Marketing Mojo With Stephanie Fierman

Is Santa the best marketer ever?

Think about it:

Long-term reputation management: No Tiger Woods problems here. Ever.  Do you think that Coca-Cola worries that it might go to sleep one night and wake up to find a sex tape of Santa on the Web? Have you ever noticed that the whole “Mommy kissing Santa Claus” business never seems to go past a certain point (paging Charlie Sheen…)?  Nope, not gonna happen.  Santa is one reliable dude.

Brand promise and channel integration: No matter where you go, you receive the same disciplined message.  Movies, television, email, radio, social media, Web, snail mail, music, retail… You get the same message everywhere and each channel builds upon and reinforces the others.  He’s big, he’s fat, he wears a red suit and he gives you what you ask for on Christmas Eve. Not December 23. Not December 25. It’s December 24. Every year. The end.

Never any hidden charges:  There are no Congressional committees convening to discuss whether Santa is taking advantage of consumers.  There is no small print.  You are not likely to be subscribed “accidentally” to a magazine simply by unwrapping a gift beneath the tree.  Santa’s pricing appears to be entirely above board. And somehow, shipping is always free.

Brand advocacy: Think of all the parents who read stories about Santa, take their children to see Santa, tuck said children into bed on Christmas Eve with the promise that Santa will soon arrive with presents… Santa has a virtual army of adults carrying his message each and every year, in the exact way that will have the greatest positive impact on each individual child.  Wow!

Long-term view of the customer relationship: Santa is committed to NPV, and everyone’s NPV is BIG.  If you’re a  kid, he wants you to tell other kids what he gave you.  He wants you to talk to your parents and grandparents about what you want.  He wants you to bring your friends to meet him.  And when you grow up, he encourages you to invite him into your home and buy extravagant gifts in his name.  Santa: the ultimate “cycle of life” promoter.

Customer targeting and personalization: If you ask Santa for a bicycle, you’re going to get a bicycle.  You might also get socks, but if a bike is your preferred method of transportation, you won’t get a wagon by mistake. Further, Santa is very likely to build the bike in the exact color you specify. 

A message of “giving back” that’s attainable and not too sanctimonious:  Be nice, get your gift.  Be naughty, and you’re on your own.  No chest-beating, no lectures, no threatening.  Everyone knows the rules, and the rules don’t change.
 
Attributes powerful enough to overcome controversy: Santa has a problem that I don’t think any other brand has ever experienced - that is, some people don’t even believe he exists! You may not like a brand like Reebok, or Microsoft, or Hanes, or whatever, but you wouldn’t think of denying their very existence on the planet. And yet, the core attributes represented by Santa transcend even this existential challenge. Even those who ”know” he doesn’t exist still enjoy the gestalt of the brand.  Name me a pizza chain or a department store or TV manufacturer who can say the same.

I could go on (ultimate loyalty program, no channel conflict, efficient manufacturing, distribution and customer service support…), but you get the idea.

Though another Christmas has past, perhaps we should all look to Santa for guidance in 2010.  After all, his operation is well-loved, profitable, always in growth mode and he never loses customers.  I’d be happy with that.

For more marketing thoughts and ideas, check out my second blog at Marketing Observations Grown Daily.

So I walked around all last week, turning the Tiger Woods debacle over in my head, wondering if I had anything to add.  Hadn’t everyone already piled on?  Probably.  And even the thoughts I want to share with you aren’t particularly new, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth saying.  Again. And again.

Thought #1: what should be public is now private, and what should be private has been made public.  This is an expression borrowed from Ellen Hume, currently an Annenberg Fellow and a world-renowned journalist, teacher and television commentator, among other things. 

Ellen was also the founder of PBS’s Democracy Project, which focused on citizen involvement in public affairs and was, in part, an effort to more fully leverage all the channels beyond television (that were available even in the late 90’s) in ways that tapped in to those channels’ special capabilities.  The Web is great for providing more in-depth detail than one can deliver on television, for example.

When Hume made this public/private statement, she was making the point that we seem to prefer using 24-hour channels, like the Web, to dredge up every salacious, personal detail about everything and everyone, no matter how ultimately truthful or additive to the story such details may be. By the time we beat said details to death, who even knows what was true or not but, man, what a ride.  Think Tiger here: private details that are now gruesomely public, like a neighbor claiming the golfer was snoring on the lawn and the 911 call heard ’round the world.

