One of the great things about writing for Optimove is that I get to review hundreds of interesting marketing stories to select the very best ones to be featured on the PostFunnel site. My most recent one just got this LinkedIn mark of distinction:
"Congratulations! Your post was featured by the LinkedIn News team in "Home-schooling...at Disney World?"
To read the post, click on Hotels Now Offer “Schoolcations”
Tuesday, September 8, 2020
Monday, August 31, 2020
From Shakespeare to Starbucks: Pumpkin spice marketing mystique
Popular wisdom used to say "It's the sizzle that sells the steak." Well, today it's the PSL buzz that sells the drink. But if you know your Shakespeare, you know that it's not a wholly new idea.
Retailers don't wait until October to push pumpkin in the form of special scents and flavors. Even those who don’t sell drinks or food have hopped on the pumpkin spice bandwagon with scented candles, body lotions, soaps, and even deodorant.
In fact, the most highly-anticipated pumpkin spice of all made its grand arrival in August. I refer, of course, to pumpkin spice latte (PSL) that fans look for every year at their favorite coffee shop.
The pumpkin spice mystique is not just about the flavor; it’s about building a connection with customers that heightens anticipation and engagement. Starbucks does it brilliantly.
During August, Starbucks rides the buzz on the return of the PSL. It lets it build up with much speculation about when the first one will be poured, as the date changes each year to maintain a feeling of mystery and maximize anticipation.
That's the essence of the PR strategy that Shakespeare's Prince Henry adopts, as he tells the audience in Henry IV Part I:
I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness:
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at,
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wish'd for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behavior I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I'll so offend, to make offence a skill;
Redeeming time when men think least I will.
What works for heroic kings in plays also works for brands that know that even pleasurable things lose their sparkle when they are around all the time, just as we take the sun for granted when it is never hidden by clouds. The perception of rarity grants the object in question a particular status that it would not have if it were always available.
For more marketing posts, see a collection of links to blogs posted on various publications here and
Marketing in Uncommon Times
For more references to Shakespeare, see The Marriage Plot: Expectations for Novel Ending Must Be Met, The Marriage of Opposites, and Happy (Early) Birthday, Shakespeare.
Thursday, August 27, 2020
Have your shoe and eat it too
Anyone on TikTok or Twitter has likely seen at least one #EverythingIsCake meme. These very short videos make anything from what looks like a can of Coke, glass of water, roll of toilet paper, or even a human hand to be an actual cake that is revealed when it is cut. Yummy.
A Croc was one of the items, and perhaps that is what inspired the collaboration between Deliveroo and Adidas UK. Deliveroo delivered the news in a tweet featuring the edible version of the new ZX 2K Boost Adidas sneaker (in England called trainer) design that would accompany the real thing for the winner of its promotional offer.
Does the shoe fit?
For a chance to win the twin pairs of shoes - one to wear and one to eat - those who live within a 1.5 mile of the Deliveroo Whitechapel Editions kitchen have to visit its app after noon on August 26. While cake is among the usual items Deliveroo delivers, the wearables would be a first.
So why should a food delivery service promote itself with sneakers? It’s all about capturing attention and publicity.
Read more in Have Your Cake and Eat It Too.
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
A nickel-and-dime trick for thousands of dollars of free publicity
One of the things that has been noticeably absent this summer due to COVID-19 is the usual run of summer blockbusters. It’s been a long road to safe reopening.
At the end of August, finally, there is good news for movie lovers. AMC Theatres announced it will open over 100 theaters as of August 20th, rolling out to open more than half of their locations by September 3.
To mark the reopening and 100 years of movies, AMC is offering 1920 prices at the theater for one day only.
Limited time bargain
This offer is only available to those fortunate enough to be in the vicinity of one of the theaters opening on the 20th. They get to snag the bargain of a lifetime: just 15 cents plus tax for any movie showing that Thursday.
This is a great opportunity to be able to echo your own grandparents in boasting “I remember when movie tickets cost just 15 cents!”
Read more in: A nickel-and-dime reopening offer from AMC
Why is offering 15 cent tickets such a win? In the first place, the people who do snag those tickets on Thursday will likely feel they saved enough to justify a splurge at the concession stand. In the second place, the offer brought AMC so much attention that just about every single news outlet in the country covered the story, giving it tens of thousands of dollars worth of free publicity.
What's in a pen name?
We’ve all heard that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but what about the name on the cover? Should it be the author’s real name or her chosen one?
