MackCollier.com

by

Cadbury Wants You to Stop Buying Its Chocolate

Cadbury chocolateTen years ago, Patagonia made waves by taking out a full page ad in the New York Times for Black Friday, asking that we not buy Patagonia products. The brand was asking customers to instead only buy garments when their current clothing had broken down and outlived its usefulness.

Ironically, the ad helped spark a massive 33% increase in sales for Patagonia in 2012. The ad connected with customers because it showed that Patagonia was staying true to the brand’s values and not just looking to make a buck on the biggest shopping day of the year.

It worked for Patagonia in 2011, and it might work for Cadbury in 2021. Cadbury, which started as street shop in the UK almost 200 years ago, is going back to its roots. Cadbury is encouraging customers NOT to buy their chocolate from Cadbury, but to instead purchase their chocolate from local chocolatiers in the UK. Several such businesses have been forced to close already in the UK due to covid restrictions, so Cadbury is hoping to aid the ones that are left.

The brand has partnered with 6 chocolatiers in the UK to give away free chocolate gifts from these retailers. If you are in the UK, go to this site and sign up for your free gift.

Delish has the scoop on the brand’s efforts.

“We are proud to be supporting local chocolatiers across the UK. As a nation, we’ve always been lucky to have a thriving chocolate scene, full of variety and creativity; and at Cadbury, we of course understand what it’s like to start out as a small independent chocolate shop. So, we wanted to take the opportunity to support our fellow chocolatiers and ask the nation to do the same. After all, it’s all for the love of chocolate!”

 

It will be interesting to see how this impacts sales for both Cadbury, and the 6 chocolatiers the brand is partnering with.  I suspect all parties involved will see a boost in sales, at least from the UK.

by

The Real Reason Why the Mona Lisa is So Popular Will Surprise You

Have you ever really considered WHY The Mona Lisa is the most famous artwork in the world? A strong argument could be made that it’s not even DaVinci’s most impressive painting, I would consider The Last Supper to be a far superior work. Also, consider the works of his peers like Michelangelo’s The Sistine Chapel ceiling or his David sculpture.

I mean…The Mona Lisa is nice and all, but the best ever???  I just don’t see it.

And until 1911, the art world agreed with me. Critics in Paris acknowledged The Mona Lisa as a masterpiece of Renaissance art, but it was hardly known outside of France. In fact by August of 1911, no one outside the art world really knew of or about the painting.

All that was about to change, overnight.

On the morning of August 21, 1911, three Italian men walked out of the Louvre without so much as a notice. Which is odd, because they were carrying with them over 200 pounds of wood and glass, covered in a blanket.  The three men boarded a train and left the city at approximately 8 am in the morning.

They had just stolen The Mona Lisa.  In broad daylight.

And just like that, they were gone. A clean getaway. In fact, no one at the Louvre even noticed the painting had been stolen until 28 hours later!

In a weird quirk of fate, it turns out that the bare spot in the gallery where The Mona Lisa had hung stood bare for 28 hours. And even when the painting was discovered missing, it wasn’t assumed to have been stolen. At the time, the paintings in the Louvre were being photographed. The photographic technology at the time was primitive, so the only way to get a decent photograph of each work was to remove it from the gallery and take it to the roof where better lighting was available.

So 28 hours later, when an artist who was painting in the Louvre finally noticed the empty spot, he brought it to the attention of security. The artist assumed the painting was being photographed on the roof, and asked the security guard to check with the photographers and see when it would be returned.

That’s when the Louvre discovered that the photographers didn’t have it, and that it had been stolen.

This is the point in our story where things begin to get interesting. Media in France and then the world picked up on the heist. Again, at the time, The Mona Lisa wasn’t even the most famous painting in its own gallery, much less in the Louvre. But everyone loves a good scandal, and the French letting 3 men steal from the Louvre in broad daylight had all the makings of one. As media coverage intensified, conspiracy theories about the thieves began to emerge. One popular theory was that American business tycoon JP Morgan had commissioned thieves to steal the painting. Contemporary artist Pablo Picasso was actually considered a suspect in the theft, and was questioned.

A week later, the Louvre reopened and a mob of people flocked to the museum to see a bare spot on the wall where a week earlier, The Mona Lisa had hung. The same painting that none of them cared to see, but now all of them were willing to fight through a mob to see the space where the painting had hung.

Aren’t humans silly creatures sometimes?

