BrainPosse: Return On Investment Marketing

Unsocial media.

2010-09-09T12:00:00.001-04:00

The social media convoy meets a few potholes in the road.

Every thirty seconds or during the morning, our cell phones buzz with a new message--a tweet from a news source, a Facebook update from a client, a text message from someone else.

By midmorning, social media triage is in play, and only messages regarding business, the day's activities, and The Onion headlines are read, because it's impossible to keep up with everything else.

Apparently, we're not alone.

Granted, while not power social media users, we do keep up with a broader spectrum of sources than many people, as part of our fascination with this communications tool. But as social media grows, it's starting to inherit some of the same dilemmas as more traditional media, including message overload, spammer abuse, and user fatigue.

Twitter's user dropout rate from month to month hovers near 60%, according to Nielsen, bringing its long-term growth into question. (Facebook and MySpace have around 25-30% dropouts.) Hacker and spam attacks on Facebook are expected to more than double in 2009, and the network is scrambling with new privacy tools to counter this. User complaints about “social network marketers” hitting them with blatant product or service pitches are also on the rise.

And some marketing firms are now being outed for faking user reviews of products on behalf of their clients.

All this complicates the use of social media for marketers. Our analyses of social media advertising indicate that it doesn’t yet to the job. We strongly advocate the use of social media tools for news and relationship building. However, we think it’s more important than ever for marketers to be diligent about how they use social media. Here are the musts:

1. It’s about relationships.

This is first and foremost. People must connect with you or your brand in some way. For enthusiast-type products, this is easier than for goods or services that don’t create an emotional attachment.

One of the most surprisingly effective social networking efforts belongs to the people whose product name epitomizes bad internet practice: Spam. Visit the Hormel website for Spam, and you’ll find recipes, games, history and a carefully organized and thorough information source for the canned meat. Visit the brand’s Facebook page, and you’ll see consumer testimonial after testimonial celebrating the concoction of pork shoulder and ham.

Spam has more than 17,000 Facebook fans.

2. It’s about news.

We’ve seen numerous successes where marketers report on an event (or sometimes create one) that involves their brand. In this context, they get acceptance, because the news is valuable to the reader. News (or quality content) also gets you acceptance for an occasional promotional message (don't overdo it though).

3. There are strict rules.

A social network is its own society. There are rules of decorum. Break the rules and there can be serious consequences. For example, numerous bloggers (including Ad Age) recently crucified a PR agency because a staff member sent a blanket e-mail promoting a client product to a list of journalists, copying the addresses into the cc field of the e-mail rather than the bcc field. Every addressee could see everyone else on the list, and replies came back to the entire list of reporters. Before the end of the day, many were calling for the agency to be shut down. That seems a little extreme, but make a mistake in an instant message world, and everyone knows about it quickly.

Much more egregious is the video game pr firm that was caught promoting to a prospective client that it has banks of interns who cover the web giving new client games favorable reviews as independent consumers—sometimes before they could have actually gone out and purchased the games in stores. Again, there have been calls for this shop to be shut down, in this case, with cause.

4. If you break a rule, don’t rationalize, apologize.

If fellow networkers think you’re trying to make an excuse, you get raked over the coals again and you call more attention to your gaffe through a new round of blog and status posts. Apologize, explain the measures you’ve taken to ensure it doesn’t happen again, and provide the content that rebuilds your credibility.

5. Expect more clutter. Which demands more diligence on your part.

The buzz about social networking for marketers is that it’s fast, easy, and cheap. It may turn out not to be any of these, but with everyone jumping on, expect social networkers to become less and less tolerant of blatant sales pitches and more wary even of the marketers who are approaching the medium properly.

To learn more about how to avoid the social media holes in the road, click here.

Testimony to testimonials.

2010-08-17T08:00:00.001-04:00

Customers may be less likely to listen to you right now. But they're still listening to their peers.

We've written about the power of testimonials before. But now is a good time to revisit the number of ways this type of direct--and indirect--support can be used.

Buyers are particularly wary in this market, because they're being especially careful about parting with their money. They're also being bombarded with more than their share of too-good-to-be-true offers.

There are plenty of desperate advertisers, and many of them are starting to sound desperate--and subsequently, unbelievable. But customers are still listening to one particular group: themselves.

Buyers for both BtoB and consumer products have unprecedented access to peer opinions and reviews, and they're taking full advantage of all resources before making buying decisions. Especially if they think a deal might be a little too good.

So this is a good time to again embrace one of the perennial tools for marketing communications--the customer testimonial. For a good primer, see our previous post, "Customer Spokespeople--The Power of Testimonials."

Since we posted this story almost two years ago, we've made note of some other factors worth considering. Subscription rating services like Angie's List are now large enough in some areas to have impact, (See Angie's List coverage by city here), but they themselves have been subject to reviews and praise or criticism themselves, either for their policies of putting contractors who pay at the top of their lists or from businesses suing because they received bad ratings. Other free services like Kudzu may not have enough comments in a market to be considered credible yet.

So while there are thousands of discussions going on among consumers (especially in enthusiast forums) where you can receive positive reviews, it's still pretty much up to marketers to solicit, gather, and promote good comments they receive. The uses for testimonials are numerous:

1. Websites. A no-brainer. If customers have taken their time to compliment your company, those comments need to be online. And you should include a mechanism for feedback so others can comment. Keep the conversation going.

2. Ads. Our "Customer Spokespeople--The Power of Testimonials" article addresses this in detail. Testimonials can be effective as both primary and secondary elements (think movie reviewers comments at the bottom of the ad for a new flick), and having the right strategy can maximize their impact.

3. Public relations. Testimonials can work in several ways for publicity. If you're introducing a new product or a change on an existing one, including testimonials certainly adds credibility. But you can also use them to distinguish one particular product benefit from those of competitors, to suggest new product uses, or to even refute negative perceptions. Years ago, McCullough chainsaws changed consumer opinions that their saws were hard to start by using testimonials and live events at festivals and shows where individuals participated in a challenge to get a saw to start on the first pull.

There has also been some new research on how testimonials influence people to buy. A study by Brett Martin, Daniel Wentzel, and Torsten Tomczak published in the March 22 2008 issue of the Journal of Advertising reported that different types of people are predisposed to react very strongly to testimonials or to have secondary interest in them. The research addressed individuals' susceptibility to nominative influence (SNI), or how much individuals feel to need to conform to others, to be accepted socially, or to enhance their own image through products or brands.

The research found that people who have a high level of SNI are especially likely to react to testimonials. People with low levels would focus less on the individual and more on the product attributes being discussed.

Read more at http://www.brainposse.com/.

Do The Classic Ad Books Still Matter?

2010-06-14T09:10:00.000-04:00

Confessions of An Advertising Man by David Ogilvy.

Even though David Ogilvy worked as a researcher before founding his agency, Confessions of an Advertising Man, relies much more on his opinions than on observable data. Of course Ogilvy, not a person hobbled by excessive modesty, thought his opinion was far more authoritative than mere facts.

Like Claude Hopkins and Rosser Reeves, Ogilvy was a copywriter (and, like Reeves, an agency head). And also like Hopkins and Reeves, he wrote his book as a publicity and sales tool for his agency and himself. Like them, he included long lists of rules for effective advertising. Some are wonderfully self-serving--such as advising clients to "Make sure your agency makes a profit."

But, self-serving or not, Ogilvy's rules for being a good client and for creating a great campaign are as valid today as they were when Confessions of an Advertising Man was published in 1963. Here are the lists without the pages of explanation each got in the book (with a little amplification when the meaning isn't immediately clear):

How To Be A Good Client:

1. Emancipate your agency from fear.
2. Select the right agency in the first place.
3. Brief your agency very thoroughly indeed.
4. Do not compete with your agency in the creative area.
5. Coddle the goose who lays the golden egg. (provide enough time and resources to do the job well.)
6. Don't strain your advertising through too many layers.
7. Make sure your agency makes a profit.
8. Don't haggle with your agency.
9. Be candid and encourage candor.
10. Set high standards.
11. Test everything.
12. Hurry. (Profit is a function of time.)
13. Don't waste time on problem babies (Back your successes and abandon your losses.)
14. Tolerate genius.
15. Don't under spend. (The surest way to overspend on advertising is not to spend enough to do the job properly.)

How To Build Great Campaigns:

1. What you say is more important than how you say it.
2. Unless your campaign is built around a great idea, it will flop.
3. Give the facts. (The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything.)
4. You cannot bore people into buying.
5. Be well-mannered, but don't clown. (You should try to charm the consumer into buying.)
6. Make your advertising contemporary.
7. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they cannot write them.
8. If you are lucky enough to write a good advertisement, repeat it until it stops pulling.
9. Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your own family to read.
10. The image and the brand. (Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.)
11. Don't be a copy-cat.

Ogilvy's rules on specific techniques for crafting ads and commercials have had mixed success at surviving the passage of the forty-six years since Confessions of an Advertising Man was published.

Some still work:

1, Every headline should appeal to the reader's self-interest.
2. Five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy.
3. Don't be a bore. Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating.
4, Readership falls off rapidly up to fifty words of copy, but drops off very little between fifty and 500 words.
5. Twice as many people read captions as read body copy.
6. If you start your body copy with a large initial letter [Note: what we call a drop cap today] you will increase your readership by an average of 13%.
7. Photographs sell more than drawings.

Some don't:

1. When you advertise in magazines and newspapers, you must start by attracting the reader's attention. But in television the viewer is already attending [paying attention]. (We wish.)
2. Always try to inject news into your headlines, because the consumer is always on the lookout for new products, or new ways to use an old product, or new improvements in an old product. (Not is this era of information overload and surfeit of choices.)
3. Resist the temptation to write the kind of copy which wins awards. (Bob Isherwood, worldwide creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi, commissioned research which showed that award-winning advertising is significantly more effective than the dull stuff.)
4. Good copywriters have always resisted the temptation to entertain. (One look at the awareness numbers of Super Bowl commercials makes it clear that entertainment value and awareness/preference track very closely today.)
5. [In television advertising] Words and pictures must march together, reinforcing each other. (Today pictures are frequently used to make an emotional connection while words carry a simple sales message.)
6. Don't sing your selling message. (We did a health insurance campaign that increased awareness 600% and revenues 44% by singing the main message.)

All in all, a much more than respectable percentage of the maxims in Confessions of an Advertising Man are still good guides for agencies and clients. And the book is still a good read.

Switching Sides

2010-05-17T12:20:00.001-04:00

A study from Neurofocus says up to 75% of information has been organized wrong.

We came across a remarkable study from a California-based firm called Neurofocus. The study analyzed how our brains interpret and process information, and why simply switching placement of graphics and text on a page can have a profound impact on how material is absorbed.

We were intrigued. We investigated further. And what we found made us change how we do things. We thought this information so significant that we even re-designed our website based on what we learned.

Neurofocus’ research has attracted the attention of some key heavy hitters. Nielsen, considered one of the most conservative research companies in existence, has made a significant investment in the company. A number of Fortune 500s are using its techniques with success. And more are lining up.

The company gathers information using eye-tracking, galvanic skin response (GSR) data, and EEGs (electroencephalography). Neurofocus analyzes a variety of variables, such as placement of images versus placement of text; motion and animation; and different advertising models. Test subjects view material on a variety of screens, ranging from plasma TVs to cell phones to YouTube video windows. Subjects were segmented based on age and gender because of biological differences in the brain.

But what’s particularly interesting is that the neurological research seemed to supersede difference in testing caused by demographics or culture. Neurological responses recorded for English speakers matched those of Hispanic audiences, for example. And the research demonstrated that cultural and demographic cues in conventional research can sometimes throw off the results.

In a number of comparisions of ads analyzed with Neurofocus’s approach and with traditional research, the Neurofocus people were able to match effectiveness predictions with conventional research. In one instance, the company advised a major financial firm to use one of six ads in a test series. The CMO of the firm noted that conventional testing indicated the ad was the “most mediocre” of the group. But when it ran, it generated more response than any of the others.

What’s also interesting is that the neurological research can be done with much smaller test groups—10 or 20 people rather than hundreds, or in some cases, thousands.

The research doesn’t just apply to advertising. It’s being used to determine optimum price points for cars, for television programming, for product placement, and even audio.

Some of the things Neurofocus discovered convinced us to rethink some of the things we do. For example, people interpret information on different parts of a screen with different sections of their brain. Typically, the elements in the left visual field are interpreted by the right frontal lobe. The elements on the right side are picked up by the left frontal lobe.

The right frontal lobe is better for interpreting images and iconography. The left is better for semantics and quantative information.

So a logo or image works better on the left side of the visual; copy and numbers on the right.

That means that if the information is in the wrong place, the advertiser has reduced the engagement potential of the ad. In fact, when Neurofocus looked at a variety of materials in the marketplace, their estimates are that as much as 75% of communications may be less than optimized for how your brain wants to gather information.

A quick review of information we recalled over the last day or so tends to reinforce this: logos typically are on the lower right of ads and spots; websites (including ours, until now) mix up visuals and information; even the lead template in PowerPoint is structured so that text goes on the left and images are placed on the right.

We may be limiting the engagement of our audiences before they even see our materials.

How important is this engagement? A competitor to Neurofocus, EmSense, recently conducted a study on how award-winning advertising from Cannes and from the Effies (a competition that measures advertising effectiveness) affected neurological response. The study indicated that the award-winning ads engaged the brains of the audience much faster than typical ads—in about 1.5 seconds rather than 5 to 7 seconds.

And it reinforced a finding we’ve seen before: the study suggested that both the Cannes and Effie winners would be effective, which parallels other research we’ve seen that award-winning advertising in general is more effective than run of the mill stuff.

So with these things in mind, we decided that we should make some changes to our website, taking into account some of the lessons of neuroscience. We are also using this as an opportunity to build in some additional interactivity and reference. We changed the placement of links. We separated our logo and tagline. We looked at the positioning of a variety of elements.

And we’ll keep on top of this technology and provide updates as we learn more.

In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about how your brain processes information, contact us and we’ll share more with you.

Actually, sex DOESN'T sell.

2010-03-22T11:26:00.001-04:00

Sometimes not even if you're selling sex.

One of the oldest adages in advertising is: sex sells.

Marketers use hotties and hunks to shill everything from margarine to massive machinery. Here at BrainPosse, we're as guilty as anyone. Most of the magazine ads, brochures, websites, videos and newsletters we've done for boat manufacturers feature very attractive people, minimally attired to emphasize their physical attributes.

But does this really work?

The use of sexually-suggestive imagery and/or language in advertising is so pervasive that there are innumerable studies on the phenomenon.

According to one, by Dr. Tom Reichert, of the University of Alabama's Department of Advertising and Public Relations, the sexual content of advertising is overwhelmingly visual.

That study and numerous others use the amount and type of clothing as the primary index of sexual suggestiveness. Most rely on the four-stage rating scale first put forward by researchers L. C. Soley and L. N. Reid in The Journal of Advertising Research: demure, suggestive, partially-clad and nude.

Surprisingly, the sexual content of magazine ads indicate a recent decline at the most extreme end of the spectrum. In parallel studies conducted in 1964, 1984 and 2004, female nudity in ads rose from 23.1% in 1964 to 37.9% in 1984, then fell to 17.5% in 2004. Male nudity rose from 5.5% in 1964 to 9.5% in 1984 then disappeared – 0% – in 2004.

Using the Soley and Reid scale, women are overwhelmingly more likely to be objectified in sexually-suggestive ads than men. In the 2004 survey, 67.5% of ads showing females had either partially-clad or nude women, while only 6.8% of ads showing males had partially-clad men (none had nude men).

It seems unlikely that 67.5% – or even 6.8% – of magazine ads were for products or services promising a sex-related benefit. So most of those suggestive ads are using what the academics call "low association" imagery or verbal insinuation. That is, the sexual content has little or no relevance to the product or service or the promised benefit to prospective customers. It is simply intended to draw attention to the advertising message (see the Paris Hilton spot for Carl's Jr.).

Presumably these low-association sexual content ads are based on the notion that once folks were drawn into the ad they read more, correctly identify the advertiser, attribute a persuasive benefit to the product or service and form an intent to purchase.

Because sex sells, right?

Maybe not. Some events have called that hoary adage into question.

There was the announcement by Geoffrey Arnold, president of the Nevada Brothel Association, that business is drooping. In 2008, Revenues at the state's legal brothels are down as much as 45% from a year ago.

Naturally one would expect an industry buttoned-up enough to have a trade association to have a plan to deal with hard times, and the brothel owners do. More alluring staff? More imaginative services? Previously unattainable transports of ecstasy?

Nope. Gas coupons.

The Shady Lady Ranch is giving $50 gas coupons to clients who spend $300, and $100 coupons to those who spend $500.

And not just gas coupons:

The Moonlight Bunny Ranch gave a whole new meaning to "stimulus checks" by doubling the value of the checks the Treasury Department sent to taxpayers to jump start the stalled economy. (Possibly the only economic stimulus checks that weren't funneled to Japan and Korea for flat-panel TVs.)
Another intimate entertainment establishment has a "frequent flyer" volume discount package for regular customers.
The Chicken Ranch offers a $100-off coupon to active-duty and retired military personnel.

What's next? Senior citizen discounts? Twofer Tuesdays? Matinee pricing before 3:00 P.M.?

It's instructive that when faced with tough economic times, brothel owners didn't go for sexy sizzle. They're using the same, mundane, price-based appeals that are the default choice of car dealerships, furniture stores and fast food outlets everywhere.

Hmmm. So sex isn't selling brothels' services? But surely it sells beer.

Actually, it probably doesn't. At least not according to a recently published article.

The new information is from the same Dr. Tom Reichert referenced in the fourth paragraph of this article. (He seems to spend a suspicious amount of time and attention on the subject.)

Dr. Reichert's article is a synthesis of dozens of academic and commercial studies on sexual content in advertising. It debunks the "sex sells" myth pretty emphatically. At least for the low-association categories which use sexual imagery or innuendo to attract attention to ads for products or services with no direct association with sexuality.

All of the studies Dr. Reichert cites in his article are based on the similar information-processing or hierarchy-of-effects models. In both models the process of turning an audience member into a customer moves through sequential steps:

Awareness
Attention
Liking
Comprehension
Receptivity
Persuasion

At BrainPosse we believe in five out of six. We have seen a great deal of non-academic research indicating that "liking" is not a necessary step in the process. People are frequently persuaded to choose products or services by ads or commercials they dislike. We'd also add recall to the mix.

Those quibbles aside, we believe that Dr. Reichert and the many studies to which he refers are correct for low-association sexual imagery.

Dr. Reichert notes that, "In the advertising context, there is strong evidence that sexual information attracts attention." Studies using every technique from self-reporting to galvanic skin response to Starch "noted" data confirm that. Other studies found that recall of ads with sexual content was higher than that of ads for the same product without the gratuitous sexuality.

So far so good, but that's where the process breaks down. Recall of the sexual content was higher than average ad recall. But recall of the brand name was significantly lower. Copy recall was also much lower in sexual-contents versus non-sexual-content ads.

There was a marked decline noted in the processing of information the advertiser wanted to convey in sexual-content ads. All attention – and cogitation – was focused on the gratuitous sexual element and none on the brand or the benefit.

As M. W. Alexander and B. B. Judd reported in The Journal of Advertising Research, "With few exceptions, low-sex or no-sex conditions resulted in significantly higher brand-recall scores than moderate- and high-sex conditions."

Some important conclusions follow naturally from this information:

Sexual content increases awareness of an ad or commercial.
People seeing an ad or commercial with low-association sexual content are more likely to remember the sexual image than the ad.
Copy in ads with low-association sexual content is less likely to be remembered.
The brand in ads with low-association sexual imagry is significantly less likely to be remembered.

Actually, gratuitous sex may do more than blunt the effectiveness of ads and commercials. A study by Susan Cummings found that 75% of women and 53% of men aged 35 to 54 said that sex in advertising can be offensive. Women are apparently more outraged than men (possibly because objectification of women is ten times that of men), and somewhere between 20% and 29% of them avoid products with explicit sexual advertising.

That 20% to 29% reduction in a brand's potential market seems like a high price to pay to run an ad or commercial which is intrinsically less effective than one without sexual content.

We feel obliged to point out two things:

The perils of sexual content in ads and commercials are more pronounced among low-association and less pronounced in high-association product categories. Studies noted that message recall of lingerie and condom ads with sexual content was in the normal range. (Brand recall was below normal, however.)
The backlash effect against advertisers using sexual content diminishes – or even disappears – among younger (teens and twenties) audiences. The ads and commercials still lose effectiveness, they just don't create active aversion to the advertised product.)

It can be hard to let go of long-held beliefs. But there's another bit of received wisdom that refuted the "sex sells" concept more than half a century ago.

An old warning about the negative impact of unrelated distractions – like gratuitous sex – in ads and commercials appeared in Rosser Reeves' 1960 book, Reality in Advertising. Reeves warned about the dangers of "vampire video," visual elements unrelated to a commercial's main point that distract the audience and reduce effectiveness dramatically. And low-association sexual content is certainly as distracting and unrelated a visual as we can imagine.

The danger of vampire video transcends media, and web pages, newspaper ads, outdoor or direct mail can be weakened by irrelevant elements just as easily as the TV spots that were Reeves' métier.

In most cases sex doesn't sell. To find out more about what does, and how BrainPosse can harness those effective motivators for your brand, click here, or call BrainPosse at 865-330-0033.

Writing their way into a corner

2010-03-09T14:18:00.013-05:00

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Broadcast TV seems to be adopting newspapers’ tactic of abandoning a large affluent audience in pursuit of a less-desirable audience they’ll never catch.

In 2008 the median age of U.S. television viewers was 50. It had never before been out of the sacrosanct 18-49 demographic. It's not likely to return to that coveted 18-49 range any time soon. Although TV is still the 800-pound gorilla of media, younger audiences are gradually migrating toward second and third screens, leaving the flat-panel in the living room to Boomer-and-older folks.

For decades, the 18-49 demographic was the only age cohort most advertisers cared about. Of course some marketers focused more specifically on subsets like 18-24, not wanting to waste media dollars on geezers a quarter-century old.

Weird. Because Boomers and olders – the 38% of Americans who are now 46 and up – have 79% of America’s wealth. The boomers alone (46-64) control 41% of discretionary spending.

Conventional “wisdom” was that Boomers-and-older audiences weren’t worth pursuing because they already had everything they needed. And in any event, they weren't going to be around long enough to be worth cultivating as a market.

But The Wall Street Journal reported that 7 of the 13 cars which an average American household buys are bought after the head of household turns 50. So ignoring the 50+ consumer means missing out on just over half a household's vehicle purchases. And it's the more profitable half. Households headed by 55- to 64-year-olds spend 20% more on new cars and trucks than those headed by 25- to 34-year-olds, according to Advertising Age.

Many marketers don’t go after Boomer-and-older audiences because they think this group has already bonded with brands and aren’t inclined to switch. Very, very wrong. A TV Land study found that Boomers are the least brand-loyal adults – 26% responded that they are not at all brand-loyal. Just 21% of Gen-Xers and Millennials characterize themselves that way. Overall, the study found that people over 40 are more open to new brands and less brand-loyal than those under 40.

So TV actually delivers an audience of prime prospects with money to spend and a propensity to be persuaded to try new brands.

And TV does it without a lot of waste reaching people who don’t have the wherewithal to splurge $47 billion a year on fashions. Or fill the cabins on most cruise liners, do most of the dining at white-tablecloth restaurants, buy Harley-Davidsons or tool around town in Mercedes Benz. (Those are all brands or categories whose sales are dominated by Boomer-and-older buyers.)

You’d think that the networks would capitalize on this incredible opportunity to deliver a mass affluent market, and reinforce their strength with the 50-and-over group. But the same wisdom that made it seem like a good idea to move Jay Leno to 10 P.M. has persuaded the nets to chase after the going – or long gone – 18-24 market and do their best to drive their franchise audience away.

One way they do that is by providing content almost exclusively created by people under 40.

According to a Writers Guild of America report, “Very few writers over 40 are employed on many popular prime-time television series,” and “The unemployment rate for writers over 30 has increased since the 1980s.” Some recent confirmation of the trend: a group of producers and agents recently settled an age-discrimination class-action lawsuit for $71 million to compensate for effectively banning scriptwriters over 40 from the business. Not exactly small change. And not an amount they would have offered if the allegations of ageism weren’t true.

Writers over 40 can remember what it was like to be 20. Writers under 30 cannot imagine what it will be like to be 60. So people beyond the age of the 20- and 30-something writers of most broadcast network scripted shows are often portrayed as stereotypes who do not create empathy and identification with the valuable boomer-and-older audience.

Several years ago, in the early stages of newspapers’ death spiral, we posted an article on their looming problem and some possible ways to ameliorate it. One solution was to play to newspapers' strength, the ability to deliver the mass affluent Boomer-and-older market:

“Trying to dress up an ink-on-paper daily to appeal to kids is like putting a 70-year-old lady in a miniskirt. It doesn't make her attractive, it makes her ridiculous.

"All the ‘newspapers in classrooms’ programs and special teen sections in the world won't turn kids into newspaper readers. Newspapers simply aren't part of their media universe. So blow the kids off and concentrate on newspapers' strengths. Focus everything – columns, features, even news coverage – on the interests of newspapers' existing core audience.”

The advice applies to TV, too. There’s an audience of just over 114 million people over 40. They’re relatively affluent, susceptible to being persuaded to change brands and the most important purchasers of virtually every high-ticket category in the marketplace. Appeal to them by writing in their terms, using writers of their age.

It seems to work pretty well for Dick Wolf (producer of the "Law and Order" series), one of the few producers known for hiring 40+ writers. It could work for the entire industry.

Disclaimer: The BrainPosse principals have both written TV shows, and their 40th birthdays are diminishing dots in their rear-view mirrors. We don’t expect agents, networks or producers to put us on speed dial any time soon.

Comparative advertising: Marketing jujitsu, Part 2

2010-02-14T19:12:00.001-05:00

Part 2: Naming names and kicking brands.

What do you do if your competitor's brand is much stronger than yours and has a much bigger marketing budget behind it? Simple. Hijack the brand – and, if you're lucky, the budget – to work for you. A well-planned and executed campaign can do just that. Especially if the stronger competitor can be goaded into counterattacking.

In the mid 1970s Cola marketers ran a lot of double-blind tests to gauge taste preference for Coke or Pepsi.

In these double-blind tests consumers were given three unidentified samples of cola to taste. Two were identical, one different. The consumers were asked to identify which two were the same and which taste they preferred. Consumers could only correctly pair the two identical colas about half the time. Statistically the same as a coin-toss guess. Results from those who did not correctly pair the colas were routinely discarded. Those who could identify the matched pair correctly preferred Pepsi by an appreciable margin.

Those results were the basis for two massive marketing campaigns. One a tremendous success. The other, a monumental failure.

The success was the Pepsi Challenge. Starting in 1975 Pepsi ran a series of commercials in which consumers compared two unidentified colas, and when they chose a winner it was revealed to be Pepsi. The campaign ran for years, interspersed with non-comparative brand-sell commercials. The Pepsi Challenge took Pepsi past Coke in sales in outlets where both were available, such as convenience stores and supermarkets. (Coke's dominance of single-brand outlets – like McDonald's – helped them hold on to the overall #1 spot.)

The Pepsi Challenge spots infuriated Coke's marketing people. Not least because they knew the results were bogus. The Pepsi Challenge was edited to make it appear that most or all respondents preferred Pepsi. From the double-blind tests they had run, Coke knew that most people can't tell the difference. But they weren't about to refute Pepsi by going public with the fact that the products were indistinguishable to most folks.

By 1983 Coke was finally goaded into responding.

Coke didn't just answer Pepsi's campaign with comparative commercials of their own, which would have been bad enough. Coke actually conceded that Pepsi was right, and that Coke needed to be reformulated. Reformulation, by itself, wouldn't have been a problem. But Coke trumpeted the change to the world.

