Even if you live under a large rock you’ve probably heard of the Old Spice Guy, the dashing, bare-chested spokesman in the Old Spice Body Wash television commercial. Wearing only a towel and a smile, the Old Spice Guy informs the women in the audience that although their men aren’t as handsome and suave as he is, their use of Old Spice will at least allow them to smell like him. And “anything is possible,” he says, “when a man smells like a man and not a lady.” The commercial’s simultaneous celebration and parody of machismo is funny and clever. And now, thanks to a new series of more than 220 very short YouTube videos, the Old Spice guy is a phenomenon.

Lots has already been written about the genius of that social media strategy, which encouraged fans to send the Old Spice Guy comments and questions via Twitter and Facebook for a chance at having him respond (bare-chested and in a towel, of course) in a personalized video. The results—the company’s Twitter followers jumped from 3,000 to 46,000 in less than 48 hours and the videos have received more than 21 million YouTube viewings—constitute further evidence that social media works for businesses.

But there’s a more basic lesson advertisers can learn from the Old Spice phenomenon. It’s about staying the course and sticking with the plan. Giving your advertising a chance to find its voice and gain momentum.

You’ll hear a lot about how the Old Spice Guy is advertising’s “overnight sensation.” But that’s not true. The company and its advertising agency began evolving toward the concept in 2007 with a series of commercials featuring “B” movie actor Bruce Campbell parodying traditional 1960s maleness. Those commercials got some viewer attention, won some awards, and helped elevate the product to number one in its category. But they didn’t achieve the word-of-mouth status of Old Spice Guy. The commercial that introduced him ran for the first time on Super Bowl Sunday of this year. Even then, and despite the approximately $30 million investment, the Old Spice Guy did not instantly become a phenomenon. It took six more months and a brilliant social media campaign for the idea to reach critical mass.

It’s natural to run an ad and expect your phone to start ringing the next day. But that’s not how advertising works. You have to give an idea a chance and continuously explore ways to exploit and extend it. If you don’t believe me, listen to the Old Spice Guy. He’s on a horse.

Steve Coss is a Creative Director at TMA+Peritus: A Strategic Interaction Agency. Find them online at www.tmaperitus.com, offline in their offices in Wausau and Madison, or follow them on Twitter@ twitter.com/tmaperitus.

I think I’ve found the absolute teen Dream Job. No, the absolute Dream Job for anyone at any age. Being paid to shop and to show the world what you bought and why you bought it. That’s exactly what the teen stars of YouTube “hauls” do. They produce show-and-tell videos about their latest “haul” from the mall. Almost 159,000 hauls have been posted to the channel. And this week, JC Penney joins teen-oriented companies like Forever 21 and American Eagle in using this YouTube phenomena as a core marketing strategy to capture their part of this fall’s expected $50 billion “back to school” consumer spend.

JC Penney retained six teen girls from across the nation to create their new back to school haul videos (jcp.com/teen). The haulers were given free transportation, lodging and JCP gift cards and let loose in a store near Penney’s headquarters in Plano, Texas. And now they’re showing — and telling about — what they purchased at JCP to gear up for the new term.

Any person with a webcam can become a haul video expert. Tennessee “haulers” Elle and Blair Fowler are the teen pioneers of hauling and have attracted such a following of their peers and the moms of their peers that they’re now in high demand by marketers of everything from fashion to cosmetics.

Haul videos can focus on the results of shopping at a specific retailer or for a specific product category. Imagine the opportunity to take the haul concept beyond the teen market.  Why shouldn’t a marketer or retailer of “all things baby” recruit a team of moms to talk about the latest product trends and actually demonstrate product features? Wouldn’t a grocery chain want a team of people-who-love-to-entertain to post videos that feature their supermarket shopping haul for a specific event they’re hosting – even sharing the recipes that necessitated the trip?  How about having some of the most avid DIYers haul about their last shopping spree at the hardware, building supply or paint store?

Since marketers are taking the original authentic YouTube phenomena to a more commercial consumer-generated concept, under Federal Trade Commission guidelines, paid haulers must disclose in the video if they got free products or other compensation from retailers.  So the real question is: Will commercializing consumer-generated content, like hauls, come to have the same trust as non-commercialized YouTube content or the same mistrust as traditional advertising?

What do you think?

