Old School Buzz Marketing -- A Line Out The Door

In Washington a new, little shop has opened -- Georgetown Cupcake. It sells upscale (read expensive and delicous)cupcakes and only cupcakes out of a tiny shop. The shop is so small that only a few customers at a time can fit in there. And whether planned or not, this fact has led to their greatest marketing tool -- a constant line of 15-50 people at all times.

Now don't get me wrong, these ladies are doing everything right. The packaging is clean and sharp and exudes sophistication. The product is very good. Their logo is cool and the company Range Rover that tools around town is "on message."

But the line! If all those people are waiting in line, why aren't I? What am I missing? Those cupcakes must be precious.

If I had been looking for a space to open a cupcake shop, I don't know that I would have worried about customers not fitting into the shop. Frankly, I probably would worry we would have enough customers to keep the shop open. But now that a line is their problem, I say, ladies don't move the shop. Keep the line. Hand out umbrellas. Put 0ut a heat lamp. But keep the line.

What the Car Makers Can Teach Us About PR

Understand your audience: Don't spend $1,000 an hour to fly to DC to ask for taxpayers money

Tell a plausible story: If your products are horrible, don't blame consumers for not buying them.

Be truthful: You forgot you were selling a product. You were too busy running an organization. That is and was your problem, not the economy

Untenable Public Positions -- Smithsonian Trustees Exhibit #1

Rule number one of public relations - Don't take a public stand that a) sounds disengenuous b) undermines your credibility c) appears completely self-serving d) all of the above.

The Smithsonian Board of Trustees have no credible reason for not taking accountability for the situation there. Either they did know the situation and approved (which is the case) or they didn't know, disapproved, and are guilty of negligence. Either way there is no reasonable justification for how or why they escaped accountability.

They held a public Board meeting this week...their first ever as I understand it. The Washington Post, which has shamelessly exploited the situation with its New York Post-like coverage, wrote about the meeting.

At its first-ever public meeting, the regents of the Smithsonian Institution sat
around a red-covered table and announced they wanted "a lively dialogue."
The audience did not hold back. The first volley from the public, gathered
in an auditorium at the National Museum of Natural History, was essentially this: Why didn't all of you resign, since you are the
people who picked the last secretary? The tone of the question implied that
the
group was responsible for the tenure of Lawrence M. Small, which ended in
a scandal and smeared the reputation of the Smithsonian.
Regents
Chairman Roger W. Sant repeated what he
has said many times before: The board asked its members, "Do we resign or
roll
up our sleeves?"

And so I say, Roger, be a man. Take responsibility. Resign. And when you leave, take James Grimaldi and Jackie Trescott with you.

Genuine Corporate Philanthropy -- RIP

The trend has been growing for a number of years and the financial crisis may have finally put a nail in the coffin of truly selfless corporate philanthropy.

In fact, I believe corporate philanthropy doesn't exist anymore. At least not in a traditional way where giving is done with no expectation of return. Where giving is about doing the right because it is the right thing to do.

Today, corporate philanthropy has to forward the mission, the bottom line or the reputation DIRECTLY. Don't take my word for it. The Economist held and interesting conference this week where this was discussed.

Bill is trying out Ping. What a cool service. Check it out at www.ping.fm

Pepsi's Big News

Pepsi is kicking its agency to the curb after 48 years?!?!?! BBDO is out and Chiat/Day is in....is this further evidence that TV advertising is dead? Would love to know the back story to the NYT story....

Don't Understand SEO?

There is a good presentation from Ogilvy on Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  SEO is the modern day version of buying prime real estate.  Every marketer needs to use this tactic.

Email Marketing Help

DM News, a direct marketing magazine and website, have just published an email marketing guide and it is quite good.  Email is cheap, quick and overused.  Very few companies seem to do email marketing really well.

The guide from DM News provides some helpful tips as well as good emerging trend info.

The Right Way to Display Data

How you display data is everything. Great data, displayed poorly is like a brilliant idea that you can't explain to anyone. When you display your data correctly, it tells a story without a single word being spoken.

The New York Times does an excellent job of displaying complex data sets, often across multiple axis. If you haven't checked out their election maps, you must. Be sure to look at the county analysis.

A Great Marketer Shares a Great Presentation

Seth Godin has a new book out named /Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us. /He has posted a presentation about the book at slideshare, another very cool resource. This is how captivating presentations are done.

I know...you are thinking, I work in a very corporate (read as stuffy, conservative, etc) environment. You won't be able to get away with an entire presentation like this, but look at the impact of the images he uses and how little text there is.

What will people remember from your presentation? 84 bullet points in 12 point font?

Polls: Exact Science or Fuzzy Math?

Polling is either an exact science or fuzzy math depending upon with whom you talk. The major polls got it mostly right this time around. And how addicting was Real Clear Politics?

There is a good article in the Wilson Quarterly, which is by the way, a great magazine. It is called, "Poll Power" by Scott Keeter.

It is funny how the Founding Father's feared direct democracy....

"It is doubtful that the Founding Fathers would have taken much comfort in the reliability of survey research. They were skeptical of public opinion and fearful of direct democracy, believing, as James Madison artfully declared, that the public’s views should be 'refine[d] and enlarge[d] . . . by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations.'"

The Sound of Democracy

So I am reading an interesting book, The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution, by David O. Stewart. On the heels of the most exciting Presidential election in a generation, it is interesting to see how we ended up with the electoral college.

It is funny how the Founding Father's feared direct democracy....they were democrats, small d, and elitists in the kindest sense of the word. They didn't really believe that everyone had a voice. How different we are now. Now any idiot with access to a computer can make their voice heard with blog or comment box.
And yet, the noise of it all is the sound of democracy.

I wonder how many of those guys failed to vote......

Worst Advertising of the Week

Prilosec OTC

They have a new commercial, or at least it is the first time I have seen
it. And I hope it is the last. It features a 40 something year old
white woman, dancing at what looks like a 25th high school reunion. She
is dancing like Elaine from Seinfeld, but it is not meant to be a joke.
Wow. What a bad ad.

Obama Campaign = World Class Marketing

There is a great article in Ad Age 'What Marketers Can Learn From Obama
<http://adage.com/columns/article?article_id=132237>' which says, "Nov.
4, 2008, will go down in history as the biggest day ever in the history
of marketing. " This is not an exaggeration.

The Obama campaign was pure marketing genius, from strategy to
execution. They positioned their product perfectly. Built an
unprecedented distribution network, changed consumer behavior and made
purchase of their product about far more than the product itself.

The genius of Obama's campaign is that it tapped into that truly
American desire to dream big dreams. He created a movement that at its
core was about redeeming this ability to dream. It only became clear to
me last night. I knew it was about change, and I knew he had created a
movement in this country to create change, but I didn't appreciate that
the lifeblood of the movement was this desire to dream.......amazing.