Articles by Kate

These are in no particular order, but some of my favorites during the year.  Some them include profiters of the blunders.

1. Laughable Competitor: Microsoft’s attempt at funny-ness in response to Apple’s actual funny-ness Apple vs PC commercials are humorous.  They got laughs, they got eyes, and they did the trick.  Microsoft’s response?  Let’s try and out-funny them!  Jerry Seinfeld!  Result?  Fail.  Not funny, regardless of Seinfeld, as many critics will tell you.

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiVMPgCf6YY

   Bill Gates may be brilliant perhaps, but he’s much of the unfunny-ness of this series.

2. Poor Management Choice: McCain campaign, Palin and all I’m going to credit this explanation to the Collateral Damage Blog post (which includes more marketing blunders you might enjoy).
   • “Our economy, I think, is still — the fundamentals of our economy are strong.”
   • Has no idea how many houses he (or his wife) owns.
   • Picks Sara Palin, the Broad to Nowhere who couldn’t find Russia or Africa on a map.
   • Campaign adviser and former HP CEO Carly Fiorina says Palin couldn’t run a major corporation.
   • Campaign adviser and former senator Phil Gramm says Americans are whiners about economic problems.
   • “Shutting down” his campaign to fix the bailout.
   • “Lipstick on a pig”
   • Egregious attack on Dungeons & Dragons that clearly cost him the election. (OK, maybe not so much the last one).

   My own additions would be Joe the Plumber, who ended up telling the nation post-campaign how much he hated the whole thing (in not so pleasant of words), and of course the campaigns complete oversight on not having a competitive new media strategy. I’m biased, but that was just dumb.

3. Poor Customer Service: Nike and Arien O’Connell
   When Arien O’Connell had the fastest time in the San Francisco Marathon in October, Nike only

   

   clocked in the elite times (O’Connell was a regular woman who was “just doing it”).  Even after they realized what had happened, they didn’t grant her first place.  It was only after competitor Reebok

   stepped up to “console” O’Connell that Nike changed its tune.  Nike doesn’t seem to understand how this works nowadays, does it?

4. Executive/Consumer Gap: GM Execs Fly to Washington to get federal bailout money
   I don’t think this requires too much explanation.  You’re in dire financial straights.  You’re going to ask someone for “help.”  If you’re a good marketer, you might put on some grubbier clothes, enter with slightly disheveled hair and a week-old beard while eating a 99¢ Whopper to make your story a little better.  But instead, you throw on your $2000 suit, have your make-up people make you look fantastic, stroll in fifteen minutes late and sit down while checking your Rolex.

   UPDATE: Perfect timing GM!  You didn’t let me down on this one.  GM ticks off consumers by spending half a million dollars thanking them for their bailout.

5. Scent Marketing: Burger King goes a little overboard
   Burger King’s “Flame” cologne, which smells like a flame broiled burger, is a toss up in terms of whether it’s really a blunder or not.  It’s gross, absolutely.  And if I ever smelled someone with it on, I would likely get sick.

   However, it’s apparently sold out and it certainly got Burger King some love.  I might at the very least question their brainstorming sessions.  My guess is that this sort of thing can only happen once (Dragon Garden Chinese , do not do this at home please).

   Profiters: Anyone selling this on eBay, some as high as $50, since the stuff cost $3.99 from the Burger King Website.

6. Brand Departure: Levi’s “Unbutton Your Beast” Campaign Levi’s history is rich with good ‘ole American roots.  A story of pioneering new land, helping the little people, and revolutionizing the way people felt in a piece of clothing (for those who don’t know the Levi’s story, please see here or here).You can imagine my disgust surprise at the following ad.  I don’t even know who they were targetting (since it seems morally wrong to be marketing to anyone who might find this appealing, namely teenage boys).

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdjbWP7tQI8

7. Freaking Out: Mommy Bloggers
   No, I don’t mean Motrin.  I mean the mommy bloggers.  I refrained from commenting on this when it occurred (though will likely have a post on it sometime next month), but I found this excessive response on the part of mommy bloggers to be a move in the wrong direction for social media.

