Gripes and Grins

Diggerslist: Cause Marketing at Work

Diggerslist "launched" earlier this week. Disclosure: the founders are my brothers-in-law. In truth, if you look at the site (think eBay for construction), you'll see that DiggersList has been around for awhile.  Most people are savvy enough to know that you don't get regional listings from contractors overnight... I know my contractor isn't exactly an earlier adopter.  But I digress. 

You may look a the video below and scratch your head and think -- wow, corny vids and a DIY knock-off are so 2006.  These guys have a sense of humor about themselves.  What you're seeing in the video is reinforcing two key DiggersList customer beneifts, albeit the latter benefit is a very subtle reference. And, the cause marketing tactic is very engaging - holds my attention enough to communicate two key user benefits.  Here they are the meta-points:

1. The really interesting thing about DiggersList is that it works for both professional contractors and DIY'ers like yours truly.  In my garage, I've got random piles of tiles, un-opened buckets of paint, and more outdoor irrigation PVC than most Mexican drug lords.  I'm going to use DiggersList to clean out the garage, and buy a secret kegerator to fill the new space in my garage. I find this beneficial.

2. DiggersList is a green business.  The tshirts were the subtle indicator in the video.  But, if you're walking around Santa Monica or Los Angeles right now, you'll see posters on dozens of construction sites noting that the scrap materials are going to be recycled through DiggersList.  And, I love any business that is making money out of a byproduct.  That's good value for the buyer, great margin for the seller, good for the environment.

When you think about all of the marketing drek out there, this low-budget "help a neighbor" web video promotional effort is genuine and engaging.  I know from all of my years of marketing that whatever the format, your marketing has to genuine and engaging. 

Now, I'm not saying DiggersList is going to be huge.  And, I know for sure that venture capitalists aren't going to bet on DiggersList this quarter.  But, that's not DiggersList fault.  Most VCs are having trouble keeping their existing investments afloat and nobody wants to make a capital call to their limited partners this Holiday season.  And, because TechCrunch50 Winner Red Beacon (Angie's List for DIY) is tangential to DiggersList, most VCs will shy away from DiggersList because they won't see the obvious business differences.  But I don't think having VC dollars is as important as it once was.

I view DiggersList as another great idea that is going to make a lot of money outside of the traditional venture startup model.  There's a lot of these startups happening right now.  Entrepreneurs are choosing to take money from high-net-worth individual investors with domain expertise in lieu of venture funding right now.  DiggersList is one of them. And, in some ways, I'm green with envy. 

Why crowd sourcing ads will work for SmartyCard

I just sent the email below to Chris Breshears of Phase One Accelerators and Adrienne Allen, VP of Creative, SmartyCard.  I've been struggling with how to communicate why I haven't felt good about our nascent parent marketing efforts at SmartyCard.  Some of this rambling screed is tainted with my own growing discontent with the metrics-driven creative determinations so prevalent in advertising today.  But, outside of that, I'm being brutally honest about our initial shortcomings and what is driving me to crowdsource ad creative for our next round of parent-focused creatives.  Would love any comments.

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First, I want to thank Chris for jumping into the good fight and responding to my madmen request by

1. not laughing at my pathetic emergency budget and
2. replying summarily “sounds like a dream gig”
   

Second, I want to thank Adrienne for forcing me to talk through this — you’re a real creative pro.

Chris, a dream this will not be, but it sure as hell is going to be fun.  We look forward to your arrival next week, but in the meantime, Adrienne has her kick-ass team working in a new, inspired direction.  And, I’m soliciting inputs from the customer.

To recap, I feel a bit ashamed.  I let our first round of Mom-focused creative develop without thinking critically about our customer.  I was lulled by the unquestionable success of our tween marketing, which is really rooted in a natural connection between the SmartyCard art, our tween audience and our brand promise of “fun and rewards”.  

All of the external voices selling us mom media are telling us to think like other brands.  I’ve seen and produced enough drek in my lifetime.  Call it my Don Draper moment (I wish I was drinking an old fashioned now), but the moms at Blogher really spoke to me.  Like my own wife, this “class” of moms are distinguished and funny.  They aren’t the two-dimensional characters that potential partners describe and casually tag with terms like “soccer mom”.  If anything they’re sardonic, self-deprecating GenXers, aptly named because of they are impossible to categorize.  

