Never a Lack of Ideas

It’s no Secret: The Brand that Benefited Most from Super Bowl XLVI

2012-02-06T06:08:00.000-08:00

Less Was More

Without even running an ad on last night's Super Bowl, Victoria's Secret was the biggest winner of the night. Why? Because Adriana Lima, the face of Victoria's Secret for the past five years, was featured in two different ads — one for Teleflora and one for Kia. And I'd bet the majority of Americans immediately associate Lima with Victoria's Secret (if you don't, just ask someone who was watching the game with you — I'll bet she does). Heck, the Teleflora ad seemed like a Victoria's Secret ad for the first 25 seconds.

Because Victoria's Secret has such a strong brand, they essentially received $7 million in free advertising last night without paying a penny. Just more evidence for why I've named Victoria's Secret the best brand in the United States.

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Check out all the Super Bowl commercials on Ad Blitz's channel on YouTube. Am I right? Did Victoria's Secret benefit most from the Super Bowl?

There's never a lack of ideas.

The Precious Presence

2012-01-28T19:06:00.000-08:00

Think Small

Many marketing professionals think bigger is better when it comes to printed marketing materials. I actually think the opposite. For several years I've been touting the "precious presence" when it comes to printed pieces. The idea is simple: people like to pick up small ("precious") brochures because they are less intimidating and invite the reader to handle with care.

Of course, I don't have any actual research behind this theory, but I've seen it happen time and time again — people are intimidated to pick up giant brochures, envelopes, and unfamiliar magazines. Yet, people are happy to pick up and handle well-made, beautiful, small printed pieces. They have a bigger presence than their larger counterparts.

The precious presence goes beyond just size, though. If you can include surprises into your small printed pieces like varying textures, page sizes, and page shapes, you will really begin to engage the reader. Add a pop-up feature for maximum results.

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Keep the precious presence in mind the next time you are working on a direct mail piece or a brochure for a trade show. Bigger is not always better. Create precious pieces for maximum impact.

There's never a lack of ideas.

Making Thank You Notes Easier

2011-12-19T20:28:00.000-08:00

Here's a Free Business Idea
We need a link between popular online retailers that feature gift registries (like Target.com and BabiesRUs.com) and popular online photo stores (like Snapfish.com and Shutterfly.com) in order to make writing thank you notes easier after big celebrations like weddings and baby showers.

Babies R Us already has a list of nearly every item that you will receive at your baby shower. And you have a list of every person invited to the baby shower, including addresses. Those two lists should be easily linked with an app or a website. After the shower, choose a thank you note template, identify what gift each person gave you, add a picture of your new baby, and have your personalized thank you notes mailed on your behalf. Your thank you note could be completely customized:

Dear [insert name],

Thank you for helping me celebrate the impending arrival of our [son/daughter/child]. We are very excited to welcome our little one into the world. We really appreciate the [insert name of gift] that you gave us and we know we will get a lot of use out of it. We can't wait for you to meet our [son/daughter/child].

Love, [insert name]

How to Make Money with this Idea

A photo card normally costs around $0.30 to print online. A stamp costs $0.44. If you write an application for thank you notes and charge $1.00 per note, there's $0.26 to be made on each card. Ask any new mom or recently married bride if she'd be willing to pay an additional $0.26 to write, address, and mail each thank you note and I'd bet 9 out of 10 would jump at that chance.

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As more and more consumer information is stored online, it's only natural that applications like the one I've described here start popping up. If you happen to write the application I've described, I'll help you market it. Just shoot me an email.

There's never a lack of ideas.

PS While I think this idea fulfills a huge need, I still think hand-written thank you notes are best. But sometimes we just don't have the time.

The Best Brands in the United States (Part 2)

2011-10-31T00:00:00.000-07:00

Best Brands — The Remix

Happy Halloween! Last year I presented my list of the top ten brands in the United States. After revisiting my list, I wouldn’t change anything, so I figured I’d present the next ten brands on my list. To create this list, I relied heavily upon my opinion of the general perception of each brand versus its competitors, and how much of a premium the brand can charge because of that perception. I didn't get hung up on revenue data or market share numbers — I just went with what I see and hear every day and threw in my own opinion from a marketer's point of view.

