Carl Baldassarre

Archive for 2010|Yearly archive page

, ,

Now advertising can change the product.

In Interactive marketing on October 29, 2010 at 11:36 am

Dominos pizza was so bad they had to do something. So they decided to be honest. They made commercials, and a “Pizza Turnaround” documentary for YouTube featuring their harshest critics — folks who tried the pizza and didn’t like it. At the same time, they featured their chefs, and showed how they were making big changes. So they were able to answer the critics with better pizza. The tag line “Oh yes we did” was perfect. So was the pay off — the same folks who hated the pizza before liked the new pies.

Domino’s also included a “Show Us Your Pizza” campaign, which invited customers to send in their own photos of Domino’s pies to be used in the ads. No more fake beauty shots of perfect pizza. This reality-based advertising is a lot more real than most reality TV shows. And like reality TV, it relies on conflict to create drama. Domino’s gets to curate and narrate. But the drama comes from the fact that they’re not suppressing the truth — they’re changing it by making better pizza.

 

An interview with the Dominos CMO:

http://adage.com/article?article_id=146782

, , , , , , ,

Will advertising be the third rail for Facebook?

In Interactive marketing on October 27, 2010 at 3:48 pm

The right hand rail is where the ads are on Facebook. The middle is where your friends are, in your newsfeed and on your wall. But if you “like” companies, the middle becomes prime advertising space, too. Walmart recently created a Facebook App called CrowdSaver that lets users give a thumbs up to deals — like a 42″ Plasma TV for $398. If enough people like the deal, everyone gets it.

It’s a good idea, and a good reason to give WalMart a place in your newsfeed. “You should be able to connect to a business in the same way that you connect to a friend, or a person on the site,” Mark Zuckerberg said in a Wired magazine interview in 2009. “And then that business should be able to publish things in the same way that that happens for people you care about.” It’s a logical thought,  but in practice it can lead to an avalanche of junk. Ultimately, a “Like” list is not that different from a mailing list. So could Facebook become the digital version of junk mail? Nah. For one thing, it’s easy to un-like over-zealous companies. But if Facebook leaves the social advertising boom to manage itself, they could turn into the next MySpace — or just a less satisfying version of itself.

 

Full Zuckerberg Interview:

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/06/mark-zuckerberg-speaks/#ixzz13aakDVt5

, , ,

Sharing the wealth isn’t socialism, it’s just social.

In Getting, Spending, Saving on October 27, 2010 at 3:01 pm

Henry Ford saw nearly doubling the minimum wage for his assembly line workers as “the finest cost-cutting move we ever made”. He believed it helped him attract and retain better workers and improve productivity. He also came to realize that paying his workers better enabled them to afford to buy the cars they made, which increased sales. Basically, sharing the wealth created more wealth.

The same type of thinking was behind TARP, the widely denounced bailout of financial institutions. First, spending the TARP money helped keep the economy from shrinking, so it actually made money for society immediately. Second, it enabled banks to survive and eventually pay back the TARP loans, so the long-term cost of the program was small or non-existent. While talking about business and economic decisions in Darwinian terms makes a good story, it’s probably not a good way to understand them. Unlike natural selection, capitalism isn’t a natural force, it’s a social thing.

, , , ,

Search me.

In Interactive marketing on September 14, 2010 at 12:36 pm

In the beginning, there was Google. An almost blank page which did a great job of finding what you want from among lots of possibilities. But  when you’re searching for something for something complicated, where none of the possibilities are exactly right, Google works less well. For example, it’s not very good at finding the lowest airfares to San Francisco on Thanksgiving, or a great movie to watch over the weekend. And when you want to know what airlines your friends prefer, or which movies they’re raving about, it’s no help at all.

That’s because Google looks for what’s on a site, rather than what’s in your head. To get a search of airfares that’s more you-centric, you can go to Kayak.com or an individual airline site. On either, search is faceted and built around where and when you want to go. It’s much narrower, but much more relevant. At Netflix, you can find movie suggestions based on your taste in media,  and what you’ve been watching lately.

Search really gets personal when you get results without even asking. In a sense, that’s what a Facebook newsfeed provides, with updates, likes and comments from your friends. As Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, said in a New Yorker interview published this week, “most of the information that we care about is things that are in our heads, right? And that’s not out there to be indexed, right?”. That’s not always true, but often the best search results are the ones that find you.

, , ,

New! Improved! Direct response commercials!

In Interactive marketing on July 30, 2010 at 1:23 pm


Is Amazon a store? A service? A technology company? Whatever they are, they sure are good at selling stuff. For the newest Kindle, they’ve put up a short video that’s really informative. I’m guessing it’s really effective, too. And it happens to be roughly two minutes long, roughly the length of many classic direct response spots. Read the rest of this entry »

, , ,

The ad your ad could be like.

In Interactive marketing on July 21, 2010 at 3:30 pm

Old Spice created a really funny TV spot, with extended variations for its site and YouTube channel. Then they responded to the ensuing buzz with over 200 custom video answers to tweets and Facebook comments. Axe, which has a history of integrated campaigns, also created a funny TV spot, but didn’t generate the same buzz.  So at the moment, it’s Old Spice that’s enjoying the sweet smell of success. But which campaign is really better?  Read the rest of this entry »

, , , , ,

Technology is the new creativity.

In Interactive marketing on July 9, 2010 at 4:44 pm

Products that “advertise well” often sell well, too.  A cloth that cleans any spill? A grill that cooks anything better and easier? Sham-Wows and George Foreman Grills were both money machines. There’s a bigger market for products that advertise well and work even better. Whether it’s the Wii, the Prius or the iPad. Things really get interesting in services, where the “product” and the “advertising” often can’t be separated. Read the rest of this entry »

, , ,

Lloyd Blankfein and Tiger Woods.

In Getting, Spending, Saving on May 4, 2010 at 1:57 pm

What do a Jewish banker and a Black athlete have in common? They both make great stories if you like stereotypes. There’s nothing like a little racial profiling to make complicated stories simple. Read the rest of this entry »

, , , ,

Transparent beats opaque like scissors cuts paper.

In Interactive marketing on March 26, 2010 at 2:13 pm

When you’re in a Microsoft Word document and want to create a new one, the menu item you want is named Project Gallery. I never remember that. I go up there looking for the New Document or Create Document item. It gets me every time. Then I skip around a bit, and eventually open Project Gallery when my memory and that item’s position at the top of the menu bar cue me. Amazon.com, on the other hand has some pretty sweet names, and I bet you never even noticed. Read the rest of this entry »

, , , , , , , , ,

Advertising? There’s an app for that.

In Interactive marketing on March 1, 2010 at 3:28 pm

On a diet? SpecialK has a planning application with four themes and myriad variations. Off a diet? Domino’s has a pizza builder  that takes you from crust to toppings. With matching visual previews to whet your appetite. Stocking up? Kraft has a shopping list mobile app that comes along on your smartphone. Wondering if you’re spending too much on food? Mint.com lets you make a budget, and much more, with a multi-app site that’s better in many ways than Quicken. (Intuit liked it so much they bought it a few months back.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.