Bret Bernhoft » Marketing

Mr. Sticky In-Store Demo Booth

Bret Bernhoft — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 06:42:10 +0000

This afternoon, say around 6PM, I was walking with my girlfriend through Fred Meyers off West Burnside in Portland Oregon and I saw something that peaked my curiosity. I was witness to a “Mr. Sticky In-store Demo” that came complete with the kind of rotating lights you would see at a night club.

Seeing this struck me as interesting enough to actually sit down and mention why I would assume that this demo is the product of several realities.

The marketing behind “Mr. Sticky” allows for demonstrators to be “innovative and creative” when trying to attract a passing audience . Essentially, USJesco International, LTD., Inc, the distributor for the “Mr. Sticky” product, hires commissioned promoters to sell their “Business Partner’s” products. To accomplish this, there has to be a need for creativity by each unique presenter, hence the club lights. Thus, the experience for each audience is different, potentially.
The commissioned demonstrators are talented stage performers. The performance stage and a marketers platform are the same thing. To be effective as a communicator you must understand the power of the body and the voice. These two means of delivering a message encompass every message a communicator can deliver, thus for USJesco to use unemployed acting talent is brilliant.
Presentations are only effective for a minority of potential customers. Using rotating club lights show a degree of desperation for attention and a lack of confidence in the product. Mr. Sticky should be able to be placed on a blank table and sold at a fair price. Mr. Sticky should not have more bark than bite.
Trade Show Booths can leave the Floor. The appeal of a Trade Show Booth is the ability to display and demonstrate sample products to an audience with a short window of attention. Being able to integrate that approach to promotion is wisely applied to retail situation. I can imagine that this could be duplicated by many product vendors.

Whether the consumer likes it or not, there is a degree of theater here. I laughed out loud when I saw the Mr. Sticky booth as it reminded me that the humor in advertising relies on being unexpected.

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NYC and Company

Bret Bernhoft — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:11:53 +0000

As part of our series on New York Marketing and Media, it is important to realize that not all advertising is done by private industries. Some of the more innovative ideas and implementations are coming from governments; New York City specifically. In New York City government there is, not unlike any large brand, a group of marketers who are charged with building and spreading the larger brand of NYC. This band of rebels is known as “NYC and Company“.

In 2006, Mayor Michael Bloomberg consolidated the Tourism, Marketing and Partnership offices into one; NYC and Company. The purpose of this new branch of city government was to create a focused effort for expanding the collective brand of New York City as a “Global Inspiration” for innovation and tourism. Soon after its creation NYC and Company had successfully accomplished the goal of producing $40 Million in annual revenue.

With the mission being to attract and retain economic gain for the city, it was up to NYC and Company to create a marketing strategy unique to New York City. In the vein of partnerships, NYC and Company tapped BBH to help connect the city with the community through a very unique tourism campaign. It was through this partnership and campaign that the use of a “Reverse Album Launch” was conducted.

Ashley Jacobs of NYC and Company

According to Ashley Jacobs, Senior VP of Marketing for NYC and Company, the use of Pop-Culture is essential to the delivery of the message that New York is a “Global Inspiration Brand”. By using mediums outside of “Traditional Advertising” it is assumed that New York City will benefit. One of the later examples used by Ashley to justify this communications approach were celebrity endorsements.

It is actually quite ironic that Ashley would use celebrity endorsements as an example of nontraditional advertising, with George Foreman and all. However conventional of a core idea celebrity endorsements are, NYC and Company has managed to create a series of more flexible use cases for these endorsements.

NYC and Company is an innovative extension of both the concept of “Brand Management” and New York City government. It will be fun to watch and see where this leads for New York.

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KBOO Sponsorship Expands; Communities

Bret Bernhoft — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 08:26:19 +0000

KBOO, 90.7 FM in Portland Oregon, is where I first got my start in audio and specifically in radio. You have to remember that this was back when I was thirteen years old, very curious about the world. I had no idea what producing audio content was even about.

After having met with Anni, the Volunteer Director, for a couple of hours one day and being given a whirl wind tour of the place, I was at the mic and behind the control panel; this truly was Community Radio. I was blessed at that age to be learning of my interest in media and communications. I will always be thankful for KBOO.