Here's my list of brands ranked 11-20:

11. Starbucks — Just missing the top ten, Starbucks put gourmet coffee on the map and showed the world how to create a company focused on the customer experience that happens to sell coffee.

12. Disney World — Millions of families make a pilgrimage to Orlando just to visit the theme park every year. I’ll bet your parents took you there when you were young. Mine did and I loved it.

13. YouTube — Not only is YouTube the second largest search engine in the world, but it’s the first place we turn when we want to find a video clip of that thing everyone’s talking about. It even creates celebrities. Just ask Justin Bieber and Susan Boyle.

14. Nike — The number one brand in sports apparel. It’s every young athletes dream to be a spokesperson for Nike. Reebok can’t say that.

15. Lady Gaga — She has the most loyal fans in the industry and every time she appears in public she creates a stir. (Here’s what I think she should wear to the Grammys.)

16. Amazon.com — The number one retailer in the United States.

17. Southwest Airlines — In an industry plagued by commoditization, Southwest is the only airline with a definable brand.

18. Harley Davidson — The pride of Milwaukee, Wisconsin has some of the most loyal fans in the world.

19. Angry Birds — The first huge game for mobile devices. Tons of big brands want to partner with the game to push their messages.

20. The city of Las Vegas — America’s adult playground and one of our country’s top tourist destinations. No other city name sounds better with the word “baby” after it. I’m impressed at the way the city has redefined itself over time.

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What did I forget? Where am I wrong? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

There's never a lack of ideas.

The Sixth “P” of Marketing

2011-10-25T16:53:00.000-07:00

P is for Packaging

Packaging is an essential part of a customer's experience with your products. The traditional "four Ps" of marketing are price, product, promotion, and placement. Sometimes "people" is added as the fifth P. I'd like to offer a sixth P: "packaging." From the way the products are packaged when shipped, to the packaging protecting the products themselves, packaging is very, very important.

That's one of the reasons I love buying products from Jill's Boutique on Etsy.com. Jill takes the time to wrap each of her headbands in beautiful tissue paper and a ribbon before shipping them (pictured on the right). When customers open the package, they are greeted with that beautiful paper and it sets the tone for the product. It shows that headband was created and packaged with care and makes it feel special right out of the box.

More than Meets the Eye

Yet, the importance of packaging extends far beyond consumer-packaged goods. It applies to the experience a customer has in the waiting room at your doctor's office, the hold music your customers listen to while waiting to speak to their financial planner, and the cleanliness of the carpets on the floor of your restaurant. The entire customer experience — the "packaging" of your service — is very important to acquiring new customers and keeping existing ones happy.

Add This to Your To-Do List

When was the last time you thought about the packaging of your product? If you ship items to your customers, what message are you sending with the way your boxes are packed? If your business has a retail location, think about the tone you set from the minute your customers enter the door. What tone does your reception area set? How are customers greeted? Maybe now is the time to do a thorough review of your packaging. You might be surprised by what you find.

There's never a lack of ideas.

The Rental Car Wrap

2011-09-26T15:48:00.000-07:00

That's a Wrap

Wrap Media Group has begun wrapping rental cars with advertisements in Atlanta, Georgia. I love this idea because it's filled with wins:

People who rent the cars pay a reduced rate to drive the cars with ads.
Advertisers gain great exposure in an exciting new way.
Advertisers are able to include free samples of their product in the glove compartment of wrapped cars if they choose to do so.

The most appealing part of this initiative from an adverting point of view is the amount of data Wrap Media Group could potentially offer its advertisers about the people driving the wrapped cars, providing a great way for brands to place samples of their products in the hands of their target market. Rental car companies know the age and sex of every car renter, in addition to the frequency in which someone rents a car, which could indicate business travel or leisure travel. Rental car companies also know the size of the rental car, which could indicate the presence of a family renting the car versus an individual.

Wrapper's Delight

If Wrap Media Group is able to place ads on enough cars, advertisers can begin to target specific groups of customers with free samples in the cars in order to get their products in the hands of people with the highest likelihood to become customers.

