MEGO: My Eyes Glaze Over

digital marketing – the new frontier in the job market…

Sep 30, 2008 Marketing & Communication, Search Marketing, Social Media, social networks, word of mouth

While I am on maternity leave, I am still in constant contact with my workplace. Answering questions, helping forge ahead on a number of projects that I feel are important enough to keep one foot in the door. Some days though I wonder why I bother. I wonder sometimes if my evangelism for digital media and word of mouth just rests on deaf ears. One step forward, two steps back. Approval. Then budget is cut. Approval. Then they freeze hiring for required resources. Approval. Then disapproval. But is any other company different? Is frustration just destined to be part of my working life? Perhaps this is simply what life is like when you are passionate for change, and a little impatient!

So while I am not currently looking for employment, some days I think back on Seth Godin’s book “The Dip” and wonder if I am stuck in a “cul-de-sac” where no amount of hard work will lead to success. On other days, however, I think I am just in a “Dip” and if I push forward I will make it to the other side, successful and triumphent in the completion of my career goals. When I see interesting job postings, or a recruiter calls I wonder if the grass is greener…

I saw this posting on a blog I read:

Sheridan College prides itself on its leadership in the field of digital media studies.

We are now looking for an accomplished and creative Online Marketing Manager with exceptional project management and communication skills to manage our own online presence.

Working with internal clients, a team of web developers and external resources, you will help Sheridan maximize its online impact by planning, implementing and measuring ongoing initiatives in support of our strategic objectives.

Responsibilities:

• Managing Sheridan’s website, monitoring and enhancing its performance;
• Managing extensive online advertising campaigns, social media activities and e-mail marketing programs;
• Collaborating with colleagues, internal clients to develop effective online strategies;
• Tracking new user trends and IT developments and leveraging them for our online impact.

Requirements:

• 3 year diploma/degree in E/Marketing, Advertising, Business, Web Design, E-commerce, or related field;
• Min. 5 years experience in E/Marketing, Advertising, Business, or related professions;
• Understanding of effective website design and online marketing, including SEM and SEO principles and social media;
• Experience with web analytics tools/metrics management.

Wow! A job posting that is looking for SEO and SEM experience, someone to work on social media and e-mail marketing, someone to forge ahead in new media. They “get” the new space, and want some one to focus entirely on Digital Marketing, rather than divide their time between online and offline marketing. The last time I searched the job postings I didn’t see positions like this (it has been awhile!) and it is exciting to think that Digital Marketing is slowly becoming its own discipline (even in smaller companies and organizations like Sheridan College ). A quick search on Workopolis found 4 Digital Marketing Manager Positions, 4 mentions of “Social Media” in a job description, and 7 “e-marketing” positions – all in the last 30 days! So, I suppose based on this I can hope that someday I will be able to focus entirely on this area tactically, and strategically work with other marketing disciplines; rather than being the jack-of-all-trades, evangelist for digital marketing, and occassionally frustrated worker-bee, that I currently seem to be! I can hope that someday this will become so important in my own company that “approval” remains approved. That resources find their way to the department. And, instead of talking to myself…banging my head against the wall on occasion…I will find that people are saying the same thing to me!

Popularity: 10% [?]

Tags: career, Digital Marketing & Metrics, Dip, job descriptions, jobs, Marketing & Communication, Seth Godin, social media, word of mouth, Work

Seinfeld Out

Sep 29, 2008 Advertising, Branding, Consumer Brands, Marketing & Communication, Social Media

I started this post ages ago…so I apologize if you have already read 20 blog posts about the subject.

Apparently Microsoft read my post and decided that perhaps it was wise to drop the Seinfeld/Gates commercials…

After only two weeks of running the strange commercials that featured Gates shaking his butt and Seinfeld questioning the “moist and chewiness” factor of computers, Microsoft has introduced three new commercials. According to Microsoft marketing it was always the plan to run the initial three commercials for two weeks, but bloggers and news sources alike speculate that they dropped the ads due to negative reaction. From my perspective, this is most likely. No matter how big your marketing budget is -  I can’t imagine many marketing folks who would blow $10 million (what they payed Seinfeld), and $300 million (apparent cost of campaign), on a two week meaningless campaign. Perhaps, if it tied in to the most recent commercials it would make sense, but the Seinfeld/Gates commercials do not appear to be a precursor, nor do they share any similarities to the new Microsoft ads.

