Just New Ways Of Doing It

Free food always brings attention

My marketing / PR friend Adam Klein did an old PR event with a new spin on it.  In case you are not aware, October is National Pizza Month.  Adam’s client is Uno’s Chicago Grill.  Adam and his team spent last Thursday morning delivering pizzas to radio/TV personalities, celebrities, and politicians in the Boston area.  These were not just your typical deep dish pizzas, they were pizzas with pizzanility.  Uno’s created pizzas that fit the personalities of the recipients.   Check out the link above for a picture example.  The idea of delivering food for PR is not a new idea.  But as they always say “there are no new ideas, just new ways of doing it”.

If the movie industry does it, then so should we

There is an article on today’s Ad Age website about how the movie industry is using social network sites to market.  While social sites may not have taken over word of mouth yet, they are having an impact.  The article discusses how Sony Pictures used social media as part of the marketing mix. The results of their last three releases were impressive.  They also gave an example of social networks having a negative effect on the box office.  Many industry people believe that Twitter and other sites helped with the quick drop in tickets for Bruno.  People bitching on these sites is very contagious.  Negative breeds negative.

Ticketmaster scalped?

There is an article in today’s Wall Street Journal about TM being sued.  The article says that a ticket broker has filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster claiming that brokers were paid to sell tickets at premium prices.  This was part of a secret trial project from a couple of years ago called “Project Showtime”.  While I am not always known for defending TM, I do smell a rat with the timing of this lawsuit.  The merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation is close and ticket brokers are getting very nervous.

Engage In Online Conversations

As with last year’s Event & Arena Marketing Conference, everyone at this year’s conference wanted to hear about non-traditional marketing.  Why are we still calling it non-traditional marketing?  This is 21st Century marketing.

Everyone wanted to know how to use Facebook and Twitter for their venue or show. The key to social network marketing is starting and engaging a conversation.  Web 1.0 was all about one-way communication (websites).  Web 2.0 is two-way communication.  Getting your fans/customers involved in the show or event is the best kind of marketing. If you use Facebook, you may have been invited to join something or go to something.  You can respond to the invite with yes, no, or maybe. 

Peer marketing is an important key.  Think about when you were in high school.  How many times did peer pressure come into play?  Why not engage your fans and ask them to tell their friends?  “I am so psyched to see … you need to go see them too”.

Reward is always a good incentive for spreading the word.  Give them a reason to talk about your event online.  Ticketmaster has created a new program called Ticketmaster Street Team.  You can spread the word about upcoming TM ticketed events. When someone you told buys a ticket (you have to prove this) you get paid a commission.  This is a virtual street team using the internet.  This program is perfect for Facebook and Twitter users.  It also works great for mommy bloggers. 

Many marketers are afraid to create conversational opportunities.  They don’t want people to say bad things about them.  If you are one who thinks this way, you need to get over it.  Today’s internet is going to spread the good, the bad, and the ugly anyway.  Don’t you want the opportunity to talk back or even let your fans talk back for you?  The “boo birds” will always be out there. Why let them voice their opinions alone?  I would rather they say it in my forum then someone else’s.

PR In The Web 2.0 World

The world of public relations has come a long way.  I grew up around PR.  My parents are in the business.  When I first started in the entertainment marketing business PR consisted of press releases, face-to-face story pitches, and PR events or stunts.  Today, with the technology PR can and should be one of your most valuable assets.

If you handle PR for a show, event, or venue you should be busy every single day.  You have so many options at your disposal that you should never just sit at your desk and play solitaire.  Instead use that time to play in the social network world.  You should always have your social network sites up on your screen where you are always deep in the trenches of your customer base. 

I have become a recent fan of Twitter.  This social site is perfect for all PR people.  You can tweet all day in your social space about your brand.  I search Twitter everyday looking for other Twitter members to follow (you can follow me too, I go by eventpromoter).  I am always looking for people, shows, events, and venues from our world.  To my surprise, I am still not finding that many.  What is up with that?  Twitter is the perfect PR tool.  For example, I follow Starbucks.  Why, not quite sure but I thought a big brand like them might be a good social experiment.  I am not the only one following Starbucks.  They have almost 30,000 followers.  Think about this.  You can send out any number of PR messages you want for free and your potential customer will see it.  They want to see it. That is why they follow you.   I also use Twitter to get to know a brand.  For example, I am working on a wine cruise featuring wine guru Gary Vaynerchuk (by the way, he also has 30,000 Twitter followers).  What goes with wine, but cheese of course.  So, I am following Cabot Cheese.  Everyday, I get messages from them. Each one tells me something new about them that I did not know before.  That is good PR, don’t you think?  Many brands conduct contests for their followers.  What a perfect place to give away a few tickets.

