gonzoblogging

Getting Rid of My Dinosaur Paws

Yesterday I listened to two webinars about social media.  One was from the American Marketing Association and the other was from Cision, a company that develops software to monitor social media. In the process I came upon a few realizations.  The first one was that once again I am woefully behind the times.  I make fun of a good friend of mine, often asking her how she can use her computer with those dinosaur paws. Now it’s me with the dinosaur paws.

            Second, I have gotten to know a potential client in the performing arts arena who is entering a new geographical market and who just might benefit from a social media strategy.  I meet with her Monday to discuss some plans.  It would be an exciting client.  Can you just imagine a live Twitter session of one of their dress rehearsals?  We could post some video clips of the dress rehearsals on YouTube and steer people to them through posts on Facebook and Twitter. I will keep you posted.

            I also became acquainted with the Cision blog, which has a lot of good info about social media.  I wanted to share this one with you, 5 best practices for creating a corporate social media policy   You can also look at some guidelines for avoiding professional embarrassment on facebook by clicking here.  

The Google Doodle Breaks the Rules, but it Works!

Know the rules so you can break them properly—attributed to The Dalai Lama.

 

For years I have wondered about the Google logo.  I notice that they change it every so often to match a holiday or a newsworthy event.  According to the best marketing folks, you are not supposed to mess with the logo, that’s your brand—your identity.  As on example, look at the image above, which was the way the Google logo looked the day they announced the Missing Link fossil (by the way, the artist’s rendering of  that fossil strongly resembles a cat we have hanging around the Gonzo Hut).

            Don’t mess with the logo!!! We preach this to our clients all the time.

            Not so at Google.  They change the logo on a regular basis.  But with Google it has come to be expected.  Now it is part of their brand.  These variations on the Google logo are called the Google Doodle.  In fact, if you want to go to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_logo) you can read about the Google Doodles.  Wikipedia even tells you about the Doodle4Google competitions regularly held grades K through 12. 

            Google has not only made the Google Doodle part of their brand, but they have turned it into a way to interact with the customer.  Small wonder these guys are on top.

 

I Pay Bargain Rate for My Newspaper Subscriptions

I learned a secret about newspapers several years ago that I’m going to share with you:  they are starving for circulation!

            Duh, Gonzo!  Tell us something we don’t know.

            Here’s what you might not know.  Newspapers are so starving for circulation that if you play them right you can renew your subscription for far less than the renewal form they sent you last month.

            A few years ago I let my ten-dollar-month subscription lapse to the local newspaper.  I walked out in my robe each morning to pick up my daily collection of newspapers, fully expecting to see that particular paper gone one day.  But there is was—without fail—every morning. 

            Finally the phone rang one afternoon.

            “Mr. Gonzo, we noticed you have not renewed your monthly subscription.”

            “That’s right. I find I don’t read your paper and I have no birdcage I need to line.”

            “Well, Mr. Gonzo, if you want to give us a credit card number, we would be happy to renew it over the phone for $39.99 for a full year.”

            This is where I did the quick math.  That’s a third of what I’m paying now.  I sensed an opening. 

            “That’s still a lot of money.”

            “Alright, don’t tell anyone, but today the boss said I can let go of a couple of annual subscriptions for $19.99 a month.  I have one left and I will give it to you if you renew right now.”

            More quick math.  That’s one-sixth of what I’m paying now.

            “Deal!”

            The lesson here was that if the local paper was willing to do this, what about the big guys?  What about The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal?  Turns out they play the same game.  I have annual subscriptions to both papers and by letting them lapse each year I force that phone call. I pay far less than the best offer they make me in print.

            Of course the bad news is that newspapers are going out of business left and right, and for all except a few businesses, they are losing their value every day as an advertising vehicle. 

            But I’ll take the trade-off in lower subscription rates.  I like my morning newspaper. 

           

ED and Responsible Advertising

Whoa, it has been more than a year since I posted to this blog.  I gotta get back on the stick.  Look for weekly entries from here out.

