Piling on Facebook

My friend John Nemo had an interesting post about why he thought “Facebook is Screwed.”


 

He points to a weak mobile application and lack of a good ad platform on said app.

With all of the hullabaloo around their IPO, it seems like everyone is piling on Facebook when they are “down.” Although I don’t know if raising billions of dollars is really being “down.” Anyway, I do agree with John to an extent but I think really where Facebook could be in trouble is they are starting to create “walls.” What I mean by that is to even click on an article that someone else has read or shared, you have to agree to give a reader application access to all of your information. No thank you, Facebook. Privacy issues are already a huge obstacle for social media giant and people are going to be less likely to share their information with dozens of applications just to read articles they can find on their own elsewhere.

I’ve also seen rumblings about the company selling a Facebook phone and perhaps developing their own web browser or buying Opera.  Right now they have few costs for operations, but if they start making a phone, that could cut into their slim margins and if it fails, it could be a crippling blow to the company’s future.  A web browser makes sense if they continue to go down the path of “building a wall” around the website.  Want to share a link on Facebook?  Maybe it would only open in Facebook’s browser once you share it.  The more walls we see go up, the more plausible it seems people will look elsewhere for spending their time on the web.

Anyway, I think there are a lot of risk factors that could impede Facebook’s future success.  However Facebook does have extremely high usage rate as well as a high barrier for exit.  People have shared a lot of information and have developed networks of friends on the website and would need to have motivation to leave besides walled content.  It is still a very powerful tool for sharing information with people and maintaining relationships, so users’ friends would have to be somewhere on the web that is going to give them a similar feel to Facebook and that place doesn’t exist yet.  Or does it?

 

1 Comment
by Chris W on June 11, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Internet, Social Media
Posted by Chris W on June 11, 2012

http://chriswalterbach.com/?p=271

Destination-based ads on airline displays

Typical seat back display on a Delta airplane

I was recently on a Delta flight to Los Angeles on a 767 which had seat back displays.  Throughout the flight, the displays showed ads for various things- the Delta American Express card, Hertz Rental Cars, among others.  Since I had plenty of time to think on this flight, I thought it would be a great idea for the airlines to use location or destination-based ads on those displays (if they aren’t doing it already).

Companies could post ads based on the destination of each flight that has these displays.  Or perhaps while you are streaking through the sky in the metal tube with wings, you could search for restaurants or other activities by using the seat back display.  Companies could pay the airline to appear in the search results.

Either option could be another revenue source for the already struggling airline industry and would also be helpful for travelers unfamiliar with their destination.

Obviously the seat back displays are a somewhat newer feature on planes and are not available on smaller planes yet, so this is a somewhat limited opportunity.  However, I can only imagine the technology will improve and evolve so it will make it less expensive to implement.  In the meantime, they should test it out on select flights and see how it performs.

No Comments
by Chris W on April 26, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Advertising, Marketing
Posted by Chris W on April 26, 2012

http://chriswalterbach.com/?p=259

Best Buy Going out of Business?

Last week I read this article from Forbes which discussed how the mighty electronics retailer Best Buy is on track to potentially go out of business. I feel like I am pretty familiar with the store as  they got their start in my home state of Minnesota and I have made many purchases from them in the past.

The author Larry Downes raises some good points.  Best Buy’s customer service is horrendous.  Their “Geek Squad” will set up your new PC for you…. (a relatively simple task) for a price!  Try buying something there during the holidays.  I remember last year I waited in line for about a half hour to purchase one item.  Notice how there are no express lines at Best Buy.  If you get stuck behind someone buying a television or other high priced item, be prepared to wait while the typically green cashier attempts to up-sell a warranty.  Don’t fear, however, once it is your turn to check out, you’ll get to hear the same pitch for a warranty for your headphones.

He also compares the terrible service at Best Buy to what customers experience shopping with Amazon.com, which appears to be Best Buy’s polar opposite.

