2012 and How Good Viral Marketing Can Go Bad

Here’s a good article discussing how some of Hollywood’s most brilliant viral marketing has gone haywire, whether it’s a case of mistaken identity, security, or public pandemonium. The new movie, “2012” has created quite a stir, with the Art Bell types convinced the world is going to end in, well, 2012. Remember “Forgetting Sarah Marshall“? If you recall, there was a terrific marketing campaign featuring unbranded billboards reading, “You Suck, Sarah Marshall,” or “My Mother Always Hated You, Sarah Marshall.” It was fun for us, but it sucked for the real Sarah Marshalls of the world, some who struck back with posters that read, “You Suck, Judd Apatow,” referring to the film’s producer.

It’s a good lesson for marketers. Sometimes there is a fine line between genius marketing and your Aunt Betty and Uncle Buck fleeing for the hills to take cover. Campaigns like this are a testimony to the power of really good viral buzz, and a reminder that sometimes not everyone in the audience has all their forks in the drawer. Don’t hold back, but be prepared for the possibility of backlash, or in these cases, back-firing. After all, when you need to call in Nasa to say the world is not going to end, you know you’ve touched on something big.

Three Easy Ways to Stay Connected

It can be hard to stay on top of industry trends and news. Social media can help. There are three things you can do that will take less than half an hour of your time today, and will save you a lot of time in the future, as well as give you instant updates on important news items in your industry or field, or news in general.

1) Digg it. Did you know that Digg has an option to receive email alerts of their best and biggest stories? You can set the alert to go to your email daily, or if you don’t want to be deluged, you can have it sent to you weekly.
2) Get even more Linked In. You may already be on Linked In, but are you taking advantage of the many networking groups on the site? They have networks for a wide range of industries and professions, many broken down by regions and even cities. They have networking groups for the unemployed, the self-employed and the part-time employed. They are so many different kinds of groups there is probably one for marketers who sneeze too easily, or doctors who cry at Hallmark ads. Again, you can set up your email to receive alerts when one of your groups has new discussions or topics posted to the board. It can sometimes be an enormous waste of time, particularly when members go into overdrive on self-promotion, but often you’ll find great articles and links to websites that may have valuable, or at least useful, information.
3) Google Alerts. This may seem like a no-brainer, but if you haven’t set up a google alert for the news or information you need the most, you’re missing out. You can set up a Google alert to come to your email on any topic. Boston Terriers, new movie releases, diamonds, celebrity engagements, your favorite brand, your competitor, your company— definitely set up an alert for that one! If it exists, you can set up a Google alert for it. The search engine will notify you when an article or blog post hits their radar.

This is just a short list of easy ways to stay connected without having to search for news that interest you. Send me your favorite ways to stay connected, whether it’s picking up the phone and talking to a colleague, reading the news paper, or a useful website.

Mad Men Season Finale

Tomorrow night is a sad day for “Mad Men” addicts everywhere. It’s a death knell to a season of scotch-swilling, skirt chasing, cigarette-smoking, Man/Dame bantering, lawn-mowering, and what’s- wrong-with-Betty-Draper wondering. Yes. It’s the season finale of “Mad Men.” I, for one, may have to drown my sorrows in a bottle of wine and borrow some valium from a nervous friend.

I love “30 Rock.” “The Office” always makes me laugh. I’m a CNN addict. Oh who is kidding who? It’s not just the season finale of “Mad Men.” It’s the season end of the best TV there is. Now I’m going to have read a book if I want this level of great writing.

Until I figure out my next step post “Mad Men,” I’m going to ponder the following piece of advice given by Matthew Weiner, the Creator/Producer/Writer of the show. On Wednesday night I saw a Q&A at the Writer’s Bloc with Mr. Weiner. A woman asked him what advice he had for struggling actors/writer/etc. In LA, anyone with artistic pursuits is often classified as an “etc.,” as they are hoping to hedge their bets on fame. Anyway, after sighing that he got asked this question again, Matthew said, “Just pursue your craft and don’t worry about the rules people tell you exist, like you are too old to make it, or too this or too that, or too anything. You just have to be the one who breaks the rules and you have to think about how sweet the vengeance will be.”

That got a round of applause.

A young man then asked him how he overcame writer’s block. I leaned forward in my seat for this one. “I don’t have writer’s block,” he said. He then added, “Oh, but that might be because I dictate into a recorder. I talk the idea through. I can get through a whole script in a day that way. And if I can say it and it sounds good, then I know I have good dialogue.”

