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How Pepsi Followed Through

The amazing thing about the Pepsi SuperBowl "Stuff" commercial was not the spectacle of Justin Timberlake (not pictured here) flying through the air, but the way Pepsico has wrung every opportunity to score from this campaign. They did a great job of thinking through how people would act after seeing the commercial and how to interact with them.

MediaPost: Pepsi Snags MVP Status With Super Bowl Ad-Search Combo, by 2008-Feb-5.

The Pepsi Stuff campaign snagged most valuable player status on the search firm's annual Super Bowl Search Marketing Scorecard because it nailed the goal of having consistent on- and offline messaging. The TV spot and Pepsi's various Web sites (including a microsite and branded YouTube and Facebook channels) all contain the same calls-to-action--driving users to sign up for the Pepsi Stuff program. In addition, Pepsi's search team purchased a myriad of keywords related to the TV spot, going beyond obvious branded terms like "Pepsi Stuff" or "Pepsi Super Bowl commercial" to snag viewer interest around pop star spokesperson Justin Timberlake.

How to Play the Game

This holiday season, it seems what people really need is a deal. A few years ago, Best Buy famously fired its most aggressive deal-seeking customers, some of whom were loading up on loss leaders and selling them on eBay. So now the winning retailers are making a better effort to understand and support deal-seeking behavior without letting it undermine their profits. Every retailer will use discounts to attract traffic and move stale inventory, and the retailer that makes customers feel thrilled that they got a great deal will benefit most. Competitive discounting has to be a part of every retailers' long term strategy.

NY Times: Instead of Fighting Ad Leaks, Some Retailers Embrace Them. 2007-Nov-21, by Michael Barbaro

With consumers uneasy about the economy, the only thing worse than having a retail circular leaked to the [discount-tracking web] sites, it seems, is not having it leaked to the sites, whose popularity and influence have soared since they first materialized in 2003. When Bfads.net, the most popular of the Black Friday sites, did not immediately post a circular from Pacific Sunwear earlier this month, an employee at the clothing chain made clear how important the site was to the company....

Brad Olson, who runs Gottadeal.com, said Web-savvy retailers now see sites like his “as free advertising.” For regional stores, Black Friday Web sites provide a rare chance to compete head-to-head with bigger chains.

How to Build Marketing Muscle

Do you believe that marketing is primarily a creative activity or a discipline? Would you believe that being more disciplined can dramatically improve your creative output? Marketing, like inventing, is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. As the marketing environment becomes more sophisticated, marketing professionals are institituting new discipline in their operations. What's really surprising (and a big relief) to me is that they not only track and measure what they do more carefully, but they also collaborate with other parts of their company more systematically.

Marketing Sherpa: New Research: 5 Steps to Better Marketing Operations. 2007-Aug-14 (Paid subscription required): Not surprisingly, when respondents were asked to describe their MO [marketing operations] practices, the answers tracked closely with those challenges: - 65% said they currently practice marketing accountability (setting specific commitments, tracking and adjusting performance, etc.) to helps measure and demonstrate ROI. - 62% said they use MO to balance big-picture, strategic planning with day-to-day marketing execution decisions. - 64% said they use MO to leverage the value of other groups in the company who have a stake in marketing decisions.

Using One's Employees to Market

Back when I worked for a traditional advertising agency, we would occasionaly be asked to feature a company's employees in the advertising. This procedure always involved media release forms, affadavits, and copywriting headaches. In the modern world of open-source marketing, some companies have figured it out. At Crutchfield's and at Ford Models, the employees just share the best of themselves.

Digital Media Wire: 500 Things You Can Learn From A Supermodel, 2007-Jun-19, by Rohit Bhargava

They have the personal trainers, they work with the hair stylists and they see the tricks of the makeup artists. In many ways, a model should be the person most qualified to teach you about beauty. This is the brilliant concept behind Ford Models TV, a site run by Ford Models - one of the premier modelling agencies in the world. Through their site, they have created nearly 500 unique videos that are each nearing 100,000 views just over the past year. Do the math and they may very well have quietly been amassing the largest number of views for branded short videos of any company online. ...Particularly interesting is the smart strategy the site has of also distributing their videos through just about every large video sharing site online...

