Like many people, I rang in the new year with friends and loved ones at home, watching the famous ball drop in Times Square on television. With a little one at home, it wasn’t feasible to go out for the evening, and so when relegated to sticking around the house, it’s inevitable that we were drawn to watching one of the many new year’s eve specials on television.

We settled on Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve, not because of the entertainers appearing, not because of any particular allegiance to the network it was shown on, nor because the television happened to be on that channel. Rather, we consciously sought it out, so ingrained into all our brains is the brand that is Dick Clark’s new year’s eve special. When I think new year’s eve and television, I think Dick Clark. The fact that Clark has been felled by ill health that has impacted his ability to host the program itself and so foisted Ryan Seacrest upon the viewing public is sad, to be sure, yet we still tuned in. In our case, not to see what J Lo would wear, not to gawk at the ailing state of the iconic Clark, but just because the program itself is such an institution, has such a strong brand.

Before we settled on Dick Clark, however, we wandered the proverbial dial, seeing what else was on. A lackluster performance by Britney Spears in a fountain in Las Vegas was the only game in town, television-wise, from 11pm when Fox started its terrible programming. Some would argue that terrible programming is keeping in line with Fox’s established brand, but I digress. It was sad to see Spears performing amidst a line-up of nobodies. Though it was a boost to the ego to think that they were letting just anyone perform on live television like that; maybe I’ll whip up a song and dance number for next year’s special. Stay tuned!

The other channel we had the misfortune of stopping on was CNN, the most trusted name in news. While Gawker has a thoroughly cheeky recount of the night’s events, to me this programming was the most egregious mistake by a big-name media company on a night full of trainwrecks. CNN has branded itself “the most trusted name in news” yet the buffoonery of a raunchy comic and a respected anchor was far beyond good taste. I wouldn’t trust Kathy Griffin to cross the road, let alone entertain people to ring in the new year. While Gawker points out that CNN, which is struggling in the ratings, needs Kathy more than Kathy needs CNN, it’s unfortunate that the network felt it had to corrupt its branding so flagrantly in order to attempt to lure viewers. As we’ve written about previously, poorly conceptualized stunts like this don’t work, rather, they tend to turn people off.

We’ve been marketers long enough that we’ve helped guide companies through rebranding and new identities and what we’ve learned is that your true brand is not what you thrust upon the marketplace but rather how your customers and the public at large identify your company and its offerings. That’s where Dick Clark got it so right for so many years and CNN got it so wrong. When you deliver something expected, customers are pleased. Likewise, when you provide something totally antithetical to what they’ve come to know from your company, they’re confused and put off. Valuable lessons to learn for all of us.

Happy new year to all! Best of luck for 2010; may the year be healthy, happy and prosperous for everyone.

Technorati Tags: new year’s eve, Dick Clark, CNN, Fox, branding

My husband and I went to see Avatar over the weekend. Wow. The visually stunning spectacle has been director James Cameron’s pet project for more than 10 years, his last major theatrical release being a little movie called Titanic. The movie is in 3D but it’s so unobtrusive and simply enhances the story without going for corny effects, a novel approach to an older technology, enhancing rather than interrupting the storytelling process.

It was an inspired move by Cameron to hire virtual unknowns in the lead roles, but a mistake, despite her considerable talent, that he cast Sigourney Weaver in the film because, more than once, it felt like I was watching Aliens or even Gorillas in the Mist. For the same reason he put faces to those with whom we have had little or no previous associations in the lead roles, he should have cast an unknown in Weaver’s role; this was the only distraction that took me out of the marvelous world of Pandora and back into North America, circa late 2009.

I don’t want to spoil the storyline of the movie for anyone who hasn’t yet seen it but plans to, but suffice to say that while the movie is well worth seeing and elements of the film’s story are absolutely creative and novel, the vast majority of the plot is well trodden territory. Thematic elements are very reminiscent of [SPOILER ALERT!] this, and this.

There’s nothing new under the sun, they say, and the same is true when it comes to marketing. While it’s true that in the realm of technology, there are truly revolutionary products being released, there are also a slate of products that are only slight modifications on existing offerings or have very little if anything unique about them, rather they are “me too!” propositions. That’s okay - consumers need options at different price points with different feature sets, and other distinguishing attributes, however small.

