Optimarketer: The Marketing Optimization Blog

After "Black Friday" it's Business as Usual on Walmart.com

Jdimytai Damour, a 34-year-old Walmart temp known to his friends as a gentle giant, was trampled to death Friday when 2,000 frenzied shoppers stormed the doors at 5:00 am to take advantage of the appropriately named "Black Friday" sale in Valley Stream.

I've been checking the Walmart home page but haven't seen a mention of what's got to be one of the biggest tragedies in the storied history of America's largest retailer. I did find a brief statement from Hank Mullany, Senior Vice President and President of the Northeast Division, on the Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. corporate web site.

Has Walmart responded appropriately?

LogoTournament.com is a Win/Lose Proposition

 

LogoTournament.com makes an almost irresistible offer to logo buyers while handing American graphic designers a pay scheme that could easily fall well below minimum wage.

For as little as $250, a LogoTournament.com customer launches a logo "contest" that may generate hundreds of entries (including some decent ones) from graphic designers worldwide. LogoTournament.com takes a 15% cut of the prize money.

Let's do some quick math using the top-ranked designer, an Indonesian gentleman who calls himself "Wolv." Wolv has submitted 322 entries and had his logo picked seven times. This means Wolv has averaged one win for every 46 entries. If he earned an average of $400 per victory, he received $8.70 per entry.

The designer in the 10th spot hasn't fared nearly as well. "Ideazden" from India sent in 178 entries but took home "gold" just twice. At $400 per win, that's a mere $4.49 per entry.

Just five of the 25 top-ranked designers are based in the USA, which makes sense. At a pay scale of well under $5 per submitted logo for the vast majority of entrants, this is one tournament most American designers should avoid.

Do you consider LogoTournament.com a good thing?

Marketers Don't Know the Meaning of Branding

Ready for a little "Inside Baseball" (thank you, Sarah Palin) from a marketing veteran?

"Branding" ain't what some of you think it is.

What's billed as "branding" is often little more than unified graphic design. But you rarely hear an agency executive say that, for one simple reason: It doesn't make financial sense.

A "unified graphics effort" may produce $10,000 in agency fees. But deliver the same work and call it a "branding initiative" and it could pay $100,000 or more.

Real brand-building involves much more than graphics.

It's the product. Service. Guarantee. Employees. Customers. Stores. Offices. Values. Culture. Charitable giving. And yes, advertising.

So when people say "That's off brand," they may really mean something doesn't comply with graphic design guidelines.

Speaking of that, when a book of "brand guidelines" inhibits innovation, differentiation or other important stuff ending in "tion," I suggest you throw it out and start over. 

If your new "branding" is nothing more than competent graphic design, and lacks that special quality found in genuinely awesome advertising, it won't do much for your brand.

Graphic design is immensely important, and consistent, high quality design raises brand awareness and preference. No doubt about it.

But game-changing ideas matter even more. They're capable of transforming businesses, industries, organizations, and institutions. They change the world.

What do you think? 

Meet Matt, the 19-Year-Old Business Mogul

Like a lot of teens, Matt Polianites lives with his mother, attends school, and hangs out at skateboard parks.

But unlike almost all his contemporaries, Matt owns a major shopping mall store.

It's called Boardwalk Boston Skate Shop and it's a remarkable achievement for someone too young to buy a beer.

From the outside, the place looks like it was funded by Abercrombie & Fitch. But when I asked for the name of his designer, Matt said I was looking at him. He even had a hand in the design of the cool t-shirts they stock.

Matt didn't exactly fall into this line of work. Before deciding to open Boardwalk Boston, he worked at FreeRide, a skateboard kiosk at the Burlington Mall. When FreeRide closed, Matt smelled opportunity and made his move.

To initially promote the business he gave out stickers and shirts at local skateboard parks.

Today Matt attends Suffolk University and puts in 13-hour days at the store. Is he earning enough to cover the $6,500-a-month rent? Here's what he said in the Boston Globe: "If we weren't doing well, we'd be out of here in a second."

Matt Polianites is planning on expanding. Remember the name.

The Copywriters Board Suddenly Goes Dark

I wandered into the Copywriters Board last year after publishing a post on World Reserve Monetary Exchange, a direct marketer that sells lots of coins and fields lots of complaints.

Actually, that's an understatement. Type "World Reserve Monetary Exchange" in Google using Internet Explorer 7 and right below the search box you'll automatically see additional words like "fraud" (with 374,000 results) and "scam" (368,000 results).