 

I have never understood the visual used in commercials for Cialis of the two bathtubs. 

First, why two bathtubs?  If I am going to ultimately do what Cialis is supposed to help me do, I’m surely not going to be laying the groundwork for it with his and her bathtubs for me and Mrs. Gonzo.  This is a one-bathtub scenario (for those of you having trouble with the visual image, I am sorry). 

            Second, those bathtubs are always in the most unlikely places—the beach, in the middle of a field of flowers, whatever.  How did they get there?  Those tubs are heavy! Did the couple have to haul the water all the way to the tubs?  How did they keep it warm?  We all know what a cold bath does to your sexual drive.  Maybe that’s why they need the Cialis.  I know I’d be too tired to do anything after dragging those tubs out there.

            I think about these things, and I know I am not unique.  If something in a commercial bothers me, I know it bothers other people, too. When I see those spots I’m not thinking about the benefits of Cialis. I am thinking about the hernia I am going to get hauling those bathtubs (erectile dysfunction is only one of many things us men have to worry about as we get older). 

            Evidently those spots bother someone else, too.  Witness the article in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times by Dan Neil, their famed auto journalist.  The Times, probably under pressure from the same demons haunting most newspapers these days, has decided to get more work out of Dan, so they have him multi-tasking in the business section, mostly writing about marketing related issues.  Check out the article at http://www.gonzomarketers.com/blog/ED--L.A.Times.pdf.  Neil is a great writer.

            A bill is currently snaking its way through the U.S. House of Representatives that would “’treat as indecent’ ads for erectile dysfunction cures between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.”

            I don’t like it when government starts to limit free speech and the media, but I equally dislike it when companies ignore common sense and air these types of spots while I am battling with my grandson between Hannah Montana and CNN.

            It comes back to the old adage of yelling boner!—I mean fire!—in a crowded theater.  Free speech and a free media means that we use them responsibly. My grandkids don’t need to know about erectile dysfunction right now.  They just want to see the next episide of SpongeBob SquarePants—as soon as they get the remote away from me. It shouldn’t be too hard because I’ll be falling asleep.  Just thinking about those bathtubs makes me tired.

Marketing with Loose Change

The Resource Center for Nonprofit Management, a Riverside, CA, agency that works with nonprofit agencies to improve their operations, asked me to conduct a marketing seminar for non-profit managers.  We had 90 minutes yesterday to learn how to develop a marketing strategy, how to apply the various components of marketing to that strategy, how those components work, and how to use them together.

By definition, nonprofit agencies have no budget for marketing, or very little.  So our last exercise was coming up with a list of ten things these managers could do that afternoon when they went back to the office. 

Here is the list:

1. A press release on your new website.  One manager realized they could send a press release to the local newspaper about their website.
2. Call a local college or university and see about getting a marketing intern.
3. Incorporate links into your website to other sources (by the way, this will increase the SEO of your website).
4. Launch an email marketing campaign with Constant Contact or one of the other email marketing programs on the web.
5. Start a branding campaign, staring with something as simple as developing a standard for how the phone is answered in the office or a standard way your staff signs their emails.
6. Plan an event, and leverage PR for the event.
7. Start the process to develop a strategic marketing plan.
8. Plan a word-of-mouth campaign.
9. Talk to local media about what sorts of discounts they can offer nonprofits for display advertising.
10. Launch a public relations campaign.

These are things you can do today to jump start your marketing program.  But I emphasize #7, because truly effective marketing starts with a strategy.

A Threat to the Internet!!

I have often counseled my own children - all grown now - that you need to discipline yourself once you get into the professional world. I have passed on the same advice to many fellow professionals - mostly younger. Get to the office on time, be conscientious about your work, dress appropriately, and do not abuse sick leave.

Fail to do this and someone else will do it for you, and chances are you will not like it.

The same applies to the internet.

The Los Angeles Times recently reported (click here to read article) that virtual banks on Second Life were given a deadline to cease operations? This was part of the fallout from the hasty retreat of Ginko, a bank on Second Life that closed its doors and left town with $75,000 of investors' money.

