A national tv commercial used to be an effort in branding. It used to be the only effort in branding that really existed. And it was in a time when “branding” as a marketing concept didn’t really exist.
Today, branding exists in every facet of your company. And one of the major features of a good brand is that there is one succinct message being communicated to the public. Commercials, websites, online ads, phone conversations, emails, etc. all communicate the same thing, the same dedication, and the same vision.
To read the full blog post, head over to the GaWrilla Blog.
If you’re in business to make money, you need customers. And if you have customers, there has to be some form of communication between you and your customers. Hey, even if you fail to get customers, you are communicating in other ways to those people you had hoped would become customers.
Either way, your communication style goes a long way toward developing your brand and garnering loyal customers. Any interaction with a customer, no matter how minor, is important. This is because it’s the one time that your customers get a chance to feel like they are having a conversation with the company they are purchasing from. It will tell them who you are, and either reinforces the fact that they want to be in business with you, or helps create a divide between you and them, eventually ending with another lost customer.
Post is not a company that you would expect to innovate much. Their variety of cereals are very standard and they make a nice profit putting out the same products that they have put out for years. They recently played on that by releasing this commercial, exclaiming that “We put the NO in innovation”.
I would argue that Post has probably made some big changes over the years in terms of production and distribution, perhaps even in corporate structure and ethical standards. I don’t know if any of these can be called real innovative moves, but change is necessary to keep up with the times. I get the whole “we don’t change our products because they are already what consumers want” message, but let’s not call an end to progress and innovation altogether.
All in all however, it’s a pretty decent commercial.
We love to highlight companies that are doing something that has the potentially to virally spread from person to person, from website to website, and from network to network.
This time, its the donut industry leader, Krispy Kreme.
Krispy Kreme is holding a contest to find their biggest fans. Contestants will submit photos with a short caption to explain how Krispy Kreme has made their lives better. Winners will get a year’s supply of donuts, a trip to Krispy Kreme headquarters, and a chance to design and name their own donut.
The idea of asking your customers to design or build a product of yours is becoming increasingly popular. And this is a generally new way of doing it, holding a contest for everyone and allowing one winner to design the donut. I think because of that, this contest has the potential to get a lot of attention online.
To view more about the contest and enter to win, visit the website here.
If you own or operate a brand, whether it is a big company, a small business, or just your name, email newsletters have become a popular way of adding value for your clients, customers, or friends.
All of these newsletters add value to my day to day life because they keep me informed on things that I am interested in. When a person or a website tries to cram a newsletter down my throat, I don’t even give it a chance. I choose no when given the option, or unsubscribe as soon as I get the first email. The ones that I am subscribed to right now were all recommended to me by friends and people I trust.
Whether or not a newsletter is designed to make money, either through a paid subscription or advertising, it has to add real value. Put information in there that people would not find any other way. Add personal tips that you do not share on a blog or on social networks. For an email to be worth reading, it has to be unique. I have to feel like I am getting privileged information.
An example of a terrible newsletter is Motley Fool’s “investor newsletter”. I get it almost every single day, by now it goes to my spam folder. It usually carries a headline such as “This Stock Will Make You a Millionaire by 2011″. Then it follows that up with a large amount of copy explaining how they did their research and advertising the paid version of their website, which I am not signed up for. In the end, it gives you no information about the stock unless you sign up for their monthly payment plan, which I would never do. This is not helpful, you are trying to trick your readers.
That is the wrong way to do it. If you operate a website, and would like to explore the idea of an email newsletter, please plan it out beforehand. Launching it in the wrong way can really get under people’s skin. Add value that we could not get off of the website already. Because, if done the right way, it is a great way to expand the brand, explore new revenue opportunities, and create a loyalty among your readers and customers that can not be achieved in many other ways.
This coming Saturday will mark the day I was born 25 years ago, MY Birthday!
Thinking about my birthday, and birthdays in general, I became interested in what a birthday gift can mean. And I am not talking about gifts that you or I get for each other. I am talking about a company or business that gives gifts to their clients and customers.
I wrote a post about a month ago about information. The more you know about your customers, the better you will be able to serve them. Knowing their birthdays is a small, but potentially important part of that.
If you know your customers’ birthdays, you have options. You can send them a discount on your products and services as a thank you for being a loyal customer. Or you can get them a gift, apart from what your company offers, that really makes an impact.
What if you sent a gift certificate to all your customers for their birthdays this year? You could do it through email, and make it $20 or less. How much would that cost you? I think you will end up pleasing enough people, and generating some real long term customers, that it will more than make up for the cost.
But instead, what you sent something concrete? What if you sent something that you knew most of the recipients would use? And what if you branded that product so that when they used it, they were helping to spread the word about your company?
You could send a t-shirt, a hat, a computer accessory, a cell phone case, or anything else that people use on a daily basis. On it, you could put a slogan that would resonate with people, along with your company name and website.
