January 2008

In the world of advertising, generating excitement for a product is crucial. (In my last blog, I talked about testimonials as a way of building buzz.) However, it’s one thing to have the buzz, and another thing entirely to live up to the hype. Being a pop culture junkie, I’ve got two great examples of buzz-worthy properties. One failed to meet the expectations – trust me, they were low – and the other knocked it out of the park.

The online buzz leading up to the release of “Snakes on a Plane” reached a near deafening roar prior to its August 2006 release. Is there anyone plugged in to the pop culture zeitgeist who wasn’t aware of Sam Jackson’s specific words of frustration regarding the titular reptiles? What a disappointment then, that the film failed to deliver on what would easily be described as meager expectations. No one would expect a movie called “Snakes on a Plane” to be a blockbuster initially, but based on the hype, it should have been a hit. Too bad for the filmmakers, when the proof is in the pudding, you gotta have the right ingredients. “SoaP” did not.

Now that we have even a small amount of hindsight, I don’t have any qualms saying that “Cloverfield” was a buzz-built blockbuster. In its first week of release thriller/character study pulled in $41 million, easily recouping just the production budget of $25 million alone. (And for the record, I thought it was an inspired twist on the genre it inhabits.) The producers cleverly released near-frustrating tidbits of information on the film – we didn’t even know that “Cloverfield” was indeed the actual title until shortly before its release. Watercoolers, both real life and virtual, were surrounded by people willing to speculate on what exactly this movie was. Was it even real, or just hype for something else? In the end, the overall critical reception has been positive, and it looks like “Cloverfield” is going to surpass the buzz-worthy expectations placed upon it to become 2008’s first bona fide hit movie.

So where am I going with this?

PlattForm’s always had a lot of hype built up around it as a sector leader. But once you get past the idea of great buzz, you gotta deliver results. And that’s what we strive to do on a weekly, daily, even hourly basis.

Existing clients, new clients, prospective clients, employees, vendors, other sector rivals -
Here’s my message to you: In 2008, PlattForm will continue to generate the buzz it’s always had. When 2009 starts, you’ll know it wasn’t just hype.

Did you know the average consumer uses the public bathroom 3.2 times per evening while out on the town? Imagine the product/service retention that a viewer would have after being exposed to the exact same advertising 3.2 times in just a few hours.

According to www.bathroomadvertising.com, this new spin on print advertising is becoming one of the fastest growing audience attention grabbing avenues the industry has seen yet. It’s 100 percent gender specific, catches 100 percent of the readers’ attention, and it’s the only place a person would choose to stand in line to read advertising. It’s also an opportunity to advertise a very personal product – most wouldn’t put a tampon ad on a billboard on Broadway Avenue, but would put it in the women’s restroom at Hooter’s, for example.

Fortune Magazine says, “The ads reach the audience most coveted by advertisers: 21-35 year olds who like to go out and spend money. Restroom ads also allow companies to target a gender with 100 percent accuracy.”

Stickers in the sink … TV’s in the mirrors … LCD screens on the automatic hand dryers … and the reading material hanging on the back of the stall doors and above the urinals. You might even see it on the tampon disposal box, toilet paper roll and soap dispensers.

Automatic flush has led to automatic conversation with a poster, or even a perfume, cologne or air freshener scent automatically dispensed for your pleasure.

One thing to think about is the subconscious psychological association that might occur. Some advertisements might create a negative connotation. Foul smell and dirty bathroom floor while reading about Charlie’s Limo Service? Not really sure how many prospects Charlie will hear from when they associate the smell of urine and dirty paper towels with his company’s logo. However, most of the time, viewers see the ads when out for a good time with friends or family … usually in a good mood and having a pleasant time. It’s a risk that most advertisers are willing to take.

Here are some numbers that really paint the picture for advertisers looking for alternatives to new or current campaigns:

• 84 percent recalled seeing specific advertisements in the washrooms.
• 92 percent were able to name specific advertisers without prompting.
• 88 percent recalled at least FOUR selling points in the ads surveyed.
• 98 percent reacted positively or neutral to seeing ads in restroom facilities

Next time you are out, take a good look at the type of advertising you are exposed to without even knowing it. It’s quite interesting and effective at the same time.

