The fascination with Facebook has always boggled my mind. Lately, I’ve become ultra sensitive to the CTA’s on ads from brands and the amount of ones that drive to their Facebook fan page vs. their OWN website. I shake my head thinking, “There’s another advertiser that spent $100,000 to give free advertising to Facebook.”
I won’t ask the question, “What happens when Facebook is no more,” because too many brands are focused on short term vs. long term goals, especially when creating advertisements.
As non-sensical as it is, I think I finally have the answer to why marketers do this. It’s simple really. Are you ready? Wait for it… It’s because so many brand marketers, the ones making the advertisements, don’t have control over their own websites! The websites are run by the “eCommerce” or IT team while most Brand Marketers sit in a completely different area, most of them not having any online experience whatsoever. While the eCommerce team drives direct revenue, the branding team drives, well, branding.
Unable to speak the language of the eCommerce team, it’s difficult to effect real change on the website, let alone have a landing page created that is a sensible transition from the CTA on the advertisement. With their hands tied, there’s nothing else to do but drive to Facebook where they can effect change.
It’s a sad day when departments within a single brand can’t even talk and support each other for a better long term goal. The age-old question becomes, how do you break down internal silos?
I wrote about the perils of QR Codes before. More frequently I see QR Codes popping up on magazine ads, direct mail pieces and store windows.
Sadly, few marketers are getting them right. Arik Hanson does a fabulous job sharing his QR experiment in Mall of America during Black Friday. No insights into what’s behind the code, codes that lead to error messages or lame content / non-optimized sites makes me want to smack my head against the wall.
The question is, will marketers shape up before they ruin QR Codes forever?
With all our advancements in technology, companies focusing on the bright and shiny objects and mantras that say, “Email is dead. Facebook > Company Websites,” marketers lack of smart, targeted advertising is upsetting.
While companies are in a Gold Rush state to innovate, we often forget the simple things. We forget the data that is right at our fingertips. We forget the 101′s of CRM.
I’ve gotten the same emails from several companies for months, but I’m finally annoyed enough to blog about it 
I’m a big fan of Godiva chocolate. I’m an even bigger fan of their loyalty program. It provides real value – a free piece of chocolate every month! But, I’ve never been a fan of their advertising. To me, their “deals” aren’t deals. But, I digress. Back to their loyalty program. They have tons of great data about me. They know what types of chocolate I buy each month and they know whether or not I’ve redeemed my free piece for the month.
I redeemed my free piece of chocolate for the month of June. Yet, weeks later I got the below email. Why?
The same goes for Southwest. It’s one of the airlines I frequent most, despite their new, horrific loyalty program. Because I flew it so much, I also signed up for their credit card. I have their credit card. I use their credit card. My credit card information is saved in their system for easier bookings. So why on earth do I get at least one email AND direct mail piece a month asking me to sign up? For me, the direct mail piece is the icing on the cake. Did you really just spend print and postage costs to make me feel like you don’t know me at all?
Marketers, before putting all your eggs into Google+ or whatever bright, shiny object has your attention, look at the channels that are your current moneymakers and do a better job of utilizing them.
The buzz and defensiveness this week about Empire Avenue reminded me about the conference experience I had in Paris and how angry it made me. Sure, the conference was good. Not great, not horrible, but a solid conference. However, the bullshit that went on behind the scenes due to social media angered me. While I’ve written about it before here and here, I had forgotten how far along it had come.
Here’s a few choice examples from the conference:
- No snarkiness or negativity in the twitter stream. It was insane. Every. single. tweet about the conference was dripping with how awesome it and its participants were. There wasn’t a single complainant about the conference running two hours behind schedule or some of the presenters. When someone didn’t submit his slides ahead of time nor had a backup, his presenting sans slides was deemed pure “genius” and he was a true “rockstar”. WHAT?! Are you kidding me?! Not a single snarky tweet about having a backup was uttered. The best was when I sneaked in a semi-snarky tweet. Not only was it ignored by the majority (most of my tweets were being retweeted), but the person I was chatting with started back pedaling and trying to play down my snarky comment. If you were simply reading the tweet stream of the conference, you’d think that not only did it smell like roses but it was also the most amazing conference any of the participants had ever attended.
