Tag lines that never were

An in-joke of advertising tag line folderol comes from on old colleague at a prominent Silicon Valley agency. The Fluke Corporation makes electronic test tools and in the early days of computers, monitors were often proudly branded with the company name. I cannot confirm that the Fluke Corporation ever considered the tag line “If it works, it’s a Fluke,” but it’s more memorable than the company’s current “Keeping your world up and running.”

Asterisk ratios allegedly higher on public transportation.

Asterisk ratios are higher on public transportation.

Another colleague told me about the advertising executive who once had the job of promoting Lane Transit District, the transportation authority that serves (among other communities) Eugene, Oregon. At the time the LTA logo—familiar to the public because of ubiquitous bus stops—was simply referred to as “the asterisk” because of its similarity to the character, presumed to be roads branching out from a hub.

My colleague received this previously unpublished information first-hand from the account manager in charge. Within all the formal presentation of tag lines for the transportation authority, the klinker was “If you’ve got the asterisk, we’ve got the bus to ride.”

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Mares Eat Oats and Does Eat Oats

Though very little was said about the similarities between the Obama campaign logo and the Pepsi logo, the Quaker Oats division of PepsiCo now has a new campaign and a tag line that is powerful in its simplicity: “Go humans go.”

Go humans go: Quaker goes tribal

There is no doubt the campaign owes a creative debt to Shepard Fairey, but it is equally true the campaign was tightly integrated with the healthy image of the brand without risking the mark’s heritage—not to mention it finally brought together all Quaker Oats product messaging under a single banner.

For the first time in its 130-plus year history, Quaker will communicate with one voice about the company’s iconic whole-grain oats portfolio of products underneath one umbrella versus individual product categories. Whole-grain oats are the hallmark ingreedient in Quaker Old Fashioned Oats, Quaker Quick Oats and Quaker Instant Oatmeal, Quaker Oatmeal Squares ready-to-eat cereal and a key ingredient in Quaker Life cereal and Quaker Chewy granola bars. —The FINANCIAL

The campaign, the first work for Quaker Oats by San Francisco’s Goodby Silverstein & Partners, includes a vital food cause and leveraged celebrity chefs with a reveal in Times Square featuring an on-site food donation drive, hunger awareness bloggers and bicyclists using “pedal power” to blend their own smoothies.

And lest we forget, the company’s chief marketing officer reminds us in a Q&A with BrandWeek that in these difficult times the oats so central to this campaign, combined with honey and water, also make a great (and inexpensive!) moisturizing face mask.

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If I have to explain the punch line…

Largely under the radar, a new “free user generated content community website focused on the workplace” launched mid-December. “In the short time that Telonu has been in beta, it has achieved a strong following with large companies via word of mouth indicating the underlying need for a ‘Yelp’ for the business community,” said the company’s CEO in a press release. “However, in recent weeks we have seen postings and discussions about layoffs and the anxiety they are causing at the workplace.”

Just last month the company announced its Layoff Tracker Widget and Layoff Talk site. USA Today recently said the site captures economy’s carnage while TechCrunch yawns, Another Place To Write About How Much You Hate Your Job. And while the site’s tag line, “Rave, Rant and Rate” offers short mostly onomonopoetic words, the true horror was not leaving well enough alone:

Even if you “get” the juvenile, adversarial reference, Telonu, as a company name, has a low profile about who it is. When you have to spell it out and ask me if I get it you destroy what’s cute and acceptable about it.

There are a lot of problems with the business model, and blogstring supplies the list.

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My Guilty Christmas Card Pleasure

A start-up with a solid idea (and patent) that I was involved in early on was AmazingMail.com of Scottsdale, Arizona. It was created by a retired commercial airline pilot, John Lockhart. And what is AmazingMail, you ask? It is a high-quality postcard created from your computer and sent through the US Postal Service using mailing lists you create, upload or purchase from the company. It is also Patent No. 6732152, “Methods and apparatus for generation and distribution of surface mail objects.”

