Web Business Woman

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna’s Promo Talk

I’m still thinking about the trip I made to Chicago last week to attend PMA’s Integrated Marketing Conference. I wrote this post here last week about some of the of great sessions and conversations going on for day one of Blur.  The conference ended with the Annual Reggie Awards gala and dinner which awarded the top promotional marketing campaigns of the past year that really made “the cash register ring”. Here’s the case history that was submitted of the winning campaign entered by Mars Petcare and their agency Catapult Action-Biased Marketing.

The PEDIGREE® Super Bowl: Crazy Pet Owners campaign was designed to bring renewed attention to PEDIGREE® and its Adoption Drive to find homes for the over 4 million dogs who enter shelters every year.

Leveraging a funny, irreverent Super Bowl advertisement featuring exotic and unmanageable “crazy” pets, PEDIGREE wanted to engage this vast audience in an online interactive experience that drove awareness of the brand, cemented its positioning as a caring organization, and helped participants contribute to the feeding of dogs without a home.

PEDIGREE surged to its highest dollar sales ever with $22.2MM booked in audited channels!  Dollar share reflected the same momentum with the highest dollar share gain in a single period.

Integration with PR efforts provided significant lift in pre-event site traffic and engagement with 115.5% lift in total page views and an incredible 225.2% lift in visitors with a 223.4% lift in unique visitors.

The positive momentum continued post-game with 146.2% lift in total page views, 238.7% lift in visitors; 242.3% lift in unique visitors and 19.4% lift in time spent per visit.

Total video views were 2,243,847 — which equated to the same number of bowls of food donated to dog shelters across the country.

PEDIGREE needed messaging to speak to the benefits of dog adoption without bringing down the lighthearted mood of the Super Bowl audience. It also needed a hub where consumers could take action, share in the adoption cause and engage with the brand after the commercial aired.

SITE CREATIVE
What better way to communicate a great message than with humor! A hilarious microsite was created that supported Super Bowl messaging and included tongue-in-cheek behind-the-scenes “Crazy Pet” stories, communicated via documentary-style videos of people who own a ”crazy pet” — like Rusty the Rhino, Bruno the Ostrich, and Max the Bison.

To both grab, and keep, consumer attention, Rusty the Rhino was featured on a startling 3D animated homepage takeover for the PEDIGREE Website that literally caused the screen to shatter as Rusty stampeded through. The tagline “Maybe You Should Get a Dog” resonated through the entire campaign.

OFFER
An engagement program was created for those who wanted to help, but could not adopt.  For every ad and “behind the scenes” video viewed, one bowl of food was donated to a shelter dog. Additional online content supported the Adoption Drive and PEDIGREE’s mantra of “Help Us Help Dogs.”

SOCIAL NETWORKING
The program was promoted via PR and distributed virally across the Web through Facebook videos, Twitter, an iPhone application, and paid search. Content was also available across post-game online channels, including Yahoo! and YouTube.

PEDIGREE surged to its highest dollar sales and highest volume gains ever as a result of the campaign. The site, iPhone app, “behind the scenes” content, disruptive takeover and additional online and offline elements provided a powerful combination of creativity and technology and drove awareness of the adoption drive, donation of food to shelters and sales for the product.

Congratulations to the team for a great campaign. Check out Pedigree’s current pet adoption Facebook page that is raising food for pet shelters.

Brandweek dot com did a piece on the redesign of popular woman’s site iVillage, last week. It’s a bit of fluff but it addresses the issue of being current in the marketplace and of knowing your audience. I found it interesting in a research-y kind of way.

First of all, the introduction of the piece, describing iVillage is interesting: “iVillage, an NBC Universal-owned site that aims to connect women on topics like health, wellness, fitness and pregnancy, has relaunched several of its most popular digital channels, undergone a logo change, and is introducing new interactive features this spring. The effort is part of iVillage’s strategy to become the premier, online information resource for women.”

What’s interesting about this? Well, the fact that iVillage is one of the oldest properties on the net and yet, the writer of this Brandweek piece uses words like, “aims to connect” and “strategy to become…” – a description that would lead me, if I did not know better, to believe iVillage was new, just launched, and not an established, well-known and regarded women’s site.

I like the answers given by Jodi Kahn, evp of the network (a former Time Inc. vet, according to the piece). Here are some of her answers to the rather mainstream, uninspiring questions:

To the “why” of the redesign, Jodi said, “In November of 2008, we condusted an exhaustive research o nthe women’s space… three things informed us: One, it is a female-driven economy, women are living [busy] lives, and they touch [a minimum of] five devices a day.”

