Marketing Archives - Page 2 of 22 - Otis Regrets... or not

Who else wants to see their FICO score? (and other mailbox mysteries)

FICO mailing for Chase Slate — *Where’s your list hygiene, Chase?*

This credit card promo from Chase caused me to fire up the mailbox monitor. The premise is that you get a free monthly FICO report with the Chase Slate card. My household has been carpet bombed with these packages recently, both my wife and I receiving multiple mailings sometimes on the same day. There are a few things about it that make me wonder.

A memorable signatory — *I’m Florian Eggs-Kring, and I approve this message.*

First, Chase practices poor list hygiene which doesn’t dedupe recipients with the same or similar name, and obviously does not do its own credit scoring. Speaking of which, does everybody know what the promise of a “Free FICO score” means? Would it have been better to simply say “free credit report”, a term that’s used inside? And note the name of the signatory of the main letter. Florian Eggs-Kring is a moniker which would have the Monty Python lads doing backflips, which is my point. Might a more neutral pseudonym have been a better choice? I understand that Florian is responsible for this mailing, but if he/she loses even a few responses because of distraction it’s probably not a good deal.

One of my maxims is “if you see a mailing repeatedly, that means it’s successful.” But I have the feeling this package is the exception that proves the rule; someone had a huge budget and didn’t feel it was necessary to test. Florian Eggs-Kring, if you’re reading this please tell me I’m off base. (Of note, it’s not a Visa or MasterCard or Amex so it’s not going to wotk initially in a lot of terminals; maybe Chase needs to build a huge user base quickly in order to convince merchants to accept it.)

Salvation Army red package — *Salvation Army package has a legibility problem*

Let’s move on. The Salvation Army envelope, for a large donor mailing, starts strong with “If this shield” but then trails off because “could talk” is illegible in the mailbox (it looks much more legible in the photo than in real life). The problem could have been solved, or at least mitigated, with some adjustments at blueline stage or even on press (dial back the magenta). The lesson is, no matter noble your ideals, you have to follow through in production.

Parents Meeting teaser — *Great teaser on a simple self mailer*

The green “Important Parent Meeting” on this academic-green self mailer is simple and brilliant. No parent of a school age child can ignore an apparently official announcement of a meeting. This solicitation is for a seminar on how to get financial aid and I bet it’s successful.

AAA Term Life — *Beautiful stage management in an AAA Life 9×12 package*

Our final example offers some beautiful stage management for AAA Life. Note the three-dimensional effect of the mock-vellum certificate seen through the window, and the shadow behind the fake mailing label below. Inside we find a complete application pack which asks the reader to mail a check for term life insurance. This company is extremely thrifty and I can’t believe they would have approved this package if it wasn’t a winner in testing. I hope it is so we can keep this great designer working; you don’t see much direct mail created with such care nowadays.

Term Life AAA — Here’s the entire AAA Life package.

NOTE: as always, click on the image if you’d like to see any of these in greater detail, then click again to blow up the photo for a super-close up look.

Cadillac “Dare Greatly” ad campaign has an elephant in the back seat

During 2015 March Madness I’ve seen the Jason Wu Cadillac ad numerous times. Certainly it’s daring greatly to heavy up on a story about a guy whose mom gave him a sewing machine during the uber-macho celebration of NCAA basketball, and the ad is a great story. But what’s that vehicle rolling into frame at the end? Oh, wait, it’s a Cadillac… whaat?

I went googling and found Cadillac’s Dare Greatly page, which provides nice access to all the celebrity stories featured in the campaign. I watched the story of Jason Wu in full (that’s the video link above; the ad itself doesn’t seem to be available online) and also that of Anne Wojcicki, founder of 23andme. They’re well done. The overall impression is of somebody who was immensely talented to begin with, but then took a career path that took them out of their comfort zone. Obviously that’s a great metaphor for a once adulated, now staid luxury car brand that wants to reinvent itself.

