Month: October 2006

If you have ever left an away message up, that is marketing. Intentionally or unintentionally it sends a signal to your buddies that see it (or that you are hoping see it).

Here’s why:

Would you ever leave an away message if no one was ever going to see it?

Of course not.

Essentially, you are marketing yourself and solidifying your personal brand. (Whether you realize it or not.)

Throughout college, I’ve seen some ridiculous away messages…

Away messages ranging from girls and guys reaching for attention ( I mean, reaching), rap lyrics, famous quotes, what that person is doing at that second, e.g., ‘On the phone with Rach!’

Hilarious stories, recaps of their prior night, what they intend to do that night and why, e.g., ‘Out getting obliterated b/c I finally finished my midterms, yayy!!’, bragging, promoting, selling stuff, complaining and mad, e.g., ‘Ughhh, stupid psychology, reading while everyone is out! Of course this only happens to me!’

Happy faces, sad faces and every face you can imagine (faces circa ’03 starting getting out of control), telling people why they have the best boyfriend or girlfriend in the world and how lucky they are, e.g., ‘Oh my God, I’m the luckiest girl in the world, Jonny bought me flowers!!!’

Why they hate their life at the moment, countdowns, e.g., ‘Only 874 days ‘till AcaLocooo!!!’, tragedies, mishaps, self-promoting, favorites of anything, e.g., ‘Loveee the O.C., it’s my most favorite show in the world!’, links to new pictures (every day), recommendations, badmouthing, trash talking.

How great their life is, e.g., ‘Our Tuesday night is your spring break!’, (Okay Arizona students, we got it, your school is so sick that you are constantly putting up away messages letting us all know how great it is).

What they want you to do, e.g., ‘Away, call me!’, (“Ya know, I totally forgot about phones, thanks for reminding me!”), and so many priceless away messages I’m still missing.

I always believed your away message shows people who you are deep down. In college there aren’t many times when you are alone. But, right before you put that message up your sitting at your desk all alone, thinking to yourself. And Bam! you put it up. Those few seconds, or minutes to some, really project who you are to your buddy list world.

How many times have you put an away message up so freakin’ excited to see the replies you get from it? How many times did you say, “Wow, that’s going to be a sick away message!”? How many times did you say, “Yo, did you see so and so’s away message?!?!”

A lame, boring person is just going to resort to the typical ‘Default Away Message.’ A creative person will do anything in their power to not resort to the ‘Default Away Message.’

They’ll listen to a song if they have to and pick out a quote, even if they have no idea what it means, e.g., ‘I saw ya motha and she said, “What?” so I popped her’ – Jay Z. As long as you have the famous rapper afterwards, it’s okay. “ No, no, Jay-Z said it, it’s cool!”

An enterprising person is constantly selling something, a funny person is constantly putting up great stories, a person craving attention is constantly putting up new pictures, and the list goes on and on.

It’s all part of your personal brand. It’s how others view you. How your coworkers view you.

So, if you are wondering why you need to know about marketing and read my blog, here’s why:

Every little thing you do has an impact on your personal brand. And everyone wants a strong personal brand. (At least, I hope so!)

Whatever you do in life speaks of your personal brand. People spend countless hours trying to maintain the image they want people to see. My definition of personal brand is simple.

When someone says your name what’s the first thing they will say about you? What comes to their mind when they think about YOU?

The stronger the brand, the more slips ups you can incur. But sooner or later, you’ve all heard the saying, “If it looks like a duck, acts like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck!”

Just remember that.

I want you to be the best brand (and person) you can possibly be. Because nothing is more important than your own personal brand!

Now you can totally agree or disagree with me but…

I gtg, so I’ll ttyl. 🙂

I decided to buy a costume for my bulldog. Harvey doesn’t celebrate Halloween. In fact, he has no idea what Halloween is.

Harvey didn’t even get to choose his costume. I chose it.

Harvey is a little mad at me. He’s embarrassed.

Of course, the costume isn’t for him. It’s for me. And the people around me who will fall on the floor laughing.