Meanwhile, what seemed like a perfect getaway for the three Italian thieves, was quickly falling apart. Their intent had been to take the painting and quickly sell it for a nice profit. But the media coverage of the theft made it almost impossible to sell the painting. The thieves stored it in Paris, until 28 months later, when they attempted to sell it to an art dealer in Italy. The dealer verified it was The Mona Lisa, and contacted the police, who arrested the thieves.

The Mona Lisa was returned to the Louvre, and a mob of people again flocked there to see the return of the painting that was now viewed as being the most famous in the world.

Isn’t that interesting? The fame and notoriety of the painting really has nothing to do with the art itself, but rather with a theft over 100 years ago.  Just think, if those thieves had stolen another unknown painting and left The Mona Lisa there, we might today consider that unknown painting to be the greatest piece of art in the world.

There’s a lesson in that for your content. Take a topic that’s boring, and marry it to something interesting, and the boring topic becomes more interesting to your audience. We’ve all seen posts that compare something in business to a hit movie or book. Such as ‘Five Marketing Lessons Everyone Can Learn From Star Wars’, or ‘Ten Business Lessons You Can Steal From Watching Moneyball’. Such posts that connect the business and entertainment worlds are quite common among content creators. Hell I once wrote a post about social media monitoring lessons you could learn from Jason Bourne!

We write these posts because they work! Marrying the boring topic to the interesting one, if done correctly, makes the boring topic more interesting to your audience.

Additionally, we love stories. The Mona Lisa was a mostly overlooked Renaissance painting UNTIL it was stolen. The theft of The Mona Lisa gave it a scandalous backstory that interested people. Think about it, before the painting was stolen, it was unknown outside a few French art collectors. After it was stolen, it became the most famous painting in the world. The theft gave The Mona Lisa an interesting story, and that made the painting more interesting as a result.

BONUS: Want to really make your content more interesting? Tell a story with your content, and make your customer the HERO of that story! One of the best examples I’ve ever seen of doing this correctly is this long-form Pantene commercial from Thailand. It’s amazing.

Note from Mack: This post is actually an issue of my Backstage Pass newsletter that goes out every Friday morning. Want to subscribe so you get this Friday’s issue? Click on the form below and subscribe now.  See you this Friday!

by

Monday’s Marketing Minute: Clubhouse Arrives on Android, FB’s Group Accelerator Program, Gen Z Likes Influencers

Happy Monday, y’all! Some big social media tech news this week as we are already in the middle of May. Summer is around the corner!

 

The wait is finally over for Android users, Clubhouse is here. It looks like it’s being rolled out to US users first, with the rest of the world getting it soon. This may actually get me back on Clubhouse. An influx of new users will bring new perspectives and it will be interesting to see how this impacts the quality and type of rooms, as well as the overall experience. Plus, it will be curious to see how this impacts download numbers.  I suspect this won’t have the impact it would have if this had been launched for Android a couple of months ago when Clubhouse was white hot. The buzz has cooled considerably toward Clubhouse, so this could give them another shot in the arm, or be much ado about nothing. We’ll find out soon enough.

 

Following Clubhouse’s lead, Facebook is putting more support behind its accelerator program for groups. From Facebook: “Selected community leaders will spend five months learning from experts, coaches and a customized curriculum so they can organize and strengthen their community to work better together. Participants will then spend three months executing their initiatives. They will collaborate with advocates and leaders in the community space and work with the Facebook team to bring their ideas to life.” Selected admins will receive training and mentorship, funding, and access to new products and features before they go live.

 

I’m a bit surprised that millennials aren’t following more influencers on social media. This study found that 28% of 16-23 year olds follow at least one influencer on social media, and 23% of 24-37 year olds do. The same report found that the main reasons we use social media are: “keeping in touch with family and friends (50%), filling spare time (37%) and reading news stories (36%).”

 

So that’s it for another Monday’s Marketing Minute. Another big content week on tap here, posts every day through Friday.  Hope you have a wonderful week, thanks so much for reading!

by

The Secret to Spotting Business Opportunities

understand what the customer is saying
Well a Mustang IS a faster horse…

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” – Henry Ford

This quote from the founder of Ford Motor Co is often offered as an example of how the customer doesn’t always know what it wants. I disagree, the customer always knows what it wants, it’s up to the company to listen and understand what the customer is saying.

In the above quote, the customer is really saying that they want a faster and more efficient mode of transportation. Horse = transportation for the customer, because that’s likely the only form of personal transportation that they know.