Lockhart was able to quickly create a buzz for AmazingMail as a personal tool for sending pictures and greetings, but that’s not where the potential big money was. That was recognizing AmazingMail’s flexibility as a business tool—and the simplicity of the product made it perfect for everything from vacation rentals to medical and dentist announcements and any direct mail campaign that needed quick delivery (an early adopter was a cable television provider who was able to increase demand for on-demand movies).

My engagement was through the public relations channel, from general interest to trade. A large PR agency had already attempted to pitch AmazingMail, but their emphasis on the online aspect was misleading; the ultimate product is a gorgeous personalized postcard. I made some inroads, but traffic at AmazingMail.com went through the roof after I landed Lockhart on the David Lawrence Show.

But it was comrade-in-arms George Eade who, upon seeing the product, said: “I’ll never send a Christmas card in an envelope again.” I believe the 2001 holiday season is the first time I sent cards using AmazingMail, and I continue to use them as a highly-targeted, highly-responsive direct marketing tool today.

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Every time you use corporate doubletalk, an angel dies

Down times mean opportunities, and if there were an opportunity it would be for in-the-loop decent creative for layoff memos. I am certain this is one area that is ripe for automation.

How ugly can a layoff memo be? Well, it can certainly be too long, and even if you’re an online media delivery technology company, that still doesn’t justify an accompanying video. That’s what Rob Glaser at Real Networks did. Really.

Hamilton Nolan, who has seen his fair share of layoff announcements, touched on the finer points of layoff memos yesterday, a five-point list that could easily be valid guidelines for good copywriting:

1. Be honest

2. But not too honest

3. Remember your audience

4. Look like you put some thought into it

5. Every time you use corporate doubletalk, an angel dies

Far too much communication today if overburdened with hollow statements couched in shallow terms, forgetting what’s at stake and handled hastily. Give every situation the full gravity of the consequences for all… like you put some thought into it.

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The Two-letter Strategy

A little-known feature of Google’s search engine crawler could turn site stats on its head: Google Sitelinks.

Our process for generating Sitelinks is completely automated. We show them when we think they’ll be most useful to searchers, saving them time from hunting through web pages to find the information they are looking for. Over time, we may look for ways to incorporate input from webmasters too.

What is most amazing is how entering only two letters can generate a mini-site map for many large sites. Here’s but one of thousands of examples:

google_sitelinks

Of course this makes eminent sense—many acronyms you can think of produce mini-directories—most, until recently, created directories with links to as many as six pages. But now we’re noticing more and more eight-page call-outs for Sitelinks, especially for government entities such as FBI and FDIC and larger organizations such as the AFL-CIO.

Of course, now everyone with an initial wants in on the action because this means you’re at the top of your SERPs in the coveted, exclusive #1 spot. On the downside, you’ve just turned your entry page strategy over to Google—which, presumably, is why Web masters can “opt out” of a Sitelinks listing (through the Webmaster Tools Dashboard).

Though the SEO “experts” provide lengthy lists of “how to get Sitelinks,” one is the absolute determining factor: you own that acronymic spot. I don’t believe there is a better illustration of this than FSM.

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Power to the People, Megawatts to the Masses

Though I live in Northern California I was raised in the Great Fly Over, a.k.a. the midwest. Visiting the family lake last month I decided to visit the local metropolis (birthplace of Robert A. Heinlein) and the only wine bar in a 100-mile radius.

I struck up a conversation with a young man not quite 30. He is on the city council, and the town has a municipal power plant. I’ve been impressed with the efficiency of some municipal utilities, such as Alameda Power, which will transfer $2.5 million to that city’s general fund this year.

