Beanstalk Talk

National face time for Woodhouse Spas.

Fred — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 15:39:54 +0000

Woodhouse Day Spa, an Ad Giants, client was highlighted recently as a small business success story on the Fox Business Channel. Behold.

Beanstalk Talk is the blogging adventure for Ad Giants, a marketing brand management solution built by advertising veterans. Adgiants.com.

Wisdom of yore. What works for you?

Fred — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:22:08 +0000

When I run across an old song, film, or quote that really seems to stand the test of time I’m often conflicted. On the one hand I’m impressed with the wisdom of the person or persons behind the work. On the other hand, I’m discouraged because the truisms they reveal still seem like revelations rather than common knowledge. (For me, a few films in this category are A Face in the Crowd and Meet John Doe.)

In the field of marketing and persuasion from a bygone era, I give you these examples of virually untarnished relevance. Any guesses on the author?

Even in a basic sense, business is becoming dependent on public opinion. …Business must express itself and its entire corporate existence so that the public will understand and accept it. It must dramatize its personality and interpret its objectives in every particular in which it comes into contact with the community (or the nation) of which it is a part.

And

It was one of the doctrines of the reaction psychology that a certain stimulus often repeated would create a habit, or that the mere reiteration of an idea would create a conviction.

And

…the group mind does not think in the strict sense of the word. In place of thoughts, it has impulses, habits, and emotions. In making up its mind, its first impulse is usually to follow the example of a trusted leader.

What stands the test of time for you?

Beanstalk Talk is the blogging adventure for Ad Giants, a marketing brand management solution built by advertising veterans. Adgiants.com.

Was it about the airline or the guitar?

Fred — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:59:30 +0000

Like the rest of the country I truly enjoyed Dave Carroll’s musical treatment of the confrontation between United Airlines and his guitar, and while most consider it a cautionary tale for the airline industry and its customer relation and PR policies, I’m looking at it from the other angle, the guitar’s. Here’s the story, and the vid follows.

Mr. Carroll could easily have left the guitar’s brand generic, but he chose to identify it as a Taylor. I’m no mind-reader, but I think it’s safe to assume he did so because for guitarists, the destruction of a Taylor is particularly tragic, and not just because Taylors fetch top-dollar. The instruments and the company are highly regarded and, in my opinion (I own one,) deservedly so. Without getting too nichey about it, I’d say it’s because the company radiates quality and innovation as manifested in their products. That’s something consumers can pick up on, something they appreciate, even revere in a culture of too many compromised, throw-away products. While I don’t know how this story nets out for United, I know it’s a win for Taylor.

As for the video, who can’t love it? But part of me wanted to hear a short, awful sounding guitar break played on a busted guitar. Too much?

Beanstalk Talk is the blogging adventure for Ad Giants, a marketing brand management solution built by advertising veterans. Adgiants.com.

The personal and the physical in Pitchrocket.

Fred — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:17:01 +0000

I was reading some thoughts on physical versus virtual, about how the physical reaches our consciousness in different, more instinctive ways, and it made me think of our Pitchrocket product. While PitchRocket routinely produces dramatically better response rates in all its contact media, three-dimensional (a physical object) direct mail is an especially consistent performer. Maybe that’s because physical objects are more memorable and reinforce the personalization of a campaign.

Fortunately, as evidenced in new Pitchrocket case studies, personalization is powerful in driving leads with just two dimensions.

We launched a PitchRocket campaign to market the PitchRocket itself, and the results trounced traditional DM and email response rates.
Specific campaign-performance results include:

Personalization and physicality work, I think because they communicate to the recipient some level of effort and sincerity in the sender. Personally, I rarely tire of effort and sincerity.

Beanstalk Talk is the blogging adventure for Ad Giants, a marketing brand management solution built by advertising veterans. Adgiants.com.

Do much talking, do you? Here are some ways to talk better.

Fred — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:55:08 +0000

Many of us are doing more work with our voices, for presentations, recorded videos or podcasts for corporate or personal purposes, yet few of us put much thought into the mechanics of our voices. But when we do, it can make things easier with fewer takes, less editing and more comfort, mostly as the result of better breathing. Here’s some explanation, and about half way through, exercises you can do to get control of your breathing. Singers, I know, sometimes have their own routines. I remember reading that Don Henley likes to spend a lot of time on an exercise bike before performances to get blood and oxygen flowing. Most of us don’t have to be that serious about it, and judging from what I’ve heard in karaoke performances, most of us haven’t.

Beanstalk Talk is the blogging adventure for Ad Giants, a marketing brand management solution built by advertising veterans. Adgiants.com.

Planning, meet execution.

Fred — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:17:30 +0000

Not having a plan rarely works out well, whether it’s playground design or marketing, and poor execution can sabotage the best of plans. So Ad Giants will help clients sidestep both pitfalls with a strategic partership just announced with Moderandi, Inc.

Moderandi’s Consulting M.O. platform helps licensees build marketing plans for their clients while Ad Giants tools, the ONE system and PitchRocket, will be available for the execution.

The idea, as you can gather from the Consulting M.O. announcement, is to offer an end-to-end marketing solution from the web. That would would be a giant vision, all right.

The details are in the links, so do check them out.

