Altyrian View

As many of you know, I spoke at the SAS Ragan Conference in Durham, NC, last month. If you haven’t been to a Ragan conference, I highly recommend them. They are both informative and fun.

Below is an interview with me conducted by Mark Ragan.

I just watched the new Folger’s Advertisement that’s playing on the Internet. In it, a crowd of yellow glowing idiots (are they dead spirits?) sing and annoy the inhabitants of a seaside town until - surprise! - those inhabitants drink their coffee. A couple of sips of (you guessed it) Folgers and the townspeople actually tap their fingers along with the singing idiots. Message: drink your coffee and you’ll love mornings.

Heather Green over at BusinessWeek Online describes the spot as “disturbing.” In her blog she posts the Folger’s pitch for the ad. I’m with Heather - I find the ad disturbing as well, considering that the ad’s song includes the line “You can sleep when you are dead.” But, even more than disturbing to me is the horrible lack of strategy behind this ad. At our agency we drink lots and lots of coffee, and we actually drink Folger’s. I love the taste of Folger’s but I really hate this ad.

Come on Folger’s, did you think to ask the question “What’s this ad going to do for our brand?” From where I’m sitting this ad makes your brand silly, annoying and unlikeable. Don’t insult your customers with glowing yellow idiots (singing or otherwise) and don’t remind your customers that someday they’ll be dead. Your product is coffee - COFFEE!  Maybe you should keep your product AND your market in mind next time.

Is podcasting a viable marketing tool? The answer might seem obvious you and me, but many companies just don’t see it. Even when it fits perfectly in their marketing strategy, lots of companies are unwilling to move into podcasting. John Havens has written a great post on Adotas about this, and he gives some good reasons to podcast that every corporate marketer should be aware of. 

In addition to his reasons though, I would like to add this: podcasting provides a powerful, simple and cost-effective way to pull customers to our message.

Here’s why this is so important. We all know that marketing is changing, and it will change even more as technology moves forward. It’s becoming more and more difficult to push our message to customers because our customers are filtering out more and more of what comes at them. So, instead we need to get our customer to come to us - in effect, we have to pull them to our marketing message. (John Hagal gave a great presentation on this at the 2006 Innovative Marketing Conference - you can hear it on the For Immediate Release site).

So how do we pull customers to our message? By giving them interesting and relevant content - content that they want to receive, that they will actually seek out and spend time with. Of course, this content can be created and made available in different ways - print, radio, TV, Internet, you name it. But one of the least expensive and most effective ways happens to be… (drum roll here)… podcasting. Eventually, even the most unwilling companies will come to understand this. The trick is to help them grasp it sooner rather than later.

Broadcasted on June 9, 2006

Today, John Mims interviews Tom Gaillard, President of Concentric Direct Marketing. Gaillard discuses the market’s shift toward consumer centric marketing: its strategies and practices.

• The common approach before consumer centric marketing was product marketing where companies were pushing products at consumers, with little input. Now, with consumer centric strategies, companies experience an opposite effect with consumers pulling at products. Successful companies are able to determine, understand, and deliver what the consumer wants.

• Technology is causing the shift toward consumer centric marketing. With large data warehouses, the internet and collection tools, collecting and capturing data has become significantly easier and practical.

• As a result of consumer centric marketing, companies use more real-time and relevant communication with their customers. Consumers naturally create a media barrier, jaded from spam and other irksome advertising attempts, so it is necessary to deliver the right message, at the right time, and the right way.

• Cross selling opportunities are becoming more widespread. Companies target previous customers by analyzing their demographics. For example, if a customer opens a checking account, the next day the bank will send a thank you package with specific promotions and offers which would best apply to the interests of the consumer.

• Specific targeting saves money in the long run by not sending out unnecessary information. Companies now target customers specifically by sending out details and information the customer would be interested in.

Listen to the full broadcast on our iTunes Podcast Marketing Watch.
Feel free to contact us; we welcome ideas and feedback from our audience.

Broadcasted on May 19, 2006

Today’s interview is with Lara Helms, Art Director for Altyris Advertising. Helms discusses the marketing strategies used to promote the TV show “Lost.”

• “Lost” is taking its audience outside the hour long TV show to searching websites and other sponsorships looking for show details. Lost fans search sites such as Sublymonal.com, sponsored by Sprite, to look for “Lost” information.

• “Lost” marketers are taking fans from one medium and driving them into another medium to market their product and message. The Hanso Foundation, a fictional organization created in the “Lost” series, released a commercial that prompted a hotline number and website for curious fans. Those who called the number were put on hold and listened to commercials from Monster.com and Sprite.

• For those who do not have access to the power of marketing through hit TV shows, Podcasts from iTunes, viral marketing, and websites like myspace.com have the same kind of impact and are just as useful.

Listen to the full broadcast on our iTunes Podcast Marketing Watch.

Feel free to contact us; we welcome ideas and feedback from our audience.

Broadcasted on Apr. 28, 2006

Today’s interview is with Larry Hill, President of Altyris Advertising, and Dan Robinette, Creative Director for Altyris Advertising. Hill and Robinette discuss the changes in how creativity is applied throughout the advertising and marketing process, rather than the types of creativity.

• Creativity now not only includes design concepts (font, layout, and color) but rather the areas of problem solving and market penetration.

• Creative strategies are key to a successful advertising, marketing, or public relations exercise. They include developing the strategy around the consumer, product, and/or market.

• One approach for a successful creative strategy is to hold creative sessions. In order to expand originality you need to bring everyone into the creative process from accountants, to copywriters, to art directors, to designers. This is very helpful in exploring and creating new ideas and methods that could break through your market.

Listen to the full broadcast on our iTunes Podcast Marketing Watch.

Feel free to contact us; we welcome ideas and feedback from our audience.

Broadcasted on Mar. 14, 2006

Today’s interview is with John Mims, Public Relations Director for Altyris Advertising. Mims discusses the importance of understanding consumers from market research.

• Primary research is defined as collecting original research data, and the two categories of primary research include: quantitative and qualitative research.

• Quantitative research comes from the collection data and is an example of a statistical liability, this includes surveys and polling. Quantitative research can be costlier than qualitative, but is usually more reliable.

• Qualitative research comes from anecdotal information: focus groups or interviews. This is typically less expensive; however there is no statistical liability as in quantitative.

Listen to the full broadcast on our iTunes Podcast Marketing Watch.

Feel free to contact us; we welcome ideas and feedback from our audience.

Broadcasted on: Nov. 1, 2005

Today’s interview is with Larry Hill, President of Altyris Advertisng. Hill discusses the concept of saturation branding, defining it as managing every aspect of the brand image, every channel, and every interaction and experience the customer has with the brand. This boils down to using all aspects of the brand into one focus strategy.

• It is important to keep in mind that every interaction the customer has with the company, must be a positive one to maintain a brand image; this includes everything from interior design, employee representation, customer service, product design and usage, etc.

• Saturation branding for ABC’s show “Lost” included not only TV spots, but posting missing fliers for the characters and messages in bottles on beaches.

• All forms of interaction with consumers need to be made sure that they build the brand in a cohesive manner.

• Saturation Branding is becoming a critical part of the corporate approach to building an image and will only grow as a vital marketing strategy.

Listen to the full broadcast on our iTunes Podcast Marketing Watch.
Feel free to contact us; we welcome ideas and feedback from our audience.