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In between writing a brief marketing guide to a family member, I took a quick break to scan through some of the 100s of newsletters that come into me every day and I found this link: Scene 360 Now, it might just be me, but really whether this is a marketing ploy/gimmick or not, is this the stupidest, more pointless and less environmentally sound thing you have ever seen? Although…goddam it…he got space on my blog. Lol.
 Not available at Borders...
This bounced about on a few gadget websites recently. Obviously it doesn’t work as a real keyboard and I suspect that even if it did, you’d be replacing it every other day but its an excellent example of small-scale marketing that didn’t take long but has the potential to reach 1000s of consumers. Unfortunately for the original maker of the keyboard, they didn’t include their name or details and this has circulated with little or no detail to its origin. Still…its making me hungry right about now… So I go away for two weeks and when I come back, the very same day both Fawcett and Jackson drop dead. Maybe that’s telling me something. Maybe the fortune cookie I got in the Chinese restaurant last week in China Town in New York that said ‘your present plans are going to succeed’ is also trying to tell me something. Either way its good and bad to be back. Anyway, I will endevour to pump out some more blogs this week - maybe this weekend - about some of the cool stuff I saw and heard about in NY. And probably have a crack at Qantas at the same time. The viral video is alive and well and for once, it doesn’t have Susan Boyle in it. This little gem is from Saatchi & Saatchi to promote the New Director’s Showcase call for entries. Very clever and worth a smile, even if the voice-over is very annoying. I once worked at Saatchis in the late 1980s, early 1990s. I delivered the mail. I found these on a flyer sent through to me from McCrindle Research and being a slightly staty nerd boy that I was at Uni and school, I found them quite interesting. Whether you do or not is another matter entirely. I’ll also throw in a comment or two about them.
This is in contrast to the stats from 1979 where for men it was 29.3 and women just 26.5. There is a clear and dramatic shift for both sexes that has a lot of implications on product development and marketing. Realistically within 10 years we could see an average age for men of over 35, which dramatically expands the time that men have with substantial disposable income before they start seeing families sucking the cash out of them.  New Dads...everyone say 'ahhh'. If you consider that people could start working at 21 (assuming they visit University) and don’t have children for 12 years, that’s a fair spend available to the marketplace. Think electronic good, film, music, entertainment, alcohol, fashion. They’re all embracing a demographic that’s getting older and older, and will have more and more to spend. Is it fair to believe that if you catch them when they start their first job, you’ve got them for a long time?
 My thoughts on this con are well known! God. 79.0 is old. Fortunately I’m not half-way there yet. But look at the massive gap as a man between your first child and your impending doom - 46 years! That’s a damn long time. The likelihood of people becoming great-grand parents is massive. Urgh. Just thought about old people having sex. No wonder AMI are plugging their nasal delivery technology. But seriously, the ‘grey $’ is something that I personally, don’t believe anyone markets to overly well. Think of a product, a TV commercial, a print campaign that would you say concentrates on cornering this marketing? These people still watch TV and read magazines, but no-one really wants their money. And Facebook is also growing huge numbers in this demographic too. Social networking for the retired? It’s gotta be better than bowls.
Ha! My theories about the media and marketing over-dramatising the importance of Gen Y could be well founded (which is mainly just a gripe because I’m getting old) or I could be seeing conclusions to fit my own sense of frailty. So you could sell your products to them now and you’d be concentrating on just 18% of the market, and in 11 years time, they’ll still be in a minority in the workforce when compared to Gen X. What other implications does this have on what you do now? Well, it would suggest that perhaps looking at who you employ to work for you is also just as important, give then 85% of those Gen X working today, will still be working by 2020, and would give you a substantially bigger, and more experienced pool to pick from now. McCrindle offer up some great other insights that could help (or hinder!) your business. For those wanting to look at the full set of stats, the full demographic map (and one for the USA too) is available here.
 Look into my balls! So remember back to this post, in which Straight Edge suggested, in a roundabout kind of way, that Australian car manufacturers take a leaf out of Hyundai’s book in the US, and allow people who lose their jobs to return new cars they’ve just bought? Well, along come Kia who have recently offered the same in Australia here. Okay, okay, okay. Yes, Kia are a subsidary of Hyundai, so technically, we’re not predicting the future, but merely noting the extension of a global brand plan. But still, hats off to Kia for the offer. About six months late but still… My one criticism of the Kia advertising of this scheme, is that its terrible. Really bad On bus shelters and other outdoor sites, its really, really hard to read and understand.  I need a hug Another great example of how design on its own, can sell your product. These pictures (from Scene 360) are boy & girl place mats created by Fuz - a Californian-based industrial designer called Josh Jakus. What a cool name - the Fuz and the Josh Jakus. Anyway, the recycled rubber ones cost a mere US$9 each, and the wool ones cost US$12. A total bargin.  Make it so, number one. I promise I don’t normally copy rubbish lists into my blog. They generally only appear if I have made them up myself. Which is rare. But this one really tickled me and especially being such a big fan of Star Trek, I thought I’d repeat this one from Fast Company here. They used a photo that included Scott Bakula and as much as I like him as an actor, I couldn’t face seeing him in charge. Still can’t believe he did 98 episodes. Anyway, some great leadership lessons below…and in fact, some great marketing lessons too. I suspect if we went through all the characters quotes, there would be even more material. I’m sure Data had a few intelligent things to say.
