The Big Fat Marketing Blog

Loyalty Beyond Reason

Patricia Odell — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:41:19 +0000

Would you give up your spouse just to keep your status in a loyalty hotel program? Would you choose your hotel loyalty card over your wife if you had to pick just one thing to travel with? If you’re married, you may not like the answers. Some 73% of frequent travelers said “they would” to both questions.

The report, from the Starwood Preferred Guest program, only got worse for the sanctity of marriage. Some 70% of these frequent travelers said these relationships with hotel loyalty programs might even outlive marital unions or even their current jobs (no surprise there considering our economy). That there elite status would be more important than even their smartphones, tablets or even personal assistants in a travel emergency. And these travelers said they would outright lie to get an upgrade, like saying they were on their “honeymoon.” (more…)

Some Super Bowl Advertisers’ Sites Are In Danger Of Crashes

Richard H. Levey — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:32:32 +0000

Marketers buying time during the Super Bowl broadcast face challenges in determining the return on investment of their spots. They’ll face even more challenges if their websites aren’t designed to handle resulting surges in traffic… and Yottaa.com, a website optimization firm, is betting they aren’t.

Yottaa has released its predictions for the five sites most likely to either crash entirely or slow down considerably during the big game. They are, in order of likelihood: (more…)

A Cynical Approach to Telemarketing Jobs

Larry Riggs — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:13:06 +0000

A new bill has been introduced in Congress that would penalize American companies for sending their telemarketing operations abroad and ostensibly depriving Americans of jobs during a period of massive unemployment.

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Email Watch: Nook Scores High With Pop Quiz

Beth Negus — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:11:48 +0000

Let’s be honest: A lot of what turns up in email inboxes is pretty ho-hum. You click through on a message if there’s a discount or free shipping on something you have an immediate need for, but otherwise, you delete or ignore a whole heck of a lot of messages because there’s a “been there, done that” vibe.

This past weekend, for the first time in ages, an email hit my inbox that made me want to revive our “Emails We Love” headline. The honor goes to Barnes & Noble, and an email for the Nook tablet.

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JC Penney Opts Out of the Discounting Arms Race

Brian Quinton — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:51:00 +0000

Depending on your viewpoint, JC Penney announced Wednesday that it is migrating down—or up—the multibrand retail chain. In the course of announcing some poor quarterly results covering the holiday season, CEO Ron Johnson said the retailer will remake itself to look less like a standard department store and more like a big-box retailer. The change includes everything from a “boutique” shop merchandising makeover, to a simplified “everyday low pricing” strategy, and even to a logo redesign that, to my eyes, resembles that of Target: the brand initials inside a geometric shape, in this case a square rather than a bulls-eye.

Put aside the Old-Glory-meets-Tommy-Hilfiger logo change, Penney’s second in a year. And put aside the “store within a store” orientation. To me that simply makes Penney more like every other department retailer, but then I prefer my clothes and kitchen goods without ads on them, whether Ralph’s or Martha’s.

What do you feel about the pricing philosophy? (more…)

The Nuclear Scenario (Walgreen’s)

Erik Hauser — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:49:02 +0000

There are various modalities and senses of urgencies that flow through the upper echelons of executives at major corporations. Most of these individuals realize there is a time to grab market share as well as a time to plan a strong counter defense to against any and all plausible business, nuclear scenarios. Sometimes they’ve got to get into the boardroom and realize that the strategical direction that they are taking their company is concretely and 100% absolutely even more vital than the sugar coated, feel-good marketing messages that they continue to beam out into the ethos for all of the letdown customers to hear. Thus, drawing an even bigger divide in customer’s thought space re: the brand and what it really is vs. what they’re getting told it is. (more…)

Book Tries to Beef Up Image of DRTV

Larry Riggs — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:49:40 +0000

Doug Garnett, CEO/founder of direct response television agency Atomic Direct , has come out with a new book “Building Brand with Direct Response Television” that tries to inform readers of the medium’s overall effectiveness and evolution from its former stereotypes of “yell and sell.”

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Watch TV, Get Rewards

Patricia Odell — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:59:17 +0000

Finally, for all those couch potatoes around the country who continually fend off advice to get up, drop to the floor and do 20, help has arrived. A new app, Viggle, is designed to reward us lay-abouts with points for checking into our favorite TV shows.

This is all new and untested, so whether TV viewers, and maybe more importantly, network partners, actually buy into the idea of rewarding loyalty to broadcast programming is yet to be seen. (more…)

DAA’s AdChoice Icon Ads Fall Flat — And Then Some

Richard H. Levey — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:20:51 +0000

Three new videos from the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) seek to inform consumers to the use, value and control of banner ads. There is good intent behind these spots: Consumers should have the value of behavior-based ads demonstrated, and they should be alerted that there are ways to control the ads they are shown.

Unfortunately the script, sound effects and visuals combine to create three of the most unwatchable ads ever produced. The ads, which were generated for the DAA (a coalition of several advertising groups, including the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the Direct Marketing Association, the Interactive Bureau and a handful of others) were produced pro bono by MRM Salt Lake City. They’re almost worth the price.

The spots use retro ’50s style art and graphics, which serve only to draw attention to the images and away from the message. The scripts go for stunningly unfunny wacky humor, and in the process overshadow the messages the ads are trying to convey. The text graphics pop, pulse, spin and otherwise manage the neat trick of distracting from themselves. (more…)

Walgreens -2 , Consumers -1, CVS +10

Erik Hauser — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:55:30 +0000

Hello from the center of the experiential world,

I addressed the recent post re: Walgreens with absolute shock. You must be either a paid consultant, or a person fishing for business to think that a company the size of Walgreens told 47% of their customers to go elsewhere as part of their strategy - Have you lost it? (more…)