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It looks like Time, Inc is taking a leadership role in the technology surrounding the release of Apple\'s new tablet which should be coming out in early 2010.
Everyone knows that the mainstream media totally missed the boat the last few times technology and communication changed the game. But by the look of this Sports Illustrated demo, they might get another chance. But as cool as it looks, will it be enough to have top of the line photography, up-to-date scoring updates and dynamic advertising?
It could be. Although a few blogs have emerged to take their piece of the media landscape, it seems like the general public is falling out of love with blogging. The mainstream media needs to continue their role as the conversation facilitator and give consumers the ability to share their thoughts, opinions and interests as easily as possible. Yes, like Facebook and Twitter.
Looks like 2010 might be a fun year.
I was really bummed I couldn’t make it to the WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) Summit that took place a couple weeks ago, but John Moore of Brand Autopsy was nice enough to catalog over 150 “talkable tweets” that attendees posted during the three-day conference.
If you weren’t able attend, take a stroll through this slideshare deck and soak in all of the big thinking that was going on.
Narragansett is a beer brand that has been around since 1888 and seen it’s highs and lows. Most recently, Mark Hellendrung, who was one of the key players in building the Nantucket Nectars brand has brought ‘Gansett back. He relaunched the brand in 2005 and has been doing things the right way.
Their website alone is a great example of building a strong brand on word of mouth and transparency. In fact Mark isn’t building a brand, he’s on a mission. He’s taken one of Naragannsett’s weaknesses of not owning a brewery and made it a strength by creating a cause for New Englanders to support so that they can grow the business, build a brewery and help the economy. Brilliant. My favorite part is the powerpoint they share on the “Support the Cause” (not website) home page. 100% transparency on numbers and vision. If only employees of all companies could be so lucky!
The best part is that all of this is 100% real. It’s not some phony “support the cause” that will go away when the campaign is over. Mark and the rest of the folks at Gansett seriously want to be “your neighbor.”
Mark and I traded a couple emails and I asked him some questions on how he is positioning the brand and building it from scratch.
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Neal: What are your thoughts on brands having a home base from an operational and marketing standpoint? How do you bring that local positioning to life without the use of big advertising campaigns?
Mark: I think localness is a differentiating idea, and the concept has been building for a while and has only accelerated in the last 18 months. You could see it starting a while ago with the re-emergence of things like local farmers markets and the backlash of corporate sell-outs and jobs going overseas. Then when the economy when south, I think you had people realizing that this model doesn’t work, and now the thought leaders are saying how can I create local jobs, support local businesses, etc.
I actually think the use of big advertising campaigns risks undermining your local authenticity in that you start to look like a big company, and consumers are pretty cynical right now. So you’re left with a path build on relationships (selling one account at a time), a lot of sampling, word of mouth marketing and use of social media.
Neal: How have you found your brand influencers or loyal consumers for Nantucket Nectars and for Gansett?
Mark: The thing about Narragansett Beer is that it’s built on 120 years of heritage, so while we work to contemporize our story it’s still fairly well-defined, i.e., there are only so many different ways it can go. Given that, we try to look at the beer drinking community and try to identify who would be most interested in our story and most likely to carry it on.
Neal: What was the best use of your limited marketing dollars since you relaunched Gansett a few years ago?
Mark: Investing in our street team (sales and marketing) is the best use of our dollars. It builds availability and distribution. The team does a lot of sampling, which is critical in that we’ve got a great beer, we just need people to try it. And the relationships that we create cement us into the community.
Neal: I assume you don’t spend a ton of money on consumer research to uncover opportunities or validate marketing campaigns, so can you give me a couple examples of how your gut instincts have worked or not worked?
Mark: One thought we had going into this that didn’t play out was that there were a whole lot of older guys who grew up on Gansett that would be interested in our comeback and switch back. What we learned though is that many (not all) of these guys were just too far gone and settled into their routine of current brand choice. We thought we could switch them because when we talked to them that weren’t overly excited about their brand. However, they weren’t necessarily dissatisfied either, so there was no real motivation to switch.
On the flip side, we had a feeling that the craft community would appreciate our beer, and it’s played out pretty well. For a lot of the craft guys, I find that they love their craft choices but when they find themselves in a higher usage occasion or are just looking for something a little lighter, they really didn’t enjoy settling for one of the mainstream domestics. Our beers have a little more flavor and our brand has a little more character and you can see us selling some Gansett in “craft bars” whereas the mainstream beers aren’t even on the menu.
