Marketing

Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches »
Posted on January 18th, 2008 by Paul Woodhouse in Internet, Marketing, Search Engines, Social Media, Web Credibility | Leave A Comment

It’s official! I am comedy gold - well maybe bronze; and I’ll probably have to give that back once I fail my urine test.

For the past couple of nights I’ve been as funny as Jon Stewart without his writers.

Do you recall his skit a couple of nights ago about the political magpie Mitt Romney and his catchy, spontaneous banter with his supportive minions where Mitt would say something and the crowd would yell, “But they haven’t!”, in a ridiculously lame attempt to piggyback and emulate Barack’s “Yes, we can.”?

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Of Websites and Weebles and Teeny Tiny Feet »
Posted on January 16th, 2008 by Paul Woodhouse in Marketing, Web Credibility | Leave A Comment

Why a conversation around the perils of twidgy feet propping up a normal body developed this morning I have no idea. But it affects Katie’s balance apparently - not as much as her friend who happens to be a little on the large side and quite spherical by all accounts.

Of course, this led me to insinuating she must be the anti-weeble.

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Who Knows about your “Presents”? »
Posted on December 26th, 2007 by Justin Seibert in Business Blogging, Email Marketing, Marketing, Online Advertising, PPC, Paid Search, SEM, SEO, Social Media, Web Development | 1 Comment

I have two young children, the oldest 2 1/2. She’s a little afraid of the big guy in the red suit, but she likes the Christmas tree and holiday specials, especially the Grinch (the classic one). So we weren’t really sure if she’d ‘get’ Christmas this year or not.

So when we had to wake her at 7:30 we figured this wouldn’t be the year. And when we asked her if she wanted to go open presents, she replied, “no.” Definitely not 2007. Continue reading →

The (Commercial) Spirt of Christmas »
Posted on December 3rd, 2006 by Justin Seibert in Marketing | Leave A Comment

As I saw my daughter crawling around in an empty cardboard box next to our Christmas tree last night, I started pondering the meaning of Christmas and how this holiday and our society have been affected by consumerism.

I’m neither the first nor last. Charles Schutz made a great commentary in his first Peanuts television special. So when my wife, a very practical woman whom I trust with all household finances and didn’t get a D- in economics like some blog writers, asks what we should get said daughter for Christmas, I respond boxes.

She thought I was joking, but I’m really not. Wrap up some boxes that we can help her open and she’ll be tickled pink. For once, I’m not being solely cheap, I’m being practical. I doubt we can ever do this again with her, she’ll love it, we’ll save money, and we’ll save house space. Continue reading →

I Want to Pay Someone to Box my Ears until I Lose Consciousness »
Posted on November 29th, 2006 by Justin Seibert in Marketing, Slightly Off-Topic | Leave A Comment

Quick update on my earlier post about Michael Richards. Due to his “antics”, the newest Seinfeld dvd is selling like hotcakes. Which of course, means more cash for Kramer. In addition, I’ve been told that he was offered a role on a popular prime time sitcom after the incident occurred.

While some may argue he doesn’t need to be crucified, how can you justify rewarding him for his actions? Continue reading →

Finally a Movie Promotion Idea that Makes Sense »
Posted on November 28th, 2006 by Justin Seibert in Marketing | Leave A Comment

I promise this will be the last post about movie promotions for at least 2006. I wouldn’t have more than one right now if it weren’t for personal connections. The reason I’m writing today is that a nameless buddy of mine directed some promotional shorts for the new Ben Stiller movie, Mannequin, I mean Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, I mean Night at the Museum. Yes, that’s it.

Regardless of my feelings about the originality of this movie, I really like the promotion their using to raise awareness, and not just because my friend was involved. In fact, I worked with him on a couple outlines he presented to them, but they didn’t recognize my obvious brilliance, so I should just take my ball and go home instead of complimenting the contest.

But out of some combination of trying to be big enough to handle rejection and needing something to post about, I highlight A Night at the Museum’s MySpace page.

Here’s the concept of the promotion: the movie’s about historical figures coming to life at night in the museum. So people are encouraged to shoot their own reject casting videos of historical figures trying to get a part in the movie.

