Marissa Mayer’s Work-at-Home Policy Treats Symptoms, Not Cause

Bonnie Morris | Blog

When I started writing for The New York Times in 1998 I learned something profound from my editor, and it wasn’t an admonishment never to use the word “very.” He told me that email was a common way to communicate with the guy … at the desk across the room. Back then, I hadn’t worked in an office for years, and this stunned me. Why email when you could get out of your chair, get your question answered and have a quick chit-chat?

Since then, I have worked in and visited tons of offices –companies with 10 employees, 50 employees and employees numbering in the thousands. What I’m always struck by is the silence. That’s because many people who work in offices today don’t get out of their chairs if they don’t have to – they email, text and IM instead. Yes, to the guy in the cubicle next door.

So when Marissa Mayer banned telecommuting, citing innovation as a reason to get people back to campus, so to speak, it got me thinking. Banning telecommuting is treating the symptom, not the cause of the so-called innovation problem.

Innovation happens when different kinds of connections are made. Innovation can be fostered through a company culture that provides opportunities to think differently, not dictated as part of conversation over vegan lunches in the corporate cafeteria. Time needs to be allowed for off-task work and creative “free play.” Time needs to be given for trips and reading and yes, problem-solving. Meeting face-to-face isn’t the only criteria. As proof, just look at the modern, mostly silent office.

So Marissa, please rethink your policy and instead consider how Yahoo can forge a new way to innovate. Chaining employees to your campus only puts a Band-Aid on a larger issue. With the Yahoo brain power, I’m counting on you to help figure this one out.

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Be My Valentine: Or Not. How Virgin Mobile Turned the Holiday on Its Head

Bonnie Morris | Blog

BE MY VALENTINE: OR NOT. HOW VIRGIN MOBILE TURNED THE HOLIDAY ON ITS HEAD. Now that Valentine’s Day has passed I can say it: Bah Humbug. (Sorry, wrong holiday, but Valentine’s Day is as much about romance as it is about heartbreak for many). So, as a marketer I was tickled to hear about Virgin Mobile’s pre-Valentine’s Day “Break-Up” campaign. That’s the spirit! It’s also smart creative marketing.

The back story: Virgin Mobile ignored hearts and roses. Instead, they declared February 13 “National Break Up Day” to give people an easy way to get out of relationships that aren’t working out – with their significant others or with a mobile carrier contract.

The campaign used humor to reinforce one of Virgin’s brand messages – it should be as easy to break up with your mobile carrier as it is to break up with someone you don’t want to be with.

To reach the romantically dis-inclined, Virgin Mobile promoted the day through Facebook and Twitter and with a clever video “30 Break Ups in 60 seconds.” They asked people to share their own break up stories on Twitter, with the hashtag #’breakfree.’

I love seeing companies do something so counter-intuitive you can’t help but notice. Why don’t more companies do it? Thinking in a topsy-turvy fashion about a holiday should be in your marketers’ bag of tricks, as long as your positioning makes sense for your brand. When I worked on eBay, we used the holidays to brand ‘regifting’ as our own. Bah Humbug, sure. Where else could you get rid of your snowflake sweaters without judgement? That program got a lot of attention, proving that when everyone else is getting in the holiday spirit, you can get attention just for doing the opposite.

So next time you’re planning a holiday campaign, consider the opportunities to do the unexpected. Healthy snacks on Halloween, ice cream in February, Christmas ornaments in May, or ski vacations on July 4th. Or heartbreak on Valentine’s Day.

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How Retargeting Ruined My Holiday

Bonnie Morris | Blog

Please don’t tell my husband, but I am disappointed with my holiday gift even though he hasn’t given it to me yet. While I was doing some web research on a computer we share, an ad for shiny lucite bracelets popped up where it should never have been. Clearly, it was retargeted, from an abandoned shopping cart and he’s chosen to give me something else.

Retargeting serves as a reprimand that I should clean my cookies daily, if not more often. Once I’ve abandoned a shopping cart, I am unlikely to go back to it. I’ve either decided that a) my 15 year old winter boots can last one more season or b) I can find that new fuzzier, cuter pair for less money somewhere else.

Shopping cart abandonment plagues marketers. In 2010, Forrester Research reported that 88% of online shoppers abandoned their carts. Things didn’t get better the next year when, presumably, retargeters made better use of the data. According to a study by SeeWhy, 89.2 percent left their carts full without making a purchase on the Wednesday before Black Friday in 2011. The implication is that they were looking for better deals.

So, what’s a marketer to do to pull customers like me back to their sites? Right now, retargeting is a data game, plain and simple. For it to really deliver on its promise, calls on creativity and rethinking the possibility of the ads.