Wrap media group is potentially offering the best of both sides of advertising: extensive reach achieved by people seeing the wrapped ads on the road, and targeted advertising via free samples to specific people in the glove box.

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Wrap Media reminds us that there are still many new and exciting ways to reach customers through advertising. If your brand hasn't thought about leveraging new ways to reach customers recently, isn't it about time?

There's never a lack of ideas.

Stop Paying Customers for Failing to Issue a Receipt

2011-08-22T06:10:00.000-07:00

No Receipt, No Problem
Stores should no longer offer $5 for failing to issue a receipt. Instead, they should offer $5 if customers have to stand in line for more than five minutes. When a store offers to pay me if I don't get a receipt, I secretly hope that they don't give me one. I don't mind asking for a receipt if I don't receive one, and I'd like to have the $5.

However, I would never hope to wait in a line for more than five minutes. Even if the store offered to compensate me for waiting, I would rather move through the line quickly than have the $5.

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If you're going to compensate customers when your business fails to do something, make sure you're compensating them for something they don't want to happen.

There's never a lack of ideas.

Providing an Outlet to Show Off

2011-07-25T16:08:00.000-07:00

Nowhere to Flaunt It
Your new couch was just delivered and it looks great in your living room -- much better than it did online and in the showroom. You would love to take a picture of it and share it with potential buyers so they can see how great it is, but you head back to the furniture store's website and... nothing. You can't upload your photo. If you're lucky, you can write a review, but a picture is worth a thousand words.

Bragging Encouraged
Many businesses are missing out on the chance to engage with customers after their purchases because they don't provide the opportunity to share photos and stories on their website. Social media and third party review sites are dominating this arena and it's time for businesses to catch up.

Imagine how much better your dresser-buying experience would be on Ikea's website if you could view hundreds of customer-submitted photos of each piece instead of just the six posted by Ikea. How much easier would it be to envision hosting a birthday party at a restaurant if you could view pictures of other birthday parties there?

Shameless Self-Promotion
I've been asked by many people to see pictures of our baby's new room. Because I can't post these photos on the supplier sites from which I bought the items, I'll settle for posting them here. Enjoy the photos of baby Brady's new room, below.

Add This to Your To-Do List
Give people an opportunity to share photos and stories about your business, and do it on your own website. There are many great Facebook, Picassa, and Flickr plug-ins for websites that make it easy for customers to post their photos to your site. Give customers the opportunity to engage with your brand after their purchase and they'll be more likely to return to your business for their next purchase.

There's never a lack of ideas.

Even though I posted pictures of Brady's room on third-party site www.projectnursery.com, I still believe that these photos would best serve the stores in which I bought them if they appeared on their websites.

It's a New Year Somewhere

2011-06-14T15:54:00.000-07:00

Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot
Looking for a good excuse to surprise your clients with a gift basket? Send them one to celebrate the New Year. But don't limit yourself to just the New Year that begins on January 1st. There are plenty of other fun New Year celebrations that would make great days to delight your customers with a gift:

The client's new fiscal year
Chinese New Year
A new school year
The first day of an annual project

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New Year's celebrations aren't just for December 31st. Use any type of new year as an excuse to surprise and delight your customers. They'll be thankful and keep you at the top of their mind.

There's never a lack of ideas.

Thanks to Megan Danielson for inspiring this post.

Life's a Beach — Corona Sponsors Cancun's Air Traffic Control Tower

2011-05-05T06:10:00.000-07:00

Flying High
The air traffic control tower in Cancun, Mexico is blanketed with an enormous Corona logo. That's such a great place for Corona to advertise — the brand has aligned itself with images of the beach for years. And Cancun is one of the most popular beach party cities in the world — especially for US college students on spring break.

Corona's sponsorship got me thinking: what other brands should sponsor air traffic control towers around the world? In other words, what brands have aligned themselves with cities or destinations around the world? I came up with five ideas. Can you add more to this list?

