We’re dubious of ad campaigns that win the Grand Prix at Cannes. A lot of them are self-indulgent nonsense. But here at Robinson & Maites we like the current and controversial Diesel Jeans campaign, because it reminds us of us.

The campaign is built around the tagline “Be Stupid,” and features attention-getting photographs of people doing just that. At first glimpse, it’s nothing more than one more example of crudeness and stupidity replacing the traditional sex and celebrities, as the chief tactic for communications to get attention fast. (On a broader culture-wide scale, think stupid pet tricks, any episode of Jersey Shore and Rod “Stupidity Is The Best Defense” Blagojevich.“)

But we think Diesel goes a good deal deeper, into a special kind of stupidity. In marketing there are three kinds of stupidity (there are probably a lot more, but this is enough for now):

1.    There are ideas that are just plain stupid all the way around. We’ve covered a few of them here in our blog, in the past. Examples: Office Depot’s Adopt A Small Business Contest, and the Google daily billboards campaign.
2.    There are smart ideas with stupid executions. In auto dealership Evergreen Kia’s “taking it all off” TV commercial, the idea is good – low prices backed by customer support. The execution? Well, they’ve got the first step right. It does get your attention, being mooned by your car dealer.

3.    And then there are smart ideas that only seem stupid – Diesel’s is one of them.

“Be Stupid” is Diesel’s external communication of an internal thinking process that we’ve used informally for years at R&M, to develop innovative marketing ideas. We adopt, for the short term, an attitude of intentional ignorance and stupidity. The idea is to question everything, and take nothing for granted. That way, instead of leaping immediately to executions, we can question the basic objectives and processes of the marketing operation.

We’re in good company; some very smart people also use stupidity as a thinking tool:
•    There’s a computer science process called Artificial Stupidity.“ Wikipedia states that “…a sufficiently developed Artificial Stupidity program would be able to make all the worst cases regarding a given situation. This would enable computer programmers and analysts to find flaws immediately while minimizing errors that are within the code.”
•    In the Journal of Cell Science, an article headlined “The importance of stupidity in scientific research” states that “Productive stupidity means being ignorant by choice. Focusing on important questions puts us in the awkward position of being ignorant…The more comfortable we become with being stupid, the deeper we will wade into the unknown and the more likely we are to make big discoveries.”

We’re not sure exactly what this contrarian thinking process has to do with the way that customers choose their blue jeans brand.  But we are sure that the Be Stupid campaign is a worthwhile challenge to the ways we all think about marketing planning and creative. It’s telling us to stop trying to be conventionally smart and to try a different way: “How stupid are you willing to be, to really achieve your goals?”

You’d expect that funeral home and cemetery advertising would be uniformly cautious, restrained and deadly dull, with headlines like  “At A Time When Togetherness Is Most Important” and “Call Us For A Dignified Program.”

But now something unexpected is happening. A recent Wall Street Journal article tells how cemeteries are now using on-site concerts, clowns, scavenger hunts, film festivals and even fishing derbies, to attract prospects for future business. “It gets them into the cemetery, but not in a scary way, and if they have a nice experience, maybe they’ll say, ‘I want my family there,’ ” explains William F. Griswold, Jr., executive superintendent of Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford, Conn.

Cemetery Fest is just one way that marketers are breathing new life into the death business:
•    Cemeteries and funeral homes are running provocative ad campaigns, with headlines like “Hey, It’s Your Funeral” and “Your Own Little Slice Of Heaven.”
•    Getting to your own funeral is half the fun, because you don’t have to settle for a conventional stretch Cadillac hearse. Now you can set out on that final journey in a customized hearse.

•    You can choose a custom coffin too – for instance, a replica of a Rolls Royce. And you can go green when you go, in a totally eco-friendly coffin.
•    Or if you don’t want to think outside the box, you can choose a more conventional coffin at a discount, at your friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart.
•    Google “funeral marketing” and you’ll see scores of specialized agencies, consultants and websites offering advice. You can read a case study on coffin marketing. Choose from a ready-to-use stock ad service for funeral homes. Even enter a creative advertising contest for funeral homes.

Why should marketers care about all this, if they’re not in the funeral home or cemetery business?
1.    Because business opportunities can be hiding in plain sight, just waiting for someone smart enough to exploit them. It’s not some tiny niche market they’re targeting here – ultimately, everyone is a prospect.
2.    It’s evidence of disappearing taboos in marketing communications. Over the past decade, we’ve become used to seeing Viagra and KY Jelly advertised on prime time TV. And now, with this revolution in funeral and cemetery marketing, it’s becoming OK to say the “D” word.
3.    It shows where to look for inspiration for innovation, no matter what product or service you’re marketing. Sometimes the interesting stuff is out on the edge, in unexpected product categories, barely noticed by the marketing mainstream.

A truly powerful brand is one that can pre-empt a letter of the alphabet for its very own. Only a few have ever done it.
•    Dual “Ms” may be the most famous candy brand in the world, from Mars Incorporated.
•    Everyone knows the cereal called “Os,” from General Mills.
•    And in the past few years, with the iMac, iTunes, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, Apple has claimed the letter “i” as its very own.

Now iNquiring minds want to know what the notoriously secretive Apple will come up with next. The rumor mills are already grinding away, spewing out fantastic new product scenarios based on nothing but BS. Not to be outdone, we asked the R&M staff to iMagine what’s coming up from Cupertino.

Some of my colleagues say the next big thing will be iPhone-like devices dedicated to single apps – contemporary digital equivalents of the old Ronco Inside The Shell Egg Scrambler and the Pop-Up Hot Dog Cooker from Hammacher Schlemmer. For example:
•    The iDo, for engaged couples trying to keep track of (and constantly communicate to their wedding guests) their long, long bridal registry wish lists at way too many stores.
•    The iLike, an extension of the Netflix software that predicts which movies you’ll like. Enter your profile, then enter information about a person, a car, a vacation destination or whatever. Stop thinking. Let a machine help determine your most deeply held opinions.
•    And the iLid, for California other states where marijuana is legal, sort of. Learn about the strength, price and nearest retailer for your favorite semi-legal smoke.

Other R&Mers disagree. They point out that Apple customers have a problem. What will they do with the next big thing from Apple, now that they’ve already got an iMac on their desk, an iPod in their pocket and its bud in one ear, their iPhone in their hand at their other ear and a new iPad tucked under their arm? There’s no room left for something new.

Since its customers already have their hands full (literally), my colleagues believe that Apple will be moving into implants. If you can’t get customers to buy any more portable hardware, build your new products directly into their bodies. We’re looking forward to:
•    iEar. Think of it as the next generation of cochlear implant, implanted directly into the side of your head, bypassing your iPod and delivering iTunes directly into your ear.
•    iPeds replace your flesh and blood feet. They meld the latest in high tech artificial limb prosthetics with a Tom Tom GPS, for walkers everywhere and especially wilderness hikers, who will never get lost again. Think it’s ridiculous? Another company is already just one step away, with GPS functions built into eyeglasses.
•    iClops, for Apple’s more spiritually-inclined contemplative customers. It’s an inward looking third eye implanted in the middle of your forehead, giving you mystical powers and insights into the secrets of the universe.

•    And ultimately there will be the iBorg, with a Mac built right into your brain. Now Apple lovers everywhere are looking forward to saying “I’m half man, half Mac, and all “i” could ever want to be.”

Thanks to my daughter Ellie, who inspired all this by first coming up with the idea of the iClops.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a deep dish pizza here in Chicago, you know that Transformers 3 is filming in town.  Stuntmen have been parachuting off of the Trump Tower, guys in military uniforms have been conducting mock machine gun battles in the streets, all while Director Michael Bay and crew blow up stuff on Wacker Drive. It’s been pretty cool and we’ve got a great view of the carnage from our office.

But it seems some are questioning the tax incentives that have made productions like this possible. This excellent article by Kathy Bergen at the Tribune sums up the issue nicely. I would encourage you all to read it. However, its certainly clear to me that the jobs created and the amount of money spent in Chicago on productions like this far outweigh any potential negatives. And, full disclosure, as an actor I’m delighted to see it. Other productions are in town now and more are coming soon.

So all that is awesome and great for the local economy!

