McDonald’s addressing its millennial problem?

While perusing the internet last week I came across a new online ad campaign from McDonald’s featuring Grant Imahara (formerly of Myth Busters). McDonald’s has hired Imahara to help “bust some byths”(ht-wd) about their products. This campaign is made up of videos of Grant Imahara and others visiting the factories where the McDonald’s food is made. The video below is an exploration of the sandwich that can only be described by the name McRib!

 

McRib

With this campaign McDonald’s is trying to take steps to recover it’s public image that was so degraded during the great pink slime scandal of the last 2000’s. I think their image is especially tarnished with Millennials. Millennials tend to care about the quality of their food and where it comes from. During a conversation at the CO last night it was pointed out that Chipotle restaurants have a great reputation with Millennials because they have their supply sourcing Millennial-proofed. They use organic and sustainable products which Millennials love. I think this ad campaign is specifically trying to overcome some of the distaste that Millennials have for McDonald’s. What do you think?

 

 

4 Take-Aways from Taylor Swift’s album release

Taylor Switch just sold 1.287 million albums.

That is the most albums sold in one week since 2002 when Eminem released “The Eminem Show” featuring the single “Without Me”. It is the most albums sold this year. No other album has succeeded in going platinum this year and that includes releases from Lady Gaga, Maroon 5, and Florida Georgia Line. In a time of declining album sales how did Taylor Swift do it? I think it was more than musical expertise. Here are four marketing take-aways:

 

100 likes Guy Meme

 

1. She fought the system.

Taylor made an unconventional move by removing her music from online streaming service Spotify and refusing to allow her new album to be played online for free. This is a 180 degree turn from what the music industry is doing. Is it always wise to defy convention? No. But by forcing her fans to buy the album to hear it she found a convention to defy that was in her favor. It was a low risk high reward plan that appears to have worked out for her.

2. She was everywhere. Even NPR. Twice.

Leading up to the release Taylor did appearances on all sorts of media outlets. Late night shows and early morning shows. She worked hard. Even outlets that might be on the fringe of her target market, like NPR. I caught a piece of her interview with Fresh Air and Morning Edition and was impressed by her interview skills. One of the downsides with radio is that you would have had to look on twitter to see that she even showed up on NPR dressed in costume.

3. She incentivised purchase.

To help make people purchase the album in the stores she incentivised the purchase. Taylor and her marketing team thought through the action they wanted people to take (buy an album in the store) and made a good guess on the amount of incentive customers needed to complete that transaction(3 bonus tracks, pictures, and other stuff). She turned the buying of the cd into an experience and in a world full of stuff, experiences will become more and more important.

3. She connected with fans.

Swift does an amazing job with connecting with fans on Twitter and Instagram. One particularly interesting effort was having people send her pictures of them buying her album in stores! I bet for most of these tweens it was their first album to purchase and put their hands on a physical copy (unless it was a gift). In a world where people (me included) get excited about a a mention or retweet on twitter, why not do it to your fans! What a way to connect with fans with exerting a small amount of effort. If someone tries to connect with you on social media it is to your advantage to reach back.

 

Taylor Swift market genius?

What is holistic marketing?

While guest teaching a class with a client at the University of Memphis-Lambuth campus last week I made the following statement:

“As a marketer I am a bit of a control freak.”

I think as marketing continues to develop this statement will become more common. If you handle the marketing for a business, not just providing a service like a logo or some print material, it will serve you well to be a little controlling when it comes to marketing.

As the marketer for a business (or the owner) I think you should start thinking about every point of contact with a customer as an opportunity to make a stark raving fan. I describe this thought process as Holistic Marketing. Holistic marketing means that marketing is more than just a logo and an ad.

Holistic marketing works through all of the pieces of your business to help the customer have a great user experience

(to borrow a term from the web design world). Instead of thinking about something like customer service or returns as an annoying/nonprofitable area think of it as a tool you have to help retain a customer and increase that customer’s lifetime value.

Like social media, websites, and text messaging, customer experience is another tool of the marketer.

