Mixed Message Mondays are my foray into marketing commentary, focused on marketing attempts that must have seemed like a good idea to someone, but have somehow managed to lose the intended message…
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it feels like Kevin Hart is everywhere lately. He’s doing TV shows, movies, guest appearances, commercials, etc. To that, I say, “Good for you Kevin. Cash in on it while you can.”
But then, I saw a particularly disturbing commercial for Mountain Dew Kickstart.
[NOTE: This post might make more sense if you’ve already read my Open Letter to Influence Marketers, but I think it also might work standalone. Your individual mileage may vary.]
After I published my “Open Letter” post on Friday, I had a conversation with Kate Hutchinson, a colleague and friend for whom I have a lot of respect. During that conversation, she very gently reminded me that I dislike it when people complain about something without offering any constructive alternative.
I’ll admit, that once I got the point she was driving at, it stung a little, but that was entirely my fault, not hers. I had done the very thing that I dislike.
I’ll demonstrate with two examples: Continue reading
[UPDATE: I’ve posted an Addendum to this Open Letter. After you read this, be sure to check that out, too.]
Dear Vendor Marketers,
I love being invited to your technical briefings. I can’t emphasize this enough. They’re awesome. They’re filled with useful and interesting information that I’m more than happy to spend my own personal time writing blog posts about, adding my personal analysis and thoughts. With 30 years’ experience in the IT industry, I think that analysis and those thoughts have some value.
Plus, it means a lot to have you trust me with NDA and/or embargoed information. Again, I can’t emphasize this enough. It makes me feel like you truly consider me a valued partner in your success, and that you respect the value of what I can provide.
However, Continue reading
In general, Marketing is a Good ThingTM. It’s how we learn about new products. It’s where we get info on how to differentiate between products. It can help us decide a particular product’s suitability for specific purposes.
The folks in Marketing in the IT industry often take a lot of flak. There are several reasons for this.
IT is, by its very nature, technical. The vast majority of folks in Marketing don’t have technical backgrounds. Also, many Marketing folks have never been the customer for the product they’re marketing. This creates two hurdles when trying to market to technical customers.
Also, I’ll admit it — technical folks tend to be picky, sometimes even nit-picky.
I’ve always said that I brought two big advantages to any Marketing-type position:
So, while IT-related Marketing sometimes takes the blame for things that aren’t their fault, sometimes they do things that really are their fault. Below, I’ll cover the five things that Marketers need to just STOP right freaking now.
Time for another Mixed Message Monday, where I point out marketing that sends a different message than the intended one. At least, I hope the message delivered was different than they intended…
This time I take a look at an allergy medicine commercial for the brand Flonase.
The commercial comes out with a great message on the value of their brand: Continue reading
(Think of “Mixed Message Monday” as “GeekFluent Hits Back at Marketing Gone Wrong”. I feature advertisements or marketing campaigns where the message that’s actually delivered is (hopefully) not the one the folks who paid for the ad intended.)
Since my last Mixed Message Monday focused on Domino’s, I thought I’d take a look at another pizza vendor, Little Caesar’s.
Lately, Little Caesar’s has been running a series of commercials about their “Hot and Ready” pizzas. These commercial annoy me immensely. Continue reading
Some of my hybrid job description covers Marketing and Marketing-related work, so I thought it only appropriate that I blog about marketing occasionally.
With that idea in mind, I’m introducing a new feature on GeekFluent: Mixed Message Mondays. Each Mixed Message Monday (MMM) post will feature an ad or a marketing campaign where the message gets muddied, lost, or even completely negated by the way someone chose to deliver the message.
You can probably think of a couple examples off the top of your head (frighteningly, they’re everywhere), but just in case you can’t, I’m introducing this feature by focusing on one of the finer examples of this mixed messaging.
As the only Technical guy in a Marketing group, it will likely come as no surprise that I encounter occasional problems with jargon. What might surprise you is that my biggest jargon problems aren’t caused by me using Tech-speak around the non-Techies; the biggest issues arise when people use Market-speak around the non-Marketer (me).
Let me give you an example. Continue reading
