Category: Advertising

Sympathy for the Gatekeeper

In Sunday’s Oregonian, Steve Duin’s column takes the Army National Guard to task for a deceptively-packaged direct mail campaign. According to the column, the envelope appeared to be a credit-card solicitation. Upon opening, the recipient finds a piece of plastic that is “not a credit card. This is money in the bank.” The pitch implies that there’s up to $60,000 to be had by signing up for the National Guard.

At least one of these pieces went to a 14-year old boy, whose parents tipped off Duin.

As the parent of another 14-year old, I find this more than a little alarming. Especially since the solicitation asks for the target’s cell phone and email address. It’s my job as parent to screen these sorts of things and decide what offers he gets to consider. I can’t keep the outside world away from him — I can only slow it down. When I was a kid, if someone wanted to contact me he had to call the house, where the phone would probably be answered by my parents. Now, a cell phone allows anyone who gets the number to cut me out.

On the other hand, I’m more inclined than Mr. Duin to give the Guard a little slack here. Although the mail piece was definitely over the line of decency, they have a few things in their favor:

1. A firm spokesperson was adamant that if the kid had filled out the form, the name would not have gone to a local recruiter, because it’s against the law for them to talk to 14-year-olds. So this is not the first wave of a campaign aimed at high school freshmen — it was more likely an honest mistake.

2. Unlike the tobacco companies (also mentioned in the column for some deceptive offers), the National Guard represents the good guys. They do a lot of good in the state, and that mission will continue whatever happens in Iraq. I don’t think anyone would argue that they shouldn’t be recruiting new members.

2. Because of Iraq, it’s a whole lot tougher to recruit now than it used to be. And a lot of people who might have listened to a recruiter’s pitch before now won’t even come to the phone or open a straighforward mail piece.

3. Which leaves the Guard with this question — how can we get a conversation started?

Unfortunately, the answer they chose — get ’em to open the envelope by disguising it as something else — wasn’t the right one.

But similar techniques are used by direct mailers all the time. We’re all looking for ways to get past the screener, and get our prospects to pay attention to our message. We do it — most of us, anyway — because we believe we have something of value to offer, and that the prospects will come to the same conclusion if we can just get them to talk to us. In its misguided way, that’s all the National Guard was trying to do.

In this case, the Guard is the marketer, and my kid (who eventually will be be old enough for a recruiter to call him legally) is the prospect. I, for once in my life, am the gatekeeper. And I resent anyone who tries to get past me using deception or tricks.

This is a great opportunity for those of us in the persuasion business to look at our efforts from the other side of the reception desk.

What Else Would They Buy?

I just got back from a guitar workshop led by Robin Nolan. Robin’s a terrific musician and a good teacher. But he missed a real opportunity at the workshop.

The 6-volume Robin Nolan Gypsy Jazz Songbook series is considered the “essential text” by students of the genre. Robin’s also written several other well-regarded guitar books. I own volumes 1-3, and brought cash to buy the rest of the set. But he didn’t have any of the books with him. So he lost about a hundred bucks in incremental revenue from me. Multiply that lost opportunity by the other dozen students in the class, and you’ll have an idea of how much he could have made if he’d brought books to sell with him.

A Customers in your store or on your web site may have come for a specific item. Some of them — not all, but a significant number — could be upsold into related items or services. Some examples:

On the web, Amazon always offers something extra under the heading “People who bought [your item] also bought…”.

When you buy a suit from Men’s Wearhouse, their salespeople always lay out a selection of shirts and ties that match the suit. Not everyone bites, but a lot of customers walk out of the store with an extra bag full of “stuff.”

What else would your customers buy — if only you made the offer?

Cell Phone Ads

I was working for the New York Mets when the first signs went up behind home plate. Invisible to fans in the ballpark, they were extremely visible to the television audience. It was jarring to see the Armitron logo as Bobby Bonilla hit (although, frankly, Bonilla was more irritating than the sign). Fans wrote angry letters, and sportwriters wrote angry columns.

And then everyone got used to it and moved on.

The signs stayed, and are now in every ballpark. Walk into any arena, and there are signs everywhere you can put a sign. The bowl games all have title sponsors. The arenas have corporate names. There are ads on shopping carts, fire trucks, bathroom walls.

Now comes the next frontier — ads on your cell phone. And Seth Godin’s not happy. Neither am I — it will make my job that much harder. Consumers are confronted with a greater onslaught of advertising every year. They react by filtering more and more of it out, which makes it tougher for the campaigns I create to get past the filters.

But the cell phone ads are coming, no matter how many angry letters we write. Unless…

Unless, when Verizon starts doing it, everyone dumps Verizon and goes to Cingular. And if Cingular tries it, everyone dumps them and goes to Sprint.

That’s asking a lot of the American consumer, who has passively sat back and accepted every other intrusion. More likely, we’ll all complain. And then we’ll get used to it and move on.

Do We Really Give Good Service?

Today, Seth Godin tackles the issue of customer service. It’s his position that most of of us have given great service, and that’s why we’re so upset at bad service.

I’m not convinced. I think most of us think we do, but we’re kidding ourselves. We talk a good game, with mission statements, memos from the CEO, and the like. But many corporate mantras are accompanied, out of the public eye, with orders to cut expenses. So head count gets slashed, and training gets eliminated, and we’re left with an overwhelmed, poorly trained, unmotivated front line.

And then the marketing department tells the ad guy that “our people make the difference.”