clemans on marketing: confessions and misdemeanors

Vodka without the glitz still gets a buzz on

Tru Organic Spirits delivers a truly brilliant mix of alcoholic beverage marketing, social media savvy, nerdy, likable real people, and serious social responsibility. Everyone's thirsty for new ways to get attention, so I suggest checking out their Media Center or Googling TruVodka to figure out how and where they got covered – again and again. From SEED Eco Lounge posts to Newsweek. Find way cool new ways (no bones about it, it's in the trenches do-it-yourself hard work) to get noticed and stretch your marketing dollars even further. 

Trench Marketing.

A bunch of us were waiting in line for cabs outside the Palace Hotel in downtown San Francisco. 

Late for dinner at the Elite Cafe. 

A limo driver pulled up and gave us a deal. We jumped in, along with a stranger going our way. She turned out to be the international marketing manager for Bare Escentuals cosmetics. 

After querying us about the make-up products we currently use, she offered to send us samples. 

"I am always looking for new customers to try the brand and give us feedback".

 We readily agreed. 

True to her word, a big box arrived on Tuesday with four "bareMinerals Get Started Kits" ($59.98 each) and Buxom Big and Health Lip Polish – matched to our individual skin types. 

She now has 4 new customers, one of whom, unbeknownst to her, is a blogger who's telling the world.

Is this just a girl thing? Nope. This is a very smart marketing thing. Adopt and replicate.

Oprah in cyberspace.

Take a look at the Eckhart Tolle webcast class series on Oprah.com. She's channeling Direct Marketing 101: compelling offers, partner marketing, targeted messaging, topical and universal issues that ignite interest and controversy, on demand access to archives and learning experiences, social media, opt-in house list building opportunities big time, loyalty program, etc. You may think that housewives are her primary demographic. Friends and colleagues of mine tuning in across the country: ballroom dancers, bank vice presidents, photographers, marketing executives, software developers, account executives, construction project managers, etc, etc. More than 700,000 registered for the 10-week seminar. What's up next for Oprah? Second Life?

PBWC. The Synergy of Success.

I signed up for the 18th Annual Conference of the Professional Businesswomen of California. I really didn't want to go, get up early, race to Bart and squeeze myself onto the train so I could make it to San Francisco's Moscone Center in time for some lukewarm coffee and a doughy bagel. I didn't want to mingle with a bunch of women and get all maudlin about whatever, nor have to avoid contingents of roving real estate agents with big hair and red blinking nametags.

Over 5000 businesswomen showed up and surprise, surprise, it was well worth the trip. Arianna Huffington spoke, inspiring us with her commentary on work/life balance and mothers fearlessly inspiring daughters. Former California State Senator Jackie Speier recounted her horrific ordeal in Jonestown, Guyana where she was shot and Congressman Leo Ryan and three others were murdered. Jackie also shared the difficult challenges she faced and surmounted when her first husband unexpectedly passed away, leaving her with small children to raise and a mountain of debt. We each received the aptly titled book Jackie co-authored, This Is Not the Life I Ordered. OK, so it was a little maudlin!

Fast Company colunmnist Margaret Heffernan celebrated how women are changing the rules of business success–starting companies and growing profits at twice the rate of all American privately held firms. Nell Newman, president of Newman's Own Organics wowed us with the fantastic job she is doing running the company and giving away over $200 million in profits to thousands of charities.

What really amazed me though was the contingent of accomplished women–not only on the dais–sitting all around me. The PBWC's tagline is The Power of Connection and it was true that day.

Not only did I learn something about hostage negotiation (you should have been there), entrepreneurial strategies and the art of war for women (a tiny bit scary), I got inspired and re-invigorated to make a difference, risk failure and attend next year.

Marketing in the Virtual World.

PR expert David Oro calls Text100 "one of the more innovative PR agencies out there." He sent me a link to Text100's new video, created on SecondLife and just posted on YouTube.

Watch it and find out how Text100 is using SecondLife to promote virtual 3-D meetings – replicating, selling to and connecting with customers and colleagues around the globe.

SecondLife is fast becoming an important platform for promotion, event marketing, campaigning (2008 presidential hopeful Mark Warner is doing it – see his SecondLife avatar at left), virtual simulations, social networking and book releases (JC Hutchins is promoting his sci-fi book In The Grid on SecondLife – now there's a match made in heaven).

Harvard Business Review conducted a panel discussion this summer called "The Future for Real-Life Companies Marketing to SecondLife Avatars." The Abstract states,

These online personae, called avatars, range from simple but personalized cartoonlike characters used as pictorial signatures in instant messaging to fully developed characters in virtual worlds. And they represent a huge population of "shadow" customers who can be analyzed, segmented, and targeted.

