Buzz Builder

Consumer Review Website The Senior List Aims to Be the Angie's List of Senior Services

A couple of days ago, I received an email from Chris Clark, president of The Senior List, a website aimed at people looking for quality senior services. Chris thought I would be interested in his company based on a post I wrote on this blog in January 2008 which explained why I'm willing to pay for membership on Angie's List, one of the leading customer review websites with approximately 750,000 members across the United States.

I'm intrigued with The Senior List because it provides a valuable service which I haven't seen elsewhere. In fact, a few months ago, my wife and I were thinking about how to find a reputable financial adviser for her parents and didn't know where to look. When I checked out The Senior List, not surprisingly, I noticed primarily health-related categories but I also saw that it has a money management section. If only it had reviews of money managers near my wife's parents, our task of finding a financial adviser would be much easier.

The Senior List is worth visiting since it has an attractive web interface and many useful articles for seniors or those who find themselves responsible for helping seniors make important life decisions. Since the website is relatively new, it still doesn't have many reviews. But, given the billions of dollars that are spent on senior services, I have no doubt that there is a large pool of potential reviewers who can provide insightful reviews for The Senior List. In the "Age of the Empowered Customer," when buzz from regular people is so influential, I'm sure that there will be a proliferation of customer review websites focused on important niches like seniors.

Comcast Reality Check: Comcastic is Bombastic Yet Hardly Fantastic

If you live in an area that cable television provider Comcast serves, you've likely been barraged with advertising for the company's new digital offerings. However, be wary of Comcast's promises if one of its representatives comes knocking on your door.

Last week, a gregarious Comcast representative rang my doorbell offering free digital boxes for our two televisions which he said would allow us to watch channels that we were paying for but had stopped receiving as well as access on-demand programming. Furthermore, he said the digital boxes would integrate perfectly with our TiVo system. Best of all, he promised that all this would come with no increase in our monthly cable bill. Momentarily, I forgot the maxim that "if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is" and agreed to the upgrade.

Today, a Comcast technician came to our house to install our new service. Things started off badly and got worse quickly. First, I was told that there were no guarantees that my TiVo system would work with the new digital box. In fact, he told me, "I don't know why our people promise so many things that can't be guaranteed." Second, he said that he had only one box with him since the person who created the work order had forgottent to put in the code for another box.Third, after installing the digital box, the framing of the image was distorted making it impossible to read the scrolling information on the bottom of the screen that has gotten so popular on television news. Fourth, when leaving, he asked me to sign a piece of paper approving his work and agreeing to a monthly price increase in our service. Since everything that the Comcast technician did contradicted what the Comcast sales representative told me, I refused to sign the work order and requested that the digital box be removed.

While the "Comcastic" advertising campaign has entertained me, I was sorely disappointed with what the company actually delivers. Instead of spending money touting "Comcastic" service, Comcast would be much better served concentrating on offering honest information and quality installations to engender satisfaction and positive buzz.

Derrie-Air Generates Lots of Buzz But Is It Good Marketing?

Many marketers are more concerned about showing off their creativity rather than creating meaningful results for their clients. A great example is the recent advertising effort from Gyro, an ad agency in Philadelphia, to build buzz for a Philly Media Holdings which publishes the Philadelphia Inquirer and other large newspapers in Pennsyvlania.

Recently, Gyro launched a spoof campaign for Derrie-Air, a fictitious airline that charges passengers by how much they and their baggage weigh - given the recent cust-costing announcements from many airlines, it's not much of a stretch to believe that such an airline might actually exist. Large display ads ran in various newspapers which Philly Media Holdings controls sending people to a very realistic looking website.

The hoax was set up to see how many people would fall for the idea. It was designed to "demonstrate the power of our brands in generating awareness and generating traffic for our advertisers, and put a smile on people's faces," explained Philly Media Holdings spokesman Jay Devine.

Can this guy be serious? For owners of furniture stores or an automobile dealerships, two of the biggest type of companies that advertise in newspapers, this spoof campaign proves nothing since their products don't lend themselves to such an attention-getting angle. 

Even though the display ads for a fictitious airline with a crazy business concept are humorous, they do fail to counter the argument that newspaper advertising is in steep decline because more consumers are going online for news and advertisers are following them there as Eric Alterman's excellent article in The New Yorker explains. Instead of creating gimmicky campaigns to fool their readers, Philly Media Holdings would be much better served making their websites more robust and user-friendly to attract an increased share of the growing online advertising market.

