Category: Portland marketing

The Gardenburger Mess — How Not to Handle a Crisis

It started last weekend, when small signs at Burgerville outlets notified customers that the chain was temporarily taking Gardenburgers off the menu. The story picked up steam when Burgerville placed a huge order with a small local meatless-patty manufacturer. Now, it’s exploded into public view as grocery giant Fred Meyer announces that it has pulled the product off its shelves.

From the outside, it appears that Kellogg, owner of Gardenburger, has done its best to keep the whole thing quiet. By attempting to sweep the issue under the rug, Kellogg has guaranteed an extra level of public attention — and done enormous unnecessary damage to Gardenburger’s reputation.

The story is still developing, but here’s how it looks right now:

1. More than a week ago, Burgerville workers unpacking the product noticed something they didn’t like. Burgerville officials contaced Kellogg, weren’t sastisfied with whatever they were told, and pulled the product. To its credit, Burgerville announced the change to its customers with signage at the stores.

2. A few days later, Burgerville announced that they would carry a different meatless burger — the first public indication that this problem might be a big one.

3. Later in the week, Kellogg announced a “voluntary withdrawal” of Gardenburgers, but refused to say why, beyond a vague statement that food safety was not an issue.

4. Kellogg apparently didn’t bother to mention any of this to the FDA. Charles Breen, the agency’s regional director, found out by reading about it in the Oregonian.

5. As of the time I write this, concerned customers who visit Gardenburger’s web site will find no information at all about the problem.

It is often the case (see Nixon, Richard) that when there’s bad news, a cover-up will make things much, much worse. Kellogg has lost their opportunity to have some control of the information flow.

This is in sharp contrast to Johnson & Johnson’s prompt and aggressive outreach following the Tylenol deaths of the early 80’s. Gardenburger should follow J & J’s playbook — tell the public exactly what the problem is and what they intend to do about it. The unnecessary damage they’re doing by remaining silent will haunt them for years.

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Not Even Cocktail Napkins Are Safe

It used to be you could escape the outside world by going to the bar. Then somebody put a neon “Budweiser” sign in the window, and another enterprising chap realized that the bathroom walls could be an advertising medium.

And now, “Welcome to Napkin Advertising.” So says Nap Ads. The bar owner gets free napkins, the advertiser gets drunk prospects, and the world gets just a little more cluttered.

The entrepreneur who would sketch out the next Microsoft on the back of a cocktail napkin? Fuhgeddiboutit.

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A Free Tool to Calculate Your Ad Budget

Courtesy of Roy Williams, The Wizard of Ads. Rather than just taking a set industry percentage or range, this method requires some actual thought, and some research on your part. Here’s the basic point of view:

The purpose of advertising is to increase the exposure of a business beyond what’s provided by its physical location. An extremely high Cost of Occupancy (rent) for a landmark location is often the least expensive advertising available. Businesses who save money by investing in weak locations always have to advertise much more heavily.

Find the calculator here, and an explanation of the thought process here.

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The Line Between Targeted and Creepy

Suzanne Obermire of RRW Consulting has a thoughtful post on the struggle to establish good boundaries in direct marketing. The issue in question is mobile marketing — delivering advertising to cell phones and other mobile devices.

When I take off my direct marketing hat and think about mobile marketing from a consumers’ perspective, it can be a little frightening. Marketers can know where I am at all times. Essentially, they can track me. It does seem like an invasion of my privacy…

Boy, howdy, does it ever. Speaking as a cranky old guy, I can say without equivocation that I don’t want ads on my cell phone. I don’t want personalized ads to show up in my email. I don’t want to be followed around.

But that may be generational — I grew up in an age of mass media, and mass advertising. I don’t mind commercials on the radio (in fact, I create them and sell them), or on television. Newspaper and magazine ads don’t bother me, either. There’s an implicit, decades-old contract at work: you deliver me news/music/entertainment, and I “pay” for it by putting up with your ads.

There are signs that the contract is breaking down on both sides — spam and greatly increased clutter on the advertiser’s side, TIVO on the consumer’s — and it’s not surprising that advertisers are looking for any technological advantage they can get.

To stay on the good side of the “creepy divide”, the key is going to be permission. Offer something of value to the consumer in return for permission to contact them.

My company is now involved in cell phone text-message advertising, but listeners must opt-in to get the messages, and can opt out easily at any time. I’m just finishing up a program with the Oregon Elections Division that starts with a contest: text the word “vote” to 81530 for a chance to win an Ipod Touch. When people enter the contest, they’re invited to sign up for text-message voter reminders on things like registration deadlines and the last day to put a ballot in the mail. You don’t have to get the reminders to enter the contest, and you can stop them at any time. More than three hundred people have chosen to get the reminders.

Asking permission cuts down on the number of people who will get our message. But it keeps us honest, and it forces us to make sure our messages are of value to the consumer. It’s one way to stay away from “creepy”.

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How to Lose Gracefully

A few years ago I managed to pry an advertiser away from another radio station in town. The client represented a significant piece of business, and had been with the other station for quite a while; the switch came as an unwelcome surprise to my competitor.

The client had previously recorded a commercial in his own voice, and asked the other rep to send me the voice track. The rep refused, and we ultimately re-recorded the whole thing.

This response made sense on an emotional level — why help someone who just fired you? But by refusing to send over the voice track, my competitor angered and inconvenienced the client, and ensured that he would never have a chance to get the business back.

The folks at Regence BlueCross BlueShield are a little smarter. In Sunday’s Oregonian, they published a full-page ad with the headline “An Open Letter to School District Employees in Oregon”.

Regence had been providing medical and other benefits to school district employees for nearly forty years. But this year, the Oregon Educators Benefit Board (OEBB) declined to select them as one of the three carriers in the program.

Regence could have claimed that the OEBB had made a mistake. They could have accused their competitors of underhanded tactics. They could have urged employees to call the Board and demand that Regence be reinstated.

Instead, after acknowleging his disappointment, Regence President J. Bart McMullan, Jr. made this promise:

“We will do everything we can to insure that this transition goes well for you, your families, and for OEBB… Our customer service staff will receive special training to help better assist you with questions and transition of care issues. During this transition, those of you receiving special assistance from our nurse case managers will continue to have access to the same people who have been serving your needs.”

McMullan then promised that district employees would also continue to have access to the resources of their members-only web site. He closed by saying “Regence will continue to be there for you in any way we can. Please call on us when you need us.”

Losing a major long-time account hurts during the best of times, and is especially painful during an economic downturn. Regence is undoubtedly already working on strategies to regain the business the next time the OEBB contract is up.

By accepting defeat with grace, and going out of their way to assist the transition, they’ve taken a huge first step.

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

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

Got a question? Call me at 503-323-6553.