September 3, 2010
I was fortunate enough to spend the last week with my beautiful girlfriend at a private beach front resort in Mancora, Peru.
Unfortunately we weren't alone however, as we discovered on the first night that more than a few mosquitoes had decided to stay at the resort too.
So being the good boyfriend that I am, I went to the local store and bought some spray-on mosquito repellent.
But by the looks of the can...this could have actually been a contraceptive.
A while back I did a post featuring some funny branding I had spotted in my adventures travelling through South America.
Since then, the branding fun hasn't stopped, so here is another collection of laugh-worthy marketing from the other land down under.
This week I received marketing emails from RedBalloon and Qantas Frequent Flyer, each taking a similar approach of using "real" Australians to speak with customers in their own language.
In my opinion RedBalloon nailed it, and Qantas missed the mark, but lets look at each in turn.
I received an email from Apple today, announcing the release of their iPhone 4. Unfortunately they dont tell me why I should buy it.
I first met Phil Cranch, the Managing Director of Crystal, at the DMA09 in San Diego and have since been impressed by his commitment to build an agency from scratch servicing the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry. As a pharmacist himself, who else would they want working on the marketing for their businesses? I recently asked Phil to tell us how he has done it.
Another special guest post by Chris Gayner, Global Marketing Manager at the Shared Services & Outsourcing Network (SSON).
Branded events can be one of the most powerful tools at a marketer's disposal. Giving your customers an experience that they never forget can do wonders for brand advocacy.
But events can go seriously wrong if you don't know what you are doing. Though it is not really my specialty, I have been fortunate to have worked with some of the best event managers in the business, including my good friend Ryan Parrott.
There is no-one I would trust more with a big event, so I asked Ryan to share his top 10 event success tips with the Maloney on Marketing community. Enjoy!
There is something about studying performing arts – drama, music, and dance – that gives you untold confidence in many life situations. And when more people fear public speaking than they do death, that confidence can be a real advantage in the business world.
So when I discovered that Emma Meads, a friend that I had met travelling, was a partner in Theatretrain – a company that loves to perform, I knew that it would make a great interview for Maloney on Marketing.
Inspired by Katie Chatfield's recent post on Get Shouty, I put Maloney on Marketing into Wordle to check out what words I have been using the most, as repetition is a key marketing (and Google!) principle. Here is what it spat out,
One of the latest characters here at Hostel Kokopelli has been Jason Tyler Grace, an incredibly talented tattoo artist from San Francisco who is attempting to make his way around the world one tattoo at a time, as a Tattourist.
In this interview, Jason talks about what has inspired him and his journey.
Check out this video that my friends over at the Commonwealth Bank have put together, for a glimpse of what banking could look like in the very near future.
I have been working on Maloney on Marketing for over a year now, and I still find that every day I am learning something new about digital marketing.
Over the last few months I have been focusing on developing frequent new content (because content is king), and more widely promoting new posts and the site in general, and it seems to be working in terms of driving traffic.
So I thought I would let you in on 5 things that have been working for me in terms of driving traffic.
Going through my backlog of emails this week, I came across one of the best email headlines I have ever read: Win Beer for a Year.
For an Australian bloke that offer is like waving a red flag at a bull. So I charged to open it...
As a marketer I knew that the change of Australian Prime Minister this would be the perfect time for nimble, opportunistic advertisers to deliver some media relevant messages.
And I wasn't wrong.
Here is a selection of press ads that appeared alongside the cover-to-cover media coverage.
After having worn the same pair of Nike sneakers day-in-day-out for the last 9 months while backpacking around South America, I am in desperate need of some new shoes.
So this week I went out shoe shopping in downtown Lima, Peru. And despite not being able to find anything to fit my US13 size feet (let's be honest...Peruvians aren't the tallest people), I did manage to notice something interesting.
ALL major sports footwear brands are swallowing the co-branding pill, from Nike/Apple to Puma/Ducati to Adidas/Goodyear. And while we are being honest, I have to say that I can't fault any of these co-branding efforts.
Made to Stick - Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath is a book that I had been meaning to read for a while, as it is promoted as a great supplement to one of my favourite books of all time: The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.
The book revolves around six key qualities of an idea that is made to stick, conveniently creating the acronym SUCCESs.
In early 2009, Guy Grisby quit his job to travel the world with his camera, a laptop, and a passport. In this interview Guy tells us all about his photoblog business, Some Guy and a Camera.
Yesterday, I received a viral email of an incredible print campaign by AT&T, featuring beautifully painted hands to communicate that AT&T mobile phones work in over 200 countries. However one execution is uncannily similar to campaigns by WWF and Schroders. The question is, is this lack of creativity really a bad thing?
