Well this just takes my point to a new level!
Take a look at what the NY Giants are planning to do with Twitter. This is no longer a crazy little, what are you doing now, kind of thing.
I love it.
http://www.lostremote.com/2011/08/25/ny-giants-first-in-nfl-to-integrate-twitter-on-tv/
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
If you want to leave a comment...
It is a little confusing to leave a comment on my blog.
If you have something to say, look for the word "comment" in orange at the bottom of the post that you want to comment on. If it has a number in front of it, someone already has commented. If it has a zero in front of it, it's waiting for you to start the conversation. Just click on the word "comment" and a form will come up and it will all be clear.
Do it. Do it often. I want to know your thoughts about the things that I write... about. Know what I mean?
If you have something to say, look for the word "comment" in orange at the bottom of the post that you want to comment on. If it has a number in front of it, someone already has commented. If it has a zero in front of it, it's waiting for you to start the conversation. Just click on the word "comment" and a form will come up and it will all be clear.
Do it. Do it often. I want to know your thoughts about the things that I write... about. Know what I mean?
Making a Case for Twitter
I have to come clean. For the longest time I didn't get it. Twitter? People posting pithy comments about what they're thinking and feeling? I didn't see much point in it.
But that changed this summer. I now think Twitter is actually pretty important.
For me it started when the NFL lock-out ended.
I'm a bit of a football fanatic. I heard all the talk on sports talk radio about how the period of time right after the agreement was reached was going to an action-packed, fast-moving free-agent signing period. What would normally take 7 weeks for the NFL to complete, would be done in only 7 days this year. It was going to be exciting. All the radio announcers were telling us to follow them on Twitter to stay informed and I decided to see how that went. I had an account that I hadn't done much with so I went in and started to follow six or eight local football writers and radio announcers. I also started to follow a number of my favorite Bucs' players. I wanted to know what they were thinking as they prepared for training camp.
I found it fascinating. I left Twitter open under my other computer tabs and checked it out when there were more than 20 or 30 tweets waiting to be read. I could skim through those quickly, get updated as news broke, read some interesting stuff from the players I followed (along with some nonsense), then return to what I was doing. In this day of multi-tasking I didn't feel that it was much of a distraction and I enjoyed knowing what was happening.
Then I decided to follow those same writers and announcers during one of the Bucs' preseason games that was not televised locally. I sat in the living room with my wife. We had a movie on the television and as I watched it I was able to follow the game just as well as if I were listening to it on the radio.
At this point I was thinking that my inner-geek was starting to take over. All this to follow football? Was I taking it too far?
Then there was a major earthquake in Virginia that shook the whole east coast. I heard about it first, as it was happening, on Twitter, not only from news organizations from from people who were living through it and were frighted by it, people who were worried about family and friends. It was compelling. It was hard to break away from. Then Hurricane Irene sprang upon the same region. I was able to follow its progress and its destruction, as it happened, on Twitter. There has been an increasing amount of breaking local news posted on Twitter, always before you could hear it or read it anywhere else.
I get it now. I am looking at Twitter in a different light. I believe it has become an important source for news, information, opinion and whimsy. It can be your source for any thing you want because you decide whose posts you follow and whose don't interest you (I have since stopped following some of the Bucs.). In doing so you create its theme and attitude. It will be different for you than it is for me. And if we do it right, it will be perfect for both of us..
Twitter has come of age. Its numbers are growing quickly and dramatically. Millions of people are deciding it's important. Shouldn't that make it important to marketers as well?
Some ideas about marketing on Twitter... coming tomorrow.
But that changed this summer. I now think Twitter is actually pretty important.
For me it started when the NFL lock-out ended.
I'm a bit of a football fanatic. I heard all the talk on sports talk radio about how the period of time right after the agreement was reached was going to an action-packed, fast-moving free-agent signing period. What would normally take 7 weeks for the NFL to complete, would be done in only 7 days this year. It was going to be exciting. All the radio announcers were telling us to follow them on Twitter to stay informed and I decided to see how that went. I had an account that I hadn't done much with so I went in and started to follow six or eight local football writers and radio announcers. I also started to follow a number of my favorite Bucs' players. I wanted to know what they were thinking as they prepared for training camp.
