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Advertising

Old School Marketing for Social Media Type Stuff

So I went to check the mail the other day and yet again some random person put something in my “please pick my mail, OH Mr. Attentive Postman Person flag”.    Normally all of the unwanted hang tags and cards go straight to the trash.   The main driver is these are typically for services I already have a vendor of choice for or I don’t need any trees trimmed, wouldn’t even imagine why painting my walls with toddlers/kids and I am pretty sure I don’t need any more Pampered Chef items, but this one was different – it was for a blog (http://www.theredneckreview.com/).  So I didn’t throw it away instead I took a photo and decided to write a little.

Promotion is Hard Work

photo.jpg

Who WOULDN’T give this sorry little cartoon character a minute and turn over the card, so I did on the way to the garbage can – stop not a service provider, a writer!  Come to find out it is a blogger, trying to sell his wares sorta door-to-door in a bad economy.  How bad?  Well apparently beef jerky bad.

photo.jpg by you.

In the end, social media isn’t killing old ways of doing things it is only changing how/where we do it.    As marketers, we will continue to create content, continue to advertise and we will continue to be challenged to covert interest into motivation to buy.   Buyers are people and the more you can touch them the better, so integrating your online channels with the real-world marketing is an imperative for your brand.   I know this is pretty self-evident, but I’m always a little amazed at how hard it is find a product’s website on their advertising and packaging, but Brent Basham gets it – no single channel is independent or works in today’s marketplace.

So a brand managers, find a way to get your online identity on packaging and all advertising.  As product owners we need to find a way to get your product’s story integrated into as many of the online activities/channels as possible.

April 9, 2009 by
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Thank you folks: Being polite is a good thing for a brand.

Foxnewslogo.
Image via Wikipedia

So a recent set of ad placements thanking the American public for a loan is causing a little bit of an uproar, at least in some cirlces.  I’m not sure that the response in the video below on the Chrysler and GM‘s ad placement is warranted.  I would like to get just a little more facts on the ad placement than I have, without it, I can only use deduction, reason and logic.

So to put it in context, one of the largest spends in the advertising industry is by the automakers, so it may not be that bad of an idea to help prop up that industry or live up to your contractual obligation.  I suspect Chrysler and GM may of had a contractual commitment which required some placement of an ad, so to view this as incremental spending could be tough.  So the question for the brand managers and marketing folks was more than likely, something like: “So we can place another ad on 0% financing, the latest GPS features or thank folks – what should we do?”

Without the facts around the placement, it’s hard to draw any real conclusions.  Missing from the Fox “Outrage” piece was someone confirming this wasn’t already paid for or a resource confirming the $200,000 spend for a full page in USA Today. Without that type of validation, this Fox news report doesn’t have the necessary diligence to justify some of the assertions. Sensationalism may be what they wanted at Fox, rather than news on this piece.

So here is the video which provides an overview of the ad spend and general information for your review:

In an Effort to be fair and balanced, a couple of questions based on the video:

  1. So was it $200,000 per ad or $250,000 per ad? If it is 200K, then how do you get to half a million?
  2. Who are the 10 autoworkers whose jobs would be saved via avoiding a $400K spend since they make only $40,000 fully loaded?
  3. Why would you take out an ad in Detroit thanking america, since the Detroit papers aren’t all that national?  Shouldn’t the Detroit ad be something like “WE DID IT!!!! Your cousin gets to keep his job for now”?
  4. What marketing executive would think it is reasonable to spend an incremental amount on a thank you ad in this highly charged economic environment?
  5. From a proportional impact perspective, do you think YouTube would really have reached the right taxpayers?

PLEASE NOTE: I have no validation that the spend was already under contract, but I have no reason to think otherwise, as I don’t think any reasonable business types would spend so much money with media outlets and NOT have a contract with negotiated non-standard/discounted rates based on annual commitments and monthly placement requirements.

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January 3, 2009 by
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