Posts Tagged ‘marketing’

Trial of the Marketer

By Chief Oddball on April 9th, 2009 at 6:51 pm

Filed under Journal, Rants ··· 2 Comments

I don’t recall exactly when it was that my job description broadened to include “marketing,” but it did, at some point in the early 2000s. Back then, I worked for a small tech company in my local town whose staff had just been decimated in a round of layoffs following the 9/11 attack on New York City, where most of our client base was located. I was still the new hire, the protege of our senior graphic designer — but when she was let go, I became the graphic designer.

Shortly after that, our New York office folded altogether, after it was revealed that the marketing staff blew through millions of venture capital on tchotchkes. Since this malfeasance was my first exposure to marketing, I was immediately disgusted by our own marketers and by the very concept. So you can imagine how I hung my head in ironic shame when I was made the acolyte of our newly-hired in-house marketing director.

To her credit, she was quite talented and devoid of most of the typical stink of self-serving corruption you often smell around self-proclaimed marketing gurus. (The only time I seriously shook my head and said “WTF, lady?” was when she asked me to embed a Flash animation in an email campaign. That’s notgonnahappen.com.) I learned a lot about marketing from her, and when she moved on in 2005, the company approached me and said they’d be willing to pay for me to get a bachelor’s degree in business administration if I would agree to be placed on a course to become the new marketing director.

In response, I resigned.

Now, to be fair, I didn’t quit for being offered a BBA. I quit because, at the same time, I was offered an exciting new opportunity by some former coworkers who had started their own little company, and who were creating a much more compelling product that I could really get behind. Additionally, I’d get to hang out with some seriously cool dudes, spend most days working from home, and make more money. That — and the fact that I really did not want to become a full-time marketer — led me to make my choice.

Of course, I still wear the “marketer” hat these days. That small little company I joined in 2005 got bigger, then smaller again, but throughout it all has constantly been on a path to greatness in our market. It’s the kind of company where nobody really has a title — you can make up whatever sounds good at the moment you’re asked — because we’re all multitaskers who have our hands in a million things at once. Ironically, I’ve done more marketing since I’ve been with these guys than ever before — Google AdWords, email marketing, print advertising, banner campaigns, Flash videos, yada yada. It’s tough keeping all of those balls in the air, and keep up with my product development, tech writing and webmaster responsibilities, but somehow it happens.

But the trials of the marketer are still many…and great. I was reminded of that today, when one of our houses of marketing cards collapsed.

Continue Reading…

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I May Not Like Marketing, But I’m Not Half Bad

By Chief Oddball on January 11th, 2008 at 2:27 pm

Filed under Journal ··· 1 Comment

At work, we recently started doing some advertising in print magazines — a first for us. Our company is pretty small, so the director of marketing is really just our most outgoing salesperson. He came up with an idea for our print ad campaign that was definitely out of the box, and actually seemed a little risque. My advertising experience is limited to the standard “corporate” type fare — you know, conservative and professional — but I was willing to give the new idea a try. Hell, it was certainly a lot more interesting to design.

There were some nay-sayers at the company, including one who called the campaign “tacky,” and others who were quietly asking for my opinion behind the marketing director’s back. I was honest — telling them I wasn’t sure it was the best way to go, either, but we have so little experience in doing advertising — and so little of it turned out to be effective — that I thought a radical new approach was worth a try. What we needed to do, I said, was run the ad for a few months and gauge the reaction.

Well, it looks like this advertising idea has proven itself effective. Since the magazines we’re running in started hitting mailboxes, we’ve been getting tons of calls and emails that specifically reference the new ads. Even better, that reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. One guy even emailed to say his company was looking to partner with an advertising agency, and asked if we would share the name of the agency we used to create our ad. Heh — no agency here, just the marketing guy, little old me and Photoshop! It’s pretty flattering that corporations are assuming we had to hire an ad agency to create something as good as this.

Another guy wrote in to say that he initially thought our ad would appeal mostly to men. (It features a picture of a rather attractive woman.) But, he says, he asked his wife to look through the magazine and point out the most interesting thing in it, and she picked our ad. So hey, even if we don’t necessarily appeal, at least we’re interesting — which is all advertising really needs to be.