- This is the one that kills me. Not a single bad word was uttered about any of the conference speakers. Sure, I get it, you’re speaking too and don’t want to criticize for fear that others will rain during your parade. But, pretending and tweeting that someone was phenomenal when they really weren’t hurts us all. In fact, because of previous tweets and social media “proof,” I was really looking forward to a specific speaker. I had always heard such good things via twitter and he’s been a keynote speaker at numerous conferences. Boy, was I disappointed. While not the worst presenter, he was certainly in the top (or bottom) ten. The thing that angered me the most was I knew he got this presenting gig just like he’ll get his next – because conference goers tweeted only positive things about his presentation. ARGH. In essence, because we’re afraid of being honest, because we’re afraid to rock the boat, because we’re afraid to be criticized and ousted from the “cool club,” social media is perpetuating mediocrity.
The question becomes, is our lack of honesty via social channels hurting our ability to innovate, to become stronger marketers? Is it hurting our ability to stand up for ourselves and our beliefs? I’m not sure about you, but I’m certainly not ready to become a lemming.
In laymen’s terms, Southwest’s motto is to be/do things differently than other airlines. In order to provide consumers with the lowest fares, they do things differently. They don’t have first class. They don’t serve meals on flights. They don’t charge for checking bags. They don’t have predetermined seating. They don’t charge change fees (my absolute favorite). The icing on the cake was their loyalty program, where you earned one point for every flight flown, with sixteen points earning you two free one-way flights (with some black out flights). The program was simple. No crazy calculations, no spending extra money to buy points, no tiered point system based on whether you booked standard or business class or what your status was within their program. Like the rest of their business model, the program was simple. Every time I booked a flight on Southwest.com I was excited. I knew without thinking I was going to get “one point” for each flight taken. In fact, I was so excited over their program that I even purchased their credit card and started booking hotels and car rentals through their site because you could get points for those items too.
Over the years, went through a hate/love relationship with Southwest, but finally fell head over heels. I even blogged about them. In March, it all changed. Much to my (and others) chagrin, Southwest rolled out a new loyalty program, Rapid Rewards, that was shockingly and sadly very similar to all other airline loyalty programs. But, with even less “perks”. Other airlines are able to offer complimentary First Class upgrades and no baggage fees, whereas Southwest cannot.
Me? I’m making a commitment to return to US Airways. On Southwest, I’m just shy of Companion Pass status. But, their previous simple, loyalty program, “standard” no bag fees and no change fees were reasons why I consistently chose them over others, including US Air where I have Chairman status aka Southwest’s version of Companion Pass status. With the “same” loyalty program as other airlines and “less” perks, there’s no longer enough reasons to not only navigate to Southwest’s site first but also book a flight without even checking competitor sites. Southwest, with your new loyalty program you’ve lost a customer and avid traveler. Today, the only reason I’m booking Southwest is if their fares are lower than the competiors by over $200.
As a business woman, I get the decision. But, in a world where frequency and keeping current customers vs. fishing for new ones is the name of the game, is the new, tiered program really that cost effective?
I haven’t written a rant in quite some time, but the current use of QR Codes infuriates me to no end. I’m sure my fellow marketers are sick of hearing my rant and frankly, I’m sick of hearing it myself since I loathe complaining without doing anything to fix the situation. But, here it goes anyway.
I love the idea of QR Codes. I love imagining the possibilities and I love thinking about where QR Codes could take us in the future. But, I also know that with the way 99.9% of marketers are using QR Codes, we are never going to get to my vision of the future.
While it takes marketers a bit of time and effort to create a QR Code, it takes the consumer even more time to interact with it. Think about it – a consumer has to:
- See and recognize a QR Code for what it is
- Take their phone out of their pocket/purse
- Unlock their phone, which these days typically also involves inputting a password
- Then, they have to flip through the screens to find the app (which they had to download beforehand)
- Open app
- Scan QR Code
- Wait for it to register
- Get content
Holy shit, that’s a lot of steps. In this day and age, even though some of those steps take mere seconds, getting to what’s behind a QR Code isn’t necessarily instant gratification. Consumers have to work to get that content. When you have to work for something, especially when it’s an advertising message, it better be a damn good one.
Unfortunately, what’s behind most QR Codes these days is not only worthless but also a frustrating waste of time. Here’s a few examples of pure horribleness that I’ve discovered:
- Print shop sends direct mail piece with QR code on it. Nothing else, including no instructions because clearly all their potential clients are QR Code savvy When scanned, the code takes you to their NON-mobile optimized homepage. This was just a #FAIL all around.
