.

Politics is not something that you should turn off and on every 4 years.  What is more important to you?  Issues like taxes and the Iraq War or how much AT&T is spending rebranding its wireless service from Cellular One to AT&T Wireless to Cingular back to AT&T Wireless?  How about those lousy Lower My Bills ads that won't go away?  Please, it is no contest.  Those things are meaningless in the big scope of the country unless you are selling ad space to the newer and ROI be damned AT&T.

I'm not saying that you have to be a political junkie right now, but if you are one of these people that are already turned off by the 2008 marketing machines, you really need to understand what is important.  You say you made up your mind already?  Impossible.  How do you know who is going to win the primaries and who the running mates will be?  You can't.  There are real issues at stake and even if you are not into it, you can't be turned off by the candidates pushing their messages now.  After all, you'd do the same if you had this much at stake and no time to do it in.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Super Bowl Advertising and the Web

I found this post by Hitwise's LeeAnn Prescott called Super Bowl Advertising - A Way to Increase Web Traffic? very interesting because I've always argued this as the typical online guru.  I often said, especially in the brokerage space, that being on the Super Bowl was no guarantee of increased traffic - the world has changed since E*Trade first started advertising online.  That's why I was a little surprised that they were on there this year and as I wrote about the lackluster ads, I even missed their ads.  My friend Frank told me he thought they were on later in the game  - after we left my father's house with the little ones.

According to LeeAnn's data, E*Trade showed only a small increase in web traffic based on the TV advertising, which I'm sure disappointed them.  However, as she concluded, most internet brand companies that advertise on the Super Bowl did see significant increases like Career Builder and Go Daddy. 

My guess as to why E*Trade didn't see a big bump?  They have really stepped up their online advertising and have a pretty robust program that now ranks them 7th according to TNS Media Intelligence by way of ClickZ.  Plus, the category, especially for older online brokerages like them, has started to mature so a wide casted net like advertising on the big game probably won't work.  I'm sure a new entrant like Zecco would see a huge surge on site visits.

Like LeeAnn, I thought the data was very interesting.  It basically shows that having a Super Bowl doesn't guarantee site visits, if that's your goal.  I for one didn't visit any site based on the ads.... I wonder how many of you had the same reaction.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

TiVo Testing The Super Bowl

I have to admit, I am a football purist.  I watch the Super Bowl because I want to see, a football game, not the commercials.  Yes, I am in advertising and I like a good commercial like the next person, but generally speaking the commercials are what I avoid when I get up from my seat to get something to eat, drink, or run to the bathroom.  And, if was up to me, I would have started watching the game 30 minutes after the actual start so I could TiVo through the bad ones.  Having said all that, here's what I remember most when I was too lazy to get up from my chair and make another tongue, pastrami, mustard, coleslaw sandwich on rye bread (yes, I wrote tongue).  BTW - I don't know the actual names and I refuse to look them up at one of the websites tracking the ads, because I want to watch the game and don't want to glorify the commercials.

1. The Doritos consumer generated ads were pretty damn good and I enjoyed the checkout version - thought it was smart, funny, and showcased the different Doritos brands
2. The Career Builder ad, while I don't actually remember what it was, was awful and obviously made no visible impression in my memory other than it was bad.
3. The company with the navigation software product - you know the one with the Power Rangers like ad, needs to fire their creative agency because for the 20 people that watched the game with me, they ALL agreed that that was the worst ad in recent memory.
4. Federal Express once again scores a touchdown with a funny ad that reinforced their product.  I really thought the what's in a name ad was well down and tried to make fun of type casting people or companies based on their name.
5. The Budweiser ads were also well done.  The kids and I loved the Crab God ad and I personally thought the slasher ad was very funny and still got the point across which was the male driver loved the beer more than anything else.
6. All car ads were pretty run of the mill to bad; my son saw so many GM ads finally asked what a GM was and when I told him it was General Motors a car manufacturer, he said "oh that was what the ad was about..."
7. Finally, I think Coke needs to get a new strategy.  Enough of the how important Coke is or where it fits in the world.  I just think people don't care.  Celebrating breaking the color barrier is important, but positioning Coke with important historical points in the Civil Rights Movement is a little much, know?  And, the Avatar ad of a guy solving everyone's problems because he drinks Coke was over the top.  Coke is a good tasting drink, not something that solves world hunger.  Yes, the song from the 70's was great, but we have all grown up a little bit....

That's it.  Seven commercials that stuck in my mind, bad or good.  They all past my TiVo test this one time.  Now that the big game is over, we can all go back to our usual habits of watching our programs while waiting to get through the ads. 

Oh, and in celebration of this event, how about one last look at my favorite Super Bowl Monkey.  Now that was a memorable ad.  BTW - did you notice how E*trade was a sponsor, yet I didn't see any commercials. (Correction from Frank in comments:  they ran two ads, but given my history with them, I probably got up on purpose.....)

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

More Junk Marketing from American Express

Yes, the endless parade of junk marketing from American Express continues.   Not 10 days after I made this original post called American Express The Junk Mail King, I've received a whopping 11 more direct mail pieces and that includes my 2 bills.  Eleven.  That's insane.  Not only that, I received 2 duplicates of a Starwood Mailing and duplicates from the junk featured in the last post.  Seriously folks, does anyone ever open this waste of paper?  How many duplicate direct mail pieces can you send someone?  It seems monthly that I get offers of more Rewards cards, lines of credit, and special offers that once you receive over and over, don't seem so special anymore.

And, as if to mock me for ripping on American Express' wasteful direct marketing, while shopping this weekend at the Short Hill Mall (they like to be called the Mall at Short Hills but "f" em), I spotted the American Express Members Lounge.  How much money does American Express let fall out of their back pocket in a given day to have a members lounge?  And, other than make a few events people happy what can the marketing benefits be of this?  With the prime location in Short Hills it must be costing them a fortune to give you weary shoppers a place to relax.  How many possible American Express Cards can be signed up in a day to recoup what 1% of the daily rent?

Look you are a credit card, not some oasis in a mall.  You are not Starbucks.  You are what people pay for a latte with.  You won't retain enough people or sign up enough cards to justify the ROI on this.  Money, finances, credit cards - that's what you are good at and if you have so much money, why don't you just lower my monthly fee.  I wonder if the customer lounge would be a good place to drop off my junk mail....and suck down a couple of lattes in the process.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

American Express - The Junk Mail King

I've been meaning to write this post for a long time and decided it was only believable if I collected the direct mail I received from American Express in a 2 week period and posted a photo.  Before I go into my rant, a few caveats to start.  I am a big fan of Amex's products and a few years back came within one person of being hired as a Director of Online Marketing in their internet center of excellence group (see read more).  Ok, back to my rant....

Back when I started my online advertising consulting company I chose American Express as my corporate card because it had a great platform, good rates, and I can bundle my rewards points between that card and my personal card.  Plus, I didn't want any revolving credit cards....bad habits, no?  Anyway, I should have known I was going to be deluged with Amex direct mail.

Seriously, check out this photo of the DM l I've received over the past 10 days or so (remember it was Xmas week a notoriously bad time to mail).  That's about 15 pieces of DM for both card accounts.  Out of those pieces I got solicitations for different credit cards (platinums and One), more credit cards, how to spend rewards points, lines of credit, and Costco (why???).  It is unbelievable how much junk mail this company sends out and a lot of it is duplication.  Seriously, how many fee free additional gold rewards cards can a family possibly have and if I've ignored it enough times....can you get the hint?  No, my kids are too young and besides if Amex gave them a card, they'd buy more toys creating  a junk slugfest that would rival Ali and Frazier between Amex's junk mail and Playmobil toys.  Or, how about this mailing on behalf of Costco?  Come on - what partner marketing genius agreed to bombard their valuable customer base with that retailer's junk mail?  Why am I so fired up?

• I pay an annual fee for my credit cards and the retailers I use pay a merchant fee.  Perhaps if Amex would stop running amok or used alternative marketing channels, they could lower their marketing costs which are up 12% for comparable 12 month periods and pass those savings on to customers or return more profit to investors.
• Back in the day, a former CIO at AT&T Consumer, JP Peterson, who came from American Express in the early 90s, used to preach to AT&T marketers about limiting customer touches via direct mail to reduce customer churn and marketing expenses.  I think Amex should dig out some of JP's older plans and cut down the junk.
• DM is expensive and don't give me the branding play.  I received 15 DM pieces in a 2 week period and at a $1 assumed cost per piece (creative, printing, postage, paper. agency, etc) and 15 pieces per month - that calculates to $180/year per customer.  Sure, they probably have some smart models that predict increasing spending gets more merchant fees and retention but that's just too much DM.
• Don't try and argue with me how I have a business and consumer account.  Amex is too smart to not know I'm the same customer.  The rewards accounts are linked, I had to give them personal data to get my corporate card approved, and they add the expenses together to figure out my ability to spend per month.
• While Amex is direct mail crazy, I get precious little email from them which is surprising because I have online statements and agreed to  receive promotional emails from them.
• Finally, I've ditched their rip-off Sign and Travel/Extend Payment and Flight Insurance products so many times, that I scream when I get DM telling me that I can get rewards points for these tools.  Yah, you're a tool when you get hooked on S&T and see 24% interest rates on your purchases.

