Steven's Thoughts

Consumers want to be educated

I am a new fan of the magazine called "Good"(see previous blog). I've been reading some great articles.

• Metal is making a comeback in Egypt after a crackdown on "Satanic music."


• The Ashland Media Exchange and the Espresso Book Machine seek to put books back in people's hands


• Michael A. M. Lerner talks with the man who is putting the “science” back in political science.                           

While I was reading I came across what looked like an article which listed several facts about the dangers of pesticides.

• "six times greater the incidence of children born with autism to mothers living within 500 meters of California fields sprayed with pesticides than the rate of autism births nationwide"

• "10,400 Number of people who die in the U.S. each year from cancer related to pesticide exposure."

• "250 Number of people in the U.S. killed each year by assault rifles"

• "245,000 Number of fish killed in 1995 when a heavy rainstorm caused runoff from Alabama cotton fields into a nearby creek"

• "4,000,000 Number of people in the U.S. who routinely drink water contaminated with carcinogenic herbicides"

• "90 Percentage of municipal water treatment facilities lacking equipment to remove these chemicals from the drinking water"

• "5 Number of the nine most common pesticides used on cotton that are classified as “known carcinogens” by the EPA"

• "75 Estimated percentage of pesticides sprayed from crop dusters that blow away rather than reach the ground"
  

The article was sponsored by what I thought was a not-for-profit organization called Loomstate. I was intrigued and went right to my mac to enter www.loomstate.org. Lo and behold Loomstate is actually a organic jeans company, not an environmental not-for-profit.

What a great marketing campaign! If they would have created a typical jeans ad featuring a sexy model showing off a nice butt,  I probably would have flipped right to the next page. Well, maybe I would have looked for a little bit, but I would have quickly forgotten the brand and I definitely wouldn't have gone to their website. Rather than using sex to sell their jeans, Loomstate chooses to educate their consumers about the environment and in turn piques some interest in their product that goes beyond the surface.

Asset managers tend to show the equivalent of what are sexy models in their ads, by touting 1, 3, 5 year results. Why doesn't the industry educate advisers who are interested in investments and provide insights to portfolio mangers? Asset Mangers could present statistics or analysis, that reveals something new to advisers, which would ultimately drive traffic to their site.

I hope the financial industry catches on and the next time I open Financial Planning Magazine I will get inspired by the information presented to me. And who knows perhaps I'll  gain a new perspective that will compel me to hop on the computer and find out more.

Great business idea - give all subscription $ to charity

I was on my way to Tokyo when I stopped at one of the newsstands in the airport.  Because I was getting ready for a 14 hour flight I bought a bunch of magazines. One of them was this magazine I had never seen before called "Good".

On the plane I got completely sucked into the content.  I barely skipped any of the articles, which is very uncommon for me. But this what makes this magazine a great business ideas is not only the excellent targeted content, but also their subscription model.

First, this magazine is targeted as they call it at people who give a damm:

"We see a growing number of people tied together not by age, career, background, or circumstance, but by a shared interest. This revolves around a passion for potential mixed with fierce pragmatism and creative engagement. We sum all this up as the sensibility of giving a damn. But to shorten it, let's call it GOOD. We're here to push this movement and cover its realization."

Second, the subscription money goes to a charity that the subscriber choses. This is why they say they do this:

"We're doing this because

1) it's smart business and 2) we believe in this.

Let the secret be known—most magazines do not make money on subscriptions or newsstand sales. Traditionally, the best way to get a bunch of new subscribers is to send millions of pieces of unsolicited mail—junk mail—to people who might have some interest. We don't like junk mail, and we don't like the thought of spending millions of dollars on it. So we came up with the idea of giving away all subscription fees and allowing subscribers to choose which organization they would like to support.

This whole thing is an experiment. If it works, we'll actually spend less than half of what it traditionally costs to acquire subscribers. The success of this campaign will allow us to:

a) meet a self-selecting group of quality subscribers who find us through word of mouth, internet links, media coverage, our partner organizations, or the other crazy schemes we like to come up with; b) raise significant money for organizations that will do something important with it; and c) save resources and prove that you can do well by doing good.

Our goal for our launch year is to create 6 amazing issues of GOOD, sign up 50,000 subscribers and donate $1 million to their favorite organizations.

If you like what we're doing, please help us make it happen. Choose GOOD. Thank you".

The magazine didn't bridge the majority of my flight, but was a great read and got me to subscribe to it.

Passion Sells

Carlos Ghosn, who now runs both the French automaker Renault and its Japanese affiliate, Nissan Motor, urged the audience at the NY auto show that automakers must go back to building cars with passion instead of focusing on discounts. Currently, the auto industry spends an average of $3,200 a vehicle on rebates, discounted lease deals and financing plans.

Our industry also needs to refocus. When you think about the top brands in the asset management industry such as:

• Fidelity
• MFS
• AIM
• American Century
• etc

What specifics do you think about? Is there anything that you identify with?

