Riffing off Donald Keough’s book The Ten Commandments for Business Failure, Risk Capital Partners investor Luke Johnson pens his own steps for killing your company for the Financial Times. If you want to survive, he advises avoiding the following:
“In case you’re wondering: yes, over the years I’ve backed companies guilty of all these mistakes,” says Johnson. (Hat tip, peHUB)
What started off as a “Wow! Why didn’t I think of that” moment, quickly turned into “they really dropped the ball here.”
A major video gaming retailer, who, because of this marketing catastrophe, does not deserved to be named, is running online and television ads promoting an upcoming video game. The promotion: “Pre-order now and get an extra $10,000 (in-game money) and special weapons!”
FANTASTIC!
That is an excellent way to drive real customers to their website or their brick/mortar stores. A tie-in with the in-game action costs them nothing – yet gives the customers willing to pre-purchase an advantage above other buyers. This is a case of: Perceived Value (our Marketing Masters Program students should know what this is).
However, where this company went terribly wrong, is that there is NO mention of this promotion on their website. Further, when we Googled keywords trying to find more information about it, there was nothing. Zilch. Nada.
Are you kidding me?
Such an excellent promotion that, when executed, falls on its face.
What are some virtual products of your own that you can “spice up” to offer as an incentive for your customers willing to pre-order?
Marketing Guys Grade:
Idea: A+
Great use of their virtual product to drive up pre-salesMarketing: C+
They do get points for the online and television ads, I mean, it caught our attentionExecution/Delivery: F
Not having this predominately featured on their website means a lot of lost sales as people looking for more information are likely to give up until they happy to be near a physical store – at which point, the promo could be over. We were actively seeking information for this and weren’t able to find it. They will lose causal shoppers.
The Quaker Oats billboard on Western Avenue in Seattle. (Mónica Guzmán/Seattle P-I)
What some have deemed an marketing flop, we are calling genius.
Quaker Oats recently started displaying billboards with half the Quaker Oat guy, and a simple phrase:
“Go humans go”
The point?
Just type “go humans go” into any major search engine.
The “Go humans go” slogan is being used in many advertising outlets including television, billboards and print publications. Additionally, you can already see “Go human go” integrated into the Quaker Oats official website at QuakerOats.com.
On the site, you can read about the health benefits of their products, view a catalog, read cooking tips and vote on the best recipes. There is also a section for healthcare professionals to learn about why they should recommend Quaker Oats products.
The website goes on to explain how, in these tough economic times, a bowl of oatmeal only costs about twenty-five cents.
They may not be delivering a powerful marketing message on the billboards, but the amount of conversation they have generated on the web is more than paying for its self.
Why is it relevant? Because in today’s economy, saving money, staying healthy, and doing it “yourself”, is all the rage. Kudos to them for capitalizing on those three hot-buttons.
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