Red Bull Gets Wings & Buzz with Flugtag Publicity Stunt Since 1991

Kudos to Red Bull for creating Flugtag, an annual publicity stunt that has taken place in numerous locations around the world since 1991. Each year, it generates tremendous buzz for the company  reinforcing its advertising slogan: "Red Bull gives you wings." Flugtag is a tongue-in-cheek flying event judged on three criteria: distance, creativity and showmanship. What constitutes a craft is purely up to the imagination of the participating teams.

The first Red Bull Flugtag took place in Vienna, Austria, in 1991. Since then, more than 35 Flugtags have been held around the world -- from Ireland to San Francisco -- attracting up to 300,000 spectators. The record for the farthest flight-to-date currently stands at 195 feet set in 2000 at Flugtag Austria. The U.S. record stands at 155 feet set in Nashville, TN in 2007 (see video below from Red Bull which documents this flight).

I was impressed to see Red Bull's Flugtag event featured on the front page of The Oregonian, my daily newspaper, this past Saturday with a photo of a contestant getting ready to jump off a ramp. Clearly, a great photo was the clincher to secure such prime coverage since the article didn't cover the contest rather it merely noted the deadline to apply for the event in August is less than two weeks away.

Yes, Red Bull and other companies have discovered that publicity stunts can still break through the commercial clutter and generate tremendous media and public attention provided they meet some basic as I explained in this post.

Simple is Good Marketing Lessons from Twitter, Common Craft, and the Portland Baroque Orchestra

"Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away."
Antione de Saint Exupery, author of The Little Prince and a pioneer in aviation

In a world in which the typical urbanite is exposed to 5,000 marketing messages daily, simple is good. Too many companies get lost in the commercial clutter communicating in a confused way. Today I noticed a public bus with a a sign on the back for the Portland Baroque Orchestra. There was a picture of a violinist, the orchestra's name, and three words: fresh, intimate, and alive.

It seems that more companies are entranced with stating their core values using three words. There is nothing inherently wrong about this. In fact, if you could tell folks what makes your organization, service or product different and interesting in three words, I'm all for it. However, if there is cognitive dissonance between the words you choose and what you offer, you're not helping your brand. Rather, you're merely confusing your possible customers. I can't imagine that there are many people in the world who are drawn to seeing an orchestra that is fresh, intimate and alive. Those words just don't evoke a quality orchestra rather they sound more appropriate for one of those newfangled automatic air fresheners.

But, simple words can be used very effectively. I recently stumbled across a small company in Seattle called Common Craft that does clever videos utilizing paper cutouts to illustrate complex products and services. Make sure to check out the below video that they did for Twitter since it provides an excellent explanation of rapidly growing social media and shows how much can be communicated using simple words and graphics.

Super Bowl Ads Can Build Buzz

Today my wife and I joined 90 million other Americans in watching the Super Bowl on television. I was most interested in seeing the game but my wife, who never watches football, always makes a point of catching the Super Bowl to see the ads. It's the only time a year we actually use TiVo to rewind our favorite commercials.

Fox charged almost $3 million for some 30-second spots although most advertisers paid far less than that depending on when they bought the time, how much they bought and at what point in the game it's placed.

For such a princely sum of money, it's easy to be skeptical that a Super Bowl ad is a good marketing investment. While I'm usually very suspicious of the claim that television advertising is a good way to create buzz, the Super Bowl is an exception.

In an interesting Dow Jones article a couple of days ago, there are some interesting cases of companies that generated tremendous buzz from Super Bowl ads.

For instance, Nationwide Financial Services had one of last year's biggest buzz building commercials with a spot  featuring Kevin Federline, best-known as the estranged husband of Britney Spears, fantasizing about doing a music video while cooking up fries at a fast-food restaurant. That ad has passed into Super Bowl legend, largely because of the enormous publicity it generated, with free media exposure estimated at $23 million in value.

In addition, the company said the ad generated more than 600,000 visits to nationwide.com featured advertising page, with over 500,000 new visitors, and was viewed 832,579 times on its Website alone.

One of the few commercials from this year's Super Bowl which seems to be generating buzz in the blogosphere is the racy Danica Patrick ad for Go Daddy, an website registration company. The company has long been known for pushing the envelope when it comes to good taste. In fact, that seems to be strategy. This year, GoDaddy generated free media attention for having 10 spots rejected by Fox before the network finally accepted one to air. In fact, the company even created a website that features some of the rejected commercials.