Rice a Roni — San Francisco, California
Foster's Beer — Sydney, Australia
Uno Pizzeria — Chicago, Illinois
Coors Light — Denver, Colorado
Pat's King of Steaks — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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Creating a brand with a powerful association with a specific city is difficult to do on a national and worldwide scale. However, when it's done well, it deserves to be flaunted. Yet, not every brand can afford to sponsor an air traffic control tower. But the local barbershop can sponsor a little league team to show that the shop is a fixture in the community. The stationary store down the street can sponsor events put on by the district's parent-teacher association. Building partnerships with the local community can lead to great brand associations and provide a solid foundation on which to grow.

There's never a lack of ideas.

Coca Cola Freestyle

2011-04-14T19:43:00.000-07:00

106 Flavors

Coca Cola has a new fountain that dispenses 106 different beverages out of just one spigot. After hearing about the machine, I was so excited that I dropped by Wendy's to check it out. While there, I whipped up a new drink — the Nick Scarpino. Check out the video to see how to make it.

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If Coca Cola can innovate in a cool way after selling drinks for more than 100 years, then so can your business. How will you innovate your product or the way it is distributed? And what flavors would you combine in the Coca Cola drink named after you?

There's never a lack of ideas.

Thanks to Pastor Rob Douglas for inspiring this post.

Punch Your Way to a Great Direct Mail Campaign

2011-03-21T18:07:00.000-07:00

Holey Postcards
In the summer of 2003, I created a direct mail campaign that earned a whopping 15% response rate — and it was probably the least expensive direct mail campaign ever run.

I was trying to pick up freelance graphic design work with local non-profits. So, I identified 20 prospective clients nearby and then designed the postcard on the right. The headline read, “are there holes in your advertising and design plans?” I actually punched two holes in the postcard, represented on the right by the circles filled with black. I did my research and knew the post office would still deliver the cards with holes in those strategic spots.

A few days after mailing the cards, I received calls from three different non-profits. After a week, I was working for two of them.

The Little Things Matter
There are three reasons this campaign succeeded:

I targeted an untapped market. Not many people want to work with small non-profit organizations because there’s not a lot of money to be made. But I was willing to work for less money — I just wanted to gain experience and build my portfolio.
The holey postcard grabbed attention. The first person that called me after receiving the card gushed about how cool the holes in the postcard were. He was convinced I hand delivered it and had not mailed it.
I gave my clients great customer service. I put my cell phone number on the postcard — I didn’t require people to fill out a form online or do something elaborate to request more information. When they called the number, we immediately started talking about what they were looking to do and if I could help them. I set up meetings with them right then. The customers appreciated it.

Add This to Your To-Do List
“Start small but make it memorable. The target market is more important than the design.” Those are the two pieces of advice I give to anyone who is looking to try a direct mail campaign for the first time. We have all received hundreds of pieces of direct mail. Which ones stood out to you? What if you wrote 20 letters by hand to your biggest potential clients? What if you used an orange envelope? Try a small experiment and see what happens. After your first campaign pays off, you can afford to try something on a bigger scale.

There's never a lack of ideas.

Happy 2nd Birthday to My Blog

2011-03-06T18:43:00.000-08:00

Another Year Older
Today marks the second-year birthday of my blog. I made my first official post two years ago, today. 73 posts later and here we are. Thank you to all of my readers for making it fun to post all of my marketing ideas.

To celebrate my blog's birthday this month, I'll be digging into my past and posting about the most successful direct mail campaign I've ever been a part of — and it involved a creative use of a hole punch. Look for it later this month. Until then, sit back and enjoy my top ten favorite posts over the past year:

Bobbleheads! (Part 1) | Part 2
Nick's Knacks — How I Sold Myself for an Internship
What Lady Gaga Should Wear to the Grammys
Using a Facebook Advertisement to Land a Job
The Woolly Mammoth Bus — The hardest I've worked for a post!
The Exclusivity of Butterbeer
Helicopter-Dropped Easter Egg Hunt
IMDB Meets Google Maps
When Realtors Become Commodities
$#*! My Dad Says

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Enjoy my top ten posts!

There's never a lack of ideas.

Google Helps You Grow (Like) Wildflowers

2011-02-11T19:23:00.000-08:00

Google and the Beanstalk
Google recently mailed a letter to small businesses, encouraging them to use Google AdWords to grow their business. The paper on which the letter was printed is embedded with wildfire seeds. The letter's postscript reads:

"This card was printed on 100% recycled paper embedded with wildflower seeds. Plant it in a sunny spot with a thin layer of soil, add water, and watch it grow — while you watch your business grow with AdWords."

