Just yesterday I wrote a post about Skittles attempt at using social media layered under their minimal site navigation ala Modernista. Interesting thing happens when you click the link for Modernista’s site: it retains our site in the background. Go ahead…try it.

Is it because we are opening in a new window? Who knows. Design flaw? You decide. If it was my site or that of my clients’, I wouldn’t be happy.

So the song goes…

Everbody’s talkin’ at me,
Can’t hear a word they’re sayin’…

Is this an ingenious use of social media or simply a dilution of the brand?

Social media sites, while in intention are meant to inspire such conversation, can often just run amuck into simply…well, all talk and no action. Call to action, that is.

When does social media just become noise? I think this is a good example. I have no time to babble about their site – which is what is going on now on Twitter. The brand is lost.

What is the call to action? What is the brand gain?

Maybe they were hoping people would say, “Wow, look what that great rainbow candy did…isn’t it cool! I gotta get some!”

Instead, people are tweeting about how Skittles broke Twitter. It’s more about Twitter than Skittles.

Remember the Goal: Brand Enhancement

What about the brand? What satisfaction can I get from Skittles? What space should the Skittles brand occupy in my life? (OK yes, it’s just candy, but as a brand it should answer that question.)

In this case, the brand has been reduced to a business card-sized image with some navigation at the top left of the page. That’s it. The rest is everybody talking about….whatever. It’s just noise…

Use social media to your advantage. Ensure you have a close connection to your brand and that the talk enhances your brand. Not talks over it.

And make sure you have a page to call to “home.”

Give it a look at Skittles.com.

Attracting Customers the New Old Fashioned Way.

As I sit here preparing to write another article outlining the fall of the local Yellow Page directory, a call comes into my office and is routed to one of our Internet marketing consultants. The caller is interested in learning more about our Internet marketing services. Potential leads calling my office is a fairly common occurrence, what’s uncommon about this particular caller is the way in which he found us – the local Yellow Pages. Talk about timing, I didn’t even realize we were in the Yellow Pages!

So, does this change my opinion of the big yellow lug? No.

The Yellow Page directory is a paper dinosaur and not long for this world. Yes, we did get a lead from it today, one lead, not a very good one and the first lead from the yellow book in seven years!

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As a marketing author I tend to be hyper-aware of the marketing surrounding me. From the minute I entered Giants stadium my mind switched to overload. Talk about marketing noise! Everything is sponsored from the tickets to the garbage cans.  If they can squeeze someone’s logo on it they will.

Easily there were hundreds of sponsor companies marketing throughout the stadium, so why can I only remember two?  Read more…

Legendary rock band AC/DC just released, Black Ice their first new album in over eight years. Black Ice was released on October 8^th and rocketed to the top of the charts selling nearly 800,000 earning it the distinction of being the year’s best-selling rock debut.

Black Ice marks the band’s second stint at #1 (1981′s For Those About to Rock We Salute You reached the peak several weeks after its initial release), and the first chart-topping debut of the band’s more than 30-year-career.

So why am I writing about AC/DC on my marketing blog?
One, I’m a head banger from back in the day and a huge AC/DC fan.
Two; it’s not every day that a marketing strategy can easily be classified as both insane and brilliant, this one has me torn. I may just have to put it in the things that make you go, hmmmm category.

The marketing strategy was to go low tech or as AC/DC’s website boldly states, Low Definition.

In the U.S. this album was sold exclusively through Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club and the band’s official Web site. You cannot find the album for sale or download at Amazon or iTunes. In fact, I can’t find it for download at all. You have to buy the physical CD. In today’s iPod centric culture this would seem to be a very risky marketing plan.

A viral video campaign was launched post album release, October 23^rd to be exact. The video can be viewed on YouTube or downloaded if done completely in Microsoft Excel and is being described as, The world’s first music video in an Excel Spreadsheet. AC/DC smashes through the corporate firewall with real rock ‘n’ roll. Watch the video playing back as ASCII art in Microsoft Excel! Excel? Really? Maybe I can order a cool AC/DC tape dispenser or desk caddie??

My first reaction to this marketing campaign was disbelief. AC/DC sold out! Selling exclusively in Wal-Mart!?! A video created in Excel designed to, smash through the corporate firewall? What’s next, a concert at Disney? Who are they trying to reach? Head bangers don’t hang out at Wal-Mart! We go to the local record store to get our…oh wait a minute, there are no more local record stores and head bangers are now in their 40′s with 2-3 kids, 9-5 jobs, safety rated vehicles and a house in the suburbs. Oh crap! We do hang out at Wal-Mart!

When you ponder the fact that AC/DC achieved critical mass in the 80′s you soon realize that the average fan has become just that, average. The days of dreaming of Tawny Kitaen writhing around on the hood of a jaguar in Whitesnake’s, Here I go again video are long gone. The rock anthems that played over and over in our minds, songs like Twisted Sister’s, We’re Not Gonna Take It, and Ozzy’s, Crazy Train have been replaced with the Sponge Bob Square Pants theme.

Guess what else? It turns out we use Excel too. Not only do we use it, most of us like it. Think about all the cool things we do with Excel like calculations, equations and rockin macros! No one rocks a spreadsheet like we do, always trying to get our forecasts, back in black.

AC/DC didn’t leave the current generation of rockers out either. AC/DC will be the first band to get to get its very own version of MTV’s video game phenomenon, Rock Band, which is due out November 2nd for the PS2, PS3, Xbox and Wii and will be sold exclusively (where else) at Wal-Mart /Sam’s Club.

It doesn’t hurt album sales (are they still called albums?) that just about anything from the 80′s is popular again, you know, what’s old is new. AC/DC is cool (do they still say cool?) again for a whole new generation to rock out to. Maybe buying a CD brings back fond memories for the current generation the way buying an 8-track would to mine.

Okay, so maybe AC/DC is on to something with their Wal-Mart sellin, spreadsheetin ways. I guess I should be happy, one of my favorite bands didn’t sell out, they sold in, sold in to my surroundings making it easier for me to find and enjoy a great band with a great brand at an everyday low, low rock ‘n’ rollback price!

The only question I have now is how AC/DC will market to me in the next chapter of my life? Maybe my pacemaker will have download capabilities and be able to beat my heart to dirty deeds done dirt cheap?

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