When your marketing team or agency starts down the “best time to advertise is during a recession” road, ask them if the best time to buy a bathing suit is in the dead of winter?  Maybe it is, maybe it’s not.  The grim realities of operating a business when the economy is in the stinkpot is that all budgets need to be prepared for the carving knife; yet as marketers, we always feel our budget alone is sacred.  You slice the marketing budget and you can count on a sliced share of the market – oh, and by the way – it will take decades to reclaim the lost share points. Or, if you cut the budget now, cut down on your trade shows, your advertising spend and your digital presence, the competition is going to notice and they’ll increase their marketing budgets.  I speak from experience; I’d need an abacus to count the number of times I’ve said that.

No, the fact of the matter is this – the best time to market is when you have a product or service that meets an unmet need.  When the message and your supporting content is so compelling that your buying segment can’t wait to purchase, and can’t wait to tell a friend to make the same purchase.  And another friend, and another, and so it goes.

But let’s assume you’ve had your budget cut. When’s the best time to get back in the ring, and what are the best marketing punches to throw?  No two instances will ever be the same, but here are a few considerations.  Get back in the game when you’ve got game.  Random acts of marketing rarely result in returns that have a positive impact.  Resist the temptation to stretch the marketing budget by including more products and benefits in the message.  He who proves too much ends up proving nothing at all.  And by all means let the marketing money flow when you have a business case, complete with measurements and analytics, that can justify the expenditure.  Remember, you can’t manage it if you can’t measure it.

And when you ramp back up, what strategies should you begin with?  Make the cheapskates, skinflints and bean counters happy.  Start with the three most cost-effective initiatives you can implement: content marketing, increased web activities and social media.  That’ll get them talking.

 The hardest thing about creating an effective print ad, online ad, direct mail piece or commercial isn’t coming up with a great design, a great headline or great copy. It isn’t deciding where or how often to run it. And it isn’t deciding on the right size for your logo. 

All of those things matter—all except for the size of your logo, which doesn’t matter nearly as much as many advertisers believe it does. (More about that in a future column.) If you botch the design, writing or placement, you could ruin the effectiveness of a good ad. But none of those really makes an ad effective. 

The secret to an effective ad comes down to this: you’ve got to tell potential customers something they want to know, not what you really want to tell them. How you dress up the message doesn’t matter if the message isn’t worth hearing. The key is in understanding the difference between a feature and a benefit. Too often, marketing communications offer nothing but features—aspects of a product or service that are unique or better than what competitors have to offer. But people don’t buy features. They buy benefits. 

Admittedly, they’re connected. Generally it’s the features of a product or service that yield its benefits. Take heated seats in a car. They’re features—and here in Wisconsin they’re very nice features indeed. But an advertisement that does nothing more than say, “Our cars have heated seats and theirs don’t,” isn’t enough. Why not? Because you haven’t given me a reason why I should care. You might think it’s obvious why I should care, but if it was really that obvious I’d probably already have heated seats, wouldn’t I?

When you come up with the “why I should care,” you’re on your way to an effective piece of communication. People care about heated seats because the prospect of shivering on cold, hard seats makes it that much harder to drag yourself out of the house in the dead of winter. And when you’re reluctant to go out, cabin fever sets in. And everybody hates cabin fever. So there you have it: heated car seats cure cabin fever.

Look hard at what you have to offer and figure out how it translates into something people want. It’s the first and most important step in creating effective marketing communications.

Every spring I make the pilgrimage to our garage – well, not exactly a pilgrimage as much as a walk through the door – to take inventory of the massive amount of junk that has accumulated over the years.  Amid the motor oil from the last century and trimmers and hedgers that haven’t seen a blade of grass in years, there they were.  Four different saws.  The last thing I remember sawing was the base of a Christmas tree, not exactly a job fit for four saws, and hardly falling into the logger category of work.  In fact, the only logs I saw are the kind when I’m horizontal on the hammock.

But they did remind me of one of my favorite adages.  A saying that rings true in just about anything we do.  Measure twice, cut once.  I’m not sure who said it, most likely a carpenter or a surgeon, but one thing’s for certain – it doesn’t apply to social media where we’re more prone to saying, “Just keep doing it, don’t worry about measuring it.”  But all that has changed in the blink of an eye.  So, if you’re a CFO, an analytics geek, or a marketer trying to grapple with social media and ROI, your ship has come in.  And the captain of that ship is none other than TV ratings behemoth Nielsen Corporation who led the study in tandem with Facebook.