Contrast all this with TARP.  Could you explain what TARP is in 25 words or less? How many beneficiaries can you name? How many of them have paid back the money? What is the name of the popular American economist and Nobel Prize winner who has been particularly outspoken and critical of the program? Do you know approximately how much the U.S. government has handed out to date?

I could not answer all of these questions, but I do know that Tiger Woods’ wife used a wedge to smash in his car windows.

After you include Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the U.S. government has doled out over $1 TRILLION in our money. The state of the financial markets has an impact on this country, and an impact on you.  Tiger’s mistresses? Not so much. But dang it all if some knucklehead isn’t updating this story every 20 seconds. 

What is public is private and what should be private is public.  Conduct yourself accordingly.

Related Thought #2: The math doesn’t work anymore. Once something is brewing you can hope for the best, but act, please, assuming the worst.

Just this past week, a smart person I know looked at a situation in which it was possible that Company X might encounter negative press if information having nothing to do with the company was misinterpreted in the media. So this smart person did what smart people are trained to do: s/he attempted to thoughtfully quantify Company X’s exposure - for example, how many individuals might actually be impacted by the event. Everyone comfortably concluded that the answer was not very many.

That used to be a good answer. Not anymore. Now it only takes one person with a high-speed Internet connection and a beef to let millions of people know what he knows or what he thinks he knows. Dell poo-pooed Jeff Jarvis.  United ignored Dave Carroll. Comcast disregarded Mona Shaw.  One blogger with an agenda attempted to trash a model’s reputation.   An anonymous jerk on JuicyCampus.com started a vicious tirade about female Yale Law School students.  Are you next?

It takes one person to start a fire you will not be able to control.  And some form of this content will remain on the Web forever. For-e-ver.

Forget about intelligent, rational assessments of how big something might become.  By the time it’s big, it’s too late.  It could be one anonymous email, or an angry spouse or a dissatisfied customer.  Move quickly when a crisis arises, or else.

So what I hope Tiger, you and I now have in common is an understanding of the gigantic reputational risks that now exist, given the Web and a 24 hour news cycle.  My advice to normal people is to build a positive reputation online before something happens, so it’s there as a counterbalance to any threat that might arise.  I never thought I needed to recommend that one should also attempt to avoid totally avoidable, stupid acts that could unravel everything a person has built, but hey - a fresh reminder never hurt anyone.

A recent article made me think back to a post I wrote last summer titled “Stephanie Fierman Likes Plastic Gucci Sunglasses - And Is OK With It.” The post says that experts who say that not-rich consumers are essentially duped into buying luxury goods are missing a large swath of buyers who know exactly what they’re doing: that is, buying fun, knowing full well that they could buy functionality at a far lower price. Hence, Gucci vs. $10 plastic sunglasses I can buy on the street. Plastic is plastic. But that dopey logo represents an indulgence – a reward – for which I am sometimes willing to pay full freight.

BusinessWeek outlines the efforts of Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist and author of the book Predictably Irrational, who has spent the past year trying to figure out the forces that drive people to cheat (paging Bernie Madoff…)

Ariely’s very very boiled down conclusion is that individuals who are not directly faced with evidence or reminders that what they are doing is wrong are more likely to plow ahead and conversely, those who are reminded are less likely to do so. He describes a couple of experiments he used to try to measure “deception’s slippery slope.”
* Subjects who knowingly wore faux designer sunglasses later cheated twice as often on an unrelated task than those wearing authentic goods – take the first step and it’s that much easier to take the second.
* Get an auto insurance applicant to sign his name on the top of the application rather than the bottom, and he will be more honest about his driving habits – put the consequences right in someone’s face and you’re likely to get “better” behavior.

Here’s a TED video of Ariely talking about why people think it’s ok to cheat:

This has extreme ramifications – and potential opportunities – for luxury goods manufacturers like LVMH who spend a lot of money and time drawing attention to the costs of counterfeit goods.

Part of the problem is the arguments these companies use. Does the average woman – out with her friends to have a little fun on a Saturday afternoon without a lot of money – have any sympathy when the luxury companies are described as the chief victims of counterfeit buying? I don’t think so.

