Author: Drew Neisser

Only You Can Prevent Ad Pollution

Posted on by Drew Neisser

If you’ve had any doubt about the wisdom behind Marketing as Service then be sure to read the article in this week’s Business Week called “Attention-Deficit Advertising.” Acknowledging the mind numbing clutter of ads invading every spare surface (at Renegade, we call this “ad pollution”), BW notes that marketers are looking for “new ways to capture consumers’ attention” and are turning to “messages that, in and of themselves, provide a service.” Ding. Ding. Ding. We have a winner. This is exactly what we’ve been talking about for the last 18 months. Stop messaging. Start servicing.

The BW article offers a number of interesting examples of Marketing as Service in action:

Through a special promotion, Motorola (MOT) enabled loved ones to “Say Goodbye” via photos and messages sent from their phones to digital billboards in the departure area. The photos appeared there inside the image of a giant Motorola mobile phone. Motorola got thousands of Hong Kong’s ad-inundated consumers to stare at a billboard longer than usual.

Hoping to sell more of its Johnnie Walker whisky in Singapore, liquor giant Diageo, (DEO) with the help of OgilvyOne Worldwide (WPPGY), created a “digital personal assistant” for drinkers’ mobile phones. An avatar named “Jennie” sends out VIP invitations, information about hot night spots, and Johnnie Walker promotions. For the inebriated, the service includes a “take me home” button that, when pressed, uses GPS to call a cab.

BW also offered a great summary about Why Marketers Like ‘Useful Ads’:

  1. Consumers actively seek out services, even if they are veiled ads. And they spend more time with the brand than they would watching a 30-second spot.
  2. When consumers sign up for a service, marketers can gather everything from demographic information to product interests to names and addresses–data they can use for a harder sell down the road.
  3. When the ads work, consumers feel more loyalty to a brand because they feel like it did them a good turn.

Ironically, there were almost no examples of Marketing as Service amongst the 25 or so ads in the magazine. The closest I could find was an ad from computer reseller CDW which informed readers that higher resolution LCDs are “easier on your eyes” and offered prices that were “easier on your budget.” A lame example indeed but it certainly demonstrates that there is still time for all you inspired marketers out there to gain competitive advantage through “marketing as service.” The simple truth is–only you can prevent ad pollution.

Dance with Your Customers

Posted on by Drew Neisser

As you may remember, I gave a webinar a month ago for the PRSA called “What Recession? 9 Ways to Cut Through Regardless of the Economy.” It was a bit strange presenting to over 200 people I couldn’t see but the audience seem to enjoy it (or so I’ve been told.) Anyhow, in that speech I talked about the idea of “dancing with your customers” as an aspirational goal for customer engagement:

The notion of having a conversation with your customers has almost become a cliché in our industry. Conversations are nice but why not strive for something more intimate, more emotional, more dynamic—something that gets you truly in-sync with your customers needs and desires. Use all your charm and style and dance with your customers both physically and virtually. Physical “dances” can take place on your premises or at events ranging from street encounters to massive exhibitions. Virtual dances also come in a variety of shapes and sizes from websites to widgets, virtual worlds to social networks.

Etsy, an online marketplace for handmade goods, has about 800,000 registered users that it supports with forums, blogs and a ratings system. All this was good and has helped them build tremendous loyalty among the crafters and artisans that support their marketplace. But the real dance began when Etsy started supporting the social networks outside of the company’s domain created by Etsy fans. One such site, We Love Etsy has 2800 members with their own profile pages enabling a deeper kind of interaction. 50+ other Etsy related sites exist and Etsy recently started a trademark-permission program to avoid misuse of their brand. Etsy has found a way to dance with its fans transforming the relationship from customer to brand advocate.

Having re-read that speech recently, it occurred to me that Etsy’s support of its user base is also a terrific example of marketing as service. Rather than spend marketing dollars on chest-beating messaging, Etsy has used its marketing efforts to deliver real value to its customers via social networking, increasing loyalty and revenue while they’re at it. Its enough to make me dance.

The Donut Poll

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Got this tasty tidbit yesterday from a friend in Pittsburgh:

I voted at 7:45 this morning. As I came out, a man from a local radio station was doing a “Democratic Donut” poll. He asked me to show who I voted for by choosing a chocolate donut (Obama) or a white powdered sugar donut with pink frosting (Hillary). (I refrained from commenting on the racial stereotyping thing with the donuts.)

