Archive for the ‘Word of mouth publicity’ Category

Using images to drive word of mouth publicity

Monday, December 21st, 2009

Have seen a couple of really clever advertising images over the last couple of weeks that will undoubtably drive word of mouth publicity.

The first was in the toilets at Xscape in Milton Keynes (and yes I was the only person in there when I took this photo!). The poster is positioned just above the urinal.

Has he got you into trouble?

A pretty risque advert and not one that you’d expect from a firm of solicitors. And that’s why people would talk about it.

Meantime, in London, it looks like a new bank is launching.

Sign at a new bank

And with all the financial woes we have had over the last year, this is a good way to get people talking. We all want a good relationship with our bank, right?

This is a sign at what will presumably become a branch of the new bank. They’re setting expectations pretty high with this… will be interesting to see what actually happens.

How to create word of mouth for a boring box in a server room

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

If you’ve ever spent time in a server room or racks room, you’ll know it’s an cold place full of grey boxes, black boxes and wires. Not the kind of place you expect to see a product that makes people want to talk (aka word of mouth advertising, aka free publicity).

Then along came Google which invented its own box (the Google Search Appliance) for businesses to use in their buildings, to search their intranets, internal company documents, that sort of thing.

Google couldn’t make their box a different shape, because it had to fit in racks with all the other boxes. So it made it bright yellow. And whacked a massive logo on the side.

Then it ran a competition to see how “findable” the box is in the server room. That helped to promote the concept, because the box is there to help businesses find things more easily.

I know Google has a million clever people working for it, but that’s really smart.

Thanks for the Christmas card, but…

Friday, December 12th, 2008

Had four Christmas cards in the post this morning.

One was from a new supplier of PR tools we have just signed with; another from our friendly accountants.

But the other two had no company name on them, and just scribbled first names at the bottom.

Er… who sent them? The first names were both common ones, which could be one of a number of clients, suppliers and contacts.

Pity to go to all the effort of sending Christmas cards to get none of the benefit!

If you’re doing cards on the cheap and not having your business name professional printed inside, why not get a stamp made up and stamp each one?

Or don’t bother sending cards. This year we have made another donation to charity.

Using secrets to launch highly anticipated products

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008

Google has demonstrated several times clever ways to launch new products.

When it launched Gmail, you could only get it if invited by someone who already had it. And users only had 100 invites each.

Restricting the availability of Gmail in this way made it a “must-have” product with some people clamouring to get it. It also made those who already had it proud to be part of the club.

Two days ago Google “accidentally” launched the marketing early for its new browser Chrome, which it hopes people will move to from Internet Explorer and FireFox.

Ignoring the technical improvements Chrome has, they’ve done a pretty smart thing. There are thousands of people across the world waiting to see what Google will do next, and by supposedly letting the cat out of the bag early, they may have succeeded in generating more publicity than with a ‘normal’ product launch.

A smart way to generate word of mouth publicity.

Can restricting something make it popular?

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

If you can create a perception that there is a restriction on something can that make it more popular?

This new advert of some model writhing in bed has been banned, and now it’s all over the media, getting a load more free exposure than it would have done as an approved advert.

The Fat Duck in Berkshire is an amazing restaurant with a limited number of covers meaning it is constantly booked up three months in advance. The phones go mad every morning as another date is released.

What can you do with your business to restrict something and create a demand?

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