They Call Her Princess Chunk
July 31, 2008
Princess Chunk is the “nickname” given to a 44 pound American Domestic Shorthair cat found wandering the streets of Voorhees, NJ. Considering that the average American domestic shorthair weighs in the neighborhood of 10-12 pounds, Princess chunk is in a weight class all her own. As a matter of fact, she’s just 2 pounds shy of the Guiness World Record. The category was discontinued in 2001 to avoid encouraging cat owners to over feed their cats in an attempt to “break” the world record.
According to the Thaindian News:
Deborah Wright of Sicklerville, New Jersey, which she picked up from the pound on Saturday said now the cat is on her way to celebrity status. Princess Chunk, a feline fatty is to travel to New York City today for appearances on two national TV shows “The Today Show” and “Live with Regis and Kelly.”
She also said that Princess Chunk is going to appear on “Good Morning America” on Friday, who is currently caring for the cat.
Shelter officials claimed that lots of phone call for inquiries from prospective adoptive families, perplexed veterinarians and national media interested in telling the obese kitty’s story this week.
So what does this have to do with marketing and advertising? Do you have to ask?
Princess Chunk is getting the kind of free PR most business owners are dying to achieve. In addition to traditional media outlets, Web 2.0 is buzzing with articles like “Is the Big Apple Big Enough for Princess Chunk?”
Remember the “new” magic marketing words you need to use to get attention? One of them was “fat” and Princess Chunk is one fat cat. It doesn’t hurt that she looks absolutely regal (what cat doesn’t) in her photo.
Fortunately, Princess Chunk’s predictably brief brush with fame will lead to increased awareness of the plight of animal rescue agencies whose facilities are overflowing with less obese cats and dogs who are in desperate need of a home. The Camden County Animal Shelter is asking for donations to offset the costs not only for caring for Princess Chunk but also the 300 other cats and dogs in the shelter.
In a nutshell, Princess Chunk is the extreme - and extreme stories have always grabbed our attention. However, I think it is important for small business owners to note that the story of Princess Chunk had a beginning. Someone contacted the press and packaged this story for the media. Someone contacted Good Morning America, Live with Regis and Kelly and the Today Show. If not for those contacts, Princess Chunk would be just another fat cat in a shelter in New Jersey. Now, she’s got a great shot at a permanent and caring home.
How to Launch a Dream…
July 30, 2008
If you want a study in how to launch a dream, look no further than to the newest player in the search game. Cuil (pronounced “cool”) is trying OH SO HARD to be cool by being “anti-Google”. Everything they do screams “We are Anti-Google” down to the black vs white background of the search page.
Cuil certainly did it right when it came to generating Web 2.0 buzz which is why they are the “case study” for this How to Launch a Dream post. Cuil leveraged Advertising 2.0 to it’s fullest to promote it’s new search engine. From Twitter to Friendfeed to previews by prominent bloggers, Cuil orchestrated a brilliant launch.
The great buzz builder and Holy Grail for any Web 2.0 launch is to get a write up on Michael Arrington’s Tech Crunch. Cuil scored this major victory and the result was the post, Cuil Exits Stealth Mode With A Massive Search Engine which got PLENTY of attention. The list of trackbacks and comments is a mile long on that post. Anti-google was a theme we were all apparently eager to embrace. Cuil scored big.
How to Launch a Dream begins with a review (positive or negative) on Techcrunch.
Then, reality sets in. Lots of buzz has lots of people who try to USE Cuil. Unfortunately, these folks are not using the carefully prescribed method Cuil instructions for searching. Instead, these people are using Cuil to search in the way they always have to find what they want on the web.
When real people started to use Cuil, what they found was a highly polish turd.
Cuil quickly discovered that there is such a thing as bad publicity when it comes to the web. Technorati reversed their positive initial post with “How To Lose Your Cuil 20 Seconds After Launch“. Bloggers who had regurgitated the Press Release materials so artfully distributed were also lashing out. The blogosphere began to ring with cries of “Cuil Sucks“and “Cuil:How NOT to search the web“.
The beatings of the Cuil search engine continued out of the “tech lanes” of the blogosphere with posts like “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” on Jim Goldstein’s photography blog. Seems Cuil is especially bad for photography sites and the comments on Jim’s blog are quick to point out those serious flaws.
