Category Archives: Marketing

Little Shop of Horrors

Just had an annoying page takeover on Stuff this morning telling me New World’s Little Shop promotion is back. I already knew. As a father of two young girls going two days without visiting the local supermarket is nigh unheard of!

My initial feeling of getting two little packets and a tick sheet from the shop assistant yesterday was “best keep this secret from my girls as long as possible”. The items received are currently sitting unopened on the fridge.

You see, as a parent, it’s bloody annoying! The kids go completely patho on the whole thing and it rapidly turns into a bore for those with the wallets.

I’m not alone here. After mentioning the launch to another parent her response was “Bugger. Just a pain.” And my wife’s response was similar.

When Little Shop initially launched I could absolutely see the genius in the promotion. It felt fresh and really did make my wife and I go to New World over Countdown or Pak n Save so we could help our kids achieve their goal of getting every item.

But it all ended rather quickly and the items disappeared under the couch and gradually wound their way to the bin.

As a promotional tactic it feels clever but as a brand marketing experience is it creating resentment from the people who actually do the shopping?

A picture says a thousand retweets

Late last year twitter launched a service called twitter cards that enables a thumbnail image to appear alongside a standardised tweet from particular websites.

To enable this feature websites need to feature a wee snippet of code to the twitter link/icon on their site.

E-commerce services like Shopify are now offering it for sales items – which will be massive.

Another simple innovation that is likely to enable excellent qualified traffic generation and online sales leads.

Well worth checking out.

Holding on to your friends

I’ve got a set of bookmarked websites I call ‘timefillers’. They’re sites that are regularly updated and contain gee whiz content that stirs up emotions. One of my timefiller sites is twistedsifter.com. It features a range of filtered image lists eg 10 best, 15 most etc that make you generally feel good. What I also like about twistedsifter.com is its cross promotion to other content lists with “if you liked this you’ll probably like…”

Now this is not new thinking. In fact it is very old. But doing this well, is still something too many corporate and gevernment sites seem to ignore. They invest in remarketing their websites once people have left their website, but have ignored the user just as they’re about to leave their site.This is surely a lost opportunity.

That particular moment of cross-promotion must be the best possible behavioural marketing offer websites can deliver. People are already on your site, they’ve shown you what they like, it’s up to you to now present additional content that they’ll like.

Sometimes it pays to come second

Be the first, be the best, be different is a catchy line that floated around a few years ago as a motivator for business success. When you think of some real world examples of this line Sony and Apple do a pretty good job. The Walkman, the iPod, the iPad have all ticked the boxes of being the first, the best and different.

By being at the forefront of innovation, Sony and Apple’s brands sit nicely with the desires and demands of people who consider themselves innovators and early adopters. These people are also at the heart of social media and popular trends so it’s no surprise that when Apple and Sony release their new products it creates such a remarkable buzz.

Problem is, there are only a small number of innovators and early adopters in the world and most of them get bored really quickly.

This is where we see ‘copycat’ manufacturers like Google and Dell waltz in, take the innovators ideas that society has liked, alter them slightly and mop up the remainder of the market with similar products sold at a considerably reduced price. That’s where the real money is made.

And this is what’s going to happen with Google’s Android. The iPhone 4 is having some speed wobbles and I just can’t help feeling that Google’s gradually building some momentum underneath the glamour and will be able to use all its arsenal of services to systematically swallow Apple’s profits.

If Google do this Apple will, of course, kick into the next big thing. I do wonder though if they’d make a better profit if they repackaged some of their products to compete with copycat brands after the buzz has settled.

Perhaps be second, learn from the best, be similar might be a better line for those that don’t mind missing out on the glamour, but in doing so minimise the risks and still make a very successful business. Just ask Trade me.

Boy’s going global

Great to hear Taika Waititi’s second feature film Boy has completely nailed the local competition to go straight to number 1 in NZ’s box office. I think it will also do well internationally. Here’s why:

1. “Academy Award Nominee” has a nice lead in to any promotion. (That it was for a short film a few years back is irrelevant.)
2. It’s getting great reviews. Product sells. Period.
3. He’s just like Flight of the Conchords. For international audiences this is gold. In fact, his history with both Jermaine and Bret is solid. No bollocks. That authenticity works with reviewers.
4. He’s bided his time. No ‘one hit wonder’. He’s grown through it.
5. It’s authentic. Taika grew up on the East Coast and this story is set in a place he knows.
6. Pass the dutchie. After hearing it in the trailer I watched it on YouTube. Priceless capture of musical history.  Been humming it all night.
7. Levering Michael Jackson from 1984 is failsafe.
8. The world loves New Zealand films. Peter Jackson gave us the digital brilliance but a story with Maori characters with thick East Coast accents is fresh for picking after Niki Caro’s Whale Rider opened the door.
9. They’ve taken time to create a unique online presence beyond the movie website with a dedicated site for the Crazy Horse Gang. With priceless wee vignettes hosted on YouTube this is a superb set of assets that can mix it up across social mediums. There’s a lot of mileage to unfold here.
10. He’s got a terrific one liner – calling someone an “egg”. Innocuous and strangely delightful with a thick NZ accent.