No mention of what those five devices are, but the reality seems true, to me. I’m wondering what “exhaustive research” they did when those answers were right at their fingertips, but iVillage is a big company and big companies seem to believe spending a lot on research is the only and best way to get answers.

To the question on the relaunch of the “health” section of the site, Jodi said, “…we found that…in health specifically, the driver of the experience–what women are looking for–is information that is quick and simple. The key insight was, women are at the center of a very large care circle, so it’s not just their daughter or their mother, but also their neighbor and friend, so that we’re all caring for a lot of people in our universe.”

No disputing that, here. It’s so on target, and so true, but so not news or “new” that I have to wonder why iVillage is just learning that. Haven’t we, here on Lip-sticking, been telling you that for some time? Women have been at the forefront of health issues for – ever! It started with our grandmother’s grandmother. It will continue with our grandchildren’s children, and beyond. It’s what women do. 

Well, the point of the article was to feature iVillage, to give them some press that allowed them to tout their advertising opportunities, and to support their assertion that they are “…on this growth trajectory and for us, it’s really to be the leading women’s digital brand –both for consumers and advertisers and partners.”

Yet, I don’t see a pet tab. iVillage, where are my pets? You must know that pets are of prime importance to women. Didn’t some of your exhaustive research uncover that? Hmm….

Recently, due to a power outage in my area, I had to do laundry at a public laundry. (Yes, gasp. Public. And, if you’ve never done this, you should try it some time; the people watching is phenomenal!)

Now, I’ve told you before that I’m just plain ol’ nosey and so I made it my business to pay attention to noticed the laundry that other people were doing — not in a pervy way, but in a decidedly nosey way. Turns out people were washing the basics: jeans, towels, t-shirts and the like.

For some reason, my attention was drawn to this young woman who clearly was doing the “week’s wash”. Now, I can’t say for certain that it was *her* laundry or that she wasn’t paid to wash someone else’s clothes, but here’s what I do know. There was something missing. 

Something that most people tend to wash weekly. Something that if you’re not washing them weekly, in my opinion, your cleanliness levels are suspect. That something was bed sheets.

Now, there are all kinds of scenarios that could explain this – maybe this was her second trip to the wash that week. Maybe she gets her sheets laundered and pressed by some outside service. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

But, all I kept thinking was, “Wow, no sheets?” (Judgment, I know. I need to work on that.) I mean nary a pillowcase or a sham; and certainly no fitted or flat sheets of any kind.

Immediately, my mind questioned how clean her house must be. I mean, there are certain people whom I know who do a GREAT job of keeping their *person* clean, but their homes look like the living room on Sanford and Son.

I spent all this time wondering, “Why no sheets? Is her house a mess? Maybe she doesn’t sleep on sheets!” (There are people who do that. Yuk.)

But, you know what I didn’t stop to think? The woman can’t have *that* much of a pigstye at home if she’s willing to take the energy to pack her laundry in a bag, put it in a cart/carry it to her car, drive to the laundry, get soap and quarters, sort the clothes and then wash and fold. My mind didn’t go there until much, much later.

So, the parallel I want to draw here comes in the form of a few questions:

• What are you leaving out of your marketing that’s making people in your target market look at you sideways?
• Is there something that you know you need to get done that would help make the picture complete?
• Is there something missing that makes your potential clients “go down the garden path” in their mind about how you conduct business and/or how you would (or wouldn’t) treat them?
• If you don’t know or aren’t sure, do you have the courage to ask?

I’ve thought about this myself and I’ve come up with a few things of my own. When *you* think about *your* situation, what comes up for you?

As we move forward with the new project, BlogPaws, and it grows exponentially because its focus is pet parents and there are a lot of us out there – Tom and Caroline and I are learning a lot about what we don’t know.

For instance, we don’t know how many pet bloggers there are, we just know there are a lot. We don’t know how we’re going to connect them all, because they do want to be connected, but we’re going to figure it out. We don’t know if Columbus was a good choice for our conference, or if it’s holding things back. But, we’re glad we’re having BlogPaws there. We don’t even know exactly what we’re doing, we’re just *doing* it.

At the start, as with any new endeavor, you don’t know what you don’t know. You *think* you know the basics: how to communicate to the world that you’re creating an exciting new venture – using Twitter, social media, PR, and your network, of course.

You *think* you know enough bloggers to get your venture off the ground: that would be hundreds, not thousands, even though there are thousands of pet bloggers out there. And, you *think* you know the logistics: get a place to hold the event, have great speakers, tap into brands for sponsorship, create a newsletter, create a blog/website, create…create…create, until you can’t create anymore!

