Archive for the ‘Marketing Without Meaning’ Category

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Applebee’s Dining Ads Subtract Value

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

Last week I wrote about how Delta Airlines, like many other companies, will create or continue processes that end up hurting the service quality of their customers, i.e., their lifeblood. Over the weekend I took a road trip to Atlanta with my family and found another good example of a company that is similarly following a flawed approach into failure. Instead of a process, though, this example is a marketing approach that ends up placing annoying advertisements inside its stores to the point of nausea. If you’ve been into an Applebee’s lately, you likely know what I mean.

It’s not my first choice of dining establishments, but my 7-year-old daughter, Ella, loves Applebee’s. We regularly go there for her birthday because it is her favorite. And while on Interstate 75 driving through Knoxville, Tennessee, last Friday I figured we would stop there for a bite to eat. Applebee’s has a good variety of quality food at decent prices, and its servers are usually friendly and energetic. I would say the one big negative of Applebee’s is that it has always felt like you’re being bombarded with stimuli when you really want to sit down and eat. There’s the tchotchkes on the wall and menus with many colorful specials, package deals, and drinks of the month.

But this trip blew me away with the degree of advertising interruption that surrounded us. I took the photo above of the area next to our table (despite my wife’s embarrassment). You can see the table tent to the right of the ketchup advertising cocktails, and another table tent to the right advertising that if your waiter doesn’t offer you a special drink you get an appetizer for free. Then above the table are two additional ads filling the entire wall above our meal. But wait, there’s more! Up on the ceiling to my left was the hanging banner below.

I actually started laughing out loud at the ridiculousness of this in-store marketing strategy. But then it started feeling less amusing and more angering. Here we were spending a decent amount of money at a quality, sit-down restaurant, and we were subjected to a barrage of irrelevant, interruptive ads. It sends the impression that I am considered a low-IQ lab rat who will salivate at any photo of a breading-embedded food item with a $X.99 price tag. My impression is that Applebee’s doesn’t want to maximize the quality of my dining experience; rather, it wants to squeeze every last dollar out of my fajita-holding hands. I doubt we’ll be back more than once per year.

I don’t really believe that the people of Applebee’s are evil marketers; they are just following an old playbook out the window, and have forgotten to take a step back and look at their restaurants through the eyes of their patrons. Many years ago the chain saw strong results by creating inventive special offers, package deals, and creative cocktails. Over time, they have needed better results and found that people are noticing their growing list of specials less and less. So “it’s only natural” to find new places to interrupt people’s fields of vision or new opening pitch lines for their waitstaff. And the challenging economy has put further pressure on the company’s marketing team to do even more (of the same).

Because the people who dream up these marketing ideas don’t actually have to sit with them in restaurants every day, it’s easy to keep piling them on. The restaurant business is notorious for following established “rules” such as this. I remember meeting with an executive at Outback years ago who aired new commercials on Sunday and always saw restaurant traffic rise on Monday. But what happens when the 16th in-store ad fails to be noticed and not enough people saw your commercial on Sunday because they were watching 100 different channels?

The restaurant business might be one of the canaries in the coal mine of the shift in consumer media habits and failure of traditional marketing approaches. Although it’s hard to pin down table-side marketing as a cause, it is clear that same-store sales for Applebee’s are shrinking dramatically. In the first quarter of 2010, Applebee’s same-store sales were down 2.7%, an “improvement” (in other words “less worse”) from more than a 4.5% decrease in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Domino’s Pizza showed the restaurant world how a company can effectively admit its mistakes, significantly improve its core product, and win back customers and revenues, with same-store sales up 14% recently. It is a new model of Marketing with Meaning that brands such as Applebee’s would be wise to move to quickly before it’s too late.

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Posted in In-Store, Marketing Without Meaning, Restaurants | 2 Comments »

How Companies Follow Process to Failure

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

When people ask me what it takes to be good marketer I always reply that a key to my success has been the ability to pay attention to how people behave and form models to explain the behavior of individuals and society. Interestingly, this is probably what it takes to be a good comedian, too. Constantly paying attention and analyzing the world is a lot of work, unfortunately, and one of the “models” of behavior I’ve noticed is that companies often resort to rules and processes to guide people’s behavior so that they have to think less. The objective of process is to improve service quality and consistency. Unfortunately by dumbing down behavior, a “good” process can prevent firms from creating a great service. Let me share one example from my experience at the Delta Sky Club last week.

