For whom the bell tolls

Pop Quiz!

Q. Please identify the commonality among these companies?

Time Warner Cable

Maker’s Mark

HMV

I’ll wait…

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…

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Time’s up!

A.     All have taken a beating regarding their digital marketing over the past few weeks.

Starting with the least crippling digital misstep among that three is Time Warner Cable.  What will come as unsurprising to most, Time Warner Cable displayed less than stellar customer service several days ago with one of their customers. What could have begun and ended quickly became a story recounting another example of poor customer service because of poor digital strategy. With a company regularly mocked (see below), they need to step up their game and realize while they may have some markets cornered, they won't always and customers rarely forget.

Marker’s Mark has also not had the best week ever. In an email (emphasis mine), Robert Samuels, the COO of Beam, Inc, wrote that to meet increased demand the company would be reducing the alcohol content of Maker’s Mark. This created a controversy among the blogosphere that spread the news wide to many a fan and an uproar ignited. Finally, after several days the company relented. This time, using better use of all their digital means to spread the word and improve their watered down reputation. To announce the reversal, they posted on their website, Facebook and twitter yet the initial step is found on none of these. If Maker’s Mark had copied their efforts in making amends when making the announcement, this uproar might have been minimized to a begrudging whisper.

Now onto the best/worst example of digital marketing and failure to adopt and fully realize its importance in the world we live in is... HMV.

HMV is just the latest example of brick-and-mortar stores not recognizing the change in their competitive environment and increased emphasis on a digital strategy. As indicated in this blog post,

“They saw themselves as a physical store that sold music, rather than a pure music retailer.”

I agree, that this is the principle concept that led to HMV’s demise. They did not correctly identify their competitors and what their core purpose was. They didn’t adapt to the changing environment and treated digital as an add-on, something they needed to do, but they didn’t truly recognize how or why. 

There is no better evidence of their thinking then the twitter feed of the company during a recent mass firing… 

Modern companies MUST recognize that digital marketing isn’t just a fad or simply updating a twitter/Facebook feed somewhat regularly. These methods are used to create conversations and relationships with their consumers.

For HMV to recover from after this death knell they will need to work hard and use all their marketing tools, particularly the cheap, effective digital methods to reach out to consumers and influencers to recover their reputation in the hopes that they can build the company back up.

I believe that there is a chance they can recover but it will be a hard road and hard examination. They need to examine what their customers need now AND in the future. 

Engaging Brand - Sleep No More

Ask anyone who knows me well or… has spent more than a couple of hours with me and they’ll tell you that there is definitely one “brand” that most engages me as a customer.  That brand is Sleep No More NYC.

For those of you who don’t know what Sleep No More is, it is a fully immersive theatre experience that is comprised of equal parts Hitchcock, Lynch, The Shining and the 1920’s with a base of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. You, as the masked-audience (yes, you wear masks the entire night), portray guests at The McKittrick Hotel and follow around the actors as they perform scenes from Macbeth in the venue’s 100+ rooms.

You may think this is an odd choice to choose as a brand that you find most engaging. Why not Google or Apple? Why not one of the flashier, traditional brands marketing today? While I do have strong opinions and follow the story of these brands closely, neither has been able to grab and mesmerize me in its story like Sleep No More.  Yes, it does help that Sleep No More is a theatrical experience, very different from the products and services that most brands provide, but that doesn’t make it any less effective in my endorsing the brand and promoting its story. As Seth Godin wrote in his blogpost, 

"Here's my definition: A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another."

I've been four times... 

Sleep No More succeeds in several ways to draw each person into the story and want them to stay in the story.

One way it achieves this is through secrecy and exclusivity. Now, generally, you’d think it bad for a brand to keep themselves a secret, unless that IS part of the brand. Sleep No More is all about uncovering secrets and they value the customers/theatre-goers that find out about it, for they’re the ones who will discover the secrets Sleep No More has in store. Few people are willing to spoil the show and let out the secrets to anyone who hasn’t seen it BUT once you meet someone who has been, all you can do is talk about what you saw, what you missed and what you need to see the next time.  

This exclusivity is a trait that Sleep No More shared with Google and Apple. Google and Apple both started out with being perceived as exclusive brands - Google with the need to be invited to create a Gmail account and Apple for being long viewed as an exclusive brand and to this day still has an air of snootiness. 

Another way, that I believe is the strongest and most unique to Sleep No More, is its use of full immersion. From the moment you go to the Sleep No More website, you are transported into the world of an old hotel that has recently reopened and has many secrets in its dark corners from days gone by. Then once it’s time for your stay at the hotel, you enter a dark hallway, filled with an odd aroma of must, fog and history. No one, not actors nor staff, breaks character during the show. You’re left on your own to traverse the many rooms and follow the story. This immersion is the most transformative and imbeds something in most visitors who are then unable to get the need to relive the story out of their brain.

One thing I wish that Sleep No More would do is to use their social media outlets, Facebook and Twitter, to continue that story, add new aspects to it, perhaps leave Easter Eggs for those that follow to find in future visits to the hotel. To continue the story in ways unable to be done through the play would cause more people to come back and relieve it with greater knowledge of what’s going on.

Favorite App - Evernote

Evernote

Evernote is the basic app that allows you to take notes, pictures, articles and sync them with your account from your

• Computer App
• Web
• Smartphone
• Tablet

Evernote becomes your one stop shopping for collecting all your notes, thoughts, contacts, restaurant recommendations and anything else your brain will ever need.

Evernote Hello

This is a collects and syncs all information on people you meet. Take a picture of a business card and Evernote Hello recognizes the information and inserts the contact details into Evernote. This will you’ll always have a record of your meetings, who you met with and easily invite those contacts to future meetings. It also automatically imports details from facebook and Linkedin.

http://evernote.com/hello/whats_new/ios/

Imagine how much easier Leonard Shelby's life from Memento would be if he had Evernote Hello... all the remembering, none of the tattoos

Evernote Penultimate

Now that you’ve been introduced to everyone, the meeting begins. Penultimate turns your iPad into a handwritten notepad for easy note taking. 

You are able to easily write in YOUR OWN handwriting in a number of colored "pens", erase, and even "cut and paste" items on the page. You can also sketch

Again, everything syncs to your main Evernote account for easy access and searching. 

 

With Penultimate you never have to become a Hennimore skit!

Evernote Peek

Questions...

1. What is the Pythagorean Theorem?
2. Hvernig segir þú Halló á íslensku? 
3. Conjugate the verb heißen

One of my favorite sub-apps under Evernote is Evernote Peek. This app lets you create Evernote notebooks that are then turned into flashcards using the iPad smart cover

Here's a preview of how the flashcards look in Evernote. The subject line becomes the question and the note entry the answer. 

This is perfect for on-the-go learning for a linguaphile like me so likes to brush up or learn a new languages before traveling to a new country. Anything that can be easily made into flashcards can be put into Peek.

In closing, Evernote and it's products are great apps to have and ones that I highly recommend. They are extremely versatile and new uses hacks being discovered to make the most of the service.







Answers

1.  a² + b² = c²
2. How do you say Hello in Icelandic
3. heiße/heißt/heißt/heißen/heißt/heißen