I’m a poet and don’t know it; the faster I try to write something the more likely it is to have an internal rhyme in it. Or maybe I’m a rapper in another life.
Anyway, Crystal King just mentioned an article in a tweet about how Yelp may be extorting customers with threats about bad reviews. I’ve got my own story to tell about the BBB, based on personal experience.
Read MoreTony Rubleski spoke to about 20-30 people yesterday at the Prattville Chamber. I get to hear a number of gurus, and I was impressed with his approach. He compared himself to Forrest Gump a number of times (and no, he’s not a southerner; he’s from Michigan.).
My big takeaway from it is I’m still not doing enough in the business with lumpy direct-mail and leave-behinds at offices.
I ordered his book and CD set, so I hope to be even more enlightened soon!
Read MoreThe Prattville Chamber is sponsoring a seminar by Tony Rubleski TODAY, and there are seats available, last I heard. What’s funny is he is able to do this seminar (at this price) because he’s already in town doing a (much more expensive) seminar for another group, and THAT seminar is sold out. Granted, this is going to be a shorter session, but it’s not often you get to see (and given the size of this venue, probably talk to if you like) a nationally recognized marketing guru for $35.
The chamber’s number is at the bottom; they’re open at 8 a.m. this morning. Call them if you want to go.
“Capturing the Mind of your Customer: How to Win More Business in a Challenging Economy”
Speaker: Tony Rubleski
Thursday, February 12th
1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
at the Prattville Area Chamber of Commerce
131 North Court Street, Prattville
Cost: $20 for Chamber Members; $35 for Non-members
For more information, please contact us at 334-365-7392.
Read MoreSo the Brains on Fire Blog has a post about how they don’t respond to RFPs as an agency (with the exception of “unless we have the inside track or we write them” (which is really no exception at all). Good for them, and I mostly agree. At our company, we do some times respond to their idiot cousin RFQ, but only as a “one-night-stand” proposition, and only when the customer (yeah, in this case, they’re customers, not clients) has given us pretty close product specs and they have their logo absolutely ready. We have about a 10% success rate on those types of commodity quote situations. It’s like picking change up in the road. You feel silly doing it; you feel silly not doing it.
Read MoreWhat can trying to cash in on travel coupons teach us about perishable commodities?
Not much if you’re depending on night auditor types, I suppose.
I just drove over to Tuscaloosa. For the benefit of my out-of-state fans, the trip from the Montgomery area to Tuscaloosa is single-handedly responsible for the preponderance of Auburn fans in the area. You’ll find most of the Alabama fans in Montgomery are too poor to attend games, so it doesn’t matter. It’s not a bad drive, it’s just that you can’t get there from here.
Read MorePerhaps nothing illustrates old-school marketing like old cigarette commercials. James Lileks posits that irony as we know it today didn’t exist in the culture of this period. How else would the audience sit still for this kind of earnestness? About cigarettes? Whatever the state of irony in those days, the public attitude about cigarettes was certainly different. People knew smoking was bad for you; why else would it be important for doctors to plug certain brands? Nevertheless, there wasn’t a Surgeon General’s report, or a warning printed on every pack, and there was a lot of opportunity to be in denial.
Let’s not forget – before the advent of relatively cheap, mass-produced cigarettes, lung cancer was practically unknown. I think people inside and outside of marketing kind of stare at this stuff in disbelief because it’s a relatively pure form of badness dressed up by some highly creative, talented minds. In a word, propaganda.
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