I am a very frequent flyer and for years now have been paying a few hundred dollars to be a part of the Delta Sky Club, which formerly was called the Crown Room. The Sky Club is a great value for someone such as me who spends too much time in airports. It provides a place to relax, free Wi-Fi, plentiful drinks, and helpful staff. But I’ve noticed something odd in my weekly check-ins at these air travel oases. Until a few months ago, the staff at the welcome desk would scan my boarding pass and welcome me in. But recently they have also been asking for my driver’s license or passport when I hand over my boarding pass. But why?

Here’s the thing: Except for maybe one or two airports in the U.S., the Sky Club is located in the main concourse after you go through the increasingly rigorous security check. That means that a trained expert in the front lines of terrorism protection has already double-checked that your ID matches your boarding pass. So why would Delta need to do this again? In fact, the boarding pass is printed with the words “SKY CLUB” and Delta takes the additional step of scanning the boarding pass, which brings up your personal account.

When I went through this extra step last week I asked the Delta representative at the desk about the purpose of this ID check. I made sure to let her know that I was not complaining, just curious. She had no clear idea why she was doing this step hundreds of times per day. That’s always a danger sign, by the way. If the person on the front lines of customer service can’t tell the customer what’s going on you have an issue. She then vaguely recalled something and mentioned that, “We added this process because people can do things with these print-at-home boarding passes.” OK, now I’m getting nervous: The TSA is approving people who might have fake boarding passes! And people are taking the time and risk to fake boarding passes just to get a free beer and Wi-Fi at the Sky Club?!

There might very well be a logical reason for Delta’s double-check of IDs, but I doubt it. Rather, I believe this is a process that someone instituted because there was some small chance at gaming the system. Things such as this happen often in businesses that are used to a lack of competition or service quality. And most airlines fall squarely into this zone. Someone comes up with this idea in a meeting and the group approves it without talking about the fact that it is at best pointless and at worst a signal that Delta does not trust its most frequent flyers. Power corrupts absolutely.

But the other lesson here is that new processes should not be taken on lightly. When employees are told what to do and how to do it even the best of them turn off their brains and go on cruise control. It was true of factory workers at the turn of the 20th century who suffered under Taylorism, and it is true of service providers in multi-billion-dollar companies today.

Posted in Marketing Without Meaning, airlines | 1 Comment »

Goldman Sachs’s Generosity Looks Hollow

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

goldman_sachs

If there’s one profession that has probably dropped below advertisers on the respect level in the past few years, it would be investment bankers. Not only did they take their fair share of blame for the ongoing economic catastrophe, but now they are sinking to new lows in the court of public opinion thanks to the billions in bonuses that are about to be paid out. In fact, a recent WSJ study found that total compensation for bankers will be up 18% in 2009 to $145 billion—that’s amid a year that took a Fed rescue plan! One company in particular, Goldman Sachs, is facing a storm of anger as it prepares to pay out roughly $10 billion in bonuses to its bankers. That doesn’t seem right to the millions of Americans who are still struggling to pay the bills (and who didn’t have a hand in destroying the markets), and neither does Goldman’s halfhearted attempts to buy them off with charitable giving.

Let’s definitely give the brainiacs at Goldman Sachs credit for trying to defuse a public attack by creating new forms of charitable giving. In November the company set up a $500 million fund to make loans to small businesses. The fund is being overseen by Warren Buffett, who is a trusted leader but has a conflict of interest as a large Goldman shareholder. Now the company is considering a plan to require its executives and other top managers to give a percentage of their bonuses to charities. This number could also reach into the hundreds of millions.

While any money that goes away from new yachts for rich bankers and instead to small businesses and worthy charities is great, I believe Goldman Sachs will gain little from its sudden interest in generosity. The key problem is that the American people are not idiots. They can see for themselves that the giving is a drop in the multi-billion-dollar bucket. They know that the company is dreadfully fearful of government legislation that could pare back its gains—permanently. President Obama is considering a $90 billion “financial responsibility tax.” If you doubt that Congress will ever pass something like this, just ask the executives at AIG how a government pay cap feels.

On the other hand, if Goldman or some other large financial services brand had made giving part of their culture for years, there might be an opportunity to secure big bonuses and grow market share. In fact, Goldman Sachs actually has some significant giving in its company history, as its early partners backed Albert Einstein and helped establish the NAACP. Alas, those days are far away, and any company that has to force its partners to give away a percentage of outsized gains has lost any true charitable culture that ever existed.