Pet accessories have become a multi-billion dollar industry. Our pets could care less what they are wearing. You think our pets know real cashmere when they feel it?

I doubt it.

Turns out we buy many things, including things for our pets, because of how we want others to see us.

Or it could be you have a great sense of humor.

I digress.

You’d buy your dog simple clothes that cost $10, not $85.

That’s marketing at work.

Good boy Harvey. Good boy!

I’m back in Delaware this week. Two weeks in Wilmington, Inc, is a long time. Thankfully, my team likes to explore.

We wound up in a $1 dollar store. It wasn’t just any old dollar store. It was the most well run, clean dollar store I’ve ever been in. You wouldn’t know it was a $1 store if they ripped down all the signs. That’s how nice it is.

A well run $1 store’s profit margins must be astronomical. Let’s say they buy the average item for 30 cents, which is very high, their margins are 70%. They certainly had the volume.

This store also had brand names. Brand names! Between their foods, toothpaste, towels; they had a lot of recognizable names. I was amazed at how cheap everything was. Being in a place like this could be costly. Everything looked so great.

The power of a good bargain!

I started questioning if I needed a pizza cutter. I began contemplating whether I needed new forks and knives for my kitchen. Ooh, “I could use an oven mit.” “Look at that, a can of Doritos.” That’s right, a can of ‘em! “You know what, I could really use a new soap holder…”

“It’s only a dollar how can I not buy it?”

A girl on my team spent $34. She bought 34 items at this store!?! I was flabbergasted. My other team member spent $16 on the most useless things. He won’t use a single thing he bought. I’ll bet you a dollar.

This store appeared as if it were a regular store with every product someone could ever need.

How much more are we actually paying for a brand name? 60% of generic brands are manufactured in the same factories that are making the ‘known’ brand name items.

Is the baby powder that soothing? Are the hot dog buns not made with the same flour? Are the chocolate bars made that differently? Are the chemicals that different in the generic laundry detergent?

The large manufacturing companies figure they might as well under cut themselves. They’ll make their products for the big guys and then make the same exact product with a different label for the generics. If they don’t do it, someone else will. Private labeling has become a huge business for these companies.

The name brands were in this store because they couldn’t sell elsewhere. Whether it was a misprinted label or a huge over shipment, regardless, they made it to the product pawn shop. We buy your junk and sell it for a 60-95% premium.

“Everyone’s trash is someone else’s treasure,” which reminds me of Ebay.

Why don’t we feel as good about a product when we only pay a $1 for it? “Something has to be wrong with it.” “It won’t last.” “You get what you pay for.” “It’s definitely spoiled.” These are all thoughts that go through our minds.

These are the ideas that marketers try to instill in us. And have, so effectively. When we buy certain brands, we aren’t just buying the product.

We are buying the religion, we are buying the idea, we are buying the coolness factor, we are buying the founder, we are buying the status, we are buying the commercial, we are buying the lifestyle, we are buying the ‘quality’; ultimately, we are buying what makes us feel good.

We pay a lot of money to buy a laundry detergent that’s been on TV 13,902,432,493,093 times. You could also pay $1 for a pair of sweatpants that came off the same assembly line as Juicy Couture. Clearly, that wouldn’t feel as good.

We believe if it’s been advertised on TV it has to be a good product. If it’s expensive it has to be good. If celebrities are wearing it then I want it too. It makes us feel good inside.

Companies like Proctor & Gamble and Unilever have done a magnificent job convincing us that it’s worth 300% more, to buy Tide as opposed to buying the generic brand.

Maybe it’s how we grew up. Most people buy things based on emotions as opposed to rational thinking. Emotionally, it feels good to buy a recognizable brand for many intrinsic reasons. Rationally, you know you can buy the same exact thing for $4 or $150 less.

It’s amazing to observe the two different extremes; lack of self control in buying expensive items and in buying cheap items.

So what did I buy?

I only bought two things.

An umbrella and holiday cards.

The holiday cards look and feel exactly as a normal card does. I searched to find a mistake. No mistakes were to be found.

It came 12 cards in a box for a buck.

That comes out to 8.3 cents per card.

