Ithaca College, where I did not go to school, is one of a number of colleges that have begun launching social networks for alumni in an attempt to forge closer bonds between alumni, especially younger alumni, and the college.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, “many of the sites have struggled to attract alumni and keep them interactive with the devotion they show to their online profiles on other networks [like Facebook and MySpace].”
No real surprise there, as a college-based social network is by nature exclusive of anyone who didn’t attend that college…and that’s just not that fun once you graduate and broaden your horizons.
Colleges simply cannot do better than an open social network like Facebook if the utility is interaction with friends, and they are better off not trying to replicate it.
The seeming no-brainer use for social networking by colleges is professional connections. LinkedIn is already there, yes, but it exists as a network that allows you to mine connections that you already have…which, as I am finding from the number of emailers who write in to ask for suggestions on getting that first agency job, isn’t all that helpful if you are a new or newish graduate and don’t really have a network that you can mine.
A social networking site for students and alumni of a college similar to LinkedIn in terms of the content allowable for uploading – resume, recommendations, etc – with a directory of all alumni who have signed up and free messaging to and from both would be a great way to encourage interaction with alumni with the college as a hub.
Not to mention the fact that it offers an opportunity for people who are looking for jobs and looking for hires to connect based on the shared identity as an alumni.
Usage rates, especially daily log-ons and number of users, are not going to be very high, especially early on…but there are basically no ongoing costs once the infrastructure is up and running and the utility it gives, especially with Career Center involvement in posting jobs, etc, definitely makes it worthwhile.
More worthwhile, certainly, than the Alumni magazine that almost certainly rarely gets read.
At least with the network people are actively using it and, one hopes, getting significant value from it.
We’ll see if colleges begin to move in that direction.
I know that I shouldn’t do another post on Cadbury Schweppes because cheap publicity is what they after (and it doesn’t come cheaper than me), but yet again the marketing folks there have done something that I just can’t ignore. Even though I really want to.
According to a press release last week that referred to the UFO-like lights over Phoenix in late April, the lights were hostile aliens “here to eat us” and that “the best thing to do to appease these creatures” is give them 7UP. Worst case: “They’ll have something naturally delicious to wash us down with.”
First of all, this whole idea is not funny. It is the anti-funny. It kills funny with a blunt instrument and then cuts up its body and distributes it in wax paper to members of funny’s family.
Second, this marketing plan includes only a PR blast and a shipment of 7UP to “possible alien landing sites” in Phoenix and Orlando…making it completely irrelevant to, um, anyone in terms of being interesting or offering an incentive immediate purchase.
According to USA Today, Sean Gleason, head of the team that dreams up the tongue-in-cheek reactions, says it’s been a cost-effective way to get his brands noticed. “We don’t have the budgets that the big guys do. We have to make every single marketing dollar work even harder.”
I am not sure how a crazy stunt supported only by PR will maximize return on your investment, especially with your average 7UP consumer who is clearly not reading USA Today or the PR Newswire.
I do know, however, that it will get a blurb in USA Today. That is great insofar as it lets people like Sean Gleason show off to his affluent white male business friends who would never in a million years put down their Vitamin Water or Scotch for something as plebian as a 7UP but do respect the fact that yet again Mr Gleason was covered in the newspaper…it’s just not going to sell any more 7UP.
Neither is the Guns N’ Roses stunt. Or, for that matter, any other crazy stunt that results in some limited PR coverage and a blurb for Mr Gleason in USA Today.
These things don’t sell soda.
They also don’t build the brand. Nor do they get your brands noticed because your target isn’t reading USA Today or PR Newswire or the Business section of the local paper that has two sentences about advertising once a week. And ridiculous one-off stunts certainly don’t change preference or create an impulse for consumers to buy now. They have no effect on consumer behavior.
But, again, they do get Sean Gleason a mention in USA Today.
I am moving the Official Residence of Biz today and tomorrow, so posts will be sporadic at best. Please stay tuned, and please wish me luck that the rain holds off.
Adfreak has the goods on Rolling Stone’s big new idea to get readers really engrossed with the magazine – they can take a picture of an ad in the magazine, send it to a special number and get special offers and a chance to win some prize or another.
There have been a lot more worse promotions.
There have also been a lot more promotions that don’t require me to send a picture message and get text messages back, both of which (at least under my cheapie plan) cost me money.
Rolling Stone isn’t the only one running these. Men’s Health jumped into the game first, though it is too early for either magazine to report any results.
I am all for interactive print ads, be it the “unrippable” ad in Maxim for the “Condemned” DVD or the Citi Christmas ads with stickers for presents or any of the classic Crispin Mini work. The key with those ads though is that it gave me something immediately without any work (or expense) on my part.
Interactive print ads that require the amount of work (and expense) that Rolling Stone and Men’s Health are asking are just a step too far, especially if the goal is making the magazine more interactive. To do that would be to affect the content, the layout the ability for readers to determine what is covered, not a few ads. And not a few ads that offer consumers just another way for companies to spam them with offers and an unlikely chance to win.
Though, for the 1% of readers who try it, Rolling Stone may be marginally more interactive. Which is something.
A friend of mine is getting married this summer and, of course, the wedding is going to be in a place, southern California in this case, that requires a flight. Not that I particularly mind, but I kinda do. It would be much more convenient if he were to just get married in Midtown Manhattan. Even southern Connecticut would work.
At any rate, I was poking around the travel sites and clicked over to Expedia where I saw this example of terrible creative:
Having heard the rumors about how difficult Lucasfilm and Harrison Ford are to work with, I can only hope that Expedia and their agency Wunderman were forced into the ridiculous silhouette image of Indiana Jones that looks like it was done by my sister using MS Paint.