Since then I have been actively following the content and outreach that they have continued to do. I have begun to notice that KBOO is really ramping up their sponsorship of local events. For instance, I interviewed Rahmiel from EcoPalooza on PDX Gen-Y during which he mentioned that his media sponsor was KBOO. That was just the beginning of what seems to be a regular occurrence in my life; attending event around the community that are sponsored by KBOO. For me, this is evidence of something different at KBOO.

I am going to assume that there is a new staff member or volunteer behind these sponsorships.

After looking through the KBOO Staff List I noticed that the Development Director (the position typically associated with Sponsorships at a radio station) was currently being filled by a “Interim” Staff Member; Sun Lee. I am intrigued by this finding, as it means two things.

There is, in fact, a new Development Director.
Being that Sun Lee is only temporary, will they be replaced with someone with a lesser interest in community outreach?

This story has turned into quite a bit of a Matlock tale.Regardless of what happens to the continuation of KBOO’s sponsorship of events here in Portland, I am proud to have come from here.

SocialMention’s Alert Tool

Bret Bernhoft — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:33:46 +0000

Google Alerts was the staple of the Marketing world for a couple of years when it came to finding out what was being said on the internet about certain keywords. However, I am moving slowly away from Google Alerts and becoming more reliant on the SocialMention’s Alert Tool. It wasn’t until this morning that I was convinced that there was a real product difference.

Here are the links that Google Alerts didn’t even send that SocialMention did in my daily report for the vanity search of, “Bret Bernhoft”.

Google Alerts, despite being better organized in the way information is presented in an Alert, only returns you with, at most, 15 results. On the other hand, SocialMention returns EVERYTHING it finds for a specific time period on a specific keyword. Ultimately, SocialMention scans numerous “Social Media” sources for real-time references of your search criteria. This leads to the effectiveness of the tool.

More and more often, news ,media and other files on the internet are being shared through Social Media, thus giving a greater number of people access to this information. Most of these Social Media Platforms, such as Twitter, are public in whole or in part and therefore can be easily searched. I am unaware of whether or not SocialMention is indexing the different relationships between content that is found, but the ability to receive a comprehensive report on activity from across the social web is awesome.

If you are curious about SocialMention here are a number of resources for you to take a look at to help you decide one way or another.

External Resources

Scion and Baby Boomers

Bret Bernhoft — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 19:31:28 +0000

I was curious, “What constitutes a good automobile to a Baby Boomer?”, so I asked my father what he thought. The answer was simple for him, “Is it a good product? Cost, reliability, dependability. Is it a good product?” When he listened back to the recording of his voice, he simply replied, “Genius.” From this interaction I was inspired to look a little further into the relationship between the Scion brand and Baby Boomers.

Perhaps there is something to be learned here that would benefit our discussion on Scion and Generation Y.

If the goal of any brand is to provide or generate a connection between the consumer and the product being sold, than there is plenty to be desired within the 50+ demographic. The sentiment across the internet seems to be the same, even the basic purpose or intention of the Scion brand is lost on those outside of it’s indented audience. This implies that Scion has created, either intentionally or unwillingly, a brand that has isolated the more affluent auto buyers, but have they gained another to replace it? Lets see if we can’t figure this out.

If you visit the Scion website you are greeted with a pretty novel interface, giving a specific brand experience. But, as most parents do, they are taking credit for their offspring’s successes. The Scion website’s footer reads, “Scion is a registered trademark of Toyota Motor Company.” This leads us to the thought that the Scion is the “reproduction” of Toyota in a new manifestation that assumes its young. If so, than how do the operators of the older Toyota vehicles feel? Here is a quote that I think best exemplifies the idea I am trying to get across.

bumpy ii

You mean instead of the iQ? Over here, everything smaller than a Corolla (or Camry) gets lumped into a single “death trap tiny car” category, and there isn’t enough distance between the iQ and the Yaris to support a third entry from the Yote. Scion’s original mission was to amortize some wacky JDM stuff that was too outrageous for Toyota’s increasingly stodgy, baby boomer clientele. The they blew a wad to make a rebodied Avensis coupe, then replaced the kwaii kids with a pair of superdeformed chunkmobile imitations. Send us a Sienta or some rebadged Daihatsus, or don’t bother.

Here is another piece of media that really speaks to this.