The disaster of New Coke was one of the most bone-headed marketing moves ever. Coke's marketing director at the time, Sergio Zyman, has subsequently written that New Coke wasn't a failure because they learned from it. (You think maybe a marketing director whose education required the destruction of hundreds of millions of dollars in shareholder value wasn't ready for the job?)

The New Coke disaster was, of course, preventable. Because Coke had access to non-blind taste tests which showed that consumers vastly preferred Coke when they could see the labels. If they simply changed the formula and kept the change a deep, dark secret it could have been a successful, incremental, product improvement. After all, bottlers constantly tweak colas' balances of syrup, sweetener and carbonization to accommodate local tastes. That's why a Coke from New York tastes more like a Pepsi from New York (low syrup, low sweetener, high carbonization) than it does a Coke from Atlanta (high sweetener, high syrup, low carbonization).

Pepsi beat Coke twice with one campaign. First by building share in all dual-brand outlets. They by goading Coke into wasting hundreds of millions of product-development and marketing dollars which then weren't available to use effectively to counter Pepsi.

It's an iron-clad rule of marketing: When a weaker brand attacks a stronger brand, the weaker brand wins. When a stronger brand attacks a weaker brand, the weaker brand wins.

Fast food is a perfect example, Subway used Jared Fogel and his 245-pound weight loss to establish a position as a healthy alternative to fast food burgers. When they established that point they went after McDonald's directly, with a sandwich-to-sandwich comparison of fat content. They have more than doubled sales since the campaign began, and now actually outnumber McDonald's in outlets (though not in sales).

An interesting twist on the "naming names" phenomenon is that Quizno's is now attacking Subway by name.

Quizno's is using marketing jujitsu effectively by attacking Subway's core value, low-calorie healthfulness. Quizno's compares the generous amount of meat and cheese on their sandwiches to the skimpy portions that make Subway low-fat, low calorie.

Naming names worked very effectively for Subway. It remains to be seen if it will also work effectively against them. But that "weaker always wins" rule says it will.

There's probably more naming of names in automotive advertising than any other category these days. Unfortunately, it's all confusing. Because the weaker automotive brands don't seem to be able to limit themselves to naming one name. They name a bunch.

The Ford Fusion ran complex comparisons with the Toyota Camry and Nissan Altima. The Ford's sales didn't meet expectations, but that probably has more to do with the fact that they crammed everything imaginable into the spots and so nothing was communicated. If they had just picked one competitor, and hammered home one key advantage, things would almost certainly have gone better for them.

Miller Lite is confusing in a different way. They've aired a spot that says about a third of Bud Light drinkers prefer Miller Lite. In the spot bottles of Bud Light turn red (to represent drinkers who prefer Bud Lite) or blue (representing Bud Light drinkers who prefer Miller Lite in taste tests), and the blue bottles animate into gumbys and leave. Problem is the commercial communicated that a majority prefer Bud Light.

The complex reasoning goes like this: "These are Bud Light drinkers so they would all be expected to prefer Bud Light but a third of them prefer Miller Lite." doesn't connect.

First, Miller apparently expects people to be paying attention so closely that they understand that the drinkers being polled are Bud Light drinkers. Unfortunately, people don't watch commercials that closely. So it looks as if Miller Lite is losing the taste test. And even if the viewer is a Bud Light drinker, the probable reaction is "Yep. Most of us Bud Light drinkers prefer Bud Light. That's why we drink it." It's like a Pepsi Challenge where Pepsi loses.

Perhaps the best "naming names" commercials on the air today are the Mac versus PC spots. (PC isn't technically a brand, but the entire PC category is Mac's competition.) Mac has made computer selection a David-versus-Goliath choice. A smart, hip, laid-back Mac versus a rigid, old-fashioned, clunky, not-very-leading-edge PC. They have personified the competing computer types with stereotypical users, and the target audience would much rather be the cool Mac guy than the clunky PC geek.

As the car commercials and the strange Miller Lite spot show, the power of comparative advertising doesn't suspend the other strictures of marketing communications. But if used well, comparative advertising can help weaker brands leverage the strength of their stronger competitors. And, if they goad them into responding, the weaker brands can hijack their bigger competitors' marketing budgets as well.

Comparative Advertising: Marketing Jujitsu, Part 1

2010-02-08T23:10:00.003-05:00

In 1962 Avis was one of a pack of also-rans in a rental car market dominated by Hertz. They used Hertz's strength to leverage themselves from a 11% share to a 35% share in just one year through a Doyle Dane Bernbach campaign that became an advertising classic: "We're number 2. We try harder."The ads didn't mention Hertz by name. but lines like "We're in the rent a car business playing second fiddle to a giant." didn't leave much doubt about who they were competing with.

Funny thing was, it wasn't Hertz that Avis was going after. It was National and the rest of the large group of small companies that competed with Avis for the half of the rent a car market Hertz didn't control.

So why attack Hertz – albeit obliquely? Simple. That bedrock principle of advertising: people tend to think both parties in a comparative ad are equal. So when Avis attacked Hertz, the target audience didn't think Avis was better, They thought Avis and Hertz were about the same. That changed the entire rent a car decision-making process. Instead of "Hertz or one of the little guys?" it became "Hertz or Avis?"
That paradigm shift tripled Avis's market share without taking much of a bite out of Hertz. But it ravaged the share of the smaller companies.

It almost didn't happen. A lot of people at Avis thought positioning themselves as "Number 2" made them seem second rate. And a lot thought they would be crushed if Hertz decided to counterattack.
Actually, positioning themselves as number 2 was a promotion. Because up until them there was Hertz, a solid number 1, and Avis and all the rest nowhere.

The timid executives' fear of a counterattack was misplaced. If Hertz hit back, it would be the best thing that could have happened to Avis. Because no matter which company runs a comparative ad, the target audience tends to perceive both companies as comparable.

So if Hertz counterattacked their massive marketing budget – at the time orders of magnitude bigger than Avis's – would be persuading car renters that Hertz and Avis were the same, lifting Avis still farther out of the "all other" category and positioning them as on parity with Hertz.

One key factor in the success of the Avis ads was that they were extremely well written. And their attacks weren't head-on. They didn't say "Hertz has dirty ashtrays," they said "We just can't afford dirty ashtrays."
The focus was always on the fact that as the underdog Avis – as the campaign said – tried harder.

Eventually – and inexplicably – Avis dropped the "We're number 2." and kept only "We try harder." Fortunately for them, the much more memorable "Number 2" claim had been deeply engraved into the target audience's awareness by then. Because if Avis had originally gone with "We try harder" alone, the slogan would have sunk without a trace as just another piece of self-aggrandizing corporate bombast.

The unprecedented claim of the number 2 position was the key to the campaign's memorability and believability.

Eventually Hertz couldn't restrain the urge to rebuff Avis's challenge and ran an ad saying: "For years Avis has told you they're number 2. We'd like to tell you why." The ad didn't get a lot of media weight. It's easy to imagine that some Hertz executive simply couldn't resist hitting back – even though doing so helped Avis by adding credence to Avis's positioning as an equal competitor.

The discount brokerage segment is now a hotbed of generically-targeted comparative advertising.
For several years now Sam Waterston has compared TD Ameritrade to full-price brokers in a series of TV spots. Charles Schwab also attacks the full-price broker segment generically in a brilliant new animated spot from Euro RSCG. The premise is that the protagonist's broker has gotten more out of the protagonist's investment portfolio than the protagonist himself.

It's interesting that the discount brokers apparently believe that there is one large market for brokerage services, and that the full-price brokers are still the more powerful segment of it.

Their choice to compete against another segment of the overall category rather than for share within the discount niche says that they think the migration from full-service to discount has just begun, and there's more business to be gained by capitalizing on the shift than there would be by competing among each other for the investors who have already made the move.

If the competitor is big and well-known, name-no-names comparative advertising can be effective. But some advertisers who really want to capitalize on the competitor's brand power name their competitors' names.

Next week: Kicking brands and taking names.

Numbers don't lie--or do they?

2010-01-24T20:26:00.003-05:00

Sometimes they can be misleading little rascals.

There are no shades of meaning with numbers. A 2 means 2, and that's it. Clear. Concrete. Not open to discussion or interpretation like "That depends on what the definition of 2 is." Two is this many: one, two.

So why can numbers be so misleading?

Sometimes, the numbers are irrelevant:

For decades companies measured every aspect of customer satisfaction. Image for advanced technology? Check. Friendly salespeople? Check. Like the color? Check. The only problem was these numbers don't happen to correlate to business success. One number – and apparently only one – does: the net promoter score.

A net promoter score is simply the percentage of people rating a company 1 through 6 subtracted from the percentage rating it 9 or 10 in response to the question: "On a scale of 1 to 10 how likely are you to recommend this company to a friend or associate?" The only other question that matters is the follow-up: "Why?"

Some creative research measures ads' and commercials' likeability, although there would not seem to be a correlation between how much a commercial is liked and how effective it is at generating the intended behavior in the target audience. So why measure likeability? More to the point: Why make decisions based upon a factor which doesn't impact results?

A number used to measure one factor may be inappropriately applied to another:

Customer satisfaction scores – whether net promoter or any other type – measure customer satisfaction. Period. They do not measure what motivated customers to pick the company in the first place. A lot of research has shown that the factors that determine selection are often very different from those which determine satisfaction.

Marketers only see customers during the transaction, so they're inclined to overemphasize the importance of satisfaction drivers. But those marketers aren't able to observe while prospects are making their purchase decisions. So they're susceptible to confusing the factors that generate satisfaction with the ones that generate sales. When they advertise satisfaction drivers rather than the sales drivers, the results are often disappointing.

Another problem with focusing on satisfaction drivers is that that businesses only see the people who decided to buy from them, not all the ones who went elsewhere. So large areas of opportunity may go unrecognized.

There's occasionally confusion about what the numbers mean:

A recent study showed that only 2% of cars are sold on line. Quite true. But more than ten times that many are sold in dealerships when a customer walks in with a check in the amount previously negotiated on line. And many more sales are begun with on-line research into make, model, price and discounts. So the dealer who naively believes that only 2% of purchases come from the internet is competing at a serious disadvantage to those who know what the numbers really mean.

Often, a crucial number is missing:

A new television campaign has achieved a significant jump in awareness. A test panel found the commercial effective at communicating the intended benefit. (That can be determined in focus groups and one-on-one research.) The media plan delivers strong sustaining-weight reach and frequency. And sales are flat. Are the data flawed? Is the campaign a bust? Or did three new competitors come into the market with launch-weight reach and frequency? If so, the new campaign's share of voice is a small fraction of the company's former portion of media exposure in the category. If that's the case, just holding sales flat is a big win.

On a micro scale, we know an automotive dealership with a third of a competitor's media spending which has been duped into believing media weights are the same by the competitor's "friendly" data sharing. The dealer has never attempted a competitive media analysis, so he wonders why his sales are a fraction of his "friend's," and switches from agency to agency looking for a magic solution to a simple – but unrecognized – problem.

Numbers may not lie, but people sometimes do:

Ask an average group of people if advertising influences their purchase decisions and the answer is a resounding and unanimous "No!" With that sort of response, you'd expect the entire industry to close up shop immediately. Watch how those people behave, however, and it's a very different story.

The new – and excellent – book, What Sticks, makes the point that the only accurate way to measure advertising's impact on purchase decisions is by observation of the behavior. Decades earlier Rosser Reeves devised the Usage Pull methodology which measured open-ended purchase intent responses of people who had and had not been exposed to a brand's advertising. Both valid. But asking "Would that ad convince you to buy?" isn't.

And, of course, there's always misdirection:

Magicians use flamboyant gestures with one hand to divert attention from what the other hand is doing. Matadors dupe bulls into charging a cape rather than the person wielding it. It's called misdirection, and it's all too common in marketing communications.

Media salespeople, agencies and even internal teams sometimes say, in effect "Look over here!" to direct attention away from what really matters. Like the media rep who proves conclusively that her or his station is #1 in the market, while conveniently omitting the fact that it doesn't reach your company's target demographic. Or the agency which trumpets a commercial's Advertising Age "most liked" ratings while ignoring dismal awareness and preference numbers. Or even the sales manager whose PowerPoint focuses on increased sales while side-stepping the fact that all of those sales were made by offering such deep discounts that the company lost money on each and every one.

We love numbers:

Numbers are the heart and soul of marketing. At BrainPosse we love the little rascals. Everything we do is focused on our favorite: ROI. Like anything someone loves, numbers deserve understanding, respect and to be treated right.

By the numbers.

2010-01-18T08:46:00.002-05:00

More memorable and meaningful than puffery.

Headlines and sig lines (or strap lines) can be the most memorable part of ads. But all too often they're meaningless fluff. "Finest," "Best," "Most trusted," "Best value" and others of that vague ilk are verbal mush without any distinctive hook to aid recall. One tremendous mnemonic aid is to quantify the claim with a hard number. Consider these:

"This bread is very nutritious." or "Builds strong bodies 12 ways?" No contest which would be remembered. (The Wonder Bread slogan began as eight ways in the 1930s and grew to twelve ways in the 1950s.) As an aside, Wonder Bread built strong bodies by throwing a couple of vitamin enrichment tablets about the size of hockey pucks into the dough to replace nutrients removed in processing.

"This fine automobile is really quiet." or "At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in the new Rolls Royce comes from the electric clock," the 1958 Ogilvy classic.

How about: "We condense a lot of tomatoes to make our tomato paste," or "Who put eight, great tomatoes in that little bitty can?" Stan Freberg's wonderful radio jingle. The ending was a thing of beauty: "You know who. You know who. You know who." The jingle was followed with the spot's only spoken words: "In case you don't, it was Contadina." The final word was the only mention of the brand. That broke a lot of rules, but it got tremendous recall, and built the Contadina brand.

Orbachs, New York's recently closed bargain-priced department store, might have said "A tradition of bargain prices ever since our founding." Instead Doyle Dane Bernbach (now DDB) said "Our summer sale began Oct. 4, 1923."

When all Coca-Colas came is the distinctive six-ounce hour-glass shaped bottle, an upstart competitor came after them with a jingle built around a number:

Pepsi-Cola hits the spot,

Twelve full ounces, that's a lot.

Twice as much for a nickel, too.

Pepsi-Cola is the drink for you.

How 'bout:

"15 minutes could save you 15% or more." Two numbers that say a little time could save you a lot of money with Geico.

"Twice as much of the pain reliever doctors recommend most" (Anacin).

"99 44/100% Pure?" The slogan worked for Ivory from its beginnings in 1882.

"Rolaids consumes 47 times its weight in excess stomach acid."

"In Soviet Georgia, where they eat a lot of yogurt, a lot of people live past 100." Marsteller's classic Dannon campaign was way more effective than simply saying "Yogurt is good for you." And the commercials featuring Georgian centenarians were wonderful.

"Four out of five doctors surveyed recommended Trident sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum." The beginning of a hoary tradition of four-out-of-five doctor commercials.

"How can one calorie taste so good?" helped build the Tab brand.

"Eight out of ten cats prefer Whiskas" (although they don't ask for it by name).

The specificity of a number makes the claim more believable. After all, numbers don't lie, do they? It also makes the claim more memorable. A number has sticking power that simply isn't there in pure puffery.

Four out of five marketing directors agree.

To learn more about the impact of numbers, contact us by clicking here or by calling (865) 330-0033.

The fundamentals of motivation.

2010-01-12T15:48:00.002-05:00

Why people do what they do.

In psych 101 we learned that motivation is the impetus behind actions or decisions. We also learned three basic ways in which motivations can be categorized. That information is more valuable to us now than at any time since the psych 101 final exam. Because understanding the structure of motivation helps us harness it in our marketing communications.

Approach/Avoidance

In 1947 Hans Eysenck began a half-century reign as the 600-pound gorilla of motivational studies by publishing his watershed paper on the biological basis for approach/avoidance behavior. His paper, the learned commentaries on it, and Eysenck's subsequent work are far beyond the comprehension of anyone at BrainPosse. Fortunately, there are still Cliffs Notes, just as there were for psych 101.

Approach/avoidance are very deep-seated, "old-brain" behaviors. Approach and avoidance have been observed in life forms as simple as amoebas. This is stuff our ancestors did long before we evolved into target audiences, prospects and consumers.

An approach reaction is triggered by the anticipation of a positive outcome. It is action oriented and activates behavior. It's going for the gusto. Approach motivations make people do things, so they're effective for new product launches. "Try it, you'll like it." is a classic "approach" appeal.

An avoidance reaction is triggered by fear of a negative outcome. It tends to inhibit action. Avoidance motivations keep people from doing things, so they're effective for market leaders, or to prevent people from changing an established habit. "No one ever got fired for buying IBM" was a classic avoidance appeal when IBM was the market leader. The message was don't take a risk and try something new.

Which is stronger? Most people are more strongly motivated by avoidance of a negative than attainment of a positive. But it depends on context. If you're marketing a strong brand with substantial share, an avoidance appeal is usually stronger. If you're launching a new product, an approach appeal almost always works best.

The Hierarchy of Needs

Abraham Maslow's paper "A Theory of Human Motivation" defined the categories of human needs in 1943, and sixty-four years later the definitions are still accepted. Essentially, Maslow established successive categories of needs. His concept was that people concern themselves with the more basic needs first, and only move on to other needs when those more basic needs have been satisfied. Maslow represented his hierarchy of needs as a pyramid, but it could have been a ladder, a stack, a straight line or any other sequential representation. The key is that one set of needs must be satisfied before the next set is pursued. The categories of needs:

Physiological: Air, water, food, sleep, warmth, excretion.

Safety: Physical safety, safety of family and loved ones, health, protection of property, job security.

Love/belonging: friends, family, sexual intimacy, community.

Esteem: Self esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others, recognition, admiration.

Cognitive: Learn, explore, discover, understand.

Aesthetic: Beauty in imagery, harmony, poetry, nature.

Self actualization: Make the most of ones abilities and potential and be the most that one can be.

Spiritual: Experiences which transcend the self, a sense of purpose, a feeling of integration with society

In simplest terms, Maslow's hierarchy means that the most powerful persuasion is at the most basic level of unfulfilled need.

Direct and Indirect Motivation

Direct motivation is simple. Perform the behavior, get the reward. Go to the gym, get into shape. Indirect motivation takes an interim step: Go to the gym and get into shape so you'll be attractive to a potential mating partner.

Which is stronger? Depends. The advantages of the simplicity of a direct claim are powerful. But so is the potential of an ultimate indirect benefit.

The whole point of marketing communications is to motivate people to act, think or feel in a way that will build companies' bottom lines. Remembering the fundamentals of motivation will help do that. It's a Vince Lombardi approach to the craft of persuasion. And like his maxim on blocking and tackling, it gets the job done.

Connecting online

2010-01-05T10:33:00.005-05:00

Are you really worth the energy it takes to click?

We have plenty of art director friends who strongly encourage us to limit copy in print ads. And they have a legitimate reason:

“You don’t have to tell everything in the ad. Just direct the reader to the website,” they tell us soothingly, often in a tone reserved for hard-to-train puppies. “Your job is now easier.”

Hmm.

But what happens when the ad readers do go to the website? Is there content available there that completes the interaction started by the ad? Is it truly worth the reader’s time to visit the website, and does the website lead the reader onward to a relationship or sale?

That’s where the job of copywriting (and art direction) hasn’t gotten easier. The website is now an extra step in the communications process. And boy, is it hungry.

As communications professionals, we used to feel that much of our job was done once a prospect had made the decision to contact a company. After all, the goal of the ad, news story, or other communications piece was to generate interest, and once the prospect was in the hands of the sales force, it was up to the sales staff to complete the transaction.

Now, research shows that over 70% of initial meaningful contacts with an organization or product come through its website. Before prospects will make direct contact with your people, they’ll see what you have to say online.

The remarkably good thing about this is that we no longer have the sick feeling in our stomachs that occurred when clients proudly would take us into back rooms and show us the boxes and boxes of leads that our ads had created--leads that just sat in the boxes and were never followed up.

The bad thing about this is that we now have the ongoing challenge of making sure that when website visitors come, we have the right content in place—and more than enough of it—so that they’ll take the next step of contacting the organization or making the decision to buy.

The copywriting thing hasn’t gotten easier. We’re not just writing the ad anymore.

We’re writing for two.

And web visitors know that they should expect more than just an electronic form of a brochure once they get to your site. After all, the rest of the web is giving them forums, studies, entertainment, and many other ways to gather, interact, and converse.

Jakob Nielsen, a web designer/consultant, summed things up nicely in an Ad Age article by Matthew Creamer: “The web is not an advertising medium. It is not a selling medium; it is a buying medium. It is user controlled.”

That’s one of the reasons why Facebook fell on its face when it implemented its Beacon social ads and overstepped perceived privacy bounds. Users felt control had been taken away from them. The same is true when a website offers information that is irrelevant or incomplete. The user doesn’t feel as if he or she is being taken seriously.

But user control is a tremendous opportunity as well: How much stronger is the connection with your brand when people feel they’re choosing to interact with it, rather than having you force it upon them.

Creating a website that offers the proper user experience requires work, interaction, listening—and, typically, plenty of adjustment and fine-tuning. The user experience changes with site visits. The first-time visitor is looking for something very different than an ongoing visitor. Here are a few observations.

A website is not always about entertainment.

Budweiser discovered this with the failure of budtv.com. People didn’t necessarily want to have a new TV channel based around a brewer. But Johnson and Johnson is doing pretty well with babycenter.com, a website sponsored by a number of J&J brands that provides detailed information about child care.

We also know of a number of technical websites that are required bookmarks for engineers, because they provide the “heads up-heads down” info that is required to get work done (“heads up” information is news about new ideas and products; “heads down” information are the charts, tables, and details needed to write the spec.)

A website has to be refreshed.

One critical sin is not offering new content if you expect visitors to come more than once. And it’s difficult to do properly. We see lots of sites with great intentions—special news sections and highlight boxes that never get updated. One of our favorites is the site for Web Content Awareness Day (February 9, in case you don’t have it on your calendar), which hadn't been updated since 2007, and, last we checked, had been taken down.

If you’re going to treat the website as an extension of the ad, then there has to be a connection.
Again, the information superhighway to hell is paved with good electronic intentions. We’ve followed numerous ads to websites, looking for the ideas or solutions offered and found (at least at first glance) dead ends. There was not online reference to the ad content or message. And if we did find the information we were looking for buried in the website, we found it only because of our morbid curiosity. Most visitors won’t take the time.

We’re strong believers in the concept that ads, news releases, and other communications now are intertwined with website content. And in one sense, it does make the job easier. Communications can be simpler, cleaner, and focused on a single message (which is all you can ever hope to get across in an ad).

But that just means that there’s more pressure than ever on your online content. Is your website really worth it to the people who take the time to click?

To find out how BrainPosse can help you keep the fires of good web content stoked, click here or call (865) 330-0033.

Low confidence = low recall.

2009-12-14T10:07:00.006-05:00

People pay less attention to TV spots in a recession. Here's how to get them to notice yours.

Ad spending is down, agencies are cutting staff, revenues for most media are shrinking. And ad recall is also down.

One especially noteworthy example comes from a Gallup & Robinson study of Super Bowl ads over the last twelve years. The study found these extra-pricy ads had day-after commercial recall 11% lower than normal when consumer confidence is weak. And right now consumer confidence, though rising, is still down (the index was 49.5 in November). The January 2009 Consumer Confidence Index was 37.7, an all-time low.

Great. So not only are times tough, but now it's tougher than ever to get target audiences to remember our paeans to the brands we're advertising.

What should an advertiser do?

Does this mean marketers should abandon TV when times get tough? Emphatically: No! See our white paper "Good Marketing for Bad Times" for more on the perils of cutting media presence during a recession. And take some of these common-sense steps to reinforce your commercials' recall and effectiveness:

First, don't panic.

Recall is just part of the process of turning someone watching your commercial into a customer buying your product. The sequence is still: awareness, persuasion, recall, purchase intent. It's important to balance the sometimes conflicting factors which influence each of those four parts of the process to get an optimum overall outcome.

Remember that the drop in recall is across the board. It's not just impacting your brand, but all the brands that compete with it, too. So although it's not good news, at least it's just as bad for everyone. Which means the playing field is level.

Next step is to tilt the playing field in your brand's favor. You can do that by avoiding things that reduce recall and doing the things that increase it.

Avoid reducing recall:

Don't get stuck in the middle. According to a Burke study more than 20 years ago, and a great deal of confirming data since, spots in the middle of a commercial cluster have 14% less recall than those in the first position.

Stay away from sex and violence. Commercials on programs with sexual or violent content get 19% less recall than those on mainstream shows according to a University of Michigan study.

Don't be bland. Nancy Fritz's article in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Sciences notes that bland, neutral commercials get lower recall than either irritating or pleasant ones.

Don't be obtuse. A clearly stated functional benefit and brand association increases recall from 1% to 8% (depending on the category of benefit) according to a Journal of Advertising study on the effects of executional elements on TV recall.

Don't be shy. Reinforce the brand name in audio and video. The previously quoted Journal of Advertising study found that audio brand name and video brand identification increased recall 8%.

Don't hit the mute button on your own spot. Media multitasking is the norm today. A Peanut Labs survey of Gen Y media use found that 57% use the internet while watching TV, and 10% read while the set is on. So if you run tastefully minimalist soundtrack and limit the product identification to a silent logo, you're losing a big slice of your potential audience and recall.

Don't multitask. David Stewart and Scott Koslow's "Executional Factors in Advertising Effectiveness" study, adding another brand (such as a corporate brand, like Tide, from Procter & Gamble) to a spot reduces recall 2%. (We think the number is way low. We've seen data indicating the loss may be ten times that amount or more.)

Increase recall:

Advertise on captivating shows. A Millward Brown study found that shows which engage viewers tend to hold the audience – and audience interest – through commercial clusters. Predictably, commercial recall is increased.

Use Mnemonics. Mnemonics are, literally, "devices used to aid recall." Five of the most familiar types include:

1. Music: Most people can think of a song from long in their past and replay the music and lyrics in their heads. Jingles have fallen into creative disrepute, but they ditties stick in people's heads like Crazy Glue.

2. Rhyme: "Takes a licking and keeps on ticking." has been recalled for more than half a century.

3. Poetic Foot: This is the spoken equivalent of music's beat, the sequence of syllables which are accented and unaccented. (The number of feet per line is the meter. Phrases with regular accent schemes are significantly more memorable than those which are randomly-accented. You may vaguely remember the primary types of poetic foot from tenth-grade English:

• Iambic (unaccented/accented), as in: "We bring good things to life."
• Trochaic (accented/unaccented), as in: "Have it your way."
• Anapestic (unaccented/unaccented/accented), as in: "Have a Coke and a Smile."
• Dactylic (accented/unaccented/unaccented), as in: "Reach out and touch someone."

4. Alliteration: A series of words beginning with the same sound (not necessarily the same letter). It worked for years with "Greyhound going great." Sometimes the alliteration can be on alternate words, as it is on the country song that also features the bus line, "Thank God and Greyhound She's Gone."

5. Repetition: Repetition is one of the most important tools in marketing communications. Repetition is one of the most important tools in marketing communications. Repetition is one of the most important tools in marketing communications.

For more on mnemonics see our earlier article "Don't forget the mnemonic."

Build recall into your spots. Some production techniques increase recall.

Sylvia White's paper presented to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Media highlights four:

1. Normal (eye level) or extremely high camera angles generate greater recall than other shots.

2. Medium shots have better recall than long shots.

3. A moderate editing pace builds higher recall the=an either extremely slow or extremely fast editing.

4. Moderate subject movement is more effective at building recall than either a static subject or extreme subject motion.