- QR Codes were abundant at CES. I was excited. If anyone was going to get it, it had to be advertisers at CES, right?! WRONG. Maybe I missed the good ones, but all the ones I scanned took me to… wait for it… their NON-mobile optimized homepage. WTF. Why do this? Because I can access a QR Code from somewhere other than a MOBILE device?
- Admittedly, the last two years I have loved the social advertising campaigns for The Grammy’s. This old school brand has jumped head first into the digital space to engage audiences. Not only have they jumped but they’ve also put some serious dollars behind that jump. This year, all their print ads were tagged with a QR Code. Unfortunately, half of them didn’t scan correctly and the other half took you to a flash-like site that couldn’t be seen or utilized via any mobile phone I was using. I hope the advertising agency that failed to properly test the QR Code before putting it on EVERYTHING got fired.
Dear Marketer, If you’re spending all this time to create a QR Code and the consumer is spending all their time to get the content, why not make it worth everyone’s while? Why not milk it for all it’s worth? Let’s have some video, let’s have a phone number that I can click to call, let’s have a MOBILE OPTIMIZED website AND a special landing page for the campaign. Let’s have something worth the effort it took me to get to there.
Marketers, my biggest fear is that if we continue to do a piss poor job of using QR Codes to communicate, consumers are going to stop engaging with them. It will be a case of the Boy Who Cried Wolf… by the time marketers figure out how to use them to their advantage, consumers won’t believe it enough to scan the darn things.
I’m a big fan of the movie No Strings Attached. To me, it’s the perfect romantic comedy. Tonight, I stumbled upon the below quote from the movie.
If you miss me, you can’t text, you can’t email, you can’t post it on my Facebook wall. If you really miss me, you come and see me.
I have a big problem when people say, “I miss you”. In fact, I’ve written about it before. Two years later, my feelings on the phrase haven’t changed. In my opinion, it’s a cop out. If you really miss someone, then do something about it. Jump on a plane and go see them. Otherwise, you don’t really miss them.
The other night, as I was talking about travel plans and the possibility of going to Hawaii, the friend I was with said, “Wait on Hawaii.” He continued to explain that I should wait to go to Hawaii with someone special. In particular, a guy.
My response? Fuck that. You can’t wait your whole life for somebody that doesn’t exist. You can’t spend your life waiting or planning it around other people. As another friend learned this year, you can only control your choices, not other people’s. And sometimes, their choices affect your destiny, whether you agree with their choices or not.
I’ve waited ten years to go skydiving, four years to go to Disneyland and two years to leave Las Vegas because of other people. In 2011, I’m refusing to wait to do things I want to do because of other people.
The saying goes, to travel fast, go alone. To travel far, go with others. This year, I’m choosing to travel fast. Sure, I’d love to travel far, but I’m done waiting on ghosts and choices that others will never make.
I deleted my twitter account a few weeks ago. Gasp, I know. I spent weeks deciding whether to really do it or not – the warning message says you can never reactivate or use your same username, unlike Facebook who lets you reactivate at anytime. It was scary, but I felt like it was a step towards not being so utterly lost.
The verdict? Yes, it was a step forwards. Not a big nor loud one, but a step nonetheless. Do I miss it? Every once in awhile.
I started collecting the few that I really wanted to tweet and couldn’t. Maybe it will become a series:
- What guy waits at the nail salon with his girl? Go play in the Apple store for goodness sake
- New airport security x-ray machines suck. Total discrimination towards short people with big boobs
- Missed chances. Sad.
- La Belle Vie. My new favorite phrase
- Oh, cute iMedia boy, I will miss you so
Aside from all my gripes with BDA’s, I finally narrowed it down to the three main reasons why I dislike ‘em so:
- Nothing’s done on a handshake. Everything is a process. It’s corporate. I hate corporate bullshit.
- There’s always an over-the-top anal-retentive AM assigned to your account. Someone, somewhere thinks this is the perfect fit for Vegas Clients. It’s not. These people never survive Vegas. Ever.
- You never talk to the people who are really working on your shit. Those people are locked in a dungeon somewhere, never allowed to interact with you. The result? Lots of things are lost in translation on both sides.
And this folks, is why I will always choose the small, creative shop and internal help over a BDA.
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