Superb Experience Marketing from method
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Superb Experience Marketing from method, originally uploaded by JonnyMoss.
method is one if my fave brands. Top quality products with design not an afterthought, plus environmentally friendly.
Check out their latest blog post here - they created some little parks in parking spaces to highlight the need for green spaces in the urban jungles. Great fun and a great idea.
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Hilton Harriers - clever fund raising
A friend and client of mine spends some of his spare time doing a fantastic job helping run a junior football team - Hilton Harriers.
He recently emailed me about a great way they are raising some money for a new kit:
Our local football team, Hilton Harriers, is looking for kit sponsors. It would cost £1k for shirts and jackets etc but due to the credit crunch I decided it was unfair to ask companies for big money. So, what we are doing is asking 40 companies for just £25. They will then put in a raffle and first prize is sponsorship of the team for 2 years, second prize is an advertising board at our ground for 2 years.
So, 2 years advertising for £25? 1 in 20 chance of winning!
This is a great idea and I am sure Paul would welcome some more contributions! Fund raising is really important for teams and organisations like the Harriers, and I would be interested to know if you had heard of any other good ways of doing this. Let us all know in the comments please! 
Healthcare company trying user generated content. Failing badly.
Having worked for for a healthcare company for many years, I know a little about how they operate. One of the brands I used to look after for over 8 years is AMETOP Gel, used to numb the pain of blood tests and cannulation in children. It was very succesful and was a multi million £ brand when I left. Smith & Nephew have a clean, simple website on a very good url here - www.needlephobia.co.uk
It competed head on with a product from AstraZeneca (one of the BIG boys) and stil does to my knowledge. That product is called EMLA cream and is very similar, but has been around for longer and uses older technology.
The reason I am blogging about this, is that Dan kindly sent me a link to a new website that AstraZeneca have launched, called ihateneedles.co.uk Again, a pretty good url, very much in the same vein as needlephobia.co.uk (an unintentional pun). What interested me, is that they have launched a video competition for people to upload their experiences of using EMLA cream - you can see the page below.
So, what do I think about this from an online marketing perspective?
- Hats off to them for giving this a try
- Looks VERY YouTube inspired!
- Seems well laid out and easy to use
- Great idea getting some UGC (user generated content)
There is one HUGE big hairy problem though - 4 videos. That is it, and that my friends is not good. I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while, so it is not like it is a new site. It’s a great idea, but it looks like it is a BIG flop. I would be interested to know how they have actually promoted this, so if anyone from AZ is reading this, then put me in touch with the brand manager - I’d love to speak to them.
A couple of other quick observations
They are running google ads against the word needlephobia (the Smith & Nephew site came up as the number one position unsurprisginly which is why they are probably not running ads on that keyword.
Finally, the site also has another page here. You have to name the needle!
So, if you are a little child, you can name the needle! Great fun! However, there is a tick box, saying that ‘I’m over 16 years old’. What 16+ year old in their right mind is going to want to name a needle?! I would hazard a guess there entry rate for this competition is a big fat zero. Doh.
So, 10 out of 10 for AZ trying something different, and it looks like a 3 out of 10 for how succesful it is. Saying that, the rest of the site for Healthcare Professionals and parents is pretty good and gives a load of information, so at least that opportunity is not wasted. In terms of the UGC and targeting kids, I think they need to have a rethink and try again.
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Take control of your good (brand) name
Barack Obama has a long, hard battle ahead of him to win the Presidency this year. One area where he has excelled and continues to do so, is online.
He has had to put up with a number of smears, which have been put out to discredit him (not unusual in the political space), but he has now decided to take control of what is being said. He has done this in a very clever way with his Fight the Smears campaign which you can see here.
Major kudos for him doing this, for a number of reasons:
- He is not sweeping the smears under the carpet, he is acknowledging them
- He is then putting people straight, and setting out his version
- He is being honest and open
- He is not taking it lying down, and is making sure that he is heard
- Great use of a good url - fightthesmears.com
One of my clients has a slightly similar situation at the moment, not smears, but reputation management.
Their highly succesful, customer-focussed business (an online store), has been copied by someone else. They have used a VERY similar URL, which is leading to confusion. When the pretender does not live up to the reputation of the original business, (great service, excellent communication, superb delivery) people then complain, and do so publicly.
The problem is that those people have been conned into thinking that they have been dealing with the original business, because of a very similar online name. So when they publicly complain in forums and on blogs, they don’t make the differentiation clear.
That means big trouble.
