All You Need Is A Good Idea!

VERIZON MAKES A BAD CALL ON THE HOLIDAYS

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During this holiday season, we all receive cards from suppliers, colleagues, friends, family. Some are sincere wishes, some are outstanding in graphics or sentiments, some are sent unsigned, with the expectation that the printed name alone is sufficient (it is not).

But the 2009 winner of the Scrooge award for blatant commercial insincerity is (12 drummers drumming a drum roll)…VERIZON!

The cover of Verizon’s card is inviting enough. “As this year draws to an end, we’d like to show you how much we appreciate our business.” Hmmm. Got my attention. Wonder what they will be offering me. A better plan? Free phone? More minutes?

 

Well, it turns out that they are suggesting that I “Please enjoy a complimentary one-on-one communications review.” How self-serving and transparent. Is this really how they plan on rewarding me for being, as they say, a loyal customer? You know they just want to get you on the phone to up sell you, extend your contract or do something equally expensive.

Verizon concludes by saying they wish me a prosperous New Year, though I sense the prosperity they are more concerned about is their own.

This all leaves a bad taste in my mouth, like hot buttered cola. Perhaps I am being too cynical, but if you make a holiday offer, make it real. Make a contribution to a favorite charity in a client’s name. Offer free shipping. Give a seasonal discount. Or, even better, do something completely unexpected, but appropriate.

And as you plan your good idea, just ask yourself one question: What would Santa say?

MY FAVORITE VIDEO (SO FAR) OF 2009

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Yes, this is a blog devoted to marketing ideas. But occasionally I come across an idea, that while it has little to do with promoting a product, is just so brilliant I feel compelled to share it.

A palindrome, as you know, reads the same backwards as forward. Some words that are themselves palindromes include, TOOT, POP, and RACECAR. Longer examples are:  A man, a plan, a canal – Panama! And Napoleon’s “Able was I ere I saw Elba”.

The following video is a palindrome. It reads the exact opposite backwards as forward. Not only does it read the opposite, the meaning is the exact opposite. This is only a 1 minute, 44 second video and it is brilliant. Make sure you read as well as listen…forward and backward.

This video was submitted in a contest by a 20-year old. The contest was titled "u @ 50" by AARP. This video won second place. When they showed it, everyone in the room was awe-struck and broke into spontaneous applause. So simple and yet so brilliant. Take a minute and watch it. I can’t imagine what the first prize winner was.

GENERAL MILLS IS SUGARCOATING ITS COMMITMENT

The headlines states, “People are talking about sugar in kids’ cereals. General Mills is doing something about it.”

Whoa. A major reason people are discussing kids’ cereals’ sugar content is because of General Mills. So when they say they are doing something about it, it sounds as if they are altruistically trying to do something about a problem they had no part in. They are not innocent bystanders.

The subhead continues, “General Mills commits to reduce the sugar levels in advertised children’s cereals to single digit levels.”

·      “commits”…exactly when will this happen? (I have committed to learn how to expertly chop vegetables, but that still hasn’t happened.)

·      “in advertised children’s cereals”…wonder why they made the exception of ‘advertised’ children’s cereal?

·      “single digit”…at four grams of sugar to a teaspoon, a single digit level of nine is still more than two teaspoons of sugar.

Finally, the first line of copy points out that, “At General Mills, some consumers have told us they wanted lower sugar level wants in children’s cereal.” “Some” wanted lower levels? Three? A thousand?

I do not mean to pick on General Mills. (In the interest of full disclosure, I spent many happy times creating commercials for Trix and Cocoa Puffs, and will still do a reasonable impression of Gramps screaming, “I’m cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” at the drop of a cereal spoon.)

But if you have news to announce, don’t be so obviously self-serving. In this case a headline of “General Mills Is Doing Something About Sugar Levels In Our Kids’ Cereals” would be a step in the right direction.

What do you think?

NICE PLACES TO VISIT THIS WINTER

I have not fulfilled one of last year’s New Year’s resolutions. Actually I have failed at most of them, but the one I am referring to has to do with my blog.

I intended to do a blog roll by now, but with less than two weeks to go in 2009, the chances are slim. (Which in an interesting way refers to another failed resolution.)

What I am doing today is making a list of blogs that have included me on their blog roll. If you are interested in what I have to say, you might be interested about their thoughts on similar subjects. This does not include those who link to an interesting post of mine; it is only a (partial) list of those who have given me a permanent place on their site.

More than ever I am glad I changed my book’s (and therefore my blog’s) name from my original thought to the name it now has; since most of the blog rolls are alphabetical, I most always appear near the top!