I have planted the card in a pot. Let's see if it grows.

Direct Mail is Not Dead
Despite what many bloggers might say, direct mail advertising is not dead. This mailing proves that there are still many creative ways to reach customers through the printed page that can't be achieved in another way. It's easy to measure the success of direct mail marketing campaigns, which makes them easy to test.

Add This To Your To-Do List
If you've never tried a direct mail campaign, it's time to start. Build a list of names by having customers drop their name in a fishbowl drawing for something free. Start with a small mailing that includes a clear ask — that way you can measure its success. Get creative with the piece; if nothing else, personalize the pieces by signing them by hand or by hand-writing a note at the bottom. Lastly, track the success of the mailing by giving out an offer code or tagging the piece in some way. In an advertising landscape where digital media gets all the attention, you might find that a return to direct mail is just what your business needs.

There's never a lack of ideas.

Thanks to Shauna Dugandzic for showing me Google's direct mail piece. I work for Google but the thoughts in this post are my own.

Comcast Brings Direct Response Advertising to TV

2011-01-20T21:58:00.000-08:00

Direct Response Cable Television
Comcast is now selling products via a direct response advertising unit that appears at the bottom of a viewer's television screen. The advertisement pops up for a few seconds during a commercial and gives viewers an offer that they can accept or dismiss by using their remote control. (See the video above.)

My wife and I were offered a free brochure about visiting Scottsdale, Arizona and we elected to have one shipped to us by following the prompts on the screen with our remote. My wife had seen a direct response ad for a bottle of lotion the previous day. In that ad, she could have chosen to receive a bottle for $5. I can only assume that the $5 charge would have been added to our monthly cable bill.

We saw this new advertising unit at 7:45 p.m. on the SOAP network on a Wednesday and a Thursday. We have not seen it on any other channel or at any other time of day. We recorded the ad via our DVR, but when we played it back, the offer was not at the bottom of our screen.

Add This To Your To-Do List
Have you seen this new advertising unit? If so, I'd like to know the basic details about the offer that you saw. I am fascinated by new ways of advertising and I'd like to post more details to this blog. I will be contacting Comcast to see what they say about this new ad format. I guess that's just one more thing to add to my to-do list.

There's never a lack of ideas.

What Lady Gaga Should Wear to the Grammys

2011-01-12T20:23:00.000-08:00

10 Thousand Pictures Say 10 Million Words
Lady Gaga should wear a dress to the Grammys composed of nothing but 10,000 photos of her fans. (Click the example on the right.) Last year, she famously wore a dress made of raw meat. This year, why not honor her fans by wearing their pictures on her dress?

Lady Gaga is very close to her fans. She calls them her “Little Monsters” and many of them dress in elaborate costumes when they attend her concerts. Her devotion to her fans is one reason she has become so successful. In marketing, it’s important to show love to your biggest fans — your customers. Give them opportunities to provide input about your new product ideas. Allow them to submit feedback and then post that feedback publicly. Send your customers hand written thank you notes. And let your fans submit photos of them using your products.

Add This To Your To-Do List
Show some love to your fans! Every business has repeat customers. Give them ways to show their love for you by sponsoring small contests featuring them. Encourage them to post to Yelp and other review sites. Give them plenty of stickers, buttons, and magnets with your logo on them so they can share them with their friends. Enable your customers to show their love for you and they’ll jump at the chance.

There’s never a lack of ideas.

Airline Gives 190 Passengers Christmas Presents

2011-01-09T21:00:00.000-08:00

A Very Merry Christmas
Close to midnight on December 24th, 2010, SpanAir surprised passengers with Christmas presents delivered through a baggage carousel. Every gift was hand wrapped and addressed to each of the flight's 190 passengers. I applaud the airline for employing such a fun idea to spark positive word of mouth.

The airline has put together videos of the gift-giving event in both English and Spanish, and they have combined for a half a million views on YouTube to date. What would it cost for Spanair to buy a half a million brand impressions on tv? Certainly more than what it cost them to give out 190 Christmas presents and put up a video on YouTube. This was a win-win situation for both Spanair and its passengers.

