Making an event of it…

This week we celebrate New Years Eve. For me, this is one of the top holidays of the year simply because it’s something most of us can agree on celebrating. The images of it are iconic. The ball dropping on an overcrowded Times Square, fireworks dotting the sky one time zone at a time, corks popping off of Champaign bottles, and of course, the always idyllic kiss at midnight. This year I’ll be throwing a bit of a holiday bash of my own. New Years Eve is a world wide event (yes, even in China they recognize the changing of the western calendar year despite the fact that Chinese New Year is usually months away).
It got me thinking on the larger idea of events, and the power of proper promotional events. I’ve spoken many times in this blog how placing yourself online is simply not enough, but in the modern age it is admittedly difficult to properly engage your consumer through traditional advertising on a participatory level they’re likely to expect. Promotional events then seem to begin to fit a strange niche in that they’re somewhat more interactive, customizable, and memorable if planned correctly.
My brother and I happened upon a slightly related subject later in the week when we were discussing how there might be a better way to promote the restaurant he works at. The place is an iconic Colorado pizza chain, with its most popular location being along I-70 on the way into ski country. We discussed how the limited traditional advertising was failing them, and how their attempts to dive into the online market through social networks and paid advertising just weren’t working (who wants to be facebook friends with a pizza joint?). We started inventing different events they could create in order to promote the restaurant. Whether it was sponsoring unique ski events, running larger cross-promotion with area ski slopes, or perhaps hosting a competitive eating contest based on their famous 12 pound pizza pie, it became easy to see how using events allowed them to get in the face of their consumer, and if done correctly, into their wallets.
To me, the rules of inventing the event were simple.
First, (and this is always top priority) the event must fit your brand. If you’re a pizza restaurant, don’t host a chili cook-off. If you offer something called "Mountain pies", you might want to place yourself on or near a mountain, or at least try and make a reference to them.
Second, be where your customer wants to be. The more effort the consumer has to put into getting to your event, the more the expectations will rise.
Third, do something different. The more innovative the idea, the more likely it will live on in the customer’s memory. A great example is the new spot for Carnival Cruise Lines and their world’s largest piñata event.


Fourth, plan thoroughly. As the people in the above mentioned Carnival spot found, things like a large turnout can derail some of your cooler plans. Have emergency alternates prepared.
Fifth, do something that can be recorded. Just because no one is coming to your website yet doesn’t mean you shouldn’t always be arming yourself with things to post there.
And finally, offer a takeaway. People remember things better when it’s living in their coat pocket, and obviously, that takeaway should be driving to some other method they can contact you, and continue the relationship.
So, the next time you’re thinking about ways to reach your consumer, why not make an event of it?

Because it’s the season to share. But not on youtube.

For a while now, I’ve claimed that one should watch the music industry for the biggest and baddest examples of doing business in the modern age. Sometimes, things get figured out for the better, such as artist contact and promotion through fan sites. I’m sure down the road I’ll be posting information about things I’ve seen some of my favorite bands do to promote and distribute their music and merchandise using the strength of online advertising and other more traditional means. Sometimes online business in the music industry is not so pretty, such as any discussion of DRM, but… that’s another blog entirely.
One of the biggest albums of the year for me is Who killed Amanda Palmer by Amanda Palmer. I had heard her before as a member of the Dresden Dolls, but when I heard she was coming out with a solo album produced by another favorite artist of mine, Ben Folds, I could hardly wait.
I originally heard one of the songs on the album via youtube. The first set of videos were released regularly with fanfare from her website, her blog, and eventually a myspace page. These videos were also somewhat linked to one another, and apparently carried clues as to “who killed Amanda Palmer”.
Well, of course, I was driven to the WKAP website from there. I preordered a CD of the album. As part of the promotion, I was sent a signed copy (she signed thousands), a t-shirt, and I was granted access to a site where I could download the entire album digitally in anticipation of having it.
But wait, there’s more.
From that same site, I was able to order concert tickets (which I did), preorder a book with text by Neil Gaiman, and catch up on information about the artist herself. All-in-all, it was a well thought out, well rounded campaign that I’m sure ushered in at least some new business despite the fact that it didn’t have all the push and publicity of some major pop acts out there. I would post a video to show you how great it all is, but… I can’t.
This morning, through Amanda Palmer’s blog, I found out that all of those videos on youtube have been removed by her label’s parent company, Warner Music. They’re removing the videos after talks of increasing revenues from youtube’s advertising sales fell through (NY Times article here).
This is a very complex issue, of course, but for an artist like Amanda Palmer, someone who has done such work to promote her art online, who has had to build a digital grassroots brand, this has to be maddening. For her, youtube is not a direct revenue generator, but a free and trusted means of advertising and promotion. By removing her videos from youtube, Warner Music has basically decided to remove a major avenue of promotion to her audiences, and to me, this is backward thinking.
By removing these videos, Warner Music has removed itself from a major location of where its consumers are. In an attempt to grow one leg of gaining profit, it’s cut off another. More over, the average uploader on youtube is a home user, one who has little to no hope of ever seeing revenue from what they post. By rejecting their major form of communication in hopes of getting money, you can tarnish the perception of that business in those social circles. One has to ask, is this really a risk worth taking?
Happy Holidays, and Bah Humbug, Warner Music.