The challenge becomes how to market your offering when the basic story (of your product, your company, your industry …) has been told many, many times before. Take a page from James Cameron’s book and find novel ways to tell a familiar tale, use new technology to do so and make it compelling to your audience. In our terms, this means to use novel marketing approaches like social media to communicate your key messages to your prospects and customers, providing them with the information they need in a format that’s interesting to them and that will get them talking to other prospects about why your offering is the one to see and why your marketing campaign is better than that of your competitors.

Technorati Tags: Avatar, James Cameron, marketing

A quick browse through my Google reader shows that it’s that time again. No, not the holidays. It’s time to gaze into the marketing crystal ball and make bold predictions about where marketing dollars will be spent in the upcoming year, what communications trends will appear and how we as marketers can best lever this knowledge.

I don’t pretend to be extraordinarily prescient when it comes to these things, so I’m going to put down my own crystal ball and instead point to a few posts on other blogs that might illuminate the near future for marketers.

A LinkedIn question about New Years resolutions for CEOs has garnered 5 responses so far. What are your clients’ resolutions for 2010 and where do your services fit into those plans?

According to this post, it’s going to be all about social media and email next year.

Will portable identities take off like this post predicts? Will B2B companies further expand usage of social media and take advantage of this brand portability?

And finally, this post predicts all of the above will take place in 2010.

Do you have any predictions for the year ahead?

Technorati Tags: social media, email, marketing, 2010, predictions

The non-adventure of balloon boy last week got me thinking about the pitfalls, and potentially pointless expenditure of time and resources, of resorting to gimmickry to get media attention in the context of a marketing and promotional campaign.

And while companies that attempt to woo the media with whatever manner of promotional material is at their disposal are clearly not in the same category as someone who perpetrates a hoax as a publicity stunt, such an effort must nonetheless be held up to the harshest scrutiny to ensure value for money.

As a business journalist, I saw all manner of swag cross my desk: gift baskets, trinkets of varying practicality, cute stuffed animals dressed in First World War flight gear, even a quality pair of boxing gloves to illustrate a certain cellular provider’s “light weight” and ”heavy weight” service plans. Not to mention the VIP invites to rock concerts and hockey games. And this humble inventory pales before some of the antics undertaken by organizations with a true flair for showmanship, a la Sir Richard Branson.

But at the end of the day, did any of this sway my judgment as a journalist? Did a fluffy desk pet, or even a private box at a hockey game, ever compel me to pick up a story that I otherwise would not have? Nope.

What mattered most to me were the merits of the story articulated on the piece of paper or in the CD-ROM buried beneath the “gift” at the bottom of the box. Save the gadget or the toy for a trade show or Toy Mountain. Just tell me your story and articulate why it is of value and relevance to my readership. Therein lies the difference between a marketing effort to build awareness of your brand, and a PR effort to put yourself on the radar of the media that have the potential to move your market.

When it comes to garnering the kind of media attention that will support your business development objectives, it is the value of the story you bring, not the slick way that it is packaged, that will get the attention of the editors and beat journalists with whom you need to engage. Buttering the substance of your message with a  little style or constructive goofiness can be fun. And, I will admit, sometimes it can help make you stand out from the crowd with media that are suffering from attention deficit disorder. But such efforts must be backed up with something of value, especially if they are draining precious time and resources from a tight PR and marketing budget.

At a time when many organizations have made the questionable decision to scale back their marketing and PR efforts to conserve cash, it is vital to deploy the resources you have as effectively as possible to maintain profile in the market. Unless that cute company mascot is in fact your top customer with a compelling story to tell, it should not be the media’s introduction to your business.

Technorati Tags: balloon boy, publicity stunt, promotional material, promotional products, public relations, media relations, Richard Branson

This Thanksgiving weekend, my family attended a pottery sale just outside my husband’s hometown. There were lots of beautiful pieces and the weather was perfect to wander in the outdoor tent, watch a potter at work and debate whether to buy this piece or that for Christmas gifts. How did we hear about it? We have good friends who attend every year and, having admired their bounty from this sale, we finally managed to attend this year. I expect it won’t be the last time we do so.

