MarketingInsideOut.com

I guess maybe you’d have their undivided attention.

According to the site…”on the average, people go to the bathroom 6 times a day. Public restrooms are used very often. Why not place your business or product in front of thousands of people who use restrooms every day. This is a sure fire way to grab people’s attention.”

The visual concept of the Sprint Speed TV spots are a good match for the concept and give more depth to the brand promise and benefits. The production effect is terrific and the spots are entertaining to watch.

They’ve done a good job leveraging it online as well at the SprintAhead.com site where you can see all the spots and create an e-card that uses the stop-action technique. But for me, the real impact and leverage comes from a somewhat stealth Sprint site, waitless.org, that has popped up giving people tips on how to save time in their daily lives.

The slogan at the top of the page says: “Fast-forward through the boring parts of life.”

Then it provides a daily video called a “Sprintcut.” Like one called “Speedy Sorbet,” which shows you how to make sorbet with a scoop of orange juice, ice and a couple of zip lock bags. But the “How to peel an egg” is my favorite.
The various videos claim to save you “days” of your life, or as Sprint claims: “Turn tedious tasks into fleeting moments with Sprintcuts — tips that’ll refund your time and amaze your friends.”

Of course nothing comes without warnings.

The fine print says that Sprintcuts should not be attempted at home, but “Oh wait, that’s what they’re for! But seriously … Sprint is not responsible for the outcome of any attempted time-saving maneuvers. Actual time saved may vary.”

The effort is well integrated and well done. And the technique is very cool, but I wonder about the strength of the message and whether it will stick this time. Granted it’s light years better than Sprint’s last effort, “power up”, but this is the third rebranding effort for the carrier in as many years.

Watch…

Sometimes you just need a little Phil.

I know I did.

Good for Cramer-Krasselt. I’m thrilled to hear the news about their win of the Porsche business.

They’re on a roll…Zantac then Bissell and now Porsche…a great winning streak after getting screwed by CareerBuilder in February. You got to love when you tell a client, who puts you into review for no good reason, to fuck off and have it help your new business efforts. Like Peter Krivkovich, CEO of C-K did when he was told by CareerBuilder that they were going into review because the superbowl spot didn’t make the USA Today poll of favorites… “There are a few times in your life when you have to tell someone to fuck off and mean it,” Mr. Krivkovich said in an interview shortly after the memo leaked.

I think Krivkovich has real conviction and guts… something very admirable in the ad business that is way too willing to whore itself for the buck. I cheered when he told CareerBuilder where they could put their review, but “many agency and marketing executives thought Mr. Krivkovich’s public outburst would make a bad impression on prospective clients who might be reluctant to sign up a potentially volatile partner that might embarrass them when the relationship eventually deteriorated.”

In an AdAge article this morning about C-K’s successes, Porsche seem to cheer him on as well.

“If anything, it was a positive,” said David Pryor, VP-marketing at Porsche Cars North America, which awarded C-K its creative and media accounts last week. “I had a lot of respect for them standing behind their work and conviction. At Porsche, we want an agency that has conviction and passion.”

Congrats to C-K!

Do the Right Thing, Every Time.

We talk to companies everyday that spend lots of money to get new customers. But rarely give thought on how to keep them. Given that it costs five times more to win a new customer than keep an old one, it’s important to focus efforts on retention. One basic and very simple, yet overlooked, way is to focus on treating your customers with respect. That simple focus goes a long way to earning repeat business.

It’s often said that people tell three others about a good experience, but ten about a bad one. And with today’s technology, ten quickly becomes hundreds, so make sure every interaction ends well, even if it starts rocky. A bad experience can be turned into a good one with proper resolution. Do everything possible to make the customer whole.

Here are five basic tenets:

1. Never tell a customer, “I can’t help” OR “you’ll have to call back and talk to a supervisor”. Take ownership of the problem and find a way to resolve it.

2. Never blame someone else for not being able to help. Turn a bad incident into a warm memory by becoming your customer’s advocate.

3. Empower your employees to “do the right thing.” Correct problems immediately; clean up the mess later. When there’s a problem, take care of it while the customer now.

4. Be helpful – even if there’s no immediate profit in it.

5. Realize that your people will treat your customer the way they are treated.

This would be hard to overlook.

Via Ads of the World

On Children’s Day in Indonesia 500 floating hands appeared in the pond in Jakarta’s busiest traffic roundabout. The ambient execution reminded people that even two years after the tsunami in Aceh there are still children in desperate need of help. A sign near the roundabout said: “Many tsunami orphans are still in need of a helping hand.”

Advertising Agency: JWT, Indonesia

A funky, creative piece on YouTube, rather than a six-figure high-end video production with a Swedish director, is the mark of the contemporary music star.

Given the music industry’s crunch and the fact that Gen Yers are watching them on a laptop anyway – the music video, long an extravagant mega-budget production, is stripping down dramatically.

OK Go’s viral hit, where the band dances on treadmills, rode the helm of what makes today’s music video a hit.

Times have certainly changed as outlined in this story titled “Music videos go lo-fi as cash dries up”: :

When MTV’s award show kicked off 24 years ago, the network was ushering in a new era where the video was king: a branding tool and an art form rolled into one. Today, the channel broadcasts mostly reality shows while YouTube, iTunes, MTV.com and various other online destinations have become the dominant viewing platform for videos.