But what if these manufactures took a different tack, promoting the fact that buying faux fuels organized crime and following it through with stories of what these same criminals did with the $30 I paid for a fake Chloe bag? It certainly wouldn’t be possible in all venues, but could some of these firms visit places like Canal Street in New York and engage directly with potential buyers about the consequences of buying fakes? I don’t think I’ve ever seen this happen. I’ve seen local TV and newspaper stories about how a luxury company has done a raid with local law enforcement… but never a company interacting directly with consumers at the street-level point of purchase.

If was looking at a table full of fake Tiffany merchandise and given proof of the spot that my money goes to fund terrorist groups, what would I do? Would I stand there and think of the two friends I lost on American Airlines Flight 11? I believe I would – and I think I’d walk away from the table, and tell my friends about the experience.

The Guccis and Tod’s and Burberrys of the world need to find a way to debunk the idea that buying fakes is a victimless crime, and they need to do it as close to the moment of impact – the moment I’m about to buy that fake Cartier watch as possible.

Despite a massive media focus on the event, there’s not a lot one can one say about a photograph of Michael Phelps smoking marijuana from a bong.

Did he do so on his own time?  Definitely.  And is there a near-100% likelihood that Phelps’ was and is entirely in control of his athletic performance?  Absolutely.  Will this matter to some people? Not at all. 

South Carolina, after all, is pondering filing criminal charges.  

Putting aside the criminality of smoking marijuana… there is no question that this is a hit to Phelps as a revenue-producing business. Whether fair or not, Phelp’s representation and sponsors are placed in a tough spot: kid-focused McDonald’s and Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, for example, have both counted on Phelps to project a wholesome, healthy All-American image.  Yes that’s right kids, your gold-medal idol is smoking grass. Weed. Ganja. He’s inhaled. And it looks like he’s done it before, too. Yikes.

Phelps has issued a statement and apology using the “I’m young and dumb” approach and, as Fox Sports has already reported, this event is likely to fade in the memory of the public. The question is whether sponsors will stick with him and help mend his reputation permanently.

The Mojo believes that Phelps’ fortunes are likely to survive long-term if this side of him never sees daylight again. But if there’s more to come – if this episode turns out to be only Strike 2 following his arrest for drunk driving in 2004 – his sponsorship potential may not recover for decades, if ever.

———————————-

UPDATE:  A version of this post is available on www.reputationgarage.com, where a frustrated fan imagines a hypothetical “Dear America” letter from Phelps: “I work my a** off 10 months a year. It’s that hard work that gave you all those gooey feelings of patriotism last summer. If during my brief window of down time I want to relax… you can spare me the lecture.” 

The Mojo could definitely understand, even sympathize, with Phelps if he’s having these thoughts.  There are, however, two relevant concepts here: (1) When the “institution” in question is an individual, it can be challenging to separate the person from his or her behavior.  As a matter of cold, hard cash, Phelps damaged his sponsorship machine.  It doesn’t mean he is a “bad person.” (2) Life is not fair.  The bank bailout debacle has, in particular, brought out the fact that how society measures behavior – whether it be personal indulgement or taking “deserving” bank executives to Vegas – is not always rational or fair. If there is heat around an issue (like illegal drugs), people may vote in a way that is not entirely logical.  An institution can subsequently correct its behavior, or continue on and accept the consequences.

Michael_Phelps

As my readers know, I’ve been fixated on the concept of value for quite some time. Any random post may not seem to fit this theme, but just about all of them do: turning store returns into a great shopping experience; Visa offering upscale bathrooms to attendees at a festival; a company that lets you leave a voicemail for a person without running the risk of actually having to speak to the person (eww!).  All of these are examples of real, observable value.

For all intents and purposes, this is my first post on the general state of marketing since the US economy imploded. I haven’t said a whole lot because I’m still forming my own opinion on what brands need to do to survive and maintain consumer loyalty. What I am ready to say is that the key is value.

