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When Starbucks marketers drink the non-fat, mochachino kool-aid .

November 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

starbucks player

Q. What’s the difference between a salesman and a marketer?
A. Salesmen know when they are lying.

{Full disclosure: I love Starbucks, I go there quite often. I just find it silly when people take themselves too seriously.}

Caleb Hannon wrote a recent article in the Daily Weekly that  concluded with directions on how to “cleanse yourself of the stench of Pfeiffer’s corporate-speak.” I’m not sure if the self-important proclamations he refers to are quite this egregious but you have to admit that Pfeiffer and many other marketers do tend to take themselves a bit too seriously.

Starbucks is opening new custom designed stores that attempt to blend in with their local environments. That’s it. Unfortunately that sound bite would only last for a few seconds so Tim Pfeiffer, Starbucks VP of Global Magnificence felt he needed to fill that void with over three minutes of Starbucks marketing dribble.

The following is a guide to help you better understand what Starbucks is trying to say in this video:

“Cafe Presence” – A store.
“Open the Throat” – I believe he is either referring to an in-store tracheotomy procedure or perhaps this is a euphemism for increasing cut throat business practices… not sure which.
“Major Coffee Theatre” – A clear indication that everything he and the company does and says is an act, they don’t really mean any of it.
“Elevate the offering” – The religious connotations are self-evident here.
“More bespoke and one-off” -  ‘Mcdonald’s started building customized/localized stores a while back so we thought we’d copy that idea.’
“Availability of the interaction of the Barrista” … I got nothing here. It’s English (and he’s a marketer), so he was probably trying to make a point about something.
“The go-forward” - All marketing men of action are legally required to include ‘go-forward’ at least once in a conversation.
“Great coffee messaging” - Ads.
“Our coffee authority” – Starbucks will continue to crush all competition (in an environmentally responsible fashion.)

So Tim, keep up the good work… but get over yourself, it’s just coffee.

Filed Under: Corporate Video Examples, General, Marketing with Video, The Effect of Video on Your Brand, Video Marketing, video production Tagged With: , , ,

Are corporate websites dead? No, but some may require life support.

October 29, 2009 By Leave a Comment

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Websites don’t matter. The content on them and the content that gets consumed and shared (wherever) is what matters.

I recently responded to a blog article that posed the question “are corporate websites dead?”  My take was that the purpose and function of corporate websites is changing – they will still serve as a repository for corporate information but the days of websites being a ‘destination’ for information about the things you do are long gone. An Example:

Recent changes to driving laws where I live now make it illegal to hold/use a cell phone while driving. I needed to pick up a good quality Bluetooth headset. While scanning some recent tweets I noticed a comment about a new Plantronics Bluetooth headset. I followed the link to a YouTube video. It sounded interesting but I wasn’t convinced. I then viewed a number of related reviews on YouTube that seemed more credible and decided that this was indeed the device that suited my needs. I Googled to find the best price and ordered the product online. I never went to the Plantronics website – there was no reason to. I know the company and have purchased products from them before so there were no credibility issues to investigate.

The user generated videos I viewed provided good general information but ultimately the more professionally created videos sold me. The whole process took ten minutes and at the end of it I felt very informed and very comfortable making a purchase decision.  Would I have been as confident if I just went to the Plantronics site and consumed their literature? No way. Would I have been as comfortable if I went to my local electronics store and waited to listen to an inexperienced sales clerk sell me on equipment he may or may not have a lot of real experience with? No.

We are moving from the ‘text web’ to the ‘next web’ ( or ‘web something dot something’) and many companies still don’t see it coming. I’d rather watch a video review or video product demo than read product literature because video and other rich media content show me things that a document cannot. It’s also easier to make value judgments about the presenter and the content.

There is huge value in showing your product/service being used, showing people talking about their experiences with the product and showing how it clearly benefits the potential buyer.

It’s the content (and where that content is seen) that matters, not the website and the implications of this reach far beyond simple consumer products. All companies have to take into account how social media, rich media, mobile engagement, word of mouth, and especially the creation of truly valuable content is going to affect their brand and their business. Even companies with long sales cycles that involve complex buying decisions need to consider how they are going to engage the ‘next web.’

Filed Under: Content Marketing, General, Marketing with Video, The Future of Corporate Video, video production, YouTube Video Tagged With: , , , , ,

4 Advantages of Adding Video to your Email Marketing

October 27, 2009 By 1 Comment

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The good folks at  Wistia – a video tracking company decided to, in their words,  ‘eat their own dog food’ by using their own online video tracking service to monitor the effectiveness of adding video to their email marketing activities. (I prefer ‘fly your own jets’ as far as marketing metaphors go…)

You can read the results on a recent blog post but here is a quick summary:

1. Click through rates were 3 to 4 times higher with video
2. Visitors spend more time on site with video
3. You can track specific benefits of video content – see where visitors lost interest or chose to engage the company further
4. They also used video engagement as an indication for further lead gen, with measured success.