The Reclaim Her Name series is a re-release of books “with their author's real name on the cover for the first time.” To mark the 25th anniversary of the Women's Prize for Fiction, there are 25 books available for free download or eBooks (which definitely keeps costs down for printing and shipping).
It’s a fact that women have written some of the best novels ever published. It’s also a fact that some of those novels feature a man's name in place of the authors.
The question then is: are we doing a favor to George Eliot and her pseudonymous peers in stamping their birth names in place of the names they chose themselves?
Read more in A Toast to Women Writers
Why you need a little Christmas in your marketing earlier this year
From key search terms to AR-powered ads, this holiday season is a boon to brands that capitalize on digital opportunity and get in the game early.
Among the many shifts in shopper behavior thriggered by the global pandemic is that of thinking about the December holidays as early as April. Marketing insights from Pinterest and Facebook were already published in June, so businesses can start to gear up earlier than usual.
Dreaming of the holidays under lockdown
In June, Pinterest put out its guide to marketing with the apt title, Earlier Than Ever Holiday 2020. While pinners always show earlier holiday activity than the public at large, this year, they were thinking of Christmas as early as April.
Pinterest reports that its search volume on terms like “Christmas gift ideas,” “holiday recipes,” “Christmas,” “holidays,” and “Christmas decor” were 70% higher in April 2020 than for April 2019. Clearly this past April was different from those of other years.
By then a fair amount of us were told to stay home to stay safe under lockdown conditions with no clear end in sight. Feeling both bleak and bored at home, it’s no wonder that people felt they could use a little Christmas right this very minute.
Cue up the song from Mame:
at were t
“As the coronavirus pandemic grips us with anxiety and fear, we should all follow Mame's lead and light up the night with holiday lights and lighthearted music.” That’s the comment from April 2020 on the video.
From dreaming to planning and shopping
One major difference to note between the two guides, though is this: While Facebook does draw on some data from 2020 to account for the pandemic’s impact, it primarily draws its holiday trends from 2019, in contrast to Pinterest’s focus on 2020 for holiday searches.
Read more in
Holiday Season Arrives Early for Data-Driven Marketing
Among the many shifts in shopper behavior thriggered by the global pandemic is that of thinking about the December holidays as early as April. Marketing insights from Pinterest and Facebook were already published in June, so businesses can start to gear up earlier than usual.
Dreaming of the holidays under lockdown
In June, Pinterest put out its guide to marketing with the apt title, Earlier Than Ever Holiday 2020. While pinners always show earlier holiday activity than the public at large, this year, they were thinking of Christmas as early as April.
Pinterest reports that its search volume on terms like “Christmas gift ideas,” “holiday recipes,” “Christmas,” “holidays,” and “Christmas decor” were 70% higher in April 2020 than for April 2019. Clearly this past April was different from those of other years.
By then a fair amount of us were told to stay home to stay safe under lockdown conditions with no clear end in sight. Feeling both bleak and bored at home, it’s no wonder that people felt they could use a little Christmas right this very minute.
Cue up the song from Mame:
“As the coronavirus pandemic grips us with anxiety and fear, we should all follow Mame's lead and light up the night with holiday lights and lighthearted music.” That’s the comment from April 2020 on the video.
From dreaming to planning and shopping
One major difference to note between the two guides, though is this: While Facebook does draw on some data from 2020 to account for the pandemic’s impact, it primarily draws its holiday trends from 2019, in contrast to Pinterest’s focus on 2020 for holiday searches.
Read more in
Holiday Season Arrives Early for Data-Driven Marketing
Monday, August 17, 2020
Making working from home work for your business
The number of employees working at least part time from home has been rising over the past few years According to Global Workplace Analytics: “69% of employers offer remote work on an ad hoc basis to at least some employees, 42% offer it part time, 27% offer it full time.”
Once the coronavirus pandemic struck, those numbers swelled as companies around the globe scrambled to comply with government mandates that disallowed businesses to bring in anyone to a workplace that was not deemed essential.
“The world’s biggest work from home experiment” is how Heinan Landa, CEO and Founder of Optimal Networks, describes the current situation.
Read more in
Implementing a Successful Remote Work Strategy
Diversity produces better quality for AI
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer just a projection into future uses but a part of business practices. Machine learning (ML) is a tool used by businesses for predictive modeling that is used in an array of industries, from healthcare to finance to security.
The question that businesses have to address is: Are we being careful to not misuse AI by having it reinforce human biases in the training data?