CEO Brian Dunn responded to the article acknowledging the huge holiday blunder of not fulfilling orders in time for Christmas and notifying their customers only three days in advance.  However, I noticed, as did other commenters on the article on Forbes.com, that Mr. Dunn made no attempt to refute the claims of horrible customer service.  Perhaps he knows this is the company’s Achilles Heel.  Yet, if he knows this, shouldn’t he have acknowledged it and let readers know what he is expecting to do about it?  If he doesn’t know, then that is inexcusable.

So, what can the retailer do about this problem?  I have a few suggestions-

1) Fix customer service.  Now.

If you mess up, just acknowledge it, apologize, and make it better.  Don’t point to some lame policy because it is your policy.  Since it is yours, that means you can change it!

2) Make it fun to shop at your stores.

Have a greeter or something similar….and no, the security guard watching customers on surveillance cameras doesn’t count.  Take a page from Apple here.  Have friendly and knowledgeable people talking to customers and welcoming them to your stores.  Don’t push things on them they don’t need.

3) Make the website the same as the store or better!

Perhaps some of Best Buy’s business model changes can be made immediately on the web. The great thing about the web is if you try something on your website and it doesn’t work, you can always change it.  Right now, it’s not working.  Perhaps copy Amazon and have daily deals on hot items.  Don’t just make it a way to advertise stuff in your stores, make it a compliment to your stores.  I know they do this a bit with in store pickup, but there are a lot of other ways they could push the envelope.  Perhaps they should get into the music download business rather than outsourcing it to iTunes.  Doing so on the web would also compliment sales of music in their stores and help in improving brand loyalty with their existing customers.

-Chris

No Comments
by Chris W on January 17, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Brand Management
Posted by Chris W on January 17, 2012

http://chriswalterbach.com/?p=252

Thoughts on Google Music

Photo ripped from CNET.com

  Google Music was just released and I just downloaded the “Music Manager” and played around a bit with the site and have a few thoughts.

It was a pretty good promotional tactic for Google to use my favorite band Pearl Jam to entice me to sign up for the service.  Users who signed up yesterday could download a free bootleg from their 20th Anniversary Tour.  If I hadn’t mistakenly clicked the option to upload my entire iTunes folder to Google Music after the initial install, the download would have been a bit faster, but it still finished in a relatively short amount of time.

I encountered a problem right off the bat when I tried to pause or cancel the upload of my iTunes folder to Google Music.  The problem was there was no option to pause or cancel!  Hopefully this will be fixed in the future.  It possibly was left out on purpose to entice more people to move to this service rather than iTunes, which is a pretty good idea, but very poor in execution.  I have 7,000 songs on one PC and I can’t imagine how long it would take to upload all of those songs with my slow DSL upload speed.  The service also automatically continues with the upload upon opening if you close the software and go back in.

The other problem I ran into was as an iPhone user, there’s not an official Google iPhone application to use with the service.  This is definitely by design as on the “About” page they mention it is free to use for Android users. Darn it.  I’m also noticing another problem as far as choppiness when listening to the music online.  With Spotify, this NEVER happens to me.  However, the way to remedy that is to download the music to your PC, but that sort of negates the point of the service.  I also noticed a bit of a brand consistency issue with the color scheme.  Google Music uses a gray and orange color scheme, while everything else Google does is in their typical rainbow color scheme.  It’s a minor thing, but I thought it was a little surprising.

I definitely like that it is FREE, with the only downfall seemingly being that I have to upload all of my own music rather than it being there already like on Spotify or iTunes.  Google has taken some of iTunes, some of Spotify, some of Amazon and put it into one nice package to go along with their myriad of other web apps.  I’m leery of how many people will convert to 100% Google Music useage from iTunes, but iTunes has such a huge market share it can’t hurt to try to capitalize on some of that huge market potential. 

What will be the next step though?  Will they be able to integrate YouTube movies with the Music Manager or will they keep them separate?  Will they be able to maintain as good of a music catalog as iTunes?  It will definitely be interesting to find out how it goes in the coming months.

No Comments
by Chris W on November 18, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Marketing
Tagged
Posted by Chris W on November 18, 2011

http://chriswalterbach.com/?p=241

Dunkin Donuts expanding….again?

