Archive for the ‘experiental marketing’ Category

A Frothy War is Brewing

As many of you know I have posted often on the Starbucks brand, a leader in creating an experience around what was once a commodity.  In fact authors Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore use them to explain how products evolve through an economic progression as they move from commodity to true brand experiences and create consumers willing to pay for those experiences along the way.  The Experience Economy -a seminal read on the topic, is definitely a book that should be on everyone’s shelf.  

McDonald’s has been testing their proverbial stir stick in the coffee cup for a while and now seems to be brewing up a storm with the launch of their McCafé.  As I try and discern McDonald’s marketing strategy, it seems to be all about price and convenience.  No shocker coming from the pioneer of the value meal.  Starbucks won’t be going down without a fight however.  While they can probably match McDonald’s on convenience and location having a pretty similar footprint of stores- they seem to be very protective of the premium price (or economic progression) they have created.

A piece on the Starbucks marketing can be seen here.  It’s a nice warm and frothy (shot in high-def btw - very nice quality) 5 minute piece with Howard and some baristas talking about the Starbucks experience and why it’s better.  Said differently, why they need to defend their turf that they have earned over the last forty years.

Someone once said, “A rising tide floats all boats”.  McDonald’s may be the pirates coming aboard the Starbucks ocean liner.  My only advice to Starbucks is to play your game - don’t play McCafé’s.  If you react to a price strategy against a formidable player in that space like McDonald’s - you’ll come up a cup short.  Tell your story and let consumers decide.

Pardon me while I enjoy my Dunkin’ Donuts home brew.

Get out of survival mode! Your marketing needs to make people feel good.

After taking a year off from blogging I felt I should come back with a post that would if nothing else inspire us all to do better work, smile more often, and approach these challenging times with a better attitude.

First, my apologies for such a long absence.  2008 was probably my roughest year personally and it was hard to stay focused on maintaining a steady stream of creative insight.  But hey, Fish-On Marketing is alive and well and will celebrate our 5^th year at the end of 2009.  And as I always say - The key to life is how well you deal with Plan B. 

Face it, we’re all still kind of battling a hangover from 2008.  Some worse than others.  The only way we’re going to get out of it is by doing better that what we do best – brilliant marketing that connects with consumers in memorable ways.

So I thought I’d come back with a challenge for us all to do work that inspires.  Create products and the marketing that drives them that stirs consumer’s souls, engages their emotional side, and most importantly leaves an impression. The challenge however is that our businesses, the work we produce, and most importantly our creative processes are all on survival mode.   A colleague of mine told me the other day when asked how he was doing, “We’re keeping the doors open.  That’s our goal for ’09. …it’s about all we can hope for.”   They say misery loves company, but this attitude will take you and everyone around you down – fast!  Now I don’t claim to be a Zig Ziglar type motivational guru but we all know that type of “stinking thinking” is very self destructive.  However, what I think will get us out of this mess, at least psychologically, is to take every project we can get our hands on and produce the best marketing experiences that you’ve ever done.  Yes…great work will beget great attitudes.  Winning smiles from clients and their brand customers. 

You may say, No brainer Bud!  But here’s the rub.  Today with many of us, including myself at times, we’re all on survival mode and we must get out of it!  When anyone, particularily animals feel threatened, scared, or may be close to losing life, home, or business…they go into what we know as survival mode.  Many of us including that colleague of mine said that in fact was his goal.  Just survive.  And yes we need to pay bills and keep the lights on.  But here’s the problem.  When we’re in survival mode, our creative mode shuts down.  After all when you’re threatened is not the time to try new things, think outside the box, and get crazy creative.  Because we can’t afford to fail.  No, survival mode is all about being conservative, cautious, and steering clear of risk.  Go with what works, back to basics, and stay very much ”in the box”.  The box is our protection.  But in our business of creativity, the box is sure death. 

Clients come to us for bright ideas, insightful thinking, stellar campaigns and work that resonates and connects with their consumers.  Remember they left the other shop because they were “too much in the same box”.  We must shake the Chicken Little attitude that “The sky is falling”, and instead tell ourselves, “It’s not going to fall on my watch”.

And this is easier said than done.  These are weird times; much is out of our control.  But even though consumers may be hunkering down and holding on to their hard earned cash, they still want products and marketing that dazzles their senses and stimulates their emotions.  And that is what we did best when times were good - and that is what we must do even better when times are bad.

Dunkin’ Donuts knows who they are and who they want to attract

I know I’ve posted a few times about Starbuck’s - the experiential case study in the coffee biz.  However, in an effort to show unbiased attention to the other guys I applaud Dunkin’ Donuts effort to position themselves in a unique and competitively attractive way to the other guys in Seattle.