The most powerful form of marketing is a recommendation from a friend. With these presents, Spanair made 190 people happy and found a way to get those people to tell all of their friends and family about how great Spainair is. Then they put up a great video on YouTube and now they've earned 500,000 views.

Add This to Your To-Do List
How can you reward your customers in a fun and exciting way that will get them talking to their friends about your business? Little gifts go a long way. Can you find a way surprise your customers with something fun and out of the ordinary? Have you seen other great examples of this? I'd love to hear about them.

There's never a lack of ideas.

Bobbleheads 2 and an Announcement

2010-12-31T07:32:00.000-08:00

A Bundle of Joy

I have previously written that bobblehead dolls make perfect gifts because they are personalized and they symbolize meaningful relationships. For Christmas, my wife and I gave my wife’s mother a bobblehead doll of herself (see the pictures on the right). The doll is wearing a shirt that says, “#1 Grandma.” That’s right — we used the doll to tell her that we’re going to have our first baby next year.

Bobblehead dolls don’t just make great gifts — they make great announcement vehicles, too. My wife’s mother will now be able to bring the doll with her to work and show everyone in her office that she’s going to be a grandmother. In a way, we gave my wife’s mother a word of mouth marketing tool to help her spread the message that she’s going to be a grandmother. How fun!

Add This To Your To-Do List

My advice is the same as it was after the first time we bought a bobblehead doll: Give someone a bobblehead doll! Will it be the retiring executive for a long-time client? Your loyal distributor? Your employee or co-worker? There must be someone in your life that could use a great gift. Why not make it a custom bobblehead?

There’s never a lack of ideas.

Naperville Residents Spell Peace for Holiday Card

2010-12-01T05:45:00.000-08:00

Say "Peace"
To add a little twist to the city's 2010 holiday card, the mayor of Naperville, IL invited all 145,000 of the city's residents to a photo shoot for the cover of the card. And on Friday, November 26th at 2:00 p.m., my wife Monica and I showed up alongside 500 of our neighbors to make holiday card history.

Collectively, we Napervillians spelled out "peace" and posed for a few pictures. Monica and I were in the second E, in the stem between the top and middle horizontal bars. The event was well organized by city staff and volunteers. Two news helicopters and a handful of reporters showed up to cover the event and everybody seemed to have a good time.

The Evolution of the Holiday Card
This event got me thinking about how far the corporate holiday card has come. It wasn't too long ago when they were just simple cards. Then came e-cards. E-cards went to another level with Jib Jab. Then came those customized e-cards that include your name throughout (those are still so cool). So how do you top all of those holiday cards? You add a human element to a size and scale that only a city or a company could pull off. 500 people coming together for the holidays is hard to beat.

Congratulations on a great holiday card idea, Naperville.

Add This To Your To-Do List
How can you add the human element to your holiday card and gifts? Something as simple as having many people in your office actually sign a card goes a long way in making a gift personal. Start there and you're sure to be sure to make someone's holiday season just a bit happier.

There's never a lack of ideas.

IMDB Meets Google Maps

2010-11-15T17:08:00.000-08:00

Where Was that Filmed?
IMDB should use the Google Maps API to showcase the places movies were filmed or took place. It would be a great additional feature to the site and could even generate revenue for IMDB. Here's how:

What if, while looking at information about a specific move on IMDB, you could click to look at a Google map of the places in which that movie was filmed or took place? If the filming location is one that requires tickets to visit, like Alcatraz in San Francisco, the map could link to the location's ticketing website (see my mocked-up screen shot on the right). The location and IMDB could partner together in a profit sharing agreement for all ticket sales that come from IMDB's website.

This would be a great way for local businesses to earn foot and web traffic, too. Want to know where the end scene was filmed for The Fugitive? Oh, that was at the Hilton in Chicago — we should go check it out!

Add This To Your To-Do List
Are there ways in which you can integrate Google Maps into your website? For inspiration, check out how IES Abroad has used Google Maps in great ways. It's free to implement and could provide your site visitors with an enhanced user experience and may even drive revenue for your business.