Instead of retargeted ads, why not deliver more compelling content about the item that one is shopping for? Take my winter boot example: maybe instead of featuring a photo of the boots, the ad would instead link me to a page with tips from a stylist on how to rock them. Even better, if the page included a call to action, such as leaving a comment, liking a Facebook page, sending a tweet with a hashtag, I could receive a discount in return for my engagement.

I’m not a retargeting expert, just an online shopper plagued by boring ads that show me pictures of products I already decided I didn’t want or could buy somewhere else for less. I also acknowledge that serving up customized content based on every SKU searched would be pricey. But maybe retargeting could be rejiggered to serve up higher value brand engagement. That would bring customers back in and send them to the shopping carts and lead to that purchase.

In the meantime, I hope my husband changes his mind about those bracelets. I love them.

What’s your story? Do retargeted ads send you back to the shopping cart or do you ignore them because you’ve already made a different buying decision? What would it take to draw you back?

 

image courtesy of Nordstrom

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Bodyform Maxipad’s Brilliant Integrated Campaign

Bonnie Morris | Blog

Call me a cynic, call me a marketer.

UK maxipad brand, Bodyform, hit the social-sphere running this week with its funny and brilliant video “response” to a satirical Facebook post (um, rant) written by a guy named Richard Neill who was disappointed to find out that his girlfriend turns into the disjointed twin of Linda Blair when she has her period, contrary to depictions of menstruating women in sanitary pad advertising who wear white pants and do cartwheels.

The agency responded quickly (within a week) by posting a hilarious video on Facebook addressing Neill’s complaint. An actress playing the brand’s fake CEO fesses up to misleading everyone about the joys of menstruation and ends the video with a fart. No kidding. Funny. Funny. Funny.  Social media is on fire with praise for the video and the agency. The earned media is off the charts good.

I don’t buy it. Not the great video (it’s memorable), but the authenticity of Richard Neill’s rant. As a creative marketer and storyteller and social media community member, it appears to me that the Facebook wall post is the brilliant set up to the joke. Call me a cynic, call me a marketer, but Richard Neill’s writing is just too on brand to be believable.

Social media is supposed to be grounded in authenticity, but, in this case, I think, not so much. I am disappointed that so many of us can’t see this for what it is: a brilliant integrated marketing campaign that so cleverly breaks through the clutter from launch to finish.

There are, of course, larger implications: that brands, causes, politicos, can and will plant fake stuff in social media to promote their messages thus negating the contract of authenticity implicit in social media engagement. But that’s just advertising.

I’m not sure how I feel about being misled this time. The campaign is so clever and fun, maybe in this case I’ll give authenticity a pass. And, I’m happy to admit my error if I’m wrong about the planted post. But, Richard Neill, I can’t find you on Linkedin. Your Facebook profile is mighty sketchy and you don’t really seem to be working for anyone. So, can you please let me know if I’m right? Because I just might want to hire you for my next integrated campaign.

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Excel in the Art of Creepiness

Bonnie Morris | Blog

Monsters University, a new Pixar film premiering in June 2013, has launched a website for, well, Monsters University. The site, monstersuniversity.com/edu, deserves an A+ for fun and an A++ for creative execution. It’s a good marketing lesson about how to tell your story using a familiar format to spin out all the creative possibilities, even for those of us who don’t have monsters as clients.

Image courtesy of MonstersUniversity.com

 MonstersUniversity.com/edu uses the predictable format and standard branding strategy found on the websites of most universities. The home page features an aspirational  slideshow that promises that students will Discover, Explore and Excel. They’ll be discovering “the monster you want to be,” exploring “the illustrious history of an educational power,” and excelling “in the art of extreme creepiness.” Cute, right?

It tells its silly story simply. This digital brochure, including a school store (more on that later), has lots of pull down menus to answer any question a member of the university community may have and loads of copy to pore over. College websites are often copy-rich and photo-light. So even though it’s promoting a movie, there aren’t as many photos as you would expect. Instead,  the Monsters University brand is showcased through hyperbole found on a typical university website. All the different target audiences that universities serve are accounted for: prospective students and their parents, current students, faculty and the all-important gift-giving alumni.  There’s  advice on admissions, financial aid, dining options and how to pay for food, and information on Greek Life. Monster Greeks that is. The site even explains how to donate to the university (in person at the Alumni office just in case you were interested).

The fun is to find the ridiculous in the prosaic. For example, to gain admission to MU, monsters have to take a Monster Aptitude Test.  Here’s a sample question from the website:

100 furry sophomores meet for five minutes in the Quad. Four different fur colors are represented. 50% of the students are blue, 30% green, 15% red, and 5% orange. Between the 100 students are 644 arms. Assuming the arms are proportionately distributed, what is the probability that a randomly observed high five will be between a furry green hand and a furry red one?

