I’ve railed against interruptive marketing time after time in this space. The purpose of this blog is to promote the need for us to stop finding new ways to just “get eyeballs” and instead create advertising that people actually find valuable. But to prove the concept, it is important to continually test it. Let’s see if Zappos can pass the test with air-travel advertising.
Air travel is becoming a huge target of brilliant inventors’ attempts to make a buck by bombarding us with more advertising. Air travelers are certainly a great target for their efforts; they have higher incomes and need to make frequent decisions about where they stay or visit. And, most importantly, they are trapped in small places like security lines and airplane seats for hours—with nothing to do but stare at advertisements. As a result, we’ve seen ads arrive on tray tables, overhead storage bins, and even barf bags. A company called Ad-Air is buying up land near runways to host football-field-sized banner ads.
So it is no surprise that someone has figured out how to turn the lowly security bin into an advertising medium. A company called SecurityPoint Media has been written up in Advertising Age and USA Today for its new, growing service. The company splits the revenue with the host airport, and the bins are approved for TSA use. The company claims that several million people per month see the advertising, and they have received no complaints so far.
Research has proven that airport travelers consist of a highly sought-after demographic that includes early adopters and decision makers. There is no other airport marketing platform today that ensures your message meets the eye.” — SecurityPoint Media
During a training I was giving this week, someone in the audience mentioned that they had recently seen an ad for the online shoe store Zappos.com in these bins. It was memorable because it included cute copy and seemed extremely relevant (see above image). After all, what better time to talk shoes than when you’re asking someone to take them off and put them into a tray? But let’s test to see whether or not this is meaningful marketing.
Marketing
While we cannot get inside the heads of management, one would suppose that Zappos.com, a releatively new online retailer, has a business objective of driving awareness. The company likely sees tactics like this as a way to make a big impact without spending giant bucks on TV. Zappos says that the program is a success. According to its senior marketing manager, Andy Kurlander:
We feel that this is a highly targeted venue to promote our brand. Each person getting on a plane is guaranteed to view our message multiple times. Plus, with shoes in hand, it’s the perfect instance to remind them they’ve been meaning to make time to buy a new pair. Why not Zappos?”
Meaning
Here’s where I think the Zappos example breaks down. We believe that meaningful advertising must do two things: First, people must choose to engage in the ad. The Zappos ads, though, are more interruptive than engaging. The Zappos ad is a kind of “gotcha” surprise ambush. Second, the ad unit itself must add value to people’s lives. This might hold true, but just barely. The Zappos ad offers very light humor with lines such as “Place Shoes Here,” which can be a welcome diversion in the slow death march through the scanner line.
Conclusion
Is the Zappos.com security-bin marketing successful? Probably so. Is it meaningful? Not really. I believe new media opportunities like this tend to have a very short life span. The first ad units surprise us, and if they are clever and relevant (like Zappos), they can even delight us. But companies like SecurityPoint Media are not restricting themselves to clever, relevant advertisers, so those of us who trudge through the aiport each week will see more and more of them until they, too, become just another piece of ignored wallpaper along our journey from City A to City B.
Dear Mr. Gilbreath,
I’ve been thoroughly enjoying your Marketing with Meaning blog posts and wanted to invite some further discussion on two of your recent posts about Zappos.com and Lucky jeans. Although I’m not privy to the marketing strategies of Zappos, it does seem like they have an opportunity to engage new customers in a meaningful experience if the company’s new security bin advertising is part of a multi-level strategy.
As you mentioned, it probably won’t take long for airport travelers to tune out this interruptive form of advertising. In the meantime, however, could it be said that Zappos is in part making a memorable impression with prospective customers and driving awareness? While the ad tactic itself may not add value and create a meaningful experience, if it opens the door for the company to connect customers with the brand, is it successful?
