Even though they spend plenty of money on television advertising, Geico doesn’t need to spend much money at all for this incredibly effective commercial which is one of a series that are similarly effective.

On the other hand, Mayflower has created an elaborate series of giant marionette television commercials which are certainly expensive but almost as certainly ineffective.

Geico Makes a Simple Point and Ties It to a Compelling Story

The commercial begins with an intro asking whether Geico can really save you 15% on automobile insurance and then segues into a little vignette that tells a story that virtually all of us would believe would be intuitively true. The connection is then simply made between the story and the saving of 15% on automobile insurance.

This commercial series is not about some highfalutin branding or image making. Rather, it’s about telling a simple story that is not only easy to remember but is also easy to retell. Even better, most of these Geico ads are also pretty darned funny. That makes them even more memorable.

The best content marketing should include compelling stories to which your customers and prospects can relate easily. This may be hard to do. But it does not have to be expensive.

The Geico drill sergeant commercial proves that point. Although they probably paid a lot of money to the actor playing the role of the brutal therapist, in principle, this commercial could’ve been made for almost nothing. It consists simply of the introductory announcer, two actors and a small, basic set representing a therapist’s office.

That’s the kind of video that you could re-create on your website to tell a compelling story. Perhaps, it wouldn’t be quite so funny, but it might be just as memorable if you make sure that the story is both relevant and compelling for your customers. And, that’s all about your mindset, not about the amount of money you spend.

If you haven’t seen my favorite drill sergeant therapist, here’s the video:

Mayflower movers get it all wrong with their slightly creepy series of giant marionette commercials.

I’m guessing that these were very expensive to produce.The special effects are pretty impressive.  But, the story that Mayflower tries to tell is not impressive at all.

In the long version of the commercial, there is no explanatory introduction about why we’re watching what we’re watching.  Apparently, the agency figured that we would be fascinated enough to follow the path of a giant female marionette as she travels on the highway and is eventually deposited at what we assume to be her new house.

All along the way, a bunch of guys manipulate the progress of this enormous marionette a bit like handlers of balloons at Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade. At the end of the commercial, when they plunk her into a chair, it’s not clear how she’s going to be able to get out of the chair–let alone fit into a house that is much too small for her gargantuan size.

The commercial concludes without explanation except for the insertion of a final tagline that somebody fell in love with: "Every step of the way." This, of course, is when our giant ah ha moment arrives and we are supposed to think: "Oh I get it–’every step of the way’ just like the giant marionette was stepping across the country."

Thus, Mayflower has spent lots of money and too much of our time metaphorically leading us to that final tagline cliché, "every step of the way," which doesn’t really tell us anything. We are simply left with the weird image of a giant marionette sitting in a lawn chair after a long, strange journey cross-country.

Bottom line: Effective content marketing should include storytelling that creates a clear, concise, and compelling narrative that your customers will both remember and repeat. If you tell a great story, as Geico does, you’ll be happy with the meme that you have created on TV or on the Web. On the other hand, if you tell a terrible story, as Mayflower has done, prospective customers may be talking about you, but you’re not likely to benefit from what they have to say.

Marketing Campaign Trashes Worst Suspected  Big Brokerage Firm Traits

One of the great things about funny advertising campaigns is that they tend to be particularly memorable.

Even better, we’re more likely to talk about them with our friends.  And in the viral age, we can even share commercials via YouTube and other social media. 

Best of all, funny commercials that also embed a simple and compelling message, make it unavoidable for us to remember both the commercial and the message.

In their latest TV advertising campaign, Scottrade invented the character, Chad A. Ridgeway, who represents all of the worst traits we ever experienced or imagined about the folks who tried to get us to invest big bucks with them. 

Chad is slick and just this side of sleazy. He plays racquetball, travels in a limo, and owns his own medium-size yacht. What we know for sure is he managed to get where he is by charging us a lot of money to buy and sell stocks.  But, as we learn from the commercials, all  that easy money and easy living may vanish because of the compelling value offered by Scottrade.

The use of Chad’s over-the-top character and the element of humor enable Scottrade to dismantle the competition without having to name names or offend anyone. What the commercials make obvious is that Chad and his "big brokerage" company represent everything that Scottrade is not. 

But, the TV ads are not just funny, they are affective. As we had written earlier about the Progressive Insurance long-running Flo advertising campaign, the humor integrates a consistent message that conveys a few key customer-centric points that pervade the campaign.