Asset managers need to start connecting with their advisors and investors through passion. What is the passion that drive the above companies? Why should you invest in them vs. the competition?

Seth Godin speaks at Google

A 48 minute video of Seth Godin speaking at Google. Its the same  presentation  that he  has given  many times. But if you  have not seen it ,  its  worthwile  to watch it. 

Commercials for the DVR

I rarely watch  TV shows when they are aired anymore. I set my DVR and watch the programs I like when I have the time. This means the only time I see commercials is in high-speed fast forward. Maybe I see the one right before the program comes back on.

If consumers aren't watching commercials, advertisers have to get creative.

The new "Buffalo Snacker" spot from KFC has an embedded coupon code that can only be seen when you slow down your DVR recording. Then you can go to the site enter the code and receive a coupon for a chicken sandwich. 

The commercial itself is not that interesting, but the use of the embedded coded makes it a trend to follow.

This is probably the first time any of the big advertisers have embraced the growing DVR trend. Though most studies don't predict more than 20-30 percent of viewers will use DVRs by 2010, the trend of consumers wanting to take control of their TV viewing doesn't seem to be going away.

NCAA Pool no different then your marketing

I saw an interesting comparison on the Shotgun Marketing Blog of how business conducts marketing in the same way as people fill out their NCAA brackets.

One of the best ones:

"NCAA Bracket - After you fill out the bracket, pay into the pot, and tape your bracket to the wall, you no longer have any control. The teams will make or break you.
MARKETING - You can develop a great marketing plan and set it into motion, but in the end, it's your good/bad choices and the mindset of the market that will determine how it turns out."

The Future of Marketing Summit

The asset management industry lags behind in marketing innovations. Most firms believe that marketing is the collateral machine for the organization. I recommend all of you marketeers to go and see what other industries are doing. The Future of Marketing Summit this coming week in NYC is a great opportunity for that.

Some speakers who look for future trends including: 

• Piers Fawkes – Publisher at PSFK www.psfk.com
• Josh Rubin – Publisher/Consultant at CoolHunting.com www.coolhunting.com              
• Bucky Turco – Editor in Chief ANIMAL www.animalnewyork.com
• Graham Hill – Publisher at TreeHugger.com www.treehugger.com
• David Gensler – President of the KDU www.theroyalmagazine.com             

These might push your creative juices.

Our industry is in dire need for inspiration by some more progressive marketeers.


             

Do Webcasts work?

Most firms have have struggled with video content on their sites. In the last year due to increase in broadband and overall interest in online video more firms are launching video casts.

Amazon will start broadcasting a weekly live program with Bill Maher that will also be archived.   

There are a number of sites dedicated to video content:

http://www.youtube.com/

http://video.google.com/

http://www.ifilm.com/

http://www.boreme.com

The future is in online video.

Old school Marketing is Dead

More and more evidence shows that the old paradigm of push marketing does not work anymore. The WSJ reported that Allstate used to spend $100 million on network TV advertising. This year Allstate decided to slash it to $10 million and requested an all or nothing bid from the networks.

Marketers have to rethink how to use their money more effectively.

• 9.5 million homes in the US now have TiVo or another digital video recorder.
• 64% of DVR users skip all ads and an additional 26% skip through most ads.
• The number of homes with DVRs is expected to triple in the next five years.
• Every dollar coming out of print advertising revenue for newspapers is replaced by only 33 cents online.

Organizations are demanding an ROI from their marketing initiatives and the old marketing way is just not going to cut it.

Word-of-Mouth marketing is one of the strategies that has been seen as more effective. Word-of-Mouth is when a buyer/investor shares an opinion about a product or service between two or more people. It seems so simple. But in order to achieve this firms have to be able to:

• Differentiate
• Create Relevant Products
• And communicate to a focused audience

Products such as the Mini and Hummer have done that defectively. The Mini is the smallest and the Hummer the biggest car on the market. No other firm can make that claim in the consumer mind anymore. Both are designed for a very specific audience. They don't try to market their product to everyone. But they are one of the few cars that are always sold at the suggested retail price and consumers are on a wait-list to get the car.

In Asset Management only few firms have been able to differentiate themselves. Vanguard, the low cost provider, is probably the best example. They are not only known for having the lowest fees, but also for having the shareholders interest at heart. Vanguard is one of the few firms where the company is owned by its mutual fund shareholders.

But even the leaders in the industry have not fully embraced more progressive marketing tactics such as Word-of-Mouth marketing.

For more information on Word-of-Mouth marketing visit the Word of Mouth Association and on of its pioneers Seth Godin.    

 

Sony Draws Reproach Over Graffiti-Style Ads

A few weeks ago I posted a piece on Sony's street awarness campaign   
for their PSP . Lee made me aware of an article in the LA Times that reports that the city of Philadelphia cited Sony for violating sign ordinances and ordered the company to remove the ads or the city wound take them down. Sony has been warned that it faces fines for posting ads without a permit.

Regardless of the negative press, it's still another example of great guerilla marketing tactics.