No one beats the holidays. No one.

One tends to cringe this time of the year when someone mentions shopping. The images that come to mind are aplenty. Pushy adults trample each other, children wail in the toy aisles, and over the top of it all, the blaring horns of “Sleigh Ride” plays on a continuous loop. It can be a nightmare. A friend recently complained about trying to go to the mall, just to quit when there wasn’t enough parking within the first half-mile of parking lot. It’s the holidays, and the chaos of shopping is a tradition as old as the Coca-Cola Santa.
Marketing during the holidays can be an interesting game. Many companies are made or broken depending on this time of year, and large sums of cash are thrown at the consumer in hopes of inspiring the want to buy and give, or in some cases, simply buy.
What makes holiday advertising interesting is that there is a bit of double branding going on. Not only do companies such as Old Navy, Lexus, and Target have to keep their own brand in mind, but also the general brand of the holidays. I mention Lexus because they did a particularly good job this year with their “best gift ever” campaign.

They used adorable children, classic “major” gifts from yesteryear, and visual effects to try and date the look of the video. It uses sentimentality of days gone by to communicate a familiar emotion, and offers the chance to recapture that today with a gift of a sleek new car (and it would work for me, too). They also stay very tight within their audience, too. Lexus is a higher end car manufacturer, and is more likely to appeal to the social class that has children who remember actually getting a live pony for Christmas. I was pumped about Castle Greyskull from He-Man. It’s a fine job of walking that line of what everyone expects of the holiday season while still keeping true to what the company is.
When one is approaching advertising within the holiday skew, it’s important to remember that in all likelihood people will relate to the season before they relate to the company. In my opinion, a misstep was made by Qwest this year.

The joke is that people are waiting in line, as if to see Santa, but it’s not Santa. It’s some guy in a blue Qwest vest (I didn’t think it was that clever either). The problem comes in two parts… first, the difference between the actual mall scene and the graphics with V/O are too severe to be cut together so frequently. It makes both stories hard to follow. But this is forgivable.
There is a special second problem though which strikes me as a bigger deal. The actual mall scene begins by tiptoeing around the idea of the holidays, then proceeds to ignore them the rest of the way out. There’s no attempt to make it into an occasion for giving. There is no holiday spirit. It even goes so far at the end to show that the father forgets about his little girl’s wish list.
The result is this. Remember what you’re playing to first. Christmas and the surrounding holidays might be one of the most strongly branded ideas in the history of man, and if you’re going to play in their realm, you better be willing to pay the proper homage.
Anyway, I hope everyone has a very merry, and I leave off with the warmth and joy of my favorite holiday video this year (it also goes to show you, if you stick with the holidays, they can be VERY good to you.)

Being online is overrated.

When budgets get tight, as they are just about all over right now, the money for marketing seems to always be a top target. After all, it’s a secondary issue for most places, and is something they “do”, not something they make.
Most colleges and universities will claim their product is quality graduates, or cutting-edge research, or service to the state. This is what they make. They “do” some advertising when they feel they have to, but it’s not a priority. After all, as is said in many university budget meetings, “Harvard doesn’t have to advertise.”
This, folks, is a bold faced lie. Harvard does advertise. It doesn’t work as hard at it as others might, but that’s only because EVERYONE knows what they stand for. But they still solicit their alums. They still fly banners on city streets, and they fight to earn placements on TV shows (speaking of which, I’m enjoying Fox’s Fringe a lot, where much of the action occurs in the basement of a Harvard campus building).
So, yes Virginia, everyone has to advertise.
But as of late, a tricky twist has been put to all of this. Going online. Everything is online now. Businesses, social networks, employment opportunities, music, movies, TV (I watch Fringe on Hulu, because it’s better at 11:30 at night), news, and yes, me. And it’s cheap! Space is limitless! It’s easy on the consumer! It’s highly customizable! Online advertising should be the key to overcome our economic slumping blues, right?
Well… maybe.
It’s almost become a kneejerk reaction to want to toss the world up online and call yourself covered. People have placed advertisements in nearly every foreseeable angle of the web, throwing themselves on social networks, dropping video on youtube, and launching banner ads across the web, and some have seen great benefit for it. Indeed, there has even been great strides made in the attempt to further target these ad placements based on page association, habits of friends in social networks, and of course the massive question mark of how Google really works.
The problem is, as I mentioned earlier, everything is online now. In a world where once people could be exposed to over 20 advertisements an hour watching network TV, we can now swing that number in 3 page clicks. And everyone has gotten in the act. Having a clear, distinguishable voice in all that racket gets more difficult everyday. In a time where many places of business have trouble maintaining timely, interesting, useful websites to drive to, one has to question how long they can keep a successful online campaign in full swing.
Online advertising, while exciting, effective, and necessary for today's world, is not a one stop answer for advertising woes. In fact, as that market continues to crowd, it becomes more essential that you’re heard from the edge. Event marketing, name and product placement, TV, radio, and (believe it or not) print, can still provide a needed touch point to drive to that website, or encourage your consumer to take that extra step and actually click your banner ad.

