Epic Marketing WIN: Byzantium Security

I recently got back from a trip to New York City. On Wall Street, I saw a pretty bold backlit ad on a Newsstand. I took a picture of it since it captured my attention. The resulting experience was one of the most dynamic and engaging marketing campaigns that I have ever encountered. Sorry, but if you are looking for an Epic Marketing Fail, you won't find one in this post...

EPIC MARKETING WIN

We're Not for Everyone. Just the 1% that Matters.

With so much going on in New York City it takes a lot to stand out, and yet, the simplicity and bold nature of the copy on the above display ad cut through the noise. It was amplified by the die-hard occupy Wall Street protesters taking up space just a block away.

The ad's location on Wall Street makes it seem like it's targeted at 'the 1%' for some kind of security service. I was intrigued, I wanted to know more. I forgot about it until I got home and uploaded my pictures to iPhoto. Naturally, I went to the website. On the homepage there is an embedded video:

Byzantium Security Website

It's an ad for 'Byzantium Security'. It's very well done and talks about the value that Byzantium Security can bring to the world's elite. Okay, now I am even more intrigued. Who are these guys? Who uses them? Does Jason Bourne work here? I want to know more...

The second and only other call-to-action on the site is to complete a series of tests to see if you have what it takes to be a security operative at Byzantium Security. I've always wondered how I would do on one of these...

Define 'normal'.

What follows is a series of 5 psychological tests. After every stage it offers up a personal & tailored results based on your selections. My curiousity lead me to find that they actually worked with a cognitive psychologist to produce the tests (more on that later...).

Each stage of the tests prompts you to share your results on your social networks, making the campaign extremely viral. But don't be mistaken, its not the fact that the social media buttons are present that makes it sharable, its the experience and content that makes you want to share it.

I got 99 problems but social ain't 1.

At the VERY end of all of these tests, you discover that this has nothing to do with 'Byzantium Security' at all, in fact, it is ALL for a new Cinemax show called 'Hunted'.

This absolutely blew me away. The lengths they went to build this campaign are unbelievable. The amount of time spent developing the psychological testing, the fake website for the security company and the video that was shot with the show's lead actress, Melissa George, must have been a massive effort. But the payoff was all worth it.

The thing that does it for me is their non-traditional approach. It's an approach that produces a memorable experience along the way and that is the result of all of the above elements working together seamlessly.

WHY THIS CAMPAIGN IS AN EPIC MARKETING WIN

1. Create an experience.
   Many marketers struggle with getting their audience to share their content. This campaign created an experience that was simply too awesome not to tell other people about it.
2. Keep it simple
   The display ad didn't have any distractions. There weren't unnecessary images or QR codes, just what you need.
3. Bold
   The copy on the ad was bold and timely. The whole 1% thing has been a huge topic of conversation and controversy, especially on Wall Street where the ad was found.
4. Intrigue
   Although the topic of assassins and CIA operatives is intriguing in itself, the marketers created a desire to figure out what Byzantium Security was all about.
5. Different
   You can only make a movie/TV trailer is so many different ways. This was a truly different and unique way to promote a TV show that is much higher impact and memorable than any 30 second trailer could ever be.
6. 1 call-to-action
   From the display ad to the website, to the interactive psychological testing, a fairly complex campaign comes off with apparent simplicity. It's absolutely critical to make it as easy as possible for your prospects to take that next step to get them to do what you ultimately want them to.
7. Escape hatches
   If someone wants to abandon the test at any point (not sure why you would, but I tried just to see what would happen) they show their final call-to-action, which is the trailer for the movie.
8. Social
   Creating a social campaign is so much more than having the icons on your email/website or landing page. It all starts with creating an experience that compel people to want to share it.

If you haven't already, go to www.byzantiumsecurity.com and check it out for yourself. I don't want to ruin the end of the testing, but if your results are anything like mine, it's truly mind-blowing. Once you have, make sure to share your experience on the ever growing list of comments on their Storify feed. Slow-clap for Campfire for putting this together.

This is for you, Campfire.

Finally, remember, as a wise man once told me, 'Dont treat your audience like they are working for you, treat them like you are working for them'.