I found it fascinating. I left Twitter open under my other computer tabs and checked it out when there were more than 20 or 30 tweets waiting to be read. I could skim through those quickly, get updated as news broke, read some interesting stuff from the players I followed (along with some nonsense), then return to what I was doing. In this day of multi-tasking I didn't feel that it was much of a distraction and I enjoyed knowing what was happening.
Then I decided to follow those same writers and announcers during one of the Bucs' preseason games that was not televised locally. I sat in the living room with my wife. We had a movie on the television and as I watched it I was able to follow the game just as well as if I were listening to it on the radio.
At this point I was thinking that my inner-geek was starting to take over. All this to follow football? Was I taking it too far?
Then there was a major earthquake in Virginia that shook the whole east coast. I heard about it first, as it was happening, on Twitter, not only from news organizations from from people who were living through it and were frighted by it, people who were worried about family and friends. It was compelling. It was hard to break away from. Then Hurricane Irene sprang upon the same region. I was able to follow its progress and its destruction, as it happened, on Twitter. There has been an increasing amount of breaking local news posted on Twitter, always before you could hear it or read it anywhere else.
I get it now. I am looking at Twitter in a different light. I believe it has become an important source for news, information, opinion and whimsy. It can be your source for any thing you want because you decide whose posts you follow and whose don't interest you (I have since stopped following some of the Bucs.). In doing so you create its theme and attitude. It will be different for you than it is for me. And if we do it right, it will be perfect for both of us..
Twitter has come of age. Its numbers are growing quickly and dramatically. Millions of people are deciding it's important. Shouldn't that make it important to marketers as well?
Some ideas about marketing on Twitter... coming tomorrow.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Fixng the Broken Commercial Break
The television commercial break, for so long the gold-standard for mass-media advertising, especially during prime time, is falling on hard times.
The commercial break has long been considered a prime opportunity to run to the bathroom, see what's in the fridge, or continue a conversation with the person sitting across the room. Then TIVO introduced the first DVR and now millions of people are time-shifting programming and zipping past commercials at 3x speed. What does all this mean for television advertising?
Forrester Research just released a study that says online advertising budgets will pass those for television by 2016, just 5 years from now. It's a pretty interesting piece of work. Here's the link:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2011/08/26/online-ad-spend-to-overtake-tv/
There was a story circulating a few years ago that a prominent ad agency in Miami would dismiss anyone who dared mention a 30-second spot while in a brain storming session. The new media is sexier. Creativity was drawn to interactivity like moths to a light bulb.
So is there a future for television advertising. You betcha! Just take a look at what AT&T has done with BBC America. I'll give you a link to all the details but in brief, they created a 60-second spot that both pushes AT&T and advances the show's plot. This is product placement on HGH. It's great stuff. Here's that link:
http://adage.com/article/mediaworks/t-story-doctor/229500/
What's the future of television advertising? Better creative. Looser boundaries between content and advertising. Bolder steps.
The commercial break has long been considered a prime opportunity to run to the bathroom, see what's in the fridge, or continue a conversation with the person sitting across the room. Then TIVO introduced the first DVR and now millions of people are time-shifting programming and zipping past commercials at 3x speed. What does all this mean for television advertising?
Forrester Research just released a study that says online advertising budgets will pass those for television by 2016, just 5 years from now. It's a pretty interesting piece of work. Here's the link:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2011/08/26/online-ad-spend-to-overtake-tv/
There was a story circulating a few years ago that a prominent ad agency in Miami would dismiss anyone who dared mention a 30-second spot while in a brain storming session. The new media is sexier. Creativity was drawn to interactivity like moths to a light bulb.
So is there a future for television advertising. You betcha! Just take a look at what AT&T has done with BBC America. I'll give you a link to all the details but in brief, they created a 60-second spot that both pushes AT&T and advances the show's plot. This is product placement on HGH. It's great stuff. Here's that link:
http://adage.com/article/mediaworks/t-story-doctor/229500/
What's the future of television advertising? Better creative. Looser boundaries between content and advertising. Bolder steps.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
My Choice for a Marketing Text Book? Google!