Admittedly the last two items are associated with the services this company provides but there are hundreds of articles and blog posts that support the idea that adding video to your email can have a significant effect on the effectiveness of that email. Here are a few:

http://www.smartmarketmovie.com/eric/videos-email-marketing-campaign/

http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/iland/2009/08/video-email-when-to-use-it.html

http://www.strongmail.com/resources/blogs/email_marketing_insights/2009/03/how-to-leverage-video-in-your.php

Filed Under: General, Marketing with Video Tagged With: , ,

Perhaps bad is the new good for Microsoft. This video is really bad.

September 23, 2009 By 5 Comments

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that Microsoft made this video lame on purpose.

What’s the point? To generate buzz? Mission accomplished I suppose, but it’s not the type of buzz  a company should be promoting. Microsoft has turned the comment feature off on the YouTube channel it sits on so if they are trying to generate buzz, they don’t want it recorded. So far the comments on various blogs break down roughly between the following:

1. This video being six minutes of your life that you will never get back (I only lost two of those minutes)
2. Criticism of the acting, the film work and just about anything else imaginable about the video
3. Microsoft providing another reason for people to switch to Apple.

I can’t see much value in that buzz. You could start hurling farm animals from the roof of your corporate headquarters and that would generate a buzz as well. It probably wouldn’t move much product however.

Microsoft lost their way with the Seinfeld/Gates ads, which tried to be funny but were not. They then adopted ‘lame’ as the new corporate video standard in their Songsmith  music – thing. Now they have circled the wagons around ‘just plain bad’. Maybe bad is the new good but I can’t imagine how this will help the brand.

Of course the other possibility is that Microsoft actually thought this was a good promotion. That would be really bad.

Filed Under: Content Marketing, Corporate Video Examples, General, Marketing with Video, YouTube Video Tagged With: , ,

Incredible, amazing, awesome Apple video

September 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Incredible, awesome, amazing and fantastic!

Someone has managed to unlock the code behind the Apple marketing juggernaut. The ‘secret sauce’ has finally been revealed: Hyperbole – incredible, unbelievable, sensational hyperbole. And repetition. Lots and lots and lots and lots of repetition.

To be fair to Apple and Steve Jobs you could likely take any video presentation and edit it down to make a presenter look silly, given enough free time to do these things. Is the best pitch man in the business guilty of a little exaggeration, a little too much hype – sure he is. But that ceaseless cheer-leading, optimism and excitement (often referred to as ‘the reality shield’ within the walls of Cupertino) has also led the company to stunning (Steve would have liked that one) market success. What makes Jobs so great is that you know he really, really, really believes what he is saying and he truly wants to build great products and he wants everyone to understand how great these products are. It’s a little manic, a bit (maybe a lot) over the top, but it’s genuine.

I hope Steve remains healthy enough to continue leading one of the most successful companies on the planet.

Filed Under: General, Marketing with Video Tagged With: , ,

1980′s 10 point Video Marketing Checklist:

August 25, 2009 By Leave a Comment

1980′s 10 point Video Marketing Checklist:

1. Smokin’ hot models? Check.
2. … with big hair? Check.
3. Flashdance-style soundtrack? Check.
4. Wicked locations? Beach & Ghost town, check.
5. Incomprehensible video plot? Check.
6. Popular movie to rip-off (pay homage to)? Footloose, check.
7. Disco dancers? Check.
8. Neon? Check.
9. Product? Yeah… it’s butt-ugly but the client wants it in the shots (stupid client). Check.
10. Cultural Reference? It’s a French car, we couldn’t get the guy with a beret on a bicycle carrying a baguette so we went with mimes. Check.

In many ways the eighties were a cultural wasteland. This marketing video for the Renault Alliiance (Convertible) represents that era well. At over three minutes I can’t imagine where this video would have been shown (Disco’s?) but considering the obvious investment in staging, sets, choreography etc. it must have had an audience. It’s fun to watch but I’m not sure why. What’s the opposite of nostalgia?

Filed Under: Corporate Video Examples, General, Marketing with Video, Video Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Frequency – the next frontier for online marketing video?

August 24, 2009 By 1 Comment

 

 

Much of the attention to date for online marketing video has been around single viral videos that, if the stars are in alignment, spike a few weeks after release with hundreds of thousands of views and then die a relatively quick death.  Reach is good – if your viral video takes off, but that’s no way build or sustain a market.

The ‘Will-it-blend’ series by Blentec was a great example of a well executed series of viral videos that helped sell a lot of Blentec blenders. Had Blentec stopped at the first video they would never have achieved the same level of success.  Which brings us to the Sons of Maxwell…

Dave Carroll – the lead signer for the Canadian band “Sons of Maxwell” promised that he would create three separate music videos to express his anger over the mistreatment he received after United Airlines wrecked one of his guitars and then did not take responsibility for their actions. The first video has received over 5 million views on YouTube alone. United is still reeling from that musical beat-down.