Unsubscribe Page Fail

It's the marketer's final frontier. The last place you want your prospects to show up is on your unsubscribe page, but depending on how you approach it you might just have one more shot at keeping them in your database. On the other hand, like we'll see in today's epic marketing fail, you can also turn an unsubscriber into an active detractor of your brand.

THE EPIC MARKETING FAIL
My telecommunications provider occasionally sends me emails that I never signed up for. They provide no real value and as a result, I decided to [try] to opt out.

Here is their unsubscribe page:

The unsubscribe page.

So I can't just click a button to unsubscribe? You are going to make me go through great lengths to get off a mailing list I never subscribed to. OK. I am determined to get off this thing. Let me enter in all my information and my 'Home Phone Number'.

Do you want my Passport and Driver's Licence numbers too?

So my phone number didn't work. Well, this is getting frustrating. Let me dig up my account number from an old bill... yep, so that doesn't didn't work either. So I go back to the email, to write them to ask to take me off their mailing list, and then I get this email in return:

"Hello, we don't like to listen to our customers".

Yeahhhh. So after several unsuccessful attempts, I am still receiving these emails, and every time I get one it is a reminder that it's time to change service providers.

THE UN-FAILURE

Most of the time, marketers are trying to increase the conversion rate of their landing pages. The unsubscribe page is one major exception to that rule [despite it usually being the highest converting page you have - talk about irony...]

BUT, there is hope. Kind of like when you think your sports team is down for the count, someone puts the team on their back and throws up a Hail Mary to completely turns things around.

One amazing example of this that I recently ran into was the Groupon unsubscribe page. When you visit the page, you see this:

Groupon Unsubscribe Page

By pushing the little button (great call-to-action btw) this video plays:

This is definitely an example of how marketing has the potential to be awesome. Marketers just need to have the courage to go outside of the norm and do something different. I'll bet a bunch of people watched that Groupon video and decided to give the newsletter another chance.

Moral of the story/post: make it easy for people to unsubscribe, but try and give them one compelling/interesting/different/awesome reason why they shouldn't.

And someone please get Derrick a doctor... and a raise!

Westin St. Francis Marketing WIN

Switching it up a little bit this time. I'm reading 'The Book of Business Awesome / The Book of Business UnAwesome'. It's a two-in-one book, where part one discusses how businesses succeed to create awesome marketing, and the other side (near and dear to this blog) are a bunch of marketing fails.

I've been inspired by the 'awesome' side of author Scott Stratten's book, and decided to share a story of my own from my recent honeymoon to California. 

THE EPIC MARKETING WIN

My wife and I were having a fantastic time on our trip. We spent a week up in Sonoma and Napa and finished our trip with three days in San Francisco. We stayed at the Westin St. Francis in Union Square. One thing that we discovered on our honeymoon, is that most hotels will make your stay extra special when they figure out you're on your honeymoon. The Westin was no exception. They upgraded us to the penthouse floor of the old building, with an awesome room and an even better view of Union Square.

Awesome view - and this isn't even the best part.

We were loving our time in the city. On the Saturday night, we heard that the Giants were playing. Having never been to a game at AT&T Park, we decided this would be a cool experience.

We headed down to the concierge to figure out the best way to get tickets. The concierge gave us kind of a cold greeting, told us the game was sold out and there was essentially no way to get tickets. It was pretty disappointing. I asked if there were any other options to get tickets, even inquired about scalpers, and she just basically just said that we were screwed.

On the elevator back up to our room, I remembered that some of my friends use the website StubHub to get tickets. I never used the site before, but figured it was worth a try. Within 15 minutes, I had bought tickets, printed them in the hotel's business center and we were on our way to the game.

While enjoying garlic fries, looking at the massive StubHub ad in the outfield and seeing Tim Lincecum pitch an almost flawless game, we heard this was the 127th consecutive sellout. I thought about how many other people have been to that concierge, and were told unnecessarily that they simply couldn't go to the game?

Sellouts don't matter with StubHub.

