Product launches: Why put on a circus when you could be like Disney World?

Do you remember when you were little, and the circus came to town?

It was spectacular.

The circus, for all its excitement — the animals, the trapeze artists, the clowns, the daredevil acts — came into town, did a few shows with some cool stunts, and then they left.

That was it. You might be left with a plastic inflatable monkey or some other cheap overpriced souvenir.

A couple weeks later, the circus was barely a memory in your mind — it went out of town just as fast as it came in.

Now think about Walt Disney World.

Those who have been fortunate enough to go to Disney World when they were younger (or older, as my case would be) know that no matter how long you stay at the park(s) — it could be a few days, a couple weeks — you are left with many, many memories for years to come.

Walt Disney World is no circus. You don’t go in and out and then forget about it. It is an experience, one whose vision is to ensure that “each and every guest has the best time of their life,” a place where “dreams come true” and memories are made. It sticks with you, and on your way home, you already can’t wait to go back.

Which would you prefer, the circus or Walt Disney World?

Disney World, of course.

Why is it, then, that when companies launch new products, almost all of them prefer the circus approach?

Here’s what I see all too often:

Company X has a new Thingamabob coming out. It could a new phone, a car, a gadget, a boat, it doesn’t matter. They’ve talked about it for a long time, gotten some press about the long-anticipated, brand new Thingamabob. So, when it comes for Thingamabob launch day, what does Company X do?

All the usual tactics. They go to certain cities, solicit high profile journalists and/or social media pseudo-celebs, spend an insane amount of money on treating them like kings for a day, tons of media buys, the whole shebang. Company X parades around like bulls in the china shop of their choosing, hoping, just HOPING, that they’ve done enough to generate some good press for the Thingamabob in traditional media, get the social media pseud-celebs to blog and tweet about it a lot, and hey, maybe even sell a few Thingamabobs!

And then Company X rides their china-shopped bull into the sunset and calls it a “product launch,” and talks about it ad nauseam, patting themselves on the backs until it’s time for the next Thingamabob circus to come to town. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This is old. This is tired. This is not memorable.

WHY in the world do companies insist on doing this?

Apple, on the other hand, takes a more Disney-esque approach.

Rumors of the new iWhatever start circulating all the top tech blogs for a long time. Because of the loyalty Apple has from its fans, they start chatting feverishly about even the possibility of a new product long before there’s any official word. (There may or may not be an accidental or purposeful iWhatever “leak,” but that’s a different story for a different time.)

Finally, the day comes for the iWhatever launch.

Apple holds a special keynote presentation, hosted by their CEO, Steve Jobs. Journalists and other important people are invited to attend. The same presentation is also put on the web so that anybody who wants to watch the presentation can. Apple builds up enough anticipation and excitement about the iWhatever that people come to them. Much like Disney World. Jobs does his thing, reveals the iWhatever and all the cool stuff it can do, does a few live demos of it, then tells you how much it costs and when it will be officially available for purchase.

When that day comes, people flock to their nearest Apple store, some camping out overnight outside just because they HAVE TO HAVE THE iWHATEVER. After the initial fervent fans have their iWhatevers, more people flock to the stores if not to buy one, but to at least play with one so they can tell their friends, “Yeah, I was at the Apple store the other day and got to try out an iWhatever, it’s amazing.”

The entire process of an Apple product launch is an experience. It resonates. It sticks with people. Apple doesn’t have to bring a dog and pony show to town, people come to Apple, and people tell all their friends about it.

Much like people come to Disney World.

Now, ask yourself, which would you prefer your product to be more like, a circus or Walt Disney World?

Which do you think sells more product, makes more money, generates the most loyal fans, creates the most memories?

Circus photo via David Shankbone at Wikimedia Commons.

How NOT to market your stuff via email

This wonderful gem showed up in my Gmail box the other day:

What’s wrong with this picture?

Well, what isn’t?

For starters: “selukasavitz” is not my name. It’s my Gmail ID, which is the combination of my first two initials plus my last name.

Secondly, WHAT KIND OF A SUBJECT LINE IS THAT?! “Hello ___, buy some products” … um, what kind of products? Peanut products? Electronics? Rolex watches? Your subject line must not be a command (“buy my stuff” is equivalent to “click my junk“) and should be at least somewhat descriptive as to what you’re talking about. The only reason I opened it was because I thought, “Who has the audacity to send such a P.O.S. marketing piece?”