But I would argue that the hidden, non-quantifiable, long-term benefits are even better for the marketing of Chicago. Visit Chicago today and you’ll see a modern American city (with some noticeable exceptions of course like our mass transit system), with a beautiful lakefront, an inviting downtown, and gleaming skyscrapers. It’s a place where anybody would love to make a film.

But it wasn’t always like that and not so long ago either. Everybody has seen the “Blues Brothers” of course, but if you haven’t seen it in a while, go back and watch it again. You won’t see today’s Chicago in that film. You’ll see a tough, gritty, dirty city with old guys living in tenements asking for their Cheese Whiz. In many ways, it’s the Chicago I remember growing up with.

So what changed? Well the “Blue Brothers” introduced the nation to Chicago. And despite the grittiness of the movie it made our culture shine. The music, the cuisine (“Wrong glass sir.”), the neighborhoods, Lower Wacker Drive, the architecutre, and Wrigley Field were all things prominently featured that made people want to come here.

Chicago looked cool! Even today, thirty years later, I have friends from out of town who want to visit this place or that because they saw it in the “Blues Brothers.” If you’re from Chicago, tell me you haven’t taken pride in driving a visitor down Lower Wacker Drive just like the Blues Brothers did. People from all over the country now know what’s located at 1060 W. Addison. The Blues Brothers are such a part of our cultural fabric that you can’t imagine Chicago without it. That’s pretty powerful stuff for a movie.

Now am I saying that the “Blues Brothers” is responsible for the transformation of Chicago to what it is today? Of course not. But it was a critical factor. And many of the movies shot here since were also critical factors in the evolution of the Chicago brand. These productions and future ones are vital to the city’s growth.

So to Michael Bay, Ron Howard, Stephen Soderbergh and our Hollywood friends I say thank you, please come again, and please encourage others to shoot here. Chicago’s reputation flourishes and its brand beams the more you’re here.

Oh, and one other thing…while you’re in town, could one of you guys please call my agent?

First Step For Famous Vegetables

This could point the way to fame and fortune for your favorite vegetable. In the Wall Street Journal and on ABC World News we learn about marketing’s most recent attempt to get Americans to eat smarter and healthier.  The Vidalia Onion Committee (imagine listing that membership on your resume) has enlisted America’s favorite ogre to star in its “Shrek Forever After, Vidalias Forever Sweet” campaign.

Can marketing really help change what Americans put in their mouths, for the better? It’s been trying for a long time, in so many different ways, with mixed success.

The scientific way.
Scientists suggested that seaweed might stop the “rising tide of obesity.” Immediately someone put it into a pill and advertised it on late night television. What’s that quacking sound I hear?

The cautionary way.
Subway restaurants did it humorously, with TV commercials showing popping buttons, collapsing hammocks and so forth. Naveed Sattar, Professor of Metabolic Medicine at the University of Glasgow, also did it humorously, though unintentionally, when he suggested that obese people’s clothing should come with sewn-in warning labels, similar to those on cigarette packs.

The entertaining way.
Just last spring the NatureSweet tomatoes/Radio Disney Sweet Sensations contest invited kids “showcase their natural talent…by singing and/or dancing and/or speaking and/or displaying an act of talent about the snackability and sweetness of NatureSweet® Cherubs® Tomatoes.”

And now, the celebrity way.
It appears that Ogres For Onions, aka the Vidalia Shrek promotion, really works. According to The Wall Street Journal, “Through June 14, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said, farmers had shipped eight million more pounds of Vidalias than by the same date last year—though the 2010 season started two weeks later than in 2009. ‘We’ve sold more onions up to this point in the season than we ever have in the past,’ says Brian Stanley of Stanley Farms, a large Vidalia grower.” Part of the campaign’s success comes from the similarities between ogres and onions – they’re round, they’re stinky and they have many layers.

This could inspire a new kind of marketing for healthy eating, as celebrities follow Shrek’s example by donating their time and talents on behalf of the vegetable they resemble most.  For example:
Tomato: Scarlett Johansson, who else?
Asparagus: Someone tall and thin – How about Jeff Goldblum with his hair dyed green.
Carrot: Again, someone tall and thin, this time with red hair. Conan O’Brien?
Potato:  The friendly, humble lumpy look of John C. Reilly. Or maybe Don Rickles, the voice of Mr. Potato Head in the Toy Story movies.
Corn:  Homer Simpson. Because he’s yellow.
Jalapeno Pepper: Jennifer Lopez. Do I have to explain?
Peas In A Pod:  Lloyd, Jeff, Beau and Jordan Bridges. Or the Carradines. Or the whole Cusack family.
Feel free to add to the list – post your celebrity vegetable favorites in Comments.

“What’s wrong with the sound?” I said when my son turned on the TV to watch a World Cup match. “Have killer bees come to Chicago? Are they swarming inside our set?”

This was my first exposure to the buzz heard round the world, the supposedly traditional, really really LOUD 127 decibel South African stadium horn. (I’m a little dubious of that claim; plastic horns like this have been around for decades, and they didn’t come from Africa.)

In the short time that the  vuvuzela has gained the world’s attention, marketers are horning in on the buzz to build visibility for their products. But it will all be over in a few weeks with the winning of the World Cup.
•    Just in case you’ve been living in a cave, you can hear what it sounds like: An online virtual vuvuzela, sponsored by McDonald’s, as well as a vuvuzela endurance test.
•    Of course, some people need a user’s manual for the vuvuzela.
•    Now that you know what it is and how it sounds, you can get an anti-vuvuzela noise filter, for home use, using MP3 technology.
•    Or take advantage of a therapy product to alleviate hearing loss caused by exposure to vuvuzela din.
•    Coca-Cola World Cup promotional cups use the vuvuzela as a design element. (Idea for next generation: combination drink cup and vuvuzela horn – drink the Coke, unplug the bottom of the cup and it becomes a horn?)
•    Of course, there’s an iPhone vuvuzela app (You didn’t think they’d miss this one, did you?) It’s “the No. 1 downloaded free iPhone and iPad app in more than 50 countries, according to iTunes.”
•    And a vuvuzela Twitter feed, where you can be the first to find out about important news such as “GOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNZZZZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL
LLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.”
•    In Cape Town (where else?) there’s the world’s largest vuvuzela – 35 meters long, sponsored by Hyundai.

•    And finally, a marketing blogger who makes noise on behalf of her clients: “I am a professional Vuvuzela in the industry, creating a beesquito buzz for the organizations, products and services I represent.”

What does it all mean? Not very much. But it does highlight a few simple truths about viral marketing around a fast-growing trendy idea like the vuvuzela.
1.    Better do it fast. Tactics are all, so reserve your strategic planning skills for something else.
2.    Everyone and their brother will try to jump on the bandwagon with you.
3.    Your chances for success are random and unpredictable, based on undefined factors that have little or nothing to do with features, benefits and differentiation.

“All day long I’m bustin’ suds
Gee my hands are tired
washin’ out these dirty duds.”
Bessie Smith, Washwoman Blues, 1928

But now the Queen of the Blues could take her dirty duds to K-mart, and lose those blues as she shopped for Kmart blue light specials instead.

That’s the idea reported in Big Fat Marketing Blog, on Kmart’s test of a 31 washer in-store laundromat in Iowa City:
“…could result in higher basket rings for those who use the facility since they may spend more time shopping the aisles.”
“Kmart says it hopes the Laundromat will help build new customer relationships … and a steady stream of multi-taskers with lots of dirty laundry.”

This is a good idea, but not an entirely new one. Walgreens already offers immediate care, with Take Care clinics inside their stores. And TCF and other banks have had branches in supermarkets for years, meeting the needs of both shoppers and robbers.

A truly breakthrough new idea would be retail tie-in merchandising that satisfied a powerful but previously unrecognized customer need. For example:
•    For The Sports Authority, in-store massage therapists and even chiropractors could help assure repeat traffic. Go there the first time to get all kinds of sports gear. Go out and overexert yourself. Then go back to the store to alleviate all your aches and pains.
•    As delicious and healthful as its foods may be, Whole Foods is more than a little pricey. (Some snarky bloggers call it “Whole Paycheck.”) This is an opportunity for a downscale business to get a little more upscale, with Payday Loans locations inside of Whole Foods stores.
•    Home Depot keeps telling us that they help us achieve “more doing.” But if you asked their do-it-yourselfer customers, a lot of them would say they’d really appreciate “less doing.” So let’s address reality here, and have a sports bar inside of each Home Depot.
•    Office Depot tells us they’re “taking care of business.” But are they taking care of their cubicle dwellers customers need for a quick break? A Game Stop store inside of Office Depot would let them choose just the boss-is-out-of -town break they want, from Super Mario Galaxy to Red Dead Redemption.

