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Behavioral Targeting Pitfalls.

By
Steve Poppe
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One day I’m going to start an ad agency called Foster, Bias & Sales. Foster, Bias & Sales will succeed because it understands the following marketing truism:  In order to get to a sale, you must first foster awareness and positive feeling, then create bias toward your product.
 
Behavioral targeting in online media is an emerging media tool moving in the right direction.  If marketers and media buyers use behavioral targeting as a way to jump right to sales, though, they will only have incremental success.  If they use behavioral targeting to foster preference and create bias first, then the selling will be easier – and will allow higher margins. (Markets like that.)  A consumer who strides briskly into Best Buy with a specific branded product in mind always walks out with a smile on his/her face. The consumer who meanders into the store looking for a salesperson to help them decide, typically walks out feigning a smile and staring at the bag a lot.
 
As we move into the era of behavioral targeting, let us not forget Ms. Foster and Mr. Bias.
 

“Hey, go get Arrington.”

By
Steve Poppe
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0
 
Zude.com is a social computing platform that allows anyone – grandmas to geeks – to build and manage a website. Our tagline is “feel free” which implies Zude’s limitless web publishing promise. This grandmas to geeks idea was created by our PR agency Spector and Associates. The suit strategy was “the fastest, easiest way to build and manage a website.

Our CEO and CTO were demoing Zude at Web 2.0 Expo in 2006 for Robert Scoble , who was broadcasting live over the Interent with some sort of hat-cam, when in the middle of the demo he yelled to a friend, “Hey, go get Arrington, he’s got to see this.” It was a validation of the Zude strategy. A “peak experience” in marketing as Maslow might say.
 
I was just reading the back story about Piers Fawkes creative consultancy, PSFK (www.psfk.com), and realized his defining moment came when Anheuser Busch called for some advice.  These signal moments are what marketers live for. They are why we get up in the morning. They are proof, of has “an idea.”
 

Bottle of pop? Or culture?

By
Steve Poppe
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Okay, I’m reading about Coke today and get the sense that someone at the top is starting to pay attention. Here are some of the moves Coke is making: A new campaign out of the U.K., code-named Pemberton, that attempts to win back some water and tea drinkers by alerting the public that Coke has “no added preservatives or artificial flavors.” Research indicated consumer didn’t know this. Another campaign also begun in England called “Intrinsics” is all about taste. (Were you brought kicking and screaming to the table, Dan Wieden?)
Mother has also gotten in to the act creating some :05 ditties called “blipverts,” which I don’t have to see to know I like. Their titles are: “Cap”, “Fizz,” “Ice,” and “Pour.” Were I to add the next one I’d call it “Bottle Sweat.”
Here’s where Coke has gone wrong and it’s embodied by a quote from an Interbrand consultant in today’s NY Times: Coke is “taking a risk by deviating from its long history of very entertaining,aspirational advertising. People rely on Coke to produce commercials that influence pop culture.” Yeah, that’s what people are doing. Thirsty as hell…and looking for a bottle of pop culture.

Politics and brew, common sense?

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 

Miller High Life’s Common Sense Platform campaign will be interesting to follow. There are no inherent product qualities used in the work other than value. And if you go too heavy on the value message it can imply poor quality, which in the beer category means taste.
 
The Common Sense campaign follows a Miller delivery guy around while he puts forth his views on what constitutes common sense: fair price, sensible product, no fru-fru. Though the work is entertaining, it lacks brand ballast. Leveraging politics in a campaign year seems like a sensible tactic but Miller High Life has been so underfunded and invisible, I’m not sure this is a sustainable adverting idea for them. Sales are up 1%, but that is more the economy than the idea.
 
Were it my brand I’d create a uniquely today advertising idea that tied living the high life to the sharp, quenching taste of that amber brew seen through that beautiful, sweaty clear bottle and leave the politics to the politicians. 
 
P.S. If you’d like to hear the world’s greatest beer campaign idea, for Miller Genuine Draft, shoot me an email at steve@whatstheidea.com.
 

Get well soon Mr. Freeman.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 


A few years ago my ad agency was pitching a TV campaign to the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System. In the room were the two top officers of the system, some board members and the marketing director. The work was about cancer care. The CEO of North Shore had most recently been a senior director at Goldman Sachs.
 
We showed the storyboard, which was great, and then we broke out the big guns: a voiceover by Morgan Freeman. Since first listening to the narrative style of Mr. Freeman in the Shawshank Redemption, I had always wanted to use him as a voiceover. We mashed up some of his lines from the movie and played them for the room to set the tone — then read the script. It was healthcare at its most poignant. You know what it feels like when your body goes a tingle?
 
When the silence was finally broken and feeling returned to our bodies one of the board members asked “What will he cost,?” to which the CEO by way of Goldman Sachs responded reaching for his wallet “I don’t care, I’ll pay for him out of my pocket.”
 
Prayers and props to Morgan Freeman. Please get well sir.
 
 

Bravo Visiting Nurse Service!

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 

 
“Your husband is ready to leave the hospital. The tubes in his chest are coming with him. Now what?” For people of a certain age this question is pretty scary. And real. It is the headline of an ad in a brilliant new marketing campaign by the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. 
 
