Archive for January, 2009

Irish Entrepreneur

I read in the papers that The Irish Entrepreneur magazine brought over Times Square resident the Naked Cowboy to launch their “You Can Do Anything” Campaign. Yup that’s just the thing to inspire Irish Entrepreneurs!

Naked Cowboy

Naked Cowboy

I’m not sure if they were trying to get in touch with the previous generation of Entrepreneurs – who maybe able to relate to him because they too lost their shirt in the property deals that they stored their money in. But lets face it the guy can be as rich as he likes – there is no way that standing out in the cold almost naked is an inspiration for anyone over here and quite frankly i’d be more inspired by a picture of a dole cheque!

Shameless effort for publicity and frankly quite embarrassing really for us real entrepreneurs.

Humor in Marketing

What do all these ads have in common?

(Watch the video below before reading on)

Well they’re entertaining and think carefully, can you name all the brands that the ads were meant to sell to you?? Can you even remember half?

By putting the brand at the very end of the ad the point of the ad is wasted because that is the exact time that the viewer has retracted to laugh or think about what they just saw.

So why do big companies, with big budgets so often waste money on a flop campaign?

It comes down to outcomes. The person giving a marketing company a brief will probably stress that they think the ad should be entertaining or reflect the fun persona on the brand – usually a reflection of their own personal persona. His/ her outcome is to be seen as entertaining and funny. Oh and the marketing company should implicitly know that they want to sell stuff too right??

Well the marketing companies outcome is to show the client and other potential clients how funny and smart they really are. Their main objective is to win recognition for their smarts, NOT to make product sales. If they can make an add that wins awards and gets loads of laughs that may bring in new clients. A more mundane ad that preforms is less appealing to them.

It comes down to the companies mission and vision. Stelios’ Easy brand has a mission to put bums on seats, if something doesn’t achieve this goal they simply don’t do it. No matter how entertaining the add is unless its going to make profit – just don’t do it.

Sam Waltons 10 Rules of Business Success

Sam Walton was a visionary, He started in business owning a Ben Franklin Five-and-Dime shop and by following his beliefs founded an empire of well over 4000 stores. When he passed away in 1992 the family’s net worth was almost $25 Billion.

Sam had 10 simple rules to business which are very inspiring and helpful to entrepreneurs starting out:

Rule 1: Commit to your business.
Rule 2: Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners.
Rule 3: Motivate your partners.
Rule 4: Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners.
Rule 5: Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.
Rule 6: Celebrate your success.
Rule 7: Listen to everyone in your company and figure out ways to get them talking.
Rule 8: Exceed your customer’s expectations.
Rule 9: Control your expenses better than your competition.
Rule 10: Swim upstream.

During this economic restructuring, these fundamentals apply more than ever as the Celtic Tiger gives way to the celtic cubs, who although not full ready for it are now responsible for taking over the leadership of the pack.

Irelands become boring

Saw this on Rick O Shea’s blog and it got me thinking about Seth Godin’s recent post on how sometimes things are broken on purpose.

Ireland has become boring, advertising is boring, people are doing boring things and when anything comes up that’s not boring it gets talked about:

greatdealjj3

Photo with thanks to Radar

Therefore the apparent “lost in translation” sign probably has a higher pull / return rate for its owners than just another boring sign that says how boring there service is. I’m not saying bad connintations are a good way to get business – but doing anything to stand out from the crowd is better than not being seen at all!