Let’s see how it pans out.

New Zealand’s piping up!

Basically every Tweet I’m following at the moment is about the announcement of Pacific Fibre. This new venture “aims to connect Australia and New Zealand to the USA with a high capacity low latency fibre cable.” And what a Twitter friendly story we’ve got here.

It’s being backed by Kiwi heavyweights Sir Stephen Tindall, Sam Morgan, Lance Wiggs, Mark Rushworth and Rod Drury and it appears they’ve timed their announcement just right to go gangbusters across a particularly useful crowd of thought leaders.

Pacific Fibre impact

Bernard Hickey from Interest.co.nz tweeted an hour ago and it’s just exploded. He just told me that his initial tweet has been retweeted over a dozen times in the last hour. Looking at Datascope I can see his name’s all over things. Chris Keall from NBR is doing nicely too.

The story has just been picked up as the lead on NZ Herald and Stuff too.

And this news is welcomed. Pacific Fibre could be something spectacular for New Zealand. As far back as I remember New Zealand’s Archilles heel with Internet business has always been our limited pipes. The opportunity is massive. It’s going to put the crawlers up Telecom – something I’m sure appeals to Sam Morgan!

I’m a little surprised that Peter Jackson and Richard Taylor aren’t in this uber-consortium too. I’d imagine large bandwidth for their large hard drives would be a real boost for their businesses.

Interesting news. And go Twitter for sharing the love so quickly.

Good luck to all involved.

Everyday life

I bought a pair of uggs the other day after my crappy old slippers died. I love them. They’re warm, comfortable and ugly as. Every night I slip them on and they bring instant comfort. It could be that it’s particularly freezing in Wellington at the moment but overall I think they’re superb.

These uggs have got me thinking about other things that make a difference to everyday life and how important new innovation and ideas are.

Just think of the progress in the financial services sector in recent times. If we go back to credit cards, then Eftpos, then phone and online banking, now services like Wesabe or Xero – these are all tools and services that have created or are creating a real benefit to users’ everyday lives. Transactions are simpler. The benefits to the user are absolutely obvious.

The successful business or product formula in today’s world is:

How does this benefit everyone, everyday?

A site for the book for the songs

A friend just sent me a link to The Great NZ Songbook online. He mentioned “I imagine you won’t like the page load up!”.

He’s right, I didn’t, but I like this idea so I managed to survive it. I’ve already read two PR pieces on this books so I appear to be in its target audience!

The resulting site is very Salted Herring. It possesses buckets of a ‘typical NZ’ personality which aligns with this brand. Feels very Black Seeds to me??

I like the volume controls on the car radio for changing the songs. Ironically it was the first thing I looked for when the music blew out at me.

Even at home I want to have control of my computer.

Eating Meridian Lunch

Jeremy Well’s fronting of Meridian’s latest advertising flight is another example of a celebrity taking a risky punt with their personal brand. When Hanover Finance melted last year I commented on Richard Long’s associated brand credibility falling too. As their front man, he couldn’t escape the connection.

For Meridian, Well’s is obviously bringing his recognised charm and wit to make light of a serious change to the Makara and Maniototo landscapes with the impending “windfarms”.

My issue is what’s it going to do for Wells?

I’m not convinced he’s got it right. The educated followers of his humour are also likely to be the well read folk who’re fully aware of the issues with power generation in NZ.

North and South have recently profiled the Mahinerangi windfarm protest following constructive pressure from the Save Central Otago lobby group. This group are also helped by respected celebrities Grahame Sydney, Brian Turner and former All Black Anton Oliver all propping up their scrum.

Having celebrity endorsement in these sort of debates is critical. It’s their involvement that creates instant human interest.

I’m currently doing a series of speaking engagements with Trade me’s “Revolution Tour” and one of my fellow speakers is TaxRefund.co.nz’s CEO, Geoff Matthews. Geoff’s company has arrived on the scene in a matter of months and its growth has been nothing short of phenomenal.

One point Geoff notes in his presentation is the influence celebrity endorsement added to his brand. Having active endorsement from Matt McCarten (General Secretary Unite Union) and Alasdair Thompson (CEO of Employers and Manufacturing Union) in his TVCs has been a huge call for support from two enormously influential people.

The key is, like the Save Central Otago group’s work, the Union leaders’ support is unpaid endorsement. Jeremy Wells, on the other hand, is being paid to bolster Meridian. That lacks credibility.

Property reports for free!

Over August data gurus Terralink are opening up their valuation resources so people can register their email address and get up to three free valuation reports. A little bit of giving for a nice big prize. This is good viral marketing.

And they even have a risk model for this offer following QV’s free report offer back in 2006.

3 rules for a successful viral advertising campaign:

1.  Create a product that offers real value at little or no cost to the user.

2. The offer shouldn’t appear to be contrived and the product or service needs to be so good and so useful that people are willing to divulge their contact details to receive it.

3. For a person to pass on a website link (generally by email) to friends, family and colleagues the tools or services offered have to be something the sender will be proud of.

I think Terralink meet these points with this offer. I just hope the softening property market’s ready for their conservative valuations.