Intrigued?

Here is one:

Why I like this commercial?
- It acknowledges the Mac commercials directly, stating “I am a PC, and I’ve been made into a stereotype”
- The commercial positions Microsoft (well PCs) “for everyone” rather than Mac’s hip  20-35 year old tech geeks…
- Perhaps consumers will feel a bit more warm and fuzzy towards the software giant. Check out the Microsoft employee who spoofs the PC character on the Mac commercial. You can email him, his address appears in the right hand corner.
- The idea that PCs and Microsoft are for everyone has potential to be an incredible marketing campaign. Imagine the social media application and consumer generated potential!
- It simply makes sense. That is a bonus…no butt waggles and bizarre shoe shopping.

Why I don’t like this commercial?
- Once again it ignores Microsoft as a product, it discusses PCs…but Microsoft is a software for a PC…not a PC. How does this sell Microsoft products? Does it encourage you to move past all the negative word of mouth around Vista and purchase it?
- The tag line “Life Without Walls” would have been better replaced with “For Everyone”. Most people would see Microsoft’s anti-open source ways (at least in the past…) as a walled-garden, not the freedom they advertise with this slogan. Besides if the point of the various people (with beards, and sharks, and glasses, and green buildings), saying they are a PC, is that Microsoft is for everyone – shouldn’t the tag line be a reflection of this?
-

Popularity: 9% [?]

Tags: , Advertising, Apple, commercials, Mac, Marketing & Communication, Microsoft

AllRecipes.com – Cooking Made Easy (ier)

Sep 17, 2008 Blogs, Family and Friends, Parenting and More, Social Media, social networks

Despite, or perhaps in spite of working for Cuisinart, I generally dislike cooking. I don’t have the creative ability to pull random ingredients together into a tasty meal. I get frustrated just by the task of thinking about “what will I make for dinner?” I can cook, and would not mind doing it, if someone would just tell me what to cook and gave me the ingredients.

Luckily, I married a man who enjoys cooking. He loves the Food Network. In fact, one day I came home to deep-fried beer-battered everything (cheese, zucchini and chicken!) because he had just seen a episode on deep frying. Unfortunately, now I am on mat leave…and since I don’t have anything better to do (other than look after two kids – which is oh-so easy! wink, wink!) I get to do the cooking too. Yikes.

The first couple weeks were frustrating. I made my usual meal choices, after much aggravation and back and forth to the grocery store for missing ingredients. Then I read this post on meal planning from Beck on Urbanmoms.ca (she also writes at Frog and Toad Are Still Friends ). [Disclosure- this is the Cuisinart sponsored blog]. I was inspired. Only problem was I only had a small selection of recipes that I had memorized “recipes” and a few others that were written on random pieces of paper thrown in my cupboard. Inspired…yet unorganized!

This is when I found AllRecipes.com. I was able to set up an online profile and recipe box. So I pulled down my random pieces of paper and typed them into the online form, filed each one to a category (pre-selected or write your own), and saved them for later.  Then I was able to search the site for other recipes (all rated, and reviewed by other home chefs!) and add them to my recipe box. So, now I have recipes and they are organized.

Next step was to plan the meals. Unfortunately, a shortcoming of AllRecipes.com is that there is no area where you can set up your meal plans. There is an online shopping list, but I use my Blackberry for that since I take it to the grocery store – and not the laptop and Internet connection! So, I used Google Docs for writing out my meal plans. By using this online tool I am able to access it from any computer, and from anywhere. I made a five week rotation (for now) and planned the weeks so there is a mix of chicken, meat, fish and veggies. I took into consideration the likes and many dislikes of my family, and tried to have options for my three-year old on certain days.

