There Ain’t No Blood in My Body, Only Liquid Soul in My Veins…

Drinks brand Burn has launched a series of films depicting ‘underground’ real-life characters and their stories. They’re raw, authentic and inspirational.

However, the first thought that came to my mind when I saw this film was not from a marketing perspective.

It was one that made a link from the modern to the post-modern…

During the 19th century a musical movement started called, “Tin Pan Alley”. Back then, when racism was rife in America, musical instruments were reserved for the wealthy and for the white.

Slave communities used every-day household objects to create sounds and their own music. The beginning of blues was born.

Philly rapper Julius Wright uses pens to lay down awesome grooves and drum licks. Is this post-modern tin pan alley? I don’ know…

I love the characters, their stories and their raw talents. From a marketing point of view, the values conveyed via the medium and the message are transferred onto the brand. They also serve to define a community. What’s your thoughts?

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Saving The Ol' Pennies

This piece came from some research I conducted into consumer buying behaviour when working for a successful Appliance Retailer. Take a looksy…

A consumer looking to buy a particular appliance will not go to the web site offering the cheapest price and buy it then and there.

This would be regarded as brash and insensible, especially within the current economic climate. There is also a huge commercial trend to “Compare the Market”, especially when a customer will be spending over a few hundred pounds.

Therefore, a customer will often search for what other competitors have to offer.

SEO is obviously a vital factor here as well as PPC ads to ensure that your company has substantial, ‘Share of Voice” in Google.

The top three or four companies listed in a Google organic search and its accompanying PPC ads will normally be viewed.

So, What Does This Mean?

One can argue that customers will therefore ‘Scout’ out a variety of competitors to see if they offer any alternative values.

For example, some companies will offer free delivery, some will offer a quick delivery, some will offer gift vouchers and some will offer a mixture of all three. A customer therefore has a lot to consider when deciding, “What is best for me?”

This ‘scouting’ element in the way customers purchase items can cost an e-commerce firm a small fortune in PPC marketing.

For example, if a Google PPC ad does not contain the price of a product, the estimated delivery time of a product and whether or not that product is in stock, a customer will ‘scout’ into a website to acquire that information and leave almost instantly once that information has been acquired. Anyone thinking of why they are receiving such a high bounce back rate?

It is therefore vital to supply the customer with the information he/she wants instantly.

To expand, I made a few phone calls to numerous appliance retailers and asked about certain products and the first piece of information every sales person attempted to locate was if the product was in stock. More often than not, the products were also not in stock. Within the kitchen appliance industry, a one off buyer or repeat purchaser will therefore quickly realise that most companies will advertise a product on their site, yet it may not be in stock. Customers may well have to wait for a prolonged period unless they decide to go scouting again, which they normally will do as customers want their appliance/s immediately. But when does the price of a product become detrimental to the time it is delivered? Your thoughts?

By supplying customers with a product’s availability within a PPC ad, there is the potential to save money as the customer will not have to click on the PPC ad and be directed to the landing page to find such information out. You will also be saving them time.

To conclude, you cannot over estimate the importance of sound copy writing in PPC ads! Ask yourself, 'What do our customers want to know?' and supply that information concisely. There isn't much space for spin in PPC ads!

In this case, by including within product ppc ads the price of a product, the estimated delivery time and if that product is in stock, the need for a customer to to scout your web site is reduced, thus, reducing you PPC expenditure.

By supplying such information within the first, ‘Customer Gateway’ (your PPC ad), you will then witness, ‘Scout Snipers’ coming to your website who are fully informed and in a position to make a pinpoint purchase.

A limitation to this thesis however is that even when you do advertise all the relevant information, a customer may click on your site to view the design and brand as these features will indicate to the customer values of integrity and authenticity.

The Story of Goldilocks, The Three Bears and The Three Kitchen Appliances

In marketing, making something dull, interesting is a common and difficult task. Here's something I played around with to market induction cookers...

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks.

One day Goldilocks was bored and decided to take a walk into the forest. Soon enough, she came upon a house. She knocked upon the door of the house, and, when no one answered, decided to walk right in.

The first thing Goldilocks saw when she entered the house were three bowls of porridge, sat next to three different kitchen appliances.

Goldilocks’ stomach began to rumble wildly and she realised that she was very hungry. She saw that the bowls of porridge needed to be heated up and, as she was going to university this coming September, she thought she would try each of the kitchen appliances to familiarise herself for the times ahead.

The first kitchen appliance she used was an electric ceramic hob. “This kitchen appliance takes too long to heat anything up” she said out load, as she violently stirred the porridge in a futile effort to speed things up, leaving a filthy mess in doing so.

She finally ate the bowl of porridge but the bowl was of a very small size so she went onto the medium sized bowl next to the gas hob.

“Well” she thought. “This hob seems to heat this bowl of porridge quicker but not quick enough”. Once again, in her zealous attempt at speeding up the heating process, she slopped porridge all over the hob, which caked itself onto the surface.

All the stirring had created quite an appetite for Goldilocks, so she didn’t hesitate at heating up the final large bowl of porridge on an induction hob.

“My” Goldilocks said, “This induction hob sure heats up this porridge fast and when I take off the cooking utensil, the hob not only automatically turns itself off, but there’s also hardly any heat at all radiating off the hob. This will be a very safe kitchen appliance to use whilst at university, especially when I come home from a night club having drunk far too much wine and started cooking something up for my munchies!”

Goldilocks was very tired by this time and couldn’t be bothered to clean up the burnt porridge on the electric hob and gas hob. But she cleaned up the mess on the induction hob as a soft wipe was all that was needed. The overspill she had made did not cook itself on the hob as the hob’s electromagnetic field only transfers heat onto the cooking utensil.

As she felt so tired she went upstairs to the bedrooms. She lay down in the first bed, but it was too hard. Then she lay in the second bed, but it was too soft. Then she lay down in the third bed and it was just right. Goldilocks fell asleep.

Whilst she was sleeping, the three bears that lived in the house came home.

"Someone's been eating my porridge and left a right mess!” cried the Baby bear.

"Someone's been eating my porridge and has left a filthy mess too!" exclaimed the Mama bear.

"Someone's been eating my porridge," growled the Papa bear, “But my hob is as clean as when I left it” he dopily added.

They decided to look around some more and when they got upstairs to the bedroom, Papa bear growled, "Someone's been sleeping in our beds!”Goldilocks was unsettled by all the commotion and woke up to see the three angry bears staring down at her. She screamed, “Help” and jumped up and ran straight out of the room into the forest.

When she got home, huffing and puffing and out of breathe, her mother was on her laptop researching the choice of hobs available on Appliance World’s website. “Hello dear” she said. “I wonder what type of hob is the best hob for my new kitchen” she said out loud.

“I know mum. I know mum!” Goldilocks was about to shout before she realised she had been breaking the law by trespassing in the three bears house.

Goldilocks scuttled up stairs to her bedroom silently, and phoned Appliance World’s customer service team to inform them that a Mrs. Goldilocks would be phoning soon, and asked if they could advise her that the best hob a customer can buy is an induction hob.

Goldilocks never saw the three bears again and never returned to their home in the forest.

But she did graduate with a first class honours and go on to become the best sales rep for induction hobs in the whole wide world.

THE END