And of course, to deter shrinkage (aka shoplifting, to you non-retail readers), there really should be a police sub-station inside of each Dunkin’ Donuts.

Fair warning: reading the rest of this post may result in a significant drop in your work productivity for the rest of the day.  Do yourself a favor and read it at 4:45 pm, so you can effectively kill those dreaded last 15 minutes of your day until you pack your things up, head out the door, and plop yourself down at the local bar/patio.

I read about Google’s May 22 tribute to the 30^th anniversary of Pac-Man at 4:16 pm (thanks for the tweet, @katierogers of the Washington Post), which proceeded to derail the last 44 minutes of my workday.  Apparently, I’m not the only one.  According to Canada’s National Post, the Pac-Man tribute embedded on their homepage logged nearly 5 million hours of work time in the two days that it was featured.  The game was such a hit that it still exists as part of their search engine.  Fortunately for me and the other 504 million users who use Google each day, Pac-Man is no longer part of their homepage.

Talk about paying homage to a video game that transcends time.  For 30 years, the Pac-Man brand has remained relevant.  Hell, after 30 years the game remains fun…not to mention frustrating (“Dammit, I shouldn’t have eaten that cherry—would have avoided that monster Blinky!”).  The game came out six years before I was born, and I probably started navigating passageways and chomping on dots 12 years after its release, yet I’m still familiar with the iconic yellow circle that’s missing a wedge.  I even convinced my mother to buy a Pac-Man shirt for me as a birthday present in 6^th grade.

So what is it about Pac-Man that makes its icon so durable?  My guess would be that Pac-Man, as a character, was a first-in-market kind of guy.  To me, he represents arcade games much the same way Mario represents Nintendo (and to a lesser extent, Sonic the Hedgehog represents Sega).  These characters were brand ambassadors for their respective consoles from their debut to today.  Yes, the original Pac-man and Mario games are still around because of their superior game play.  But they’re also still around because of their vintage appeal.  From t-shirts to Billboard top ten songs, to feature movies, Pac-Man and Mario are so cool that people still want to be associated with them.  The people who defined the Pac-Man brand must awake every morning to extreme satisfaction; they transformed a 2D pixel graphic into the easily recognized and equally memorable brand it is today.

As for Google paying homage to what is likely one of the best video games to exist, well, it’s a classy move.  Just beware of what time you access it during the work day.

I never would have thought that my first R&M blog post would be about video games.  I’m such a dork at heart.

A recent Wall Street Journal article reports on yet another use of promotion marketing for a purpose no one dreamed of before. In New York City, the Maloney and Porcelli Steakhouse is using free steak dinners and access to an open bar to motivate workers on a nearby noisy, dusty construction project to finish their work by the November deadline. They even have a Construction Club website tracking progress toward work goals and worker rewards.

Back in the 1980s, when my colleagues and I were toiling away in the promotion marketing mines, sweepstakes, refunds, free premiums and so forth were a specialty area then, mostly used by consumer products marketers.

Who knew they would they would get into the mainstream, used as tools in government, economic policy, law enforcement and social engineering today?

We touched on this subject in a previous post about Michigan credit unions’ Save To Win program offering one entry toward a $100,000 prize for each $25 saved, and a New York City “promotion” rewarding poor people with cash incentives for visiting the dentist, opening a bank account, and so forth.

Since then, in addition to the Maloney and Porcelli Construction Club, we’ve run across:
•    The U.S. government SAVE Award, an OMB (Office of Management and Budget) contest that honors federal employees for ideas that save taxpayer dollars. Winners get to meet with the President. Unfortunately, they don’t win any “dead Presidents” to put in their pockets.
•    A Harvard experiment that bribed kids for getting good grades – a larger, more sophisticated, controlled version of the old “get a dollar for each A on your report card.”
•    The recent Cash for Guns program right here in Chicago. In just one day, it got over 4000 weapons off the street.
•    And of course, the ever popular police sting “party” tactic. Police invite criminals to win big prizes at a special VIP event, then clap on the cuffs when they show up. This idea has gone international; here’s an example from Thailand. (Don’t crooks ever read the paper or watch the TV news? By now, they should see this one coming from a mile away.)

Two questions:
1.    Have you run across other cases of promotion tactics used to support government programs, social engineering, and law enforcement (rather than to sell products or services)?
2.    When does it make sense to “pay” people extra, to do what they’re supposed to do (or what we hope they do) anyway – save money, have responsible habits, work more efficiently, get good grades, prevent crime and so forth?

It’s been about four months since my anniversary, and finally I’ve received my anniversary present from my wife – a brand spanking new, fresh faced iPad. Of course, I needed to go and choose it while she headed to Anthropologie for her belated gift, but here’s how the day panned out with my newborn:

10am – Turn up at the Apple Store as staff throw open the doors to the pilgrims camped out on the sidewalk. Rush inside to find nice man with funky blue shirt offering to help me out. Together we find the 64 Gb little beauty along with the carry case, keyboard stand, and AppleCare. Walk out about a grand lighter, but elated at my purchase. Finally, an Apple product in our house which is mine, mine, mine. Check email with it. Load applications that help me do practical, useful things like track stocks and shares, or calculate NPV.

1030am – Return home. While I unload groceries, wife and 7 year old unpack the iPad. Simple, elegant packaging … or so I was told. Only by the time I came inside, the packaging was off, the iPad plugged into my laptop, and downloading was beginning.

1035am – Downloading complete, except it only did 65 songs – not the 3000+ on my laptop, painstakingly accumulated over a lifetime of digital music excess. Try to go to the Apple help, but realize iPad isn’t set up for internet access. Start set up for internet access.

1125am – Finally work out that internet access password for our wi-fi is not what I thought it was but a different code. iPad swings into gear. Teenage son comes home, and while I’m distracted purloins iPad for closer investigation.

100pm – Notice that iPad returned by teenage son seems to have a variety of shoot-‘em-up applications on it, recently procured from the iTunes store. Go to make inquiries of teenage son, leaving iPad behind.

125pm – iPad missing again, along with wife.

255pm – iPad appears out of a room with wife in tow. Screen now has various female interest applications on it, along with recipes collections and HER email contact details. Now on the third screen of applications within a few hours of opening the box.

305pm – Go out and check the mailbox

310pm – Return from mailbox to find iPad missing again. Protracted search begins.

335pm – Seven year old appears with iPad. Now on fifth screen, including various SpongeBob applications, NetFlix, more shoot-‘em-up games, along with race game and air hockey. Promptly throw a fit, thinking a grand for the hardware was nothing compared to the app bill to come! But finally, have time to get to know my new friend intimately.

340pm – Battery dies, as never charged up from purchase.

341pm – Open new applications, iGin and iTonic. Relax, until wife and teenager return to ask if they can have THEIR iPad again, as they just heard about something new and interesting to try. Resigned, I pass over my prized possession, knowing that my only hope of seeing it again is a forthcoming business trip. Ah, sweet airport lounge!

With apologies to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow … in celebration of the iPad’s NEXT launch later this month.

This is not tree-hugger, politically-correct “green marketing.” Let’s be blunt about it: What we’re talking about here is the marketing of the green goddess, maybe-soon-to-be-legal “recreational” marijuana, inspired by the fact that medical marijuana is now legal in 14 states.

Knowing that it will take a joint effort to succeed, some growers and medical marijuana dispensaries are already starting to get serious about marketing. They’re not letting any grass grow under their feet as they get to work on this budding new product category.

(*Reader alert: How many gratuitous uses of marijuana slang can you find in the headline and first paragraph?)

