Archive for November, 2009

Yellow-Bellied Pages

Published November 25, 2009 Marketing Musings Leave a Comment
Tags: , , ,

I remember a time, not too long ago, when I would dutifully replace my old Yellow Pages immediately upon the arrival of the new one.  There’s even a dedicated kitchen drawer for it.

That drawer has not been accessed in months.

In this digital age, do the analog Yellow Pages still have something to offer? A directory that’s updated yearly? Well, it may surprise you, but I think it does. Apart from computer-literate blog readers like yourself, there are plenty of people who still look things up the old-fashioned way. They may even have rotary phones. And these people are still viable consumers, with actual money to spend.

The question is, how much of your audience do they comprise?

To hear the Yellow Pages tell it, they’re every bit as relevant as they were in 1992, and they’ve got the anecdotal evidence to back it up. And for some businesses, they remain The Only Game in Town. If you have only X$ to spend on marketing every year, isn’t your best bet to throw it all at the Business Bible?

If you’re selling rotary phones, yes. Otherwise, it’s time to reconsider.

My problem isn’t with the existence of the Yellow Pages–I think for certain clients, they remain a part of a well-balanced marketing mix. My problem is their attitude, which boils down to: “Advertise with us, or regret it. And by the way, we’re going to charge you five to six times what an average monthly home mortgage would be just for the privilege.”

Most advertisers work directly with a Yellow Pages rep, who has been schooled in the finer points of badgering, harassment and false negotiation. Recently a client showed me a proposal from their rep, which had them paying the same amount as the year before, but claimed to be deeply discounted. That’s because rates were going up! If you sign now, we can save you 30%!

Is this really how companies are helping businesses market themselves in 2010?

My other problem is that the Yellow Pages reps operate in a sanctimonious vacuum, maintaining their “only game in town” facade and barely acknowledging a client’s other marketing efforts. Consistency? Coordination? Not gonna happen–because their designers will provide the layout for free! It’s a value-add! A couple years ago, I opened up the Yellow Pages to my client’s ad (seeing it for the first time), and picked out five typos right off the bat. And, because the rep is willing to do/say anything to sign that lucrative contract, they’ll let the client load up the ad with whatever they want–usually about 60% more than anyone can be expected to absorb.

I put it to you, Yellow Pages–let’s work together. I’ll consider you if you’re right for my client and you pay me the same respect when you do an end-run and ambush my client directly. I’m trying to keep my client’s best interests in mind. Aren’t you?

Who’s afraid of Big Bad Social Media? Take our Poll.

Published November 13, 2009 Marketing Musings 1 Comment
Tags: ,

So the kids these days are all up in arms about their different social media channels.  It’s not uncommon to find individuals with accounts for Blogs, Twitter, FaceBook, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc. (Did I miss any of the biggies?)  But it’s a different story when it comes to businesses.  There’s a lot of buzz surrounding social channels and how they can help build communities followers, drive traffic and create leads, but many of the clients we talk to aren’t ready to take the plunge.  Some people feel they don’t have the personnel they would need to manage the account.  Some don’t understand what kind of content they need to push out.  Some have taken half-hearted stabs at using one or two flavors of social media, been discouraged with results that fell short of overinflated projections and condemned the entire category as ineffective.

Here at Strategic Insights, we feel that a Social Media campaign, when correctly organized and managed and used as a part of a larger ongoing marketing campaign, can be highly beneficial to an organization – generating interest and awareness, improving visibility and SEO for your corporate site, building a loyal community with ongoing dialogues and, yes, driving leads and making sales.

So why aren’t you using Social Media for your business or product?  Take our brief poll and see what others are thinking.  Or leave a comment below if you need more room to vent or rant or rebuke.