When I got back to Ottawa, I got a customer satisfaction survey from Starwood Hotels. At the end, in an attempt to help them improve, I left a little comment about how the concierge could have been more aware of alternative ticket options. Shortly afterwards, I got a call and an email from the hotel's Guest Services manager. She offered her apologies and said that their concierge's are supposed to know about these options, but they would be giving them a refresher. I was happy to hear that no one else would unnecessarily need to miss the game, and that they were going to do something with my feedback... but it doesn't end there.

The Guest Services Manager asked me for my address, so she could send me 'a Giants baseball momento'. I gave it to her and forgot that I did, until a couple weeks later, I got a package from Fedex. 

Giants momento.

Inside there was a nice handwritten letter from the hotel, a baseball hat AND a shirt. This was above and beyond what they needed to do, but it showed that they really cared.

I am obviously a little biased now, but I've also stayed in a lot of hotels in San Francisco. If you want to stay an an awesome hotel, that could not be in a better location and that cares (a lot) about their guests, then checkout the Westin St. Francis.

Have you guys experienced a similar situation? I would love to hear about it. Please leave a comment in the comment section below.

Why does RIM already hate the Blackberry 10?

[DISCLAIMER]

Hello, my name is Pierce Ujjainwalla, and I am an iPhone user. So despite my bias in phones, let me reassure everyone that my phone preference has nothing to do with the following post. 

THE EPIC MARKETING FAIL

RIM seems to be trying to get in touch with their hipster side with their recent commercials featuring [well known?] artists like Diplo, the Martinez Brothers and most recently Meridith Valiando.

The most recent instalment features the founder of the DigiTour, a company that creates music tours featuring self-made YouTube sensations. The founder, Meridith, says 'I get somewhere around a thousand emails a day... try writing a thousand emails on a touch screen!'. 

"Try writing a thousand emails on a touch screen!"

Although I don't find it hard to write emails on a touch screen, maybe some people do. Fair enough. Blackberry has the keyboard, a main product differentiator. Good - they are positioning themselves in the market for people who write lots of emails, and offer keyboards on the phones to do it. Great strategy... annnnnd let me now present to you RIM's newest phone, coming out later this year... The Blackberry 10:

Where is the keyboard?

Timing is everything.

The commercial taking a shot at touch screens was aired right around the same time as the world was getting the first sneak peaks at the Blackberry 10. And let me just say, the Blackberry 10 has some pretty awesome features like predictive words and a really cool camera feature that allows you to dynamically change elements of the photo on the fly. In any case, their marketing was not supporting the new phone.

I'm sure there is a perfectly good reason for why this happened, however it's unfortunate that they were not airing commercials that generated buzz for their new phone as opposed to bashing the very features it will have.

The good news about all of this is that the phone looks like it can sell itself and hopefully when the phone is released later this year people will have forgotten all about Meridith and how hard it is to type emails on a touch screen.

Epic Website Fail

For this post, let's look at an epic website marketing fail:

Flash website fail.

THE EPIC MARKETING FAIL

Open this website, and then come back and read the rest of this blog post. The website took a 63 seconds to load on my machine and my internet is usually pretty fast. On the web, where even patient people have A.D.D., that is about 60 seconds too long. The bounce rates on this website must be really high (close to 100%). In that minute, most people are probably thinking 'I haven't waited this long for a website to load since the days of dial-up internet. This site must be really good'. But, if its on this blog...


It could use some work. The load time is the first issue. Here are some others:

• After the load screen, you are presented with a bunch of numbers and its difficult to know what to do
• Then the music starts...
• The homepage contains a lengthy history lesson
• About us is a picture of a tradeshow booth with a bunch of servers/technology
• There is a section about horses and Equestrian (it's an IT security company)
• Products page is a very difficult to read networking diagram
• On the contact us section you cannot click on or copy the email address
• There is a timestamp to show when they updated the site. Some pages date back to 2009

THE UN-FAILURE

Here are the top 5 tips to ensure your website does not end up on Epic Marketing Fails:

1. Don't make a flash website

Flash sites can look great. I've seen some beautifully designed flash websites. The problem with them is usability. If your site doesn't load in under 5 seconds, you are losing visitors. If you are losing visitors, you are losing customers and money. Not to mention all of the iPhone and iPad visitors that are now gone.