A thought occurred to me today as I watched my son order his college text books online; one other than "why are those damn things so expensive?" Does $120 for a paperback Ethics text strike anyone else as ironic?
Any way, some years back I taught marketing at Indiana Wesleyan University for several terms. The school selected the text book. It was a standard, one that I am sure every business student read over the course of that decade. It worked out well. I believe that each time I taught the course with that book the students learned something and so did I.
But this thought came to me today. If I were to teach a marketing course tomorrow I think the perfect text would be... the internet. I am certain that students could handle virtually any thing I tossed at them with the help of Google. Consider these possible assignments:
1. Give me 1000 words on loyalty marketing.
2. Name one company you are familiar with that uses, or should use a CRM software program and why.
3. State five "best practices" pertaining to email marketing.
4. How does television advertising battle effects of the DVR?
See what I mean? There are blogs, articles, book excerpts, chat rooms all over the internet discussing these things. They stay current and you can find differing opinions on every point. In all honesty, I haven't touch the shelves of business and marketing books that collect dust in my den in years. I have stayed informed on all (or most) of the newest developments and opportunities in marketing while surfing the internet, guided by Google. Why shouldn't today's marketing students do it the same way?
It's a lot cheaper than text books. I'm just sayin'...
— Pete Nikiel combines 20 years of marketing experience with clear, forward thinking. He is available to help out companies and agencies in a number of different ways. Think of him as your utility player on call. If you need any sort of help in marketing, branding and advertising contact Pete. Freelance. Project work. Part time. Work.
Any way, some years back I taught marketing at Indiana Wesleyan University for several terms. The school selected the text book. It was a standard, one that I am sure every business student read over the course of that decade. It worked out well. I believe that each time I taught the course with that book the students learned something and so did I.
But this thought came to me today. If I were to teach a marketing course tomorrow I think the perfect text would be... the internet. I am certain that students could handle virtually any thing I tossed at them with the help of Google. Consider these possible assignments:
1. Give me 1000 words on loyalty marketing.
2. Name one company you are familiar with that uses, or should use a CRM software program and why.
3. State five "best practices" pertaining to email marketing.
4. How does television advertising battle effects of the DVR?
See what I mean? There are blogs, articles, book excerpts, chat rooms all over the internet discussing these things. They stay current and you can find differing opinions on every point. In all honesty, I haven't touch the shelves of business and marketing books that collect dust in my den in years. I have stayed informed on all (or most) of the newest developments and opportunities in marketing while surfing the internet, guided by Google. Why shouldn't today's marketing students do it the same way?
It's a lot cheaper than text books. I'm just sayin'...
— Pete Nikiel combines 20 years of marketing experience with clear, forward thinking. He is available to help out companies and agencies in a number of different ways. Think of him as your utility player on call. If you need any sort of help in marketing, branding and advertising contact Pete. Freelance. Project work. Part time. Work.
Friday, August 26, 2011
So What Did We Learn?
(This is the third, and final, post in the story about a good brand that wasn't given a chance.)
This story took place in the television industry, as will many of my stories. But I think that its lessons can easily be related to a number of different industries. See if you agree.
We learned:
1. Give the new brand time. One year isn't enough. Two years isn't enough. It takes time to re-earn consumer trust and loyalty after changing your brand, especially if it is a dramatic change. Take the bad input with the good and don't look for an immediate up-tick. And stay disciplined! Give it time.
2. Make sure you are prepared for "knee-jerk" reactions. The first bit of negative input could make folks in your organization "run home" to the way they were used to doing things abandoning all your re-branding work, or at least leaving serious cracks in the foundation you just laid. Anticipate this. Be prepared to gently guide them back on course.
3. Give plenty of positive reinforcement internally. Share little successes with everyone throughout the organization. Give the staff some positive information that you may not have shared with them before. Let them see that momentum is growing and let them take pride in that. Then when some bad news come down you can point back to the good.
