Archive for February, 2011
Three weeks ago (doesn’t it somehow seem longer?) the Super Bowl attracted a record amount of television viewers (and oddly the largest game crowd in Super Bowl history as well). As reported in Ad Age last week the cost for a 30 second spot on ABC TV during the Oscars was $ 1,700,000 http://bit.ly/ekr21s . The Oscar audience will likely be near 43 million. This year’s Super Bowl set the all time record with a reported average of 111 million viewers with overall viewers more than 160 million http://bit.ly/i78n3Z . The reported cost for a 2011 Super Bowl 30 second spot began at $ 3,000,000.
Just doing simple arithmetic it seems to me that the Oscar audience was 40% smaller and yet the cost was just only 60% less. I am here to ask why? Do people look forward to Oscar ads more than Super Bowl ads? I think not. Are they more engaged with those ads when they run? Again – I don’t think so but please correct me if you think I am mistaken.
$ 1,700,000 is still a great deal of money where I come from. I’ve questioned why advertisers would spend $ 3,000,000 for a Super Bowl 30 second spot. I am completely perplexed why an advertiser would spend even MORE per minute for an Oscar spot. And before you fire off a reply to me that the audience is not the same and more upscale for the Oscars than it is for the Super Bowl, I want you to keep in mind what I had to say about viewer engagement with Oscar ads as opposed to Super Bowl ads.
How much talk around the water cooler will there be on Monday after the Oscars? Will people be going online after the Oscars to view the ads they missed or review the ones they wanted to see again? The point is that Super Bowl ads often live on after the event and they can be provocative, memorable and ground-breaking – even if this year’s lineup fell short. I don’t feel the same way about Oscar ads do you?
Even though I always enjoy the Oscars, I look at commercial breaks as great opportunities to go to the bathroom or get something to eat or drink. As opposed to Super Bowl ads for which I often have to cross my legs and make sure everyone stays quiet so I can get the full effect.
Agree? Disagree?
Despite all the talk about marketing via social networks, mobile marketing and digital display, the ‘traditional’ consistently performing channel – good old direct mail – continues to grow. While mass mailings of the 1980’s and 1990’s have diminished (I still recall the days when we would print more than 10,000,000 mail pieces for some of CGSM’s clients), 1:1 print marketing has flourished.
How can this be? Weren’t digital advertising and social media going to be the death of direct mail? To paraphrase Mark Twain – ‘Rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated’. Winterberry Group’s Bruce Biegel recently reported that in 2010 direct mail spending in the United States was $ 45.2 billion. More than any other single direct response channel.
The primary reason direct mail is growing once again is that it works. There were declines in 2007, 2008 and 2009 due to economic concerns and the general business climate. But the fact is that people trust direct mail more than online offers. Highly targeted direct mail via the use of sophisticated personalization resonates with consumers. There is also a perception (correct I might add) that direct mail requires a greater investment on the part of the marketer when compared to digital marketing techniques such as display or email marketing.
There are initiatives floating around the U.S. Congress such as ‘Do Not Mail’ and ‘Do Not Track’. The ‘Do Not Mail’ initiatives stem from the perception that trees are being harvested to send people mail they would rather not receive. The Direct Mail industry has to do a better job of adopting consumer choice initiatives in order to not send people mail who do not want to receive marketing messages.
As for ‘Do Not Track’, clearly people have privacy concerns when it comes to the use of their personal data for marketing purposes. The digital marketing community also has work to do in order to educate and assure people that individual behavioral and purchasing data is not being passed around from marketer to marketer. This debate has supplanted the ‘Do Not Mail’ debate in Congress which is yet another advantage for direct mail marketing.
Customer prospecting via direct mail remains challenging but not impossible. Financial institutions like banks and insurance companies continue to refine their efforts to acquire new customers through direct mail. And direct mail as a contact management strategy is an extremely effective tool to build a relationship and move an identified prospect to becoming a customer.
I still look at the mail every day that I am home to see what we’ve been sent. Yes some of it is not relevant to me but it might be to other members in my family. We only have one mailbox after all, unlike email, text or mobile messages.
So don’t abandon all your direct mail efforts for the hot new channels of today. While social media marketing, digital display, search engine marketing, mobile marketing and word-of-mouth marketing are all great new channels, tried and true direct mail should be an integral part of your marketing toolkit.
Do you look at the mail as soon as it arrives? Do you like receiving mail?
If you are on the road and hungry at 3AM do you find it comforting to see a sign for an IHOP or Denny’s? I don’t travel in the middle of the night but once every few years so a restaurant open 24 hours a day does not have much value for me personally. However both IHOP and Denny’s are open 24 hours. People must be eating there in the middle of the night – right?
I don’t have the sales figures to know how much business is done at restaurants like IHOP and Denny’s between the hours of midnight and 6AM. But I do know that in my view being open those extra six hours detracts from my perception of the quality of the restaurant. It’s got to be really difficult to keep a busy restaurant clean in the first place, and being open 24 hours does not make that any easier. After all, the staff in the wee hours is minimal and they are trying to make do with as few people as possible.