The original business, having spent many years, thousands of pounds, and countless hours of work building their brand, is damaged by the poor service of the pretender. Major brand degradation which can have a very negative impact. We can now take the example of Barack Obama and do a number of things:
- Acknowledge the problem
- Empower the loyal customers to protect their brand name
- Communicate with the customers and make sure they are very clear what is happening
- Let the customers know that they don’t want them being conned
- Communicate that customer satisfaction is their number one priority
This will make sure that the problem is nipped in the bud before getting too big. Loyal customers will often come to the defense of a company who they like, especially in cases like this, where someone is being dishonest, and trading of someone else’s good name.
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A good summary of the Yahoo! and Google Deal
For those of you who may not be 100% clear of what the recent Google and Yahoo! tie up means, Techcrunch’s Micheal Arrington is being interviewed on US TV on this clip below, and sums it up nicely.
If you work for a company who does anything on the online search space, your marketing / online people need to understand what this means going forwards.
Google and Yahoo! Search Agreement
For any of you who have been living in a hut in the depths of Mongolia for the last week, you may have mised the big news that Google and Yahoo! came to an agreement a few days ago:
Today, we announced a non-exclusive advertising agreement that will provide Yahoo! with access to our AdSense for search and AdSense for content advertising programs on their U.S. and Canadian web properties.
The above statement comes from a blog post posted by Omid Kordestani, Google’s
- This is not a merger. Rather, we are merely providing access to our advertising technology to Yahoo! through our AdSense program.
- This does not remove a competitor from the playing field. Yahoo! will remain in the business of search and content advertising, which gives the company a continued incentive to keep improving and innovating. Even during this agreement, Yahoo! can use our technology as much or as little as it chooses.
- This does not prevent Yahoo! from making similar arrangements with others. This arrangement is not exclusive, meaning that Yahoo! could enter into similar arrangements with other companies.
- This does not increase Google’s share of search traffic. Yahoo! will continue to run its own search engine and advertising programs, and the agreement will not increase Google’s share of search traffic.
- This does not let Google raise prices for advertisers. Google does not set the prices manually for ads; rather, advertisers themselves determine prices through an ongoing competitive auction. We have found over years of research that an auction is by far the most efficient way to price search advertising and have no intention of changing that.
Regardless of what Google are officially saying, it is obvious that the Microsoft deal, was something that Yahoo! just didn’t want to pursue, even if it could have been better for them. Also, Google are trying to get across that this won’t strengthen their search share… Say what?! Of course it does. It can’t get much better in the UK, but remember this deal applies for the US and Canada.
So, marketeers in the UK, what should you do now? I wouldn’t do anything at this point. You need to be aware that this has happened and track the success of it. It will be interesting to see if the balance of power swings even more in the mighty G’s favour. If your business is in the US, I see a big question raising it’s head…
“why do I need to even consider Yahoo! ?”
That is not a good question for the Yahoo! board to hear.
Budweiser ace viral video
A brief respite on this hot afternoon, with the tension building up to 6pm, is this superb viral video from Budweiser - there is some swearing but it is bleeped out. More and more companies are trying the viral video, but few do it right so that it actually does go viral. Bud are one of the few.
A special form of advertising in the USA, perhaps not for GB
I saw this picture on the church of customer blog - this is well worth subscribing too, a great read.
I’m not sure whether this would work in the UK, possibly for the fuel card, but not for guns. What were they thinking? Imagine if some company started giving out free knives? Shocking, especially with the escalating knife crime in the UK 
Advertising needs to find a happy balance. People must always ask a few questions:
- What do you want people to do when they see your advert?
- Does the advert have continuity? (Does it match your other communication channels?)
- Is there some form of measurement? (So you can track ROI - hard to do with traditional media)
- Is the advert memorable? (But for the right reasons and not just for shock value)
- Can you afford to advertise? And sometimes, can you afford not to in some circumstances when your customers expect to see your brand)
Whatever you do, don’t get suckered by people hawking unnecessary advertising, cheap deals, last minute placements. Make sure you think first, plan and then book.
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New UK Law effects Marketeers
The most excellent SEOMoz Blog has just posted a great piece on a new law which has just come into being which prohibits certain Stealth Marketing techniques. Sarah Bird has reviewed and explained the new law in great detail, so I am not going to even try to regurgitate it, just check it out here.
If you are a marketeer or do any sort of advertising, you need to read it as it could effect you. If you are too lazy to read it, just remember to always disclose anything someone could call a tad iffy - i.e. paid articles, bribes, cloaked advertising etc!
Loving Amazon’s new Affiliate Program Carousel Widget
I’m a member of Amazon’ s Affiliate program where I get a kick back if people buy something from Amazon through my store or from a link. I’ve earned the grand total of £0 so far. Hey ho!!! What I have just noticed is that they have just launched a cool new Carousel widget which I’ve embedded below. Check it out!
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BBC News- You may like to read this...
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