How can you rationalize dumping so much junk mail to an online customer when email is so much cheaper and affordable?  How can you not know my accounts are linked?  How can you not rationalize the amount of direct customer contacts in a month?

At this point if there was a good offer in there that I might like, I'll miss it with all of the other junk messaging I get from Amex.  Come on American Express, we card holders deserve better than this daily dumping of direct mail.  Remember, there is no branding value from seeing your logo on the way down to the trash can.

PardonMyFrench (with love),

Eric

****UPDATE*********************

My good friend Dave sent this email to me and allowed me to post it regarding Costco.  The one reply I'll make is that if you get an Amex card in a Costco store, that's fine because you are a Costco customer.  I'm not, there isn't one nearby (they should know that), and it just becomes another piece of credit card solicitation.

Hey! Don't knock the  Costco mail. The only credit card  Costco takes is Amex. We signed up for  the free for members Costco Amex card.  It works the mostly the same as  my old Amex card. Costco membership is  $60.  Amex green card was $80 ($55 + $25 for additional card). When we  got our Costco card, I canceled my old green Amex card. Since we were already Costco members & Amex  cardholders- net savings- $80 a year.I think the difference in the cards is that instead of reward points,  you get 1% cash back.  Since Amex wasn't my main card, no big loss  there. That and the new card says  member since 2006 instead of 1995

DraftFCB and Wal-Mart Firing

Originally I was just going to tag this and have it auto-post to my site, but I decided against it because I think it needs a few comments.  The Chicago Tribune posted this article called Draft finds no wrongs in Wal-Mart ad pitch and I think DraftFCB is missing a point in the firing.  The question is not whether the sales team violated Draft's or Interpublic's policy but whether they met Wal-Mart's strict vendor rules.  Here's the quote in the article I'm referring to:

As of this morning," he wrote [Howard Draft], "we have completed this investigation, which has not uncovered any instances in which we violated either [DraftFCB or Interpublic] policy. It is important for you to know that--and equally important that our clients know that."

If you know your client doesn't want you to even buy them a cup of coffee, than shouldn't that be your policy?  If something like that is put in the RFP or you know that based on signs posted in their offices, than shouldn't that be part of the agency review process?  I know some of you are thinking that an agency shouldn't police their client, but you should have some responsibility, no? Especially if you know that is the rule going in?  Maybe DraftFCB was mislead or maybe the relationship was doomed from the start, but what I'd like to know is did they violate Wal-Mart's policy of vendor's not giving gifts to their employees.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Advertising Powered by Google?

I saw this article in Thursday's Wall Street Journal called Google Tests New Ad Offerings - but Will Advertisers Follow (sorry no link today; my online subscription expired and I need a special renewal code) and it reminded me of Danny Sullivan's keynote speech at Search Engine Strategies.  The keynote is almost 50 minutes long and it is fairly interesting so if you can spare the time while multi-tasking it makes for a great listen.

The three key points that resonated with me during his keynote were (and I'm paraphrasing):

1. Pre-roll videos ads are not the same as search marketing; search you are actively looking for something and the search engines try and bring you an ad to match your query while a pre-roll video ad prevents you from seeing what you came to the website to view.  Seems obvious, but important to remember.
2. Google doesn't break out AdWords revenue from other sources of revenue.  Check this link out to their recent quarterly filing.  It shows revenue for Google Websites and Google Network Websites.  What this does is let them report revenue growth and the unaware people assume it is PPC (AdWords) when it could be anything.
3. Google Radio, Print, TV, banners, videos, and etc are not the same as Google PPC ads.  Google PPC brings you search ads based on an ongoing auction-CTR prioritization and then Google generates revenue when someone clicks on the ad.  All the other versions of Google's new ad offerings are simpler ad models served via an auction style.  One is performance based marketing using an auction system while the other is brand marketing using an auction system.

Point #3 brings us back to the WSJ article.  It describes how Google wants to bring print, radio, TV, etc to the masses and this interesting quote from Eric Schmidt that says "The long-term fantasy is we walk up to you and you give us say $10 million and we'll completely allocate it for you" which looks like a fantasy today.  What makes Google work today is that search is a) completely measurable b) auction driven c) very simple to run and d) you pay for what you use.

Google's Print and Radio products are a) auction driven and b) hopefully simple to use.  What?  What do you mean it isn't trackable? I thought the article mentioned Google Trends.   Well you could use it but this is what you'd see today if you were say exploring a run for president and only relied on Google Trends for measurement.  What's the first thing missing?  Numbers and the last time I reported results of an advertising campaign (which was yesterday) they were a critical component in the analysis.  How are you supposed to show results, correlation, trends without umm numbers?  I guess if you had real access to Google numbers that maybe it would work, but you'd still be estimating.

I was asked last week what I thought of Google Radio and after reading today's article and going back over my notes from Danny Sullivan's keynote, I can boil it down to this - you want to purchase radio in an auction style, easy to use process than I'm sure it is fine, it may be great, and I'll probably use it.  However, if you think because the product you are using is called Google Print or Google Radio that it will perform the same way as AdWords or even be measured like AdWords, then you really aren't reading the fine print and have just bought ino all the fantasy hype.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

***********UPDATE THIS AFTERNOON************

My blogger friend Bill Tancer provided some data on Google Finance which pretty much backs up my conclusion.  Hitwise data shows that Google Finance is 16th overall in their Business and Finance category even after their redesign.  One of the reasons Bill gives is the traffic distribution.  Please see Bill's post called Google Finance - After the Redesign.

Doh! You Mean Search Marketing Is Advertising?

I saw these two articles today on some expert's forecasts for advertising spending and maybe I'm the only one a little upset over one of the sets of numbers, but I am shocked over what I read.  At AdAge the article Advertisers Expect Modest Growth for 2007 was where I first read this about Universal McCann's Robert Coen, senior VP-director of forecasting's online numbers.  It seems that Mr. Coen does not include search numbers in his online forecasts.  Coen predicts (maybe guesses) that online will grow by 15% without search.  Here's what AdAge reported:

....has become a topic of debate, as seen by Mr. Coen's decision to leave internet search spending out of his numbers and Mr. King's decision to leave it in

Ok, I don't think I can type words that describe how myopic that is,  but then I read this follow up article via the New York Times called Troubling '07 Forecast for the Old-Line Media but Not for Online where the reporter Stuart Elliot wrote that not only does Mr. Coen leave search out of his numbers "...classifying it as more promotional in nature".  That's even more ridiculous.  Search marketing is Advertising.  I'm sure the rest of his analysis is top notch, but I wouldn't pay any attention to that.  My old AT&T boss back when I was a statistical modeler and database marketing analyst used to tell me for a model: garbage in=garbage out and by ignoring the impact of search marketing on advertising is just trashy.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

BTW - all the other mediums of choice (bad choice, I mean) are forecasted to slow down while online is expected to grow...

Volkwagon Commercials Pass My TiVo Test

Did you see these Volkswagon commercials over the weekend?  I know they have been probably around for about 4 weeks now, but they slipped in past my TiVo and scared the hell out of me.  I don't know what freaked me out more, the Giants blowing a 21 point lead with 10 minutes left to go in the game or these ads.  I had to rewind them about 3 times each.

Now, I don't think they are going to make me go out and buy a Volkswagon (strictly Japanese in this household), but for advertising these are a home run.  Target audience was probably the 25-30 year old crowd with a message that a Volkswagon will save your life and your co-riders life in a car accident.  Powerful and simple message that breaks through the clutter.  Nicely done.  Why don't you ditch the Slash guitar ads and just pound these home.  Talk about scaring a car buyer into the safety message.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Ad #2

Snake Oil Salesmen 2006 Wicked Version

Have you seen Wicked yet?  I saw it a few months back and loved it.  In a nutshell, it is a different spin on the Wizard of Oz casting the Wicked Witch of the West as a victim of circumstances with the original circumstance being that she was the result of an affair her mother had with a snake oil salesman who later turned out to be the Wizard.  Why tell this story?  It reminded me of the 2006 version of snake oil salesmen  - the big Pharmaceutical Companies.

Yes Big Pharma.  The people you rely on to produce medicine that is supposed to help you, but all they are really out to do is...well...make a buck.  And, if that means you take medicine that used to be effective and no longer is..oh well...buyer beware. What got me so fired up?

