The Consumerist has a post about some excellent customer service from SmartBargains.com.

Every ad agency should be making every attempt to sell some kind of customer service initiative with every campaign. An authentic interaction. If the marketing is going to tell a compelling story, it had better be congruent with the customer's experience when something inevitably goes wrong.

Taking a HEEEEEYYYYAAAAARGH from Howard Dean, the Barak Obamaniacs have woven themselves a tapestry of MyBarakObama microsites to motivate, connect, and empower a formidable cluster of web-savvy politiquitos. While every viable candidate in the slim pickin pile is using blogs, Flickr, and YouTube to some degree, Obama's advisors force the question: can they harness enough online energy to offset the disadvantage of a political underdog (whoever that may be)? Will online word-of-mouth supplant the legacy of ever-mounting political contributions?

Regardless of political leanings, it's worth investigating the emergence of online social networking as the new political networking.

It's too early yet to get my vote, but they've definitely earned a link.

The clever Tino Buntic has created a link explosion called 2000 Bloggers. You can easily waste an entire day purusing the links. Who knew this blogging thing was so popular?

Really big montage of blog author photos after the jump.

Continue reading "2000 Bloggers" »

I don't watch that much TV and I've seen Bill Gates on at least two talk shows last week; The Daily Show and the Today Show. I'm sure there were more. Perhaps I've never noticed this tactic before, but he's promoting Windows Vista just like Bruce Willis would be promoting his latest blockbuster film. The Daily Show interview was very entertaining and worth a look. Here's a link to
Video: Bill Gates on the Daily Show - Part 1">part 1 and
Video: Bill Gates on the Daily Show - Part 2">part 2.

Has Microsoft done this in the past? Has Jobs hit the talk show circuits too? He hasn't as far as I know and I don't think its common for CEO's to use this medium to promote new product launches. I just found this interesting and wonder how much interest it has generated in the new operating system. This may be a new role for Mr. Gates now that he is not as active in the day to day business. If so, they may want to give him a little more coaching so he doesn't appear so awkward.

An inevitable debate is taking place around the nature of the marketing. John Moore, at his excellent blog, Brand Autopsy, has been a recent party to the discussion. He offers this edited footage of David Jones, global CEO of Euro RSCG speaking at a recent AdAge clambake.

Continue reading "The Nature of Marketing Revolution" »

I had a meeting this morning with a counterpart at a mid-size well established PR firm. We were discussing some of the work our company was doing for several clients. One in particular that was of interest to her involved helping our client to revamp a key executive's presentation content and style. I recommended the blog Presentation Zen to her when she inquired into some of the resources we utilized in developing our approach. I had forgotten what a great blog that Garr Reynolds has.

One of the things we have been preaching to all of our clients is to communicate in a way that is less autistic and more human. Many of the mediums we recommend have to do with applications for the Internet, as it allows more of a two way dialogue. But I had forgotten about how powerful a good presentation can be. It’s an opportunity to make a connection with your audiences, and potentially start an ongoing relationship with them. Unfortunately this opportunity is lost with many companies. They look at it solely as a way to push out information about their company or pitch their products and services.

As Garr points out in a recent post Presentations and Word of Mouth Marketing should play hand in hand. Giving your audiences something of value and providing a way for them to connect with you and your company goes a long way in fueling positive word of mouth. Direct them to a blog created around the topic being presented, share additional information and welcome feedback and dialogue. This has the added benefit of making it easy for them to share information about your company with their piers.

Think of presentations as an opportunity to build a new relationship and start a conversation. The end of the presentation is the beginning of the relationship, not the end of a tactic.

I'm sure everyone is already talking about this. Which, ain't that the point? The link was sent to me over IM. Utterly. Brilliant.

Reports are abundant of the experts’ incredulity of the success of Sacha Baron Cohen’s new film, ”Borat’s Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan”. Two seemingly obvious questions are: Why did the film make some $9 million on its opening Friday? And, why were the experts so wrong in their anticipation of this film’s failure? I have no pretensions about being the kind of expert whom have been rendering these prognostications, but I won’t let that stop me from trying to answer these questions.

