Lost Dog

With over fifty-five million view on YouTube alone, last year’s most-watched Super Bowl commercial was Budweiser’s “Puppy Love” about the bond between a yellow Labrador puppy and a Clydesdale.  This year Budweiser is wisely building on that success with its “Lost Dog” campaign.  The news media ran stories late last week about the trailer Budweiser released that announced the puppy was missing.  As many online are commenting, “It will break your heart.”  If you haven’t seen it and want to do so, go here.

Budweiser is asking consumers to help find the lost dog by following Budweiser on Twitter.  The reward for finding the puppy is a trip to the Super Bowl including tickets and transportation.  While this reward may be driving some, many would look for the puppy purely out of a desire to help.  The concern for a lost dog pulls at consumers’ heart strings.  “I’m having difficulty remembering this is not a real lost dog,” noted one tweet. 

However Budweiser decides who finds the lost dog, its marketing team has done a magnificent job with this campaign.  I want to point out three facets of it that all businesspeople can apply to their marketing. 

First, the campaign has continuity.  It builds on the success of last year’s ad.  It uses a yellow Labrador puppy and takes the puppy’s story one step further.  It taps into consumers’ emotional attachment to dogs to get their attention and involvement.  It’s well-thought-out and planned.  That planning is showing and paying off. 

Second, the campaign employs multiple media with same message.  The video on YouTube, the publicity via news outlets, and the viral tweets all focus on finding the lost dog.  Like a snowball gathering momentum as it rolls downhill, each of these adds to the campaign’s effectiveness.  Together they make the impact of the campaign bigger than any one of them could singly accomplish.   

Third, the campaign is interactive.  It involves consumers.  It prompts them to tweet and talk about the campaign.  It encourages creative responses to where the lost dog might be found.  On Twitter, one person posted a picture of her dog with his head in a culvert searching for the lost dog.  Another put up a picture of her dog Diesel and stated he had found the lost dog.  A couple guys shot a video about the lost dog.  Check out #BestBuds to see the interesting tweets.

Before you retreat into a thought of “My business does not have Budweiser’s marketing team.  We could never put together a campaign like this,” realize that you don’t need to do so.  Learn from Budweiser’s example that continuity, multiple media with the same message, and interactivity create powerful marketing.  Employed together, they are a profitable force.    

This week's marketing trivia challenge is  How can you apply the facets of the “Lost Dog” campaign to your marketing?  E-mail me your answer.

Two Mistakes

Two of the most popular ads which ran during last week’s Super Bowl did an excellent job targeting their market.  The Paul Harvey-voiced ad dedicated to farmers caught the attention of every farm family that was watching.  Being two minutes long, the commercial took plenty of time to make the impression that the advertiser wanted.  By the middle of the commercial, I’m certain the target market was riveted.  Paul Harvey’s voice was very distinctive and commanded attention.  Since his program often aired on stations with farm programming, farmers instantly recognized it.  His description of a farmer was right on. 

Overall the commercial was excellent.  The producers only made one mistake.  I will disclose it with a question.  What company aired the commercial?  If you remember, good for that company.  To discover the company, you would have had to watch the commercial closely all the way to the end.  The company’s name was only shown for a few seconds at the very end of a two-minute commercial.  That was a big mistake.  The company would have been further ahead if it had displayed its logo and name in a lower corner throughout the commercial.

RAM trucks, the company, went through great pains and paid a great deal to air an effective commercial.  Why only have its name on screen for a few seconds?  Why not associate its name with the commercial for two minutes?  The company would have achieved much more from the commercial if it had done so. 

The second popular commercial which targeted its market well was the Clydesdale Budweiser commercial.  Reminiscent of the “War Horse” movie and “Christian the Lion” video, this commercial reached for the heart.  It grabbed mine.  Everyone with whom I have spoken agrees.  It has stuck in my mind, and, because of the Clydesdale, I associate it with Bud.  I’m certain that an important goal of the commercial was to maintain Bud customers.  As a consumer of Bud, I can attest that it reached that goal with me.