Marketers should be concerned. The internet has proven immensely valuable to us. Anything that compromises its integrity may also compromise our ability to use it as a marketing vehicle.

For those of you saying, "What is Second Life," a quick e-education.

Second Life is a virtual environment in cyberspace. Unlike MySpace, where the communication is through the printed word and flashy graphics - but in the end a pretty static environment - Second Life is much more advanced. There are towns and villages, destinations, resorts, you name it. Reuters has a correspondent on Second Life. Most of the serious presidential campaigns have a presence. IBM, Best Buy and countless others can be found. There is even Second Life currency, called Lindens after Linden Lab, the company that created Second Life (the exchange rate is about 270 Lindens to one U.S. dollar).

Participants move about Second Life as avatars - virtual bodies you design and customize to look like anything from a normal person to someone with wings or tentacles or whatever you can imagine (my avatar is Gonzoman Plympton).

Last year a woman created and sold virtual real estate on Second Life and became the first person to make a million dollars in the virtual world. The question was whether she was able to liquidate her Lindens into real currency.

Back to Ginko.

Ginko advertised a return of 40% on investments in its Second Life bank (there was the first clue: if it is too good to be true, then it usually is). You know the rest. Initial deposits were paid interest with later deposits and at some point the banker skipped town with $75K and no forwarding address.

Linden Labs gave notice to all unregulated banks. They had to shut down operations by January 22. Virtual banks were scrambling to give depositors back their Lindens. Folks could not get their money out of virtual ATMs. According to the article in the Times, Second Life stocks plunged, as did real estate prices. Second Life is a virtual world and participants are from around the globe, so there is really no one to sue.

The most evil word in cyberspace started to surface --- regulation.

Here is my observation. Given the chaos created by this small, isolated instance, what is possible if this got really big? Could a virtual financial crisis on Second Life - one that involved real dollars - tip the real world economy into a tailspin (especially now, since we actually are teetering in a real world recession)? Let's take it a little farther. Could someone, accidentally or maliciously, trigger an international incident? Maybe Ginko was a project backed by al Queda in an effort to raise funds. There are all sorts of possibilities.

When it comes to regulating the internet, I advocate for as little as possible. But we all know that lack of regulation ultimately means that the Second Life\Ginko incident is only the beginning. Many more are coming. You cannot control the bozos and the bad people.

Few will dispute that the internet has been a boon to us marketers. One or two serious abuses, however, and pretty soon Congress will be looking into the matter. Once Congress steps in everything is up for grabs, even net neutrality.

This is my message to cyberspace: We must take care of our house. If we don't, someone will eventually take care of it for us.

And we will not like it.

The Business Owner's Nightmare: I'm Not Here!

This one stuck in my craw. Perfect example of negative branding. 

I was in the post office a few days ago (granted, it is the early Christmas season) to check the P.O. box and stuck my head in to check on getting a passport (the wife an I are thinking about a short cruise in January).  I was buzzed into this separate office and came face to face with a postal employee I recognized from the front counter (although I had not seen him there lately, and now I know why).

Before I could even speak he announced in a brusque manner, “I’m not here,” and then walked away.

He was on his break, but the damage had been done. 

“I’m not here!”

With three words, this postal worker immediately reinforced everything I had come to believe about the post office brand (the brand they don’t want you to know about).

He could have said, “This is not my department, but I will get someone to help you right way.”  He could have said, “Someone will be with you in just a minute.”  He could have said any number of things.

But instead he grumbled, “I’m not here!”

I know it is popular to pick on the post office.  But the truth is they move mountains of mail each day and almost all of it manages to get where it is going, and for a relatively inexpensive fee. They do an amazing job.  They make life interesting with new releases of stamps and they even sponsored a bicycle team at the Tour de France, and I am sure a lot of other stuff.

But at that particular moment that one postal employee managed to erase every bit of good will I had for the post office with three words:

“I’m not here.” 