That means that:
a. the contest is related to the movie
b. they’re not asking people to give testimonials for something they haven’t seen yet
c. they’re reaching a good number of people in the demographics likely to see the movie and in a medium (social networking, e.g. MySpace) where those people communicate with one another
d. I’m old. I know this because I don’t get the humor in the sample shorts that my friend directed. Well Marie Antionette’s wasn’t bad other than the awful “Let them have cake”, which I believe is actually attributable to one of the King Louies. In my defense, though, all of my buddy’s film work is unable to make me, or for that matter children on nitrous oxide, crack a smile.
e. altogether, it’s a good, relevant promotion that can get people excited about the new movie. Well played.

Regardless of my ancienticity, I can still appreciate this contest from a marketing perspective. It’s a good way to use social networking sites like MySpace to reach people before a movie premiers and get them excited about it.

You Cannot Spell Happy Thanksgiving without O.J. »
Posted on November 21st, 2006 by Justin Seibert in Marketing | Leave A Comment

Sorry this blog is so late and will likely be so short. Apparently the day before Thanksgiving is a great research day for people, so I was able to speak with more interested companies about using our internet marketing services today than usual. Thank you as always to those of you that shared your time with me.

I’ve been trying to write about OJ and his new book that now won’t happen for several days, but Michael Richards and other events pushed it back. You’ve heard what happend by now.

My biggest original beef was that Fox / News Corp / the book publisher were getting credit in some circles for pulling the show and the book. But they made the decision to do this in the first place. Money was all that mattered and they knew it would pull in viewers for sweeps and move books.

They only pulled it because advertisers didn’t want any piece of it. And let’s be honest, there probably were advertisers that would have paid, but they only backed out because of the public backlash.

Well, there was one other reason they pulled out of the deal. OJ knew profits from the venture would be blood money. Tiger couldn’t even put that much spin on the ball with his irons.

But, it wouldn’t be a “Happy Thanksgiving” blog post without some good news. Looks like the show will end up on the internet, as will the books. So somebody’s going to make money out of this mockery. Christmas does come a little earlier every year.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody. No posts til Monday.

Marketing for Nefarious Purposes »
Posted on November 16th, 2006 by Justin Seibert in Marketing | Leave A Comment

Of course with a title like “Marketing for Nefarious Purposes” this post is about credit cards.

First off a little background on me: I love profit and consider myself a capitalist (I used to have to say that in hushed tones when I lived in Los Angeles), but I also believe you can make money without being a social parasite.

Consider this recent article about Capital One’s marketing plan for its credit cards. From overlimit and late-payment fees of course, with an interesting twist. It targets poorer people and gives them credit cards with low limits. As soon as a cardholder exceeds the limit on its card, Capital One sends another card out with a low limit. Hits the limit again? Another credit card solicitation. I wonder why this site exists.

While there are other charges of posting payments late in order to charge late-payment fees, I find the above marketing tactic particularly offensive. Look, I get that in some ways Capital One and other cards like it are doing people a service by offering people without ideal credit scores a chance to build credit, but at some point it becomes predatory. Same thing with cash advance stores. I grew up calling that type of service loan sharking. Other people call it usury.

People have to take responsibility for themselves, which sadly seems to happen less and less every day in this country. But when the topic of credit isn’t taught to our young people, most people don’t understand it enough to teach their own children, and you have credit card marketers targeting drunk / high college students at spring break, it’s a recipe for disaster.

There’s a great organization out there that I volunteered with in Los Angeles called Operation Hope. Opportunities exist all over the country where you can speak to young people or even adults about finance and credit. It doesn’t take a lot of your time and I found it extremely rewarding.

Finally, I don’t want to seem like Captain Morality - heaven knows I have my issues - with this whole blog, but a reminder you to count your blessings. I ran into an old friend that I probably hadn’t seen in a dozen years. My kids aged 17 months and 3 months were with me and he told me about his kids, 9 years and 16 months.

I said something about him being smarter than I am for spacing it out and he said he had another child in between that was supposedly healthy, went full term, and died because of lung problems. That about knocked me on the floor as I can’t even imagine the horror of having a child pass away. Keep that in mind the next time your daughter spills dayquil all over the floor and after you’ve had a chance to call Poison Control and determine she’s okay and you realize the whole carpet needs replaced. Have a great weekend.

