They’ve started already with this clever spoof from Guinness of the James Boag’s Tasmania magic water advertisement – as blogged about here.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX4mL1Xy8y4]
Radvertising or badvertising – What do you think?
Tag: media
Mind your language – Hyperbole
Light, Low fat, no fat, fat free, rain forest alliance, low carb, high protein, calcium enriched, fair trade, retail partnership, heart foundation approved, recycled packing, reduced packing, no msg, low salt, low sodium, 5 star energy rating, green energy, eco, carbon offset, carbon free, carbon neutral, low sugar, no sugar, no trans fat, recycled materials, as seen on TV, television first, world premier, made for TV, made fresh, frozen fresh, real, all natural, nothing artificial, easy opening, 25% off, 10% extra, free, no added colors or flavours, diet, bite size, king size, sugar free, caffeine free, may contain nuts, dolphin safe, premium, value, gluten free, Low GI, lowers cholesterol, imported, made locally, no added sugar, made locally from imported ingredients, Australian owned, vitamin enriched, concentrated, biodegradable, recommended daily intake, enjoy responsibly….
Enough.
We’ve all read this oxymoronic language. But when we are using any of these words in our marketing we should step back and ask why?
Are we trying to ‘clean up’ our stuff?
Turns out most times people use these words to sell stuff, they are trying to ‘de-bad’ (from the startup blog dictionary) something. A banana doesn’t need any descriptors – we already know it’s biodegradable, easy opening, no artificial colors and isn’t passed it’s used by date just by looking at it. The point for startups is this – if we are using language of this ilk, we must ensure it is authentic. If not, people will see right through it and will spread the ‘truth’ for us.
Digital Footprints – the power of
Recently I took a photo in New York of something I thought to be particularly interesting. I uploaded it to twitpic and posted it on my twitter page. The net result was approx 100 views of the image. Here it is below:
Fast forward 2 months and the image is ‘re-tweeted’ back to me from someone else after it has made the rounds and it now has more than 38,000 views. Holy Wow. (You can click the image to see the current view count)
How did it get 38,000+ views after only 100 people cared when I first posted it? Well the answer is simple, it’s digital, which means its footprint stays forever – the digital footprint. And when someone more influential on the web than me share’s it, it spreads in a compound fashion. Sure it got shared, call it viral, call it what you please. But the thing of true power here is the digital footprint. It wasn’t an instant in market reaction. The spreading happened 2 months after the launch. Not the day it went to air, like a TV advertisement.
The lesson for startups and marketers is simple. The real power of digital media is the footprint it leaves, the permanency, and the ability for people to catch up. This is something traditional media (newspapers, radio, billboards, Tv) just don’t have.
Radvertising – James Boag
Here’s some more radvertising from local Tasmanian beer brand James Boag. Watch it, then I’ll tell you why it is radvertising:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnc50XU8l1A]
Sure, it’s very entertaining, even funny. But as I’ve said many times before this isn’t why is ‘radvertising’, it’s because the creative idea is inextricably linked to the product…
- Brand Heritage evident in the visuals and story
- The core idea of ‘special water’ relates strongly to the brand and it’s Point of Difference
- It’s conversation worthy, which means it’ll spread digitally, like it is right here on startup blog
- And yes, it’s a joy to watch
The only negative, if there is one, is the potential for it to do a ‘category job’ for all beers Tasmanian, but that is inherent in their proposition and difficult to avoid.
The lessons for startups trying to create ‘radvertising’ is simple, make sure your ‘creative idea’ is linked the actual product.
Zero Cost Advertising & Social Media
I’ve blogged before many times about how to generate brand awareness with limited or zero budget. The list of tools available is pretty long actually. No need to list them here – you know what they are. But to use them effectively takes two important ingredients:
Ingredient No 1: Frequency
If we think are are going to start a brand blog, a youtube channel, twitter account and all our communication problems will be solved over night, then we have really not understood what has happened with social media. If I was to summarize it it succinctly. I’d say – we’ve gone from a ‘produced’ world to an ‘organic’ world. The produced world took large capital investments. The organic world is free, but not everything grows, and those that do take time. It’s a lot like nature, free but time & frequency of events is the asset.
The more often we return to our crop and nurture it, the healthier the return we’ll get. Occasionally something will just click. We only have to do something ‘once’ and it will grow astoundingly with little input other than the raw ingredients. The market will take get hold of the communication and we’ll crack it – it’ll go viral. This is the anomaly – it happens so rarely, that we know about it every time. Best advice is to assume it wont happen to us.
Ingredient No 2: Patience
We don’t have to buy the communication asset. They’re here, we have been given them, but we have to work them. We need to allow time for our compound effort to accumulate. Be patient and trust that our continual effort and focus on frequency, will work in the long run.
Patience has something on its side that the old media world didn’t – digital foot prints. Our stuff stays on line forever. So when a passionate web surfer finds one of our things they like – they can do a back catalog on our stuff. This is when things can work, even months after launch date. A TV ad on the other hand has one shot at the eyeballs. If it’s missed by the target market, it’s all too late.
No doubt, we need to build great stuff for people to care, but in the new world of zero cost communications, Startups can can get it wrong and learn as we go.
How to advertise for free
The next post on startup blog will talk more about this whole ‘free advertising’ on the internet stuff: In the interim, here’s the latest episode in rentoid.com free advertising. Which is pretty funny.
By the way, it took 15 minutes and zero dollars and was a great deal of fun after lunch. (and yes, I am on the bike)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1J9EIhCV-k]
Great work from Craig
Here’s an example of why creativity beats a big budget every time. A very well executed ‘idea’ – I wont say campaign, or viral marketing ‘yet’. Sure, it’s gone viral, but I’m not yet convinced it is marketing…..which we’ll have a little chat about after you read the attached visuals:
Clearly, this is some very clever and funny work. Engaging, entertaining and creates strong curiosity.
Yep, it’s gone viral, but is it marketing? I’d say not yet. Simply because effective marketing has to create a change in behavior, a call to some form of action, which this hasn’t done yet.
I can’t help but think that any added brand addendum in part 2 of the campaign will make it lose credibility almost instantaneously. To me it could work if it was Craig’s list – which would make sense, or maybe ‘Craig’ the local comedian doing some nice street level brand awareness bootstrapping. It will be interesting to see what this thing ends up being. It comes from this webpage: http://users.tpg.com.au/morepats/Craig/ – If any one knows be sure to share it with us.
So what’s in it for startups?
This campaign, proves that we can do really cool, engaging stuff for less than $1. in printing costs. It proves that media is ‘free’ for cool stuff. We just need to unlock our imagination.