I thought it was a clever idea, and one I’ve considered trying myself. Since the man is responsible for the most brilliant writing on TV, I am not going to doubt him.

One other note about that night: Christina Hendricks, who plays Joan, was in the audience. Joan is my favorite character on the show, and if you have watched it, you understand why. She’s a complex personality who plays her full-throttle sexuality with uber-confidence, and sometimes smugness. Often this strategy has let her down; rarely has it gotten the results that she believes it will. That’s one reason why fans love her. Underneath her calm exterior she’s smoldering with disappointment at how life has turned out so far, but damn if she’ll let that keep her down.

Hendricks must be one incredible actress because to see her you can’t believe she and Joan are one and the same. The attractive actress looks ten years younger than her character, and she’s all baby-faced and sweet. She could be the poster-woman for the Girl Next Door. Maybe she was trying to down-play the glam that night because she had to sit in the middle of an audience of some scary-looking writers, myself included, but seriously, I was struck by how innocent she looks. And really, maybe that’s Joan’s appeal. There is, after all, something very innocent about the way Joan oozes sexuality like a child working it in a candy store. This season, she’s certainly matured, and she’s a little road weary from her loser husband.

One more Weiner story: He was talking about script notes he gets from studio executives, and how hard criticism can be to take. He said he sometimes reads these notes and thinks about the VP writing it, and wants to tell them, “What have you ever written besides this f@#$&! note?”

Name That Annoying Tune

Please remove the automatic song that comes on when we log onto your web site. It is not cool. It is not great marketing. It is annoying, and we do not want it.

The sound comes on and is usually jolting because our audio is already turned up from watching bad bootlegs of concerts on You Tube. It’s great that you have a company jingle. Use it for your on-hold messages on your phone, or even put a button on your website that reads, “Listen to our Song,” or “We’re Playing Sweet Music.” Be corny. I don’t care. I only care that I hate it when I go to your site and music start playing automatically. You are assuming I want to hear music. You are assuming I want to hear that music in particular.

For the record, the same goes for annoying videos that start automatically, with spokespersons saying (loudly) “HI!”

I have talked about this over the years with many people. Everyone says the same thing. “It’s annoying.”

It makes us not want to visit your site ever again. In fact, I personally will not. Now I ask you: did you put the music or pop-up video on your site to attract visitors or keep them away?

I thought so. Keep it simple, please.

Paranormal Activity has Paranormal Box Office Results

Paramounts’ “Paranormal Activity” is a good example of how simple marketing works when you have an fresh concept to promote. The movie was made for around $15 million, and has grossed $64 million in one weekend, and that number is expected to exceed 100 million. How did this happen to a movie with a marketing budget of $10 million, which is paltry compared to most films?

Paramount relied heavily on advanced midnight screenings, and viral buzz on the Internet. It’s been a trending topic on Twitter for weeks. It also helped that a big name celebrity declared he was spooked by it: Steven Spielberg said that when he saw the movie, strange things happened around his house. He thought his DVD was haunted. More than the clever, low-budget marketing, the success of the movie tells us that consumers want new, fresh and different ideas even if they come in a primitive, low-budget package. Corporate execs think they want the familiar or maybe they are just comfortable giving us the familiar because it has helped pay their salaries in the past.

Most studios in town passed on Paranormal Activity, so kudos to Paramount for some risk taking. As the LA Times wrote, studios with Harry Potter-style franchises are less likely to risk a long-shot bet. “It’s a studio like Paramount, about to lose its wildly successful Marvel franchises to Disney, which is most open to making an audacious gamble.”

U2 and the 360 Tour: How a Bad Experience is a Lesson for Marketers

Yesterday I wrote that sometimes bigger is not necessarily better; sometimes bigger is just a fat Elvis in a jumpsuit. Last night’s U2 show proved that the band has embraced the jumpsuit. No one wants to blame them, but I will. They are the brand, the company, and I’m sorry, but when you make your product more about the spectacle than its founding mission, good music, you deserve to be boiled down to a brand and you deserve to be shamed.

I’ve stated it many times before: rock and rolls stars are either artist who also happen to be marketers or they are surrounded by a team of marketers or both. It’s one thing to produce good music; it’s a business to get that good music heard, bought, and adored by millions.

U2 did a few things right: they promoted heavily, they did a a great promo with Blackberry, and they advertised on You Tube. What they did wrong was forget that the people there, in the flesh with them and paying hundreds of dollars for so-so seats, belonged to that experience.