There's never a lack of ideas.

The Best Brands in the United States

2010-10-31T07:51:00.000-07:00

Best Brands in the Land
Happy Halloween! In what will hopefully become an annual tradition, I present to you my list of the top ten brands in the United States. To create this list, I relied heavily upon my opinion of the general perception of each brand versus its competitors, and how much of a premium the brand can charge because of that perception. I didn't get hung up on revenue data or market share numbers — I just went with what I see and hear every day and threw in my own opinion from a marketer's point of view.

Here's my list, starting with the best brand in the land:

Victoria's Secret — The brand became a household name by charging a premium for products that very few people see when worn; and then turned that brand equity into a complete line of clothing.
Google — Do you use any other search engine? I'll bet you've even used the word "Google" as a verb.
Apple — The iPod, iTunes, and iPhone have defined their categories.
Facebook — The dominant social network in the US. They even made a movie about it -- Google, Microsoft, and Apple can't say that.
McDonald's — The king of consistency in quick service restaurants. The way the company can scale its efforts across thousands of restaurants always amaze me.
Ebay — If you were going to buy or sell a used product online, would you go anywhere else?
Coca Cola — Yes, there's Pepsi, but if you order a cola in a restaurant, what are you most likely to ask for?
Harry Potter — After seven best-selling books and a soon-to-be-released seventh blockbuster movie, there's now a theme park in Orlando.
Tide — In a market flooded with competitors of all shapes and sizes, and despite the Great Recession, Tide maintains a market share of more than 40%.
Breast Cancer Awareness — This cause has been able to own the color pink as a way to spread its message. Other causes have tried to rally around other colors, but they haven't been nearly as successful as breast cancer awareness has been with the color pink.

Add This To Your To-Do List
What did I forget? Where am I wrong? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

There's never a lack of ideas

$#*! My Dad Says

2010-10-14T21:04:00.000-07:00

Lost in Translation
William Shatner now stars in a comedy series on CBS that has been adapted from a Twitter feed called Sh*t My Dad Says. I've been a fan of Justin Halpern, the Twitter account's author, for a while, and I'm happy that he's been able to profit from his feed. However, I worry about the success of the show since the success of Halpern's Twitter posts comes because they pack a lot of comedy in just 140 characters. I have not seen the television show, but I worry that stretching a bunch of 140-character one-liners into a 30-minute series is doomed to fail from the beginning.

But maybe there's an alternative way to translate the Sh*t My Dad Says Twitter account to television without losing its punch of comedy:

Pardon the Interruption
What if CBS took the top 150 posts from Halpern's dad and made them into ten-second spots that aired in between each commercial during prime time for one day of the week throughout the whole fall season. The ten-second bits would be just as funny as the Twitter feed itself, and TV viewers would have a reason to watch all of the commercials for one night each week. Instead of trying to gain a large audience of viewers to watch a show called $#*! My Dad Says, CBS would be gaining a large audience of viewers who would watch an evening of shows. Seems like a win-win situation to me.

Add This To Your To-Do List
Sometimes a great idea can't be extended, made bigger, or shrunk down. It works well just the way it is. Think long and hard about what makes your great ideas work before you decide to change them in order to "make them better."

There's never a lack of ideas.

Thanks to Maggie Redmon, my friend and former co-worker, for thinking up this post.

One-To-One-To-Many Marketing

2010-09-25T21:21:00.000-07:00

Search for the Holy Grail
I have previously written about what I called the "Holy Grail" of marketing: one-to-one marketing. One-to-one marketing is simply the idea that marketers will achieve optimum results if they are able to engage consumers with messages and touch points on an individual customer basis. Well, after hearing Jason Choi from Cheil Communications speak in South Korea, I have now realized that the true Holy Grail of Marketing is what Jason calls "one-to-one-to-many marketing."

Building individual relationships with customers is effective but expensive. The goal for marketers must be to build individual relationships with customers who then tell their friends about those relationships. If every customer with whom your business has an individual relationship would tell one friend about your business, you would cut in half the cost of your one-to-one marketing efforts. If each customer tells five friends, then you're really cooking with gas. That's one-to-one-to-many marketing. It's not easy, but that's the goal.

