Endeavour Marketing & Media, LLC.

Very interesting campaign from Frito-Lay and great overview article by Tanya Irwin in MediaPost:

Lay’s is kicking off a nationwide experiential tour featuring the company’s potato farmers.

The PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay division brand is using a mobile greenhouse designed to bring a rural farm experience to city-based consumers. The six-city tour kicked off July 26 in New York City’s Times Square. Other cities on the tour are Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles and Dallas.

Visitors to the 70-foot-long, 10-foot-wide and 14-foot-high traveling greenhouse can see plants that result in the ingredients in the potato chips and meet a Lay’s potato farmer. Interactive displays also are available. Consumers will find out about the tour via public relations, Facebook, Twitter and any local media coverage. The Lay’s campaigns are supported by multiple agency partners: Juniper Park (advertising) OMD (media buying), The Marketing Arm (events) and Ketchum (public relations).

The tour is an extension of the ad campaign that launched last year featuring the farmers that grow potatoes for Lay’s, says Linda Bethea, Lay’s brand manager, potato chip portfolio.

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Endeavour Marketing & Media: A Full-Service Marketing and Advertising Agency in Murfreesboro, TN

Interesting piece in USA Today (click for full article)

With retailers forced to take a hard look at their bottom lines during the recession, catalogs are adjusting, but not disappearing, says Leslie Linevsky, founder of Catalogs.com. As postage rates climb and customers become concerned about the environmental impact, retailers are scaling back on the number of catalogs they mail out and are using them to drive traffic to their websites.

Simon Doonan, creative director of Barneys New York, says retailers are becoming more creative when it comes to catalogs.

“I think because the Internet is so exciting and so immediate, we have to up the ante with direct mail and really make direct-mail pieces memorable, make them into keepers,” he says.

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Endeavour Marketing & Media, A Full Service Advertising Agency in Murfreesboro, Tennessee

From Ad Age

YORK, Pa. (AdAge.com) — If a consumer types a brand name into the Google search box, a home-page link should — and likely will — appear as one of the top listings.

But does the same thing happen when typing in a generic keyword relevant to that business? Say, “home repair” for Home Depot or “gifts” for Harry & David? That depends on how well they’re optimized for Google. And in the case of those two examples, Home Depot and Harry & David website links don’t even make it to the first page of Google, according to a recent study by Covario that evaluated the search-engine optimization health of 100 branded websites.

There are many reasons why a brand might not appear high on Google search. It could be that too many companies are vying to optimize the same keyword, or that a competitor’s linking strategy is more robust, or that the brands simply aren’t buying keyword ads. Covario tested for what it determined were three key indicators of search health: content usage, link strategy and technical construction.

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Endeavour Marketing & Media – A Full-Service Advertising Agency in Murfreesboro, TN

Book Review from Matthew May for American Express OPEN

Feb 19, 2010 -

I have just finished reading Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation, by Sally Hogshead. Sally is an award-winning advertising executive turned brand innovation consultant. In this book, she covers a wide swath of disciplines to weave a story-driven narrative that draws on her original research, a Kelton Study conducted specifically for the book, to look deeply into what captures our attention, and how we can create fascination in our lives and livelihoods.

Her goal in conducting a study of 1,059 Americans over the age of 18 was to define the role of fascination in our lives, and measure it in tangible terms. “Without fascination,” Sally says, “we can’t sell products, persuade shareholders to invest, teach students to read, or convince our own kids to stay off drugs.”

Some of the more interesting results are these:

• When asked how far they would go for a fascinating life, 60% of people said they’d be willing to bend their morals, standards, or loyalties.
• Only 9% of employees say their bosses are “extremely fascinating,” but 96% of parents say they’re fascinated by their own children.
• A fascinating brand can charge up to four times as much as an un-fascinating one.
• On average people will pay $288 per month to be the most fascinating person in the room. Five percent will pay more than $1000 per month. (Women will spend more to be fascinating than they spend on food. In fact, women will spend more to be fascinating than they spend on food and clothes combined.)

