David Kramer Volksiebus Ad

The Classic SA TV advert with David Kramer and the Volkiesbus

Marketing in Rambles 1: The teaser Campaign

Marketing in Rambles 1: The teaser Campaign

(Thanks to Dan for the title idea – Hope it takes you less than 59 seconds to read it).

If you’re finding your job boringly easy in that FMCG environment where even the sandwich delivery guy understands the four P’s of marketing then I appeal to you to step outside your comfort zone and join me in the hospital industry. Here marketing is that department that makes tea for patients and blows up all the balloons with logos on them – a branding exercise I suppose. Apparently scientists and doctors think our that communication portals, intranets, websites, C.I.’s, adverts and brand affinity measurements come about by a big bang theory of sorts.

So the guys who blows up the balloons (and those other strange guys that pay the salaries) decided to blow a huge budget on this year’s year end function and therefore needed to make sure that interest levels and attendances are high. This particular balloon blower decides to execute a simple teaser campaign of four funky (if I do say so myself) emails sent twice a week each, leading up to the event and giving away a bit more information every time - teasing as it were. The first one went out today, simply giving them a little clue about a big party coming up and the date it would happen so they could book it in their diaries.

The only way to explain the response was to show you some of the emails responses I got back:

“Where?”

“In my diary - in the basement?”

“Details please!”

“well is it a day time or a night time thing?”

“What will be the occasion in December?”

“Be where twit?” (Another word for a balloon blower I suppose)

“What is this about?”

Clearly the concept of a teaser is lost with this lot. I responded to these queries with a simple “It’s a teaser campaign.” To which some responses were:

“A what?”

“I don’t like being teased.” (From a female colleague, I am bracing for the harassment hearing from those guys that pay the salaries)

“Teasers in Rivonia Blvd?” (A strip club in Johannesburg, or so I’ve heard)

Lessons learnt:

· Don’t tease people that spent seven years after school in textbooks and the rest of their lives after that in body cavities.

· Don’t let non-marketers (read doctors, professors and scientist) know that balloon blowing is just one of your many skills; so many paradigm shifts could create another hole in the ozone.

· If you intend to use such ‘advanced’ (yes I know) marketing techniques such as an email teaser campaign, be prepared to spend the rest of your day answering confused people that call themselves professors.

Right enough rambling, back to creating more big bangs

Who am I listening to? Part 1: Anna Farmery

In this series of posts (labelled 'Who am I listening to') I'll keep you up to date with which Podcasts I am listening to.

Everytime I turn the proverbial Podcast corner, there's Anna Farmery! And what a pleasant suprise it always is. I find her Northern English accent and friendly quips completely refreshing after listening to gruff old business men drumming away on other Podcasts. She's also well known on the blogosphere from what I can gather as her name seems to come up often on other Podcasts and blogs.

Asides from the freshness and the strange looks I get in the traffic because I am laughing at (what appears to be) myself, Anna is also very well versed in her chosen subjects and she has definitely been an influence in my decision to move towards web 2.o marketing.

On her Podcast, The Engaging Brand, she deals with issues of employee engagement, branding and social media and judging from her blog she like the colour red!

She also co-hosts another Podcast that I subscribe to called The Podcast Sisters with Krishna De and Heather Gorringe (who I will get to in the near future!), that focuses on all things Podcasting and Web 2.0 and how you can use them in business. It does seem to be pitched towards ladies but that by no means excludes men from listening in too, just like I do every time there is an update.

Free Skype Calls on Your Mobile!

Yip just flipping through the BBC website this morning and came across this article. I spose it was inevitable but it is great news.

The Mobile network 3 have released a handset that will allow you to make free mobile calls using Skype. There is no mention in the article of whether it will be coming to SA or America but I'm sure it's in development.

Tutorial: New Media Marketing for Old Media Marketers. Part 3.1

New to the tutorial? Click here to start at the beginning.

Part 3.1 Social Networking sites, Facebook and Myspace

Ever been on Facebook or MySpace, or better yet, built a profile on either or both? Well done – you’re one of those above-mentioned users creating content on a Web 2.0 site/social media site!

