Category Archives: Business & Marketing

Apple ditches “Mac Guy” in new ads

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Apple’s “I’m a Mac” campaign is almost perfect: It’s funny, memorable, and efficiently lays out the advantages of Macs over PCs. Its only defect: Virtually everyone who watches it comes away liking the “PC guy” while wanting to push the “Mac guy” under a bus.

Justin Long (the “Mac guy”) is out. The campaign’s other principals, director Phil Morrison and journo-humorist John Hodgman, are both returning for another round of spots.

According to Seth Stevenson, ad critic for Slate, Long is “just the sort of unshaven, hoodie-wearing, hands-in-pockets hipster we’ve always imagined when picturing a Mac enthusiast…. It’s like Apple is parodying its own image while also cementing it.” Of the polymathic Hodgman, Stevenson writes, “Even as he plays the chump in these Apple spots, his humor and likability are evident.” — Radar Online

I didn’t find the Mac guy ‘a smug little twit.’ Hmmm. I shudder to think what that says about moi.

Scott Adams: Knowing when to quit

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“You usually have to try a bunch of things before luck has an opportunity to find you. So how do you know when to bail out of a losing idea? … I heard a useful rule about predicting success during my (failed) attempt at creating a hit Dilbert animated TV show: If everyone exposed to a product likes it, the product will not succeed. The reason that a product “everyone likes” will fail is because no one “loves” it. The only thing that predicts success is passion, even if only 10% of the consumers have it. … Great ideas catch on immediately, and passionately, at least with the early adopters.”

— Scott Adams

New Get a Mac ads (2006)

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Get a Mac adsIf you haven’t seen the new series of Get a Mac ads you probably will. The Better Results ad hits close to home for me because I used Windows apps to create videos for the three or four years. It worked, but…

Counselor and Self Pity both make their respective points very cleverly. I have never seen a campaign bring out so many different versions of an ad, so quickly, and keep the quality so high. [link above is to a compilation of all the ads]

Google going forward with radio plans

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Will Sell Advertising for FoodGoogle CEO Eric Schmidt says Google’s plans to begin placing radio ads by the end of this year remain on schedule, contradicting recent talk within the industry that the company had postponed the project.

“The tests are going extremely well,” said Schmidt, who added Google eventually plans to employ about 1,000 workers in its radio division. [E-Commerce Times via Hear 2.0]

My kind of contract

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Roger brought back a copy of the affiliation contract for The Davey Ramsey Show (financial advice?) from the recent meeting of the National Association of Broadcasters. They shove all kinds of promotional stuff under the door to your hotel room every night and this was in Roger’s pile one morning. I’m not familiar with the program but I love the contract. One page (front only). I spent my youth (okay, my middle years) trying to get people to sign affiliation contracts with our networks.

I did my best to keep them simple and understandable. But our attorneys never let me go this far. Here’s the full contract (PDF) and here are a few paragraphs:

Thank you for deciding to include The Dave Ramsey Show as part of your station lineup. Are you looking for a big, detailed contract? They are a pain and quite frankly, we don’t feel like dealing with them. Below you will find afew points that will guide our relationship. Please initial each one and return the contract via fax to 615-372-0573 (confidentiality assured).

1. You like us and we like you and therefore are agreeing to work together. You are going to start airing the program on station (station info)

3. Now that you have decided to carry The Dave Ramsey Show we will not be available for another station in your market. Don’t know why we have to state that we are not interested in cutting our legs out from under ourselves, but I guess this market exclusivity thing is a big deal.

5. Let’s try this. The Dave Ramsey Show should be carried LIVE. We think it is a mistake if it is not aired live. However, we understand that some stations are not able to make this happen. For now that is acceptable. All we want you to do is let us know that after we start winning for your station, that you will consider us for a live slot. You are not guaranteeing us this slot, you are not promising this slot, you are simply letting us know that you will consider it. Come on, is that too much to ask? We should be live anyway.

I don’t know how good this is from a legal standpoint, but it’s good marketing or PR or something. And in my experience, most contracts with radio stations weren’t worth much. My hat is off to whomever wrote this agreement.

