Advertising Archives

2010 Super Bowl Ads

Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 3:28 pm  
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Ok, so the SuperBowl is over, and there are a new set of commercials to judge and discuss. Since a 30 second spot during the game costs anywhere between $2.5 to $3 million, advertisers need to bring their “A” game for this once/year event.  The thing I don’t like about SuperBowl ads are that the big budget corporations dominate the space so the rich tend to get richer.

Here’s an idea: have a contest where some lucky small business gets a 30 second spot “sponsored” by the network airing the game. It would present a fabulous opportunity for us little guys and inject some new blood into the mix as well. Probably won’t happen, but it never hurts to toss the idea out there, right?

Which ones did you like best and least? Post your comments below the video.

Winners

In my completely informal poll (conducted via Twitter, Facebook and text message), the early winners seem to be:

1. Snickers (featuring Betty Davis)

2. Budweiser (no shock–they always bring it for the SuperBowl)

3. Dorritos – all were well received in my “straw poll”

4. Hyundai (like him or not, the play on Brett Favre in 10 years was great)

5. eTrade (the “Milk-aholic” line was classic!)

Losers:

1. Diamond Foods (Pop Secret & Emerald Nuts) “Let’s Get Aquatic” with people as dolphins (seems as though the message wasn’t clear)

2. Charles Barkley’s Taco Bell spots (I love Barkley, but I didn’t care much for the commercials either)

3. GoDaddy (I disagree but it seems as though some of my “constituents” don’t like their ad campaigns; as competitive as the online world is today, you have to do something to stand out especially for something as mundane as domain registration)

Go ahead, share your thoughts!

BuyerZone Experience – Some Analysis & Friendly Advice

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 2:44 pm  
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Recently I filled out a request for information form at BuyerZone.com for outbound telemarketing and direct mail services.  I did this for two reasons: 1) to help the folks who go through the List Samurai program identify potential quality vendors to connect with for their marketing needs and 2) develop a better understanding of the price points for these types of vendors for my own business growth needs.

Buyer Zone Homepage Screenshot

Buyer Zone Homepage Screenshot

I filled out the request on Sunday in order to get some feedback on Monday and Tuesday as I create more List Samurai videos & slides, and boy did I get some feedback! To the tune of a phone call every hour on the hour starting around 9:30 AM ET.  Here are my takeaways and friendly advice based on the experience thus far:

1) Many of these companies MUST be hurting for business based on the amount of phone calling and email attempts made in the last 36 hours. This means you can likely strike a pretty good deal if you play your cards right when approaching them.  How can you do that? Simply don’t contract for services for at least 48 hours after the request. See what everybody brings to the table before furthering the process.

Also, it’s probably a good idea to sit back and see who responds most and how.  If one particular vendor calls more than the others, they’re likely the one that will provide the most wiggle room on your first deal.  This may also be an indication that their business health isn’t as positive as the others, too so be cautious.

2) If you don’t want to be hounded by the hourly phone calls, simply place a statement in the request for information form that says something along the lines of “searching for relevant providers and pricing information. Please do not call.” That’s what I wish I had done in this situation, but you live and learn, right? Next time I fill out one of these forms, I’ll include that caveat and if any vendors ignore the request to not call, they’ll be eliminated immediately for a failure to pay attention to the request. After-all, if they can’t follow simple directions at the outset, how are they going to produce when things get more complicated?

I highly recommend using services such as BuyerZone.com to find quality vendors and potential partners, but you may want to include some basic contact & follow-up instructions especially if you’re not looking to be called a lot on the phone. In the vendors’ defense, they are following up to a request as best they can, but sometimes that follow up is a bit extreme.

There is also a brief podcast below that shares my experience and advice.  Enjoy!

Buyer Zone Experience [ 3:12 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Business Musings

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 1:24 am  
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First off, I’ve been battling a couple of virus & spyware infected computers since last Saturday so I apologize for slacking on the blog posts this week. I plan to get the videos rolling again very soon, and the computer problems appear to be behind me now. I’m debating if I want to relive the horrifying experience through this blog, but I’m a little raw at the moment so it’s probably not a good idea. Just know that Windows Defender, McAfee and Cyber Defender were all unable to detect and/or clean the parasites that got a hold of my machines so they won’t receive high marks. :(

Ok, onto some business musings I hope you’ll comment or share your take with me.

