Category: Marketing

Finding an Unmet Need

My friend Susan recently alerted me to an article about I-Booze — a Seattle-area online service that delivers alcohol, cigarettes, and other items.

Founder Karim Varela came up with the idea while sitting in a San Francisco jail on a DUI charge.

‘I was sitting in jail for eight hours with nothing to do besides think, and that’s when it came to me,’ said Varela, adding that he thought an alcohol delivery service might help keep drunks off the road.

Varela charges premium prices and a delivery fee, and sticks with items for which price is not necessarily the most important factor:

‘I-Booze only sells products that people want immediately, which people are addicted to, which people are craving, and which people will pay that extra delivery surcharge to get right away,’ explains Varela.

Setting aside any moral judgements about the products I-Booze sells, this is a terrific example  of an entrepreneur spotting, and filling, an unmet need in the marketplace.

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Sometimes You Can Break The Rules

Deadspin alerted me to this video by Ben Gullett. Ben’s dad, Mark Gullett, was laid off from his marketing position with hockey’s Tampa Bay Lightning. So Ben put together the video in an effort to help his father get a job.

As a piece of advertising, there’s much to criticize:

1. It’s all about the advertiser.

2. Virtually no information about any benefits an employer might receive by hiring Mark Gullett.

3. Weak call-to-action: there’s an email address at the end, but no real explanation of what a prospect should do or why.

None of the above matters. The video is damn close to perfect. It tells a  powerful, moving story. While it may not provide much information for the intellect, it more than makes up for that by communicating emotion.

Anyone looking for a creative marketing mind would have to wonder what else Mark Gullett might have to offer. Mark Gullett’s job search has now gotten national exposure, with more than 21,000 views as of today. The campaign’s gotten him at least one firm offer, and a significant number of leads.

It’s done so by breaking many of the rules of effective advertising. I would never advise a client to try something like this — there are too many ways to get it wrong.

This one gets it right.

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Click here to learn the shocking truth about Phil Bernstein

Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising and Marketing Blog.

Request your free copy of Phil Bernstein’s white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein at 503-323-6553.

Lord & Taylor — Purveyor of Fine Hooker Fashions?

The full page ad in Sunday’s New York Times offers an Ellen Tracy Trench for $150. There’s a color photograph, and the caption underneath says

THERE’S NOTHING NAUGHTY ABOUT BUYING THIS TRENCH… WEARING IT, HOWEVER, IS ANOTHER STORY.

Who might buy — and wear — a coat like this? I’m thinking that the target is, um, working girls. Am I wrong?

Here’s the picture. You decide.

ellen-tracy-trench2

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Click here to learn the shocking truth about Phil Bernstein

Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising and Marketing Blog.

Request your free copy of Phil Bernstein’s white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein at 503-323-6553.

Gitomer’s Gauge of Customer Loyalty

“You rarely see anyone with your company’s name tattooed on their ass.”

— Jeffrey Gitomer to his Portland sales seminar audience, justifying his assertion that the company with the most loyal customer base is Harley Davidson.

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Click here to learn the shocking truth about Phil Bernstein

Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising and Marketing Blog.

Request your free copy of Phil Bernstein’s white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein at 503-323-6553.

Girl Scout Cookies Online — Good Entrepreneurship, or Sign of the Apocalypse?

My son Tyler won his Cub Scout Pack wreath-selling championship three years in a row. He did it the old-fashioned way — by personally calling his relatives and parents’ friends, and personally touring his dad’s office every year asking for the order. His younger brother Ryan followed that up by winning the Pack wreath sale trophy twice more.

The most innovative technology they had available to them was the telephone.

So it was with great interest that I read Newsweek’s article on 8-year-old Wild Freeborn, a Girl Scout in North Carolina. With her father’s help, Wild set up an online cookie sales operation, complete with YouTube video.

In a short time, she received 700 online orders for cookies. And, of course, other parents complained to the authorities. It turns out that the Girl Scouts prohibit online cookie sales.

There are several conflicting interests at work here: There is a great deal of value in teaching kids how to sell face-to-face or on the phone. That’s a skill that, if learned properly, will serve them all their lives. And some issues of fairness exist as well, since some families don’t have access to the technology that would allow online sales.

The other side of the argument was offered in the article:

“First of all, selling things online is no less safe,” says Peter Fader, a director of the Interactive Media Initiative at Wharton, the business school at the University of Pennsylvania. “And if we want to teach our kids to be able to operate in society as responsible adults, online savviness is going to be part of the overall portfolio.”

In addition to losing a teaching moment, Fader says the Girl Scouts are missing out on a sales opportunity. “It wouldn’t even be a transition—it’d be an expansion,” he says, noting that the program could allow cookie sales online through personal Web pages hosted by area councils. With some troops reporting sales down by as much as 19 percent this year, getting online would be a simple step that could invigorate the locally minded fundraising goals of the program.

My kids are long past their wreath-selling years, so I don’t have a personal rooting interest in this. But I’m interested in your thoughts.

Should the Girl Scouts, and other fundraising organizations, allow online sales? Why or why not?

Please leave your thoughts in the comment field below.

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Click here to learn the shocking truth about Phil Bernstein

Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising and Marketing Blog.

Request your free copy of Phil Bernstein’s white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein at 503-323-6553.