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Posted in Cause Related, Government, Marketing Without Meaning | No Comments »

Marriott Mars Your Stay with In-Toilet Ads

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

marriott toilet ad

Every few weeks I feel compelled to share an example of how big companies are taking the marketing and advertising fields to new lows. Today’s example comes from one of my field operatives, Jonathan Richman, who spotted the advertisement for Toto toilets in his room at the Marriott Renaissance in Washington, D.C. It’s sad, but true, and a good opportunity to step back and think about the economics of this new ad space.

Let’s start with an analysis of the advertising itself. Marriott is providing a platform for the Toto brand to advertise its innovative new toilet, including the chance to learn more at cleanishappy.com. The toilet seat is a piece of visual real-estate that has been previously untapped. And people who stay at pricey hotels are likely those a brand such as Toto would love to reach. But there are a few problems here. The biggest miss is the fact that Toto is advertising its product on a toilet that is NOT a Toto. This leaves a negative impression on both Toto and Marriott. Why tease the customer and remind him that this toilet will not clean him properly? It’s like going to a restaurant and getting an ad on your table for better food at another restaurant. The second issue is that people do not like to get engaged in toilets. We want to do our business and move on, and we want to focus on hitting the “target” rather than getting distracted by ad copy.

But let’s continue by looking at the numbers behind this new advertising medium to understand the size of the prize. Heck, maybe this is a huge moneymaker for Marriott and part of the next evolution of marketing. Here’s a few things that I calculated and assumed:

  • Let’s assume that these ads were placed on every single Marriott hotel room around the world. That totals 560,000 rooms in 2008 (last numbers I could find).
  • Marriott averages 73.5% occupancy in its rooms.
  • Let’s say only 1 impression per guest per day “counts” in a toilet seat media buy.
  • Let’s assume Marriott gets a high, targeted CPM of $50. That’s $50 in revenue for every 1,000 people who view these ads each day.
  • If all of its ad space were sold, that would mean a grand total of $20,580 in toilet seat advertising revenue per year for Marriott.

So, at the end of the day, the opportunity for Marriott here is not even a rounding error on a rounding error when dropped into the company’s total annual revenue of $12.9 billion. You can stop there and wonder why the company would bother going along with this asinine idea. But let’s take it a step further: What if Marriott actually pisses people off with these advertisements and hurts its business? How many people would it take to stop choosing Marriott for their travel needs because they don’t appreciate the eyeball pollution and toilet tease. Here are some more numbers:

  • The average revenue per room per day for Marriott is $121.34.
  • It only takes 170 fewer stays (.03% of total stays) to offset the $20,580 ad revenue gain.

So if only a tiny handful of the many thousand people who see these ads are turned off, then the whole effort is worthless. Further, there’s the negative word of mouth that comes from road warriors who share this story. In Jonathan Richman’s case, this intrusive advertising reminded him of the $12.95 the hotel is charging him for Wi-Fi access (when even McDonald’s is giving it away for free). Also throw in the more than 15,000 people who have seen Jonathan’s photo when he posted it on Reddit in the past week. If “only” 15,000 people around the world get pissed off and stay one less day each, the company loses $1.8 million!

So, at minimum, Marriott really should have thought more about its overall business and more about making its guests enjoy a pleasant experience rather than slapping on some ads for a few extra bucks. And it could even turn this Toto partnership into an example of Marketing with Meaning. Why not actually install some of these whiz-bang new super-clean Toto toilets in its high-end Renaissance rooms? We’ve already seen Westin make a major brand impact by doing little things in its rooms such as the Heavenly Bed and Heavenly Shower. Why not innovate with the equivalent of a Heavenly Toilet? That would be a great trial opportunity for Toto as well as a way for Marriott to show that it is investing in a better stay experience.

Am I missing something here? Why would Marriott ever agree to this? What would it take for the company to put its toilet money where its mouth is? Does your brand preference for Marriott change in seeing this?

Posted in Marketing Without Meaning | 5 Comments »

Non-meaningful Technology Marketing

Monday, November 30th, 2009

In case you haven’t noticed, there has been a rash of new marketing activity in the realm of technology brands. Maybe they’ve been gearing up for a load of holiday shopping searches, or maybe the launch of Microsoft’s Bing search engine has prompted the marketplace to action. Either way, much of it is horrible, and I feel compelled to get on my soapbox and wag a finger at some of the biggest brands in the businesses who are heaping hundreds of millions of dollars of marketing messages on our poor eyeballs.