Give Your Customers a Job

Figuring out a project that would work for your customers may be challenging, but if you can get them to do something new and fun--imagine the loyalty that engenders!

MediaPost Publications: LG Puts Cell Phone Owners To Work As Music Critics2007-Jun-11, by Karl Greenberg

LG Electronics' Mobilecomm USA, the electronics giant's U.S. mobile phone division, is preparing to launch a program with music-business magazine Billboard Magazine. The effort, "Mobile Beat," lets owners of the company's mobile phones become de facto music journalists posting live commentary to personal blogs on billboard.com. LG and Billboard are letting 30 contestants get a free LG enV camera phone and VIP press passes to concerts, festivals and shows where they live, to be chosen by Billboard. Winners are charged with covering a raft of summer concerts, where they can post photos and reviews to Billboard.com. To participate in the contest, entrants must log onto Billboard.com and submit a photo of themselves along with a 100-word statement about why they should be tapped to be a citizen-journalist.

Phone Communities

Boost Mobile is doing a great job of providing a range of enticing rewards to its customers, combining loyalty and participatory marketing. If you're all about the music, they'll provide downloads and concerts. If you'd like to do some community service with fellow Boost subscribers you can EARN a concert ticket. This program is extremely well-thought-out.

Link: Boost Mobile Sets Loyalty Program to Music. 2007-May-2, by Betsy Spethmann

The LA “payoff concert” was part of Boost’s 2-year-old RockCorps volunteerism program that gives members a concert ticket for every four hours of community service that they perform. Boost recruits volunteers for local non-profit groups. This year, the program is running in Los Angeles, Atlanta and New York, with plans to add 10 more cities.

Playing in the Participation Age

We express ourselves by publicizing our preferences.

Link: To Get Viewers for Reruns, a ‘Sopranos’ Game - New York Times. 2006-Dec-11, by Mchel Marriott

While big games have proved to be effective promotional tools, Christopher Swain, a professor at the University of Southern California and an expert on game design and online game culture, said these games represented much more. He said they were an outgrowth of the “participation age” — he credited Jonathan I. Schwartz, chief executive of Sun Microsystems, with coining the term — in which millions of people want to join in activities within communities of shared interests. Those active in social networking Web sites like MySpace and Facebook are prime examples, said Mr. Swain, who is co-director of the university’s Electronic Arts Game Innovation Lab. “They want to express themselves in a community,” he said. “In this case the community is of people excited about ‘The Sopranos.’ I think it is a natural flowing from this sort of participation age.”

Open Source Advertising

Working with advertising innovator Federated Media, Cisco succeeded in getting a bunch of opinion leaders to contribute to a wiki to define the "human network." This approach is an excellent way to build influencer recommendation for your company. What's more, I really like the way this idea can "scale." You can do it with a few friends or a large audience.

ChasNote: Cisco’s Brilliant Concept; With the Help of Friends, Brilliantly Executed. 2006-Oct-5, by Chas Edwards, VP Sales & Market Development at Federated Media

...Truly open source advertising! ... Within the first 48 hours, 600 people had voted. And since the campaign empowered website authors to participate, build co-branded ads for their own sites and even contribute strategic input on the campaign overall, a few of the authors even plugged the campaign in editorial posts....

Controlling Content with Contests

If you're longing for your brand to participate in the video-viewing madness online, sponsoring a contest turns out to be a good way to minimize your risk while participating. Of course, if you put down too many rules and too much content-screening, you'll just spoil the fun.

WSJ: Virtual Reality TV, 2006-Oct-3, by Jessica E. Vascellaro

Advertisers have been reluctant to advertise on some video sites, concerned their ads will appear next to inappropriate or copyrighted content. But in a contest format, user-generated content is often handpicked and bundled with professionally produced segments.

