Like the many millions of other users of Facebook, I have succumbed to becoming a fan of meaningless ‘groups’ which try and make a statement about some sort of topical issue (aka the ‘Busselton needs a nightclub’ group). One ‘group’ that I found particularly interesting was the ‘I hate Rivers ads’ group. Upon further investigation I was shocked to find that over 100,000 people are fans, and the page is filled with blasphemous, uncensored comments about why people hate the store, and their advertising so much. Every business, large or small, encounters some form of bad PR, even if it is just in the form of a verbally unsatisfied customer, but the River’s example proves that management of bad PR is very important – let it go and you could have 100,000 people communicating their dissatisfaction to the masses.
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Anyone in advertising knows that as the temperature goes up, traditional media consumption goes down. This is why the only programs on TV at the moment are cheesy Christmas movies or Simpsons re-runs, and Summer media space is sold at discounted rates. Instead of giving up or slowing down your media spend during this time of the year, consider how you can do things differently – like getting involved with my favourite Summer marketing tool, outdoor cinema.
I have just relocated to a new suburb, not yet privileged enough to receive any form of junk mail (until out of the isolation, rose the ever-faithful Dominos vouchers which seem to follow me everywhere I go). I then thought to myself – I am a prime marketing target. I’ve just built a home and need to buy countless forms of furniture and homewares to fill it, and I have no spare time to go and do my own product research, yet no-one is marketing to me!
Moving house and changing your address at all the various institutions which have your details is hard work – I have done it recently and it’s not much fun. The process is made all the more frustrating when you have to consider all the various member programs or loyalty cards you’ve ever signed up for that send you a piece of communication once in a blue moon. In trying to save the new tenants of my old address years of annoying incorrectly addressed mail, I endeavoured to make the address change as encompassing as possible. What this whole process highlighted to me was, no-one seems to update their databases any more! I encountered people who still had my address on their records of when I still lived with my parents (which was nearly 10 years ago!)
We’ve all witnessed some of Australia’s biggest companies undergo a brand change recently; Woolworths and ANZ are two giants that instantly come to mind. As someone whose daily task is often advising how to implement change, I tend to pay pretty close attention to how these massive overhauls are implemented. Believe it or not, the change process is not that dissimilar, regardless of whether you employ 10 people or 10,000. The only real difference is money, and the degree of national media coverage (which means we can all learn from the big guys’ very public mistakes!)
Most businesses would have heard of Google Adwords by now, but what I can bet is that a large majority’s attitude toward it will be something along these lines…
It’s only for big business
It’s only for businesses whose target market is web savvy and only search for their service/product online
It’s expensive and too difficult to maintain or manage
Lets bust these common Adwords myths…
I always enjoy a good intellectual property victory and am pleased to report on yet another small business conquering the big in retaining the rights to their name. Katie Perry, an Australian fashion designer, has received a great deal of media attention recently following a challenge to her trademark registration by lawyers representing the Hollywood singer, Katy Perry (aka ‘I kissed a girl’).