First up is Yahoo!, which is surely at risk of feeling the sting from Bing, and continues to lose pace with the search engine champ, Google. This fall, the company decided to respond to new innovations from Bing and continued strength from Google by, you guessed it, launching a big, expensive traditional equity campaign. Take a look for yourself:

Yahoo! is in the middle of dropping $100 million on this “It’s Y!ou” global campaign. You wouldn’t know it from this one-minute commercial, but Yahoo! has added some modest changes to its website to add personalization. But it seems to be doing little so far, as its share of search was down from 18.8% in September to 18.0% in October. That’s a withering one-month change, and makes one wonder how much farther it would fall without all of the positive impacts of this ad campaign (ahem).

Then there’s eBay, a company that is now considered a “traditional digital” business. This once-hot business is flattening as consumers have grown tired of auction-based buying and eBay’s fees. Not to fear, though—a fresh campaign will do the trick, right? Here’s a look at how eBay is trying to convince shoppers that it has the “It” they are looking for:

Finally, we come to AOL. It is another once-proud company that is really on the ropes. The company is doing everything it can to add some positive buzz as it prepares to separate from Time Warner. It first hired a charismatic CEO, Tim Armstrong, from Google, who has toured the tech conferences and marketers’ boardrooms with plenty of promises of a “new AOL.” Naturally, that includes spending millions on a new logo and branding campaign. In this case, AOL found that its brand represented more than a single logo could define (that always spells trouble on the creative brief!). So it has chosen to place its brand name over dozens of other objects and photographs, as seen below. The blogosphere’s reaction is perhaps best seen in GigaOM’s article: “AOL Reveals Lame New Look & Logo.”

aolreveals

Conclusion

It pains me to see these three once-innovative brands resort to some of the most traditional, tired marketing playbook pages. They all have bought the traditional ad-agency story that all you need is a snappy look, a cool tagline (preferably with an exclamation point), and bucket-loads of money to shove your new positioning in front of eager eyeballs. Then again, all three of these brands rose to prominence during the dot-com years of the late 1990s, when billions were blown on Super Bowl ads, sock puppets, and cannon gerbils. The lesson that they missed is that great companies don’t need to tell their customers that they are great. Instead, they need to make great products and services that people love to talk about. And they need to make meaningful marketing that people love to talk about, too.

On Wednesday, I will share the latest marketing work from a truly great technology company that continues to get it.

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Posted in Marketing Without Meaning, Organizational Behavior, Technology | 3 Comments »

Survive Breast Cancer, Get a Free Bloomin’ Onion

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

bloomin onion breast cancer

Well, not exactly, but bear with me and read on if you don’t mind, because I do have an important point here and I sincerely need your help in figuring out the meaning of this marketing.

It all started over the weekend when I was catching some college football on good old-fashioned network television. I was actually getting ready to head out and was coming out of the shower when I heard the Australian voice from the Outback TV commercials in a very serious tone. This surprised me because the guy is usually full of “We’ll put a shrimp on the bar-bie for ya!” optimism and excitement. I listened as the voice explained that Outback was a proud supporter of the brave men and women who risk our lives to protect our freedom on Veterans Day, November 11. And to show this pride and support the troops, any veterans and active-duty military personnel who visit Outback on this day will receive… a free Bloomin’ Onion (regular price, $6.25)!

Something in my gut didn’t feel good. No, it wasn’t memories of the last time I downed nearly an entire Bloomin’ Onion by myself. Rather, I felt that Outback’s promotion was self-serving and potentially insulting to our military men and women.

Now, I’m a big fan of Marketing with Meaning, as regular readers know. And anytime a brand provides a free product or sample to its customers, there’s a good chance it’s meaningful marketing. Denny’s, for example, earned a rave review in my book for its wildly successful free Grand Slam giveaway after this year’s Super Bowl. Such giveaways grab customers’ attention and hit the “free” value button we all have programmed into our heads, which is especially sensitive in this economy. Such offers bring people who are attracted to the freebie, and they end up spending a lot more on full meals and beverages for themselves and the rest of their family members.

Several other restaurants are also getting in on the free food for veterans act. According to an article in Slashfood, Applebee’s and McCormick & Schmick’s are both providing free entrees, and Krispy Kreme is offering free donuts on Veterans Day. And the benefits are extending beyond casual dining; for example, both Lowe’s and Home Depot are offering 10% discounts to military men and women.

The issue I see is that a free Bloomin’ Onion seems so petty for something as meaningful as military service at a time when we are actively losing men and women amid war. What’s worse is seeing this “offer” plastered across our mass-media TV screens in a blatant attempt to convince the majority, non-military personnel that Outback is doing the right thing for real American heroes. Toss in the odd fact that Outback, which aspires to be an “Australian” steakhouse, is honoring American military personnel.