Beanstalk Talk is the blogging adventure for Ad Giants, a marketing brand management solution built by advertising veterans. Adgiants.com.

Customer service creates bigger fans.

Fred — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:03:32 +0000

I wrote a long while ago about an audio interface I bought, the Focusrite Saffire, which I bought used off eBay. I just love the sound of its converters. But recently I had some trouble with it when I could not get signals out of its mic pres, which meant I couldn’t use my condenser mics with it. Though I had a workaround through another piece of gear, I did miss the sound of the Saffire. I wasn’t too upset about it, though, because, after all — I bought it used.

The other day after a hard drive crash I had the time consuming task of replacing authorizations for my various programs, including the software that came with the Saffire. Since I was already writing Focusrite, I told them about my bad mic pres and asked if the new Saffires had different ones that would not go south on me.

The Focusrite tech not only replaced my authorization without hassle but he further wrote:

You would probably be better off getting your Saffire repaired rather than spending a load of cash on a brand new one.

And then he gave me the contact for their repair person in the U.S. Now, I’m sure some would say this was a sales faux pas, directing a consumer to a repair over a new purchse, but it is anything but an error. When a company does that, I have a reason to believe they have my interests at heart, that they honestly want happy customers, and that they understand that in this economy, new sales will be harder to come by. Better to keep the current customers, loyal. And now I’m more likely to have this brand at the top of my list when the time is right for hardware upgrades.

These are the little things, the battles and engagements that win for brands. Here’s another example from Ford I just stumbled on today via Andy Serovitz.

Our tools for stressed marketers.

Fred — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:07:56 +0000

Tough times are old news, but the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) put some numbers to it, and they’re painful. Their survey shows that 93 percent of marketing industry respondents are focused on cost savings and reductions with 37 percent planning to cut budgets more than 20 percent.

Barring a marketing industry bailout, becoming more nimble and efficient is a matter of survival now. It can mean changing the message, changing the medium, and changing your tools and workflow. Handily, marketing efficiency has always been a goal that drives Ad Giants, so maybe we can help you with the tools.

I’m not the sales guy, so no hard sell here, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point you the Ad Giants tools that might help marketers survive and even prosper. For efficiencies in brand management there’s the ONE system, and for lead generation and increased customer response we’ve just introduced PitchRocket.

Here are some straight-up informational videos on both of these tools.

The ONE System

PitchRocket

Beanstalk Talk is the blogging adventure for Ad Giants, a marketing brand management solution built by advertising veterans. Adgiants.com.

The Ad Giants news wires are buzzing. A partnership, an acquisition, and redesign.

Fred — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:11:42 +0000

It’s been a while since we talked about us, Ad Giants, so here’s an update (there’s even more in the pipeline.)

First, we’ve redesigned the Ad Giants site to accommodate our expanding arsenal of marketing products. The most recent addition is PitchRocket, which you can explore at its new home. It will be formally unveiled at the IFA Show. We’re especially excited to offer a solution as innovative and effective as PitchRocket now, to help marketers adapt to current economic realities. Clearly, the time is right, according to research cited here:

One major trend relates to the migration of marketing spend from high-cost channels like TV and print to low-cost channels like email that tend to be more cost effective in yielding the desired results and can also be more closely tracked and measured, which is imperative from a performance management perspective. In fact, Aberdeen research reveals that 60% of Best-in-Class companies have cut their previously allocated marketing spend in traditional media, 18% by more than half, while 47% of Best-in-Class companies, compared to 26% of Laggards, have increased their marketing spend on email marketing.

Of course, also within the freshened Ad Giants site lives the public face of the Ad Giants flagship brand management tool, The ONE System.

PitchRocket is a powerful, web-based sales-messaging and lead-generation tool that uses personalized messages to garner truly impressive response rates that can be monitored with real-time tracking tools. As Ad Giants President Donovan Dillon put it:

We acquired the technology because of the performance and enhanced accountability it provides to marketers. The future of any successful marketing program is going to rely more and more on performance, precision and proof, and not so much on a hunch and hope. Those days in marketing are gone for good.

Ad Giants has also partnered with marketing consulting firm Moderandi, Inc. of Scottsdale, AZ (PR link) and Ad Giants clients should feel the benefits of of this partnership in the coming months. Suffice it to say, all these moves are designed to help Ad Giants clients grow by staying nimble.

No one’s standing still.

Beanstalk Talk is the blogging adventure for Ad Giants, a marketing brand management solution built by advertising veterans. Adgiants.com.

For consumers, it’s hard to beat “free.” For marketers, it’s tough to sell “free.”

Fred — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:22:13 +0000

Our friend Eric passed on this Wired story about a novel concept in the UK. Well, I say it’s novel, but I think I remember hearing about it a year or more ago, though maybe that was when they were in the conceptual stage. It’s only UK at the moment, which is a shame because last month’s “Matter” included a BBC audio sampler. And let’s admit it; the Brits are pros at comedy.

It will be interesting to follow this concept to see how well it catches on, but I can certainly imagine some intriguing ways to plug into this concept.

Beanstalk Talk is the blogging adventure for Ad Giants, a marketing brand management solution built by advertising veterans. Adgiants.com.