Category: media

Crazy John

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Yesterday a great Australian entrepreneur ‘Crazy’ John Ilhan passed away. I won’t replicate the many newspaper articles about his life or fortune. You can Google him to see all of that. What I will point out is the many personal qualities he was documented as having:

 

Self belief

Highly motivated

Family man

Big ideas

Philanthropic

Risk taker

Failed quick, failed often

Bootstrapper

Game changer

PR machine

Knew how to dance with gorillas

– Telstra in his case. (topic of coming blog entry)

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At the age of 41, it reminds us of the most important thing of all – our health.

Now Get Lost – Hummer?

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Hummer have recently launched in Australia. The opinion of the Hummer is quite a divide of love / hate.

 

Below is a picture of the outdoor campaign which is running on trams and outdoor super sites.

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The tag line “Now get lost” – Hummer, is not without a subtle sense of irony.

 

Did the marketing team in charge consider the negative flack many give the Hummer? The unwanted gas guzzler? Is the copy line appropriate for launch a campaign?

 

The startup blog opinion on Hummers isn’t relevant. What is relevant is the lesson for entrepreneurs:

 

Always consider the ‘multiple angles’ of any copy line.

Great Viral – Wilkinson Sword

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

When you click on the link below I’m sure you’ll agree why Fight for Kisses is a benchmark viral. It’s nearly as good as the Mini Copper S campaign last year. It’s much better than the Cadbury Gorilla this year, and here’s why:

It’s relevant to the product they’re selling.

Not simply entertaining and funny. (which by the way it is)

Click here to watch it.

Kudos – Wilkinson Sword.

Simple permission marketing – ‘In Action’ UPDATE

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

An MP3 will be uploaded shortly for those who missed it. 

 

Today I am being interviewed on ABC radio (Australia) to discuss www.rentoid.com

 

The interesting thing is that I didn’t pitch for the interview, they called me. This is great news because it means that we’re starting to get some real traction with rentoid. It also means that the general populous believe as much as we do in the community and environmental benefits of the service. So they’re helping us spread the word.

 

The interview is at 5.10pm – Melbourne / Sydney time Australia.

 

You can listen live on line by clicking here. You can convert to your local time by using this link.

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Happy listening.

Being real

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Here’s an excerpt from today’s business section of the Sunday Age. A respected Australian broadsheet newspaper.

 

Correction

“Oops. Last week the story headlined ‘No More Living on Borrowed Dreams’ said household credit card debt was $4 million. The correct figure is $41 billion. The mistake was made by the reporter (who also choked on his conflakes on Sunday morning).”

What I like about this paragraph is it’s real. It sounds like a person wrote it. Not a public affairs department. They admitted they made a silly error which in my view makes them more reputable and trustworthy. Rare in large media organizations.

Start up lesson: People trust people more than they trust corporations.

The symmetry of hindsight

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

We’ve all read the stories about how great start ups and emergent brands got their mojo. In hindsight it always seems so strategic, symmetrical and single minded.

 

This issue is hindsight. It will be something single minded and symmetrical that works. The problem is this: If we’re single minded from the start, and we get it wrong where does that leave us?

  

An old Chinese fishing proverb applies here: Cast the net wide.

 

Try everything.

Try everything quickly.

Find something that works.

Then stick to it in a single minded fashion.

 

Contrary to most modern marketing and entrepreneurial theories, we need to ‘get single minded, not start single minded.’

 

We never read about the 100 things any hero brand tried and failed with, only the winning strategy. So it all seems so perfect and well thought out. The truth is, most of the strategic wisdom arrives in hindsight. The more things we try, that greater probability we have of stumbling upon the right strategy – the one that works. But we should never fall in love with the plan before we commence.

 

It will all seem very strategic, symmetrical and single minded in hindsight.

Permission marketing in action

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I recently spoke about newspapers being a good forum for simple permission marketing.

We’ve just done exactly this for our start up rentoid. We approached the local western district newspaper called “the Leader” and discussed the community and environmental benefits of the rentoid service.

It worked and the article can be seen here.

The other reasons we started with a small newspaper is it’s in line with our clustering strategy and it gives us experience before we approach larger circulation media.