Here is my menu for the first week:

Monday
Asparagus, Chicken and Pasta Dish (recipe from Allrecipes.com) + salad
Tuesday
SuperBowl Chili and Dinner Rolls
Wednesday
Quesidillas and Salsa Rice
Thursday
Whole Chicken, Carrots and Potatoes
Friday
Salmon with Teriyaki and PC Memories of Thailand Sauce (fish sticks for Owen)
Side Dish – left over Pasta from Monday (frozen)

And, since I work for Cuisinart and I have so many wonderful, beautiful and useful products I am able to make the meals quick. No processed, high-in-fat, loaded in sodium meals for us! On Tuesday, I used the Slow Cooker, on Wednesday the Rice Cooker, and on Thursday the Pressure Cooker! I found for me to enjoy cooking I needed to plan ahead. This means I know what I am making ahead of time, I don’t need to stress over what to make, and I don’t need to make multiple trips to the grocery store with two kids (ugh!).

AllRecipes.com was a saviour for organizing my recipes, and allows me to find other recipes that are quick, healthy and easy. I do, however, wish that I could “friend” people on the site so that I could share my recipes with my mom, and other friends. It would be nice to know what recipes people I know are using and be able to easily share ones that I like. I gave my mom my password and user ID so that she could add a few of my child-hood favourites to my profile and so she could see the ones I had. But, sadly, this seems to be the only way to share recipe boxes.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Multi-Tasking Dad

Sep 17, 2008 A Good Laugh, Family and Friends, Parenting and More

This is how my husband deals when I go to the grocery store. One child has bottle stuffed in mouth, the other sits on dad’s lap. And, in my husbands right hand…well that is a Wii Remote.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Spreading Word of Mouth: My experience with Canon

Sep 15, 2008 Blogs, Customer Service, Marketing & Communication, Retail Marketing, Social Media, social networks, word of mouth

Two weeks ago I wrote about my ongoing trouble with my new Canon Camera, and the less-than ideal customer service I was receiving from Canon’s service centre.  I owe Canon at least one to one-and-a-half stars for finally replacing my camera with a “refurbished” product. But, don’t get me started on why my brand new camera (purchased in June) got replaced by a refurb model!

Word of Mouth

If Canon runs all customer service transactions like this – they will certainly lose status as a top camera manufacturer – due to the negative word of mouth. One customer can spread the word through their social network and beyond.
Since word of mouth recommendations is the number one influencer for consumer purchase decision, it is important for businesses to pay attention to what their customers are saying. And, just as importantly make strategic marketing decisions and position the brand in a way that will garner positive word of mouth.  Not always an easy task, but a company that understands and listens to their customers is ahead of the game.

The Bottom Line

How important is word of mouth to the bottom line? According to a study done by the Listening Company both positive and negative word of mouth is a predictor of sales growth.  According to the study:

Popularity: 10% [?]

Kids say the funniest things…

Sep 10, 2008 A Good Laugh, Consumer Brands, Family and Friends, Parenting and More

Warning: Originally Posted on my other blog, not marketing related – but still might make you laugh!

Kids say and do the cutest things. I try and make a point of writing the really “good” ones down.  I know I have forgotten quite a few, but here are some that did make it to paper (or rather to Google Docs!)

No Storks,  Just go to Florida

In April we went to Florida to visit with Owen’s grandparents. At the time I was five month pregnant. Two months later Owen was still talking about the trip and of course was anxious to go back to “visit Bobbe and Papa Gordon”. I use quotations because I suspect in his head, going back to Florida meant going to Disney World to see Mickey Mouse.  This particular discussion was quite lengthy as Owen was trying to get me to agree to go to Florida (“on Saturday” – the only day of the week he knew at the time) and he was giving me the reasons we should go. One, he wanted to go on an airplane. A big airplane. To Florida to see Bobbe and Papa Gordon. And, we could see Mickey Mouse (he says all of this with great big head nods, and yups and hmm-hmms), and we could also pick up the baby from Florida. Yes, apparently our baby was coming to us – direct from Florida.