So, thank you to the blogs who find mine useful and interesting, and happy hunting to you.

·      http://www.drewsmarketingminute.com/  I “met” Drew a while ago, when he invited me to be a guest author on his blog, and I have followed his always insightful and interesting take on marketing ever since.

·      http://ries.typepad.com/ries_blog/ Laura Ries and her dad have offered wonderful branding stories for decades and also recently wrote a perceptive book, War in the Boardroom.

·      http://small-business.alltop.com/ Guy Kawasaki started Alltop, which he calls the “online magazine rack” of the web

·      http://marketing.alltop.com/ I am pleased to be listed in two areas, small business and marketing, and proudly feature the Alltop badge on my blog.

·      http://www.philstoyforum.blogspot.com/  Phil Wrzesinski, (one of my favorite last names) says this on his site: President of Toy House and Baby Too, one of the 25 best independent stores in America, shares his experience and strategies in retail and marketing to help you have retail success.

·      http://www.idea-sandbox.com/sites/ Paul Willams was kind enough to have my book on one of his virtual tours, and then even added me to his blog roll. What a guy!

·      http://www.emilyjasper.com/inspired-reading/ Emily has included me among some of the best and brightest Gen Y bloggers from around the web (her words, not mine).

• http://www.smallbusinessbrief.com/index.php Finding and Fetching the Best Small Business News

• http://www.getfreshminds.com/ I met Katie Konrath as part of my virtual tour, and then in person when she was in New York. How could you not enjoy a blog with a subhead like, “Ideas so fresh, they should be slapped.”?

 

 

A GLOW-IN-THE-DARK DOG

Once a year, the New York Times magazine section salutes the year in ideas. As they put it, they have hunted eclectically, though not without discrimination, for noteworthy notions of 2009. The most clever, important, silly and just plain weird innovations.

And once a year, I salute the section.

The ideas they cover range from the finding that empty beer bottles make better weapons to waste tracking to the kitchen sink that puts out fires. But since this is a blog about marketing ideas my favorite is headlined, “The advertisement that watches you.” It tells of a poster in a bus shelter in Berlin sponsored by Amnesty International. It showed a couple, with the man having his arm around his girlfriend or wife. But if no one in the shelter was looking at the poster, the image changed; now the man was raising his fist as if to strike the woman. (There is a slight lag in the switch, so you can notice that the poster was changing its image.) It used a camera and face-tracking software, to demonstrate what may happen when nobody is looking.

It was designed by Jung von Matt, a firm that bills itself as being in the business of “attention warfare” (love it/hate them).

Take a look at the poster, and all the other ideas in the magazine. It’s more stimulating than a double latte extra shot Grande.

THE MADDER THE BETTER

The above is a recent ad for Ireland. The slogan is, “Innovation comes naturally,” and the headline is “Step-by-step logic will only take your business so far. Maybe it’s time for a leap.”

I had seen the ad a while ago, and thought it would make a good blog post someday, since it is a sentiment with which I completely agree. But I hesitated using it, since I thought it might make too brief a post, and would perhaps be repetitive rather than insightful.

Then I saw an interview in The Wall Street Journal with Michael O’Leary, Chief Executive of Ryanair, the Irish no-frills airline. His philosophy brings to life the kind of thinking that makes the ad for Ireland credible. And his beliefs are worth paying close attention to.

Turns out Ryanair carried more international passengers last year than any other airline in the world. But you don’t get there only by lowering costs, because then anyone could do it. You do it with a good idea; in this case, the basic positioning that differentiates you, and from which everything else follows. In Mr. O’Leary’s analysis, “air transport …is a commodity. It’s not some life-changing sexual experience, which is what the other high-fare airlines have tried to convince you that it is.”

How do you bring that to marketing life? “You have to come at it (cost cutting) with some imagination and some passion.” Then came the words I want you to memorize…or at least write down: We do that by having an open, enthusiastic culture that encourages people to come up with wacky ideas—the madder the better.

Do you have a strategy that differentiates you from your competitors? Do you encourage your people—and yourself—to come up with crazy ideas?

Maybe it’s time for your leap.

IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU

It seems as if everyone has decided to talk about the benefit to the user, rather than simply list features. Nothing wrong with that, but there should be more to it than simply saying, “you” in the headline.

Historically there have been many great “you” campaigns. “Have it your way.” “This Bud’s for you.” “You deserve a break today.” “When you care enough to send the very best.” (For some fun, visit Advertising Age's listing of the 100 best ad campaigns, and count the ones that use "you.")

