A Tale of Marketing Promotion in Three Acts

Today we have a story of a group of little guys beating the big guy, an example of an entrepreneur seizing an opportunity, and a marketing lesson all tied up in the same tale.

Act 1:

The backstory begins obliquely in December of 1944. General Maxwell Taylor was absent from the 101st Airborne Division at the time the German Army laid siege to Bastogne. General Taylor's diplomatic and language skills were required in a secret mission to Rome to coordinate maneuvers with Italian forces.

General Anthony McAuliffe was left as acting Commander when the German XLVIIth Armored Corps surrounded the American forces. General Heinrich von Luettwitz demanded McAuliffe surrender.

McAuliffe sent back his famous one word reply: “NUTS!” A Colonel Harper, who delivered the typed response to the German delegation had to explain the meaning of the word to the Germans. McAuliffe's forces were able to hold off the siege until the 4th Armored Division arrived to provide reinforcement.

Act 2:

Network television offers programming to attract viewers, then offers access to the viewers to advertisers for cash, which pays the production costs of the programming (and with the right combination of skill and luck, a profit for the shareholders).

When the network execs determine that a program isn't garnering the audience they expected, it may be moved to a different day or time. When they determine that they can't make a profit on the show, they cancel it.

And that's it.

Or is it.

When CBS cancelled Cagney and Lacey in 1983, producer Barney Rosenzweig encouraged fans of the show to start a letter-writing campaign. CBS brought it back, and the show went on to win 14 Emmy's.

Designing Women did respectably well on Monday nights when it launched in 1986. CBS moved the show several times, finally to Sunday night, where it was dismally received. A viewer campaign saved it from cancellation. CBS returned it to Monday night, where it consistently stayed in the top 20.

Touched by an Angel was cancelled during its first season in 1994. Fans staged a letter-writing campaign. CBS brought it back. The show ran for eight more seasons.

And this year, Jericho became the most recent CBS cancellation, followed by a grassroots campaign to save the series. In its final episode before being cancelled, the enemy offered to let one of the main characters surrender. Quoting General Taylor's reply to the German army, the character said “Nuts!”

But this time, it wasn't a letter-writing campaign that was organized to bring the show back.

Act 3:

This time an on-line petition gathered together the “signatures” of thousands of fans. CBS wasn't impressed. Then, one of the fans contacted Nuts Online, and asked them to send a pound of peanuts to CBS programming executives , accompanied by a card with General Taylor's famous quote. (We can speculate that it was also the fan's assessment of the quality of thought exhibited by the CBS programming execs).

Word spread. Jeffrey Braverman, owner of Nuts Online offered to take small orders ($5) and package them into larger shipments to be delivered to CBS in New York and Los Angeles.

After 40,000 pounds of nuts were delivered to CBS, the company relented and purchased seven more episodes for a second season.

Epilog:

As you might imagine, the story got a lot of coverage, and each time Nuts Online was mentioned. I suspect we can agree that this quick-thinking entrepreneur received millions of dollars of free publicity for his company.

He was willing to accept minimal or no profit from this promotion, which made it affordable for nearly every fan to participate.

However, Braverman will probably make a significant follow up profit from the huge opt-in mailing list he's compiled.

Can you apply Braverman's example to your business?

Can you support a worthy cause? Will you send press releases and interviews? Are you willing to compile a mailing list and follow up after the promotion, consider joint ventures, and cross marketing opportunities?

Congratulations. You may be on your way to the kind of publicity that makes some companies look “lucky.”

Now, start looking for your promotional tie-in.

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Good Phone

The Lovely Mrs. McKay is a crafty person. Not crafty in the sense that she plots and schemes, but rather in the sense that she crafts things. Usually decorative household items. She's also an accomplished seamstress, and loves making costumes.

Last week she was on a mission: there was a particular fabric she needed to sew a costume for our eldest granddaughter. I was drafted as the pilot, navigator, and sidekick for this adventure.

We set out to find the nearby Major Craft Store. Because we were somewhat new in the community, we'd never visited it before. We had been told it was about 40 miles away.

Taking my role as navigator seriously, I called information for the store’s number, and then phoned for directions.

They hung up on me.


OK, it could have been a mistake.

I called back, and again asked for directions.

This time they put me on hold. Four long, awkward, cell-phone minutes passed. I think the stubborn gene I inherited from my maternal grandfather had already kicked in by the time I hung up and redialed.

This time I asked "Would you page any customer who lives in the neighborhood to come to the phone?"

The employee on the other end was confused. I repeated my request. "Since none of you seem to be able to explain your location, please ask anyone in the store who doesn't work there to direct me."

The clerk placed me on hold. It took two more minutes for the manager to get to the phone.

I explained that I was driving on the Federal Interstate Highway System, and merely needed directions which might include the correct exit, and any necessary thoroughfares that would lead me to his fine establishment.

He apologized, and gave me very simple directions: next exit, two zigs and a zag to his parking lot.


We arrived to minimal fanfare.

After roughly 20 minutes of searching, the Lovely Mrs. McKay determined they didn’t have the fabric. Disappointedly, we left.

Although this is the end of my story, its not today's point.

Today's point involves customer contact.

We live in a time of plenty. Neither supply or distribution is a problem. Today you not only have competitors on the next block, but also on several other continents. People will do business with you, if they choose to.

Only if they choose to.

And people tend to choose to do business where they’re made to feel important.


How important do your customers feel?