I have discussed several times the use of Facebook.  They already own the high school and college crowd.  Now their fastest growing segment is the 30+ age group.  Check out these stats: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics.   As a PR person, you should always be able to find your niche group to spin your story.  If you are a sports team you have all kinds of groups for that team.  If for some reason you don’t, then start one.  The same goes for concerts, family shows, etc…

If you do your homework you will find all kinds and types of social sites.  Many cater directly to your target demographic.  If you are trying to reach moms then go to momslikeme http://www.momslikeme.com/.  You can actually pick the state and city that you are trying to connect with.  Want to reach the African American community?  Join http://www.blackplanet.com/.  They have over 15 million members!  Want to reach the business community then you need to be part of LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com. Even if you are not trying to promote to the business world you need to join LinkedIn just to network for yourself.

Look at the world of blogs.  More people are reading them everyday.  You are reading one now.  There are blogs for almost everything.  Anyone can start a blog.  If you handle PR for a venue, show, sports team, etc.. you should have a blog.  What a perfect place to put all your press releases.  You will be very surprised who and how many people will read it. 

Next time your boss sees you just staring at your computer, tell him you are just playing the game of PR.

Try It You Might Like It

If you are not marketing your brand on the social websites, why not try a few?  As we have discussed for a few months, everyone’s budgets are getting smaller and we still have to market.  So why not do a social experiment?  It doesn’t really cost anything to try it.

The social networks are a perfect place to do a promotion.  They work best when you offer plenty of interaction and you give them something.  Let’s throw some ideas around.

Facebook is now the most popular of the social sites.  It appeals to a wide demographic age group.  From high school kids like my son to old dudes like me.  At the high school level, they do use it to socialize but they also love to see how many “friends” they can have.  I compare it to collecting Pokemon cards.  But having a lot of friends is what it’s all about.  The more friends, the more eyeballs seeing your message or talking about you.  Facebook is a perfect place to promote and offer something.  They have options that include; start a group, start a fan club, or invite friends to your event.   The new Will Smith movie 7 Pounds is promoting on Facebook.  Instead of just placing a boring banner ad they are inviting Facebook friends to go see the movie.  You can RSVP with yes, no, or maybe like an evite.  As of this writing, almost 20,000 people have said they plan to attend.  Why not try it with your brand. As we discussed yesterday, traditional banner ads on Facebook are not working. 

Twitter is a great site to speak directly to your fans and customers.  This is all about having a conversation.  Have a cool new event and want to spread the word.  Let your Twitter followers know about it.  Ask them to tell you what they like.  What kind of events do they want?  This can be your direct pulse.  Be prepared to also take criticism.  While you may think this is not good marketing, this is part of the social network scene.  Your response or lack of response to any criticism can be the make or break. 

If you are a family show, there are social sites for you.  Disney On Ice is promoting its show with MomsLikeMe www.momslikeme.com.  As the name states, it appeals to moms.  Check out the website.  You can log into the nationwide site or go to your own local city site.  On the local Boston site they have an online ticket contest for the upcoming DOI show.  I found out about this because the Disney On Ice TV spots are promoting the social site.  This is a win-win for both.

Pick any event you are trying to promote and offer something that members of the social website can receive.  For example, if you are an arena, why not try making a social network offer? Why not a free popcorn?  Give them a code word they need to say to get the popcorn.  See how many people take advantage of the offer.  Who cares if non-social customers get the code word.  That is the beauty of it.  If done correctly you will create buzz and word of mouth.  That is social networking.

More and more social sites are entering the space everyday.  No matter what you are trying to market, there is an online social group for you.

If you need any help with this or other creative ideas, contact me at: http://www.joelewi.com/contact_joe_lewi.html.

Have You Bought Your Traditional Media Buy Yet?

It is all over my media sources today about TV and radio stations cutting back and laying employees off.  All of this is a direct result of advertisers slashing media budgets for 2009.  Local TV station ad revenues are down 7% for 2008.  What do you think the 2009 number will look like?

Last week I wrote on this (Let’s Get Our Media Deals Back 12/8/08).  Traditional media is going to feel the advertising pinch more then any other advertising tool.  They are big, heavy media conglomerates with lots of overhead and high priced talent. 

As I mentioned last week, you need to be in these stations right now and cutting your deals.  If you already have a deal, you need to adjust it.  This is an opportunity that has not been available to us event marketers in years.  Think of it as “one person’s pain is another person’s pleasure”.  Everyone at these stations is going to be hungry. They are all scared of losing their jobs.  The sales reps are going to try and get every buy they can find.  Remember they are on commission.   Their managers need to make quotas and make sure inventory is filled.  Promotion managers need to justify their positions.  General Manager’s need to show revenue growth to corporate.  This makes for a perfect event marketers storm.  You should be able to “own” the station.  If you don’t come out of your meeting with a good promotion, trade, and great cash buy you might need to look at a different career.

Traditional Social Advertising?

There was an article in last weeks New York Times saying that banner ads on social networks don’t work.  Duh!  As we have discussed a few times, the key to social marketing is not placing an ad banner but getting personal with the members.  These social networks have the technology tools to have a marketer speak directly to a member who interested.  The best social marketing is the ones where the brand gets a member to join something.  Once they join something they get something.  The article implies that the only reason someone would join the “brand group” was to get something.  So, what’s the problem with that?  This is what promotions are for.  Why do people think that just running a boring “flat” ad is going to make someone buy or even think about the product?