4. Remind your staff again and again and again that branding goes hand-in-hand with differentiation. You are probably not going to catch and beat the competition by playing the game the same way they play it; especially if they've been winning for a long time. Remind your staff, and yourself, that you are now trying to be something different than what you were, different from what your competitor is, and that the perception of success should be measured differently. In our case we should have abandoned the measurement of the "breaking news" image and continued on. That was a measurement for our competition (and our old self) and it didn't really apply to our brand.
But man... did those knees ever start jerking!
The single most important word used in this post is: DISCIPLINE. Branding will always fail without discipline.
Would these lessons apply to your industry? I bet they would.
— Pete Nikiel combines 20 years of marketing experience with clear, forward thinking. He is available to help out companies and agencies in a number of different ways. Think of him as your utility player on call. If you need any sort of help in marketing, branding and advertising contact Pete. Freelance. Project work. Part time. Work.
This story took place in the television industry, as will many of my stories. But I think that its lessons can easily be related to a number of different industries. See if you agree.
We learned:
1. Give the new brand time. One year isn't enough. Two years isn't enough. It takes time to re-earn consumer trust and loyalty after changing your brand, especially if it is a dramatic change. Take the bad input with the good and don't look for an immediate up-tick. And stay disciplined! Give it time.
2. Make sure you are prepared for "knee-jerk" reactions. The first bit of negative input could make folks in your organization "run home" to the way they were used to doing things abandoning all your re-branding work, or at least leaving serious cracks in the foundation you just laid. Anticipate this. Be prepared to gently guide them back on course.
3. Give plenty of positive reinforcement internally. Share little successes with everyone throughout the organization. Give the staff some positive information that you may not have shared with them before. Let them see that momentum is growing and let them take pride in that. Then when some bad news come down you can point back to the good.
4. Remind your staff again and again and again that branding goes hand-in-hand with differentiation. You are probably not going to catch and beat the competition by playing the game the same way they play it; especially if they've been winning for a long time. Remind your staff, and yourself, that you are now trying to be something different than what you were, different from what your competitor is, and that the perception of success should be measured differently. In our case we should have abandoned the measurement of the "breaking news" image and continued on. That was a measurement for our competition (and our old self) and it didn't really apply to our brand.
But man... did those knees ever start jerking!
The single most important word used in this post is: DISCIPLINE. Branding will always fail without discipline.
Would these lessons apply to your industry? I bet they would.
— Pete Nikiel combines 20 years of marketing experience with clear, forward thinking. He is available to help out companies and agencies in a number of different ways. Think of him as your utility player on call. If you need any sort of help in marketing, branding and advertising contact Pete. Freelance. Project work. Part time. Work.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
About That Brand...
(Make sure you read the first post on this blog. This is a continuation of the story. I think stories are great ways to share ideas and experience. Don't you?)
We thought we hit pay dirt.
The consumers told us what attributes they wanted to see in our product. Consumers and product = viewers and newscasts. The same principles apply across industries.
We took all of their input and put together a product and a marketing position that would make us both unique and desirable. Internally we used an acronym to define this brand to the staff.
Relevant to women
Emotional storytelling
Devoted to the Tampa Bay lifestyle.
RED. We were to be the RED station. It told reporters how to cover stories. It told marketing how to promote stories. It told programming which shows to buy or produce. It told the sales department and other departments which came in contact with the public how to talk about the station. It was weaved throughout the entire organization. We were excited.
It was working. A ratings slide was stopped and we were starting to show growth. The market was talking about how we were taking a different approach. It was a bit polarizing. Half liked it. Half didn't. But appealing to half the market left us with a huge potential audience? Things were looking good.
But then came along some well-meaning consultants with a new market survey.
They presented it to the whole staff and it showed that while our branding was being recognized, the station was sliding in the "breaking news" and "big news story" images. Those in marketing said; "So what? That's not what we want to be famous for." But it was too much for highly trained and experienced journalists to accept. They could not handle being seen as being "soft" on news.