Chris Griffin
Assoc Creative Director
Strategic Insights

Learning From T-Mobile: Don’t Let Your Insecurities Run the Show

Published November 12, 2009 Marketing Musings 3 Comments
Tags: , , ,

pink-handcuffs

This morning I read a fascinating article on the shrinking color palette available to us designers. The short version is that it is virtually impossible to separate a brand from its color. This means designers must be mindful of color choices not only in terms of what works best for a brand’s message and industry, but what hasn’t already been “claimed” by a competitor to best avoid confusion.

Or, in the case of the color magenta, so T-Mobile doesn’t sue you.

Yes, T-Mobile has gone so far as to copyright the use of the color magenta—something they have previously enforced with one lawsuit in 2001 and a second just last year.

In actuality what T-Mobile “owns” is the right to a specific shade of magenta used in specific circumstances for a specific market. Their actions on the other hand, certainly speak more to their apparent insecurity over whether or not magenta is truly as integral a part of the T-Mobile brand as they hope it is.

While other companies suffice to trademark and copyright their tagline, logo, or even a color to protect their own brand’s integrity from identity thieves, T-Mobile seems to have gone on the offensive side. Marking their territory around the color magenta, T-Mobile clearly feels their brand doesn’t speak strongly enough for itself to just be quietly protected by the copyright. They need to seek out and destroy anyone who comes close to them—even if the copyright “infringement” is more of a stretch than an actuality.

While, yes, there are other trademarks and copyrights concerning brands—it’s a part of responsibly protecting your identity—T-Mobile seems to be more or less waving around their “ownership” over the color magenta at anyone who dares cross them. Neither lawsuit was against a defendant who actually violated the copyright, a fact which is painfully obvious to everyone. Everyone, it seems, but T-Mobile.

Copyright infringement is a serious issue for companies, and one that should definitely be enforced when it comes to preserving the value of your brand. Just make sure that the person you are about to sue has, at the very least, actually stolen something from you.
Jennifer Soloway [follow me on Twitter]
Art Director
Strategic Insights

What do you bring to the table?

Published November 5, 2009 Marketing Musings Leave a Comment

For every Butterball nailing the entreethanksgiving_turkey, there’s a Pepperidge Farm acing the side dish.

While meeting with a business development resource the other day, we got into a discussion of my agency’s strengths. As most of you know, what you set out to be and what you become aren’t necessarily the same thing. As one of my restaurant clients discovered a while back, you are what your customers want you to be. So while we got into the business hoping to leverage one set of core skills, another emerged.

Some would say being a client’s “second” agency implies a lack of status in the client’s eyes. Often, we found the opposite to be true. Over the years, we’ve worked with clients who would overwhelm us if they dropped their whole account in our lap. However, we carved out a niche for ourselves by serving as a local resource for mid-sized to large clients who had primary agencies elsewhere in the country. This frustrated them. Communication was sporadic or slow. Meetings were few and far between. Prices were high. Projects were sneered at or ignored.

We picked up the slack. We were available for meetings, we responded quickly, we gave the projects the respect they deserved (after all, to us, they were a large client). Sometimes this meant working within the parameters of a campaign established by the primary agency, but if it was good, solid work, we didn’t mind. Being good stewards of a brand is brand-building itself. Other times we had complete freedom. Overall, a win-win.

I’ve been in this business long enough to see the pendulum swing back and forth a few times: from “full service” agencies to “specialty boutiques.” Integrated marketing! Decentralized disciplines! Bundles! Bottom line–how can we make it easier for the client? Something to consider: consolidate your “big stuff” with a national agency to satisfy the egos in the C-suite, then use a nimble, local resource for projects–to work in tandem against tight deadlines and more modest budgets. Not a “production shop,” mind you, but someone who understands your objectives and believes in your brand.

Just a roundabout way of saying we like being the turkey, but we’ll happily play the cranberry sauce.

Bill Cokas
Creative Director
Strategic Insights

Strategic Insights Brand Marketing

Subscribe to RSSSubscribe to RSS »

Subscribe to EmailSubscribe to Email »