I happened to notice a Dunkin’ Donuts ad that ran during Monday Night Football the other night.  It appears they are looking to expand their reach after recently going public.  Dunkin Donuts are primarily an East Coast company and to spend the money to run national ads shows they really want to increase their national presence.  I also took notice of the ad since it was recently announced they are adding around 20 locations in the Des Moines market.

What I don’t understand is why they left the upper midwest in the first place.  I am from Minneapolis originally and we had a Dunkin Donuts less than a mile from our house and I recall at least a few other locations.  I don’t remember the coffee being all that special, although I was not really a coffee connoisseur at the time.

So what changed?  In my estimation, the rapid growth of Krispy Kreme around the country overwhelmed the market with donut shops and Dunkin’ Donuts most likely lost quite a bit of  local and national market share along with brand recognition due to that growth.  Krispy Kreme expanded way too fast so now they are the ones closing locations.  So, it’s possible that Dunkin’ Donuts purposely retreated to markets in which they already were dominant in order to rework their national strategy and now their IPO may be the knockout blow to Krispy Kreme (at least nationally).  The additional capital taken in from the IPO will most likely allotted to advertising and working with franchisees to expand to new markets.  It also appears on their website as though they are involved with many different social media avenues and using those to develop brand awareness on the Internet.

For their own benefit, hopefully Dunkin’ Donuts learns from Krispy Kreme’s mistakes of expanding too quickly.  I’m definitely looking forward to their expansion.  Now I won’t have to wait for work trips to the east coast for my Dunkin’ coffee fix.

-Chris

No Comments
by Chris W on September 29, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Advertising, Brand Management, Marketing
Posted by Chris W on September 29, 2011

http://chriswalterbach.com/?p=231

LeBron James fails at brand management

Photo courtesy of AP-Wilfredo Lee

Not only did NBA superstar LeBron James lose another Finals series last night, but this time his postgame comments taking aim at his critics most likely shredded what little regard some fans still had for him and may have tarnished his image and brand forever.

After numerous bad decisions including and most prolifically “The Decision,” one would think he would have learned his lesson to be more careful in his comments, especially in the last year he is one of the most scrutinized athletes in sports.  It seems like most members of the media complain that athletes only speak in cliches and never really have anything interesting to say.  There is a reason for this.  If an athlete makes obtuse comments such as LeBron did, fans will be immediately turned off and the already financially strapped NBA could stand to lose even more money than they currently are.

Just a year ago, before his meltdown in the Eastern Conference Finals, he was loved by sports fans all over the world.  Now, people seem to be standing in line to pile on to the guy as one of the most reviled athletes in sports.  Letting down your teammates is one thing, insulting the media and fans is an entirely different situation.  If his remarks basically telling people their lives are pathetic because they don’t have his fame and fortune were genuine or not, it still is a devastating blow to his brand equity.  If you were a company looking for a celebrity athlete to promote your product, would you pick LeBron right now?  I sure wouldn’t.  Obviously he’s not in “Tiger Woods after his sex scandal” territory right now, but with the number of public fumbles this guy has made, he’s getting darn close.

If I were his manager, agent, or advising him on his brand I would tell him to step out of the spotlight and focus on basketball.  The problem with LeBron is, it seems his friends are coaching him and they simply have no clue how to manage a global brand like LeBron James.  He really needs to get a non-biased voice on his payroll to tell the guy what what he NEEDS to hear, which includes things he probably doesn’t want to hear.  That appears to be the only way the guy is going to salvage his brand short of donating the rest of his paychecks to charity.

-Chris

No Comments
by Chris W on June 14, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Brand Management, Sports
Posted by Chris W on June 14, 2011

http://chriswalterbach.com/?p=213

2011- Summer of Sequels

When will it end??

While watching the Final Four I saw a commercial for “Fast 5” (aka Fast and Furious 5) and thought that it wasn’t the first sequel movie ad I have seen for movies coming up this year.  An article on Slashfilm.com mentions that there will be TWENTY SEVEN sequels this year, an all time record!  Here’s a few of them-

Scream 4- April 15th

Pirates of the Caribbean 4 - May 20th

Kung Fu Panda 2 and Hangover 2- May 26th

Cars 2- June 24th

Transformers 3 (Dark of the Moon)- July 1st

Harry Potter Part 7 (Part 2)- Double Sequel!- July 15th  (Couldn’t find a link to the official part 2 website, that’s not good, Warner Bros!)