The promoters, the City of Pasadena, the Rose Bowl management, and U2’s management all share in this blame. This reviewer does a good job of describing the vices, namely that they hyped this show up so much that people were panicked to get there early, take the shuttles, tailgate (i.e, drink heavily prior to the show) and in general, brace for WWIII. The lines for the shuttle to the stadium were long and took an hour. The lines getting inside the stadium were long and it took a half hour just to get to your seats. The t-shirt lines were a joke, crammed with pushing people, and the credit card system went down so fans had to pay cash only, and the vendors quickly sold out of every over-priced item. I don’t need to comment on the lines to the ladies room. They are always long for any show. After all this, the worst thing in the world happened: they sold out of all the good wine, except for the crappy white zinfandel.

And then after the show, it took an hour and a half to get back to the shuttle, another thirty minutes to get out of the garage. The sweetest part of the evening was the freeway, somehow, proving there is a Rock-n-Roll god, and he likes a quick trip, free of traffic.

So here I am, a marketer who preaches the value of giving the customer an experience, and I realized that in my entire career, I neglected, we all neglected, to really stress the obvious: if you give customers a bad experience, they won’t return.

Hey U2, those folks who bought tickets, you know, the ones you call “fans”? That’s not what they are called in the real world. No. We call them “customers.”

I’m told by the smart folks who sat at home and watched the show on You Tube that it was a great performance. I would not know. I was too busy trying to block out the drunk bimbo behind us who sang off-key at the top of her lungs the whole show. Hey lady: the lyrics are “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” not, “Some day valley some day.” And the drummer’s name is Larry, not Harry. If you don’t know him, why scream his name?

Okay, U2 cannot be blamed for her, but maybe said Bimbo wouldn’t have been such an annoyance if she hadn’t been at the show since noon, drinking her way through the boredom of sitting in a parking lot. Again, U2 didn’t make her drink, but, they are the brand, and hence, I blame the brand.

I will never again do a stadium show, unless it’s Bruce Springsteen, who understands that you can do stadium shows over a period of five nights and have a pleasant experience free of over-hyped media, and you don’t need to perform inside an octopus-space ship because a) you look like a geek and b) it’s about the music, not the spectacle.

U2, it was a nice ride with you for awhile, but I’m sorry, I prefer early Elvis, not the fat guy in the jumpsuit. Enjoy your rocket ride in your space ship. I’m getting off here.

U2 360 Tour and the Concept of Big

Sometimes bigger is not better. Sometimes bigger is just fat Elvis wearing a rhinestone jumpsuit. Today, in the early afternoon, I have to pack up a picnic basket, pack up the car and squeeze in with my U2-loving boyfriend and some friends, and go to Pasadena where, along with 96,000 other people, we have to navigate massive traffic, crowds, and wait it all out in some park because Pasadena is not meant to handle this many people, and some eight hours later, finally see U2 perform in a big spaceship-like stage.

If I sound skeptical, it’s just that I am not in love with their big stage. It’s an odd quirk on my part, I know. It’s U2, I should just be happy to have seats to this sold out extravaganza. I’m a fan of the paired down. For example, Apple has proved with their “Mac” and “PC” guys that a paired down ad campaign is great.

I have every belief that tonight’s performance will be one big WOW. I just like my rock and roll simple: a band, their equipment, some decent lighting and the music. What happens after that is usually magic. I think that the power and quality of their music is enough to draw people in and make the show a great one.

Tonight’s show will be broadcast, for the first time, live on You Tube. What does this mean, besides the fact that anyone with access to a computer and the Internet worldwide, can watch the same show I am, minus the hassles of traffic and a big commitment time-wise? It’s a fine convergence of social media and rock-n-roll. The finest, perhaps. Kudos to U2 for making the plunge. I just hope we can all see the band through the massive pillars of the spaceship-stage.

Big band. Big crowd. Big spaceship-like stage. Big coverage. WOW.

Global Banking Brands: Where Does the Middle East Stand?

This interesting and timely article brings to light the importance of brand value. When is bigger not better? When bigger is revenue without brand value. In recent years, Middle Eastern banks have been long on revenue, but short on global brand recognition. The graph in the article demonstrates that the global economic crisis has been a tad gentler on mature financial institutions with strong brand value.

The lesson from all this: never stop developing and reinforcing your brand, even when your company is in the black. Economic hard times being cyclical, you need a strong brand to keep you foremost in the consumer’s mind, and a reputation as the fail-safe, go-to place when product confidence is low.