In the case of Progressive it has to do with saving lots of money on your insurance.  In the case of Scottrade, it focuses on seven dollar trades and easy online access. Thus we remember the commercials because they’re funny, but we also remember the key benefit points that Scottrade is so careful to convey consistently.

The bottom line: When you do it right, funny is fabulous.  Getting it right means integrating both what’s amusing and what’s beneficial to your customers. In that way, your customers will remember your company, your commercial, and your message. In their minds, you become both trustworthy and likable so that they will want to do business with you willingly.  I think Scottrade gets it exactly right with the ‘Chadster.’

Catch Chad Ridgeway at his best (or worst) below:

When it comes to making your way safely through that jungle, who better to turn to than the ultimate content marketing warrior, Amazon.com?  After all, they are not only brilliant e-commerce players but they are just about the best at connecting with their customers.

Arguably, Amazon.com changed the rules for all online retailing but is a certainly changed the rules for bookselling. Since Amazon’s founding in 1995, the brick-and-mortar Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association has dropped from 365 stores to just 188. Even the venerable Seattle-based Elliott Bay was forced to leave its 40 year location in Pioneer Square or cheaper quarters elsewhere.

Amazon.com leverages the long tail phenomenon of selling zillions of product units all the way from best-sellers to books and other products that would never make it into a brick-and-mortar establishment. they do a brilliant job of logistics and supply-chain management, stacking just what they need, organizing print on demand where appropriate, and enabling overnight delivery for the vast majority of the products they sell.

All of that is exceptional and essential, but I believe they really shine by doing a superb job of connecting with their customers so that those customers want to keep doing business with Amazon.com year in and year out.

In fact, Amazon.com is a superb content marketer.  You probably don’t have their size and scale but you can certainly emulate their approach to their customers in the following ways:

Six Ways to Put  Amazon.Com’s Approach to Content Marketing to Work for Your Company

1. Offer free samples. Even before the advent of the Kindle, you could sample books online before you actually ordered. Whether you’re selling products are offering services, you can certainly take advantage of this time-tested approach to getting customers to begin using you on a regular basis. Your free samples will prove the quality of your merchandise or the value of your services. Afterward, it becomes a no-brainer for your prospects to begin buying from you.
2. Know your customers.  Amazon.com tracks your browsing and buying behavior. They know what you like and are delighted to help you get more of it. If you are a regular user of Amazon.com, you have your own individual page with lots of recommendations that become more relevant as you buy more products over time. they are now even recommending MP3 music which you can sample, of course.
   It is vital to have the same kind of understanding of your customers so that you know what they really value. Armed with that knowledge, you can position your products and services perfectly for their needs.
3. Stay in touch with relevant information. Amazon doesn’t just wait for you to show up at their website. With your permission, they send out regular e-mails informing you of what’s hot and happening within the product areas that are of interest to you. They don’t waste your time sharing the latest hip-hop selections, if you are a classical music lover.
   In the same way, it’s critical for you to maintain a targeted outreach to your customers sending them information that you know to be relevant to their information needs.
4. Make it easy to buy…more.  Amazon is a genius at exposing you to more relevant choices once you have made a purchasing decision. They know that once we are in a buying mode, it will be easy to sell us more as long as they can provide an easy path to purchasing products that they know we will like.
   Similarly, on your website, you can make suggestions for related products and services once it’s clear that your visitors a right to make their initial positive buying decision.
5. Create communities of interest to energize and engage users. When you browse the pages of Amazon.com, you will find a wealth of user participation with product ratings, reviews, and Listmania. This last item consists of book or other product lists created by enthusiasts who love a subject or product area and are willing to share their knowledgeable enthusiasm with other Amazon customers.
   You can easily open your site or your blog to participation by your prospects and customers. And, any air of social media, you can certainly establish groups of enthusiasts on Facebook or twitter who’ll pay careful attention to the goings-on of your organization , your products and your services.  This is a great way to keep your customers engagedso that they are much more likely to remain loyal and long term buyers of your products.
6. Help your vendors connect with your customers.  Amazon makes it very easy for authors to establish a presence on the Amazon site or blog posts and other timely information can be added easily.
   If you are selling other people’s products and services as part of your business, make it easy for your customers to connect with those vendors. For example, you could pull in RSS feeds from vendor blogs that are relevant to your customers. In tough times, maintaining close vendor relationships may make the difference over time in your survival. So it only makes sense to help them look good in the eyes of your customers.

As it is so often with content marketing, you can emulate the best practices of the really big players with a fraction of their budget. Most of the time, big ideas don’t require big budgets. 

