What a miserable week for Toyota! The gas-pedal recall has the automaker reeling, suspending sales on its most-popular models. Can you imagine a worse public-relations nightmare than nightly news videos showing worried Toyota-owners crying in front of Toyota dealerships that have no answer to the safety crisis?
So here I sit with two Toyotas in my garage – both of which qualify for the recall fix. I’m on a bit of Toyota buying spree, my last three vehicles have been Toyotas. My brand switch to Toyota from American brands did not come easily.
I was born in Detroit and grew up in the Downriver suburb of Grosse Ile. Many of my friends, neighbors and family made a living from Ford, GM & Chrysler and some still do. The brand loyalty of the Detroit area is as firm as ever, if my recent drive up the Southfield Freeway in Detroit is any indication. For about 10 minutes I was the only foreign brand I saw on the heavily congested motorway – it was really quite remarkable.
My last Ford, though, was pretty much a lemon (requiring two expensive transmission replacements before reaching 75,000 miles) and its been Toyotas for me ever since. Of course, Ford reported this week its first annual profit in four years, of the big automakers it seems to have the best momentum right now.
This gas-pedal recall shakes my confidence of bit. If the thing actually fails on one of my cars and I end up flying off a freeway in an uncontrollable acceleration mishap – well, I probably won’t be buying any more Toyotas, if I survive.
It is difficult to miss the recent wave of advertisements promoting products alongside messages centered around how consumers are saving money.
A woman in a recent television ad is shown walking into a train car while explaining to a friend that she helps herself to all of the available hotel bathroom toiletries. The ad then goes on to show a number of people discussing various ways to save money. Sadly, I remember the commercial but could not tell you what company sponsored it.
Speaking broadly, companies have reshaped their advertisements to reflect the new economic reality while still driving home branding messages.
It is in vogue to have a savings account again.
Flashy spending seems vulgar.
Given the speed of the economic recovery, it appears this new advertising direction is here to stay.
Title: February Big Game Ad Review Luncheon Location: BOMA Link out: Click here Description: Each year, the finest marketing minds in central Ohio converge to review, rate, discuss and laugh at the best and worst commercials from the one big game (that we shall not mention for fear of legal action.) It’s the biggest TV ad day of the year and we promise the commentary and company will be worth the price of admission!
This must-attend luncheon will be moderated by the incomparable Artie Isaac and will feature a panel of industry experts, so come see what the greatest advertising minds have in store for us this year! Start Time: 11:30 Date: 2010-02-09 End Time: 13:00
Bob Evans Restaurants core customers are 65+. It’s down on the farm feel doesn’t give it a modern vibe at all. But they’ve embraced the 21st century and are using digital marketing to make it all happen. Columbus AMA President Nick Iannitto asked Chelsea Hamilton, the Field Marketing Communications/PR Manager, how its gone digital without losing its core values.
Smith & Hawken, which until last month was a specialty retailer selling premium lawn & garden products as a division of Scotts Miracle-Gro Co., closed its 56 stores at the end of 2009. While the recession boosted do-it-yourself business in most areas, it doomed this retailer focused on high-end products skewed toward extravagant ornamentation and over-the-top uniqueness. When I first heard the news I looked at my poor, tired hands and said, “Sorry fellas, back to ordinary gloves for you.”
I do a fair amount of gardening and work about the house and I’d found the most excellent work gloves of my life at Smith & Hawken a few years ago. The palm-side was made of deliciously supple deerskin with padding in just the right places and reinforced double-strength in the areas my gloves typically failed after some rough use. The backs were a breathable, stretchable plastic mesh of some sort that made them fit like, well, a glove! Finally, the gloves had Velcro pads to hold them on that adjusted to my wrist size.
The price on these gloves was ridiculous but the thrill of strapping them on as I headed to work outdoors in fine weather made me happy to buy a replacement pair when the first ones finally succumbed to repeated beatings. I still use the old pair for painting – the few holes in them aren’t a problem for that work. So when I heard Smith & Hawken was dying I rushed to see what brand was on my gloves to find out where I could look for them elsewhere and learned they were branded by the store.
Aaarrrrgh!
The gloves I loved were to be gone forever!
I don’t know who the product designers and marketers were who fashioned those gloves – but they did a great job. By tending to the workaday needs of my gardening hands they had touched my heart. I can’t say that about many of my branded-products experiences these days.
Then a ray of sunshine burst through the clouds of glove-deprivation, Target stores has bought the brand and will be carrying Smith & Hawken products this upcoming season!
I hope Target stocks my gloves – I may buy two pairs this time.
Working at a nonprofit requires a head that fits quickly and easily into many different hats. Weeks of 501(c)(3) paperwork turns into Facebook page management in the blink of an eye. Soon, if the group successfully generates steam, a mountain of question-laden emails must be climbed. Once all of that is accomplished, life fast forwards to the middle of the night at some point in the future where someone sits bleary-eyed at a computer monitor teaching him or herself Joomla while another board member edits website content in a home office across town or across the Internet, serenaded by Grooveshark and endlessly calculating exactly how much time is left before the baby wakes up for breakfast.
While you are experiencing this progression, a thought often runs through your mind that if you spend every moment jumping from small fire to small fire, the big picture things that pulled you to this project in the first place are not going to be done properly.
That thought worries you.
But you are in luck.