A recent post from the Hub, interviewed several brand marketers about creating great retail experiences.  One of the panel members was Frances Allen from Dunkin’ Donuts.  A great piece.  What particularly caught my attention was when they addressed the subject of consumer segmentation.  Frances took that question and went on to explain their consumer positioning and consumer target.

How critical is customer segmentation to retail success?

Allen: It’s knowing who you are that is number one. So, we understand completely who Dunkin’ Donuts is and who finds Dunkin’ Donuts appealing. You’ve got to understand the products they want, that fit in with their needs, the service that’s appropriate for them and a value equation that they can feel good about.

It’s certainly not about demographics in our case. When you go to a Dunkin’, you see a construction worker standing behind a nurse standing behind a woman in a power suit. Dunkin’ Donuts has a unique appeal to people who have busy lives. They are working people with places to go.

What Dunkin’ customers want is quick quality. They want to come in and know what they’re going to get. They are not looking to sit around on sofas and chat and have meetings. They have worked a hard day’s wage and want a real down-to-earth quality product at a fair price. That crosses all demographics.

An epiphany moment for me!  You see, I frequent several coffee establishments but wasn’t sure why I went to one over the other.  It now all made sense.  Often the best positioning is the least obvious, but resonates on some deeper emotional and often unconscious level.  As I thought about the times I appreciate Dunkin’ the best, it was when I was in a hurry, stressed, and just needed a great consistent cup of coffee - on the go.  Contrast that with Starbuck’s, where I would go to meet someone, relax, and take it all in - maybe on a couch - or minimally at a much leisurely pace.

This positioning integrates very well with their previous Rachel Ray “On the Go” campaign as well as their new “Keep it Simple” campaign.  It now all makes sense.  I love being an enlightened consumer!

Hotels dial up the guest experience

Someone once said that we do exactly what we want to do or have to do.  Nothing more and nothing less.  So I really don’t have a very good excuse for such a prolonged absence on the Fish-On blog.  yes it’s been busy and yes there’s the holiday thing, but in reality, I guess I had just not been moved to post.  But that blog blandness has subsided and I thought I’d throw out several items in no particular order that have intrigued me from world of brand building and consumer experiences.

As we enter into a heavy travel season with the holidays how about three examples from the lodging industry:

The Travelodge chain is offering couples called Joseph and Mary in Britain, Ireland and Spain free accommodation this Christmas on proof of marriage and name.

The hotel chain said husbands and wives matching their criteria would get a night’s stay on the house, but with more home comforts than the humble stable of the Christian Nativity story.  Kind of cute and creative. 

As for another example of a hotel taking the safe lodging experience literally, here is a link to Boston’s newest luxury hotel that is a refurbished old historic jail.

After a five-year, $150 million renovation, the old Charles Street jail is now a luxury hotel for guests who can afford to pay anywhere from $319 a night for the lowest-priced room to $5,500 for the presidential suite. The hotel, at the foot of Boston’s stately Beacon Hill neighborhood, opened in September.

Architects took pains to preserve many features of the 156-year-old stone building and its history.

The old sally port, where guards once brought prisoners from paddy wagons to their cells, is being converted into the entrance to a new restaurant, Scampo, which is Italian for “escape.”

In another restaurant, named Clink, diners can look through original bars from cell doors and windows as they order smoked lobster bisque or citrus poached prawns from waiters and waitresses wearing shirts with prison numbers. The hotel bar, Alibi, is built in the jail’s former drunk tank.

It’s apparentthat the hotel industry has exhausted its competitive advantages with cushy beds and pillows, office amenities for the business travelers, and free breakfasts and hors d’oeuvres - the next new frontier as Pine and Gilmore would say - is the experience.  And you don’t have to refurbish an old historic dwelling.  How about the Le Meridian chain

Le Meridien would like to be viewed as a haven for hipsters and other creative types — perhaps a European version of the W Hotels chain. Both are part of the Starwood Hotel chain , which also includes brands like Sheraton, Westin, and the W.

Le Meridien has hired a French contemporary art expert, Jérôme Sans, for a newly created position as cultural curator. His job will be to pull together artists, photographers, filmmakers and chefs who will work with Le Meridien and help imbue it with some concrete brand attributes.

In the future, Le Meridien would like to be viewed as a haven for hipsters and other creative types — perhaps a European version of the W Hotels chain. Both are part of Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, which also includes brands like Sheraton and Westin.

