Rich sends us this story: "Hello_World": That’s what I’m talking about.
The short, Americanized version: Guy runs off the road with his Citroen. Files a claim. The insurance company sends him a toy SUV with a note that says he’d enjoy off-roading a bit more in a different sort of vehicle…
Wow.
Can you imagine the reaction?
No, of course it wouldn’t be a great idea if small bunnies had been killed or people injured. But the sheer chutzpah of having a sense of humor about something so so serious as insurance and money…
April 4, 2006
Dennis Forbes is incredibly talented at working with data, and has way too much time on his hands. His definitive report on what domain names are out there (and which ones aren’t) is fairly astonishing. Thanks, boingboing, for the link.
Well, of course it had to happen. The marketing hordes are descending upon the passalong video, without really understanding what they’re doing. Check out this stupid Dancing Doughboy. It’s sort of like the original dancing baby, but without the panache, the eeriness or the surprising elegance.
What marketers need to understand about most viral videos is that they are like car wrecks. We slow down and shake our heads. We can’t believe what we’re seeing. Or we are seeing something for the very first time and it’s remarkable.
Now, as big brands (like Pillsbury) race the medium to the mainstream, all of that frisson is gone. Sure, some will succeed. Most will just sort of putter along, giving the naysayers at the big brands the chance to say, "see, I told you so," without understanding what went wrong in the first place.
Yes, I get to make my own Doughboy dance. But no, I can’t make him do unspeakable things with Betty Crocker.
Chevy is learning this the hard way with their Tahoe campaign… in which the best commercials are the ones that say, "Don’t buy me!"
No one invented this medium for marketers. The medium got here before we did.
April 3, 2006
Amazon jumps the gun on the NCAA…
All the technology in the world can’t protect you, sometimes.
My health club has a huge sign designed to go by the heavily traveled railroad tracks next to my office.
"Exclusive Charter Memberships Available."
Well, of course they’re not that exclusive, given that they’re on a billboard.
And does it matter that they’re ‘charter’?
Of course they’re memberships. All health clubs have memberships.
Which leaves, ‘available’, and the fact that they’ve got a sign pretty much makes that clear.
It’s like the apocryphal story about the fish store. "Well, of course the fish is fresh. You’re not going to sell me old fish, are you?" and "Of course it’s ‘here’. Where else would you be selling the fish?" and finally, "We know it’s fish. We can smell it!"
The worst thing you can do is be boring and vague.
The second worst thing you can do is be boring and verbose and obvious.
The first goal of copy is to get you to read more copy.
The second goal is to tell a story that spreads.
And then, finally, to have that story get people to take action.
A. "It’s not about the money."
Usually, when people say this, they are lying.
Except, it turns out, at work.
Money, it’s been shown time and time again, is a demotivator. I’m not talking about a fair or even generous salary. Being a cheapskate is no way to find a great employee. But once people have joined your team, incremental money–bonuses and the like–usually demotivate people. They demotivate because sooner or later, people feel as though they’re being treated unfairly.
One guy gets a $10 bonus. The person sitting next to him seethes for weeks, while the bonusee forgets it soon enough.
A sales rep gets into a fight about a commission… and remembers it long after the moment is gone.
People who really and truly love their jobs are in every single industry. And people who do great work because they love their jobs are paid at every salary level. What they have in common is a boss that gives them respect and freedom and responsibility. A boss that listens when they have something to say. Which, not coincidentally, is exactly the way the best companies treat their customers, too.
Cutting your prices doesn’t build customer loyalty, and paying a bonus doesn’t build employee loyalty.
If I had money to spend on a bonus, Mr. question writer, I would invest it in allowing each of my employees to try a small project (Google style) with no strings attached. Giving fairly-paid people your trust and the freedom to grow is worth a lot more than $50.
[n.b. all bets are off when the topic is sharp-edged salespeople. Just as some stores (woot, for example) work hard to attract the money-focused shopper, there are some jobs where a razor-sharp commission structure is exactly what your people–and you–want.]
April 1, 2006
Thanks to the generous (and kind, and good looking) people at MSN, The Big Moo is now #33 at Amazon. This was a really standup thing for MSN to do, and, as I said to ClickZ, it’s like being at the cash register at WalMart. Every person who passes by isn’t exactly the right person, but enough people walk by that it’s just fine, thanks very much. The power of the masses hasn’t diminished–they’re just harder to find, that’s all.
…become THE Beatles?
I was looking through a day by day biography of the group last night, and it quickly became clear that the image that we have of the four youngsters running away from their screaming fans didn't happen overnight.
At the beginning, they were playing two or three clubs a day, dives, making a few pounds if they were lucky. Not for a month or two, but for years and years.
As they got more traction, the thing you notice is how often they showed up on the radio. They were constantly on one radio show or another, or one multi-billed concert or another. The marketing picture probably looked like this:
Outbound marketing in every possible direction. Auditions for record labels, rejections, pitches to media outlets, concerts on spec, concerts for anyone who would show up. This is classic marketing, stuff that's easy to forget when we listen to the Shea Stadium concert or see the guys on the cover of Newsweek. It's easy to imagine that suddenly, everyone knows you, wants you and makes it easy for you.
The next stage was brief but essential. That's when people started noticing them, started showing up, started screaming. At this moment, the Beatles didn't stop marketing. They didn't stop doing radio shows at the BBC or flying all night to play a concert in Denver (empty seats) or Kansas. During the transition stage, in fact, the Beatles and their management really poured it on.
One of the most misunderstood and misused phrases in marketing (okay, in business) is Malcolm Gladwell's, "the tipping point." The Beatles didn't tip. Nothing magical happened. Instead, gradually, they shifted from being the chasers into being the chased.
These were the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and the Beatles on tour and the Beatles making wigs and the Beatles making movies and pioneering music videos. It was the Beatles in a frenzy, not sure what was going to come next, but pretty sure that it could all disappear in a heartbeat.
Many organizations reach this stage and stop. They harvest. They take profits and remind themselves that they are geniuses, all powerful and immune to the laws of boredom.
Only by pushing through this stage and by using their newfound power to create the last stage of their career did the Beatles actually become the Beatles.
When we rewrite history (and we do it every day) it's easy to imagine that Starbucks and JetBlue and all the other poster children for new successes just got blessed. It's almost never the case, though. It's just that it's easier to think of them as winners.
March 31, 2006
MSN, ranked #3 in the world for traffic, has donated ad space on their home page this weekend to help us promote The Big Moo. In a world where there’s more talk than action, I can only smile and applaud. Thanks, guys. (The Big Moo donates 100% of all author royalties to charity).
The ads that you’ll see were created by Simon Andrews, founding partner of big picture and by Scott Case at Networkforgood.org. They competed against a wide range of talent, and came up with the winning executions. Scott’s goal as chairman of Network for Good is for you to donate to your favorite charities online. Here’s my list of favorite charities. Feel free to check it out and you can create your own.
Here’s a great Walt Disney phrase, new to me, which is similar to edgecraft.
Plussing.
Taking your work a little farther. Going closer to an edge, whichever edge.
Is there anything you can’t plus? Anything you can’t make simpler, more luxurious, cheaper, more extreme? Anything you can’t make more remarkable?
The trade off, of course, is in the time and money it takes.
But not really. I was tricking you. The trade off is in the perceived risk it takes. Pushing your team a little harder in one direction means you’re going away from the center, abandoning "everyone" to really appeal to "someone". And that’s the secret of edgecrafting. Plussing yourself all the way to the edge, whatever that edge is.
See The Ward-O-Matic: Ava Thursday: Plussing Faces, via Mark at boingboing.