Brand Mascots Suck

Bret Bernhoft — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 20:41:51 +0000

Every Thursday and Friday I have the privledge of enjoying my lunch on the steps of Pioneer Square in downtown Portland Oregon. And with regular frequency, especially during the summer, there seems to always be something to watch . Whether this be street performers or petitioners, the life of Portland Streets is experienced as a unique kind of poetry. Today, however, there was something that I hadn’t ever seen before; Sand in the City. Yet, despite the amazing sand sculptures something more, well, intriguing caught my attention.

Subman!

At first I was shocked to see a walking sandwich, something I thought was left To Jared, but I stand corrected. As I continued to gaze on in amusement I began to observe more of the context surrounding why this personified deli Happy Meal was even present at this event. This walking delicatessen was trying to take advantage of the spirit of civics surrounding Sand in the City. This brings me to the question at hand, “What is the real value of a brand mascot?” But before we dive too deep into this discussion, lets establish a core metric that will help us clarify any ambiguities, what is a brand mascot?

For the purposes of this post a brand mascot will be anyone wearing a branded costume excluding Sports Teams. These costumes can be any intentional representation of a brand from a logo to an archetype. Most importantly, a brand mascot is a person in a suit. Now, let us dig a little deeper into why I personally think “Brand Mascots Suck”.

It could be easily said that, “Mascots provide an opportunity for our actual and potential customers to interact with our brand personified.” On the flip side it could also be mentioned that, “Brand Mascots appeal to children. Enough said.” It doesn’t really matter which strategy or approach you take to brand mascots, they are essentially clowns in Superman capes. This being said, the greatest difference between the Superheros and brand mascots is message and time period.

Brand mascots are attempting to provide two core messages to the public (primarily children). These would be as follows:

Our brand is real, really.
Come play with us!

During the “Fast Food Renaissance” of the 50′s, the brand mascot was truly invented, at least in the context that we know it today. Here is an example of that.

But there has developed a disconnect between the origin of brand mascots and the present purpose they serve. There is an important point to be made here, “It isn’t the fault of the costumed sandwiches but their puppet masters for this falling from glory.” Subman isn’t to blame for being a poor brand representation, it is the marketers that designed and dispatched him. This is the point. Brand mascots fail to deliver any meaningful message to the public because marketers, in general, have failed to educate themselves on the changes occurring in the outside world.

Here are a couple of lessons that I have learned about brand mascots, having been reinforced in the past month (thank you Old Spice Guy).

Brands don’t need clowns, they need Circus Masters. Instead of relying on a one act performer to sway an audience, put your faith in a conductor of sorts. Brands, if they are to continue using live spectacles, need to be able to summon and fluidly integrate the environment into their efforts. This can take the form of a staged event or the crowd itself.
Children are off limits, period. From the time I was a child to this very day, I have always loathed advertising geared towards any age demo under 14 years old, especially with parental consent. Brands must begin to give children the freedom from coercive messaging. Focus on decision makers directly and stay out of school.

There is little that can be done to salvage the typical brand mascot, that ship has sailed. Let us understand very clearly, marketers need to be more creative than dancing sandwiches.

Bitch Magazine: Mad World

Bret Bernhoft — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 21:50:18 +0000

I had never really ever given Bitch Magazine (Media) a fair chance. I had always supposed it to be radical feminism and really unintended for my eyes, but I was ignorant in thinking that. Recently, Bitch Magazine published an article about a subject that I find very important; truthfulness in advertising. It was through the article titled, “Mad World: Lets Fix Dinner”, that I found an interest in reading more of their articles.

This article was written by Kelsey Wallace who has been writing as the web editor for BitchMagazine.com. Shortly after having read the article I contacted Kelsey to see if she would like to be a guest on my radio and podcast programs. I am very impressed by this author, someone who is presumably as young as I am. It would be interesting to meet her and allow all of us the opportunity to see what source of talent she draws from.

Here are a few of quotes from her article that I think best demonstrate why this is an article worth reading.

“Shit gets real in these commercials, folks!”
“Considering the media-saturated environment we exist in currently, I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing more and more multi-platform educational advertising campaigns that go beyond the “buy this product and have a fantasy life!” message and actually attempt to keep it real.
“True, at heart this is still a commercial that is trying to get us to buy processed cheese in a pan. Still, the Stouffer’s Let’s Fix Dinner campaign is one of the only I’ve seen in recent memory that actually depicts its target demographic in its ads.”