In yesterday's Newark Star Ledger, I woke to find this article called For stuffy noses a new drug runs counter to opinion.  Basically what the article says is that with a new federal ruling to limit access to pseudoephedrine (Sudafed) products and put them behind the counter (but not requiring a prescription), Big Money Making Pharma decided to replace pseudoephedrine with  phenylephrine.  So, you might ask what is the big deal?   They are looking out for us right?  Nope.  Check this quote out from the article and follow-up paragraph:

"At the maximum 10 milligram dose, phenylephrine is no more effective than a placebo. It's like shooting blanks," Leslie Hendeles, a research pharmacist at the University of Florida, said in an interview.

Hendeles and colleague Randy Hatton, in a peer-reviewed letter published this summer in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, found seven of 11 studies done decades ago as the basis for Food and Drug Administration approval for over-the counter decongestant remedies showed phenylephrine at the allowable 10 mg dose did not work effectively.

They found only 38 percent of the medicine gets into the system compared with 90 percent for pseudoephedrine.

So what do the money grabbing companies do?  Just change the active ingredient on some of your favorite over the counter medicines and if you don't read the label oh well.   Going in to grab a replacement bottle of DayQuil or NyQuil because as Lewis Black said "your cold doesn't give a damn what time of day it is"?  Well,  read  that label because you  should give a  damn about the ingredients.

Some of the companies like Wyeth, makers of Dimmetapp, are using a dual strategy of putting out the ineffective stuff out in the isle and the good stuff behind the counter.  That is of course assuming your pharmacy decided to carry it and go through the effort of tracking who buys it.

Back in the day, Coca-Cola had coco extract in it as well as alcohol and was sold as a cold remedy.  It of course turned into my old roomate Dave's favorite breakfast drink.  Unfortunately, if you don't read the label of what you are buying, you won't be buying anything that will help your cold and certainly won't give you that happy original Coke feeling.  All you'll end up doing is helping cure what ails the pharmaceutical industry.    Read your labels, that's why the US Government forced them to put them there.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

 

Shea Goodbye to Shea

Now it is true that I am a Yankees fan and ever since the Mets traded Tom Seaver I have been a Mets hater.  The last Mets game that I went to, I made fun of the stadium so much that I got myself uninvited from future games even though I loved the sausage sandwich and beers from around the world.  But this announcement of the Mets selling the naming rights to Citigroup for $20 million over 20 years is terrible and real bush league, more so than Ed Kranepool alley.  Sure $20 million per year would provide good money to the franchise and might help sign future free agenets or their own stars, but this is just a plain sellout and I can't imagine they need the money now that they have a TV network.

I'm upset whenever professional teams sell their stadium naming rights.  I used to be able to name every baseball stadium and other than Coors Field who really cares what the corporate name is.  It adds no character to the team and even sounds ridiculous to say that I'm going to a game at United Parcel Services today.  Or how about a stadium named after Embarq the worst brand name ever?

Besides being offended I've often wondered what the value of this advertising is to the corporation other than an ego boost.  Will it sell more banking accounts?  Not based on my experience.  Does Citigroup really need to boost brand awareness?  Who hasn't heard of them in the NYC area?  I could understand if a company like mine wanted to slap a name on a stadium, but a major corporation with huge awareness?  What's the point? 

Personally I would have spent the $20 million per year on online advertising to sell more credit cards, money markets, bank accounts, anything but on a stadium name.  Good thing I never followed up on those recruiter calls to Citi because I probably would have screamed so much over this deal that I would have been shown the door...

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Think Wegmans Is Trying to Tell Me Something?

I went out today to get the mail and low and behold I found the following blue box in my mailbox with this very tantalizing headline "Open for an uplifting change". So naturally I was excited until I realized it was a sample an for Always Clean feminine hygiene product.  Ewww...than I thought, did I open my wife's mail?  Nope.  It was addressed to Eric Frenchman and right below the address it says "Have a happy period".  I've been married for over 12 years and one thing I'm pretty sure of is, I've never heard Mary say "wow, that was a happy period" unless of course she was helping my son with writing his first sentence.  Thank goodness Wegmans wrote that there were sending me this mail for their sponsor and that they never share personal information with their suppliers.

Too bad none of their suppliers knows anything about direct mail because maybe they could have helped Wegmans' marketing department.  I know, stop saying, any direct marketer could have made this mistake, but a) it is funny and b) no, they should have done a better job. 

Yes, they should have done a better job.  Sure my wife and I share the same card, but if you have ever shopped at Wegmans you know you are not going there because of packaged items, you are going their for their unique foods.  A simple database analysis of tampon purchases should have filtered out people that very rarely purchase them in Wegmans.  Plus, they could have scrubbed for male first names or labeled the address differently.  A significant population knows next to nothing about this product and couldn't recommend this to a female.  Imagine this "Mary maybe you should try this Always Clean product because it comes with a $1 coupon only available at Wegmans".

To demonstrate this, Mary once sent me into a 5 and 10 store down the shore while we were on vacation to pick up her product.  Of course, I forget the "specs" and had to ask the hot 18 year old store clerk for some help.  After a few questions which I got right, she then said "does she use the one with wings?"  My only answer was, "wings, why is this going to give her an uplifting experience?"

Yes, I'm having fun with this.  I'm glad Wegmans is trying to use their database for marketing because they certainly have a lot of data on shopping behaviors.  However, they could have done a better job with addressing the box.  The only reason this wasn't thrown out right away was because I wanted to write this post....

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

BTW - what are the wings for anyway?

Dear Ketel One Readers

Wow, I certainly have a lot of activity on a post that I made in March 2006 called Ketel One Marketers Need to Go Back to Drawing Bar.  What is odd is that I would occasionally get traffic in natural search results from it but as of today I've been hit with tremendous amount of traffic and some good commentary.  This either leads me to believe that a) Ketel One's Agency of Record has found the post and is taking some heat from it or b) Ketel One has found the post and used it in a meeting discussing branding with their agency.  Either way, very interesting.

Look, I stand by the original post no matter how many positive posts on the campaign I receive in the comments.  I'm a premium vodka drinker and I saw the ad in the WSJ and had an opinion on it.  So does millions of other consumers.  I'm not trying to win the business and am not trying to help an agency to win the business.  I still think Ketel One could do a lot better with the campaign by running it online targeted at their users instead of paying for a full page ad in the WSJ when only 1/4 would have worked just fine. 

If the campaign is helping generate vodka sales than great and you have a home-run no matter what people like me have to say.  If sales are slipping while the rest of your category is growing then clearly you need to try something new.  Only Ketel One and their agency knows for sure what the situation is.  BTW - not that I'm not grateful for the traffic, but the more you agency guys keep hitting that natural search link, the higher up in the rankings it appears, further spreading my post.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

***********UPDATE****************************

Yes Sam, I did land on AdRants.  Serves me right for the one day I was too busy to read my RSS feeds and I get picked up.  BTW AdRants, Drawing Board versus Drawing Bar - I was just trying to be funny....Cheers.

Eric

(PardonMyFrench Redux) Now, It Is Ok To Antenna Chase

*Note: I wrote this post 5 years ago. Enjoy

Way back when I was working at AT&T, I volunteered to work on two double secret probation projects called Cheetah and Panda.  These were AT&T's first efforts to market cellular (Cheetah) and paging (Panda) to the AT&T long distance customer base.  We in the LD world had to work with our McCaw cellular counterparts in understanding the products, offers, and incentives to create the direct mail piece, inbound call scripts, and TV ads.  This was back in 1995 when you didn't have wireless gizmos attached to your body and hardly anyone understood how the product worked.

The group we had was very small, and as I recall there was only one marketing manager (me) on the project and my job was to write the marketing brief, review creatives, work with sales execution, and negotiate the offers.  Two big decisions I recommended were the use of 1800336TRUE for inbound calls and what I believed was the first official use of a free cellular phone with a new account sign-up.  Both were significant because people never forgot that 800 number (AT&T finally shut it off last year in 2005) and the free phone offer is often the price of admission into wireless service.  One other recommendation I made which was shouted down was comparing service with our competitors.  I was told that Craig McCaw called that antenna chasing and with a growing market it wasn't needed.

As this Sunday NYTimes article explains, now with over 70% penetration in the US, cell phone carriers now focus ads on each other in order to steal market share. What was once taboo in the industry now looks common place as I must have seen the Sprint/Nextel wireless data card ad (mentioned in the article - see ad below) about 100 times while watching football this weekend.  I'm sure with this strategy shift, you'll see more offers to switch, better promotions, and better prices.  It used to happen in the LD world, but with mergers that the FCC allowed to create super local/LD carriers, those incentives have long since evaporated.  I'm still waiting for a phone call from my local provider Embarq (the worst brand name in history) to call me with an offer to switch.