Later on this year, we’ll see Sherlock Holmes- A Game of Shadows AND Mission: Impossible 4 (Ghost Protocol) released on December 16th.

Being somewhat of a writer, it is intellectually insulting to me that film studios lack the creativity to come up with great creative content, but as a businessperson I totally understand.  In our “uncertain economic times”, studios are relying more and more upon their trusted winning formulas and minimize their risk by putting out sequel after sequel.  After all, if you’re a film company, are you going to put millions of dollars into an unknown entity or a proven formula that works?

The other aspect of this is the consumer.  If consumers are so busy trying to keep up with bills and their daily routines, they won’t have time to research what movies are actually good, so they will most likely pick movies they hear good reviews from their friends and family.  They are also “voting with their wallets” and if discretionary income is lower these days, consumers are more likely to spend their money on something they know they will most likely enjoy.

Perhaps it is up to the studios to more creatively and effectively market their movies to make sure ones that are not sequels get their fair shake in the front of consumers’ eyeballs and spend less resources marketing sequels as they usually sell themselves.

What else can they do to promote the “good” stuff?

No Comments
by Chris W on April 19, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Marketing
Tagged ,
Posted by Chris W on April 19, 2011

http://chriswalterbach.com/?p=196

Credit Bureaus taking “advantage” of consumers

With identity theft running rampant these days, it’s important to keep tabs on your personal credit report at least once a year.  A recent article in the LA Times points out that credit bureaus make it very difficult to even purchase a copy of your credit report from them WITHOUT purchasing their “credit monitoring” services which come along with a monthly fee.

When I was a sales rep for Experian, I received many calls from consumers at my office trying to get a copy of their report, which I could only forward them on to our National Consumer Assistance Center or our Website www.Experian.com.  Now if I try going to Experian.com to purchase a copy of my credit report, I get a great offer to purchase my credit report including a credit score for just one dollar!  Great deal right?  However, once I entered my information and clicked “Submit and Continue,” I came upon this screen:

Of course I get to the bottom of my credit report order form and notice it says I will be enrolled in “Triple Advantage,” Experian’s monthly credit monitoring service, along with my purchase.

Obviously Experian and the other bureaus are in the credit report business and have a great product to offer consumers.  However, if you are giving consumers the bait and switch or make it very difficult to make simple purchases, those customers will go to one of your competitors for their purchase in a heartbeat.

Playing these tricks on consumers also affects the brands of the three bureaus.  Brand awareness of the three major credit bureaus cannot be that strong, since they all basically do the same thing.  A lot of people mistake AnnualCreditReport.com with FreeCreditReport.com in thinking they can get the one free copy of their credit report with no hassles.  I’m sure FreeCreditReport.com has the most brand awareness, but usually nowhere in the advertising does it state it is an Experian website, so the company is performing a bit of brand cannibalization in not communicating the website is an Experian property.  You can check out all of their ads as I found a great YouTube montage of all the them in one video here-

So what are the alternatives here?  Well, I can think of a few.  Firstly, they can make it a  lot easier for customers to opt in to their credit monitoring services rather than trying tirelessly to opt out.  Another option is to actually put a link on the “Triple Advantage” jargon so people understand what the features and benefits of the program are so they can make an informed decision.  Finally, each credit bureau could increase the presence of the parent companies  into their offshoot websites in hoping of driving consumers to their own website and discovering the many other products they have available.  One example is “AutoCheck” which is basically the same thing as the way more popular “Carfax” which advertises all over the place.  On their site, you can see it is an Experian property, but only as a subscript of the logo and a small disclaimer at the bottom of the webpage.  Perhaps if they re-branded to be “Experian AutoCheck” and “Experian Triple Advantage”, they would grow brand recognition as well as not confuse people with the repetitive message of “free” on the FreeCreditReport.com commercials.

As we know, nothing in life is free and people will be disappointed if they go to the website expecting such things and not receive them.