Assuming that Zappos has a Marketing with Meaning strategy, could they effectively build a personal experience with clients without having first expanded awareness? In essence, if Zappos does capitalize on the awareness that it generates from these ads by engaging online customers through the Connections platform, would the security bin ads have served a beneficial purpose? By utilizing some of the techniques implemented by Lucky and Apple that you describe, Zappos could certainly enhance the personal experience of those who buy their products and build significant loyalty.
It would be great to stimulate further discussion on how Marketing with Meaning can be applied across the entire spectrum of marketing, including the first critical step of building awareness. Thanks again for your fantastic case studies and analysis of the newest marketing tools.
All the best,
Chad Seibert
Thanks for the added thinking and questions, Chad!
You’re definitely hitting on something that I wrestle with often: the fact that you may sometimes need to interrupt at first in order to invite people into a meaningful program.
For Zappos, at minimum, they have found a successful way to interrupt people in order to sell shoes. I certainly don’t believe the only way to win in advertising is through meaning. There are still pockets where it works. My overall point is that it’s becoming harder to win this way, and it is becoming easier and more effective to go meaningful.
I also believe you have a good point that Zappos can and does do more meaningful work after and in addition to this single tactic. In fact, the company is winning with Connections in a big way through its open culture and all-employee marketing efforts. This includes everything from a 300-page culture book, to several blogs and employee Twittering. These efforts are meaningful and lie somewhere in between service and marketing. People form Connections with the brand overall and individuals at the company. Here’s one of many articles about their marketing success:
http://www.corporate-eye.com/2008/09/zappos-employees-as-brand-champions/
But the more I read about these efforts, the more disappointed I am in the airport bins. Again, it’s clever as hell and works, but it has no link to the overall marketing strategy of employee-driven Connections. At a minimum, I would have loved an airport bin that, say, a short fashion tip from their Zappos Coutre employee blog. Such a tip would be more helpful or interesting than a clever ad – AND would introduce the consumer to what makes Zappos special (its people).
What do you think?
Dear Mr. Gilbreath,
Thanks for the great response! I’m in total agreement with your overall focal point of interruption marketing becoming less and less effective and that it is far better to shift towards a Marketing with Meaning paradigm. In the future, the latter will continue to produce better results with less effort and capital.
You brought up another great point about the need for congruency across the Zappos marketing plan. With the company’s focus on employee-driven Connections, it makes much for sense for Zappos to capitalize on their culture versus clever, but disconnected content.
As I read the terrific article you included about Zappos employees becoming brand champions, I stumbled across an interesting thought: As we move into a Marketing with Meaning age, will the shape of branding begin to change?
For a long time, most companies have sought to build a consumer connection to their Brand first, which then ultimately translates into a connection with the company itself. But Zappos is turning that strategy on its head by building a consumer connection to the Company first, through their all-employee marketing efforts like the super creative ZapposTV blog. For entrepreneurial companies, this new thought process may prove be the wave of the future when it comes to engaging consumers and adding value to their lives through meaningful advertising. What are your thoughts?
This is great stuff and I love that other people out there get as excited as I do about creating meaningful strategies and shaping the future of marketing!
Thanks again!
Chad Seibert
Hey, Chad – you’re hitting on something important: That when you become more meaningful with your product and marketing, you end up sparking a fire in which product, marketing, even employees unite to create something bigger. Is Zappos a shoe store, a service, a channel, or a group of friends you like to visit? It all becomes a blur. The people at Zappos don’t care that there isn’t a playbook or label to this, they are just having a lot of fun and selling a lot of shoes.
Whatever it is, this is certainly not something out of the 4-Ps, 3-Cs marketing textbook. This “post marketing, post product, post consumer” model is still forming and I haven’t figured it all out yet, but you are definitely hitting on something.
Hey Bob,
Thanks for mentioning our article on Zappos’ security bin advertising. It seems to be working for them, noticed they are in several of the largest airports in the States, not sure about international, but the whole thing is such an innovative idea, sure it won’t take long to get there. Anyhow, thanks again for the link, good work on your blog.
eCopt
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