Great game yesterday.

The ads weren’t particularly awesome but here are a few I liked.  I thought Career Builder’s “46 banana daquiris” was funny.  Because monkeys like bananas.  I thought Chevy’s “Apocalypse-proof” trucks were a creative twist and appropriate for 2012, even taking a dark but good-natured shot at Ford.

Bud Light Here We Go.  Need to train Moch to fetch the beer!

Volkswagen Fat Dog.  Cute and creative.

Hyundai Think Fast.  Pretty funny and actually features the product.

I’m on the fence about Clint Eastwood’s Chrysler ad.  I really liked their’s last year, and I really like the “Halftime in America” metaphor, but I’m not sure if Chrysler is the best messenger. I think their bailout is still fresh in everyone’s mind, and makes the bootstrapping/innovative/optimistic/self-reliant message of this ad seem hypocritical.  What do you think?

Ferris Bueller in a CRV didn’t do it for me.  Nor did Seinfeld, Uncle Jesse, the Coca-Cola bears, or even my usual fave the E*Trade baby.  But these were some of the worst:

Cars.com Confident You.  Good idea, not well-executed.

Pepsi King’s Court. Meh. Does Elton John need money?

-Nick

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When you google yourself, what do you find?  What does your electronic footprint look like?  Do you have a personality online?

It’s been said if a business doesn’t show up in Google, it doesn’t exist.  Is the same true for people?

When deciding whether or not to do business with a new contact, I pay close attention to their electronic presence.  Are they accessible? Do they have a consistent, likeable personality?  If someone has no online footprint, it makes me wonder what they’re trying to hide.

Remember the greatest door to door salesman ever?  He wasn’t selling cleaning products; he was selling personality.  And in some meaningful way, we all are.  Maybe not to that extreme, but being a faceless entity definitely isn’t helping you.  People do business with people.  And they do more business with people they like.

Privacy

To have an online presence you don’t have to leave all aspects of your life completely open to the world.  If you don’t want strangers looking at pictures of your kids, you don’t have to post them, or you can adjust your privacy settings.

While I don’t actively publish my phone number or address, this information is available to savvy users who want to find it.  In seven years I’ve had zero house calls and only a handful of phone calls — one of which made me $100! (Sold a dormant domain name)

Professionalism

A lot of companies want to appear larger than they are.  They use fluffy language and vague corporate-speak on their websites.  I was even guilty of this on Shoes ‘R Us.  With a few more years of experience under my belt, and a new commitment to openness, I crafted a completely new “about us” page for ShoeSniper.com.  I made a conscious effort to step away from the anonymous and cliche’d “about us” pages you see everywhere.

On each product page, I invite customers to contact me directly.  Because of this, I get lots of hate mail from shoppers — usually upset about a pricing error they found on the site.  I try to reply to these quickly — personally apologizing for the mistake.  In these emails there is no “we”, only “me”.  I explain how I receive an updated catalog from 35 stores one time per day, and do my best to maintain accurate pricing on 350,000 shoes.  The stores, I explain, can raise or lower their prices after sending the catalog and it might be 23 hrs before order is restored in the universe.

I’ve been accused of false advertising, been called a very dishonest company, (allegedly) reported to the BBB, and been threatened legal action.  Incidentally, the same people that send these emails are the same that like to type in ALL CAPS and have hotmail and/or AOL email addresses.  But when I reply with a personal apology, thank them for notifying me of the problem, and explain why it happened, it usually is pretty disarming.  For the companies that try to remain anonymous and hide behind impersonal walls, I think their customer service suffers.

In the next week or two, I’m going to try and add a live chat feature to the site to experiment with this theory a little more.  I can take the heat, and I think the live feedback from real shoppers will be very valuable.

XYZ Team

Do you ever get emails with no signature at the end?  Instead it will be signed, “Company XYZ Team”, “Company XZY Customer Service”, or “Affiliate Manager”.   This annoys the shit out of me.  The reply-to address is invariably some unmonitored inbox.  By not telling you who they are or how to contact a real person, the company is telling you exactly how much they care about your business.

Takeaways

1. Don’t be anonymous
2. Be authentic, be yourself
3. Be reachable

-Nick

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Is RedStar Worldwear a Scam?

On a recent Southwest flight, I found a free $500 gift card for a company called RedStar Worldwear in my in-flight magazine.  Obviously too good to be true (right?), but certainly worth looking into.  What’s the catch? I wondered.

RedStar Worldwear

If you visit their website, you’ll see they sell sunglasses and watches.  The prices typically range from $100-200.

The Fine Print

Each free $500 gift card carries a 9% service fee.  This means if you were to order the $210 sunglasses shown above using your gift card, it would cost you $18.90 to get them delivered.

According to RedStar, the 9% service fee covers “USPS First Class delivery, processing and handling, and general overhead which includes; customer service, order processing, warehousing, labor, cost of goods and materials, profit, and marketing.”

See, they’re not hiding anything.  If the company can make money selling $200 sunglasses for $19, they’re not $200 sunglasses.  I don’t think anybody would be fooled into thinking they’re getting some amazing deal.