   It made me question where the line would be drawn between increased ability to respond and converse with brands, and just plain (very costly and detrimental) over exaggeration.  I really felt that Motrin got the lousy end of the stick here.  While companies need to respect their consumers much more, consumers should really think about the full extent of their actions as well.  BOTH parties should be thinking unselfishly.
   
   Profitor: Ford Truck

   Did anyone notice that about 2 day after the Motrin viral video came out (which I personally thought was very well done, most notably in terms of how you followed the words throughout the ad, it really kept you locked in), they came out with this commercial?  Way to use something that “messed up”  and had to be pulled to your advantage.

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xljekX8TCTY

8. Personal Branding: Plaxico Burress - ‘nuf said
   Profiter: LandLine TV.  This is just hilarious.

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpgL5kuBpMA

   
   

We’re at Web2.0 NYC this week and so far I wanted to highlight my favorite keynote of the day: Jason Fried from 37Signals.  Incredibly dynamic speaker, knew his stuff, got to the point, and made the point a good one.

He talked about “being a curator (of a museum)” while developing software.  What do I care about software?  Well, probably not a ton unless it’s working (or not working) for me, but his analogy is applicable to every business owner, or anyone trying to get something done.  A few key points are below.

1. Learn how to say no. The job of a curator is not to say yes.  It’s to say no.  It’s to refine and make the most informed decisions and only bring in the art pieces that make sense for the museum.  Careful selection.
2. Remember all of your visitors, not just the most vocal.  If you had to listen to the most vocal minority of your visitors, you’d likely have the art pieces that appeal only to them, in limited styles.  But that’s probably not what’s best for the majority of your visitors.
3. Don’t be a warehouse, be a museum. In a warehouse of art, you have so much stuff, and things stay in inventory, don’t get used and just take up space. The great thing about a museum is that there are pieces NOT in there.  You’ve chosen the key pieces of artwork, and you’ve spent time putting them together in a coherent and meaningful way.

For a rundown of the full line up, check out Anya’s blog.

Aside from our participation in Blog Action Day, we’ll also be trying to promote five fellow bloggers in Blog Day, which was “created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest.”

We may include one blog from our industry, but will try and diversify (which will be easy for me to do).

According to Wikipedia, it’s

“a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool; an example is the use of cartographic data from Google Maps to add location information to real-estate data, thereby creating a new and distinct web service that was not originally provided by either source.”

Well, according to one of our favorite blogs, Six Pixels of Separation (to which I owe this wonderful finding), it’s

“Two individually awesome things that make up one even more amazingly awesome thing.”

This can best be demonstrated with the following video:

You may have come across this in the last few days, but Vimeo has challenged the blogging community to a Blog Action Day, “to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.” The topic will be on poverty. Hopefully you can join!

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Blog Action Day 2008 Launches
• Blog Action Day 2008 Announced: Change the Conversation on Poverty
• Raise Your Voice About Poverty - Sign Up for Blog Action Day!
• Blog Action Day

Atlanta development

You may or may not know that I’ve just graduated from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University in Atlanta, GA.  If you’re wondering if it’s hot, yes it is.  One of my classmate, Yaniv (who’s great!), posted this blog link on the problems with the Atlanta start-up community (and how to fix it!). Well, I couldn’t help but reply with the below comment to the blog.  I come from the start-up world in Boston (another interesting article on the CIC in Cambridge, where the first two start-ups I was part of were housed… and a specific shout out to Nabeel at Conduit!) and I was heavily involved in the Entrepreneurship community at Emory, which had significant contact with the Atlanta community of Entrepreneurs and Investors, so i feel pretty strongly about the topic.  I could easily write more than the below, but at least it’s a start:

Jeff -

I’ve just graduated from the Emory MBA program, and you’re right, more of my classmates should be clamoring to get jobs in the start-up community, but part of that situation is getting administration to realize the importance of entrepreneurship. I took a very active part in starting (back) up the Entrepreneurship Club, and was a teacher’s assistant in multiple entre. classes. One of the major pushers for increased traction in that arena is local serial entrepreneur/investor Charlies Goetz, who pretty much teaches all of the MBA-level Entrepreneurship classes at that school and gets students excited about it. And a lot of us are. But it take more than one professor. When the Dean of the school and the Career Center are more concerned about placing people in more “visible” companies (read: safe and guaranteed visibility), they won’t put any effort into pushing entre. programs. So that’s another thing that local entrepreneurship and investors can do, is reach out to those communities that can offer prime talent (we tried to do a LOT of work to get y’all in there, and for the most part, I think we accomplished a lot, but it’s got to keep going and growing!). I can name a handful of classmates who went into start-ups after graduation, but it’s still an area that students are exploring, and most go back into big corporations. They need more than job postings from local start-ups (which takes no more than an email to the career center). They need convincing, encouragement and more entre/investor presence around.

