We, The Value Seekers!
A couple of month’s ago, bald brother (and fellow crayonista), Greg Verdino and I took the stage at the iMedia Financial Summit in NYC. Our pitch (for the uninformed; our pitch was part of an agency shoot out, in which two agencies pitched for a mock piece of business. The case study at hand was, at its core an exercise in crisis communications management; centered around the acquisition of a local bank, by a much larger bank ) was, on the surface, something along the lines of a “customer bill of rights”. For those that were really paying attention, our pitch was more than just gimmicky, vacuous marketing speak. Our pitch was about more than just marketing; it was a pitch for organizational change.
Sure, we could have pitched a catchy tag line with all the bells and whistles of a blown out, above the line ad campaign–but our core strategy had a lot more than taglines, widgets, gadgets, banners, buttons, apps and flash microsites (not that we would ever pitch a flash microsite–yes, I have a problem with them…always!). Our core strategy was to listen to the needs of consumers–in their own words, and then amplify and empower these consumers in order to allow them to collaborate with the brand. It is becoming increasing obvious that when brands and consumers co-create, on a level playing field, great things can happen!
Oddly enough, ING just launched a new campaign entitled, “We, The Savers“. It has all the trappings of a modern social media/interactive marketing campaign, however for the life of me, I cannot understand how this campaign passed a few basic tests before it went live:
- WIIFM (what’s in it for me)
- The campaign wants you to sign a declaration of things that YOU will do–not ING. Maybe I am missing something here, but if this is a social campaign, where is the dialogue. If I go ahead and sign this thing, how does ING intend to continue the conversation.
- In essence what ING is saying is, sign this thing and expand our marketing effort–no thank you! I can be fiscally responsible on my own.
- One of the points in the declaration is about being heard by our government–ING, if I sign this, will you help my voice become amplified? Are you prepared to send a lobbyist to congress on behalf of this document?
- Does This Site Even Exist?
- In a world where you are how yo are found, a flash microsite that is invisible to search engines is as good as non-existent. Sure, a ton of money will be poured into TV and out of home, but when was the last time you actually took note of a marketing URL, and then proceeded to go to it?
- Most consumers don’t want to be blatantly marketed to, without any value being offered. URL call out’s from traditional media work, but I would love to see what the direct traffic is to this site (e.g. how many people get there from traditional media)
- This is not an interactive campaign in my eyes, it is a traditional one
- In a world where you are how yo are found, a flash microsite that is invisible to search engines is as good as non-existent. Sure, a ton of money will be poured into TV and out of home, but when was the last time you actually took note of a marketing URL, and then proceeded to go to it?
The bottom line is, we are at a time when we need valuable, utility based marketing in order to make the most of our marketing dollars. When the belt buckle gets tight, the powers that be will look for ROI and true proof points that marketing dollars are being spent intelligently–and I just do not see it here.
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Tags: Business, Creative Marketing Strategy, ING, Internet marketing, Marketing and Advertising, search engine, SlideShare, we the savers, we the savers.com
Dec 08, 2008
“What’s in it for me, the consumer” should be the driving force behind any marketing campaign. Since all marketing is an effort to convince people to pay for something they don’t currently pay for, knowing WHY they should be paying can only be achieved by explaining “what’s in it for them.”
Some people confuse social media with casual conversation — as though we should reward companies simply for giving us a chance to talk. Nope. There still has to be end-user value.
Dec 09, 2008
The ad campaign may be flawed, but please don’t pick on the HTML!
The forums are running the extremely popular phpBB system. Are you saying that phpBB is poorly written? Why, because you searched for H tags and didn’t find any? There is no such thing as an H tag, so why would you find any here? Makes no sense.
Dec 09, 2008
William
Not sure what you mean there is not such thing as an tag.
Anyhow, the rest of the site is in flash, how can I not comment on it?
Do you think this site was coded well?
Dec 09, 2008
No such thing as an H tag? Are you kidding Willie? I suggest you refer to the W3C consortium on this. Adam is referring to some of the fundamentals that help drive search engines to decipher content on the page.
If you’re a developer and you’re missing the utilization of header tag hierarchy and the value of CSS, you’re missing a large opportunity to capitalize on how designing with web standards can benefit you for Search optimization.
Dec 11, 2008
Please provide a link to a W3C document where they define an “H” tag for HTML. There are H1-H6 tags, obviously, but H?
The author claimed that the site was poorly coded, and his evidence was that there were no H tags. My counter-point is that of course there are no H tags. Why would there be?
The author starts off making valid arguments about the marketing strategies in use, but then loses credibility (in my eyes) as soon as I read the comments about the code, which illustrate his lack of knowledge about the subject, and paint him as yet another marketing guy who thinks he knows technology because he’s heard a few keywords before.
The fact that he is critiquing the forum software, as if it was developed by the makers of the ING site, makes it even sillier. It’s phpBB, one of the most popular and robust forum packages on the web. How does phpBB’s markup relate to the quality of the ING site being critiqued?
Dec 11, 2008
William
Thanks for your comments! It would seem implicit that I meant h1 etc. I am sorry for not being more descript. I will keep your comments, and attention to detail in mind in the future.
Adam
Dec 11, 2008
William
Here is some more info on adding markup to phpBB.
http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=1283315
There are ways to add more relevant content in your various h tags (h1-h6) in order to give search engines a better idea of what the site is about.
My commentary was about the markup of this site overall, and I am sorry if I was not clear about that.
I do love the fact that you challenged me on this one. Thanks!
Adam
Dec 11, 2008
No, thank you for your honest and informative reply to my criticism. I hope I didn’t offend you earlier! There are just so many “know-it-alls” in the web industry, it’s hard to really know who knows what–if you know what I mean
Dec 12, 2008
Totally know what you mean. I never get offended by a challenge–actually, I love it!
Thanks William