A. 18%

B. 22%

C. less than 1%

D. 4.5%

E. 13.92%

Did you get it right? Just like the SAT only furrier.

What about community engagement? Conversation? Social media? I have to give the Pixar marketing team an F for now. Monsters University has a Facebook page where nothing much is happening. They last posted July 10. Wikipedia says that the movie was first slated to premiere in November of this year; according to imdb.com that date has been pushed back to June, 2013, which may explain the lack of attention to building a Facebook community right now. If the movie marketers follow through on the same creative strategy they applied to the website, wouldn’t it be a great to host Twitter chats with monster professors, arrange for monster study group pages on Facebook, or post photos on Instagram of Greek Life? What about getting a Monsters University course listed on Coursera?

For now, we have the website to dive into, where we can pay a visit to the Monsters University online store to purchase a logoed-hoodie which comes in sizes S to  XXXXXXXXL, and with options for 2, 4 or 6 sleeves and 1 or 2 collars. Well, the four-sleeve version is “coming soon,” and the monster in me wants one.

What other brands, events, projects do you think would benefit from this approach?  Share your stories here.

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Jolly Green Giant’s Veggies Pledge: Fail?

Bonnie Morris | Blog

At first, I was delighted when I read about the upcoming visit of an augmented reality Jolly Green giant to Grand Central Terminal. He’ll be there on Tuesday afternoon week to high five or fist-bump kids who take a pledge to “eat one more vegetable per day for 30 days.”

The Green Giant event will feature the host of the Biggest Loser and a child nutritionist offering tips to parents. There’s a social media campaign, too. To gain traction at the live event, I guess they’re going to hire kids as shills, or sponsor a field trip for kids to Grand Central because it’s been my observation that Grand Central Terminal during the middle of the day during a working week is not typically filled with children. Rather, it’s crowded with  grown-ups: tourists, business people, shoppers, and other folks headed to various appointments.

That location for the kick-off is confusing me a marketer. But maybe I’m just quibbling. Maybe Grand Central was the only central location available. For heavens sake, a sheep meadow sprouted in Bryant Park last week, complete with real sheep and a wool-filled fountain.  Maybe it’s a school holiday that I’ve forgotten about. Maybe it doesn’t matter because, hey, it’s a press happening as much as a consumer one. But teaching kids that eating healthy food is really important. According to the Centers for Disease Control more than one third of children and adolescents are overweight or obese.

The promotion has terrific digital legs. There’s a Facebook page for the pledge-taking kids who do not happen to be in Grand Central Terminal. The page offers downloadable charts, sign-ups for text messages from the Giant himself and other bric-a-brac that parents can use to cajole a kid to eat his spinach, string beans and corn. I’m hoping that the pledge app takes over the Green Giant home page on Tuesday, for added oomph.

I’m not quibbling with an augmented reality Jolly Green Giant “Ho-Ho-Ho’ing” either. That sounds pretty cool in a goofy, kitschy, iconic brand kind of way. And what could be wrong with pledging to eat one more vegetable a day? (Though why “one more,” when it’s likely that many kids eat no vegetables at all?)

As PR people we always want to start a campaign with a bang, to create something with which Hoda Kotbe and Kathy Lee Gifford might enjoy interacting. We want to be in the center of things. (Did I mention those sheep in Bryant Park? They’re promoting Prince Charles’ Wool).

We also want to connect with our customers. Grand Central is a classic locale for large-scale press events. It guarantees that the AR Jolly Green Giant will definitely be seen and, I guess, heard somehow. Maybe the parents who rush through Grand Central without their children will feel nostalgic and fist-bump with the big green guy in their stead. But even with the Instagram photos and Facebook posts, their children will miss the moment, I fear.

I wish the marketers could have secured, say, the Central Park Zoo. Or guerilla-style, set-up the AR Jolly Green Giant near the Museum of Natural History. Even Times Square attracts its share of children.

We need to reach these kids and parents, in the right time, in the right place to make the right impact. Not just to sell more frozen baby peas with pearl onions, as delicious as they are, because Green Giant has the opportunity to demonstrate that it can be part of a solution for a real problem in this country.

 

What do you think? Am I splitting hairs? Share your story here.

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Underground Marketing

Bonnie Morris | Blog

I am enthralled by the trend of finding abandoned, unloved and seemingly hopeless spaces and turning them into something remarkable. New York City’s High Line is one example. I’ve recently learned about two projects that are meant to move people underground. Thinking about them made me wonder what that means for PR people and marketers. Can we harness the underground trend?