Well, at least we consumers can enjoy some good old fashioned name calling, promotions, and fun advertising in the wireless world.  My antenna chasing idea wasn't so bad, it was just 10 years ahead of its time.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Disney and The Fingerprinting

So, we are back from our second vacation down in Walt Disney World thanks for hanging in there with me last week.  As you can see, I preloaded posts before I left.  One of the biggest changes since February (besides the unbearable heat at the end of August in Florida) was that almost every park is now matching your fingerprint with your park pass.  Disney told us it was to protect you in case you lose your park pass.  However, my mind started spinning about all of the data Disney collects on us.  And, I guess I'm not the only one because Donna Bogatin over at ZDNet had a similar observation in a post called Walt Disney World "fingerprinting" Visitors: Magic Kingdom, or Mickey Mouse?

You can read Donna's article for a quick look at the technology and the company behind it; however, I'm taking a different approach.  Let's look at the data Disney collected from me that can now be theoretically matched with my fingerprint - name, address, email, age, children's name and age, credit card, phone numbers, emails, which parks I visit, potentially which rides (via fastpass), food, purchases and more.  Wow, that is a ton of data, but what could Disney do with it?  According to their Park Privacy Policy almost anything they want.

Q3. How may we use and share your personal information that we collect? A3. We may use and share your personal information collected under this Privacy Policy in a variety of ways, including, without limitation, for example:

One of the examples they give is this:

We may disclose personal information when we believe in good faith that such disclosures (a) are required by law, including, without limitation, for example, to comply with a court order or subpoena, or (b) will help to: enforce contest, sweepstakes, promotions and/or game rules; protect your safety or security, including, without limitation, the safety and security of property that belongs to you; and/or protect the safety

Now I don't think Disney is up to anything sinister, but what jumps out at me with their data/privacy policy combination is that they theoretically could build a national fingerprinting registry and hand it over to the US Government. 

Over at Wikipedia they reference that in 2005 the Magic Kingdom had over 16.2 million visitors.  Not all of those people are US citizens or are being fingerprinted (kids), but based on a 250 million US population I wonder how long it would take Disney to build a sizable database of US fingerprints.  Clearly this system is not Mickey Mouse.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Customer Service Spectrum - Dell versus American Express

In this week's Business Week there is a very interesting article called Dark Days at Dell and it got me thinking about all of the posts my fellow Marketing Profs Blogger BL Ochman made on Dell and how clairvoyant she was.  BL's posts ran the full gambit from customer care problems, to exploding battery issues, and to general Dell strategy. 

As I type this post I keep thinking this is the last Dell laptop I'll ever own.  The keyboard has been replaced three times from no more than casual use and every time it requires multiple care transfers until I get out of the India "uncare" center and finally speak with someone who understands English.  All of this to have a $20 keyboard replaced.

Around the same time I'm reading this week's Business Week, I started to pay my monthly bills and I realized that I have three American Express Cards.  You see the last time I called into them, I wanted to have my flight insurance turned off (not even sure why it was on in the first place).  The total amount was almost $40 and the customer care person was able to turn it off and credit my amount.   Then because I was in such a good mood, she upsold me into a Gold Rewards Card.  All of this handled quickly and with one person.  Now my third bill arrived (my old card) with the $55 annual fee even though the card was supposed to be turned off.  Again, another quick call in to one customer care person and the card was canceled and the credit received.  No transfers, no checking with the manager, and no translation needed.

Reading the Business Week article and comparing the customer service I've received from Dell with Amex really highlights how to do it right and wrong.  I used to complain and even yelled at an Amex rep in the past, but now they are the gold standard.  I know you are saying PC Tech call versus Credit Card call are different, and yes they are, but keep in mind that customer care is all about managing call volume, length of call, and cost.  It is a numbers game and perhaps Dell should stop turning down ideas and really make some changes that don't involve outsourcing - or else their customers will outsource their laptops and PCs to someone else.  Heck, with the way this Dell is breaking down it looks like an annual occurrence.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

The Good and the Bad Flying on Continental

So, this is my first time on a plane since the big English Terrorist scare and I have to be honest, it has been smooth sailing. Sure the line to check your baggage was spilled out to Route 22, but thank goodness I had the foresight to print off my boarding pass while I was home. Also, the decision to leave the shaving cream, toothpaste, gelled deodorant, and hair gel at home was the right one when I pulled up 90 minutes before departure. The only product I really regret not having is my Extreme Sport Deodorant, but the folks on the political advertising panel will have to tough it out!!!

So, no baggage check and no boarding pass, the next challenge was security, which I passed through no problem. Those of you who thought my deep tan would mark me as a suspicious character were WRONG. I was able to bring on board my solid hair wax and the only inconvenience was taking my Tivas off and walking barefoot through the security check (yes the floor is sticky).

The ONLY and I repeat the ONLY problem I had was this very annoying woman who was flying back to San Diego. She is one of those people hat complain about everything and I had to listen to her repeat her pathetic (yes Mary I wrote pathetic) story about 3 times before I finally took this picture and moved on. Her first problem was that she arrived 4 hours before her scheduled 7:30 flight because she thought she could jump on the 5:30 flight I was on. Thank goodness for small miracles that my flight was packed.

Why anyone in this day and age would think they could jump on board without calling ahead is beyond me. Of course, this gave her fodder to complain. Next up were her juvenile complaints about the flight times of her 7:30 plane.

It seems that her flight was scheduled to come in at 1:30 AM instead of the 10:30 PM she thought it would land. It never occurred to this woman that someone forgot to subtract the 3 hours to convert it from EST to PST. As she said “repeated calls to customer service couldn’t rectify why she was going to be on an eight hour flight”. Obviously the good people in Continental Customer Service didn’t have the harshness to tell her she was a moron…Finally, she complained how there are no direct flights from Newark to San Diego and that was really the cause of her difference in time.  Hmmm, I guess I’m in a fantasyland on my direct flight.  Really lady your problem was a mistake in time zones not that you were on a multiple stop over flight.

That’s it for now. Everything seems ok as long as you don’t check your bags, print off your boarding pass at home, leave the hair gel and deodorant in your bathroom, and forgo morons on your plane. One other piece of advice, if you do have to check your bags – get to the airport at LEAST 2 hours before your flight. Also, flying first class is worth it as long as the upgrade is only $150 as I got on this flight :-p

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Ford's Moves Are Bold, But Will Buyers Care?

Fellow Internet OldTimer Tom Hespos posed a question a few days ago on the list that asked what people thought of Ford's Bold Moves community site.  Now, I can't go into detail on the email because there are some rules for the list, but he beat me to the punch because I was planning on making a post on it.

I stumbled across the website because I clicked on a small banner running on my webmail that directed me to the site, but I have to be honest, I only clicked on it because the person in the banner looked like Tom Kean Jr (running for Senate in NJ).  So, I spent some time on the site, checking out the blog, watched a few of the web episodes, checked out the pr and news items and I have to admit, it is well done.  I wanted to hack it to pieces, but I couldn't find a design flaw or execution flaw in it.  In fact, I'd call it the best example of a corporate community site I've seen to date.

Now before you think I lost my edge and answered Tom's question, let me elaborate a little further.  Bold Moves is a great execution, but I'm not sure what it is executing on.  Is it for selling cars, PR/investor relations, or employee communications?   Now, before I jump into the answer, let's take a quick scan at Ford's headlines for the last week:

• The Street.com ranks comments of one of Ford's Top Execs, Mark Fields as one of the Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week.
• Ford recalls 1.2 million SUVs, Trucks, and Vans
• Ford loses $18 million lawsuit over a 1999 crash
• Ford details restructuring plans that includes more spending cuts and speeding up plans to cut 30,000 jobs by 2012.
• JD Power Study shows US cars lag foreign rivals in reliability
• Toyota's profits up 39% while Ford has a $254 million loss

That's the backdrop on the news and none of it is helpful for employees, investor relations, PR, or selling cars.  So, can the Bold Moves help?  For selling cars, I think the answer is no.  People buy cars in 4-5 year cycles so anyone buying a car now will look at the here and now and unfortunately a lot of what's on the website is about future moves.  And, in the future the Bold Moves campaign might be helpful if Ford obtains a competitive advantage over its rivals, but that assumes that the Toyotas of the industry are not consistently innovating.  SELLING GRADE - D

For IR the site is slightly helpful because the videos are believable and it outlines Ford's strategy for the future.  So, if you get the investor relations community and investors to the site, it can do a very effective job in changing sentiment.  However, long term outlook as well as short term tactics, news, and of course income statements contribute to a stock's price.  INVESTOR RELATIONS GRADE  - B

Finally, the employee relations aspect of the community is probably the hidden gem here.   Getting a potentially demoralized employee base excited to come to work with the restructuring and looming large job cuts must be very difficult (ask any recently laid off AT&T employee about morale at the end).  However, with weekly videos about the brightness of the future and an available community to discuss and socialize regarding issues, it is a valuable tool in the battle to boost morale.  EMPLOYEE GRADE - B

Ford Bold Moves is a beautifully executed community site, but it will do very little to sell cars.  If that's the point of it, then Ford misses the mark entirely.  However, it a very good tool for investor relations and a great employee communications vehicle.  In fact, it puts all employee relations communications tools to shame.  What would you rather have, a boring monthly Ask Ford newsletter/employee broadcast or a cool up to date blog with slick videos that you can view at your leisure.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Google Helps XM Radio Target Its Ads

Ok, so it has been announced that Google will power XM Radio's commercials giving AdWords clients the ability to target XM's customer base with ads.  As part of the deal,

Google advertisers will have a simple,  automated way to reach XM’s millions of subscribers nationwide and XM will  have access to Google’s large and small advertisers to offer relevant, targeted messages to their subscribers.  Google AdWords’ customers will be able to place terrestrial and satellite radio spots when the dMarc platform is integrated into AdWords targeted for fourth quarter of this year.