Anyway, only 45 minutes after the polls had opened, in downtown Pittsburgh, Hillary was almost two dozen donuts ahead of Obama.  In fact, the Hillary donut boxes were almost empty.

Me? I have white powdered sugar all over my suit now.

Talk about tasty research!  Who needs needs Gallup when donuts can predict a slam dunk.

Are the Olympics Good?

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Having attended three Olympics myself (’84, ’96, ’02), I truly believe that the Games bring people and countries together, making the world smaller and closer. I believe the Olympics can affect positive change like precipitating South Korea’s transformation into a democracy from a dictatorship (this really happened). And I believe that Olympic sponsors are doing good by supporting the Games. So you can imagine how it pains me to even ask “are the Olympics good?”

Let me start by saying this is not an issue you can race through. Opinions abound. Over the last few weeks, protesters doused the Olympic torch in many countries in protest of Chinese actions in Tibet and Darfur. Hillary Clinton, in the midst of a heated Presidential nomination bid, suggested “President Bush should not plan on attending the opening ceremonies in Beijing, absent major changes by the Chinese government.” And a New York Times editorial by Buzz Bissinger, called for the end of the Olympic Games altogether! It was this last one that really stopped me cold.

Mr. Bissinger, the author of sports TV shows like “Friday Night Lights” and “Three Nights in August” (I guess this makes him an expert), provided a history of all the problems associated with the modern Olympics since it founding in 1896. No doubt there have been many. He cites the (failed in his opinion) ideals of the modern Olympics as stated by founder Baron Pierre de Coubertin:

May joy and good fellowship reign, and in this manner, may the Olympic torch pursue its way through ages, increasing friendly understanding among nations, for the good of a humanity always more enthusiastic, more courageous and more pure.

But that’s about the last positive thing Bizzinger offers. Fortunately for those of us who love the sport and can overlook the darker side of the Games, an article in the New York Times by the long-time sports writer George Vescey, offered a different perspective. Here are a few highlights from Vescey’s column:

Every time I hear talk of boycotting ceremonies or canceling the Olympic Games, I find myself strangely defensive of the Games, as pretentious and bloated and dishonest as they may be.

…those Atlanta Games in 1996 gave two blessings to the world. The first was Samaranch’s very real support for female athletes like the softball team of Dr. Dot Richardson and the soccer team of Michelle Akers and their worthy competitors. The other came in the opening ceremony when Muhammad Ali, once reviled in his homeland as a draft dodger and Muslim convert, emerged on a platform to light the Olympic flame.

I would not trade the success of the women or the honor to Ali for any reflex action to shut down the Olympics.

In the meantime, Good Magazine ran an extensive cover story on why we needed to engage China and embrace the Beijing Games. That’s right, Good Magazine, which introduced its story called “What’s Up with China?” as follows:

In just a few months, the Olympic flame will arrive in Beijing, signaling the start of the 29th Olympiad. Beyond medal counts and race results, we will be engulfed in news about China—from government-sponsored agitprop about rapid modernization to alarmist drumbeats about a growing military and potential economic disaster. Somewhere in between the propaganda and the hysteria will lie the truth.

If the United States is the last remaining superpower of the imperialist era, then China is rapidly becoming the first of the information age. When the world last found itself with two superpowers things didn’t go so well; we’re hoping these stories will contribute to a more rational dialogue this time around. China’s deplorable record on human rights, political freedom, and the environment cannot lightly be cast aside, but it is sometimes necessary to look beyond it. Our two countries are inexorably linked, so let’s find out who our Eastern neighbor really is.

We have a better chance of affecting China’s policies in the future if we engage them now on all levels including the Olympics. Sponsors should not be boycotted for supporting the Olympic ideals even if those ideals are not wholly embraced by the host country today. These sponsors are an important part of the economic riptide that will ultimately pull China in a good direction, affecting the kind of change those calling for boycott are really seeking.

Call me sappy but I actually believe the Olympics are about the athletes and the ideal they represent. Like many sports fans, I love watching the intense competition and seeing the underdogs win. I’m generally amazed by the stories of the athletes and the hardships many endured to get to the games. And I’m partial to the sponsors who find meaningful ways to support the athletes (like Home Depot’s jobs program & Panasonic’s EyeOn Performance System at the US Olympic Training Facility).

And so I say with little hesitation, “let the games Beijing.”

