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Cadillac and BBH. Hitting the Mark?

By
Steve Poppe
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The new advertising coming out of Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) for General Motors Cadillac Division is quite nice to look at and listen to. It begins and ends with the Cadillac grille emblem, which may or may not have been redesigned for the TV spots. The tagline beneath the emblem at the end of the work read “Mark of Leadership.”

I often snap to judge but since a big fan of BBH I’ll hold off until seeing more of the body of work before I go long form.  That said, anyone who reads What’s The Idea knows I’m an idea guy.   “Mark of Leadership” is an idea. Leadership is an overused marketing concept but it’s rich and doable – if you are a leader. Cadillac is and has been a leader, but the demonstrations will most definitely need to deliver, otherwise it’s just cheese. 

I’ve seen the first three TV spots and must admit the car designs don’t look so hot. The station wagon looking model, the coolest of the bunch, is nice on the eyes but the other two models are best shot at night. 

BBH needs to find its voice, its idea and then not fall into the Detroit compromise trap.  I’m not saying don’t show the boxy angular cars, but just focus on their best body parts. Create an allure for the mark that a parent has for newborn. “Isn’t she beautiful.”

Nice film, nice music, energetic editing – BBH.  Now find an idea with ballast and load it up! Peace!

JetBlue and the Wounded Traveler.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

An article in yesterday’s New York Times, the headline for which read “JetBlue  Asks Fliers To Keep Spreading The Word,” discusses JetBlue’s brand new social media campaign – a core component of its marketing strategy.  From Firstborn (agency) in NYC, the work offers video snippets of real customers talking, unscripted, of their great experiences. Unscripted is better. The goal is for people to see these videos and weigh in about their positive experiences. 

Here’s an experience a friend of mine had yesterday on JetBlue, flying from NY to California.  Here are his unscripted words:

“I had a 22 hour trip to California.  Ask me about sometime, and I’ll tell you all about it in great detail (as I usually do).   Murphy’s Law is officially renamed as M***h’s Law (name redacted).  Oh, by the way, if you happen to find my luggage, please let JetBlue know where it is, since they don’t know where it is.”

This gentleman sent the email to 21 friends.  That’s word of mouth. Sounds like he might be pissed, no?  Do you think JetBlue wants to give him a social platform to share his experience?  While his wound is still raw?  Doubt it.  They’d be better off giving him a coupon for a companion ticket and a hearty apology.

 

There’s nothing more ornery than a wounded travel passenger.  This is one business where giving a mouthpiece to a customer may do more harm than good. Pick your creative tactics carefully people.  Peace! 

Travel Marketing Application.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Being a marketing consultant is fun.  Sometimes companies call you in to solve their problems, other times you come up with ideas and schemes that solve problems they may not know they have. 

Travel

I met with a friend the other day at an online travel company.  His company has some smart technology that allows travelers to search the travel search engines for the best rates. (Search the search? Yep.)  Beyond the algorithm, this company’s stable of writers and curators create the added-value; their ability to impart good destination knowledge, advice and tips is a differentiator.

Gaming

Separately, I read today that some schools are using video games to teach students about business.  Students create their own personas and play the game of “business life.”  Their decisions result in real consequences and learning, e.g., don’t wear jeans to an interview.  Handfuls of smart marketers have been using games in training and sales for a while now, but we’ve only just begun to scratch the surface. 

The Marketing Mashup

Combining the travel company business insight (good content build loyalty) with the gaming/training phenomenon yields an idea that can provide the travel site with improved traffic, loyalty, advertising value and engagement.  Build a simple game tailored to first time visitors to specific countries. Rather than a just creating a FAQs page, bring the country to life using decisions made on the virtual ground.  Experience is a great teacher…and good teachers are remembered. Peace!

A little “Friendly” Advice for Facebook

By
Steve Poppe
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There was a fascinating quote in The New York Times today in an article on Facebook’s privacy decisions. (Facebook’s privacy actions will either create mad blowback or turn it into the world’s first trillion dollar company.)

“If I’m looking for day care for my 6-year-old, I’m going to put that in my status (Facebook) message, not do a Google Search.”  (Sean Sullivan, F-Secure.)

Search, Curation, Advice.

In the world, and on the internet, there are important common behaviors: search, curation and advice.  Search is a great way to find things and it’s clearly a huge business; results are organized and prioritized… by the algorithm.  Curation, on the other hand, growing in importance online, is search but with a human hand.  Social networks help curate in a sense because one “friends,” organized by degrees of separation, share content they care about.  But advice?  Many a web property was built around advice.  Most have failed or languished.  

Mr. Sullivan’s quote points to the need for trusted advisors, not algorithm results of independent ranking experts (e.g., Better Business Bureau, Consumer Reports, your newspaper).  Mr. Sullivan’s important day care decision will be assisted by the advice of friends and respected Web friends.

As Facebook creates tools that blur the lines between search, curation and friendly advice, it will likely lose its way. People are their own best filters and Facebook needs to make sure it doesn’t cross the line. Peace!

Data and Product Recalls.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Every product purchased in a store using price scanners creates a record. More often than not that record is tied to a credit or debit card.  Consumer products befouled in manufacturing, like liquid children’s medicines from McNeil Consumer Healthcare, or collapsing baby strollers, bad tomatoes, sticky brake pedals, etc., also create purchase records.  Why not use these records to alert purchasers to recalls. I’m no analytics nerd but this seems like a no-brainer.  

