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.

Starting with Southwest Airlines, and continuing with Sheraton Hotels and others, we’ve seen “no hidden fees” become a key point of marketing differentiation over the past year or so. They’re a response to other marketers’:

•    “Tire fees” and “privilege fees” on rental cars.
•    “Franchise fees” on cable TV service.
•    “Processing fees” on event ticket purchases.
•    “Towel fees” and “in-room safe fees” at hotels.
•    “Fees for calling customer service” on debit cards.
•    “Baggage fees” on airlines. (At least these are highly visible, thanks to extensive media coverage.)

The list goes on and on. These marketers running scared, taking on the long-term risk of alienating customers rather than face up to the short-term risk of raising the listed, advertised price in a very price-conscious economy.  The idea is that customers notice the list, advertised price, but rarely notice the hidden fees tacked on when they actually make a purchase.

Marketers who advertise “no hidden fees” find themselves in the same position as Richard Nixon when he proclaimed “I am not a crook.” Fortunately, the marketers telling the truth – or most of them are. But both Nixon and the marketers end up with an implied “we won’t screw you” as a very dubious differentiating claim.

So which do you think is worse? Should you bite the bullet now, by adding on hidden fees into the price and thus raising the advertised list price? Or keep adding on hidden fees and bite the bullet later, when customers rise up in resentment?

New Dog, Old Tricks

Here’s a test question most of my Loyola Grad School students get wrong in my promotional marketing course, even though I explicitly tell them this will be on the final exam. True or False: “The on-going advancement of Internet marketing is resulting in new breakthrough promotional tactics that are replacing traditional tactics.”

False. Those who choose True are confusing media with tactics. Yes, the Internet, blogging, tweeting, Facebooking, You Tubing, etc. have ushered in a few new promotional tactical capabilities. But by and large, traditional tactics are being delivered in new wrapping – digital media.

The fact is, retail match-the-display-and-win is the same as match-the-site’s-code-and-win; retail collector cards are the same as web-based point programs; print coupons are the same as web coupons, only less viral (and more accountable).

Before interactive and user-generated promotions there was the Pillsbury Bakeoff. In fact, the Bakeoff may generate more bottom line profits because it’s driving purchases rather than website visits.

There’s even a reverse trend – retailers are increasingly refocusing efforts toward store traffic programs versus web-only visits because incremental impulse sales are 50-70% at retail. When they’re in the store, they purchase more.

Check out the attached promotion oldie. The match-&-win tactic drives participants right to the product, coupon in hand, where they examine the actual product to see if they win. And they can still win an unclaimed prize when they redeem the coupon. That’s an interactive promotion designed for in-store sales versus website visits.

Bottom line, the operating promotional principles remain the same, and if you want a breakthrough digital generation promotion, you might first revisit the masters – the original print-delivered promotions.

It may be the most popular sport you’ve never heard of. But you have seen it in action, in the recent Casino Royale James Bond movie, and in TV commercials and YouTube videos for Mazda, Converse, Adidas, Nissan and others.

Those athletes you see running up walls, leaping from building to building and jumping over cars are practitioners of parkour. It’s defined as  “obstacle course” and is also known as “the art of displacement.” Parkour is based on finding ways to get from point A to point B in the quickest manner possible. Typically, that means jumping over, climbing on, or flipping off of any obstacle in your path.”

So far actual parkour participation has been pretty much underground, noticed only by those who do it. But could it rise to rival martial arts, skateboarding and snowboarding as the next big thing in extreme sports, with famous brands sponsoring televised competitions, athlete endorsements and extensions into all forms of marketing communications?

Maybe.

There’s no denying that parkour is exciting to watch. It’s had a good deal of media exposure already – people recognize it, even if they don’t know what it is.  In the U.S, Parkour is relatively untouched by sponsors as the basis for event marketing – no one “owns” it yet. (Not so in Europe, where marketers are far more active in parkour sponsorships.) And it has powerful appeal to young people, the key demographic for many potential sponsors.

Or maybe not.

As it practiced now, parkour has no structure or competition – the basis for an event.  It’s potentially more dangerous than other extreme sports. It’s difficult to participate in. We can all imagine ourselves on a skateboard, but it’s difficult to imagine ourselves running up a wall. And perhaps most important, many practitioners of parkour see the activity as creative expression, and are completely turned off by the idea of competition and corporate sponsorship.

Will parkour be the next big thing in sports sponsorship? Or will limitations on actual participation and resistance from true believers restrict to a narrow niche? Tell us what you think.