A social networking site comprises of a collection of tools that make it easy to stay in contact with your friends: new and old, close and far, and even sometimes forgotten ones that find you. According to Facebook, I’ve got over 200 friends, but I’m not sure how exactly!

So the power of these sites relies on the old adage of 10 people invite 10 people who invite another 10 people, and so on until you’ve got over 50 million users (if you’re Facebook) and over 100 and something million users if you’re MySpace. I’m not going to give specific numbers as it changes all the time but check out Marketingcharts.com for the latest stats.

Did someone say marketing goldmine?

Think about it: traditionally, Old (boring heck) Media could only give you basic demographics about your audience or an audience you are trying to target, such as age group, location, sex breakdown, or some sort of LSM or expendable income measure. On social networking sites, people voluntarily give up all sorts of information about themselves: exact location, age, preferences, marital status, job, industry, favourite books, movies, websites, cities etc.

A great example I heard the other day is if you are a wedding dress service company in, say, Derby in England, you could specifically target all the ladies on Facebook of a certain age in England (or anywhere in the world) that are engaged and thinking of getting married in the Derbyshire area. The options are endless!

Actions: The only way to truly understand the power and addictiveness of these sites is to try them for yourself. Simply go to the website, sign up and follow the prompts to start searching for friends. Once you find just one, you can search all of their friends. You’ll be amazed who you will find! If you are struggling, let me know and I will help you get started. Which one do I prefer? Definitely Facebook, but that’s a whole other debate for another post.

Coming soon: definitions of Wikis, blogs, Widgets, and all those other things I mentioned.

Tutorial: New Media Marketing for Old Media Marketers. Part 3

New to the tutorial? Click here to start at the beginning.

Part 3: What kind of Web 2.0 services are there on the Internet?

So some of you might still not be too sure what this so-called phenomenon is – let alone understand why your future career might depend on it – so let’s drill down further into the major categories of the kind of websites that fall under Web 2.0.

The categories are as follows:
Blogs
Social Tagging
Social Networking
Social Media
Wikis
Podcasts
Widgets
RSS – Not entirely sure that RSS fits in here exactly, but it is the fuel that feeds the fire of many Web 2.0 services.

There are most probably more Web 2.0 website categories out there, but in the list above are the ones that I am aware of and once you’ve (and I’ve!) finished this tutorial, you will be comfortable enough in this new space to run around and explore freely finding your own favourite services!

Yeah I know, I know, you still probably don’t entirely know what I’m on about but in the next few posts, I’ll define each category (as closely as possible) and give the best example websites of each which will help you understand this Web 2.0 thing much better. Hang in there, we’re getting there.

Tutorial: New Media Marketing for Old Media Marketers. Part 2

New to the tutorial? Click here to start at the beginning.

Part 2: So what is Web 2.0?

Well unfortunately the definition varies and you’re not going to see the term Web 2.0 in the Oxford English Dictionary any time soon.

The thing is that Web 2.0 is not an official term, as such. It’s not like Bill Gates woke up one day and said “Oooh I’m gonna make a Web 2.0”. When I first (mis)heard about the term a few years ago, I thought they were going to re-vamp the entire Internet infrastructure and make it twice as fast as before (Wikipedia also alludes to that misconception in its definition so I don’t feel quite so dumb).

So I would call Web 2.0 the collective name for a new breed of websites that rely on blogging, social networking functionality and users of the service to supply the content.

I would be so brazen as to say any website worth its salt will have at least a few Web 2.0 elements going forward.

So basically the creators of the website supply little or no content and the people reading or interacting with it create some or all of it. Think about Facebook (if you haven’t used it yet, where have you been?). The developers created an empty shell of a platform with tools for anyone (or almost everyone using the net these days) to upload their own content, in turn creating the website’s content.

Still don’t have a clue? Don’t worry, read on to part 3 of the tutorial where I break down Web 2.0 into the major kinds of websites that fall under this ‘umbrella definition’.