In the case of Amazon.com, they began in 1994 with a tiny initial investment of $250,000.  In the end, it was big ideas not big bucks that put them over the top. Many of those ideas are all about brilliant content marketing. And so it can be with your company, too.

Surprise! The Liquor Control Board of Ontario manages to tread the fine line of selling cases of liquor while extolling moderation.

Their website, www.LCBO.com, couldn’t be any more graphically pleasing or fun to peruse. Believe it or not, they also entice you to come in and shop for premade cocktails or to select from a huge selection of vintage wines.

They are currently featuring visually appealing ‘French Lessons’ that make it easy for anyone to understand French wines.  They combine slide shows and videos to turn even the most uninformed wine drinker into a knowledgeable purchaser of vintages from Beaujolais to Bordeaux.

This is a terrific example of accessible and informative content serving the marketing needs of its government agency, the LCBO. It’s even kind of sexy. And don’t start with me about Canada and sexy being another oxymoron.

Nice work, eh!

A business card is quite literally a small thing. But here’s one that made a big impression on me as a surprising example of content marketing.

The card’s owner/creator, Kerry-Anne Gilowey, participated in a workshop with me at the 2010 Content Strategy Forum. She impressed me as being memorably smart, creative, and witty. Quite separately, I found her card positively memorable, too.  And, I would have done even if I had never met her in person.

Here’s why:

On the front—very nice but not the killer side

• She leads off with her content marketing/social media credentials. I see those even before I see her phone number
• She asks us to take action, e.g., find me…follow me…call me.
• She doesn’t bother with an address that would have taken up communications space–and these days, who cares?
• Her sunshine graphic reflects her company name nicely but not obtrusively.

On the back—here’s the especially memorable creative side of the card

• She provides a category cloud that shows us at a glance what she does and the relative weight she gives to each element
• We can grasp almost instantly what she does that can help us.
• She doesn’t have to say that she does these things. We just know.
• It’s a creative approach so we spot her creativity.
• It’s web-related so we also figure that she intuitively gets the whole web thing.

I’m sure that there are plenty of wonderfully effective business cards out in the world. But of the dozen+, I collected at the Forum, only Kerry-Anne’s communicated so much, so memorably. In fact, it’s the only one I could have described from memory.

When it comes to your content marketing strategy, even your business cards can make a difference.

Yes, we are at it again. Joe Pulizzi and I are writing a follow up to our groundbreaking first book, Get Content Get Customers, which is considered by industry pundits to be the content marketing bible. 

We would like you and your clients to join us on this next leg of the content marketing crusade by sharing with us with your successful content marketing case studies for possible inclusion in the book.

Our new book, to be released this summer, is gathering the most successful/results-driven content marketing case studies on the planet. We’ll provide a wealth of how-to’s, practical tactics, and put-it-to-work specifics for content marketers old and new.  Tens of thousands of readers will learn how you or your clients used content marketing to achieve measurable results.

We are inviting our colleagues and friends to have first crack to submit one or multiple case studies.  We know you’re resource-limited, so we’re making it easy for you to participate. Simply complete the very brief form below regarding target, objectives, execution and results. 

Submissions are due by April 9, 2010.  Should your case study be chosen, we’ll connect with you to arrange a brief interview to flesh out the details so that we can add color and context to that make your successful case study really shine.

Also, as a bonus,  the first 50 companies who submit a case study will each receive a complimentary copy of the finished book. Every company who is included in the book itself will receive 5 additional copies.

Here’s the link to the case study form: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHNtRElzX1QycnN0azY5VlM5RzFxanc6MA

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.  We would love to include your success story in our next book.

AC Transit avoids the "build it and they will come" mistake to which many companies and organizations fall prey. They know that simply offering bus service and implementing technology is just the beginning to motivating Bay Area residents to take the bus regularly.  They also prove that traditional outdoor advertising can still work brilliantly at the right time and place.  This is targeted, visual content marketing at its best.

The San Francisco Bay area boasts excellent public transit systems in the city itself and in surrounding counties. AC Transit is notable not only for a well-run system, but for its effectiveness in marketing the benefits of public transit to its passengers.

AC Transit is the third-largest bus-only transit system in California, serving over 400 square miles of the East Bay.  Every weekday, over 230,000 people ride their fleet of nearly 800 buses.  They run buses on 105 routes with more than 6500 stops.

Even better, they do a great job of marketing all those buses, stops, and routes to current and future passengers.

