THINKing

Top Content 2009 Edition

In case you missed some of our most read content this year, below is a sample of the top posts of 2009. Is your favorite here?

Twittering Journalists

Customer Retention Strategies

When Billboards Go Bad

Twitter: Time Waster Or Cool Tool?

Branding Lessons From Santa

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Of Spokesmen & Sluts

I would never recommend that a client select a celebrity to be a spokesman for its products. Period. End of story. I know the potential benefits of using the right celebrity to draw attention to your company, product or service. I just don’t think it is worth the possible problems.

Celebrities often seem to have more than their share of moral failings. So, when they fall off the straight and narrow path, the accompanying crash is louder than it would be for you or I.

Whether it’s a pro golfer running around with porn stars and sluts, an angelic faced Ivory Snow pitchwoman who turns out to be a porn star or the world’s best swimmer taking hits off a bong,  if you align your brand too closely with a celebrity, you are asking for trouble. You are ceding the brand to someone over whom you have no control.

I’d rather tie my brand to a brand promise  - the statement I make to customers that spells out what they should expect in interactions with me, my people, as well as my products and services. Here, I have some control.

Then, there’s the whole question of whether the celebrity overshadows the brand. Can you name a celebrity and correctly identify the companies for which he or she speaks? It’s like beer commercials that rely on humor to get your attention but once they are over, you can’t name the brand because the commercial didn’t tether the humor to the brand promise.

What do you think about the value of celebrity spokesmen?

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Be Relevant

It comes as no surprise to me that Americans are trying harder than ever to avoid advertising. According to a new study by Synovate,

More than four in 10 US consumers said they were skipping ads on TV and the radio as well as avoiding Websites with intrusive ads more in 2009 than they were the year before.

Why, you ask? Because advertising is increasingly less relevant. We’ve discussed this before: advertising needs to be relevant, original and impactful or consumers will avoid it like the plague. And they certainly won’t share the ad with their friends.

When asked about positive ad-related activities, such as searching for advertisements online, sharing and discussing ads with friends, or following brands on Facebook and Twitter, responses were in the single digits. Most consumers reported never doing any such activities.

Relevant ads get shared. But most ads aren’t relevant because the advertiser hasn’t done the hard part: determining who his target audience is from a demographic and psychographic perspective. The more you know about the customer, the easier it is for your creatives to develop relevant, original and impactful messages, and to determine the best ways and vehicles through which to disseminate your messages.

But I’m not letting the agencies off the hook here either. Too often, the agency goes for the easy, humorous approach because they know that using humor increases likeability of the brand. Here’s the problem with that: they inject the humor but leave the brand message out of the equation. How many times have you laughed at a beer commercial only to say after it was over, “whose ad was that?”

Remember, understand your customer and ensure your agency is developing relevant, original and impactful ads for you, or save your money for something besides advertising.

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The Forgotten P

Graduates of Marketing 101 all know about the Four Ps of marketing - product, placement and promotion seem to be top of mind. But the forgotten P - in my opinion - is price. Pricing can be an excellent way to differentiate yourself. I’m not talking about low-balling your competitors either. I’m talking about using pricing strategically to address consumer pain.

Consider how airlines price tickets and then charge you what in essence are nuisance fees. They charge you extra for bags. They charge you for food and drink. These fees are all part of pricing and when done incorrectly can really hurt your brand. Jackie Huba has a good post on this topic.

Here at My Creative Team, we decided at the outset that we would price our work on a per project basis. As long as the scope of the project doesn’t change, we don’t charge a client any more than we quoted them initially.  It is harder to set pricing when you are using freelancers, but it is worth it. Our clients love the fact that they know how much something is going to cost them.

Most agencies and web design firms give you a rough estimate and then keep hitting you with extra hours to complete the project. This hurts your brand. So, pricing is just one of the ways - but a very important one - that we have used to differentiate ourselves. In everything we do, we try to make sure we live out our brand promise: We Make You Look Good.

Have you forgotten pricing, or are you using it effectively? Let us know.

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Zigging

Back in the 20th Century when I first went into marketing, my mentor told me that when everyone else is zigging, you should consider zagging. Good advice now, as it was then. I got to thinking about this today as I was having lunch with a colleague I worked with back in that other century. More on that in a minute.

Think about what’s happening in marketing and advertising right now. Every brand is rushing to social media and converting every message into a digital one. Well, if you are going to zagnow, whatwould you do?

I’m not saying to stop social media and go totally old school from a communications perspective. What I am promoting is some old school tactics that help bring the brand to life.

My lunch companion works in events and sponsorships. Now is the time to do events. Many brands - particularly those in NASCAR - have gotten out of the events and sponsorship business recently. This means that you can do events for less money now. Why would you want to, you ask?

Whether your audience is allies, employees or customers, events - done correctly - are a great way to bring the brand to life. An event allows you the unique opportunity to inform, educate or entertain your audience. I’m not talking about a trade show. I’m talking proprietary events.

Research shows that  proprietary events are:

- rated more highly in terms of meeting the particpant’s needs than a trade show

-  more than twice as likely to result in sales compared to a trade show

- more likely to draw C-level attendees

We’ll be talking more about zagging in the days ahead. What are your thoughts on the subject?

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Colorful Brands

We talked sometime back about the use of color in your branding efforts.  My Creative Team uses orange as our dominant color. Orange is considered an energetic color, connoting excitement, enthusiasm, playfulness and value. It is no secret why Home Depot and Howard Johnson selected orange. We wanted to express playfulness and good value, so orange was our choice, as well.

