Author: Robyn Tippins

I'm the Community Manager for the Yahoo! Developer Network. I have 4 children, am married and am the Dir of Children's Ministry at First Baptist Church Newark.
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Don’t Fight A Viral Campaign, Even If You Didn’t Plan It – Chronic of Narnia Rap (SNL)

Saturday Night Live’s audience has waxed and waned for the better part of a decade. It seems they’re finally getting it though. Weeks ago I saw an article on a video game blog about how SNL staffers (Tina Fey in particular) were avid gamers. Silly little fluff pieces like this really make small subsets of people behave more favorable to you. They seem to understand niche marketing more than many of the “smart marketers” I encounter daily.

Last week they put out out a really funny Beastie Boys-ish rap parodying a ‘Lazy Sunday’ in Brooklyn, preparing to go see the Chronicles of Narnia. This “Chronic of Narnia” rap is funny, amatuerish in feel, and looks like something you’d see on ebaumsworld or big-boys (two of the stickiest sites on the net). This is exactly what their audience is looking to see. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I didn’t see it on SNL.

I first saw it on Google Video. Now, the thing has spread across the net so much that most everyone who is an avid net junkie has seen it, at least once. The funny thing is, SNL and NBC didn’t fight it or call piracy when they found out it was making the rounds, they embraced it.

Unlike most companies, they embraced it and released it for free on iTunes. NBC/SNL recognized it as the best kind of marketing WOM (word of mouth). Ever heard the saying, you can’t pay for that kind of marketing? It’s that powerful, that honest, that trusted, that powerful…

Companies (like Sony) try to do this on their own and fail, so when it falls in your lap, PLEASE, I’m begging you, embrace it.

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Seth Godin – Secrets of Every Service Business

The two obvious secrets of every service business
from Seth Godin (excerpt)

1. Take responsibility
2. Pay attention to detail

You’d be stunned to see a hotel clerk stealing money from the till or a bartender smashing bottles or a management consultant drawing on the client’s wall with a magic marker. But every single day, I encounter “that’s not my job” or “our internet service is outsourced, it’s their fault.” More subtle but more important are all the little details left untended.

All the magazine ads in the world can’t undo one lousy desk clerk.

If you’re not subscribed to this feed you’re missing out. Seth Godin’s a marketing genius, in that he tells you just how to give the customer exactly what he wants.

I tell clients to just put themselves in the customer’s shoes and imagine what the customer might want. Empathy is a powerful tool in marketing.

Of course, if you’re not making your product to solve a need, that’s just silly. Don’t waste your time…

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Dumb Copyright Rules

Anyone else think this is absolutely ridiculous? This company wants me to pay to use between 5-20 words of their article with attribution and a link back?

Grrr… Maybe MSM shouldn’t take part in the blogosphere.

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Tom Bodet’s Podcast

Motel 6 is podcasting. Why aren’t you?

(removed link to promomagazine.com)

I can’t decide if this will be funny or helpful, but either way, I’m looking forward to the comedy.

UPDATE: There is no link to the podcast. Here’s all this free hype going to waste. Good idea, poor implementation

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Marketings Best and Worst List Out

… “The Best & Worst Marketing Ideas” reminds us of the old joke about sex and pizza: When they’re good, they’re really good; when they’re bad . . . they’re still pretty good. Unfortunately, the latter half of that equation does not hold true for marketing. When it’s bad, well, it stinks.

The worst was Boeing’s ad that seemed to be anti-Islamic. Here’s the full list.

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Yahoo Decreases Headline Sizes For YPN Ads

I’ve continually bemoaned the YPN click-rate, which led me to remove them from my site. Of course, the reason no one clicked the ads was because you couldn’t read the headlines. Duh… 

So, finally, Yahoo is making their headlines shorter:

Yahoo! framed the move as an attempt to make ads easier for users to read, but some search marketers say the decision also seems designed to court advertisers. Josh Stylman, a managing partner at Reprise Media, said it’s likely that Yahoo! believes it will be easier for advertisers to run campaigns on both Yahoo! and Google if they can use the same creative text. “It’s interesting that Yahoo! is moving in line with Google. It would obviously make it easier for Google clients to test Yahoo!,” Stylman said. — MediaPost

Look for YPN ads to return on the Sleepy Blogger 🙂

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Images Increase Email Readership – Does the same hold true for RSS ads?

From MarketingSherpa: 

 

You’d think that textual emails would win the number-of-words-read sweepstakes, if only because there are no distractions from the text. MarketingSherpa’s new eyetracking laboratory tests proved the reverse is true. 

 

The presence of an image — even a fairly dull one such as the clip art we used for our test — can have a huge impact in how much time people’s eyes spend reading the copy of an ad. What’s interesting is most people looking at this email didn’t actually spend a lot of that time on the picture itself. The picture was such a frequently-seen image they could register it in almost peripheral attention mode. However, its presence raised their engagement level with the email, and willingness to read much more of the copy. 

 

My first thought was that this could potentially be applied to RSS ads.  Would it increase your reader’s engagement to add some sort of distraction to break up your copy?  I have no clue, I’m just raising the question. 

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Disturbing? Ads for cigarettes worse than those aimed at kids?