Last night really spoke to me — my daughter’s school picnic.  A professional soccer player asked me if Chloe could join her clinic, another lamented the lack of alcohol and a third encouraged me to bribe my kids with chocolate.  These moms all highly successful in their own right — just like the moms at Blogher.  And, they are all seeking any reason to make light of their situation — the situation being officially “harried”.  Or, more specifically, exhausted from lack of sleep, self-medicating with wine, stained, permanently fighting off a cold, arm weary from carrying kids and their belongings, and generally being the central hub of the family and home.  These women are super-heroes, sustained by their own sense of humor and the laughs they share with their peers.  Our basic value proposition is strong.  The brand is tight. But, we’re not going to connect until we give moms a laugh.  I’m sure of this.  And, per Adrienne’s thoughts, no careful combination of stock art and graphics is going to work... It’ll all end up like mary-fucking-poppins.

This is why I posted that we’re going to “crowd source” ads.  I posted to the company blog, I tweeted, I posted to our affiliate marketing moms.  That post got retweeted and I’m collecting ideas and feedback to share.  I apologize for not giving you a headsup before doing that.  But, honestly, I’m pretty sure we’re doing the right thing by bringing moms into the creative development process.  I just want every guarantee that we’re connecting with our audience... Avoiding drek at all costs.  

Thanks for your support, thanks for scrambling on this new effort.  Enjoy your weekends.
Aaron

Experimenting with Facebook Y! Mail imports

We're working on a refer-a-friend feature over at SmartyCard.com - I just did a blind import of my Yahoo! Mail contacts to see what would happen to all of email contacts in there.  Actually, I was hoping to invite myself and accept and see what kind of weird infinite email loop I'd create.  But, one of the more interesting reactions was the auto-post of mail to my TypePad blog admin.  See below. 

Also, total nonsequitter, but check out this awesome OpEd.

Now this is quality marketing

I'm loving this story today.  In fact, I'm just loving any story that pulls one over on the media.  I don't hate the media.  I just think they take themselves WAY too seriously.  I love the reaction from Silicon Alley Insider... another web 1.0 pub that takes itself more seriously than their readers.  Seriously, folks, step back and appreciate the cleverness and DON't hate.  Kudos to Campfire.  I hope I get to work with these guys one day.

Birth Announcements: Joe Marchese bring new hot acronym to life!

BRM.  Forget the designer watches or auto club.  BRM is the next big acronym for us marketing guys.  Thanks in part to Joe Marchese's article this morning: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=105927

What does all of this mean?

This afternoon agency heads all around the globe are revising standard pitch decks, slathering buzz-word-laden PPT and Keynote presentations with this new super-acronym whose definition is so new, so unknown, that it will soon be co-opted and misapplied to a point where it is meaningless and tired.  But that's many months from now.  Today, BRM IS IT! 

As soon as this article was published, BRM was dripping from the hot-latte-hipster-breathless that loiter and huddle around Mac's in South Park, SOMA and University Cafe in Palo Alto.  Right now, a 50-year-old agency President bulging from gender-nuetral haute coutor is devising a complex BRM pitch targetting overwhelmed and sleepless marketing veeps like myself, hoping to translate fear of the unknown into hundreds of thousands in new client billings. 

By tomorrow morning, my desk phone (I don't even know the number) will be ringing off of the hook with flacks from try-hard agencies from LA, Chicago, NY, Pheonix and Mineapolis, screeming down the line -- "I'm ________, and I really need to talk to you about your BRM strategy... we've been developing and executing BRM strategies for Forunte 500 companies for the last 12 months (why is the BS timeframe always 12 months?), and we really think you need our consultation".... the cold, nervous panic in the calls revealing that BRM is a TBD acronym of importance, but the poor caller is 23, paid in peanuts, and pitching under fear of god and the afore mentioned 50-year-old puffy agency exec.

And, by next week, the big 4 agencies and the cool, slick agencies from Silicon Valley and Madison Avenue will be stirring the backlash, having added to the emerging definition and rebranded recent "social media marketing" studies as BRM.  The good firms really know how to rebrand -- they'll re-dress recent "summits" and "conferences" websites with the new term, doctor old photos, update their client's quotes, and call on college buddies to supply them with the necessary new quotes attributing success to their BRM strategies and services. 

Rejoice peoples.  It's not every day that a new buzzword is born!  Remember UGC? Remember Social Media?  Remember Personal CPM?  Maybe not.  But, BRM is here to stay!  Now, I'm off to join various BRM groups on Facebook and pre-register and submit my bio for the inevitable O'Reilly BRM leaders conference... don't forget to RT this and tag with BRM:)