Neal: Thanks Mark. Keep up the good work.
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Think the success of the Snuggie is 100% kitch? Nope, there’s a smart marketer behind the whole thing who capitalized on an opportunity and ran with it.
The luck of the Snuggie is that it caught on in social media and in viral networks. The strategy behind it is that they recognized the opportunity, embraced how the consumer took ownership of the brand/product and facilitated it to go much further.
Now the game for Snuggie is to expand occasions and distribution while staying relevant, which in this day where brands, people, shows, bands or anything else can jump the shark in an instant is really hard.
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Everyone has an opinion on social media etiquette and Guy Kawasaki weighs in on a variety of topics including whether it is ok to “repeat your tweets”.
In the past, I have really resisted repeating my tweets, but this changed my mind. Guy has reminded me that Twitter is a marketing tool. For me, it’s a marketing tool for my blogs. I don’t make any money off of either of my blogs, but I do like to drive traffic and Twitter is one of the main ways I do that.
The other thing I totally agree with is that if you’re not pissing someone off, you’re not using Twitter to it’s fullest potential. Everyone has an opinion of how they like to interact with people and brands on this platform. Just like anything else you have to measure and understand how your influencer consumers and/or followers like to interact with you. In marketing, you’ll never make 100% of the people happy 100% of the time.
You’ve probably heard the news that Pabst Brewing Company is for sale. It’s actually been for sale for about 10 years now, but this time it sounds like Uncle Sam is serious about them having to sell.
But this potentially awkward story has turned into a beautiful word-of-mouth opportunity for the company. And the best part is that they’re not even doing anything to facilitate this – at least that’s visible to me.
A couple ad agencies, namely Forza Migliozzi have launched a website called buyabeercompany.com and are accepting fake donations to round-up the $300 million the experts expect to be the selling price.
People can “pledge” money to the account and the website will keep a running tally of how much “the people” have pulled together to buy the company.
This seems to keep happening for Pabst? Going back to my time with the company, we seemed to get a boost of organic PR every couple of months. Remember the PBR fraternity at Oregon State? What about the PBR casket? Why does Pabst get so much organic PR?
I call it PR karma… when it comes to publicity, you make your own luck. The modern day PBR (and consequently, Pabst Brewing Company) is a brand that’s built on word-of-mouth marketing, which in turn, is street cred. Consumers flat-out love the brand and are attracted to interact with it. The results are interesting stories that are created by real people – and that’s the best kind isn’t it?
I’m working on a project that has me thinking back on my time in the Craft Beer segment. I took some time this past weekend to crystalize my thoughts on what it takes to build a successful craft beer brands and here’s what I came up with.
After looking at this a few times, it seems like a lot of these concepts apply to start-up brands in a variety of categories and industries.
I’ll be elaborating on these ideas, one at a time in the coming weeks.
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Mismatched stuff can be cool. Seth Godin is constantly talking about Little Miss Match, the sock people – but Glove Love might have taken it a step further. I love this concept because it brings so many great pieces together:sustainability, story telling, word of mouth, the whole kit and kaboodle.
Check it out and note how the gloves come with a story already attached to them.
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I’ve been wondering if a store like this existed. It’s pretty common in the world of wine or craft beer for bars and liquor stores to concentrate on only the niche brands, but this seems to be completely unique in the world of soft drinks.
But this guy has rejected everything in the mainstream because he has a passion for his business and helping people find a truly unique product. But your selection isn’t everything. His passion for sodas and soft drinks comes out in everything he does and says. And the fact that he had the balls to tell Pepsi that they can’t take up any of his valued shelf space makes the experience of shopping there all the more memorable and worth talking about.
(I originally found this on Seth Godin’s blog)
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I\'ve been wondering if a store like this existed. It\'s pretty common in the world of wine or craft beer for bars and liquor stores to concentrate on only the niche brands, but this seems to be completely unique in the world of soft drinks.
But this guy has rejected everything in the mainstream because he has a passion for his business and helping people find a truly unique product. But your selection isn\'t everything. His passion for sodas and soft drinks comes out in everything he does and says. And the fact that he had the balls to tell Pepsi that they can\'t take up any of his valued shelf space makes the experience of shopping there all the more memorable and worth talking about.
(I originally found this on Seth Godin\'s blog)