Sonic’s Onto Something

I went to Sonic earlier, and I’m becoming more of a fan of their organization each day. The TV ad campaign is great because their spots are funny, entertaining, and they get you to remember the product and restaurant because of the ad which is what a good ad is supposed to do, right? It’s more than that though–there seems to be a positive philosophy of treating the customer right at Sonic. At least that seems to be the case at the one near my home.  It’s almost like “yeah, we’re different,” but it’s not in that creepy weird way like you see with a lot of people who take “different” so far overboard.

Another benefit Sonic has built into their product line that goes highly unnoticed more often than not–the ice they use in the drinks, you know that good crunchy ice, makes it to where you almost want them to load the thing down with ice so you can crunch on it long after the beverage is gone.  Usually loading a drink with ice is bad at 99.9% of the fast food joints, but it’s not so bad at Sonic.  This does two things: people will go out of their way for drinks with the “good ice,” and Sonic controls costs by being able to get away with loading up on ice versus product. My visit to Sonic was for a drink mainly because I was craving some of that “good ice” for some reason.  Don’t get me wrong, the drinks aren’t the only good thing about Sonic–all of their fare is good, and serving breakfast all day is a great move on their part.  Overall, they just do a lot of things right so it’s worth noticing.

Damn You Subway!

The other day, Saturday maybe, I was in the shower and caught myself humming “5 dollar, 5 dollar . . . 5 dollar foot longs.” It took me a second to realize I was humming a Subway “jingle” to myself, but it’s a groovy little tune. One of the girls at Jersey Mike’s, I’m no longer a Subway guy, cracked up when I mentioned the Subway karaoke rendition then she started singing it so it must not just be me.

Kudos to Subway or their ad agency for coming up with a good spot that doesn’t involve a guy who lost a gazillion pounds yet is still overweight or featuring a NASCAR driver that is fat, doesn’t know what turkey is, and can’t seem to work a razor.  I still haven’t figured out how Tony Stewart landed a healthy food commercial–everybody knows he’s not watching his weight!  Anyway.

Finally, the Reds Make a Good Move or Two

If you’re into baseball, you may be aware that the Cincinnati Reds finally called up Jay Bruce, their 21 year old outfield phenom.  Why it took until May 27, 2008 is questionable, but it’s good to see the organization try to inject some life back into the team, and the fans have seemingly responded.  There is a lot of buzz about the Reds because of the move, and Bruce starting off 4 for 6 with two doubles and two stolen bases hasn’t hurt the cause.  The guy isn’t going to turn around the team’s season all by himself so let’s not get too carried away, but at least the organization is acting like they WANT to win for a change which is what most of us want to see versus the typical “lip service.” In professional sports, the most powerful marketing is a consistent winning team.

On top of the Bruce move, they got Corey Patterson to agree to a demotion to AAA which means his Mendoza Line batting average won’t be a temptation for Dusty Baker to toss into the lineup at the lead-off position anymore.  Corey, you’re not going back up anytime soon so welcome to Louisville.

While this has little to do with business, it does have some marketing tie ins because the Reds are trying to market Jay Bruce as the future centerpiece of the franchise.

Your Turn

Have you noticed anything good or bad from a marketing perspective lately?  If so, share it below in the comment section.

Twitter as a Traffic Generation Tool? You Bet!

Friday, May 2nd, 2008 at 4:03 pm  
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I (Roger) have been involved with social media for awhile now in various forms (MySpace, Facebook, blogging, LinkedIn, etc.), but I didn’t get consistently involved with Twitter until a month ago or so. Now I’d consider myself a Twitter-holic.

Rough Beginnings

At first, I just didn’t get Twitter. 140 characters to tell people “what I’m doing right now?” My first reaction was “who cares?” which gave way to “stalkers ought to love this thing!” that finally gave way to “open your mind Roger, and give it a legitimate try; there has to be a way to leverage this thing as a business tool.” So that became my self imposed initiative.

Opening My Mind

I attended my first Louisville Social Media Club event and noticed how everybody referenced their Twitter ID on the sign-in sheet. So, armed with that information I set out on my second Twitter voyage (the first one failed because I had no followers, and I wasn’t following anyone) by adding a lot of the SMC Louisville attendees to my “following.” I also added some of the people they were following to my list (the social networking aspect in play here), and a lot of those folks reciprocated which began to open my eyes on how powerful the service could be. I have since grown my list to over 100 followers and am following 175 or so on there now. Anyway, the point of this post is to show how Twitter is generating quite a bit of traffic to our blog, and that would have been impossible without sharing my “following” so the background info is relevant.

