Archive for June, 2007

User Generated Content (UGC) is the newest gadget in the marketer’s tool box - it’s like the level that automatically shoots a ray of light across an entire wall so you can hang all your frames at the same height, at the same time. Which would probably be awesome except you’re not excited about reading the 12-page booklet on how to turn it on and you’re not sure your art would look right hanging all at the same height. Gosh, in the end you figure what the heck? There is a fine, timesaving gadget that we sort of know how to use and almost accomplishes our goals so we should probably use it.

Please, don’t. Please.

Here are reasons why we not only hate your forums, but we make fun of you (behind your back) for having them:

1. If You Do Your Job, We’ll Do Ours. If you sell us on the merits of your project or service by demonstrating that it fills one of our needs, we will do our job by buying your project. Word of mouth has meaning and authenticity because it happens in private space, not corporate space.

2. We create social networking around things that have personal meaning and that we identify with. I have never, ever, identified myself with J&J body spray.

3. We’re not only paying you for your product/ service – we’re paying you to make us feel good about paying you for your product/service. I had been very happy about the purchase (and subsequent use) of my BlackBerry, but their attempt to get me to “troubleshoot” problems by making me sign up for and visiting device forums has made me hate having paid them for the privilege of joining their cult.

4. Convenience is next to Godliness. I spend at least 40 hours a week at work (at least), I have 3 children, an ex-husband, a mother who knows my mobile, employees, clients, reports, deadlines, the IRS and, one day, impending death… So when I go through the fast food drive through window and ask what the day’s special is, I do not want to hear: “Just check our forums.”

Just like the magic laser-line-level, UGC takes time to learn how to use and then to do so correctly and while it does some stuff damn well, it might not be quite right for anyone’s site. But aside from having a boring, cookie-cutter marketing plan, using UGC incorrectly can actually hinder the other terrific work you are doing to promote and publicize a product. Is it worth all that just to have the same toys as the guy in the garage next to you?

What is it about GMOOT (get me one of those) that makes people think they’ve got to be just like - the lamest guy on the block!

Written by the Punk Marketing Goddess herself (Nadia Cornier).

Dell is a dying brand. It has lost the point of difference that made it a success story and is now running on fumes. If you don’t believe me, go through the steps of buying (or almost buying) a computer from them, as I did yesterday.

I’m a Mac user but need to buy a PC to run a certain software program. I looked up online what Dell had to offer but quickly found their site is not Mac friendly and freezes when you try to get product details. As a computer manufacturer, this doesn’t set very high expectations of their products.

But I didn’t give up there. I called their sales people and told them I was interested in a cheap, basic laptop and gave them the model number I wanted to know more about. The sales rep was over-friendly and asked me a bunch of questions that seemed irrelevent and intrusive (home address, phone number and email address). She said the basic package I saw on their website would’t do it. I should upgrade processor speed and memory. Oh, and I need to get their 3-year warranty because, while “our computers are built to last forever” you never can tell. This stuff I was told I needed added another $300 to the price.

I said I wasn’t ready to make a purchase and was asked why. I said the price. She asked what the problem with it was. I said how big it was. She said oh. I said goodbye and was left with the impression of a company in desperate need of an overhaul. Here’s how:
1. Don’t pretend Mac users don’t exist. Woo them and try and convert them.
2. Enough of the complicated phone options and poor voice recognition. You don’t have any stores (although you’re about to become like every other computer manufactuer by starting to sell in Wal-Mart) so make the direct to customer experience amazing.
3. Don’t try and get me to upgrade before I’ve even decided I’m interested. In fact don’t get me to upgrade at all. If the package you’re touting on your website isn’t good enough, don’t feature it.
4. Don’t ask me for lots of personal details. We’re not even dating yet, so stop stalking me.
5. Don’t ask stupid questions about why I’m not completing an order today when it’s damned obvious. Makes you look desperate and dumb.

I’d love to get my hands on Dell to make it stand out once again as a great brave brand, not what it’s become. You can almost taste the failure. Consumers sense that and will leave (are leaving) in their droves. To buy a Mac, for instance.

Now if only I could that software to work on my trusty, sexy Mac…

You decided your latest widget from the widget factory needs to go viral. And your “marketing guy” says the best way to reach your youth market on a shoestring is to go about posting a vid on YouTube. Before that happens, please take some time to consider how to make your new spot relevant to the viewers at home.

Truth be told, YT is a good way for you to stay in touch with the youth of today (and young adults too). But as common knowledge dictates time and again, just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean that you SHOULD. Or, in YouTtube’s case, just because you post up the latest hopeful viral extravaganza, doesn’t mean you ought to bother—at least not without some careful consideration beforehand: Be wary, intrepid brand manager, ask yourself a few tough questions before taking the leap.

First, begin by considering this important question: “Is my product relevant in a user-generated sort of way?”

Before you post on your site some awesome new contest (ANC) where consumers compete by producing the rad-est online commercial, be sure to think about whether that ad will end up like some other pile of product placement dookie!

Just because fools are willing to make a two-minute video lauding benefits of your latest line of tween targeted body spray, and just because these citizen videographers comprise your desired demo, doesn’t mean anything you show will be relevant to netizens at large. And in fact, the opposite can apply, which of course sucks.

In the event your new video piece fails boldly to resonate with the crucial youth demo, watch out for a viral marketing treat on par with Ebola. That’s where the Internet has an amazing capacity to connect people to bite your company in its shiny digital ass.

If the product basically stinks, your new viral video may be subject to the demo’s second favorite pastime next to surfing sites, which is unleashing endless scorn upon those who fail to amuse them. Let’s take a look at the simple phrase “Head On/ Apply directly to your forehead.” So, before you suffer this fate, consider whether or not your new campaign might be fodder for tomorrow’s water cooler banter (we call that bad exposure).

After all, just because something is user-generated doesn’t mean it was generated well.

Which drives home our point all the more: Letting the people upload brings out the whims of everyone. So good luck to you if you think the latest, greatest way of reaching the youth is there for everyone.

Maybe that’s the last word on this topic. Well, for now…

A piece in yesterday’s New York Times discussed how magazine publishers, such as Conde Nast, have been creating their own in-house ad agencies and how this is a threat to traditional ad agencies. Instead of an advertiser paying a trad agency to create work that runs in the magazines, the in-house agency will do it for them, so missing out the middle men in their trendy glasses.

Publications creating ads for advertisers is hardly new, of course. In the early days of advertising this was how all ads were done. A publication would sell space, one of its copywriters would write a snappy slogan and the art department would lay it out all fancy, all included in the price. Then agencies sprang up to sell the space for the publications and throw in their creative services “for free,” paid for by the 15% discount they would get from the pubs.

But it is different now. Conde Nast’s in-house agency, the Conde Nast Media Group, for instance, generates about $200million in revenue from programs for advertisers: programs that include TV specials, radio spots and in-strore promotions in addition to magazine ads. And Conde Nast can pull in some major celebs for its ad campaigns, so giving the advertisers another reason to use the in-house agency.

Should traditional agencies be worried? Of course they should! They will need to work harder to justify their role in the mix, as advertisers find they can easily bypass them. They will have to prove that they have a better understanding of the consumer, that they have better ideas and that they can do better campaigns by not being tied to any one media vehicle (after all, unlike the in-house agencies, traditional ad agencies are impartial advisors to advertisers).