Content + Communications Consulting
If you missed it…well, they made a little bit of news, as a lawsuit was filed because, according to the suit, the weren’t using enough beef.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah05FEWcJWM&feature=player_embedded
Also a full-page ad in major newspapers:
From this perch – Bravo to Taco Bell. Taking over the story, on their terms.
Something pretty, shiny, and really distracting.
Doesn’t have to be a precious metal. In fact, it often ISN’T a precious metal. A new tool, a piece of software. A tablet that, while not from the Mount of Olives, might as well be.
The next new thing – distracting you from the task at hand, which is probably the last next new thing.
Pretty crazy, right?
And often, in our haste to make noise, make a name for ourselves within an organization – or make some easy money – we’ll chase that new shiny object and completely abandon the old shiny object.
If I had a dime (preferably a one ounce silver coin) for every time I was pulled into a meeting and sat down with someone who wanted the shiny object just because it was the shiny object…
1. Zero in on one objective. There’s a guy who is semi-legendary in Internet Marketing circles named Paul Myers. He runs a service called TalkBizNews. His is one of those emails that, in all honesty, stops me in my tracks because it always has something good.
Friday, I got an email from Paul and it had this advice for zeroing in on one objective. Quick summary:
First, pick one thing that has a definite success metric to it. “I will sell 100 widgets.” “Finalize corporate policy guidebook.” Something with a yes/no answer at the end…Didja sell 100? Didja finalize the guidebook?
Next, set aside 30 minutes and brainstorm. Write down everything you could possibly do to make the answer to the question YES.
We did this. 30 Minutes while kid 3 was watching some programming on Friday night. (Bad parenting?) Great exercise. (Note: some of you can expect a phone call from Area 224 HQ.)
2. Ask: can we really afford this? It’s easy to deflect to a budgetary excuse: fiscal year starts in July, procurement needs to be involved, that sort of stuff.
The real question though is all that other stuff that comes with. The extra expense piled upon a “free” tool. (Or “FR*EE” or whatever the internet marketer people spell it as these days.)
Back in our U Sphere days – Dave’s version of getting an MBA – we once called on a college admission director and got him on the phone and said, basically, “We’re gonna give you free access to our service for one month so you can try it out.”
And the response, basically, was NO. Why? In retrospect, all the stuff that was on this guy’s desk made our Shiny Object just another thing he’d have to worry about. He had total control in this case – no budget issues, no procurement department.
But no time to invest, either.
3. Wait. At least a day. (In the case of anything produced by Apple, you can probably wait longer than that.) The shiny object, though, might tarnish after a few hours.
The newness will wear off: be it your Twitter Explosion Strategy or your Facebook 100,000 Fan Creamy Goodness Strategy.
(Neither of these are actual strategies, mind you. Tactics. Tools. Not Strategies.)
[NOTE: The photo above comes to us from the American Open Currency Standard, a past client of Area 224.]
Here’s a video from Dave telling you more:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2ZoWMX5-7M
Want to sign up? Here’s a link…there’s a special code, too – FRIENDS – and you can save some cash in the process.
Ford. Coca-Cola. Dell. Area 224.
These are “brands” – but we all sometimes get confused on the difference between “brand” and “model.”
Think about the experiences attached to the product or service. That’s your brand.
These Ford logos over here? Not the Ford brand. Symbols, icons, representing the company over the years. Logos. But not the brand.
Models: The Model-T, Mustang, Fusion, Explorer. Those are models – they represent the Ford brand.
But they are not the brand.
And product – heck, Area 224 is working on a few products right now. They are not our brand. They will represent our brand – just as I represent the brand myself when I’m out there in public.
Well, we want to share three tips – you can use these ON or OFF-LINE – to help you maximize your brand-building power.
1. What does the brand stand for?
This can be as simple as “walk in, sit down, get the best haircut ever.” Cut through the BS.
Crap, I learn something new every day…Thursday, in the middle of the 4th of 5 meetings, I found myself asking this question of myself:
Why can’t you boil down the essence of this super-secret project into a dozen words?
So I went back to the drawing board – literally, yesterday evening, there was an actual drawing board, it was my kid’s art easel, I looked at it, but I digress – and here was the Area 224 brand essence, refreshed for a new digital millennium:
Helping brands use digital and social media to better tell their stories, online and off.
NOW, it all makes sense. The super-secret project? It dovetails nicely with the Area 224 brand essence. It can help clients big time. (Yes, our brand essence is 15 words, not 12. Sorry.)
2. Is what you’re doing supporting the brand? If not, why are you doing it?.
I can tell you from first-hand experience that you will drive yourself batty if you don’t have the brand essence down first. Once you do have that brand essence down pat, it’s off to the races.
When we didn’t have the brand essence down pat? Wheel spinning. Random requests from the front lines for marketing stuff. Bad advertisements showing up with faxed copies of the logo. No focus up top on the brand, thus no focus anywhere else on the brand. Missed opportunities right and left.
Digital Millennium Sidebar: Here’s where Social Proof is vital – if you’re in this social space. Engage, people. Trite but true. Engage. That means YOU, guy who has bots retweet himself 24-7.