Among the 139 production factors studied in the Stewart and Koslow paper noted previously, these eleven produced double-digit increases in recall:

1. A setting directly related to the product and/or message increased recall 12%.

2. A cute or adorable tone or atmosphere increased recall 17%.

3. Humorous commercials have 13% higher recall than average.

4. Opening a commercial with surprise or suspense increases recall 10%.

5. A product demonstration gains a phenomenal 25% more recall. (Ad aesthetes will gnash their teeth over this one. But a product demo doesn't have to be clunky.)

6. Animation increases recall 15%.

7. A child or infant as the principal character boosts recall 10%. (We suspect the e-Trade baby does much better than that.)

8. An animated principal character adds 16% to recall. (We can't get that wretched bee with Antonio Banderas' voice in the Nasonex spot out of our heads.)

9. An emotional appeal gets 18% more recall than a rational approach.

10. Brand differentiation (rather than vapid puffery) nets a 15% recall increase.

11. Having the product on screen for 5.1 seconds or longer increases recall 13%.

Don't just build recall. Build your bottom line. Recall is just one of the factors that contribute to a successful marketing communications program. It matters, but only because it can help build a brand's bottom line.

Defining target audiences

2009-12-07T14:54:00.006-05:00

Just as important as what you say is whom you say it to.

Direct mail marketers have always known that their success depends as much on list to which they mail as on their offer and creative. Lists with identical demographic and geographic selects and equivalent non-deliverable percentages can generate response rates that vary by 300% or more.

Obviously target audience selection is just as important in traditional mass and digital media.

Consider the Super Bowl as a case in point. At the 2008 event (before the wheels came off the economy), the cost of reaching 97.5 million viewers was $2.7 million, a CPM of $27.69. A bit high, but not off the chart. Especially when you consider that commercials in the Super Bowl are virtually TiVo proof.

But... that's $27.69 for every man, woman and child in the audience. Budweiser bought seven of those $2.7 million spots (hopefully a volume discount reduced the $18.9 million list price a bit) to reach male beer drinkers. The CPM versus males –all males – was $46.15. Which is getting pricy. And not all males are beer drinkers. And not all beer drinkers drink a lot of beer. The true CPM(t) – that is, cost per thousand members of their target audience – was probably on the order of $400 for each one of Bud's seven spots.

Who's their true target audience? Heavy beer drinkers. Back in the 1960s the marketers at Schaeffer Beer, a Northeast regional brand, and their agency, BBDO, figured out that the 80/20 rule worked big time in the beer market. Heavy beer drinkers – those who drink six or more 12-oz. beers a day – accounted for more than 80% of total beer sales. BBDO's Jim Jordan created the first beer campaign focused on consumers' need states with the classic "Schaeffer is the one beer to have when you're having more than one." The two-beat structure and a simple jingle made the positioning unforgettable – and highly successful – for years.

Later, Miller went Schaeffer one better with their classic Miller Time campaign. McCann-Erickson strategist, Van vanBortel, did some research to determine exactly who the heavy beer drinkers were.

His answer: the reparative personality type. The group was defined as blue-collar males, aged 35+, in first-level management jobs. A steel-mill foreman, for example. But vanBortel went a crucial step farther, with insight into the psychographics of the reparative personality group. These men felt that their work kept the economy moving, supported their families and was underappreciated. Their daily half-dozen or more beers were their self-bestowed recognition and reward for their otherwise unrecognized contributions.

Van's portrait of the heavy beer drinker was the raw material from which Bill Backer and Billy Davis crafted the great Miller Time campaign. It's been a while, so here's a reminder of the kind of copy used to open the spots: "Today you poured enough steel to build a bridge across the Mississippi. But the five o'clock whistle just blew, and now it's Miller Time."

The campaign talked to the target audience in their terms and about their feelings. And it was a phenomenal success. In fact, it was so much of a success that it was copied by Budweiser's "For all you do, this Bud's for you."

There are many examples of target audience selection impacting marketing success. A few we've taken part in include:

Forms automation software developer CLR Sprinter had been targeting IT departments. After all, they were selling software. But a BrainPosse principal realized that their software offered no perceptible advantage to the IT group, but had significant sales and operational benefits. Switching the target audience to top management and marketing management increased qualified leads by a factor of nine, and reduced the sales cycle from a year to three months.
Employer group health insurer Cariten had been running a television campaign target to the general public when a BrainPosse principal was asked to develop a new strategy and creative. It became apparent that while an organization's employees were the ones covered by health insurance, they had virtually no say in the choice of insurance provider selected for coverage. Redefining the target audience as top management, financial executives and human resources department personnel helped multiply Cariten's sales, and took them from a $14.7 million loss to a $10.6 profit.
The Fort Worth Convention and Visitors Bureau targeted its campaign to individual travelers within a day's drive of the city. A BrainPosse principal realized that the available budget would not be able to reach and attract a significant number of individual visitors, and re-focused the effort on package tour operators and convention and meeting planners. In the first year of the new campaign more than 300,000 additional room nights were booked.
Most hospitals get a substantial percentage of their admissions through emergency department visits. However, a disproportionate number of emergency department patients are uninsured. A BrainPosse client hospital is about to experiment with a direct mail effort targeted to ZIP+4 carrier routes which have demographics consistent with high levels of private insurance and Medicare coverage, to attract paying emergency room patients without attracting increased numbers of non-paying patients. In many markets, addressable cable is another practical alternative to reach demographically/geographically targeted audiences.

The targeting capabilities of the internet offer tremendous opportunities to marketers. There is still a lot of disagreement about preferred vehicles, metrics and even pricing. But as Lord Leverhume or John Wannamaker (depending on whether you're a Brit or an American) famously said: "I know half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The problem is, I don't know which half." There's enough potential in the net to make it worth wasting half an internet budget to take advantage of what the other half will bring in.

We happen to believe in search, both organic and paid. Being at or near the top of the list when someone Googles "refrigerators" will, of course, mean paying to reach a very few kids doing a report on the history of refrigeration. But an investment in either search engine optimization or paid search will get a lot more people who are in the market for a new side-by-side.

A lot of industry data seems to indicate that banners and pop-ups get less viewership with each passing day but, on a pay-per-click basis, contextual or behavioral ads obviously deliver a well-targeted audience that has at least seen the advertiser's message. If the product or service lends itself to cost-per-action pricing, it's a no-lose proposition for the advertiser.

As with traditional media, the key to effective targeting online is in well-thought-out audience definition. Who are the key purchase decision makers for the bulk of sales in the product category? How many of them do you need to reach? And in what environment will you find them most receptive to your message?

Target audience selection alone won't do the job, of course. But without good target audience selection even the most insightful strategy and the most effectively communicating creative won't deliver bottom-line results.

Want to re-examine who you need to reach and how you need to reach them? Contact us by clicking here or by calling (865) 330-0033.

The Four Powerful Words

2009-10-26T13:18:00.004-04:00

A simple phrase that gets attention. Even after all these years.

At my first agency job, I used to be amazed at this old pro account executive who seemed to be able to get appointments with any potential client, media executive, or even the busiest creative person whenever he needed to. After trying to figure out his secret for a few weeks, I finally asked how he did it.

"I have an idea," he said. 'Why don't we meet in the conference room at 4pm and I'll show you."

I changed my schedule and was there at four.

He walked in, stuck a Post-It note on the table, and walked out.

"That's it?" I asked.

"That's it," he said.

The note:

"I have an idea."

I followed him back to his office. "There's gotta be more to it than that."

"There is," he said. "But that's the foundation. The four most powerful words in the English language. But be careful how you use them."

"How so?"

"I got you to come to the conference room at a time I suggested because you believed I had something important for you. If I hadn't delivered on this promise, what would you think of me? You have to do your homework before you can honestly tell someone you have an idea that can help them."

"You did homework before you wrote a four-word note?"

"Actually, you did it for me. You asked me how I got appointments. I knew the problem you wanted to solve. And by telling you I had an idea solving it, I had your attention."

"So it starts with a problem?"

"If it makes you feel better to call it a challenge or opportunity, that's OK too. But you can get anyone to listen if you have a way for them to accomplish what they want to do."

He had me. But it still sounded hokey and too easy. We'd all read Dale Carnegie's book, and knew his "If I had a way to make your life easier, you'd want to know about it, wouldn't you," line. But I gave it a shot anyway.

"I have an idea" worked. It still works. It's worked in letters, headlines, casual conversations, websites, and virtually anywhere else that it's been tried.

However, "I have an idea" only works if:

1. You have done your homework and know what problem the audience has and needs to solve. This is the part that's not easy. It can take a lot of research and discussion before you're ready to use the four powerful words. If you have what you think is a good idea and try to force it into a solution, you'll go down in flames. It has to be truly relevant.

2. You can prove you have a possible solution.

3. You follow through with the product or service to make it actually happen.

My mentor had one more bit of advice for me:

"Good communications almost always is simple. But it's not necessarily easy."

To see more about effective communications solutions, click here.

The Schadenfreude of Social Media

2009-10-19T13:34:00.003-04:00

What to do when the mob turns on you.

"Schadenfreude" is a German word for taking pleasure in others' misfortune. And while most of us would probably discreetly admit to indulging in this from time to time, marketers have to be prepared should someone decide it's their company's turn in the misery arena.

Because with the advent of social media, it's easier than ever to gloat over someone else's downfall--and get lots of other people to join in.

Back in August, in our post "Unsocial Media," we cited the example of the public relations agency who was raked over the coals by editors and other agencies for a dumb, but likely honest, mistake--putting e-mail addresses in the cc box of an e-mail rather than the bcc box where they would remain invisible. Instead of a couple of hundred indignant reporters, thousands in the blogosphere we reading and commenting on how the agency should be shut down for gross incompetence.

Seems a bit extreme for something not smart, but certainly not criminal or malicious. Yet that's what can happen if Schadenfreude takes over and a topic gets viral. And the detachment of online communications often leads people to say things they would never say directly to someone. Screen names (and other people expressing similar views) remove inhibitions (and in many cases, manners.)

We've seen other instances, too, where small (but unusual) stories have taken off. Take the case of the woman in Chicago who twittered some negative things about her landlord, only to find herself sued. Thousand of people came to her defense online, especially after the property management firm said it was their policy to sue first and ask questions later.

Or the case of the pizza parlor owner who dissed his former ad agency on Facebook and got slapped with a $2 million defamation lawsuit. (The story was the most-read topic on the local newspaper's website for three days, with no positive comments toward the agency but numeous individuals writing to say that the pizza place had helped a charity or contributed to a school).

In both the latter instances, sentiment took the sides of the people being sued--in a big way. And we wonder how much business the plaintiffs ultimately stand to lose through the negative publicity that still lingers from these situations.

These examples demonstrate just how quickly things can take off--and get out of hand. If you're in business, you have to assume that at some point you'll have someone who's not happy with you. And when they're not happy, they can take their greviances to lots of people very quickly through social media outlets.

What do you do when you're faced with this situation? Here are some basics:

1. Determine if the complaint is legitimate. This may not matter if Schadenfreude takes over, but it might give you a way to deal with false perceptions after the emotion dies down.

2. Try to resolve it with the complainer. Many stories escalate because the company ignores the complaint and doesn't attempt a resolution. In today's instant communications world, that's like admitting guilt. Some companies, like Comcast and Whole Foods, have turned to monitoring social media as an extension of their customer service, reaching out to people who complain and trying to solve problems even if the company isn't contacted directly. This has resulted in increased positive perceptions for both companies.

3. Don't overreact. If someone complains and you come back with a lawsuit, especially one with big numbers, expect strong response. It's the American way, because A.) we root for the underdog and B.) we perceive that freedom of speech on the internet is a natural extension of our rights.

4. If the story goes viral, be prepared to ride it out. Pepsi is dealing with furor over an iPhone app for its AMP energy drink that started this past week, with Ad Age and lots of other sources jumping on. When something gets this hot, even a logical solution may not extinguish the flames. But while the story may take off fast, it will probably dissipate just as quickly. Because people who send viral stories to each other are reluctant to forward things that they believe people have already seen.

5. Be able to respond if the story comes up later. In electronic media, a story doesn't go away completely, and a search might pull it up later. Make sure that if it resurfaces, you can address it one on one with whoever brings it up.

To learn more about dealing with the public relations aspects of new media, call us at 865.330.0033 or click here.

Get ready for the recovery: Part 4 – Motivation

2009-10-12T09:15:00.001-04:00

The mantra of people who lived through The Great Depression was "Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do. Do without." Many of the folks who lived through the tough times of the 30's stuck with that maxim for life. The present Great Recession may have a similar effect on the people whose jobs, investment accounts and home values have been ravaged by this downturn. In the future marketing may not revert to pre-recession norms.

This recession has been so different than all of the other downturns since the Great Depression that no one can confidently predict exactly what will happen to consumer behaviors when it's finally over.

It’s possible that as soon as the economy bounces back, long pent-up demand and the urge to satisfy deferred gratifications will unleash a spending binge to rival pre-recession levels.

But it seems more likely that the values and buying patterns consumers adopted during hard times may influence their motivations into the future. Whether that future stretches out for a year or two after the recovery or for decades to come is difficult to forecast. Either way, marketers will have to adapt to a reality very different than the one that ended in October, 2007.

Among the consumer motivations that may determine purchase decisions over the next few years:

1. The new frugality. Americans may actually try to live within their means.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the American savings rate declined from 10% in the early 1980s to 0.6% between 2004 and 2007. It was back up to 6.9% this May. That’s an eleven-and-a-half times increase. Goldman Sachs predicts that the savings rate might go as high as 10% this year.

Part of that increased frugality is due to external factors. Credit card lending is somewhere between tight and nonexistent, and consumers’ homes no longer have positive equity against which they can borrow to finance indulgences. Household debt is down for the first time since 1952.

But there is also a significant realization among consumers that their previous spending patterns are simply not affordable. Time’s “America Becomes Thrift Nation” series reports that 61% of Americans predict that they’ll continue to spend less when the recession is over. And 32% say that their new, reduced spending levels will be their norm for years to come.

Marketers will have to fight harder for every dollar consumers spend, since consumers plan to be spending a lot fewer of them.

2. Brand loyalty is so 2007. When Harley-Davidson sales are down, you know brand loyalty is in trouble. And 7.1% fewer Hogs rumbled out of Milwaukee in 2008 than in 2007. It looks as if 2009 will see another 9.4% decline.

If a brand whose loyalists tattoo its logo on their bodies is slipping, what chance does a laundry detergent have?

Apparently not much. P&G has introduced Tide Basic, a stripped-down version of Tide that will sell for around 20% less than full-featured Tide products. The lower-priced Tide is intended to blunt the inroads store brands are making into name-brand consumer package goods sales.

Tide may be fighting an uphill battle. Nielsen reports that private-label (store brand) consumer package goods dollar sales were up 7.4% in the one-year period ended July 11. The private-label package goods products’ share grew 0.7% to 16.9%. In approximately one in four categories, private label products are now #1.

A Digital Research online panel reports that 40% of shoppers have traded down to store brands since the recession hit. The trend is across all socioeconomic categories. Time’s “Thrift Nation” series found that 40% of people who earn more than $100,000 are buying more store brands.

One important indicator: A Food Marketing Institute study reports that 72% of respondents plan to buy the same amount of private label food in 2010, 25% plan to buy more and only 3% plan to buy less.

Advertised brands will have a tough fight holding share against the inroads of private label. A strong value proposition and very effective communications will be essential. Since not many consumers spend a lot of time Googleing or tweeting package goods, TV, the classic – and expensive – consumer package goods standby, may be the only effective medium.

Package goods marketers will have an even tougher time winning back consumers who have defected. In most package goods categories, usage habit is established in three to six purchase cycles. And given the length of the recession, many consumers will have passed that mark with private label merchandise. So they’ll be habituated to a non-branded purchase pattern.

3. Buy American. An ACNielsen Homescan Panel study reports that 35% of consumers are now more likely to buy American than they were in the past.

A Harris poll found that the tendency to buy American-made products increases with age:

● 39% of people age 18-34 are inclined to buy a product advertised as made in America.

● 60% of people 35-44 are likely to be motivated by a “Made in America” claim.

● 68% of people 45-54 are motivated by the “Buy American” appeal.

● 74% of those 55 and older are likely to buy American.

Of course a “Buy American” appeal can be tricky. Consumer preconceptions can be difficult to change, and mere facts are seldom enough to do the job.

U.S. News reports that the Toyota Camry has more American content that the Ford F-150 pickup. But we suspect most good ol’ boys would call the Ford “Detroit iron” and the Toyota a “rice burner.”

According to USA Today, 16% of the country’s beef comes from outside the country, primarily as trimmings to be ground into fast-food hamburger patties. But most folks think that the Big Mac is as American as apple pie. (And apples are increasingly likely to come from China.)

Smart marketers whose products look American but are, in fact, imported can reinforce the home-grown perception with ads and commercials featuring tow-headed kids with baseball mitts playing catch in Norman Rockwell-esque back yards.

The Asian-headquartered automobile manufacturers could do a much better job of communicating their American content. (While being careful not to taint themselves with the low-quality perception associated with American-manufactured cars.)

4. Cutting the frills. If you market cook-at-home food, you’re in luck. Clothing, not so much. Booze or butts, and you’re in trouble.

● 55% now have more meals at home.

● Clothing purchases were down 12% in June, 9% in July and 6.6% in August.

● 28% of all adults have cut cigarette and alcohol purchases.

The recession spawned a wave of frill-cutting. Luxury car sales were off 21% last year, three points worse that the 18% decline in total car and light truck sales. The average size of the few new homes constructed in 2009 shrank 11.2%.

Ben Klein of Leo Burnett says “We’re seeing a shift from a trade-up culture to a trade-off culture.” He envisions a marketplace in which “…a product’s bundle of tangible and intangible attributes [must] reach an optimum balance with price.”

The demographic most impacted by the recession has been the Boomers, previously the free-spending engine of the consumer economy. Their investment accounts have been savaged just as the oldest among them are reaching the end of their working years.

Eric Almquist, of Bain & Co., has observed: “The current Boomer mindset revolves around a nearly universal question: ‘Can I live off my savings and Social Security for the rest of my life?’ This leads to greater risk aversion, obsessive price shopping and an urge to preserve fiscal equilibrium.”

Core values will be increasingly important in brand marketing in the near future. As will product quality, functionality and durability. Flash may not be hot for quite a while. Good news for Toyota. Bad news for Maserati.

5. Going green. The recession slowed – but didn’t stop – the consumer migration toward green/sustainable products and services. Part of the accelerating shift toward environmentally-compatible consumerism is demographic. As noted in an earlier article, Boomers and members of The Silent Generation are the greenest consumers. And these two groups are by far the biggest factor in consumer spending.

In a recent MediaPost “Engage: Boomers” article, David Wolfe, author of Ageless Marketing, noted, “For most, the onset of midlife is accompanied by an ebbing of narcissism and materialistic appetites because the social and vocational aspirations have typically become trimmed. Now, people begin talking about simplifying their lives and putting their lives into balance.”

The same publisher’s “Marketing: Green” blog quotes a UBS survey which found that 66% of respondents reported buying more green/fair trade products over the past year.

As noted in our previous article, “Green vs. Greenbacks,” price remains an inhibiting factor in increased eco-friendly sales. The USB study found that 44% of respondents cited higher cost as a factor in not buying green products.

But as cost comes down – or, as in the case of compact fluorescents or hybrid cars, when long-term economic benefits justify the initial expenditure – green products will become ever more powerful in the marketplace. Manufacturers will certainly be eager to help the 77% of consumers who self-identify as green find affordable and functional green products.

Have other thoughts about motivating post-recession era consumers? Please share them in our comments section. We welcome disagreement, amplification and corrections.

To find out more about marketing in the present economic environment – or in the very different environment that's about to begin – call BrainPosse at 865-330-0055 or click here.

Get ready for the recovery: Part 3 – Media.

2009-10-05T09:00:00.003-04:00

Media was going through major changes before the recession began. The downturn has accelerated some, slowed others. Pundits are predicting that the end of the recession is in sight, so here are some thoughts on what media will be like after the worst is over:

1. Newspapers may actually bounce back a bit. A funny thing happened on the way to newspapers disappearing: they didn't.

True, a lot of newspapers didn't survive the recession. But predictions of the complete extinction of metro dailies appear to have been overstated. At least in the short term.

Yes, publishers are hemorrhaging money. The massive debt many of them took on to finance acquisitions before the economic collapse, the accelerated departure of display advertisers during the downturn and the migration of classifieds to the internet have combined to give a grim new meaning to "black and white and red all over."

But despite newspapers' financial problems, readers are still there. Fewer of them than previously, and the number is going nowhere but farther down. But they're there, and they're good prospects. Although there are fewer of them, newspaper readers continue to be a mass, relatively affluent, audience. And newspapers are effective at turning readers into customers for advertisers.

According to a study by MORI Research, 59% of adults say newspapers are the medium they use to plan their shopping and to make purchase decisions.

That's a metric no retailer can afford to ignore. Because at the bottom of the funnel, newspapers work. Being supplanted by the internet, you think? The same study found that the primary medium for checking out ads was almost twice as likely to be newspaper than online sources. And checking out ads is what folks do when they're ready to buy.

2. Online display may have peaked. Agencies and marketers fell all over themselves getting into internet advertising. No one seemed to worry about the fact that there was no evidence that banners or skyscrapers or buttons had any impact on target audiences. It was a learning experience, and they didn't want to be left behind.

One beneficial side effect of the recession was the introduction of a stiff dose of reality into marketing. And the metrics showed pretty clearly that display internet advertising isn't cost effective. A lot of those early adopters have adopted exit strategies. Despite predictions that internet display ads would somehow not participate in the advertising decline of the recession, they're down 12% in the last quarter according to IDC's "Worldwide and U.S. Internet Ad Spending Report." They're predicting continued declines at least through the end of the year.

Obviously online display ads will be around at the end of the recession. But they're not likely to regain their momentum.

3. Sponsorships will decline. A lot of research has shown that only serious fans and/or participants of an event give a flip about who sponsors it. That's not to say sponsorships don't work. They do, but the effect is limited. (See our article "Sponsorship Works" to see how to use sponsorships effectively for tightly-targeted audiences.)

Last week we pointed out that Buick dropped Tiger Woods as a spokesperson after an eight-year run which saw their sales fall 66%. They also walked away from their long-standing sponsorship of golf tournaments.

Now Lowe's is pulling out of its naming rights sponsorship of Charlotte Motor Speedway (Oops. We mean Lowe's Motor Speedway) after eleven years. Even NASCAR fans, arguably the most avid in U.S. sports, weren't buying hammers, chainsaws and siding because Lowe's hung their name on a track.

We suspect that being the Official Antiperspirant of the Olympics doesn't get the brand into many armpits, and we have no idea who the Official Whatever of the NFL is, even though we seldom miss a Monday night game.

Actually, the metrics support sponsorships to reach very precisely targeted audiences. But hanging a brand name on an event or venue is a completely ineffective mass-appeal vehicle.

Of course, one of the main reasons companies sponsored the Olympics, the America's Cup or the Masters was so the chairman and ad manager could hobnob with the glitterati at the event. Corporate accountability will make that about as popular as Gulfstream jets and mega-million bank bonuses at Congressional hearings, at least for the time being.

Look for sponsorships to slip significantly. And evaluate your own carefully. If your target audience is participants or on-site spectators (the runners in a marathon or the fans actually in the stands at a NASCAR race, for example), a sponsorship might be an effective marketing tool. If you're after a broader audience, having your brand anointed as The Official Socket Wrench of Major League Baseball might not work too well.

4. TV: not dead, just different. This year's upfront was a telling picture of the state of broadcast television. The broadcast networks usually sell three-quarters of their inventory for the next year in the three or four weeks following the mid May extravaganza. This year they finally declared the upfront over in August, and half the inventory was still unsold. (See our recent article, "What if They Gave an Upfront and Nobody Came?")

As we noted in that post, TV is still the 500-pound gorilla of American media. Well, maybe the 400-pound gorilla these days. Adults 18+ watch an average of 309 minutes of non-time-shifted TV a day. Internet inroads? Last year TV viewing increased 1.2%. Trouble is, TV is no longer a mass-reach medium. Viewers are scattered among the more than 118 channels the average household receives.

So what's TV's great strength? Actually, there are four of them:

• TV is still the most-viewed/used medium of all.

• TV has become an effective targeting tool. There's probably not a lot of overlap between the audiences of The Food Network, Versus and VH-1.

• TV is the top of the funnel. The Pew Internet and American Life Project notes that while the bottom of the funnel is increasingly online, "Typically, traditional advertising triggers online search."

• TV is still the most effective brand-building medium. Online video may soon catch up, but for now no other medium can do as good a job at beginning a relational sales cycle.

5. Search is strong and getting stronger. Internet display advertising is down 12%. But paid search is down just 2%, a stronger performance than any other medium.

There's no reason to think the trend is going to change any time soon. Optimized and paid search are vitally important at the middle of the sales funnel, when prospects are gathering information, and at the business end of the funnel, when prospects select a source from which to buy.

Search itself is not an effective branding tool, but the web site to which it takes surfers should be. So search can, to some extent, help build brand equity.

The shift toward search is going to continue after the recession is over. The renewed focus on metrics will assure that. Search is likely to be the best marketing communications investment in the post-recession era.

6. Social media advertising is an idea whose time may never come. Not social media, social media advertising. Every company should have an effective social media presence. But an effective presence means participation in, not advertising on, social media. Social media offer a wonderful opportunity to interact with customers and prospects, a great – and inexpensive – attitudinal tracking tool and a chance to participate in real-people conservations about your brand.

Those ads at the right side of the Facebook page have never demonstrated the ability to move the needle for a brand. In fact, a lot of people never noticed that the ads are there. The results-oriented number crunching that went on during the recession may have put a permanent crimp in social media's previously upward trajectory as an ad vehicle.

So that leaves a social media presence. Many brands just don't generate enough emotional involvement to get a lot of followers. (See our earlier guest posting by new media guru David Harris, "They're Just Not That Into You.") David was posting about user-generated content, but what he says is equally applicable to social media. People just don't care enough about ketchup, chocolate milk powder, delivery services or diapers to follow them on Facebook or Twitter. If you're selling Tide, it might not be worth a lot of effort to get 2,632 laundry fanatics to follow your tweets.

However, if you market Harley Davidson, The Colbert Report, Modest Mouse or any other product, show, band or whatever that's really important to its customer base, social media is a great vehicle to leverage that audience involvement.

The mystique of social media is fading, and smart marketers will capitalize on the potential benefits of having a presence there and stop chasing the will-of-the-wisp of social media advertising effectiveness.

7. Mobile works, but only for place-based offers. A mobile user who gets a text message about a special offer at a Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts a block away may be persuaded to consider an unplanned cup of Joe. 26% of people who text have responded to an offer in the last month. The keys:

• An offer, not a branding message.

• Proximity. The retailer is close and convenient.

• Timeliness. The offer is good right now.

So far, mobile is primarily a retail communications tool. We're not aware of any branding campaigns which generated actual profits, not just attention.

Mobile will continue to grow, especially as more people watch video on their phones and PDAs. But it may be a while before it's useful outside a mile or so radius of the advertiser's business. Except during election years. We expect that the built-in geotargeting capabilities of mobile will be very popular with candidates in small election districts.

8. Get in the game. At least if you're a national advertiser. In-game advertising is likely to get a lot bigger fast. First, it's grown way beyond adolescent geeks. The Entertainment Software Association says 68% of American households play games. The fastest-growing demographic is female 55+. Video games may be the most effective reach vehicle for males 18-34.

So far, in-game advertising is not an option for local or regional marketers, but hopefully addressability will come to gaming just as it's coming to TV commercials, and smaller brands will be able to participate on a geotargeted basis.

9. Take advantage of the decline of direct mail. The number of pieces mailed last year dropped by 12.1%, according to Mintel Comperemedia, and the Direct Marketing Association is projecting another 10% drop this year.