In part 3: What kind of Web 2.0 services are there out there?

Cell C - Lucky Guy

The Classic SA TV advert with the lucky guy and the two gorgeous blondes.
Tell somebody...

VW - Memories

Sing along1: "Moving up, going through some changes, storing up the memories.."

AT&T being stung by a blogswarm

I picked up this story on Paul Gillin's blog. Never pass up the opportunity to join / contribute to a blogswarm when it's about massive companies being idiotic and greedy:

A blog swarm is developing at this very moment over AT&T's boneheaded decision to charge a California couple for a satellite dish they failed to remove from their home as they were fleeing the wildfires in California. Consumerist picked up the story, and it's been viewed more than 11,000 times at this writing. There are already over 600 diggs, just within the first couple of hours. You can see the video from a local news station here.

Thanks Paul!

Flog Your Blog?

Ever wanted to have your blog posts on your Facebook profile? You can with Flog Blog.

I've just added it to my profile and it works really well and is quite simple to use. Not sure how effective it will be in terms of driving targeted readers to my blog as my profile is more for my friends of which not many of them are marketers.

Well at least when my friends ask me to explain exactly what it is that I do in marketing (ever tried to explain Web 2.0 marketing to an accountant after a few beers?) , I can just tell them to read the bog on my profile. That's more than worth the extra clutter on my minimalist profile page!

Tutorial: New Media Marketing for Old Media Marketers. Part 1: Why Bother?

New to the tutorial? Click here to start at the beginning

Part 1: Why bother?

So before you embark on a journey of discovery, you need to stop and think ‘why bother?’ or, even better, life’s greatest cliché-question: ‘What’s in it for me?’ Before Chris Columbus squashed that egg and impressed the queen enough to be granted permission to sail to the Americas you can bet he thought long and hard about why he should bother to live on a ship for the next few months.

So you’re a ‘postcard marketer’ that is thinking of embarking on a journey into the new world of marketing and you want to know why you should bother. Here are a few reasons:

• It’s good (if not essential) for you career. If you plan to stay in marketing, this is the way to go.
• Critical mass. Web 2.0 websites/application have active members in the hundreds of millions.
• The ability to target very niche audiences.
• And targeting niches has led to psychographic targeting – many a marketer’s Holy Grail. Have a look at this article from Marketing Vox on Facebook’s Psychographic Targeting.
• Web 2.0 applications offer many solutions for internal and external communication solutions. If you’re in communications, you are always looking at ways around the ‘face to face delete syndrome’.
• Blogging can create two-way communications between company and clients, or even execs and employees, aiding with employee engagement.

I’m sure there are many more marketing advantages to Web 2.0, and many more to be discovered, so please let me know if I should add to the list.

In part 2: So what is Web 2.0?

Tutorial: New Media Marketing for Old Media Marketers

Introduction

Lately I have been trying to present some Web 2.0 marketing ideas/solutions to my colleagues. I was surprised to find out that many of them didn’t even know what a podcast is, and none of them had ever listened to one before. So, as you can imagine, they didn’t see this medium as a high potential marketing solution.

Armed with my ‘For Dummies’ style of engaging and explaining (a skill that I’ve developed over years of trying to teach my parents how to add an attachment to an email) I set about raising the technology knowledge (tech-knowledge-y?) level of my colleagues. My objective is not to turn them into ‘New Technology’ Marketers, but rather to help them understand the platforms so that they can use their classical marketing experience combined with their new knowledge to come up with solutions or implementations that I might have missed.

This is the same objective I am trying to achieve with this series of tutorials. I will attempt to impart my knowledge of Web 2.0 marketing onto those of our friends in the marketing fraternity that are more comfortable with a postcard than an email.

And once you have worked through the tutorial, you will have a greater understanding of what I’m going on about on the rest of my blog and all the similar blogs out there.

Classic TV Ads No: 2 - Castle Lager NY Braai

This one still gives me goosebumps

Ever considered Wikipedia Marketing?