Smart companies are the ones that can interpret what the customer is really saying, and wanting.  Another example is the iPhone. I remember when the iPhone debuted, a certain well-known branding expert claimed it would be a massive flop. The expert said people were used to having their alarm clock and radio and camera in separate devices. They didn’t want all of them smushed together in one clunky device.

Of course, the ‘expert’ was completely wrong about how successful the iPhone would become. Customers were happy to have all these separate devices smushed into one phone, if it was done in a way that created value for the customer. This ‘expert’ didn’t understand what the customer was saying.

When the customer gives feedback on what products it would like to see, the customer does so in terms of what products are currently available. Let’s go back to cars for a minute.  When the customer says “I wish my car got better gas mileage’, what they are really saying is they wish they didn’t have to spend XX dollars a week on gas.

Maybe that means they simply want the same vehicle they have now, with better gas mileage. Or maybe it means they would be willing to buy a completely new vehicle, if it got better gas mileage. Perhaps it means they would be open to buying a motorcycle, since it requires far less gas.

It’s up to the company to understand the core issue (‘I want to reduce the amount I spend on transportation’) the customer is facing, and offer products that match the customer’s wants and needs. If a company can do that repeatedly, you win the customer’s trust and loyalty. Apple does this, so when the computer company comes out with a music player, people buy it.  When Apple comes out with a phone, people buy it.  Because they trust Apple to give them a product that meets their needs.

One of the first jobs I had out of college was working as a vendor for Lowes. I represented a company that sold lawncare products. I worked Weds-Sunday. On Weds-Friday, I was responsible for stocking the shelves and making sure that my company’s products were correctly displayed in the store and available for purchase. If any customer came by that needed help, I provided assistance. On the weekend, my primary responsibility was to sell directly to the customer. I stayed in the store on the lawncare isle and helped any customer that needed assistance.

One weekday, I was stocking the shelves, when a customer came up and asked me if I could help him figure out what product he needed to get rid of a certain bug that had infested his lawn. After talking to him for a few minutes, it was obvious that he had no idea what product he needed, and what he really wanted was someone he could trust to tell him how to fix his lawn.

So I did the only thing I could do; I told him I couldn’t help him. It turns out that my company didn’t make a product that addressed his particular problem as well as the competitor’s product. So I told the customer that honestly, he needed to buy the competitor’s product, because it would do a better job than ours would. I even walked him to the competitor’s product, and handed to him and told him this was the product he needed to solve his problem. The customer took it from me, and walked away without a word, in a kinda confused state as if to wonder why I had just cost my company a sale!

Two days later, I sold in that same store. So there I was setup on the lawncare isle waiting for customers. As it turns out, a representative from our competitor happened to be standing at the front of the same isle, and like me, he was waiting for a customer to sell to.

Curiously enough, after a few minutes I noticed that same customer I had helped two days previous started walking down the isle. The representative from the competitor immediately pounced “Hello sir, can I help you today?”

The customer, without breaking stride, waved his hand at him and said ‘Nope! I’m here to talk to HIM!’ and he pointed at me. The customer then walked up and thanked me, he said my product recommendation from two days ago had worked perfectly on his lawn. He then asked if I had a suggestion for another lawncare issue. This time, it turns out that my company did offer the superior product for the customer’s issue, which he bought.

The customer always knows what it wants. It’s up to the company to listen and understand what the customer is REALLY asking for.

by

You Don’t Need More Customers, You Need the Right Ones

the right customerWhen I was in graduate school, I also spent some time working for a Ford dealership, in the ecommerce department. Specifically, I was tasked with handling online sales for a particular group of products that Ford sold. We sold these products online via both our website, and through eBay. When I came on board, the manager basically handed the online sales off to me, and I was tasked with improving the numbers.

At this time, around 75-90% of the dealership’s online sales came from eBay auctions. Most of the products we sold we did not have on-site, we would purchase the products from a drop-shipper. Most of our competitors on eBay did the same thing.

I quickly discovered a big problem; Our competitors used the same drop-shipper we did, and they had a higher purchase volume. This meant they paid less for the same products that we sold. So it was pointless to try to compete on price. We would drop the price of an item in our eBay auctions, and our competitors would go a dollar lower.

So I started scrambling for ideas on how we could better compete. I began to do some googling trying to figure out how how customers decided who to buy from on eBay. Specifically, I wanted to see if there was already any content or reviews on the internet for both our dealership and our competitors. It was brand reputation monitoring years before social media.