The Curious Case of the Feng Shui McDonald's

Some might have read the story about a McDonald’s just outside of LA that got that got a Feng Shui makeover, complete with leather booths, waterfalls, bamboo planters, and doors that aren’t aligned in order to keep out bad spirits (I originally stumbled upon this NPR article). The move was made when census data indicated a boom in the Asian population of the area. Whether one believes in the principles of the art of Feng Shui or not is really secondary. The owner of that franchise reported that sales had been very strong since.
But this got me to thinking from the angle of brand marketing, and it struck me that something so simple, and yet so major was occurring here.
McDonalds is one of the most well-known, well maintained brands in the world. From Tokyo to St. Petersburg, and London to up somewhere up the block, McDonalds has always prided itself on providing a similar experience no matter where you are. The Big Mac I had in Dublin several years ago tasted the same as the Big Mac I could have here at home, and while the McDonalds I visited in Honolulu served a breakfast platter that included rice and grilled SPAM, and the trashcan doors read “Aloha” rather than “Thank you”, the swivel chairs were the same. The menu was presented in the same order, and at no time did I find myself wondering “this is a McDonald’s?”
So then why would there be a Feng Shui McDonald’s? As I pondered the idea, a friend of mine told me of a McDonald’s near her that had been made to appear like a jazzy piano bar. When we discussed the area it was in, it seemed to snuggly fit into the atmosphere of the area. It started to become clear.
The answer was customization.
The online world has known for years that it’s not enough anymore to simply provide information or services. More and more customers are demanding an experience that can be tailored with them in mind. Whether it’s Scion offering the ability to customize your car online, Nike offering customized shoes, or MSN and Yahoo simply remembering your search preferences, the online environment in its flexibility has created an expectation for customers, and now many believe that their reality should match that.
One often thinks that a brand is simply in how a company may advertise itself or what is contained in its communications. It becomes easy to overlook the fact that a brand is also, and maybe more importantly, the experience a customer takes away. Now in an era of customization, one has to wonder, how do maintain that?
For McDonald’s, the answer might be in the essence of what it provides. The menu is largely the same, and the thought that one is having a quick, delightful, inexpensive dining experience isn’t altered by the curvature of the seating. But what does that mean for other brands? Truth is, each case will have it’s own line to walk, but the time that consistency alone was enough is gone.

The introduction...

Hello. My name is Jason McCormick.

I've been working in marketing for nearly six years. I came into the field largely blind to many of its finer points. In fact, I cringe now at the memory of my interview for a position at Educational Marketing Group, Inc. At the time, I was attempting to sell my skills solely as a copywriter, but I wasn't completely aware of what that might entail. I knew I could write, and I thought that would be enough. During the interview, the President of the company finally felt compelled to ask me "What would you say is the difference between marketing and advertising?"

I sat back comfortably in my chair and answered "spelling".

I, to say the least, was fortunate to have uttered many times that I was looking for an opportunity to learn, and I was given just that. I was taken on part time as a "Marketing Apprentice". I cleaned the coffee machines, answered phones, fixed printers, and I set about to learn everything I could about the field. Soon I was able to come on full-time, and as my experience grew, so did my responsibilities. My titles improved, until finally I got the nod as the assistant creative director.

It wasn't what one would call a meteoric rise, spanning nearly six years all said and done, but it was something that was well earned at every turn. I had the opportunity to work with some amazing colleges and universities across the nation, including Virginia Tech, Old Dominion University, Indiana State University, Washington State University, and many others. In that time, I learned there was a tightrope to walk between being creative and having a strategy. I've acted as a director, producer, designer, strategist, writer, and advisor, and I've loved every minute of it.

If this is striking some as a different sort of blog, that's good. Not many people would attempt to promote themselves by listing such a start, but in my time at EMG I learned that promotions are best if they are honest. It's also important to keep in mind that what I write here is just my opinion and perspective. I'm never one to claim I'm correct all the time, but I believe the beauty is often in the effort.

It also helps self promotion if there are a few pretty things to ooh and ah at, and as time progresses, I'll toss a few of them in as well. Hopefully this will provide insight into a least one creative professional, and maybe cue a few brilliant thoughts now and again.

Thanks for stopping by, and feel free to drop a note.