If you have a great ad and someone comes to your restaurant, visits your retail location, or calls your phone number and the food is cold or the clerk is rude your ad is going to do more harm than good. Before you spend money on ads think: What pieces do we need to have in place to make sure this ad is as successful as possible? Evaluate the entire process for the customer from walking in the door to completing his purchase to returning something if her experience is bad. Then think about how you can make each step in the process great for the customer.

Questions about holistic marketing? Send me an email and we can set up a consultation.

 

Customer* Spotlight: Madison Co CASA

Customer is not the right word here because all the work for I do for Madison County CASA is done pro bono. (Which I have always used but what does it really mean? I guess it doesn’t have anything to do with Sonny and Cher or that guy from U2 after all)

The mission of Madison County CASA is to advocate for safe permanent nurturing homes for a abused and neglected children by providing specially selected and trained community volunteers.

I was recently elected to the board and will be helping them by providing marketing services. So this post has two purposes: 1. To show some of my work. 2. Let you know about some upcoming events that you could attend to help CASA.

1. Eat Outback for CASA.

On November 7 you can eat lunch at the Outback in Jackson for $20. Almost half of the money from each meal ends up in CASA’s hands. That means you get an amazing lunch put on by the great manger and staff at Jackson’s Outback. By eating lunch you get to help a great cause in CASA. In every sense of the phrase this event is a WIN-WIN! Here is the link to the Facebook event.

Eat Outback for CASA!

2. Breakfast with Santa

Thanks to sponsorships from Leaders Credit Union and the Barn at Snider Farms CASA will be hosting its first ever Breakfast with Santa on December 6. For $5 come and have breakfast and take pictures with Santa. If you have children this would be a great way to avoid the creepy mall Santas and still get your children’s annual picture with Santa.

Breakfast with Santa

 

Keep an eye out for more opportunities to help CASA as they serve children who really need our help.

Facebook Local Awareness

Man holding iPhone

Man holding iPhone

Facebook is flexing it’s big data muscles again by introducing Facebook Local Awareness.

Facebook is now using your location to sell ads. Nothing new right? They could already place ads in front of people in your city but now they are taking it to the next level. By using the location system on your phone (that is my assumption, I am not sure of the technology behind the program) they are able to target ads within a distance as mile away from the brick and mortar location of a store/event.

With Facebook Local Awareness you can now target people driving past your store. From a marketing angle this is awesome. A few scenarios: being near a college campus and setting your food discounts to that area. Coffee shop in a business district? Send the ad to all the workers about a special on coffee.  Near the interstate? You can set your ad far enough out from your location to pick up the major gas stations.

There are several ways you can set the goals for the ad. I think the real trick here will be for “Offer”. This will allow retail and restaurants to help drive foot traffic. Other services such as a mechanic could use this to gain likes for the neighborhood they serve.

Local Awareness

As a consumer it might be a little scary.

Check out Facebook Awarenesss here.

I am going to try and do a case study with this new tool soon and will post the results on the blog.

Beware of Hashtags

DiGiornos Twitter Fail

 

This week Ray Rice was cut from the Baltimore Ravens.

While another post based on the decisions of the NFL in regards to marketing maybe in order, that is not what we are here to discuss. I believe the hashtag #WhyIStayed surged in popularity because of the despicable and public choices of Ray Rice. The hashtag #WhyIStayed was made for women who had been part of abusive relationships to help others understand why they stayed in that relationship. Similarly interesting is the #WhyILeft hashtag helping others see the reason why it is worth leaving an abusive relationship.

DiGionro's did look into hashtags

Enter DiGiorno Pizza. The social media manager at DiGionro, hopefully, unwittingly tweeted “You Had Pizza”.  Now if the hashtag was referencing any number of other things #WhyIStayed: in the stands during the Rams Blowout, on the couch while that terrible movie was playing, on the live feed during Apple’s latest announcement, it would have been appropriate and potentially funny.

There have been lots of great funny hastags (#removealetterruinaband)but there have been very few serious ones. Understandably the assumption of the tweeter may have been that the hastag must have been a humorous one. Before you join in a hashtag conversation be sure that you at least look at the tag in use to get the context of its use. Clicking on the hashtag will show other people’s use of it. If the social media manager at DiGionro had done this he would have seen some heart wrenching tweets.