Thirdly, the copy made me suspicious that it was a phishing scam, malware, or something equally skeezy. The lack of punctuation, poor grammar and sentence structure, and lack of any real description or even graphics does not make me want to buy from them at all.  I was hesitant to even click the link but I took my chances, and yes, it looks like a legit company trying (desperately) to sell their hard drive disk recovery software. I don’t know if it is legit because I didn’t click anywhere on the site, which is why I just said it looks like it. That’s one reason why I’m not linking them here. The other is that they just don’t deserve the traffic. (If you want to check it out, type it in your address bar yourself.)

Fourthly, the signature. I can’t decide which is worse — that “peter miles” didn’t capitalize his own name, that there’s no real information about the company, or that it says he’s with the HR department. Is he trying to sell products or recruit employees? Maybe “peter miles” is attempting to be the e e cummings of the email marketing world, I have no idea. But this crap doesn’t work. None of it does. I’m surprised this didn’t fall in my spam folder, truthfully.

If your email marketing pieces look like this, it’s time for a real intervention. Chances are, they’re not being opened because they are falling in the spam folder. Even if they’re evading it, “Hi screenname, buy some products” is not a way to get people to open your messages.

I’m not really a “how to” blogger (enough people cover that kind of thing), but I do subscribe to a very informative newsletter from eMarketing and Commerce magazine that I highly recommend if you want to know more about that.

I can honestly say that this is one of the worst pieces of eMarketing I’ve ever seen. What I want to know is if you guys have seen worse. Do you get any gawd-awful attempts at eMarketing in your inbox that is just so bad you have to share? Air out that laundry in the comments, it’s time to play show and tell.

Verizon, I hope you’re listening.

Recently on Facebook, I posted the story about how Michael Arrington over at TechCruch quit the iPhone. In a nutshell, Arrington loves Google Voice but doesn’t like having two numbers, which is understandable because changing your number is a pain when everybody already has one for you. Soon Google will be introducing number portability, meaning that you can keep your number and transfer it to Google Voice. Well, it turns out that Apple and AT&T are blocking the iPhone app that makes using your one Google Voice number much more seamless between the two.  Says Arrington:

Why? Because they absolutely don’t want people doing exactly what I’m doing – moving their phone number to Google and using the carrier as a dumb pipe.

So I have to choose between the iPhone and Google Voice. It’s not an easy decision. Except, it sort of is. Google isn’t forcing the decision on me, Apple and AT&T are. So I choose to work with the company that isn’t forcing me to do things their way. And in this case, that’s Google.

I have Google Voice now and so far I like it, but I’ll admit that yes, having two numbers is inconvenient.  However, I do not have an iPhone, because my brand loyalty was with Verizon long before it was with Apple. When I posted the story on Facebook, I prefaced it with my own commentary, which was:

I won’t get an iPhone because I refuse to leave Verizon, and I knew that a LOT of iPhone users weren’t happy with AT&T, but whoah … had no idea people were all-out abandoning theirs. I have Google Voice, a different number than my usual one, and now I’m wondering how long it’ll be before I can just transfer my usual number to it.

I had no idea that that little post on Facebook would spark such a conversation among my friends. I know a lot of people who share the same I-love-Apple-but-I-love-Verizon-you-can’t-make-me-switch sentiment as me, but I wasn’t prepared for the comments of some of my friends. Here’s a sampling:

I know, my husband and I just recently had this conversation, and iPhone is cool but I know I cannot beat Verizon! They have proved over and over and over again that they take care of the customers, not to mention the service is great! - Leah McChesney

[My fiancé] & I both have Verizon (LGenV2′s) and we LOVE it. He’s been working in NYC for about 5 years & in that time, we had tried at least 3 different carriers. Verizon is the ONLY company that we didn’t get dropped calls with every five minutes (or less!) I’m sorry, but AT&T SUCKS. I have several friends with iPhones — our calls drop randomly — it’s always THEIR phones dropping the calls, not mine! Even out here in the Poconos, we have friends come to visit & the only company that has a signal consistently out here is Verizon. I’m with them for the long run … I have my iPod Touch … it’s the best of all worlds w/o the pain in the ass service you HAVE to take with the iPhone… – Marilyn

Will have to pry my Verizon service from my cold clammy hands. ATT is the worst. – Michael Spleet

Verizon, are you listening to all this? People love you. People are refusing to get the “Jesus Phone” because they don’t want to give up your service. What are you doing with your marketing to tout this?

