A Domain Name Oops!

Last week it was reported that the developers of the upcoming George W. Bush Presidential Library bought back the domain name GeorgeWBushLibrary.com that they had originally purchased for $3,000 for the princely sum of $35,000. Ouch. Big ouch. The real kicker? The company that sold it back for $35K bought it online for just $10 after it had expired. 

Now I am often the one at our agency responsible for purchasing and managing domain names for our use and for the use of our clients. And once you factor in all of our clients and all of the primary and campaign/microsite domains that everyone has and the fact that they weren't all registered on the same date, this can keep a person fairly busy. However, I was bolstered on the importance of this job by reading the story above.

It pays to have someone to keep track of your domains. You can also flip the Bush library story the other way - if you buy and renew early at a price more in the ballpark of $10-$20 you might as well go ahead and buy any additional domains you can think of as well that a competitor/extortionist (like the one above) might buy out from under you later. We go through this often - should we really buy those other names as well? - and ultimately we come up with the logic that if its just $10 per additional domain, then it is money well spent.

So to keep with the political metaphor, you could say that domain registration and renewal is like voting ... do it early and often.

If you are interested, you can read the full story on the Bush library domain here.

Anatomy of an Ad: Fred’s New Job …

If you’ve watched TV lately you’ve noticed that Fred Flintstone has a new job … pitching Geico. Yup, Fred and Wilma have joined the ranks for the gecko, Little Richard, and, of course, the ubiquitous cavemen (soon to be seen in primetime).



Geico has always been a great case study of communicating a consistent message in creative ways to different market segments. In the end, they have a parity problem. Their message is the same as other insurance companies — they save you money. So they rely on clutter-cutting advertising broken out by market segment to get people’s attention. The cavemen focus on the much sought-after young male demographic, the gecko (for some reason) tested really well with women in their 40s, and boomers and up are the target of the Little Richard/Peter Graves-assisted customer testimonials.



The new wave of spots trades the cavemen (they’re busy with their sitcom after all) for the Beverly Hillbillies, The Flintstones, and Cabbage Patch Kids. All are presented in faux E! True Hollywood Story fashion and position Geico as a money-saving solution that rescued them from their wayward lives of being a celebrity has-beens.



Note the segmentation at work here. I would venture to say that between the shows/dolls listed above, one or more of them recalls a nostalgic feeling in you. Flintstones and Hillbillies for boomers and Cabbage Patch Kids for Gen X and Y. A fun character from your childhood being parodied in tabloid fashion? You’ve just gotta watch it.



The point? Segment your communications. And as confusing as it sounds, be the same but different. By that I mean, at the heart of your strategy should be a very simple message (Geico saves you money — painfully simple, almost too simple if that wasn’t something that appealed to everyone!). Then, identify who you want to target and wrap this simple message in a creative vehicle that (a) gets their attention and (b) makes them stick around long enough to internalize your brand’s message. Easy, right …?



P.S. You can view all of the Geico creative here.

How This Changes Things ...

[This is a bit more than the ubiquitous iPhone blog posting. But, yes, I got one and I love it. And, yes, it was a brilliant move to drop the price — only way to grab some healthy market share plus I’m sure research indicated that there was a glacier sized chunk of people that would break free if the price was lower. And, yes, it would have been better if Jobs would have rolled out his $100 gift to the early adopters at the same time he announced the price cut. But enough of that …]

I was in an impromptu meeting the other day with a client talking about their website. It was a casual conversation and no one had laptops out. Someone asked about the website and the one of them got out a smart phone and we all passed it around and were using this manifestation of the internet to guide our discussion.

It suddenly occurred to me. More and more people carry the internet in their pockets in this crazy, fast-paced world of ours. That means more and more the internet is being downsized to someone’s small handheld screen.

How do smart phones change things?

- What does your site look like on a smart phone?
- Do all of the features work? Can you shop? Does the media work right?
- What about your HTML email? Chances are more and more people are viewing them on smart phones as well.
- Back it out a step, how can you more actively market to people with smart phones?

As we always say, it’s better to have some of the questions than all of the answers. And this is just another slice of new media that we’ll have to look at and think of some great questions for how to reach our customers on this new, pocket-sized digital frontier.