It just feels to me that military service is far too serious a sacrifice to be linked to free appetizers at a restaurant chain. Let’s compare this to the recent cause-related marketing around National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and the pink ribbons that have been everywhere from soup cans to NFL players’ gloves. What if Outback ran commercials that said, in a serious Australian accent:

“You’re a survivor. You’ve beaten breast cancer, and are a hero to us all. So we salute you by offering you a free Bloomin’ Onion.”

Ridiculous, right? Or am I wrong? And how is risking one’s life in military service any less odd to reward with a delicious onion app?

Restaurants such as Outback are well-known for one-time gimmicks to lure people into their restaurants, and as a longtime advertising watcher it made me cringe. On the other hand, I do believe restaurants can win by doing more over a longer term. Serving a full meal or entree, like some of the examples above, is a step in the right direction. I do have to give Outback credit for sending some of its employees to Afghanistan to provide meals to the troops, but this is not mentioned in its mass marketing. I think the company should take a lesson from Golden Corral.

Golden Corral is hosting its 9th annual Military Appreciation dinner on Monday, November 16. The company moved its event to this day because it knows that many people have other plans for the holiday itself. And it is offering complete buffet meals for military visitors. Not only is this a real commitment to the troops, but it’s a better brand fit, as most military men and women are on tight budgets and cannot afford the $100 or more it can cost to visit an Outback with their families. Golden Corral is a budget-friendly brand.

Now, this is one of those blog posts where I have a strong opinion, but I am willing to admit that I could be wrong. It is hard to chastise a company when they are doing something with some kind of customer benefit for an important cause. What do you think?

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Posted in Cause Related, Marketing Without Meaning, Sampling | 1 Comment »

AT&T Tries to Reach the “Minority Report” Mobile Future

Monday, November 9th, 2009

One of my favorite things to do in presentations about mobile and the future of marketing is to replay the scene above from the movie Minority Report (play above), in which Tom Cruise walks through a subway station and is bombarded with personalized 3-D ad units that scan his pupils and attempt to entice him to buy one of many products. Director Steven Spielberg actually got help from the MIT Media Lab to come up with the advertising concepts used in the movie. The movie was set in 2054, but here, today, aggressive companies want to make it a reality now. They dream of a world where our mobile devices are alerted to coupons, deals, and promotions as we walk by store fronts. Last week AT&T showed off such a mobile couponing concept at its Tech Showcase. But here’s the reality for today and tomorrow: These ideas will fail completely.

At the link below you can see a very short video of the AT&T concept, which is consistent with an idea that dozens of futurists, entrepreneurs, and big marketers hope will come true one day:

Next time you hear someone claim that this is the future of advertising, kindly beg to differ. The big problem with this concept is that people don’t like to be interrupted by advertising! I know, I know; it’s hard for us lifelong marketers to deal with, but it is absolutely true. To put this in perspective, let’s imagine that you could give out your home phone number to any number of marketers, and when these marketers have a “great deal” for you, they could call your home phone and speak to you when you answer, or leave you a voice mail message. Sounds great, right? Not really. In fact, more than 76% of Americans have registered their home phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, which shows two problems with this future scenario.

First, the telephone is a very personal tool that people are extremely protective of. We look at the phone as our window to the world, our way of communicating with the people who we want to talk to. We own our phones and our numbers; we even pay to keep these numbers by moving them from phone to phone and address to address. It is literally a lifeline in some cases. When Congress overwhelmingly passed the Do Not Call Registry legislation, they established the fact that a telephone line is something that the homeowner “owns,” rather than a public space such as the street in front of your house. And this and other laws have ingrained the “right to phone control” in people’s lives.

The second major issue is the fact that when we let marketers start sending “valuable” messages, it’s highly likely to be completely irrelevant and annoying. Let’s use email as the analogy in this case. Soon after marketers gained the ability to send email to customers and prospects, they discovered that they could reach many, many people at the push of a button and at near zero cost. When you have freedom to advertise at no cost, the result is unbridled junk. And despite great data about the value of personalization, most marketers are lazy and would rather just spam millions and hope that some small percentage opens the email and buys a product. And I’m talking about big, reputable marketers here, not just the common spammers.

Doubt me? Well, take a read of my post on how Banana Republic is sending me emails about women’s boots. In this Minority Report world, why would Banana Republic do anything differently? In this AT&T future, when I walk by its store in the mall they will send me the same irrelevant offers that they’re sending me now. And it will take only a handful of these lazy, valueless messages before I unsubscribe to this entire mobile marketing app or end my contract with whatever mobile service is pushing it on me. And even if they do something personalized (say for men’s shirts), the chances that I will be in the mood to stop in the store when I am going about my life and trying to get things done is extremely small. Sure, one walk by out of 100 might find me in the buying mood, but that means 99 messages will simply annoy me.