In some industries the decline was massive. There were 3.8 billion fewer mailers for credit cards and 3.6 billion fewer for loans and mortgages. Those steep drops reflect more than the turmoil in the banking sector. They were caused, at least in part, by the slipping effectiveness of direct mail offers for financial services. Credit card offers typically pull 0.2%. That decimal point is not misplaced. That's two responses per thousand mailings.

Overall, the Direct Marketing Association reports a 2.61% average response rate in more than one thousand direct mail campaigns they studied across a broad spectrum of industries.

The beginning of the recovery might be a good time to use direct mail. There are billions fewer pieces going out, so there's less clutter in prospects' mailboxes. With list rental, creative, production and postage, it's possible to put a mailer into a prospect's hand for around $1 (depending on the size of the mailing). At a 2.61% average response rate, that works out to a cost of $38.31 per sale. Not so good if you're selling laundry detergent. Great for any big ticket B2B or B2C product or service.

The upside opportunity? Two of our mailers have delivered 54% response rates. These were expensive dimensional mailers sent to small, very precisely targeted lists. Creative costs, production and postage were more than $100 per recipient for one. But it generated more than $10 million in profit.

Have other thoughts about media in the post-recession era? Please share them in our comments section. We welcome disagreement, amplification and corrections.

To find out more about marketing in the present economic environment – or in the very different environment that's about to begin – call BrainPosse at 865-330-0055 or click here.

Next week:

Part 4 – Motivation

Get ready for the recovery: Part 2 – Metrics.

2009-09-28T03:00:00.001-04:00

The metrics of marketing communications won't be the same when this recession ends. And the end may be in sight.

According to The Wall Street Journal, major company CMOs project a turn-around in the last half of 2009 or the first half of 2010. The longest economic decline the United States has experienced since the Great Depression may finally be ending.

When it does, marketing and communications may be significantly different than they were before the downturn began. Last week we examined possibly permanent changes in the basic nature of the marketplace. This week we'll explore changes in the metrics we use to measure marketing effectiveness.

1. Metrics matter more.

The era of "Let's run it up the flagpole and see if anybody salutes," was fading fast before the recession started. The recession gave it the coupe de grace.

The marketing metric that matters most today is bottom-line results. Not awareness. Not attitude. Not "Read Most" or clicks or liked most by the Super Bowl audience. It's profit. The return on the marketing communications investment.

There are obviously still a few brands doing things with no empirical substantiation of their effectiveness, but they're an endangered species.

Some may try to mend their ways to avoid extinction. Buick seems to be attempting it. Apparently someone noticed that their sales had plummeted 66% in the eight years they've used Tiger Woods as the focus of their marketing communications and killed the campaign.

Stopping an ineffective marketing communications program is a long way from implementing an effective one, but it's a first step. And more and more marketers – at least the ones who will survive – are taking that step and implementing metrics that measure the bottom-line impact of their programs.

Soon virtually all companies will evaluate their marketing communications programs on ROI. And a CMO who doesn't deliver ROI will be DOA.

2. The metric for success is shorter-term.

The Great Recession shifted the focus of virtually every marketer in the country – probably in the world – to immediate sales. Understandably. When consumers stopped spending, brands had to scramble for every sale to live to fight another day. (For more on consumers holding onto their money, see our earlier article, Good marketing for worse times: Part 2 – Price.)

The shift to a retail/transactional metric of marketing success has three serious implications for marketers in the not-too-distant future:

• Short-term metrics ignore the need to get a brand into the consideration set at the beginning of the sales cycle. In some product categories that cycle may be as long as two years. If a brand doesn't make it into the group being considered at the top of the funnel, it gets increasingly difficult to break in as the decision-making process continues.

• Short-tern metrics encourage promotional rather than brand-building marketing. As we often point out, a discount is irrelevant if no one wants the product or service in the first place.

• Short-term metrics tend to be susceptible to the last click fallacy. A substantial body of research indicates that as much as 60-66% of internet search is triggered by an impression in traditional media. But if that search leads to an online purchase, the last click is often the only factor credited with the sale.

Decades ago, P&G revolutionized share- and revenue-building by shortening the measurement cycle from annual to quarterly. The rest of the consumer package goods industry quickly adopted the new, shorter, planning cycle. What many of those imitators missed was that P&G's quarterly goals were established within the framework of long-term plans. (A BrainPosse principal used to dread slogging through those five-year brand books. In hindsight it's clear that the slogging was invaluable training in the nuts and bolts of marketing. So a belated thanks, P&G.)

Many of the brands which looked no farther out than the next three months are gone, but P&G is stronger than ever because their quarterly tactical goals were part of a long-term strategy.

The challenge for post-recession marketers will be applying metrics of short-term tactical programs while maintaining a disciplined tracking of a consistent, long-term brand strategy.

3. Metrics are going to be simpler.

The era of the hundred-page research report is over.

At sophisticated marketing organizations, it's been over for a long time.

When a BrainPosse principal worked on international Coca-Cola business, one Coke country manager had devised a single-factor survey which could determine share two years in the future. More important, that single factor could be influenced until eighteen months before the target date. So there was a six month window of opportunity for course corrections.

Unfortunately, it takes some experimentation to identify the key factor – or, sometimes, factors, to track to optimize marketing communications effectiveness. There is no equivalent to the Net Promoter Score for operations. (The Net Promoter Score is a single-question -- or, in our recommended version, two-question -- tracking that quantifies customer satisfaction and predicts share within category. Our two-question preferred version also provides prescriptive information to build on strengths and repair weaknesses.)

Developing a single metric that works for all brands' marketing communications is almost certainly impossible, because the process of persuasion is influenced by a number of variables:

• Relational versus transactional appeals

• Short or long sales cycle

• Considered purchases or impulse buys

• The stage the customer is at in the purchase-decision process

• High-interest or low-interest category

• Degree of personal identification with the brand/category

• Necessity or discretionary purchase

• Etc.

We stopped there pretty much at random. The list could go on for pages.

The point is that key predictive/prescriptive metrics need to be developed for individual products or services. The first step may be one of those dreaded hundred-page research reports. But if it's done right, you may never have to commission and read another one.

The Coca-Cola case we mentioned earlier is an excellent example. They discovered the timing and triggers that determine brand selection, the true market segment (it wasn't colas) and even the key intercept point at which to reach the target audience.

• The competition wasn't Pepsi. It was all refreshing cool beverages.

• Soft drink brand preference is solidified eighteen months before the individual quaffs the beverage.

• There is a fairly constant age at which preference is solidified. (We'll never tell what it is.)

• The consumer attitude that drives that preference is discernable six months before preference is solidified.

• One attitudinal factor is the principal preference driver. (Once again, our lips are sealed.)

Knowing those five facts, it was simple to track the key attitude among the target audience members of the optimal age two years out, then reinforce or correct perceptions over the next six months to solidify brand preference.

After establishing the consumers' preference for Coke, the next step was motivating them to drink one right now.

Coca-Cola corporate research identified a group of consumer need states that drive consumption. Not all of the need states are effective in every society. The Coke country manager identified five that were important in his territory, and used them to incite immediate consumption (most purchases in that country were for on-premise, point-of-purchase consumption).

Almost all advertising and all point-of-purchase materials focused on those five need states. (A small part of the ad effort was invested in building in-home consumption as a future business driver.)

The tracking data helped take Coke's share of the refreshing cool beverage market to over 70%. And focusing on one simple metric and one age group made the tracking quick, easy and cheap.

Have other thoughts about marketing metrics in the post-recession era? Please share them in our comments section. We welcome disagreement, amplification and corrections.

To find out more about marketing communications based solidly on metrics – including a quantifiable return on your investment – call BrainPosse at 865-330-0055 or click here.

Next week:
Part 3 – Media

Coming:
Part 4 – Motivation

Get ready for the recovery: Part 1 - The Marketplace

2009-09-21T09:16:00.001-04:00

The end of The Great Recession may be in sight. When it’s over, the marketplace may be fundamentally different. Here are some of the changes that may impact marketing and communications during the recovery.

Tectonic shifts in marketing were already under way when the economy went into a tailspin, and the economic meltdown has accelerated those changes and caused some long-term transformations of its own.

The four main areas which will be significantly different after the recovery are:

• The marketplace in which we operate.

• The metrics we use to measure marketing tools and success.

• The media that deliver the audiences we want to reach.

• The motivations that are effective at swaying brand selection.

This week we'll look at changes in the marketplace:

1. Everyone has been impacted. No matter who your brand's target audience is, they've felt some pain.

• This is an equal opportunity recession. Bill Gates lost $18 billion, laid-off chicken-processing plant workers are worried about exhausting their unemployment benefits and teenagers can't get McJobs.

• State and municipal workers, usually shielded from the exigencies of the marketplace by civil service regulations, have taken de facto pay cuts as governments have mandated unpaid furloughs.

• In February, Ford's sales were down. And so were Bentley's. Ford was off 48.5% versus 2008, and Bentley lost 74.7%. (Cash for Clunkers didn't stop the slide. It just reduced the 2009 full-year car sales decline to about 27.3% below 2008, from a previously projected 31.1% loss. Of course a Bentley would be over the Cash for Clunkers ceiling price by more than $100 thousand.)

• A Seventeen study found that even teens, not normally considered the most fiscally aware segment of society, are stressed out about money. 85% of teen girls and 75% of teen boys are worried about the economy. 38% have altered college plans because of economic concerns.

The effects of that universal financial hit are very likely to linger on after the recovery begins. So marketers will need to work harder to get prospects to buy.

2. A wide range of product and service categories have been hit. Very few market segments have been unscathed by the downturn.

Time's article "America Becomes Thrift Nation" highlighted the percentage of respondents who have cut expenditures in several product and service categories:

• 63% had cut entertainment expenses.

• 56% reduced restaurant expenses.

• 46% spend less on movies.

• 38% have cut back on sports tickets.

• 36% buy fewer newspapers and magazines.

• 28% spend less on alcohol.

• 25% have reduced gambling.

In fact, supermarkets and food manufacturers are about the only categories that are up, as people economize by eating more meals at home. Just about every other product or service category will have an uphill climb to get back to sales and profit levels they enjoyed before October, 2007.

3. The recovery will be slow.

• Some optimistic economists say the recession is over, and gross domestic product will be up in the last half of 2009. But even they don't predict a jobs rebound until late in 2010 or even mid-2011.

• A less optimistic economist, Harry S. Dent, believes that the slump will last until 2020, because "It will take that long for the financial wreckage of the boom-bust cycle to be cleared away." He believes that real recovery won't occur until the Millennials, the next big population bulge after the Boomers, enter adulthood and start buying homes, cars and gadgets of their own.

• Perhaps most important, most people expect a slow recovery. According to Time, only 12% of Americans expect economic recovery to begin within six months. 50% believe it will be another year or two. 14% believe we're at the start of a long-term decline. And since consumer spending is the engine of the American economy, these beliefs may be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people believe the recovery will be slow, they'll hold onto their money. And if they hold onto their money, the recovery will be slow.

A slow recovery means that marketers will have to stay focused on more basic products and services for a while longer. The migration to the more profitable upgrades may be a lot farther in the future.

4. Consumers will have fewer resources. Easy credit and the illusory "profits" of increases in home values have disappeared for the time being. Possibly for quite a while.

• Boomers have lost $2 trillion from their investment accounts, and billions more in home equity after the real estate market tanked. The freest-spending age cohort in America has a lot less to spend. Especially since they're getting close to retirement age and need to pump a lot more money into their depleted 401k's. That money will have to come from curtailing discretionary spending.

• Paychecks are down, and they're going to take quite a while to get back up. According to Bloomberg.com, the average paycheck declined 0.5% between February and June this year. Moody's reports "Workers bargaining power for wages is evaporating," and predicts "outright declines in wages."

• Credit is being parceled out a lot more carefully. Financial institutions sent out 8.4 billion fewer credit card and loan offers last year. According to the Federal Reserve's Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices in January, 2009, banks had tightened lending standards sharply over the previous 18 months.

• Home equity loans won't be possible for 48% of American owner-occupied households by the beginning of 2011 because they will owe more on their mortgages than their homes' total values. So the split-level (or Cape Cod or center-hall colonial) piggybank will be closed.

So discretionary-purchase products and services will be a lot harder sell than they were before October, 2007. At least in the near-term future.

5. Conspicuous consumption may be conspicuously absent. As we noted above, Bentley sales are way down. Prices of the first-growth Bordeaux have tumbled. And bottled water sales are off 6% even after pieces plummeted from $5.99 to $2.99 for a 24-bottle case. July sales were down 27.3% at Neiman Marcus and up 1.8% at BJ’s Wholesale Club.

American consumers may be wearing their labels on the inside of their clothes for some time to come. Paying extra to sport a designer logo is seen as stupid rather than stylish by an increasing segment of American consumers.

For most marketers this will mean more emphasis on quality and less on flash. For products for which ostentatiously-flaunted brand identification was the main selling point, it may mean trouble. And for Wal-Mart and other value-based marketers, it will be a bonanza.

The flight from conspicuous consumption may be short-lived. But at least at the beginning of the recovery it may remain an important dynamic in the marketplace.

Have other thoughts about what the American marketplace will be like in the post-recession era? Please share them in our comments section. We welcome disagreement, amplification and corrections.

To find out more about marketing in the present economic environment – or in the very different environment that's about to begin – call BrainPosse at 865-330-0055 or click here.

Next week:
Part 2 – Metrics

Coming:
Part 3 – Media
Part 4 – Motivation

“You lie” our opinion of news media?

2009-09-15T09:37:00.004-04:00

A Pew study says regard for the news hits a new low.

Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina didn’t do himself any favors last week by shouting “you lie” during President Obama’s speech on healthcare. He was scolded on both sides of the aisle; his potential opponent in the next election raised hundreds of thousands of dollars; and he has had to craft a variety of apologies.

Interestingly, though, a new study on the news media from The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press suggests that many of us may be prone to blurting our own “you lie” statement when it comes to different news sources.

The Pew study, which has been done periodically since 1985, notes that just 29% of Americans now believe that news organizations generally get the facts straight, and that 63% of us believe that stories are often inaccurate.

Juxtapose this with the 1985 numbers. Then, 55% of Americans said that news outlets get the facts straight, and 34% said stories were often inaccurate. There has been a comparable shift in views of the press’s independence. Nearly three quarters (74%) now say news organizations are influenced by powerful people and organizations compared with 20% who say they are pretty independent. In 1985, by a far smaller margin, more said that news organizations were influenced by the powerful than said they were pretty independent (53% to 37%).

Sixty percent of us now think that news organizations are politically biased, and there are significant partisan gaps in the opinions of different media outlets. Republicans, for example, rate Fox News favorably 73% of the time, compared to 43% for democrats. Democrats (75%) rate CNN favorably, with only 44% of republicans holding the same opinion. The divisions also hold for print media: twice as many republicans hold a negative opinion of The New York Times as democrats. Interestingly, however, The Wall Street Journal and NPR garnered relatively favorable opinions from members of both parties.

But partisan opinions dissipate when it comes to local news. Both republicans and democrats tend to rank local TV news favorably (79% and 77% respectively), and 65% of respondents have favorable opinions of local newspapers.

Where we get our news.

The Pew study also noted some interesting trends in where we’re getting our news. Television is still king, with 71% of respondents saying it was their main source for national and international news, and 64% saying it’s their go-to resource for local news. For national and international news, though, the gap between TV and the internet is closing: 70% of those younger than 30 say they get most of their national and international news from television, but nearly as many (64%) cite the internet as their primary source. Among those ages 30 to 49 a similar pattern is evident; 62% get most national and international news from television, while 54% say the internet.

For the first time last December, more people in a Pew study said they get their international and national news from the internet rather than newspapers, and that trend continued (42% to 33%). However, for local news, newspapers still hold a strong second place. Forty-one percent of respondents say newspapers are their source for local news, compared to just 17% for the internet.

Respondents said that TV (44%) was the local news source that did the most to uncover and report on important local issues, followed by newspapers (25%), news websites (11%), and radio (10%).

So, with people becoming increasingly skeptical of news quality and partisanship, does that mean we’re done with the media? Not really. Most people (about 70 to 80 percent) still say that if TV news operations and newspapers shut down, it would be considered a major loss.

What this means to marketers.

The increase in skepticism among Americans regarding the news comes from a variety of factors, including the fact that compared to 1985, most Americans have access to more news sources, many of which may have widely varying political stances or information sources. This is a double-edged sword; more news can mean a better informed public, but additional sources can also create more confusion.

And it may be that even with more sources, we’re getting less actual news, as described in our previous post, “More news outlets. Fewer news choices.” (This post also provides some ideas for dealing with this.) Smaller news staffs, especially with newspapers and local outlets, compound this issue.

So the need to create your own news presence through your website, blog, social media, and other sources is growing in importance—provided you do it in a way that avoids the skepticism and “you lie” mentality we seem to be developing for our traditional news sources.

Want to know more about managing your news? Click here or call 865.330.0033.

The invisible woman revisited.

2009-09-08T08:15:00.008-04:00

Older women still have the most purchasing power. Why have so few marketers gotten this?

A guest posting from BrainPosse's cultural anthropologist, Teresa Bowman.

Two years ago, I wrote a post about how marketers were neglecting the most influential, most affluent demographic in the country: women 50 and older. Since then, I've seen scores of blog posts, mainstream media articles, books, and other reports on this same issue.

There seem to be a lot of voices crying in the wilderness. The amazing thing is that they're still falling on some very deaf ears.

Let's recap for a second: Women not only disproportionately decide where a family’s funds will be spent, they control or influence 80% of all purchases of both consumer and business goods and services. They have sole or joint ownership of 87% of homes and buy 61% of major home improvement products. They account for 66% of all home computer purchases and 80% of all health-care services. They start 70% of all new businesses.

New research also shows that even during the downturn, per capita spending in 50-plus households is 2.5 times that of younger people. And because women outlive men, the market will just keep getting bigger.

Yet many marketers still fall victim to the "youth is king" mantra. When asked recently why he targeted 18-34 year olds with a new fashion shopping website targeted at women, a former Fox TV executive said "It felt right because it's what I've been doing all my career."

But--the data shows that 65% of online apparel sales go to women over 35, and the fastest growing age group is women between 55 and 64. In commenting on the executive's quote online, a blog reader noted that "'I'm 56, want to look hip, but not as if I'm trying to pass myself off for a 21 year old. We have to find an up and coming young designer who loves his mom to design just for us. He or she will make a fortune!"

As I pointed out in my previous post, however, reaching this market is not necessarily easy. It's not homogeneous, and it doesn't have the same motivators as other market segments. Women over 50 have seen everthing marketers have had to throw at them, and they're not easily duped. Moveover, they sense that marketers have neglected them for younger consumers, and that puts another barrier up. To reach them, you have to play on their terms.

That means:

1. You have to be straightforward. Any hint of duplicity on the marketer's part, and it's over. These women are smart, and even if you're not transparent, they'll see right through you.

2. You have to do your homework. Expect questions, and if you don't have the answers, forget it. Before making a buying decision, these women will dig deep. They expect information to be available, and if it's not, they move on.

3. You have to be online. The fastest growing segment of Facebook users is women 55 and older. They use technology for research, to connect, to save time, and to shop. According to U.S. News, online sales to women aged 25-34 fell 8% in the year ended in March, but sales to 55-to-64-year-olds rose 11%, even with the recession.

4. You don't have to promise miracles. This is a pragmatic group. They don't believe that cosmetics are going to return them to their 20s. They do, however, expect the beauty products they buy to make them look better and (perhaps more importantly) feel better about themselves. Who'd have thought that 50-year-0ld Ellen Degeneres would be a good Cover Girl, but the elements for success are there: Women in this demographic may not want to look like Ellen, but they do want to have the same level of comfort within their own skins.

5. It's not necessarily about them. Classic communications strategy suggests that you find a connection with the prospect that offers a personal benefit. Women in this group, however, are more likely to make buying decisions to benefit their children, their families, or even someone else.

6. Take them seriously, especially for serious products. Financial products sales to this group are expected to rise dramatically. But to connect with them, you have to speak to them, not at them. Marti Barletta, who has authored several books on marketing to women, explains this well in a four-year-old Ad Age article, and how Mass Mutual Financial Group successfully reached older women. But look at the bank and financial institution ads around you, and you'll see that a lot of marketers still don't get this.

7. The details count. Women see things differently than men, because their eyes have more rods than cones. This gives them better peripheral vision, and they take in lots of details. If they see something that's off, it throws up a red flag. And it diminishes your chance of making a connection.

8. And ultimately, it's about making a connection. This market will ask you for all the details on why your product or service is better, but that's not what drives them. They'll also be asking if they can trust you, if you understand them, and if you have their interests at heart.

If you can make this connection, then you'll be visible to this huge (and still surprisingly invisible) market. To learn more about reaching older women, click here or call 865-330-0033.

Good marketing for worse times - Part 4

2009-08-02T13:40:00.011-04:00

Eight companies using job-loss insurance as a sales tool.

Consumers are worried. They don't want to buy big-ticket -- and even medium-ticket -- items because they're afraid of losing their jobs so they won't be able to make the monthly payments.

Their fears aren't unfounded.

Pundits say the recession may be bottoming out, but they're also predicting a jobless recovery. Employment isn't projected to start back up until late 2010 or the first half of 2011.

At the end of the first half of 2009 a total of 14.7 million people were unemployed,. That doesn't include people whose work had been scaled back, like the California state employees who are furloughed three days a month without pay. And the forecast is for worse ahead, with unemployment rising into double digits.

The Consumer Confidence Survey™ found that only 17.4% of consumers anticipate job growth in the months ahead.

Maybe worried is too mild a word for today's consumer mood. Terrified might be more accurate.
That has some pretty frightening implications for marketers. The gigantic slapping sound we've been hearing recently is wallets slamming shut. Consumers who are very afraid of losing their jobs are cutting way back on spending.

How can you get them to buy your product or service in an environment like this? Give them insurance that promises if they lose their jobs they won't have to pay. That's what these eight companies are doing:

1. It worked for Hyundai. They were the first to focus their marketing efforts on job-loss insurance. They offered to take cars back if the buyers lost their jobs. The promotion increased Hyundai's U.S. sales 0.5% in the first quarter of 2009 while the overall U.S. auto industry plummeted 37.6%.

2. Ford went Hyundai one better after seeing the amazing results of the promotion. In April and Ma,y Ford offered to make up to twelve months' payments if customers lose their jobs. So customers who lose their jobs gets to keep their cars.

3. JetBlue gives customers a full refund if they lose their jobs before their trips. The low-fare airline saw a double benefit from the offer. First, people weren't afraid to book a trip. Second, they booked far in advance to take advantage of bargain fares. Before the promotion began JetBlue had seen people defer trip planning until close to the departure date.

4. A builder sells homes with a job-loss insurance offer. Bigelow offers a plan that covers mortgage payments if a home buyer loses her or his job. They also add another reassuring offer. If the value of the house goes down, they'll pay the buyer the difference. Bigelow credits six additional sales directly to the promotion. And six home sales in 2009's market add up to a very big deal.

5. The Minnesota Timberwolves fill seats with a job-loss insurance offer. They offered to refund a prorated percentage of the season ticket price for games not yet played if the ticket holder loses her or his job. According to their CMO Ted Johnson "We sold three times the number of tickets as the same time last year."

6. Sears offered job-loss insurance on major appliances in July. They tied in the protection to their Citibank Sears card, so they encouraged sales, generated new cardholders and got additional income because the cards were used.

7. Virgin Mobile will waive up to three months of cell phone service charges for subscribers who lose their jobs.

8. Joseph A. Banks offered to refund the price of a suit if the buyer lost his job. And the buyer could keep the suit.

These offers all have conditions and fine print. Most require that customers be employed for a minimum period after the purchase and then lose their jobs because of a reduction in force, not because of a firing offence.

But even with pages of stipulations, job-loss insurance offers assure customers that they won't be making a big mistake with a big-ticket purchase. That assurance can often turn an otherwise-deferred purchase into a sale.

There are two additional advantages to job-loss insurance. The companies offering the coverage report very low redemption rates. Typically less than 2%. And companies forge a bond with consumers because they understand and respond to the things that worry consumers today.

Have thoughts you'd like to share about job-loss insurance? Please click here to comment.

To find out more about good marketing for the worst times – and for the better times to come – call BrainPosse at 865-330-0055 or click here.

Good marketing for worse times - Part 3

2009-08-02T13:07:00.014-04:00

Eight ways to succeed by giving away your product or service.

Although the end of the recession may be in sight, the recovery is projected to be slow and jobless. Employment may not rebound until 2011, and the average paycheck shrunk 0.5% from February through June. Customers are so reluctant to buy that some brands are giving away their products and services. Amazingly, they're making a respectable profit by doing that.

Just how depressed is consumer spending?

Gallup data show the 14-day rolling average of consumer spending on July 15, 2009 was 31.1% lower than it was on July 15, 2008. (The 15th was a Wednesday in 2009 and a Tuesday in 2008, so data are roughly comparable.)

Investment News projects a $700 billion drop in consumer spending in 2009.

December, 2007, (the official beginning of this recession) was the last time ChangeWave's consumer spending survey found more consumers who were planning to increase spending than those who were planning to cut back. By November, 2008, the numbers had gone to 59% planning to spend less and just 10% planning to spend more.

But some companies are still moving merch. Sometimes by cutting the price to free. Marketers have used "free" as an effective selling tool for a long, long time. And they're still devising new ways to make money by giving their product or service away. Here are eight effective ways to do it:

1. Give a free sample to encourage future purchases. When a Paleolithic merchant gave a homo habilis hunter a sample spearhead that proved effective at dispatching aurochs and mastodons, the hunter came back for more. When he did, the spearheads cost a beaver pelt or a haunch of bison.

Netflix is running the same type of offer today. Try a month free. If you like it, pay $8.99 a month to keep the service.

Props to the Paleolithic peddler who came up with a promotion that's still effective after two and a half million years.

2. Give a free sample to encourage immediate purchase of the sampled product. The principle is simple: take a taste or a sniff. Like it? Buy some.

The legions of ladies who used to spray perfume on passers-by in department stores were engaging in this kind of sampling.

There's a sample tray of some featured bakery item just inside the front door of most Paneras. In fact, the samples are usually strategically placed about halfway to the bakery counter. Hard to resist a cinnamon roll when you can still taste the sample.

Most supermarkets have someone somewhere in the store sampling something. Usually a sweet young girl or a lovable little old lady so shoppers feel mean not taking a bite of whatever they're sampling and picking up a jar or box of whatever it is.

A recent study by Knowledge Networks showed that in-store sampling increased sales 475% on the day a product was sampled. Interestingly, people who were sampled were found to be 11% more likely to buy the product during the following 20 weeks as well.

3. Give a free sample to encourage immediate purchase of a related product. Give part of a set and the folks who like it will but the whole set.

McAlister's Deli just ran Free Tea Thursday to sample their iced tea. No purchase required, just come in and have an iced tea on the house. The data aren't available yet, but we suspect very few people made the trip just to get a free tea. Every extra lunch McAlister's sold was additional revenue.

Theater chain AMC recently offered a free large popcorn to moviegoers. Naturally they had to buy a ticket to get to the concession stand.

4. Give a gift with purchase. Don't reduce the price of your product or service, but give a gift to enhance the value of the purchase.

Apple recently offered a free i-Pod with a back-to-school purchase of a Mac notebook.

Gift with purchase can also be a great mechanism to stimulate trial. Hardee's is doing that very nicely with an offer of free beer-battered onion rings with the purchase of an orange cream shake. Clever, because neither is a first-frequency item. (Those would be burgers, fries and Cokes, naturally.). So they're using the gift with purchase to sample two items the customer might not ordinarily try. That doubles their chances of a repeat purchase of one of them.

5. Give a gift to stimulate purchase. Back when workers stampeded across the street from factories to knock back a few cold ones at lunch time, bars offered free lunches. Very salty lunches, which added to the patrons' thirst. Those lunches were, of course, paid for by the profit on the beer. (Hence the expression, "There's no such thing as a free lunch.") Smart marketers know not to mess with something that works, which is why there are still free salty snacks – especially peanuts – on a lot of bars today.