The way recalls are handled today is messy.  And, dare I say, not particularly transparent (sorry for the markobabble).  The ability exists for marketers to do one-on-one contact with purchasers of faulty or dangerous products.  No longer is there a need to scare everybody. No longer the need to make us check our cabinets and refrigerators for lot numbers. No more hiding recall information on website FAQs pages. No more expensive newspaper ads filled with obfuscation. 

Let’s use data collection for good, not just for cross-selling, up-selling and McPestering.  Good data.  Good boy.  Roll over.  Peace!

The Diffusion of Advertising

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Advertising ain’t what is used to was (a little Southernism I made up). Creation of big selling ideas by highly paid creatives and marketing people, broadcast to millions via TV, radio and print was the ad business.  Today, thanks to technology, the ad business is undergoing a diffusion like never before. Digital agencies, though not yet offered a seat at the big table, are new and important players.  Google is the most profitable advertising agency in the world and Facebook is hot on their trail.  And when I say “mobile advertising” does any one company come to mind?  That one is going to be huge…but it’s still to play out.

Buy or Build?

Big traditional ad agencies clearly see the need to offer digital, social and mobile but are asking themselves “Do we buy or build?” Right now they’re doing both: hiring someone smart in each discipline and using them to select cottage industry players who are truly immersed.  Better than last year, which was all “Go out and get me a subservient chicken.”  Or “Find me those nerds who built the US Weekly Facebook poll.”

I’ve long thought that mid-size agencies were poised to win in this diffuse advertising world, but now I’m not so sure. True, they can more quickly parlay a powerful branding idea into a market-moving integrated campaign but the model may not be extensible.

Bud Cadell is right when he says the old ad agency model is broken. It will take open minds, forward thinking, experience, software, an understanding of brand building, and lots of money to fix the process. I’m of the mind that the successful model is more likely to come out of MDC Partners than WPP.  It will be fun to watch though. Peace!

Spotlight On Social Media – Today and…

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Spotlight on Social Media was held yesterday in NYC, put on by the Participatory Marketing Network (PMN) and Direct Marketing Association (DMA).  There were a couple of important takeaways every marketer should think about. 

Intent.

Search is still important, no doubt, but it’s a little 2008.  Immediacy – what’s happening now — is the rolling thunder these days, so services like Twitter and Foursquare are the rage but the marketing future is something Rapleaf’s co-founder Vivek Sodera calls “intent driven” applications. Think of a suped up Four Square To Do tab. Facebook will certainly build an intent-based app and others in the VC pipeline will emerge, but just know intent+social+search+moblie is going to pay out lotto style. 

Unanonymous

I know, I know it’s not a word. But it’s a better word then unanonymize, which is the word that clanked like a dropped crowbar off Mr. Sodera’s tongue during his presentation.  Hee hee. That said, it’s a word that wonderfully describes what Rapleaf does. Rapleaf crawls the web and creates single records of an individual’s behaviors, activities and associations.  And surprisingly, it’s not that scary.  They do this using your email address and a cool piece of software. In email or direct parlance they append records using the social web. When I asked to be unanonymized, the Rapleaf software generated 100 of my web proclivities, the first of which was something called “Social Care” a membership I did not recall.  All the rest were spot on. 

Facebook

Facebook also presented at Spotlight and mentioned its 60 million daily logins put prime time television to shame. Sean Mahoney’s case studies of marketer successes were very impressive and prove that Facebook is the “new” digital. Its targeting capabilities are phenomenal.  There are specialty ad and marketing shops opening up just to handle Facebook-enabled selling and they’re worth looking in to.  It’s a cottage industry on the way to becoming transformational.   

Others

Other smart companies worth mentioning include Acxiom, a behemoth company that also transforms social data into social profiles (for targeted marketing), Cisco which has a neat B2B app in its NowVan program (like Kogi BBQ trucks for routers) and Air Miles a rewards program out of Canada, trying hard and having very good success. 

 Michael Della Penna of the PMN and Conversa Marketing and Neil O’Keefe of DMA deserve shout outs for empanelling a great program. Peace..it together!

Digital Media Off the Rate Card.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

David Carr published an interesting piece in today’s New York Times about Nick Denton, his Gawker Media tech blog Gizmodo, and the lost next gen iPhone.  According to Carr, the blog post generated 3.6 million hits on Gizmodo – a site averaging 90,000 hits a day. 

 (Not too long ago, during the tough economy, Mr. Denton decided to pay his staff of writers based upon hits.  The more papers you sell, said the crusty old news man, the more money you make. When the pay-per-readers story hit the wire, Mr. Denton was vilified and some good writers left. Buh-bye, said he.)

The writer who broke the lost iPhone story was well paid for her/his day’s work and Gizmodo’s brand made it to Ohf-rah (Oprah). Eastman Kodak, who serendipitously bought all the ads on Gizmodo for the day, reaped mad dividends in terms of reach. (What’s the opposite of “make good?”) 

Mr. Denton’s maligned approach to paying writers for audience portends things to come in social media.  Media will be bought based on eyeballs.  And media will be bought based on transactions. When this equation makes it to traditional ad agencies you may even find the creative output changing. That is, some of the ads won’t be built for portfolios but for consumer interest and traffic. Social media will soon be monetized based upon consumer interest and sales, not the rate card. And it will be exciting to watch. Peace!

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