THINKing

Bad PR Call

So, let’s say you take your Audi to the dealer for some repairs and leave it overnight. The next morning you get a call from the dealership telling you that your tires and rims have been stolen. And, oh by the way, the dealership is not liable and is not going to pay anything. To make matters worse, the customer is a single mom with triplets.

This just happened here and is a very bad decision on the part of Audi of Charlotte. Oh, yes. I called them out by name.

According to Audi General Manager Bill Taylor,

“The dealership goes to great lengths to protect the customer’s property,” Taylor said. “We have these policies in place. Unfortunately we have to base our practices on the majority of things, not the minority of things. There are faultless victims here. I’m as faultless as the client is.”

Well, if you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know how I feel about someone saying the “P” word (policy).

This decision on the part of Audi of Charlotte is just wrong. I could understand if the customer had left a laptop in the backseat and it was stolen. That is stupidity on the customer’s part. But wheels and tires? Come on, man! Unless you are in a NASCAR pit crew, you don’t just pull wheels off a car in seconds. Was there no security at the dealership?

I’m suggesting that we use social media to spread this story, so that the dealership will be punished in the court of public opinion. So, start spreading.

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Links – 5/22/2009

Here are a few item we are reading today that you may also find of interest:

Consumers Like Newspapers Less Than They Do Airlines

In the first quarter of ’09, newspaper customers’ satisfaction rating was 63. To put this in some perspective, those surveyed expressed a greater deal of satisfaction with airlines (airlines!) which scored 64. And cell phone providers (cell phone providers?) which score a 69.

Yahoo Helps Newspapers Book Local Ads

About 150 or so papers have started using a new platform meant to simplify ad targeting and selling that Yahoo delivered last fall. Another 350 or so are up next. The new platform was largely responsible for a 30% increase in online-only ad sales across Scripps newspapers in the first quarter, according to Scripps.

E! Harvesting Celebrity Tweets

E! is planning to harvest the power of Twitter for “Celebri-Tweets.” The network will run tweets from a number of celebrities in the news crawl at the bottom of the screen during its programming. In addition, E! will feature a “Celebri-Tweet” widget on its homepage keeping users up to date on what the celebrity Twitterati are saying in 140 characters or less.

Email Continues To Perform For Retailers

Compared with last year, 56.4% of retailers report their typical sales conversion rate for an e-mail marketing campaign remains about the same. More than one quarter of survey respondents, though, report conversion is up: 22.8% say up slightly and 3.7% up significantly. Only 17% report conversion is down: 13.7% say down slightly and 3.3% down significantly.

FaceBook Fights Phishing Scam

Facebook was hit with another round of phishing attacks Thursday, cluttering members’ inboxes with messages attempting to send them to sites to steal their login information. 

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The More Things Change, The More They Remain The Same

As the marketing world morphs daily under the influence of new technology, we elders in the business sit back and marvel at how things have changed. Just last night I was talking with Dave Ruggerio and Randy Seeds of Synergy Studios about the pace of technological advance.  We all reminisced about how we used to do things in our first jobs.

For me, the oldest in the group, I remembered using a Royal manual typewriter in my first job as a reporter. Cut and paste was a true manual affair then. You took a straight edge, tore a paragraph out of your story and taped the new paragraph in. Then, you took the story to the typesetter.  In those days, Randy says corporate logos were hand drawn with India ink.

But here’s the point of all this. Technology may have changed, bringing us blogs and social media, but people haven’t changed since we came out of the trees and onto the African plains.

Marketers need to remember that no matter what vehicle you are using to deliver your message, you should set strategy first, then tightly define your audience. It is, after all, the people that matter most in the marketing equation. Once you clearly understand your target audience, the message almost crafts itself. That hasn’t changed and never will. End of sermon.

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Get Social Fresh

I’m part of a group which is presenting a social media conference, Social Fresh, in Charlotte, Monday, August 24 at the Holiday Inn Center City. Consider this your invitation to attend. You can register here. Here’s what we have announced so far:

We are very excited announce our first round of speakers. From left to right above, Jim Deitzel of Rubbermaid, Keith Burtis of Best Buy, and Social Media evangelist Wayne Sutton, Laurie Smithwick of Kirtsy.com, Chris Harrington of @VoteWoz, and Social Media developer Mike Rundle. These experts and panel announcements can all now be found on our Content page. We have many other speakers in the works from Fortune 500 companies, hip new social media companies as well as social networking power houses.