This is the businessman’s lament. You can offer a great product or service, have great looking marketing pieces and signage and even a wazoo website, but how do you ensure that your brand is reinforced through one of your most important assets – your employees? How do you push your brand so that it spreads throughout the company to every employee and oozes out their fingernails and gets on everyone who comes within range?  If you are a retailer, how do you get the part-time high school kid at the front counter (who you probably pay minimum wage) to be your brand evangelist?

How do you ensure that your customers are never greeted with those three words?:

“I’m not here.”

Marketing the Unarticulated Need

This Christmas reminded me of a post I made to this blog some time back on a goodie bag I received at a golf tournament several years ago.  Anyone who has participated in golf tournaments knows and looks forward to these goodie bags.  I have received golf shoes, cover-ups (golfspeak for a windbreaker) shoe bags, golf shirts – you name it. And when I come home from these tournaments my wife takes the bag and goes through it for her own booty – pens, mini-first-aid kits and anything else that catches her eye.

             One particular goodie bag contained, of all things, a thick terrycloth bathrobe. What the heck, I thought.  A bathrobe?  I can’t wear this around the golf course to prove what a cool guy I am, that I am a part of many tournaments and obviously far better than my current game might indicate (I tell people I don’t just suck at golf, I SUCK!!!).

            Well, as I pointed out in my previous post, of all the things I have ever received at a golf tournament, that bathrobe has gotten more use than anything else.  I wear it virtually every morning, and every morning I see the tournament sponsor’s logo emblazoned on the chest (Walter’s Mercedes Benz, in case you are ever in the market for a ‘Benz). But this year my tattered and stained bathrobe has been retired.

            What this got me thinking about, though, was that lately I have been noticing how I have come across things I never thought I would get much use out of, and how I have become completely reliant upon them. 

            When I started Gonzo Marketers I got an internet service with happened to include as one of its features an FTP function.  FTP -- file transfer protocol -- is a fancy name for a privately accessed location on the web where people can send me files that are too large for e-mail.  I did not think I would have much use for this feature, but I use it all the time. It is a regular part of doing business. In fact, my clients have asked me if they can use it!

            I recently came across a good deal on a scanner.  Again, something I thought was a frivolous purchase has turned into something I use all the time. Okay, I’ll admit, half the scans are of my grandchildren – but I am still using it much more for business than I ever thought I would.

            Last year a columnist in Esquire magazine was writing about things we don’t need -- at least things we don’t think we need, and how they become indispensable. His main example was the capability of text messaging on your cell phone.  Now I have to admit, when you have the capability of calling someone, text messaging does not make much sense.  Text messaging is wildly popular though, especially with kids.  They are now building cell phones with small keyboards. A friend of mine summed it all up when she explained her use of text messaging.

            “I text message my boyfriend all the time because at his job using a cell phone is a problem.”  The very intrusiveness that is a problem for cell phones makes text messaging more useful.  If fact, if anyone out there can tell me what percentage text messaging is of the overall profit pie for the cell phone companies, I’d like to know.

            What it comes down to is marketing, and marketing starts with the inception of the product.  One school of thought is that you should never develop a product unless there is a market for it.  But the other school says that the best products are those developed before the consumer is able to recognize or articulate the need. 

Text messaging and the iPod are both good examples.  I purchased an iPod because I was curious about the marketing applications.  Now I cannot imagine life without my iPod.

I didn’t think I’d need a bathrobe until I was given one (of all places at a golf tournament). Now I know that I need a new one.  I have incorporated a bathrobe into my everyday life. I tried using a PDA, but for some reason that technology did not stick. But I can tell you now that I can’t live without my iPod.

The best products are those developed for a need to we didn’t know we had. That is an important concept to keep in mind when you are marketing that product.  