I was in an IHOP (International House of Pancakes) in Florida this past weekend. I had not been in one in several years. Founded in 1958, IHOP has over 1,400 restaurants around the U.S., Mexico and Canada. From the time I was a kid IHOP represented pancakes and many kinds of different syrup on your table. In fact I had never even seen boysenberry syrup until I went to an IHOP. Well the IHOP I went to was crowded, dirty (the bathroom was a mess), the pancakes were not great, and it was expensive. It was a shock that it cost $ 34.00 for three people for pancakes, coffee and 6 strips of bacon. We won’t be going back to IHOP for a long time.
In contrast Denny’s (which operate 1,600 restaurants in 49 United States), has embarked on developing its Denny’s Diner concept. I have been in a few Denny’s in recent years but never the diner concept. I was pleasantly surprised that it was not only pretty clean and kind of cool looking inside, but there also were choices at $ 2/$4/$6 and $ 8 for breakfast (or any other meal for that matter). Oh and the bathrooms were clean also (hey I had to find out for myself).
I still feel that being open 24 hours is a detriment to restaurants like Denny’s or IHOP or any other restaurants for that matter. How much business could they be doing during that 6 hour period? Staffing during that time has to be a nightmare as working graveyard is no picnic and service, and maintenance would seemingly suffer. So is it enough to promote being open 24/7 to offset what might be a negative connation when one considers going to an open 24 hour a day restaurant?
Maybe it’s me but do you have a built in prejudice for ‘Open Always’ restaurants?
When I heard about Google’s new One Pass Payment System http://on.wsj.com/fLb5Xm I immediately thought ‘why are they ripping off Continental Airline’s frequent flyer program name?’ It’s not like Continental Airlines has given up the program or that Google was unaware of the rather regular use of the OnePass phrase.
In the digits column in last Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal http://on.wsj.com/hCUilw Michael Hickins wonders if Google is planning to get into the airline business. Apparently OnePass is also the name of a system developed by ThomsonReuters to allow customers to access TR professional websites. But what I am really wondering is if OnePass is really that good of a name in the first place?
The new Google concept allows consumers to view content they have purchased on a number of different viewing platforms – eReaders, mobile phones, non Apple tablets i.e.,. This is a very good idea and serves customers well while at the same time being a direct shot across the bow at Apple which (rightly so I might add) has taken heat for skimming 30% off the top on subscription revenue from publishers using the Apple iTunes App Store.
The plan for the merged United Airlines and Continental Airlines is for a ‘new’ reward program to be unveiled with a new name. While that opens the door for Google I am surprised at the lack of creativity in choosing One Pass. It does not explain what it is and at best is evocative of another popular (there are more than 50 million Continental One Pass members) product that has nothing to do with Google or this service.
Good concept by Google but as far as I am concerned they have blown it with the bad name. My bet is Google will change it before they consider getting in the airline business.
Of course it’s possible that people did not even notice. Did you?
I went to the Jacob Javits Center yesterday and attended my first Toy Fair in a really long time. In fact the last time I went to Toy Fair it was in the Flatiron District at 200 Fifth Avenue so it suffices to say that was in the last century if we are being kind.
Why did I go to Toy Fair? Well we have clients and prospects in that industry on the publishing side as well as the sourcing side and I wanted to see first-hand how people interacted and how things were done.
The Javits Center is a big place to fill up but Toy Fair was spread far and wide on the main floor of the exhibit hall. In walking the aisles (and rather quickly as I am not a toy store owner or product buyer) I was not only impressed at the sheer number of exhibitors, but also the similarities in the product offerings. After awhile they all seemed to meld together leaving me with relatively no impression at all. Everything looked like everything else.
There was an area of the exhibit that appeared to be populated with eco-toys or ‘green’ focused toys – environmentally responsible and earth friendly. I felt that was an interesting and a good idea but then further on there were other companies outside of that enclave pitching their eco-friendly toys – which confused me.
As I continued on my very long walk up and down I noticed that the exhibitors and attendees skewed older than most trade shows I attend (reminiscent of the Direct Marketing Association shows). But what I really noticed was that for a trade show dedicated to toys it appeared to me that people were not having much fun at all. That was the most puzzling thing to me overall. After all what’s the point of toys if they are no fun?
I realize that at times toys can and should be educational. Yet if the spirit of Toy Fair is not fun and the people exhibiting and browsing don’t seem to be having any fun I question the entire concept and feel that it could use a total revamp. There should be a fun – almost circus-like component to the show – maybe a big top and with some circus acts in the center to make people smile and get into a fun frame of mind. Who knows they might even buy more product.
In the 1988 movie ‘Big’ with Tom Hanks, his 30 year old body with the mind of 12-year old looks at toys as needing to be fun – something the toy executives have a hard time with. The folks that put together Toy Fair might want to review that concept.