And that's when the whole thing started to unravel.
Next: What do we learn from this? And how does it relate to the branding of other products.
We thought we hit pay dirt.
The consumers told us what attributes they wanted to see in our product. Consumers and product = viewers and newscasts. The same principles apply across industries.
We took all of their input and put together a product and a marketing position that would make us both unique and desirable. Internally we used an acronym to define this brand to the staff.
Relevant to women
Emotional storytelling
Devoted to the Tampa Bay lifestyle.
RED. We were to be the RED station. It told reporters how to cover stories. It told marketing how to promote stories. It told programming which shows to buy or produce. It told the sales department and other departments which came in contact with the public how to talk about the station. It was weaved throughout the entire organization. We were excited.
It was working. A ratings slide was stopped and we were starting to show growth. The market was talking about how we were taking a different approach. It was a bit polarizing. Half liked it. Half didn't. But appealing to half the market left us with a huge potential audience? Things were looking good.
But then came along some well-meaning consultants with a new market survey.
They presented it to the whole staff and it showed that while our branding was being recognized, the station was sliding in the "breaking news" and "big news story" images. Those in marketing said; "So what? That's not what we want to be famous for." But it was too much for highly trained and experienced journalists to accept. They could not handle being seen as being "soft" on news.
And that's when the whole thing started to unravel.
Next: What do we learn from this? And how does it relate to the branding of other products.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Just an aside...
Don't you wish every company could research consumer preferences BEFORE they introduce the new brand/product. I realize this was a good situation, but it's not rare.
My mother always told me, "Look before you leap."
It's the difference between being consumer-focused and being product-focused. That's simple Peter Drucker thinking.
Anyway, I'll continue with this story tomorrow.
... Pete Nikiel is available to work with you and your company on their branding and marketing challenges. Contact him through Linkedin.
My mother always told me, "Look before you leap."
It's the difference between being consumer-focused and being product-focused. That's simple Peter Drucker thinking.
Anyway, I'll continue with this story tomorrow.
... Pete Nikiel is available to work with you and your company on their branding and marketing challenges. Contact him through Linkedin.
The Birth and Untimely Demise of a Good Brand.
We had a product that lacked definition. It lacked a target market. It lacked branding focus. It was a television station producing local newscasts and it glaringly lacked an audience.
We were competing with five other broadcast news operations. A couple were well-branded, the others were not. Guess which operations were leading the market. We were giving the directive from our corporate owners to re-brand… and to do it right.
How to do it right? That’s a great question. Where to start? So many possibilities. We debated it furiously.
Finally we stepped away from our tree and tried to take a look at the forest. We identified the branding positions that were already taken in the market. One station claimed the “advocacy” brand decades before. They understood the brand and allowed it to shape their product (newscast). There was no mistaking that they were “on your side.” Another focused solely on breaking news and hyper-local news with coverage partners in all counties. They didn’t try to take on the others by adding the investigations and highly produced features on which journalists love to work. They were breaking news and hyper-local.
So two brand positions were clearly taken. Those stations owned those identities and we all agreed that it would be foolish to try to go head-to-head with them. What else was there?
Back to the boardroom we went to do some serious brainstorming.
We came out of it with six different styles of newscasts, each distinct. The two positions already taken were included for comparison purposes. We wrote a paragraph describing each and shared them with local viewers. We held focus groups where we distributed the paragraphs one at a time. We asked the people to circle the words and phrases from each paragraph that appealed to them and to strike out those that did not.
The findings were fascinating. The groups were able to pick out the paragraphs describing the market leaders and correctly attribute them. Left for us were thoughts and idea fragments from a few of the paragraphs that we had to piece together like a puzzle.
That’s how we went about “doing it right.” Our solution and where we went wrong will be the subject of my next posting.
— Pete Nikiel combines 20 years of marketing experience with clear, forward thinking. He is available to help out companies and agencies in a number of different ways. Think of him as your utility player on call. If you need any sort of help in marketing, branding and advertising contact Pete. Freelance. Project work. Part time. Work.
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