While I didn’t really find anything about our dealership, I did discover multiple forums and message boards devoted to Ford customers. Many of these boards discussed products they were using or that they were considering buying.

A light bulb went off; What if we created an account and started interacting with these Ford customers? We could answer any questions they had about products, and also use it as a way to increase awareness for the products we were selling online on both eBay and our website.

I thought this was a great idea, and took it to my boss. His reaction was basically that he didn’t see the point, we needed to be selling to all customers, not just Ford owners.

But to me, it made perfect sense. This would give us a competitive advantage versus other sellers on eBay, who worked for generic companies that had no ties to any automaker. The way I saw it, being a Ford dealership was something we needed to focus on, not run from.

So in the spirit of it being better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission, I began to alter our branding strategy. In our eBay listings, I played up the fact that we were a Ford dealership. I changed listings that would previously have a ‘works for all makes and models’ approach, to highlight the Ford vehicles that the item would work with. This item went from working on all trucks, to working on all trucks, especially Ford trucks like the F-150.

I also promoted the fact that we had a separate website where customers could shop for more Ford products. This change in strategy had an immediate impact. Over the next few months, online sales increased by almost 50%. Additionally, we began to see more sales for Ford products from our website. This was a welcome change, because it meant we could sell the same or similar items as what was sold on eBay, but by selling it on our own website, we avoided eBay’s seller fees.

All of this goes to show that having the right customers is better than having more customers. My boss thought we needed more customers. Getting more customers would have meant continuing a price war with competitors that had higher profit margins than we did. So we could never win. Our advantage was that we could appeal to Ford customers, better than our competitors could. Ford customers were the RIGHT customers for us, and the increase in sales is testament to this approach.

by

Alabama Football Launches ‘The Advantage’ Personal Branding Program For its Student-Athletes

Last month I wrote about how important it is to give your employees the skills they need to succeed. One of the examples I used to illustrate that point was how Alabama football gives both its coaches and players the tools and teaching they need to advance.

Alabama football has just launched another initiative in its effort to equip its players with the skills they need to succeed.  The program is called ‘The Advantage’ and it is being billed as a ‘personal brand’ development program. The Advantage will work with players to develop their communication skills, giving them instruction on how to handle interviews, and how to conduct themselves on social media channels. For those players who pursue a professional career in football, The Advantage will assist with financial literacy, marketing, and agent selection.

https://twitter.com/AlabamaFTBL/status/1389686640390639618
https://twitter.com/AlabamaFTBL/status/1389624085487964165

This is such a smart initiative on so many levels:

  • It becomes yet another recruiting tool for Alabama, providing real benefits to recruits that they can instantly see the value in
  • It helps players manage their social media accounts, which also helps the University with its image and branding as well
  • By helping players with interview coaching, that provides another benefit to both the player, as well as the University, and it enhances the brand of both parties
  • As players become more proficient in using social media, that just means more exposure for them, and for the Alabama football brand as well

I’m honestly surprised more universities haven’t done something similar, and I’m sure we’ll see a lot of schools copy this now that Alabama has unveiled The Advantage.

Think about how you could do something similar at your company or organization. And just as Alabama will use The Advantage as a recruiting tool, so can your company. Your company could offer a program that coaches your current employees on how to better leverage their social media accounts to promote their personal brand, as well as yours. Additionally, you could leverage such a program to help your internal subject matter experts become more comfortable creating content and sharing their expertise. Getting internal subject matter experts to share what they know is often a struggle for companies. So this would be a real benefit that your company could enjoy.

Once such a program is in place, then its existence becomes a recruiting tool for new employees. Your company would get better employees, more content from your subject matter experts, and the social media content created by your employees would be more on brand. A win-win!

by

Your Mindset is Everything: The One Mistake I’ve Made That’s Held Me Back For 15 Years

I want to talk about two people, both facing the same challenge in their personal and professional lives.

The first is a friend of mine who I’ve known and worked with for years. We talk often, and almost every time we do, she complains about her job. Most of her complaints are about how her employer can’t seem to get out of its own way. Unforced errors, inefficient management, constant pressure to hit quarterly deadlines. She laments that the company seems to have no long-term strategy in place. She often makes suggestions to her boss and other executives for how the company can turn things around and begin to grow.