These results raise the obvious question: what does it take to be fascinating? The answer, according to Sally, is that it takes some blend of the seven triggers, which are defined as deeply rooted primal means of arousing intense interest:

1. Lust: the anticipation of pleasure, which we crave.
2. Mystique: unanswered questions, which intrigues us and makes us want to solve the puzzle (read rest of article)
   

Great article from Mahesh Murthy for the Journal (click for original article)

By MAHESH MURTHY

From the WSJ’s India Chief Mentor blog, produced by a panel of Indian entrepreneurs and investors, at wsj.com/mentor:

One thing I learned from my days in traditional advertising is that a brand doesn’t exist on shelves—it exists in the hearts and minds of people. Your brand is the sum total of perceptions about your product in the heads of your relevant audience.

If that’s true, then online media are the most important place for your brand image to be established, defended and grown. This is where your offering comes face-to-face with your audience and where its responses can be measured, shaped and—if need be—countered in real time. This is where perceptions can be built, person by person.

This brand building is more effective that the mode we’ve employed until now: TV commercials with 30 seconds of well-produced fiction that try to sell a brand image. It is more credible and much less expensive. In fact, it can cost you nothing, if you have the knack and can do it right. Not too many TV campaigns can match that.

Zero-budget advertising is a phrase no traditional advertising firm wants to hear. The old ad business is predicated on your spending lots of money buying space and time in media vehicles such as this one. But if you look at recent times, it’s a model that is dying.

Look at some of the world’s biggest brands. Google, Amazon, Ferrari, Starbucks, Ikea, eBay, Zara, Yahoo, Apple, Harley Davidson, Reuters and Goldman Sachs are a dozen among the 100 top brands in the world per a recent study by brand management firm Interbrand, each with a “brand value” that averages $10 billion. Word of mouth played a major role in building those brands. We await the Apple iPad with no ads released yet, we talk of Google Buzz without having ever seen a Google ad, and we throng to a Zara outlet without seeing its commercials on TV.

Today, the best way to establish your brand among big-hitter rivals is to make it remark-worthy and generate conversations free of charge. See how Red Bull took on big-ad-buying Coke and Pepsi with a product that sold at a higher price for a smaller pack size and built it to a billion-dollar brand with little advertising? The new axiom, call it Mahesh’s Law, is this: your marketing IQ is inversely proportional to your marketing budget. (Read Rest of Article from WSJ)

Interesting back door for Google BUZZ. I am at a client’s office and they have Websense installed so I can’t access any of my social media outlets. But I can access BUZZ because it runs through the Gmail conduit.

Does this mean office workers with no access to video sites, social networking sites, etc. will now flock to using BUZZ to stay connected…interesting!

Endeavour Marketing and Media – A Full Service Murfreesboro, TN Advertising Agency

From MediaPost (read original article)

Undeterred by the firestorm of criticism over Google Buzz, Microsoft is ramping up its social efforts through new partnerships with Facebook and MySpace.

Google BUZZ launched last week and it’s already shaking up the Social Media landscape.  Though Google has been launching a new product seemingly every week (Chrome, Wave, Droid Operating System, etc.) this one comes with more louder Thunder and more Lightning Bolts from atop Mt. Googlempus!

What is it?

If you have a Gmail account and have checked it the past week, you probably know but if not, Google Buzz is a simple tool to post, communicate and share through the Gmail service (which is free like Facebook, Twitter, Friend Feed, etc.).  Think about a cross between the ease of use and ability to follow anyone by Twitter and the deeper sharing and multimedia capabilities of Facebook.

Are People Using This?

Yep.  The first 2 days saw 160,000 Buzz posts PER HOUR and 300,000 Mobile check-ins PER DAY.

Why Would Someone Use This?

The most obvious answer is that it automatically shows up on your Gmail account (no need to sign up for it).  Think about how Internet Explorer became so famous – when you turned on a new computer, there was the IE logo begging you to click it. Also, it’s brutally simple to use. Lastly, it’s within your realm of usage every day, meaning that if you’re a Gmail user, it’s already tied in to other tools you’re using from Google like Calendar, Wave…heck if you have a Droid Phone (runs on a Google Operating System) – it’s there too because when you activate your phone it prompts you to provide your Gmail address or sign up for one!  Buzz is EVERYWHERE if you have a Gmail account.