But here’s the thing. I can’t imagine any of these people actually driving a Cadillac, other than maybe Steve Wosniak who’s a car collector and something of a schlub. (In fact, if you can prove to me Anne Wojcicki doesn’t drive a Tesla S, I’ll send you a free copy of my book right now.) So the ads, while celebrating the daring and talented, inadvertently separate the product from the celebrity endorser.

This campaign is often compared to the iconic Chrysler spots featuring Eminem and later Clint Eastwood. But those gentlemen weren’t endorsing a car. They were endorsing a spirit: Rocky, relocated from Philadelphia to Detroit, the downtrodden American underdog rising from the ashes of defeat. You buy a car from these guys not because they drive one, but because it’s the right thing to do.

When Chrysler next hired Bob Dylan and turned him into an Ed McMahon-type huckster, it was cringeworthy. A better use of the celebrity as pitchman was the Lincoln ad with Matthew McConnaghey where he comes right out and says “I’ve been driving a Lincoln since long before they paid me to do it.” Anyhow, what all these ads had in common was that they make a direct connection between the celebrity and the car—in most cases, the spokesperson is behind the wheel in at least one scene. (I think Eastwood may have stepped from the shadows behind a Chrysler.)

And that’s the disconnect with Cadillac’s Dare Greatly campaign and its celebrities. In order to convince them to participate, Cadillac obviously told them they did not have to mention Cadillac, appear with Cadillac, or drive a Cadillac. So we have the choice of questioning the credibility of the endorsement, or realizing it’s not an endorsement at all.

Celebrities are infinitely useful as metaphors, especially if they’re dead. (Think of the “Here’s to the…” images in the Apple “Think Different” campaign.) But if you’re interacting with live ones you can’t put up a firewall. You have to ask them about the car. That’s the lesson here.

The creative parable of the 100 light bulbs

A creative director recently shared with me the parable of the 100th light bulb. It goes like this:

When you turn on the first light bulb in a dark room, the effect is transformative. Where before there was only darkness, now there is light. But by the time you switch on the 100th light bulb, the incremental difference is so small that nobody notices. The lesson is that there’s a point of diminishing returns where it’s not worth the effort to keep exploring new ideas.

I disagree.

For one thing, if your project is a web page or an email, turning on the light bulb is so trivial a task you shouldn’t give it a second thought. Through multivariate testing, marketers can not only turn light bulbs on and off, but move them around at will to see if one arrangement is better than another.

But beyond that, turning on the 100^th light bulb is what we as creatives are paid to do, assuming we charge more than the journeyman copywriter who can take a brochure and turn it into a sales letter.

In the heyday of subscription direct mail, the 1980s and early 1990s, writers like Bill Jayme and Linda Wells were paid tens of thousands of dollars (1980s dollars) to produce circulation promotions that, if they were successful, might increase response rate by a microscopic fraction of 1%. But because the numbers mailed were so large, it was a savvy investment by the publishers.

I myself once wrote an ad that appeared in Computerworld, for a long departed agency and software client. They marketed primarily through direct mail, but some targets just didn’t ever respond. This ad won a new account from one of those targets, and the value of the business was such that it paid for the entire cost of the ad, including media, for the life of the campaign.

Was that worth the 100^th light bulb? I think so.

Brands get their (big) game face on for Super Bowl FSIs

Big Game FSIs 2015 — *How many ways can you say “Big Game”? Not that many, apparently.*

The big day for football fans has come and gone. Of course, I’m referring to the Sunday before the Super Bowl when the newspapers are full of FSIs touting snacks of all varieties (except healthy) as super savory, fan favorites or a tasting touchdown without ever using the actual name of the event which requires an exclusive and very expensive license from the very litigious (unless you are a wife-whacking or child-whipping pro athlete, in which case you are exempt) National Football League.