Watch the inevitable feeding frenzy as zillions of businesses, marketers and hucksters put their virtual paw prints all over SecondLife. They have 787,177 residents, with over seven thousand online in real time as I write this blog. From a marketing and sales perspective, the future is out there. Right now.

Cute New Product. Real Value.

Mobcharger found a need and filled it perfectly with The Portable Emergency Cellphone Charger.

Who hasn't forgotten to pack the battery charger?

For $10, you will be able to purchase wireless, pocket-sized, disposable cellphone chargers in cute colors (soon to be dispensed in vending machines). So when your cellphone's battery dies, whip out the Mobcharger, plug it in and talk up a storm for 90 minutes with 480 standby minutes. And, yes, Mobcharger is compatible with most cellphones. If it matters, Gizmodo, the gadget guide, thinks they're pretty cool too.

Starved for good and cheap swag give-away ideas? Be the first on your block. Mobcharger can be customized with your logo, then popped into trade show goodie bags or used as sales 'n direct marketing "door openers" 'n offers.

Mobcharger: Cute and Smart. Except, hey wait a minute, please tell me they can be recycled.

Where Customers Become Both Buyers and Sellers.

Watch BurnLounge for the latest paradigm shift. Their About Us page reads,

"Through our proprietary software, music fans use point-and-click technology to build their own fully functioning download stores."

Gigaom.com says, "The company has raised $13 million from entertainment industry investors including Justin Timberlake...Fans now operate 50,000 online retail shops, and the company claims it’s the fifth-largest music download site." The concept could either become one of the greatest win/win retail juggernauts of all time or a pyramid scheme* that would put Amway to shame.

Burnlounge's VIP package and membership in the Music Mogul Program together cost approximately $600 per year. Fans running Burnlounge VIP stores earn 5 cents per song and 50 cents per album. You do the math.

*My friend's marriage fell apart over her husband's involvement - to the tune of thousands of dollars - in pyramid schemes. The last time I saw him he was running a bocce ball booth at a carnival. Swear.

Shameless Piggybacking.

A tiny little company has gotten lots of press for as far as I can tell no moral, ethical, save the children, genuinely useful reason. EXCEPT for the fact that it's a pretty funny idea and they shamelessly post large images of and links to many of the bloggers and commentators that talk about their product, including The Yahoo9, CNET and Digg.

The product is The Popularity Dialer:

Via a web interface, you can choose to have your phone called at a particular time (or several times). At the elected time, your phone will be dialed and you will hear a prerecorded message that's one half of a conversation. Thus, you will be prompted to have a fake conversation and will easily fool those around you.

For those of you with actual lives, real friends and better things to do, you won't be able to figure out why you need the product. Surprise. Surprise. Anyone want to come clean? According to their home page, more Californians use Popularity Dialer to "look extra important or popular on that hot date. Or ... need an excuse to escape from an unpleasant meeting" than any other state!

The Popularity Dialer founders must have had an "Ah-ha" moment when they built their "Web Presence" page. As a marketing strategist, the page was an "Ah-ha" moment for me too. What a smart way to publicize and increase awareness for themselves and for those who talk them up.

Biotech, The New Orange?

Crammed into a small conference room at the Commonwealth Club to hear National Public Radio's TechNation host and former NASA engineer, Dr. Moira Gunn, speak about her latest passion–after technology of course–BiotechNation–her newest radio program. During the conversation, she regaled us with her often humiliating journey trying to get biotech, gave us an insider's overview of industry iluminaries, Vioxx, GMOs, cancer research, snowflake babies, stem cell research and the politics touching all. Dr. Gunn sees Biotech as the new orange and suggests that businesses get into the game. Translation: There's money in them hills. Where to start in this brave new world, she says, first, get educated, "the least you need to get the point", through certificate programs, lectures, her soon-to-be published book, Biotech Speak. I do wish she had taken sides, well actually, my side, on several of issues instead of keeping her reporter hat on quite so tight.

Behave!

I'd like to introduce you to an important family media watchdog site, Commonsensemedia.com. Their goal is to keep our kids "smart and safe on the Internet." Movies, TV shows, music, websites, videos and books are reviewed and rated, by kids, parents and the staff. For example, they gave the tacky new Wayans brothers' movie, Little Man, one star, labeling it a "crude, rude-one joke failed comedy."

Commonsensemedia.com blog, written by several dedicated reviewers, covers kid-conscious issues, including commentary on the Marlboro ads now running in movie theaters and the PTA's national Internet safety campaign to rapper 50 Cents' sketchy alliance with Apple, promoting or shall we say pimping a line of affordable computers.