This is a guest post by Nate Towne. Follow him on Twitter @Fancy_Lad.
So you’re considering Pinterest for your business are you? Well you’re not alone! As my last Pinterest post propounded, Pinterest has more than four million users and is growing each and every day. It’s the “hot new shiny toy” of the social media sites – which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right for your brand. After all, thousands of people get their naughty bits pierced each year – that doesn’t mean you should, too (Or does it?). So if you are considering jumping on the Pinterest bandwagon for business, here are some insights to help you make an informed decision.
We can all agree Pinterest is pretty darn cool, but as responsible marketers, we must ask: is it right for your brand? If you’ve got some awesome visuals or products to share with the world, the answer is: yes. Whole Foods, Martha Stewart Living (R.I.P!), Better Homes & Gardens, Bergdorf Goodman – they all have Pinterest accounts, and more brands are joining each day. While the wedding , fashion and design industries appear to be leading the charge, there are many uses for any business – provided it sells something that is visually compelling, provided you want people to share your stuff online and provided you have the time to handle building and maintaining a Pinterest account (That’s a post for another time my dears.).
Pinterest is easy to use, which is yet another reason it’s great for businesses (Why, even my mother could figure it out, if she could put down her glass of wine.). It’s a website, it’s a search engine browser button, it’s an app – it’s everything you want it to be and everywhere your customers like to hang. You can login using Facebook or Twitter, you can take pictures and upload them to your pinboards – which can be customized according to your tastes. Yes Virginia, you can have a pinboard dedicated to burnt toast art. Whatever floats your boat!
So to make a long blog even longer, let’s cut to the chase. How can brands use Pinterest to boost the bottom line? Here are some thoughts to discuss amongst yourselves at the water cooler:
Share Your Look for Less: Creating virtual “Look Books” or reference boards to share with other Pinheads. Launching a new line of toiletries? Create a board! Pitching a big landscaping project to your local bank? Show them exactly the types of plants and materials you’d use – paint them a picture, that’s what Pinterest is all about. And if they share your boards, all the better!
Sell Product: While you can’t BUY anything on Pinterest, if you pin your products and link to the website within your Pin, your fellow Pinheads can easily jump to your ecommerce site. An added bonus: if you add a “$” to your Pins description, Pinterest will automatically add a price banner to the photo AND your Pin will appear in the Pinterest “Gifts” category. Sweeeet.
Demonstrate Subject Matter Expertise: You’re SMART and creative, damn it, so showcase your awesome sauce with pinboards! If you’re a company that sells shoes – own it. Create a board for your products, but also create boards for other shoe-related visuals. Like great places to hike or jog if you’re in the sports apparel game. Or pictures of celebrities who wear your shoes – or who should wear your shoes. Best dressed? Worst dressed? World’s most unappealing cankles? Pin it and become a SME superstar!
Next up in this hopelessly-devoted-to-Pinterest series: how Pinterest can help your business get more business through caring and sharing. Because just like the Hokey Pokey, that’s what it’s all about!
This is a guest post by Geri Butner. Follow her on Twitter at @geributner.
Last night, I had the opportunity to attend the Millennial Branding Speaker Spotlight Series at Back Bay Social Club, featuring Rue La La executives Stacey Santo and Colin Hynes. One glass of cabernet and a few business card exchanges into the event, I crowded to the center of the room to listen to Stacey and Colin address important questions about their invite-only marketing, social media and business strategy. In between eyeing all of the stylish outfits the ladies (who made up about 93% of attendees) were wearing, I managed to take away a few interesting points from their talk.
Invite-only Marketing
I really liked how Stacey and Colin framed the reasoning behind their invite-only marketing technique. Rue La La doesn’t require a paid membership, but you do have to be invited by a friend to shop their site, which has been interpreted by some as being too exclusive. The whole point of this strategy, however, isn’t to exclude anyone, but to provide free access in a way that mirrors the real world – through who you know.
One reason why Rue La La is so successful as a shopping destination is that they understand their consumers enough to be able to simplify their consumer decisions, and in order to do this well, it’s important to maintain a “friend-of-a-friend” network. Imagine you’re throwing an event that you really want the attendees to enjoy. Do you invite every one of your Facebook friends, or do you invite the people you know and ask them to bring a friend? It makes sense to choose the latter.