I believe the key distinction now, however, is between real and perceived value. Perceived value is what I talked about when I happily acknowledge(d) buying $250 Gucci sunglasses. I am fully aware that I could derive the same amount of real value from $10 shades bought on Canal Street.  Shield eyes from sun? Check.  but I saw a level of psychic value in the brand for which I was willing to pay an enormous premium. I measured that psychic value by how the world around me recognized that value. Looking at myself in the mirror wearing Gucci sunglasses gets old quickly. But having people reinforce my purchase - every day - as I walk around the city? Priceless. Value has two ingredients: (1) the real value that delivers functionality, and (2) the “psychic premium” I’m willing to pile on top so that the world sees me (and I see myself) in a certain way.

It turns out that it is not just beauty – but also value – that is in the eye of the beholder.

This is why even people “with money” have slowed their spending… why even luxury goods are seeing a decline in sales. It’s no longer fashionable to display the same brand names that only months ago were a mark of prosperity. Those marks are now seen as an indication of greed, of phony superiority, of foolishness. It’s not cool to show you have lots of discretionary income when everyone else is suffering. That’s why Mrs. Dick Fuld is still shopping at Hermes but now demands the store place her purchases in a plain white bag. It’s why Danny Meyer says his restaurants are actually selling the same amount of wine (as before the crash) but fewer bottles, his supposition being that people have decided that a bottle sitting on the table is an unwanted signal of wealth. It’s why DeBeers’ new ad campaign attempts to position diamonds as something to be kept forever in a world filled with “disposable distractions.”

Don’t get me wrong: there will always be rich people who wear big big diamonds in environments where everyone else is doing the same. That’s not going to change, but that’s also not what fueled the success of Coach and Vuitton and even Starbucks in the US: what did was millions more not-so-rich people over-extending themselves to buy that Vuitton bag (or Gucci sunglasses) because they liked the world’s reaction. These behaviors are at the heart of the “trading up” phenomenon in America. Take away both (a) the people who couldn’t afford their purchases in the first place, and (b) those who can afford expensive things but who will no longer get the thrill of everyone else’s desire, and you’ve got major, major problems. Products and services that run on perceived value need to make a new plan, Stan, and fast.

This will not happen overnight. As I said, some people who can still afford to buy status-driven things will continue to do so. Others will wean themselves off instead of going cold turkey. Read the Wall Street Journal editorial, “I Once was Chic, But Now I’m Cheap,” written by an Apple buyer who vows that his family’s next computer purchases will be PCs. The piece reads like a therapy session. The writer’s preparing for the DT’s.

I’m also not particularly convinced that this is some sort of seismic global shift in values; the current economic situation may simply repress luxury consumption for awhile. But until that happens, consumers will either live without or discover products and services that deliver more real value: and once a shopper discovers that a store brand whitens his teeth as well as your brand, he may never come back.

Draw your loyal customers closer, now.  Add value, if you can.  Remind your customers why they buy from you.  Get them to tell others, and you may just be able to stay flat (which is, after all, the new up).  The water level is going down, gentle readers, and all that’s underneath are the brands that deliver enough usefulness to hang tough until the next tide comes in. And that could take quite some time.

recession Danny_Meyer shopping Neil_Fiske Bobos_in_Paradise overspending

The teenage jury is in: Abercrombie & Fitch’s cross-channel marketing/ hype machine leaves just about everyone else in the dust.  Launched in 1892, I suspect that former shoppers Teddy Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway, Amelia Earhart and Clark Gable would scarcely recognize the clothier whose soft-core porn advertising/experience that has turned the chain into a cultural icon (well, maybe Gable would feel at home…).

Since rebooting the brand in 1988, A&F has broken from the teen pack by courting controversy everywhere it goes.  Let us count the ways…

Because just about every retailer has a catalog and everyone’s catalog is free (ho-hum), A&F created a separate lifestyle magazine full of black-and-white photographs taken by Bruce Weber, the photographer best known for highlighting ”the beauty of youth in male nude photography” (as taken verbatim from his own website).   There were so many protests over A&F Quarterly (which the company sells - further stoking desire among teens)  that the company suspended publication for awhile; it’s hard to say whether it was the magalog’s porn star interviews or the b&w shots of Santa and Mrs. Santa Claus in flagrante that pushed thousands of parents and a few governors and attorneys general over the edge… who’s to say?