No Comments
by Chris W on February 23, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Marketing
Posted by Chris W on February 23, 2011

http://chriswalterbach.com/?p=150

Did Chrysler hit the target?

In probably the second most talked about commercial after Super Bowl Sunday (behind VW’s “The Force” ad), Chrysler’s cinematic ad featuring the City of Detroit, a thumping sample from Eminem’s “One Shot”, and scenes of the rapper driving Chrysler’s new “200″ sedan to a theater in Detroit. He then dramatically walks up on stage in front of a gospel choir to deliver the message “This is the Motor City….and this is what we do.”  You can see the ad for yourself right here-

On one hand, I think the ad hits the mark not only because of its high-quality cinematic production value, but also because it is conveying the message that Chrysler cars are made in Detroit which is a city that is hard working, produces great quality cars, and is on the rise again due to their strong work ethic and “never quit” attitude.

On the other hand, I think the ad missed the target because of who is featured in the ad. The sedan being showcased in the commercial seems to be a “sports sedan” that would most likely be purchased by the second half of the 18-54 key demographic who watches the Super Bowl. The problem with that is I cannot imagine that high of a percentage of people in that second half of the demo would be familiar with Eminiem and might wonder who the heck the guy is driving the car. If that is the case, then why would he influence their buying decision to pick up a Chrysler 200?

Again, I think it was a very well done ad, however, I just question its effectiveness in reaching Chrysler’s target market for the new 200.

What are your thoughts on this?

No Comments
by Chris W on February 10, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Advertising, Marketing
Posted by Chris W on February 10, 2011

http://chriswalterbach.com/?p=176

The most interesting marketing case in the world

Screen cap from Dos Equis' website with message from "The Man"

If you can’t make read the text of the picture on the left (you can also click on it to enlarge), here is the telegram message that greets visitors to www.DosEquis.com if you click on the “Meet the Man” page to find out more about “The Most Interesting Man in the World-”

“My friend, welcome.

Congratulations on making it this far and finding my place of refuge. It is unfortunate I cannot be there to greet you in person. But feel free to look around, and get to know a little bit ABOUT ME AND MY INTERESTS. You might discover something about yourself in the process.

Good luck, and Stay Thirsty, my friends.”

Euro RSCG New York has generated a brilliant and engaging campaign here for Dos Equis (owned by Heineken) with this man as he is a direct play at the psyche of the American man, which is the exact demographic they are going after.  The campaign seems to be working, since sales of Dos Equis have been up every year since the campaign began in 2006.

His catch phrase of “Stay thirsty, my friends” is classy, brief, and easy to remember.  That’s pretty much the trifecta of a good advertising/marketing message. It definitely helps brand recognition as well.  If you were to ask someone which beverage used that slogan, it would be a very high probability the person asked would recall it to be Dos Equis.

"Stay thirsty, my friends."

The campaign has been wildly successful in the virtual realm as well, with an impressive 936,000-plus people “liking” the Dos Equis Facebook page featuring “The Man.”  Fans post their own creative tidbits about “The Man” on the page’s Wall with some being very funny and others, well…not as much.  There are also numerous Twitter accounts which claim to be “The Man” and dole out comparable one liners about him.  The Facebook page also features a tab to “The Most Interesting Cargo Hunt” game as well as a tab including information on a touring performance headlined this fall by Andrew WK called “The Most Interesting Show in the World.”  An Alexa search shows the online campaigns have driven the exact traffic they are looking to sell product to; the male, 18-34 demo.  Another captivating part of the campaign is there is somewhat of a story to follow.  Each commercial features “The Man” in different adventures, so the viewer is always wondering what will happen next.

Four years seems like a long time for one ad campaign to run.  However, due to its success in getting more people to drink beer, I can see Dos Equis being able use this campaign for quite some time.  In the current economic slowdown, it’s important to give people value for their money.  This campaign gives the illusion of luxury to the consumer when they are, in fact, just buying beer.  Well done, Dos Equis.  Well done.

2 Comments
by Chris W on December 20, 2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Marketing, Social Media
Posted by Chris W on December 20, 2010

http://chriswalterbach.com/?p=69

« Older Posts