And, in the end, all that *thinking* pays off because you don’t let what you don’t know hold you back. You hit the ground running. You tap into business experts and friends and take feedback with a grain of salt. You watch other successful folks doing what you’re doing, similarly but not exactly the same, and you imitate.

The “what you don’t know” part might nag at you – and it might rear its ugly head now and then, giving you a bit of a setback, but in the end, if you are certain that if you allow the stuff you don’t know to paralyze you – the stuff you do know will become suspect and…you won’t do anything. You’ll sit on your hands, afraid to pursue the opportunity in front of you.

So, we knew what we didn’t know – let me rephrase that – we knew we didn’t know a LOT – but we found out we didn’t really know what we didn’t know, and it’s a good thing! Because had we known all the work involved, the late nights, the disappointments (and the triumphs in unexpected places), we might have set off at a crawl instead of a run! We might have spent days and weeks deciding what it was we wanted to accomplish, instead of actually accomplishing it.

Tom and Caroline can add their own thoughts in comments, but I’m glad we hit the ground running and put the issue of what we didn’t know to the side, fully expecting to learn by doing.

It’s been a great run! And the road is stretching far ahead of us. It’s got lots of bling pulling us along. I see twists and turns, but even the potholes aren’t big enough to deter us! The crowds are cheering us on - that’s what pet people do – and despite the alleyways that throw shadows in our path, we’re not stopping now! We’ll learn more about what we don’t know as time goes on. We’ll take these experiences and build a solid foundation to share with others, and we’ll have fun doing it. Long nights, notwithstanding, we are fully committed to what we do know: that we want to do this and its the right time and place to do it.

Are you that committed to your business?

By Guest Blogger, Mary Schmidt, Marketing Troubleshooter

Guy Kawasaki NYT Interview: “Jobs for college graduates should make them gain
knowledge in at least one of these three areas: how to make something,
how to sell something or how to support something.”

A friend of mine called, asking for help.  An old
friend of hers is (increasingly desperately) looking for a job, after a
long career in banking.  She started by saying, “If you know of anyone
looking for someone with an MBA…”

Well, sad to say, I don’t.  Once you’ve been out in the job market
for a few years, nobody asks about your education. They want to know
what you’ve done. (And never ONCE have I heard a VC ask an entrepreneur, “Do you have an MBA?”) 

This rose to top of mind when I ran across a long advertising insert
in the newspaper  – promoting how getting an MBA would enable the newly
unemployed find another job in today’s tough economy.  I give the
advertisers credit for an interesting marketing spin, but that’s all it
is – spin.

I’m a huge proponent of education – but handing someone a piece of
paper and expecting him or her to run a business successfully right from
the start is like…handing someone The French Laundry cookbook and
expecting them to turn out a flawless gourmet dinner for 45, the first
time. (I own the book, and it’s more like food porn for professional
chefs.  Not easy.)

If every problem could be reduced to a formula or spreadsheet, we
wouldn’t need risk-lovin’, crazy entrepreneurs.

(Kawasaki on MBAs going to work in consulting: “You can develop an absolutely incorrect perception of yourself as a
great manager when, in fact, you haven’t implemented anything. You
haven’t fired anybody. You haven’t introduced a product. You haven’t
supported a customer. All you’ve done is make spreadsheets and
PowerPoint presentations.”)

I’m beginning to wonder if Twitter is all it’s cracked up to be. Yes, I have met some really smart and talented people on twitter, and I find all sorts of great information in most of my tweets. But, twitter is beginning to annoy me.

My life is pretty full right now. I’m busy from morning till night. It’s difficult to fit twitter in during the day, but I feel as if I’ll be missing opportunities if I ignore my tweeps. So, I go on twitter to my various accounts and tweet and RT and basically, just stress myself out.

Ok – a big part of the stress is having 5 twitter accounts. What was I thinking!?!

Another part of the stress of using twitter is that I want to announce the great stuff we’re doing on BlogPaws, and on Lip-sticking and I want to support Mary, Donna, and Lena… and I want to make sure I don’t offend anyone…and I want to play nice by following all my followers back and…

OMG! Today was the last straw! I threw up my hands and said, “Who cares?”

Do you care?

I don’t care, anymore. I will use twitter more effectively by not worrying about who I follow back – if I am not following you and you are following me, it’s likely I have not had time to login and see who you are, or I did login and saw who you are and … I’m not seeing the connection.