Another opportunity I see: I’ve just started up my own business consulting group, and we focus primarily on marketing strategy, but definitely offer overall business strategy and consulting (I must admit, it’s located in Boston, where I’m from). After experiencing the Atlanta entre/investor community, I walked away feeling that investors were, as you highlighted, timid, and that perhaps collaboration could be useful. I don’t mean combining funds. I mean making partnerships between Entrepreneurs, consultants and funders to make the most successful business out there. I’m currently trying to reach out to investors both in Boston and Atlanta to see if some sort of partnership can be achieved, one where the start-ups get the business side up-to-par (let’s be honest, a lot of start-ups have great ideas or products, but sometimes lack on the business side) to a point where the investors start getting more confident in the company. If people tried to work together on this problem, Atlanta could really move forward. It’s the fastest growing major city in the US right now, and that means HUGE opportunity.

I could write a TON more right now, but your post really hit the nail on the head, and someone needed to say it.

I wish you luck in the Valley!

Cheers,
Kate

I’d like to announce that Anya Woods will be joining the Other Side Group full time.  I’m really excited about having her here.  She’s comes from a PR/communications background, with a focus in new media and has a desire to shift this expertise into the strategy space.

Anya blogs over at PRescience, although I’ll likely force her to do some guest blogs over here

I think she’ll make a great addition to OS and wil compliment our services quite nicely.  And so, join me in welcoming Anya!

[Disclaimer: Apologies for my absence last week, I was swamped with distraction after distraction and couldn't sit down to write post, but at the very least, I have a nice little list of blog topics that I hope to get out this week.]

I went to SocialMediaBarcamp last week and had a few insights, but first and foremost, I wanted to comment on the philosophies of Canadian company Freshbooks, and specifically those of their Head of Magic (uh, coolest title ever?), Saul Colt.

Saul loves his customers.  Saul loves people who aren’t his customers. A few examples:

• If he’s in a new city, he throws little get togethers for all his customers in that city.
• Even though you can buy Freshbooks online (in fact, that’s the only place you CAN get it), Saul has gone out of his way to actually meet hundreds of his customers.
• He bought someone flowers after she got stood up by a date… and if you’re thinking what does that have to do with anything, he bought them on behalf of Freshbooks, and the woman wasn’t even a customer. **Update: as per Saul’s comment below, she is a customer, but Saul sent her flowers simply because he thinks she rocks.**
• He responds to every single Twitter out there (he’s pretty sure at least) that mentions Freshbooks, both good and bad.
• He will actually tell you that he “makes love to his customers…. well, not in the physical sense… but still.”

Did I mention that Freshbooks is a company that offers invoicing and billing services to freelance professionals?  What do they need ot love their customers for so much?

Saul highlights one of my major philosophies not only in the business setting, but in life. Paying attention to the people around you - how they view the world, what they care about - is something I strive for every day in any setting I’m in.  I feel I grow from it, and my relationships have (I think) always been better because of it.

The same is true in business.   You always make better business when you care about the people you’re serving, even if you don’t need to have any further contact with them past a credit card interaction.  We’ve all been talking about this for some time now, so I don’t think I’m saying anything too new.  But Saul and Freshbooks have it right in action.  And even if we all know this philosophy is the right one, Freshbooks is miles ahead of a lot of companies out there.

So I say, keep making sweet love to your customers Freshbooks, because they sure seem to be enjoying it.  And the rest of us should start picking up some moves.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Freshbooks Invoicing Service
• FreshBooks Goes the Extra Mile
• 37signals & Freshbooks Disagree On Customer Service 2.0