Buzz Builder

Globio and Glossopedia Save the Planet One Kid at a Time

My wife and I are lucky to live in Portland, Oregon where nature is so pristine and beautiful. Yet, with so many places in the world suffering from severe environmental degradation, we worry about the world our children will inherit. If people don't drastically change their ways, the future of the planet does indeed look bleak.

We're excited to be working on a pro bono basis to spread the buzz for Globio, a Portland-based non-profit organization. Globio is making the world a better place through giving kids a deeper appreciation of nature. Recently, Globio launched Glossopedia, a free online encyclopedia aimed at elementary school kids with lots of cool features including well-written articles, stellar photography,  fun videos, and interesting audio (do you know what sound a panda makes?). Additionally, Globio provides valuable instructional materials  at no cost for teachers.

With science education budgets in public schools getting slashed, Glosspedia fills an important void. If you know an elementary school teacher, parent, or child, please tell them about Glossopedia since its success depends largely on word of mouth.

Australian Ad Mocking Male Speeders Creates Buzz

Too often public service commercials mean well but they make no lasting impact with their audiences. However, a spot can change lives when it breaks out of the clutter. I gave up sucking my thumb when I was five because I saw a public service spot showing a little kid get transformed into a rabbit because he sucked his thumb which caused him to have buckteeth. Anti-smoking advertisements so influenced my brother that he begged my father to give up smoking and his pleas were heeded.

BBC did  a fascinating radio story on The World  about a new ad campaign in Australia aimed at male drivers who speed is taking aim where it hurts...their manhood. The ad shows women shaking their little finger, the pinkie, as young male motorists’ race past. These commercials have been effective in reducing the number of speeding incidents and have generated a lot of buzz throughout Australia. They're funny and different - two great ways to build word of mouth excitement. Check out one the ads below.

Diapers.com Leverages Wall Street Journal Rave - An Example of the Residual Value of Positive Publicity

A couple of days ago, there was a Cranky Consumer review  in the Wall Street Journal comparing online diaper companies. Reviewer Eileen Gunn gave Diapers.com  her highest praise saying "Diapers.com is the Web site we are most likely to order from again. Prices amounted to 17 cents a diaper for Pampers and 19 cents for Seventh Generation -- the lowest prices we found. Shipping was free. And an order placed late Thursday night arrived Monday afternoon. It doesn't get much more straightforward than that." When I finished the story, I imagined the high-fives that most have been exchanged in the marketing department at Diapers.com when the story first appeared.

One of my pet peeves about PR is that too many companies pat themselves on the back when they land great press. Sadly, they don't realize that the lasting benefit of PR is its residual value. Smart companies understand this, and Diapers.com is one of them. A link to the story is prominently featured in the middle of the home page and links to the full article which has the best quotes highlighted for quick reading. I'm sure that the credibility of the article will convince many people checking out the Diapers.com website for the first time to order since it's more credible than any copy that the company could generate.

Oddly, on the Diapers.com website, it is hard to find the company's press room. There is no link to it from the site's home page. Only after searching around for a few minutes did I find a link to an About Us section in small print at the bottom of the home page which subsequently links to a Press Room featuring an impressive array of awards and articles. There's absolutely no reason that such great information should be so buried within the company's website since it does a lot to sway a consumer. 

 

Nau Hear This: Portland Outdoor Company's Generosity Deserves Buzz

There's a fascinating article  in today's Oregonian  about Nau, a Portland-based green retailer of outdoor clothing. The business is generating local buzz because it's taking a different approach to branding. Unlike other outdoor clothing and sporting goods lines which tend to lean heavily on prominent logos and famous athletes, Nau is taking a novel approach by focusing on high-quality garments without logos that are sold online and through small storefront locations designed to promote online sales. The company also has an interesting blog called "The Thought Kitchen" which highlights the socially-responsible beliefs and interests of the company's principals.

Recently,  Nau announced that it has awarded $62,000 to charities in its first six months of operations in keeping with its pledge to grant five percent of all sales to nonprofits that customers have selected.  There are many companies which are trying to ride the wave of being a socially-responsible business. Yet, when one studies the details, there is oftentimes more sizzle than steak as many companies cap their total donations to nonprofits even thought they promote giving a fixed percentage of sales.

Kudos to Nau for living up to its donation pledge even though the company has yet to turn a profit. I hope that their generosity results in good press and widespread positive buzz because the company is giving far above the average for U.S. businesses. According to the annual Giving USA  Report by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, U.S. corporations on average donated 0.7 percent of their pretax profits, which is sales minus expenses, a much smaller figure than the overall sales number which Nau uses to determine its charity contributions.

PR Lessons from the 2007 APRO Convention & Buying Show

In September, I had a three-week sailing adventure in the Greek Islands. I enjoyed the time with my wife, excellent sailing, incredible sights, friendly people, and delicious food. Now, I'm back and ready to blog.

Last week, I spoke on "Boosting Your Rentals with Buzz Marketing" at the 2007 APRO  Convention & Buying Show in Reno, Nevada. The annual event is the largest gathering of people in the rent-to-own (RTO) industry.  Before the conference, I published an article  in Progressive Rentals, APRO's bimonthly magazine, on "Leveraging the Power of Customer Buzz" which has lessons and ideas applicable to any retail operation.

In my sessions at the APRO event, I heard some great ideas from entrepreneurs who have created tremendous publicity for their RTO stores. One Tampa Bay, Florida store has an annual kid's fingerprinting  and safety event. According to the store's owner, each year the event garners more media attention and and draws larger crowds. Another conference attendee told me about a strategy that he rolls out every time he opens a new store. He notifies the media that a convoy of his brightly-painted and vinyl-emblazoned delivery trucks will be pulling into his new store's parking lot to unload merchandise. Nearly every time, this visual image gets TV cameras to appear and lands big photos in local papers with headlines like "There's  a New Store in Town."

Both examples illustrate how one good idea can continue getting publicity. If something works for you once, why not try it again? I've seen the same publicity ideas produce results whenever they're tried. Too often, people give up on a successful way to garner media attention because they become bored with it before the media does.