The Voice of Demand

LJ Jones

Marketing Messages and Coconuts

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

Marketing messages need to be presented in a form that’s easily consumed by the audience. Tweet Bite

To understand form of consumption a little better, lets take a look at a coconut.  Locked inside a coconut is milk and fruit that is used to make tasty drinks and treats.  The problem is, its locked inside and is not in a form that is easily consumed.  If you are trying to open a coconut that has come straight off a tree, you had better have a machete.  It takes considerable work to get to the milk.

Coconut

Coconut

In contrast to the hard inaccessible coconut, think of a Pina Colada.  Both have coconut milk, but one is much more easy to consume than the other.

Pina Colada

Pina Colada

My point is, that there are many forms of media and communications that we can use to communicate with our audience.  Not all forms are right for all audiences.  To some audiences, certain forms of media are going to seem like a coconut, filled with something they want, but in a form too difficult for them to access.

For example, lets say a person has a pipe that has just broken in their house and their basement is filling up with water.  They need a solution ASAP.  A long form blog post on plumbing is a coconut, while a phone book with the name of a plumber is a Pina Colada.

Marketing messages need to be like Pina Coladas Tweet Bite, filled with what an audience needs and in a form they can easily consume.  To do this we have to know our audience and know the form they need their information in.

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Posted in Audience, Messaging | 1 Comment »

Understanding Consumption

Thursday, April 16th, 2009

The internet is evolving at a rapid pace and it is changing the way people consume information.  As marketers, we need to understand how the consumption of information is changing to make sure that our messages to consumers are in a form that they understand.

One platform that is greatly changing the way peoeple consume info is Twitter.  So whats the big deal and why all the buzz?  While it took a little over a year for Twitter to reach about 5 million users, it was able to reach its second 5 million users in about a month.  Whether its the race between Ashton Kutcher and CNN to be the first in the history of Twitter to reach 1 Million followers, or the rumor that Oprah is going to send her first Tweet tomorrow, people are flocking to Twitter and its effecting how masses of people consume online.

Two things about Twitter are changing the way we consume.  First, Twitter only allows people to post short bits in 140 characters.  This is causing people to get right to the point and say exaclty what they mean.  140 characters is quite the opposite to the long 3 page in depth blog post.  More and more people are getting used to consuming info in this short, tell me exactly what I need to know, 140 character form.  They read a few short tweets and move on.  And my guess is their attention span for a long blog post is changing.

The second thing about Twitter is its shear volume.  Many people follow hundreds, if not thousands of people and recieve all of their tweets in a constant stream.  Its a firehose of information, and who has the time to read it all.  Anthony calls this the Twitter Paradox in that “I read more but I read less.”  The amount of posts, info and links that we are exposed to has gone way up.  But we don’t have the time to read it all, so we scan, much like we do with search results.

Now this isn’t to say that Twitter is going to make all other forms of communications and media disapear.  It is simply one platform that is having an effect.  The point is that there are many types of media that we can use to communicate and they are changing as we speak.  To reach an audience, we need to understand each of these forms and identifiy which forms are best for communicating with a particular audience.  We are currently thinking about the the different demand states of an audience and the different forms of media that would be best to reach them.

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What’s a Google Worth?

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

What is Google telling your customers about you?

When someone wants to know more about a product or service, especially high consideration products, they often go straight to Google to see what the web has to say about it. That’s because, while your website may have a lot of great things to say, people expect marketing speak on a corporate site and therefore don’t really value it as a trusted source of information.  They do however trust Google to give a more broad, somewhat unbiased, view of whatever they are searching for.

As a marketer and understanding how people turn to Google, I am often amazed at how few companies take the time to Google the name of their own company and see what pops up on the first page of results.

CashforGold made this mistake a few months ago when they ran their high priced Super Bowl ads.  They have since started cleaning up their online reputation, but at the time, the first page Google results had some pretty negative things to say about the company.  That’s a lot of money to spend on an ad, only to have it shot down on the Google results page.

With the huge growth of social media, people will have access to even more information and opinions about a products and company then ever before.  And Google never forgets.  Its important more than ever that companies are aware of what is being said about them and their products on the internet.  It takes a proactive approach to keep up.

Companies should also understand that marketing programs, both online and offline, need to work together.  They need to function as a whole to accomplish the overall objectives.  Work to find a balance, because focusing one and forgetting others, may prove disastrous.

And if you haven’t Google your company lately, do it now.