Except… hardly any of the headlines are anywhere near as creative or alliterative as the descriptives I tossed together above. Take a look above… a majority of the ads have “Big Game” in some variation as their headline with only the lamest attempt to tie it to the product. We have two incidences of “big flavor for the big game” and one “big taste for the big game” along with “big game lineup”, “stock up for the big game” as well as “game plan” and the ever popular “game changer”. You’d think that copywriters have a vocabulary of 50 words, but that’s wrong because a lot of the non-Super Bowl ads in the same edition are very clever. (My personal favorite, “What the Yuck?” for a super strength detergent that gets the “yuck” out of deeply soiled clothes.) They are bored with this tiresome yearly charade and as a result get sacked for a loss, creatively speaking.

Super Bowl P&G ad — Look! A Super Bowl ad that says Super Bowl!

Interestingly, the words “Super Bowl” actually do appear, in a spread in the P&G Brand Saver. Their Gillette shavers, it turns out, are indeed an official sponsor. All the senior people were in the jet on the way to Phoenix (where this year’s game will be played) so the playbook was left in charge of a novice copywriter and a too-cute art director. “Smooth moves and fresh plays?” I don’t think so. And can you find the Roman numerals XLIX, for 49, hiding in the ad? Sadly, Ex-Lax is not a sponsor and this will be the last Roman-enumerated Super Bowl; we’re moving to 50 next year.

My prediction: Seahawks by seven.

Smart homes and smart marketing at CES 2015

Oomi Smart Home system — What’s Oomi? Tell me why I should care.

“Smart homes” is a useful topic for a marketing review because, while it’s exciting (or maybe ominous) to think about gadgets turning out the lights, managing security or monitoring our baby’s heartbeat, it’s up to the marketers to tell us exactly what their specific products do. Witness a few examples, good and bad, from the recent Winter 2015 Consumer Electronics Show.

Smart Home famil — Generic smart home marketing

Oomi makes the mistake of thinking others are as interested in their product as they are. “What’s Oomi?” was the headline of their booth at the Showstoppers press event. Without a benefit or point of reference, it’s not likely many will stick around to find out. The subtext “the first smart home that’s actually smart” provides context but is too clever for its own good: I don’t know that there’s a perception of lots of smart home products that are stupid. It’s a solution for a problem that may not exist. And meanwhile, we haven’t learned anything about the product. (Like many others, it’s a set of modules that work together to handle various home automation functions.)

Not much better are a number of OEM booths I passed in the nether regions of the second floor in South Hall. By focusing entirely on technology, these importers make their systems generic. There’s a “home” graphic but otherwise they lean heavily on the “what” rather than the “why”. This is a common problem with marketing at the CES where thousands of new products and unfamiliar concepts jostle for attention simultaneously. In a few seconds as I stumble down the aisle you need to tell me not only what you are selling, but why I should care.

For smart homes, it’s obviously about emotion, and the shoestring display for “Teddy the Guardian” does this very well. In fact, the signage doesn’t even say what the product is but the baby tcotchkes make a strong emotional appeal and you hang around long enough to find out it’s a teddy bear with all kinds of baby monitoring built in. There was a lot of interest in this one.

Finally, WeMo is a family of devices that monitor and automate activity in the home. Belkin created a mock home and then stuck devices all over the places with captions describing hypothetical problems and “can I WeMo that?” Compare this to Oomi, which seems to do the exact same thing, and you can see why Belkin’s marketing is so good. It’s a complete conversation that combines technology and the human factor and is fun to interact with as well. The booth was packed.

The Idiot of Things visits CES 2015 Las Vegas

Internet of Everything Now Open — *Qualcomm’s takeoff on the Internet of Things*

I saw IoT all over Las Vegas on buses and billboards, and asked a booth staffer for an explanation. She said it stands for the Internet of Things and then proceeded to explain what that meant. I already knew the concept, just not the acronym but too late; I felt like a clueless Luddite. Anyway, it is indeed the Year of the Thing at the Consumer Electronics Show with heavy emphasis on apps for connecting mobile devices to all aspects of your daily life.