Does that make it a scam?  I don’t think so.

The business model (according to them):

“We are providing this offer to Gift Card Holders to create a buzz and to get the word out about our High Quality and cool sunglasses and watches.

Your returned comment cards that are provided to you along with your new sunglasses also are helping us determine the most popular styles and feature for the Sunglasses we will be retailing, starting in the state of California.

*Because our product quality compares so favorably to other national brands that sell at, or for more than, our proposed selling prices; we are planning to open up one hundred Brick and Mortar retail outlets to sell these products at our proposed Retail pricing.”

Pretty clear the above was written by someone speaking English as second language.  I would be surprised if we ever see a RedStar Worldwear retail location (but I’ve been surprised before).  Also curious why their website says “not available in California” if that is where they plan to start their retail empire.

The business model (according to me):

1. Buy cheap sunglasses.
2. Position them as a premium product and pretend to charge premium prices.
3. Offer customers a 91% discount so they think they’re getting a great deal.

Gimmicky? Yes.  Distributing free $500 giftcards? Actually pretty creative marketing.  Scam? No. (unless they don’t actually ship the product — I didn’t place a test order)

My Advice to Customers

Go ahead and shop with RedStar if you want, but be aware you get what you pay for.  Gas station sunglasses sold in a creative way.

My Advice to RedStar

I think it might actually be more effective to use a lower amount on the gift cards, like maybe $50.  $500 definitely gets the attention but it also makes people more skeptical.  A more “reasonable” amount might generate more orders.

Take control of your online reputation.  You’ve succeeded in creating some buzz, but a lot of it is negative.

Could this marketing tactic be applied to any other business?

-Nick

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Each year, residents of our neighborhood are required to submit a certified backflow prevention device test to the city water department.  This apparently ensures safe drinking water for each building.

The city sends out a list of companies that are licensed to perform the test, and there are usually one or two that advertise locally on the mailboxes.

Essentially the testing companies are selling a commodity.  No one cares how the test gets done, just that it gets done as cheaply as possible so their water doesn’t get shut off.  So I would expect to see a race to the bottom in terms of pricing and a lot of transparency, but that isn’t always the case.

The rates are usually $35-45, and I think it must be pretty easy money.  There are 96 units here.  If you could capture that audience with a bargain rate of say $30, one tester could make $2880! Not bad for a day or maybe two day’s worth of work.  Hmm maybe I should get a backflow tester’s license…

So here’s a lesson in marketing.  Compare these two ads posted on the mailboxes.  The first is pretty basic.

Here’s my number, here’s my availability, etc.  But Mr. Hamlin makes one critical error: “My prices remain the same.”  That’s great only if you’ve used his service before and can remember what he charged.

The second ad (which was posted a day or two after the first) takes great advantage of this mistake:

The second ad is far superior.  They come right out and say how much they are going to charge ($35) AND they insinuate that the other company is charging $75.  Love it.  Who know’s what the other guy’s price is?  Maybe it’s $25, but because he didn’t say, now everyone thinks it’s $75.

The AAA Backflow ad also is awesome because they include:

• Both local and toll-free phone numbers
• An email address — fantastic
• The option to book your appointment online through their website — because who uses the phone anymore?
• A testimonial from a local resident — awesome!
• Tear off mini-flyers with all the pertinent information — excellent idea

Despite their first-mover advantage and laminated paper (which was a nice touch), Tri-Valley Backflow got owned by the superior marketing efforts of AAA Backflow.

-Nick

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These days a lot of big websites have big advertisements that either pop up or take up most of the “above-the-fold” real estate when you first load the site.  Annoying, but I understand.

What I don’t understand is that 99% of the time, there is an option in the corner to “skip this ad.”  Ads are a fact of life.  Some are entertaining, some are funny, others aren’t.  I’m a marketing major and I make my living from them.  I get it.  But given the option to skip an ad, I’ll take it every time.

I am a ninja when it comes to finding the button that makes the ad close.  And my guess is you are too.  I never even have time to see what the ad is for, because I know there will be an option to get rid of it in the upper right corner.  It probably takes less than a second.

Does anyone sit there patiently waiting for it to go away on it’s own?  How long does it last?  5 seconds, 10 seconds?  This one I found on Forbes.com was set to last over 20 seconds, an eternity online.

I’d be interested to see some data on the effectiveness of these types of ads.  Are the advertisers charged no matter what, or only for the people that sit through the whole thing?  What percentage of users immediately click the option to skip the ad?

It seems silly to give us the choice to opt out of a website’s revenue channel.  Assuming they don’t get paid unless someone really views the ad, why give customers the easy and immediate choice to skip it.  Skipping gets people to the information they were looking for faster and still cost them the same (zero).  I would be amazed if anyone didn’t skip.

Consider Pandora, an ad-supported business.  If you want to get rid of the ads, you can pay.

Consider Words With Friends, an ad-supported business.  If you want to get rid of the ads, you can pay.