“The new aesthetic is that it’s very low-budget, lo-fi, very do-it-yourself, not at all dedicated to the old style of music video which was always bigger and louder and more explosions and more money,” says Saul Austerlitz, author of Money for Nothing: A History of the Music Video from the Beatles to the White Stripes.

“This is more a punk-rock esthetic,” he adds. “It’s very exciting.”

Just one day after it cut the price of the iPhone by $200 to spur sales, Apple posted an open letter to appease iPhone owners on its site today offering a $100 store credit to customers who had bought one at the full price of $599.

But hey…what about us owners of the now “classic” (read old) iPods?

Say it over and over again Kim…you do not need another iPod…you do not need another iPod…and you still can’t justify buying an iPhone unless you drop your Treo or run over it.

I’m not a big fan of Al Ries and have disagreed with some of his premises, but I found myself nodding and agreeing with him (out loud…and I was alone) when I read his latest article in AdAge “Companies Must Lift the Velvet Curtain”.

The point he clearly makes is that management can’t function independent of marketing and be successful. He uses a couple of compelling examples to make his point. Chrysler vs FedEx.

The tales of Chrysler and new CEO Robert Nardelli’s cost cutting efforts to achieve faster and cheaper.

Faster? More efficiently? Is that what Chrysler’s problem is? Any marketing person knows what Chrysler’s problem is. It’s not a manufacturing problem and it’s not a pricing problem.

Name one reason to buy a Chrysler? I can’t, can you? Chrysler’s problem is a branding problem.

Making cheaper Chryslers faster is not going to solve the company’s problem. As a matter of fact, Chrysler products, on a comparative basis, are already cheaper than Toyotas, Hondas or Nissans.

From a marketing point of view, most Chrysler brands are a mess. What’s a Chrysler? Is it an inexpensive PT Cruiser or an expensive Chrysler 300?

What’s a Dodge? It’s a cheap, or expensive, car or truck.

Now the compelling example that did it right: FedEx.

The early history of Federal Express illustrates the difference between the management approach and the marketing approach. In other words, the difference between competing on pricing and competing on branding.

Early on, Federal Express tried to compete with air-cargo leader Emery Air Freight by undercutting them on price. Each of Federal Express’ three services (overnight, two-day and three-day) was priced lower than the comparable Emery service.

It didn’t work. In its first three years, Federal Express lost $29 million.

Then Federal Express switched to a branding approach. It narrowed its focus to overnight delivery and increased its advertising budget five fold. “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.”

The turnaround was astonishing. Federal Express went on to dominate the overnight-delivery business and became a much larger company than Emery.

The irony in the story is that Federal Express never did give up its two-day and three-day delivery services. These alternatives can still be found on the company’s air bills. Yet FedEx is still perceived as the “overnight” delivery service.

I wholeheartedly agree with Ries that few companies get in trouble because of marketing mistakes. They get in trouble because of management mistakes that get blamed on marketing. Management wants sales. Marketing wants brand building. It’s the same end goal, but the game is played differently.

You can sell anything if it’s cheap enough, but that doesn’t make it a good business decision to center on cost cutting. Because growth then is strictly a function of constantly increasing volume. That’s not sustainable. And it can defeat profit objectives. Building a strong brand allows you to make it more expensive than the competition and still grow. You create the perception that your brand must be “better.” Like Starbucks, Red Bull, Absolut, Grey Goose, Rolex, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz and dozens of other brands.

Where would FedEx be today if the company had hired a “cost-cutting, manufacturing expert” as its chief executive officer?

Probably in the same situation as Chrysler.

I am mesmerized by Sarah Jessica Parker’s new perfume “Covet” and I haven’t even taken a whiff of it yet. I have no idea what the combination of Sicilian lemon, lavender, chocolate and musk notes smell like, but I’ve already decided that I have to have it.

My love began with the commercial. Wearing a pretty white couture dress and stellar high heels, Parker walks up to a store front at The Place Vendome in Paris to admire a huge display bottle of her nouveau perfume “Covet.” She suddenly exclaims, “I have to have it,” and kicks in the glass of the display window with a force that would put a Tae Bo junkie to shame.

As she reaches through the broken glass to steal the coveted bottle, the Parisian police handcuff her and whisk her away to the police car. I completely connected with Parker’s ultimate need to have the perfume, but it wasn’t until I logged on to Covet’s Web site that I realized I was going to be sucked into a two-month interactive marketing campaign.

You too can play detective and solve the “Case of the Coveted Bottle” for a chance to win a $10,000 shopping trip for two to New York City (hotel and travel accommodations included). Every week through mid-October, the Web site is refreshed with a new blog from Parker’s Parisian publicist, Melisande Champney, who offers up information and clues that could possibly free Parker from the jail cell.

Little does the television commercial portray, but the bottle of Covet came up missing after Parker was arrested. Was this a set up? It’s up to you to follow the scent and bust through the clues using online French translators, Google, Flikr and other detective blog Web sites. Profiles on MySpace lend information on possible perpetrators and suspects. There are even bonus challenges where one can upload videos to enhance their chances to win.

I feel like a Charlie’s Angel trapped in an addicting mystery waiting for the latest news and clues to arrive each week. There is no doubt I will continue to scavenge through the end of the campaign and will soon smell like a bottle of Covet myself.

Besides, I have to have it.