Gillette is offering a free Venus Embrace razor online. Of course the razor is useless without the blades Gillette sells.

And the U.S. Army is giving away a video game, "America's Army," to attract new recruits.

6. Use a "buy-one-get-one" offer. As we all learned in marketing 101, a BOGO offer is a lot more beneficial than a 50% off appeal. The sale generates full revenue, and only the cost of goods changes. Marketing and overhead costs stay the same. So profit is higher.

Hardee's is running an excellent BOGO right now. They're offering a free Six Dollar Thickburger with the purchase of one. Since the burger is enormous, it's unlikely that one person could eat both. So the offer brings two customers into the store, and they each probably buy a Coke and fries. With luck, one is a new customer who will decide to return.

A side benefit of BOGO offers on frequent-purchase consumer packaged goods items is that customers have a lot of the product on hand. The more often people use a product or service the more habituated to it they become and the more likely they are to continue using it.

7. Get a third party to pay. This is the original broadcast radio and television business model. The consumers – the audience – get the programming for free. All the broadcasters' revenues come from advertising.

Now the model has migrated online. 63.7% of people who search the web do it for free on Google. Display ads and paid search pay for the service.

Electronics stores recently benefited from a federal government program which paid for converter boxes as on-the-air TV signals switched to digital.

8. Try the "Freemium" strategy. Free not-fully-featured versions of products and services can be an effective way to sell the full-featured versions.

Adobe gives away the Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition in hopes of selling Photoshop CS4.

The Wall Street Journal puts a small sample of each edition's content online for free and charges for access to the complete digital equivalent of the daily publication. More than a million subscribers pay $103 per year for online subscriptions. (The online Wall Street Journal is not a pure-play freemium strategy. Their premium subscription income is supplemented by advertising revenue.)

Last year Skype had $551 million in revenues from their freemium telecommunications service.

Chris Anderson, author of Free: The Future of a Radical Price, says an optimum paid percentage in a freemium strategy is between 10% and 25%. According to Anderson, that relatively low paid percentage is possible for online vendors because the incremental cost of production and distribution is zero.

1,832 free offers were posted on Freebiewatch.com the day this was written. You might find it worth a look to see what marketers are giving away, and how. There are a fair number of offers designed to get names for permission-based e-mail lists, a lot for "surveys" that gather data for targeting pay-per-click campaigns and a few obvious scams. But there are a substantial number of offers from legitimate businesses which have found a way to profit by giving away their product or service.

Got some other thoughts on free as a marketing strategy? Please share them in the comments section.

To find out more about good marketing for the worst times – and for the better times to come – call BrainPosse at 865-330-0055 or click here.

Next week:
Eight companies using job-loss insurance as a sales tool.

Good marketing for worse times - Part 2

2009-08-01T17:00:00.015-04:00

Eight ways to price your brand to survive during the recession.

When this recession started we – and a lot of other marketers – thought the strategies and tactics that had worked in past downturns would work this time, too. Some do, but there are also some very significant differences from the recessions of the past.

One big change is the importance of price. During past recessions, cutting prices has generally been a serious mistake. But in the present Great Recession, price cuts may be a necessity.

According to Bloomberg.com, the average paycheck fell 0.5% from February to June.

Ryan Sweet of Moody's says "Workers' bargaining power for wages is evaporating," and predicts "outright declines in wages."

Although the recession may be close to bottoming out, recovery will be slow. Employment isn't projected to increase until late 2010 or the first half of 2011. And family income isn't going to increase appreciably until then.

Since people have less money -- and are worried that they may soon have none at all -- price has gone from the fourth or fifth determinant in purchase decisions to first in many product and service categories.

If prices have to come down, here are eight good ways to do it:

1. Lower prices profitably. Cutting prices to an unprofitable level may be a faster route to extinction than losing sales because prices are too high. It's essential to lower the cost of producing the product or delivering the service so every sale isn't a net loss.

Burger King franchisees rebelled when the marketers at corporate decided to offer a double cheeseburger for $1. Turns out franchisees can't produce a double cheeseburger at that price, so they would lose money on every one. Not a real good recipe for survival.

Quiznos got it right. Instead of arbitrarily slashing the price of existing sandwiches, they concocted a sandwich they can sell profitably at a low price, the $3 Bullet. They lowered their average transaction value, but those transactions are still contributing to the bottom line.

2. Keep value in the equation. A low price won't sell a product people don't want in the first place.

Infiniti sales are down 37.9% through the first half of this year. And, like every other car manufacturer, they're banking on a summer sale to move some metal. But their approach is a little different.

Soon, commercial pods will be filled with thirty second spots with cheerful, enthusiastic folks urging us to take advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to save. (Well, maybe once in a lifetime if you're a fruit fly.)

Infiniti is running two fifteen-second spots in commercial clusters, sometimes back-to-back, other times separated. The first spot is brand sell, the second a sale message. According to Infiniti VP Ben Poore, "We thought we could improve brand perception but at the same time have a call to action."

No luxury car is going to have good sales this summer. Even Cash for Clunkers won't be much help, because of the mileage requirements for new cars purchased under the program. (No Infiniti models get the 22 MPG minimum.)

But we're betting that Infiniti's sales are less bad than the others. The campaign runs through August, so we should see how it worked by September.

3. Launch a low-price flanker brand. Instead of diluting a brand's quality/superiority perception with a lower price, launch a separate, less-expensive product.

In 1855, the wines of Bordeaux were classified into ranks. In the not-to-distant past, the top rank, the premiers grands crus classés, commanded up to $500 a bottle.

Most of that breathtaking price is prestige. And a lot is rarity, because the ranking system also specified how many cases of the rated wine could be produced each year. The idea was to keep quality up by preventing over production, but there have been tremendous improvements in viniculture in the last 154 years. The premiers grands crus classés vineyards now produce a lot more wine than they did in 1855.

That excess wine is sold at a tiny fraction of the princely sums it would fetch with the premier grand cru classé label stuck to the bottle. And it's sold very discretely. The vintners don't dilute the perceived value of their up-market brands by calling the excess production Son of Chateau Margaux or Chateau Haut Brion Lite.

4. Sell one item at a low price to sell another one at full price. Computers are very aggressively priced at Wal-Mart and Best Buy right now. And we're in the middle of the back-to-school computer buying season.

Why are these very savvy merchants selling computers so cheaply? Because they're counting on selling peripherals at full price. A notebook priced hundreds of dollars below the customers' price expectations creates the perception that all of the store's computer gear is a bargain, so customers don't bother to comparison shop when they add the printer and the external hard drive.

The loss-leader strategy has been used by supermarkets for years. A few items are priced at or below cost and promoted heavily in weekly ads, commercials and postings. Labor Day shoppers attracted by a great deal on hot dogs aren't likely to go elsewhere for mustard and buns.

Now the data from loyalty programs and a few simple algorithms let supermarkets tailor offers very likely to bring individual customers back the following week – and do it in real time, as the customers go through check-out lines. The hard-to-resist offers are delivered with the customers' cash register receipts.

5. Consider coupons. 94% of shoppers report using coupons sometimes, 76% say they use them regularly, and 60% claim to have used them more often in the past six months.

Coupons have changed significantly. After years of decline, The Wall Street Journal reports coupon usage is up 10% in the first half of 2009. Online coupon usage is starting from a small base (4.8% of total redemptions), but it's growing fast – 130% in the last year.

More important, the way marketers use coupons has changed.

Once coupons were used for pantry loading and trial. Pantry loading is the art of getting consumers to buy a lot of your product just before a competitor launches a new brand, so all the competitor's launch-weight advertising and promotion is wasted. The prospect already has a three-month supply on hand and doesn't need more. Trial is getting the product into the prospect's hands once so he or she will try it and, hopefully, decide to buy it again.

Now coupons are an effective way to give a brand's regular users savings without cheapening the product or service. The price isn't lowered. Just the cost to the consumer.

6. Offer a rebate. A money-back-after-purchase offer is better than a straight discount because there's almost always breakage. That is, not all of the rebates are claimed. Of course CFOs love rebates rather than discounts because the company offering the rebate gets to hold on to the money for a few weeks.

7. Let someone else give your customers a rebate. Rebates were a big part of car manufacturers' problems, but right now they're a tremendous opportunity. Because now the federal government is supplying the cash. Virtually every car company has declared itself "Cash for Clunkers Headquarters." It's a win-win-win-win proposition. The folks who trade in a gas guzzler get up to $4,500 off the price of their new car. The manufacturers move some metal. And the dealers get some desperately needed revenue. All courtesy of the taxpayers.

Insulation companies and door and window contractors are using money from the government to incentivize customers, too. Needs-based homeowner Energy Efficiency tax rebates of up to $1,500 can make home-improvement projects affordable.

Retailers use manufacturers' rebates the same way. A BrainPosse principal recently bought a printer at Office Depot. Cash back from Hewlett-Packard helped close the sale.

8. Bulk up. Sell a whole lot of product at an incrementally lower price. Most transaction costs remain the same, only the cost of goods increases. So try a big economy-sized package. Customers get your product at a lower cost per unit. And you get more money up front because they buy more initially.

And, of course, bulk bargains also have the two big benefits of pantry loading:

You lock up the customers' consumption in your product category all the time they are using up your mega-sized product.

You may habituate customers to your product over a prolonged period of use. In most product categories, between three and six purchase cycles do the trick. If an economy-sized package equals three normal-sized packages, that might be enough to establish a brand habit.

Got some other thoughts on lowering prices without losing brand equity? Please share them in the comments section.

To find out more about good marketing for the worst times – and for the better times to come – call BrainPosse at 865-330-0055 or click here.

Next week:
Eight ways to succeed by giving away your product or service.

Coming:
Eight companies using job-loss insurance as a sales tool.

Good marketing for worse times - Part 1

2009-07-30T14:20:00.018-04:00

Eight strategies from past recessions that work in this one, too.

In December, 2007, we published "Good Marketing for Bad Times," on the best ways to market in the recession which was just getting started . We thought that the strategies and tactics which had worked in past recessions would apply in this one, too.

Boy, were we wrong.

Turns out no one knew the impact this recession would have on marketing, because no one who works in field today ever experienced anything like it. Unless maybe there's a centenarian out there somewhere who's been moving the merch since October 28, 1929, and is still at it.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the economic free-fall slowed in the second quarter of '09, but the economy is still headed south. Unemployment will continue to rise even when the recovery finally begins. 7.2 million jobs have been lost during the downturn, and economists predict that unemployment will continue to increase even after the recovery begins. So consumer spending is likely to stay somewhere between pretty bad and horrible for at least another year.

This four-part series looks at ways marketers can survive -- and even succeed -- in the tough times that are still ahead of us.

In this article we examine the lessons from past recessions which are still effective at getting through tough times. Over the next three weeks we'll look at techniques particular to this once-in-a-century economic meltdown.

Here are eight proven strategies that worked in past recessions and will work in this one:

1. Hang on to the customers you still have. It's a lot cheaper and simpler to keep current customers and let them bring in new ones than to go prospecting in media for new customers.

One very valuable tool to keep current customers and gauge how likely your brand is to succeed is The Net Promoter Score. It's a simple metric: Customers are asked to rate their likelihood of referring a brand to a friend or acquaintance, using a scale of one to ten. The percentage rating the brand one through six is subtracted from the percentage answering nine or ten to determine the Net Promoter Score.

Higher scores correlate very closely to growth in category. It’s crucial to know that score. It’s also crucial to know what makes it high or low so companies can reinforce the qualities that elevate their scores or fix the problems that depress them. There has been disagreement on details, but other research confirms the relationship between NPS and growth.

2. Focus on share within category. It's difficult and expensive to move people from category to category. It's relatively simple and efficient to change brand preference within a category. So although there may be a migration of customers out of a category (from casual dining to fast food, for example), it's pointless to try to stop the trend. Instead, companies should concentrate on capturing customers who stay within – or migrate into – the category. It's smart to take on direct competitors, but it’s much, much tougher and more expensive to buck trends.

3. Stay with the existing brand position. (Assuming, of course, that the brand has a clear, focused, effective position.) Once a brand has established a strong position within its category, attempting to change that position is usually counterproductive. The brand's existing position is lost or diluted in the attempted change, and the new position is almost never established effectively because of cognitive dissonance with what the brand previously stood for. And it costs a lot more to change a perception than to reinforce one.

4. Don't change an effective marketing communications program. Like the brand's position, its campaign has momentum and equity. If the campaign works in good times, it will almost always work in tough times, too.

5. Do change a campaign that’s not working. The beginning of tough times is the perfect opportunity to change a campaign that’s not producing results. Competitors will probably cut budgets, so the brand's share of voice will go up, which makes it easier to establish a new campaign.

6. Cut the frills. Reinforce the essentials. Companies should drop the "compliments of a friend" ad in a golf tournament program, but sponsor tournaments of their own to strengthen their relationships with key customers.

This isn't the time to waste PR on the chairman's election to the opera board. Those resources should be used to promote a new product improvement.

Economic downturns are an ideal time to cut out the ineffective media many companies buy because the rep is someone's cousin's best friend. (Here's where the bad economy can be useful. The agency or marketing director can regretfully say, "Sorry, but these are tough times, so we had to cut back.")

7. Don't cut advertising. To quote The Wall Street Journal, ". . . companies that maintain or increase their advertising spending during recessions get ahead. A less crowded field allows messages to be seen more clearly, and that increased visibility results in higher sales both during and after a recession."

A study by the American Business Press Association showed that companies that maintained their advertising spending during downturns enjoyed average sales increases of 22% and average profit increases of 16% even during the difficult economic times. When the economy bounced back, they had a significant lead over their competitors.

A McGraw-Hill study showed that four years after a downturn, companies that maintained marketing communications during the economic slowdown typically experienced 14 times more growth than companies that cut back.

Although The Wall Street Journal, McGraw-Hill and the American Business Press Association share a strong interest in maintaining advertising spending, the Harvard Business Review doesn't. And its study had the same results.

8. Experiment. When competitors have pulled back, they're probably not doing much to improve their products or communications. So a new feature will have more impact. And a new, more intuitive web site will be more effective.

Obviously, it's important to stick with what works, but there's no better time to experiment and expand a company's range of effective marketing and communications tools.

Have more thoughts on proven ways to get through the recession successfully? Please share them in the comments section.

Find out more about good marketing for the worst times – and the better times to come. Call BrainPosse at 865-330-0033 or click here.

Next week:

Part 2: Eight ways to price your brand to survive during the recession.

Coming:

Part 3: Eight ways to succeed by giving away your product or service.
Part 4: Eight companies using job-loss insurance as a sales tool.

What if they gave an upfront, and nobody came?

2009-07-27T14:04:00.007-04:00

Broadcast TV networks used to sell 75% of their prime time commercial inventory in the upfront. This year they won't sell half that.

In May, 2007, our article "New Challenges for Old Media – Part 1: TV" predicted that 2008's upfront might be the last one.

We were mostly right.

There was an upfront this May. But instead of all the avails being snapped up at ever-escalating prices by the end of June, most of the broadcast networks' inventory is still unsold at the end of July. Even after some unprecedented discounting.

What happened?

TV is still the 500-pound gorilla of media. Adults 18+ watch an average of 309 minutes of non-time-shifted TV a day, according to a study from Ball State University's Center for Media Design. And total TV viewing time increased by 1.2%.

If the audience is still there, why aren't the advertisers? Nine main reasons:

1. TV is fragmented. Nielsen reports that U.S. households receive an average of 118.6 channels and watch an average of 17.8 of them. So even if advertisers kept spending at normal levels, their buys would be spread over many more channels. The days when three networks divided up the pie – and there was more demand for air time than commercial slots available – are long gone.

2. Advertisers have less to spend. Most companies' ad budgets have been cut. The bailed-out car companies budgets have been reduced by their government overseers. Financial services advertising has shrunk dramatically. Airlines are cutting back. Casual dining, leisure travel, retail and a lot of other categories have cut – or even eliminated – spending. Media behemoth Carat projects U.S. media spending will be down 9.8% this year. Zenith Optimedia is more optimistic. They're projecting a decline of just 8.3%.

3. Ratings are down. Although the total TV audience isn't shrinking, individual shows' ratings are down. The top-rated show in the second week of July – America's Got Talent – got a 5.1 Nielsen rating. Even the NBA finals – the best-rated show in June – only got a 6.0. A far cry from the days when "I Love Lucy" could get a 60.

4. There are other options. Digital's share of media spending is growing. Search, display, mobile, social and the other online advertising options are projected to grow to $25.7 billion this year. That's money that used to be spent in traditional media like TV.

5. TV is no longer perceived as essential. Procter & Gamble built a marketing juggernaut on heavy network TV spending. When a BrainPosse principal worked on P&G brands, 30-second TV spots were written, rewritten, tested, refined and meticulously produced over as much as 18 months. When the TV was set, executions in other media were developed as an afterthought. But this year P&G slashed its network TV spending by 44%.

6. Advertisers are afraid of TiVO. The networks' insistence on using live-plus-3 ratings is counterproductive, because advertisers believe that the "plus-3" part of the equation is worthless. They're probably overreacting, but as all agencies tell their clients, perception is reality.

According to Nielsen's most recent three-screen study, only 27.9% of viewers ever watch time-shifted TV, and just 4.7% of total TV viewing is time-shifted. TiVO and other DVR viewing is most prevalent for very popular scripted shows. "Grey's Anatomy" is the most time-shifted show of all, with 23.3% of the audience watching on their DVRs.

Nielsen also reports that only about one-third of commercials are skipped when shows are watched "plus-3." So advertisers aren't losing all that much of their audiences. The worst case would be about a 7.77% loss (33% of 23.3%) for spots on "Grey's Anatomy." But advertisers have a strong visceral reaction to their commercials being skipped.

7. There are fewer buyers. Every bank that was taken over, every retailer that went bankrupt, every casual dining chain that closed its doors meant one less national advertiser. Now the pharmaceutical companies may be about to go off the air for good. We don't have a definitive total, but billions of dollars of TV commercial buys have simply evaporated.

8. Chickens are coming home to roost. The networks have been high-handed since the times when three of them owned the nation's eyeballs. As a result CPMs – the cost of reaching a thousand viewers – have crept steadily upward to $30 and more. Even in this wretched economy, the nets began the upfront demanding CPM increases of up to 8%. Media planning/buying agencies and advertisers are getting a bit of their own back by simply not buying even after the nets backtracked to CPM reductions of 1-3% (openly announced) to 10% (reported by some gleeful buyers).

9. No one is afraid of scatter price increases. When networks sold three-quarters of their inventory during the upfront, the avails they reserved were used for make-goods (additional spots they gave advertisers to make up for any shortfall in promised audience delivery of an upfront buy) and to sell at higher prices in the scatter market (spots bought after the upfront). The mantra was "Buy now, because it will cost more later." And it almost always did cost more later.

The nets are chanting that same mantra today, but with a twist. They say they're intentionally selling fewer spots now because the economy is going to turn around in the second half of the year and greater demand will drive prices up in the scatter market.

Advertisers aren't persuaded. First, only about 20-25% of spot inventory used to be available in the scatter market, and some of those spots were needed for make-goods. This year more than 50% of spot inventory will be available in scatter. And because sales were so much lower in the upfront, there's much less network exposure to the possibility of audience shortfalls and therefore less need to reserve spots for make-goods. Many advertisers and media mavens are betting that prices will fall even lower in the scatter market.

TV's not going away. It's certainly not going to be done in by online advertising. (Remember, almost two-thirds of search is initiated by a stimulus from traditional media, predominantly TV.) Commercial ratings will change the way spots are conceived, produced and priced. The convergence of broadcast and online will continue and probably accelerate. Advertisers, networks and ratings services will eventually settle on a rating everyone can live with. And the Balkanization of the TV audience will probably reach equilibrium. The price of reaching TV audiences is going to come down and probably stay down. That will cause some angst at the networks, but it's a pretty good thing for advertisers.

Agree? Disagree? Have something to add? Please comment below.

Want more of out thoughts on media or any other aspect of marketing communication? Click here or call BrainPosse at 865-330-0033.

Smart moves in a crisis.

2009-07-21T16:43:00.005-04:00

Crisis public relations requires thinking on your feet. These four steps can help keep you from planting your shoe in something bad.

A public relations crisis can mean anything from a national brand disaster to one upset customer. And we are continually amazed at how well—or how poorly—these situations are handled.

While each instance is different, there are some fundamentals that apply to good crisis PR, and we thought we should share them.

1. Acknowledgment

Look at almost any crisis and the first step toward resolving it is for someone to take responsibility. Although legal counselors across the nation may be cringing right now, acknowledgement doesn’t mean responsibility or blame—it means indicating that the situation exists and must be addressed.

Acknowledgement more often than not translates to leadership—if you’re first. If someone else is first, say, the media or a competitor, they get the leadership garland and you get the denial label.

2. Understanding

Once an issue is acknowledged, people look for answers. Some of these may be out of your control, but if you have acknowledged the situation, you at least get a forum. Your comments on the situation need to be communicated in the language of the people listening. That may mean tailoring your message for affected parties, stockholders, employees, and others to create better understanding.

Please note that “tailoring” is different than “leaving something out.” With the transparency that is available today, missing elements of a message to one audience will get spotted quickly. But some groups won’t be interested in the technical aspects of the situation or extra background. Too much information can block what you’re trying to accomplish as much as too little.

3. Action

Depending on the situation, steps to address it may or may not be immediate. However, even if it requires assessement and mobilization, action can start with your communications. If you’re unsure of a timeline, it may be a good idea to offer regular updates, even if there is little more to report.

And take advantage of different media at your disposal. For example even if you’re not Twittering, search key topics on Twitter to see what others might be saying. This may help you shape future messages to build understanding.

4. Followup

After a crisis is over, conventional wisdom used to say stop talking about it. Now however, since reports on the situation will be archived online for eternity, it makes sense to look at additional communications to explain changes that the situation my have prompted, or to show remedies that might be out of the media eye. People who follow news stories will sometimes revisit them if they recall a detail. This gives you one more opportunity to influence these people.

To learn more about crisis communications, click here, or call 865-330-0033.

User-friendly friendships.

2009-07-13T15:29:00.003-04:00

There's an important common factor between your online and real-life friends.

Last week, we attended a joint gathering of advertising professionals and social network marketers. You’d think these people would mingle like crazy. No so. In fact, for most of the gathering, the event looked more like an eight grade dance, with each group standing on its own side, eyeing the other warily.

Ultimately, a few people from each organization ventured forth, and eventually everyone was interacting and getting to know one another.

What’s interesting is that many of these same people wouldn’t think twice about confirming a friend request online. And in fact, many were already online friends. But almost all were more standoffish in real life. And that says something about the difference between real friends and social network friends.

Anthropologists cite research that most people have a circle of no more than about 150 total “friends.” They usually consist of an inner circle of five "core" people and an additional layer of about 10. These 15 people (typically including family members) are a central group. Outside that, there’s another circle of about 35 close (but not necessarily confidant) friends. Beyond that, there’s another circle of about 100 people who are significant enough acquaintances to be called friends. That’s about as many real-life friendships as most people can handle cognitively.

Online, however, most of us know someone who has hundreds, if not thousands of Facebook or other network friends. It seems that many folks spend their time bringing people into their online circles, and take pride in the total numbers.

But that’s the exception rather than the rule. A Rapleaf study of social network sites indicates that the average number of online friends is more in line with what you’d expect in real life:

- 80% have fewer than 100 friends. (Women have on average 62 friends. Men have on average 57 friends.)

- 9% have more than 100 friends. (Women, 185, Men 172)

- Less than 1% have more than 1,000 friends

- .02% have more than 10,000 friends

All this comes back to the definition of “friend,” and how it might be different (or the same) in the real and online worlds.

Looking for the overlap

We suspected trust was the issue with our gathering last week that hindered people initially from talking to each other. Trust is a key factor for selecting friends in real world. It’s a little more lax in cyberspace, because most social networks only present the positive aspects of an individual. People aren’t as invested as they are with real life friendships, and there’s always the “unfriend” button you can use with minimal consequence.

But by using the word “friend” online (or “contact” as Linked In does), the perception is that we might have closer connections to our online acquaintances than we would acknowledge if we were meeting them face to face.

Take a look at this example: when asked whom would they believe most about a product or service, most people said their real-life friends first. That's natural. But the next most-trusted group is friends (or strangers) online.

An April 2009 Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey of over 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries found that 90% of consumers say they trust recommendations from people they know. The second-most trusted source of information (at 70%) is consumer opinions posted online (whether they knew the people or not).

This was equaled by brand websites (70%), then followed by editorial content (69%), brand sponsorships (64%), TV (62%), newspapers (61%), and magazines (59%).

Testimonials of any kind typically carry more weight than other types of promotions or content (see our post on testimonials here). But the level of trust placed on online friends or peers is noteworthy.

It may not be the same as a real-life friendship, but the trust connection is still valuable. And it can vary in different social network situations.

Mothers are an interesting example. Moms are especially active in social networks, and they tend to create two key friendship groups, real-life friends and “mommy” friends whom they may or may have not met in person. “Mommy” friends interact with social networks differently than they do with other social network friends, and in networks focused on mothers (like BabyCenter) 71% will share information that they wouldn’t on a more general network like Facebook.

B to B Magazine cites the example of a direct marketing maven who has more than 6,000 Linked In contacts, and who is using them successfully as a starting point to create conversation groups in different cities about marketing issues—groups that ultimately position him as an expert and a resource.

So there is a level of comfort and trust with online friends that marketers will find helpful in building business relationships. Here are some observations:

Online connections can be definite icebreakers for communications. Facts you learn about people in social networks are great for starting other conversations.
You can introduce your product or service into the conversation, but you can't force it. The moment you begin “marketing,” you violate the trust rules of the relationship. You’re better off suggesting a topic and letting others take it over.
Brace for the bad as well as the good. You don’t control the conversation, and you can get criticism. If you do, treat it as if it were coming from a friend and address the issues accordingly.
Be aware of different levels of “intimacy” with different networks. A broadbased network like Facebook will be less interested in details than a network focusing on a hobby or special interest.
Find ways to encourage comments, especially if you believe they’re going to be mostly positive. Again, testimonials are strong, even from strangers.

To learn more click here or call us at 865-330-0033.

Green vs. greenbacks.

2009-06-22T15:57:00.003-04:00

The bad economy impacts willingness to spend more for some eco-friendly products.

America's migration toward green products such as compact florescent bulbs and hybrid cars has become yet another casualty of the economic apocalypse that's now being called The Great Recession. After several years of uninterrupted steady growth, both categories have shrunk over the last year.

But marketing eco-friendly products isn't all bleak. Some product categories are holding their own, and others are actually growing strongly.

Compact florescent sales dim.

Compact fluorescents' share of the U.S. light bulb market has dropped from 23% in 2007 to 21% in 2008 according to Department of Energy data quoted in The Wall Street Journal. The Journal succinctly encapsulated the reason for the decline with a quote from a shopper buying bulbs: "I buy the cheap ones," Dallas resident Betty Ferrell said as she reached for a pack of incandescents at a local Wal-Mart store. "They may not be cheap in the long run, but they're cheap for what I have in my purse now."

At around ten times the price of incandescents, compact fluorescents couldn't sustain their momentum during the present downturn.

Compact fluorescents' declining share isn't surprising. Depending on whose data you believe, somewhere between 10% and 16% of consumers are hardcore eco-friendly shoppers who buy green even when green products cost more. A much larger segment – variously estimated at 23% to 25% of consumers – buy green products to save money in the long run. And investment spending on light bulbs for long-term savings on electricity has become an unaffordable luxury for many people these days.

Hybrid car sales hit a roadblock.

The same economic dynamics that have reduced compact fluorescents' market share have also sharply cut hybrid car sales.

