Marketing for the Third Millennium
Real Results, Real Value, Real Quick
Hardly had I posted the blog entry on working with email lists, which talked of the virtue of working with ‘warm lists’ through partners, than I get an egregious example of how NOT to do so! I run (in a different life) a fairly successful Meetup.com group for photographers. We are closing in on one…
Tivo, which I used to love a lot more than I do nowadays, recently sent me an email and asked this: Why ask me to answer one quick question, then give me 4, three of which are mandatory? Don’t take the mickey out of your customers, transparency and honesty are important. And though this might…
I love smart advertising, smart means that I WANT to watch it, not have to be forced to ingest it. Does your advertising get searched out? If not, how could you change it so it does? For context, here is the original Mercedes Benz advert. You should watch this first – and it is a…
I’ve talked a lot about the Golden Rule – ‘treat others as you wish to be treated’ (what my mum used to quote, from the Water Babies I seem to recall “Mrs. Do As You Would Be Done By’) – because it seems to me to be the fundamental ethical plank for all businesses. Or…
I collected mail from a PO box today and was once again struck how many people did what I did. I struggled to get the mail out of the small box; not because there was a lot of mail in there, simply because of all the unsolicited brochures, mailers, junk flyers etc. … There are big tables and very large trash bins, as far as I ca see only to serve to sort the wheat from the chaff and to dump the chaff. … is when the recipient sorts through to ensure that there is no real mail in the middle of this stuff.
Has to be the most truthful adverting I have seen for a while….. 
Now you start to understand my sense of humor …..
I was in the UK this week – I’m always fascinated to watch the TV ads and see the differences in approach between the UK and the US. One ad that really grated was a Renault car ad – it will become clear why! The premise of that ad is a tour bus taking visitors…
Actually, they draw the boundaries a little differently ‘Tow topics: the works of Patrick O’Brian and everything else’.The list is packed with interesting people who have a range of backgrounds and expertise (they can sometimes be a little intimidating, not for nothing are they known as the “All Knowing List”) but who are also amusing, fun, erudite and inspiring.One who contributes a great deal is Gary Sims, a California engineer and desert dweller with a background in – amongst other things involvement in developing the GPS system…. As the car begins to fall toward a runway with a target painted on it, another coupe begins to accelerate down the runway.They are converging as this script is read:“Gravity will propel this Lexus IS over 4,000 feet in a matter of seconds.” [camera shifts to car on ground]“*This* Lexus IS will attempt to cover the same distance even faster.”[car on ground passes target just before the falling car impacts.]
I’ve just finished a “thank you” letter to the dealer’s service agent who has, he said with crossed fingers, etc, etc., finally fixed my car. Copied to the General Manager of course.An update.It got worse, much worse…. They replaced TWO more coils, at a much (and I do mean much) reduced rate, and that seemed reasonable to me.Each day the car was in, Jack called with a status update, even when there was little positive he could say.
I’m on The Tivo subscriber’s email list and they recently sent out a notification that I could now download from Amazon’s Unbox and have the program show up on my Tivo.Sounded good!… Boy was I wrong!Whilst I have always liked Amazon – and spend a significant amount of money there each year – their new services lack the ease of use and intuitiveness that I have come to love.