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Marketing Another Movie About Santa

Thursday, February 26th, 2009

Lumenas Studios is currently producing a movie called The Legend of Santa Claus that is set to be released in November of 2010.  At first one might ask, “Do we need another movie about Santa?”  At least that was the reaction of some of the bloggers who read the latest Press Release announcing the movie.  Going into this we knew that even marketing a movie about a character as loveable and well known as Santa would have its challenges.

Lumenas is a new client of ours and two days ago I had the opportunity to tour their studio in downtown Salt Lake City where they are hard at work.  We will be managing all internet marketing and web development relating to the movie over the next two years.

The Legend of Santa Claus is a full length animated adventure film about the story of Santa’s youth.  There have been many movies about Santa leaving the North Pole to deliver toys to good little girls and boys but never one about what Santa was like as a kid.  So yes, this is a story about Santa but no, it’s not one you have heard before.

And therein lies the challenge in marketing this movie.  Leveraging the icon of the magical man in the red suit and white beard enough to get people interested in the movie, without making them wonder why we need another movie about Santa.

But after touring the studio and seeing the dedicated people hard at work, each working in their field of expertise, I can see why we need another movie about Santa and why this won’t be like anything we have seen before.  The atmosphere is one of creativity and energy and everyone involved, including me, is excited to be working on this project.  I saw people painting, sculpting, animating, drawing, creating, lighting and doing what they do best, make good movies.

Over the next two years we hope to be able to give people a glimpse into the world that we saw two days ago and do our part to tell the story of the young boy who grew up to be the man in the red suit.

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Generating Buzz - Give Them Something To Talk About

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

Sometimes having a great product isn’t enough to get people talking.  As we can see from Tourism Queensland, sometimes you just need to give people something to talk about.

So what is everyone talking about?  Only the best job in the world.  Don’t believe me, here is a paragraph from the job description.

“Tourism Queensland is seeking applicants for the best job in the world! The role of Island
Caretaker is a six-month contract, based on luxurious Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier
Reef. It’s a live-in position with flexible working hours and key responsibilities include
exploring the islands of the Great Barrier Reef to discover what the area has to offer.
You’ll be required to report back on your adventures to Tourism Queensland
headquarters in Brisbane (and the rest of the world) via weekly blogs, photo diary, video
updates and ongoing media interviews. On offer is a unique opportunity to help promote
the wondrous Islands of the Great Barrier Reef.”  You can read the full description here.

And did I mention that the job requires 12 hours of work a month and pays approximatley $100k US for the six month contract?

By giving people something to talk about, Tourism Queensland has:

  • Received over 35,000 applications
  • Generated hundreds of user generated videos on Youtube
  • Generated thousands of blog mentions in many different languages
  • Received tons of media coverage
  • Generated lots of talk on Twitter
  • Inspired many Facebook groups

Don’t just hope people will talk about your product.  Give them something to talk about.

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Create a Movement

Monday, February 9th, 2009

I recently read an article on Mashable about a Facebook member named Crazzy Eve, who after seeing a T-Mobile commercial with people dancing at the Liverpool Street Station, decided to organize a similar event through a Facebook group.  The group quickly grew as friends invited friends and on Friday night (Feb 6th), the group took over Liverpool Street Station and did a little dance of their own.

How were they able to accomplish this and why were so many people willing to join the group so quickly?  It was a movement and people are willing to participate in, share, talk about and join a movement that they believe in.  And while sometimes a movement is serious, other times it can be as simple as wanting to be a part of something bigger, even if that’s just a group of people meeting at a Train Station.

Some of the greatest brands have taken this to heart and have made a movement part of their brand.  Because lets face it, Starbucks is not the best tasting coffe and Red Bull is not the best tasting energy drink.   But their customers are loyal to those brands because they feel like they are part of a movement, something bigger.  Its what drives loyal fans to spend their own time and money to build a crazy contraption and push it off the end of a pier to see if it will fly in Red Bull’s Flugtag.

Starbucks understands this and when they advertise, they don’t sell coffee, they sell the movement.  Too often people get bogged down trying to sell a product and forget about selling something people can believe in.  They list all its features and tell everyone how cool it is, but fail to inspire.

If a brand can inspire, it will be talked about, forwarded, joined, engaged and people will want to be a part of it.  Don’t sell coffee, sell a movement.

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Your Brand. Its what THEY say it is.

Friday, January 30th, 2009

I have often heard the phrase, “Your brand is not what you say it is, but what they say it is.”  And one of the great thing about social media and technology is the ability to get in and look at the conversation about your brand and see “what they say  it is”.