Pet monitoring gadgets — *Lots of pet monitoring devices at CES 2015*

Over two days I saw many gadgets for monitoring every aspect of your fitness, or your child’s, or even your pet’s. You can buy an electric toothbrush that has Bluetooth that connects to an app to show you how effectively you’re brushing. You can control your home remotely or turn your car into a nerve center for managing what will happen when you arrive while hopefully not getting into an accident due to distracted multitasking. (As a car company executive pointed out in a keynote, one thing that has to be sorted out is liability when a self driving car gets into an accident.)

3D family — *3D printing and printed 3D products are huge at CES. Here, your family miniaturized for posterity.*

What’s hot this year, in addition to things? Drones, lots of drones. 3D printers, and products and services connected to 3D printing. Smart cars that can be controlled with hand gestures (Volkswagen), will park themselves (Hyundai) or run on fuel cells (several). Fitbits and other performance monitoring electronics on steroids, so you don’t have to be because your conditioning is so efficient and awesome. And endless lineups of 4k televisions and monitors, each more vivid and breathtaking than the last.

What’s not? 3D television. (I saw just one at the show, billed as the world’s largest glassless meaning you don’t have to wear goggles.) Google Glass is ice cold… again, just one showing. And very few laptops, tablets or conventional PCs…. This was a gadget show, and it’s fully returned to its roots as a “consumer” show with very little business spillover. (Microsoft, which had an enormous presence in years past, was behind closed doors with a single hospitality suite.)

I’ve got a few reports coming up over the next couple of weeks:

Some interesting “mobility experiments” described in the keynote by Ford President Mark Fields
Best and worst of CES: some niche concepts that fill a narrow but credible role and others that left me shaking my head
Marketing makeover: I look at how, and how not, to present the “smart home” concept based on examples from many exhibitors
A historical retrospective on CES—an institution that would seem to have no history, since it’s always looking for the next big thing

Stay tuned.

Instead of protecting trees, Sierra Club turns them into advertising

Sierra Club Note Card Mailing — *Sierra Club note card mail pack… that’s a lot o’ timber, podner!*

John Muir must be spinning in his grave like a lamb on a campfire rotisserie. The organization he founded to “preserve the forests and other natural features” of the California Sierra Nevada Mountains has, in its most recent prospecting mailer, delivered a set of five two-panel note cards (complete with mailing envelopes) that must have taken out quite a swath of those forests.

Thinking about how many of these mail packs likely end up in the trash (or hopefully, recycling bin) unopened, it has to amount to a Giant Redwood-sized waste of natural resources. Hopefully it grates on the sensitivity of the target audience so it fails and they don’t do it again. Especially because the purpose of the mailing is not to protect the forests but wolves, who are being removed from the Endangered Species list presumably because they are no longer endangered.

I’ve been mildly irritated by previous Sierra Club mailings for their promotional nature but it wasn’t until today that I got rankled enough to dig into the mailing. A small notice that your gift is NOT tax deductible tipped me to go trolling on the web where, in spite of some excellent reputation management, it soon becomes clear that the Sierra Club you’re supporting is NOT the Sierra Club Foundation that spends 89% of its funds on worthy activities and gets high marks from charitywatch.org.

Sierra Club disclosures — *Disclosures on the back of the reply form (which you send back). Click the picture to read the fine print.*

Rather, “Sierra Club Founded 1892” is a PAC that spends almost half the money it receives on lobbying (this information is on the back of the gift form in the mail pack, which you are going to be sending back with your gift so it’s no longer in your possession). I took a picture of this document so you can see the budget breakdown, winsomely portrayed as a sectioned tree. I do see that 7.6% goes for “outdoor activities” which might be wilderness hikes, but might also be lobbyist picnics.

In short, I smell a polecat up this tree. If you’re looking for a year end tax deduction (which “Sierra Club” wouldn’t give you anyway) a better choice is Doctors without Borders which, while governments and NGOs dither about the fight against Ebola, is in Africa in force with boots on the ground. Grit your teeth as I did and check the “may we share your info?” box because it really does save them money if they can exchange lists, rather than renting them. Plus how else would you get on the list of other organizations and receive mailings like the one from the “Sierra Club”?