In a 2008 J.D. Powers study quoted in another Journal article, 23% of consumers were "definitely interested" in a hybrid car. By 2009, after the price of gasoline dropped dramatically, only 15% expressed "definite interest." Then, when respondents were told that hybrid-electric technology would add $5,000 to a car's price, those still "definitely interested" fell to just 4.2%.

As the price of oil went from $140 a barrel at the time of the 2008 survey to $50 a barrel during the 2009 study, sales of the Toyota Prius (the gas-electric hybrid sales leader) dropped 46%.

Organic food growth slows.

Organic foods grew 116% from 2004 through 2007, but growth slowed to an annual rate of just 5.6% in 2008. That 5.6% increase means that organics' share of market was up only slightly in 2008, a year which saw a 5.1% increase in overall grocery sales. Compared to major food companies, organics lost ground. Del Monte's consumer food business was up 11.7% in 2008.

Of course, not all organic food purchases are motivated by environmental concerns. Just as many consumers buy eco-friendly products to save money, others buy organic foods because of perceived health benefits. That group represents roughly 25% of all shoppers. (Naturally there's some overlap between consumers who buy environmentally-friendly products to save money and those who buy them for health benefits.)

Surprisingly, the consumers who are cutting back on environmentally-friendly foods are the mostly upscale hardcore green households. In 2008 they cut unit purchases by 6.6%, but price increases in the organic food category has kept their spending about where it was in 2007. The category growth is coming from middle-income Hispanic families, who increased their unit volume 3.9% and their dollar volume 15.5% in 2008.

Eco-friendly cleaning products are cleaning up.

One category of environmentally-compatible products hasn't been hit hard by the recession. Green household cleaning products are doing extremely well. Green cleaning product sales grew 108% in 2008.

To some extent, eco-friendly cleansers, detergents and dishwashing soaps benefit from being relatively recent entrants in the mass consumer market, so they're still gaining adherents among the more committed environmentalist shoppers. SC Johnson's recently launched Nature's Source products and Clorox's Green Works brands generated growth in the category previously dominated by niche brands like Seventh Generation. (Although they're somewhat eclipsed by the major consumer package goods entrants, Seventh Generation's results are pretty impressive, too. They grew 50% in 2008.)

Post-consumer paper has consumers excited.

The next big surge in environmental products will probably come in the paper products category. Just as in the case of household cleaning products, the category surge will come as major, familiar brands bring these products out of the hardcore environmentalist niche and into the mainstream market.

Advertising Age reports that Scott is offering toilet paper, paper towels and napkins with 40% to 80% recycled content. Wal-Mart's store brand toilet paper, White Cloud, will be 100% recycled. And Kimberly-Clark is about to launch Huggies Pure & Natural, a disposable diaper with more natural ingredients and an as-yet-unspecified amount of post-consumer recycled content.

The energy-efficient light at the end of the tunnel.

Despite what it must seem like to many marketers and ad agencies these days, the recession won't last forever. When it's over, environmentally compatible products will see a significant growth surge. The indicators?

· Mintel, a Chicago market research firm, projects 19% growth for environmental products through 2013.

· Aric Melzel of Scott said "If you go back 10, 20, 30 years, other green movements ultimately have the air taken out of them by recessions... this time the green mind-set is much more solidified."

· Tom Vierhile of Datamonitor agrees. "It looks like the green trend is going to survive the recession." He believes that interest in green products has reached beyond the 10% to 16% who are hardcore environmentalists and has gone mainstream.

· The entry of well-known and respected consumer package goods companies like SC Johnson and Scott into the environmental-products arena will diminish the perception that eco-friendly products have lower quality than conventional products.

· The big CPG companies coming into the market will also have the economies of scale to drive down the price of green products, and 54% of consumers say they'd buy more environmental products if they were cheaper.

There's a lot of room to grow. Organic foods, for example, have just 3.2% of the total food market. The upside potential is tremendous.

A lot of companies agree with our optimistic outlook for green products in the near-term future. According to Advertising Age, launches of new green products are on pace to reach 1,570. That's triple 2008's level. And 2008 launches were double 2007's.

The present consumer base is relatively small, but the opportunity is big. Green products have a firm cadre of hardcore supporters and a growing contingent of mainstream adherents.

Green? Prove It.

2009-06-15T09:39:00.004-04:00

Consumers are confused and skeptical about environmental claims.

A recent study by Retrevo, a leading consumer electronics information web site, found that only 13% of respondents believe electronics manufacturers' green claims.

That dismally low number for may reflect the fact that it's hard to imagine an eco-friendly 50-inch plasma screen.

Claims of environmental compatibility by companies in other industries fare better. In a broadly-based study by the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship, 47% of respondents found companies' eco-friendly claims believable.

But even that overall 47% credibility factor for environmental claims is below the norms for advertising in general.

A study by University of Miami professor Don W. Stacks and marketing communications researcher David Michaelson found that 78% of respondents believe the claims in newspaper ads. Online claims are believed by 64%. Only radio, the least-credible medium studied with a 46% credibility rating, matched the low believability levels of environmental claims.

So why don't consumers give as much credence to environmental claims as they do to claims about the digestive efficacy of Activia, the low prices at Walmart or the stain-fighting power of new Tide Total Care?

Two reasons: confusion and skepticism.

Confusion.

Most consumers don't even know the meaning of terms used in environmental marketing communications. Even those self-described as green. For example, the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship study found that 48% of folks who call themselves green think earth-friendly products actually benefit the environment. Only 22% know that these products simply do less damage.

The most widely-acclaimed source of environmental information since Rachael Carson's Silent Spring was published in 1962 was Al Gore's book-cum-movie An Inconvenient Truth. The effort won Gore a Nobel Prize, but only 18% of American consumers read the book or saw the movie according to Yankelovich's "Going Green" survey.

More confusion? In BBMG's Conscious Consumer Report 23% of respondents say they have no way of knowing if a product is green or actually does what it claims. In fact, 7% named Walmart as the company that's most socially or environmentally responsible and 9% named them as the least responsible.

Joel Makower's "Whatever Happened to Green Consumers?" posting on eartheasy.com cites complexity as an important contributing factor to creating confusion about environmental claims. "Shopping with Mother Earth in mind is no mean feat, even for the most savvy of shoppers. After all, understanding the environmental implications of something as simple as paper versus plastic shopping bags requires digesting a fair amount of science, some of which is inconclusive, contradictory or simply arguable. Both, after all, come from limited, declining resources, can be made from recycled material and can be recycled. Which is better? Even scientists don't agree." He goes on to point out that most consumers never even consider the possibility of reusable cotton bags, which are clearly the most environmentally compatible way to haul groceries home.

Skepticism.

A lot of early eco-friendly claims were ridiculous – and obviously untrue. Remember biodegradable trash bags and ozone-friendly aerosols? Most consumers probably can't recall the specifics of those bald-faced frauds, but they do remember that environmental claims were exposed as shams. That predisposes those consumers to believe that other environmental compatibility claims are phonies, too.

That tradition of hyperbole – or outright prevarication – in green claims continues. In 2007 TerraChoice examined 1,753 environmental product claims and found that all but one were overstated, misleading or simply false.

Skepticism is also triggered by vague eco-friendly claims and smoke-and-mirrors misleading truths rather than outright misrepresentation. A recent study by The Sage Group found that "Consumers consider the authenticity and integrity of environmental claims to be essential, and they recognize greenwashing." The insecticide that touts "No CFCs" doesn't get much credence among environmentally-aware consumers who know that those compounds have been banned in the U.S. for years.

One result? Reticence.

Many companies avoid communicating about their environmental responsibility. In a January/February 2009 Fleischman-Hilliard study, more than half the marketing and PR professionals at companies which are increasing their sustainability initiatives don't plan to advertise or publicize the new efforts.

Part of that reticence about corporate environmental responsibility is due to marketers' awareness that consumers believe eco-friendly products have higher prices and/or lower quality than conventional products. According to Advertising Age,"...a vast majority of consumers said they believe green products cost more and don't perform as well as others."

A GfK Roper study found that 61% of Americans believe green goods perform worse than conventional items. That's a strong deterrent to communicating a products' environmental benefits.

The fear of overstating a green claim and being outed is also a barrier to capitalizing on companies' sustainability/eco-friendliness. And that's happening with increasing frequency.

Consumers regularly expose real or imagined transgressions on blogs and social media.
In 2007, complaints about misleading environmental claims to Britain's Advertising Standards Authority increased by 400%.
Just last week the FTC charged K-Mart with making "false and unsubstantiated claims" that it's American Fare paper plates are biodegradable. Actually, the plates are biodegradable in a compost heap. But not in the anaerobic confines of a landfill, where most paper plates end up. So K-Mart got slammed for greenwashing although their claim was technically correct.

That kind of scrutiny and exposure is a strong incentive for keeping mum about green claims to avoid inadvertently stepping over the line.

Who (and what) do consumers believe?

The BBMG Conscious Consumer Study found that consumers base their judgments on products' environmental compatibility on three main factors:

Consumer reports (in the generic sense, not just the magazine of that name.
Certification seals or labels (such as Energy Star)
Lists of ingredients on products

According to Yahoo's Green Study, trusted sources of environmental information are:

72% traditional media reportage (unspecified, but we suspect primarily print)
51% portal websites
47% TV ads
44% search
40% online user reviews
24% professional reviews
20% company blogs and websites

Except for TV ads, credibility seems to be the almost exclusive domain of third parties. Only one in four or one in five consumers believe professional reviewers or company blogs and websites.

There is one proven way for companies to enhance the credibility of their environmental claims without third-party endorsements: be specific. Use data rather than generalities. The Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship study found that 36% of environmentally-motivated shoppers would believe a paper product's claim of being "environmentally friendly," but 60% would believe a claim that the product is "made with 80% post-consumer recycled paper."

How to use environmental claims effectively

Whether or not to use an environmental appeal as the principal marketing communications message for a brand is an important strategic decision. We wouldn't presume to suggest whether or not it's the right direction to pursue without some digging and study of strategy. If you've done that digging and have decided that capturing a fanatically devoted 10% to 13% of the consumer marketplace would benefit your brand, here are some basic principles to apply:

Be honest. Actually, be more than literally honest. Don't use hyperbole, weasel words or preemptive claims of parity features.
Use any credible seal of approval you can get. An Energy Star rating, a Certified Organic seal or another reasonably believable imprimatur from a respected third-party organization.
Engage environmentally-conscious consumers with social media. There's going to be conversation about your brand. Be part of it. And be upfront about who you are.
Track your brand on social media and blogs.
Use traditional media. Newspaper has great credibility and TV ads are the third most trusted source of environmental information about brands.
Use public relations. Third-party stories and articles about your brand are almost always more effective than what you say about yourself.
Be specific. Use data to substantiate your claims.
Walk the walk. It seems obvious, but print your brochure with soy-based inks on post-consumer recycled paper. Your press conference should be illuminated with LED bulbs, or perhaps conducted online to eliminate the environmental cost of travel. If your headquarters is in the Southwest, make sure the CEO's boots aren't made from an endangered species.

To learn more about environmental marketing and communications click here or call us at 865-330-0033.

Shades of green

2009-06-08T11:16:00.003-04:00

Consumers' awareness of--and attitudes toward--environmental impact vary tremendously.

A recent Yahoo! study found that 77% of consumers identify themselves as "green." But only 57% claim to have made any green purchase in the past six months.

The Yahoo! study's results may have been skewed by an unrepresentative sample. They queried residents of New York, Chicago and Portland only. (And Yahoo's relatively small – 17.6% – share of search traffic might also have compromised statistical validity.)

Skewed or not, the 20 percentage point disparity between consumers calling themselves green and those who made even one green purchase in the last six months is telling.

And that 20-point gap may be optimistic. A Stanford University study found that only 33% of people are ready to make eco-friendly purchase decisions.

Two of the most popular green consumer ranking systems may help clarify the dichotomy between the significant majority of adults who proclaim themselves to be eco-friendly consumers and minority who actually are:

The Natural Marketing Institute's lifestyle segmentation provides an interesting model of consumers' attitudes and actions on environmentally-influenced purchase decisions:

LOHAS (lifestyles of health and sustainability) – environmentally engaged and involved, they buy green even if the products are more expensive: 16% of total population.

Naturalites – use natural products because of a perception of health/wellness benefits: 25%.

Conventional – want green products that save them money in the long run (such as compact florescent bulbs and high gas-mileage cars): 23%.

Drifters – not very concerned with environmental issues: 23%.

Unconcerned – environmental considerations don't enter into their purchase decisions: 14%.

Mediamark Research & Intelligence's study defined six categories of consumers' environmentally-related beliefs and actions:

Green Advocates – Environmental impact is a significant – often the most significant – factor in brand choice. They are also environmental activists/evangelists.
Green At Their Best – Environmental impact is significant. They choose green brands even if they're more expensive or less convenient.

Green But Only If – They think and act green, but not if choosing a green brand costs more or is less convenient.

Green In Theory – They talk the talk but don't walk the walk.

Green At The Supermarket – They buy organic foods, but more because of health and wellness concerns than for environmental considerations.

UnGreen – No interest in environmental products or issues.

MRI found some interesting – and occasionally counterintuitive – demographic correlations to these psychographic profiles:

Millenials (b. 1997-1994) were disproportionately UnGreen. They were 18% more likely than the norm to be UnGreen.

Older people were the greenest. Boomers (b. 1946-1964) were by far the most active Green Advocates, at 28% above the norm. Pre-Boomers (b. before 1946) were the most likely to be Green At Their Best, at 14% over norm.

GenXers were the most likely to be Green at the Supermarket, at 6% more than the norm.

National Geographic recently released their annual Greendex survey, and America was firmly ensconced in last place among the eighteen nations surveyed. Large developing nations, like India and Brazil, dominated the top spots. That may simply indicate that their people cannot afford the automobiles, energy use and solid waste which are within the means of people in more developed countries. But even among developed nations, we're dead last.

Apparently, despite our professions of environmental concern, we don't do much about it.

One reason for this disparity was pointed out by Joel Makower in an "eartheasy" posting: "Though polls tell us that most consumers prefer green products, the polls are misleading: they fail to ask the right questions. If I pose a question as a green versus ungreen choice...the answer is obvious: everyone prefers the greener choice. But if you probe deeper into consumer attitudes, the real answer is that consumers will choose the greener product if it doesn't cost more, comes from a brand they know and trust, can be purchased at stores where they already shop, doesn't require a significant change of habits to use and has at least the same level of quality, performance and endurance as the less-green alternative."

Makower's estimate of the green marketplace is significantly lower than the 64% total of LOHAS, Naturalites and Conventionals in the Natural Marketing Institute's matrix; lower than the 57% claimed in the Yahoo study; and even lower than the 33% in the Stanford research. Makower estimates green consumers – those who regularly seek out and buy green products regardless of how much more they cost or what lengths to which one must go to find them – at 10% to 12% of the total.

That number is reinforced by The Hartman Group, a Washington state research firm. Their studies estimate green consumers at 13%.

That small base of truly green consumers presents a marketing and communications challenge.

At first it might seem that a green claim couldn't hurt, since about three-quarters of consumers pay lip service to the idea of buying green products. But an article in the January, 2008, Harvard Business Review refutes that concept. According to "Don't Bother with the 'Green' Consumer," marketers should choose between an environmental appeal targeted to the small green consumer core group or a more generic claim aimed at a broader population. Their findings were that environmentally-targeted claims are relatively ineffective toward the population as a whole.

Our conclusion is that marketers must decide whether they want to capture a smaller core green group – who can probably be turned into fanatic supporters of a brand that promises and delivers green benefits – or use a more "What's in it for me?" approach to go after the much larger group, peripherally green consumers. Either approach can be effective, but you can't have it both ways.

At least not until America catches up with France and Russia in environmentalism.

We're a gregarious species.

2009-05-26T14:27:00.004-04:00

It's literally hardwired into human brains.

What on earth can explain Facebook's tremendous impact?

Just yesterday, friends posted results of quizzes that purport to determine what movie musical character, alcoholic beverage, color, book and animal they most resemble.

These are real friends, mind you, not just Facebook "friends." But although I know and like these people and enjoy their real-world company, I couldn't care less that some asinine quizzes have determined that they are Mary Poppins, tequila, green, Moby Dick and aardvarks.

And yet I continue to visit Facebook. I suspect you do, too.

Why? Human beings are hardwired to be gregarious. Literally.

Tucked away in our brains' anterior cingulate cortexes and frontal insulas are von Economo neurons, a special type of brain cell we humans share with great apes, elephants and whales. Neuroscientists believe that these cells predispose us to gregarious behavior.

Gregarious, not herd.

Herding – or flocking – species hang out together. Gregarious species interact with "...social emotions such as empathy, trust, guilt, embarrassment, love – even a sense of humor," according to Ingfei Chen's article about von Economo neurons in June's Smithsonian.

That predisposition to gregariousness goes a long way toward explaining the appeal of social media.

From the days of hunter-gatherer societies, large-brained primates (like us) worked in groups. One group hunted, another group gathered. Both groups came together at the end of the day with the game and the gatherings.

The primates and the work evolved, but activities have been mainly carried out in group environments from the days of the collective mastodon hunt to the assembly line to last week's budget review meeting.

Not everyone works in a group, of course. Most artists, assassins, prospectors, mail carriers and shepherds work alone. And hermitting is a solitary vocation. But those are exceptions to a pretty universal norm of folks working with other folks. At least until recently.

Interconnectivity has, ironically, made people less connected. A three-year old study found that 9% of American workers worked in home-based businesses, and another 10% telecommuted either full time or part time. Those numbers have been trending up ever since, with a significant – though not-yet-accurately-quantified – spike in the present recession.

We believe that now as many as 25% of American workers do their jobs in home offices or workshops. The BrainPosse team is linked online from our individual work spaces. In some cases even the home office or shop is eliminated. Our freelance IT guy works out of his car. He's got phone, text and internet access, so he simply answers calls for help and drives from rescue to rescue.

There are three obvious effects of this digitally-connected, socially-disconnected environment:

1. Overhead is reduced. There is little or no unproductive expense for office space.

2. Sales of business attire have plummeted. (Though bunny slipper sales have probably soared.)

3. The need for contact hardwired into our brains is unfulfilled.

The third effect is probably a pretty significant factor behind Facebook's impact. Because the posts that greet us every time we visit the site are exactly the sort of inconsequential chatter people used to exchange in the break room, at the water cooler or in the locker room where they changed into work clothes.

It's stuff like: "Teresa is being lazy this morning," "Brent feels like he slept on a metal octopus," and "Jonathan thinks he might go to the lake." (Actual posts that were up as this was being written.)

Most of us respond with "Enjoy it, Teresa. You've earned it," "Hope you get the kinks out, Brent." and "Jonathan, I envy you." Nothing earth-shaking. Just a little contact.

That has some implications for the use of social media as a marketing communications tool.

In a previous post, Social Media Advertising ROI, we explored the abysmal results social media sites deliver for advertisers. Display ads on Facebook don't work at present, and there's no sign that their near-total ineffectiveness is going to change any time soon.

In other posts – Social Engagement, last week's The Investment in Social Networking and The Virtual Social Animal – we examined ways in which marketers can use social media effectively by participating through postings.

And that's where the von Economo neurons come in.

A marketer's social media posts should be inclusive conversations. They should invite and encourage readers to interact, participate and become part of a community which also includes the marketer's brand. Ideally, followers of the brand's page should become a community whose members supply most of the dialog. The brand itself should be personified by the company people who participate in the conversation.

There doesn't have to be a big announcement in posts. In fact, there probably shouldn't be. If the brand is adding a new benefit, the company person posting begin with: "Long days for the last month trying to redesign the crankshaft for better torque. So far we know seven ways not to do it." Then later "Took two months, but we finally got it. Check out the new design here. Let us know what you think."

It's also important to respond to followers' posts. Not as a brand, but as a person. Making prospects part of a community that your brand is also part of can form a powerful bond that translates directly into purchase decision-making.

Sponsorship works.

2009-05-11T19:46:00.003-04:00

But only when you're selling to a dedicated fan base.

Coke, Ford and ATT each pay upwards of $50 million a year to sponsor "American Idol." Nextel committed $750 million to put their corporate name on NASCAR's Cup series races. Citibank is paying $20 million a year for naming rights to the stadium where the Mets play ball.

Do big-bucks sponsorships deliver commensurate results? A lot of research that we've seen says "No." The general public just doesn't care what brand sponsors which event.

But some recent data indicate that sponsorship may yield a tremendous ROI with one important given: that the target audience is made up of fanatic followers of the sport.

When the general public is surveyed, NASCAR sponsorship doesn't motivate brand selection. When the survey is taken at Daytona or Bristol or Texas Motor Speedway before a race, it's a very different story. Because the effectiveness of a sponsorship depends on how fervently the brand's target audience is involved with the content being sponsored. That content might be online branded entertainment, a TV show, a sporting event, a concert or a participatory event, such as a marathon.

Not surprisingly, people who are true fans can be very motivated by sponsorships. More casual fans don't much care. A NASCAR fan who goes to races is much more likely to choose sponsors' brands than one who watches on TV. A runner in a community marathon may form a positive impression of the marathon's sponsor. It's unlikely that anyone else in the community is knows or cares who the sponsor is.

When the involved and engaged fan or participant base is large enough, sponsorship can be a very effective marketing tool.

A 2007 study published in the Journal of Advertising Research tracked 28 separate internet content sponsorships by marketers including Intel, Sony and Volvo. It found that online sponsorship delivers higher ROI than TV, radio and print. Brands sponsoring internet content averaged 700% greater "intent to purchase" than the "intent to purchase" driven by a typical TV spot.

Those finds were recently reinforced by a 2009 study by the MPI Foundation:

26% of the senior marketing executives surveyed said event marketing is the discipline that drives the greatest return on investment.
53% reported that event marketing is the best tool to build relationships with the target audience.

There is a perceptible shift in sponsorship focus toward online content:

29% of marketers report that they will be shifting from event marketing to experience marketing this year because experience marketing's combination of live and online experiences enable more interaction with target audiences.
68% of respondents are investing in branded entertainment--44% specifically in online content sponsorship.

The study's co-author, Brian Murphy, of TBA Global, credits that shift to online's ability to offer "...strategic and programmatic use of relevant content or entertainment as a focal point to attract, engage and influence targeted audiences."

It may take a few more years, but online sponsorship may eventually rival NASCAR in bottom-line efficacy. And that's a pretty impressive benchmark.

A national telephone survey of 1,000 self-described "big" NASCAR fans by Larry DeGaris, Associate Professor of Sports Marketing at Indianapolis University and Director of the Center for Sports Sponsorship at James Madison University, concluded "NASCAR sponsorship is the best buy in marketing." Among the study's findings were:

96% of self-described "big fans" of NASCAR correctly identified Budweiser as a sponsor of Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (when their logo was on his car).
Unaided sponsorship awareness averaged 36% for the top 30 NASCAR Nextel Cup drivers.
Unaided awareness of official NASCAR sponsors averaged 48% across nine product categories.
51% of NASCAR fans feel that when they buy a sponsor's product, they are contributing to the sport.

Performance Research (a Newport, RI, sports research firm) interviewed 1,000 random NASCAR fans and found:

57% had a higher [level of] trust in products offered by NASCAR sponsors.
71% "Almost always" or "Frequently" choose a product involved with NASCAR over one that is not [involved] simply because of the sponsorship.
46 % of NASCAR fans would pay as much as 10% more to purchase NASCAR-sponsor brands.

Other sports sponsorships also deliver significant results:

The Performance Research study reported fans' choice of brands in relation to sports sponsorships in other sports:

52% of USTA fans choose products based on tennis sponsorship.

47% of PGA fans choose products based on golf sponsorship.

38% NBA fans choose products based on professional basketball sponsorship.

38% major-league baseball fans choose products based on baseball sponsorship.

32% of NFL fans choose products based on football sponsorship.

28% of Olympics fans choose products based on Olympic sponsorship.

The degree to which the target audience cares about an event – "American Idol," a NASCAR race, online content or a participatory event – determines the extent to which that audience will be influenced by sponsorship. A study by Professors Aron Levin, Fred Beasley and Tom Gamble, of the Northern Kentucky University of Management and Marketing, confirmed that fans who score higher on metrics of identification with the event score higher on behavioral brand loyalty. Multiply that "how much they care" metric by "How many of them are there" to reckon the probable effectiveness of a sponsorship investment.

Of course, integration of the brand into the experience is essential. From the Coke glasses on the American Idol judges' table to the Sony web sponsorship's interactive integration, effective sponsorship must be integral to the experience.

And, of course, it should be interactive.

Sponsorship works in the middle level of the Maslow hierarchy of needs: social needs/belonging. It's effective because the brand becomes part of a community to which target audience members also belong. That feeling of community should be carried over into interactive promotional activities that offer opportunities for the fan base to become involved with the brand in addition to their involvement with the sponsored content.

To find about more about leveraging sponsorship possibilities, click here or call 865-330-0033.

Ten things about Twitter.

2009-05-07T17:11:00.013-04:00

In 140 Characters or Less.

1. Twitter is intriguing and annoying. We followed individuals, companies, celebrities, and media. Constant updates are fun, but few worthwhile at that instant.

2. We wonder if media are suited for Twitter. Turned off NYT and Treehugger phone updates because tweet with every new article was tiresome. Easier to read websites.

3. Growth is impressive. Watched the Ashton Kutcher/CNN race to 1 million users 2 weeks ago. Kutcher now has 1.5 mil; CNN, 1.3 mil.

4. Top 10 on Twitter: 1. Kutcher, 2. CNN, 3. B. Spears, 4. E. Degeneres, 5. B. Obama, 6. Twitter (!), 7. John Mayer, 8. Jimmy Fallon, 9. Shaq, 10. Ryan Secrest.

5. Neilsen data (twice checked) shows 60% of Twitter users quit after a month. http://bit.ly/dX6b7 Ironically, this created a firestorm of tweets.
6. Companies ranked higher if there’s a passion for the product/service. Whole Foods is 28^th. But most tweets involve customer complaints.

7. Twitter has proven itself surprising valuable during crisis and/or real-time events. See the founder’s TED Talk. http://bit.ly/w9Xd2

8. Most power Twitter users aren’t on the website. They’re using programs like Tweetdeck or Twirl, which lowers Twitter’s web traffic readings.

9. The Twitter search tool is maybe its best feature, especially for tracking opinions/news in real time.

10. Twittering effectively for yourself or organization is work. Rule of thumb: 2 to 4 tweets per day. Do you have that much to say?

We’ll keep you posted as we learn more. Or if you'd like more details, visit us at www.brainposse.com.

A modest proposal for cable.

2009-03-30T09:34:00.015-04:00

Cable system operators howl like moonstruck wolves at the suggestion that they unbundle content. It could actually be great for them.

Think your cable or satellite company is gouging you? Maybe so, but probably not as much as you think.

That $100+ monthly bill for digital cable with all the bells and whistles includes the per-subscriber fees your cable company pays for most of the 175 or so channels they pipe into your home.

Some channels which rely on advertising revenues exclusively are free to cable system operators. A few, like QVC, pay to be carried. But most content is paid for on a per-subscriber basis. From around $3.00 for ESPN to 15¢ or so for some of the more obscure cable nets. That's not per household actually viewing the channel. That's for every single subscriber on the cable system.

The biggest chunk of a $100+ monthly cable bill is for channels that are never watched. The last time Congress took a close look at a la carte cable pricing, in 2004, folks only watched a fraction of the channels available to them. High-tier households with an average of 183.2 available channels watched an average of only 19.2. Those with basic tier service – an average of 15.4 channels – watched an average of just 5.5 of them.

That's a range of from 10.5% to 35.7% of available channels ever watched. Conversely, it means that somewhere between 89.5% and 64.3% of the channels subscribers are paying for are pure waste.

A lot of that money doesn't stay with the cable system operator. In fact, it barely slows down as it passes through the cable companies' coffers on its way to the content providers. Whether the subscribers are watching those providers' channels or not.