Robin Patrick is a former colleague of mine with a brilliant marketing mind, particularly in the new digital media space. So I thought I would ask Robin to share some thoughts with the Maloney on Marketing community on his latest fascination: Mobile. Enjoy!
I believe the Webby Awards represent the pinnacle of Internet achievement. This year, the winner of the Webby Award for Film & Video Artist of the Year was the band OK Go. Their understanding of what makes a music video go viral (unbelievability and fun) should be a learning for all digital marketers.
Whenever I tell people I work in marketing and advertising, inevitably the question that gets asked is: "What is your favourite TV ad?"
Personally, this is a really easy one for me to answer as there was one advertisement that really made me want to get into this industry, and it still inspires me today.
There is one thing that infomercial marketers know all too well, and that is offering a money back guarantee reduces risk for the customer and increases likelihood they will buy the product.
Following this strategy, in Peru, I came accross this Pizzeria advertising that "If you don't like the food, you don't pay".
But is this in fact a good offer for a restaurant to make?
Following my recent post on the top 5 things every creative hates to hear, I thought I would ask my friends on LinkedIn if they had any others.
Of course they did, and here is a link to some of the crackers they came up with, and three websites that I thought were great resources if you want to avoid being the client from hell.
An article in the New York Times titled "In E-Book Era, You Can’t Even Judge a Cover" got me thinking. Social proof is one of the most powerful concepts in psychology and persuasion, but if you cant tell what someone is reading by the cover, how can you be influenced by it?
Graph Jam is one of my favourite websites. Anyone that has done a business presentation in their life knows there is something about a graph that speaks louder than words.
So it is not scientific at all, but the following graphs are some of my personal favourites from Graph Jam relating to marketing and advertising.
Old Spice Body Wash is targeted at men. However, the reality with most Fast Moving Consumer Goods such as Old Spice Body Wash is that they are still actually bought by women, for the men in their lives. Old Spice knows this, and that is why their recent commercial aired during the 2010 Super Bowl was targeted at women, not men.
For most brands shifting all your advertising spend into social media is the stupidest thing you could do right now, but it is what many so called "social media experts" will have you believe.
Last year I highlighted Video in Print, a technology starting to appear in magazines.
Now Esquire have taken it up a notch, with their December 2009 issue featuring Augmented Reality on the front cover and throughout the magazine.
When Greg Price, one of my best mates from Sydney, quit a lucrative investment banking career to start a backpacker tour business in his home state of Tasmania, I thought he was crazy.
But by following his dreams, in just a few years Greg has built Jump Tours into one of the leading backpacker tour brands in Australia, evidenced by being named as a finalist in the 2009 Golden Backpack Awards.
So I I thought it was time to ask Greg to step out from behind the drivers seat and share with us how he has built the Jump Tours brand.
Demonstrating ease of use is critical in accelerating diffusion of innovation. The hottest innovation at the moment is of course the Apple iPad, and fortunately for Apple, its Innovator customers are demonstrating how easy the iPad is to use for them, by giving it to their toddlers, filming the results and loading it to YouTube.
Last year as part of my Masters degree, I wrote a paper on why iPhone adoption will be faster in Australia than the US. Key to this claim was diffusion of innovation theory, to which I introduced a new concept titled The Newton Ball Diffusion Acceleration Effect.
In the year since developing this concept, I have been responsible for several new product launches, that have all been successful way beyond expectations due to another theory that I have developed on how to accelerate diffusion of innovation.
I am now ready to share this secret with you, it is called Accelerating Diffusion of Innovation: Maloney's 16% Rule.
NeilMed Pharmaceuticals market a product called Sinus Rinse, that is a medically proven irrigation system for treating nasal congestion, allergies, hayfever, post nasal surgery etc.
However a recent YouTube parody video on Sinus Rinse Addication has close to 19,000 views and growing.
The question is, should NeilMed respond or not?
Leaving the environmental issues to the side for a second, for BP it is disasters such as these that truly test the capabilities of their Marketing and Communications teams. It turns out they are not working together as well as one would hope.
Chris Gayner is the Global Marketing Manager at the Shared Services & Outsourcing Network (SSON) based in London, UK. He is also a good mate of mine and a thought leader in the B2B social media space, so I asked him to share some of his knowledge with the Maloney on Marketing community. Enjoy!
Spotted this outdoor advertisement today, and couldn't stop laughing. What kind of a brand name is "Kevin" for a cologne?
In Bolivia I recently came across a store selling washing machines next to motorbikes, breaking every marketing rule there is.
Earlier this year I had the privilege of hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru.
The experience was all booked online through Chimu Adventures, who are regarded as Australia's leading travel company to South America.
I recently asked Greg Carter, one of the founders of Chimu Adventures, to tell us what sets them apart from their competition.