Her suggestions are either blown off, or she’s told that the company needs to get on better footing before it thinks about making ‘big’ changes. Every time I talk to her, she laments ‘I really don’t know if I will still have this job in a year’. She worries about the future of the company.

I ask her why she doesn’t consider another job? She is far too qualified to be in such an unhappy role, and her current employer clearly doesn’t appreciate her talents, or know how to leverage them within the company. She always says she doesn’t want to ‘start over’, and she hopes the company will figure out what it needs to do to turn things around.

My friend and her employer are both stuck with a survive mindset. The company doesn’t want to plan for the future, the CEO and her bosses just want to make it through this year. Then when things start to improve, then they can consider making changes

At the same time, my friend is also focused on a survive mindset. She’s unhappy at her job and knows she can do so much more. But at the same time, she doesn’t want to look for another job.  Maybe she fears the process or landing in an even worse position.

When you’re only focused on the short-term, whether you realize it or not, you are simply surviving.

Here’s another example. I have a wonderful network of professional friends that I lean on for support and guidance. I talk to them often about what I’m working on, what I’m focusing on, and where I want to go.

All of them always ask me when I am going to write another book, and when I am going to start podcasting again. I always tell them I appreciate them asking, but I can’t focus on those things right now. Both would take too long to show results, I have to focus on what will work right now.

Without realizing it, I was also adopting a survive mentality. I always dismiss the idea of writing another book or restarting my podcast, simply because those efforts would take months to bear fruit. I need results today! I need income today!

Recently, I did a little exercise. I thought of a number, an amount I’d like to make over the next year from my business. It was a BIG number.  And I asked myself ‘What would I need to do in order to hit that number?”

And I started brainstorming internally, and one of the first thoughts I had was ‘Well I would need to write another book, and I’d probably need to start podcasting again.”  Without thinking, I went straight to doing the same things that my friends had been pushing me to do.

The light bulb went off. I had been sabotaging my own ability to thrive, by adopting a survive mentality. I was focusing on just getting through this month.  Then next month do it again. Lather, rinse, repeat. I was focusing on getting immediate results, anything that wouldn’t see results for a few months, or longer, was being put on the backburner.

And I’m sure my friends could sense this, that’s why they kept suggesting I do things like write another book, or start podcasting. Because they wanted to see me THRIVE!

 

What’s the Difference Between Surviving and Thriving?

Surviving is what happens this month or this quarter.

Thriving is what happens 5 years from now.

 

Recently, I finally had a chance to read Simon Sinek’s wonderful book Start With Why. In Chapter 6, he talks about the turnaround at Continental Airlines that happened under CEO Gordon Bethune in the 90s. Prior to Bethune’s arrival, the entire working environment at Continental was very toxic. The employees were always stressed and in bad moods, and they treated the customers poorly as a result.  I thought this quote from page 84 really resonates with the Survive vs Thrive mentality:

Some would argue that the reason Continental’s culture was so poisonous was that the company was struggling. They would tell you that it’s hard for executives to focus on anything other than survival when a company is facing hard times. “Once we get profitable again,” the logic went, “then we will take a look at everything else.”

How many of you have heard this at your own company? How many of you have heard it in your own household?

Focusing on today isn’t how you create a happy tomorrow.

And let’s be honest, focusing solely on the present, always adopting a survive mindset, is exhausting. It beats you down, it can steal your hope and your happiness.

But just shifting to a thrive mindset, empowers you. Suddenly you are filled with hope, you have a sense of control over your personal and professional life.

When I wrote that BIG number down, my first thought was to revert back to a survive mindset.

“That number’s too big!”

“There’s no way I could hit that!”

“Let’s be reasonable!”

I told myself. Then I calmed down and thought ‘But what if I could? What would need to happen in order to hit that number? What changes would I need to make?”

Before I knew it, I had a long list of things I could do to hit that BIG number.

Suddenly, that unreasonable number that I could never reach…looked possible. Just sketching out a rough plan made it seem more…real.

It was empowering, I must say.

Think about your job. Hopefully, you love your job and look forward to going to work everyday and changing lives for the better. But for those of you that are dis-satisfied with your job, like my friend above, what needs to change?

Do you need a bigger salary? Do you need to perform different tasks that take better advantage of your skills? Do you need more time off?

Think about what YOU want from your job, then list out what would need to happen in order to make your wants become reality. For instance, maybe you wish you were making 30% more. Ok, then how would you get there? Maybe it’s something as easy as switching jobs if you are underpaid. Or maybe you would need to get a promotion to make 30% more. In that case, think about the changes you would need to make to justify the promotion. Maybe you need to learn new skills, or maybe you need to gain a new certification, etc.