One of our longtime clients is Bank of Commerce, a business bank right in the heart of Bank of America country.  When this bank was starting up, it was open to the idea of color as a branding tool. Says President and CEO Wes Sturges,

Banks typically use red or blue for their color. We wanted something different to differentiate us, so we went with purple. Purple is a symbol of royalty and riches, and is said to be the color representing good judgment.We use it in everything we do from signage and business cards to our website and email newsletter.

William Arruda agrees with us that color is a powerful branding tool. In a recent article at MarketingProfs, Arruda writes,

“Some organizations are so consistent and steadfast in their use of color that they practically own that color in our minds,” he says. “Think Home Depot, National Breast Cancer Foundation, UPS, and Target.”

He offers some excellent tips on the use of color,

• Choose a color that reflects the values of your company and resonates with your audience. Don’t pick one simply because it’s your favorite, or commit to a certain hue without first testing to see how your target market reacts.
• If you have an international presence, determine what attributes a color might have in other cultures. Colors can mean different things in different countries, and you run the risk of sending a message you didn’t intend.
• Be consistent in your use of color. “Always use the same shade and hue,” advises Arruda. “Know the PMS, RGB (red, green, blue) and CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, key) formulas for the specific shade you choose. Your designer will be able to help, and Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign have built-in conversions.”

What colors are you using? Do they truly reflect what your organization is about?

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Hidden Gems

OK, I’ll admit it: since Labor Day is approaching I’m taking the lazy way out today and dredging up some excellent old posts that for some reason didn’t get any traction. Have a great holiday.

Fighting For The Middle Ground

Tell Me A Story

I Spy: Top 7 Links For Online PR Espionage

Customer Diss-Service

Your Personal Brand

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Links 7/20/2009

A detached retina has kept me sidelined for about a week, but the eyesight is getting better. So, here are a few things I’m trying to read with fuzzy vision:

10 Fundamentals of Good Writing -  Why have companies lost their voice? The biggest reason is fear. Good communication can’t thrive where every word is second-guessed and scrubbed of all meaning. We’ve got to get back to good writing, and it’s up to communication executives like you to make it happen.

Twitter Generates $48 Million Monthly In Media Coverage -  What are  Twitter mentions worth? According to news-monitoring service VMS, a cool $48 million over the past 30 days. (That’s half of what Microsoft plans to spend marketing its biggest product launch of the year, Bing.)

Cinnabon Direct Mail. Mmmmmm. - (You have to register to read this).  Bakery chain Cinnabon is one company embracing direct mail over more tech-savvy channels and seeing customer acquisition rise as a result. The days of direct mail’s marketing dominance may be over, but don’t call it dead yet.

Customer Loyalty: How To Earn It. -  THINKing has written about the topic of customer retention often. There’s a saying in the business world: Customer acquisition is an investment, but profitability is built on customer retention. And with the economy in its current state, it’s more important than ever to keep the customers you have.

MasterCard Launches “Priceless” iPhone App - The Purchase, N.Y.-based company is introducing the “Priceless Picks” app, which gives consumers a location-based utility to find and share their favorite picks with others. Via the iPhone’s GPS technology, users can find shopping deals, entertainment options and dining venues based on the users’ current location or where they are going.  MasterCard is extending its “Priceless” catchphrase to a new iPhone application.

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Dusty Archives - July 2009

I’ve been poking around in the archives again and have come across a few articles that need to be highlighted. Most of the featured posts are in the branding category this month. Enjoy:

Color Me Orange - It seems that every major - and minor - corporation adopts blue or red for their brand identity color scheme. These colors are not necessarily the best choices for your brand.

This Pork Brand Extension Is Spot On - Since ending his racing career, Junior Johnson has taken his carefully cultivated country boy, outlaw image and turned it into a brand that makes sense.

Building Brands One Touch At A Time - So much of what we do as marketers involves communication with digital media that we forget how powerful the human touch can be in building a brand.

Shallow Brands - Here is why, I believe, so many brands are like shallow people. They come on initially with charm, energy and charisma but pretty soon it is clear the suit is empty, and it really is all about them.

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Stand By Your Brand

With apologies to Tammy Wynette, who warbled the song, Stand By Your Man, now is the time to stand by your brand. If you don’t, someone could hijack it or do it irreparable harm.

Prior to the rise of the Internet, marketers had a reasonable amount of time to respond to misinformation being spread about their brands. That was in the day of the daily newspaper. Instantaneous digital communication now makes it imperative that you be ever vigilant to online conversation about your brand.

You can’t afford to ignore it. Blake Cahaill, senior vice president at Visible Technologies, speaks to this today in a column for Marketing Daily.

Mounting pressure to be the first to break a story, and garner the highest click-throughs on salacious headlines - coupled with the rapid decline of resources allocated to ensure fair and objective reporting - have enabled inaccurate and biased information to flood the Web, often leaving a lasting effect on both businesses and personal identity. 

Complicating this picture is the flood of people joining social networks. Twitter has grown by leaps and bonds recently, according to Mashable. And as OMMA points out in a recent story,

Facebook’s seen its 35-54 demo membership blow up by 276.4 percent between June 2008 and January 2009. The 55-and over contingent grew 194.3 percent in the same amount of time. In comparison, that ever-so-sought 18-24 group bounced just 20.6 percent. The total number of Facebook users aged 35-plus in October 2007 totaled just fewer than 845,000, while as of this past January, their combined might totals just less than 8 million - 18.9 percent of the total Facebook pie.

Boomers, if we are not happy with a brand, will talk about it anytime online or offline. You need to protect your reputation. It is a bankable asset that must be kept safe. So, take Tammy’s advice, stand by your brand.

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