So quickly after a big bang product launch, it appears that Cuil is officially “not cool” when it comes to search. While it’s common wisdom to “launch early, launch big - fix the problems later”, I’d have to say that doesn’t look promising for Cuil.
In his post The Startup CEO School of Hard Knocks, Ben Yoskovitz writes:
When it comes to generating press for your company (particularly at launch) make sure you understand how your company fits into larger trends. As much as you’d like full profiles down exclusively about you, reporters will be more apt to work with you if you can provide a bigger story. How does your company fit into global trends? What’s the bigger picture?
Cuil certainly followed that advice. They definitely “got” where they fit in the big picture. By positioning their product as “anti-Google”, they struck and chord and the blogosphere responded like a pitch fork after it’s been struck on a hard surface.
Unfortunately, Cuil’s gleaning of good advice seems to check out when it comes to the other side generating buzz… creating a product or service that users (a.k.a. customers) love.
I’ve learned a lot from reading Ben’s blog. Ben talks a LOT about launching product on his blog. He talks a lot about users and their experience with the product. He should know. He’s launched his own startup company and believe me, it shows in his writing. Maybe the startup team at Cuil hadn’t found Ben’s blog before they launched. Too bad. They could have learned a thing or two.
In the end, Cuil found the right chord with their “anti-Google” approach. They effectively positioned themself as “anti-Google” and with the latest buzz about Google Knol we were more than willing to lift upon our collective blogging shoulders the new way to spell Cuil.
However, by launching their product before it was ready to provide the results for which visitors were searching, Cuil now finds themselves in an unenviable position. They now must scramble to bring their product up to snuff. A search engine that can’t find New York City is not a search engine ready for prime time. The question is, will you go back in 12-18 months when the kinks are worked out? I suspect your answer is the same as mine: NO!
You never get a second chance to make a great first impression. Don’t forget that as you prepare to launch your dream.
The Good and the Bad of Online Advertising
July 29, 2008
In everything in life, there are positive s and negatives. The “Ben Franklin” method of decision making includes listing the negatives of a decision on one side and the positives on the other side. Whichever column had more entries, according to Franklin, was the “right” decision.
In deciding whether or not to advertise your business online, the pro list would definitely include:
- the ability to tightly target your message delivery,
- the ability to effectively reach members of the target audience that can’t be efficiently reached using other media,
- the ability to CREATIVELY reach members of your target audience,
- the EASE with which you can launch an advertising campaign,
- the EASE with which you can split test an advertising campaign
- the EASE with which you can change an advertising campaign.
Notice, I didn’t list how “inexpensive” an online advertising campaign is. That’s for a good reason- it isn’t!
You can easily pay $1 or more per visitor using an online advertising campaign. While that may sound very inexpensive, if you consider the fact that any particular visitor to your website may only stay for 30 seconds or less, online advertising is MUCH more expensive than traditional media.
Traditional media is priced based upon audience size and those prices are expressed with the term “Cost per Thousand” or CPM. In other words, the cost per thousand of a pay per click campaign that charges $1 per click would be $1000.
That $1000 budget could be used to reach hundreds of thousands of people using traditional media such as newspaper, television and radio advertising.
That makes online advertising one of the most expensive advertising mediums around. However, if your target audience is widely distributed, then a pay per click campaign of $1 per click may be the most efficient use of your advertising dollar.
Which is why it’s important to recognize WHO your customer is before you launch an advertising campaign. If your target customer is a blogger, then by all means, the best way to reach that diverse and geographically sparsely distributed target audience is probably pay per click advertising.
On the other hand, if your customers live within a 5 mile radius of your business, consider direct mail to reach them instead.
Hidden Secret to Buzz Marketing and Free PR: Offend Someone
July 25, 2008
Looking for a way to build a buzz marketing campaign and get a lot of free PR - be offensive. The secret to creating a buzz marketing campaign that generates BOATLOADS of free PR is to really p*ss in someone’s Cheerios.
If you’re like most advertisers, you’ve been wasting your time being “nice” and trying to get everyone to like you. You’ve been wasting your time trying to talk about your product’s features and benefits. That kind of advertising is for LOSERS who have something to say. You, your goal is to build a brand. You want to be edgy and cool.
Remember, there’s no such thing as BAD PUBLICITY and the BEST PUBLICITY is FREE!
