Social media has leveled the playing field and made it possible for marketers with smaller budgets to compete effectively.

There is a lot of talk these days about brands that have large budgets being threatened by competitors with much smaller budgets.  Some believe scale is losing its effectiveness because social media is having a leveling effect.  An article in Advertising Age  on November 17, 2009 by Jeff Neff outlined the discussion recently held at the Association of National Advertisers in Phoenix.  National advertisers, due to their large marketing budgets, who could overwhelm smaller competitors are now taking notice that those competitors are making headway in the battle for consumers.

Brad Casper, CEO of Henkel’s U.S. business stated, “New  media, social media, has been the great equalizer”.   He cited the successful launches by Purex Natural Elements and Dial Yogurt body wash that have gained significant share despite significantly lower budgets, by using PR, digital and social-media components.  Neff also referenced Colgate-Palmolive who has built or maintained market share in categories such as body wash, oral care and laundry against competitors who have spent much larger amounts in measured media.

What does this have to do with healthcare marketing?  There are many hospitals that compete against much larger hospitals that overwhelm them with ad spending.  What can a hospital do with a much smaller budget?  If the packaged goods industry can teach hospital marketers anything, it’s that smaller budgets can be strategically utilized to compete more effectively. Larger hospitals are often very slow to adopt digital and social media strategies.  If that is the case, as it is with many large packaged goods brands, hospitals with smaller budgets can begin to penetrate the competitor’s market share. 

They can compete by:

• Having a rich, useful and consumer-friendly website
• Advertising on popular local websites
• Concentrating on paid and organic search optimization
• Establishing appropriate Facebook pages
• Advertising on Facebook by matching services with highly targeted audiences
• Using Twitter to communicate with healthcare special interest audiences

It’s a new form of guerilla marketing.  Digital and social-media can effectively be used to make a strong impact and create a stronger voice within the market.  Measured media is not to be discounted.  Some level of traditional media must be used.  But it can be supplemented with “new media” strategies that can help level the playing field that has been heavily weighted against the smaller marketer.

EPPS media workshop on NY Media at ICG Local 600 sponsored event

Twitter, Facebook and social networks have become mainstream for entertainment writers and editors, Entertainment Publicists Professional Society (EPPS) members learned recently(11-19-09) at a media workshop sponsored by the International Cinematographers (ICG) Union Local 600 in Hollywood.

West Coast Editor Michael Fleeman, People.com said, “Whether we like it or not, reporters are being dragged into new media, some kicking and screaming about it. You have to know how to do it, and you have to file under deadline.”

New York Times Reporter Edward Wyatt, Los Angeles said reporters are being asked to post their stories Online and twitter about it. “Sometimes I record audio interviews or TV interviews and post them on the site,” he said. Wyatt cautions PR Pros to not miss the forest for the trees.  “If you have a webisode that is attracting 50,000 eyes, and you want to tell me about it great, but it the television show associated with it attracts 16 million people a week, that’s the meat of the story.”

Edward Wyatt NY Times

Wyatt covers the television business in LA. He joined the Times in New York in 1995 as a finance and investing reports and has covered education, the redesign of the World Trade Center site, the 2004 Democratic primaries, publishing business, as well as professional cycling and the Tour de France. He moved to LA in 2006 to cover Television.

New York Times Reporter Wyatt also said he’s looking for national stories, because the Times just doesn’t report on Manhattan stories. “When I came to LA I found we had not done a story on Two-and-a-Half Men, which is the biggest comedy on television and watched all over the country,” he said. “A lot of people in Manhattan don’t watch it, but people in Iowa, Kansas and elsewhere do. So if you bring stories with a national pace, we’re interested.”

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Los Angeles Reporter Andrew Hampp for Advertising Age echoed other complaints of panelists on publicists’ followup calls on a pitch.

Andrew Hampp, Ad Age Michael Fleeman People Mag.

“Please don’t pitch me after you received a big NO from another editor above me,” he said. “We are still a work in progress, and started our website three years ago. We have separate website andmagazine editors and then we share editing staff. It’s about 99 percent original content on the website. There’s not much overlap between the magazine and website. The site is shorter, faster and more newsie, breasier and a younger user,” he said. Hampp said the print version deadline for  Ad Age magazine is Thursday or early Friday, and the AdAge.com has a daily and weekly newsletter so there is much to choose from through the week. He says deadlines are many at AdAge.com

Hampp’s pet peeves of PR Pros is that second followup phone call he receives after the press release has been received. “

Staff Editor Natalie Abrams, TVGuide.com said, “I think my biggest pet peeve is just the coordination on events,” said TVGuide.com’s Natalie Abrams. “ I’ll get three separate emails a network publicist, a studio publicist, a show publicist or a personal publicist for the actor, and it is all on the same thing, making it hard to decide who to respond to, so coordination on that end would be good,” she said.

