Three Lessons in Marketing from 2013
Well here we are, wrapping up another year. I'm sure you've already had your share of several best and worst lists of 2013. But before we toast farewell to the year, welcome to Quashspeak, my new weekly blog. Today I share a few moments in marketing from the year...as I see it. So log off of Candy Crush, grab your cronut and put on a little Daft Punk. Twerk it, Miley!1. Consider the Competitive Landscape
Your company or product may be hailed as the next best thing since sliced bread, but whether you are a national brand or a local treasure, your success can be short lived if you cannot maintain your foothold in the marketplace. Take, for example, Blockbuster Video. The company, once THE behemoth in the movie rental business, shut its doors in 2013 on its remaining 300 movie rental stores (in its heyday, there were roughly 9,000 stores across the globe). But someone had to rent the last DVD. And that happened at a Blockbuster in Hawaii on November 9, 2013 when the customer rented, appropriately, the Seth Rogen comedy This Is The End (hmmm, do I smell publicity stunt?), ending Blockbuster's reign.
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| photo courtesy of Digital Trends |
But how did Blockbuster fail? What the company seemed to lack was...vision. One only had to look at the publishing and music industries to recognize consumers were accessing content in new, more accessible formats. It wasn't a stretch to consider that consuming movies/home entertainment would change as well. Of course, we all watched the launch of other key players as competitors to Blockbuster, most notably, Netflix which really catered to consumer preferences. Notice how Netflix too would later reinvent itself, morphing from a DVD rental business into a service that offered video streaming and later developed original content.
Lesson learned: keep your finger on the pulse and trends of the industry and the fringe industries you represent.
2. Think On Your Feet
February 3, 2013. It's only the biggest night in sports and TV. The Super Bowl. And for 34 minutes, the power goes out in the Superdome. It was later learned that Obamacare website matriarch Kathleen Sebelius was in charge of the Superdome power grid that day (yeah, just kidding). But while the Ravens would come out victorious over the 49ers, the real winner in marketing that night was Nabisco's Oreo cookies. During such major live events (presidential debates, awards shows, etc.), people now juggle screens--watch the live event and follow what's trending on such social media platforms as Twitter. In the midst of the power outage, the marketing machine at Nabisco posted "Power out? No problem. You can still dunk in the dark" to its company Facebook and Twitter pages. Clever and buzz worthy, the comment was re-tweeted more than 16,000 times and arguably was more memorable than the expensive TV ads that aired during the Super Bowl.
Lesson learned: ensure your brand can be nimble, relevant and current, even if you are a 101-year-old cookie company. 3. Leverage Social Media, Appropriately
Some companies don't get it -- they still use social media platforms much like email campaigns to push out sales messages or try to connect with current events. But that generally doesn't fly with followers (and really worked against AT&T and Kenneth Cole for foolishly trying to integrate 9/11 and the Syrian conflict, respectively, into their 2013 tweets). As in years past, we also chuckle at the celebrity tweets that demonstrate just how clueless or self centered some of these personalities really are. Consider that the rants of Justin Bieber are more memorable than the music he created last year. Whether you are a company or an individual, sloppy social media only tarnishes the brand.
But the social media success out of left field came in like a storm, or more accurately, like a Sharknado. In July of 2013, the SyFy Channel's campy Sharknado movie scored huge -- more than 318,000 tweets during its premier. How? By generating buzz just before the first airing and leveraging celebrities (such as actors Mia Farrow and Wil Wheaton), LA mayor Eric Garcetti and even the American Red Cross on Twitter.
Lesson learned: create the buzz on social media and people will want to join your "party."
I only have really just scratched the surface. The year was full of other lessons learned: Do not under-deliver and tarnish your brand (healthcare.gov, UPS). Be transparent (Notre Dame football player Manti Te'o, Lance Armstrong). Ensure trust (Target).
What marketing tip did you pick up in 2013? I wonder what's in store for 2014. I'm sure some marketing efforts will be brilliant and others will make us cringe. Either way, I learn from both the good and the not-so-good. And hope you do too. Thanks for visiting.
- Tom Quash
