brand communications

Oct 13 2010

Bank Offers Two-for-One Money

You know the daily deal phenomenon is out of control when you can get 50 dollars in cash for 25.

Area 224 loves a deal as much as the next guy. But is this headline, from an email we received from daily deal site “The Got Spot,” TGTBT? (Too Good To Be True?)

“Free Money from MB Financial”

If you’re new to “social commerce,” you are buying, in effect, options to receive a product or service at a discount. Most of the time, sites like Groupon and Gilt Groupe are selling you something at a discount. You’ll pay $25 for $50 worth of food and drink at a local restaurant, or get a $500 retail Lauren suit for $99. (They sold out of that one, I’m on the waiting list.)

Bringing us back to the bank’s offer. Read the fine print and it’s a Master Card Gift Card, with $50 in value, on sale for $25.

Limit one per household; somehow, I just purchased ten.

What’s in it for the bank? Well, I’m sure they’ll try to sell me something – so they’re calculating that spending $25 to acquire “eyeballs” (or foot traffic, since I have to visit in person to claim my gift card) is worth it.

But this is trackable marketing – they can tell what it costs to get me in the bank, and whether or not I convert. So…probably not a bad idea on the part of the bank.

Now we’ll see if they let me cash in all ten.

UPDATE: As of 10/14 at 3:00 p.m., The Got Spot has refunded me $225 from my original $250 purchase, saying that I can’t buy more than one coupon. They did this without me asking or complaining.

Oct 12 2010

How to Throw Creatives Under the Bus

Is your new logo universally reviled? Go back to the old one! And make sure everyone knows the designer screwed up!

Ignored in the recent Gap logo kerfuffle is how poorly the designer, Laird + Partners, has been treated by the iconic brand. Which reminded us of another logo that was universally reviled…

You kinda like it now, right?

When the London 2012 Olympic logo was first launched, response was less than favorable. (Or “favourable.) Sites still exist asking the public to upload “something better.” (Here’s an example.)

HOWEVER, rather than kowtowing to the masses, London 2012 stuck with their logo choice. And they stuck by their designer – Wolff Olins – instead of acquiescing to “crowdsourcing.” (We’ll save that topic for another day.)

Thanks to craplogo.me

As for Gap, take a look at the stuff that Laird + Partners did for the brand. Notice a theme? A look? A common thread?

“Ultimately, we learned just how much energy there is around our brand,” said the company in a statement.

NO, Gap, there’s energy around your new logo – not your brand.

Oh, and your management greenlighted the projects, right? Not just the new logo, but the look and feel of the creative leading up to the decision to actually come out with a new logo.

Meanwhile…Laird + Partners hasn’t been thanked for its tremendous work in helping the company get to where it is now – as far as we can tell.

Last time we checked, clothing stores aren’t democracies (save for Threadless), and isn’t the focus here actually supposed to be on the clothes?

And shouldn’t they say nice stuff about their designers?

In other news, we tried our logo out on the craplogo.me site – what do you think?

I kinda like it

Oct 11 2010

A Clever Use of Twitter by a Chicago Radio Station

Trying to figure out how to use Twitter? Here’s an example from Chicago’s Q101.

One buzzword that seems to have taken over Corporate America is “engagement.” “Let’s engage our customers in new and exciting ways.”

Sounds trite, and can also sound a little lame if you have no clue what engagement means to you – your company, your brand.

Q101 in Chicago, the alternative rock outlet that is part of the Emmis Communications empire, decided to use Twitter to ramp up engagement. And, dare I say, it’s pretty darn cool how they’re doing it.

It’s called “October on Demand,” and how it works is rather simple. Instead of relying on the old method of “give us a call and let us know what you want to hear and we’ll nod and say we’ll see what we can do…” they invite listeners to “tweet” a request. And they play the requests, at their discretion, but pretty darn often (at most hours of the day).

Advantage for you as the listener/tweeter is you can hear your song if you’re lucky.