TVGuide.com’s Abrams also  said they don’t have full time twitter people, but each writer or editor use new media to drive more traffic to TVGuide.com’s websites.

Abrams also agreed with Wyatt about lying, “if you don’t want it out there that your client is going to be killed off of a show, or that your show has been cancelled, we can embargoed it, just be honest with us.”

Natalie Abrams TV Guide

Natalie Abrams, staff editor, TV Guide.com is the west coast Staff editor at TVGuide.com, a one-stop entertainment and video content destination serving more than 20 million unique users per month. From television spoilers to insider scoops, Abrams breaks the latest in entertainment news. Since joining in September, 2009, she landed exclusive interviews with some of the hottest celebs including the cast of Glee, Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, 24 and 90210 among others.

Los Angeles Reporter Andrew Hampp for Advertising Age echoed other complaints of panelists on publicists’ followup calls on a pitch. “Please don’t pitch me after you received a big NO from another editor above me,” he said. “We are still a work in progress, and started our website three years ago. We have separate website andmagazine editors and then we share editing staff. It’s about 99 percent original content on the website. There’s not much overlap between the magazine and website. The site is shorter, faster and more newsie, breazier and a younger user,” he said. Hampp said the print version deadline for  Ad Age magazine is Thursday or early Friday, and the AdAge.com has a daily and weekly newsletter so there is much to choose from through the week. He says deadlines are many at AdAge.com.

New York Times Wyatt told EPPS workshop that  his two pet peeves from entertainment publicist who pitch him include: “getting asked ‘who have you been talking to, which is none of your business when I am trying to just do a story”  and when publicist lies to their client, “because what will happen is one day I’ll meet your client at a cocktail party and they will say ‘why didn’t you talk to us to promote this new show of mine?’ This actually happened. I said, “Because I asked your publicist, and he said, “you couldn’t talk for X and Y reasons, and I was there on the set, and you walk right past me three or four times. Just don’t do that (lie).”

All panelist prefer email pitches, and most prefer early mornings, except for Edward Wyatt of the NY Times, because he deals with editors, who are three hours of ahead in the morning.

Wyatt@nytimes.com – 323-617-9034

Natalie. Abrams@tvguide.com – 323-856-4093

Michael_fleeman@peoplemag.com 310-268-7200

Ahampp@adage.com –  no phone number provided

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"Help me find Obi-Wan; I feel like McDonald's."

The 3-D action movie “Avatar,” due in theaters December 18, is creating a market product for companies like Coca Cola and McDonalds. These companies have managed to recreate 3D experiences in product containers like the Coke can or the McDonald’s Happy Meal “McWorld virtual world.”

Relative: a little side project to make more money, just like Hot Topic did with the Twilight gear.

For the article, visit Marketers Hop on Augmented Reality Bandwagon to Promote \’Avatar\’

Avatar Coke Zero

I grew up on mayonnaise and I love it. When I’d go to my friends’ houses as a kid, sometimes their moms would put butter or even the dreaded Mracle Whip on sandwiches. Yuuuuuuuuuck!

Miracle Whip is not a part of our family (though my son-in-law admits to having grown up on the awful stuff. We are in the midst of converting him to mayo.)

If you’re also a mayo fan, you’ll enjoy this column in Advertising Age panning Miracle Whip’s most recent ad campaign to change it’s image to cool. Not happening.

SOURCE: ADVERTISING AGE

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — How is Eddie Murphy playing a role in a new push to diversify ad agencies? Former agency account exec Lincoln Stephens is both an example and an evangelist of the “Boomerang” effect. A year ago Stephens abruptly quit his Chicago agency job, moved back to his hometown of Dallas and, on a shoestring budget, launched a program to recruit, train and motivate talented young African Americans for advertising agency jobs. Execs at The Richards Group, Imaginuity, Tracy Locke and other Dallas organizations volunteered to mentor participants in his first boot camp sessions.

Check Out the Marcus Graham Project here.