The Southwest Business Model

If you don't already know the story of Southwest Airlines, you should. Take a quick minute at the beginning of a post-holiday week for a quick refresher courtesy of a segment from last weekend's CBS Sunday Morning - you can read the text or watch the video here. Basically, it all comes down to a seemingly simple business model projected by the airline's former CEO, Herb Kelleher. He asserts that if you focus on your employees then all of the rest will fall in to place. Because if you take care of your people, then they project their pleasure onto your customers, who in turn have favorable experiences and continue buying, which in turn pleases your stock holders or whoever your business serves. Herb's also responsible for one of my favorite quotes: "We have a strategic plan. It's called doing things!" No bull. Just a remarkable company.

Cutting Through the Clutter

Because believe me, the clutter is coming. Especially if you live in an early battle ground state such as Iowa or New Hamshire (plus the clutters earlier than it has been in past year). I have no intentions of making this a poliical blog but I had to post Bill Richardson's recent "Job Interview" campaign ads because they're a perfect example of defying the convention in a particular market.

Political advertising, despite all of the money thrown at it, its influence, and its lack of regulation, is surprisingly uncreative. Every season Ad Age has a story after story on which agency is taking sides yet pays almost no attention to the fact that despite the involvement of industry's best creative minds, the same head and shoulders, baby-hugging, family-man, chore coat-wearing drivel is produced and takes up (too much) good air space.

Richardson has done one thing that none of the other candidates' advertising has yet - he got my attention.

Advertising 101 - you have to get people's attention so that they'll listen to you and (hopefully) have the desire to take action.

Again, this isn't a Richardson endorsement. It's an endorsement of creativity and telling stories. And it's not just a political message either. Think you're in a buttoned-down industry or space that can't do creative and engaging messaging? Do you or your peers say "we're not Apple or Nike, we're just in the [INSERT YOUR INDUSTRY HERE] business." Actually, you need to totally flip your perspective if that's the case. Be like Bill. If everything else in your industry is business as usual then they are just waiting for you to jump to the head of the pack with a clutter-cutting message.

No Means No

I'll get to a more meaningful post very soon. Apologies for not keeping up. It's been a busy March/April. More on that later. I had to toss these two screen caps I found recently as examples of unintuitive web design and really ... just general online avoidance and trickery.

The first offender was when I was creating yet another online account. I get cranky about account creation. I have SO many. Right now I'll do anything that Google offers so that I can just use my Google account. Anyhow, I got to my email preferences and didn't want their newsletter and it came back at me with the red text below.

Yeah ... I read your offer the first time. Leave me be! No means 'no.' Don't question my choice because it tells me that you think I'm stupid and I can't read. I made a decision. Move on. Now I'll never subscribe.

Second offender - slightly worse in my opinion. I was on a site and confused this particular online merchant committed a two-tier no-no. First, they didn't have a phone number. Call me old-fashioned but I think every site needs a number where you can reach someone if everything goes wrong. Worse yet, I go to fill out the email contact form and after I click 'Submit,' it gives me this little message:

Grrrrr. I'm basically lost in your store and you won't let me ask for directions. This was extremely aggravating. In my personal opinion it never should have made it this far because they should have covered the phone number thing and at the very least had an easy-to-use contact form.

I guess both of these are pretty good reality checks for your next site design. They seem like no-brainers but go back and check your potholes. Can users easily sign up for an account without being guilted into you spamming them? Does this sound like a real sturdy opt-in to you? And, can a user ask for help easily at any point throughout your site and get some form of immediate response? A dedicated phone line or some sort of live chat would be ideal. A contact form that didn't try to get you lost further in the site would do also ...

Again, more on other things very soon.

The Injustice Ends!

In case you haven't already heard, the caveman from the GEICO ads is getting his own pilot on ABC. Is this a surprising development? Not really.

In a time when marketing is content and content turns to marketing, this actually isn't that surprising. Hopefully the clever neanderthal will fare better than CBS's failed attempt to serialize Baby Bob. Poor kid ended up hocking sub sandwiches after that ...