The Low Line is an underground park planned for Manhattan’s Lower East Side – still in development and seeking some funding on Kickstarter.  The visionaries say that they “plan to transform an abandoned New York City trolley terminal into a vibrant community green space using new solar technology.” They explain that they’ve invented technology that will channel solar energy underground. The solar energy will be, literally, like sunshine and create photosynthesis. Trees and plants can grow in the trolley terminal. Cool, huh? The developers say that the 1+ acre space can be used for farmers’ markets, concerts, school programs and the like. As envisioned, it’s a green boon to a cement-bound community, albeit a green underground.

This month, award-winning Finnish chef, Timo Linnamaki opened what he calls a “Pop-down” restaurant. It’s a 64-seat establishment in the bowels of a limestone mine near Helsinki. An AP article says the place is booked solid until it closes September 29.  Linnamaki was quoted as saying that cooking underground helps him cut out all the distractions and focus on his art. Restaurant guests report that their four-course $160/plate meal was superb.

We marketers know that placing a brand in an unexpected place can help reframe the conversation around it. Pop-up stores, the Charmin bathrooms in Times Square, and the Occupy Wall Street protesters are all proof-points for this. But being underground is already fraught with meaning. A brand that goes underground must use the back story to tell its own.

Being underground implies something secret and hidden, a netherworld or alternate universe. Something that is underground is buried and demands discovery. Being underground also suggests the opposite: hiding from something or someone.  Underground, you don’t want to be found. Like the residents of District 13 in The Hunger Games you’re waiting for your moment to return to surface where you can achieve world dominance. The goal in both cases is to come back into the light.

Underground parks and high-end “pop-down” restaurants have a lightness built into their narratives. But an underground movement or project or place could just as easily turn dark. If we plan to go underground, we will have to tread carefully and present our story as something rich to be uncovered. Reframing a conversation with an underground element adds a frisson of mystery and excitement that could be mined (!), but tread cautiously, as the story could easily be misread.

For my brainstorming exercises this week, I’m going to think about how to take brands underground, fully exploring the good and the sinister. I’ll also consider world dominance, of course. What about you?

BTW. The Lowline developers have staged a model in the Essex Street market this week. I plan a visit.

What’s your underground story? Share it here.

Image Source: NYC Explorer

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Secret PR. How to turn your brand into the best-kept secret.

Bonnie Morris | Blog

Last week, Mark Bittman wrote about his favorite lunch place in Manhattan but he didn’t reveal its name. It’s his and he wants to keep it that way. In the September issue of bon appetit, editor in chief Adam Rapoport extols the virtues of his favorite dinner place in the West Village, name withheld to keep the place free of foodie riff-raff. Or maybe free of you and me.

The point of both stories, which were published around the same time, is that sometimes it’s good to get away from the trendy, the highfalutin, the celebrity and blogger and amuse-bouche-fueled ceremony that makes restaurants cool and expensive and instead enjoy something that’s simple, delicious and welcoming.

Bittman’s and Rapoport’s desire to eat well without ceremony and paparazzi is a useful notion for PR folks to consider, not just those in the food business. Often, we are asked to figure out how to insert our clients into a conversation where influencers are and our first instinct is to ask how we can make our brands stand out and be cool. Reese’s as the official candy of the 2011 CES show comes to mind. It was positioned as a tech brand and executed through a lot of fun tactics but at the end of the day … really? I’m sure there are numerous brands at Fashion Week right this minute that have no business spending a dime near the tents because they’re trying too hard.

To take a lesson from Bittman and Rapoport maybe it’s better to figure out how your brand can make influencers feel as if it is their “regular” spot, their best kept secret. A go-to place that offers a cornucopia of pleasures absent from the newest hot-spot but makes them feel that all is right with the world and that they are being taken care of.

What would your brand be like if it were a best-kept secret for someone who has seen it all, done it all and has an expense account for it all? Here are some characteristics that best-kept secrets share:

  • Specially located.

  • Intimately sized.

  • Unspoiled by commercialization.

  • Available in limited quantities; scarce.

  • Authentic and genuine, untouched by trends.

  • Welcoming and personal.

Imagine your brand having all of those characteristics. If it were specially located, where would it be? How few people can it accommodate at once? What if you didn’t care about making tons of money, but rather, you’re just making enough. How little of you is there to go around? What might that be? What is the very most authentic thing about you? How can you show it? How can your brand connect on a truly personal level?

You may manage a huge brand, but this exercise is worthwhile. People, even people who have access to the best of everything, love their best-kept secrets. That’s why they keep them secret.

Let me know what you uncover. I promise I won’t tell.

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