Don’t Leave Home without a Service

Posted on by Drew Neisser

American Express has been a leader in “marketing as service” for years through a host of programs that enhance card holder privileges. At the US Open last year, I enjoyed a free rickshaw ride across the elevated promenade AND a free radio which allowed me to hear John McEnroe’s expert commentary while I watched the action live on center court. More recently, I got first crack at tickets to Clapton & Winwood, a concert that sold out in a few hours. These are just a few of the ways AmEx delivers marketing as service. (Their small business program, OPEN, is worth a separate case history or ten.)

So it should be no surprise, that the current CMO of AmEx, Claire Bennett, does not see a future in marketing as message and instead is embracing marketing that empowers customers and prospects alike. This week at the ANA Brand Innovation Conference, Ms. Bennett spoke of the need to move from overwhelming “consumers with meaningless information” to programs that invite participation. Her some of the highlights of her speech as reported by MediaPost:

American Express CMO: ‘Go From Disrupting To Empowering’
Paraphrasing Einstein, she said any marketing fool can overwhelm consumers with meaningless information, but it takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.Her message, delivered through a rundown on her own company’s efforts, was that the opposite direction means moving from intrusion to invitation. “Are you making something better for your customer or intruding on an experience they are having?” she asked, rhetorically.

“We want to be invited in by the consumer: from transaction to relationship; from disrupting to empowering.”She said the proliferation of new media not withstanding, Amex’s media spend remains evenly spread between traditional and non-traditional outlets. “None of the old media has gone away,” she said, adding that Amex’s marketing activity is shaped by its service-company vision: to become the world’s most respected service brand.”A lot of our programs tend to be in New York,” she said. In terms of new media, she said the company is expanding efforts in mobile media, “and, from a travel standpoint, the online member community is new as well. We are always looking to make sure sponsorship of events is participatory. So we are looking for any media that will let us make that experience better.”

Bennett said the point of the campaign, which launched during the Academy Awards broadcast, was to use traditional and non-traditional media and the event itself to reinforce the service vision by offering card-members an entrée to fashion. The company also created an online video media channel that ran live web casts of the show.She said that this year the company delved into social media with “Members Know,” a travel-centric microsite populated by content from Amex-owned “Travel and Leisure” and that lets card members give advice, chat, and generally share content and give advice.

The company has also increased its sponsorship commitment to the U.S. Open tennis championships in New York, with a program that includes a number of free-to-member events, programs, and amenities.

In Search of Service

Posted on by Drew Neisser

In a world polluted by banal messages it is annoyingly hard to find great cases of “marketing as service.” So today, I’m pleased to offer two reasonable good examples, fresh off the pages of this week’s AdAge.

The first comes from an interview with the new CMO of Wachovia, Ranjana B. Clark, who naturally initiated an agency review shortly after her arrival. [Start of rant–why is it that new CMO’s insist on conducting agency reviews? In this case, Mullen did a particularly brilliant job over the last 7 years helping to grow that brand. I suppose it is simply a question of “what have you done for me lately?” but what about all the cumulative knowledge and expertise they potentially offered?–end of rant] As I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself, this otherwise smart-sounding CMO of Wachovia, has determined that “American’s don’t save [and] have too much debt” and that a bank like hers needs to address these problems substantively:

The way we gain consumer trust is by truly listening and responding to our customers. … Our latest product introduction, “Way to Save,” is a way to help customers get into the savings habit. … We make it easy and we make it fun, and we make it possible for people who are either not in the habit of saving, or have very little to save, to begin.

This is the essence of marketing as service. It’s not enough to talk the talk (that’s marketing as message). You also have to walk the walk (that’s marketing as service). If this isn’t clear enough, consider Purina’s new website called PetCharts:

The site capitalizes on one of the universal truths of the web: People love pet content, especially funny cat photos or user-generated videos of pets at play. But the site also capitalizes on another one of the web’s universal truths: that when it comes to that pet content, 90% of it is bad. The goal for PetCharts is to help people find the good stuff.

Purina is performing a genuine service for its customers and in process should help them stand out of the pack of pet food marketers. Lest you think I’m alone in the praise of this approach, consider this quote from AdAge:

“This is really smart because the marketer is actually trying to give something valuable to the consumer in the context of how you create value on the web,” said Scott Karp, CEO of Publish2, an aggregation service aimed at journalists. “The web is a fantastic information medium and what the marketer is doing is giving the consumer relevant information.”

Wachovia’s new “Way to Save” product could help its customers save money, an offering that could be particularly helpful to the newly indebted. Purina’s new site could help its customers save time finding the best pet photos, a pursuit that only true dog lovers can understand and appreciate. In both cases, customers and marketers are well-served.