Chances are that…
1)the customers that receive this gift will be thankful for it because they are not used to a company going out of their way to give back, turning them into more loyal customers, 2)some of those newly loyal customers become brand ambassadors, actively telling their friends and associates how great your company is, and 3)the branding that goes along with the product gets people talking, or at least noticing you more.
It is a generous gesture that fits right into a solid marketing plan. Do something out of the ordinary for your customers and they will take notice. And the more they take notice, the more likely they are to talk about your brand.
So maybe one birthday gift can’t make you a million dollars, but giving back to your customers on their birthday could prove to be a pivotal part of developing lifetime customers and start some positive word of mouth marketing. I know if any companies did that for me this Saturday that I would take notice.
When multiple companies operate in the same space, the space has to be big enough to support them all, or one of the companies will eventually differentiate themselves and prove victorious at controlling the market.
Sometimes, the market is big enough to support more than one leader. And when this happens, you most often see two companies that are so similar, it is hard to tell them apart.
I saw a commercial for Home Depot this morning, and without seeing the television screen, I assumed it was for Lowe’s. They both say the same thing, the voiceovers even sound the same (even though Lowe’s tries to use Gene Hackman’s voice to stand out).
It got me to thinking, what is the difference between the two companies? I have shopped at both, purchased from both, and been satisfied with both. But after thinking about it, I can’t come up with one single point of emphasis or difference that would cause me to choose one over the other.
Both have brand awareness, but has either worked towards brand loyalty. You would think that one of the two companies would try to differentiate themselves in such a way to gain market share over the other. But, from what I can tell, both are satisfied sharing the market with the other one.
There is a danger in becoming too complacent. If neither company is actively pursuing an industry that they can dominate, where is the innovation and creativity coming from. There is no motivation to change and grow. Eventually a new player can come along and stand out from the rest of the industry. And when that happens, it may be too late to change and adapt.
These two companies may be comfortable coexisting in this way, but if you own or operate a company, you should be very careful how similar you are to your competitors. Standing out is the best way to build awareness and loyalty at the same time so you can grow and keep your customer base.
I read an interesting post by a good friend of mine, Kevin Pruett over at techsoomer.com. He poses the question, are we more inclined to use a product or service based on word of mouth or consumer advertising? Using the recent launch of Bing.com and subsequent mass marketing effort by Microsoft as a basis for argument, Kevin asks if we are supposed to be persuaded by ads to use a new search engine.
This is an interesting question. Up until the release of Bing, close to 70% of US searches were done on Google. And Google, even at its inception, never advertised their search engine to consumers. In fact, a majority of the services that we have come to grow familiar with online never advertised to us. We either read a good review and decided to give it a try, or we found out about it from a friend of ours.
It was much more popular to advertise online services during the dotcom boom. Yahoo and Ask both spent millions on commercial advertising campaigns to try to dominate the search market, and a lot of good that has done them in the long run. So why now, does Microsoft think we will be that much more responsive to a $100 million campaign? Do they believe their product is that much better and that if I use it just once I will be hooked?
You’ve heard of first mover advantage, but what about last mover? Because although they market Bing as a decision engine (the “evolution” of the search engine), in many ways it is just another Google. They are so late to the traditional search game that its hard to imagine they can make much noise in the space.
So lets turn our attention to the nature of the ad campaign.
Using the tagline, “Bing and decide”, Microsoft is trying to sell us on the fact that traditional search is too difficult, too time consuming, extremely confusing, and in need of a makeover. We have “search overload”, and need a “decision engine” to help us find exactly what we are looking for.
Not a bad idea. Except that the content of their ads, though creative, does not hit on those points very strongly. They use generic search terms, terms that Google users will most likely say are not confusing, and they exxagerate the type of responses you would get from a traditional search engine. Instead of highlighting the major differences between Bing and Google, such as the travel and health category searches that seem to be very strong, they basically accuse everyday searches of being broken. And in fact, if you go to Bing and Google and search the same term, the results are going to be 70-80% the same.
Then, in addition to the television ads, they are advertising on major content sites across the web such as the New York Times homepage. In my opinion, this is a waste because if people are on these content-type pages, they are not looking to search.
Let’s say the ads are effective enough to draw me in, now the real marketing starts. Because you are not spending millions of dollars for me to search once or twice, you are spending that money to convert me from a Google user to a Bing user. But if the product does not live up to the hype, you’ve lost me. And all the money in the world will not bring me back.
I just don’t think that you can basically force a new search engine on the masses, which is what this feels like to me. Especially when most of us don’t think our search engine is broken to begin with. Why not spend more money in development, create something even more unique and effective, and let the word of mouth start to spread. That’s how to gain a long term rate of converted users and build a new brand loyalty.
The method they decided to go with will lead to sudden jumps in traffic but I don’t see how they will have any long term effect on the search market. They have built what I consider to be the 2nd best search engine available today, nothing more and nothing less. Overall, I give the strategy a low rating, C-.