I don’t have any desire to critique the film itself, so let’s just assume that Sacha and his film are good stuff. Anyway, I don’t have to critique it, because you can go to YouTube and see any number of Borat clips. Interestingly, this clip of Borat wrestling CBS’ Harry Smith has almost 500,000 views as of this evening. I submit that this is, in fact, the answer to the above questions. I don’t know how all these clips came to be on YouTube long before the movie’s release, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a part of a clever marketing strategy. I also wouldn’t be surprised to discover that the aforementioned experts knew little to nothing of this fact.

Update 11/6: That CBS clip has almost 900,000 views just two days later.

Living in Paris has its benefits; regular viewing of current TV American shows is not one of them. As a result, I am just now recovering from laughing my ass off at Arrested Development. Proof that blogs are everywhere:

Tobias Fünke: So what are your plans for this evening?
Bob Loblaw: I thought that maybe I would stay in and work on my law blog.
Tobias Fünke: Ah, yes. The "Bob Loblaw Law Blog". You, sir, are a mouthful.

I have had numerous conversations recently regarding customer service; both professionally and personally. Companies tend to think of customer service as a call center operation and a necessary evil in doing business. It should be far more than that. B2C companies get all the attention when it comes to this but it’s also a problem with many B2B companies as well. In both cases, it's an opportunity if your industry is weak or even average in this area.

Nordstrom usually comes to mind when you think of companies that stand out. Fast Company’s latest edition calls out Sir Richard Branson at the top of their list of companies that put the customer first. John Strande has a great suggestion for Levi based on his recent experience with them and David Armano discusses some of the changes the Chicago DMV has implemented that made a profoundly positive impact on an experience he was dreading based on historical encounters.

Strande and Armano's posts highlight what a profound impact you can have on an overlooked touchpoint with your customer. Take a step back, put yourself in the customer’s shoes, and think about what would turn this into an opportunity to develop a loyal customer, or even learn something that you can leverage for a better future experience. It’s really not that complicated. Just make it an important area of focus, enlist the help of your frontline employees and your customers, and investigate what leaders in other industries have done to develop great customer service. There are numerous ways that technology can help in ways that didn’t exist even five years ago. Once you go down this path, stick with it and continue to look for improvements. Don’t just pay it lip service for 18 months and then forget about it. The dividends this pays over time are huge. A customer that contacted you out of frustration could become one of your biggest evangalists and teach you something about your business.

Quick, someone tell the cable and phone companies.

When I first heard about the new Samuel L. Jackson movie “Snakes on a Plane” I was tempted to never think about it again. It just sounded stupid. Snakes on a Plane. Burger on a Bun. Bored out of my Mind.

Then I caught wind of some internet phenomena surrounding the movie. You mean there’s actually buzz? Apparently there’s so much buzz-slash-commentary that the producers added scenes to the film to directly address the bloggers’ complaints:

The studio backed down, empowering Jackson and adoring online fans to complain that the film was not violent enough. Scenes were added ratcheting up the gruesome quotient. The bloggers' victory ensured plenty of media coverage, seemingly turning the little B-movie into a preordained must-see hit.

So someone is actually listening to the little guys. How sweet. In fact, it allegedly all started with this guy, who not only sparked the internet buzz around the movie but coined the phrase “snakes on a plane” as the new “shit happens”.

According to Wikipedia:

The title inspired bloggers to create songs, apparel, poster art, pages of fan fiction, parody films, mock movie trailers and even short film parody competitions.

That’s a lot for a movie that’s just been released. And especially a lot for a movie that looks completely lame. But hey, snakes on a plane.

We had our little meeting in the corner office, compared notes, exchanged blank stares and agreed that Agency.com really took a nose dive with their YouTube.com stunt. I'm not sure what's more suprising about this - the fact that Agency.com committed such a blunder or that our creative team, account team and sales team actually agreed on something.

