The Business of Color – Is Green Diluting the Pink?
By: Jay Osterholm, founder and CEO of The ODM Group
It must officially be October. If the cool, crisp weather and baseball playoff season were not enough, there is always the omnipresent pink that is currently painting our city. Just this past Sunday, our very own Eagles took the field donned in pink gloves and towels.
This shade of pink has become the signature color for Breast Cancer Awareness, and marketers are promoting a surplus of products to raise breast-cancer awareness in what might just be one of the greatest marketing strategies of the century.
Why you might ask?
A recent poll conducted by Gallup and USA Today found that 84 percent of shoppers said they purchase goods tied to fighting breast cancer.
84%. Just because it is pink.
And apparently it is working. Each year, an estimated $6 billion is raised for breast cancer. There is no denying that money raised for research has been instrumental in the fight against breast cancer. However, many breast cancer advocates are pointing out that too much is spent on awareness campaigns — walks, galas, etc. — at the expense of research.
Some even argue that the result of all this pink-frenzy is causing the message to be diluted.
So, as marketers we must ask ourselves:
Will a portion of our campaign revenue go to research or get women to get preventative care? Or are we just tapping into the passion of the pink appeal and taking advantage of the movement?
My advice is to always take the high road. If you are going to elevate your brand, products, clients, or company through charitable campaigns, remember make sure you give back to the cause.
Sure, we can all implement pink-related tactics to gain notoriety for our clients. But, by tapping into the pre-existing cue of pink loyalty, we are not necessarily helping the cause. In fact, we could be the point of dilution. This creates the ultimate conundrum for our profession.
The sole purpose of marketing is to tap into the emotional appeal of consumers, and move them to some sort of action – buy a product, support a cause, endorse a brand, etc. That being said, if we are going to utilize a cause such as breast cancer for a marketing promotion, then be sure to remain authentic and provide value to the cause. And remember, awareness does not equal money raised for research.
Track Receipts with Lemon & iPhone 4S
Store Receipts and Track Budget with Lemon
Recent advancements in smart-phone technology mean you can probably leave your wallet at home. A new service called Lemon gives users a free and easy way to save receipts online simply by taking photos of them.
To use the service, you must sign up for a free account on the Lemon website, and then download the app to your phone. When users upload receipt images to their account, they can tag it by category such as clothing, dining, etc.
Perhaps the greatest appeal is the staying power of the receipts. We see this as a new and innovative outlet for advertisers to maintain presence with customers. If stores create more creative receipts that incorporate company logos, the user will be in constant contact with the brand.
iPhone Release: A Hit or a Miss?
Yesterday we all stood idly by waiting for Tim Cook’s first announcement as CEO of Apple.
While the new product was not what most people were anticipating, there are some very exciting features about the newest iPhone, such as voice control, airplay mirroring and an improved camera. Voice control will use the new Siri technology to perform commands such as set the phone alarm, add dates to calendar, report the weather etc. Airplay mirroring allows the user to mirror on a big screen exactly what you see on the phone screen using Apple TV. Physically, the iPhone 4S looks the same as the iPhone 4. However, it has an upgraded processor chip, longer battery life and a drastically improved camera.
Are you disappointed with the new iPhone 4S, or do you think it is worth the hype?
ABC News Partners with Yahoo & Occupy Wall Street on Social Media
ABC News and Yahoo! Announce Partnership
Nearly fifteen years ago, NBC News merged with Microsoft to create MSNBC.com, and it skyrocketed to the top tier of all the news sites. Yesterday, NBC’s top rival, ABC News, announced something similar with Yahoo News, which marks a new chapter in the competition for online news subscribers.
To officially announce the merger, George Stephanopoulos interviewed President Obama during a live webcast yesterday on ABCNews.com and Yahoo.com.
ABC and Yahoo will drastically change online news distribution, as Yahoo News has more unique visitors than any other news Web site and traffic for both sites will be reported together. The new strategic online news alliance plans to reach 100 million U.S. users a month.
Despite its huge online news audience, Yahoo has been struggling with stagnant advertising revenue, and last month fired CEO Carol A. Bartz. The new alliance with ABC will bring Yahoo’s news more video with celebrity journalists like Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric.
Occupy Wall Street Uses Un-Popular Social Media
It is not a new concept for protesters to use social media to organize their events and messages. However, “Occupy Wall Street” protesters have been using untraditional tools to avoid being tracked by police and authorities. Their tool of choice has been an app called Vibe, which allows users to exchange “Whisper” time-limited messages anonymously to anyone within 160 feet. Another unpopular tool used by protestors is Internet Relay Chat (IRC), used by the group to exchange more long-form updates. Many social media experts consider this tool “old school.” Additionally, the group is using Livestream for video sharing and Reddit for link sharing.
Overall, it appears the social media tools chosen by Occupy Wall Street protesters reflect their rebellious nature, as these are not the most popular and widely used outlets for social sharing.
The path of this unusual protest is still unclear, however, as marketers, it is important to take note of this group as they have utilized “unpopular” tools and successfully spread messages to their target audiences.
MySpace Advertising Opportunities & Shopularity uses Viral Marketing
Myspace To Announce New Advertising Opportunities
The days of Myspace popularity seem to be long gone, especially with the growing popularity of Facebook. However, tonight Myspace will unveil plans to revive the site, specifically highlighting their new partnership with investor and musician Justin Timberlake.
The main goal of tonight’s announcement is to share new advertising opportunities with CMO’s and other senior marketers. This announcement comes just one week after Facebook made a similar announcement for increased online advertising opportunities. Many industry experts are speculating the changes will largely relate to music, especially given their new investor’s background.
Given Facebook’s overwhelming growth over the past few years, we think it is unlikely that Myspace will be able to pull a large amount of advertising dollars from the “original” social network. We will be sure to keep you updated as details of the new site are unveiled.
Shopularity Gets You To Do The Advertising
And this next story takes viral marketing to a whole other level. A self-proclaimed popularity contest, Shopularity, allows individuals to compete to win free products based on the number of votes they can earn for it. Essentially, individuals create personal ad campaigns for a product and then pitch it to friends and family.
If a friend votes for the product through the pitch, the individual gets a vote. At the end of the contest, whoever has the most votes wins the product they were marketing.
Jordan Holberg, creator of Shopularity, said, “All the content users create is basically a giant ad for a product. That is viral marketing and word-of-mouth marketing the way it was supposed to be.” Shopularity has a broad-based approach, which allows anyone to participate in the marketing of a product. Online reviews and product commentary are increasingly important in the digital realm, and have the ability to directly affect a brand or product’s reputation.