Le Meridien has hired a French contemporary art expert, Jérôme Sans, for a newly created position as cultural curator. His job will be to pull together artists, photographers, filmmakers and chefs who will work with Le Meridien and help imbue it with some concrete brand attributes.

Just look at the little things like key cards.  No element has been overlooked when it comes to applying innovative and artistic design.  Design that is aimed to stimulate our senses and tickle our fancy.

So as we travel over the river and through the woods this holiday season, take a look at the hotel industry and how it’s trying to be more than just a “home away from home” for its guests. 

You don’t have to touch it to feel it - Print can be experiential too.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, experiential marketing is not always reserved to live three dimensional events and sexy brand experiences.  Good creative capable of evoking feeling, can (when done well) exhibit itself through more traditional mediums like print and television.  When I speak about this topic I normally use more dramatic examples like this one below from Mothers Against Drink Drivers in a campaign to raise awareness amongst high school teens during graduation.

And there are several others that shock to make consumers feel, like child abuse, drug abuse, and anti-smoking campaigns to name a few.  But I stumbled across this cool new campaign from Canadian Club in MediaPost which I thought showed how marketing in print can be experiential.  

Now I have to admit, I am not a fan of the brown water - theirs or any one else’s.  Yet as a marketer I would only imagine that Canadian Club (or CC as you may remember it) had an issue with their brand becoming a bit dated, stodgy and ultimately less relevant to today’s twenty somethings.  

Having spent a few years in brand management with the Purina Dog Chow brand I can totally relate to brands where tenure in the marketplace is a double edge sword.  So Canadian Club apparently wanted to re-stage itself with a younger audience.  What better way to reconnect than to show images of what could be just about anybody’s Dad (including mine) in scenes that show what a loose and cool time the 50s and 60s were. 

Canadian Club Whisky launched its first national ad campaign in almost 20 years and it’s damn good. “Damn Right 

Your Dad Drank It” uses imagery from the 1960s and 1970s and provocative taglines to remind consumers that their dads were once cool and stylish — as is Canadian Club. Many of the pictures used in the campaign came from employees’ photo albums. “Your Mom Wasn’t Your Dad’s First,” begins one attention-grabbing ad. “Your Dad Was Not a Metrosexual,” “Your Dad Never Got a Pedicure” and “Damn Right Your Great-Great Grandad Drank It,” read other headlines. Ads launch in the November issues of Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated and Sporting News, and December issues of Playboy, Men’s Journal, Esquire, Outside and Men’s Fitness. Click here and here to see the ads. Energy BBDO created the campaign; Zenithmedia and Moxie Interactive handled the media buying.

As I’ve mentioned before, great brands tell a story.  BTW, anyone looking for a good read on the subject should pick-up Legendary Brands by Laurence Vincent. 

AS Canadian Club approaches its 150th anniversary, they’d like to remind today’s guys that the men that came before them knew what they were doing.  The really cool and retro images (even the dusty Polaroids) translate the CC story so well in print.  A story they hope will have meaning, relevance, and connectedness - to the male 20 somethings it is targeted at.  I would think what CC is striving for is a bit of Rat Pack, bad boy image.  Maybe the other side of your Dad that was kept from the kids, but you can kind of relate to due in part to a DNA fast forward into your social scenes.  The old film cameras are now digital SLRs, and the hair-dos a bit more subdued, but the good times haven’t changed much; we just call them social communities. 

And how authentic - another badge of strong brands.  CC actually used many of the images pulled from employees family photo albums.  So even though the experiential enlightened often thumb our noses at traditional mediums in favor of the bright shiny objects like events, guerrilla, sampling, viral buzz, Web 2.0 an all the other buzz words - including buzz marketing.  Don’t think that print is incapable of creating an experience.  As long as it’s experience-based (as opposed to features and benefits product focused) and really good creative.

Great sampling: A “Cutter” is more than just a pitch in baseball.

A little down time with the blog due to some travel and a Dell meltdown that I should have foreseen.  Lesson learned:  Back up often!!

But anyway, we’re up and running again and I thought I’d throw out a post about a great little piece of sampling done last night at Jacobs’ Field, the home of the Cleveland Indians.  A 4-2 win for the Indians puts them up 2 games to 1.  But as a marketer, that’s not what I remembered when I saw the highlights. 

A little background for the non-sports world:  It was the first game at Jacobs Field since an invasion of midges pestered Joba Chamberlain and the New York Yankees in Game 2 of the first round of the Divisional playoffs. “The Bug Game” was still fresh in everybody’s minds last night.  In fact some called it the Indian’s secret weapon in their win over the Yankees.