Feel free to use hashtags and join in on conversations on twitter but do so with caution.

What is your favorite hashtag?

 

 

Text Marketing to College Students

Influence on College Students
via Marketingcharts.com

Another helpful chart this week from MarketingCharts.com. Depending on your business, college kids can be a great customer base to target. This is especially true with affordable restaurants, entertainment venues, and clothing stores. College students love to spend time with their friends and frequently that comes in the form of sharing a meal, shopping, or going to a concert. As with all the age groups, college students love word of mouth, after all it is the best way to find out about the new hip restaurant or store in town. The other two mediums in the top three are very affordable to utilize.

Online coupons can come from email marketing, a page on your website, a special on social media, or a deal with a local online deal program (here in Jackson, Snagmob.com is popular). Mobile ads are really easily done with text message marketing. Text message marketing can be done cost effectively and because you can send out time sensitive deals on a slow night of business they can help drive traffic strategically. They can also be used to bring attention to specific deals and events you have going on. People frequently forget things you have announced earlier through more traditional means of marketing and a text can give them a very timely reminder.

Adelsberger Marketing can help you with getting an email or text messaging campaign set up for your business. Send me an email at: kevin@kadelsberger.com to set up your free consultation.

 

 

Guess what? People dont trust…

People do not really trust sponsored content. Big surprise right? This reminds me of the general distrust of authority that seems ever present in our current culture. We have been lied to many times by leaders and companies and as a result we trust very few or none of them anymore.

Although Sponsored Content is sneakier in the digital format, I always flash back to a magazine. Do you remember those pages that looked a little different from the rest of the magazine because they were not up to the same visual quality of the rest of the pages.  They also  said “Sponsored Story” in the top corner.  Those were the worst. I never read them, always went right past them even.

Now and days with native advertising they no longer stick out as badly but hopefully will remain clearly labeled. But 22.5%  would believe the story if it is from a trusted brand. So how do we become a trust brand? Probably start by not lying.

Here are the charts:

Media Charts Trust in Sponsored Content

Why would you make something non responsive anymore?

Why would you make anything that is not responsive anymore? Unless there is some super technical thing on your site that cannot be responsive, there is no reason to not have a responsive website. More than 30% of traffic is now mobile, that means if your site is not responsive, IT LOOKS BAD FOR MORE THAN 30% OF YOUR VISITORS! Responsive is now as standard as remote entry is on cars. If your website is not responsive you need to start a redesign soon! This even expands into emails as the below statistics reveal. Is your email template responsive? (HT MarketingCharts)

 

First Impressions happen fast.

Another great resource for marketers is Marketing Charts. Marketing Charts is a free email service that shares some of the latest and greatest data about marketing.

First impressions happen fast. Sometimes before you even start the interaction (HT Art of Manliness: How to Enter a Room Like a Boss) These stats help me think about two things: 1. The first interaction with your product matters (duh) 2.What comes before that interaction.

1. Obviously if you mess up the initial interaction: the first meeting, the first plate of food, the first presentation, the first printing, the rest of the relationship is going to suffer.

2. I think to make such a strong connection so quickly there are often going to be some preliminary things happening:
Two thoughts:
1. Word of Mouth/Reputation: Your reputation sets the stage for your entrance to the party/meeting/point of first contact. Keep an eye on your online reviews and know what people say about you. When I go to a restaurant and I have read online that their service is slow, I am keeping a special eye out for it. Pay attention to and fix your weaknesses. Someone who is primed to be a critic becomes a fan to defend your reputation quickly.

2. Branding/Appearance: When you enter a place, the place will help set your perception of the interaction that is about to happen. It is the same thing with the brand personality that you put out into the community, if you use the average Joe persona people might be taken back by a $30 steak on the menu. Use your branding to help set the stage for your first interaction with a customer.

Think through the whole interaction, even try to imagine the part you are not privy to.  Use the tools you have to set up the first interaction with your brand to be successful so that you grow rabid fans quickly. Now I wonder what we could accomplish with some rabid fans?