Traditionally, if someone wants to see content on the web, they visit the site that holds this content. If I want to read an article from The New York Times, I go to The New York Times’s website. The website is the hub for the content and users pass in and out of it when they want to interact with the content. However, sites like Pinterest, Instapaper, Gimmebar and Svpply are disrupting this model. They’re giving users a way to liberate content from it’s original context and aggregate it in their own collections. This is causing a shift.

Gimmebar is a web application that gives users the ability to capture content from almost anywhere on the web. Pictures, videos, tweets and words can be torn out of their original website and saved into Gimmebar. It doesn’t just bookmark the content either, it actually copies it from its original context to Gimmebar’s servers, available forever. It’s a fascinating concept and I’ve been happily using Gimmebar for the last few months. Anything I want, saved for all eternity in my own curated collection. Why am I talking about this on a marketing blog? Because when content is pulled out of its original site and shared around the web, the advertisements don’t follow it.

Right now, most websites monetize by placing advertisements around their content and trying to get as many eyes to see those ads as possible. This photo of Steve Jobs on Apple Insider is a good example. Notice all the flashing ads around the page? However, if I save that picture into my Gimmebar and share it from there, it looks like this. Apple Insider isn’t making any money off the people viewing the photo from inside my Gimmebar collection. Are you starting to see the implication here? The more ubiquitous content liberation tools become, the harder it is going to be to monetize that content.

I’m not writing this to offer a solution to the problem of monetizing content removed from its original website because well, I don’t have one. Nor does anyone at this point. Video could be done by embedding ads into the file, however once that file gets passed around, you have no way to know how many people have seen it. Photos could possibly be watermarked with little advertisements, but that’s a terribly inelegant solution. What about articles? Do we hide little text ads within the article itself that will follow the article even if it gets copied? This could get messy, fast. There are two things I know for sure.

1. Attribution is key for monetizing content after it has been liberated from its original context. Now matter where content ends up, it must remember where it came from and who created it. If this is lost, the creators receive no compensation or credit for their work.
2. We can’t ignore this trend. No matter how hard content providers try, they’re not going to be able to stop users from liberating and sharing content. The key now is not to fight it (are you listening RIAA?), but to figure out how to monetize within the new model.

As advertisers and marketers, some of the burden is on us to figure out new ways to promote in an increasingly unstructured internet. No pressure, right?

Are you ready for a fun example of creative marketing? No, it’s not from a big national agency, nor is from a young, spry two person shop either. It’s from a group of baristas at my local Starbucks.

I walked in for my usual iced grande cinnamon dolce latte (because it’s only the manliest drinks for me) and noticed that the baristas had their tip jars arranged next to each other in an unusual way. As you can see from the above picture, both jars were sporting Post-it notes. One read, “Batman vs.” and the other read “Ironman”. The tip jars, which are likely to be near invisible to the every day customer, were visually and mentally catching. Putting money in either jar was a way to not only tip your barista, but a way to voice your opinion (this is my vote of course). And who doesn’t love a little superhero humor? I think this is brilliant.

But being the marketer than I am, it got my wheels turning. The baristas had taken a tip plea and created a benefit for themselves AND their customers. It heightened the Starbucks experience for the coffee purchaser and was a way to get more tips than usual for people behind the counter. Each day there was a new matchup and the previous day’s winner was posted. It just shows how a little thinking and creativity can create lasting impressions and experiences for your customers, AND benefit your company in a real way.

As ad people, it’s easy to say that we intentionally catch a lot of commercials on TV (heck, what else are we gonna talk about all day?). One thing we commonly see is that brands use their competitors as benchmarks. It’s the classic “Coke vs. Pepsi” claim: we’re better than they are and here’s why. Brands might not be so blatantly calling out their competitors, comparisons happen all the time. Here’s one from Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (which is awesome, by the way).

In this ad, Mr. Clean claims to remove 3x more grime per swipe. While that might be true, it seems they are simply introducing themselves as another option in the cleaning world, not totally charging in and dominating the field. And that’s the end game, right? Comparing to your competitors doesn’t make ads (or products) bad, but the world is inundated with this type of marketing. There are other better ways to get the “in.”

To really stand out, don’t just preach your own products. Think of ways to change how your consumers view your competition. Maybe it’s disproving that something works. Maybe it’s bringing up a point about a competitor that your consumer has never thought of before. For Mr. Clean, maybe it could have been that all those other guys have a crazy odor, need 8 lbs. of paper towels to use, or require a hazmat suit to avoid all those liquid chemicals. Maybe its even hitting on the consumer’s emotions about all the waste that those plastic bottles and paper towels create. Regardless, you’ve got to first get the customer thinking differently about other products in your marketplace before you can slide in and solidify your place in their mind.

For more examples, check out chapter 8 in the book Positioning. You won’t be sorry.

Giveaways are the perfect way to get your product into the hands of your consumers.  But sometimes, we as marketers tend to get a little too ambitious with our out-of-the-box amazing ideas.  Somehow, that crazy giveaway seems like a phenomenal idea at first. You know, the one that requires the consumer to go out and buy a hula-hoop, make a video of themselves doing the “craziest” tricks ever (like jumping through it while it’s on fire – backwards), post it on Facebook, and tag 400 people, all just to get a coupon for 10 cents off. And when our giveaway only resulted in two entries, we wonder why everyone didn’t enter because it was such a creative idea. Turns out that the simplest ideas are the best ones.

Whether a client’s goals are product awareness or trial stimulation, giveaways are a one of a kind way to get the word out about something. But if we’re going to ask the consumer to “jump through a hoop” (get it?), it better be well worth it.  Marketers have to look at two things – the barrier to entry (number of steps the consumer has to take to enter) and the value of the reward. The key to a successful giveaway is to create a balance between the two, but also keeping in mind that the consumer likes to feel that they are getting the better end of the deal. If you want consumers to put some time in, you better come strong with an AMAZING incentive. And these incentives don’t always have to be huge, they just have to be something of value to the consumer – a coupon, exclusive deal, or even providing a head start on getting the latest concert ticket.

Next time you are planning a giveaway, remember that the more you can make the value of the prize outweigh the barrier to entry, the more successful you are going to be. And the happier your consumers are that they’ve gotten something pretty sweet.

“Good to the last drop.” We’ve all heard it, or read it, many times in our lives. But did you know that these five little words have been Maxwell House’s slogan for more than 90 years? Which begs the question, what’s required if you’re going to create a slogan that your audience will remember?

The basic rules of marketing tell us that a slogan is one of the most public pieces of a brand’s positioning. Because of this, a slogan needs to stand for something with a little higher purpose – For instance, Nike’s slogan “Just Do It” has spoken to athletes the world over for nearly 20 years. Why? Because, deep-down, it gives us all permission to go for it rather than think about it.

Unfortunately, the majority of slogans will not stand the test of time. For years, companies like McDonald’s, Allstate and FedEx have tinkered with their slogans over and over again as their audiences and industries changed. Ultimately, a brand’s slogan and subsequent positioning need to tap into the motivations and desires of the target audience and grow as they grow while not promising more than you’re able to deliver. Otherwise, you’re missing the point.

Once you’ve established a slogan though, it can be difficult to replace it even if circumstances change. In Maxwell House’s case, several attempts to update the slogan were unsuccessful and the company continued to go back to the original “Good to the last drop.” In the end, slogan-writing isn’t an exact science. The science of the slogan is more like trial and error with a little bit of strategy mixed in and once you find those golden words, don’t mess with perfection.