The sports fan watching ESPN is subsidized by the 75% of subscribers who never tune into the channel. Just as the sports fan subsidizes the foodie watching Rachael Ray on the Food Network or the preadolescent watching old sitcom reruns on Nickelodeon.

Unbundling means higher cable bills? Hogwash. That's what cable industry spokesfolks have been telling us ever since a la carte pricing first became a glimmer in a Congressperson's eye.

Of course that sports fan we mentioned might have to pony up $6.00 – or even $12.00 – per month for ESPN. But odds are she or he might drop The Wedding Network, Oasis TV (body, mind and spirit news), Philanthropy TV or The Puppy Channel (round-the-clock coverage of, and we quote, "puppies being puppies.")

Remember that 10.5%-to-35.7% viewing rate. Does it seem likely that 10.5% of the channels subscribers watch will cost more than that 10.5% plus the 89.5% they never watch? Or that the 5.5 channels low-tier subscribers watch would cost more than 15.4 presently piped into their homes? Not from our perspective. And even if it initially did, the anomaly wouldn't last long. Because as subscribers dropped individual networks, those nets would be forced to lower their prices to a level viewers considered a good value or they'd disappear.

Fewer networks? How terrible! Or is it? The same industry spokesfolks who warn of higher total costs for less content bewail the loss of programming diversity a la carte pricing would – they believe inevitably – create. Could Yesterday USA continue to stream an audio-only channel of old radio shows? Would Horse Racing TV still gallop into our living rooms? And Infinito? How could their coverage of unexplained phenomena be provided without a subsidy?

Actually, they probably all would still available. Because we suspect that they're among the many marginal networks that pay cable system operators to carry their programming or, at best, provide it free and rely on advertising for all their revenue.

And if they did, in fact, disappear, it might not be a calamity. Because if their audiences are not willing to pay for the content the networks provide and/or are too miniscule to attract advertisers to those nets, the networks aren't of any economic value. No one at BrainPosse would mourn the passing of The Gaming Channel. (And if anyone did miss them there are several other gambling sites to take up the slack.)

This was all academic in the era of analog cable. Individual channel addressability would have been a logistical nightmare, and probably would have driven the cost of providing service to astronomical heights.

But that's all over now.

Cable system operators are migrating subscribers to digital as fast as they can, and will probably eliminate the analog option before too long. With an all-digital system the same technology that lets the cable companies sell pay-per-view programming could be easily adapted to permit addressable channel delivery.

Think that's far-fetched? Leading-edge cable system operators are already selling geographically- and demographically-targeted audiences for commercials. Just put that set-up into reverse and a la carte programming is a practical reality.

Why should cable system operators embrace unbundling and a la carte pricing? We're mystified at the industry's resistance to unbundling content and offering a la carte pricing. Because cable system operators have a lot to gain and, if the change is done right, nothing to lose.

A la carte pricing eliminates flak about cost. No more public utility commission hearings every election year. Fewer nasty blog postings. Not as many negative editorials. Because with the cost of content stripped out, cable service looks a lot less expensive. Is ESPN extortionate? Let the subscribers howl at Disney. Or simply drop the channel.

A la carte pricing and unbundling ends hassles. The renewal of the ESPN contract is a recurring agony for cable system operators. Go to a la carte pricing and that agony's over. ESPN can charge whatever they want. If the price is too high, they'll lose subscribers. But the cable system won't. Is the NFL network willing to go to court to get on basic tier? They no longer have a case. There is no basic tier. Subscribers choose their content channel by channel.
Unbundling eliminates the heat over inappropriate content. We suspect that there's not a cable net out there that someone doesn't consider objectionable. But when subscribers can pick individual networks, it's a lot harder for them to complain about salacious, seditious, environmentally unfriendly or other pet peeve content. Worried about childhood obesity? Don't take The Food Network. Climate change? Drop the Speed Channel. Greed and ostentation? Don't subscribe to Wealth TV. It might be difficult for a demagogue to rant about violence on television when the follow-up question would be: "So why did you subscribe to The Crime Network?"
A la carte pricing provides another revenue stream. Cable system operators can let the cable networks set their prices, then charge the nets a fee for collecting from subscribers and passing the revenue along. A flat rate would be simplest. It would also reflect true costs, because it doesn't cost any more to put The Beauty and Fashion Channel into the pipe than HBO. A flat minimum against a percentage of the total gives the cable companies the best of both worlds.
Even free channels would provide revenue. A carriage fee could apply to free networks. It might be lower than the fee for paid nets, since there would be a little less back-room work. Unlike the present basic tier system, the free nets would have to be on an opt-in basis to deal with the inappropriate content issue.
Unbundling provides a new advertising sales opportunity. Fee-based cable networks would need to gain subscribers to increase revenue. Advertising-supported cable nets would need to build audience to be attractive to advertisers. The natural place for both to recruit viewers would be on cable. And if the cable system operators retained a little additional commercial time on the free nets (in exchange for their lower carriage fee) that time – plus the minutes they now get – would be a prime media vehicle for other networks on the system. Especially since addressable ads would let nets target their prime prospects precisely.
A la carte pricing will reduce churn. Churn, the regular loss of customers and the corresponding need to bring in new ones, is one of the banes of the cable industry. Recent studies have shown that many people will drop cable and keep the internet if the economy gets worse – or if the recession costs them their jobs. Of course the cable company usually provides broadband in addition to TV, so potential customer cut-backs wouldn't be a total loss. But with a la carte pricing, a customer feeling a bit pinched could cut a few channels and still keep cable. And with the pipe-plus-a-la-carte pricing model, the revenue loss to the cable company would be minimal.
Customers overwhelmingly want unbundled content and a la carte pricing. This potential benefit may not resonate with cable system executives. For quite a while the industry didn't much care what customers wanted. They were the poster child for customer-hostile service. But some companies are beginning to realize that reasonably satisfied customers are a good thing. And unbundling content and offering a la carte pricing will make the vast majority of cable customers happy. Not to mention those pesky Congress people and FCC commissioners.

Unbundling and a la carte pricing are probably inevitable. Smart cable companies will lead the change rather than be dragged into it kicking and screaming. Done right, the conversion to unbundled content and a la carte pricing could reduce cable system operators' hassles and increase their profits. And that's a nice combination.

Muddying the waters over transparency.

2009-03-16T11:38:00.013-04:00

Do you really need to tell all?

Are we ready for completely wired legislators? News reports over the last week not only covered President Obama’s address to Congress, but the fact that many members were busily thumbing away during the speech with Twitter posts.

How’s that for the democratic process in action? Instant feedback. And like a lot of stuff we say in the moment, there are a few things that our elected officials probably wish they could pull back.

Much of the instant discussions were what you’d expect—partisan or semi-partisan comments. But then again, there’s Joe Barton (R, TX), who thumbed “Aggie basketball game is about to start on espn2 for those of you that aren't going to bother watching pelosi smirk for the next hour.” A few minutes later, this message appeared: “Disregard that last Tweet from a staffer.”

You can continue mining nuggets like this by visiting http://www.tweetcongress.org/, which follows the 140-character messages of our honorable members of the House and Senate. (You can even sign their petition to encourage your own Congressmen and Senators to begin tweeting.)

Here are a few recent posts:

“This large March snowfall in DC is bound to play havoc w/the planned global warming demonstration. It's more than ironic.” (Dana Rohrabacher, R, CA)
“Only 38 more followers away from 3000. Thanks everybody! Who will be #3000?” (Barbara Boxer, D, CA)
“I'm depressed about my Tigers. And new HHS Sec nominee called to rub it in! Gotta go make dinner.” (Claire McCaskill, D, MI)

And if you want to see what’s happening in the U.K. with Members of Parliament, simply sign on to http://www.tweetminster.co.uk/.

Now, that’s not to say that instant response isn’t going to be part of the communications mix. It will, and it offers some interesting dynamics. John Culberson (R, TX) uses a tweet to link to a letter from Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Cabell written in 1816. Culberson says “Here is what the next American revolution will look like which we will lead w/ widespread use of social media.” (Culberson has 9025 followers currently.)

John McCain is now twittering (admittedly, with the help of staffers), and is broadcasting his Top 10 list of the “porkiest” projects in the Omnibus spending bill currently on the floor (His #1: $1.7 million for pig odor research in Iowa. What would have happened if he’d been that funny before November?)

McCain is by far and away the most followed legislator, with more than 119,000 people signed on to his posts. And he (or maybe his staffers) seem to be adapting well to using this tool to push his agenda.

However, from a communicator’s standpoint, it’s intriguing to watch people who have been rigorously trained to be very careful in front of TV cameras and newspaper reporters forget most of this when they’re looking at their phones and rattling off whatever comes into their heads.

That’s why we’ll quickly see a retro-revolution where legislative tweets start disappearing or become slightly more boring than watching C-Span. Because some of these comments are going to come back to haunt people.

And that’s something to consider in your marketing communications: Are there tweets, status updates or invites on Facebook, or other types of electronic messages going out about your company that can help—or hurt—you?

In the past, a verbal misstep (even one on TV) could be damaging or embarrassing for a few days. But since pretty much everything now goes into the digital archive, it’s there for anyone to recall whenever it might suit their interests.

And if you think it’s a little astounding that politicians can communicate in 140 characters or less, imagine how difficult it can be to clarify a comment in the same amount of space (you could blame it on a staffer maybe).

Our previous post, “The Shelf Life of Information” (link) covers how news reports continue to have a small but steady readership for sometimes years after they are published, thanks to electronic archiving. Even the best organizations will likely contradict themselves if you lay out a long enough timeline (because of management changes, product improvements, or any of a number of other factors). Now, add in spur-of-the-moment comments, and it’s pretty easy to predict that somebody, somewhere, is going to say something that creates problems.

Transparency is an issue that we’re still coming to grips with. We want it, but most people and organizations have information that should be kept behind closed doors—product secrets, legal issues, or (just as often) stuff that nobody else really wants to hear. (Do we care that Claire McCaskill is depressed about Missouri’s basketball team and is going to make dinner?)

The rules of communications that apply to reporters and news media should be considered (although maybe a little more liberally) when using short-form social messaging. Not doing this puts your organization (or you personally) at risk.

The dot com bubble redux.

2009-01-26T09:33:00.006-05:00

Nine years ago, internet stocks deflated. This time it's internet advertising.

We don't track individual visitors to the site, but queries we've gotten tell us that some readers are too young to remember the bursting of the dot com bubble in 2000 - 2001. The next section will bring them up to speed. Those of you who were witnesses to – or victims of – the events that followed March 10, 2000, might want to skip down to Resume reading here (link). Because memories of the first internet collapse can be pretty painful to folks who still have a stack of Pets.com stock certificates somewhere in the back of a file drawer.

The first dot com bubble. Contrary to popular belief – and his assertion – Al Gore didn't create the Internet. It was actually Dwight Eisenhower. In 1958, Ike created the Advanced Research Projects Agency which developed the wide area network (link) linking universities and research centers that evolved into today's Internet. It took eleven years to get the first network up, and the following year only five places were connected. But growth was exponential, and by 1995 there were 16 million people online. That's when things really took off.

Holland's 1634-1637 tulip mania had nothing on Silicon Valley's 1995-2000 dot com bubble. The Dot com startups' business model was to operate at a loss – sometimes with no revenue at all – to build size and share of mind. Investors and venture capitalists shoveled money at them as fast as the digi-gurus would deign to take it. NASDAQ peaked at 5132.52 on March 10, 2000. Then things took a turn for the worse.

Inktomi stock fell from $241 in 2000 to $1.63 by the time Yahoo bought them out in 2002. Webvan turned $1.2 billion in market capitalization to zero between 1999 and 2001. Shares in eToys.com went from $84 in October, 1999, to 9¢ fourteen months later. In all, more than $5 trillion in market capitalization – and a lot of companies and careers – disappeared in the dot com meltdown. Turned out that "no revenue, but lots of users" wasn't a sustainable business plan after all. For the next two years the big news about dot coms was their disappearance.
Resume reading here. So now we're past 2002, and the Internet is growing again. But now the growth is incremental rather than exponential. And most of today's dot coms actually have a business plan. The plans fall into two main categories.

Some that are working include:

Selling content. Dozens of B-to-B subscription information sites are viable businesses. Rhapsody and iTunes sell streaming music or downloads.

Selling products or services. Amazon and other pure-play e-merchants are the hottest retailers out there after supermarkets and drug stores.

Selling clicks. Feeding customers to on-line merchants with pay-per-click and pay-per-action display ads and videos (whether contextually or behaviorally targeted or simply scattered at random to a site's visitors). As long as the click is aimed at a direct retailer, this model is valid. It breaks down in branding. (See below.)

Selling search. (OK, this mainly works for Google, but it really works for Google.) Putting a brand's site near the top of the column with paid search can make a tremendous difference in traffic precisely when the audience is interested in the product category. This is the strongest area of Internet advertising – the only one that's actually up this year.

Selling listings. Provide comprehensive listings of product categories and taking a percentage of the sale or a sales fee. Works for e-Bay and Expedia. A close cousin is facilitating the sale, as Pay Pal does.

The successful online business models all share one key characteristic: they are transactional. That is, they focus on driving a single, immediate sale or providing a particular piece of information. That's what the Internet is best at. Creating preference, not so much.

What's not working:

(Read more at http://www.brainposse.com/.)

Trust me.

2009-01-22T08:59:00.005-05:00

Four factors that help con artists succeed are also effective in marketing.

A recent Wall Street Journal article identified four factors that make otherwise intelligent people susceptible to swindles by con artists like Carlo Ponzi and Bernard Madoff.

In the unlikely event that you are an aspiring scammer, please stop reading now. We don't want to give you tools to gull the unwary.

But if you promise to use these four powerful levers of persuasion only for good, read on. Because we definitely do want to give you tools to build your brands. And these behavioral triggers can be as effective in law-abiding marketing endeavors as they are in nefarious schemes.

Situation. Ponzi and Madoff both used situational selling – especially modeling behavior – in their cons. They sold to groups, and created a sense of urgency within the groups to get in on the supposed sure thing. In Ponzi's case it was recent Italian immigrants, in Madoff's it was very affluent, primarily Jewish, members of up-market country clubs. Despite the difference between the two socio-economic groups, the swindlers' basic techniques were the same

Present the "opportunity" to other members of an affinity group. This creates a social pressure to accept the offer, since people tend to want to accommodate – and tend to trust – their friends and acquaintances. Carlo Ponzi was an Italian immigrant who bilked his fellow Italian immigrants. Bernard Madoff was a wealthy, socially prominent Jew who bilked his fellow wealthy, socially prominent Jews.
Use the group dynamic to make the marks feel they would be left out if other group members took advantage of the offer and prospered while they (the marks) were left behind.

The social pressure and modeling behavior that made Ponzi's and Madoff's "opportunities" hard to resist can be used effectively by marketers:

Parties and peer-to-peer selling generate $2.4 billion in annual sales for Mary Kay Cosmetics, $1.9 billion for Tupperware and $3.5 billion for Herbalife.
Jagermeister was launched in the United States by teams of attractive Jagerettes visiting bars and to entice highly hormonal young men to try the herbal liqueur. The Jagerettes made it a test of manhood to actually down the apparently vile-tasting stuff.
Social media, while not effective as advertising vehicles, are extremely powerful when used for peer-to-peer communications with the brand as an overt peer in the conversation. The most powerful recent example: brand Obama.

Cognition. The rational mind has amazing power. Perhaps because that power is carefully conserved and seldom used. The willing suspension of disbelief which is necessary for the success of plays, films, reality TV and some cable newscasts is also an essential component of swindles.
As we discussed in an earlier article, "Is Neuromarketing Making You Crazy? the instinctive inner brain and the emotional middle brain make many more decisions than the rational outer brain.

Ponzi, Madoff and other pyramid scammers rely on their dupes willingly shutting down rational cognition and ignoring the often-proven maxim: "If it sounds too good to be true, it is." There are two key tools they use to get the victims-to-be to switch their decision-making function from the cerebrum to the cerebellum or limbic system:

Identify and promise to fulfill a deeply felt need. In Ponzi's case, poor immigrants wanted to climb up from the lowest rung of the socio-economic ladder and escape the tenements of Boston (and later cities throughout New England and the Middle Atlantic states) to a better life. In Madoff's scam wealthy marks wanted to assure a stable, comfortable income from their investments.

Offer proof of performance. The inner brain is impulsive but suspicious. The whole structure of a pyramid scheme is designed to lull those suspicions, as early "investors" are paid with either their own money or the money of people drawn into the scam later.

Both principles work in the less-predatory arena of marketing as well. In fact, they're the basis of some of some very strong success stories:

From the dawn of the television era to the present, adolescent and early-twenties males have bought grooming products to become attractive to – and successful with – women. In the 50s Wildroot promised "You'll have a tough time keeping all the girls away" if you used their product. Today Axe Vice makes much more titillating claims. Young men will always ignore massive implausibility in the hope that a grooming aid might make them irresistible.

Hair goop and body sprays aren't alone in using a strongly held desire to overcome rational disbelief if the prospect wants the benefit badly enough. Thousands of other brands, from the Home Depot to Extendz, overcome rational skepticism by persuading prospects to believe that their yearnings are actually attainable. Home Depot's "You can do it, We can help" tantalizes the pathologically unhandy BrainPosse principal.
Proof of performance used to be the mechanism inside all consumer package goods commercials. A thrilled housewife would hold up two towels and gleefully proclaimed that the one washed in Tide was noticeably whiter, or a survey would confirm that one group had fewer cavities. That same principle is at work today in beer commercials' calorie counts, thousands of ads and commercials featuring testimonials from real users and user-generated content on both social networks and the websites of smart (and brave) companies.

Personality. The Journal article dealt with the personality of the dupe, but personality is a two-edged sword in this case. The personality of the swindler is also important.

The ideal personality for scam victims is optimistic and nice. Someone who hopes for the best and doesn't want to disappoint anyone – not even a shill trying to sell them something. Interestingly, the longer a sucker spends with the shill, the more likely she or he is to buy. Not necessarily because the pitch has become more persuasive over the intervening time, but because the sucker doesn't want to disappoint the shill who has spend so much time pitching the proposal.
The preferred personality for a swindler is charismatic and similar to that of the victim. Madoff was a generous philanthropist, extremely well-connected in financial circles. His victims actively sought out his acquaintance. Some joined very expensive clubs simply to meet him and gain the opportunity of "investing" with him. Ponzi was a flamboyant, oversized personality. As is often the case with socially disadvantaged groups (and recent Italian immigrants were definitely socially disadvantaged in the early years of the 20th century), group members loved seeing one of their own make it big – and flaunt it. And Ponzi certainly did that. His mansion had air conditioning and a heated swimming pool, almost unimaginable luxuries at the time.

Personality is critically important in brand marketing. Whether it's the personality of the perceived user, the personality created for the product of the personality of the target audience, personality can facilitate a sale – or kill it on the spot.

The personality of the perceived users of the product tells potential purchasers if the product is right or wrong for them. It seems as if no one is in the market for a new car right now, but if they were, very few people would consider a Buick. Not because it's a bad vehicle. On the contrary, it's recent quality reports have been quite good. But Buick doesn't make it into the consideration set because it's seen as an octogenarian's car. And even as our society grays, no one wants to be though of as an octogenarian. On the other side of the equation, people line up to pay twice as much for Apple products as for other brands with similar capabilities because Apple products make the user part of an elite sub-segment of society.

Products also have intrinsic personalities. Quick, name a battery brand. You said Energizer, right? The Energizer Bunny personifies both the brand and its benefit. It just keeps on working. Quick, simple, memorable and effective. Wish we'd thought of it. How 'bout the Coke polar bears? Or the Geico Gecko? They give the product character and powerful memorability. And, of course, a likable personality.

Target audiences also have very distinct personalities. One of the most powerful beer campaigns ever was based on targeting the reparative personality type, the personality of the heavy beer drinkers who chug 80% of the suds sold in this country. The "Miller Time" campaign leveraged the reparative personality type's feeling that they're the muscle that builds the country and are under appreciated. The campaign was a paean to their labor and contribution. It resonated so powerfully with the group that it took Miller High Life from outside the heavy beer drinkers' consideration set to a strong number two in the market behind Bud.

Emotion. Ponzi's and Madoff's schemes' success was due in no small part to the strength of the emotions they engendered in their target marks:
Excitement. Having one's financial wishes fulfilled is pretty exciting stuff. To the poor immigrants upon whom Ponzi preyed, the prospect of escaping from a constant struggle for financial survival and achieving a measure of security and prosperity was very exciting indeed. To Madoff's wealthy "clientele" a generous (but not suspiciously excessive) and steady return on their capital provided a supposedly carefree stream of income for life. Pretty exciting stuff.
Fear. Both swindlers' dupes were afraid of missing out on an opportunity. They saw associates getting the apparent benefits and didn't want to be excluded from the seeming bonanza.
Pride. The folks who forked over their money to Ponzi and Madoff thought they were pretty smart. Certainly a lot smarter than the silly people who were missing out on the chance to secure their financial futures. They were proud of what they were doing.
When the BrainPosse principals were neophyte apprentices, we were taught that making an emotional connection between consumers and a brand was much more effective than merely persuading folks that the brand offers a rational benefit. True then, true now. Amor vincit omnia has worked since the days of the Roman empire. Love conquers all. Even tepid affection isn't bad. In fact, negative emotions can be powerful motivators, too. Emotions are certainly effective in marketing.

The bond between a biker and his Harley can only be described as love. And despite their current slowdown as the recession grinds on, Harley has benefited tremendously from the passion and intensity of that bond. Plus they get some free advertising when their customers get Harley logo tattoos.
Loathing is almost as good as love. In 2008 election spots the Obama team always referred to their opponent as the Bush-McCain government. Tying McCain to Bush's dismal public approval was a very effective tool.
Home alarm system commercials are based on fear. The spots always feature an intruder setting off the alarm and being foiled by the system's loud bell. Usually when just a woman and child are at home.
Emotions happen in the middle brain, and tend to overrule the rational musing of the outer brain. If we can make folks love our brands – or dislike the competition – we can sway purchase behavior.

Tools of persuasion aren't good or bad in and of themselves. They're like a speeding car. It can whisk robbers away from a bank holdup or take a woman to a hospital to give birth. The good or bad depends upon the use to which they're put. The tools that swindlers use to ruin their dupes' lives are the same ones we use to sell useful products or to get people to contribute to the United Way.

More news outlets. Fewer news sources.

2009-01-12T09:22:00.003-05:00

We now have 24 hour news channels, scores of news websites, and thousands of news oriented blogs. Does than mean we're getting more news?

Actually, no. And that has an impact on your public relations efforts.

There's a great presentation at ted.com by Alisa Miller, CEO of Public Radio International, that breaks down U. S. news coverage for the month of February 2007. Ms. Miller notes that in a month where news included major stories such as North Korea dismantling its nuclear facilities, flooding in Indonesia, and new studies that proved man's impact on global warming, one particular story dominated U.S. airwaves and websites:

The death of Anna Nicole Smith.

Her death was covered more than news about any country except Iraq, and garnered 10 times more coverage than the global warming study.

News networks are shrinking. U.S. news resources have reduced their foreign bureaus by half, and virtually no American news bureaus exist now in Africa, India, or South America. We get more news about Anna Nicole and Britney because it is much cheaper to cover those stories, and because they draw bigger U.S. audiences.

Is this a danger? In an increasingly interconnected world, it seems so. And it can have tragic consequences. Christiane Amanpour recently did an amazing documentary for CNN called "Scream Bloody Murder," in which she traces the history and consequences of major genocides events in the 20th century. One observation: Many Americans didn't notice the early nineties genocides in Rawanda because of news outlets' focus on the O.J. Simpson trial, which likely delayed international response.

Interestingly, studies show that 52% of Americans now say they closely follow overseas news (up from 37% a few years ago). But studies also show that American college graduates today actually know less about world events than their counterparts of 20 years ago.

We think we have more news. We do have more resources, but we are focused on fewer news stories. And this is something marketers need to be aware of, particularly as they implement public relations programs.

Where do we get our news? A Pew Research Center study shows this breakout:

Local TV news 70%

Local daily paper 55%

Network evening news 45%

Fox News Channel 42%

CNN 39%

Network morning shows 33%

Public radio 28%

Google, Yahoo, etc. 23%

News magazines 22%

TV news websites 21%

When you look at this, consider that many local TV news sources have disappeared. One local station's newscast may be broadcast on two local channels, as the smaller station cuts out the major expense of running its own news department. Then look at how newspapers are shrinking.

And studies show that online news sources are mostly pickups of wire service stories.
It's not just general news sources, either. Specialty and enthusiasts news is also shrinking. Shelter publications (home and living magazines) were once considered recession proof (people cocooned during tough times and spent more on making their homes look nice), but a number of major titles have folded and ad pages are down double digits.

Almost everywhere, we think we have more news sources. But a close look suggests we may actually have less. Because with limited staff and fewer pages, many outlets may not have the people or space to pick up the story on your company.

That doesn't mean you can't get your story told. You may have to approach it differently than in times past. Here are some thoughts:

1. Tailor stories to news outlets. In the past, one press release might do. Now you may need more, tweaked to fit the style, length, and content direction of outlets that are important to you. You've probably already done this some; now you may have to do more. This can also help the publication that's short staffed. (Be careful about favoring one competing source over another; try to give each something unique.)

2. Figure the shelf-life of your story is shorter as "news," but longer as reference. A story that gets picked up may only be front page on a news website for a few hours. But it has almost a permanent presence on the web afterward. Search for additional places to link your story--blogs, second-tier sources, etc. That improves its visibility in search.

3. Maintain your own newsroom online. Editors will search for related stories more than anyone, and we often see months-old stories get active again when a reporter is working on a similar piece on the same topic.

4. Distribute stories to key audiences yourself. It's easy enough to have a database of key customers and prospects. Make sure they get copied in. One phenomenon: Many people who read your news release now will later think they saw it in a publication or on the news.

5. Help reporters do their jobs. Remember, there are fewer of them working longer hours. Giving them tips or background on stories they're covering, even if the stories don't include your company, can be greatly appreciated, and you'll get a more sympathetic ear later when you pitch your story.

If you’d like to know more, get in touch with BrainPosse by clicking here or calling (865) 330-0033.

The nebulous universe of "out there."

2009-01-05T10:34:00.011-05:00

People seem to go there a lot. Does it do them any good?

For some reason, we have heard the phrase "getting your name out there" with surprising frequency lately. In this market, we're concerned that it's not enough.

We admit that "getting your name out there" is a common expression (Google it and you'll be surprised at how flexible it's used). But for those of us who like to plan and measure the results of marketing communications, hearing companies use it is like the sound of fingernails being dragged down a chalkboard.

Because especially in today's market, getting your name out there may not be enough.

Right now, ever marketing dollar has to count, and it has to be used efficiently. Smart marketers are already taking long looks at line items that don't yield a good return on investment, and they're setting them aside. Honda Motorcycles, for example, has cancelled the 2009 "Honda Hoot," an annual motorcycle rally that brought 15,000 riders from all over North America and generated millions of dollars in revenue for its host city. The "Hoot" was labeled one of the "Top 10" motorcycling events of the year by enthusiasts magazines. By all accounts, it was a major success.

Except for sales. Most of the people who came had already bought upscale Hondas and equipment from the factory. So Honda is looking at different ways to connect with riders who don't already own their motorcycles.

But isn't any publicity good for you? Isn't one of the best things that can happen is for something about your company to go viral and be passed along (for free) to thousands of others?

It depends.

If it is notoriety without a specific purpose, chances are that it doesn't do you as much good as you might think. Take Paris Hilton and Hardees/Carl's Jr. The restaurant chain spent $8 to 10 million to have the heiress hold a hamburger and wash a car. It was a sensation. There have been millions hits for the commercial on YouTube and other websites. The spot created lots of controversy and generated tons of publicity. It could be considered a textbook example of taking a paid commercial and leveraging news coverage and viral interest to get the name of the burger joint "out there." (We know a lot of you want to see the spot--again--so here's a convenient link.)