To get insight into the various factors that play into that assurance, Martine Bertrand, Lead AI at Samasource in Montreal shared her thoughts. Bertrand holds a Ph.D. in physics and has applied her scientific rigor to ML and AI.
The Source of Bias
Bertrand concurs with what other experts have pointed out: “The model doesn’t choose to have a bias,” but rather she said it: “learns from the data it is exposed to.” Consequently a data set that is biased toward a certain category, class, gender, or color of skin will likely produce an inaccurate model.
We saw several examples of such biased models in Can AI Have Biases? Bertrand referred to one of the instances, that of Amazon’s Rekognition. It came under fire over a year ago when Joy Buolamnwini focused her research on its effects.
Buolamnwini found that while Rekognition did have 100% accuracy in recognizing light-skinned males and 98.7% accuracy even for darker males, the accuracy dropped to 92.9% for women with light skin and just 68.6% accuracy for darker-skinned women
Despite the demand for its removal from law enforcement agencies, the software remained in use. Bertrand finds that outrageous because of the potential danger inherent in relying on biased outcomes in that context.
Let me entertain you
The cornerstone of TikTok for Business is the key to effectively marketing to Gen Z as identified by the motto, “Don’t Make Ads, Make TikToks.” It’s not just about self-promotion for the platform that has had explosive growth over the past year but about meeting the expectations of a generation that is responsive to marketing that moves it. Not to what feels like an ad.
Draw in Gen Z with creative content
Marketers “should create ads that don’t feel like ads,” according to Gen Z in 2020: How to Advertise to the New Digital Natives. That’s the conclusion it draws from research into what draws positive attention from Gen Z.
Drawing on a 2017 study by Time Inc., Media Post says Gen Zers “want to see brands do something new, unique, or creative to get their attention.” Also 88% agree that it’s “a good way for new brands it hasn’t heard of to reach them.”
The numbers are equally impressive for the responses on engagement: “the study found that 90% of those polled like the idea of custom content as a way for brands to engage them, 89% believe that custom content is a great way for brands to break through the clutter.”
How can brands create this kind of custom content that engages Gen Z? Performance art appears to be a pretty effective approach, as it taps into this generation’s passions.
These were the findings of market research company, Millward Brown: “Gen Z are dramatically more passionate about music and movies. Ads placed in these contexts are far more powerful with this group, with 39% of Gen Z saying music makes them more positive to advertising and 38% reporting that movies have the same effect.”
Likely that is due to the emotional pull that music and movies have on audiences. When we listen to or watch something that really resonates with us, it makes a very deep impression, which is why it can prove so effective for marketing.
Music and marketing, a natural pairing
This is the background of that approach Movers+Shakers takes in creating custom content for marketing, particularly aimed at Gen Z and millennials. The company’s CEO, Evan Horowitz, shared the secret sauce of its campaigns’ success: joyful marketing.
What underlies their approach is the understanding that “consumers want to be entertained,” he said. “Anything that feels like an ad is a turnoff.” That’s why at Movers + Shakers, the content produced for brands is entertaining with music selected to resonate with the style of the brand and its audience.
Read more in Don’t Make Ads: Make Engaging Entertainment
The 15 Second Key to Success
"In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes," Andy Warhol predicted back in 1968. In the 21st century, though, it’s not about minutes but seconds.
TikTok videos are designed to be short and the original default length for uploading was just 15 seconds. Rivals hoping to capitalize on the popularity of the short video format with music also set their base standard at 15 seconds.
The boom and bust of 2020 for TikTok
The first half of 2020 has been very good for the social video app from Internet company ByteDance, called TikTok. By the end of April, Sensor Tower Store Intelligence estimated that the app had been downloaded over 2 billion times on the App Store and Google Play.
The first half of 2020 has been very good for the social video app from Internet company ByteDance, called TikTok. By the end of April, Sensor Tower Store Intelligence estimated that the app had been downloaded over 2 billion times on the App Store and Google Play.
The popularity of TikTok is a worldwide phenomenon. However, its presence in India is now curtailed because the government banned the app, as well as 58 others, on June 29, due to their links to China. That is quite a blow to the app in light of the huge user base in India.
Live Mint reports that there were over 200 million active users of the app in India, which represents a major chunk of its global hold. It was such a profitable market for ByteDance that last year the company said it planned to invest a billion dollars there.
The rise of the Reels rival
The Indian market may now turn to one of the rival video platforms that have been trying to compete with TikTok. They include offerings from Instagram and YouTube.