Are these websites shooting themselves in the foot by giving customers the painless option to bypass their revenue source?  I mean you don’t see the gas station giving away free gas just because they thought their customers might be annoyed.

And it would definitely be annoying to have to sit through a TV-style 30-second commercial before loading every website, so hopefully these companies can come up with a better way to make money.

-Nick

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Social media has given customers their voice back, Gary Vaynerchuk explains in The Thank You Economy.  If you read his last book, Crush It!, you might recall his perfectly succinct chapter on the “best marketing strategy ever”:

Care.

That was it, a one-word chapter.  The Thank You Economy is basically the sequel to that chapter or at least an expansion of it.  Specifically Vaynerchuk discusses how this is a great opportunity for companies large and small to build lasting and valuable relationships with their customers.

You’ll learn:

• Why companies need to care about their customers (to survive and thrive)
• Who should do the caring (everyone, not just customer service)
• Where to care (in person and online)
• When to care (always and immediately)
• How to care (be genuine)

Good read for any small business.  Required reading for any small business interesting in starting or expanding their social media presence.

-Nick

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When I saw this ad for Redline Power Rush!, promising a 7 -hour energy boost, I could only imagine the inevitable battle of product oneupmanship we can look forward to.

Crappy single-blade “why even bother shaving” razors –> Gillette Sensor Excel –> Mach 3 Turbo –> Schick Quattro –> Fusion ProGlide –> however many blades we’re up to now.

It’s only a matter of time before we get to 8 hour energy, 9 hour energy, and beyond.  And some day maybe modern science will make it so we never actually have to sleep.

A couple things make me curious about this 7 hour energy product though.  The first is that it “Contains 2 Servings!”  So… does that mean 14 hours of energy, or merely 2 doses of 3.5 hours of energy?  Also, it comes in a 2.5 ounce bottle, compared to just 2 ounces for the market-leading 5-hour Energy.  If my ratio skills are correct, that’s 125% more power sauce.  Assuming a similar energy-to-ounce ratio, a 2.5 oz dose of 5 Hour Energy would really be worth 6.25 hrs.  (So while slightly bigger, the Redline stuff still is more potent.)

Coming soon: 72 Hour Energy!  Can’t wait.

-Nick

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I discovered Seatchute in the latest issue of Inc. Magazine, in a piece about preparing your company for disaster.  Seatchute is a product with a very specific disaster in mind.

The company manufacturers an executive office with a built-in parachute.  It is FAA-TSO certified for jumps over 500 feet.

UPDATE: Seatchute was originally built for airplane seats, but later applied the same concept to office chairs.

The cost?

$2995 each, which includes a Glass Punch, but not shipping and handling or taxes.

Customers

At 10-feet per story on average, only office workers on the 50th floor and higher might find use for their Seatchute.  Not high enough?  Sorry about that.

According to a 2009 video, Seatchute has sold more than 70 chairs to Manhattan clients, and that so far, thankfully none have been used.  I applaud inventor Pete Hilsenbeck for finding and filling a need in the marketplace, but there’s definitely something disturbing about the product and picturing what event might lead to it’s use.

Seatchute is designed to save lives, which is great, and tough to but a price on.  But I think it’s the price tag that doesn’t sit well with me.  Can you imagine a car dealer: “Oh you want the one with airbags? That’ll be an extra $3,000.”

It takes an event that unified our country (if only temporarily) and uses it to create division — between those who can afford the chair and those who can’t.  If another attack were to take place, I wouldn’t want to read about how the bottom 40 floors were crushed while the CEO parachuted to safety.

Although I suppose it’s really not much different from rich people living in more expensive, safer neighborhoods, installing expensive security systems, driving expensive but safer cars, or getting better and more expensive medical care.

Marketing Lesson?

Fear is a powerful motivator.

Seems like the kind of product they’d profile on The Daily Show.

-Nick

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I think skydiving is a good example of an activity you might not want to go bargain hunting for.

Thanks Groupon.

-Nick

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Last weekend in St. Louis, I found an interesting door hanger in our room.

The Westin is encouraging guests to “make a green choice” by declining housekeeping service.  In return for not having to clean and replace your sheets and towels, they offer a $5 food and beverage voucher or 500 Starwood Preferred Guest Starpoints.

I thought it was a really cool idea.  It saves the hotel money in labor, water, energy, and materials like detergent, so why not share it with their customers and spin it as a reward for being green.

I typically decline housekeeping service anyway, so it would be a pure bonus for me.  If the Fairfield in Asheville NC had a similar program when I was there 4 nights a week, I could have been a Marriott Millionaire.

Both rewards options are pretty smart choices by Westin. The $5 voucher has to be spent at the hotel on their overpriced food and drinks, so it doesn’t end up costing them much at all.  And the 500 Starpoints encourage further loyalty to the Starwood chain.  Great marketing all around.

For reference, the Westin St. Louis costs 10,000 Starpoints to book a free night.  The room rate was about $100, so 500 points is roughly equivalent to $5.

-Nick

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