Author: Drew Neisser

Crocs Travel Well

Posted on by Drew Neisser

I recently shared our Marketing as Service video with a terrific interactive designer to get his reaction. He thought the video was cool but wanted to let the overall concept sink in for a bit. About a week later he sent me this note:

I came across this article in Ad Age and immediately thought of Renegade.It’s in reference to engaging consumers by offering marketing as aservice, not an ad.

Cities by FootThe article described a new travel-guide website created for footwear maker Crocs. The site is called Cities by Foot and provides hi-def video of different travel destinations across the country. The product rationale for the site is provided by the client:

“Crocs are the best travel shoes,” said Ed Wuensch, who happens to be Crocs’ director of marketing. “So we were thinking, ‘What platform could we use to get that across?'”

The agency behind the site, Red Robot, notes that this program is a true service to Crocs’ customers:

We didn’t want to hit consumers over the head with the Crocs brand. We wanted it to be authentic, that this is a service brought to you by Crocs,” said Mr. Flanagan [CEO of Red Robot.] And it’s a service not only to would-be pedestrian explorers but also the shopkeepers and restaurateurs, as the whole video is underwritten by Crocs. In fact, Cities by Foot offers businesses that don’t have it a one-year membership in their local Consumer & Visitor’s Bureau.

Now I realize that this is hardly the first time a client has created relevant content for its customers. The Michelin Guide comes to mind as perhaps the granddaddy of all such approaches and the most instructive. Michelin has been publishing its guide since 1900 and gave them away for the first twenty years. Hopefully Crocs will have the “wear-with-all” to stick with this concept long enough to become a trusted information resource that is so valuable travelers will be willing to pay for it and shopkeepers will covet its approval.So, though this is a marketing road well traveled, I suspect well-heeled consumers will enjoy trekking through the site and subsequently through the cities profiled in a pair of anything-but pedestrian Crocs.

Good Brands Don’t Hurt

Posted on by Drew Neisser

This article was written in two parts for Philanthropy Journal, the first appearing May 6, 2008:

Good Brands Don’t Hurt (part 1)
The first brands were burned into the hides of cows. This was painful for the cow but good for the rancher who wanted to keep track of his herd. Later on, certain brands began to be known for the quality of the beef and this helped that rancher get more money per pound than his lesser-known competitors. Other brands become known for always being on time to market, while still others found a position as the low-cost, high volume offering. In the nonprofit world, brands play an equally important role, helping donors and constituents determine which herd to join and which to steer away from.

Start off on the right hoof
Choose your name wisely since you’ll be living with the implications for years to come. Brand names that have a specific meaning are helpful at the beginning by providing some context for your various constituents. “Make a Wish” is such a name as it clearly defines the end benefit of the organization. “Children for Children” is another such name identifying the operational “playground” of that charity. “Doctors without Borders” is another example of a name that encapsulates the mission quite succinctly.

All that said, because of the specific nature of these names, at some point in their growth cycles they may find it difficult to evolve past their original tactically-focused mission. Names like Red Cross and United Way, while less specific, have the advantage of being easy to remember and general enough to encompass many forms of charitable activities.

Careful grooming pays off
With a carefully crafted name in hand, take some time to get your logo right. Run a contest at a local design school or online to collect some options to review with your board of directors/advisors. A great logo will set the tone for the brand and all subsequent communications. A boring logo will be lost in the sea of sameness.

One example of a great logo is Children for Children’s. It is sophisticated yet simple, appealing to both kids and adults, a move that is essential for this particular charity. The Children for Children logo has inspired the graphic look and feel of its website, and all other communications. The logo even plays a prominent role in the invitation to their annual benefit, which has an art theme and features variations of the logo inspired by famous artists like Van Gogh and Chagall.

Getting the right name and logo are essential in the early stages of brand development. These will force you to define your mission, values and target audience since without these prerequisites, you’ll just have a cow.

Getting Beyond the Giggles

Posted on by Drew Neisser

I was excited for a second when I read about Career Builder’s new Identifying Your Office Persona video. Perhaps they were actually going to provide a service to job seekers who would really benefit from an insightful self-assessment. Instead they elected to provide a different type of service–entertainment. And though I have often written in praise of a good laugh, I couldn’t help but think in this case that there was a bigger opportunity. Sure, get the laugh but then follow up with the real deal like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or some other self-awareness enabler. Job seekers have so many needs that can be supported, from resume assistance to career counseling, from career switching to finding a work/life balance. Getting beyond the giggles is no laughing matter–think of comedy as the sizzle and genuine service as the steak in a meat deprived marketplace.

WiiFit Fits Good

Posted on by Drew Neisser

WiiFitSedentary kids are a meaty social problem. Video games tends to exacerbate the situation, causing carpal tunnel and tooshie fatigue. Can WiiFit get these kids off the couch and help them burn a few calories? Dance Dance Revolution made some headway in this area and was even adopted by some school districts as a legitimate form of exercise (see previous post on DDR).