3. Personal Brand Ain’t BS…BUT…
You are the brand. You live the brand. Be the brand. Etc.
The growth of the personal branding industry is great. And dangerous. At the same time.
Zappos – whole lotta love for that brand, and rightly so. Great story.
Tony Hseih is the CEO, has a book, has probably shared tweets with every single person in the universe.
Honestly, though, he is not the Zappos brand.
He lives the attributes, he is highly successful at it. But, party people, you don’t buy shoes from him.
You buy from the insanely awesome customer service. Not from him.
Whether it is, indeed, that simple – Build a Better Brand in 3 Easy Steps, Operators Are Standing By! – remains to be seen.
But we have seen time and again that some emerging brands don’t totally get it. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Much has been said about the Daily Deal phenomenon. When a two-year old site such as Groupon grows so quickly that it is able to spurn an acquisition offer from Google – to the tune of a much-ballyhooed $6 Billion offer – well, we’ve got a new phenomenon called “Social Commerce.”
But, did Groupon “invent” Social Commerce? You could argue about that til the cows come home but here’s a fact: Gilt Groupe has been around longer. It operates in the fashion and luxury brand niche.
And Gilt will “beat” Groupon. We’ll tell you why, but first a caveat.
We’re not defining “beat” as force Groupon out of business. But, in this case, we’re talking about long-term success. Groupon shows no signs of slowing – but we think that Gilt has a better long-term business model. Simply put, Gilt Groupe is Built to Last.
Reason 1: Product. Not only does Gilt have better product, in this case they actually HAVE product. Groupon is nice and all, what with the deep discounts on restaurants and other local experiences. The product they offer, though, is rather virtual. You buy a coupon, you go to the retailer, you take advantage of the deal, you get your stuff – food, services, whatever. Done.
Since Gilt focuses on fashion, they have the advantage of tangibility. Even though you’re not buying a Gilt-branded pair of jeans, you are getting the item from Gilt.
You don’t shop at Groupon – but you do shop at Gilt.
Reason 2: Exclusivity. “Membership has its privileges.” When Gilt started in 2007, it was downright impossible to get an invite. Only members could get access to the deals, and that kept the riff-raff away and also kept “scarcity” as a selling point.
Only 100 of these jeans will be sold. Only 10,000 of you have a membership. Fight for ’em. In…3…2…1.
Restaurants that use Groupon aren’t exclusive ones – they are ones that want to get people through the door and are willing to deeply discount their product to do so. This dovetails nicely to reason 3:
Reason 3: Valuing the Product. Let’s say you’ve got a restaurant and it costs you $50 to produce a meal for two people that you end up charging them $60 for. (20% markup is rich in the restaurant industry, but go with us here.) To work with Groupon, you’ve got to discount that $60 meal to $30. You’ve then got to give Groupon $15 of the $30 that you sell the Groupon for.
(Oh, and if you work with Groupon in the first place, you probably don’t have a handle on what your marketing budget is, so you’re willing to throw money at the next big thing.)
I won’t get into the math behind what it takes to get the people in the seats; but I will say that your restaurant experience better be really worthwhile – otherwise, you have conditioned your visitors to expect your food at half price, and you have soaked yourself in the process.
Meanwhile, back with the fashionistas…It’s widely known that markups in retail are huge. Like, well, sometimes it costs $1 to make a pair of jeans that gets sold for $250.
Since Gilt is dealing with an industry that is used to this – and since Gilt knows that the manufacturers have “stuff” leftover (maybe they ordered too many blue shirts in XL, or whatever) – they can turn the numbers into a win/win/win.
Quick, over-simplified example: Jeans that get sold at a boutique for $250 are probably bought wholesale by the boutique from the brand for $100. The brand itself makes a markup of at least $50 – covering its costs to get the product from the manufacturing floor to their own warehouse.
The brand is also sitting on inventory that must be sold – so if it sits there unused, the value of it keeps going down.
So Gilt approaches the brand and says they’ll buy the items for something north of cost, but south of markup. Let’s say $75 – but with the stipulation that they must move a certain number of pairs of jeans or else there’s no deal. Then, not needing an insane markup to make its “nut,” Gilt goes with a figure of $125 – a deep discount, but still, frankly, an expensive pair of jeans that not everyone can afford.
Win/win/win – jeans brand, Gilt, customer. The first two are big winners – and the customer also gets access to a product that still has cachet – it’s a luxury brand, but at a value price.
Reason 4: Long-term relationship building. I love this one the most as a brand marketer: the way Gilt treats the brands it works with.
Without getting into the vagaries – which you can certainly find if you do a little sleuthing – suffice it to say that every facet of the brand-Gilt relationship is structured as a win/win. From how they pay brands – wiring the money – to how they search for deals that are treated as exclusives (you’ve gotta love that if you’re an emerging footwear maker or make suits) – this is a brand marketer’s dream: a killer relationship with a partner that wants everyone to succeed.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that Groupon doesn’t want its partners and customers to succeed.
But the proposition to the brand starts off almost immediately on the wrong foot.
Groupon to Brand: “Discount your product at least half, then we’ll talk.”
Gilt to Brand: “What luxury items can we help sell for you in a way that makes everyone a winner?”