Before you know it, you have a plan in place, and can go to your boss and ask for additional training that can improve your skills.

It’s so empowering! But it starts with accepting you are settling for just surviving, when you really want to thrive. Once you shift your mindset to thrive, then you want so much more for your life, and you become excited about planning out how to achieve more.

When your friends ask you why you don’t apply for a better job or why you don’t pursue this or accomplish that, understand that they are pushing you to thrive. They can see that you are stuck surviving, when you could do so much more. Surround yourself with a support group that pushes you to thrive!

If this last year has taught us anything, it should be that life is too short to be miserable. We are not meant to just survive, we are meant to thrive!

 

by

Monday’s Marketing Minute: Clubhouse Signing Content Deals, Twitter’s Growth, Biz Returning to Pre-Pandemic Levels

Happy Monday! Big content week ahead, new posts every day through Friday, hope you enjoy!  Here’s a few marketing and digital stories that caught my eye:

 

Clubhouse signed an exclusive deal with the NFL to provide content during last week’s NFL draft. I think this opens up some interesting possibilities, as we already have some ‘listen only’ rooms on Clubhouse where the host just plays music all day. What if Clubhouse partnered with Sirius to create a Clubhouse Channel that was just on the platform? We’ve been thinking about how another social platform might acquire Clubhouse, what if a different company that’s already creating audio content decided to acquire Clubhouse to supplement what it already offers?

 

Twitter showed modest user growth in Q1. As I’ve said for months, I want to see what the numbers are for Q2 for both Twitter and Facebook. I’m not expecting huge numbers. As most areas of the country are reopening, I think we will see a flood of people getting outside this Summer and into the Fall. Twitter and Facbook spiked while many of us were cooped up in or homes last year, but that won’t be the case in 2021. It will be interesting to see how willing we are to tweet on the go this year.

 

A majority of B2B brands and marketers now expect a return to pre-pandemic business levels by the end of the year. A wonderful sign that the nation is reopening and it’s great to see the optimism. A big component of this will be a return of live, in-person events. I’ll talk more about this on Friday.

 

That’s all for today, hope you have a great week and see you back here tomorrow for an important post!

by

Monday’s Marketing Minute: The Clubhouse Hype Train Comes to a Halt

Happy Monday! I hope you are ready for a productive week! Normally with Monday’s Marketing Minute I try to highlight 3-4 key stories, but I wanted to do a deeper dive into just one today:

 

If you’re a Clubhouse user, you’ve probably noticed that activity is down a good bit on the platform. You may also have noticed that some of the people you were following are no longer active there.

This one chart tells us why:

The hype train for Clubhouse has officially jumped the tracks. Does this mean Clubhouse is dead, that social audio’s time is over?

Absolutely not. What this means is that the people that were driving the hype for Clubhouse have mostly moved onto ‘greener’ fields.

This was far more common from 2008-2012 or so, but every time a new social media site suddenly comes out of no where to be on everyone’s radar, the hype for it is driven by the same group of people. Those would be marketers, coaches, and consultants. We saw the same thing with Clubhouse in January and February. It seemed every room was about selling a course or selling services, or ‘why your brand should be on Clubhouse’ type rooms. You know, rooms with 15 people, and 12 of them are consultants and coaches.

Let’s be honest, the last year or so has been brutal financially for most of us. As a consultant, its easily been my worst year and I’m still struggling. It’s like that for many of my peers, so when something like Clubhouse comes along, I can understand why a lot of coaches and consultants get excited and see it as a way to drive new revenue.

As I said, this always happens with ‘shiny new’ social media sites. The marketers/coaches/consultant rush on in a cyber land-grab, try to push their networks to the new site, and try to make some quick sales. It usually doesn’t work, and usually the fast hype for the site dies just as quickly. We saw it here with Clubhouse, before that we saw it with sites like Friendfeed and Identi.ca and Ello.

This is why I always advise companies to take a wait and see approach toward any new social media site that’s benefiting from massive hype. The first thing you do is decide WHO is hyping the site, and WHY?  What you want to see is hype driven by CORE users that have been on the site for a while.

We did have some of that with Clubhouse and still do, but the majority of the hype was driven by the people that had just discovered the site, and wanted to make some quick sales. The only way those people stay and keep hyping the site is if they keep making money off it. Which doesn’t seem to be happening with Clubhouse.