This is a solid group of social media experts. If you want to learn about where technology is going and how social media can be harnessed for business purposes, then you need to attend.

Additionally, we are accepting sponsors for the event. If you are interested, please sign up here and we’ll get back to you to discuss our sponsorship packages.

Keep apprised of more announcements by following us on Twitter @sofresh.  Below is the rest of our contact information. Hope to see you at the first Social Fresh.

Links

Site – http://socialfresh.com
Tickets – http://sofreshclt.eventbrite.com
Twitter – @sofresh
Contact – info at socialfresh.com
Hashtag – #sofresh
LinkedIn – Fresh SM Pros
Facebook – Social Fresh Page

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Jumpstart Your Marketing

Some of my top posts this quarter have been on things the marketer can do to jumpstart business. Let’s take a look:

Patience? No, Let’s Kill Something – There’s the old joke about the two buzzards sitting in a tree overlooking a highway. One responds to the other, “Be patient? I’m hungry. Let’s kill something.” Just like that buzzard, it is not in the nature of most marketers to be patient for business to grow. They want to go out and “kill something,” too.

Take Market Share Now -  Bold marketers know this: an economic downturn is the perfect time to gain market share. Spending marketing money during tough times seems counterintuitive, but time and again it has paid off for some of the best known brands. During the 1970s Revlon and Phillip Morris turned up the advertising heat to gain market share.

Take Your Vitamins -  Don’t just sit there in a funk. The media news may be gloomy but you don’t have to succumb. Be proactive. Here are a few One-A-Day Marketing Vitamins from my white paper on the subject.

It’s The Relationship, Stupid -  I don’t care how you slice it, when it comes down to fundamentals, business is all about relationships. Ignore this truth at your own peril. There’s a Huntersville, NC restaurant that I frequent called Positano. First time I went, my wife and I liked it a lot it. Good food, nice wine list, great desserts, good vibe, but only adequate service.

Get Well Defined -  Body builders do it, marketers should too. OK, all body builders have to do is lift and take steroids to get well defined, so their job is a little simpler. Let’s take a moment to see how marketers can better define their audiences.

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This Pork Brand Extension Is Spot On

Now, if you are not a race fan, you may not know Junior Johnson. He learned how to drive cars very fast while hauling family-produced moonshine and outrunning the authorities in his native North Carolina mountains. Johnson was never caught delivering moonshine. However, Johnson was arrested by federal tax agents while making moonshine and served time in jail.  He took his driving skills to NASCAR, where he became one of stock car racing’s early superstars in the 1950s. His outlaw status did not hurt his brand. It enhanced it.

Since ending his racing career, Johnson has taken his carefully cultivated country boy, outlaw image and turned it into a brand that makes sense. As you’ll see in the above picture, he has a line of pork skins and country hams, and recently he launched a legal moonshine brand, called Midnight Moon.

One of the reasons that automakers are in such trouble is that they abandoned good brand stewardship and tried to extend their brands where they shouldn’t have. BMW and Volvo have maintained brand integrity – for the most part – and they are doing OK. GM, Ford and Chrysler tried to be all things to all drivers. Sorry, but you can’t have all carbon-based units as a target market. It dilutes the brand to take this approach.

It’s probably too late for them to follow the lead of Junior Johnson, who clearly knows an appropriate brand extension when he sees it.

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V.I.P., Not

Is it just me, or does anyone else get peeved when you go to Barnes and Noble and they want you to sign up as a member for $25 a year so you can get a few discounts? Basically, what Barnes and Noble is saying is give us $25 plus every bit of personal data known to man and then we will reward you. Plus, if you purchase the membership, you are in essence telling them, “I’m going to buy a lot of books from you.”

Hey, I know it’s only $25 but shouldn’t they know who their good customers are and offer them the discounts for nothing? Most companies would kill for your personal data and reward you for it.

What do you think about this practice? Am I totally off-base here?

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Links – 5/5/2009

Thought I’d point you to a few things I’m reading today:

Email Stories

Smart Email Optimizes Itself

Lyris Adds Twitter Functionality

Customizing Content For Every Subscriber

Media Stories

B2B Ad Revenues Shift From Print To Online

Coffee Advertising Smackdown Commences

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