Category Archives: marketing and promotion

old dog, new – sorta – tricks

goodwill stores get needed makeover to draw better crowdFile under things I thought I’d never see happen: several Goodwill stores have cleaned up their act to attract a more affluent demo. It’s true. According to DDI (Display and Design Ideas) magazine, the poster child for thrift store retail has decided the time is right to recalibrate and relaunch in an attempt to draw a coveted upscale shopper.

The first do-over, in Chelsea, NY, has already reported a noticeable increase in foot traffic and that can only be good for the brand, regardless. Other stores around the country are also ditching their bargain basement roots as they aggresively target a more affluent customer.

Marketing includes local t.v., direct mail and print, online ads, social media and events.

vespa event markets

AdAge gives a sorta shoutout to Piaggio's pr strategyIn this Ad Age 3 Minute Video Piaggio US is highlited for their recent NYC pr effort to shore up brand and message by pitching fuel economy and immediately took a whack to the head by owners/viewers who can’t find the connection.

The entire industry having enjoyed immensely last year’s four-buck-a-gallon price spike for gas that serendipitously coincided with the worst recession since the depression perhaps missed the point hidden within record sales. Looks to some like mistaking lifestyle love for economy class lust is a monster golden opportunity missed to connect at the emotional level instead of grabbing for the wallet.

An interesting piece by Lee Klancher in MPN’s August issue casts fresh light on the relevance- and role – of mpg claims as a marketing ploy. Taken together, these two articles (and the surrounding comments) lead to only one conclusion: playing the price of gas card for creative inspiration is picking the lowest of the low hanging fruit.

what this industry needs…

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…is a good strong dose of sense of place. Too bad we don’t see more entertaining content on this side of the pond – blame it on to sober, to somber, to self-important pseudo-creatives all overreaching to showcase the next cirque du soleil meets terminator product positioning footage. You know – pull back from scruffy boy beard, quick cut to black boot over saddle, c/u thumb on starter, cut to pipes, insert chest full of fake boobs, off into the sunset on a two-lane strip of gleaming asphalt. Enough!

pr, pr, pr – now more than ever

pr-prosAs a member of PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) I was able to take in two chapter meetings in the past two weeks; the first in Tampa, hosted by the Florida Public Relations Association, and the second in Baton Rouge, hosted by Public Relations Association of Louisiana. The luncheon gatherings featured web-based communication solutions as their main focus. Continue reading →

social media strategy…juggling twitter

comm trends - tweeting for effectManaging your online marketing assets didn’t get any easier when Twitter stampeded onto the scene a couple of months ago. The newest, and in some ways the most intriguing, social media limits messages (tweets) to 140 characters. So, like, where’s the value? Lets see if we can break it down.

Online communication – and really, that’s how the bulk of business is conducted these days – revolves around e-mail, web pages, blogs, RSS and social media sites like Facebook. Twitter, for not so obvious reasons, may be the missing link in connectivity. Continue reading →

sema adds channel…pwspts is in

web-powersportJust in time for 2009. SEMA – the Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association – has added a powersports and utility vehicles channel to its massive automotive collection of OE and aftermarket exhibitors.

Peter MacGillivray, SEMA vice president of communications and events, said that “The Powersports and Utility Vehicle marketplace is of growing importance to our core buyers. Manufacturers in this area will discover a slew of potential buyers. Continue reading →

sponsor scores marketing slamdunk

sponsor marketing doesn't get any betterDespite a noticeable downturn in entries (28 qualifiers), Saturday’s American Le Mans Series 12 Hours of Sebring broadcast on Speed was one of the best live motorsports productions I’ve seen.

Lack of traffic probably had something to do with the record-setting pace, which isn’t to discount the all out tech battle between the diesel-powered P1s of Peugeot (V-12 coupe) and Audi (V-10 roadster) and Honda’s amazing CAD-to-track Acura. Continue reading →

it’s in the bag – right?

from crumpler (uk) this stylish accessory stands outWe don’t think of ourselves as being in the bag biz, and Lord knows in this industry there’s no shortage of backpacks with which to haul your remote office to the middle of the desert and back.

On the other hand, sometimes you’ll find yourself in a public venue that doesn’t particularly value the Explorer scout image of a pedestrian hiking a trade show’s endless aisles in search of stuff to haul home and one more badge in the process to appreciate the role style plays as we all engage in individual brand management. Put another way, dork equals dork in every language.

Crumpler’s a British outfit with a really nifty line of accessory sacks and packs of all colors and sizes. Stylishly ergonomic, the multiple lines are just the thing for breaking from the pack and finding a better solution at the same time. And we can say without fear of contradiction, they’ve got one of the more intriguing Flash driven sites – heavy on the overkill maybe, but a definite step up and great to explore if you’ve got a day or two to kill.

chrome bags has a distinctive line of purpose-built backpacksCloser to home, and a bit more edgy, is the spec-design line of hard core messenger bags from San Fran’s Chrome Bags shop out West. Form follows function as you’ll discover – built for urban messengers and quickly finding a new following amidst folk who don’t dodge inner city taxis for a living, Chrome delivers edge and purpose at the same time.

Their smart site is a primo example of dual content commercial/social integration, great for trekking around in to see what else is going on in the universe.

1984 – a superbowl like no other

the ad that started it allTwenty-five years ago an upstart “personal computer” company in Cupertino, CA, ran an ad that bet the entire year’s ad budget on one buy and one production. After the spot was bought and the ad produced, the board of directors unanimous opposition nearly resulted in its cancellation.

The result is consumer marketing history. If you had to pick one broadcast effort that caught lightning in a bottle, it would be “1984”.

Long enshrined in the advertising hall of fame, the creative product of agency chiat/day and director Ridley Scott’s darkly fertile imagination – obvious in hindsight when watching 1982’s cult classic “Bladerunner” – is still being viewed today, as fresh as the day it first aired.

Officially this was a one-shot air date. In reality, the cost per view is now measured in nano-dollars, thanks to the internet, and the iconic content is the holy grail of marketeers in search of breakthrough, viral and recall.

It would be five years before I had a Mac in front of me, a beige 512k brick at a Houston agency.

That year, Tampa’s first Superbowl was played just across the bridge and featured my favorite team back when I was still concerned with outcome – the gritty bad boy “Just Win, Baby” Raiders of Stabler and Sistrunk and Casper fame – clocked the ‘Skins on the arm of Jim Plunkett and the running of Marcus Allen. On Sunday it’ll all play out again, but safe to say there will never be another “1984”.

physician, heal thyself

Ad Age reports today that automotive site edmunds.com has embarked on a self-styled industry PSA to kick start the moribund car market.

The quasi-campaign, which dots the car buying site’s hundreds of thousands of pages with banners pushing consumers to buy now, right now, is internally valued at $10-mil plus.

Why? According to Edmunds own ceo, it’s time to “give back,” with car sales the worst since 1992 and predicted to slump even lower.

Could the same concept work for the powersports channel? Could powersports media run their own version of in-house creative designed to motivate consumers? Worth a try is all we’re saying.