By Linda Forrest
I’ll admit it – I look forward to the Oscars all year. I’m an ardent movie fan, and so I look forward to seeing which movies are the most celebrated at the annual awards ceremony. This year was no different but I did feel highly skeptical going into it about the hosts that had been selected in an attempt to lure in a younger demographic to watch the show. I also had a bad taste in my mouth from last year, where the hosts did a surprisingly middling job and, in my opinion, the wrong folks took home the top hardware. Still, I couldn’t wait to watch and see who would win what.
Having stayed up on Sunday way past my bedtime to watch the Oscars, my worst fears were realized when the show proved to be a poorly written, disjointed affair that only shone when it harkened back to awards shows of times gone by. Early ratings suggest that viewership was down 7 percent from last year. Roger Ebert Tweeted: “The worst Oscarcast I’ve seen, and I go back awhile. Some great winners, a nice distribution of awards, but the show? Dead. In. The. Water.”
As disastrous as it was to watch (the audience in my house alone went from four to one over the course of the program), some marketing lessons can be gleaned from the 2011 Academy Awards.
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By Linda Forrest
Francis kicked off the launch of this blog by listing to some of the more common objections made by technology companies about why they’re not investing in marketing. One of these straw man arguments, an all-too-common refrain, is a lack of budget. From that first post:
“Lack of budget is the next most common excuse for not engaging in marketing. This one has more legitimacy but it also betrays a failure by marketers. If we can’t get the funds we need to do the job we believe needs to be done, it’s because we have failed to adequately plot the line between cause and effect, between marketing outflow and revenue income. What rational person would decline to invest a second and third dollar into a marketing program that has proven that the first dollar actually produced the revenue we said it would?”
We’ve long said that marketing is an investment, rather than a cost centre, and that’s absolutely the case. A business that views marketing merely as an expenditure rather than a tool to increase market share and revenue is doomed to failure. Marketing requires investment of money, time and resources to be successful. To borrow a line from a Canadian bank’s advertising campaign, “you’re richer than you think” when it comes to having “budget” for marketing. And here’s why.
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By Linda Forrest
Late last year, PRNewswire gave a presentation at PubCon that shared its data about pitching in the new media world, what modes journalists – and PR practitioners – were using in 2010 and in what numbers. The results were as follows:
84 percent of journalists like to get pitched via email. In addition to email, these journalists also use Facebook (79 percent), LinkedIn (64 percent), and Twitter (58 percent) to search out potential stories.
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By Linda Forrest
A few weeks ago, as I trundled through a sparsely populated HMV, a retailer that’s rumoured to be on its way out of Canada (if not about to shuffle off this mortal coil altogether), I couldn’t help but wonder if its acronym still stood for His Master’s Voice or if its meaning had shifted and now accounts for the hats, mugs and videogames that have overtaken shelf space once devoted to recorded music.
Pair that with the intensive work we’ve been doing to launch our strategy practice and my mind turns to diversification as a marketing strategy. Wikipedia defines diversification in this usage, rather than its other recognized definition as a financial investment strategy, as “a form of corporate strategy for a company. It seeks to increase profitability through greater sales volume obtained from new products and new markets. Diversification can occur either at the business unit level or at the corporate level. At the business unit level, it is most likely to expand into a new segment of an industry which the business is already in. At the corporate level, it is generally…very interesting entering a promising business outside of the scope of the existing business unit.”
When does it make sense to branch out? How can your company go about determining if and when diversification is the right approach for you? Marketing experts like several of our Associates can provide you with strategic counsel on your particular scenario, but there are some tried and true considerations that must be truthfully answered to determine whether this is a successful evolution of your brand or a desperate move to increase revenues by trying to be all things to all people. Diversification is a risk, but it can be a calculated one.
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By Linda Forrest
…rather than what they need?
This question is inspired by Starbucks‘ announcement that Trenta-sized iced drinks are being introduced as a result of customer demand. These 31 oz. caffeinated beverages are still dwarfed by other options on the market – the Super Big Gulp comes to mind – but the supersizing of these drinks begs the question posed in the headline. As you can see in this handy illustration, the Trenta contains more liquid than the human stomach can readily hold.
In addition, it sees people drinking up to 230 calories in the sweetened versions of the drinks contained therein, and because they’re consuming caffeinated drinks rather than the water our bodies need to operate optimally, their nutritive value is almost nil. Yet, Starbucks claims the product meets an unmet customer desire. One could read into its siren logo: Is the company beckoning a customer base with dismal health, weight and fitness with yet another BIGGER option that isn’t good for them?
Ellen Degeneres has a funny take on the introduction of the Trenta.
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