Expanding Reach

Earlier this week, I attended the Cincinnati Social Media Breakfast and met more wonderful people to add to my Twitter list. I reviewed the event and have been amazed at how much traffic that one post has generated. Other sites have referenced the review, and that was all made possible through Twitter. Nobody would have even known who I was if it weren’t for the service, and nobody would have known I wrote a review of the social media events I have attended if it weren’t for Twitter. In the “old days,” I would have had to send each attendee an e-mail with a link to the blog post then hoped they visited the site and took it upon themselves to link to it somewhere.

Traffic Results

Roughly 30% of our blog traffic has been Twitter based. In looking at the web analytics just now, the other sites that have directed traffic to our blog are a direct result of “tweets” on Twitter letting others know about the various blog posts that they now reference on their blogs. They took the “tweet” to the next level, and it’s possible to trace 75% of our existing blog traffic back to Twitter. It’s the real-time information share that makes Twitter so powerful, and it makes it so much easier for those connected to cross promote one another in multiple media. The service provides tremendous benefit if viewed from that perspective.

Bottom Line

Twitter is something to seriously consider if your business is looking for additional web traffic sources. It can provide a tremendous benefit to your business if the people you put in place to utilize Twitter handle it properly. It’s like anything else in the social media or SEO universe–time and consistency are keys to success. It’s not a light switch technology that will pay immediate dividends so keep that in mind before embarking on a Twitter journey.

Share Your Story

Got a Twitter business success story of your own? Please share it with us.

Want More Information?

Here are some interesting posts to read that touch upon the concept of Twitter as a traffic generation tool:

Twitter as a Traffic Generation Tool? [ 5:03 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Stupid Slogans – Where's the Creativity?

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 5:53 pm  
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The past two days, I (Roger) have hoarded myself up in a hotel outside of Cincinnati (Florence, KY to be exact). The main reason for the trip was to attend the Social Media Breakfast, but the secondary reason was to get myself out of my own comfort zone to hopefully stimulate some creativity.

During my stay, I’ve watched limited television, but I happened to catch a couple of commercials that stood out for their complete lack of creativity. There are a couple of outfits in Louisville that use “slogans” (loosely stated) that I was shocked to hear duplicated in Cincinnati.

Yes, Cincinnati and Louisville are not far apart so it’s not crazy to see or hear such a thing, but I’m guessing the companies utilizing the slogans paid very little to a professional agency or developed them in house. When someone develops their slogan in house, they are hesitant to listen to anyone outside of the organization because they believe “it’s cute,” or (worse) the money they saved allows them to air the ad more frequently which means we, the public, have to endure the crap. No, scratch that–we have to change the channel when their garbage pollutes the airwaves.

We Sell ‘em Cheap, Cheap, Cheap

For instance, Springhurst Chevrolet in Louisville uses the phrase “we can’t be beat because we sell them so cheap, cheap, cheap.” Isn’t that a stroke of creative genius? Another rhyming slogan. Wonder how much the decision makers paid their children to come up with that one? They probably treated the kids to a night at the local ice cream shop next door. If so, they paid too much although the kids probably appreciate the treats. I thought that was bad enough, but there is an outfit in Cincinnati using the same slogan to push their product. Unfortunately, I was only halfway paying attention so I can’t call out the business by name and link to them but when I heard the phrase, I couldn’t believe my ears. Who thinks this is effective? If you’re claiming to save me money, just say that. Nobody wants cheap, but we do like to save money. On second thought, Chevrolet does produce a lot of garbage, but I digress.

Experience the Dumb Company Difference

Two former employers of mine used the <sarcasm> highly creative phrase </sarcasm> “experience the [company name] difference” as their slogans. What difference? Spell it out for me! You telling me you’re different doesn’t make you different. Tell me something that would make me take notice of your company or your brand, or at least tell me what you’re trying to do for me from a benefit perspective. “We save you money on [whatever]” is better than “experience the dumb company difference.” Unfortunately, both companies are competitors in the same industry so that makes them stand out even less.

We’re the Best, Forget the Rest

Another pet peeve slogan is where a company suggests “we are the best so forget the rest.” Isn’t that cute that it rhymes? Unfortunately, I can’t call one specific company out for violating this failed slogan, but it would be nice to know what the thinking process is when a company signs off on utilizing a slogan like this as their advertising and marketing centerpiece.

What’s Your Least Favorite Slogan or Catch Phrase?

What’s a slogan you have heard lately that grates on your nerves or is flat out stupid? Let me hear from you. I’ll create another post that puts your name in lights on the site. Ok, maybe not lights, but I’ll gladly quote you and link back to you if you’re looking for some SEO love.

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