Burger King is King? At Least for Their Demographic

Kudos to Burger King for realizing that video games are another way many retailers are getting their message out and getting their core audience to “live” the brand.  Just look at this news bit from e-Marketer.com that came across the email today about Burger King having just finished up a video game campaign.  Their real genius was in coming up with a price point that would appeal to the audience:

"Certainly they're not after the sub-ten-year-olds, because the competition does that, without mentioning any names. But they want to get the 12-18 or 20 year olds, and those people play video games, and that's cool and that's trendy and that's where they want to spend their advertising money." The fact that the chain made the games a premium for food purchases also makes sense; the low price [$3.99] point (compared with $60 for full retail XBox 360 games) makes the purchase a no-brainer for people in the target demographic who already own the console.

The article mentions that Burger King’s other asset is the strong identity they have in their “Burger King” cartoon figure.  It is just another way that savvy marketers are getting their image out.  Last year Burger King managed to get the Burger King figure included in Esquire magazines Most Dubious Achievement Awards.  As with the video games, it was a good target for their audience, in that Burger King’s demographics skew to a higher age demo than Mickey D’s.

My question:  How much did Burger King pay to get into Esquire?

If you go to the Burger King website (which by the way, I think is not that great a website; looks to me as if the designer got his way too much) you will also see the Maxim Hometown Hotties (if you can find them on the Table Guest section).  Another stab at their demographic of teenagers and 20-something men.

My question is, as the one-time father of teenage boys, do I want my twelve-year old son looking at Burger King's website to satisfy his sexual curiosities? That might be his only refuge if his parents have blocked other sites. 

Wal-Mart Teaches Us Another Lesson: This Time About Wooing Clients

When I was in high school, back before the Mesolithic period, I worked for a local furniture store.  There were two general managers – one for furniture and another for appliances.  These guys were famous for engineering free meals from the various sales people and manufacturers’ reps. 

Late one summer morning while I was in the warehouse moving boxes the furniture GM called down on the intercom to talk to the appliance GM. 

“Are there any sales reps down there in the warehouse?” he asked.  The answer was no. “Well,” he mumbled disappointedly, “I guess we’re going to McDonald’s for lunch.”

This memory came to mind because I just finished reading the most recent issue of Advertising Age – the debacle of Wal-Mart and its recently sacked marketing executive Julie Roehm.  Stories of a lavish dinner, rides in an English sports car and fraternizing with the agency all came together to spell ouster for the Wal-Mart advertising exec, not even at her desk a year, and adios for an agency – DraftFCB and their $580 million account.

For some clients this might not be a problem, but for Wal-Mart it was. They have a strict code of ethics when it comes to vendors.

The image of an ad agency that wines and dines clients has been around as long as I’ve been in advertising – 15 years.  You will find it beyond the realm of advertising -- everywhere ever you find a vendor-client relationship.  But it is especially prevalent in the advertising world.  It is perpetuated on TV and in movies, and truth be told, it is expected by many clients and accepted as part of doing business by many on both sides of the fence. 

Admittedly, there is some credence to the argument by many that it is necessary for agencies to interact with potential clients outside of the formal prospective agency/prospective client relationship.  Equally as true, though, is that both sides also use this justification to ease their conscience about those three-martini lunches with the client.  (By the way, the three-martini lunch has to be a myth.  I can guarantee you that three martinis would put me under the table.)

There is a lot of posturing on both sides, including one of the competing agencies that was an also-ran, Ogilvy & Mather, who held a cook-out in honor of Wal-Mart.  Given Wal-Mart’s stringent rules about client gifts, this too was a clear violation.

My advertising career has never included the lavish dinners and other excesses of the Wal-Mart incident.  I have had clients ask that, rather than a gift, the agency contribute to a family that the client has adopted for Christmas. I also recall when I was with another agency and a prospective client subtly steered my partner and I into paying for an expensive Japanese lunch – and then never returned our phone calls. 

Quite frankly, if a client requires that kind of treatment, Gonzo Marketers is probably not their agency.

But I can tell you what I did learn from the Wal-Mart saga.  As an advertising agency, it is a good policy to check potential clients and find out what their policies are concerning agency-client relationships away from the business.  If you have done your homework, you will have one or two contacts on the inside that can help you navigate through this kind of mess.  After all, there are enough ways to screw up an agency pitch without being perceived as trying to coax the client into a serious ethics violation.