Category leaders educate the market (Are you listening Gentiva?) and the VNS is doing just that with this new effort. The advertising speaks to consumers in a straightforward, empathic voice and, more importantly, isn’t asking rhetorical marketing questions. These questions make consumers feel something.  More questions and answers can be found on the website http://www.vnsny.org/answers or their toll-free number. Unlike Geico, which promises savings after 15 minutes, VNS makes no promises and smartly doesn’t ask for an email address. They act like a leader.
 
I’ve been following the VNS marketing for a couple of years and it has been so-so at best. “We bring the caring home” was their tagline — a what we do line – and since their name tells the story the line has been a lost opportunity. The new line “The Right Care Now” seems a bit weak, but may work depending on the brand planks. The new logo is “bookish” and old school, which may work for boomers but certainly not for their caregiver children.  Overall, however, the new campaign is very smart and well-integrated with the web. Not gratuitously integrated with the web.  
 
Any good doctor or nurse will tell you that listening is an important part of a good bedside manner. VNS is asking the right questions, listening and providing good counsel. Bravo VNS of NY. 
 
 

The Noxious Olympic Games

By
Steve Poppe
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0
 
Historically, the Summer Olympic Games create one lasting image that is remembered globally for years and years. Jesse Owens in Berlin in ’36. The ’68 games in Mexico City with Tommie Smith and John Carlos and their black power salute. Nadia Comaneci’s dismount pose in Montreal ’76. The Munich Olympics with masked terrorists on the balcony.
 
It is my hope that the one picture we all remember from the upcoming Olympics is the picture of an athlete in a gauze mask, beneath a gunmetal gray, iodine-infused sky.  This lasting image of the pollution in Beijing might just wake up enough citizens of the world so that we unite and act to reduce pollution and global warming. The image of the earth’s most finely tuned physical machines, our athletes, rejecting the noxiousness that is Beijing is a fitting symbol and that change is sorely needed.  
 
I pray for poor weather so that the smog does not blow away and the world can really see — in hi-def — what we are doing to the environment. Peace!
 

Cartier and MySpace. 3/4 Brilliant!

By
Steve Poppe
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Good marketers always have one eye toward the future. Cartier is doing just that with its advertising presence on MySpace.  Do you think they are going “all ROI” with this effort – calculating the advertising to sales ratio?  Nuh uh. They’re planting brands seeds for the future. The best thing about teenagers is they turn into young adults and if the advertising and promotion is handled properly, the kids and young adults on MySpace will become fans and predisposed toward Cartier. When they have some jing, they will buy.     

 
While at McCann-Erickson a few years ago I researched old documents and found something written in the 50s by a staff researcher. The language of the day referred to this forward thinking communication as creating “Relative Sales Conviction.”   
 
Cartier is thinking ahead. But they must use their heads and stay away from creating some goofy viral “send the love” game so they will be taken seriously. They should think about the behaviors kids exhibit at a young age that suggest future success and place ads on those kinds of pages. Behaviors that index high for future earnings are where Cartier wants to be in social media. Peace!
 
 

Dell’s last mistake.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

  

I’m no shark but I smell blood in the water for Dell Inc.  Michael Dell is a leader, not a follower. When he follows he is average and makes mistakes. The Wall Street Journal reported today about Dell’s second foray into the digital music player business and the news is anything but heartening. The business ideas are not well formed, plus Dell is playing the role of challenger brand. Here are some of the alarming quotes from the article:
 
“The executives said the device has gotten a favorable reception from testers.” (Favorable?)
 
The device will connect to a new Dell music and download service which “Dell expects to launch this summer.” (Expects?)
 
“Pricing for the new service hasn’t been determined.”
 
And here’s a good one, “Mr. Tatelman (VP consumer sales) declined to detail how Dell expects the strategy to generate profit.”  “…he is still discussing with Dell whether profits would come mainly from the subscription service of from the device tied to it.” (Discussing?)
 
I could go on, but you get the idea. The Dell PR person should be spanked. Mr. Dell should have been spanked 9 months ago. Dell has lost its way once and for all.  Mr. Dell you are brilliant but you are not Steve Jobs. Peace!
 

Fast-Fashion is Fresh.

By
Steve Poppe
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0
The concept of fast-fashion is really hot right now. Stores such as H&M, Zara and Forever 21 change their merch and styles with speed and grace. And it keep young buyers coming back. These retailers want to have fresh new looks on the shelves as soon as possible, so while mature retailers like The Gap slog predictably along, fast-fashion stores, typically from Europe and Asia, are flipping styles and generating traffic.  As much as kids today want to fit in, there is still an undeniable need for them to be seen as “out front.”  Certainly, for those Alpha males and females. Fashion is the one area where kids and young adults are willing to stretch their wings.
 
Gen Y is getting pretty sophisticated. They are an ADD demographic. Their video games age quickly, they don’t buy CDs because they move on after a 30 song plays, and even Facebook has been known to burn some kids out. 

It’s all about the fresh baby! (“Baby” isn’t fresh, is it? Yeah, I thought so.)

 
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