In a previous post I briefly touched on how to provide better creative feedback.
But not having sat on the other side of the table myself, I thought I would canvass my creative friends to find out the top 5 things every creative hates to hear.
As usual for creative types they wanted to remain anonymous and were very candid in their responses.
Even more than buying a house or a car, getting a tattoo is probably the highest involvement purchase you can make.
Because you are stuck with it for life.
But up until now the only way you could try out a tattoo before you had it done for real was using Henna, which I think looks ordinary at the best of times.
Now TatMash has come out with the ability to try out your tattoos online, with just a photo.
Augmented Reality is one of the hottest topics in marketing today and there is no sign of the buzz subsiding.
Always on the cutting edge, fashion brands have been quick to jump on the bandwagon.
Here are 3 examples featuring Adidas, T-Post and Brights & Stripes.
I have been travelling through South America for the last 6 months now and I have stayed at more hostels than I care to remember, and they all tend to blur into one.
But there is one that has stood out from all the rest. Hostel Kokopelli in Miraflores, Lima, Peru.
I recently asked Rutger Bosker and Paulo Rathboune, two of the owners and managers of Hostel Kokopelli, how they do it.
Vihuela is an Argentine company that make incredible handmade leather guitar straps, belts, custom designs and accessories. Their story from a marketing perspective is even more incredible
Maloney on Marketing is celebrating its first birthday today!
Digging through the website stats, from the 60 posts I have done so far there are some posts that have stood out from the rest in terms of popularity.
So to make sure you haven't missed them, here are links to the 5 most popular posts to date on Maloney on Marketing.
Luke Nuto, a former Art Director at the globally acclaimed Glue Society, has been designing and selling T-shirts for over 10 years. In particular his current label, Young Lovers, is growing from strength to strength primarily through the online channel.
As my current travel buddy through South America, I thought it was time to convince Luke to put the Campari and Sprite down and share with us what he has learnt about building a clothing label.
Today in Buenos Aires I noticed a chain of convenience stores branded "Open 25 Hours".
While I can see what they are trying to do in pushing the convenience message, all it takes is a competitor to come out with "Open 26 Hours" and it will start an impossible hours war with no end.
A loyal subscriber recently asked me what has happened since my provocative "I’m thinking of a four letter word and it’s not Bing" post from March 2009.
Well I am proud to say that Bing has now come to the party...
Cleaning up my hard drive today, I came across the notes I made while attending DMA09 in San Diego late last year.
There is definitely some gold in there, so I thought I would post them up here for you to steal, so you too can benefit from the insights shared at the global event for integrated marketing.
When you are travelling through developing countries, you quickly discover that copyright doesnt really mean much.
Here is a collection of some copyright infringements I found in Peru.
If you were managing one of these brands, do you think it would be worth your while to stop these infringements?
In my last post, I covered how Nike is trying to ambush Adidas' sponsorship of the 2010 World Cup.
Well it looks like Adidas have quickly responded, by shaving their brand into the back of Argentine junior football players heads!
Over the years, Nike have undoubtedly been the best proponents of Guerrilla Marketing when it comes to ambushing major sporting sponsorships.
Now it seems that Nike are up to their old tricks, this time in Argentina.
Again, despite Adidas being the official partner of the FIFA 2010 World Cup, Nike have launched a World Cup themed campaign designed to provoke the passionate Argentine supporters.
The influence of the MTV show Pimp My Ride featuring rapper Xzibit has been wide reaching, with "Pimp My _____" appearing everywhere.
Which is fine, but this time I think it has gone to far...
When your print ad appears in a fashion magazine you are up against about 50 other advertisements at least, all vying for the readers attention.
So to breakthrough all that clutter, you have to do something different, which is what Pony has done in this Argentinian magazine.
In a recent post I talked about how to move brand metrics with strategic online partnerships.
Well the Commonwealth Bank/Domain Radar partnership has just received another boost, winning Best Brand Building Initiative at the 2009 Asian Banker Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards.
Branding in another language is a fine art. There are so many examples of it going wrong. But a lot of the time it is not the translation that is the issue, instead a lack of understanding the local slang. Which is why the brand name for these diapers I saw in a favela in Brazil is so damn funny...
After the backlash that Vegemite's iSnack 2.0 disaster caused, I thought it would be the last I would see of the whole 2.0 naming phenomenon for food products. However I was wrong, as in Brazil I woke for breakfast to find a can of Nescau 2.0, a powdered chocolate drink by Nescafe, sitting on the table in front of me...
In a previous post I covered the 3 ways to get better work from your advertising agency. One tip was to avoid scope creep, which includes rewriting copy after it has been presented. Recently I discovered this advertisement in Time Magazine that featured one of the worst headlines I have ever read...