Have you ever thought of boosting traffic to your / your company's website by listing on Wikipedia? I have and I must say that I am pleased with the results. That being said, people want to know how to get to my company's website as we offer critical services to the public. In the first month with just a few links in place, I have noticed over 200 unique visitors coming in from these links. Once I complete them all I'm sure this number will go into the thousands.

I think the lesson learnt here is as long you have some relevant info for the public, pop it up on Wikipedia and create a link to the relevant page on your website. Simple but effective really.

Not sure about the morality of using a brilliant and free service to humanity as a marketing tool but hey people are using Facebook for marketing these days so it can't be too bad.

MySpace Launches First Scripted Series

Found this article on Marketing Vox. Is this the future of TV? Who needs TV networks when Social Media sites have millions of potential viewers?:

MySpace has launched its first scripted online series, with Ford Focus sponsoring, via MySpaceTV.

The show, Roommates, follows eight former college roomies that have all picked up and moved to LA. The show sports an interactive side where users can check out characters' MySpace profiles and "influence the arc of the show," according to AdWeek.
The show is taking a cue from other "webisodes" like the LonelyGirl15 drama or Prom Queen. It runs about 3 minutes in length daily. While MySpace owns the editorial content, LA-based Iron Sink Media will handle production.
Recently P&G unveiled Crescent Heights, an online series sponsored by Tide. It took a severe panning when audience members critiqued the show's sense of authenticity.
Favorable comments on the discussion forum were also revealed to be written by people commissioned by P&G, or possibly employees, reports Adrants.But Ford, which will be sponsoring Roommates, is no stranger to the webisode circuit in previous efforts to attract young car buyers. Its Mercury brand launched web show forays in 2006 and 2004.

Where am I Facebooking? No:3

How do I explain the B3ta Facebook group? It's basically the result of allowing (mostly) Englishmen with a (seriously) warped sense of humour and the ability to do some sharp editing / photo manipulation to display their mad creations to the world on a platform that asks no questions and actually seems to encourage 'upstaging with insanity'. I loosly given it a print and design label as it shows what designers and creatives would really be desinging if they didn't need to adhere to briefs and corporate identities!

The B3ta website and newsletters (available on the website) are also worth checking out if your day is feeling too normal.

Where am I Facebooking? No:2

'What Ads are Making Your Creative tick' is a great Facebook group posting some of the top creative print ads and campaigns out there in the pictures section. You can spend ages browsing through the images. Some of them even made me laugh out loud!

Where am I Facebooking? No:1

Check out my facebook group: 'Classic SA TV Adverts'. The idea is to post these videos on this blog as well but there seems to be a problem uploading videos to Blogger at the moment. Anyone know how to get around this?

Where am I surfing No: 3

Imedia Connection is a great Web 2.0 marketing info kind of website that I subscribe to. Definitely check out the Imedia Spot section which has some very interesting videos relative to the website. If you are going to watch videos at work at least you can justify these to your boss, unlike 'The Star Wars Kid' on Youtube.

Gotta love this print ad campaign 2

This one is even better than the last I rate!

"Life's too short for the wrong job"

Where am I surfing No: 2

Marketing Charts seems to offer a lot of statistical information for internet based marketing. Useful to check out if you need stats.

It does seem to be USA focused however. Anyone know a website that is giving away marketin stats about SA websites? It's like finding a politician that hasn't jumped on the Springbok bandwagon!

Where am I surfing No: 1

Marketing Vox is a great website with lots of web 2.0 marketing kind of information. I subscribe to their newsletter which is always full of interesting articles.

Gotta love this print ad campaign

This campaign is really well thought out. For more great print ads, check out this Facebook Group:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2261839675

Why 60 seconds?

I assume that most people deliberately reading this Blog are design /marketing / comms professionals and like me you have little time for anything outside of your balance score card line items so I endeavour to keep these posts as punchy as possible and get to the point within 60 seconds of reading. Or close enough!

Think of it as your pre-work / lunchtime marketing quickie. Cause I know you are not reading this during working hours ;-)