Hmm, at first I thought big deal.  I've had XM radio for two years now in both my home and my car and I barely pay attention to the ads.  In fact, one of the great things about XM is that there is always a station that doesn't play commercials.  Then I started thinking there has to be more than this isn't there?  Evidently I'm not the only one.

Joe Mandese editor of Media Post wrote about the partnership " Why Google is making its play in radio when Madison Avenue appears most focused on making the process of TV buying more efficient isn't clear.." and Donna Bogatin over at ZDnet picks up what I think is an interesting strategy of using GPS to target personalized ads. The question is how would they power that?  I also personally think the GPS strategy is a bit far off, but there is a simpler solution for bringing targeted ads to your XM Radio which I think answers Joe's question.

IT'S THE DATA MATCH PEOPLE!
Now I happen to be both a Google and a XM Radio subscriber and have registered with both of them online.  When you register with XM Radio you need to put your radio ID as well as your email address, home address, name, etc into the registration process.  I also happened to have supplied the same email to Google when I signed up for their online services.  Bingo, Google has search and web surfing behavior on me now matched with a radio ID plus my demographics.  Google can now supply VERY TARGETED online ads to XM Radio and I'd argue what should be the most targeted radio ads ever.  Imagine searching the internet for brokerage companies and then having Google beam a brokerage ad into your car via the radio ID.  Seems pretty simple, but the only thing stopping them would be privacy right?  Umm, think again.

XM RADIO'S PRIVACY POLICY

Take a look at it yourself true believers - XM Radio's privacy policy doesn't stop them from commingling data.  How about these lines from their privacy policy:

• Information from Other Sources: We may supplement the information you provide us by acquiring additional information from third parties. We also may use commercially available demographic and marketing information from third parties to help us better serve you or inform you about products or services that we think will be of interest to you.
• How Do We Use The Information We Collect? We use the personally identifiable information you provide us to serve our subscribers, to enhance and extend our subscriber relationship, and to enable our subscribers to take maximum advantage of products and services we think they would enjoy.
• Unless you to choose to opt out, we may also use personally identifiable information and demographic information to identify products or services that might be of interest to you and to provide you with information by email, postal mail or telephone about products or services offered by our company, our business partners or other companies.

I don't think the above is problematic and in fact if I can get very targeted ads I may pay attention to them.  After all, I am in marketing and advertising.  I don't know if I'm missing something but it seems to me this is a perfect deal for Google and XM Radio and may steer Madison Avenue back to radio; after all, if Google has anything to say about  it there will be no offline or online advertising, just Google ROO.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

P.S. sorry about the long post, but I hope you think it was worth it.

Fun with Steve Forbes Part 2

I lot of people wrote or called me asking what the Titanic item that I outbid billionaire Steve Forbes looked like.  So, here's the Titanic coal item.  The   original post is below.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Fun with Steve Forbes

On Saturday, Mary, the kids, and I went to an event at the Forbes Estate in Bedminster NJ for the ForbesLife Magazine and we had an absolute blast.  There were hot air balloon rides for us, great BBQ food, sponsors, and a silent auction to benefit the Salvation Army.  Plus, we were able to walk the grounds, see the Forbes motorcycle collection, and the kids were able to play with some of the outdoor toys.  Even with the heat it was a great day.

During the silent auction Steve Forbes bid on 3 items and only one of them I showed an interest in which was a signed framed collector's collage of a piece of coal from the Titanic with Robert Ballard's signature who discovered the wreckage.  So, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to stake my meager earnings versus Mr.  Forbes.  As time went on I was the only one with a bid against him and I ended up winning the item.

I couldn't resist walking up to him and apologizing for outbidding him which he replied - "oh, I just did that to get the bidding going."  Yes readers, I already knew that, but how many of you have proof that you got into a bidding war with and as my son said after meeting him, a billionaire and WON!!!

I also couldn't resist asking him who he thinks the front runner is for the 2008 election and he replied with a smile, John McCain.  I then followed up and asked him what he thinks McCain's chances are and he said pretty good as long as he can overcome any resistance from the republican base (all just fun and hardly an endorsement).

Thanks for the good times Mr. Forbes and hopefully we didn't ruin your front (or was it back) lawn.  Anytime you are up my way, feel free to stop by my home in Long Valley and check out the framed Titanic coal in my den.  I'll even put a couple of Chester Meat Market porterhouse steaks on the grill for us to share.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Cuban Turns To Community for Movie Marketing

Ok, so I've been reading Mark Cuban's blog for a while and I usually find his non-basketball posts interesting especially the one he posted the other day called The Movie Business Challenge.  The post starts off with this line "This is an open challenge. You come up with a solution, you get a job. Seriously." and continues with the challenge:

    "Only HDNet takes more time out my day than trying to solve this problem. Its the holy grail of the movie business. How do you get people out of the house to see your movie without spending a fortune. How can you convince 5 million people to give up their weekend and go to a theater to see a specific movie without spending 60mm dollars."

I have to admit I was interested enough, not to get a job, but just to throw my hat in the ring to see if I can come out with a reasonable solution (more on my solution later).  The first comment came in soon after the post on 7/23 at 10:41 PM and I checked in at #30 on 7/24 at 12:26 AM.  Well now as of 7/24 at 9:49 PM he has over 300 comments.  Now I'm not saying my post was pure genius, but I at least gave it some thought and tried to keep it short.  However, most of the 300 comments are pure garbage (you can surf through them) and I sure hope he has some good people going through them and weeding out the more serious responses if they were posted there at all.

So, Cuban turns the apprentice model on its ear and turns to his blog community for ideas which is what I think is pure genius.  What does he lose?  Nothing but wading through the comments.  And, I'm sure those comments are going to grow as more people spread the news of the post. 

Why would people make a post if they have a good idea?  Well for me I took the tact of a resume post figuring there will be a lot of traffic and if I can make the next cut, if there is such a thing, then I'll flesh out my idea some more.  Otherwise, I didn't waste too much time.  Think you can come up with an idea?  Mine had a mix of upgrading Hollywood Stock Exchange, with an Amazon targeting model and a eBay movie rating system.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric (my solution continues on the link below).

Marketing Rapid Fire 7-8-06

Here's today's marketing rapid fire.  There were so many interesting articles out there, so here goes:

• Fellow marketing prof blogger David Armano wrote an excellent post on Rocketboom's Amanda Congdon leaving or being fired from the highly watched video blog site.  I was an occasional fan, but I can't help but think this episode reminds me of when Steve left Blue's Clues and was replaced by Joe.
• MarketWatch's Bambi Francisco writes a great post on what would happen if News Corp spun off MySpace.  Bambi provides these great factoids on the audience make-up "According to comScore, 79% of all of MySpace users in May were over 18, up from 74% during the same period last year. Moreover, the percent of users between 15 years old and 20 years old dropped by 10% while those between 21 and 49 rose 5%."  Me, I keep thinking it is the 2006 version of GeoCities and if the kids are leaving, will MySpace still be cool?
• Googling is now a verb according to Merrium-Webster
• Analyst forecast Vonage's churn to get worst - Ugh.  It really is a crime that unsuspecting non-investors got suckered into this IPO.
• It seems someone other than my wife buys Matzah when it isn't Passover as according to the NY Times, Manischewitz Wants to Move to A Main Street Aisle.  I'm sure that syrup filled kosher wine will now make its way to steak meals everywhere.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Every Married Man Needs These Shoes

This YouTube video is awesome although I am worried  about how much time my wife spends in the shoe department (just kidding Mary)

                                                   Window Shopping Ad

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

MSN adCenter Good, MSN adCenter Ads, Bad

We just had our MSN adCenter account turned on by Microsoft for our Connell Donatelli political advertising search clients and I absolutely love the platform.  Now, between MSN, Google, and Yahoo we can offer our political campaigns over 90% coverage in the search market and give them a competitive advantage over their adversaries (see screen shot for Dick DeVos for Governor results). 