All you need is the perfect marketing strategy. One that gets the most out of your only paid employee, a high school student who works one hour per day, five days each week. An employee, as instructed by your organization’s leader, who is to focus primarily on social networking sites (and other more arcane forms of communication such as iPhones and Gchat windows) and can only meet with you via the Internet.
Gone completely gray yet? Done a bit of stress eating? Do not fear. You now have everything you need to get your organization to the next step. That is, you now have everything you need if you properly constructed your social network while completing IRS paperwork and polishing mission and vision statements.
Interns, mentors, that crucial third board member who will make everything run so smoothly. You’ve reached them and they are ready to help. You have people ready to hit the streets. The community welcomes you. All you have to do is pull off the first few events and then the real marketing can begin.
But you are in luck.
All you need is the perfect strategy and your organization can take the next step.
Chelsea Hamilton, the Field Marketing Communications/PR Manager for Bob Evans, spoke at the Columbus AMA January Luncheon at BoMA held on January 14. The title of her talk was “Digital Marketing Down on the Farm.”
Bob Evans Restaurants core customers are 65+ and it’s “down on the farm” feel doesn’t give it a modern vibe at all. But they’ve embraced the 21st century and are using digital marketing to make it all happen. Chelsea talked about how Bob Evans has gone digital without losing its core values. In fact, its authenticity provides a strong base from which to launch communications using social media. They really want people to get to know the company and digital media speaks to alot of people who are new to Bob Evans. Using social media allows a level of engagement that communicates the qualities of the brand very effectively.
Admitting you offered a poor-quality product to your customers in a national advertising campaign requires tremendous belief in your new brand message.
Domino’s Pizza recently took that leap of faith in their reality television-like commercials using quotes from focus groups. The ads hold nothing back and clearly indicate how low Domino’s pizza scores on taste. Finally, the commercials end with the Domino’s chefs singing the praises of the new pizza recipes they developed and offering discounted prices for the new pizzas.
Whether you like the new ads or not, no one can deny that the ads have a number of people talking, tweeting, and blogging. I typed “dominos pizza ad cardboard” into a Google search and several online articles discussing the advertising campaign showed up on the first page of results.
I’ll leave the pros and cons of the campaign to those articles.
Instead, I feel the Domino’s television ads essentially pay homage to the fast-paced world of the Internet. In the commercials, a company receives feedback directly from customers and responds (what seems like) immediately with a vastly improved product.
I realize it probably took Domino’s several months to develop their new products. However, consumers today want lightning-fast responses and the Domino’s ad reinforces this new expectation.
Will any other companies follow Domino’s lead into this edgy, new form of advertising?
While driving through Bucyrus, Ohio, on my way north to a client located on the shore of Lake Erie, I saw what looked like a classic mini-fiasco in marketing strategy. What caught my attention was an abandoned convenience store, the snow underneath the gas pump canopy barely disturbed, and the promotional space beneath the empty gas-price sign proclaiming “WE ACCEPT FOOD STAMPS.”
It seemed a pathetic, desperate attempt to attract customers to a soon-to-fail business. What is most pathetic, though, is the utter wrong-headedness of the maneuver. Who wants to be seen as a customer of the store that advertises food-stamp acceptance? I suspect food-stamp usage is more tied to grocery stores, in any case, and if so, the message runs counter to established consumer behavior.
I feel compelled to include a disclaimer that I hope this observation is not understood as demeaning in any way to those who use food stamps. In January of 2009, with double-digit unemployment and an economy still suffering from a disastrous recession, food-stamp usage is way up and I’m thankful the tool is there for those that need it.
If the former convenience-store manager saw an opportunity in letting customers know about using food stamps in his store, I would have suggested doing it in a less-prominent way.
In my quick transit through Bucyrus, though, I saw several prosperous convenience stores on my route and the contrast with the food-stamp failure could not have been starker. I took it as another lesson in marketing basics – e.g. focus on your core competency, find ways to add value through service enhancements, product innovation, differentiation, segmentation and communication. Never forget, also, that when you abandon those basics and chase business through a quick-hit discount or a too-obvious and blatant appeal to a government subsidy you are forever cheapening your position – and that is the road to disaster.
Whether you’re a go-it-alone entrepreneur who relies on professional advice and support for your sales and marketing programs or you’re a corporate marketer leading a cross-functional team in a large organization you engage in teamwork to make things happen. Focusing on a marketing team’s leadership role, productive results are most likely when a leader:
a) Has excellent self-awareness regarding their natural leadership style
b) Understands how others respond that natural style
c) Can adapt their style to work effectively with people who don’t respond well to that natural style
Leaders in marketing efforts tend to be proactive, goal-oriented and extroverted. Their natural style is to achieve things by working with and through other people. They find teamwork enjoyable and a natural process to maximize impact. Details, for them, are a sometimes necessary fact of life but not something in which they revel.
Some typical challenges such personalities encounter in team efforts include:
a) Tunnel vision regarding goals, with an emphasis on their own definition of the goal
b) Tunnel vision regarding the best strategy, with an emphasis on their own strategy
c) Competition for “the spotlight” regarding who gets the most credit for accomplishments
d) Impatience with process and methodology and those who advocate following a process
e) Viewing other team members as “resources” rather than valuing them as people
If you suspect your own leadership efforts may suffer from one or more of these (or other) issues, there may be some comfort in knowing you are not alone. More productively, though, use your natural strength of working with and through others to add a “teamwork expert” to your team. Improved facilitation of the team process and building your leadership skills is critical in the team sport of marketing as are smart segmentation and pricing.