2. Design your site for your visitors, not you

There is a fantastic story behind every business, but people are not coming to your website for that - they could care less. They are coming to your website to figure out how they can solve their problems, and are trying to decide if you are the right person to help them do that. Your homepage should clearly tell them what problems you solve, and point them to other pages that help them make their decision.

3. Keep it updated

People want to know that they are looking at recent information. Having at least one section of your website (a Twitter feed is a good one) that is constantly updated at least gives the sense that you care about your website and the people coming to it. If you are not updating your site on a daily/weekly/monthly basis, remove any timestamps that show when it was last updated.

4. Make it easy for people to get in contact with you
Your website should make it easy for people to engage with you. Don't make them search your contact information that is buried on one page. If possible, have chat functionality where people can reach a live person at any time. If you have a CRM system, use a form so you can track exactly where your leads are coming from. If you can't support chat or a form, at the very least make your email address hyperlinked so it automatically opens someone's email application.

5. Create a lead generation engine

Websites are no longer one way vehicles to get your information across. With CRM systems like Salesforce and marketing automation like Marketo, you can transform your site to start generating leads for your business. Offer your prospects something interesting of value, and in turn get their contact information to start a relationship with them. Giving people information is great, but getting theirs in return is even better. That way you can help them along their buying cycle and accelerate their purchase. Not to mention making your business look good and establishing your company as a thought leader in your field.

Facebook Marketing Fail

Facebook advertising is a great way to build your company's following. It's a cost effective way to get people engaged with your brand and eventually turn them into customers. The other day I saw how not to do this:

Ottawa Senators or Villanova Dental Studio?

This one is a little misleading. I actually thought to myself, I already 'Like' the Senators on Facebook, why am I seeing this again. Upon closer inspection, it is actually for a dentist's office here in Ottawa.

The only way Villenova Dental Studio is related to the Ottawa Senators would be if you got hit in the mouth with a puck at one of their games and needed some new teeth.

This company is trying to build their following, I get it. However the way this ad is structured, people are not liking Villanova Dental, they are liking a completely seperate brand. I understand all of marketing has a certain element of bait and switch, however like everything, there are certain boundaries that need to be observed.

Why not offer up some great dental hygiene tips or offer a deal on a common service that you provide (whitening anyone?). Although dentistry might not be as exciting as the Senators, there are other options to build your following while still attracting the RIGHT people who might actually turn into customers.

Social Media Marketing Fail?

Canada's largest communication provider, Rogers, experience some social media backlash a few weeks ago when they promoted the hashtag #rogers1number to highlight their new service. This lead to a boatload of tweets complaining about Rogers. This was undoubtedly not what they originally signed up for. Lots of people are calling this a marketing fail, but here's my take on it:

Was Rogers promoted tweet a marketing fail or a marketing win?

The great thing about social media is that it is a place to get unfiltered and unbiased information from real people. Companies cannot hide behind traditional one-way communication methods, instead anyone with a Twitter or Facebook account can weigh in and provide their two cents.

Twitter is an invaluable tool as companies can listen to their customers, and receive both positive (and sometimes negative) feedback. The reality is whether its posted on Twitter or not, the feedback still exists... it just may not be exposed for the companies and the world to see/hear.

In the case of Rogers, I'm sure they would have rather people praised their new service and talked about all the great new features like how great it would be for them to call other people for free (not that Skype doesn't do that already - but that's besides the point).

Instead, people publicly bashed the company and #rogers1number was the last thing present in the tweets.

BUT does this make the marketing campaign a fail? Depends how you define success.

If you just wanted people to talk about the new service, then I guess you could say it's a marketing fail, but let's look at the bigger picture.

Rogers clearly has a problem with customer service. That is what everyone is complaining about. That is something the company needs to address. Most Rogers customers (myself included) are not happy with their billing methods. If they weren't sure about this before last Thursday, they have no excuse not to be now.

Although most of the talk was NOT about the new service, they gained a tonne of intelligence (that if used properly) can really improve their business and relationship with their customers. If they are serious about developing and maintaining a positive brand, then this was an essential first step of getting there. 

So in conclusion this is what I call a FAIL/WIN. At first it could look negative, and it did not achieve what they originally set out to do, but in the end they have been given amazing customer feedback that has the potential to really help them down the road.