Such outrage, of course, only pushed the Quarterly to greater, more mythical heights, stoking the company’s good-but-bad-boy (emphasis on ”boy”) reputation.  Go online right now to witness the hysteria it generated in 2003. Totally un-cool Bill O’Reilly, a series of religious organizations and others called for boycotts, and articles concerned with “cultural decay” screamed out with headlines like “Abercrombie & Fitch Stops Selling Porn.“  Parental boycotts? Porn?  Thongs for pre-teens, according to Bill O’Reilly? [Don’t think too much about that one.]  All like catnip to your underage kitty.  Meee-ow!

A&F Quarterly has recently been reintroduced (in Europe, not the US) with a promise from the company that it would no longer be sold to individuals under the age of 18 and that there would be less of everything that made it hot in the first place.  Nevertheless, I wouldn’t expect any A&F articles on the virtues of abstinence anytime soon.

On the ground, it appears that the company used the Quarterly’s hiatus period to begin focusing on customer service and the stores.  A new CEO was brought in from Gucci which - at 46,000 feet - now boasts the largest luxury store in the world right here on New York’s Fifth Avenue.  Gucci knows how to push the rags.  The CEO beefed up store staffing and there are now greeters at the front of every store, in addition to at least one employee inside covering each sales section.  But what is A&F’s spin?  A&F hires male models as greeters, who may literally be standing out on the sideway, stirring up - whatever.  The company further inflates the aspiration by “casting” for such greeters on its website, where the pages pulsate with club music accompanying a video of store events where the models are decidedly half-naked and the customers are clearly under 18.  If you are interested in becoming a model for A&F, you’re asked for a photo, your height, your weight… and the name of the mall nearest you.   ‘Cuz you may be pretty, but don’t ever forget why you’re here.

A&F’s been knocking around in my head for some time, but the impetus for this post was an experience this past Labor Day weekend.  Marketing Mojo was merrily cruising down NYC’s Fifth Avenue until running headlong into a case of gridlock at 57th Street.  What could it be?  Celebrities (pretty typical in these here parts…)?  No, it was a huge mass of people standing in front of A&F’s flagship store, waiting to get in and taking pictures of what definitely seemed to be a highlight of their day.  There were two beautiful young male models standing at the door controlling entry, and a line of people behind a velvet rope that snaked around the corner.  A velvet rope.  2008’s version of Studio 54/Limelight/China Club (all of which the Mojo’s under-18 friends snuck into) is… Abercrombie & Fitch. 

There is no question that A&F has made some wrong moves, particularly in the area of diversity.  Several years ago, the company made t-shirts that it considered fun and tongue-in-cheek.  Just about everyone else, including many college student organizations, considered them racist.  And in 2004, the company settled a $50 million class action lawsuit brought by former employees who claimed that the company was happy to hire African-Americans, Asians, Filipinos and other minorities… as long as they worked in the stores’ stockrooms and not out on the selling floor.   

Ergo, the stupid, screwed up (and illegal) side of presenting the ”Caucasian, football-looking, blonde-hair, blue-eyed, skinny, tall male” as everyone’s ideal.  

Fast forward to 2008, and the company is making progress.  Today, the company claims that minorities make up 32% of its sales staff.  It also has a  huge “Diversity” section on its website.  Of course this is A&F, so the section plays a video loop that features Asians, Latinos and African-Americans - all of whom are gorgeous and (most of whom are) in some state of undress.  The company can’t give up everything!

[Nota bene: An employee recently claimed that A&F has simply shifted its discriminatory ways toward not hiring ”ugly” people, with the company’s ”hierarchy of hotness” dictating just about everything.  And not hiring unattractive people (across all ethnic groups) is very hard to outlaw, according to a lawyer who represented the plaintiffs in the original 2004 case.] 

Based on 20 years of business experience, the Mojo has absolutely no doubt that A&F’s lawyers and senior management are fully cognizant of what they’re doing, and believe that a nuisance lawsuit or two is worth preserving the highly profitable fantasy world they’ve created.  And by doing so, A&F taps into its target consumer’s impressionable zeitgeist like few others do - or have the nerve to do.
Abercrombie & Fitch  back to school shopping  clothing retail

I’ve written at least one post on corporate blogging before, but I gave them a little more thought this week.

This was because I ran a break-out group at this week’s CMO Club summit on PR 2.0, which I would loosely define as the new practices, policies and opportunities available to individuals and companies based on the digital innovations we all fondly call Web 2.0.

