IF YOU’RE ANYTHING LIKE the DIRECT staff, you finally feel like you’ve just gotten caught up after riding the fall conference merry-go-round. So, of course, it’s time to gear up for the next cycle of back-to-back-to-back exhibitions. With that dizzying thought in mind, here’s a trio of observations from on and off the fall conference circuit. I figured I’d better share them before I blink and we’re at the summer NCDM.
1. I can certainly appreciate that companies try to do anything they can to stand out when attempting to catch the eyes and minds of the media and get them to visit clients’ booths. But I wonder if these firms – especially, surprise, dot-coms – realize how many of their resources they waste in these efforts.
Kodak included a really cool business-card-size example of its dynamic imaging technology in a recent press release. The card, which simulates a stick of dynamite exploding, would be more than enough to get me to stop by the company’s booth if I covered that sort of technology. But did Kodak stop there? Nope. Obviously feeling it hadn’t spent enough money on the campaign, it put the card in a small wooden crate with a half-dozen boxes of Red Hots.
To introduce itself, BannerGalaxy.com sent a huge banner (bigger than my couch) with my name and that of a magazine I no longer edit emblazoned on it. Gee, that’s nice – but what the heck do I do with it? All I can think of is that it might be a good tarp if we paint the bathroom.
But the winner has to be the dot-com that sent a cantaloupe-size chocolate-dipped fortune cookie with no press release – the only clue to the sender’s identity was a URL on the fortune inside. I lost the fortune and don’t remember the URL, which had nothing to do with Asian food, cookies or chocolate. But the cookie was yummy – thanks!
2. From food to cocktails: While riding home from the airport in a taxi after one conference, I noticed that nearly every billboard I saw featured a Web address – except for those advertising liquor. Perhaps they think their audience is too, um, “happy” to operate a PC? Or is a mouse considered heavy machinery and they don’t want people drinking and clicking?
One company that does have CRM down pat, online and off, is Jack Daniel’s. While in Nashville, TN for a conference, I popped over to Lynchburg to take a tour of the JD distillery, and added my name to their mailing list. A few months later, I received a letter informing me that I’d been declared a “Tennessee Squire” and was thus the owner of an unrecorded plot of land at the distillery. The letter included a password for a special Web site, where I could learn about the history of the squires and the firm.
Like letters from a friend, the Squire mailings are written in a folksy style and sent infrequently on no particular schedule. The most recent one I received let me know there might be a bit of unusual activity near my plot in a few weeks. Members of the Lynchburg Outdoors Club were going on an expedition to search for the Tennessee Wyooter Hooter, apparently a Bigfoot-type creature lurking in the hills. Of course, I was more than welcome to join in the search if I happened to be in the area.
Silly, sure. But it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy about the good folks at the distillery, even when I’m painfully sober.
3. Here’s a plea to future speakers: If you’re scheduled to present a case history at a conference, do it. Go all the way. Name the company, share some numbers, make it come alive for your audience. Sharing is how we all learn.
At one fall event, I dragged myself out for an early morning presentation by a high-level executive from a national company. She was slated to discuss her firm’s relationship marketing initiatives, so I gulped down a large coffee and raced to the session, certain this would lead to a good story.
The speaker began by giving a rundown of all the great initiatives the company researched – and then stopped. In the interest of full disclosure, she felt she should tell the audience her firm hadn’t implemented any of what she was going to discuss. No, not one. Nada. Zip. Zilch. She was just going to discuss what was proposed and shot down. Would she be willing to discuss why the company had pulled back? Nope. What vendors they had considered? Sorry.
Sigh. If you’re going to the trouble of presenting, give your audience something it can use. If I want fantasy and speculation, I’ve got a nice stack of comic books I can consult. And most are a heck of a lot more fun to look at than PowerPoint presentations.
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