Most owners and managers know how important each customer is. When the boss is in, most employees offer pretty good customer service. But how do your employees handle shoppers when you're not there?

Try this: call your own company, and listen. Don’t place the calls yourself, since your voice is likely recognizable by your staff. Have someone else place the call, and listen in.

One of my clients, after conducting this exercise, fired one employee and gave another a raise. Another discovered that when his night mode voice mail was on, there was literally no way to leave a message.


Its no secret that people are suspicious of advertising.

The first time the actions of your employees contradict the message in your ads shoppers determine you to be a liar. And many times the first actual contact shoppers have with your company is the telephone.

Would you do business with your own company, if the impression you got on the phone was all you had to go by?

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The Price of a Haircut

I need a new hair cutter.

Oh, the one I'm using now is very good. She gives me the most consistently great cuts I believe I've ever had. She doesn't charge too much, is reasonably available. She has a fun personality.

But I'm kinda looking, just the same.


Why am I dissatisfied?

For the last thirty years I've seen the same process every time I get my hair cut. The cutter wraps some spongy paper around my neck, pulls an apron up tight, cuts and trims, unties the apron, removes the paper, then picks up a blower and BLOWS THE LITTLE SHARDS OF HAIR CLIPPINGS DOWN MY SHIRT.

I'm pretty much forced at that point to stop my day, go home, and shower just to make the itching stop.

You know, I’ve mentioned to every person who’s picked up a pair of scissors that they should trade in the blower for a shop vac, and remove the hair instead of hiding it inside my shirt where it will itch all the way to the shower.

Every one of them has listened to me complain, nodded in agreement, and then waited for their "complaining customer" to leave the shop so they can say what they really think of him.

"Snort. He expects us to change the way we work, just for him."

Yes.

Yes, I do.

And eventually, I'm going to start actively searching for a new cutter.


The cost of change includes risk.

I’ve mentioned before that sometimes people do business with us because it's too much trouble, or too much expense, to switch suppliers.

In this case, it's fear. Fear that I'm going to hate the next haircut.

So, I schedule my hair appointments late in the day, and keep going back to a service provider that annoys me with each purchase.

But imagine the ads I could create for anyone willing to change the way she works, just for the customer who asked for the change. Do you think that ad could be compelling enough to induce you to risk one haircut?

Are there customers that you're annoying with each purchase? With the right promise from a competitor, they're gone. Listen to them, now.

A customer complaint is valuable. Treat those complaining customers as if your business depends on making them happy. Either that, or be vulnerable to the first competitor who does.

Oh, one more thing: If you know someone who cuts hair anywhere near Huntington, West Virginia, and owns a vacuum cleaner, drop me her (or his) name. I'm going to make that kid a star.

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A Few Good Ads

My introduction to the business of advertising was through the characters in Bewitched.

Each week Samantha and Darren would have to come up with something highly creative to explain the presence of whichever historical figures were hanging around the Tate Agency.

In Lover Come Back Rock Hudson and Doris Day were competing advertising executives landing the account with tricks, schmooze, and everthing but good advertising. And Good Neighbor Sam had Jack Lemmon focusing on keeping the client happy rather than on creating ads which boosted the sales curve.

The more recent films, Richard E. Grant and Rachel Ward in How to Get Ahead in Advertising; Dudley Moore and Daryl Hannah in Crazy People; Tom Hanks and Jackie Gleason in Nothing in Common; Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt in What Women Want, all share a similarity in plotlines… cleverness and creativity will save the account (and the ad man’s job).


What's the ROI?

So it shouldn’t surprise me that advertisers expect cleverness and even entertainment in their ads. We all grew up in the same culture, watching the same shows, reading the same books. It shouldn't surprise me, but it still does. I'd have thought that return on investment was the standard by which we judged the ad.

After all, media reps all tell us that advertising is an investment. Shouldn't we judge this investment by the same ROI as all of our other investments?

It's not that a good ad can’t be entertaining, but rather when attention is drawn to the ad itself, it’s already failed. The instant your audience focuses on the delivery vehicle the message becomes irrelevant.

Years ago at a live community theatre production an actress slipped and fell on stage. Up until that moment the whole audience had been pretending they were looking through an invisible wall, watching people reacting to each other and to the situation in which those people found themselves. But in a single brief moment the play was forgotten as the audience wanted to know “Was the actress hurt?”

The instant we focused on the delivery vehicle (actress on stage) the message (story line) became irrelevant. To this day, my strongest memory of that evening was watching the other cast members help the actress off stage.


A Good Ad...

A good ad doesn’t draw attention to itself, focuses the audience’s attention on the message, and produces a solid ROI.

By that definition, let’s look at a few good ads. I picked them at random. Here are their headlines:

Stop Snoring Tonight – Guaranteed!

Lose 20 Pounds in 9 Days.

Lower Your Mortgage. $200k Refinance for Only $583/Month.

Affordable Life Insurance. No Medical Exam. No Waiting Period.

Dull, aren't they?

Agreed. These will never win an award.

But assume for a minute that you sleep with a snorer. What words would capture your attention better than “Stop Snoring Tonight – Guaranteed?”

If you’ve already tried willpower and treadmills, can you find an ad with higher salience than “Lose 20 Pounds in 9 Days?”

There is nothing clever or creative about these ads, but you know they work. You know it because they provide people with a real need information to solve their problem(s).

What’s your message? When you try to deliver that message to potential buyers, is your ad carrying the message, or is it getting in the way?

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