Advantages for them, the radio station:

They can better take the pulse of listeners. The phone has been replaced with a real live comment stream called Twitter. If there’s a mini-trend — if there are lots of requests for a song called Chelsea Dagger (because the Blackhawks are raising their Stanley Cup banner), well, they can capitalize on the trend.
They interact with listeners through another channel. You tweet, they respond by Twitter, they play your song, they say who you are.
Help with programming: it’s no secret that radio stations are being whacked upside the head by things like Pandora. The beauty of Pandora is the lack of a set playlist. Playing a song that might be buried in the archives somewhere allows a radio station to be more “iPodesque.”

What can you learn from this “engagement experiment?”

Well, it’s a multi-channel whipsaw effect, and one that might run counter to what you’d expect to hear from a radio station. Are there ways that your brand, your company, you can use new channels to engage? For instance:

Search. Even if you’re not selling anything online, should you be taking the pulse of your target market by finding out what they’re saying? Do a quick Twitter Search and type in a term that’s important to your company. Even if you’re not on Twitter already.

Stick with what makes sense for you. You don’t have to chase trends just because they are popular – if they don’t make sense for your industry. A Q101 Foursquare check-in won’t make much sense. Tied to an advertiser, MAYBE.

Have a conversation. If you follow Q101 on Twitter you’ll see that they are actually having conversations with people. You have conversations with people every day – if your target market is using new media like Twitter, you can always extend those conversations online.

Have at it!

Oct 07 2010

Winning Isn’t Everything

Time to talk baseball. And a tale of two teams.

One has a great on-the-field product, winning this year to the tune of 90-plus games.

The other lost almost that many.

Team One has camaraderie, is in the playoffs, has charismatic leadership, players who go the extra mile for each other.

Team Two is under new management, under new ownership, doesn’t know which end is up.

The first team may well win the World Series this year.

The second team hasn’t done so in what only feels like an eternity.

Get This: Team One can’t give away tickets. Team Two pretty much sold out every game and is making money hand over fist.

So, in this corner, the Tampa Bay Rays – energy and enthusiasm on the field, tumbleweeds off it.

In the other corner, the Chicago Cubs – where winning isn’t everything (and this year it wasn’t anything), but the cash register has no problem ringing.

What can the Marketer learn from this?

Probably more than anything, the Rays sell “baseball.”

The Cubs sell “the experience.”

Like it or lump it, the knock on the Northsiders has always been this: world’s largest happy hour, go for the beer, don’t pay attention to the game, free sunshine, etc.

This same experience includes “lovable losers.” This is, after all, a team whose drought of 102 years (and counting) since a World Championship has become a calling card.

Neither marketing model, neither business model, is wrong. Both teams are profitable.

But, maybe, after all, you should ask yourself: are you selling “the experience?”

Oct 06 2010

Pabst Blue Ribbon and Realtor Marketing

I’ll say it again: most Realtors are pretty bad at Marketing.

The reason is that they’re spinning their wheels with tactics (refrigerator magnets, email blasters, being “social” without a point) and not figuring out why the heck they’re in business in the first place.

They’re oftentimes trying to be something they’re not: like an expert on interest rate trends, or someone who can help you go green with your new home.

Which brings us to Pabst Blue Ribbon.

An iconic beer that fell upon hard times but made a renaissance. Big Time Renaissance.

Thanks to knowing EXACTLY who they are. The value brand your Dad drank back in the day. Inexpensive. Old School. Not to be ordered at a hoity-toity place of business.

photo by Chuck "Caveman" Coker

Realtors: Are You Trying to be Something You’re Not?

That’s right, I’ll say it – there’s a reason that some Realtors are effective marketers and others, well, not so much. It’s not having the killer social media presence, it’s not having a keen understanding of how interest rates impact the local economy. These things can be important, granted, but the real reason is playing to their strengths.

Our Webinar from Friday, on Personal Branding for Realtors (copy of the slides below), centered around how to find out what your strengths as a Realtor are.

This could work for just about any marketplace — the local coffee shop is never gonna be Starbucks.

As a Realtor, know where your strengths are and your marketing strategy should play to those strengths.

Drink up!

Area 224 personal brand for realtors 10.1.10

View more presentations from Dave Walle.