Social Media
Stacey and Colin pointed out that social media isn’t an add-on for their business, it is their business. While they use Twitter and Facebook, the company itself is social media by way of social shopping. They understand that in order to stay on top of their business, they have to engage and respond to customers as quickly as possible. After all, if a company isn’t being transparent and authentic in a timely manner, then someone else will be for them. “Social media is as authentic as it gets.”
One person from the audience asked about ROI for social media, and they responded that when you have clear, defined objectives, the measurement is easy to evaluate. Ultimately, though, you just have to have faith and experiment with what works for your business. It’s important not to turn social media into a popularity contest, because the quality of followers and fans is more important than the quantity.
Something that really resonated with me during Stacey and Colin’s speech was that their business is based on trust. Every day at 11 a.m., they tell hundreds of thousands of shoppers not that they need a little black dress, but exactly which little black dress to consider. Rue La La has the power to simplify our decisions and steer our choices. As long as Rue La La continues to build trust in people through social media and friend-of-a-friend networking, people will happily continue to allow it.
What are your thoughts on Rue La La’s business strategy?
It’s that time of year, again: where the SXSW Interactive 2012PanelPicker is open for public voting! For those of you who are already versed in the innovative, educational treasure trove that is SXSW, I don’t think I need to expound any further. For the rest of you, read on:
“The 19th annual SXSW® Interactive Festival challenges you to envision the future of innovative technology. Featuring five days of compelling presentations from the brightest minds in emerging media and scores of exciting networking events hosted by industry leaders, SXSW Interactive offers an unbeatable line up of special programs showcasing the best new websites, digital projects, wireless applications, video games and startup ideas the community has to offer. From hands-on training to big-picture analysis, SXSW Interactive has become the place to preview of what is unfolding in the world of creative technology.” – SXSWi’s “About” page
One of the really cool parts about SXSW (you know, aside from all that exposure to cutting edge media and tech mentioned above) is the crowd-sourced component of the event’s sessions via the site’s PanelPicker. Last week, public voting opened for over 3600 very strong speaking proposals. Public voting will factor into the selection of a privileged 500 or so for the show itself. That’s right: YOU have a say in who makes it to the agenda. What better incentive to attend is there? Voting ends 11:59 p.m. CDT on Friday, September 2, so hurry up and add your two cents.
Of note, your friends at Racepoint Group and Digital Influence Group have thrown a couple hats into the ring. Check out the sessions below and if you like them, feel free to vote (and encourage your friends to do so, too).
This is a guest post by Mandy Miller. Follow her on Twitter @amandammiller9.
In case you missed it, Big Brews (not as evil as Big Tobacco) may be trying to ‘buy out’ your area code. Anheuser-Busch has recently applied for 15 trademarks for the following area codes: 314 (St. Louis), 412 (Pittsburgh), 305 (Miami), 619 (San Diego), 202 (Washington, D.C.), 602 (Phoenix), 704 (Charlotte), 702 (Las Vegas), 214 (Dallas), 415 (San Francisco), 216 (Cleveland), 303 (Denver), 713 (Houston), and 215 (Philadelphia).
Why, you ask? Well, recently Anheuser-Busch InBev bought Chicago microbrewer Goose Island, maker of 312 (named for the Chicago area code). This very well could be a means to seize a market opportunity, or it could just be an adorable attempt at a brand extension. The supposed idea behind this is that Anheuser-Busch may try to extend this branding into other area codes, crafting specialty beer(s) for your city.
My thoughts? Smart – kind of. It’s cute, but at the same time, I like the ‘cozy’ and personalized touch that goes into smaller microbrewers. Maybe I just need to have more happy feelings with every Bud Light I have, but Goose Island was located in ‘the 312.’ How is Anhesuer-Busch going to position and craft these beers when they are a mega brewing giant? Shouldn’t a local brewer know best for crafting these? What if you’re in a suburb of Cleveland, Denver, etc. Are you going to feel left out because it just doesn’t taste like your area code?
What are your thoughts? Strategic move or cute attempt? Do you feel this takes away from the specialty crafts of microbrews?
I’ve done my best over the past several weeks to block out all of the royal wedding hoopla, and I think I’ve done a pretty good job. In fact, I didn’t even know the royal wedding was tomorrow until someone informed me they will be watching it tomorrow morning (EDT).
Regardless my my ignorance, this wedding is receiving a lot of attention, and businesses are trying to capitalize. While some attempts are a bit lame (i.e.: cardboard cutouts), T-Mobile did an absolutely brilliant job of capturing attention with a hilarious spoof of the popular JK Wedding Entrance Dance, which was also imitated on The Office.
This kind of marketing is so smart and creative, and reminds me of what Old Spice did last July. In case you haven’t seen the video, it’s embedded below.
Have you heard of Adzookie? Unless you’re really into small-market mobile advertising start-ups, you shouldn’t have. Well friends, prepare yourselves to be introduced to the proud owners of one of the most ineffective and polarizing advertising campaigns in recent memory; which, in turn, is also one of the most creative and brilliant public relations campaigns.
Adzookie offers a fairly standard smartphone advertising platform geared towards small businesses,and by taking a look at their website I would say “fairly standard” is just about as accurate of a description of the company you can get.
In late March Adzookie launched their “Paint My House” campaign. The deal works as such: Adzookie will come to your house and repaint every side as a large advertisement for their company (see picture above, which would have caused Grant Wood to stab himself in the eyes with his pitchfork). For as long as the house remains painted, Adzookie will pay your mortgage. Mad Men-style genius? Not quite.
First, let’s examine the rarely-used “house as a billboard” advertising strategy in order to determine its effectiveness. In conclusion, it’s horrible. As an example we’ll take the house pictured above. By its appearance it looks like it is located in suburbia, Anytown-USA; not dissimilar to the area in which I grew up. On an average weekday I would estimate that about 25 different cars drive by that house, and about 80% of them belong to other people that live in the neighborhood. Mathematically that leaves five new people driving by the billboard each day. This number becomes even less when you take into consideration repeat visitors to the road such as friends, nannies, and these guys. Dismissing the increased traffic due to locals who “always knew the Johnsons would do something like this,” what are the chances that you are going to get a person who is driving down that road, who also happens to be a marketing executive, who also happens to be looking for a new mobile advertising platform? That’s a risky ROI when the average American mortgage payment is almost $1,700/month.
Now let’s examine the public relations impact this campaign had on Adzookie. The out of left field nature of the Orange, CA-based company’s plan immediately gained national coverage in major publications such as The Wall Street Journal, CNN, NBC, TIME, and Forbes. CEO Romeo Mendoza had crafted his message perfectly: He and his company were recession-era saviors of those most in need. Oh, and they just happen to also run a mobile advertising company. “We hit a nerve,” he’s quoted as saying in The Wall Street Journal article. “I knew people needed help, but I didn’t know so many. That’s kind of sad. We can’t help everyone, but we can help some.” For most of early-April, Adzookie was the most recognized mobile advertising platform in the country. I, as many others, took the time to write about this once-unknown company. Exposure has gone through the roof (which Adzookie doesn’t really care about because they don’t paint your roof).
What will be the result of “Paint My House” on Adzookie’s bottom line? It’s too early to say. They have obviously not gained enough funds to improve their website, and behemoths Google and Apple currently dominate the mobile advertising landscape. However I doubt that you will soon forget about Adzookie, the mobile advertising company that dared to dominate your landscape.
Every PR/Marketing person dreams of being the genius mind behind a successful viral video. In 2011 content creation is king and producing an entertaining and informative video to raise brand awareness is a high priority for any PR/Marketing team.
Enter this superb infographic posted by Mashable. Seriously, superb. There are several valuable statistics illustrated here covering everything from the length of the video to the best sites to promote it on. Check it out:
- Videos that clock in at 15 seconds get circulated 37% more than longer clips
- People share video on Facebook 218% more than via email and Twitter combined
- Women account for 57% of social video views
The following is a guest post by RJ Bardsley, a SVP based in Racepoint’s SF office. If you like this post, check him out on Twitter (@rjbardsley) and his blog, BrandFiller.
This year is shaping up to be the year of the rich – at least for marketers. New numbers out from a variety of sources show demand for luxury products growing but mere mortals (Walmart calls them “everyday Americans”) are just getting by. But what does this mean?
According to Federal Reserve economist Michael Feroli, there is uneven progress in the growth of household expenditures; he estimates that the top 20 percent of the wealth in this country is responsible for 40 percent of consumer spending. Feroli is quoted in BloombergBusinessweek as saying, “the heaving lifting is being done by upper-income households.” These numbers are important because household spending accounts for roughly 70 percent of the U.S. economy.
Now you can argue all day about the social implications of all this and the issues of right and wrong. You could even get in a really good Marxist conversation if you tried hard enough and maybe grew a beard. And you would be justified – this pattern isn’t good for us as a nation.
But when Tiffany diamond pendants and Gucci bags are lifting the economy – we’re talking about some pretty profound social implications. What’s immediately interesting to me from a professional perspective is how this persistent shift is going to change marketing. How do you market to a nation that is increasingly divided into two camps: one that needs pampers and one that needs Chistian Louboutins? What happens to national marketing, advertising and digital and traditional media campaigns?
We could be running the risk of losing the “splurgers” – the groups that like to treat themselves to luxury items once in a while. But, the truth is that over the long run I think that the marketing industry won’t change significantly because of this shift. I think we’ll see an uptick in high-end marketing dollars spent as Gucci and Maserati ramp up campaigns around new products. But, we will also see continued spend on commodity goods campaigns as brands compete harder for consumer dollars. If anything, we may see more innovation in digital campaigns as brands look for new ways to extend marketing dollars.
The internet has been a buzz the last few days with the news of Starbucks’ logo change. Other than the fact that most people have a hard time accepting change in general, what is all the fuss about?
I’ll tell you. It takes brands years to establish strong, passionate brand awareness and loyalty. Starbucks has one of the most recognizable logos, a status that many other companies aspire to. It feels like a slap in the face to those aspirational companies to watch Starbucks just flip a switch and say, “We’re more than coffee, so we’re taking the company name off our logo. Done deal.” After all the hard work to establish Starbucks as the premium coffee experience, why change it? Or as the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
In a Financial Times article, Howard Schultz, Starbucks’ chairman and chief executive officer, said: “We’ve allowed [the siren] to come out of the circle in a way that gives us the freedom and flexibility to think beyond coffee.”
The Financial Times article goes on to say, “The other advantage of a word-free logo is that is translates more easily across digital media and overseas. Starbucks, like many companies, is now targeting a global audience with a wide range of written languages.”
Now that makes sense. Why not lead with, “We’re removing the company name to make our logo universal across the globe.” That statement seems to be buried in all the media coverage.
In a Technorati post yesterday, Paul Kiser commented, “The controversy will serve to create free publicity resulting in increased revenue.” A bizarrely true observation.
What do you think? Does the Starbucks logo change align with their corporate goals to be more than just coffee and take their experience seamlessly across the globe?
We all know the history. Michael Vick is an immensely talented football player that took the league by storm while a member of the Atlanta Falcons. Then he went to prison for dog fighting and has been trying to recover (personally and professionally) as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles.
This year Vick’s play has thrown him back into the spotlight, which means he’s back in the marketing world too. Woodbury Nissan in New Jersey recently hired Vick to star in a commercial for the dealership (video is below). The clip is actually pretty entertaining, but it has raised plenty of eyebrows since it’s the first major thing Vick has done since spending a 18 months in prison.
This brings us to the question, do you trust Michael Vick? Has he successfully rebounded from rock bottom to a point where he can now be a marketable brand that consumers will look up to and trust? Tiger Woods is already back in the advertising world, but his actions were more stupid then pure evil. It would be quite a transition for Vick, who will finish his second post-prison football season next month.
Note: On top of this all, Vick also made even more news this week when he announced that he would like to have another dog someday (he is currently prohibited from ever owning a dog by a federal judge).