As TikTok’s growth has been impossible to ignore, Facebook attempted to launch its own version through Instagram under the name Reels. It first rolled out on a limited basis in Brazil in November 2019.
Read more in Finding Success In 15 Seconds
Thursday, February 13, 2020
The Introvert Cheat Sheet
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| Bridge near Bear Mountain, photo by Ariella Brown |
Small talk, for real?
I really got a sense that the author, Bradley Little, is not an introvert. While he claims he his approach doesn't require any form of "rewiring" pushing introverts into small talk is the equivalent of forcing a lefty to write with her right hand. She may look like she's doing the "normal" thing, but she'll be very awkward and clumsy at it, which will make her less confident in the situation.
In other words, the following is extremely bad advice for introverts:
I really got a sense that the author, Bradley Little, is not an introvert. While he claims he his approach doesn't require any form of "rewiring" pushing introverts into small talk is the equivalent of forcing a lefty to write with her right hand. She may look like she's doing the "normal" thing, but she'll be very awkward and clumsy at it, which will make her less confident in the situation.
In other words, the following is extremely bad advice for introverts:
When you’re nervous going into a call, break the ice. Small talk helps you find connections but it will also get you out of your head. Comment on the weather. Yeah, it’s dumb. We all know it’s dumb. But it’s something anyone can talk about. Ask them how their morning is going. Ask them about their weekend. Do they have kids? Where do they live?
It really doesn’t matter what it is. The important thing is to see the people you’re talking to as just that—people.
This is wrong on so many counts!
Asking about kids may even be an illegal question in some contexts, so stay off family unless the other person explicitly bring it up.
Introverts don't necessarily have a fear of people. That's shyness, rather than introversion. Sometimes the two are coupled in the same person, but they are not synonymous.
It's true that many introverts hate talking on the phone. They have a serious aversion to the instrument, so for them, an in-person meeting may actually be preferable. If you're not a phone person, ask about meeting for coffee, or the like. That will actually win you major points because extroverts value in-person contact.
The key to getting the conversation flowing is not stilted small talk hitting on a topic that the person is passionate about. They will be able to go on and on, and you just have to ask the relevant questions, interjecting appropriate comments here and there. The result will be a much more stimulating conversation that creates a deeper connection than you can ever achieve from "So what do you think about this weather we've been having, huh?"
Now you may be thinking, "But how do I get to find the person's passion?" It's not all that difficult if the purpose of the call is related to business. You already know what the person does for a living, and you can ask about their work-related motivation, how they see their company's position, etc. Introverts are actually amazing conversational partners because they don't seek to dominate the conversation themselves and give the other person the opportunity to talk about himself. Who doesn't love that?
Absolute perfection is unattainable
To give credit where credit is due, it does bring up the important issue of impostor syndrome. However, that is something that applies to all people, and not just introvert. There's no substantiation that introverts are more afflicted than the general population, though the tendency toward introspection does also likely result in more self-doubt. A good article on overcoming that is Cat Neligan's Five Tips to Overcome Impostor Syndrome.
My own tip is overcoming an inclination to perfectionism because that holds you back from accomplishing. Sure, you want your published work to be as perfect as possible, but if you obsess over every dot and tittle in it, you will never meet a deadline or be able to move on to the next project at a pace that really allows you to make a living at this.
Will people gloat if a writer includes a typo? Sure. Should you let that destroy your self-image, though? No.
Even the highest paid baseball players are not expected to bat a thousand. It simply is not humanly possible. And it is not humanly possible to NEVER make a mistake. Holding yourself to that standard is absurd, so forgive yourself, fix what you can, and move on.
Ask for What You Want
Of course, you don't merely want to move on but to move up, and this is the most important thing to advance your career: you have to ask for what you want. That means asking people to consider you for a job, recommend you for a job, or even getting a raise on the job you have.
I admit this is very difficult for introverts. The prevailing fantasy in a hard-working introvert's mind is that all the effort put in will be noticed and appreciated, and the people who do that will simply give us what we wish for without our having to express it. This is a nice fairy tale that rarely comes true.
I put in the qualifier above because really it does sometimes come true to some extent. I have had people contact me out of the blue because they recall my interviewing them for an article in another publication and so came back to me when they and are in the position of hiring writers. But even in those cases, it sometimes takes months for these things to get off the ground, and it may prove to be a very short-term need.
There's no escaping the need to keep not just looking for new opportunities but asking for them.
And as for the raises, I have yet to have someone just say, "You know you've been doing good work for us for several years now, and you deserve a raise." It doesn't happen. But I have had some honest editor admit, that, yes, they were paying some of their writers more, and I did deserve that higher rate. But I had to ask.