I had to Google what Verizon was doing as far as social media. Whaddya know, they have a social media hub that links to their presences elsewhere. Except, I had no idea any of it existed, and I keep up on this kind of stuff. So I decided to take a look at what Verizon was doing on the social web.

The Good News

Verizon has an active community forum where staff and consumers help each other out and discuss things like FAQ, plans, devices, and other products and services. That’s great.

Also, Verizon is blogging. Every day on their PolicyBlog, and at their Verizon At Home blog. Entries look pretty interesting and helpful.

The Bad News

Most entries on the PolicyBlog have zero comments, and they were almost as sparse on the At Home blog. One entry I saw had 24 comments, but the next most popular one had 5, and it went downhill from there.

Nobody is reading them, because nobody knows about them. Here’s why:

Read more

Happy Birthday, South Africa & WildEarth.tv!

Back in February I did a two-part case study series on WildEarth.tv, a online wildlife channel that broadcasts live from the Djuma Game Reserve in South Africa. Not only is this concept unique in and of itself, but what fascinated me the most was (and still is) their vast and incredibly cohesive social ecosystem. In my not-so-humble opinion, WildEarth.tv and its community are among the most awesome things on the internet, right up there with LOLcats, Twitter, and instant rimshot. It’s hard to imagine that the WE community and all it encompasses was built in less than two years, but it’s true.

Tomorrow, April 27th, 2009, marks the 2nd anniversary of WildEarth.tv.  It was exactly two years ago that they first broadcast their live, 24 hour “window into Africa.” I am so, so happy for them and so, so happy for their existence. April 27th is also Freedom Day, the day South Africa commemorates their first democratic elections, 15 years ago.

So Happy Birthday to both WildEarth.tv and South Africa! You’ve both come a long way, baby!

To celebrate, WE are having a special fireside chat at 19:00 CAT (which translates to 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time), just go on over to the site and tune in, even chat. Better yet, join their official Ning so you can join the  chat there and see all the amazing photos and videos the community have contributed, and enjoy all the features of a Ning community. (I’m a big fan of Ning.)  I hear there’s a “planned surprise that you won’t want to miss” at the fireside chat, too.

Have you checked out WildEarth.tv yet? What do you think?

This ain’t an apology, but I ain’t calling for its removal.

I was off the grid for most of the day yesterday because I was in Ann Arbor for the Annual Meeting of the Cultural Alliance of Southeast Michigan, for which social networking was its theme. I was glad I finally got to meet Laurie Laurent Smith, a Twitter pal and fellow social media geek in my area* that I kept missing at Tweetups. My buds Shauna & Kevin from Biznet were also there, which means the kickass factor was significantly higher.

While I was away from the internet, however, it seems that the people behind the ThisAin’tFlint campaign fiasco (see the previous post) issued a public apology to the mayor and citizens of Flint. . . sorta. I’m not going to copy and paste it here on this blog, you can go read it for yourself at their gaudy site with the irrelevent creepy doll. What you will read is a very verbose, vague non-admission to any wrongdoings a la [insert least favorite politician], with backpedaling about how they meant to start a conversation all along.

The campaign is a local radio/outdoor initiative (and not a “viral” campaign as many “experts” have suggested) and was not targeted nor meant to include the citizens of Flint . . . We are sorry that some people have been offended by the campaign. That was never our intent. We chose controversial images and content because our experience indicates that this is what is required in order to get meaningful conversations started. Just because someone hears or sees something they don’t like, however, doesn’t justify putting an end to the conversation.

It is our hope that the positive conversations will continue now on both sides of the border.

Uh huh, sure. “We didn’t mean to offend or denigrate you in any way, we just wanted start a dialogue! Yeah, that’s it! But it wasn’t intended to be ‘viral,’ just an outdoor campaign . . .”

An outdoor campaign of posters sending people to a website that didn’t exist until 6 days after telling folks to go there. Sending people to a website, with a video, with links to a Facebook fan page, a Twitter account, et. al. thinking that word would not spread online, only face-to-face by the people waiting at the bus stop that see the poster . . . yet somehow have conversations going back and forth across the border sans internet.

What kind of fantasy world do these people live in?

Read more

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