Here’s the blurb from Amazon about WiiFit:

Wii Fit features more than 40 activities and exercises, including strength training, aerobics, yoga, and balance games for play on Nintendo’s Wii. WiiFit will be released on May 19 and requires a Nintendo Wii game console to play.

Because the Wii itself has been such a phenomenal success on multiple levels, it should be a surprise that there is a huge buzz already building about WiiFit. Nintendo (at least I think it is Nintendo) has set up a very legit looking blog up called WiiFit.net that is even modestly self-critical:

The Wii Fit, meanwhile, sells the idea of the video game as a lifestyle solution. If, three years ago, a focus group had been asked whether they thought a video game could improve your memory or help you to lose weight, the answer would have probably been a rather bemused ‘no.’ Before Wii Fit, the idea of a fat-burning video game was an idea as outlandishly utopian as slimming beer or a carpet that reverses ageing.

But like it or not, Nintendo have pulled off an impressive marketing trick – they’ve convinced an entire untapped audience to buy their product, though it remains to be seen whether the nation’s waistlines will improve as a result.

Having worked up a sweat playing the regular Wii, I’m a big fan of this product and the lifestyle they are building around it. They have even created another support site called Wii Healthy that offers all sort of tips to eat and live a Wii bit better. This is quite a stretch for a gaming company but one that should embolden many other marketers.

How To Be a Great Client

Posted on by Drew Neisser

A fellow Renegade recently took a job on the Client side and asked for some advice to ease the transition. Here’s what I suggested:

  1. Know your brand: Seems simple enough but you’d be amazed at how many folks on the client side can’t articulate their brand’s values and aspirations. Without this understanding, how can you possibly judge creative work and arbitrate between what is and isn’t on brand? Knowing your brand means knowing its history, its customers, its competition and its strengths and weaknesses. This takes time and a deep sense of curiosity but is well worth the trouble. Once you know your brand, your job will become much easier and the work you get to approve, much better.
  2. Know your company: Again, this seems like a no brainer, but if you, as a top marketer, don’t know the ins and outs of your company, you don’t stand a chance of getting great work through your company’s hierarchy. This understanding is especially important for new arrivals who are eager to make their mark but stumble when they incorrectly read the politics of their company. Before you jump in and set a new direction, make sure you have a firm foundation of support both intellectually and politically. The expression “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” comes to mind.
  3. Own the integration process: Lots of clients allow each of their agency partners to have their own creative strategy for each of the marketing disciplines. This is not a bad practice in and of itself, but it can lead to disintegrated communication programs. A great client insists that their agencies work together to develop one over-arching strategy and one over-arching campaign. This approach leads to big campaign ideas like the Dove “Campaign for Real Beauty” and GE’s “Ecomagination.”
  4. Have some chutzpah: Let’s face it, cutting through these days is tough and it takes some chutzpah. In the era of the ad-zapping DVRs, perhaps the biggest risk is not taking one at all. If you are uncomfortable trying to do something fresh, then marketing is probably a bad career choice. Imagine the chutzpah it took to tell the board of a conservative insurance company that their new spokesperson was a duck? Ten years later that same duck has increase shareholder value by a zillion and made Aflac a household brand. So the next time you are reviewing campaign ideas, keep in mind that one you are certain you could never sell to the CEO might be the campaign that makes you and your company famous.
  5. When in doubt, test online: Since too much chutzpah could cost you your job, especially if you haven’t been there very long, you might need some ammunition to convince the boss that a particular ad or campaign is worth the risk. One way to do this is to test the campaign online. Online testing has the advantage of being incredibly targeted and swift to produce. We recently ran a campaign that was meant to drive online sales and included a pool of 5 different ads, one of which was a little racy. Turns out that the slightly racy ad outsold the others in the pool three to one. Ironically, we still ended up pulling that ad because of one complaint letter!
  6. Be nice: Linda Kaplan Thaler wrote a whole book on the “Power of Nice” in business and in life. Unfortunately, her book is not on the “must read” list at many companies. For those of you just starting out in the business, it may not be obvious that being nice is a prerequisite to maximizing your ROA (Return on Agency). In fact, you may get the sense that the opposite is true, what with procurement beating up on the financial side, CEO’s crying “to heck with brand just give me sales,” and everyone else placing the blame on the agency for just about everything but product defects. It is a tough time to be Nice, but the rewards, I assure you, are extraordinary. Be nice and you’ll inspire a level of dedication reserved for the worthy, the heroic, the best of the best. And even if that doesn’t happen, at least you’ll have a “nice” answer to your kid’s question, “How was work today?”

Of course, I’m just an agency guy—what do I know?