Examples of recent marijuana marketing initiatives include:
•    MyMarijuana.com. a new online resource for targeting medical marijuana advertising to best prospects, including include street-level interactive maps, consumer reviews and a verification system.
•    The International Cannabis and Hemp Expo at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, attracting 15,000 attendees, with vendors featuring vendors displayed bongs, vaporizers, pipes, papers, stash containers, and yes, free samples.
•    A group of growers and clinics hiring an agency to do for marijuana what marketing did for Burt’s Bees personal care products.

Will this new wave of not-in-a-plain-brown-bag marijuana moguls go for the good stuff? Or will their marketing just end up with seeds and stems? We believe success may depend on their ability to address issues like these:

Brand Development
At first, it’s the medical marijuana dispensaries that will need brand name differentiation. Look forward to the friendly neighborhood “Grass Station” inviting you to come in and fill up.

The next step will be individual marijuana brands. But rumor has it that mega alcohol and tobacco marketers have already made an end run and trademarked names like Acapulco Gold, Maui Wowie and Panama Red. So the new wave of marijuana marketers may have to establish new brand names, or settle for undignified names like Wacky Tobaccy and Laughing Grass.

Targeting Key Segments
The low-hanging fruit may be seniors. They’re the pot pioneers of the 1960s, and now they’re coming back, some because they grew up with grass, and some because it alleviates the aches and pains of age. To appeal to this key segment, marijuana marketers may want to bundle their product with senior-appeal accessories. For example:
•    The Geezer – the familiar bong or hookah, now repackaged with a new (old) name and 60’s-style Fillmore Auditorium graphics.
•    The Zen Clapper – the late night TV commercial home electrical accessory, now redesigned to clap on and clap off to the sound of one hand.

Nurturing Marketing Alliances
As they become less like “connections” and more like conventional consumer packaged goods marketers, they’ll want to ally with relevant brands that will build customer involvement and increase perceived value. They should consider:
•    Betty Crocker Brownie Mix. A natural, although we have a hard time picturing Betty with a paisley headband, bellbottom pants and bare feet.
•    Frito Lay Munchies Snack Mix. A sure success for the marijuana marketer who can pre-empt competition by allying with the perfect brand name.
•    Mary Jane peanut butter candies. Another perfect brand name, but one that should not be marketed to the senior target segment, because it will pull their fillings out.

Added Value Promotion
Finally, after they’ve established their brands and basic communications, marijuana marketers will want to develop some short-term excitement-building events. For example:
•    The Rename The Roach Contest. Why should the best part of the joint have the worst name?
•    Vote For The Viper. Who should be the celebrity voice that stands for your favorite marijuana brand? Choose from people from the past, like Jerry Garcia or Humphrey Don’t-Bogart-That-joint. Or from contemporaries like Bill “I didn’t inhale” Clinton, or Michael “It was wrong to bong” Phelps.

*Six, by my count.

I’ve seen it all now. We can pay our Federal taxes using loyalty points from the American Express card, according to an email I just received today.

Still, as Alan Maites noted in a recent posting on this site, there is a depressing abundance of major brands using standard, off the shelf loyalty programs to promote their products and services. At least Amex is trying to break the mold.

But what next?

Well, Benjamin Franklin said “The only things certain in life are death and taxes”. So I guess as loyalty points now can cover taxes, it’s on to the final ‘service’ most of us will ever pay for.

Seems kinda strange to think about it. Imagine that you can take it with you after all, using loyalty points for funeral arrangements, burial plots, cremation services, or tombstones.  In addition to account balances, points earned and special offers, our statements could also include obituaries purchased by loyal members. I can see it now: “Joe Shmoe, died today, loving husband, father of three, avid fisherman, Gold Tier point collector. Donations to American Cancer Society by Amex only.”

Still, being a loyal Amex user over many years I’m looking forward (?) to the rather grand mausoleum that my accrued points will afford my decendents. Just don’t put a blue box logo in the corner, with a sponsorship message. Or abuse my memory with an epitaph which reads “Paul and American Express. The Only Time He Left Home Without It.”

I missed it! March 19^th was the first National Day for Unplugging, an event designed to celebrate the Sabbath by asking people to give up, for 24 hours, use of cellphones, GPS, computers, TV … in other words, most of life as we know it. But then, the very nature of the day is contrary to finding out that it exists. It’s an intriguing idea, given the all-pervasive technology surrounding us. Apparently, some participants struggled, while others found it refreshing.

The idea of staging events on specific days or weeks has been around for many years. We have National Popcorn Day in January, as opposed to National Popcorn Poppin’ Month in October (popcorn brands take note – a little marketing integration needed here).  Next month, May, prepare yourself to celebrate Teen CEO Month (scary), Tennis Month (Alan Maites take note), as well as Revise Your Work Schedule Month (less for me, more for you), National Vinegar Month (eeuuhh), and National Meditation Month (ohmmmm).

Now clearly getting a day or month event to work effectively in marketing requires more than just saying this date or this period is “yours”.  First you need an official sponsor, a marketer to pay the bills. And you need to host some events, get some publicity, have others talk about it and join in the fun/celebration/remembrance.

To add to the ideas above, I’ve thought of a few examples of technology-inspired National Days:
1.  National Day of Unfriending – One day when you can un-friend as many of your 1356 closest Facebook friends as you like, without getting hate emails. But you could send snail mail – maybe the U.S. Postal Service should sponsor this one.
2.  National Day of Twittering – A 24 hour period when you need to twitter ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING you do, staying awake all night to detail every tedious aspect of your existence.  This could be a charity fundraiser for On And On Anon Ymous, the 12-Step program for people who talk too much.  Or another excuse for people to behave like Chad Ochocinco.
3.  National Erase Text Day – The sponsor for this is obvious: TigerText, the new iPhone app that limits text message lifespan, inspired by the celebrity who escapades were revealed when he crashed his Escalade. (Shhh. We’re being discreet here.)
4.  National Jobs Day – No, not a spur for employment, but a chance to honor Apple’s Steve Jobs, who seems to be on the cover of every magazine and have product placements in shows like ABC’s Modern Family.  The idea here is you celebrate by standing in line outside of an Apple store.  Wait a minute, wasn’t that last Saturday at the iPad launch?
5.  National Day of Spam – One day, just one, when you’re required to read all spam and junk emails.  In return, the spammers would have to provide you with their own personal home street addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Hmm, on second thought this might end up being a one-time event.
6.  National Day of….? Now go ahead and make your day. If you had to promote a ‘National Day of …” what would it be, and why? Who would sponsor it?  Best idea wins a precooked meat product in a distinctive blue and yellow can, made by the Hormel Foods Corporation, in 13 delicious varieties.

Coupons, sweepstakes, contests, rebates are promotion techniques for changing behavior. Short term, they can change the economic outlooks of brands and the customers who buy them. But we’ve never thought of promotion marketing tactics as a way to change the economic outlook of nations – until now.

Yes, Promotion Could Change Nations.

From the Harvard Business Review we learned about a real life promotion experiment run by Michigan credit unions. It offered “entrants” one entry to win $100, 000 for each $25 they saved. (That’s $25 they kept for themselves and earned interest on, not “$25 they spent” or “$25 worth of product they purchased.”)

Could this be the answer to some of the current U.S. economic woes?
•    Because for the nation as a whole, more savings = less imported capital = more economic independence (from debt to China, for example).
•    And less money devoted to debt service means more money for expanding businesses, hiring employees, buying houses and cars, and so forth.

The Save To Win program at eight Michigan credit unions attracted $8.6 million in incremental deposits from 11,600 savers in 11 months; Nineteen Michigan credit unions will participate in 2010.  Among the 11,600 participants:
•    55% had no previous regular savings plan.
•    59% were lottery players.
•    64% had never used certificates of deposit before.
The program was developed by Harvard Business School professor Peter Tufano, who said: “Saving is really crucial now as the majority of Americans face insecurity about jobs, healthcare and their futures, and we were pleased to offer this easy and fun option to increase saving by credit union members.”

All this is contrary to what we think we know about economics. Save To Win is like a lottery (even though you can’t lose in Save To Win). And a lottery is a perfect example (we’ve always been told) of irresponsible economics. Some call it a “tax on stupidity.” Yet in this case it works.

No, Promotion Is Not The Solution.

