Mark Kolier’s Blog

Archive for April, 2010

Our agency being on the smaller side has the ability to be nimble while at the same time employing new marketing tools in real time for our own www.YourCover.com product as well as for our clients.
Because budgets can be tight we’ve learned a great deal on how to maximize efficiencies and take a guerilla marketing approach to particular projects. But what exactly does the term ‘guerilla’ marketing mean? It seems to mean different things to different people.

Thanks to Wikipedia the definition of guerilla marketing is: ‘an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional; potentially interactive; and consumers are targeted in unexpected places. The objective of guerrilla marketing is to create a unique, engaging and thought-provoking concept to generate buzz, and consequently turn viral. The term was coined and defined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his book Guerrilla Marketing. I don’t know why he spells it with two ‘r’s.

That sounds all fine and good, but too many people equate guerilla marketing with – you don’t have to spend any money. I don’t believe Jay Conrad Levinson had that thought in mind. Then there’s also the notion that somehow when guerilla marketing strategies and tactics are employed we agency types will be smarter and more cost-conscious. My point is that ALL marketers should always be trying to do things smarter and more cost-consciously on every project.

For example, building a Facebook ‘website’ type page within Facebook is something different that might fall into the guerilla marketing category – it’s unconventional (at least for now), has a potential reach of 500 million Facebook users and is decidedly a less expensive proposition than a conventional website. But even with that less expensive approach than that of a conventional website, it’s far from free or even a nominal expenditure. Strategy, concept, and execution on the part of the agency are what we get paid to do.

We like and ascribe to the idea of unconventional approaches but there also are times when we know a big fat branding and marketing campaign will be the best way for a client to achieve their marketing objectives. We feel that way about YourCover all the time but lack the resources to blow out a big time brand message so we continue to grow the company using a myriad of what we consider to be affordable tactics and channels. So yes we are employing guerilla marketing when we know we’d be better off if we could employ gorilla marketing!

I’d love to hear about some of the unconventional approaches you’ve encountered out there. Please share your stories and we can all learn a little more.

I was driving across the Whitestone Bridge headed to Queens, NYC last night, and as I reached for my EZ Pass, (I don’t have it mounted on the windshield so as to not attract attention to it when parking in various places) the thought crossed my mind that it would have been great to just wave my BB Storm at the reader and travel on through.

I checked and the I-Phone does not have an app for tolls (like EZ Pass or Sun Pass) either. If Apple does not have an app then there’s no way Blackberry would have one. It would be a great thing to have however, and I can come up with many uses for a smartphone application to be used a toll booth throughout the United States. A few ideas:

#1 – You would be never to have to wait in the cash lane wherever you are driving in the United States. The different systems would be easy to integrate and funnel credit back to individual states and toll systems.

#2 – There would be no need to have the ugly EZ Pass or other box adhered to the windshield (another reason I don’t mount mine).

#3 – It would be easy to see how much is in your account without logging on (who does this anyway?). And can you possibly remember the tolls you are being charged for a month plus after it occurred when you read your statement – if you read your statement in the first place? You also would have an easy way to see how much you are spending in tolls. Expense reports including tolls would be infinitely easier to update for business people as well.

#4 – The need for toll takers would be even further reduced. At some point in the not too distant future nearly everyone will have a smartphone whereas not everyone has an EZ Pass or other electronic toll pass device (although I can never understand why as there are incentives for using the EZ Pass in the form of lower toll rates.

#5 – The amount of waste created by physical EZ Pass et al boxes would be eliminated.

Of course there are a few potential drawbacks in my scheme mainly in the form of loss of privacy. GPS would identify where you are at any time and it would be hooked into your profile (as opposed to a Magellan or Garmin or auto based GPS system). But it seems to me that people are already trackable already to a large degree – much more than they realize.

I’ve also been thinking about the ability for a speeding ticket to be sent to people who average more than the posted speed limit (this has been known to happen even to me unknowingly of course), by a certain percentage. That could happen now with EZ Pass but it might be considered circumstantial evidence. With an integrated smartphone toll application I think that excuse might be less available.

But I will raise my hand and say I’m ready to be first in line if someone creates a smartphone toll application. Even if it starts with EZ Pass and is not compatible with other systems initially eventually that would change as well.

Would you use an app like this if it existed?

I received an email from a good friend of mine today relating his trials in traveling on business in Europe the past week. Unless you’ve been living under a rock the big story for days and days is the horrific impact of the Icelandic volcano that erupted last week. What we have heard in the United States is all about how travel has been disrupted, people sleeping in airports (I was this firsthand at Newark this past Sunday morning when we I was catching a flight).and travelers being stranded all over the globe.

But my friend had a different problem. He does a great deal of consulting in Europe and had multiple engagements over a 3 week period all over the European continent. Since he has over 1 million American airline miles he flies everywhere and it works. Not this time. Being a very smart fellow he anticipated the problems and worked out train travel for several destinations (he did mention that Paris to Barcelona was 12 hours by train as opposed to under 2 by air and was hoping to not have to go by rail).

