by Michael A. Cousin

by Michael A. Cousin

Okay, so I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to reusing old ideas. It is really easy to take an ad that you have already done for a client, and update it to fit your current needs. It’s quicker than designing a completely new ad, and it saves you the hassle of having to go through the creative process with your graphic designer. The problem with this is, it doesn’t do you any favors.

There is nothing wrong with building a campaign that has a similar look and feel, or making several versions of the same ad for different media, but just reusing the same ad over and over is laziness, plain and simple. If you are going to reuse an ad, make sure that you specialize it to your audience and to your medium.

If you place one magazine ad in three different magazines you are likely to get return, as long as it’s a decent ad, and you remembered to get your audience involved with your product. You will get better results if you take that ad and for each magazine change the copy to better suit the readership, change some graphics to be more appealing to the target audience of each, or change the way you are asking them to interact with you. You can still use the same big idea, and the same basic idea for the ad, but by specializing it you will make both your client and their customers happier.

by Mark Richardson

Since my last post I’ve been employed as a Director of Marketing for an international software company. Our product is a analytics tool for lab managers to use at Universities to help manage their computer labs. The software is usually a easy sell to the lab managers, but they typically have to have the purchase of the software approved by administrators. As such, lab managers are always requesting materials to help justify to their bosses the purchase of our software.

I thought, what better opportunity to get our potential customer involved with the selling process. I came up with the idea to create a Lab Manager Tool-kit that would include terrific materials designed to make convincing their bosses a snap.

The tool-kit will include a power point, data sheets, a t-shirt, and a DVD containing videos that show how great our software is, as well as current customer’s testimonials that add credibility to the pitch. The whole thing will be packaged nicely and be mailed to prime potential customers, or given to select leads at trade shows.

Has you or your company tried something similar? Tell us about it in the comments.

Through taking the time to be ready to help customers and be pleasant you can win and keep a lot more customers than any other marketing effort. You may think you can sell it, but if you can’t actually do it, no one will want what you have.

by Michael A. Cousin

by Michael A. Cousin

Fickle is a great word. I use it often when expressing strange thoughts or actions. I think it is the perfect word to describe the marketing of many businesses lately, both large and small. Webster’s Dictionary defines fickle as: “marked by lack of steadfastness, constancy, or stability : given to erratic changeableness.” This is not what I learned in college about media planning, especially when it comes to preserving brand integrity.

Now, for small businesses you may not think that you have a lot of brand awareness or brand integrity, but a well serviced brand in any size marketing will gain value and help a business succeed. Take for example a business in the town I grew up in. I will not mention it by name, but they sell hot tubs, gaming tables, and swimming pool equipment. They have used the same jingle since at least the late ’80’s as I can vividly remember hearing it on the radio as a small kid laying across the seat of my Dad’s truck. To this day they use that jingle to close all of their radio ads. They have not done much in television or print, but they have kept up a regular radio campaign for years, updating it with specials and new products, though always using the same format and jingle. Consistency here is your ally. In the area anyone who has lived here more than a few years can sing you the jingle and knows what the company sells.

I am not saying that change and variety are bad, often it is good for a company to change their ads, but they should not change something that does not need changed. If companies didn’t change agencies and try new campaigns I wouldn’t be in the ad business very long. Just don’t change something that works. Tweak it, make it better, but don’t throw a good thing out the window and start from scratch. Are you listening Pepsi?

by Andrew Bertasso

I’m a negative person. Some think that this is a bad thing. My mother always told me to be more positive. I’ve found though that I am able to make positive changes because I’m motivated by my negative thoughts. So, I wish to be negative today. Maybe it I in hopes that positive changes can be made. Maybe it’s just me pointing out others flaws to hide my own, at least that’s what someone told me once. I’m going to talk about the worst marketing decisions of 2008, at least some of them.

The top of my list is definitely Pepsi. Honestly, what happened over there? Now, part of my criticisms are debated, which I’m open to hearing your thoughts, but everyone can admit they did something wrong this year. I’ll start with the flagship, the parent logo. What was wrong with the old one? I’m going to speak adobe geek here for a moment, it looks like they accidentally deleted an anchor point and decided that it looked ‘cool’. Coca-cola didn’t become the leader by looking cool. They have a difficult to read, vertically-written cursive moniker, sounds outdated, but well received, purchased and enjoyed. That was the flagship, I’ll address the other carbonated brands in a moment.

I next want to attack Tropicana. Unless you live under a rock, you know what I’m talking about; of course you may have forgotten about the brand because you couldn’t find it on the shelves. If you haven’t seen their new packaging, which has been pulled and is being replaced, it is bland. It looks exactly like a private label juice. It didn’t stand out on the shelf. When I saw it in the store, it made me wonder why someone would pay nearly $4 for off-brand OJ. I’m all for change, innovation and improving the brand; however, Tropicana’s packaging used to be pretty clear; an orange with a straw.  I don’t think that leaves any question as to what is inside the carton. Why abandon that?

Getting back to the carbonated beverages now; Sierra Mist and Mountain Dew are just as poor as Tropicana. When I head down the beverage isle at Wal-Mart I’m not sure if I am picking up Mountain Lightning, or if I’m doing the Dew. Pepsi, the flagship, has always been plain. We know what it looks like, it’s okay it’s plain. The Sierra Mist and Mountain Dew though, looks just like the private label. Maybe it’s not so good to be normal.

Next on the list is Microsoft. Endorsements can be very successful. In fact they can be so successful that people can earn seven and eight figure incomes by doing that alone, just ask Tiger. But just because it worked for Nike and Gatorade doesn’t mean it will work for your brand, right Buick? Microsoft would have done well to remember that. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that this comment has no bias, after all I’m currently typing this on my iPhone, will send it to my colleague using gmail and will also post it on my site created on and hosted by Mac. However, the Microsoft endorsements were offered by Jerry Seinfeld, Eva Longoria and Deepak Chopra. Now, any Google user can quickly find that Eva has a MacBook, Jerry used had an old Macintosh in his apartment on his popular ‘90s show and Deepak Chopra is a supporter too. Those three endorsing Microsoft, is like saying president Obama uses a Zune. Microsoft, don’t forget the web is world wide and will catch you in a web of lies.

One more word on endorsements, I can believe that John Krasinski has a Blackberry Storm and that Jamie Lee Curtis eats that detestable yogurt. But, I have a hard time believing that Teri Hatcher uses a box dye and Stacy London lathers with Pantene. Why do grocery store beauty products think it will be impressive if a celebrity says they use it? We know they don’t.

Last on my list is something I’m very familiar with, the departed circuit city. I used to work at the late electronics retailer. It was painful to watch anything produced for the brand. The reason Circuit City is on this list if for one reason. It’s not that they fell so far from the once great empire, filled for bankruptcy protection and liquidated all locations; the reason they are on the list is because of the last stand. In October Circuit City knew it was about up. Stock was down 98 percent from the year previous and delistment was in the air. That’s when they decided to launch a strong campaign to boost traffic and sales. Rather than boast something that was really important to customers they chose to notify customers of something that isn’t important at all. Circuit City chose to launch the one price promise (offering the same price in-store as online). Anyone who shops online doesn’t care about that, they are willing to go anywhere so long as the price is lower. The saddest part of it all is that Circuit City had some great benefits over their competitors that weren’t brought to attention. I think that they could have survived, at least for a little while, if they had made some different marketing choices.

This isn’t a exhaustive list of the horrible decisions made last year; I only chose a few. But we want to hear what you think was the worst one last year.