Marketing Mojo With Stephanie Fierman

Now more than ever, consumers want to feel good about the things they do and buy.  I’ve written a couple posts about the phenomenon on aspirational purchasing and making something groovy out of pretty much nothing and, recently, I saw the most fascinating example of turning a cruddy experience into something swanky.

Witness:  Cash4Gold.  You have to be living under a rock to not have seen their commercials, but just to be sure… Here’s the company’s weird Super Bowl ad, in which Ed McMahon and MC Hammer talk while a disembodied hand holds money (”Call toll free now!”):

And here is one of Cash4Gold’s standard ads (”Turn your unwanted or broken jewelry into cold hard cash!“)

Do these ads make you feel like a sharp cookie, or like you’re about to lose your house and have already checked the couch for loose change?  Given McMahon’s humiliating mortage disaster and Hammer’s personal woes, Cash4Gold comes across as a last resort for the truly pitiful and desperate.  Hardly something I’d be sharing over dinner with my girlfriends.

Contrast this to OutofYourLife.com.  It’s the exact same concept, but take a look at the company’s television ad:

I can identify with the woman in the ad because, unlike Ed McMahon, she’s “like me” (or like the woman I’d like to be) - attractive, secure and, of course, smart for unloading jewels from her past relationships.  And fyi, all of these ex boyfriends and their golden effluvia don’t mean she’s a loser: it means she dumped them and now has the perfect man, whom she (you), of course, deserve(s). 

Study the ad’s details:  the way the script weaves in the personal “stories” related to each piece, the sexy voiceover, the website’s design - even the box you use to ship off your jewels.  Everything about the ad is intended to reinforce that you are a sexy, beautiful, enticing, clever woman and that this is what such a person does. 

So virtually the same product, but with a message that permits the customer to create a transformational, positive story out of the fact that she’s got to hock her own jewelry to pay the rent. 

This is an unusually overt example of advertising’s ability to shape not only a message, but an entire experience… even the kind of person you are for being a customer.  ‘Love it!

What other self-worth-threatening activities could be transformed in the same manner? How about selling your car, or buying a used car? Ditto for “gently-worn” clothing. Foreclosure auction advertising?

One of the major reasons I started this blog back in September 2007 was that, even then, you could see brands and individuals discovering the worlds of search and social media - and the result wasn’t pretty.

What happens when decisions are turned inside out, when employees blog and consumers/clients can say whatever they like to millions of people 24 hours a day?  How are you supposed to behave when a stranger says something personal and inaccurate about you, or buys the URL www.yourcompanyname goesheresucks.com?  Why are all these strangers talking about me and how can I make them stop??

Many a CEO, friend and neighbor had this reaction.  All of them had to find a way to deal.

As an private citizen and a business person, I found myself mucking around in this new environment with everyone else, and wrote a 4-part series on the topic in what now seems like eons ago (Internet Time).  Called “Promoting and Growing Brands in the Digital Age,” the entries were featured on this blog from October 2007 to March 2008.

So since everyone knows to expect reruns over the summer… I thought I’d run the series again.  For most of  you, I suspect it’ll be the first time you’ve seen this.

Check it out; the advice about building your own personal brand online holds.

Part 1 - I introduce the idea that you are your own personal brand online.  How will you control it?  Can it be controlled? What should you do?

Part 2 - This entry is primarily focused on the announcement that I’d be partnering with DIGO Brands to provide “online brand self-defense” services to clients.

Part 3 - Ah, good one.  This entry focuses on the JuicyCampus debacle, where female Yale students were being harassed and endangered online.

Additionally, Part 3 includes my top ten tips for building your own personal brand online.

Part 4 - More can’t-say-I-didn’t-warn-you tips, plus the always-popular religious rumor(s) swirling around Obama’s candidacy.

Do not let this go.  Do no let anyone else create who you are or what you are online.  You have a lot of tools: use them smartly and persistently, please.

I am disheartened by GM’s new adverting campaign. And the fact that they even have one.

Oh, you say you didn’t know that GM was advertising again with your money? Exactly.

But putting aside the “taxpayer money” piece… what could the company possibly know yet that’s different from what it’s been saying (not doing, necessarily, but saying) for years? “We’re starting over, we hear you, we’re building ‘em small, we’re going green, we’re gonna be competitive on a global scale.”

The company’s been bankrupt for 20 minutes. No one’s ever run or worked for or invested in a bankrupt GM. Why not take a breath and think about the very first words you want the American public to hear from you?

But instead the company moved forward with ads that were obviously made prior to the bankruptcy announcement. They already knew what they were supposed to say (see above rebirth, small, green, etc.), so they put some ads out there and paid Donny Deustch a bunch of money to go on Morning Joe and say great things… just as they might have done for any big new happening.

And there’s the rub. This advertising - who knows, maybe any advertising right now - IMHO says “business as usual” for this car company. With a tinge of humility (see hockey player land on his face), it’s all good feelings and autos and rah-rah.

In World War II, auto plants retooled to make planes, tanks and munitions. Michael Moore has said that “the only way to save GM is to kill GM” and that the U.S. must seize this moment in history to re-envision the corporation on nearly the same scale.

Whatever one thinks of Michael Moore, I believe we can all agree that radical change is in order. And maybe GM will shine once again in some new incarnation. I hope so. But by instantly and reflexively pushing out the standard flag-waving, sun-rising, children-playing advertising, GM has sent that first all-important signal to the marketplace: and it looks eerily like the old one.