Cutter, an insect repellent brand of Spectrum brands based out of St. Louis, MO seized upon the marketing opportunity by handing out small repellent towelettes to all 44,402 fans in attendance.  Fortunately the weather stayed just cool enough to keep the midges down.  But the Cutter brand had made just as much of a statement in the stands as the Indians did on the field.   All for pennies worth of product to each fan. 

“We’re keeping the midges on the mound,” said Stephanie Strawbridge, hired by Cutter to wear a black and yellow bumblebee costume and pass out the bug repellent near the stadium. “That’s our secret weapon.”

Midges breed on the outskirts of lakes during warm fall weather. When temperatures reached an unseasonable 80 degrees on Oct. 5 with the Yankees in town, the bugs visited the ballpark just in time to distract Chamberlain into throwing two wild pitches as the Indians came back to win 2-1 in 11 innings.

Temperatures were only in the upper 60s Monday, but Gary Ramey, a divisional vice president for Cutter, which is made by St. Louis-based Spectrum Brands, was hoping it was warm enough for the pests to come back out.

What a great way to expose over 44,000 fans to your product, even if it proved unnecessary.  Sampling that is relevant and meaningful at the point of use.  It has all the makings of what great sampling programs should strive for.  Add a small dose of PR and you’ve got yourself an experience worthy of conversation.

Get the Word Out

Mark Twain once said, “Facts are stubborn.”  Well how about the enlightening analysis below pulled from the Nielsen Online Global Consumer Study from April of this year.  More of a reinforcement of what we may have already known, but I always like to support opinions with facts.

 To quote a summary piece on this from Retail Wire:

 The recommendation of someone else remains the most trusted source of information when consumers decide which products and services to buy,” said David McCallum, the global managing director for Nielsen’s Customized Research Services, in a statement. “Even though new media technologies are playing a role in ‘globalizing’ society, many purchasing decisions are still based on firmly held national and cultural attitudes. Furthermore, given that nothing travels faster than bad news - with estimates that reports of bad experiences outnumber good service reports by as many as 5:1 - the importance of responsive, high quality customer service is yet again highlighted.”

The survey of 26,486 internet users across 47 markets in Europe, Asia Pacific, the Americas and the Middle East probed consumers attitudes on 13 forms of advertising. Other findings:

• Traditional advertising channels continue to retain consumers’ trust. Newspapers rank second worldwide in credible advertising mediums while television and radio each ranked above 50 percent;
• Brand web sites were trusted by 60 percent of respondents, but brand sponsorships were only trusted by only 49 percent;
• E-media advertising received particularly low trust grades: search engine ads, 34 percent; online banner ads, 26 percent; and text ads on mobile phones, 18 percent. “E-mails I signed up for” rated 49 percent.

Some of you may be going well, “duh”, we all knew that word of mouth trumped just about everything else and is very powerful.  No wonder it’s the most trusted source.  After all it’s about as authentic and real as it gets.  But here’s the rub.  Why do we keep trying to influence word of mouth and harness it.  This is where I may disagree with such “sanctioning bodies” like the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.

You can’t create word of mouth any more than control it.  Word of Mouth is the end product of a remarkable and memorable consumer experience.  As I like to say it comes after the = sign.  It is not created in some brand strategy Petri dish.  There is an old saying in small businesses that never really tires that goes, “If you like the service you received,  tell a friend.  If you don’t tell me”.  Me being the proprietor of course.

It’s simple in concept yet very difficult in execution.  Consumer’s words come from their mouths -not ours as brand marketers.  We can facilitate it and respond to it, but we can not create their words anymore than we can create their mouths.  What we can do is create an engaging experience worthy of discussion. 

From the simplest retail and transaction customer service experience to other related touch points like on-line, brands need to make it fun, stimulating, and pleasurable to do business with them and use their products.  That’s what people talk about.  The ordinary and mundane seldom gets a mention around the proverbial water cooler. 

And much to the dismay of price discounters….people don’t usually start a meaningful conversation with what they paid for something.  Not to slam the success of our friends in Bentonville, but price is very seldom a firm foundation for a remarkable brand experience.

Marketing is seduction.  Treat them like it’s your first date…every time.  Make them want to tell their friends how HOT you are!

Higher education that thinks like a brand

I recently spoke to the Ad Club of the Triad in Greensboro, North Carolina.  A nice AAF group from the third district.  A good presentation and some very interesting dialogue before and after.  Something came up in one of our discussions that I felt worthy of a blog post.  It seems that High Point University is located not too far from Greensboro.  A small private liberal arts school with about 3000 students.  I believe I had followed them in college basketball at some point and may have seen a sign coming through the airport, but I wouldn’t consider myself very familiar with the school, its setting, or their academics.  And those aren’t even the topics we spoke about. 

