Category Archives: Marketing
Presidential Election Provides Marketing Opportunity for Consumer Brands
by Robin Embry on November 6, 2012 | no comments
in Marketing
Since it is Election Day I thought it would be interesting to showcase how some well-known consumer brands have capitalized on one of the tightest presidential elections in our nation’s history.
Here are some of my favorites:
Spirit Halloween promoted the sale of Romney and Obama Halloween masks. The company said they have successfully predicted the past few elections based on total sales of each candidate’s mask. Of course, those sales will likely never surpass the Richard Nixon mask, which according to various sources, has been a leading seller for years.
Fitz Root Beer unveiled campaign bottle Root Beer that features either President Obama or Governor Romney. They post sales results regularly on their Facebook page. Fitz president Michael Alter said, “Root Beer is an all-American beverage, so it just makes sense to use it to promote the election and use sales of Romney and Obama bottles to gauge the vote.”
Convenience store chain 7-Eleven created the “7-Election” campaign where coffee drinkers can choose between a red cup and a blue cup. In the last three elections the cup sales have closely mirrored the final results. One 7-Eleven executive said that the campaign provokes conversation about the election but at the end of the day it is really just something fun for their customers.
Want to win a free flight? JetBlue was hoping to create some hype as the company promoted a free round-trip plane ticket to 1,006 international travelers in 2013 if their candidate didn’t win. The airline drove traffic to dedicated web site for the voting (sorry, it closed yesterday if you were interested).
What have been some of your favorite election marketing campaigns?
You have a few hours left, be sure you go out and vote!
Operating Room Videos Are Exciting
by Paula Lovell on August 14, 2012 | 7 comments
in Healthcare, Marketing, Video
At the end of a long day in the OR, shooting for a hospital client, almost anything can happen.
For Marketers Who Want Their Commercials to Go Viral: Be coy with your logo and “out there” with joy and surprise.
by Paula Lovell on April 5, 2012 | 5 comments
in Marketing
Using infrared eye-trackers and technologies that analyze facial expressions, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School has predicted what’s needed in commercials to make them more apt to go viral.
The bottom line:
1. Don’t flaunt your brand logo. Show it repeatedly, but subtly.
2. Use joy and surprise, and use it early. People stay more engaged and stick with an ad when it starts with joy or surprise. Special note: surprise is good; shock is not. Funny is good; nudity keeps a lot of people from “sending it on.”
3. When creating a video ad, think roller coaster. People easily get bored, so you have to turn it on and off, creating an emotional roller coaster that pushes emotions from joyful to surprise; tension to relief. And all this in 30 or 60 seconds.
4. Only a subset of viewers will pass along an ad, no matter how joyful, surprising, mercurial or logo-subtle: primarily, people who are extroverts and/or egotistic. The extroverts are just out there sharing and having fun. As for the egotists, the author speculates that egotism is a trait of someone who shares an ad link because that kind of personality wants to be considered, “in the know,” media savvy and connected. Who knew?
The observations in the article in the Harvard Business Review aren’t that much of a surprise, but it has to be a monumental challenge to convince most company CEO’s to downplay their logo. And I can’t even imagine making a presentation of a new ad built around these pointers to “the suits” in most corporate boardrooms.
Seriously, how in the world do these agencies get this kind of risky promotion past the corporate gatekeepers?
How to Rank Higher in the Search Engine of Life
by Scott McIntosh on March 20, 2012 | no comments
in Marketing, Networking
Recently, I’ve just returned from a vacation where I noticed a fun similarity in the way Google ranks website value and how people rank each other’s social value. And as you may already know, our social value can be extremely important in the successful marketing of our business as well as in our overall happiness.
If you didn’t already know, Google ranks websites for its search engine results by backlinks. A backlink is a link from another website back to your website – thus the name backlink. The more popular the other site is that links to you, the more valuable the backlink. It’s a web-based voting system.
But what about in the real world? You come across many different people in your daily routines, some that you know and many that you don’t. This is especially true when you are traveling. Humans are naturally a very social species and derive pleasure from connecting with others. Each person that you engage with throughout your day is an opportunity for a social backlink.
Each person that “likes” you is another vote for you in the greater social network that is our lives. The more votes you get, the higher you move up in the ranks of business and in life. Now I’m not talking about “spamming” everyone you meet with your business card and sales pitch. Please don’t do that. I’m talking about just being a nice person. I’m talking about engaging everyone you meet as you would a friend or loved one. Listen to them. Remember their names. Ask them how their families are and HEAR what they have to say. Empathize with them and respect their differences. Each new person you connect with on a social level throughout your life will not only help you in your business endeavors, they will also provide a greater richness that can only come from increased social connections.
So get out there and build your social backlinks! And if you need help with online backlinks, call us.
The Cyberchrondria Dilemma
by Paula Lovell on February 7, 2012 | 7 comments
in Healthcare, Marketing
For those of us in healthcare marketing, it’s important to study the public’s evolving and expanding online habits.
So I’m fascinated and mildly amused by the newest cyber-contagion spreading through communities: cyberchrondria. The word probably doesn’t require definition. It’s a term coined to describe people’s obsession with self-diagnosis based on reading online healthcare info.
According to American Medical News, which cites a Pew Research study, 80% of internet users search for health information online. Since about 75% of Americans go online, that’s almost 60% of the US population who are ferreting out online information about illnesses or diseases related to themselves or someone they care about. Some of that information is quite reliable; some not so much so.
Physicians are now reporting an increased number of patients who are needlessly worried about diseases they think they have as a result of internet reading. The docs say they require significantly more time and counsel or, even worse, they sometimes demand costly screenings and tests just to prove they DON’T have a certain disease.
Recently I got an unusual diagnosis which will probably have little or no impact on my life or long term health. The physician (not the best communicator, by the way) said, “And don’t go out and read about it online; it’ll just scare you.” You can imagine the first thing I did when I got back to the office. (And it did scare me to death.) Suddenly I just knew I was having a reaction to the medicine (I wasn’t) and I was diving into “chat rooms” populated by people with the same “disease.” (I’ve never heard so many old wives tales.)
At a time when government, physicians, patients, and insurers are looking for ways to reduce healthcare costs, this can’t be good. By the same token, patients are being encouraged to play a more intimate role in their own healthcare. What’s an intelligent person to do?