Similarly, we attended a pumpkin patch to select a gourd worthy of being our Jack-o-lantern. How did we select what patch to go to? We had a recommendation from friends about one they’d been to and liked.

As ardent movie fans, especially of the horror genre, my husband and I eagerly await the showing of the new horror movie Paranormal Activity in a theatre near us. The movie is reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project in a number of ways, but for this blog’s purposes the most relevant is the huge word-of-mouth marketing campaign that the movie has undertaken, and the large numbers of people flocking to see it because they’ve heard from their friends and other taste-makers that it’s a rollicking, scary good time. The folks behind the movie used the internet to best advantage, asking for 1,000,000 votes to secure nationwide distribution for the film. It passed that mark on Friday. There’s nothing like a good horror movie around Halloween, so here’s hoping that the movie makes it to Ottawa in the next few weeks.

In today’s day and age where the proliferation of marketing channels and media messages is at an all-time high, it’s interesting to note that our purchasing decisions are still so heavily influenced by word of mouth. The best way to ensure good word of mouth is by providing excellent goods and services along with superior customer service. If you have these elements well in hand, your customers will happily spread the good word.

Technorati Tags: Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity, word of mouth

A trip to the grocery store that inevitably ended up being an extended exercise in reading and comparing nutrition labels got me thinking about the importance of paying close attention to how you are perceived in the marketplace, what you consider to be your competitive differentiators and how they stack up against the offerings of your rivals.

It all began with soya sauce, or rather, the quest to find a sodium-reduced option, soya sauce being one of those things we sometimes like to apply liberally with little regard for the hypertensive consequences.

The first thing I saw on the shelf was VH, a well known brand for all manner of sweety and salty Asian condiments. One tablespoon of its regular soya sauce has a whopping 48 per cent of your daily recommended sodium intake. Beside it was VH’s salt-reduced alternative, still at 32 per cent.

Next was Kikkoman, the mainstay that seems to have the restaurant industry locked down. Its regular brew has 38 per cent, while its reduced-sodium alternative has 24.

And then there was the humble President’s Choice store brand. Its regular brew (there wasn’t a reduced option on the shelf) has a mere 22 per cent. It trumped both of the major brands with its regular offering.

And while the store brand is generally cheaper, when I saw that number on the label, I didn’t even bother to compare prices before dropping the PC soya sauce into the shopping cart. Neither price, nor brand prominence, was relevant to me as a consumer. What mattered was that the PC brand gave me the better option as a matter of course, rather than trying to pander to my health-conscious concerns with an alternative product that still didn’t cut the mustard upon closer inspection.

The moral of the story? At a time when at least some areas of the economy are starting to turn around and and prospective customers have begun to spend again, it is crucial to listen to your marketplace and invest the time and effort necessary to ensure you are giving it what it wants, not just on the surface, but deep under the hood. Because you can rest assured that your customer base will still hold any expenditures up to the harsh light of scrutiny for some time to come.

Your product or service must deliver what it promises on the label, not to your satisfaction, but in accord with the perceptions and expectations of your customers.

Technorati Tags: marketing, branding, food labeling, consumer awareness, customer feedback, soya sauce

“I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I did not have time to make it shorter.”

Whether this quote is more appropriately attributed to Mark Twain or Blaise Pascal is beside the point. What matters is that it aptly sums up the delightful, frustrating and fulfilling struggle that is the art of writing.

Whether you are an amateur writer of fiction intent on improving your craft, or a communications professional subject to the scrutiny and criticism of those who may fail to appreciate your clever turns of phrase, one observation of Twain’s still holds true: “A man cannot be comfortable with his own approval.”

As a communications professional accustomed to my approval of what I produce being secondary to that of the client, I often hear comments like, “This is what we want to say, but we’ll leave it to you to polish it up and make it sound good,” or, “I don’t know how we can get all that across in (blank) number of words.”

My job is to create an effective piece of writing intended to serve a specific purpose and achieve a desired result for people who lack the time, or the skill, to do it for themselves. They recognize the value I bring to the table, while at the same time, I appreciate that what I am doing has a direct impact on their image and brand. It is a collaborative effort that must balance creative freedom with the dollars-and-cents demands of lead generation and business development.