I'm also not sure what I'm more disappointed about: 1)the reinforcement this video gives that agencies are full of slimey sales guys or 2) the fact that they backed their way into a "viral" campaign.

Adrant does a great job of summarizing how I feel about the first point. This video epitomizes everything that drive people crazy about agencies. I'm not trying to pretend like we don't do some of those things, we do. And sometimes we're probably more obnoxious than the crew on this video. I mean, we're the ones who created a ridiculous love song for our clients on Valentines Day. We're all for self-depricating humor.

I guess the thing that does't connect for me is how the rollout and follow up to this video seemed so forced and unnatural. The blog wasn't released until after the video got some attention and Agency.com felt the need to begin defending themselves. That's not viral. All smart agency teams know that good advertising and marketing come from good plans. There clearly was no plan here. They were excited about the opportunity to create a video. They were stoked about the idea to release it on YouTube. That's where the plan stopped. They put all of their energy into creating the video and not thinking about what would happen next or how to follow it up, etc. It's an innovative idea - I'll give them that. It's executed poorly. And that's why I'm disappointed. They had an opportunity to demonstrate how good viral marketing can work and totally missed. Sure, they can call it viral. I call it a fluke. Humorous, but a fluke.

Next time, when they meet in their corner office, they should do a little more thinking before they begin rolling the cameras.

One sunny, New York afternoon Agency.com received a phone call. Subway is looking for a new agency-of-record and they've asked Agency.com to pitch the business. They're likely thinking - 'Wow! What an opportunity. A huge account with deep pockets. Let's not only show them how strategic we are, but let's show 'em how brilliantly creative we are.' Corner office. Now!

They created a video diary, a la The Real World, of their creative process and released it on YouTube. Instead of doing a traditional new business pitch (with strategy documents and spec creative out the wazoo) they decided that documenting their approach to new business and releasing it on the web was more creative. And showed their thought process in a more compelling way.

What do you think? Brilliant marketing approach or embarrassing experiment? Our thoughts and insight coming tomorrow. After, of course, a meeting in the corner office. Now!

So this is a blog. And a rather new one at that. Acting under the assumption that a blog is the proper venue for tempest-in-a-teapot grandiloquence, I intend now to unwind my narrative on new marketing. It will shake out into a number of parts, but I must to warn you now, fair reader: I have a penchant for a kind of looping, lateral storytelling which some (the lawyers want me to warn people with epilepsy) might find, well, obnoxious. So you’ve been warned and all that.

Continue reading "Integral Marketing, Part I - Exordium" »

This Folger’s commercial, albeit slightly creepy, is pretty cool in my not-so-humble opinion. What I like best about the whole she-bang, though, is the corresponding website for the commercial, toleratemornings.com. It’s very tangential to the direct sale of Folger’s coffee. It’s a website where people who have something in common, i.e. hating getting up in the morning, can go and play some games and have a little fun. It’s less “buy Folger’s, we’re great” and more “have some fun, and oh, by the way, we’re Folger’s and we sell coffee.” Works for me.

While some people disagree, I think the new Brawny Academy is right on the mark.

Three female radio personalities in St. Louis mentioned it in one week. Well, it got me to go to the website. And how many other women/housewives heard about the hot new Brawny man and decided to check him out online? The bottom line – they captured the attention of their target audience. A+

I personally think the Brawny Man could stand to be a little brawnier, but hey, I’m still watching him aren't I?

I like the internet. I want it to be useful and interesting and novel. I want it to be beautiful.

I also like sarcasm and poking a little fun here and there.

So I thought I would enjoy perusing WebPagesThatSuck.com.

If I weren’t drowning in the irony of the fact that the website itself is one of the most hideous, poorly arranged sites, then perhaps I could have indulged in a little sarcastic cocktail. But I got so furious searching for a simple list of web pages that do in fact suck that I decided to put this site at the top of my own list. In fact, it’s the only item on the list.

To help keep your blood pressure at a reasonable level, here’s the link I wasted time looking for - http://bad.webpagesthatsuck.com.