Web Sites for larger schools can be a huge challenge for web developers and the school’s marketing or admissions department. The sheer size of these sites can sometimes make maintaining good usability very difficult. If your school’s web site has become a usability nightmare, a minisite may have its uses depending on your marketing strategy.

Searching around on the web I found a few that seemed to work well. McMurry University has a pretty good minisite for their school . A local art school, Kansas City Art Institute also has a good one [WJ2] [WJ2]. Both are smaller with better usability and can make navigating around the site a little simpler than their respective ‘large’ sites with hundreds, even thousands of pages.

When to Hold Them, When to Fold Them

These can be great landing pages for ads, and other direct marketing. These sites can also do well for SEO. The key to making these sites perform well in SEO is to link out to them from your main school web site, which shows they are working together to produce one great product for users.

These sites, however, should not be a school’s primary SEO focus, but can be a good marketing supplement to the main site. As always, make sure your primary school web site is well optimized before trying to boost the SEO performance of a minisite.

The key is to have a good online presence on the web, and a minisite can help with that, as long as a proper online marketing strategy is implemented.

It’s been said that the only constant at PlattForm is change.

One can see this in the small things like the weekly hunt for any given Client Services’ member’s new office, and big things like the semi-frequent promotions and continual process changes.

It’s everything from a battle over e-mail vs. email to taking on entirely new tasks and making them second nature. PlattForm and the people who work here are malleable. We work with challenges and step forward to affect changes that cause ripples elsewhere.

This has never been so apparent as over these past few days, during one of the tougher weeks I’ve had in a long time. It’s true that proofing can be a thankless job. Sometimes, since we are behind the scenes, people forget that we have a part in the creative process. Sometimes that leads us to think that what we do doesn’t have an effect somewhere else.

So, what’s a manager to do? Round up the troops and remind them of the chain reaction everything creates. Of the vital importance each action has on things they might not even begin to imagine. In hindsight, reference Ray Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder.

Self-worth can alter many things – job satisfaction, quality of work, quality of life, relationships, ambition and more. I see the beginnings of this already – a banding together of a team that may have lost its place a little; a renewed confidence that the job we do is one that can transform things.

It’s not so much that we need to remember to always affect change, but more that change always affects.

Last year I had a SLEW of New Year’s Resolutions! Topping the list was to “avoid negativity at any cost.” I was fairly successful in my endeavors. Anyone who knows me in the slightest knows you can’t fake my kind of genuine euphoria … unless chemically enhanced.

This year I’ve decided to have only ONE New Year’s Resolution … and while it sounds simplistic, it’s actually become rather difficult to maintain.

My goal is to compliment at least one person per day. Could be something simple like me applauding a co-workers’ killer boots. Could be more profound like the card I sent to my dad for his BDay.

I’m reminded every day when I take my multi-vitamin. Take one vitamin. Give one compliment. And, no … backhanded compliments don’t count. (For example, my boss got his hair cut. Check. Compliment new hair. Fail to mention it was about three weeks overdue and going grey. Check.)

Whenever anyone pays me a compliment (or I pay them to pay me a compliment), it makes my day. It’s the circle of life. It’s a good habit to get in to. Not unlike daily multi-vitamins. If someone says to me, “Have you lost weight?” – it practically makes me walk five feet off the ground. If someone says “Have you lost weight?” WHILE I have a donut in my mouth … its helps me reach Nirvana.

Here at PForm, we see it all the time with our clients! Why? Because in the world of career colleges, compliments are mandatory. Kids who have been told “you can’t, you won’t” need to hear “you can and good job” on a daily basis. It’s phenomenal to watch guidance counselors mold incoming students in to tomorrow’s healthcare protégé or business apprentice.

So the next time you admire someone’s new smock, tell ‘em. If someone has just stopped smoking, give ‘em kudos. If they’re going back to school, high-fives all around! Whether it’s a pat on the back or props, it’s the little things that make people’s day. Thus, the next time my mom makes her Brussels Sprout Surprise, I’ll be sure and tell her how much I enjoy it. Provided I’m two states away and I tell her by phone.

See how easy that was? Piece of cake! Or rather, slab of Brussels Sprout Surprise.