Somehow they seem more solid and less obvious than the ones I am seeing lately. There’s the campaign for Yahoo, “It’s Y!ou.” There’s the ad for Dr. Oz, stating, “The show that’s all about you.” Barclays Bank’s headline is, “We live by one simple measure of success. Yours.” Simply using the word "you" doesn't make it about me.

Certainly, it is a desirable goal to make your communications about the customer and his needs. But remember to put it into the context of a good idea.

What do you think?

THE DUMBNESS OF CROWDS

Lately I have been reading about the amazing insights you can get from the collective wisdom of crowds. "The more the better" seems to be the rationale; thousands of people offering their opinion will lead you to results you could not otherwise get.

Maybe. But I do have to inquire about the respondents, as was asked in the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, “Who are those guys?”

Add up your results, and you will, by definition, get an average outcome. For every keen, actionable insight, which you will have to identify, you will gets tons of off-target, obvious, just plain dumb input.

The Zagat Survey uses this technique for their restaurant reviews. Anyone can voice an opinion, results get tabulated and voila, a score is printed for the food, ambiance, etc. But would you rather see what thousands of people think about a menu—people whose opinion on clothing, politics, and football teams you would completely disagree with— than take the word of your favorite restaurant critics? Do the opinions of random strangers mean more to you than the insights of Frank Bruni, Ed Levine, or for that matter, a friend whose opinion you have come to respect?

Further, how many people make a crowd? Do you hire one consultant when needed? Or two, or three or forty?  Should a focus group (a traditional research technique, using a panel of six to ten random participants) with qualitative results mean more than the quantitative responses of thousands? Yes, the Internet does make it easier and quicker to get thousands of opinions. But does this make the results more meaningful? (There are exceptions, there always are. But since this is my blog, I don’t have to talk about them.)

I suggest you use any “mob” research you do as a guide, not as proof that your preconceived concept is the way to go. If you really believe in what you have created, it is a good idea to take the opinions of the crowd with a pound of salt.

What do you think?

TIVO. MODERN, BUT YET AMAZINGLY PRIMITIVE

I recently got a TiVo HD DVR. Lots of great features: HD quality, search for shows by title, actor, category, or keyword, easy to use and program.

Last night, it died. When there is a problem, the initial step that is recommended, and I quote, is “Powercycle the DVR by unplugging the power cord and plugging it back in.”

Let me repeat that. On a modern technological marvel, capable of recording two shows at once, letting you “freeze” a live show, set up recording options with the press of a few buttons, literally make suggestions for recording based on your viewing habits, you are told to unplug and re-plug it when there is a problem.

Have the good folk at TiVo never heard of a devise known as an off/on switch? Especially in a small space, where many DVRs are kept, to have to pull it out from the shelf, turn the TiVo around, unplug it from the rear panel, re-plug it and then put it back is a major inconvenience. Particularly when a simple power off/power on button would eliminate the bother. I assume they think they have a good reason for this. I would love to hear it.

And I would love to hear if there is anything archaic you are doing with your product or marketing. Something you have overlooked improving. Or you do it because you always have done it that way, though you mean to modernize it, “someday.” Perhaps something as obvious as putting your email address on all your communications. Or eliminating the 122-page, three-language instruction brochure you pack with your product, and making it available online instead.  Or adding a LED light to show the product is working. Or...

LEARN FROM SCROOGE

Glad to see that Disney is using the whole carcass. Sounds a little brutal I know, but what it means, as I talk about in my book,  is that once you have your good idea, spend some time figuring out what else you can do with it. Very often there are some very inexpensive ways to extend the power of your original idea. Lots of advertisers are doing it today with YouTube and iPhone apps. If, for example, you create an app that ties-in with your campaign, it can be very effective, especially if it is not blatantly commercial. (Actually, to me, only if it is not blatantly commercial.)

Here’s one example that caught my eye. The Scrooge tip calculator.

As it says on the app page, “Use the Scrooge Tip calculator to help you decide what to tip! Enter the amount of your bill, then select one of the four tip levels depending on your mood. Whether your mood is “Scroogey”, “Christmas Spirit” or somewhere in between, this app will determine the tip amount. If you are feeling between average and stingy, you can use the slider to set the tip accordingly.”

It is entertaining, functional, and ties-in seamlessly with Disney’s A Christmas Carol. And it’s free! (Yes, they could have charged for it. But do you think the revenue they might have received would have come close to the “profits” they will get from the extensive word of mouth and downloads and conversations they will get by giving the app away?)

So next time you get your good idea, and you are finished celebrating, try to devise some other uses for your concept. Figure out how to do relevant tie-ins. If it’s really a good idea, it will be easier than you imagine.

What do you think?