Yes, I am a nerd. Over-stocked? Water damage? Closing down sale? Shops going bust? One can but hope this is a privately run company because if there were shareholders, the muppet that continually appears on the TVCs would have been fired by now. Do we believe him anymore? No, obviously not. But in the most recent adverts he’s even roped in a couple of store managers to emphasise how bad business is - assuming they are store managers and not his wife and brother. But aside from that, what do these adverts say about his brand? How does a consumer react to someone who has lied to them so often that its now a case of ‘the boy who cried wolf’?  Enticing entrance display, no? First things first, lets check out the Google search. The company obviously appears top of the (shag) pile of those searches and in the first line we see the words ‘Australia’s favourite rug store - quality rugs’. Obviously not a huge claim as Australia is hardly falling apart at the seams with stores dedicated to the punting of rugs, but straight away we have an affirming message from the company. The website itself is fairly detail, giving positive advice on sizes, styles and so on. Apparently, like a pair of shoes, a rug should be a good fit. Well, I’m not going to argue with that. The website does SORT OF have an ordering facility - you fill in a form that I wasn’t game enough to test out, but it doesn’t actually seem to have a shopping facility, and there’s no indication or instructions as to how it works. Also we have some great text in the website:
Okay, so its slightly cringey that they believe their customer service is so good that when kids grow up they’ll visit a Rugs-a-million store with their parents with the same anticipation that they’ll enjoy their first day at school, first time at a footy game or first time they catch a fish, but if they want to draw that connection then we’ll let them. They’re not hurting anyone. Anyway, having never shopped at a Rugs-a-million, I can’t vouch for their level of customer service, but for arguments sake, lets give them the benefit of the doubt and anyone who has bought a rug from them, is now best friends with the store manager and his/her staff. They exchange Christmas cards and invite each other round to BBQs. That sort of thing. So with the ‘friendly’ website and high levels of customer service, how does this balance with their TV campaigns?
 Boy Who Cried Wolf: Lying Git Well, badly. One message is telling you how great they are, the next is telling you how totally inept they are at running their business. Not only that, but the valued customers that DID pay $300+ for a rug a few weeks ago, are now going to feel mighty stupid because if they’d hung on a bit, they’d have been able to get the rug at below cost. (Which is written on the TV advert as ‘below cost’ means ‘below store cost’, which presumably means they’re still making a hefty profit on it back at head office.) Why on earth would a consumer pay full price with these guys EVER? The impression that every few months they’ll cock up one way or another and want to punt out quality goods at stupid prices means people will never willingly pay full price. They are victims of their own panic message. But it is a valid marketing tool, done in the right way…and of course, not over used. Key advertising techniques such as ‘exaggerating’ or ’shocking’ or ’save at the sale’ are all being used here, but they’re all being flogged into the ground so much that any element of consumer trust with this company must have vanished by now. Do we feel sorry for them anymore? No. Do we feel the urge to rush out and buy a rug when they come on TV? No. We just laugh. And perhaps at the point where your brand is being mocked - The Chaser have done this too (see below), as well as an entire form at ‘VentYourAnger‘ dedicated to their company - you ought to re-adjust your strategy? Maybe, and worryingly for those working at Rugs, perhaps too much damage has already been done to the brand to recover? Even the Consumer Protection Commissioner in Perth stepped in last year to ‘ensure’ their campaign tactics weren’t misleading. As always its unfair of me to critique such a brand without offering a solution, and as bizarre as it may sound, the solution resides somewhere in their website: customer service. Obviously the hideous TV adverts need to go - you can present a sale or offer a great bargain without having to sound like you’re inept, that the global economic downturn is killing your business or that everything else is someone else’s fault. To borrow a great Aussie expression: ’suck it up, Princess.’ Focus on quality and price, availability and most of all, the need for the consumer to step into one of your stores and purchase a selected wall-covering. And there’s the key: tap into the consumers needs to purchase, not your need to sell. The latter will always have a need depending on their position, living arrangements and so on. You cannot indefinitely continue your sales based on your own urgency to shift units. By definition that urgency is finite. So all those who shopped at Rugs-a-million, feel safe in the knowledge that even if you were ripped off by an apparent team of incompetent morons, they’ll keep sending you birthday cards for the next twenty years until you bring your first born into see them too. 1. I don’t want to know if you’re eating. Or what you’re eating. Or if you’re having the same coffee you had yesterday. And for god’s sake, your mating prowess is not for the public domain either. 2. Spam links don’t work in Twitter. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, unfollow. 3. An advert for something that is replicating something you’re advertising somewhere else is worthless. Make us Twitter people feel special; if you MUST advertise on here, give us something unique - don’t rehash some crappy offer I can get on a coupon. 4. You know that ‘bio’ bit? It’s there for a reason. Fill it in. If you don’t have the enthusiasm/intellect/time to work out what goes there, I hardly think your Twittering is going to be worth following. 5. Lots of followers + bugger all following? Uh huh. I know your type. Unless you’re so goddam interesting that I’m going to be left behind in social circles by not following you, you ain’t getting my click. 6. Abbreviations are good. Abbreviations you thought up yourself just then that make no sense to anyone else, are not good. 7. Twitter + Alcohol = Funny for us. Not funny for you. 8. Don’t post a ‘I just saw a….’ Tweet without a picture. In the words of every Digg.com user, if there’s no photo, it didn’t happen. 9. Don’t Re-Tweet without acknowledging the original Tweeter. 10. No film/tv spoliers. 11. Anyone who puts in the location box ‘Everywhere’ or ‘The World’ or ‘Life’ or some other such cheesy, hackneyed response should have their keyboard taken away from them. Yes, we know the world is getting smaller but unless you’re some sort of ethereal being, or God, then you can’t actually be everywhere. 12. Your background is hurting my eyes. And you do know not everyone has a monitor the same size as yours, right? |
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