So I created a hand-out, which included such items such as how to track blogs, monitor Twitter tweets, figure out when to social(ly) network and so on.

One of the more active conversations focused on the topic of corporate blogs - notably, when should a company consider creating one? My top rules are that a corporation might consider a corporate blog when:

1. Two-way, honest conversations between senior management and both employees as well as consumers are already part of the company culture (think Sun and Stonyfield Farm)

2. Roles and responsibilities for the blog are clear and there is genuine commitment to (a) constant maintenance and (b) responding immediately (or at least promptly) to a problem

3. The company is prepared – both short-term and long-term – for what Kathy Sierra calls “the physics of passion.”

[NOTE: The famous corporate blogger Robert Scoble delivers the corporate blog manifesto here]

I guess I neglected what should be Rule #4: Your CEO isn’t a looney tune or, at minimum, far to colorful for public consumption.

Case in point: Dov Charney, Founder and CEO of American Apparel. Today’s WSJ includes an article on how American Apparel’s CFO has resigned after Charney called him “a complete loser” while sitting for a WSJ interview in March. Now that’s a bad performance appraisal!

In the past, Charney has gotten into hot water for engaging in completely inappropriate behavior during magazine interviews, having inappropriate (there’s that word again) encounters with company employee, hiring models from local strip bars, having scantily-clad employees serve him meals (at home), running around the office in his underwear and referring to women in ways that even he says he wouldn’t use with his mother.  His claim to fame (that, in my opinion, unfortunately outshines his philanthropy and US manufacturing-centric ethos) is that he’s been sued for sexual harassment more times than Joe Francis.

The photo is from an American Apparel “Apres Ski” advertisement. That’s Dov on the left.

It remains to be seen how he does once several quarters as a public company sinks in. In the meantime: no corporate blogs, please!

The year is 1978. Disco, clubs, those long sparkly gold and silver scarves a bunch of us wore around our necks trying to look/be cool. Christie Brinkley was the model of the day and Billy Joel’s 52nd Street was the #1 album of the year - Big Shot was the anthem of the wild New York coked-up beauty queen. My contemporary, Brooke Shields, played a 12-year-old prostitute in Pretty Baby. Star Wars had come out the year before and the idea that Times Square would someday look like Disneyworld would have been preposterous.

I was young, but just old enough to realize boys existed and that there might something remotely interesting going on there. Rod Stewart’s cheesy disco song Da Ya Think I’m Sexy? moved me. I had absolutely no clue why, but it did. Big time. I suspect that you have a few embarrassing yet sacred songs like this one, even though you’d never admit it.

So last night I hear the song coming from my TV and look up from the newspaper to see a huge claymation Chips Ahoy cookie singing “If ya want my body, and ya think I’m sexy, come on sugar let me know/If you really need me just reach out and touch me…” to a blonde female claymation figure sitting on (the bachelor cookie’s) couch looking - uh - hungry. Here’s the ad:



I was - plundered. Horrified. I mean, I’d seen Bob Dylan shilling for Victoria’s Secret and heard the resulting cries of angst but it hadn’t affected me: wrong coming-of-age decade. But now, Nabisco had taken my delicate young girl memories and, and, turned them into a chocolate chip cookie! Have they no shame? Will marketing people stop at nothing??

And the commercial most certainly did not make me want a cookie!

My friends and I sometimes get a good laugh out of trying to picture the client/agency meeting that spawned an idea. Picture it: you are the cookie brand/category manager at Nabisco and someone suggests Da Ya Think I’m Sexy for Chips Ahoy. What. Goes. Through. Your. Mind?

Oh well. I’ll be ok. But if anyone uses Yvonne Elliman’s If I Can’t Have You to sell a candy bar, I’m a goner.

P.S. Oh. My. G-d. At this very moment, Meatleaf is singing a version of Paradise by the Dashboard Light (1977) in a TV ad for the AT&T GoPhone. Except this time, it’s Paradise By the GoPhone Light. I have to go lay down.

Rod StewartChips Ahoy”Do you think I’m sexy””Do you think I’m sexy””Paradise by the Dashboard Light””Paradise by the GoPhone Light”

TV On The Web Becoming Broadly Popular
OK, watching television shows on the web finally appears to be “mainstreaming.”  80 million Americans – 43% of the online U.S population – have watched one of their favorite shows on the Web, and this is up from 25% only one year ago.