But the creative is not the only complaint about this program.
I hate, hate, websites that have interrupters like this that pop up onto my screen. I know that there is a skip button, however by the time that it popped up I had already partially filled in the destination area on the left and the has to sit, irritated, while this crap played on the screen. It is the anti-utility and no amount of sweepstakes promotion will make me feel okay about the time lost to this.
Additionally, tying in to a movie like Indiana Jones is a really bad idea for Expedia:
1. Everyone is doing it. Kellogg’s, M&Ms, Snickers and Burger King are all partners and they are sure to outspend Expedia. If anything, consumers will think that your messaging is their messaging.
2. It won’t drive short-term volume because, so far, there is no way for consumers to find out that Expedia is involved with the movie than if they go to the Expedia site. At that point, a sweeps entry is unlikely to convince consumers to buy from them if their price isn’t comparable to, say, Travelocity.
3. The “Summer of Adventure” promotion is a nice theme that fits with a travel company, but it isn’t differentiating. Any travel company could say that, just like any company can tie in with this movie, just like this is a bad idea.
4. If it’s not a price promotion, people don’t care (at least online). People go to sites like Expedia to look for price deals, not for a chance to enter a sweeps. Yes, there are some travel deals that are on sale (including places like Montreal that have absolutely nothing to do with Indiana Jones), but with all the Indiana Jones messaging, that gets lost. If the goal is short-term sales, just tell me that it’s a huge summer sale. If the goal is branding, there are better and more differentiating ways to do it than throwing money at Indiana Jones and a washed-up Harrison Ford.
The Daily (Ad) Biz: 60% of the time, it’s right all the time.
In all seriousness, I had negative concern about Leo Burnett and the mooted dress code. Even if it was true, who cares? Burnett was last relevant before my parents were born.
The real concern was the visual turd that Burnett produced. A funny spoof, perhaps, but it had the agency’s name all over it and it looks like it was done in PowerPoint by a failed-creative Brand Manager. Not the best way to showcase your agency’s creative chops.
Again, I know it was a spoof, but the copy still did insinuate that Burnett’s attitude prior to the dress code was unprofessional. Does that mean that now, without a dress code, they are still unprofessional?
I kind of hope so; it would be one point in their favor as far as me ever considering working there is concerned.
The worst part about this whole thing is how plausible it is. As George Parker put it, “I wasn’t sure if it was a spoof or not. I finally decided it wasn’t because we’ve all worked in BDA’s (Big Dumb Agencies) where that knid of shit could actually happen. Which is probably why it worked… It was certainly within the realm of the possible”
To recap, Burnett actually made something that went viral and managed to fool idiot bloggers like me.
At the same time, they did it with awful creative, puzzling copy and a sad reminder that advertising professionals thought that they were so out of touch that they actually would institute a dress code.
I am not sure that this is the unalloyed success that Burnett and Ad Age think that it was.
Of course, it is a great opportunity to make fun of bloggers and what respectable print media outlet can pass up something like that? Me, I’m just happy for the links.
This whole silly situation, with Burnett, Ad Age and yours truly all cited proudly, gets an upside-down Effie for pitifully small storm in a teacup:
A buddy of mine has happened upon the agency and me out the past few times we have done it up and, rightly since there are a lot of really good looking girls here, he is interested in one of my co-workers. I don’t know that she has noticed him yet. Maybe next time. Me, I am still having the occasional thought about The Pretty AE, especially since she has moved on to a different agency.
Makes it seem a little more above board and all that.
Because I don’t want to, as Where’s My Jetpack? is concerned might happen, turn into a stalker, I decided to keep it low-key this weekend…and to focus on my other unattainable crush:
Jenna Fischer, if you ever have the desire to go slumming with a New York-based copywriter, please email me. Beyond my obsession with you and The Pretty AE I am not a weird dude.
Really, how did an ad agency allow something like this to be produced with their name on it:
And the copy, which says that the new dress code will reflect their new professional attitude, begs the question: just what was their attitude before?
[Ed note: Yes, yes, I know that it isn't real. However, "fake" or not, Leo Burnett did still produce this visual turd and the copy still insinuates that their previous attitude was not professional. More to come on this very unimportant issue.]
According to AdPulp, Greenpeace is upset at Dove and accusing them of speeding up global warming by buying palm oil from companies that are destroying Indonesia’s rainforests, etc, etc:
Ethanol, which can be made from corn as it is in the United States (mandates to use huge amounts of corn-based ethanol are, as an aside, the leading reason that food prices and CPG cost of goods are rising so quickly here and in the rest of the world) or from palm oil as it is in Brazil and Indonesia, takes up a vast and increasing amount of acreage, driving companies like Dove to get what they can where they can.
Dove is simply an easy corporate target – everyone hates corporations, right – that has the added benefit of not making Greenpeace look closely at a policy that they endorse the supports a product that is actually massively destructive to the environment.
Grey Global Group sub-conglomerate G2 is rumored to be shuttering their Stamford, CT office in the next few months. The office, which primarily serviced promotion and shopper marketing clients, had seen a dramatic loss of business and personnel over the past year and though it is always tough when these things happen because people lose their jobs, those that are left to turn the lights off must have known that they were the proverbial dead men walking.
The move makes sense. G2, which has an abominable website for an agency that had been ranked as a Top 20 global agency in one report, is clearly positioning itself as a playing in the digital world (not the least with last year’s purchase of Refinery). Promotional and shopper marketing programs, though they may be activated at microsites, otherwise don’t really fit the digital vision of the agency.
Also, the Stamford office had basically lost all of their clients.
Sort of made it a no-brainer for the higher-ups at Grey.