Under the leadership of their president Nido Quebin,  has turned High Point University in less than three years into… well, a brand.  And a brand that delivers a wonderful experience for faculty, students, and parents a like.  My Ad Fed colleagues spoke about all the great experiences that High Point had built into its campus, like lemonade stands and valet parking after 9pm to assure the safety of students.  It was just enough to whet my appetite to know more about this educational leader, change agent, and brand builder.  Grabbing a burger after the presentation I quickly went back to my room and Googled Nido and his University.  It was an enlightening web surf and I grabbed a short summary from Terry Paulson’s change and leadership blog that summarized some of their experiential efforts.

With new students just arriving at HPU, Nido and his team knew how frustrating that first day could be. He worked at changing that, “Positive experiences create brand. We want people to have a positive experience every three minutes when they first bring their kids to the university. We had bands playing music, free food and drinks at the kiosks around the grounds, free ice cream from our ice cream truck, and people ready to help with carts to carry luggage and boxes.” Nido was there walking the grounds, shaking hands, giving high-fives, talking to parents and students. The faculty and staff at the university joined in to make the WOW experience!

Nido realizes that initial experiences need to be sustained and institutionalized in a hundred different ways. Nido shared, “We have a Director of WOW at High Point University. Their job is to find the un-WOW and make it WOW. When a student first visits a campus, you have three minutes to make an impression. For the average student, it’s either ‘I feel at home’ or ‘Get me out of here!’ Since mothers are truly in charge, we focus on ‘What would momma say?’ Momma wants nice people, good food and a safe campus.” Nido has instituted WOW cards that people can give to anyone who provides a WOW experience. He and his team are committed to leaving a trail of tangibles that reinforce the HPU brand. The HPU Promise is contagious–”At HPU, every student receives an extraordinary education in a fun environment with caring people.”

Nido highlighted three WOWs that are making a big difference to students: “The best three things we did to create WOW were to bring a branded ice cream truck and kiosks for free ice cream, food and drinks, free car washes on the weekend and valet parking for students after 9 PM.” The food and drink kiosks and the ice cream truck sell the value of generosity. The valet parking sells the value of safety and security; even on a safe campus, HPU goes above and beyond to ensure the safety of its students. Because of the dirt from all the new construction and renovation, the free car washes on Saturday show the value of respect for the students’ property.

A leader of an institution that thinks of it as a brand.  How refreshing.  You don’t have to make or sell a packaged good to think like, or lead your business like a brand.  With all the choices in colleges for kids, here’s a man that knows he needs to stand for something different.  He’s not one of the larger schools in the state like NC State, Duke, or UNC.  No, High Point only has about 3000 students.  But last year their freshman class had almost 40% higher enrollment than their previous class of freshmen.  Something’s working.  Simple brand principles like positioning, personality, core essences, and consumer experiences should not be limited to the classroom in the college of business.  A wonderful case study is happening every day at High Point.  With two kids entering college in the next few years, as a parent I would certainly like to think that High Point would make the short list.  It just sounds like a fun place to go to school.

How about some research?

Defining experiential marketing and how it’s best utilized is kind of like nailing Jello to the wall.  The street’s full of buzz about it but there’s not always a tremendous amount of factual insight. 

The folks at Nielsen Business Media who publish such great reads as Adweek and Brandweek have partnered with the Experiential Marketing Forum to try and gain some clarity on the topic.

The publications will also be running a special Experiential Marketing section probably sometime in November.

This will be a very broad study with an international reach, and Adweek and Brandweek will be releasing the research cross-platform. The result will be an epic study and white paper that will help everyone more effectively sell their innovative programs through to their clients.

Click here to go to the survey

A rising tide floats all boats.

Don’t just take it from me…

I always like to feature interesting articles from really smart people way above my pay grade that “get it” and espouse the value and benefit of experiential marketing.

A recent article  from Fortune magazine interviews Shelly Lazarus, the CEO of advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather.  Lots of great stuff but one quote worth mentioning:

 We’re living in a world now where consumers are bombarded with thousands of commercial messages - they’re everywhere you look. Unless you can cut through that and engage someone, I think you are lost. Consumers are now clearly in control. They control what they hear and see, when, and where. You have to find ways to allow them to actively engage with you, or the money you spend is wasted.

Couldn’t't have said it better myself.