It’s a sign of real experimentation that HBO is airing all episodes of their new show, In Treatment, for free online here.  I’m sure there was a great deal of discussion about whether this move would anger paying subscribers, but a 5-night-a-week show can be a tough sell (who has the time, and not everyone TIVOs…) so this is clearly a move to generate viewing and word of mouth among existing subs and to potentially win new viewers. PBS is also boosting its presence on the web, adding exclusive online-only material to its YouTube channel and posting other (sometimes longer-form) content on its website to reach younger viewers.


SUPER BOWL XLII ADS AND MARKETABILITY
Super Bowl XLII may be all but a distant memory right now but viewers are still reliving the ads – on MySpace, Hulu, YouTube and AOL Sports, just to name a few.

Here are a some interesting tidbits:
- 70% of advertisers bought keywords related to their names, a 20% increase over last year’s game.
- 6% (6%!!) of the marketers’ commercials asked viewers to visit their websites, a decrease of nearly two-thirds from the 2007 game.
- Of the ads that displayed a website URL, only 12% used a voiceover to create a call to action.

And if I’m going to talk about Super Bowl marketability, it’d be hard to ignore GoDaddy. With its pre-game claims that Fox had rejected this ad, GoDaddy broadcast a tamer version featuring Danica Patrick and no more taste than they exhibited last year. However, GoDaddy is in a highly competitive space, its prices are cheap and the service is good:  and by the end of the following day, 2 million visitors had gone to the site, vs. only 500,000 last year.  It’s hard to argue with that.

Most of the post-game debate focused on whether or not the most-loved ads would produce sales.  To leverage the ads completely, an advertiser must manage across both TV and Web not just during the game, but after.  At a very basic level, please make the ad easy to find once the game has ended.  Better yet, make a post-game viewing experience flow seamlessly into the sales process or, at least, put the ad closeby!  E*Trade is doing a great job at this (see its home page here as of Feb 10).  Luckily this gives the Mojo an excuse to highlight its favorite ads, the E*Trade baby spots.  And hey, clowns ARE creepy!


super bowletradegodaddyadvertising

I’ve long followed the interesting and well-chronicled careers of Mark DiMassimo of DiMassimo Goldstein (DIGO) and Eric Yaverbaum, who runs Ericho Communications and has written a number of bestselling books.   Together or apart, they’ve been the marketing minds behind a who’s who of successful brands including Ikea, Dominos Pizza, Progressive Insurance, Glaceau Vitamin Water, Crunch Fitness and Jet Blue.   

Now Eric and Mark have taken on a much different assignment:  that of helping the planet.  Their focus is not greenhouse gases but bottled water, and they’re doing so through the launch of a joint venture called Tappening and a huge educational media blitz.  Tappening asks everyone to send in one empty commercial water bottle with a note inside that commits the sender to drinking only tap water in the future.  The initiative also calls companies like Coca-Cola on the carpet for creating massive waste:   did you know that California alone throws out three million empty water bottles every day?   You can also get a uber-hip Tappening bottle to carry your tap water around in.  Or, rather, you could before the bottles sold out in the first 36 hours of the campaign.  [See below for a nice shot of the bottles and a handy link to a FoxNews interview about Tappening.]

I spoke to both Mark and Eric today to get a rare look behind a grass-roots campaign that’s getting major attention – one based on the power of what they call two  “mad dads.”

Stephanie:  Hey, guys.  From what I’ve read so far, this idea seems to have sprouted from the minds of two angry marketing geniuses who’d just seen a documentary about trash.  True?

Mark:  Well I can’t address the “genius” part, but we’re definitely angry.  I have three kids and they deserve a healthy planet.  That means we’re going to have to do a little more than change light bulbs.

Eric: As parents, Mark and I are very much aligned emotionally in this.  And we believe that we can impact a lot of people.

Stephanie: And just to get it out of the way early… you’re also making some money, right?

Mark: When you sell your entire inventory of bottles in the first 36 hours, you definitely make a few bucks, although we’ve been shocked at the response. We thought we’d sell out our inventory in a year and just self-fund the initiative.  But apparently we’re onto something!