After closing it doors back in June, and after 15 years of hard work VIBE is getting ready for their relaunch this December.  It is going to be a slit cover issue. On one it will be upcoming rapper Drake and on the other Chris Brown.

Now we all now that CB will get more attention do to what has happened all this year. Still no one knows what CB will talk about.

Here’s what Advertising Age said about the new issue, and the future of the mag:

“If the choice [of Brown] succeeds in generating the buzz that’s intended, Vibe’s cover will show off the power that print can still wield. Putting a feature about the tarnished pop star online alone, by contrast, probably wouldn’t stand to get the same attention.

The new Vibe will print just four times a year; Vibe.com, the new owners insist, is the hub. “Whether it’s the magazine, or we decide to do some kind of TV programming down the line,” editor-in-chief Jermaine Hall told Advertising Age, “everything needs to come back to Vibe.com.”

VIBE to hit newsstands December 8th.

(Same day as Chris Browns CD is to be released….hmmm)

Source

Some hospitals are using new technology to communicate ER wait times.

In the October 12, 2009 issue of Advertising Age , Abbey Klaassen wrote about HCA hospitals in south Florida using technology to communicate their ER wait times.   Current wait times are electronically sent to electronic billboards with a RSS feed and the times are shown on the billboard.  They also have an iPhone app that provides the wait times and a texting service.  Consumers simple text “ER” to a number, supply their zip code to a text reply and the wait time and a phone number is texted back to their phone. 

And Progress West Hospital in O’Fallon, Missouri is using Twitter to communicate ER wait times according to Eric Becker of Suburban Journals.

We must commend these hospitals for embracing new technology and using it to communicate with consumers.  Sure, there may be some risks and some pitfalls.  Melanie Arnold, a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Public Health points out that communicating ER wait times presents all sorts of possibilities of misunderstandings among patients.  A patient may show up expecting the communicated wait time and be bumped by more serious injuries or health problems.

Ed Fishbough, a spokesperson for HCA acknowledges that communicating wait times is targeted to less serious walk-in patients,  “Obviously, people who have a serious injury or medical condition should call 911 or go to the closest emergency room.”

Despite the concern, and there are legitimate ones, you must applaud those hospitals who are using new technology and channels to communicate with the public.  Those who do will reap significant rewards.  Fishbough added, the network of 12 emergency departments in south Florida has seen “significant increases in the number of patients visiting its ERs”.

New technology and new media as part of the communication effort of hospitals is something that should not wait.

Study shows creative is more important than placement for effective online advertising.

A study conducted by Dynamic Logic has determined that creative is the most influential factor in determining effectiveness in online advertising.  Marketers spend a great amount of time determining the right placement, the optimal target and web measurements and analytics but perhaps give too little consideration to the most important factor – the creative.

Kunur Patel reports the findings of the Dynamic Logic study in the October 20, 2009 issue of Advertising Age and states that bad creative is what makes online advertising ineffective.  Over 170,000 online ads were included in the study and the company determined that creative factors such as persistent branding, strong calls to action and human faces make for better ad recall, brand awareness and purchase intent.  The recent study supported Dynamic Logic’s past research that found creative quality is 50-75% responsible for the campaign’s success or failure.  “But media people spend most of their time trying to optimize and measure campaigns”, stated Ken Mallon, Senior VP-custom solutions for Dynamic Logic.

While it seems the study’s conclusions are obvious, Amy Taylor, research manager of custom solutions for Dynamic Logic stated the firm still sees a “shockingly large percentage of creative that falls short of it\s potential”.

Based on the study, Dynamic logic, offers some recommendations for better-performing digital creative:

• Highlight the brand prominently throughout the ad.  Logos should be omnipresent.
• Make each second count.  Ad should support the message at all times.
• Reveal ads don’t work.  Get straight to the point.
• Stay simple.  No more than two messages per ad.
• Use people.  People imagery works very well.

Of course it’s important to place your ad on the right site to reach a highly targeted audience.  But it’s only effective if the creative is right too!

Hi, my name is Jamie Artkin and I want to be a (paid) Mad Man.

Through out my search for a full time (paid) position in the ad industry, I have quickly figured out there there are in fact jobs out there to be had. It may not seem like it when you don’t get a response from someone, or find out that the job has gone to someone with automotive experience, or specific category experience that a company is hiring for.

I have tried to properly articulate these feelings myself but I discovered Paul Gumbinner did the heavy lifting and has done it for me on AdAge.com with his piece entitled; “Stop Hiring Based Only on Category Experience”.