I will visit each account twice a week and if I have time, I’ll tweet. I’ll share information that is relevant to that account and RT good content I see while I’m in twitter, and I won’t worry about missing anything. Because I have so many resources – like my Lip-sticking readers - it’s unlikely I’ll miss anything important. And, if I tweet about my pet projects (yes, REAL pets) and folks Quit following me because of it, I won’t care. If I tweet about women and it bothers someone, I won’t care. And I will nag people for locking their accounts (really, what’s the use – isn’t it supposed to be ‘social’?), along with nagging them for trying to get more followers, as if that’s what’s most imporant in life.

Ok…those are my twitter tweet tales. Do you have any? Do share!

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna’s Promo Talk

Last week in my post I wrote this post about my upcoming trip to Chicago to attend PMA’s Integrated Marketing Conference. Well I’m here now and there’s lots of great conversations going on. Day one of Blur,got underway underway yesterday, so here’s my report:

I arrived
in Chicago a little behind schedule since my plane out of
Rochester was delayed because the crew was late! They arrived with
breakfast bags in hand and told us once we got settled on the plane that
they had a late night.

I
just became a new user of Foursquare and used the
location-based tool to do my first official check-in at the Fairmont
Hotel here in Chicago and got my first points. The only other
“friend” that checked in at the Fairmont was David Berkowitz. He’s been using the tool much longer
then I have and has been on a multi-city trip around the country the
past couple of weeks. So when I caught up with him later I asked for a
few tips on how this is supposed to work.

I missed
the opening session which was a welcome from Bonnie Carlson, PMA’s
president, and then the opening keynote from Univision Communications. I settled
in to hear Marc Hanson from Pepsi’s Mt. Dew speaking about
their integrated marketing campaign, DEWmocracy. They ran the first part
of this campaign in the summer of 2008, tying into the presidential
election year. They asked consumers to vote for their next Mt. Dew in
which they gave them a choice of a red, white or blue flavor. Voltage, a
red raspberry flavor, won with 43% of the votes and Mt. Dew rolled out
the new product in 1st quarter ’09.

The ROI
Mt. Dew saw was 36 million cases of product sold, 85% which was
incremental. They achieved this through off-shelf placements in end
caps, coolers and other locations at retail. They claim that the
campaign was all about “bringing the voice of consumers and a unique
product to store shelves”.

I’m
skipping now to my favorite break-out session of the afternoon which was
in the Digital track from the marketing team at Jet Blue, Morgan
Johnston and Tara Ryan-Carson. They shared with us some of what they’ve
learned over the past year as they’ve experimented with social media,
mostly Twitter. They started off talking about how they
dealt with a crisis situation when one of their jets sat on the tarmac
at JFK for hours enraging customers and becoming a PR nightmare. They
learned that they needed to listen to the customers’ complaints and
explain to them as best they could how they were going to fix it for the
future.

Their All You Can Jet Pass was the campaign that really proved to
them how powerful social media could be. They announced the launch of
this 30-day pass in August with a simple PR release and a tweet.
Customers started using the hashtag #AYCJ and tweeting about it. Those
that bought the pass started sharing stories about where they were going
with it and what they were doing. One guy got a tattoo from every
destination he visited and shared his photo.

Jet Blue received an
enormous amount of free media from this which reached 232.5 million
people and saw a 700% increase in views to their route map. They also
had a goal to increase their Facebook Fan base at the
time and did by running a AYCJ sweepstakes on the social network.

Jet Blue Cheeps, a new, separate Twitter page, was
launched to tweet sales of flights that they have extra seats to fill.
They don’t follow anyone, other than the JetBlue page, so it’s focus is
strictly to once a week just announce theses last-minute discount fares.

2010
is Jet Blue’s 10th Anniversary and they will be celebrating all year.
They started off the celebration in New York with a Twitter Street Team
promotion in which they we’re giving away free tickets to anywhere they
fly. They sent out a PR release on a Monday announcing the program
saying that they would be asking people to find them on a certain day
and bring them a birthday card to get their free tickets.

That
Wednesday they sent out Tweets of where they were located in the city
and immediately people came running. They started out in the morning
downtown in the financial district on Broadway, moved to Union Square
around lunchtime and ended up at Roc Center later in the afternoon. They
gave away about 1,000 free tickets and word of the promotion went viral
resulting in 10,000 tweets globally.

So here’s the big take
away….after starting out with a disastrous experience in which customers
used social media to share negative comments, Jet Blue then embraced
the medium and made it work for them.

Today is another full day of
speakers and sessions, so stayed tuned. We’ll be ending tonight with the annual
Reggie Awards gala and dinner with entertainment from Michelle Branch. Any of you that are at the conference, please let us know what your favorite
session was and why. Thanks!