But at the heart of this process, regardless of how many other people are involved and providing their input, there remains the individual writer toiling in solitude to string words together in a manner that will engage the reader, convey critical information and spur them to action in as concise a manner as possible. Mastery of this skill requires a natural talent that must be honed through a process of lifelong learning, constant practice and a humble appreciation for the work of a good editor.

Being able to write effectively, on demand, to further someone else’s agenda, is a talent years in the making. It is a professional service that should be given its due and recognized for the value it provides. It should not be regarded as a commodified service. Writers are a dime a dozen, but great writers are in another class entirely. There is a profound difference between derivative cut-and-paste recycling of content and distilling a mass of information from numerous sources into a cohesive and concise form that furthers understanding.

So next time you find yourself in need of a good writer to support your marketing and public relations objectives, remember that you are looking for a partner who will bring unique strengths to the table and work with you to achieve a successful execution. And most importantly, great writers are worth the money, but not everyone who charges a premium rate is a great writer.

Technorati Tags: writing, communications, marketing, public relations, Mark Twain

A weekend-long, competitive startup boot camp in October that will see the winning team take away $5,000 in seed funding was the most interesting piece of a coherent new programming line up announced last night by The Ottawa Network, the city’s grassroots networking club for the technology sector.

The startup camp, which will be repeated in the spring, was the second of four “program pillars” revealed by TON president Rick O’Connor. The first pillar, Network, will see TON continue to hold business networking and educational events, although at two a month, these will happen only half as frequently as last year’s somewhat over-ambitious weekly schedule. The third pillar, Finance, will feature a repeat of last year’s popular Founders and Funders dinners that saw angels and venture capitalists rub shoulders for an evening with entrepreneurs looking for funding. Details of the final pillar, Grow, will come later.

TON will also start charging a membership fee for the first time since it was founded in 2001 by a cohort of down-sized refugees of the telecom crash who gathered together to commiserate and help each other found new ventures and find new jobs. General membership will cost $25 per year in a move O’Connor said the organization hopes will lead to a more committed, targeted and involved membership.

The first startup boot camp is scheduled for October 23 to 25, and TON hopes to attract up to 75 participants who will self-categorize themselves into the various functions a new company needs, such as development, marketing and so on. On the Friday evening, as many as a dozen of the participants will pitch their ideas for a startup and teams will be formed based on who else wants to join them to work on that pitch for the weekend. On Sunday evening, each team will make its pitch, with the winner coming away with $5,000 if it incorporates as a fresh start-up.

TON’s new programming line up is a welcome evolution for an organization that significantly revitalized itself last year after a couple of years of fairly moribund existence. We’ve been big supporters of the network almost from the beginning, and I saw several instances last year where exciting new ventures got a solid helping hand as a result of a TON initiative.

Even better, in my view, is the introduction of a membership fee. As Shopify founder Toby Lutka said at a different event a few months ago, “Twenty four dollars is a slightly more annoying version of free.” His point, which I thoroughly endorse, is that if you have created something of real value, people ought to be willing to pay you something to use it. Not incidentally, in the process of charging for something, you also find committed customers, rather than just tire kickers. Those who can’t afford the fee — TON has always been attractive to those looking for work or operating ventures on a shoestring — can still attend up to three events a year without paying anything.

I’ll be a regular at TON events both for its inherent value to my own business and so that I can continue to bring its news to readers of this blog.

Technorati Tags: The Ottawa Network, startups, startup boot camp, Founders and Funders, technology

It’s been a while since I have expounded on the subject of reference customers. (OK, it’s been a while since I’ve expounded on any subject on this blog, but here I am, back in form.)

In our work at inmedia, where we strive to engage with the editors of specific trade and industry titles to sell them on the merits of a client’s story, enthusiastic reference customers who can articulate the pain points that were addressed by our clients’ products will, more often than not, make the editor sit up and take notice.

Customers who have actually opened their wallets for a vendor’s product or service provide validation and demonstrate uptake in the market. They can speak in dollars-and-cents terms about why they adopted a particular product and the benefits and return on investment they have derived from it.

Please note the emphasis on that last part. A customer testimonial that is along the lines of “we thought this was a great product and we highly recommend it” is so utterly void of any statement of tangible value that is better to not have it at all.