But on the Copywriters Board it was a whole other story. The advertising was hailed as "wonderful print ad copy" and "one of the best print ads I've seen all year."

Direct response copywriters were passing along tips that seemed, to this career direct marketer, out of bounds. Posters sounded like entrepreneurial copywriters with a passion for tricks that were at best marginally legal, and to a good share of consumers, clearly unethical.

It just seemed like a rough neighbhorhood. But I will say this: the posters were exceedingly polite.

Tonight I noticed Michael Fortin, the successful direct response copywriter and founder of the extremely popular Copywriters Board (by the way: none of the pro-WRME posts I read were written by Michael), has shuttered the Board for "personal reasons."

From the letter on the home page, it's obvious that Michael realized something was very wrong with the community he launched for copywriters back in the 90s. The area of the Copywriters Board I visited seemed like a haven for writers who had no problem taking advantage of old ladies. (I actually heard from a guy who believed his elderly father was ripped off by World Reserve Monetary Exchange shortly before he passed away.)

Michael Fortin has a huge following. For the sake of the direct marketing industry, if he relaunches the Copywriters Board, I hope he does something about posts that encourage misleading advertising.

Did any Freaking Marketing readers participate in the Copywriters Board, and if so, what did you think of it?

P&G Digital Ad Czar Says Facebook Isn't Media. Say What?

Procter and Gamble's interactive marketing chief doesn't think social networks like Facebook are advertiser-worthy.

Check out this Ad Age story with Ted McConnell's remarks (you'll find some of Ted's comments below, followed by my comments on his comments).

"I have a reaction to that (social networks' inability to monetize their sites) as a consumer advocate and an advertiser. What in heaven's name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?"

A corporate behemoth with revenue bigger than the GDP of some countries pays you big bucks to separate consumers from their money. I'm sure you want to do right by them, but do you really consider yourself a consumer advocate? And I'll take a shot at why social networks think they could monetize that real estate: because they're offering a rich experience for consumers at no charge, and to keep delivering it they need to make money. Just like the TV networks your company has paid billions to over the years.

"I think when we call it 'consumer-generated media,' we're being predatory. Who said this is media? Media is something you can buy and sell. Media contains inventory. Media contains blank spaces. Consumers weren't trying to generate media. They were trying to talk to somebody ..."

Ted, if I found a way to put the Preparation H logo on your Charmin toilet paper (Hey, there's an idea!), it would be media. Consider Facebook ads: It's media that's bought and sold, and they have inventory. And why should we even debate whether Facebook is appropriate and viable for advertisers? Shouldn't they just test it and let consumers vote with their dollars?

"So the targeting is fanstastic. You can really do amazing things. But I'm not so sure I want to be targeted like that ... I don't think everything every consumer says to someone else and writes down is somehow monetizable by the media industry."

OK, but since you also alluded to the shortcomings of "spray and pray" advertising (something your employer's done a bit of in the past), why not embrace permission-based advertising that respects consumers' privacy limits while cutting waste by being more relevant?

What do Freaking Marketing readers think?

End Command and Control Management as We Know It

When I started working full-time after college, my generation, the Baby Boomers, weren't really running things. We were largely answering to the Greatest Generation: World War II vets who saved the world when they were young. They certainly had their strengths, but their shortcomings as managers were bigger than Iwo Jima.

Ask a boss why he'd want to do something in a seemingly pointless way and you could hear, "Because I said so." Raise the idea of running a bold experiment and the reply might be, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

It all seemed so very retro, because it was. These aging men (they were mostly male) learned the practice of management while serving in the military in the first half of the 20th century. At an early age, it was drilled into their heads to not question authority, and to blindly follow orders.

One problem: The business world ain't the U.S. Army.

I always thought my generation would behave differently when we were finally in charge, but for the most part, it never happened. And the Gen Xers didn't do much better.

This is a major contributor to the dysfunction we see in so many marketing groups. Marketing is always a difficult game, and if we we're not challenging the status quo -- and the boss -- we're going to be making senseless mistakes.

I've encountered countless marketers who refuse to disagree with the boss -- not because they think he's right. Because they're afraid.

If you're the boss and everyone seems to always agree with you, you're failing to leverage the skills of your colleagues, and you're missing out. Bigtime.

What can employees do to get everyone working in more open, collaborative, grown-up ways? 

President-Elect Obama

Today an African American friend said, "I'll be able to look my babies in the eye and say, 'You can be anything you want to be.'"

Yes you can.