Guerrilla marketing has always been a passion of mine. There is nothing like sticking it to your competition when they are least expecting it. Travelling through Brazil I came across a great example of guerilla marketing in action when I ordered a beer at a local restaurant.
Brand managers always seem to be working on defining what they want their brand to be. Unfortunately this process often misses out a critical definition: what you are not.
Before deciding to travel the world for a while, one of the last things I worked on for the Commonwealth Bank was develoing a strategic integrated online partnership with Domain.com.au in order to deliver Radar lifestyle search, a world first in property search.
iab Australia have now published this as a best practice case study, with Neilson research results showing significant uplift across all brand metrics.
At the recent DMA09 conference I had the great pleasure to have a few beers with the editors of DMI magazine (Direct Marketing International). They asked if I could write a feature article on my direct marketing philosophy that "the line doesnt exist". So I did, and to their word, they published it. Check it out and let me know what you think.
You just know that anything pitched as the global event for integrated marketing is going to be as huge as American meal portion sizes. And DMA 09 in sunny San Diego sure didn’t disappoint, with 6 days of world class keynotes, thought leadership sessions and best practice case studies, alongside the world’s biggest marketing exhibition.
In 2008, Downstream Marketing was named AdNews Specialist Agency of the Year and B&T Emerging Agency of the Year. I recently sat down with Downstream's outspoken Chief Operating Officer Justin Hind, to learn about what is going on in Search and more.
Julian Cole of Adspace Pioneers has done it again. Following on from his popular list of the Top 50 Australian Marketing Pioneer Blogs, he has now released a list of Advertising's Young Minds: The top 27 blogs of people under 27.
In general, marketers are not only great at identifying trends, but also at following them. The latest viral marketing trend for example, seems to be destroying your own website.
I've done a lot of work over the last month or so on improving my search engine optimisation and I think I have finally cracked it. I appear in the first two positions in Google, and on page 5 in Bing?
We did it! Well technically I didn’t, but my colleagues have managed to incorporate Augmented Reality into their latest Commonwealth Bank youth campaign.
In a previous post I covered the future of the press industry, and the inevitable decline in paper based readership. But the latest in nano-technology may just buck this trend, with the first video-in-print advertisement launching in the US magazine Entertainment Weekly in September 2009.
As someone who is only weeks away from leaving the country for a few years, I have to say that seeing the refreshed Qantas epic TVC stirred some patriotic emotions. I am convinced that if the Peter Allen tune doesn't bring tears to your eyes, you are not Australian. Maybe that should be the new citizenship test?
Ask a Ninja has been a viral sensation for a few years now, and is a personal favourite of mine. For our purposes I particularly love the Ninja’s answers on new media, and have so I have consolidated some of the best Ninja videos on the topic.
I’m all for viral videos as a means of raising brand awareness. The difficulty is making the content entertaining enough to go viral, but still having the brand integrated into the content. This viral from MSI laptops achieves both objectives, but at what cost?
Ok so I have been rather slack updating my fitness blog, Maloney Fitness, since starting this marketing blog. But I couldnt go without highlighting the latest exercise craze, the Shake Weight.
In a previous post I covered the epic Barclaycard Waterslide campaign. Now Microsoft have upped the ante with Megawhoosh, a viral waterslide video like no other, to promote Office Project 2007 in Germany.
When was the last time you saw a branded spot 6:28 minutes long that could hold your attention? Well Johnnie Walker's "Walk" (The man who walked around the world) definately does.
Surfing around for a new digital camera and I have to say Samsung's latest viral teaser campaign for 'Tap and Take' technology is awesome. Really simply they are asking people to guess what 'Tap and Take' is, then using social media to spread the resulting curiosity.
When you work for a large organisation, you often find that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand doing, or has already done. In other words, you don’t know what you don’t know. Recently I developed a simple research method that dramatically increased my background knowledge going into the strategy planning phase of the year.
I have no doubt that many creative types will shudder at the development of crowd sourcing concept feedback. Well too late, it is here now, and it goes against everything we have been taught.
The biggest problem with typical business cards is all they do is say who you are and work for, your title, and contact details. Now with Augmented Reality Business Cards you can add a personal touch. Your talking head.
In most product categories there are two ways to increase sales: 1. Get more people to buy your products. 2. Get your current customers to buy your products more often. Napisan, aka The Great Unstainer, prefers the later. Over the last decade, Napisan have educated customers to use their product more often, through the brilliant use of a variety of marketing methods.
I am currently reading a classic book titled Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini. When I finish it I will summarise my learnings in a future post, but I just had to share this funny excerpt that describes what happens when communication breaks down, the case of the Rectal Earache.
August 31, 2010
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