Oct
04

The US Postal Service has a new ad campaign out, focusing on the dangers of hacking that surround email and the benefit of “hand-devlivered” mail.  I have a feeling the money would have been better spent on employee training (“customer service”) and creating a more efficient operational system. But, since that would be too logical, my thoughts on the new campaign:

1. I do everything I can to physically avoid going to the US Post Office. I’d rather pay a premium via FedEx and have multiple root canals  - all at one time - than to subject myself to such a miserable experience. 

2. I’ve actually caught my local post office holding my magazines so the employees had something to read (I literally caught them with them in hand).  

2. I have yet to have an email account hacked (knock on wood). I am more worried about a postal employee accessing personal information from a letter sent to me by my bank, insurance company, etc. 

3. I am lucky if I get my mail delivered twice a week, and even then it ends up in the wrong mailbox (the mail box that is clearly labeled “DO NOT PUT MAIL HERE”).

4. My mail carrier comes during work hours. You could deliver the mail by carrier pigeon and I wouldn’t know any better (except, well, the carrier pigeon probably has a better track record). 

Source

Sep
18

Mar
09

Mar
08

Shooting Star

Why those in advertising have a lifespan that shines brightly, but oh, so briefly.

“Lindsay, I know this  is hard to hear, but at some point, if we want the site to go live, we need to move out of comps and into production.”

(Pause)

“Ah, no. No we cannot just connect pdf’s to create a website.”

Mar
07

Feb
26

Life On The Dark Side

Fred Wilson, Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures wrote two amazing blog posts yesterday and today.  Friday’s post has received 400+ smart, thoughtful comments, and comments for today’s post are still going (not bad for a Saturday).  

What topic could possibly be creating so much noise? Healthcare? Demonstrations in the Middle East? Oscar red-carpet fashion? No.  It’s marketing. Yeah, who knew? Marketing. (And many thanks to Arnold, who I believe, had something to do with this, in a very good way). 

Fred’s first post makes some excellent points, some of which I agree with, some that I do not.  It does give us something to think about.  Post #2 is a follow up with clarifications based on the comments received from his community.  This time, I tend to agree more rather than less.

What ultimately hit home for me was this:  

“Most of the damage has come from outsourced marketing relationships with agencies who charge too much and help too little.”

Fred writes from the POV of a potential investor in start-ups (USV currently invests in Twitter, Tumblr, Boxee, Etsy, FourSquare, etc). I can understand why he said this.

I work for an agency. My entire career and CV is built on working for top global agencies and Fortune 100 clients. I technically should not agree with this. And yet I do - totally and completely.  

I don’t believe marketing is a bad thing, but, I also do not believe that ungodly sums of money are needed for successful marketing programs, especially in today’s digital world.  Does Coca-Cola REALLY need an annual marketing budget in the billions? The market share for leaders in soft-drink beverage category has basically remained unchanged for years.  Think about that. 

Let’s be realistic - marketing/advertising agencies are not non-profit businesses. Nor should they be. There are revenue goals and shareholders to please. There are creative awards.  Meeting these objectives does not always mean a client will get a successful campaign. A successful campaign does not mean an agency will hit revenue goals or win awards. To be fair, there are many clients that feel our services should be free. Which is ridiculous. If you want my expertise, pay for it. I certainly can’t go to Barney’s and get clothes for free (yet).   Client procurement now plays a bigger role in marketing decisions than the marketing group, which creates another layer of complexity to navigate through (and is worthy of another post). 

Net net - there are multiple competing forces at work and it becomes this really complicated, and sometimes frustrating, dance.

Most marketing professionals are intelligent and successful people who are not afraid to recommend the right approach. They realize our lives in marketing are no longer black and white, “case-study supported”.  They know that we are in a place where case studies are being created. Which is super exciting. 

Sometimes, it means we forgo a kick-ass annual retainer. It means our client will be successful, but not “famous” for their advertising in the trade pubs (but Wall Street will love them). It means the client may go elsewhere because we didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear, because it doesn’t use the latest trend/buzzword that someone, somewhere, has latched on to, because decision makers (within an agency or client) are so entrenched in the traditional way of talking to consumers they just refuse - or are too afraid- to change the ways we do things.  

I do believe that marketing has it’s place  - for all businesses - from start-up to established global brand. The challenges are pretty clear:

  • understanding how technology has changed the way we communicate - and embracing that
  • helping our clients understand this change

If we can do these things, we can work in a way that is successful for both clients and agencies. Win-win. Agencies happy. Clients happy. It should be that simple. 

Jan
12

Dec
09

Dec
03

Mar
18

Great find from reecepacheco.  Not sure if ChatRoulette has “value”? Think again.

I saw this yesterday via @stylman.  It’s a good natured example of what kind of potential there is in ChatRoulette (click through at your own risk).

What I mean is this guy takes a really simple idea, makes a fun screencast out of it, and he’s at over 1.5M views on YouTube.  That’s powerful - especially if you think about how attractive that kind of attention is to a brand.

Then I stumbled across this guy Ryan’s post on a ChatRoulette marketing idea for Oreo cookies.

I tried out my advertising idea by entrancing users with an Oreo cookie.  I just held an Oreo and shoved it towards the webcam and then into my face. I got thumbs up, and numerous strangers requesting an Oreo. My average interaction went from about 2 seconds to about 30 seconds. People were dying for my Oreos. Have an attractive girl [EDITOR’S NOTE: I think Ryan means a hot girl a.k.a. a ‘smokeshow’] do the Oreo teasing (it seems like 90% of chatroulette users are male), record it, loop the video, set up a program to feed the video to multiple strangers at once, then profit.

It’s a brilliant, simple idea.  I’m interested to see if/how/when brands go after ChatRoulette.

What do you think?  Is ChatRoulette a worthwhile platform?

Source reecepacheco

Reblogged from reecepacheco