This brings me to some of the special reasons that mobile is the last place such a service could succeed. The mobile phone is even more personal and private, and people are scared to death that it will be taken over by marketers. A few data points from recent studies by ACNielsen:

  • Mobile marketing was judged to be the “least trusted” form of advertising by consumers in 47 countries.
  • Only 10% of people responded to ads in a test.
  • 67% of people found it unacceptable to have ads on their mobile device.

We consumers really shouldn’t worry about the interruptive mobile future, because it faces two giant barriers. First, the mobile-service providers know that it would be suicide to force such an advertising medium on their customers. Thankfully, we have several choices in which company we go with for service. If any one of them starts spamming, then the move to alternatives would be swift. And there’s just not a ton of money for the AT&Ts of the world to reap from advertising, either. They make $50 to $100 per month on service. But at even a CPM rate of $100 for this “high quality impression,” you would have to hit people with many, many ads for this to earn a few bucks per month.

The second barrier to this future is the highly likely legislation that governments would pass to prevent this from happening. The Do Not Call Registry was the biggest slam-dunk bill passed during George Bush’s eight years. Congress loves to pick on advertisers because their constituents are sick of 3,000 ad interruptions per day, and very few people are going to defend the rights of a group that is respected at about the level of used-car salesmen.

Finally, let’s remember the barrier to all of the greatest ideas in the present and future of marketing: It takes forever for businesses to try something new. People envision a service like this to be a boon to small businesses, but here’s the reality: Small businesses don’t have a lot of marketing dollars, and they are the last to try new marketing. I love how one sandwich place near our office started using Facebook to spread the news of its daily specials. But these are few and far between. Not to mention the fact that they have been using a very, very low-tech way to share offers and promotions with people as they walk by: the sign!

So as much as we marketing geeks think it would be cool to intercept potential customers as they stroll by our stores, this idea is DOA. I think the only possibility for it to work is for services that are completely opt-in. Foursquare is one company that hopes people who have time to kill and want to see some offers will open its app. This is going in the much more meaningful direction, as it means the consumer is choosing to engage. That said, this is an idea on the small side. A store might get one person a week who has the app, logs into the app, sees a special he likes, walks in, and decides to buy.

I’m an enormous believer in the potential for mobile to connect customers and marketers in meaningful ways. But let’s file the Minority Report future somewhere along flying cars and remember to put ourselves in the customers’ mindset first.

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Posted in Marketing Without Meaning, mobile, small business | 1 Comment »

Will “Droid Does” Be Meaningful?

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009


(Today I’m turning over the keys to guest writer Marty Boyer, one of our top technology leaders here at Bridge Worldwide. Marty had some great thinking about a new campaign for Verizon that is meant to steal share from the iPhone, and I asked him to add his thinking to this space. Please also check out Marty’s blog over at Famine City.)

If you are going to call out the iPhone for its shortcomings, you better bring a great product and the marketing cavalry. Unfortunately, I have to say that while the technology might deliver on the brand promise for Android, the “Droid Does” campaign is not delivering on meaningful marketing quite yet.

As a technologist, I was very excited to see Verizon’s Droid Does campaign surface on television a couple weeks ago. Finally, competition that is so confident about its product that it is directly taking on the iPhone. Though I own an iPhone, I also own a G1—the first release of the Android phone. The first release of the Android phone wasn’t exactly a consumer-ready device. However, with the release of the Droid Does campaign and Android 2.0, I was anticipating some strong competition for Apple, which needs a strong competitor to hasten upgrades to the iPhone. I was assured through the bold statements and the nature of the commercial that this device is ready to deliver.

Then I visited droiddoes.com, the call to action on the television spot. Verizon piqued my interest, I came to its website, and I was fully engaged. I’m the exactly the visitor Verizon wants blogging about the next release of the Android platform. I was hoping for something meaningful. But…

Verizon did not deliver anything meaningful. When I visited the site, there was an email sign-up box, circa 2000, to get updates on availability. DroidDoes.com missed the opportunity to send me wistfully into their purchasing funnel. I committed my time to visiting their site and even signed up for the newsletter, but was underwhelmed from the marketing experience. I wanted to be sold. I wanted something meaningful.  To be competitive in this space, brands must remember that they are trying to attract converts and early adopters. So what might a meaningful effort have looked like in this space?