Although the Go Daddy ads aren't very creative, I salute them for creating a web page that leverages their Super Bowl buzz. It's amazing that many other companies spent millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads and didn't attempt to drive consumers to their websites to watch the ad again or learn more about the company.

 

Brilliant Johnnie Moore Podcast on the New Social Media, the Death of Advertising, Bananas, and The Grateful Dead

While working out at the gym this morning, I enjoyed listening to Johnnie Moore's brilliant 47-minute podcast  with Hugh Macleod and Mark Earls (author of Welcome to the Creative Age and Herd). If you're interested in learning why the new social media is so promising for businesses with quality products and services, don't miss this wide ranging conversation. I almost fell off the treadmill when I heard Mark's hilarious tale about buying a real banana in a convenience store that had been shrunk-wrapped and labeled with an eye-catching sticker. The "branding" of a banana encompasses all that's wrong with traditional marketing. In contrast, the panelists expound upon how smart companies and The Grateful Dead have found that letting their authentic voices ring loud is the best way to break through commercial clutter. 

Word of Mouth Wins Iowa Caucus

One of the biggest winners in yesterday's Iowa Caucus was word of mouth marketing. On the Republican side, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who was virtually unknown just a few months ago, surged to a resounding victory over former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney who spent nearly 20 times more money on advertising in Iowa than Huckabee. Huckabee won with the overwhelming support of Christian conservatives who turned out to caucus in record numbers. The biggest reason behind the large turnout had nothing to do with traditional advertising. Rather, it was the enthusiasm of Huckabee's supporters who worked to get their friends and family to support their candidate.

For the Democrats, the surprisingly strong performance of Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton defied the expectations of many pundits. Obama focused on a message of change while Hillary emphasized her experience. Exit polls seemed to vindicate Obama's change message. But, the real story was the huge turnout of young voters who voted overwhelmingly for Obama. The huge number of young Obama supporters going door-to-door to get out the vote in the general populace and inspire their peers to vote was the tipping point.

Before Election Day in November,billions will be spent on traditional advertising. But, I would bet that the victor will not be the one who buys the most advertising. Rather, it'll be the candidate who gets the masses buzzing.

The Dalio Family Foundation Honors the Spirit of Christmas with Charitable Giving Advertising Campaign

Yesterday, I was breezing through the Wall Street Journal and stumbled across a full-page ad  with sparse copy and a simple illustration lamenting the chaotic holiday shopping season and extolling the virtues of charitable giving.  Incredulous, I had to read the ad twice to see whether I had missed some veiled attempt to sell something beyond charity. I imagine that many others had the same reaction  since the ad seemed so odd in America's most widely-read business publication.

I whole-heartedly agree with the message, and I commend the Dalio Family Foundation for placing it in newspapers throughout America.  I learned about the reasons for and scope of the unconventonal advertising campaign in an informative article about the Dalios, who didn't want to attach their names to it, in The Chicago Tribune. As the ads continue to appear,  I have no doubt that they will generate conversation amongst those who see them and commentary from journalists and bloggers alike since they stand out so dramatically from the holiday season's commercialism. I hope the campaign inspires buzz which convinces people that donating to charity is an excellent way to honor the true spirit of Christmas.

Apple's Leopard vs. Microsoft's Vista Advertising Seeks to Leverage Word of Mouth Concerns

As the year winds down, I've considered upgrading our office computers. In the past, I simply would have purchased the latest and greatest PC. However, this time I'm delaying the decision because I have many doubts about Microsoft's new Vista operating system.

Many friends who use Vista say that it still has many bugs and they have struggled with both hardware and software incompatibilities.  Their experiences make me think that Microsoft has launched Vista too early. I'm sure that the system will improve over time; however, I'm very leery of serving as a Microsoft beta tester.

I don't understand why Microsoft has a consistent record of launching products before they work well. When Microsoft spends millions of dollars  launching a flawed operating system like Vista, they are actually accelerating negative word of mouth. Rather than spend money on marketing, Microsoft should focus on creating a positive product experience that gets its users excited to tell their friends and colleagues about the benefits of using Vista.

I'm seriously considering switching our  office from PC to Mac.  Why? The run of positive press for Apple's Leopard operating system vs. Vista such as a Walter Mossberg's  article and video  on the Wall Street Journal's website is driving my thinking. Also, Apple's funny and effective tongue-in-cheek  "I'm a Mac, You're a PC" advertising campaign is fanning my concerns about Vista and keeping the Apple option alive.