They are spending millions on print and billboard (transit) advertising to market their new service. Yet it looks like they overlooked one aspect of their marketing plans…

Being prepared to handle all the inbound traffic those millions of dollars can bring.

Here’s what Wind’s website looks like around 9am this Sunday morning:

While Wind has been around in Toronto for just over 6 months or so, they’ve recently launched in a couple of new markets – including Ottawa and Vancouver where I’ve seen all of their advertising.

Their full page ads and transit posters have captured the attention of the local market. They’ve taken an aggressive approach on their price point and consumer looking to save on their monthly bills are wanting to find out more.

Naturally they’ll go to Wind’s website to do so…but the site is MIA.

This is a classic mistake companies make. These days with hosting services offered by companies like Amazon and others it’s fairly simple to scale a website in preparation for a surge in traffic.

For Wind, at first thought this may seem like a good thing – strong demand. However, from the consumer standpoint, if the companies website can’t stay online … we’re left wondering if their mobile service will?

I should acknowledge that without seeing the back-end of what’s happening with Wind’s website at this moment, it may be down for other technical reasons and have nothing to do with their advertising efforts.

However, it’s been more than 15 minutes and the site … well, it’s still “taking too long to respond.”

It was an over-sized postcard, double-sided in a standout colors.

Nothing that interesting yet … However, what was interesting is the level of personalization they included in the direct mail piece.

(front)

(back)

“Japan just got a little bit closer” To many of you that might not mean anything, but to me it does.

I lived in Japan for many years and we make calls to Japan on a regular basis.

As a marketing guy this intrigued me. How did Shaw know about my connection to Japan?

Sure we use the phone to call Nagoya, Osaka, and other cities. But most of the time our calls are through Skype.

Just looking at the list of numbers we dial would reveal several countries.

Then it hit me. Not too long ago I mentioned to one of the support people at Shaw that I was interested in their Japanese channel. I didn’t purchase it because it’s $17 a month for one channel with very limited programming.

Nevertheless, it’s interesting to see how that one mention got entered into their customer database as a little piece of intelligence.

Did it make me buy? No. But I’m sure there are a good percentage of people that did. Shaw’s not only doing this for Japanese … I’m sure their going after other languages and countries as well.

Was searching for a rental car company in Europe and heard of Easycar. Anyways I was too lazy to type it into the address bar so I just hit up Google for the search. Look what came back … I’ve never seen this kind of Adwords ad that delivers additional links.

Is this new? Any experiences with it?

No doubt there’s a ton of books written on the ‘new’ social media landscape and marketing strategies and techniques that
can be used effectively. And hey, that’s all good.

In fact, I not only believe a lot of what authors such as David Meerman Scott have written in their recent books – we’ve been putting some of these principles to work for our clients for quite some time.

What I found myself questioning the other day, is how can so many people say that the old direct response approach to selling products directly to consumers doesn’t work anymore…when the TV and magazines are filled with repeat advertisers hawking their wares.

The basic premise of direct-response is that you test a bunch of ads in different media. You take what generates the best results and then continually test different headlines, offers, guarantees, etc until you have a money making ad. Once you have that you run with it.

So here’s the thing ( I know this is clearly a rant, but anyways…) I’ve been seeing some direct response style ads for auto and home insurance, as well as for life insurance run for more than 6 months. I’ve seen one company run the same ad only with slight variations for close to a year.

Either these companies have found a winning ad and are raking the money in, or they’re a bunch of idiots losing money hand over fist. And if the former is the case, there’s no denying that effective direct-response advertising is still alive and well.

From the results we’ve been generating, the best recipe is using social media to leverage direct-response marketing principles. A lot more can be said on this last topic, but I’ve got to get running so we’ll leave it there for the moment.

Here’s an ad I just saw on CNN.com this morning. I haven’t had a chance to contact the advertiser and so I can’t say whether or not this ad is actually selling any product. But you gotta wonder.

As seen on CNN.com

Here’s an ad for a Stainless Canteen from uscanteen.com. The ad doesn’t look bad, but here’s the biggie…why is a woman wearing the canteen? This is supposed to be a gift for a man. This ad got my attention, but putting the canteen on a woman takes away the ‘manliness’ quality and gives it more of a modern chic look.

Maybe you’ll have a different view, if you do I’d love to hear it. But this seems like advertising gone wrong.

This is one of the best presentations I’ve seen for its length.

Often times business owners, and I’ve encountered many over the years, are cynical of the prospects that  infomercial direct-response style advertising works.

They say …

The language is “too strong” or “too salesy”. The fact is, it works. That’s why there will always be some marketers whose advertising will stand head and shoulders above the rest – their ads generate higher response than the naysayers.

By no means would I push a client to continually ‘advertise’ in a way they aren’t comfortable with. It’s their business and they have the right to present their communications in any way they want.

But it’s our responsibility as marketers, consultants and advisers to show our clients why, in this case, the direct-response approach often works so much better than the toned down message of the masses that gets lost before the market has a chance to really hear it – and when they do its messages are so fuzzy they fade into the sky with all the rest.

Check out Rohit’s presentation below:

If you work at an advertising or online agency, are in charge of your company’s online marketing,  or are an internet consultant, this is a tool you need to check out.

Google touts this tool as a better way to plan your online ad spend with deeper insight into your traffic and their advertising network.

The ad planning tool also has a new traffic estimation component. Google says this will help track Unique Visitos more effectively.

There are also new country demographics and pre-defined audience options.

For full details take a look at the Google Ad Planner post on Google’s site.

Only problem – it didn’t go too well. So Google has pulled the plug on Google Print Ads.

The company also sells Radio and TV ads through its network. But this is either a case of the company finding that they can’t do ‘everything’ and have retracted to focus on their more profitable core of online advertising.

Or possibly this could be a move to hedge against the ongoing declide and tough times the newspaper industry has been seeing.

For the full story check out what the Director of Google Print Ads, Spencer Spinnell has to say: Google Print Advertising

My company today, Relagy Marketing, takes a scientific approach to brand
building and product/service promotion. Meaning we work with our clients
to track and test all of the promotions (both on and offline) that we develop
for them.

And that’s how we are able to consistenly improve their response rates and
their sales.

… I could keep going on this topic, but that’s not why I’m blogging today. No,
I just came upon a video that has some absurdly creative advertising.

What’s lovely about this is that it really gets your attention.

The problem with it of course is that there really is no response device – so
these companies won’t directly know how effective the ads are. But regardless,
this is both entertaining, funny, and possibly effective creative advertising at
work. Check it out …

Hope you enjoyed that.

To your success,
Michael