Add This To Your To-Do List
If you're well on your way to achieving one-to-one marketing, then simply ask yourself, "would anybody tell a friend about this?" (thanks, Andy Sernovitz). If not, then make your messages more memorable. If you're still struggling to build a marketing approach that targets consumers on a personal basis, start with your email communications. That's one of the easiest places to start building personalization. It's as simple as starting with a customized greeting for each customer. Start there and over time, aim for one-to-one-to-many marketing.

There's never a lack of ideas.

The Southwest Rap

2010-08-26T20:13:00.000-07:00

Rapper's Delight
Have you seen the Southwest Rap video? It's a YouTube sensation that features energetic flight attendant David Holmes, who puts his own spin on the pre-flight instructions that attendants give to passengers before every flight. The video went viral about a year ago and it demonstrates Southwest's unique take on customer service — the airline encourages its flight attendants to be creative in their work and to have fun at their job.

I love the Southwest Rap. I think it shows how much fun Southwest is as an airline, and it makes me want to be a part of that fun during my next flight.

That's a Rap
I think Southwest should capitalize on the video's popularity by holding a Southwest Rap Video Contest. Southwest should ask people to submit their own Southwest Rap to the company's YouTube channel. Video submissions could be about how much people love Southwest or their favorite places to fly with Southwest. The topic would be open to interpretation. Southwest would allow people to vote online for their favorite video, and the winner would receive several free round-trip flights. Southwest would require that each video submission be less than 30 seconds so that they could show the winning submission on a tv commercial.

I think many people would jump at the opportunity to win free flights and fame. Southwest would get hundreds of submissions, generate tons of goodwill among current and prospective customers, and would do something that no other airline has ever done. So what are you waiting for, Southwest? Start a contest and see how it goes. I've got some new dance moves I want to try out and they'll fit perfectly with my own Southwest Rap.

Add This To Your To-Do List
I originally wrote the following to-do list advice after I wrote a post that called for David's Bridal to run a contest for the best wedding entrance. My advice still rings true:

Strike while the iron is hot. Be willing to turn a portion of your marketing strategy on a dime if you can do it in a way that taps into a hot trend. But don't put all of your eggs into the trend's basket. Like all things, trends come and go, but if you're the only company in your market to capitalize on a huge trend, you'll reap huge rewards.

This will be my final post before going to Seoul, Shanghai, and Tokyo for three weeks. I look forward to all that I will see and I'll be taking notes on the coolest marketing methods while abroad so that I can share them with you here. I'll be back in mid September.

The Exclusivity of Butterbeer

2010-08-17T18:58:00.000-07:00

Florida or Bust
Orlando, Florida is the only place on Earth in which you can buy a glass of official Butterbeer, the imaginary drink that author J.K. Rowling wrote about in each of the seven Harry Potter books. You can only buy Butterbeer at Universal Studio's "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" exhibit, part of Universal's "Islands of Adventure" theme park.

Rowling was personally involved with the creation of the recipe for Butterbeer. Certainly, she and her business partners had offers to license the product and sell it online and in stores around the world, but she declined all offers in an attempt to make the theme park the only place in which the drink can be bought.

In doing so, Universal Studios has created exclusivity for Butterbeer. If you want some, you're going to have to go to Orlando to get it.

If You Brew It, They Will Come
Having a product or service that is exclusive to your business is a very powerful word of mouth marketing tool. It gives people something to talk about. The exclusive thing that you offer doesn't need to be referenced in the best selling series of books of all time; it just has to be memorable and great within your product/service category or your location. Maybe the dessert your restaurant offers is one-of-a-kind in name and taste. Or, your oil change business is the only one in town with massage chairs in its waiting area. No matter how big or small, an exclusive, desirable product or service offering will generate great results for your business.

Add This To Your To-Do List
What is your business known for? If you don't sell the most unique product or service in your category, you can always find some small way to do something a little different to get people talking about you. Do some brainstorming — start small and see where your ideas take you.

There's never a lack of ideas.

PS Butterbeer is absolutely fantastic. It tastes like butterscotch root beer with a creamy, delicious, foam head on it. Congratulations and thanks to all those involved in its creation!