It’s the thought that counts though, right?

Once you can’t make fun of yourself, it’s over!

Love yourself by laughing at yourself. You still got it. It’s okay. No one thinks any less of you.

I just saw a brilliant commercial. Literally, 3 minutes ago.

If you haven’t seen the Head On commercial then you won’t appreciate this post, as much.

Head On apply directly to your forehead. Head On apply directly to your forehead. Head On apply directly to your forehead. Head On apply directly to your forehead.

That’s the commercial. It’s a person applying ‘Head On’ directly to her forehead as you hear, ‘Head On apply directly to your forehead,’ 4 times, at least.

The first time I saw this commercial I thought it was very dumb. I really was amazed that some ad agency made this commercial. I was more fascinated that the CEO of this Head On company gave the okay.

I wish I could be a fly on the wall for some company meetings with their ad agencies.

The CEO and his team are sitting in a board room and they are all pumped and ready to launch their national television campaign. They are just waiting on their ad agency to present the final commercial.

The ad agency walks in and shows them the commercial and the CEO gets up and says, “Yep, that’s it. That is how my life’s work should be represented. You hit it right on the head! We won’t even tell our audience what our product does, I love it!”

I really don’t understand how some commercials make it to TV.

I saw the same commercial 30 seconds later. Head On apply directly to your forehead. Head On apply directly to your forehead. Head On apply directly to your forehead. Head On apply directly to your forehead.

I was floored. What the kind of commercial is this!?!?

I saw it for a third time. Head On apply directly to your forehead. Head On apply directly to your forehead. Head On apply directly to your forehead. Head On apply directly to your forehead.

This is insane. How can this really be their commercial, it has to be a joke.

Then it hit me. It’s genius. It’s so dumb, irritating and annoying that I remembered it. It made me stop what I was doing and pay attention to the commercial.

Every time I was with people and saw the commercial, I’d always remark at how dumb it was. I couldn’t get over it.

This commercial was actually getting me to talk about it. Wow!

I saw just saw the same commercial. Head On apply directly to your forehead. Head On apply directly to your forehead. Head On apply directly to your forehead. And then…

This girl comes on the screen saying, in a mocking way, “Head On apply directly to your forehead. Head On apply directly to your forehead. Head On apply directly to your forehead. I hate your commercial but I love your product!”

First, they were able to get me to talk about it.
Then, they followed their own brilliant commercial, with an even better commercial; mocking their own commercial!

I’d like to hope the ad agency had this all planned out. Even if they didn’t, they totally capitalized, on a commercial that made people talk.

This is a great example of interruption marketing!

Am I right Seth?

I just had Ruby Foo’s for lunch and it was great. I couldn’t believe how crowded it was.

What impressed me most; happened at the end of the meal, though. Our very attentive waiter thanked us all. He then, explained to us what he was handing out. It was a comment and suggestion card.

It also had space for my name, phone number and email address to receive their newsletter and invitations to special events.

Now, email marketing and comment/suggestions cards are nothing new. In fact, most businesses have some sort of email marketing campaign and a way to receive feedback and ideas. If you don’t, you should!

What was amazing to me was how the waiter presented it. He said, “We really value your comments and suggestions and would love for all of you to sign up to receive our specials more so than leaving a great tip!”

More so than leaving a great tip. Wow!

What a team player. The information he is collecting is extremely valuable to the company. They are going to have all of their past and current customer’s information. When they open a new restaurant or want to run a special they’ll have a list of people who already love their product. No way better to market.

Clearly, this waiter wants as high a tip as possible. Who doesn’t? But, for the company to demand that the waiters collect this information and present it in such a way is remarkable. And for the waiter to actually ask in such a genuine way is even rarer.

How many times have you seen comment and suggestion cards just passed out, included with the check or sitting next to the register? So many times; you don’t even remember or pay attention. When was the last time you actually filled one out?

Not in a long time.

Now, imagine the owner, waiter, cashier actually asking you to fill out the card and telling you how important it is to them, in a sincere, nice way.

If you want something just ask. Nicely and sincerely.

Imagine all of that useful data.