On the other hand, sometimes promotion is not the solution to economic woes.
This Forbes article reports on a New York City “sales promotion” that rewarded poor people with cash incentives for maintaining good habits – $25 to $150 for going to the dentist, staying on the job, opening a bank account and so forth.  But after three years, Mayor Michael Bloomberg states that the program “doesn’t work in every case.”  Only 10 percent of families had two dental visits per year, only 1 percent more had health insurance, and only 3 percent fewer used costly services like check cashing. Fewer participants held jobs in the first year, and cash rewards had little effect on school performance or attendance.

Go Figure

If my colleagues and I had seen this programs in the planning stage, some of might have predicted just the opposite: That Save To Win would fail, because of the uncertainty of getting a reward (no matter how large), and that the cash incentives for behavior would succeed, because they’re a sure thing. But that’s logical thinking, and people behave logically only some of the time.

Sometimes you don’t have to think out of the box.  A really big idea could be right in front of your eyes – 20 feet long, 7 ½ feet wide and high, painted in bright colors.

It’s a big box – literally: The intermodal shipping container that you hardly notice on the back of a truck, or when you’re waiting for a freight train to pass, or in huge manmade mountains in rail yards and ports.

Trendhunter lists around thirty different ways to use shipping containers – houses, hotels, even a factory. These are pretty obvious applications for a big metal box. What’s really interesting are the marketing innovations that use shipping containers:

•    Japanese casual wear marketer UNIQLO staged grand openings in New York City with shipping containers as pop-up retail stores.

•    Contradicting the trend to more and more compact cameras, Samsung turned a shipping container into a giant camera – so big that passersby have to jump on the shutter button to take a picture.

•    Southern Comfort used multiple containers to build pop-up nightclubs, complete with bars, stages and lounges.

•    To tie in with the 2008 Olympics in China, local business China8 proposed to wrap shipping containers in advertising, stack them on barges and tow them through Puget Sound.

•    Some shipping container marketing is small scale, like these squishy stress rectangle premiums for harried shipping executives and their customers.

•    And finally, on a more strategic level, there’s this idea from the Freakonomics blog: The potential ability to track your competition’s business activity using data on shipping container movement and contents.

All these ideas and more spring from the fact that a shipping container is like a paper clip, a popsicle stick, a Lego or a piece of paper, but on a much bigger scale. They’re taken for granted because they’re everywhere and they’re ordinary. But they can inspire innovation, because their versatility lets them transcend limits.

Maybe it’s time for marketing creative to stop thinking big and starting getting mini.

From the very beginning of our careers in marketing, we’re always being told that “think big” = “better.” Big ideas get your clients’ products noticed. They advance your career by getting your own ideas noticed. And they justify big budgets (whether you really need them or not).

Maybe it’s time to think again, to “think small.”  A few good reasons:
•    The current b2b marketing emphasis is on small business.
•    In today’s economy, most marketers are working with smaller budgets.
•    The Internet, and especially social media, help marketers efficiently target small audiences.
•    Smaller marketing initiatives can be green, using fewer resources.
•    Many marketers are discovering the advantages of working with a smaller agency (full disclosure: self-interest at work here).

But there’s one more way to think small….and this is the big idea.  To get your ideas notice, miniaturize your creative executions. For example:
•    Remember making dioramas in grade school? In the UK, East Coast Trains is reviving the idea to promote its “miniature” fares.
•    A different way to do dioramas – in Melbourne, Australia City Search took them out of the ad and onto the street.
•    Be smart and small with a half-size Smart Car wrap. Stand out among all the other marketers wrapping full-size Hummers and city busses with their promotional messages.
•    Use a few square inches to get noticed with a creative business card – like this graduate student’s electronic interactive card, and this security consultant’s card with built-in lockpicks.
•    When other direct marketers are sinking their hopes and their budgets into oversize dimensional mailers, consider sending something small, like this world’s smallest direct mail piece for Volkswagen Passat.
•    Billboards are big. But this report from New Zealand shows they don’t have to be, to be effective communicators.
•    And finally, the idea that claims to be the world’s smallest ad (and probably is): An Olympus mailer sent to scientist prospects for high-end microscopes, with a customer survey that could only be read through a microscope.

Give it a little thought: When everyone is shouting, why should you expect your yell to be heard? Try whispering instead. Because smaller and better can be better than just plain bigger.

Once again, wandering around on the Web leads to a blog post topic. This time it was The Hotel Bed Jumping blog, which helps Hotels By City.net differentiate itself and compete against online giants like Travelocity and Expedia.

It was inspiration to tackle the subject of niche marketing in general. But then two problems reared their ugly heads:
1. There’s a lot to get your arms around. In a way, all marketing can be thought of as niche marketing. It’s just that some niches are smaller and more targetable than others.
2. It’s hard to find any genuine strategic thinking on the subject. A quick Google search finds lots of “MAKE BIG BUCK$$$ – SECRETS OF NICHE MARKETING REVEALED” and little else.

So this post takes the ever-popular “marketing extremes” path. The writers of the RandM blog like to take notice of the very good, the very bad, the just plain bizarre. We freely admit a shallow motive for this. Extremes like the ones described below are fun to read about and fun to write about.

Help like minds share good times together. The Web lets people with very specialized tastes find and communicate with each other. Royal Caribbean takes it a step further, getting them together face to face with a cruise for fans of the film “Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein.”

Target customers who still need a hard-to-find obsolete technology. One obvious way: Sell parts for typewriters. A less obvious (and extremely lucrative) way: Sell music cassette tapes to prison inmates, who are not allowed to own CDs because they can easily be made into shivs.

Offer the right remedy for “whatever ails you.” Social limitations are one side effect of medical conditions. Prescription4Love helps customers overcome them with a dating-for-singles service for people with matching diseases.

Cash in on celebrity obsession. Despite its name, Kabbalah Energy Drink’s target market is not Jewish mystics. (Imagine bearded, sidelocked Hasids skateboarding on half pipes.) Instead, its appeal is to those forlorn wannabes who follow the careers of Madonna, Paris Hilton and other show-biz Kabbalah followers for whom Red Bull is just too mainstream.

Leverage the fear factor to sell fashions. No, not the “does my butt look big in this?” factor.  In Colombia, tailor Miguel Caballero offers a wide range of fashionable bulletproof clothing to prospects with a very real fear of assassination.  Want a job with Miguel? You start out in quality control - CNN reports that one condition of employment is being shot by the boss.

There’s also a deeper motive for looking at extremes like these. You may not have to go this far to market to a niche.  But they do help set your thinking free.  And they show what you need to succeed, because there’s more to niche marketing than just buying the right Google AdWords. First, you’ve got to have the right product – something that scratches your niche’s itch.

(The following was delivered to Robinson & Maites in a plain brown bag in the dead of night. We do not attest to its veracity.)

“Suckers.
Easy marks.
Chumps.
But now they tell me we gotta call them ‘best prospects.’”

That’s what an anonymous informant known only as Louie told Crime Times, the trade journal for ethically-challenged entrepreneurs (AKA “crooks”) in their report on Blippy.com, the new social media service.

It’s an extreme example of how small business is embracing new technology to improve their marketing. Legitimate small businesses are using Facebook and YouTube.  But burglars, muggers and blackmailers are reaping the benefits Blippy users posting all their credit card and online purchases online for the world to see. According to Blippy.com:
•    “Blippy is a fun and easy way to see and discuss the things people are buying.”
•    “Share your favorite purchases from any credit card or these online stores.”

According to Louie: “I don’t know nothing about this target market segmentation stuff. But why get wasted trying to figure out who’s the chump – uh, sorry, I meant to say prospect – when with Blippy I can get them to raise their hands and tell me what they’ve got that’s worth stealing?”

Before Blippy the bad guys would expend enormous man-hours trying to find the right score. Burglars cruised neighborhoods looking for mail and newspapers piled up on porches. Muggers watched for show-offs with big bankrolls in their pockets. And blackmailers rooted through garbage cans looking for “No Tell Motel” register receipts.

“No more of this hanging around in dark alleys in the rain at three in the morning,” Louie told Crime Times. “Now crime’s more like a 9 to 5 desk job. I can tell people I’m into marketing. It’s even inspired a new motto for my business. With Blippy I just grab my mouse and go:
Click click,
Now I’m slick.
I take my pick
Of conspic-
Uous consumers.”