What about its Mobile “Local” Feature?

This is really the coolest thing about BUZZ!  If you access Buzz through any GPS-enabled phone, it identifies your location and serves up the Buzz from people in a close proximity to you even if you’re following them or not.  You know what restaurant people are eating at around your location, what movie they are seeing, etc. (as long as they are Buzzing from their phone and close enough to you).

Any Stumbling Blocks?

Privacy concerns.  When Buzz first launched it auto-followed people IT thought you should and auto-suggested people to follow based on your Gmail habits.  Google responded FAST and quickly turned the auto-follow to auto-suggest and added a disable Buzz completely feature.  They probably should have taken a look at Facebook’s numerous stumbles in this area.

Will it Threaten the Big 2?

Yes, but not likely to do too much damage because Facebook users and Twitter users are loyal to their products.  It was instantly bigger than Twitter at launch based on number of users thanks to a built in Gmail user base to tap but has not come close to the total number of posts that Twitter has.  Plus Twitter has a great open API ensuring that more applications are in the pipeline at all times.  Buzz also has an open API ensuring innovative apps in the pipeline but with the Droid phone having a built-in  “marketplace” like the iPhone, this creates a potential revenue stream for Buzz because they could possibly charge for Buzz apps.

We’re still playing with Buzz at Endeavour Labs and it’s still early to tell how people are going to adopt it and how competitors will respond but it looks like Google has a bonafide hit on its hands!  We’ll keep you updated on how this thing progresses!

Endeavour Marketing & Media

The point of social media that most businesses still find uncomfortable is the fact that they CAN’T CONTROL THE MESSAGE!

While true, you can MANAGE THE MESSAGE!

Social Media, in the form of local business review sites (Yelp, Chowhound, Yahoo Local, etc.) continues to gain momentum and simply hoping that your customers will not engage with each other concerning your business, product or service is wishful thinking.  Negative reviews attract more negative reviews. If somebody gives your business a negative review then that is not only something you need to be aware of (think secret shopper) so that you can fix it, but also, this is an opportunity to truly engage the reviewer to make it right!  Avoiding Yelp is no different than if someone came to your place of business, told you of a problem and you simply turned your back and walked away.

So…as a business how can you manage Yelp (and other review sites for that matter):

1) Claim your Business – just go to Yelp, find your business and hit the claim button.  It’s as easy as submitting your information for verification.

2) Update your Business Listing – add your hours of business, photos, a weblink, etc.  Make certain that information is up to date.

3) Manage your Business Listing – when you claim a business, you put your email address in and you are automatically alerted when someone reviews your business.  When someone writes a positive review, respond and thank them both publicly in the form of the message board on your listing and also privately by sending them a direct message.  When someone writes a negative review, get a feel for who this reviewer is.  Are they an active Yelper or is their first comment just about your business?  They could be from a competitor so do a bit of research (Google) about who you are dealing with.  If you feel the review is legit, then address the problem head-on.  Try a direct message first to test the waters and see if you can make the problem right (the last thing you want to do is get into a back and forth on the message board!).  If you feel you can rectify the problem, do so and then post publicly so viewers can see that you are actively trying to resolve.  Also, if you make the problem right and the customer is now satisfied, ask them to UPDATE their review.

Folks, it’s all about communication.  Frankly, most customers that post a negative review have a legitimate concern. If you can solve it, you may have a customer for life.  On the other hand, you’re going to have people that just want to slam you for no good reason – they are always going to be there!  If this is the case, first try to handle it between the two of you and if that doesn’t work, complain to Yelp.  They remove reviews where there is a clear case of conflict of interest, hearsay, etc. (warning may take a while though.)

It’s a brave new world out there and consumers have an ever-growing array of tools to either reward your business or punish your business.  Take your head out of the sand and start actively managing your brand/business online…or else somebody else will do it for you!

Endeavour Marketing and Media – a Full-Service Murfreesboro, TN Advertising Agency

American Greetings Launches Twitter Contest for Valentine’s Day