Does that mean it always works? Not at all. I've had my requests for raises turned down with the excuse that the budget was fixed, and that was that. So I may have been disappointed, but I was not in fact any worse off than I had been before asking.
As for recommendations, here's the thing: you definitely want some decent recommendations on your LinkedIn profile. But most managers won't just offer to do it, not because you don't deserve it but because it entails some work on their part. So again, you have to ask and sometimes even follow up with a gentle reminder. You may never get one from some people, but if you don't ask, you'll have none at all.
The Introvert Cheat Sheet
Play to your conversational strengths to make connections, including the medium of communication.
Don't let perfectionism hold you back. Good things don't always come to those who wait and have to be actively pursued.
For more on introversion, read:
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2012/05/perspectives-on-introversion-this-is.html
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2012/04/working-alone.html
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2012/04/great-introvert.html
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2013/06/jane-austens-heroines-from-extroverted.html
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2013/08/happiness-is.html
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2014/12/views-on-boundaries.html
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2013/11/public-or-it-didnt-happen.html
Thursday, July 25, 2019
How to for LinkedIn profile
See leisurejobs.com/staticpages/18285/the-ultimate-linkedin-cheat-sheet/
Thursday, July 18, 2019
Peak summer is also peak back to school marketing time
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| photo from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/Early_back-to-school_display_at_Walmart%2C_Kingston%2C_NY.jpg/637px-Early_back-to-school_display_at_Walmart%2C_Kingston%2C_NY.jpg |
Just after the firecrackers fade out on the Fourth of July, marketers shift their tune from the pleasures of summer to anticipating back to school. While the messaging may appear out of sync with the beach season, it’s actually right on target for the majority of shoppers.
Deloitte’s 2019 back-to-school survey anticipates very strong sales at the end of this summer. They anticipate back to school spending to hit $27.8 billion, or $519 per student, up slightly from $510 in 2018. The lion’s share of the total -- $15 billion -- is allocated to clothing and accessories. School supplies are second at $6.1 billion. The remaining amount is split fairly closely between the categories of computers and electronic gadgets.
Over half of those purchases occur in-store, the shopping venue of choice for 56 percent of those surveyed. Online shopping is still quite a way behind at percent though that is up from what it has been in the past.
Whether they’re shopping in person or on their devices, though, most are not waiting for the approach of Labor Day. In fact, Deloitte forecasts that 62 percent of the purchases are made by early August, which means that marketers aiming for that $17.3 billion need to get started early.
That is consistent with what Jose Sánchez, Head of Creative Studio, Smartly.io says in his tips for marketers who want to capitalize on this extremely lucrative market in an interview with DMN. He observed that half of shoppers have already completed their back to school purchases by August.
Read more in Back to School Forecast
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
Data quality check
You may have heard the expression, quality doesn’t cost -- it pays. A more precise formulation applies to business in the form of the 1-10-100 rule of data quality. The idea is that while it could cost you $1 to corroborate the data upon entry, it costs $10 to clean it later and $100 to leave it uncorrected due to the various losses that will result from it. How to prevent that happening? Adopt a CDP solution.
Losses due to poor data quality cost the US economy $3.1 trillion annually, according to IBM’s 2016 estimate, and concern about data quality has risen since then. According to Dunn & Bradstreet’s 6th Annual B2B Marketing Data Report, it grew from 75 percent in 2016 to 89 percent this year. It also found that only half of those surveyed express confidence in their own data.
Read more in
3 Tips for Achieving Customer Data Quality
Thursday, June 6, 2019
One app to rule them all for IKEA
You may have come across the comic showing the interviewer saying “Take a seat” to a the man entering. In the place of the chair is a collection of chair parts. That’s because it’s identified as an interview for IKEA, the brand associated with furniture that comes in pieces to be put together by the customer.
Until now that’s rather the way it’s been for the online IKEA shopper, as well. They had to put the pieces together themselves. The problem was not that IKEA didn’t have an app; it’s that it had three separate ones that do not integrate and allow the customer to do everything on a mobile device.
The catalog app allows you to view hundreds of pages of merchandise on your phone, but not to place an order, which can only be done on the IKEA site. The virtual reality app called “Place” allows you to visualize its products in your home. While the tech, which was introduced in 2017, is both useful and cool, it doesn’t deliver with a buy option.
Read more in
IKEA Rolls Out a Shoppable App
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