Where is God?

Every night Owen gets to pick three books. One night he picked Bible Stories off of the shelf and my husband began to read him the story of Noah.  In the story it says ” And God said to Noah…”, but on the picture there is just a image of Noah, his ark and a bunch of animals. Owen looks at his dad, points to the picture and says, “Daddy, where is God?”

Where is my mind?

Owen loves music. I listen to Z103.5 which plays Hip-Hop, Dance and Pop music and when Owen began to sing to Acon and Kardinal Offishall’s Dangerous song it crossed my mind that perhaps I should be listening to Raffi in the car. But, it was terribly funny one day when he was with my husband in the car listening to the Edge (Rock/Alternative station) listening to a Pixies song. Well, he picked that song up quite quickly – singing “where is my mind, where is my mind” frequently and on cue.

Look mom, Look at my Poop!

A few weeks ago I was called urgently to the bathroom. I imagined a mess like the last time I was called to attend him immediately in the washroom. This time however, I was greeted with ” Look mom!” (pointing in toilet) “My poop made an “O”!”

My husband has a new name…

My son thinks he is a comedian.  When he calls his dad up from the basement, or bellows for him to bring him something he will yell, ” Hon!…”

One day, just to see what he would say, I asked him what his dad’s name was. He got it right, didn’t actually say “hon”, but I also asked him where daddy lived and he said ” at work”.

Hair Expert

My mom has very curly hair. To my dismay, and my father’s she spends hours straightening and flattening it. I have often suggested that I like it curly so I suspect when this incident happened she thought I put Owen up to it. But it was all pure Owen. We were talking on Skype one day, obviously before my mother got around to the flat-iron routine. Owen says “I like your hair, Bobbe!”

Magic Marker Feet

I went out to a nail salon with a few girlfriends the other night for a friends “goodbye to singledom”.  I had a mani-pedi. When Owen saw my red toes, he said “You coloured your feet red mommy! It looks pretty”

There are of course things I would rather not here from my three year old:

Why?
No thank you! (emphasis on NO- said in a particular tone!)
Don’t talk to me like that
I don’t like that
Phew (tongue out)
Jesus! (only once and then he seemed to have forgotten this one)

Popularity: 4% [?]

Loblaws: Returns Gone Wild

Sep 9, 2008 Consumer Brands, Customer Service, Marketing & Communication, Retail Marketing

I seem to complain a lot about shopping experiences and products. Once more bare with me on a little rant.

My last post on Loblaws was far more supportive. But like all good things, they must come to an end!

The Situation

A friend purchased a lovely gift for the new baby, a package of 0-3 month Organic Onesies from Joe Clothing (Loblaws) and some Newborn Diapers.  My little baby, however, is not so little anymore and newborn diapers leak and 0-3 month Onesies won’t button up. So, I went to Loblaws to exchange them. Since they were a gift I didn’t have a receipt, but in the past exchanges at Loblaws have been no problem.  This time this was not the case.

The Return

I went to the customer service counter with both items. A very pleasant girl told me that she could exchange the diapers no problem, but that I would have to exchange the clothing at the Joe desk. So I gave her the diapers and said I would be back with my new bag of diapers for exchange after I was done my grocery shopping.

Went to the Joe desk with the clothing to be exchanged. She scanned the items and said I could exchange them for $5.94 (despite the sticker of $8.00 on the package) because the item had recently been put on clearance. Since this was a gift, and I had no inclination to spend more money I went on the lookout for something in that price range. Of course there was nothing in the baby section as it had been relatively cleaned out. I saw a cute hat that might be nice for my older son, but wasn’t sure about size. So, I asked the lady at the counter if she could just put the amount on a gift card until I could come back and find something appropriate (keep in mind at this point my 3 week old is fussing in the car seat…so it is obvious I don’t really want to hang around!). She says they have a policy that they can’t put returns on gift cards.