The report, titled “Advertising Effectiveness: Understanding the Value of a Social Media Impression,” essentially states that there is quantifiable lift when social media is used in conjunction with advertising.  This was no slouch of a survey; it analyzed data from more than 800,000 Facebook users, 125 ad campaigns and 7 different brands.  The study is quick to point out that advertising needs to be viewed in both a “paid” and “earned” context, which explains why the report begins with a listing of where respondents trust their selected sources of information.  Not surprisingly, the top of the list at 90% is friends and peers, followed by consumer opinions posted online and brand Web sites at 70%, then editorial content at 69%, brand sponsorships at 64% and TV at 62%.  Newspapers (61%), magazines (59%), radio and billboards (55%) are others on the list.

The study was based on the three different types of Facebook paid ads in an effort to measure recall, awareness and purchase intent.  The three ads are:

• Lift from a standard “Homepage (Engagement) Ad”
• Lift from an ad that featured social context or “Homepage ads with Social Context”
• Lift from “Organic Ads,” news-feed stories that are sent to friends of users who engage with advertising on a brand

Here are the results when paid ads were used in conjunction with social media, as opposed to just placing a paid ad or message: For the homepage ads, there was a lift in recall of 10%, in awareness a lift of 4% and in purchase intent a lift of 2%.  For the homepage ads with social context, recall was up 16%, and awareness and purchase intent up 8%.  Finally, in the category of organic ads, recall was up 30%, awareness up 16% and purchase intent up 8%.

The takeaway is this.  Don’t just advertise and don’t just do random acts of social media.  Concentrate on a blend of paid and earned media because both are measurable.  And by the way, what ranked lowest among respondents’ trust in selected forms of information?  Text ads on mobile phones at 24%.

From the amusing five word acceptance speeches to the controversy of its pay-to-play formula, the Webby Awards are now firmly rooted in the industry and in pop culture as the leading authority on excellence in websites and digital advertising.

Launched in 1996 by the now defunct “The Web Magazine,” the Webbys are backed by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which mirrors the Academy Awards with celebrity judges like Arianna Huffington, Beck, Martha Stewart, David Bowie, Harvey Weinstein, Matt Groening and Sir Richard Branson.

The four main categories are websites, interactive advertising, online film & video and mobile web.  Awards may be earned by securing votes from The Academy and/or by online voters (over 500,000 participate) for the People’s Choice awards.  Work can be entered and can win under multiple subcategories such as: Best Welcome Page, Best Copywriting, Best Navigation Structure, Humor, Politics, etc.

While the 2010 awards have been announced, the ceremony will be taking place on June 14^th in New York City.  This year’s host is BJ Novak from The Office.

Now for the pay-to-play catch. To be considered for a Webby, you have to pay an entry fee per submission ranging from $150-$499 and you also have to agree to attend the awards event at your own expense, which tends to leave behind many small to medium size companies that are doing excellent work.

Check out the Webby award-winning work.

 Man: How much does a polar bear weigh?

Woman: How much?

Man: Enough to break the ice. Hi, my name is….

Pickup lines have been around as long as dating itself. And about ninety-nine percent of them are pretty terrible. The fact that guys (mostly) will resort to uttering such phrases as, “Are you from Tennessee? Because you’re the only ten I see.” proves how incredibly difficult it is to impress a complete stranger. (It also proves how unimaginative some guys are.) Say what you will about pickup lines, they serve a purpose. You have to start a relationship somewhere. And like the aforementioned polar bear, pickup lines break the ice.

 The headline of a print ad, direct mail piece, billboard or website is the equivalent of those first words to an attractive stranger. And like pickup lines, most headlines are pretty lame. It’s almost as difficult to write a really good headline as it is to say the right thing to someone you’d like to get to know, but have never met before. In fact, one way to know whether you’ve written a good headline is to put it to the pickup line test.

 Don’t make it too generic. Avoid the, “Nice weather we’re having” headline. Do your best not to say something expected and boring—something every other ad might say. Instead of writing “Quality Service,” think about something you do that makes your service better and make that the headline.

 Don’t make it only about you. We’ve all met the person whose idea of breaking the ice is a long monologue about his or her awesomeness. This doesn’t mean you have to make your headline a question. (Although you could.) But make sure what you say about yourself has some relevance to your audience—that it jibes with their values and interests.

 Make sure it fits your personality.  Some guys can get away with a line like, “If I could rearrange the alphabet, I would put ‘U’ and ‘I’ together.” Some can’t. Your headline should reflect your business’s personality. If you’re formal, it should be formal. If you’re easygoing, your headline should reflect that. It’s like they say in the dating world: be yourself.

 Finally, make sure you have something good to follow up with—facts, examples, etc. Because even after you’ve made a good first impression, you have to prove there’s more to you than a pretty headline.