Eric:   Yes, selling out after 36 hours and logging 450,000 page visits in two weeks tells us that, based on what we do for a living, we have the wherewithall to educate people – and we’re succeeding.

Stephanie:  I personally have no issues with two marketing execs making a few dollars by spending every spare waking hour doing something good for the planet.  But why promote tap water? 
 
Mark:  Because it was there, because it’s everywhere – and because it wasn’t branded.  And all three of us understand the power of brands.  Look at vodka, a drink with no taste.  But branding has given plenty of vodka brands taste.  And a brand makes people pay good money for good old H2O in a bottle every day.  And what’s even in that bottle?  Pepsi admits that Aquafina, the #1 bestselling brand of bottled water in the US, comes from tap water!   Tap water deserves to fight, if you will, on equal footing.  Reusable water bottles and the Tappening brand is where we wanted to start.

Eric: People don’t realize so many really sad and fundamental facts regarding what we do to the planet.  The bottled water industry adds to global pollution, wastes energy, creates waste and contributions to the causes of climate change.  The industry’s solution so far has been to talk about thinner plastic and recycling.  Thinner plastic still needs to be made, cleaned, filled, shipped, collected and discarded.   And nearly 25% of Americans do not recycle.  Tap water is right in front of us:  we believe that something so simple can be very powerful.

Mark: And by the way, the stuff in the bottle isn’t as well regulated as the stuff that comes out of your tap.  Compare what the EPA requires of your tap water to what the FDA looks at in your bottled water.  See who makes you feel better about what you’re drinking.  But the bottom line is that, on the whole, the water from your tap is healthy for you, healthy for your family and a whole lot healthier for the planet.  Take the money you save and put it to good use, if you can.

Eric: That’s also what we’re also trying to do by using a portion of the proceeds from every Tappening bottle sale to promote the documentary you mentioned called Garbage!  The Revolution Starts at Home.   Now they are starting to get traffic from our site… and that’s the way you start to bind thousands of people together behind a cause.

Stephanie: Interesting.  Do you see marketing discipline as the solution to other social problems?

Mark: Yes, marketing and value innovation.  It would be of enormous value to get people drinking more tap and less bottled.  So we look at that problem and we innovate.  Why don’t people drink more tap?  And we don’t disregard or belittle the answers we don’t like:  if drinking tap isn’t hip, for example, then we need to address that.  Scientists may study it.  Politicians may demagogue it, legislate it…  But we know that what really moves the needle quickly is marketing innovation, which is about design, branding and excitement.

Eric: People buy brands to express themselves and their values.  Tappening allows people to be part of this campaign, which we hope is both a stylish and socially valuable thing to do. Maybe that’s why so many people like our bottle. It brands them when they carry it.

Stephanie: So you want to make an ordinary-seeming topic cool.

Eric: Definitely.  Hey, I have a teenage daughter to impress! That’s not easy!

Mark: Absolutely.  Absolutely.  Tappening IS cool.

Stephanie: How important has digital marketing been to your success?

Mark:  Incredibly. We were blown away by the celebrities who found our MySpace page and spread the word.

Eric: And all the environmental organizations online….  The bloggers also have gotten the word out, and they’ve been collaborators in developing our concept.  A lot of hard questions in this space need to be answered. And bloggers ask them. They don’t cow-tow to anyone.  To them, I would offer the biggest thank you.

Mark:  Traditional media has driven our success as well.  We and others are spreading video from TV interviews we have done all over the web. We’re getting newspaper and radio coverage.  It all ends up in digital form and then it travels everywhere.

Eric:  The doom and gloom predictions about the future of mainstream media fascinate me, because “old” and “new” media work so well together:  traditional media produces high-quality content and then the web spreads it around the world.  Given that both Mark and I are usually the “senders” of such messaging for our clients, it’s been a blast to be on the *positive* receiving end of it!

Stephanie:  Well many thanks to you both.  And if you have any Tappening bottles squirreled away… I want one!
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Readers:  consider what Mark and Eric are saying about the phenomenon of branding, the social quality and power of “cool,” and the idea that this concept could be applied to just about anything.  What can we apply it to next?
tappeningbottled waterMark DimassimoEric Yaverbaum