Sing for your Shipping

Levi's is offering a fair incentive to get you to share your personalized Levi's ad: if three friends view the commercial, they automatically send you a coupon for free shipping for on your next online purchase of $75 of more. Regardless of additional orders, this offer is a great way to keep the conversation going.

BizReport: Levi Adds Buzz to Buttocks, 2006-Sep-26, by Angelique van Engelen

The campaign, which has been created by Personiva, is a try out in offering consumers direct incentives for participating in advertising campaigns.

New Participatory Marketing Model

Researching their market, pre-launch, the new CW Network found that everyone expected them to push the envelope. And so they decided to become the most participatory network, encouraging involvement of both viewers and advertisers. Advertisers like P&G's Herbal Essence can submit 2-minute content wraps. Herbal Essence is talking about Fashion Week and hot hairstyles. Viewers can go online to the web site or the MySpace page and compete in contests to make TV spots, appear in TV spots and appear in the TV shows.

Washington Post: New Marketing Model for New CW Network, 2006-Sep-18, by Lynn Elber (Associated Press)

While established broadcasters maneuver to exploit the Internet, iPod and other technology, CW is building them into its carefully designed model, its executives said. "The words we use to describe CW, besides the young demographic, are innovation, participation, connection and community," said [CW Entertainment President Denise] Ostroff, ... She cited market research that showed its target audience, found at the 60-million-strong intersection of Generations X and Y, "is a 'we' generation, not a 'me' generation."

Shopping by Opinion

Sales are up at the Petco web site since they signed up with Bazaarvoice to collect reviews of the products. In the NY Times, Bob Tedeschi has an excellent overview of the trend, but the only cold hard numbers are from Petco so far. I expect that selling products online will now often require some customer-generated info accompanying the product, or being accessible to the shopper.

NY Times Help for the Merchant in Navigating a Sea of Shopper Opinions, 2006-Sep-4, by Bob Tedeschi

Earlier this year, the site devoted entire sections within each pet category to “top rated” products. Shoppers who browsed products that way purchased at a 35 percent higher rate than those who browsed assortments arranged in the traditional manner. And those who bought from the top-rated sections spent 40 percent more than those who did not. “I think we’re one of the first, if not the first, to create a primary shopping experience that’s driven by the voice of other shoppers,” Mr. Lazarchic said.

Festival Audiences Get Digital Options

At the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago, the audience could watch the band the normal way, or sit in a tent and see it on a big flat-screeen TV, or watch it later at AT&T Blueroom. The organizers seem to be trying out every digital connection they can build with their fans and attendees, and like the rest of the music industry, ditching the middle men, including music critics.
 

Hartford Courant: Is It Live, Or is It internet?, 2006-Aug-13, by Eric R. Danton

Bloggers had a high profile at Lollapalooza, as the festival offered credentials to about 20 them, sometimes to the exclusion of daily newspapers (including this one) that reach exponentially larger audiences than those who read diary-style Web postings. Although it was a frustrating publicity strategy for smaller mainstream media outlets, it was a clever move: The young people in the festival's key demographic are more likely to troll the Internet for news about Lollapalooza than to look in newspapers.

Great Participation from Customers

Customer-generated advertising now has its share of disasters and long boring stretches. So I'm thrilled to share a Nike Soccer promotion that was started for the World Cup and is still going strong. I've not seen the TV commercial version of this but you can go online and view all 39 minutes of video that shows 412 different soccer players from 58 countries, kicking the ball along The Chain. It's very inspirational.

Washington Post: Art and Marketing All Mashed Up, 2006-Aug-2, by Sara Kehaulani Goo

And for the World Cup, Nike encouraged people to create a video of themselves juggling a soccer ball and then kicking the ball out of the screen. Nike wove together more than 300 of the submitted clips to create a television commercial that resembled a global soccer ball toss.