This post takes something personal, and expands it to an idea that every business can follow. I noticed earlier today that a comment on my last blog post by Jake Samuelson, author of the blog My Geeky Side, was the 200th comment that I have received. Though that is not a stat that I actively track, it is nice to see that the conversation aspect of my blog is picking up as more readers continue to come to the site. It was a stat that I wanted to share with you because it is exciting to see a growing readership contribute more ideas.
With regards to that, I strongly believe that sharing company milestones with customers and the general public is a great way to build your brand, market yourself, and generate a dialogue with the press and the people.
When a company announces that they just reached 1 million customers, or just sold their 500th widget, etc. it tells people something. It gets them involved in the company, letting those people that are already customers know that their business is valued. It lets potential customers know of your success. “If 10,000 other people are using their service, it must be worth while.”
Sharing information publicly, either on the website, a corporate blog, with a press release, or company newsletter, gives you strong outreach. It is marketing, without coming off as marketing. It makes people aware of your brand and aware of your success. It is the best way to grow based on past success.
Celebrate these milestones, not only with an announcement, but by giving something back as well. Tell people that when you hit 1,000 units sold, you will have a special free or discounted offer. “So many people like this that we have decided to give it away for free on this day.” Promotions like that, based on current and projected success, spread the word. It adds to the story that your company is telling, and defines what you are all about.
On Tuesday, I wrote a post about the pros and cons of crowdsourcing with respect to choosing styles and services based on feedback from an entire community. After listening to some feedback from readers both in the comments and via email, I wanted to write a follow up post to address some other aspects of this rising trend.
I love community feedback. I think the fact that the internet and social media has made it possible for companies to connect with consumers and vice versa as is apparent by many previous posts on the blog. What I am afraid of, as far as crowdsourcing is concerned, is that a company will rely too much on the opinions of its users or customers.
As was pointed out to me by Kevin Pruett, Facebook has done a good job at both getting and acknowledging feedback, as well as sticking with internal design and functionality decisions. They made a lot of people happy by opening up their Terms of Use Agreement to a vote. At the same time, they pissed a lot of people off by changing the design and functionality of the home page to accommodate advertisers and corporate users. When it comes to that type of decision, they know better than the sum of their users.
Some other companies have found smart ways of using modified crowdsourcing strategies to achieve a nice balance of feedback and ingenuity. A website may lay out 3-4 different options and have the community vote to choose the best one. However, taking that strategy leaves you in what some might consider a poor position. One, you are locked in to that vote no matter what (see TIME’s top 100), unless you want to risk community backlash. Two, those people who voted for something other than the winner may resent the final outcome.
Additionally, as Paul Miser pointed out, crowdsourcing is not for everyone. There are companies that should do it, and companies that should continue to break boundaries and innovate on their own. Why? Because they are good at it.
Ford invented a market with cars for everyone, Apple invented the market for MP3 players for everyone, and Amazon’s Kindle invented the market for e-readers for everyone. The masses won’t help you create a new market, because many times we don’t know what we want until we have it.
If there are companies out there that are looking to use some form of crowdsourcing to build community awareness and activity, I encourage them to try it. But beware of the risks associated with this strategy because it may be tough to avoid them once you get started. More to come…
Thanks for those people that reached out to me after Tuesday’s post. To follow this blog series, as well as the rest of the posts on Be Innovation, subscribe here.
A national tv commercial used to be an effort in branding. It used to be the only effort in branding that really existed. And it was in a time when “branding” as a marketing concept didn’t really exist.
Posted by Zach Heller 
We love to highlight companies that are doing something that has the potentially to virally spread from person to person, from website to website, and from network to network.
If you own or operate a brand, whether it is a big company, a small business, or just your name, email newsletters have become a popular way of adding value for your clients, customers, or friends.
This coming Saturday will mark the day I was born 25 years ago, MY Birthday!
When multiple companies operate in the same space, the space has to be big enough to support them all, or one of the companies will eventually 
I read an interesting post by a good friend of mine, Kevin Pruett over at 
On Tuesday, I wrote a post about the 
Celebrating Milestones with your Public
May 26, 2009With regards to that, I strongly believe that sharing company milestones with customers and the general public is a great way to build your brand, market yourself, and generate a dialogue with the press and the people.
When a company announces that they just reached 1 million customers, or just sold their 500th widget, etc. it tells people something. It gets them involved in the company, letting those people that are already customers know that their business is valued. It lets potential customers know of your success. “If 10,000 other people are using their service, it must be worth while.”
Sharing information publicly, either on the website, a corporate blog, with a press release, or company newsletter, gives you strong outreach. It is marketing, without coming off as marketing. It makes people aware of your brand and aware of your success. It is the best way to grow based on past success.
Celebrate these milestones, not only with an announcement, but by giving something back as well. Tell people that when you hit 1,000 units sold, you will have a special free or discounted offer. “So many people like this that we have decided to give it away for free on this day.” Promotions like that, based on current and projected success, spread the word. It adds to the story that your company is telling, and defines what you are all about.