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Marketing – Try Something Unusual

March 19, 2010 By 2 Comments

I was recently at a business card exchange. When I entered I was greeted by Wendy Klinghoffer, Executive Director of the Eastern Montgomery Chamber of Commerce (EMCCC). As we were talking Wendy asked me “Do you remember when you first joined the chamber and we asked you to bring items to our luncheon to promote your business?” I answered that I did. “I remember you brought little packets of purple M&M’s, I thought that was so clever and unique,” explained Wendy. “And they were delicious, they gave me a real pick-me-up.”

Isn’t that what you want from your marketing – clever and unique impressions of your business no matter what it is you do. Just ask Seth Godin, about his Meatball Sundae, it works. I remember fondly purchasing the purple (purple and khacki are RWC’s corporate colors) “designer colored” M&Ms, making up the little packets and printing out the complimentary tags with my contact information. Here was someone remembering me and my business several years later for my purple M&M’s. Don’t be afraid to be unique and try something different for your marketing. Need advice, contact me and we can discuss it, and maybe we can enjoy some M&Ms.

What unusual marketing have you done? What are your corporate colors, or do you have corporate colors? Let me know. Until next time, Tim

Filed Under: advertising, marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Flo of the Progressive Ads and Other Unique Marketing Hooks

September 24, 2009 By 1 Comment

Flo_photoA friend of mine mentioned to me he was reading my recent blog post regarding Geneva Carr, the woman who plays the AT&T Mom who guards her rollover minutes and how he was laughing that he too was attracted to the ads just because of her. The topic turned to other unique spokespeople and his infatuation with Flo from the Progressive ads. He did a Google Search and he’s not alone. The Internet is full of blogs professing their love of comedian Stephanie Courtney. Her popularity as the slightly flighty, smoldering sexy, quirky, Flo has been a boon for Progressive Auto Insurance. She’s described as cute, familiar and “having a great smile.” According to Courtney herself in an interview with AdFreak from AdWeek, she’s not trying to be sexy.

I think the genius of Flo the spokesperson lies in the hair, the makeup, the red lips all of which add to a retro look, and the most important the attitude that appeals to people. We’ve all run into a Flo in our lives, someone who’s a bit outside the norm, loves what she does, and has fun doing it. She’s a people person and maybe that’s what attracts us to her and in the end Progressive’s Insurance products that seem as simple to obtain as asking Flo to pull it off the shelf for us.

Are there any other spokespeople on TV that have this affect on you? I’d love to hear them from you. Please share below.

Filed Under: advertising, marketing, TV/Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

AT&T “Rollover Mom” Brings Reality to its Marketing

July 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment

RolloverMomYou’ve probably seen her in the AT&T “FamilyTalk with Rollover Minutes” spots as the mother who gives her family the oh-so-familiar-death-eye glance that only Moms are capable of and usually have the desired effect on children or teens. I know when I see the ads it reminds me of my Mom telling me to do my homework or eat my food. The actress’ name is Geneva Carr and ten years ago left a lucrative banking job to pursue an acting career, having appeared a few episodes of Law and Order and Hope and Faith and hosts of other on TV appearances. Since then she’s gained wide acclaim on TV and the stage, but you probably know her best from the steel-piercing stare she projects as a Mom who scolds her sons and sometimes her husband for wasting minutes. According to AT&T, her role on “FamilyTalk with Rollover Minutes” commercials was supposed to be a one-time deal, but the humor of the spots soon caught on and AT&T found that the spine-chilling stare and finger-wagging we all have experienced as a child was a winner. Humor and childhood reality seem to always be a good mix for advertisers. AT&T knows that they have a winner and recently started letting fans and AT&T users know more about Geneva Carr, seems she gets the stare and attitude from her own Polish mother that never wasted anything. As her popularity grows, some on Internet Movie Database message boards (IMDB) find her sexy, most find her funny and talented, I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of Geneva and her hapless kids asking “Mom, can I have more minutes?”