Do you wonder what people what people are saying about your brand?  Here are a few tools to give you a glimpse into what people are saying.  These two tools will help get an idea about the answers to two very important questions

  1. Are people talking about my brand?
  2. If so, what are they saying?

Social Mention

Social mention is great for helping you to see  if your brand is being mentioned in the blogosphere.  Go to www.socialmention.com and type in your brand name and see if and what people are saying.  They provide a social rank box to the right to help you understand how frequently your brand is being mentioned.  I like to use this box to compare one brand to a competitor or to a related keyword.  The left side of the page will give you a small idea of some of the things that people are saying.

Twitter Search

Another way to see what people are saying is to use the Twitter search.  Twitter is like a bunch of giant chat rooms and can give you a good idea of what people in general are talking about.  Go to search.twitter.com and type in your brand’s name.  See what comes up.  You will be able to see the conversations that are happening that involve your brand and what people are saying.  I think one of the coolest things about this is that you can see what people are saying in real time as its said.

For example, the Superbowl is this weekend.  If I were running and ad in the Superbowl, I might watch the search feature as the ad aired to see what people said as they saw the commercial.  People will Tweet about the ad they are watching as they watch it and you can get genuine response from your audience.

This is  a breif glimpse into the mountains of data that can be gathered from social media.  As we go through this data we will come to know our audience better.  Once we understand our audiennce better and understand what people are saying about our brands, we can design better strategies and campaigns to connect with our consumers and meet their needs.

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The President Gets Social

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

This morning, our office gathered around the bank of TV’s to watch the Inauguration of the 44th President of the United States, President Barack Obama.  And as millions of Americans watched, the President’s team was hard at work, implementing the White House’s new social media strategy.

At 12:01pm as the President gave his Inaugural Address to the nation, www.whitehouse.gov switched from the old administration to the new and added a few features, one of which was the new White House Blog.  Along with the website, another item to transition from the old administration to the new was the White House’s Twitter account @thewhitehouse.

With accounts on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, President Obama was the first Presidential Candidate to effectively use social media in his campaign.  He will likely also be recognized as the first President to actively use these platforms during his administration.  He recognizes the value of using these channels to communicate with the public(his audience) as he serves as President of this Nation.

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30,000 Fans in 1 day

Friday, January 16th, 2009
Captain C.B. Sully Sullenberger

Captain C.B. Sully Sullenberger

Yesterday January 15th 2009, a US Airways jetliner with 150 passengers and 5 crew members plunged into the icy Hudson River.  Due to the heroic actions of Capt. C.B. Sully Sullenberger and crew, all 150 passengers and crew are safe.

What does this have to do with Social Media?  When something happens in the real world it also happens in the so called “virtual world” of the internet and social media.  Today, less than a day after the crash, Capt. C.B. Sully Sullenberger has over 34,000 fans on Facebook.  Scratch that, its up over 36,000 just in the time that I am writing this post.  In fact now I am watching it grow real time, with about 100 joining with every refresh.  This also doesn’t take into account the Flickr images posted, Tweets from Twitter and blog posts about it over the next few days.

The offline world and online world are in fact so connected that one affects the other and vice versa.  They are no longer seperated by the closed off walls of “virtual worlds”.  Social media and new technology have just made it easier for people to communicate about what is going on in their lives, and have made it easier to talk about the real world in real time.

UPDATE:  Two days after this post there are now over 385,000 fans.  I also just learned that the first pictures of this event were posted Twitter by a person on the Ferry that helped rescue the people from the plane.  This means that, before a news crew or anyone else could get word out about the plane, it was likely first reported over social media via twitter, by a person who watched it happen.

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If Facebook Were A Country

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

Announcing a week ago that it had reached 150 Million active users worldwide, if Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth largest country in the world just ahead of Nigeria, Japan and Russia.  This is a 50% growth in four months from the 100 Million active users it had in August of 2008.

People are becoming active in social networks in increasing numbers.   According to some research we did, 40% of Generation Y has a Social Network profile.  And its not just Gen Y.  People of all ages are active in social networks. My uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends and my mom are all on Facebook.  Even my grandma has a Facebook account and is active on it.

We are past the point of debating if people are using social networks and if brands should have a presence on them.  We are at the point where we need to be asking ourselves, “What are we doing about it?”

Some brands may choose to do nothing.  Its what Apple has done.  But that has been a conscious decision that they have made knowing full well that Apple customers would stand up for them in this space.  While Apple may not be active in the space, I am sure they are monitoring what is being said.

Every day people are talking about brands.  What are they saying?  What are brands doing about it?  Its time for brands to take a look at the social network and social media space and decide what is the right strategy for their brand.

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