Street Marketing: Think Ambient

I wanted to write a little bit about a company I appreciate. I met them during the point of sales business fair back at the beginning of the year. Think Ambient is a company specialized in street marketing. They have developped a quite interesting technology of paper called Clings.

Here is what is said about it on their website:

Clings will stick on both sides to most clean surfaces without the need for tape, tacks or adhesive. Clings are easy to install and remove, will last for up to 6 months on most clean surfaces and are repositionable and reusable for their entire lifetime. Clings will not leave an adhesive residue or damage surfaces in any way when removed. You can also write on Clings with a dry or wet erasable marker and they can also be inserted into magazines.

I just love it. I actually have samples sticked everywhere in my office.

But today, I wanted to advertise for them a little bit, as I received one of their case studies, which shows how much impact you may get thanks to Street marketing. Street marketing was very popular couple of years ago when it showed up, but somehow I don't hear a lot about it lately.

Ambient Media has its critics so we like to show off when we get great results!

We often produce clings with website links or phone numbers on them. This gives an accurate portrayal of the cut-through our guerrilla marketing campaigns have. For two years we have been running successful and targeted cling campaigns for our client for Ashton, Leigh and Wigan Primary Care Trust. Their objective was to promote Cancer awareness amongst specific consumers in key postcodes within the Wigan area. We identified key venues in these postcode sectors including pubs, bars, hairdressers, cafes, bingo halls and office blocks where we could post Clings and communicate directly with the key target audience. Clings were used in conjunction with various bus formats (inc. tickets, rears and interiors), pharmacy bags, pub washrooms (inc. beermats and mirror stickers), roadside posters (48-sheets and 6-sheets) and some local press.

McCann Erickson’s “Cancer Chancer” campaign for Manchester Versus Cancer Alliance has been setting standards, winning awards, and oh yes, saving lives! Their multi-channel approach resulted in a massive 55% increase in GP referrals and a 69% increase in awareness, which helped early diagnosis of 26 more cases of cancer in 2008. The IPA awarded the campaign their Bronze Award for Best Media, and also cited the campaign as a great use of creative media in their article “Big lessons from small advertisers” (Andy Nairn, the convenor of judges at the IPA Effectiveness Awards, 13/11/2009)

By spreading limited resources over numerous targeted media the chances of reaching those most in need increase. Our client was so happy with the results that the campaign was repeated in Wigan and also rolled out in South Manchester!

I like this case study because data about street marketing efficiency is lacking. I believe this is the reason why a lot of people cut their street marketing budgets during this crisis to focus on more reliable media.

But if used properly, and with a little bit of imagination, a lot can be accomplished thanks to it.

Vending Machines For Data Mining : Coca Cola Case Study

This morning I was watching a TV show on CNBC about the fantastic success story of Coca Cola. This show was emphasizing on the new challenges that Coca Cola had to face while becoming one of the largest company in the history.

At the end, they were showing how Coca Cola was diversifying its range, by selecting new brands, which are now targeting niche markets, but could become on a mid to long term basis potential flagship products.

Coca Cola has invented a new vending machine, equipped with a flat screen, which displays the different products you could get from it. The machine was actually a fountain, and was proposing the different Coca Cola Company’s product, with a wide range of varieties. For instance, you could pick Vanilla Coke, and mix it for example with another beverage.

One of the goal and advantage of the new vendor machine, is that it could actually extracts data of people’s consumption. This is a great idea, because out of these results, Coca Cola is able to get new consumption trend, and then identifies potential new blend and products to develop.

Right now, the vending machine seems to have been set up only in one place. But now, if it is developed further, you could have pretty accurate data about it. It is very difficult in the food industry to get data about customer consumption, as retailers are like a curtain between customers and brands, and I believe Coca Cola used well their advantage, which is heir vending machine business.

This is interesting to see how Coca Cola embraces technology in order to get customer data, and then to leverage it for new products. I hope to find the video soon to post it on this article.

How CRM Software Could Help Banks To Survive During The Crisis

This issue has been inspired by one of my blog visitor comment on my article about my financial crisis solutions. Actually, I have already written a similar post on how a strong customer relationship management could help French bank La Societe Generale to go through the crisis.

As the financial market system is questioned and people are seeking for alternative way of doing business, customer oriented business and an approach based on customer equity are attractive.
But here, the question is more precise, and is about CRM softwares. Therefore, I will provide you some examples on how owning a great CRM software with the proper customer relationship management strategy could help banks during the crisis.

• Communicating with your customers: As your customers are more and more concerned about the financial health of financial institutions, thanks to a great data base + the proper tool, you could send alerts (whether via emails, RSS feeds, Twitts and/or text messages) to your customers to give them updates with your status.
• Checking unusual movements on your account: If your customers are getting nervous about a potential bankruptcy of the bank, you could see people taking their money out of their accounts, which could drive the bank to big problems of liquidity. Therefore, you could configure your CRM tool in order to get some alerts when people are taking big amounts of money out, in order to get in contact with them (emails or phone calls) in order to calm them down and try to convince them to keep the money where it belongs.
• Providing tremendous opportunities to your clients: As the crisis continues to unfold, some people can see great opportunities coming up in the market. Let's not forget that the biggest fortunes have been made during crisis. If stocks are low right now, they'll increase very fast when the crisis will be over. Therefore, you could use the CRM tools to shape targeted marketing campaings (emailing, phoning, + mailing). That could actually be a great opportunity ton convince prospects that don't trust their banks anymore to join you.
• Managing customer's questions flow: During crisis times, people tend to need information to feel more secure. Therefore you should expect an increase in the amount of in calls for your call center or customer service. A great customer relationship management could help you managing the flow with ease and limit the waiting time and thus increase customers' satisfaction.
• Secure the banks business models: Banks are under attack. They have financial problems due to the financial market meltdown. Banks have invested their money in the market and now see these investments getting lower. But banks should also consider that they have some great assets that did not depreciate: Their clientele. That is where they get their money from. Therefore, having developed a great customer relationship strategy means they can get business out of their data base. As a bank, for your institutional communication, you should communicate on your ability to generate business out of your customers, and therefore limit the depreciation of your market shares.
  

Do you have any other ideas or example where a great CRM software could help banks to manage the financial crisis? What do you think about this article? Let's discuss.

buzz marketing case study: gagnezunavion.com

It is always great to have some buzz marketing case studies to illustrate the impact such a campaign could have, but it is most of the time difficult to find data about it. Therefore, I wanted to share with you the results of a French buzz marketing operation, thought by L'agence H (Havas Group), for Transavia, a low cost airlines company.

Goal: Improve the notoriety of the company (Transavia)
The idea:
Become the pilot of a plane
Book a plane with your friends (170 seats available, you included)
If your plane is picked in the lottery, you'll go with your friends for a day to Marrakesh, Morocco.
This buzz campaign was a success:
Number of invitations sent by the "pilots": 41 419
Number of plane created : 6 179
Number of plane totally booked, participating to the lottery: 69
Media plan: Web banner + a Facebook group
Supports : MSN, Facebook, Allociné, Daylimotion, AOL and Proxyrégie (social network)

What I like in particular with this campaign is the trigger: pack a flight and win a free round trip to Morocco:

• The prize is related to the company's products, as it is a flight
• It triggers the participants to share the information to its friends, and moreover, it triggers also to convince them to participate

This is a great example showing how a buzz marketing campaign can develop notoriety with limited budget.

Source: Henri Kaufman's blog

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