Superbowl Marketing Failures

February 6, 2012 Leave a Comment

The Superbowl draws big crowds, big egos, big hype and, of course, big budgets for ads.  So why do so many of them, well, fail? Here’s my take on Superbowl XLVI marketing failures.

Wardrobe Malfunction?

Madonna remained fully clothed during her halftime show, but I’m sorry I can’t say the same for the women in GoDaddy’s ads. Their propensity for using scantily clad (or was that naked) women in their Superbowl ads has now become all too expected. Really? Do we need to worry about our kids watching advertising for domain names and hosting plans? My favorite tweet about the ads: “Maybe Danika needs the money in order to sell out her entire gender.” GoDaddy, you can do better. The sad thing is, their customer service and products are excellent, and I use them despite their advertising. What I don’t understand is, why spend all that money to alienate half your potential audience? Fail.

Weird QR Code Placement

GoDaddy again. Did any of you notice during the second GoDaddy commercial that a QR code popped up in the left lower corner? Since I generally watch TV with my QR app ready to go (sarcasm intended) I wasn’t taken by surprise. Seriously though, while QR codes can be a great way to drive traffic to your landing page, Facebook page or any place else you’d like to send visitors for information and connection, there are places where they aren’t appropriate. Let me list a few here:

  • Billboards
  • Websites ( people, use a a link please)
  • TV commercials

Maybe this particular QR code takes you to a page where you can complain about the offensive use of women in their ads? Doubt it.

Volkswagon Weird Transition

In an attempt to play off of last year’s successful Darth Vader ad, Volkswagon forces (no pun intended, well maybe) Darth Vader into what would otherwise be a fun and uplifting story about our dog hero getting into shape for his run with the automobile. Cut to an alien bar? Made no sense. End with the dog.

What were your thoughts on the ads this year? I’d love to hear your comments.

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Are You Using the 80/20 Rule to Your Advantage?

December 5, 2011 2 Comments

Are you part of the 80%? I’m not talking about an occupy moment here. Instead, I’m referring to the 80/20 rule or the Pareto Principle. Anyone that’s served on a committee or worked on a team class project has seen this rule in action. It goes like this:

80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

Or in business the distribution looks like this:

  • 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers
  • 80% of your complaints come from 20% of your customers
  • 80% of your sales are made by 20% of your sales staff
  • 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people

Named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto in 1906 after observing that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population, he developed the principle by also observing that 20% of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas. Since that time the principal has been used in economic theory, optimization efforts and quality control measures. For example, Microsoft noted that by fixing the top 20% of the most highly reported bugs, 80% of the errors would be eliminated (Wikipedia).

How this works with Social Media

Simple. You’ll get the best results and engagement from your efforts if 80% of what do you adds value to someone else, either by providing free information, sharing articles written by others, offering discounts, crowdsourcing ideas or pointing out others’ successes. The other 20% can be about you, your products and your ideas. In other words, talk about yourself only 20% of the time. That’s 2 tweets out of 10.

Do you see this principle at work in your social media efforts? Share your ideas with me here.

Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

Filed under Business, Marketing, social media, Twitter Tagged with , , , ,

Social Media Trends for 2012

November 16, 2011 5 Comments

Now is the time when the media folks start making their predictions for 2012 so I’d better get on board.  Based on the trends I’ve seen in 2011, the conversations I’m having with clients and the widening gap between what we need and what we have, here are my thoughts on what will be trending in social media in 2012.

Content Curation

This was a trend for 2011 and I don’t see it going away. As social spaces become more crowded and filled with noise (and those pesky Klout seekers,) content curators will become a more important part of the stream. Curators that take the time to review the content before passing it on will become a valuable resource for peer reviewed articles. Taking cues from these curators, brands will become part of the de facto news media as they curate and stream relevant content to their followers.

Social Media Analytics

I’m amazed that we still don’t have a good way to track and analyze the data available to us in social media. As social media budgets increase and more time is devoted to these spaces, demand for analyzing all that data will become more pronounced. The problem is we’re still relying on APIs that are flawed and even (as Twitter admits) purposely throttled. Manual tracking is still the most accurate. While tools like Crowdbooster and Hubspot are promising, it is still very difficult to analyze the data and the trends well enough to structure spending decisions around it. I predict we’ll make progress toward a solution in 2012.

Tech Marketing

Many businesses struggle with where to house the social media team. Many land in the marketing department, which can cut them off from access to the technology they need to do their jobs effectively, not to mention run the risk of becoming too “marketing” in their messaging. As social media becomes more integrated into business I believe we’ll see an integration of marketing and IT. In my corporate position I’m housed with IT, which I believe is crucial. I have access to designers, SEO analysts, programmers and WordPress developers, so if I need a Facebook tab, help with optimizing a blog or the latest keyword research, I can just turn around and ask. Many social media professionals are housed in marketing departments, siloed away from IT functions. Some are dealing with an IT department housed offsite or even overseas. Time differences and lack of access to data make it difficult for these professionals to work quickly and effectively so I think we’ll start to see a convergence of IT and marketing as we increase our social technology.

Decentralized Social Media

Rather than siloed in one department (marketing or IT) I envision social media becoming part of many roles in business. For example, expect to see more customer service departments using Twitter with accounts like @name_brandname monitoring the brand with keyword analysis and intervening when needed. These folks will report to a social media strategist overseeing a team of tweeters. This is a move toward what I call the social transformation of business. Although I’m sure I didn’t coin the term, it describes a paradigm shift in the way businesses will organize in the next several years. As consumers demand less traditional marketing, more access to immediate feedback and better service, businesses will answer the call by incorporating social principals into their practices.

These are my predictions. What did I miss?

Filed under Business, Marketing, social media Tagged with , , , ,

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