One sure fire way to gain such publicity is to be as raunchy and offensive as possible. If you don’t believe me, watch how CBS Radio promotes Don Imus. When the ratings service Arbitron starts sending out their diaries, Don Imus starts making racists cracks. If you don’t think that is an orchestrated way to get free PR and increase his ratings - well, I’ve got this great bridge in Brooklyn that’s for sale.
Empty talk about the solutions your business offers is no way to generate BUZZ Marketing! Creating BUZZ, going viral, now that is COOL! You want your brand edgy and raw so that the bloggers will blog about it. Cool is all about breaking the rules and doing it “your” way. THAT’S the way the cool kids do it!
Creating great BUZZ MARKETING isn’t accomplished with soft talk about the things that really matter to prospective customers. Treating your prospective customers with respect well, that too is for suckers. After all, if you treat your prospective customers with respect when you’re inviting them to do business with you via your advertising, they may come to expect respect AFTER the sale as well. We wouldn’t want to get started going down THAT path now would we?
The path to creating a successful BUZZ MARKETING campaign is paved
with p*ssed off bloggers spreading the word about your offensive campaign.
As is the case with all effective advertising campaigns, begin by choosing a tightly targeted audience.
If you choose your audiencecorrectly and successfully target a nice sensitive “soft spot,” the reaction will be almost instantaneous. Like a match put to a pile of wadded up newspapers, your target audience will respond loudly and clearly to voice their displeasure, creating the BUZZ you so richly desire.
Remember, you wanted to be edgy and cool. This is how it’s done.
For example, take a recent print ad by BMW - Muse Communications began by giving press to the ad in her blog post Wanted: second-hand woman for sheer driving pleasure. The ad is so offensive to women that it’s hard to imagine it making it’s way into print without anyone along the way taking notice. No, this was a deliberate and willful act of trying to commit BUZZ MARKETING. Obviously, BMW wants to be a cool kid now.
Yvonne over at Lipstick Marketing picked up the baton and gave her take with her post BMW - No Woman’s Answer to Transportation: Please Leave the Dealership.
Ask Patty has also joined the chorus with BMW’s “Shameful” Greek Used Car Ad” and she references Andrea’s post on the Learned on Women blog who accurately describes the BMW Ad Campaign as “sleazy” and “lazy”. (Good Call!)
It’s important to note that the ad, were it not so patently offensive, would get absolutely no attention from consumers and would be quickly (and easily) forgotten. It wouldn’t be long before the campaign would have abandoned for lack of interest and lack of results. The sleazy execs who created it could toss their well used and stuck together pages into the waste bin and try, try again.
Which brings me to an important point when it comes to Buzz Marketing. Remember when I described the reaction to the advertising campaign as being like putting a match to a pile of wadded up newspapers? Well, that’s roughly the lifespan of this type of offensive buzz marketing. Once the pages of GQ, Men’s Health, Sports Illustrated and Toupee Weekly are effectively glued together with BMW’s targeted audience’s “applause”, the buzz will die quickly. Few if any cars will be sold as a result and BMW will have to step up its offensive factor a notch to get the next ad noticed at all.
“Here today, gone tomorrow” is a great way to characterize such offensive buzz marketing campaigns. However, short sighted executives are usually pleased with such efforts simply because they’re getting tons of free PR and they honestly believe there’s no such thing as bad PR.
Requiem for Monitor 110
July 22, 2008
Being an entrepreneur is tough. I believe that one of the reasons that successful entrepreneurs are so revered is that they symbolize the triumph of the little guy who battles insurmountable odds and wins. The reason we love those stories so is we all know that for every FedEx/ YouTube/ [insert name of entrepreneur who made it here] triumph there are thousands of entrepreneurial ventures which close their doors after a bloody but valiant battle to win against the odds.
One of the keys to winning that battle is to keep your focus squarely upon your customer. However, when said “customer” is defined as a faceless mob, it’s hard to keep the customer’s wants and needs in focus. That’s why, in my book Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results, I encourage business owners to create target customer profiles. Target customer profiles help decision makers keep customers in mind by assigning a name and a face to each customer group.
Thanks to Ben Yoskovitz for his post Startup Communities and Startup Failure which points out possibly the most instructive and poignant blog post ever written.