Louie is even thinking of sponsoring an annual marketing award for most effective campaigns using Blippy.com. “We’ll call it the solid gold shopping cart.  Actually it’s someone else’s idea that I found online. But what the hell, I’m a thief.”

You can find marketing innovation in the oddest places: A construction site along a main road in the western suburbs of Chicago.  And in oddest forms: a giant inflatable cat squeezing a hard-hatted worker in its fist. I had to stop and get out of the car and take this picture.

It made me forget about innovations like social media, segmented direct marketing and search engine optimization for a while, and give some thought to one of the dinosaurs (literally, in some cases) of marketing: the giant inflatable display.

They get attention by blowing up (excuse the pun please) a brand message, like the giant Firehawk inflatable does for Firestone tire stores. But I’ve always wondered what auto dealers were thinking, when they blew up those giant inflatable gorillas, Godzillas and so forth. The only message they deliver is “big.” Kind of redundant, in an auto dealership half a block long, with row upon row of shiny new cars, bright lights, string of colorful pennants and big, big signs. Local visibility and awareness is not a problem. Passers-by do not suddenly see a giant blue gorilla and say “Gosh! I was going to buy some paint at the hardware store. But that big gorilla makes me think I’ll stop and buy a Buick instead!”

The giant inflatable gorillas and Godzillas are an aberration; auto dealers’ usual attitude is that if it doesn’t work, it’s gone. But the giant inflatable cat is an innovation. It doesn’t support a brand (like the Firehawk inflatable), but it does deliver a very specific message. The fat cat inflatable is designed and built to support unions’ picketing of employers at job sites.

A marketing menagerie
It turns out that the fat cat is not alone.  A little Googling revealed there’s a wide selection of giant inflatables manufactured specifically to support labor vs. management messages: A rat, a pig, a cockroach, even a skunk.

They’ve been used in management vs. labor disputes all over the U.S., including baristas vs. Starbucks corporate at the annual meeting, and for striking movie and TV writers. There’s even a flickr photo posting site for fans of the giant inflatable rat.

Leave aside labor vs. management preferences and opinions about negative advertising for a minute.  Imagine the giant (inflatable?) light bulb appearing over the head of the innovative marketer at Big Sky Balloons or Inflatable Images, when he or she first thought “How can I expand my customer base beyond the business segment? What if…I created a product to satisfy the needs of the ‘other side’”?

The ideas behind most marketing alliances are pretty obvious. Sometimes the two partners are virtually inseparable.
•    So Louisville Slugger is the official bat of Major League Baseball.
•    And Sharp Aquos is MLB’s official HDTV.

Sometimes the two marketers’ audiences overlap.
•    Fans eat Papa John’s, the official pizza of the NFL, as they watch games on TV.
•    Money management is a universal need. So Bank of America is the official bank of the NFL.
•    The Big Mac is a mass market favorite hamburger.  And for the past month or so, Avatar is the mass market favorite movie.
Huh?
But some alliances are so strange they make you say “Huh? What were they thinking?” See if you can tell if the following alliances are real, or just figments of the overactive imaginations of R&Mers taking a break from real marketing work.  No cheating – answer before you click, please.
1. Scotts Grass Seed and Major League Baseball.
2. Bob Dylan and Citibank.
3. Thomas Crapper-branded bathroom accessories and gift items.
4. Star Wars and Weber grills.
5. Windows 7 and Burger King.
6. 24: The Series Energy Drink.
7. Harley Davidson and Barbie.
8. Popular Mechanics magazine and Old Navy stores.
9.The National Audubon Society, Olympic Paints and Lowes, the home center chain.
10. Volvo and New Moon, the vampire movie.

The answers: They’re all real except for #4 – the Death Star kettle grill was proposed but never executed. Some of them are good, but not obvious, ideas.
•    Major League Baseball fans knows how important their favorite team’s groundskeeper can be; Scotts takes advantage with Wrigley Field seed, Fenway Park seed, etc.

•    Old Popular Mechanics magazine cover art is a perfect fit with Old Navy’s retro appeal.

On the other hand:
•    Gift items branded with the name Thomas Crapper (the alleged inventor of the flush toilet) – not so sure about that one.
•    The Harley Davidson Barbie Doll – we’d like to see the Venn diagram that shows how the Hells Angels and little girls market segments overlap.

Someone is saying “….and your point is?”
Some marketing ideas don’t seem to make sense, at least on the surface. That doesn’t make them wrong, because as we said in a previous post, sometimes it makes sense to stop making sense. It doesn’t make them right either, because risk vs. reward is a constant juggling act in innovative marketing thinking. Were you looking for a secret formula for successful marketing alliances? Sorry, there isn’t one, except the one that says “Step beyond the expected. But watch your step.”

“Think different” said the Apple campaign from a few years back – good advice for agencies who want to bring their clients fresh new ideas. The problem is, here in the USA even the most bizarre ideas quickly become business as usual.
•    Rock stars and athletes are so last week; today teens want be like the bloodsucking undead.
•    A billionaire offers to have his head shaved as part of a pro wrestling promotion.
•    A porn producer offers Octomom a million dollars to make a film….a rival offers her the same to keep her clothes on.

What’s an agency to do? Here at R&M we know one resource that’s as good or better than the standard “anything goes” brainstorming session. We look at what they’re doing across the ocean in Japan.

For a really big product introduction idea, tie-in with a high visibility fast food chain. To introduce Windows 7 to Japan Microsoft tied in with Burger King to create a Whopper stacked with 7 beef patties. (A previous Microsoft promotion for the ill-fated Vista operating system listed features and benefits in Japanese, on rolls of toilet paper. Not a big idea, but an honest one.)

Need a real life “spoke-hero” for your brand? Minimize controversy by borrowing a prominent figure from another culture, as the Japanese do with Barack Obama action figures.

Do distribution differently for your product or service. While everyone else moving to the Internet, consider a tried and true channel: The vending machine. In Japan you can drop in your money and press the right buttons to buy live lobsters, umbrellas, and underwear.

Get your employees involved in a long-term strategic initiative to assure that your company will have customers 20 or 30 years in the future. Japan’s population is aging –so Canon gives its employees time off to go home and make babies.

Weirdness is in the eye of the beholder. In Japan these ideas are no weirder than the vampire trend, Donald Trump and Octomom examples are in the USA.  Their value is as idea-starters, ways to start seeing things from a different point of view. But they’re not good candidates for direct imitation in American marketing – unless you’re one of our clients’ competitors, in which case we urge you to go ahead and print your features and benefits on toilet paper.

Note: The message below was received at Robinson & Maites via an e-mail dated Star Date 2265.6, from SradoK2@UFO.mil. The agency makes no claims about its veracity or practicality.

Greetings, Earth dwellers. My remote scans of human behavior indicate that the activity you call “marketing” can be more successful during the forthcoming revolution of your planet around its Sun. I have observed that:
•    The leadership of your commercial enterprises called “corporations” demands efficiency.
•    But humans are driven by emotion and personal preference. In short, they are illogical. And so the marketing they create is inefficient.
•    Nevertheless, you already possess the means to remove human fallibility, to make marketing more logical. You do not need to wait until Star Date 2265 to achieve efficiency.

On my planet it would be unnecessary to expend time and effort on marketing, because all decisions are made on a purely logical basis. But on your planet, more successful marketing will be made possible by taking critical decisions out of the hands of illogical humans, and assigning them to the impartial, logical, interactive, Web-based applications that I shall categorize as “Design Your Own” or “Mass Customization.”

At first, I was appalled by the trivial ways you humans have used them until now.

•    A beer brand offered its customers the opportunity to receive a doll that duplicates their personal appearance. Why? Humans already possess mirrors and cameras to achieve this task.
•    Humans who participate in physical competitions may design their own athletic shoes. I do not understand. How can the appearance of shoes improve human athletic performance?

•    A company offers it customers the opportunity to customize the nutritional units you know as “candy bars”- the shape, ingredients…even the names. Yet the taste remains the same, so customization is illogical.