Now a Movie Contest for People that have Actually, You Know, Seen the Movie »
Posted on November 15th, 2006 by Justin Seibert in Marketing, Online Marketing | Leave A Comment

First off, let me thank everyone who came up to us at our table last night at the Washington County Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Banquet and Business Exposition last night. I was really pleased to learn more about your businesses and meet so many new people. We’ll do the actual drawing for the free portable DVD player today, but aren’t going to post the winner for privacy reasons. If you entered the contest, we’ll contact you to let you know whether or not you won.

Okay, the actual meat or meat-like substance of the post. A few days ago I wrote about We are Marshall’s contest for best fan page, which will be created and judged *before* the movie comes out and people could, oh I don’t know, actually figure out whether they liked the movie enough to devote a fan page to it.

Now Sony is promoting a contest for The Da Vinci Code prior to its release on DVD. They have a special contest Web site and are partnering with Yahoo’s Movie and Travel properties. Fans can enter clues to win a trip to Paris; the contest runs through February 8th.

A good contest all around it seems as far as contests go. They’re getting some free publicity and hopefully generating interest for fans to buy the movie when it comes out. By the way, if you’re ever running a contest for your company, be sure to put in rules about how often someone can enter. I should have learned that tip from Real Genius and Frito-Lay, but sadly I had to learn it the hard way from some jerk who designed a computer program to stuff the ballot box and won the grand prize.

What I’d really like to see, though, is a combination of the Marshall and Da Vinci contests. Have people that truly appreciate the movie devote Web space that will help drive traffic to your site and push sales for the DVD release. Or use something similar in having fans put up sites for an original in order to promote a sequel.

For you cynics, yes, the fan promotional information will still be somewhat contrived, but not nearly as much so. Especially if the prizes relate to the movie and are something true fans would really want to win.

The Exact Moment I Knew my Life was Over »
Posted on November 14th, 2006 by Justin Seibert in Marketing, Slightly Off-Topic | Leave A Comment

You know that moment of recognition when you realize something has changed about you? It’s not possible that it changed right then and there, it’s just that the metamorphosis happened so slowly that you didn’t notice the gradual changes that are impercetible by themselves.

There are three such instances I can point to in recent years. The first was getting fat. Sure I made jokes about it for a long time. I’d laugh about gaining sympathy weight for my wife’s first pregnancy and then kept going past the birth of our second child. I knew my eating habits were horrendous and I wasn’t getting any exercise. But when I couldn’t fit into a pair of jeans anymore that truthfully I shouldn’t have been wearing for several months, I knew it happened.

Another time was when I turned into my dad. There were signs I should have picked up on there, too. Like when I softly rebuked an interviewee for not having an umbrella with him even though I probably didn’t own one at his age. Later the realization hit when I heard myself telling an employee, “Young lady, where’s your coat?”

Well, the latest revelation was last night and probably would hurt the most if I didn’t know on a subconcious level that it had happened long ago. This summer I noticed myself going outside with dress socks, shorts, and sandals. I have a harder time getting up off the floor after playing with my kids.

Last night, though, I knew I had become…old. I had given up. My life was over.

There I was, sitting on the couch voting for an unamed contestant that owns the NFL record for rushing yards on Dancing with the Stars. Hitting redial over and over and over - on two different phones no less - to get our 20 votes counted.

Sure, I could say that my wife was the one who cared about voting - which she truly was - and that I was only helping her out after she got tired 30 minutes into voting. But let’s face it, I had watched many of the episodes with her and frankly, I enjoyed it. Well not the female host or the insistence upon every celebrity to make that stupid phone hand signal after each performance. But on the whole enjoyed it.

I remember being back in LA listing to Kevin & Bean on my morning commute speaking with the producer of America’s Dancing with the Stars, thinking as they did that this was the worst idea ever for a show not named Cop Rock.

“Only old people would watch that show,” I thought. I may or may not have been right, but I am old and I watch that show. Sign me up for Denny’s chili cheese dog with bacon because I’ve given up (thanks Drew).

The point of all this…well I don’t have a point. But there must be a heck of a lot of us old folks out there and ABC’s marketers have done a fantastic job, because the lines were busy for at least an hour after the show was over. The show is a hit and really it’s a bunch of b-level (at best) celebrities and retired sports stars - not sure why they rank so low with the American public at large - ballroom dancing. And for the most part, not doing it well. My 17-month old daughter still runs like she’s drunk, but she could don ice skates and dance better than Jerry Springer.

By the way, if you’re a Washington County (PA) member and you’re attending its Annual Awards show and Business Expo tonight, stop by for a free online marketing consultation.

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