Cutting Delivery Is In The Details

Monday, I helped break the story that the Detroit News / Free Press are cutting their home delivery to three days a week.  Today, it all over the newspapers about the details of this.  Home delivery is being cut to Thursday, Friday, and Sunday.  These are traditionally the three biggest advertising days for newspapers.  If I am an advertiser, I would not want to run an ad on the other days.  The newspapers are telling me that no one reads it on the other days.   One Associated Press article I read quoted a media expert that said “the biggest risk is it breaks the daily newspaper habit for readers and marketers”.  Again, another duh.  Do you think?  How do you become a “media expert”?  This is not a “risk”, it is going to happen!  As I discussed the other day, they are closing the door on their best customers.  How many businesses do you know do this?  He went on to say “Newspapers are accelerating their own print demise”.  Really???

 

Consumers Want A Really Good Deal

The results are coming out now on how retailers did through November including the big Thanksgiving weekend.  As we all know Black Friday did pretty well and was up from 2007.  However, the numbers have been dropping ever since.  The reason of course is the deals.  Consumers are buying for the holidays but they are going for the deals.  Deep discounts, promotions with teeth, this is what is working.  As marketers in the event and entertainment business we should be looking at this current trend and adjusting our marketing plans accordingly. 

While we may or may not be able to offer deep discounts we can offer promotions with teeth.  If you are going to put together a ticket package or promotion around the holiday period or to counter the recession don’t just do it to do it.  Create a promotion or package that will make an impact.  A good quality promotion should create some buzz, get to your demo, and move tickets. 

Use all the marketing tools you have to create the buzz.  Some of these don’t really cost much.  Spread the buzz on the social networks.  Go deep into these sites to find groups that are your true demo.  Try it, they are really there. Go to where the customer is.  If you are a sports team, go where the fans are.  If you are family show, where are the moms and kids hanging out?  These are your “low hanging fruit”.  Make your promotion fun.  Remember, you are selling fun. With consumers in a bad mood, they are looking for an escape.  Show them you are that escape.  If you can lower your price without losing your shirt or cheapening the product, do it.  This is no time to be greedy. 

Consumers are buying holiday gifts.  They just want a REALLY good deal.  Let’s get them thinking that event, sports, and entertainment tickets are a really GOOD deal.

Practice What I Preach

Since I have been writing for the past few weeks about using tickets as great holiday gifts, I thought I should help the sports and entertainment business by purchasing some tickets for gifts.  Today I am trying three different ways to get tickets.  I am buying tickets for one event at a box office, purchasing tickets online for an event, and I am trying to win tickets for another event via a mobile marketing promotion.  I will report back on the experience I had with all of these methods.

 

The Power Of Social Media

What happened to Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare division over the weekend is a perfect example of the power that social networks have. 

J&J’s Motrin brand was running a spot showing how mothers have back pain because they carry babies in slings.  See it for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mztymu72l7c.  Are you kidding me?  Who is their agency?  I know that advertising today is all about creating buzz (which this spot has done) but didn’t someone say “don’t f*** with mom’s and babies”?

Anyway, the point of this post is to show the power of the new online “media”.  As soon as the spot started airing, the protests started in a big way.  But unlike the old way of holding up signs and marching outside J&J’s corporate office, it was protesting on the web.  Blogs started complaining.  Social network members in Facebook and Twitter started spreading the “boycott” word.  YouTube was spreading the video (see above) to get viewers fired up.  It was a very quick “spreading the word” response.  So quick that J&J pulled the spot right away and tried to apologize using typical corporate wording.  As a marketer, imagine what you can do with this new online power if you harness it correctly. 

Social Networks Are Media

In yesterday’s online version of Ad Age there was an article about a speech that Ted McConnell (General Manager of Interactive Marketing at P&G) gave to an ad club group.  In his speech he questions the use of marketing products on the social websites.  He wanted to know who called social networks media?  He claims that media has inventory, it has blank spots.  He said these are sites for people to talk to each other.  Who am I to argue with a top marketing guy at P&G, but I disagree.   Webster’s defines “media” as “a channel or system of communication, information, or entertainment”.  Don’t social networks and other online channels do this?  This is a great opportunity for us marketer’s to not only reach are target market but “really” reach our target.  He gave an example where one of his colleagues did a FaceBook search for someone who was a mid-20′s, female, worked at P&G, lived in Cincinnati, who liked sex and Coco-Puffs.  He was able to find such a person.  Now that is pin-point marketing.  McConnell has a problem with this.  He feels it is invading.  Why is it ok to see P&G commercials in a movie theater?  I paid for the movie. I go to the movies to escape.  As the line in the movie Spiderman says; “With great power comes great responsibility”.  I know this is hard to do for some marketers but we need to try.  Being able to market to the bulls-eye of the target is what we all strive to do.