But further observation revealed that similar applications could be put to the more significant task of automating marketing development. In the following example, imagine that your corporation, or your client, seeks to show that it is clearly different and better than its competitors.
1.    By automatically generating relevant Solutions from selected Challenges, this technology brings logic to the development of marketing strategy. Choosing the Challenge: “We are one step away from commodity hell” leads us to the Solution “Develop cross-culture marketing leadership plan — one focus, one reward for all.”
2.    Strategy can be easily translated into customer-facing copy without a long, drawn-out totally-subjective approval process, by entering key words from the strategy exercise above: Leadership, Reward.
3.    Key words can also help introduce the emotional “human touch” that would be unnecessary on my planet. Google Images identifies a graphic analogy that relates the power of “leadership” to warm, reassuring “motherhood.”  Thesaurus.com finds the idiomatic expressions that residents of your planet prefer.
4.    Finally, this easy-to-use technology marries copy to graphics, with minimum human intervention, to create the following logic-based concept communication for your marketing campaign.

May your marketing live long and prosper in the Earth year 2010.

Far be it from us to kick a guy when he is down, but we never miss the opportunity to create a topical battle of wits competition. While watching the latest SNL Tiger Woods sketch, we figured we could come up with better excuses than those folks. So today we announce the “Boy Did I Screw Up” Contest. Actually, we thought of naming it the “I want to thank all my fans and sponsors for their support as I try to be the husband and father my family deserves” Contest, but we figure that Boy Did I Screw Up pretty much covers it.

To enter, send us your best, funniest, or simply the most outrageous excuse you might hear during an upcoming Tiger Woods press conference. Just send your entry to us as a comment. Some of the early entries include:

“It’s not me. It’s my evil twin Skippy.”

“I’m just a big tipper.”

“Finally, a spokesman whose life lives up to the motto of the products he endorses — Just Do It.”

There is no real prize structure for this contest because we already raided the prize closet when we kicked off the Tiger’s Hall of Tarts Competition last week. That is a staff-only pool where the gang is trying to predict the total number of mistresses who will emerge, retain legal advisers, and be mentioned on TMZ, Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood or Larry King. Pending confirmation it appears that the front 9 is already covered. Now that Tiger appears to have made the turn, Paul’s guess of 18 is looking better all the time. Then again, this could be a 72 hole event.

You’d think that a retail marketer with 36,000+ stores would know how to turn online promotion for a low-ticket product into sales action in the store. And that a high tech marketer would be more likely to make big marketing mistakes, trying to create a sales-building shopper experience for a high-ticket product.

But you’d be wrong.

7-Eleven does it wrong. Their “Wake Up To A Hot Brazilian” online promotion for coffee is a classic example of creativity for its own sake, getting carried away with cleverness and technical wizardry without actually trying to sell anything. While Hewlett Packard does it right. Their movie theater lobby sampling/demo for its HP Photosmart Premium/Touchsmart Web printer lets best prospects get their hands on the product, and then gives them strong incentives to buy.

Customers can visit The 711 Club, a virtual nightclub in Rio de Janeiro, where they can try out pickup lines on other patrons, to earn a downloadable coupon for a cup of real world 7-Eleven Brazilian Bold coffee. But then marketing reality intrudes:
•    How anyone is supposed to know that The 711 Club exists at all is a mystery. There’s no evidence of any traffic-building activity to the site, or the store.
•    The offer is disguised so well that it might as well not even be there. Copy says, “wake up to a hot Brazilian.” But it doesn’t say anything like “get a free (or discounted) coffee at 7-Eleven.”
•    The whole process of pickup lines and earning points on the Mojo Meter is drawn out and laborious, just to get a coffee coupon.
•    There’s no in-store POS presence for the program, at least in the locations we checked.
•    The whole thing seems like overkill, for motivating the simple familiar behavior of running into a C-store for a cup of coffee.

Go where the customers are
By contrast, the HP program is a perfect example of how to “sample” a product that doesn’t usually lend itself to sampling, because it costs around $400.
•    Knowing that customers couldn’t get hands-on with their printer online, and that most people just don’t visit Office Depot that often, HP went where the customers are: Movie theater lobbies in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, Miami and Houston.
•    POS and holographic 3-D kiosks turned lobbies into HP live demonstrations, complete with a $50 coupon distribution to drive retail traffic for the printer.
•    During off hours, HP used the theaters to train sales personnel from Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Staples and Office Depot.
•    A tie-in with Fandango even allowed consumer to print out movie tickets.

As more and more marketing moves online, everyone wants to show off, to do the cool digital stuff. They forget that it’s still the down and dirty stuff in the non-virtual world that makes so many of the sales.

The recent repositioning of Miracle Whip as the hip, revolutionary mover and shaker of the condiment world ends up pointing out the limits of dialogue marketing, the two-way conversation with customers that we’re all supposed to be pledging allegiance to these days.

Not your mother’s mayonnaise
It all started with a radically-new advertising campaign, with Miracle Whip claiming that they’re no longer the ingredient choice of grandmothers making lime jello vegetable salad. (The familiar “not your father’s Oldsmobile” ploy.) Miracle Whip says they “will not be quiet” and is “not like the others” and “will not tone it down.”

Instead of making claims about what their product can do (“build strong bodies twelve ways,” “5X more 3G coverage,” “highest in customer satisfaction” and so forth), Miracle Whip is trying to gain credibility by manipulating our beliefs about who their product is. In other words, the fat jar of white stuff that pretends to be mayonnaise is now pretending to be the coolest person in the world.

Trying too hard
Sorry, doesn’t work for me, and I doubt very much it works for the younger demographic they’re evidently trying to reach. I feel like I’ve met one of those unfortunate souls who just try too hard to make a good impression. Their fashion sense is slightly skewed. They speak as if they’re using a recently-acquired second language. And they seem to have learned about the world by reading People magazine.

You can tell they’re uncomfortable in their ill-chosen role: this in turn makes people around them uncomfortable. Think of your parents with tattoos and multiple piercings, or think Rick Moranis as Sigourney Weaver’s tragically unhip accountant neighbor in Ghostbusters.

All of this has been covered in the marketing and advertising press and blogs. It seemed like yet another case of repositioning gone wrong, of brand and reality occupying two different planets. But then:
•    One night Stephen Colbert lambasted the Miracle Whip campaign.
•    Miracle Whip immediately responded with new ads, including commercials on Colbert.
•    Colbert thanked them for the ad revenue.
•    Twitter was full of comments about Miracle Whip vs. Colbert.

Now Miracle Whip claims their new repositioning was a big success because it generated “dialogue.”

Stop talking, start eating
Dialogue about what? At what price? Is Miracle Whip claiming they intentionally made their brand look ridiculous, just to provoke people into talking about them? The repositioning is still absurd. And there’s still no benefit claim – what the product can do for you. This is supposed to be about getting people to buy and eat your product, not just talk about it.

Maybe mustard could get away with this. Grey Poupon did, with “Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon?” But not mayonnaise, and certainly not imitation mayonnaise.

TO:      Hizzoner, Da Mare.
FROM:     Da Marketing Agency.
RE:          Sexy Chicago campaign – work in progress

“Marketing is like sex. Everyone thinks they’re good at it.”

We learned how true that saying is, after our October 26 post called for a campaign to claim Chicago’s rightful place as the world’s sexiest city. We were swamped with ideas. But now we’ve eliminated all the business-as-usual beauty pageant ideas (and their downscale cousins, wet T-shirt contests) and come up with half a dozen recommendations:

1.  A Labor Of Lust.
The Sexy Chicago campaign will lead an initiative for the entire Rust Belt, the industrial territory stretching from New York State, across the Great Lakes States and up into Wisconsin.
•    From now on the “Rust Belt” will be known as the “Lust Belt,” and Chicago will be positioned as its buckle.
•    “Chicago Unbuckled” marketing events will include tours to visit voiceover talent agency Naked Voices, the Naked Furniture store, and the site of the notorious turn of the century luxury brothel, the Everleigh Club. In June, our guests can also participate in the World Naked Bike Ride.

2. Get Wet.
To make marketing more efficient, we’ll build on what Chicago is already famous for. For example:
•    We’re composing a new theme song for the Chicago-To-Mackinac sailboat race in August. It’s a take-off on a Beatles classic, now renamed “Why Don’t We Do It In The Lake?”
•    We’re also working on a North Side vs. South Side, Cubs vs. Sox program that invites fans to “get to first base, get to second base” and so forth.