I know based on the confidence that I have in myself and in the reviews that I have gotten from some of the people who I currently report to, that companies I have applied to are making mistakes in not even bringing me in to interview for positions. Yes, I know that it is extremely competitive for positions right now and category experience is one of the easy ways to cut down the list of resumes on the pile, but at the same time, as Gumbinner talks about, companies are disqualifying highly skilled and motivated candidates because of what is on their piece of paper.

And again, I will reiterate that this may sound like a self-serving piece, but the reality is that many candidates, like me, have been experiencing the same road blocks when trying to gain employment in the industry.

So, take a few minutes, read Gumbinner’s piece and see for yourself what is happening in the ad industry, actually, in a lot of industries for that matter.

Again, don’t forget to follow me on twitter, @jamieartkin

From grimy to shiny!

In exchange for advertising and naming rights, The City of Chicago has agreed to let Apple renovate a dilapidated train station at North and Clybourn. The rehab will cost Apple approximately $4 million, according to Thomas Corfman of AdAge.com, who broke the story. The plan coincides with Apple’s new store slated to open in the area.

Folks, I love this idea. Unlike selling out a beloved institution like Soldier Field, Wrigley Field and the Sears Tower (now Willis Tower), the financially strapped city of Chicago can save or make money via its numerous, often decrepit train stations.

As I understand it, the station stays essentially the same, only now it will be cleaned and fixed as well as tricked out by some of the coolest ads on the planet.

Like a lot of cities and towns, Chicago is in financial trouble. Mayor Daley has announced he will be dipping into our cash reserves to mitigate the huge and growing deficit. We already pay higher state taxes than almost anyone else in the country. Under these trying circumstances, I say, go for it! Sell all the stations you can.

Station domination by Apple (or anyone) won’t end Chicago’s financial crisis but it’s that rare solution without a conspicuous downside –or one that I can see, anyway. And, as I stated earlier, commercializing an “L” stop won’t offend the romantic sensibilities of our citizenry. On the contrary, it might make visiting these places less gruesome and maybe even fun.

Follow me on Twitter

The Happy Soul Industry on Amazon

Você sabe quanto custa um comercial no intervalo das principais séries e programas norte-americanos? Pois o publicitário Brian Steinberg, do site Advertising Age, fez um gráfico mostrando o custo de 30 segundos no primetime da TV americana.

Entre programas roteirizados, o mais caro é ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, da ABC. 30 segundos de comercial durante o drama médico? $240,462, seguido por ‘Two And A Half Men’ ($226,635), ‘Family Guy’ ($214,759) e ‘The Simpsons’ ($201,920). Vale notar que todos os preços são mais baratos quando comparados ao ano de 2008.

Outros números e detalhes interessantes:

- O ‘Sunday Night Football’ da NBC é, de longe, o programa semanal mais caro para se anunciar: $339,700.

- ‘FlashForward’ ($175,724) é o programa mais caro da fall season.

- A Fox ganha mais com os anúncios de ‘Til Death’ ($57,413) do que com os de ‘Dollhouse’ ($56,307).

- ‘The Jay Leno Show’, da NBC, é um dos programas mais baratos para se anunciar. Varia de: $48,803 pra $57,413, dependendo do dia da semana.

- A CW, que de uns anos pra cá aposta apenas em shows roteirizados e modernos, ganha mais dinheiro com anúncio em um programa que não é nem um nem outro: ‘Americas Next Top Model’ ($93,342).

Confira aqui o valor do comercial de sua série favorita.

I must have died and gone to promotion heaven. For the second day this week a toilet paper brand is in the headlines. Yesterday I wrote about Cottonelle’s suggestion that maybe we were not wiping all that well. Today, thanks to my friend, Jessica Gottlieb, I found this Advertising Age article about Charmin’s latest PR program: enjoy the go.

This one is sheer brilliance. Sorry Cottonelle, I remain brand loyal to Charmin and their program kicks ass… wipes.

A Help Wanted ad is a casting call for 5 bloggers to become Charmin Ambassadors. The job description and qualifications call for someone to greet and entertain bathroom guests at the Charmin Restrooms in Times Square and then blog about it. The job runs from November 23rd  through December 31st with a salary of $10,000. This should get around the new FTC blogger guidelines quite nicely.

This is my favorite line:

All candidates must really, really enjoy going to the bathroom.