I was disappointed to find out that Budweiser made a mistake with this commercial.  In conjunction with the commercial, Budweiser ran a contest for naming the colt shown at the opening, which was born January 16.  The company announced the contest in its first ever tweet on January 26.  It received over 60,000 responses via tweets and phone calls.  Management was excited about this response. 

Think about how many responses Budweiser missed.  Think about the opportunity Bud missed.  If Budweiser had also offered that contest at the end of the commercial, how many more votes would it have received?  A lot.  Those additional votes would have represented more than additional numbers.  They would have been cast by consumers who became more involved in the Budweiser brand through their interactivity of voting.

Management could have taken this one step further and announced the name of the foal at the end of the Super Bowl.  This action would have involved consumers even further and given the commercial more mileage. 

Budweiser’s mistake was not maximizing the contest, threading it through all its marketing, and announcing the name at a strategic time.  Contests get attention.  They generate buzz.  Maximize their impact by promoting them through every communication and announcing their results at a peak time.

This week's marketing trivia challenge is Which was your favorite Super Bowl commercial and why?  E-mail me your answer.    

I am excited to share with you that my new book, Mistakes I Made Buying Advertising, will be released in three weeks.  Watch for more details.         

The Results Are In

Two years ago, Mountain Dew tied in with the presidential elections and offered Dewmocracy 2, a multimedia promotion that started with a multiplayer online game. As part of the game, players were required to create new flavors of Mountain Dew. Pepsi, the company which produces Mountain Dew, chose the seven best flavors from those submitted in the game and had fifty Dew fanatic fans taste test them. At the same time, Dew lab trucks drove around the United States and reached more than 200,000 fans for their taste-test input.

From these taste tests, the seven flavors were narrowed down to three, which were put online for a vote. Dew fans for each flavor picked the colors, names, advertising, and packaging design for the new flavor. They also promoted their flavor. Mountain Dew encouraged fans to tell the world which flavor that they wanted by chatting with other fans on message boards, downloading wallpapers and icons, and getting others to vote for that flavor. The results are in, and White Out, the new flavor, was launched October 10. In the ad copy, Mountain Dew White Out is “built by Dew fans for Dew fans - - - letting the world know: It’s Different on the Mountain!”

Dewmocracy is an excellent example of using Web 2.0 as it was designed, which is to be interactive. Today’s Web tools offer businesses of every size the opportunity to connect with your customers and receive feedback from them, creating a two-way communication. The Web is different than traditional media in that it offers an opportunity for your customers to respond to your message. Mass media is only a one-way communication, which is why many mass media messages now contain Web references.

Those references offer the opportunity to involve customers. Whether the business sells a product such as Mountain Dew or a service such as Direct TV, giving customers the chance to feel more a part of the process through feedback is profitable marketing. Take this further by actually using the feedback for change in the product or service and you have employed the Web wisely. You have used interactivity to involve your customers.

This involvement expands and deepens customer relationships with your company and your product. You go beyond maintaining top of the mind awareness with your customer to making your business a part of your customer’s activities. Doing creates memorability Memorability generates repeat business. Repeat business develops profitable customers.

I understand that you might look at what Mountain Dew did and think, “Dew’s customers are young people with a great deal of time on their hands who are willing to get this involved. My customers are not like that.”

Don’t judge your customers too quickly. Perhaps a contest such as Dewmocracy is not a good fit for your business, but some interactivity online is. Your customers would enjoy an online process which allows them to do something that they love. What do your customers love to do? What do they love about your product or service? How do they use what you sell? Find a way to weave their interests into an online activity that involves your product or service. Consider a contest, an opportunity to share tips or have questions answered, or a chance to present a creation.

Challenge yourself to differentiate your business with your customers through online interactivity.