I’m stoked that my design work has gotten some more exposure — particularly in a field where I don’t really have any exposure. As for the director of marketing, who recently feared his job was on the chopping block, it seems that his worth has been proven.

Tonight, we’re launching our brand new websites, online store, discussion forums, and CRM services to help us better reach and manage customers both new and old. Together with our new advertising initiative, plus the new wave of products we’re currently working on, it looks like 2008 could stand to be a pretty good year indeed.

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Oddball is BLOG.

By Chief Oddball on January 5th, 2008 at 9:50 pm ··· 6 Comments

I swear, GM, sometimes you make it very hard for me to love you. Ahem…did anyone else see Pontiac’s new slogan? Yes, that’s it:

“Pontiac is CAR.”

That’s precious. What next? “GMC is TRUCK”?


Desperate, Sony Finally Goes Mad

By Chief Oddball on April 28th, 2007 at 9:31 pm

Filed under Commentary ··· 3 Comments

Well, I have to hand it to Sony’s Playstation division. They are now executing a slow burn as they desperately try anything their marketing department can think of to sell more Playstation 3 game consoles, except nobody really cares — probably because the PS3 costs a fortune, there are almost zero exclusive games worth playing on it, and there are two alternate (and very worthy) choices for gaming hardware that both come hundreds of dollars cheaper.

After the former leader of the game console war fell to a distant third place in sales behind Microsoft’s Xbox360 and the Nintendo Wii, Sony realized that all the soulless hype, empty promises and bullshit excuses they’d invented were not going to sell their consoles. Apparently, even though the Blu-ray DVD player built into the PS3 is a great value when considering the price of standalone Blu-ray players, Sony miscalculated by thinking that every gamer also cared about Blu-ray. When they forced gamers to pay inflated prices for Blu-ray hardware in the PS3, Sony was stung by the fact that nobody really seemed to give a shit. So the company’s desperation tactics began.

First it was the PR stunts and the exaggerated PS3 launch days in Europe, which practically nobody attended. The PS3 is also priced at a ridiculous €600 in Europe (over $817 USD), so it’s no wonder the buyers…well, weren’t buying. Then, anxious over the massive sales let-down, Sony executive Phil Harrison showed up at a Marillion concert and hijacked a charity auction, raising the €100 opening bid for a new PS3 to the absurd retail price of €600. Silence followed. One guy bid only because he was promised the console would be signed by the band, but when no other bids followed, he started begging others to outbid him and save him from his mistake. No one did.

Next it was stopping all sales of the 20 GB low-end PS3 model in North America, because consumers were favoring the high-end 60 GB unit 10-to-1. Gee, maybe that’s because the low-end model doesn’t feature wireless networking and, unlike the Xbox360 Core system, isn’t even upgradeable to support it! In my mind this alone kills the low-end PS3’s usefulness for online gaming unless you happen to have Ethernet cables strung all through your house. Canceling it was smart. Offering it at all, thinking its low price would save it, was stupid.

Now, today brings us evidence that Sony’s marketing execs may have really lost their marbles. Their team is apparently using the “forcibly apply crap to wall and see what sticks” playbook, because to announce the upcoming game God Of War II for the PS2, they held some kind of party involving a decapitated goat, throwing knives and live snakes. This utter insanity was all featured in Sony’s official Playstation Magazine. Of course, this has drawn the ire of international animal rights activists, who tend to belong to their own very special cult of crazy, but I won’t go there right now, because it would ruin my fun.

At this “party,” Sony asked guests how far they would go to get their hands on a new Playstation 3. Their magazine article says, “How about eating still warm intestines uncoiled from the carcass of a freshly slaughtered goat? At the party to celebrate God Of War II’s European release, members of the Press were invited to do just that.”

Orrrrr…how about just going down to the store and buying one? Last I checked, stores were filled with dozens of dust-covered Playstation 3s that no one wants. Seriously, you don’t have to go far at all to “get your hands on a new Playstation 3,” because anyone who wants one hasn’t got a shred of competition. Meanwhile, entire stockpiles of Nintendo Wiis are still selling out the day they arrive in stores.

Way to go, Sony, on blowing the lead in the game console war, and in further squandering one of the most valuable brands in corporate history. You guys fail at life.

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