NAB Radio Show: Podcasting session

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Scott’s notes and impressions from the podcasting session at the NAB Radio Show. I am assuming the focus was on how broadcasters can use podcasting.

  • Rather slow and uneventful (although the panel was loaded with the right kind of people)
  • Subscriptions should be for extra stuff only
  • Merchandise is huge rev source
  • Repurposing interviews and special segments GOOD. Normal programming BAD. But time shifting is GOOD. ????
  • Listeners don’t mind commercials if content is good and on-demand.
  • The guy next to me breathes very, very loudly.
  • Podcast listeners are more apt to be info junkies.
  • None on this panel seem excited or comfortable.
  • Use podcasting to distribute info/ent that you wouldn’t normally spend valuable air time for.
  • Perishable programming – content must always be fresh but must have a long shelf life too. People have to be able to come back and relive or discover (archives) and that info/content must be relevant.
  • Ads are the killer. Ads have to be current at all times. PodShow’s tech allows the show to be assembled with current ads whenever the consumer downloads.
  • Length – 22 min for audio, 5 for video.
  • Podcasts must promote interaction.
  • All of this (podcasting, mp3, internet) comes from telephones. It will all go back to telephones. No more “ipod only” products. Speculation.

Stalking the prospect. Shhhhh.

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Dear J:

Thanks for sending me the newspaper story about the big liquidation at Reagan Hyundai. It looks like a great opportunity to buy a pre-owned vehicle!

Wait a minute. I don’t think this is a real story at all! You know what this is? It’s a sales gimmick! But that can’t be right, it came with a hand written Post-It note. What the heck is going on here?

This is what direct mail marketing has come to. Can the marketing wizards at the car dealership really think I’m this stupid? Or, do they think this is insanely clever and assume I will, too. My guess is they weren’t shooting any higher than just getting some chump to open the envelope. (“He opened it! He opened it!”)

From the same bag of tricks:

At a recent sales training session for a national marketing group, one of the more popular tactics for getting appointments was a how-to on hiding your phone number from the prospect’s caller ID. That one has haunted me all week. If the prospect knows it’s me calling she won’t take my call. So I gotta sneak up on her. How about dressing up as the Culligan man and toting in a big bottle of water? Once in the office, drop the bottle and start your pitch.

Early in the game

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31.4% of Americans don’t have internet access; 88% of all users have never heard of RSS; 59% of American households have zero iPods in them; 30% of internet users in the US use a modem; Detroit (one million people) has six Starbucks.

Seth is reminding us “all the growth and opportunity and the fun is at the leading edge, at the place where change happens” and we’re living on a never-ending adoption curve. For those of us in media, who depend on advertising… I’d rather be early to the this dance than late.

Bonus Quote: Doing it for free

“…pioneers are almost never in it for the money. The smart ones figure out how to take a remarkable innovation and turn it into a living (or a bigger than big payout) but not the other way around. I think the reason is pretty obvious: when you try to make a profit from your innovation, you stop innovating too soon. You take the short payout because it’s too hard to stick around for the later one. ”

 

Seth Godin: No more job interviews

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I’ve long held that job interviews are a waste of time. They tell you nothing. And once someone is hired, you usually know within a week if you made the right decision. But then it’s too late. My man Seth Godin (I know, I know) suggests a better way:

“There are no one-on-one-sit-in-my-office-and-let’s-talk interviews. Boom, you just saved 7 hours per interview. Instead, spend those seven hours actually doing the work. Put the person on a team and have a brainstorming session, or design a widget or make some espressos together. If you want to hire a copywriter, do some copywriting. Send back some edits and see how they’re received.

If the person is really great, hire them. For a weekend. Pay them to spend another 20 hours pushing their way through something. Get them involved with the people they’ll actually be working with and find out how it goes. Not just the outcomes, but the process. Does their behavior and insight change the game for the better? If they want to be in sales, go on a sales call with them. Not a trial run, but a real one. If they want to be a rabbi, have them give a sermon or visit a hospital.”

I’ve been thinking about the various job openings we have at Learfield, wondering if this could work for us, and I can’t see why it wouldn’t. But more to the point, the traditional interview technique is worthless, so what have you got to lose?