Provide the opportunity to join a revolution.

The iPhone isn’t simply a phone; it’s a cultural icon. From the headphones on down, it is an absolute status symbol. There are many buyers who want another option—a better option for their specific needs. Help us believe, Verizon. We want to be part of an early-adoption revolution. Allow us to take a blog badge, join a Facebook group, or leave a comment about what I want by joining the Android revolution. As I am writing this post, a tweet came across from Adam Kmiec, “So want a Palm Pre or Pixi. Wish Palm had a program for people to trade in their iphones for a pre/pixi.” We all want options and an alternative to the iPhone; capitalize on it.

Use all of the energy and comments in the social-media space to share features about the Android.

Alternatively, allow iPhone users to download an iPhone app that posts what they want from the Android. Solicit feedback about what people are really looking forward to from the Google product to help build buzz and then share this content out to social networks. The people who are visiting Droid Does are early adopters and converts, but there is not a method to harness their energy to build Android momentum.

Show the anatomy of a “Droid.”

I can easily Google “Android phone” and find video, features, functions, and more content than is delivered on the website. Verizon has an opportunity to show us the latest, greatest, and best of its product offering, yet it has given the responsibility over to other consumers. If we have to rely on other consumers more than the brand itself for product information, then there’s work to do. Again, the company has not delivered a meaningful experience or even (simply) information. At this same time I might recommend that Verizon use the opportunity to clear up why its service is different than T-Mobile’s G-Phone product. Consumers in the United States (unless you are an iPhone user) tend to shop by carrier first, and phone second. This is more FAQ content and does not even really engage the user, but is a step toward being useful, if not meaningful.

To quote Jim Croce, “You don’t step on Superman’s cape.” You are calling Apple into the fight. You are telling the world you are better. If you are better, you have to deliver. Every phase of your plan must be on point, meaningful, and executed to take on a market leader. At some point, the Google phone will make inroads into the Apple iPhone’s world. At minimum, I am expecting some of the market forces to hasten upgrades to the iPhone itself. If you are going to compete with Apple, your products better deliver on the brand promise and start with meaningful marketing experiences.

Marty Boyer is an Associate Director of Technology at Bridge Worldwide. He leads interactive solutions for his P&G brand efforts. Outside of work you will find him engaged in the social-media space, blogging, and in the Twitter-verse.

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Posted in Marketing Without Meaning, Uncategorized, mobile | 1 Comment »

BlackBerry Loves U2: Who Cares?

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

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Over the weekend my wife and I took a break from everyday life to head out to Las Vegas for a long weekend featuring the U2 concert on Friday night. Your dedicated blogger took the opportunity to spend a little time sampling BlackBerry’s enormous sponsorship of the band’s 360 Tour, and what I found is Marketing Without Meaning.

By now you have probably seen BlackBerry’s splashy, sexy TV commercials featuring U2 and the tagline “BlackBerry Loves U2.” The concert arena in Las Vegas had plenty of banners put up (like the above) announcing the brand’s love for the band. BlackBerry reportedly paid up to $150 million for the rights to love U2 in public and brag about it in a massive advertising campaign. Here’s the thing: Who cares if BlackBerry loves U2?

For one thing, let’s take a step back and think about how the tables have completely turned in the sponsorship world. Today, celebrities are in so much demand by desperate brands that they don’t even have to really support the products that pay them! It’s not “U2 loves BlackBerry,” but the other way around. Heck, I love U2 and I didn’t have to pay anything more than $200 for a concert ticket. This reminds me of a raft of other examples that I wrote about a few months ago; for example, the AT&T commercials with TOMS Shoes in which the guy from TOMS never once praises or mentions AT&T.

There are also lots of issues around BlackBerry trying to gain popular acceptance and credibility with a wider audience by borrowing interest. Slate magazine does a great job of hacking away at the brand’s strategy, suggesting that it’s much better off sticking to its positioning as a more serious business tool, rather than trying to become as cool as Apple.

BlackBerry did create one piece of meaningful marketing as part of its U2 tie-in: The U2 Mobile Album, an app for BlackBerry only that includes music, videos, news, and a way to see where other app users are at a concert. It’s interesting but not exactly a news-maker. I believe that it was a mistake to not create the app for the iPhone platform as well as its own. It might seem odd to do something for competing phone owners, but by doing this BlackBerry could show iPhone users that it has cool apps, too, and win over some who are tired of AT&T’s poor service, for example.

It looks like a big waste of money, and the early results suggest this is in fact the case. In parent company Research In Motion’s 2nd quarter financial report in September, sales came in weaker than expected and the company might now have to cut prices.