3. Let’s Get Busy.
Of course, we’ll be getting the local business community involved.
•    To transform our brutally cold winters into something sexy, we’re in talks with Peoples Gas and Nicor to run a “Turn Up The Heat” promotion. Instead of putting on a sweater, Chicagoland consumers could win enough free natural gas heat to go naked in their homes all winter long.
•    And we’re starting a non-profit That Chicago Sensation Foundation to fund smaller businesses’ development of sexy products and services. The first recipient will probably be Dr. Elena Bodnar, inventor of a bra that splits in half to become his and hers emergency gas masks.

4. Everybody’s Doing It.
To assure participation by all Chicagoans, we borrowed inspiration from the popular Take Your Pet To Work days.
•    We’ll be inviting Chicagoland citizens to dress down during “Go To Work In Your Underwear Day.”
•    Of course, recognizing that Chicago is not Miami or LA, we’ll encourage our more modest (or less attractive) citizens to just wear a lapel button, or wear their underwear on the outside of their clothing.

5. Good Enough To Eat.
On the Chicago food front, we’ve enjoyed some unexpected help from a tourist from the UK. We want to use Aaron Everitt’s deeply sensual testimonial about his first experience with Chicago-style deep dish pizza.
•    “The whole experience is basically the dietary equivalent of sex…first of all you have a 45 minute wait while the pizza cooks…which is a time where they ply you with appetizers… think of these as the foreplay.”
•    “When you’re done you feel an overwhelming sense of elation and also a curious amount of tiredness – all you want to do is sleep.”

6. Get All Worked Up.
Finally, we believe it’s time to reconsider that classic Chicago slogan, “The City That Works.” We recommend a better fit for Sexy Chicago:  “The City That Smirks.” It’s the perfect way to pay off a campaign that does exactly what marketing’s supposed to do:
•    Begin by promising gratification.
•    End with fulfillment.

“Think out of the box!” may be good advice for creative marketers. But it’s been said so often that it’s become a meaningless catch phrase.

“Think off of the page (or the screen)!” is better advice, because it overcomes some of the traditional limitations of marketing communications. Even the wildest idea gets tamed, when it has to work within the confines of a page or a screen.

Here are five examples of thinking off the page, showing how to make marketing happen in real life, not just in the artificial environment of communications media.

1. Do it in the road.
Zappos “exposed” its expansion beyond shoes into a full line of clothing, by hiring a naked man to run through high traffic locations in New York City.

2. Do it at dinner.
A Sarah Palin Lookalike Contest helped University of Massachusetts food service tie in with Alaskan Seafood Week.

3. Take to the air.
German publisher Eichborn Verlag used mini-banners attached to live house flies to build traffic to their booth at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

4. Up your nose.
To get beyond conventional sight and sound in marketing communications, the Scent Marketing Institute helps companies use “scent as part of multi-sensory marketing strategies to enhance customers’ experiences of a location and its products or services.”

5.  Threaten your customers.
Some ideas should stay in the box – this prank promotion inspired a $10 million lawsuit. Instead of offering benefits, an imaginary Toyota spokesperson e-mailed potential customers that he was fleeing from the police and coming to their house with a pit bull.

“Sex sells.” It’s a well-known marketing maxim that seems to have worked against Chicago, when the IOC chose Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Olympics.

Why wouldn’t they? After all, everyone knows that:
•    Rio is sexy, with all those girls in nearly nonexistent bikinis, hot days and nights on the beach, and so forth.
•    Here in Chicago all we’ve got is freezing winds off the lake, lumpy woolen overcoats down to our knees and a preponderance of potato-shaped people. Right?

Wrong! Without any inherent bias (even though I live, work here and love it here), I can say that Chicago is the world’s sexiest city. And knowing that one of the strategic roles of marketing is to overcome misperceptions about companies or products, I propose a Sexy Chicago campaign based on these three indisputable facts:

1. Sex was invented in Chicago.
It all started when Hugh Hefner founded Playboy magazine here in 1953. Before that, human beings reproduced by splitting in half like amoebas. And now one of the best-known women in the world, married to a man whose voice is from Chicago, is appearing on the cover of Playboy. (Full disclosure: I once worked for Playboy.)

2. Other cities talk about sex; Chicago does it.
In a recent survey, cell phone manufacturer Samsung asked 300 residents each from Chicago, Boston and Washington, D.C. if they’d rather live without cell phones or sex for a year. The result: 39% of Boston and DC women would give up sex in favor of their phones, but only 36% of Chicago women.

3. We just hosted the Sexy Chicago marketing event of the century (so far).
Just the other day “The Wings Landed On Michigan Avenue” with a VIP grand opening ceremony heralding the new 13,000 square foot Victoria’s Secret Flagship store, selling sex with:
•    A body scanner that captures digital images of the shopper’s body and suggests bras best for her shape.
•    A special VIP fitting room with a Bra Wardrobe Center to quickly deliver different bra styles and sizes.
•    Displays of Victoria’s Secret Angel wings from past fashion shows, worn by Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, Adriana Lima and Alessandra Ambrosio.
•    Online voting asking “What Makes Chicago Sexy?” supported by online video commentary by Chicagoans like the Chicago Bears’ Lance Briggs, the White Sox’ Gordon Beckham, Kid Sister and others.
•    Secret Rewards handouts on Michigan Avenue with the chance to win $10, $50, $100 or $500 off any purchase or two tickets to the 2009 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.
•    A traffic-building mobile campaign: Text CHICAGO to ANGEL (26435) to receive product alerts and special offers and coupons.
•    And an invitation at the Victoria’s Secret Chicago home page: Upload your photo, then see yourself wearing the iconic Victoria’s Secret wings.

Be part of Sex And The Second City, Part 2

All this was just to sell sexy underwear to Chicago. But this kind of energy can be used to achieve a greater goal. Here at R&M we’re working on part 2 of this post, answering the question “How can we sell Chicago to the world, by helping it regain its well-deserved role as the Sexy City?”

Should we hold a Sex Olympics, a sort of Kama Sutra competition, to make up for losing the real Olympics? What do you think? Send us a comment telling us how you’d market the Sexy Second City.

Maybe marketing doesn’t have to be dumbed down to be successful. That’s the implication of a recent Stanford University study on literacy.

Clive Thompson of Wired quotes Stanford Professor Andrea Lunsford and summarizes what she says about the impact of the Internet on college student’s prose: “’I think we’re in the middle of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen since Greek civilization,’ she says. For Lunsford, technology isn’t killing our ability to write. It’s reviving it—and pushing our literacy in bold new directions.
The first thing she found is that young people today write far more than any generation before them. That’s because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text.”

What this could mean for marketing

On one hand, critics of marketing have always claimed that it appeals to the lowest common denominator. Supposedly, marketers act as if customers have the attention spans of oysters, are baffled by sentences with more than six words, and are indifferent to any kind of logical expression of features and benefits. This is the result of a combination of:
a) marketers’ cynicism and venality.
b) the Internet, and all of its trivial distractions from “serious” thought.
c) declining educational standards. (Critics have been complaining about declining educational standards since the time of the ancient Greeks. It’s a wonder we don’t all have the brains of single celled organisms by now.)

On the other hand, some of us do pay attention to David Ogilvy’s famous advice that “The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife.” Evidence that this point of view is closer to the truth include the legendary Volkswagen Think Small campaign and the current Mac vs. PC campaign.

No more lowest common “dumbnominator”

Now the Stanford Study implies there is hope for intelligent marketing. Because people who write well have the skills to read (or listen or watch) well. They can pay attention, understand ideas and follow a chain of logic in the marketing communications we send to them – if they want to.

“Can” is the key word here. Some marketers forget that customers don’t have to pay attention, understand and so forth. Customers already have their own lives and other marketers’ messages competing for their attention, so they just don’t have time for marketing communication that’s complicated, in love with itself rather than with the customer, clever without relevant content, or that hides the benefit or the special offer.

That’s why successful marketing should be simplified – but not dumbed down – even when it’s aimed at really smart people.  We’re not the only ones to notice this simple vs. smart paradox. Bob Schmidt of online writers’ cooperative helium.com says it well:  “Ironic, isn’t it? Using extensive writing skills to write in the most simplistic manner possible. Actually, that’s what has worked all along in the field of advertising.”