Then again, how much would we have known abut the election in Iran? Or the Southern California wildfires last year? Or updates on the earthquake in Haiti?

Is there a place for a tool like Twitter? Absolutely. If, for nothing else, the amazing data it is gathering. People think Twitter is just a tool for Narcissists to express themselves. But meanwhile, it’s building one of the most amazing LIVE, SEARCHABLE data bases in history. That’s what its all about.

]]> http://www.brandtailers.com/what-is-the-future-of-twitter/feed 3 http://www.brandtailers.com/a-new-way-of-thinking-about-marketing-and-advertising-expenditures http://www.brandtailers.com/a-new-way-of-thinking-about-marketing-and-advertising-expenditures#comments Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:42:44 +0000 Cheril Hendry http://www.brandtailers.com/blog/?p=416 Read More]]> Although it’s hard to say Southern California has a rainy season, what little rain we did have earlier this year included a couple of pretty good downpours. In the midst of one of them, I stopped by Kragen Auto Parts store to buy new windshield wiper inserts for my car. What I saw was an amazing example of customer service. As I pulled into their parking lot, I saw a half dozen or so Kragen employees helping customers replace their wiper blade inserts. Now, a set of wiper blade inserts usually costs under $10.00. It’s not a huge profit center for a store like Kragen. But the good will that was being made in that parking lot was priceless.

Good Will vs. Media Dollars. Hmmmm…. So, I thought to myself, how can a business like Kragen take this concept and make it a home run online brand marketing success?

What if they had some local customers following them on Twitter and, when it started raining, they sent out a message offering FREE wiper blade inserts to the first 100 visitors. Do you think they’d have a huge line at the door? Marketing history says they would.

But wait, how can a store give out 100 sets of wiper blade inserts and justify the expense? At $10 a set that could add up to $1,000 in product! Yup. It sure could. But how much did it cost in media expenditures to get 100 people in the door? How much would it cost if they tried doing this on TV, or some other form of traditional media? And how could the message be distributed in such a timely manner, and thanks to Twitter, shared so quickly with friends, coworkers, family and other miscellaneous Twitter followers who get the offer re-tweeted to them? How much good will could be created by helping customers out, free of charge, at a time when they needed something pertinent to their immediate safety?

What’s the biggest challenge with this type of new marketing concept? Changing marketers ways of thinking. Getting out of the old mindset that you spend money on the media, and the creative, not on good will. That’s old thinking. And it’s really, really expensive thinking. Why not take just a tiny piece of all that money to be saved from expensive traditional media buys and instead use it to be helpful. Yes, even use it to give something away. With today’s consumer, being helpful can pay off ten-fold. Seeing those Kragen guys standing out in the pouring rain smiling and helping customers was enough to earn my loyalty.

By the way, did I happen to mention that almost every customer in the parking lot that day was holding a Kragen bag with other things they had purchased?

Android. Google Earth. Google Maps. Adwords. Adsense. YouTube. Ad Planner. Google News. Google TV. Chrome. Google Docs. Orkut. Picasa. Knol. G-Mail. Google phone (aka non-virtual hardware). Wave. Google 411. Google Images, etc., etc. etc. You get the idea.

Google. First of all, is Google a “them” or an “it”? For conversation sake here, let’s just call them/it Googzilla.

I just finished reading “Googled – The End of the World as We Know It”. Absolutely fascinating. The author, Ken Auletta, gave an interesting inside view of Google that I would say is mostly unbiased, and certainly daunting when you realize how many things Google has its virtual hand in.

The pervading message throughout the book was Google’s ability to abuse their power and knowledge if they ever choose to do the opposite of their corporate mantra, “Don’t be evil”. Yet this message is countered with the consistent theme from founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, also often chimed by Eric Schmidt (Google’s CEO), that they just want to help make interactive technology a great, user friendly, reliable, relevant, safe resource.

But here’s the twist – every step Google takes to be more useful is often because they’ve learned more about us. For example, search relevance improves via behavioral targeting because they’re watching us closer. Our continued diminishing privacy makes the web more convenient for us. Not to mention that opting out is a lot more complicated than opting in. The trillion dollar question is – do we really care?

It comes down to this simple dividing line. There are those who trust Google and those who don’t. And, as long as there are more that do, Google will continue to grow and own the online world. Could that change? Sure. If they mess up. If I had to bet, I’d say they probably won’t. But then again, in spite of all their algorithms, PhD’s, and rocket scientists, they’re only human.

What do you think?

So we “Skipped” our gifts to our clients this year. We “Skipped” our holiday party, too. Instead we donated the money, along with some manual labor (see video link below), to help feed some very hungry children in the Philippines suffering from the destruction caused by three recent Typhoons. We knew, no matter how tough things may have been this year for all of us, there are millions of children out there with much greater needs.

In the spirit of technology it seems fitting that we post this year’s Christmas/Holiday message from Brandtailers on our blog. Don’t worry, it’s only a minute long. And for those of you non-techies, make sure you click the funky little four-arrow icon to the left of the word VIMEO to see it in full screen.

( To our clients, please watch the video and then see the donation we made in your name here )

Brandtailers Holiday 2009 from Brandtailers on Vimeo.

I’ve never understood this strategy. According to sales reports, neither have most consumers. I think this is just one great example of incomplete thinking in the marketing process. Could a funny industry-degrading ad get attention? You bet. Could it win creative awards? Of course (that’s just a question of money). But does it really change the opinion of the consumer when the “alternative” solution is presented? RARELY.

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Take a look and be sure to share with friends!

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