These are a few of the quotes that struck me as being very apt and realistic. Here is the YouTube video of the commercials that were being referenced by Kelsey. Oh yeah, pay attention to the coming weeks and I will hope to have the audio and video from an interview with Kelsey or at least someone from Bitch Magazine.

Sparkbright Magazine

WebVisions 2010

Bret Bernhoft — Fri, 21 May 2010 00:09:59 +0000

Today was a very interesting day for me. I was able to sit down behind the Webtrends booth and meet some very awesome people. But the real opportunity of the day was definitely the chance to learn more about the wild industry I work in. There are so many things to understand in this world, so much beyond me at this point.

I firmly believe in the power of curiosity and the awesome ability to seek out the unknown, sort of like a scientist. Similar to science, the art of marketing is an opportunity to create magic. The point being, that there is incredible mastery all around us, you just need the eyes to see it.

To be honest with everyone, I am constantly being humbled by the immensity of the world of marketing. It is truly something that is to be respected. This conference has helped solidify that for me.

SearchFest 2010 – Pre Game

Coilhouse

Bret Bernhoft — Fri, 14 May 2010 23:41:14 +0000

I have really begun to sink my teeth into culture that is from outside the walls of Portland Oregon. It turns out that I am really enjoying it! But what is really exciting is the incredible intensity of the variety of art and culture out there.

As a continuing part of my education and culturing, I feel as if there is an importance to point out the first destination I ended up at, Coilhouse.

Coilhouse is an amazing assortment of primary authors and contributors whose goal is to be a “love letter to alternative culture, written in an era when alternative culture no longer exists.” Coilhouse, in their own mission statement state,

And because it no longer exists, we take from yesterday and tomorrow, from the mainstream and from the underground, to construct our own version. We cover art, fashion, technology, music and film to create an alternative culture that we would like to live in, as opposed to the one that’s being sold or handed down to us.

But anyone can promise the world, I needed to see if Coilhouse lived up to its hype. Here is what I found.

A tribute to the late Frank Frazetta.

Sad news today as word filters down that artist and illustrator Frank Frazetta passed away at the age of 82, from a stroke. In the years leading up to his death, Frazetta had already suffered one stroke and the death of his wife, Ellie. What will happen to his extensive, and valuable, collection of work — housed at the Frazetta Museum in East Stroudsburg, PA — remains to be seen. A feud between his children had erupted over it in December of last year but has since ended.

Frazetta’s career spanned roughly four decades. He began in comics in the late 40s, doing work for EC and National before landing a job as an assistant to Al Capp in 1952. He worked for Capp for nine years, and worked on Capp’s seminal strip, Lil Abner for seven of those.

Additionally, I found new and incredibly interesting videos.

DubFX

Sentiment on Healthcare

Bret Bernhoft — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 16:25:29 +0000

It is almost time for the historic vote in the American Federal Congress as to whether or not Health Care will become available for so many millions of Americans. This is truly the moment in which American politicians define themselves, perhaps more so than at any other time in the past 20 years. The Democrats are positioned to take social programs in the United States to a whole new level. But how does the majority of “netizens” feel about the bill?

According to http://twittersentiment.appspot.com, the overwhelming majority of sentiment on Twitter lends itself to disapproval. It is important to note that the value here is in volume not in unique numbers. Just because you are the loudest, doesn’t mean that you are right (or does it?) However, with numbers comes news coverage and the opponents of healthcare are a loud bunch.

It is through the use of metrics that we are able to see the actual volume of either side’s online conversations. Even further, we are able to see the degree of sentiment to which each side’s foot solders are aligned with. Using the same tool at http://twittersentiment.appspot.com we are able to see that the degree to which the opponents are vocal they are also radical. With keywords such as “reform” being used as slogans for winning the healthcare debate, it is easy to understand why the proponents are left with a slender list of jargon to use in their fight.

But what is even more interesting is the degree to which the opponents of this healthcare legislation become audible when conversations spike, many more times than those who support it. It would appear that the majority of un-supportive comments on Twitter are from those who are the most reactionary. And from this observation we are able to lead into an understanding of this discussion about healthcare, the radicals are coming out of the woodwork. It is therefore plausible to assume that the great debate, not that of evolution and God, but that of well being is actively, overtly sensationalized here.

This is a debate that is being fought by few for the many.

Twitter and Healthcare