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Blog posts tagged World Cup
Donut marketing
July 09, 2010
It was inevitable with a name like ours and the increasing popularity of franchises of a certain chain of donut makers that our website would take some hits from people searching ‘Marketing Donuts’.
I have an interesting tale to share with you all as to how one of these franchises has gone about announcing their arrival in Bristol and marketed their donut products.
Last month I watched the England versus Slovenia match in the centre of Bristol at the Football Fan Park facility. This is essentially a square in the centre of Bristol that has a giant screen and a fenced off arena where football fans can congregate to have their hopes and dreams of national sporting glory dashed once again.
During the second half of the encounter which saw us secure second place in our group and prolong the inevitable demise, there were people walking into the arena with boxes of sugar glazed ring donuts. The more people that came in with donuts, the more people left to seek confectionery
Outside the arena there was a van packed full of trays of donuts and a sizeable but orderly queue of people receiving a free box of donuts. By the time the final whistle had been blown, the crowd inside the arena raced to the exit to join what became a sickening display of greed. The scenes were reminiscent of an aid convey arriving in an earthquake ravaged town. (Responsibility for the welfare of the public on the part of the company was tossed in the air like the final few boxes of donuts as the polite queue fast became a scrum of over one hundred people.)
The cost of this exercise may have been sizeable for the company but the clever part has been the size of reach that they will have achieved. Hand out a single donut and you make one person happy. Hand out a box of twelve and you empower that one very happy person to do the leg work for you in sharing the product and news of the soon-to-be-open new store with others. Seeding the public with samples of donuts has raised awareness of the new addition to Bristol. Word of mouth never tasted so good.
How do you encourage word of mouth with your existing customers?
I can’t claim that I can solve the Vuvuzela crisis, but…
June 16, 2010
The Vuvuzela can be pretty annoying. It is the noise and talk of the World Cup. The constant barrage of that atonal hum is enough to drive anyone loopy. Just imagine what it is like in the concentrated bowl of a stadium setting, amplified and focused. Everyone broadcasting into the middle with a relentless stream of trying to be louder than the Vuvuzellist next to you may make for a charged atmosphere, but at the end of the day it is all noise and no respite — remind you of anything?
Now picture this. A large number of people all wanting to be heard and throwing out their constant and near identical marketing message — all in one concentrated area or bowl, such as Twitter — just hoping that in a sea of similar noisy messages someone will listen, take interest and give you some money for your product or service.
I can’t claim that I can solve the Vuvuzela crisis, but I can certainly recommend that we all take a look at our own trumpeting.
- Consistency of message is very much different to sending out a constant message.
- Broadcasting is not this year’s model. Today we engage. Why? Because it works, is more involving and the tools we use are geared up for a two-way communication.
- If everyone makes the same noise then we are all the same. Be different and make your ‘difference’ stand out clearly.
- If the Vuvuzela had some tonal variation it would be less irritating. How can you make your message have more than one note?
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