So now that we’ve established that BlackBerry is pursuing a meaningless path, let’s turn the tables and examine how U2 is fairing from the deal. Financially it’s difficult to argue that this was anything less than genius in the short term. The band pocketed many millions in sponsorship dollars and every ad featuring the band was more free marketing for its music and concerts.

But many seem to believe that U2 is taking a brand equity hit from “selling out” to a brand that doesn’t build the U2 equity. Most of the doubts and complaints come from the band’s technology partnership switch from Apple to BlackBerry. The Apple tie-ins, which helped in the launch of the iPod, felt good on all sides: a great, creative band and a great, creative brand to match. The co-branded U2 iPod was a coup, and Steve Jobs and Bono are buddies; it was a great match. But by switching to BlackBerry, a brand most popular with financial types, felt like U2 was just selling out to the new highest bidder. The lack of anything very interesting and positive for the U2 fans from BlackBerry makes this connection even weaker.

That said, band brand fans are pretty forgiving, and the incredible music and history of the group will likely overcome any short-term dint from this tie-in. I will conclude by adding that I enjoyed how U2 allowed its concert fans to take unlimited pictures, video, and audio of the show. Last year I went to a Bruce Springsteen concert in Cincinnati and the bouncers were pulling camera phones out of people’s hands like they used to pull lit joints away years ago. I’m not sure if this was an official U2 acceptance policy or if we’ve reached a point in society that you just cannot prevent people from pulling out their phones. Either way, it gave me and the other 40,000-plus fans a chance to take away a few visual memories to share with friends.

UPDATE: Over Halloween weekend I turned on my TiVo and saw that I could watch the band’s Rose Bowl show, which took place a few days after the Vegas one.  After walking my kids around the neighborhood for trick-or-treating I settled in and watched this entire show for free on my TiVo thanks to YouTube and U2.  Very, very cool!  And many other people found it cool, too, as there were as many as 10 million streams of the concert on YouTube as of October 29.  If this were a TV show, it would have been a top 8 rated program in terms of number of viewers.

In that spirit, check out a few photos that I snapped (with my iPhone) during the show, including one of my wife and me having a blast. Thanks, U2.

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u2 vegas ticket

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Posted in Entertainment, Event, Marketing Without Meaning | 5 Comments »

Pepsi Cuts All Ad Spending: Consider the Possibilities

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

Onion Pepsi

A few weeks ago, one of the most re-tweeted links among us marketing geeks was The Onion’s article claiming “Pepsi to Cease Advertising.” The article is a classic, hilarious piece from the online newspaper equivalent of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report, and many of us had a short chuckle and went back to work. But on second thought, maybe this article isn’t so crazy after all….

This week I got to spend some time with Frederic Colas, Chief Strategic Officer for giant European digital agency, FullSIX. We both are former P&G guys who left to take similar roles in digital agencies. We were talking about our concept of Marketing with Meaning, and Frederic brought up this Onion article as something that was suggesting what meaningful marketing is all about: dumping the traditional, interruptive model  and moving all funds to something that consumers actually care about. As Frederic wisely said, “Any good satire has a kernel of truth and believability.”

So what if Pepsi started from scratch on its marketing budget and adopted an entirely new approach? What if it decided that the purpose of its marketing was not to simply remind people that the brand exists, is refreshing, and is something that celebrities love to (get paid to) drink?

What if, instead, the brand chose to put its marketing dollars into something that its consumers choose to engage with, and marketing that itself adds value to people’s lives? Imagine what the company could do to inject joy into people’s lives through marketing, rather than mentally brainwashing them into thinking that a sip of Pepsi will produce said joy. By creating real joy, Pepsi has a much better chance of earning loyalty beyond reason for life. As for where to put these dollars, I envision everything from social gaming to enormous global cause projects.

Pepsi certainly could use something different. Revenue for PepsiCo fell by 1.5% in the most recent quarter, which was worse than analysts expected. Brands such as Gatorade have struggled as the old model of catchy ad campaigns have failed in this new economy with this new consumer. On the other hand, the beverage unit could learn and embed lessons that are coming from its Frito-Lay division, where brands such as Doritos and SunChips are experiencing sales growth and tighter consumer bonds through meaningful marketing.

I wonder what the conversations were in the halls of PepsiCo when this article made the rounds through email. If even a handful of its marketers paused to consider this article as a possibility, then the seeds of revolution might have been sown.

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Posted in Marketing Without Meaning, Organizational Behavior | No Comments »

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