The key thing here is that in Europe, as in much of Asia train travel is fast, efficient and truly an alternative to air travel. Not necessarily less or more expensive (prices for rail travel and air travel are not all that different in Europe and Asia for many routes); Americans would expect rail travel to be less expensive, mainly because we’ve been anesthetized by Amtrak.

I read recently that maybe by 2025 there will be a train from Shanghai to London that will make it in 2 days. Considering a flight is already 12 hours that’s not too bad and the ability to avoid jet lag (never have heard anything about train lag) makes that an amazing proposition.

Amtrak has made some striders and is becoming more of an alternative to flying than it used to be. But it still pales in comparison to travel by rail in Europe and Asia. Americans remain in love with the automobile. Could you imagine a college student coming to America to travel around by train?

The Northeast corridor of the U.S. is the area most primed for high speed rail travel. However the existing train rails are so outdated (curved and shared with other rail travel) that although Amtrak Acela trains can reach speeds of 150 M.P.H. they rarely exceed 90 M.P.H. since they are more prone to derailing the faster they travel. Perhaps you’ve heard of Amtrak trains derailing?

It seems today that everyone talks about the green revolution and getting people out of their cars and onto trains would be a great place to start. Recent news has a high-speed rail system being built from Tampa to Orlando Florida that will be ready in several years time. I guess progress has to start somewhere but it’s difficult to understand how Florida became the test case. People are out of work and there is a huge opportunity here to really get going on something that is a win-win project for a long time to come.
Of course maybe my head is just in the clouds. Or the ash. What do you think?

I live in a small town in Connecticut. When I moved here there was an old diner called Orem’s that hailed its beginnings from 1921. You can visit the website – www.oremsdiner.com. And inside the place it looked like it. The food was kind of greasy. The place was dingy and there was not much parking. Still it was prominently located on a busy (and getting busier) stretch of a two line ‘highway’ that goes starts near the Connecticut coast and goes all the way up to Canada. Even then Orem’s was a meeting place or destination.

But it got better. In and around 2005 the state decided to widen the highway which necessitated that the Orem’s original location was in the right of way for the new highway. So the Papanikalou family took a big leap and decided to build a new Orem’s south on Route 7 of the old location. The ‘new’ Orem’s Diner is seemingly 3 times the size of the old one with 6 times the parking. The family was nervous that they would not be able to fill the new venue. They had no reason to worry.

Today Orem’s is even more of a destination than ever before. People from out of state know Orem’s and many meetings take place at this now new landmark. The place is clean, the food is better, the wait staff seems happy to be there and the service is attentive. Kids from 5 – 90 are in Orem’s all day and all night and frequently there are lines of people waiting to sit down. At a diner. And Orem’s is open later (for a town that rolls up many eateries at 9PM) than just about any place around town.

There are other places to eat in our town. But Orem’s remains a go-to location for so many people that it has no doubt impacted other quick service type restaurants. And not for the better.

So when we work with our clients our aim is to help make their business a destination place. Whether it is retail, direct response, or internet based business. Or even a business to business company.

It’s hard not to like a business that understands what customers want, continually makes efforts to maintain product quality and service, while listening to their customers.

Orem’s for breakfast, lunch or dinner. It’s a destination place. Is your business?

I heard a radio spot yesterday from Barracuda Networks. Their offer is to help companies make their workers more productive by blocking/firewalling them from websites and social networks that (as the ad infers) detract from employee productivity and company profits. Their ‘solution’ is to have companies employ their product as a step on the road to productivity. It’s a blatant scare tactic and the barracuda is a pretty scary looking fish after all.

It’s nearly a certainty that there are some business owners and/or managers that will consider this approach as a salve for some of their business problems. I’m not one of them in any way. Walling off employee access to certain websites and social networking is simply a terrible idea.

The idea of restricting access during the workday in order to ‘get people back to work’ will quite possibly have the opposite effect. Pretty soon companies that take that tack will ask employees to leave their mobile devices at the door when they come to work. After all many people now can adroitly access the web and social networks from their iPhone or other smart phone. Take away the websites and social media check-ins and employees will spend more time trying to find a way around it. So exactly how will that approach make things better?

Companies that restrict internet access are telling their employees – ‘We don’t trust you’. “We don’t respect your ability to make appropriate choices on how you spend your time during the work day.” And what kind of bright young minds would be interested in joining a company that approaches its business in that manner?

I’m not so naïve that I think employees always act in the most productive manner every minute of the work day. But is that really the goal of an employer? No I don’t wish that members of our team spend 3 hours a day on Facebook, LinkedIn or looking for a job on Monster or Career Builder, (apparently we had one that did that while here). But I ask those companies that think restricted access is a good idea – do your employees receive and respond to emails before and after the workday? On weekends? For many companies including ours the answer is an unequivocal yes. Granted our company is a smaller one with less than 25 people. But even if we were the size of, oh say Microsoft or Wal-mart, would the restriction of access to the web create a better and more productive working environment?

My take is if you cannot count on having smart, motivated people on your team who know the difference between what is appropriate and what is not, then you have the wrong team in place. It can sometimes be the job of managers to teach employees the difference if they don’t know it already. But forbidding access and censoring sites sounds a bit China like to me.

I wouldn’t want to be a part of a company like that – would you?