Unlike Yahoo! Search, the search platform is very easy to use and does not require much in the way of advanced training.  The reports and graphs are also very easy to use as is the radio button targeting available for every account.  The CPCs also seem to be lower and as I mentioned above, there is little to no political competition right now.  The only drawbacks with MSN Search are that we now have to use excel spreadsheets to create holistic search results, it doesn't work well if you use FireFox as your browser, and their bad advertising.  Yes, I wrote their bad advertising.

For the last two days, they've been running this full page ad in the WSJ, that with a quick glance, does more to promote Google then it does MSN.  The quick view of the ad, assuming you don't read the lengthy copy, says "She found your furniture ad on Google" and then right below in big bold font it says "+57%".  So, to the quick flip in the paper it looks like Google increased your viewership of your ad by 57%. 

Whenever I reviewed print ads, much to the chagrin of the ad agency, I always rejected any cute copy/layout like this.  Most people don't take the time to read the copy, no matter how poetic it reads when the copy writer reviews it for you.  So all you are left with, as my old AT&T Division Manager Vinny R. used to say, are call-out buttons, johnson boxes and big bold print.  This ad suffers from this kind of cute copy and advertising that agencies love and my guess is does little to nothing in driving traffic to the platform.

Not only that, one has to wonder what is the point of running a $100K print ad campaign in the WSJ.  Sure there is a wide audience and you hit a lot of CXOs there, but their audience, the agencies and internet marketing managers, would probably be more receptive to B2B online advertising, say on ClickZ.  Plus, my experience shows that print advertising has no impact on any web metrics whatsoever.

The MSN adCenter platform is great.  The only problems with it are more volume and their offline advertising campaign.  Hmm, me thinks the two are related somehow.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

AT&T's Ad Guru Talks About Bungling, Err I Mean Bundling

My very good friend Grace sent me a heads up on an article in BrandWeek called AT&T Ad Guru: Brand Name Still Rings a Bell (subscription required).  While the article mainly focuses on an interview with Wendy Clark, VP Advertising for the New, New, New, Gosh I Promise You It Is New AT&T talking about branding it also has a paragraph on AT&T's bundling efforts. (side note - for those of you that are in the political world or financial services relax, I have two good posts coming your way.  Tomorrow will be on Lynn Swann for Governor's online advertising campaign).

I won't go into detail or commentary on the rebranding efforts because if you had to choose between SBC a Texas company or AT&T a world-wide brand name known for technology (courtesy of Bell Labs) and customer service, which way do you think those focus groups went?  Ms. Clark does mention testing brand name X versus SBC and AT&T and a good thing X didn't win out; otherwise we would have been bombarded with a $200 million ad campaign promoting a truly awful brand name like Embarq.  Ms. Clark says in the article "What AT&T is all about is going to be bundled services.  We know from our own tracking that customers want one company to do business with."

Really.  I've seen the same sort of research back in the mid-90's when I was part of a marketing and product team researching bundles for the old and better AT&T.  I researched every bundle you could think of: wireless/LD, local/LD, cable, and etc; we even researched a plan on rollover minutes way before Cingular introduced it. After all of that, we launched Personal Network in 1999 which I believed was still the most retentive product AT&T has to date.

You know what people want?  They want the arbitrary world of local/LD products combined because it is just something made by a regulatory ruling.    They want true bundles that are at the access point- so, if you use the internet for phone service they want one bill for that, one bill for cable, and one bill for wireless.  The only reason people will go to a provider for all of their telecom needs is because they believe they will get a bottom of the bill discount by combining these services.  If they can buy a la carte cheaper they will, because as Ms. Clark points out, "you make a decision and lock in what you think is a good value and a good decision, and go on with your life."

She also says that the new AT&T will only market themselves as a one stop shop provider, but that is unrealistic for the vast majority of the US where they are not the local provider.  Those areas they either have LD or wireless, not exactly a one-stop shop and when they see their wireless revenues tanking because of this strategy they'll go back to stand-alone product marketing.

Oh, and if you think people want their wireless and wireline bills combined think again.  As soon as you run into spouses that use their wireless phone to keep calls hidden, that bundle will blow up in your face.  People want bundles of services at access points with a giant bucket of minutes/usage, not some company cross-selling services together and telling you what a great deal you are getting.

 

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Newspapers Launch $50 Million Ad Campaign

I saw this ad in the morning edition of the Newark Star Ledger and I thought it was a waste of time, but if the Ledger wanted to waste their own print space, well why not?  I guess I was wrong because it seems that the Newspaper Association of America is wasting $50 million advertising to advertise print advertising in newspapers.

I know my wife and kids hate when I use this word, but that's pathetic. I can't take credit for finding the link because I first found it over at this great website called Emergence Marketing.  I hope the NAA is tracking their visits to their website, because they'll soon discover what I've seen which is that newspaper advertising has no measureable impact on any results; especially on internet metrics.  In fact, the only thing newspaper advertising is good for is to promote yourself to your competitors and Wall Street. 

Oh, and one more thing.  Boosting your best friends ad sales during the year seems like having your parents buy books from the Amazon link on your blog.  Sure you made a sales, but is that really effective advertising?

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Local TV Stations Need to Go Back To The Future

In Monday's Wall Street Journal there was an article called Local TV Stations Struggle to Adapt as Web Grabs Viewers, Revenue which I found very interesting, if not for the very long title.  Basically it talks about how buying a local TV station is not as cracked up as it used to be as the web has grabbed viewership, especially from the local news segment.

In the past, people got their news from their local TV station (6PM or 11PM) which is relatively cheap to produce while using the main programming to grab viewership.  You remember that model right?  Watch Law and Order and then stick around to check out the news and weather.  How many of you can still name your favorite weather person or sports caster (Let's go to the video tape).

Well, according to the Journal that model may not be playing out so well anymore.  I don't know about you, but I can't remember the last time I sat around waiting up to 11PM to get news.  If I want news immediately, ummm, I go to the internet and see what is going on - that's especially true for sports and weather.  Heck, weather.com turns me into the same weather bunny that appears at 11PM and if I want to watch TV then (ok - maybe the bunny reference is stretching the truth a bit :-)

What's a local news station supposed to do?  You can't stream the video of the latest TV shows because all of the major networks are already doing that and running reruns online runs into the same problem.  The best thing to do is go back to the future.

They should stick with what worked well in the past - proprietary local news.  They can still produce the local news content, but instead of just relying on TV, stream it online and build your content out on your website.  You can also start an online community with blogs, wikis, social, etc that only your local audience will really be interested in.  Heck, you can even throw in a Meetup strategy.  Then with traffic get your local businesses, like the local drugstore to advertise.  Today, these advertisers don't have a viable, cost effective alternative for advertising online because they can't rely just on IP targeting to grab their local consumers.  Basically, build on the local community, provide the content to keep them, and get the advertisers to join in the fun.

Yes it looks like a sad state for local TV stations who bought into an old model that may not work as well in the past.  Instead of sitting around wondering where the traffic went to, try joining the conversation online.   If you can't beat the movement, join it.  Local TV stations might actually take the battle to the local newspapers.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Marketing Rapid Fire - 6-12-06

A couple of quick links with some short, witty commentary!!!

• As reported by AdRants and as you may have seen already, Burger King's agency Crispin Porter and Bogusky has launched another Burger King Chicken commercial proving once again that too much of a good thing can put you to sleep.
• Another great post from Bill Tancer over at Hitwise.  Bill looks at the brand building of Lenova versus IBM (chart included).  I have to tell you for the longest time I thought there was no branding due to search, but with data like this, I think you can argue that search activity is at least a trailing indicators of brand awareness success.
• According to CNET, Citizen is working on a Dick Tracy watch.
  
• In this week's Homer Simpson "DOH" award, British Telecom CIO Al-Noor Ramj said at a Gigaworld IT Conference that Google is their biggest threat.
• And finally, as reported by TechCrunch, Google Research is working on a product that would allow a user's laptop to pick up sounds on a TV in the room and process the data.  Other than giving away a free laptop and HDTV, I'm not sure why any consumer would want to be spied upon in order to give advertisers access to their den.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

No Comments For U

I'm finding the heat that Seth Godin, well known author and marketing SME, is taking is fascinating.  You on the other hand may not, so I'll keep this short. 