Honestly, if you know me you also know there is NOBODY who enjoys going to the bathroom more than I do.

I know what you are all thinking, who better than the Magnet For the Absurd (MFTA) for this job. Yeh, well, maybe 20 years ago. But I think for now I will just be content to go down to the Hilton on November 5th with my camera and Flip. Every freak in NYC will be there for sure. I should be right at home.

Good ole Mr. Whipple must be spinning in his grave!

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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Buried in the back pages of the Oct 5 Advertising Age was an editorial about Saturn and the missed opportunity at creating an auto-maker that fully outsourced production. An interesting idea, undoubtedly, but I couldn’t help but wonder what David Aaker would have to say. I’ve been reading his tome on branding, Building Strong Brands, and he gives significant lip service to the brand devoting more than one chapter to the Saturn story and uses as a recurring case study throughout the book.

The author of the editorial conjectures that, instead of dissolving Saturn, GM could have taken the brand into uncharted territory and used it as an experiment to test the idea of a car brand that outsources its own production – unique for the automotive market but commonplace in electronics, apparel, and countless other categories. He/She argues that by narrowly focusing strategy on the designing and selling of automobiles while exploiting the growing competitiveness of manufacturing (India, China, and even other American or Japanese car makers), Saturn could simultaneously shake up the industry and reap big rewards. I have to admit that I love the innovative thinking and given the travails of the American automobile sector, they certainly couldn’t be worse off for trying. Yet, in thinking deeper about the prospect, I couldn’t help but channel Mr. Aaker. In his book, Mr. Aaker argues (correctly I believe) that Saturn’s early success was the result of GM’s ability to break the mold and create from scratch a strong brand equity. Aaker’s brand equity model involves 5 key assets – if you need a refresher, you can read my review of his book here. Saturn succeeded in his opinion because they delivered on all 5. He cites several specific critical factors many of which involve the relationship with dealers and their interaction with customers. There is one however which was both extremely important to Saturn’s success and which would be most impacted by a model that involved outsourcing manufacturing as the editorial proposes:

CREATING PERCEPTIONS BY SELLING THE COMPANY NOT THE CAR

Saturn did this in a way no other car maker had and it worked really, really well. They realized that being successful meant more than just building a high-quality product since that quality is only as good as consumers perceive it to be. They had already won awards on quality and received strong marks from JD Power and other car rating publications. But it was all for naught if consumers didn’t perceive the quality themselves. And that was where they showed their mettle. Instead of touting the quality of the end product in a me-too fashion, Saturn touted the quality of the company. The brand slogan summed it the strategy:

A different kind of company.
A different kind of car.

Television ads showcased employees and the pride they took in building each car. It was about a culture, fueled by honest people in a small Tennessee town that was as American as apple pie and that most US consumers could relate to. It was genious because it gave consumers something tangible. It was a powerful RTB. When dealers and print advertisements talked about the superior quality, the safety features, the performance, consumers said, “That makes sense. The cars are made by hard working individuals just like ones I know in my town.”

And there’s where I see the problem. If Saturn was to begin outsourcing manufacturing, then suddenly they lose one of the core elements that comprised their brand equity and, by extension, their success. They stand to lose this perception of quality, real or unreal. Now you could argue that US consumers don’t place the same level of importance on American-made as they used to – especially in the car category as evidenced by the success of Japanese and European brands. But, for a company which differentiated itself in large part on brand associations that were attached to the organization and its manufacturing, it could be an uphill battle to transform their identity to one that involves manufacturing plants run by other companies (heaven forbid they are located in China or India).

Of course anything is possible with the right mix of money, smoke and mirrors (call it creative redirection) and short consumer memories. I can’t say it wouldn’t have been fun to watch.

Tom Denari wrote a piece yesterday for Advertising Age offering a small advertising agency’s perspective about the misuse of the word ‘creative’ - especially in its relationship to the way we should engage consumers.

There was one portion of the article in which he offered advice to clients of all ad agencies when they are weighing the merits of an ad agency’s work.  I would hope that all financial services marketers would pay close attention, as these are questions that should be asked about any messaging/marketing effort, whether developed internally or by an outside firm:

…clients need to start asking:

• “Is the message surprising?”
• “Does it play upon consumers’ life experience?”
• “Is it relevant?”
• “Is it consistent with the brand’s voice?”
• “Is it believable?”
• “Does it differentiate the brand?”