Now, does that mean Clubhouse is dead? I think the most intelligent question to ask is in regards to social audio. In February I wrote about this topic, and back then, I had been active on Clubhouse for a few weeks, and I honestly loved it. My enthusiasm for the site has definitely waned since then.

Yet in my post, notice I didn’t ask if Clubhouse was the future, I talked about the future of social audio. Social audio has a lot of potential for learning, for discovery, for networking. I think adding a social audio layer of functionality to existing social media sites will be interesting to see. For instance, I think LinkedIn in particular could benefit from adding social audio functionality. And I also think a lot of those coaches and consultants could actually do well utilizing social audio moreso on LinkedIn than they did on Clubhouse.

Can Clubhouse survive now that the hype is dying? That remains to be seen. Normally I would say yes, but the potential problem is, Clubhouse just closed new funding last week based on a $4B valuation. If downloads continue to fall and the Android rollout doesn’t see a massive spike in users, that $4B valuation will seem insanely high.  The investors will be pushing even more for a return on their funds, and that could put the future of Clubhouse in a tough place.

Having said that, social audio’s future is very bright. I think once the functionality gets integrated into existing platforms, and we start letting creators see what they can do, then the potential will be realized. It’s tough for anything social media-related to have instant success when you roll it out and immediately try to find ways to use it to make money. Social media always has and always will best function as a tool to create and share content and conversations. It’s tricky to monetize those, it’s best to use the tools to first create value, then the monetization opportunities will flow.

by

Monster Energy is the Red Bull That You’ve Never Heard Of

If you’ve attended a marketing, business or content conference in the last decade, you know how successfully Red Bull uses content marketing. They are experts at content marketing, in fact I used the brand as one of the key case studies in my book Think Like a Rock Star. Red Bull also invests heavily in extreme sporting events, as well as mainstream sports like NASCAR, and even in the thriving E-Sports industry.

Red Bull doesn’t market its product, it markets what happens after you drink it. The brand sets the standard for successful content marketing, and its focus on sponsoring and helping to grow the sporting events that its customers love is absolutely brilliant.

Red Bull does everything right when it comes to marketing, and it’s no surprise that they dominate the energy drink space.

Except…they don’t. In fact, Red Bull may not even be the market leader in the energy drink industry by the end of 2021.

monster energy

Meet Monster Energy, the Red Bull That You’ve Never Heard Of

What makes the energy drink industry so fascinating is that it doesn’t have one brand doing exceptional marketing, it has two. And this exceptional marketing has helped catapult both brands to own the energy drink industry.

Heading into 2021, Red Bull was the energy drink market leader, with just over 40% of the market. Monster Energy was right behind them with just under 40% of the market. However, Coca-Cola acquired a 17% stake in Monster Energy in 2014, and Monster Energy will be benefiting from Coca-Cola’s distribution channels as part of that relationship. This has led to speculation that Monster Energy could actually pass Red Bull to become the energy drink market leader in 2021 or 2022.

But the purpose of this post isn’t to prop up Monster Energy or really Red Bull either. What I wanted to focus on is how both brands have created incredibly effective marketing strategies. And in some ways those strategies are very similar, and in others, they are quite different. I want to examine those strategies in detail here because there are some key lessons that you can take from both brands to improve your own company’s marketing and give you a competitive advantage in your space.

 

Red Bull and Monster Energy Both Market Sporting Events, But in Very Different Ways

Both Red Bull and Monster Energy invest in sponsoring athletes and teams at sporting, extreme and esports events. This is very smart marketing, and it helps both brands show customers that they have ‘skin in the game’. It also communicates to customers that these brands are committed to seeing these events grow.

While both brands are active in these events via sponsorships, their marketing efforts are slightly different. Red Bull works to associate itself with the athletes. Their marketing message is that they help fuel these amazing athletes and help them accomplish these amazing feats. Red Bull sponsors the athletes and then leverages their accomplishments via content marketing. These athletes give Red Bill access to thousands of hours of amazing content, which is a big reason why Red Bull’s content marketing is viewed as some of the best work by any global brand. But make no mistake, the underlying message from Red Bull’s marketing is that these amazing athletes doing amazing things, are doing it because they drink Red Bull.