Does “made you look” strategy work for fundraisers?

I got a Christmas card this week from Chris Thomas—or so I thought. I was intrigued by the seasonal address sticker and wondered who I knew in El Segundo, a community near LAX notorious for its predatory speed traps. I opened it up…and there was the familiar tent card invitation from DirecTV, which indeed has its corporate headquarters in that city.

The DirecTV invitation is successful judging by the frequency with which we all receive it; the question is whether this “made you look” twist on the outer envelope helps response. I’ll guess it does, because some people will open who otherwise wouldn’t, like me, and some of those may be in a mood to churn their TV subscription. But is there a negative effect from people who are irritated by the trickery and become LESS likely to respond in the future?

The same question applies to a graduate student’s marketing experiment described in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (it’s a long article, and this example is way down at the end). The researcher noticed that when a Salvation Army bell ringer was posted at one entrance of a mall store, shoppers would go out of their way to use the other entrance. He then posted solicitors at both entrances and had them directly request donations from some shoppers, and not from others.

Shoppers who were directly asked for donations were 60% more likely to give. That would seem to be a big win for the Salvation Army. But what about people who were irritated by the pressure and less likely to donate in the future (or maybe to visit that store)? Donors have memories and if you create a negative impression, does it hurt you in the long term?

I’d love to hear from readers who have some experience or thoughts on this. For me it goes back to my early experience with subscription and catalog direct mail when we definitely saw fatigue; mail somebody too often and they become less likely to respond, now or ever. I’m sure there is a negative effect from pushing too hard, and I’d like to know how organizations are factoring it into their fundraising.

Do infographics work as lead generation offers?

A successful example from Marketing Sherpa — Infographic from the Marketing Sherpa case study, “*Content Marketing: Interactive infographic blog post generates 3.9 million views for small insurance company”.* The callouts are interactive; the reader clicks them to get the results at right. I also like the fact that this fits my screen without scrolling.

I am working on a business-to-business lead generation campaign in which I was given a bucket of information “assets” to sprinkle as offers throughout the series of contacts. Included are several infographics. I find myself reluctant to use them and I wonder if I’m alone in this.

It’s one thing to visit a web page and find a graphic that tells a story with images and type design, more effectively than words could do alone. That’s what an infographic is supposed to do. (I have previously complained about infographics that don’t get over this easy hurdle, and seem to be just a way to keep designers employed.) But how do you get people sufficiently interested that they’ll click through or give their contact information to see the infographic?

A search for “infographic” in my email archive doesn’t come up with a lot of examples. Here’s CEA Smartbrief:

What’s the ROI of Brand Advocacy at Retail?
We were curious about the value of turning retail employees into brand advocates. So we conducted an independent academic study that crunched two years of data on 63,500 sales associates in over 330 locations — and discovered that brands with customer-centric brand training sell up to 69% more. Download the infographic.

And here’s an ad for Citrix, on the Infoworld: Mobilize newsletter:

Infographic: Mobile Workspaces Enable New Ways to Work
The number of workers who telecommute is expected to increase 63% in the next 5 years, but the technology to support this is lacking in most organizations. Mobile workspaces that follow people anywhere, across their devices, secure enterprise information and afford the ultimate in productivity. SEE THE INFOGRAPHIC.

And here’s Russell Kern’s ROInsider:

Download our easy-to-read infographic on Big Data to learn what it means to connect with today’s consumer.

I like the first example because it sets up the graphic as support for one surprising fact. I’m interested in Kern’s reassurance that his is easy to read, implying that’s a hurdle with infographics. And Citrix treats the word “infographic” as equivalent to “white paper” or “special report”; there’s no additional advantage or baggage.

But what I’d like to know is whether the promise of an infographic performs as well as or better than these other, tried and true, information delivery vehicles. As a business prospect, I’m a bit embarrassed by the idea of clicking on a promised infographic because of the implication I can’t handle words so I’ve got to get my information in pictoral form—like a comic book!