I said, if I wait – there is a chance that this item will be further reduced in price, correct? Yes. And then I will only get that decreased amount as a return, correct? Yes.  So, not much good in my waiting, so my option is to buy something I don’t want or need now and then come back another time to exchange it AGAIN? You could do that. Seriously. Let me talk to the manager.  {Girl picks up phone and calls manager} She says to refund you the cash.

Take note. Never asked for the cash. Just wanted the opportunity to find something I WANTED! Sounds like the manager was simply lazy, and lost the store $5.94 in sales.

You would think the story ends here.

Went back to customer service with my new pack of Size 1 diapers ($4 more than the newborn ones) and all my groceries. She can’t of course ring in my groceries, and so she offers to return the diapers on a GIFT CARD – so that I can purchase the groceries and the Size 1 diapers at the same time. Yup, a gift card. Now why could she do this and not the girl at the clothing counter.  A mystery to me and to her. If baby hadn’t been fussing I would have insisted on talking to the manager…but instead I leave it here on my blog as a testament to store stupidity.

Technorati Tags: customer service,loblaws,return policies

Popularity: 7% [?]

Seinfeld and Microsoft – I still don’t get it!

Sep 5, 2008 A Good Laugh, Advertising, Blogs, Consumer Brands, Marketing & Communication, PR

Seinfeld: the Right Man for Microsoft

Josh Quittner, writing for Time, said in his post ” Perhaps I’m crazy, but I think Jerry Seinfeld might well be the perfect pitch man for Microsoft’s Vista.” Why? Well, he reasons you just can’t buy the amount of publicity this has already garnered.  He also goes on to say that this campaign, an attempt to boost sales for the much criticized Vista, is costing Microsoft $300 million (including the $10 million they are paying 1990s sitcom star Seinfeld). So, I would say Microsoft is paying quite a lot for the publicity. And, despite what some might say – not all publicity is good publicity.

Why Not?

Many of the hundreds of bloggers and journalists who discussed the partnership had the following thoughts on the subject:
- Brilliant, hire the sitcom star who owned a new Mac in every season of the program
- When was the last time Seinfeld was considered cutting edge and cool? 1998?
- Hasn’t this been done before? Amex…
- What does Seinfeld have to do with Microsoft?
- Can Seinfeld’s commercial compete with the Get a Mac commercials, and succeed in increasing Microsoft’s market share?

The Commercial

So what do you think, here it is the much talked about new Microsoft commercial:

Does it make you want to buy Vista? Does it make Microsoft cool? Did you even know it was about Vista? Did it say ANYTHING about Microsoft or its products? Maybe I am bored of Seinfeld-esque humour, but I didn’t find it funny either (other than Gates using his 1970s mugshot on his Shoe Circus card).

Mac vs PC

The brilliance of the Get a Mac commercials are that they:
-  are informative
- essentially tell consumers what they need to know, and most often mirror the messages consumers are spreading about Mac computers
- are funny
- speak to what customers want to know about computers
- simple and easy to understand
- are so good, I rewind my PVR to see them

So how does the Microsoft commercial stack up?
- no information about Vista or Microsoft unless we really should expect “moist and chewy” computers in the future
- not funny in my perspective (or it seems many of the people who have commented on it on YouTube)
- Seems to be selling cheap shoes rather than computers, or perhaps the purpose is that Gates promotes “value”? Maybe it is a message to Microsoft’s shareholders – Gates spends his money wisely when it comes to shoes.
- Perhaps I have misunderstood the commercial, but if that is the case – then it is obviously NOT easy to understand.

Technorati Tags: Apple,Get a Mac,Microsoft,Vista,Jerry Seinfeld,Advertising,Shopping,Commercials,Marketing,Comedy

Popularity: 3% [?]

The Canon Advantage?

Sep 2, 2008 Customer Service, Marketing & Communication, Retail Marketing

  When  I love a product I recommend it to friends, will gladly share my opinion on forums or discussion groups, and of course occassionally give it time on my blogs. I certainly have done this with what was once a favourite product – my Canon Powershot Digital Camera. Sadly, I have a bad taste in my mouth now with regards to Canon, their customer service, and their cameras.