Roger Ehrenberg is Managing Partner of IA Capital Partners and a principle investor in Monitor110. In his post Monitor110: A Post Mortem, Roger digs deep into the reasons (hindsight is always 20:20) why Monitor 110 didn’t rise to the ranks of legendary success.
The reasons Roger gives for the death of his startup are incredibly insightful and poignant. They should be required reading for anyone who dreams of creating their own inspirational entrepreneurial success story. For those of use pushing our own 500lb lead weight up the hill, those of use who are trying to achieve business success on a smaller scale, these words are worth more than their weight in gold.
Think that a nice round of VC funding is just what your business needs to grow? Not according to Roger. Reason #4 on his list of the seven deadly sins is too much money. He writes:
We weren’t forced early on to be scrappy and revenue focused. We wanted to build something that was so good from the get-go that the market would simply eat it up. Problem was, with all that money we hid from the market while we were building, almost ensuring that we would come up with something that the market wouldn’t accept.
What can I say but “Ouch!” Roger thinks that VC funding kept their focus on the product and kept them at arm’s length from their customers.
This website is ALL about focusing on customers… but one deadly sin to which I will confess is spending WAY too long on is product development. It took me 2 years to write my first book. I’m still pounding out my 2nd nearly 2 years after that. I too am a sinner. I try to create products that are so good that the market will literally beat a path to my humble website.
The quest for perfection leads to ruin. Roger’s post means Monitor 110’s legacy may be the greatest business story ever told.
As promised, here’s a requiem for Monitor 110:
Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.
(Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.)
Viral Marketing Gone Horribly Awry
July 14, 2008
Viral Marketing… it’s the holy grail of marketing. A video or other marketing device which gains a life of it’s own and is distributed with alarming voracity across the web. It’s great when the viral marketing is spreading the story of your success… it’s horrible when it’s spreading ill will.
Take for example, the new iPhone 3 G. The last thing Apple wants is for the public to be reminded of the huge price drop just a few weeks after the original iPhone introduction. As a matter of fact, the original iPhone marketing plan is a perfect example of how to piss off your customers.
The Soup however is more than willing to poke fun at the new iPhone… with this viral marketing masterpiece:
One thing about viral marketing is that you lose control very quickly of the message. Web 2.0 provides LOTS of opportunities for your viral marketing to go horribly awry.
Apple has lost sight of the value of their customers over the long haul. The latest iPhone release is a slap in the face to any previous iPhone customer.
The thing that takes any message to “viral” status is when it hits a nerve. It appears the video featured above has done exactly that.
Social Marketing is Like Showing Up Naked to a Cocktail Party
July 7, 2008
If there’s one term that you must keep in mind when you decide to engage in Social Marketing, it would have to be TRANSPARENCY!
Remember, launching a social marketing campaign is like showing up naked to a cocktail party. If you haven’t been hitting the gym, EVERYONE is going to know as soon as you enter the room. Oh, and if you’re a pre-op transvestite… well THAT fact is going to be obvious as well.
One of my first clients was a pioneer in the “pay for content” arena. When we launched the membership site, it was the mid 1990’s. I was thrilled to be blazing the trail and as such, was full of enthusiastic suggestions for how we could make the membership product “better”. I’ll never forget the reaction of the company president when I suggested that we add some kind of interactive abilities such as chat or a bulletin board for members. He got a horrified look on his face and announced that the LAST thing in the world his business needed was an opportunity for his customers to get together to compare notes.
I’m curious as to whether the rise in social interaction online has played some role in the decline of this once marketing pioneer.
According to Brian Solis in his post PR 2.0: The Art of Conversation - It’s About Listening Not Marketing
Social Media Marketing combines, in a perfect world, the most effective attributes of PR, Web Marketing, Customer Service, and a working knowledge and genuine enthusiasm of the social networks and tools to listen to, spark, and engage in relevant discussions - not all but, those with influence.
Whether it’s web marketing or PR, Web 2.0 is increasing the conversations going on online. Those conversations are all about what’s happening in each individual’s “social network” and are bound to entail what products and services work and which don’t.