On June 3rd, Seth wrote a blog that was part tongue and cheek and part serious about how to increase traffic on your blog (BTW - I was going to write a similar one) and opened up the blog to comments.  In this rare openness on his blog he received 43 comments as of this writing which is awesome.  However, following up that post he added a second one that explains his rationale for not allowing posts on his site.  This set off a firestorm in the blog world.  Here's the expert from his site:

Not for me, though. First, I feel compelled to clarify or to answer every objection or to point out every flaw in reasoning. Second, it takes way too much of my time to even think about them, never mind curate them. And finally, and most important for you, it permanently changes the way I write. Instead of writing for everyone, I find myself writing in anticipation of the commenters. I'm already itching to rewrite my traffic post below. So, given a choice between a blog with comments or no blog at all, I think I'd have to choose the latter.

A person I respect and fellow Marketing Profs Daily Fix blogger Mack Collier has written 2 posts, one over at his The Viral Garden blog and one over at Beyond Madison Avenue on why that seems contradictory especially for a blog.  I have to agree with Mack's view for the most part, but if Seth doesn't want to let comments in for whatever reason or because he is too busy, than that's fine.  Readers know you can't go to his blog for an open conversation.  I started thinking, well what's got everyone so fired up?  Arrogance?  Maybe, but that can't be the whole story can it?  He obviously doesn't need or care about the traffic.

You know what I think is driving this backlash? By Seth not allowing comments on his blog he is thumbing his nose at conversational marketing or social marketing.  He seems to be breaking an unwritten rule that you MUST have comments if you run a blog and if you don't go back and forth in the comments section then, is their such a thing as social or conversational marketing?  If you have a blog with only one way conversations than is it just a plain old static website?   And if a famous marketing expert and author with a HUGE internet following doesn't allow comments, then is the entire Web 2.0 strategy and conversational marketing just nothing but hype?

I think the answer is no.  If Seth Godin doesn't allow comments because he can't or won't respond then so be it.  Who says the conversation needs to take place on his website?  He still offers trackbacks so the conversation can continue to grow elsewhere, spreading out like the 5 strawberry plants that now have taken over my entire backyard.

I don't think the conversation just stops because it can't occur in the spot it started in.  Doesn't Web 2.0 with tags, trackbacks, diggs, search, etc mean that anyone, anywhere, and at anytime can continue the conversation elsewhere?   

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Marketing Rapid Fire - May 31, 2006 Edition

Ok, I didn't think I would have to resort to this again, but there are too many articles out there to let you readers know about.  Plus, I have enough traffic to resurrect this.

Marketing Rapid Fire - May 31, 2006 Edition

1. Over at Bill Tancer's blog which is a must read for me whenever he posts, he looks at the impact of MySpace on Google.  Check this link out for the post, MySpace: Understanding the Impact of a Search Deal.
2. Online Ad Spending expected to grow to $4 Billion in Q1 from ClickZ
3. From Cybernet News, the top 10 most common passwords, most of it from the UK..  Here's a hint "password" and "123" are bad ones
4. And, here's a surprise from MarketWatch.  It seems that Google Executives Say Offline Print Ads Are Below Expectations.  I guess everything Google is not always Gold.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Virgin Is For Lovers, Ad Lovers That Is

I saw this post over at Reuters today titled Virgin Mobile Introduces Ad-Subsidized Calls and my initial reaction was that it is a lame idea and it conjured up memories of MyPoints and e-rewards.  After I ignored the sick feeling in my stomach, I thought about it for a few minutes and decided, well it is not so bad and why not - the only risk they have is that their users don't go for it and all they are left with is a few upset advertisers.

According to the article, Virgin Mobile USA will give its customers the ability to generate free minutes, up to 75 per month when they view and respond via text messages to ads.  Found in the article is this quote from Virgin Mobile USA CMO Howard Handler,  "very practically speaking a lot of our customers are value conscious. They manage budgets that are finite."  And he added,  "It will contribute meaningful additional top line revenue and EBITDA." 

First let's look at the business side.  The math seems pretty simple, have advertisers pay Virgin Mobile a CPM for running ads and then give users back free minutes.  If you take a look at their pricing, which seems a little complicated to me, and focus on the promoted price per minute it translates into 10 cents.  However, we should probably bump that up a little to take into consideration the daily call fees and other pricing permutations, so let's make that revenue per minute 12 cents.  Now all Virgin needs to do is provide competitive CPMs and scoop up the difference.  Sweet.

So, besides earning the "float" where else do they win out?  Easy, they get people engaged in using their phone for surfing the internet, text messaging,  and viewing ads.  Any methods to increase usage of cell phones for something other than making calls is a good endeavor even if this product is mostly geared toward under 30's who should know how to use their phone already.

Of course the downsides are that they could possibly increase churn, customers do not embrace the program, or advertisers see no increases on their post-click/post view actions.  I think the last two represent the biggest concerns and a Forrester Analyst mentioned in the article is not completely sold on the incentive.  I for one think that the advertisers, if they have any sense of post-click analytics, should be worried about Response SPAM or SPARM; people just doing the bare minimum to get paid, kind of like the career focus group participant.

Advertising to today's consumers takes more than just running some ads and paying people to respond.  With all of the buzz regarding social networks, conversational marketing, heck even PPC, it seems that Virgin is going back to the future.  Personally, I think the response will be tepid because it will take a very price conscious consumer who does not care about image to take advantage of this price schedule.  However, Virgin has very little to lose and a lot to be gained by testing it out.  Good luck.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

P.S. Other articles on the subject:

1. WashingtonPost also has an article
2. ClickZ with a little more information

My There's Some News on MySpace This Week

Ok, some folks think I've been a little harsh on marketers and politicians using MySpace to have a conversation with that user base.  In fact, over at Marketing Prof's Blog which I write for, I got into a debate with one of these MySpace zealots.  As I've written quite a number of times - MySpace is not appropriate for all advertisers even though they have like 75 million registered users.  Well, some forward thinking advertisers as reported by a number of sites and newspapers (listed below in a second) finally started using MySpace for what it was meant for.  Look, by definition online advertising should be more targeted than other mediums out there, so there is no excuse to flush good marketing dollars down the bowl.  MySpace with their very young audience is the P-E-R-F-E-C-T place for music, video, movies, TV shows, etc as witnessed by these new campaigns.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal and CNET, MySpace via Fox will offer $1.99 downloads of the popular show 24.  Burger King will sponsor the downloads and get a MySpace themed page.  According to the Wall Street Journal, Ross Levinsohn, president of Fox Interactive Media, said MySpace will likely offer more content in the future such as television shows, games, and movies.  At least Burger King got a clue about social networking or at least they are willing to try it.  Thank goodness they didn't slap up a MySpace page so you can link to your favorite Double Whopper with cheese.

AdRants got the jump with reporting that HBO's Entourage has a MySpace page.  As you can see, the page includes a contest to create your own MySpace page featuring your group of friends.  HBO will choose the finalists and MySpace the winner.  Of course included in the contest was the ability to pass the page out through your network.  As of 9PM tonight, Entourage has 308 "friends".

While these are all great uses of MySpace and targeted at the right audience, it is not for all advertisers.  You think that I've been exaggerating or I have an axe to grind with them?  Well in today's Wall Street Journal, on the front page no less, there was an article titled A Problem With Hot Web Outfits: Keeping Pages Free From Porn.  Basically it describes how big web destinations, and in particular MySpace, are working with the  photo hosting companies like PhotoBucket to screen out pornographic photos which are against their policies.  The article described one poor sap that looks at 300 photos PER MINUTE to screen out these HOTT (2 T's on purpose) photos.  (I wonder how this guy would fair in a Rorschach test :-))  The article also reminded people how Verizon pulled its ads out of MySpace because of these photos.  BTW - why would Verizon think that anyone would want to have a social networking relationship with a land line phone?  Can you spell new product development for screening out photos on the internet?

MySpace is not for every marketer even though it has a ton of traffic and a good, youthful demographic.  Remember that you can always find this audience elsewhere on the internet if you are afraid of having your ads run next to content that would make your PR officer pull a Flounder on Dean Wormer.  The only problem you'd run into then would be a lack of a social networking relationship unless you figure out another angle, but I guess that's what boring display and search ads are for!

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

The Search Battelle

I'm finding the posts and comments over at internet industry pioneer John Battelle's blog very interesting on a number of fronts.  It seems Mr. Battelle has finally started an AdWords campaign over at Google and decided to write about his experience on his blog. While he has received a lot of support from people helping him out he is also being criticized for not having used the product sooner.  He is tracking and reporting his experience and while it does provide some valuable insight into Google, I am also a little upset that he is finally turning on a Google campaign after writing and speaking about search.  His first post is My First Day As An AdWords Advertiser and his second is Ok, How Do I Make A Word Bold.