AT&T Recruiting Demonstrators in the Neighborhood

AT&T is using many places to demonstrate its new U-verse TV service, including special displays in shopping malls and truck trailers dressed up like living rooms. One of their biggest efforts has been promoting TV parties, intially by employees but soon by influentials which have been identified for them by ViaNovo, the company of Matthew Dowd, who helped build community support the same way for the 2004 Republican presidential campaign. AT&T expects they will compensate their "champions" but they haven't decided exactly how. It seems likely that these influentials will get free TV service for either hosting parties are for recruiting customers. At the first parties, AT&T has averaged three new customers at the party with two more signing up the next day.

WSJ.com: Selling TV Like Tupperware, 2006-Jun-29, by Dionne Searcey and Peter Grant

"From a marketing standpoint we've long been intrigued with the idea that certain people hold the power to market things and talk to others in a way that gets listened to in a different way," said Mikal Harn, vice president of consumer marketing for AT&T. "We're looking for people who are more likely than most to have a strong pull and power -- the word-of-mouth champions."

Are Advertisers changing from Producers to Sponsors to Art Galleries?

As the traditional media outlets such as TV networks and newspapers are becoming less effective advertising channels, advertisers are trying two different paths to their audience: 1. Generate their own content, such as Proctor & Gamble's Home Made Simple, and 2. Find artists who are compatible with the brand and sponsor them.

Which will become more efficient and commonplace? At iMedia Connection, Noah Brier and Drew Neisser of Renegade Marketing Group say that as in the early days of TV and radio, companies will eventually stop producing content, which isn't a core activity of their business, and switch to sponsorship.

Brier and Neisser also say this will be a boon to all the emerging young artists who currently post their content for free on sites such as MySpace. They may be right. A new business called Revver has been launched to help amateurs earn money from traffic to popular videos.

Does this mean that sponsors will become the tastemakers, as in the old days when artists had to find a patron to be successful? Is the Converse Gallery an art gallery of the future?

SourceTool Enlists Customer Help in Building a Better B2B Directory

As technology evolves, B2B suppliers are always re-aligning their product lines. It's hard for a B2B directory to keep up...unless you give them the tools and ask them to build it themselves. What we lose in ease of use we more than make up in flexibility.

Direct magazine: SourceTool Wants You to Help Build a Directory by Brian Quinton, April 12, 2006

When Thomas Publishing elected last August to put the plug on ThomasB2B, its business-supply directory joint venture with FindWhat (now Miva), the three top executives at the project were left holding onto their vision of what an online directory for businesses could be. That notion wasn’t exactly the one Thomas had been shooting for, but Dan Savage, Michael Doyle and Dennis Jones thought it was time to put it to a real-world test.

Now SourceTool.com has been up and running for about five months, and the real world’s verdict is in: You can operate a business directory that doesn’t sell its own ads and relies on businesses to do a lot of the heavy lifting in matters of taxonomy and categorization—the things that are necessary for SourceTool’s algorithm to find what searchers are looking for.

Current TV helps Structure Consumer-Generated Ads

Okay, says Current TV, let's get this consumer-generated advertising thing organized! They sign up sponsors like Sony who are willing to review consumer-generated ads at no obligation to use them. They let people know all the legal stuff and get the sponsor to promise payment if the consumer's ad does get heavy usage. Excellent use of Current's special position in the emerging media universe!

Current Studio // Resources // FAQ. (via SmartBrief)

How does V-CAM work? • It’s a viewer-created commercial for our sponsors that runs on Current TV • A V-CAM can be any length up to 3 minutes. (3 seconds, 17 seconds, 73 seconds….whatever!) • For every V-CAM that goes to air, you’ll get $1,000! • If your V-CAM does air on Current and the sponsor of your V-CAM wants to show it in other places beyond Current TV, you’ll get anywhere between $5,000 and $50,000, depending on where they show it....

Plus, they have an excellent common sense answer why you can't submit ads for companies which are not participating in the program, yet.

You love [Brand X]. Everybody loves [Brand X]. But the V-CAM program depends on the support of specific advertising sponsors –- companies cool enough to sign up for a radically new model of production. So no, V-CAMs can’t be commercials for random products or brands; they have to sync up with one of our sponsors.

But if there’s a brand you think you should be one of those sponsors –- let us know! And more importantly, let them know!