Monster Energy takes a slightly different approach. The brand does sponsor teams and athletes at events. But while Red Bull’s branding is more about the athletes and how Red Bull helps fuel them, Monster Energy is wanting to position itself more as a lifestyle brand. Monster not only sponsors events, teams and athletes, but the brand also has a major presence at these events. The brand will offer product sampling at events, goes out of its way to connect directly with fans, and also has the famous (infamous?) Monster Girls at their events. While Red Bull is positioning itself to align more with the athletes, Monster Energy positions itself more to interact directly with their customers via events.

 

Red Bull is All-In on Traditional Marketing, Monster All But Ignores It 

‘Red Bull gives you wiiiiings!’ You’ve probably heard that tagline from Red Bull’s commercials many times over the years. The brand heavily invests in broadcast commercials, and it has created some stunners.

When’s the last time you saw a commercial for Monster Energy?  Have you ever seen one?

Both Red Bull and Monster Energy are attempting to connect with the 18-30 year-old demographic, especially males. This group has a highly tuned bullshit detector when it comes to traditional advertising and marketing. So both brands are mindful of that in their marketing efforts.

Red Bull works with and associates itself with extreme athletes, and then uses them as sort of ‘influencers’ to connect with the end customer. Red Bull’s broadcast and print marketing efforts focus on the athletes and their amazing accomplishments moreso than the brand itself. This approach of letting the athletes lead the marketing and Red Bull takes a backseat has resonated with customers, who don’t see it as marketing, but rather as awesome content.

Monster Energy focuses more on connecting with customers directly. As you might guess, the brand all but avoids traditional marketing in trying to connect with the 18-30 age group it covets.

Marianne Radley, Monster’s Senior VP of Marketing, explains: “We’re very hesitant about doing interviews for no other reason than focusing on building the brand one can at a time with intimate consumer connections. Our marketing has always been very below the line. We’re mindful of that, so we try to keep our time with the press minimal just so it doesn’t look like we’re pushing so much in your face. Everything we do is genuine and sincere, and we try to keep that for all points of communication.”

Notice Ms. Radley’s comment about how Monster doesn’t want to appear to be ‘in your face’ with its marketing. She’s speaking to her customer base. She knows young males hate promotion, so the second one of her customers thinks ‘this smells like marketing’, they will tune out, and Monster has lost a chance to connect with that customer. As you can see from her quote, the brand is very mindful of how it connects with its customers.

red bull

 

Red Bull and Monster Energy Market Differently, But the Result is the Same

While the two brands market and position themselves in slightly different way, there’s one key element that’s the same. Both brands invest in supporting the athletes and events that are important to their customers.

At the end of the day, both brands are courting the coveted 18-30 year-old male category. This age group is very resistant to traditional marketing efforts, as mentioned earlier. So both brands use different tactics to reach their customers. Red Bull does traditional marketing, but it’s not traditional in how it’s structured. The focus isn’t on Red Bull’s products, but on the athletes and celebrities that use those products. That makes the marketing more interesting and palatable to millennials.

Monster Energy all but ignores traditional marketing. Instead, the brand focuses on connecting with their customers personally at events and through non-traditional marketing efforts.

The results speak for themselves. Both brands command roughly 40% of the energy drink market, and they control over 80% of the market space combined.

 

What’s the Key Takeaway For Your Brand?

Focus your marketing efforts on what’s important to your customers. Years ago, Fiskars was looking for a way to revitalize interest in a centuries old brand that made a very boring product; scissors. Fiskars started by doing market research into who its customers were, and how they used its product. What the brand found surprised them; Their customers were actually much younger than they assumed, and Fiskars scissors were quite popular among scrapbookers. Fiskars took what it had learned, and applied that to its marketing. They built a community for scrapbookers, and let some of Fiskars most avid scrapbooking customers, run the community.

The community, which was dubbed The Fiskateers, ended up being quite successful for Fiskars in building sales and brand awareness. The lead members of the Fiskateers community were highly sought after by crafting stores across the country. Crafting stores always enjoyed a boost in sales when a Fiskateer appeared and spoke to the customers. Fiskars’ success with The Fiskateers was because the brand invested in the activities and communities that are important to its customers. Just as Red Bull and Monster Energy invest in sporting events, Fiskars invested in growing the scrapbooking community. In doing so, the brand created something of value for its customers, which in turn, created value for the brand.

Think about how your customers use your products, and for what reasons. How can you incorporate your customers’ behavior into your marketing efforts? What are your customers passionate about and how can you sponsor those passions and help them grow?