While the second video (above) will never get close to doing the numbers the first video did, it was very smart to create a series of videos to keep the momentum going and to keep his newly acquired fan-base in touch with the band. The second video is rather catchy and it’s fun to watch. The video also serves to showcase the musical range of the band which could help broaden their longer term fan-base.  Video three, when released will undoubtedly be different again, and will further reinforce the name and music of the Sons of Maxwell band.

Frequency of message – always important to the success of broadcast marketing, will start to play a larger role in online video marketing.

Filed Under: General, Marketing with Video, The Effect of Video on Your Brand, Video Marketing, video production, Viral Video, YouTube Video Tagged With: , , , ,

Video marketing and video conferncing to emerge from recession

August 17, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Interestingarticle in TechTarget’s Search CRM portal that looks at the two ‘tecnologies’ that they see emerging from the recession: The use of video conferencing to save travel costs and the use of video in marketingbecause of the lower cost of production and distribution of video combined with the effectiveness of the medium.

The article goes on to forecast that these two technologies will figure more prominently in the CRM suites.

Filed Under: Content Marketing, General, Marketing with Video, Video Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Is successful viral video always good marketing?

August 14, 2009 By 1 Comment

“Yes, I’m looking for a new notebook – high def screen, lots of memory and something I can catch with my butt.”

With over a million views on YouTube, this video has definitely gone viral. It’s well done and it’s not easy to tell how they faked it so that alone gives it a lot of viral juice. The matching spandex suits are also a nice touch.

Would I recommend this style of viral video to a client?  No.  Here’s why:

Little, to no brand presence.
I’ve never heard of MSI before – now I have, but only because I actually took the time to follow the link at the end of the video. I would be surprised if one in a thousand people bother. The link sends you to http://xslimvideoevent.msi.com – which is a video contest sub-site for MSI. Considering the 24 video entries on this site are averaging about 300 views each I don’t imagine many of the million- plus YouTube viewers are taking the time to investigate. Would many people understand what www.msi-xseries.com means without doing some research. I doubt it – it’s too subtle. I have to admit I enjoy the ‘viral video producers ethic’ that says it’s OK to show people catching your product with their buttucks but don’t you dare offend viewers by making a viral (intended) video too commercial!

What, if anything, do you assoicate with the brand?
Spandex suits and guys catching laptops with their butts. At some point you have to take a pass on crazy concepts… don’t you? Or is any concept a good one as long as people watch the video?

It’s been done.
Guy catches sunglasses with face was done last year to promote Ray-bans and received over 4 million views. It was fairly original when it was released and it caused a lot of buzz at the time. As soon as someone does something that is successful on YouTube everyone comes out with variations on that theme. There should be a reasonable limit to the number of commercial objects that can be caught with different body parts.

Most (99.9%) of videos that are intended to be viral aren’t. This one is. But just because it happened to go viral doesn’t mean it added any appreciable value to the company that sponsored it. Of course the gonzo marketers will argue that making a million people aware of your product – however marginally - is worth it, regardless of the method, subject matter or consequence.

As a friend put it, maybe these guys were just going for a different type of viral.

Filed Under: Corporate Video Examples, Marketing with Video, Viral Video, YouTube Video Tagged With: , , ,

New Fedex Video? What’s the opposite of viral?!

July 20, 2009 By Leave a Comment

 

 

Dear Mr(s). Fedex marketing executive,
1. What were you thinking?
2. What’s the point?
3. Did you test these before releasing them?
4. How did you pick Fred Willard…?
5. What’s the point?

If these videos were created by a local company trying to establish themselves in a tough local courier market I would be inclined to think WOW, these guys put a lot of time and money into this series – good first effort and I’m sure you’ll learn from this one and do better next time. But this is Fedex. A global brand that is struggling financially that should be working really hard at positioning itself against regional and global competitors.

Fedex chose this year to pull out of it’s yearly Superbowl advertising after an 18 year run. I guess they spent the money on this instead. Bummer.

Fedex has created a series of ‘infomercial spoof’ videos that were obviously intended for ‘viral distribution’. These will never be anything close to viral. Fedex has launched a YouTube channel called `Getinfoatained` to house these videos. I am always surprised (and honestly frustrated) when huge international brands with huge international budgets miss the mark on such a grand scale. 

Contrast these videos with the excellent series of whiteboard commercials that UPS developed recently. The UPS videos are simple, easy to understand, represent the company well and communicate very effectively the specific points that each video is designed to deliver. By contrast these Fedex videos are waaaay over the top and Fedex just comes off looking like they are trying far to hard to entertain. I imagine there is some real information in there somewhere but I’d be surprised if recall tests on these ads produced anything more than acknowledgement of Fred Willard being campy. If there is any branding value delivered I would guess it is negative. There is nothing good here to associate with Fedex - they aren`t funny, engaging, shocking, or interesting. Perhaps the worst criticism is that they would have been more effective if they were a little bit worse because at least then more people would have been talking about them.

My recommendation would be to pull them quickly and start over. 

 

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/business/media/20adco.html

 

Filed Under: General, Marketing with Video, The Effect of Video on Your Brand, Video Marketing, Viral Video, YouTube Video Tagged With: ,
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