With every new mode of communication
comes new rules.
That holds true for texting.

In a Women’s Health survey
on texting,
the number one pet peeve
was ‘Taking forever to respond.’

The number two was
a short response to a long story.
You pour out your heart
and get an LOL back.
The fast rule is
to reply with a message
no less than half the size
of the original message.

Oh, and if you’re making plans,
call.
79% of women prefer to talk about plans,
not text them.

Purple is the hot color
for this fall.

How to use purple?
Well, not with product development,
not unless the product
has a short lead time
(fall is a few short months away)
and an even shorter shelf life.

But you may wish to use purple
in marketing materials.
You could
show ‘customers’ in that hot color
or use purple font
or create window displays using purple.

One of the fun things about marketing
is that although the message
and brand should be eternal,
marketing materials can reflect
that moment in time.

Have some fun with purple this fall!

A publisher had an unexpected gap
in their publishing schedule.
That happens at even the biggest publishers.
Authors get ill.
Editors win the lottery.
Gaps happen.

Many times publishers
will bump up books
or send an urgent call out
for clean submissions
or… gasp… ship with an empty slot.

This publisher sent an urgent call out.
An author friend of mine,
knew this was a great opp
for a fellow author.
She sent a brief but professional mass email
to an intimate 44 member author loop,
relying that this publisher was in desperate need
of submissions.

Desperate, perhaps, wasn’t the best word
as the rumors immediately started
that the publisher was in financial trouble.
Why else would they need
to spam the world for submissions?

There are times to use mass email
and there are times to use private email.
If you wish the message
to be viewed as exclusive, or special
or, in this case, an opportunity not to be missed,
take the time
and send the message privately.

Many of the most beloved brands
in the world
have nicknames.

Coca-Cola is called Coke.
McDonald’s is called Mickey D’s.
Nora Roberts is called La Nora.

So when do you use
the formal name
and when do you use
nicknames?

Brand Naming has a wonderful article
outlining when you should and shouldn’t.

Basically formal marketing
should use the formal name.
Nicknames are for insiders.
You don’t have to market to insiders.

You also can’t force insiders
to use a nickname.
Nicknames are earned.
They are not given.

How are they earned?
By the brand gaining enough passionate fans
that they create their own language
and give the brand a nickname.

Focus on your formal name.
Let your fans
work on your nickname.

Aside:
I’d like to send a big thank you
to Jakub.
I derive no compensation from this blog
other than thank you’s
and sometimes I question
if I add value.
Jakub emailed me exactly when
I was asking myself that question.
Thank you, Jakub, for appreciating my posts.

On one of the romance online communities
I belong to,
we joke about cabana boys.
It is a long running joke
with established members having favorite cabana boys
based on different romance novel characters.

It is easy to slip into short forms
and skip the explanations.
That’s fine for regular participants
but it does tend to exclude newbies.

So the community has a couple ‘hosts’
who slip in explanations.
Instead of saying cb,
they’ll write cabana boy (cb).
When a character is named,
they’ll mention what novel the character is from.

It allows the inside jokes to continue
but not be exclusionary.

Part of what makes up
a tight community
is inside jokes.
You may wish to have ‘hosts’
to help gently explain the inside jokes
to newbies
so they can be part of the community too.

They are witty.
They are fast moving and full of content.
They are self-deprecating.
I can watch them again and again.
I love the Old Spice commercials,
including the youtube responses.

Turns out…
everyone else does too.

There are parodies
(my favorite being the library parody)
which reinforce Old Spice’s original messaging.

And this has translated into sales,
reviving a brand.

Old Spice body wash sales
have increased 107%
in the past month.

All because the brand managers had some fun
with a very traditional brand.
Brilliant.

In an interview with Much More Music,
Alice Cooper talked about the wild rumors
that surrounded him and his band
when they first started out.

He said he didn’t bother to dispute them.
He laughed about the rumors
and they became
part of the Alice Cooper legend.

The press had fun painting him
as the villain of rock,
a role he embraced.

“Half of it was the press saying
this was fun
and this guy didn’t mind.”

The rumors changed his brand image permanently.
He didn’t use his energy to fight them.
He used his energy
to convert them into record sales.

That’s a lesson many brands need to learn.

One of my cousins came to visit last week.
She’s a foodie.
She buys only the best ingredients
and spends hours every day
cooking for her family.

I’m the type of gal
who orders a burger
at The Chophouse
I didn’t cook for my cousin.
We ate out every night.

That should be obvious
but is it?
How many times
do companies try to sell their products
to people who clearly aren’t interested?

I worked in new business development
at a quick service restaurant.
We tried to develop
a ‘healthy’ french fry,
a fry that health conscious moms would like.
We were never successful.
Once the moms heard
the quick service restaurant developed it,
they nixed the fries.
The fries could have been made of oxygen
and the moms wouldn’t have approved them.

A friend of mine
has been trying for a decade
to convince her religious mom
to read
the steamy romances she writes.
That’s not going to happen.

Unless you’re a top chef,
don’t make dinner for a foodie.

I attended a focus group yesterday.
There were two ads featured.

The first ad was a product ad.
It showed a fairly unremarkable product,
touting reliability.

The second ad was a story ad.
It told a story about the product user
and featured the product
as a reliable part of that person’s life.

The first ad was safe.
It got okay reactions
but I doubt anyone would watch it
more than one.

The second ad divided the group
into those who hated it with a passion
and those who loved it with a passion.
Participants cared.
They either hated the product user
or they adored her.
The moderator tried to steer conversation
to a competitor’s ad campaign.
The participants returned back to the second ad.

You may think…
no brainer.
Go with the second ad
but I bet
there are as heated discussions
between executives
over the focus group results.

Why?

Because the second ad is scary.
Some participants HATED the ad.
To set yourself up to be hated
is very, very scary.

I’m betting they chicken out.
Would YOU chicken out?

Yesterday
I was enjoying the previews
before The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

There was the preview for
Tangled,
a Disney Princess movie,
followed by the Smurf movie,
and then…

the preview for Resident Evil.

It was violent.
It was shocking.
The children in the theater cried.
It was completely
inappropriate marketing.

Shock marketing is very effective.
But only if the prospect you wish to target
is present.
Seven year old kids are not seeing
Resident Evil.

Be a responsible marketer.
Don’t use young children
to sell a very adult product.