I have owned three Powershot Digital Cameras in the past 8 years or so. And, in those 8 years I likely recommended Canon directly to 50-75 friends.  My mother convinced me to buy a Canon when I first spent $500 on a digital camera, and I loved it so much that when I replaced it a few years later – I simply bought the next generation. In May, of this year we decided it was once again time to replace the old camera. It had gone through a lot: 3 years, soda spilled on it, sand in crevices, and salt water sprayed all over it by a Killer Whale! We briefly looked at our options, but once again didn’t stray from what we knew and bought another Powershot.

It has been nothing but trouble.  The next time I make a camera purchase (which may be sooner than I would like!) I will not be a return customer, I will research… research…research.

Visit 1:

At the beginning the camera had an issue with the battery light. As soon as we put recently charged batteries in the camera – the red “Change the batteries” light flashed.  We bought new batteries thinking it might be the batteries. Light still flashed. There was no way to tell when the batteries might run out as the light was ALWAYS ON! We looked on the web and my husband found that this was a common problem for this particular model and that the fix had to be done by Canon. Strangely, Canon’s site mentioned nothing about the issue, and upon emailing the company they asked if I was using the correct type of batteries. If the rest of the world knows you have a problem…why not admit it?

I brought the camera in, again the customer service rep didn’t acknowledge that this was a common problem. In fact, I had to go into great detail about the problem so he could write it out on a worksheet.

The only commendation I can make to Canon is that their service is quick. I received my camera back within 15 days. The paperwork indicate they gave me all new parts, cleaned the camera – at no charge due to warranty. They even set everything to original factory settings it seemed because when we turned the camera on it was in Chinese. So my husband spent time fooling around with settings, and the instruction manual to set it to English.

Visit 2:

Within an hour of taking pictures we discovered that the camera was making an odd sound. It was an intermittent whining. Back to Canon I went. This is a week before my second child is to be born. Great timing.

Once again I had to go into detail with the rep at the desk.  I explained the sound, and then demonstrated it to him. He wrote it all down diligently. Despite his efforts, however, in 15 days my camera came back “No problem found, sound is normal for this model”. This was a week after my son was born. So far all pictures were taken with our old camera.

Visit 3:

Back I went to Canon, thinking they should pay for my gas back and forth to this place.

Once again, demonstrated the noise to the rep at the desk. Explained that this was my third visit, and held up my baby so she could see how important a camera was to me. I asked if there was a camera they could loan me while mine was being repaired. She told me she would write RUSH on the paperwork, ignoring the request for a loan. She wrote the same details down on the sheet that they other rep had, “Intermittent noise, whining, cat-like sound. “  I asked how we could be sure that they wouldn’t miss the problem this time? She said since the tech for this particular model was not at this particular office she couldn’t bring it to the back to show them the camera, but that since she used the old paperwork and added the same issue again it would likely get looked at very closely. She also underlined intermittent, and gave my instructions for making the noise (zoom out, take a picture and it will make a noise, and if you shake it the sound will change with the movement).

At this time the camera is still with Canon.

I realize products can have defects, and initial bugs. I work for a small appliance company, sometimes products have issues – sometimes something gets by QC! It happens. But a good company stands by its products, and gives the customer what they need. In my case a loan of a camera would have likely made me 10 times happier. Even just a rep who acknowledged the issue would have done wonders for the situation. With both problems I felt like I was telling them something they had never heard before – when with the battery issue – it was a common problem with the model.  With the bizarre sound, both reps looked at me like I was crazy until I could produce the sound for them. By the third visit the phone representative I spoke to initially should have offered to send a courier to pick the camera up rather than requiring me to drive back to the office, or send at my own costs. But despite, my telling her that I had already been to service twice and that I had a new baby at home – this offer was not forthcoming.

And, don’t even get me started on their dismal website.

Technorati Tags: Canon,Camera,Digital Camera,customer service,product review,photography,shopping,marketing,michelle kostya,megoagain

Popularity: 6% [?]