For example, if you’re a Real Estate Professional, then you’re talking with other Real Estate Professionals about the products and services you can use to build your business. It’s the power of “word of mouth” advertising, sometimes known as “buzz”. However, it’s important to remember that , In the imortal words of Eric Sink,:
Word-of-mouth is not a strategy
Word of mouth marketing is the old school reference to social networking. Remember, this kind of talking about products and services has been going on since the beginning of time. Anyone trying to sell on you the fact that this is “new” or “revolutionary” has the salesman’s hat firmly in place. This is a prime example of SSDM (Same Shit Different Medium).
So, on one side of the equation, you have people congregating and talking amongst themselves using Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Sphinn, etc. The groups are known as “social networks” and what is happening inside those micro networks is what is known as “Word of Mouth Advertising”.
On the other side of the social marketing equation, you have businesses. These businesses want to grab a piece of the social marketing action. They want to insert their products into the conversations going on. When a product or service is mentioned in these informal but very public social networks, businesses are naturally interested in controlling the conversations which affect their brand.
It’s important to remember that these social networking conversations have been going on since the beginning of time. Ancient cavemen would gather around the fire and talk about how a spear made from the wood of this tree brought down a Mastodon while a guy from another tribe was using a spear made from the wood from another type of tree and ended up as Mastodon toe jam.
The difference between those “informal” social conversations and the social conversations happening on the web is that the conversations happening then left no evidence of the communication. Today’s social networking conversations are literally etched in stone, leaving a trail that anyone can follow. So while Caveman Joe didn’t have any way of backing up his story, Social Networking Joe certainly can document his online conversations.
An example of the “trackability” of the social marketing conversation trail is the tale of Vlad and his blog Go Beyond MLS. Andy Beard first introduced me to this horrifying tale of social marketing gone horribly awry through his post iHype & ePerks - How To Kill A Startup
Broker Science does a great job of illustrating the “transparency” Web 2.0 imposes upon businesses. In the post ePerks.com: A Case Study in Greed and Self-Imposed Brand Destruction, Trace Richardson follows the multiple bread crumb trails left by multiple players in the tale of one company’s desperate attempts to control the social marketing surrounding their business and brand.
Which brings us back to the admonition offered at the beginning of this post. If the name of the game is Social Networking, then the key rule to the game is transparency.
If you enter this game with the expectation of privacy, think again.
Many corporate giants have stumble mightily trying to tame the social marketing monster. Most note worthy was Walmart’s stunningly bad attempt at entering the social marketing scene. If Walmart had kept in mind that TRANSPARENCY is the name of the game when it comes to social marketing, then perhaps that story would have had a different ending.
If you’re going to show up at the cocktail party naked, pale and flabby, at least don’t try to sell the story that you’ve been hitting the gym regularly.
The New Magic Marketing Words: “Green”, “Secret”, “Cure” and “Fat”
July 2, 2008
Not so long ago, THE DEFINITIVE go to magic marketing word was “free”. Whether it was a free sample, a free trial or a free issue, free was a great word to use to capture attention.
Those were the days when marketing messages were only being created by “professionals”. Then came the internet, where anyone with a connection to the internet could become a “marketing professional”.
Now, the bar is higher. Giving away something for free isn’t good enough anymore.
PR (as in the public relations field) professionals have never had the option of getting attention by using the word “free”. Instead, PR Professionals have always had to look to other words to get attention. According to an article in the NY Times, Need Press? Repeat: ‘Green,’ ‘Sex,’ ‘Cancer,’ ‘Secret,’ ‘Fat’ those attention getting words are shifting.
In a world that gets more connected (and therefore smaller) every day, the words that attract attention tend to be either very topical or are words that denote that a topic is either scarce or cutting edge.
The word green is the latest buzz word because of the recent US energy “crisis”. (I adore the recent BMW ad that says, “Where we’re from, high gas prices are nothing new.” ) It’s “anti” words like toxic and poisonous will also grab attention.
The word sex has been an effective attention getter since cave men were drawing on walls as well as any word to do with money such as rich and wealth. Debt is a powerful anti money word.
Words like secret, buzz and breaking seem to work these days, as do the anti words cure and trick.
Another buzz word… fat the ultimate public enemy in a society obsessed with appearances. Fat is really an anti word but recent events have turned the tables on the word thin which has been taken to the extreme.
Now, the REAL art in composing marketing messages is to use those words without coming across like some sleazy used car salesman!
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Beyond Niche Marketing Wordle