But his city’s utility was a mess—it had contributed seven figures to a fledgling regional collective that hoped to bring a large generator online, but that was years off. Meanwhile, the city’s customers were paying twice the rate per kilowatt hour than the rest of the state.

silverspring_brochure-231x300I explained to him what was just over the horizon: the Smart Grid. I knew it well, because I had just finished writing the Web site for a major green technology solution provider. As a better way to “deliver” energy, it’s the difference between traveling a dirt road and an interstate highway. The executive briefing I wrote explains the company’s vision for an intelligent utility network in a straightforward, informative style.

I also spoke candidly with this young politician, who clearly cared about the future of his town, and advised him to have city staff seek grants—from both energy-related consortiums and governments—to make his city an early adopter of smart grid technology. With this kind of visionary approach, the town could regain its glory once again as The Electric City.

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Geo Targeting: Easier than You Think

Reading the wikipedia entry for geo targeting, one would think this a near-impossible task:

The automated discovery of user city-level information based on IP addresses by trace routes, pings, and a combination of other tools and methods is far more advanced. It is dependent on the pre-analysis of the entire IP address space. There are more than 4 billion possible IP addresses, and detailed analysis of each of them is a Herculean task, especially in light of the fact that IP addresses are constantly being assigned, allocated, reallocated, moved and changed due to routers being moved, enterprises being assigned IP addresses or moving, and networks being built or changed. In order to keep up with these changes, complex algorithms, bandwidth measurement and mapping technology, and finely tuned delivery mechanisms are necessary. Once all of the IP space is analyzed, each address must be periodically updated to reflect changes in the IP address information. This process is analogous to Internet search engine spidering in its enormity, yet requires far deeper layers of intelligence to keep the information about the constantly changing 4 billion-plus IP addresses current.

Yes, sorting out the potential four billion IP addresses (only about half are actually assigned) can be a “Herculean task,” especially if one is trying to achieve province and metro area granularity. But the good news is if you are geo targeting by country only, regularly maintained databases are 99 percent accurate.

Here is a recent example: a US-based company had a strong presence in a South American country with an application that is virtually required by way of new tax laws going into effect January 2009. With the help of a translator, I wrote two sites: one in Portuguese featuring the existing product and another site in English primarily for the North American market. Directing visitors to the site automatically is a rather simple task, and is available in java, perl, php and asp constructions. One reliable provider delivers a free download of their IP-to-country database that is updated every 24 Hours (look for “Download the Entire Database” on the right-hand side). They also have a page of free scripts that will help your Web developer redirect visitors to a page or site you select by country of inquiry.

Implementation is simple, and if your IT manager recoils at “free” databases, a longtime provider is IP2Location, which provides its database for US$49 and includes 11 months of monthly upgrades.

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Crisis? What Crisis?

Hat tip to Advertising Is Good for You for this gem launched last August by Storåkers McCann, Stockholm, for Dagens Industri, a financial newspaper in tabloid format and the most profitable daily newspaper in Sweden.

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In the current economic global downturn it is no longer a mystery why financial industries have imploded. If these numbskulls aren’t bright enough to remove their $6,000 Brioni suits when they shine shoes or clean the pool, how could we possibly trust them with our retirement funds?

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Be painfully obvious

You are swimming in a crowded stream, with big fish who could eat you and small fish who could quickly grow bigger than you and become a threat. Being competitive, no doubt, is a challenge that affects your lifeblood.

going_green1There is nothing better, I have always told my client, than a challenge. I really like it when someone asks me to write an ad that screams the color blue, but I can’t use the word or the color blue.

After years of repeating this challenge to the universe, I did nearly this very thing for a client—the leading provider of environmental, health and safety (EHS), crisis management and sustainability software for governance, risk and compliance (GRC). The campaign promoted “Total Emissions Control”—monitor global emissions and reduce an organization’s local environmental footprint.

I chose to state the unambiguous in such a way that it told their story and required little explanation. As if that’s not difficult enough (how is your “elevator speech” coming?), do it with a little friction. And humor. And don’t be afraid to be so painfully obvious you will stop people in their tracks.

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