I know this will be a somewhat controversial post, because I know some who really do think cigarettes come from the devil, but I’m sure if you read the whole post, you may at least understand where I’m coming from. (yes, I know, ending a sentence with a preposition…   tut-tut)  

Compare these two stories from MediaPost: 

Reynolds Halts Controversial Promotion
PROMO Magazine
A promotion that angry critics said encouraged smoking combined with heavy drinking has been discontinued by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. The promotion raised the ire of three state attorneys general, as well as public advocacy groups. Called “Drinks on Us,” the promotion included mailed birthday greetings to young adults containing drink coasters, branded for Camel cigarettes, that encouraged the consumption of well-known alcohol brands including Jack Daniels, Southern Comfort, Finlandia Vodka, Kahlua, Bacardi Limón and Bailey’s via recipes and slogans such as: “Layer it on. Go ‘Til Daybreak,” “Mix Three Shots Together Over Ice, then Make Sure You’re Sittin'” and “Pour Over Ice, Then Let it Burn.” The promotion began January or February of 2005 and was scheduled to end next April, said R.J. Reynolds spokesperson Maura Payne. One of the complaining attorneys general, New York’s Eliot Spitzer, called the campaign “a complete abomination.  Virtually every parent in America knows what it is like to anxiously wait for a child to come home from a night out with friends, worrying that someone will be drinking and driving. Now R.J. Reynolds–apparently not satisfied just selling its own deadly products–is encouraging individuals to ‘celebrate’ their birthdays by abusing alcohol. It is just shameful.” 

and 

Compromise Reached In FCC Rules On Kids’ Ads
Ad Age
A compromise has been reached in the battle over advertising to children that had pitted marketers who target kids and the media companies who run their ads on one side against advocacy groups and the federal government on the other. The fight was over new Federal Communications Commission curbs designed to limit the impact of advertising on kids’ TV shows and the Internet. The original FCC proposal would have forced broadcasters to start counting program promotions in shows aimed at children under 13 against commercial limits of 12 minutes per hour on weekdays and 10.5 minutes per hour on weekends, essentially reducing ad time. In addition, media companies would have been banned from showing Web addresses linking to pages in which program characters sold products. Finally, the rule would have limited broadcasters’ ability to preempt children’s programming. Under the compromise agreement, broadcasters can run program promotions in kids’ shows without counting them against commercial time, but only if the promotions are for other kids’ shows. In another change, the ban against host characters selling products on Web sites is far less stringent. 

Someone want to tell me why marketing booze and cigs to adults is NOW such a huge problem?  I mean, I’ve been forced to endure half-naked beautiful women bouncing up and down for Coors, Miller, Budwieser, etc. for years.  And, unless I’m blind (shut up) these women and the guys in the same commercials all are under 25.  Why is it when they add the cigarettes, we have to hear what an abomination the ads are?  Now, finally, the cigarettes are going to cause drunk driving to go up?  Now, I’m not a drinker nor a smoker, but I find the double-standard here ironic, to say the least.  Especially when you compare the cave-in by the media companies involved to the kids story that follows it. 

The FCC had some issues with kids getting more than 12 minutes per hour of ads?  I’d love for them to make a law that would limit ads to adults too! LOL  

But, seriously, is there a reason to cram more than twenty-four 30-second advertising spots per hour at our kids (not counting, apparently, the ads that advertise kids’ shows)?  The entire article shows how the FCC caved to the demands of the marketers. 

I’m a marketer, but I’m also a parent.  These stories are a sad commentary of misplaced public pressure.  Tobacco is the evilest, most vile and deadly substance known to man, according to the public, but alcohol (unless paired with tobacco) gets a clean bill of health.  And, since no one is really paying attention to little kids’ advertising at the moment, they can cram whatever crap they’re selling down their throats, until some parents’ group or campaigning senator starts to make noise about it. 

Sorry to rant, but this just drives me nuts!  Can’t we find some way to market, morally?  I’m not saying we have to junk all alcohol, cigarette, and even kids’ ads, but isn’t there a point where, without the government’s help, a station can say, “Well, the current number of ads on Dora the Explorer is approaching too many.  We can either book your crap product on next week’s Dora’s, or even on the Dora site.  Or, how about sponsoring Little Bill?  He’s got space available.”  

We know, from previous studies (if you press for stats here, I have them, I’m just in too big of a hurry to dig them up right now) that kids watch, no, I mean WATCH, all the ads that are shoved at them.  And, if you have kids, you know that these studies are pretty close to the mark.  Is that why we feel, as marketers, that we must absolutely cram as many ads in there as possible?  Have we considered that, aside from the fact we are interfering with legitimate child-thought on a continual basis, that we may be creating ad-blind adults.  So, when they have real money to spend, and not just mom and dad to whine-persuade, they may see NO ads?  

Flame on… 

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A Corporate Blogging Policy

Are you struggling to build a blogging policy? It requires a delicate balancing act: 


It’s a big deal,’ says Lisa Poulson, managing director for Burson-Marsteller, a global public relations and public affairs firm. For example, she says, ‘If you allow employees to blog and then fire someone for blogging, you’re creating a PR disaster that didn’t need to exist.’ 

Poulson has helped dozens of companies create a corporate blogging policy. Here, she shares her strategy for coming up with a policy that works.” 

 

Assemble the blogging team. Take time to find out what you want to achieve, then write, with your team, the policy that will accomplish those objectives.

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Personal Touch and Loyalty

Saw this while reading my feeds today. This is a perfect example of the personal touch employees (and customers) need to build the fierce loyalty we all desire. 

Several companies were courting him, and to be honest, Crutchfield’s salary offer wasn’t the highest. But here’s what made the difference: Bill Crutchfield, the owner of the company, called the candidate to sell him on the opportunity and make him feel needed at Crutchfield. It was the only such call the candidate received. Certainly, the CEO’s of the other companies didn’t call this candidate — but neither did their immediate hiring managers. Dumb. Later, after the candidate accepted Crutchfield’s offer, Mr. Crutchfield sent the candidate and his wife some flowers. Didn’t have to. Wanted to. 

What can you do to stand out?