What have we been saying? In today's advertising and marketing, TRUTH SELLS. Here's one more great example. Domino's profits have just reached an all-time industry mark due to their radically transparent “Oh Yes We Did” campaign about their pizza being, to put it lightly, less-than-the-best.
Domino's ran commercials and print ads admitting its old pizza sucked. It then introduced a new recipe by showing it to its staunchest critics. It continued the transparency theme by encouraging customers to alert Domino's when the pizzas they ordered were not up to par. With today's instant media exposure thanks to Flips, G4 iPhones and good old fashioned video cameras, you can imagine how many Domino's Pizza haters uploaded their less-than-par pizzas to YouTube.
Russell Weiner, Domino's CEO at the time the campaign launched, said he was pretty scared but still willing to risk the company's reputation. “You're a 50-year-old pizza company with 5,000 stores out there, these guys first tell you to go on air and say your pizza sucks, and then go out there and show how crappy it's made,” he said. You wonder if Russell Weiner would have ta
ken such a risk if he were not planning on leaving soon after the campaign launched. But after all, whatever happened with the campaign – and the company – would be his legacy, too. Lucky for everyone, it was working well enough that incoming CEO, Patrick Doyle, continued to support the effort with equal gusto.
How does one of a million “New and Improved” campaigns that today's consumers are numb to have such dramatic success? By shocking people with its honesty and transparency that exposed Domino's humility and possibility of failure. Patrick Doyle admitted that, if they fail at this endeavor, it could most likely be the end of Domino's. Year-to-date, same store sales just exceeded 12%. That's a new record in the pizza business.
Look at your company. Are you even capable of being transparent? If so, are you willing to market your company as flawed, but humble and honest? Most business owners reading this think we're crazy. But remember, people don't trust most advertisements. If you can't get your message past this initially huge roadblock, maybe you're wasting your money advertising. If, on the other hand, you're willing to offer your customers some radical transparency, you've at least got a shot at breaking through that tough core of consumer mistrust. And when consumers trust you, they become your advocates.
Are you willing to at least think about what it would take? It might not be as scary as it sounds. It's the way things are going, and getting there first while doing it right could mean an awfully big increase in market share. Something to ponder, eh?
Sounds like a crazy question until you look at the way Facebook, YouTube, Flicker and simple templated blogs can easily duplicate a website's content these days. Besides, websites can be frustrating to maintain, challenging to keep current, and expensive to upgrade, right? Plus, with more people using Twitter and Facebook as search engines, who needs to pull up first in Google anymore? Remember the announcement a few months ago that Facebook surpassed Google in weekly internet traffic? Makes you think you might not need a website as much as you used to.
Wrong.
There's no question that a company's website is still it's most powerful marketing tool. You own it, you control 100% of it's content, you manage its destiny. Your Facebook page? Well, ask Mr. Zuckerberg what he's thinking of next and that's what your Facebook page will look, feel and behave like next month. Your YouTube channel? Have you ever gotten into its content management system? Nope. And it's the same with most of the other marketing tools we mentioned. Today you need a great website more than ever.
In fact, there is even more opportunity for today's corporate websites to drive
business straight to your doorstep. But you still have to start by focusing on your brand. Forrester Research says 67% of today's customers create their initial opinion of a company via their corporate website. This is the classic branding part of marketing, where you build trust with your consumer. But a well-designed website can also take your potential customer into the actual sales process at the right place and right time. A website that's been designed to offer both a brand and retail message has proven to be stickier, with more time spent browsing through pages, clicking additional links and converting to leads or online sales. Look at Home Depot, Wahoos Fish Taco and Morgan Stanley for a few good examples. They have places within their sites where their call-to-action request is not only appropriate, but expected.
So then, what do you do with your other marketing tools like Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, YouTube channels and Flickr? Simple. Use them to create conversations. Get people (aka customers and potential customers) talking to you, about you, and for you. Sure, you can include calls-to-action when appropriate. But mix them up. Remember, people don't want to be sold – but they love to buy from companies they trust. Build your website with this in mind and you'll be on the right path to online marketing success.
Recognize this guy? He's “The man your man could smell like” from the Old Spice campaign that launched during this year's Superbowl. Now, with over 11 million views and 20,000 consumer comments on You Tube, this campaign is the ad industry's year-to-date darling, winning Clios and dozens of other creative awards. This Old Spice manly man also ambushed YouTube for two days this month, posting over 200 instantaneous videos responding to Twitter requests from the likes of Ellen DeGeneres and Perez Hilton. The campaign was owning both Twitter and YouTube like no other campaign has done yet.
Wow. Quite a marketing success, right? Wrong.
Sales of Old Spice's Red Zone After Hours Body Wash, the product in the commercials, have dropped 7% in the last 52 weeks. Ad critics are blaming the co
nfusion of who our Old Spice manly man's message is targeting. Is it the ladies who giggle and gawk at him, or the men who want ladies to giggle and gawk at them?
It doesn't matter. Because that's not where the campaign went wrong. In fact, the campaign didn't go wrong at all. The client went wrong. So often this happens when you have great creatives like Wieden and Kennedy, where the client (P&G) gets so caught up in the creative, they think it will make up for a weak product.
Any adult male who knows what Old Spice is, probably still relates the smell to his grandfather. It's a 73 year old brand that people still think smells like a 73 year old brand. Maybe P&G hoped women would go out and buy one Red Zone After Hours Body Wash as a joke for their boyfriend or husband. That could create a few million extra sales – once. But think about it, what guy really wants to be a repeat buyer of a product that reminds him of his grandfather. Worse yet, a product that sends the message, “I want to be a manly man.” Come on. There's a saying in advertising: “The fastest way to kill a campaign is by doing great creative for a bad product.” This may be the case for Old Spice.
P.S. Selfishly, we hope sales pick up. The spots are hilarious.