When developing an in-depth article such as a white paper or case study with an agreeable reference customer who is actually in business to make money and who scrutinizes the worth of every expenditure, it is easy to delve deep and get beyond such a vapid endorsement.

In my freelance work, however, I have found myself working on a number of projects for clients who have taken the other approach to getting their name in a desired industry publication–they’ve paid their way by purchasing advertising space for a corporate profile. Which is all well and good, but to ensure those dollars have been well spent and the potential for lead generation is maximized, the copy must sing with the same unambiguous value statements expected of a case study that has passed muster with a competent editor dedicated to providing her or his readers with the information and opinion they need to run their businesses more effectively.

Too often, however, I see paid profiles, or advertorials, that come across as brochure-ware, produced either by writers who do not have the benefit of a journalism background, or worse, by a committee of the organization’s marketing staff and senior management.

It’s not that these profiles are poorly written (well, not always), or fail to convey core messaging, but they have often been developed with a lack of appreciation for three key points:

• This is an ad. That means the odds of actually engaging with a reader have just taken a nosedive, considering that the publication’s editorial content is also vying for their attention.
• We are all busy and pressed for time. We often don’t read, we skim. We take only a couple of seconds to decide if something is of value to us before flipping past it.
• People don’t want to read a bunch of quotes attributed to stakeholders in the organization. Flagrant self-promotion is a dish best served as an appetizer, not as a main course.

What does this mean?

• It means a 900-word profile that fills more than half of a full-page ad with grey text has little chance of being read.
• It means that there is no luxury of wowing readers with colourful prose that details the rich and successful history of the organization before getting down to the nitty gritty of why your products and services are relevant to them.
• It means that an unambiguous value statement from an enthusiastic customer eager to put their name beside what they have to say is not only essential, it should probably lead the piece.

And on that last point, don’t try to micro-manage the process and put the words you want to hear in the mouth of your reference customer for their rubber-stamped approval. Yes, some degree of polishing and massaging will no doubt be necessary, but let the customer express the value points that mattered most to them in their own words. They are, after all, representative of the people you are trying to reach. To have relevance and resonance, this value statement should come across as sincere and true. This is also worth keeping in mind when developing an effective news release.

Technorati Tags: Advertorial, marketing, promotion, public relations, references, value statement

Senator Ted Kennedy died late yesterday, the latest tragedy in the long string to befall the family that has so captivated the world these last 50 years. His passing is also the latest high-profile death to spawn a flurry of internet traffic, blog posts, Tweets, and the like.

Being a child of the 80s, it has been a rough year, with iconic figures like Michael Jackson and John Hughes, director of some of my favourite movies, passing away unexpectedly, shocking their many followers.

We truly live in an era of mass communication. Sometimes that brings us together, other times it alienates us. In times when people need to have even a virtual shoulder to cry on, the many means of expression available to them, the virtual support system at their ready disposal is of great comfort indeed.

Bob Lefsetz, editor of the Lefsetz Letter, a music industry trade newsletter, was on the Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos last year talking about just how messed up the music industry is (quite) and he touched on the fact that in today’s modern age, there is so much media available that we’re less connected to one another. Ironically, the glut of media channels meant to provide us with more content, ostensibly, one assumes, in order to provide us with more cultural touch points to be able to discuss with one another, is providing each of us with customized content that it’s unlikely that any of our friends or contacts are aware of. His example was a television show that he’d seen and adored that aired on an obscure cable channel and despite his evangelism about the program, had yet to meet another human who had seen it.

These recent high profile deaths and the public’s reaction to them represent the flip side to Lefsetz’s argument. When Michael Jackson died, it was said that he almost took the internet with him, so compelled were his legions of fans to flock to news sites, to write blog posts about what his music had meant to them, what his impact on our society had been, some to mock, others to mourn…

What can we as modern marketers learn from this? In the same way that on a personal level the many channels available to us can draw us closer or push us further apart, they accomplish the same when used for business, for promotion. The media channels are many, the messages on them innumerable, but focused messaging on the proper channels can bring your market closer, can provide them with the niche information that they need, can, in short, sell more of your stuff.