But as a marketing tool, the numbers say it was a flop. It only generated about $1.1 million in increased sales. Hardees/Carl's Jr. certainly got their names "out there." But it cost a lot of money with very little measurable return.

Hardees/Carl's Jr. made several mistakes with the idea. For more, see our postings "Sex doesn't sell" and celebrity spokespeople. What makes promotion worthwhile is when its done for a clear marketing purpose with results that can be measured and evaluated. That doesn't mean you're limited on your creativity or tools. It just means that you should concentrate on things that can truly help your business.

What makes promotion worthwhile is when its done for a clear marketing purpose with results that can be measured and evaluated. That doesn't mean you're limited on your creativity or tools. It just means that you should concentrate on things that can truly help your business.

For an example, we'll go back to blonde bombshells for a moment. Jessica Simpson was an also-ran in the world of pop princesses behind Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. Unlike her counterparts, she didn't make the Mickey Mouse Club roster. Her albums fluctuated on the charts. An Esquire magazine article explained how one of her music videos had to be completely rescripted because she showed up on the set 15 pounds heavier than what she told the director. In the world of blonde starlets, where the typical half-life is remarkably short anyway, Jessica looked like an early fadeout.

But she changed all that. By becoming the über blonde.

When the world discovered that Jessica thought that Chicken of the Sea tuna was really chicken, word spread like crazy. Here was a girl that defined dumb blonde, and we had the proof in a web-friendly format. A career that had been on the rocks suddenly became part of the pop culture pantheon and Jessica has since earned millions.

Was the Chicken of the Sea incident planned or an accident? We're guessing that there was strategy behind it. But in either case, it worked because it wasn't just getting Jessica Simpson's name out there--it was defining who Jessica is in a way that could be marketed.That's the key. You are not conducting marketing communications:

To be loved. Some of the most despised ads of all time are the most effective.
To simply get attention. The Tennessee Valley Authority has gotten plenty of attention for the last couple of weeks thanks to a massive ash spill. It's not something they wanted.
To just "get your name out there." Publicity and promotion with purpose can work wonders for you. Without the purpose, though, you could be wasting a lot of time and money.

When we quizzed some of the folks who told us they were "getting their name out there," we (and sometimes they) discovered that often what they were doing was indeed sound marketing. But "getting your name out there" is not a starting point. Deciding how marketing can help your business (and how to measure it) is.

Five Favorites

2008-12-22T08:55:00.004-05:00

Readers choose some of our best articles from 2008.

Happy holidays from all of us here at BrainPosse. To celebrate the season, here are five of our best marketing articles from this past year, according to readership.

Good marketing for bad times.

Since we published it at the end of LAST year, it's been a top 10 read each month.

Switching sides.

Research on how our minds work was so compelling that we decided to redesign our website.

Geezers got it going on.

Today's hot market is old people. Because that's where the money is.

Love or money? Some advertisers make a really stupid choice.

In The Prince, Machiavelli said it was better to be feared than loved. In advertising, profitability is a better outcome than affection.

ROI Revisited.

Our favorite marketing metric. And one that prompts lots of discussion.

The price is right after all.

2008-12-08T11:13:00.005-05:00

An earlier article said price is seldom the main factor in purchase decisions. Oops.

Despite the apparently unshakable belief among less-sophisticated retailers that price is the first factor in consumer purchase decisions, it isn't. Or, rather, it wasn't. For years, observational analyses of purchasing behavior have found that price is the third or fourth determinant. But this recession has changed that. Price is now at the top of the decision tree for many categories of products and services.

In some cases it's the determinant in brand selection. In others it's the basis of a decision to make or forego a purchase in the category.

Our previous article, "The Price Is Wrong," was right at the time but it's wrong now. Our white paper "Good Marketing for Bad Times" (click here to download) had a section on the detrimental effect of price reductions in economic downturns. That's not true during this recession. (You still might want to download the white paper, because if you omit the two paragraphs under the subhead "Cut prices?" what's left is six pages of effective tips to help you get through this crash with your brand intact, and come out of it stronger than ever.)

This recession is different in several important ways:

It's global. China's stock market has lost two-thirds of its capital value. Business Week reports that layoffs or salary cuts are spreading throughout the Russian economy. The British are propping up failed banks – including the venerable Royal Bank of Scotland. And Argentina is raiding private retirement accounts to help offset government deficits.

It's really deep. So deep that the word "recession," once avoided in polite economic conversation, is now a very popular alternative to the nasty word that begins with "D." All three Detroit car companies will run out of cash in early 2009 without a government bailout. (If they get the proposed $25 billion bailout they probably won't go bust until the end of 2009 at their current burn rate.) The trillions thrown at the failed financial sector haven't slowed the slide a bit. At 6.5%, November's U.S. unemployment is the highest it's been for more than a decade. The Dow Jones Industrial index has fallen to just about half its October, 2007 high. And NPD Group, a leading retail consultancy, predicts a 3% decline in holiday sales this year, the first decline in memory.

Even the rich are hurting. In most economic meltdowns, the middle class suffers most of the pain. The government safety nets for the poor remain in place, and the rich don't seem to be impacted. The nets are still up for the poor, and the middle class is feeling most of the impact this time, too. But now, even the rich are suffering. The Wall Street Journal reports that Bentley's November sales fell 62%. Porsche is off by 50%, Mercedes is down 40% and Beemer sales have declined 20%. And it's not just cars. Tiffany's same-store sales are off 6%. What will wealthy folks' holidays be like without those little powder-blue boxes under the tree?

Price matters, but it's not everything. Price isn't everything? Sure, it matters more now than it has in decades. But other factors matter, too.

Price doesn't matter unless buyers actually WANT the product. An offer of 50% off a VHS recorder probably isn't going to get a lot of response now that the technology is obsolete. A vegan is unlikely to be persuaded by a coupon from a steak house. Discount tickets probably wouldn't convince many people to vacation in Des Moines. Opera tickets at a deep discount probably won't sell to good ol' boys, bikers or Wrestle Mania fans. And 40% off a crew cab dually won't move the iron off the lot after the recent gasoline panic.

Price doesn't matter if customers think sellers won't be around to honor warrantees. Circuit City's pre-holiday bankruptcy may prove to be really bad timing if potential buyers think it will be impossible return a defective big screen. The few car buyers who are in the market apparently have serious reservations about plunking down $30K or more for the Motown Three's cars and trucks, in part because they're not sure the companies will be there to make good on warrantee repairs. Deloitte's holiday spending forecast predicts that gift card sales will decline in both the number and average value of cards sold. Not surprising, since customers aren't sure the merchants will be in business long enough to honor the cards.

Price doesn't matter if it's a must-have item. The "must-have" category is a lot smaller this year than it's been in the past, but if consumers truly perceive a product or service as essential, they'll buy it. "Must-have" may mean food, electricity and a rent or mortgage payment. Or it may be a minor luxury that eases the feeling of deprivation folks may feel when they have to eliminate other non-essentials from their budgets. Some of the choices are illuminating. For example, when faced with a choice, younger age cohorts discontinue cable and keep text messaging. (That has some serious portents for TV after the recession is over.) Of course, manufacturers do better in the "must-have" category than retailers. A consumer may decide that Cocoa Puffs are an absolute necessity, but may shop around for the store with best price.

Price can be a two-edged sword. Aggressive price competition may help sales and wreck profits. And as some brands discovered after the last recession, the impact of an off-price position can be felt long years into the recovery.

During the 1990 recession Taco Bell introduced a 59¢/79¢/99¢ value menu to steal share from McDonald's. According to Advertising Age, the tactic worked. Taco Bell did nibble away at McDonald's share. But Ed Rensi, who headed McDonald's at the time, says the tactic indelibly etched the image of Taco Bell as a source of cheap food in consumers minds. According to Rensi, "Discounting as a tactic that's event-driven is one thing. Discounting as a strategy is something else. It's a very bad idea, because it cheapens your product and your brand." Rensi attributes the fact that McDonald's sales per unit are now 66% higher than Taco Bell's to the divergent strategies each followed in the 1990 recession.

Read more at http://www.brainposse.com/.

Mass extinction

2008-12-02T09:33:00.006-05:00

Coming soon to some media near you.

More or less 65 million years ago, a piece of space rock about five miles across smashed into the earth and changed everything. The impact – and the dust cloud that enveloped the entire planet and cut off most sunlight for years afterward – killed off the dinosaurs that pretty much ruled the world back then and ended the Cretaceous era. When the dust settled, the Tertiary era began and little vole-like mammals began evolving into beings that would eventually become target audiences, marketers, advertising folk and web gurus.

Well, the asteroids are flying again. This time in the form of an economic meltdown that comes on the heels of some significant changes in the media world. And, once again, some species are going to bite the dust.

Welcome to the media meltdown. The buzz is all about the financial services, automotive and retail industries, but this recession is an equal opportunity disaster. A lot of media are feeling real pain as the shrinking economy intensifies some preexisting conditions and creates a whole batch of brand-new challenges, too.

Just like the plants and animals of the Cretaceous-Tertiary interface, not all media are going to come out on the other side. So which ones are most likely to go extinct this time? Here are some likely candidates:

Yellow Pages. Last week the BrainPosse principals were in an edit suite in a dead zone where Wi-Fi doesn't penetrate. We needed to contact someone we don't have on speed dial and couldn't use Google to get the number. We found a phone book off in a corner of the room and looked up the number. Then we realized that it was the first time either one of used the Yellow Pages in more than a year. We're not atypical in our migration to other listing sources. Source, actually: Google.

The Wall Street Journal put it succinctly in a recent headline: "Extinction Threatens Yellow-Pages Publishers."

Like newspapers, Yellow Pages have been ravaged by online alternatives. But unlike newspapers, Yellow Pages publishers have not been able to establish effective internet presences of their own.

The Yellow Pages publishers' web problems are exacerbated by the fact that most of them only sell web listings in conjunction with ads in their printed directories. That short-sighted insistence on selling online listings only to businesses unsophisticated enough to buy overpriced and underperforming print directory ads will drive small businesses to Google and Yahoo. Those businesses won't be making a round trip.

As the small businesses who historically have been the main source of Yellow Pages revenues desert or abandon expensive printed directory advertising in these difficult economic times, they can no longer be included in the directory publishers' web products. When they turn to geotargeted search on the mainstream search engines, they'll discover quantifiable effectiveness the traditional directories – either the printed or the publishers' online versions – simply can't match. Once they see the results geotargeted search generates, they're unlikely to succumb to the Yellow Pages salesperson ever again. Some signs:

Borrell Associates projects a 39% decline in print directory revenues in the next four years.
Investors have already written off the directory publishers. According to The Wall Street Journal, the stock prices of R.H. Donnelley and Idearc, the two biggest, are down 99% in the past year. Look for that last 1% to disappear soon.

Newspaper. It's not surprising that The Christian Science Monitor has suspended its daily printed product. With a circulation in the middle five figures and coast-to-coast distribution, it's amazing that the paper lasted as long as it did in its ink-on-paper form. The Monitor was supporting a respectable national news organization with fewer readers than The Anchorage Daily News, The Shreveport Times, the Cedar Rapids Gazette or The Tucson Daily Star.

Although the conversion to digital makes sense, this prestigious national paper's conversion to a daily online product with a weekly print edition was a harbinger that sent chills through the entire newspaper industry.

Through the first half of 2008, daily newspapers continued to make bad news:
Circulation was down 4.7% from the year before.

Ad revenues were even worse. They dropped 13.76% – a $3 billion decline.
In a May, 2008 Nielsen study, only 11.3% of respondents named newspaper as their primary source of news.

Over a year ago, our article, Newspapers: Going Under/Going Strong (link), examined newspapers' decline and options for stemming – or even reversing – the slide. It's now too late. We believe most local dailies have passed the point of no return. Except for national publications like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, local weeklies, a few trophy dailies kept alive to stroke the egos of billionaire publishers/patrons and one or two still-viable local dailies (we're rooting for Little Rock's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette), printed newspapers have a finite future.

The death spiral is already underway. Some readers deserted printed newspapers for online news. More important, young readers never adopted the newspaper habit. So circulation fell. Advertisers cut back on newspaper spending because of the circulation drop. The decline in advertising revenues forced newspapers to cut costs, including news coverage. The reduction in breadth, depth and quality in news coverage caused more readers to abandon newspapers. And so another twist in the spiral began.

Unlike Yellow Pages, most newspapers have established strong online presences. The catch is that the revenue generated by a newspaper website visitor is between 0.5% and 1.1% of the revenue generated by an ink-on-paper reader. The presence newspapers have gained online is based on the news coverage supported by their print editions. When the print editions go away, so will the content that sustains the online versions. And when the content goes away, so will the last vestiges of newspapers, their websites.

Magazine. Magazines won't all become extinct. Read more at http://www.brainposse.com/.

A look at our archive.

2008-11-24T10:31:00.005-05:00

More than 115 articles on marketing communications. Could one change your bottom line?

Over the last couple of years, we have posted a new article about marketing communications faithfully every Monday morning. In fact, we were a little surprised ourselves to discover that there are now more than 115 stories available that cover different aspects of marketing communications.

What's also interesting to us is what people are doing with this information. We get comments on different stories--ranging from "wow, I never thought of that," to "your headline is misleading," to simply "good article." We always appreciate those, and encourage you to keep 'em coming.

And readers have taken our stories and used them for other blogs, magazine articles, and even academic papers, as a quick Google search last week discovered. But what we really like is when people take what we've written and apply the ideas to their businesses to build their return on investment.

If you haven't taken a look at our article archive, you'll find posts designed to help you through our current tough economic times, such as "Good marketing for bad times," "After the apocalypse," or "Recession? We hope that's all it is." There are also articles about cutting waste from your ad program and determining which marketing ROI model, transactional or equity is right for your business.

Need to get a better handle on how you can use social media? Try "Social Engagement." Wonder if you're advertising too much or not enough, check out "How many times to I have to tell you?" or "Think your campaign is wearing out?" And if you want to see who really controls the money in the country, take a look at the "Invisible woman" or "Geezers got it going on."

Media is changing weekly in our world, and we've tried to document what marketers need to know about it. See what you think about "Is anyone still paying attention to ads and commercials," "The news about news media: Print," or "You know you need to advertise on the web, but where?"

Public relations tactics are covered in stories such as "New uses for news releases," "Put some teeth into your sound bites," or "Green, red and the new tipping point."

We'll even show you what NOT to do in your marketing communications, with posts such as "The deadly dozen: 12 things you should never say in an ad," "Love or money: some advertisers make a really stupid choice," or "Say it ain't so Steve--America's best marketer blows it."

If you really want to get into the heads of your audience, we've covered neuromarketing with "Is neuromarketing making you crazy," and explained how we re-did our website after reading about the latest neuromarketing studies in "Switching sides." If you're a creative trying to make communications more effective without killing your art or concept, you might want to check out "Say it like you mean it," "Famous last words," or Marketing jujitsu: Comparative advertising."

There's plenty more--book reviews, video techniques, music strategies, even ways to make PowerPoint presentations better. Take a look for yourself at www.brainposse.com/archive.html.

And as always, we invite your comments on what you like. Or don't like.

Who reads blogs?

2008-11-17T11:08:00.006-05:00

The numbers for a typical blog aren't huge. But there may be other benefits.

What do you get from blogging? Probably not a massive audience. But a look at who's actually reading indicates that there may be a number of other reasons why the practice could be worthwhile for your organization.

Since we devote a significant amount of time to blogging ourselves, we try to look at who's reading blogs and whether it's worth the effort.

According to research from Ipsos Mendelsohn on business use of technology tools, 32% of business executives read a blog online, while only about six percent have contributed to a blog or posted their own blogs. That's compared to 54 percent who report that they receive a daily e-mail newsletter or alert.

This is in line with the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which says that 33% of all internet users read blogs, with 11% saying that the do so daily.

Nucleus Research reports that 50% of people take the time to read blogs, and that most people read one or two blogs each week.

Ad Age reports these findings on blog readership:

Two thirds of blog readers read more than three blogs regularly and many are read daily

Community is a primary driver of readership within blogosphere: search engines are secondary to links and recommendations as a way to find blogs

Quality of writing is a very important driver of how people perceive blogs

Personal interest and entertainment drive more readership than business or education

About one quarter of blog readers are active participants in creating content
The Spanish blog audience very similar to English audience except they claim to read more blogs on a regular basis.

And here are the top 10 blogs by readership, based on ebizMBA's multi-factor measurements:

gizmodo.com

TMZ.com

engadget.com

lifehacker.com

HuffingtonPost.com

PerezHilton.com

gawker.com

kotaku.com

treehugger.com

arstechnica.com

Audiences for each of these sites range from 350,000 to 4.4 million monthly visitors.

Most blogs, however, aren't nearly so popular. Many count their readership in the hundreds (or sometimes dozens) rather than millions. This obviously begs the question: If only about a third of internet users seem to be interested in blogs, and if they only read one or two a week, is it worth doing?

The answer for many organizations is still yes, though they can probably only expect a very small blog readership.

Here's why: The value of blogging isn't just in the audience, it's in the cumulative base of information you build for your organization online. The most direct benefit is in search engine activity: blogs account for a relatively high number of search hits.

For example, a search of BrainPosse revealed that three of the top five links to our name were blog posts. (For Apple, who's probably paying for the very top links, it's one out of five.) If you're an organization not in the news all the time, a blog is a simple way to make you more visible.

And it can make your more visible in a positive way. Because blog links tend to be regarded as news rather than direct promotion, they can be viewed as more credible. And when other bloggers mention your organization, the credibility increases.

Our blog has been quoted in several magazines, and, apparently in some academic journals and papers (we discovered this through search, and we're flattered). For many companies, the use of blog information and ideas by third parties reinforces their position as experts in their fields.

Blogs also are a simple, cost effective way to regularly add content to your website, which promotes more readership, return readership, and better visibility.

And that's an important point because 79% of blog readers say they look for information they can't find in other places. If you have specific information about your product or idea that maybe isn't something a conventional media outlet would use, maybe you can create visibility for it through your blog.

If you’d like to know more about using blogging in your business you can read our previous entry "Should You Blog?"

Is neuromarketing making you crazy?

2008-11-09T22:24:00.006-05:00

It's hot! It's new! And we've done it for years.

Seems as if every lab with a functional magnetic resonance imaging gizmo has decided that probing consumers' reactions to beer commercials is more fun than finding cures for neurological diseases. The fad has led to several books (most notably Neuromarketing by Patrick Renvoisé and Christophe Morin and Buy•ology by Martin Lindstrom), articles in everything from Advertising Age to The Wall Street Journal and billions of pixels' worth of online buzz.

Their key finding? Your brain is a turducken.

A turducken? Yep. That Cajun Thanksgiving treat: a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken. (Get yours at http://www.cajungrocer.com/, http://www.chefeds.com/, or http://www.cajunspecialtymeats.com/.

In the case of your brain, it's an outer brain stuffed with a middle brain stuffed with an inner brain. (The folks with the fMRIs call them the human brain, the mammalian brain and the reptilian brain.)

Although it's vastly more complex than this oversimplification, essentially the outer (human) brain functions primarily in the realm of thought, the middle (mammalian) brain deals mainly with emotion and the inner (reptilian) brain is all about instinct.

The deeper into the cranial turducken a marketing appeal goes, the more powerful it is.

The reptilian brain is extremely difficult to reach with marketing communications. That's "fight or flight" territory, and a thirty-second TV spot or a web page can seldom penetrate that deeply into the brain. In the rare instances in which they do, the appeal is almost always a negative/avoidance message. And also enormously – almost irresistibly – powerful.

Perhaps the most famous commercial to work at the reptilian brain level was DDB's "Daisy" spot for Lyndon Johnson (click here to view). The commercial triggered a survival instinct response that made the audience afraid to vote for Barry Goldwater. The commercial functioned effectively at the reptilian brain level because it used images and sound, to which the reptilian brain responds, to deliver the message. Since the reptilian brain evolved long before language capabilities and reasoning developed, words and logic are not effective down at that most primitive brain level.

The mammalian brain is the sweet spot for marketing communications. Any reasonably adept practitioner of the craft of persuasion can tickle the neurons at the mammalian level and trigger an emotion to generate a strong response.

Unlike the reptilian brain, which responds predominantly in the negative/avoidance mode, the mammalian brain responds to both negative/avoidance an positive/attraction stimuli.

One enduring example of effective mammalian brain marketing communications is the Coca-Cola campaign that has endured from the 1950s to the present (with a few unfortunate lapses).

The iconic exemplars of the campaign were the McCann-Erickson's "Hilltop" and "Mean Joe Green" commercials and Creative Artist Agency's "Northern Lights" spot. Several remakes of "Hilltop" were insipid failures, but the polar bear from "Northern Lights" has been extended in numerous executions and is likely to reappear this holiday season, 15 years after its 1993 inception.

Music is an especially effective way to generate emotion in the mammalian brain. "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony evokes awe. "Itsy-Bitsy, Teeny-Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" stimulates playfulness. Minor key tends to engender poignancy, major key happiness. Up-tempo is joyful or excited, slow can be sad.

Perhaps most powerful of all musical emotional triggers is familiar music – especially from the target audience's teens and twenties. Listeners identify with music they heard in their adolescence and early adulthood. That's why Cadillac used Led Zep's "Rock and Roll" and Microsoft launched Windows 95 with the Stones' "Start Me Up." It's a quick, effective way of establishing an emotional connection.

The human brain is the one to aim at if you're marketing to Vulcans. But, despite the name, not so much if you're marketing to humans. We're just not that rational a species. At least when it comes to being motivated and persuaded.

At the beginning of the television era, appeals to the human brain – the cerebral cortex – worked. The formula for a successful :60 black-and-white TV spot was to offer a problem, a product benefit that overcame the problem and a supporting reason why the product provided the benefit. As in:

Problem: Headache?

Benefit: Anacin fights headache pain fast.

Reason why: Because Anacin is like a doctor's prescription. It contains not just one, but a combination of medically-proven ingredients.

That linear, logical, word-based exposition worked remarkably effectively at the time. It was the apogee of rationally-based, human-brain selling that had been the norm since the beginnings of modern advertising a couple of centuries earlier.

It's not surprising that modern advertising originally appeared in rational, word-based terms. The medium available to carry advertising was print. The target audience was reading a newspaper or periodical when they saw advertisements, so it was natural (and effective) for ads to reflect the tone and style of the medium in which they appeared. At first there weren't many illustrations, so words alone had to do the selling job.

Even radio – despite the addition of music and the possibilities of "theater of the mind" experiences – was a predominantly verbal medium. But music, mainly in the form of jingles, began to add an emotional element to the marketing communications message.

Early television was radio with pictures – often pictures of people standing at microphones and speaking or singing. But in the '60s, agencies realized the possibilities of connecting on an emotional level through visuals. The White Knight and his suggestive lance powerfully zapped dirt for Ajax Laundry Detergent, and Mr. Clean, the brand avatar, protectively eliminated drudgery. Overtly and primitively Freudian though these campaigns were, they created immediate and substantial sales increases. And they were a harbinger of a migration from human brain to mammalian brain in marketing communications.

Of course human brain marketing communications is still a factor. It's the norm in trade magazine advertising, a lot of consumer retail advertising and even some television spots. And it has made a resurgence in many web-based campaigns, although the web's switch to video may presage the same paradigm shift that occurred in television fifty years ago.

The mammalian/human brain combination is tremendously powerful. Decisions which are not triggered instinctively/reflexively in the reptilian brain frequently bounce back and forth between the mammalian and human brains, so messages which resonate positively with both reason and emotion are significantly more effective than those which rely on just one mode of information processing.

The TBWA/Media Arts Lab "Mac versus PC" campaign is a brilliant example of a combined rational/emotional sell. The Mac avatar, actor Justin Long, is likable, contemporary and hip. He's helpful and friendly to the poor, dorky PC character played by humorist John Hodgeman. The Mac persona creates a strong empathetic bond with audiences worldwide (except in Japan). And in expressing sympathy for the lame PC, the Mac character makes clear the rational superiority of Mac over PC – usually in the guise of trying to help his inept competitor. The recent "Bean Counter" spot is a masterpiece. (Click here to view.)

There's much more to the brain and the way it works than the simplified turducken we've outlined here. (The amygdala and ventral striatum are two of our favorite spots to stimulate on behalf of our clients.) It's well worth any marketer's time and effort to learn and understand the geography and circuitry of the 100 billion neurons that every consumer on Earth uses to make purchase decisions.

New uses for news releases.

2008-11-03T09:38:00.014-05:00

News about your company has always been valuable. Now maybe more than ever.

Virtually all marketers will agree that news releases are a good communications tool, and most will also agree that they should do more with news about their organizations.

And actually, now you can. Because while news stories are still important with traditional media, they may ultimately be as important with evolving media sources.

The value of traditional media sources is still critical. They provide credibility, perspective, and insight. They are still seen by the largest audiences. And—especially with industry-specific B2B media—they have the expertise to efficiently identify what is truly newsworthy.

But with instant electronic distribution, search engines, website repurposing, and other new tools, the news release that may have only been distributed to a few dozen sources five years ago now may have scores of potential outlets.

We have long advised clients of a phenomenon that occurs when an individual reads a news release. Even though the story may be on company letterhead and obviously distributed directly from the company itself, many people who read it later perceive that they read it in a newspaper or magazine. This is reinforced when the story is put multiple media sources—websites, blogs, forums, or even search.

The Center for Media Research recently analyzed companies’ use of news releases and found that in addition to traditional media, releases are being directed to (in order of importance):

· Bloggers and new media outlets
· B2B consumers/customers & prospects
· B2C consumers/customers & prospects
· Webmasters to repurpose
· Partners (vendors, aligned customers, etc.)
· Financial institutions
· Competitors

Reasons for releasing news still focused on the traditional (increasing visibility, reaching customers, announcing news), but we supplemented by new purposes for doing publicity:

· Readily available web content
· Search engine optimization (through additional links from news outlets)
· Conduits to other online sources of information
· Sales tools

So news releases—and public relations programs in general—can be more valuable now because there are more outlets and uses for information.

Traditional media has stepped up its online presence, and that's a tremendous opportunity.

It’s not just new outlets that make this possible. Most traditional media sources have developed online presences, providing more opportunities to disseminate news. For example, we recently did a usage analysis of news releases for a client, and found that in the past year, the number of online news stories had more than tripled—just from the expanded websites of traditional media sources we had always used.

So—as you look at how you should structure your public relations program to take advantage of new opportunities, here are some things to consider:

An online press room is almost essential. Not just for the press, but for other audiences who will find the stories by visiting your website, through search engines and blogs, and through direct links sent to them from other people.

Understand the extended shelf life of your news. Because there are additional outlets, some stories will continue to have value beyond their original publication dates, especially testimonials, “how-to” information, and other news that not just immediate. This is a double-edge sword however, because once you publish something online, it tends to linger in archives all over the web. (See our previous post, “The Shelf Life of Information.” link) So you have to be somewhat judicious.

Include new audiences. If you have an e-mail list of customers and/or prospects, you’re a couple of clicks away from sending the news release directly to them. When they see the story in a traditional resource, you get the benefit of the extra frequency of message and the credibility of a third party resource.

Remember that one size doesn’t fit all. A magazine or newspaper website may only be able to use a portion of your story in its format. But that shouldn’t stop you from expanding the story for your website. A couple of quotes that were in your general news release could be the teaser to show someone an entire interview on your server.

Be active. Most organizations have much more newsworthy material than they think. (We routinely show clients how instead of just one or two stories, we can usually point out ten or twelve that are ready to write). Get them done and distributed. This not only gets you more news, it conveys that your organization is dynamic and should be watched.

And one more thing—kinda important in today's world of reduced budgets—publicity programs can be less expensive than other communications tools.