Where Content is King

London is known for many things: The home of greasy fish and chips, Harrods, the Union Jack, great music, great writers, fog, and as a popular vacation destination for weary American marketers. I had the pleasure of spending a week or so across the Pond in the old stomping ground of the Tudors. While I did not lose my head, I did lose my heart to London. San Francisco is great, but my heart is back in London riding the Tube. No, I’m not that big of a fan of public transportation, though those Brits do it right. It’s just that content is still king there, and the poster ads on the Tube (and in other places) proved that. Every time I stepped out of Waterloo Station I felt like Don Draper, fresh out of a Lucky Strikes meeting with my Mad Men creative team. Rather than tell you about it, the following is a photo journey of some of my favorites ads in London. It was a bit hard taking photos on the Tube, but if you click on the images, it should take you to a larger view.

Here’s an effective ad for The London Times. They use the melting of polar ice pages as an introduction to the their Sunday Science section. Climate Change and other world issues come into play in a number of the ads I saw. This one was one of the most compelling. It uses a great shot and some concise copy to make its point. It ends with “Be a part of the times.” Note the punctuation, creating a play on words.

Be a part of the times

This one is another favorite. In fact, it’s the first photo of an advertisement that I snapped in London, and it wasn’t till that moment that I realized I would even want to blog about ads I saw. I love this one because it is a head-turner and has a line you won’t forget. My mind was duly opened and inspired.

The Opening of Your Mind

This next ad is all words. In fact, it’s flash fiction at its finest. The copywriter has taken on us a little journey that leads us through a fine department store, then right back to our computer where we will order the same wonderful product for much less.

Dixons

I tried several times to get a good shot, but on a moving train with riders walking past my view it was tricky, so if you cannot read the copy in red, it reads: “then head over to Dixons.uk.co to order it for much less.” If Shakespeare were alive today, he might have been a vital member of the ad team at Dixons.

The next ad reminds us that you can’t please everyone. Just ask the poor advertising agency for the London Transit System. They came close, though, and this ad proves the success of the poster ads in the London Tube.

9 Out of 10

Thanks, London, for the sights, and for the great ride.

Unplugged, Offline, Disconnected . . . and Loving It?

Audacious Ink is taking a short break while I try an experiment I’ve been meaning to do for some time now: I am going to unplug from the Internet for a couple of weeks. That’s right. You heard me correctly. No Twitter, no Facebook, no You Tube or My Space. Listen to this: I won’t even read email. Well, not much at least.

I am a firm believer that every now and then we just need to disconnect. I don’t do it often, but when I find myself stressed out and looking for my “happy place,” I think of a time when I was in Antigua, floating on a raft in the low waves, with the warm sun beating down on my back and the clear blue sea underneath me. I didn’t know what was going on at the office, I didn’t know if the world was still running across the ocean or what the stock market looked like or how much money was in my checking account or anything. All I knew was that as soon as I could get the beach-side waiter’s attention, I was going to order another Pina Colada. And I did. It was good. That, folks, is my happy place, and it does not involve a computer.

So for the next ten or twelve days, I am going to read books, you know, the kind printed on paper. I am going to start a conversation face-to-face with a stranger. I’m going to people-watch in a cafe. I’m going to snap some photos and contemplate printing them instead of uploading them. I’m not going to check Facebook to see the moment-by-moment happenings of some of my friends (I don’t need to know when someone just got out of the shower or that they are about to go to the dry-cleaners), and I’m definitely not touching Twitter where if I hear the phrase “affiliate marketing” one more time I’m going to commit the Twitter version of murder and “Unfollow” some twits. I’m not going to have CNN on in the background, running constantly, talking about divisive masses who can’t agree on squat.

Here’s something we can all agree on, though: we have information overload. The average American sees over 3,000 advertising messages a day, thanks to TV, radio, print, online, and especially now social media. I would like to trim that number by half for just a couple of weeks. In the process of doing so, I’m going to notice what kind of thoughts and ideas seep into my mind. I’m going to jot them down, via pen and paper. I’m going to experience life like it’s 1984, and not the future 1984, but pre-1984, the 1984 where we complained about Nancy Reagan’s bitchiness, and “Born in the USA” topped the charts.

So until I return around mid-October for more blogging and musings on marketing and the written word, I wish you well. I wish you rest, relaxation, great thoughts, original ideas, and a marvelous lack of streaming data bombarding your senses. Oh, but do watch Mad Men. I mean, you can only take this disconnecting from the world thing so far, you know?