I posted the links to the blog/comment combination because I want you to read the comment sections for a few reasons. One it is interesting to read about some of the heat he is receiving and two there are some very helpful, yet basic tips from search people.  The many tips can be very useful if you are running your own campaign and don't want to hire an expert.  However, I think he deserves a little heat for having never run an AdWords campaign up until now.  Mr Battelle responds with this post:

"As usual you all are keeping me on my toes. No, I'm not a CPC expert, never claimed to be one. I studied how AdWords and Overture worked, I reported on it thoroughly, I spoke to the people who built the systems, I spoke to tons of folks who used the systems. But I was not an advertiser - I had nothing to sell! Nor do you need to be one to report on the systems. If that were the case, well, why not criticize a film critic for not being a director or actor? Or a financial journalist for not being a CEO?"

Which is a fair enough comment, but I think it falls a little short. He claims that he had nothing to sell, but how about just testing it out sometime to understand the product he was reviewing.   He could have ran a campaign to push speaking engagements or to drive traffic to his blog, which is what he is doing now.

Yes he claims that it should be unfair to criticize him because as he points out in his post, a movie critic never made a movie and a financial journalist probably has not been a CEO. However, doesn’t the same movie critic pay to see the movie or the restaurant reviewer pay to eat the food?  The examples he is giving are multi-million dollar products, not something he could have tested out for a few dollars per month.

I am not a noted author nor a well-sought out speaker on search, though Google did have me featured in a number of case studies and I was invited to present at a Google panel at Ad:Tech a few years ago – you know back when it was still a good secret to having successful marketing campaigns. So, I don’t have a lot of free cash, but I am running a Google campaign to drive traffic to my site at a clip of almost $9 dollars per day and I spend about a $1 per day on Yahoo. (I know not a lot of money on Yahoo, but that platform was let’s just say not up to Yahoo’s standards.) Oh BTW – that does not count the million dollars or so I’ve spent on search for the companies I worked for or continue to work for (ie, Harrisdirect, BMO, AT&T, and quite a number of major republican campaigns right now).

I think if you are going to describe Google, Yahoo and the search industry you should have at least ponied up a few dollars to see the movie. Who would you rather have review your meals, someone who just picks up a menu and criticizes it or someone that sat down and actually drank the Kool-aid?  It is after all a few dollars per month, nothing compared to the money he received from writing a good, well thought out and researched book on the industry.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Phishing in Safety Town

The marketing team at Symantec put together a great site to highlight the dangers of phishing through a fun interactive movie found at www.safetytown.com.  They created a movie that plays in a mythical movie theater in Safety Town complete with a popcorn counter where you can download screen-savers and music, plus of course purchase Norton's 2006 Internet Security.  On a side note, the movie is not that bad, but what I like the most is the overall design and the message they are promoting.

Phishing is a pretty bad problem on the internet these days especially for financial services companies.  In fact about 2 years ago my COO at Harrisdirect Mike Hogan told me "in a few years we won't be able to use email, so figure something out!"  Phishing is when your credentials are stolen by either sending out a fake email with links to a site where you try and log in with your actual password and ID or even worse, the URL is hidden on the clicks and you end up on one of these sites.  In fact, I saw presentations where they had screen shots of sites where these stolen credentials were bought and sold.  BTW - the site in question was busted up by the FBI.  Don't believe me - check out this link from Chase.com

The more you know about phishing the better off you'll be and if you can learn about it in a fun interactive way, so much the better.  Personally, I want to see what happens in the movie.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Slip Sliding Away

As reported in today's WSJ article Many Major Newspapers Post Circulation Declines, most of the top 10 newspapers posted lower newspaper circulations.  The most surprising one was the San Francisco Chronicle that saw a decline of almost 16% which dropped them out of the top 10.  The reason according to the article was not defections to the internet.  Wait, stop the presses - not the internet?  Nope.  According to Patricia Hoyt a Chronicle spokesperson, the newspaper stopped giving free weekday copies away to people who subscribed on the weekends and cut back on sponsored copies.

Interesting isn't it?  You see, I always battled with my marketing counterparts about spending any money on print advertising.  In fact, I think I had myself thrown out of a few planning meetings because I was the guy that hated advertising in newspapers.  My argument went something like this:

• It is static
• Mostly black and white
• No shelf life
• No sound
• No way to track results
• It is expensive
• When was the last time you (the marketer) responded to a print ad
• And in 8 years of managing online advertising campaigns, I have NEVER SEEN any impact on online results

That's right true believers.  I've never seen any print campaign impact my online results.  I looked for visits on the website, logins to an account, trade volume, assets under management, click-thru rate, conversions into sales, sales per day, and EVERYTHING ELSE and never found one shred of evidence.

Now surprise, the newspapers are cutting back free subscriptions that inflated readership and allowed them to get more ad dollars.  Look, you have to ask yourself why spend any money on newspaper advertising.  Wouldn't you be better off running online ads on the digital versions of the newspapers?  At least the ads would be pretty, trackable, and more cost effective.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

GE Goes Back To The Future

I just really love this idea for GE's new advertising campaign called Got A Second.  As reported by Stuart Elliot in The New York Times article, Got A Second?  G.E. Has A Quick Message, GE has created 1 second commercials about a behind the scenes look at recent filming of commercials.  Now, besides being humorous, DVR owners can expand the ads so that they can view more of the  "show" and myspace users can also link to Elli the elephant star of one of the commercials.  After searching what was mostly strictly Rate R entries, I did find Elli's homepage and she now has 10 friends; sorry, I refused to link to her.  The myspace page for Elli is http://www.myspace.com/ellifont and here's a picture of the star of the commercial.  Finally, there is a website where you can view the ads and get a little more information on their strategy.

I love this approach for a number of reasons, but most of them all revolve making the commercials pass what I simply call the TiVo Test.  Whenever I reviewed ads as part of an upcoming campaign, I was frequently the only one in the meeting with a DVR.  BTW - my daughter just turned 4 and she has NEVER watched TV without TiVo.  Anyway, I took it upon myself to voice my opinion on whether the concept we were looking at would pass my own TiVo Test; most of them did not, but the concept that GE is running right now will pass for the first few times.  I love the concept because it:

• Tightly integrated with the web
• Allows you to create a friendship with Elli, if you are so desperate that you need one friend
• Takes advantage of the DVR owners and lets them watch an interesting commercial if they want
• Re-introduces marketers to an old, but effective advertising technique

Back in the old days as referenced in the NY Times article, advertisers sponsored shows and were tightly integrated into the content - the article even references GE Theater that was hosted by then actor Ronald Reagan.  With all of the talk now about product placement in TV shows, video games, user generated commercials, and etc I think GE is leading the way back to the future where major advertisers sponsor an entire show and effectively roadblock out the competition.  In fact, while surfing TV last night when nothing was on, my wife and I watched a re-run of Jerry Maguire on TBS.   What was fascinating about the  re-run from an advertising perspective was that before they cut to a mainstream boring commercial, they focused on Tom Cruise and his upcoming Mission Impossible movie.  The mainstream commercials resulted in me either pounding through them with TiVo or when it was live, reading my book or surfing the internet.  However, we always watched the focus on Mission Impossible.

I love the GE ads and for a few times they will pass the TiVo Test.  I'm not sure about becoming friends with an elephant, but if that's what floats your boat make sure you bring plenty of virtual peanuts.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Rebranding Cingular to AT&T Wireless - More From The Marketing Geniuses at AT&T

My very good friend Vance LaVelle, former CMO of PNC Bank and Director of Marketing at the old and obviously smarter marketer AT&T, sent me this link yesterday from AdAge titled AT&T Plans To Kill Cingular Brand.  Wow, the New, New, New, Really It Is New AT&T has a lot of great ideas for your world delivered, right?  As reported in the article the old SBC and Bell South spent about $4 billion in advertising to launch the brand that has attracted a ton of customers and repositioned them to the youth market.  So, the marketing geniuses there decide to throw it all away because they can't figure out how to market two brand names at once.  Not only are they potentially killing their youth and tech positioning, it may cost them another $1 Billion to relaunch. Hmmmmm

A few years back as part of our online agency review, we included Cingular's online advertising agency Atmosphere BBDO.  The pitch team quickly figured out I was from AT&T and centered their approach around Cingular.  Their head creative director, Andreas Combuechen, presented their thought process behind the Cingular logo and how they breathed life into the brand.  I have to tell you I was impressed as well as the rest of the marketing team at Harrisdirect.  Now, to see all of that good strategy get thrown away and replaced with an old brand name is really disturbing.

I will give the marketing team at the New, New, New, Gosh We Have New Ideas Here at AT&T, some credit.  There is nothing like convincing the people running AT&T that you need two rebranding campaigns, plus an extension of one when you complete the acquisition of Bell South, when it comes to job security.  Music to a marketer's ears is when you hear the words Rebranding Campaign.  It means big, flash brand units with little accountability for financial numbers other than brand awareness.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric