Whilst laying at the pool today (sue me!) I decided to catch up on some reading. Recently Marco Derksen pointed me in the direction of a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers called: How Consumer Conversation will Transform Business - which they published in their ‘Achieving operational excellence‘ series.
The report is all about why it is important for [...]
In a rather strange move, US Airways have decided to stop showing in flight movies. Why? Because no one was buying their crappy, overpriced headsets.
From the Consumerist:
Sales of $5 headsets “has gone off a cliff” according to a US Airways spokesperson. “What was economical 18 months ago is not economical today,” he said. “The things [...]
One of the first things we got taught at university was to make sure your message is relevant to your audience, or in other words - we were familiarised with the principle of targeting.
It is important to define who you are looking to target before you craft your message. No matter how brilliant your message, [...]
All my marketing related thoughts and writings will be posted in this section. My main interests are (e)WOM, Customer Evangelism, Branding, Social Media & Online Marketing
In this section I’ll be sharing personal stories, observations and the things that keep me busy outside of work and university.
I should start off by saying my opinion expressed in this post will be far from biased, but I’ll get back to that later.
Today somebody pointed me towards Carlsberg latest marketing stunt, they are offering vouchers to readers of The S*n to get a free pint in one of 13,000 pubs.
I’ll start by explaining why I refuse to name that rag properly. Almost 20 years ago, under the supervision of Kelvin McKenzie (spit) wrote some horrendous lies about people who had died at the football game between Liverpool and Nottingham Forrest. Whilst people had been crushed to death the rag reported that Liverpool fans had pickpocketed the dead and were picking fights with police men trying to help the injured.
If you are interested to find out more, please, please(!!) have a look at the Hillsborough Justice Campaign website.
Most people in Liverpool and indeed the north of England still boycott the rag because of this. The fact it’s one of the worst newspapers (and I use that term losely), which isn’t worthy being used as toilet paper makes it all that much easier.
So back to Carlsberg. They’ve sponsored Liverpool FC for the last sixtien years. Whilst I won’t hold this action against them, it’s obvious the fans of the team they sponsor weren’t on their minds when they came up with this sponsorship. But considering the fact that the boycot of that rag isn’t officially endorsed by the club itself, Carlsberg can hardly be forced to join us in our boycot.
However, I do have a problem with the response they send to a fellow fan after he had expressed his disgust of this link up. I’ll start with what he sent them:
“Sir,
I have just read with disgust that your company,shirt sponsors ofLiverpool Football Club,are to run a joint promotion with the Sun newspaper.
I would have thought that a firm that has such a long standing association with my football club would have more tact and commonsense than to engage in any sort of alliance with the paper in question.
I am sure that you are aware that the majority of people on Merseyside boycott this filthy rag because of the proven lies it printed in relation to the Hillsborough football disaster.
As a customer who supports you for supporting my club please be aware I will now not consume your brand if this promotion goes ahead from now on.
I also suggest you find another club to sponsor as anyone associated with the publication in question has no place as part of Liverpool Football club.Yours Angrily and in disgust”
And here is their reply:
“Thank you for your email which we received via the Carlsberg website.
Carlsberg is pleased to be able to offer consumers one of the largestfree pint promotions ever this August Bank Holiday.
By working with TheSun, the UK’s largest selling paper, Carlsberg has been able to ensurethat approximately 3 million people across the UK will be able to enjoy a free pint at their local this Bank Holiday Sunday.
Carlsberg is sensitive to the fact that Liverpool fans feel very strongly about The Sun, and is very proud of its long association withand support of Liverpool Football Club over the past 16 years, and apologises if any offence is felt as a result of the upcoming free pint promotion.Kind regards The Lagers Team”
Excuse me? Someone just expressed their disgust about your part in a very sensitive matter. And the first thing they think of is further iterating their marketing statement?! We don’t care you are pleased to offer consumers on of the largest free pint promotions ever. And we certainly don’t care that rag is the biggest selling newspaper in the UK!!
They were bound to get plenty of complaints about this, so surely they could have drafted something better than a glorified press release which just smacks of not caring. Whilst I don’t expect them to cancel this whole shabang they’ve arranged, I do expect more than this half hearted, lame ass apology.
They’ve just pissed off a substantial number of the people they pay £3m a year to reach and even after been given the chance to make amends they failed miserably. It’s already been reported on several blogs and Liverpool FC communities. I doubt we’ll see any involvement from Carlsberg though.
Carlsberg, probably the worst listeners in the world.
Justice for the 96 - Don’t buy the S*n
or Carlsberg.
Earlier I wrote a post about how Batman Begins gave me inspiration for a blog post. Turns out I’m not the only one drawing marketing related lessons from movies. Drew McLellan has written an excellent post about the signal to noise ratio within advertising, using Anchorman as an analogy.
Most advertising is considered to be a loud knows and people tend to ignore loud noises. Shouting even louder is not the answer either, unless your objective is to burn as much budget as possible. The trick is to turn the noise into a signal, by making the ad relevant for the person viewing it.
Coincidentally, my previous blog (Taxidriver Marketing) got its name based on similar thoughts and another movie. Whenever I watch another bad ad I ask myself ‘who the hell are these people talking to’, which made me think of Robert De Niro’s legendary scene in Taxidriver in front of the mirror. I binned the name, but lessons remains an important one.
It’s an excellent post and Drew elaborates by giving some examples, so make sure you check it out!
Earlier I wrote how Inc. 500 companies are starting to embrace social media and I fleetingly mentioned how they are outpacing the Fortune 500 companies in the adoption stakes.
A study by Burson-Marsteller, a global PR firm, has revealed that 15% of the Fortune 500 companies currently manage a blog. Most of them operate in the tech industry. Whilst I certainly would not be naive enough to suggest each and every company needs a blog, I certainly would have expected more of these companies to be with the times.
According to the study, the top companies of the Fortune 500 list have a higher adoption rate than companies lower on the list. Whilst 32% of the top 50 companies have a company blog the number gets lower and lower the further you go down the list.
What I did find rather strange is that Erin Byrne, chief digital strategist at Burson-Marsteller, attributes this to resources:
“It’s not surprising that the biggest companies are doing more blogging. They have more resources for communications”
Whilst blogging is certainly time consuming, it can also be very cost effective - if managed properly. It has also turned out to be a great game leveler, with smaller companies being able to operate and compete with far larger companies by joining the conversation, rather then ignoring the consumer and picking their pockets. So I don’t believe it’s because of money. I mean anyone mentioned on the Fortune 500 is no mug money wise.
Maybe its because the top 50 companies are well established names and there for more often targeted for consumers critisism, their need for a company blog may have simply been bigger than companies further down the list, who are less well known.
Obviously this is pure speculation, so I’d love to find out if anybody can provide and insight or an educated guess - so please share them in the comments!