Driving down the highway earlier this week, I noted a truck with the logo that made me look, shake my head — and then look again. The logo? The earth with a large blob of paint being poured over it that said, “Cover the earth.” Wow. My thought train went something like this. Global deforestation. Oil spills. Global warming. And paint covering the earth. Not a mental association I’d be keen to have my brand be part of.

With the likes of Puma giving the old shoebox the boot in favor of greener packaging and companies like Panera opening non-profit pilot stores (even if it is in an upscale neighborhood), you have to wonder. What decade is the company living in? Perhaps I’m comparing apples to oranges — a logo versus public relations initiatives. Yet a logo says a lot about a brand and can color your impressions of the company — including their public relations efforts.

As a child, when I’d comment on how “lame” a TV commercial was (back in the days before you could bypass ads thanks to Tivo), my dad would say, “Ha — but they got you to notice them. So the ad worked.” I disagree — especially in the case of the paint-covered earth. Being noticed isn’t always a good thing, especially when your reaction is, “Can you believe this?!” 

My thought is this. Change can be a very good thing. A brand (and logo) refresh is worth considering. It doesn’t have to take years to implement — and in fact it shouldn’t. And rebranding is something you can and should take ownership of. Eyesore or inspiration? Your choice.

My father was a preeminent food and drug marketer with Foote, Cone & Belding, and then later on in a solo consulting practice.  He was actually the man behind Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Popping Corn, but that’s another story for a different time. My father believed that the best ad written was from a farmer selling his horse.  The headline read Horse For Sale and under the headline there was a picture of the horse, and under the picture of the horse was the word Horse.  In other words, just get it all out there, go sell something, and don’t horse around. Times have really changed.

Two colleagues of mine in Madison, Doug Tangwall and Wendy Soucie, are taking a deep look into effective selling, and getting results, which is probably the basis for their company’s name – End Results Marketing. Their approach to generating sales leads is called Nurture Marketing, and although this strategy has been around since the mid-nineties, it’s a 180 from my father’s approach or those sales methods like the Ben Franklin and Bear Trap sales closes.

Doug defines Nurture Marketing as educational promotion designed to improve customer outcomes and cultivate affinity for a business. That makes sense, and it’s in complete lock step with the belief that we spend so much time trying to be understood and not enough time understanding. In other words, stop the hard sell and substitute that approach with a little hard listening. As Doug says, “Think of nurture marketing as the exact opposite of traditional marketing. Instead of ‘buy my stuff’, it’s ‘what information can I provide to help my customers succeed’?”

By all accounts the approach works. By combining research into a client’s business, including research into their target audiences, promotion, thought leadership and social conversation, Doug and Wendy have obtained 14-17 times the sales leads than traditional tactics.  Yes, it takes time to nurture these relationships, but being a trusted advisor is going to pay off more than merely being a product hawker. “The buying process has changed and our sales process needs to change accordingly. Most of us educate ourselves about products now before we ever call anyone. Sharing knowledge is increasingly important to differentiate your business. The concept of nurture goes hand in hand with social media outreach,” adds Wendy.

But don’t just think about that in terms of generating sales leads — continue the Nurture Marketing process all the way down the line. I have a friend who, in the interest of expediency, left home on a road trip and realized 40 minutes later – at the convenience store counter – that he was wallet-less.  A representative from his financial institution actually made the trek north to deliver him some cash.  Can anyone say, “customer for life?”  That’s nurturing the relationship.

So, here’s a little Nurture Marketing tip. Use social media to conduct some primary research about your prospect, then take some time and extrapolate some useful data from secondary sources.  Synthesize the information and develop a few critical insights that you can share with your future customer, but don’t share all of them – you might need to meet again.  They’ll see you as a thought leader, as a company who is genuinely interested in them, and as a person who is in it for the long haul.  No doubt the sales and marketing process has changed, now we need to make certain we change along with it.

A few years ago I hired a personal trainer to help me get back into shape. At our first meeting I made the mistake of telling him that although I wanted to look good and build some muscle, I didn’t want to get too muscular. I don’t remember exactly how he answered my concern, but I remember the look he gave me, which loosely translated said something like this: Steve, you’ve got a long way to go before you have to worry about that.

I feel a little like that trainer when I hear clients say that they want effective, high-impact advertising but they don’t want to trash the competition or seem too boastful. There’s nothing wrong with modesty. The world can probably do with a few less touchdown dances. But if you’re like most of the clients I’ve worked with, you have a long way to go before you have to worry about that.

(more…)