More information on Geneva Carr according to IMDB

Until next time, Tim

Filed Under: advertising, TV/Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Web sites I’ve designed, how best to feature them on my own site?

November 13, 2008 By 1 Comment

Recently, I’ve been wanting to redesign my own web site www.ravenwoodcreative.com. I’ve been so busy building other people’s sites lately that my own site has been neglected.

So I ask you what’s the best way to feature various sites on my own web site? Do I use Flash, or thumbnails with links, or some combination I haven’t thought of yet? I want something that looks cool but remains easy to update and change.

What do you recommend?

They cover a variety of businesses, from non-profit to a conceirge or architecture business.

TabithaHarrierConcierge.com

Flourtown Fire Company

Schaefer Design, LLC

Flourtown Businesspersons Association

and others.

Let me know, until next time, Tim

Filed Under: advertising, Design, Web Design Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Marketing Yourself

September 12, 2008 By 2 Comments

Recently, I was made president-elect of IABC Philadelphia, which means as a volunteer for the local chapter of the International Association of Communicators, I’m preparing to become president of the chapter. As part of it, I have been the subject of press releases (iabc-board-press-release-_2008), newspaper interviews, (pbj-people, act-board-appts, chestnuthill_piece_aug2008, inquirer-people) and getting a lot of attention.

This is quite a change for me, as I was always the one behind-the-scenes, getting others media attention and promoting their business.

But in this age of social media, wired and wireless communication, I’m still amazed at two things:

1) people still rely heavily on traditional media – actually reading the business section of local dailies. That’s a question for another blog entry. Why?

2) the speed that social media can spread news, and how insurance salesmen jump on any mention of you in a press release to “talk to you about your current financial situation.”

I’ll be adding more links to this entry as I gather all the press hits a single release has garner. But what has your experience been in marketing – not your business – but yourself? How easy was it? What did you find worked and didn’t work? Let me know.

By the way, here’s my GQ shot I used for all the media attention. Thanks to Paul Pugliese and Tony DeFazio for making me look so good.

Tim Ernst

Tim Ernst

Until next time, Tim

Filed Under: advertising, Historical, Networking, Social Media, Work/Life Balance Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Word of Mouth Works

April 17, 2008 By Leave a Comment

A lot of my business comes by word of mouth. Someone hears from one of my clients on how pleased they are with RavenWood Creative’s work and voila I hear from another potential client. I guess that’s at the core of what WOMMA is all about, seems if there is a way of doing business, someone will find a way to make it their business. WOMMA or the Word of Mouth Marketing Association is using the Internet and social media to “standardize and define Word-of-mouth marketing and advertising.  It’s a neat concept, they define several sorts of marketing on the site and have a community that you can join to help spread the word about your company, but in the end you have to have a quality product and be of service to your customers.

Speaking of word or mouth, I heard about a unique company that through business is trying to better the situation in the Middle East. John Studer, and his company No Sweat Apparel, is a great example of of social entrepreneurialism. With the modest ambition of helping to solve the Middle East crisis, No Sweat Apparel manufactures organic cotton t-shirts in a factory in Palestine, at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. Owned and operated by a Jew, organized under a Muslim union, and produced in a factory run by a Christian, the founders of No Sweat believe that mutually beneficial economic incentives are a key component to helping resolve the crisis in the Middle East. What’s more is that they are doing this in an eco-friendly way; the t-shirts they produce are environment-friendly organic cotton.

No Sweat Apparel has already received support from groups such as Jewish Voices, the American Jewish Committee, the Islamic Institute of Boston, and even the Israeli and Palestinian foreign ministries.

No Sweat has sold about 500 t-shirts so far, but with word of mouth hopefully many more. In this age of the power of the net, anything is possible. For more information about the company (or to order a t-shirt), visit their web site http://www.nosweatapparel.com

Oh, by the way, I heard about No Sweat from Ideablob, yet another cool idea that social media has made possible, but that will have to remain a topic for another day. Do you know of any company on the forefront of social change by just conducting business? Let me know, and I’ll give them a shout out here.

Until next time, Tim


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Filed Under: Networking, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,