Another issue with infographics is how they are to be accessed. Do you really expect me to cheerfully and willingly download a picture as I would a white paper, which I accept must be absorbed offline? And what am I going to do with it when I get it? By definition, infographics are supposed to be quick reading. Now I’ve read it, and I’m done, and I have this unwanted download (possibly with a virus attached) to dispose of.

Then there’s the practical aspect of reading the infographic: most are huge, and require extensive scrolling on the screen. That goes against everything I know about lead generation offers: if you make it difficult for people to get at your promotional information, they’re much more likely to abandon it than to struggle through.

I saw a study some years ago (from eMarketer, I think) of the comparative effectiveness of various lead gen offers (white papers, sales kits etc with interactive calculators being the best performing). I’d love to see infographics evaluated in this mix. My hunch is that prospects will view an infographic on a web page if you describe it in a compelling way, but they’re not going to download it. So that’s how I’m going to handle it in my project, and I’m going to couple it with another offer. They can go to a page and see our interesting visual, then give us a bit of contact information if they want to delve further with a related written document.

In writing this post I searched “infographic” on Marketing Sherpa, which is all about direct marketing case histories, and found just one which is the example above. This is on the blog of a company that sells travel insurance, and it appears they promoted it through quite a few channels, so I don’t know that it’s helpful in answering my question about the effectiveness of infographics for lead gen. (The article does mention that it was tested in emails against a “just plain insurance” message and achieved a 96% lift, but that is what I would expect with any offer vs no offer.) If anybody has any hard stats of whether infographics work, please share!

TV ads during the World Series: the good, the bad, the strange

For somebody who works in marketing, I don’t watch all that much commercial television. This changed during the recently concluded World Series, where I was following the fabulous Giants in a hotel room without a DVR while attending the Direct Marketing Association’s conference and so giving a lot of thought to advertising.

Certain ads played over and over again, making me the beneficiary or victim of frequency. An ad I never tired of was Budweiser’s “Friends Are Waiting” spot. A young guy bids farewell to his dog as he heads out the door with a suitcase of beer; later it’s night and we hear ominous music and the dog is sulking, making us guess something bad happened; then it’s morning and the guy comes home after all because he decided not to drive after drinking. The punch line: “Some never make it home. But we can change that.” A bit cryptic, yet absolutely perfect.

The Matthew McConaughey ad was another winner in a fine series, which equates driving a Lincoln to being an American success. It gets a special mention for this line: “I’ve been driving Lincolns since… long before they paid me to do it.” As copywriters we struggle to include the mandatory compensation disclosure in spokesperson ads. This is a beautiful solution.

Bad was everything from T-Mobile, and especially the ad with a Pirates outfielder making a last minute catch. The rather obscure message of this campaign is that they have better broadband coverage than some competitors (maybe because they have so few customers?) so if you want to capture the moment with a video at the event you won’t get timed out. The problem was we were already at the event, watching the game. The incredibly high production values/expense to create something that look like a high definition tweak of reality was wasted and ultimately annoying.

And just peculiar was the Bank of America ad featuring the dad Rafael Feliz who’s bopping around making strange purchases with the money he’s earned with a cash back card until finally it’s revealed he is putting together a night sitting on the beach watching a surfing video with his family on a portable projector—presumably all bought or rented with points. Rafael looks hapless throughout this spot and his kids, the beneficiaries of his largess, look like they’d rather be somewhere else.

Since “responsibility” is the theme of most of BofA’s commercials these days, one wonders how this even made it off the storyboard. It’s just tone deaf instead of whimsical or charming and one also wonders if they test this stuff against real audiences. A presenter at the DMA shared some car ads and results—one for Audi (as I recall) where the car helps avoid accidents just as a parent does with kids, and another spy vs spy for Hyundai with a lot of chases through tunnels, helicopters and other James Bond silliness. The sweet one dramatically increased “intent to buy” while the spy themed ad actually reduced intent to buy, so maybe not.