We have already written about their wonderful online marketing campaign that paints such a compelling picture of the benefits of bus travel. AC Transit  created ACT for Me as “Your Guide to the Future of Public Transit.”  They illustrate why AC Transit should be an integral part of your life by sharing a creative range of content—from user-generated videos, to a travel savings calculator, to a discussion of community and environment benefits, and the exciting future of transit. Here’s A Public Agency That Really Understands Content Marketing.

Now they are adding even more value for their customers and continuing their effective campaign in a brand-new way.

Helping Passengers First by Adding Smart Transit Technology—and Then by  Enticing Them with Smart Targeted Marketing

AC Transit committed to NextBus to improve bus travel for their millions of annual passengers.  This system tells riders exactly when the next bus will arrive—and can even send arrival alerts so passengers never miss a bus.  However, they didn’t assume that every rider–or potential rider–would be aware of this new technology nor understand how NextBus could help them

To make the most of their NextBus implementation, they have recently added advertising to their bus shelters.  Now, even passersby get the message about how easy it is to use public transit and to stay on time.  The bus stop ads illustrate that it’s easy to know when the next bus will arrive by using NextBus technology. They use an image of a rider using a smart phone to access bus data with an additional close-up image of a smart phone and showing a NextBus prediction. Of course, they include the appropriate web address to use so that riders can access the NextBus data immediatel

In this way, AC Transit helps current riders to improve their bus riding experience while providing an easy-to-understand marketing message for folks who may be just beginning to think about taking the bus on a regular basis.

Even in Northern California, it can be difficult to get drivers out of their cars and onto the bus. But AC  Transit is doing a stellar job of marketing that is very likely to make that transit transition seem like a very smart idea .

Penton’s shift to online only for Welding Design & Fabrication symbolizes the decline of traditional media.  At the same time, Miller Electric shows just how powerful content marketing can be as a replacement for traditional publishing—even when publishers take their acts to the web.

Penton’s print magazine launched in 1959 when Eisenhower was President, Sputnik had just gone into orbit, and most TVs were black and white. After decades of success, the print edition of Welding Design & Fabrication succumbed to fundamental changes in buyer behavior and vanishing ad dollars.  In fact, only an association publication remains in print.

Print pubs are perishing across the B2B landscape as advertisers and readers flee. What’s happening at Penton is happening everywhere. You may regret the demise of B2B print as do I, but you cannot bring it back to life. You can no more expect a return to publishing days gone by than you can to poodle skirts and hula hoops.

In most niche markets, only one or two publications are likely to survive. This print apocalypse would have posed tough marketing challenges just 10 years ago, because B2B buyers still relied primarily on print for their information. Thus, sending a message to those buyers meant either PR or advertising campaigns aimed at welding or whatever targeted magazines delivered the right set of customers. Today, those buyers have moved online.

Just Going Online is Necessary but not Sufficient to Solve the Publishing Problem

Penton promised great things for the online version of Welding Design & Fabrication in their news release, “We are excited about the opportunity to focus our efforts online and trust our readers will look forward to the enhanced online features and solutions we will be launching in the near future to better support their operations.”

But, as my friend and former Penton exec, Bob Rosenbaum pointed out, “A focus on ‘product introductions, as well as increased participation by thought leaders, vendors and suppliers throughout the industry’ is shorthand for a reduction on spending for original content.“ He added that “This move makes sense only in the context of cutting expenses. Readers don’t want this, and while advertisers in the market are looking for creative digital products, they will view this as a last gasp. And they will flee.”

In fact, the current site seems to bear out Bob’s concern:

• Its lead news item is 15 days old as of January 29
• the only event it shows is 4 days past as of January 29
• It has a link to webcasts, but they appear to date back to 2007
• it doesn’t produce its own videos and those they show appear to be vendor infomercials
• its educational products are provided by ToolingU.com and available to anybody without going to Penton.

Of course, as unfortunate as this disappointing effort is for the future of Penton, it is equally problematic for marketers who need to connect to buyers in a meaningful way.  If Welding Design & Fabrication loses relevance online, how can marketers reach and influence their buyers efficiently?

There is a sound content marketing solution, but it requires businesses to replace the role of traditional publishers. Those early to market with the best solutions will benefit the most—and possibly lock out late comers. Miller Electric shows us the way.

Smart Business are Becoming the B2B Media—No longer out of Choice But out of Necessity.

Millerwelds.com shows what business can and must do from now on to replace the role traditional media in the marketing mix. We have written extensively about them online, Yes, Content Marketing Can Make Welding Cool!  and in our book, Get Content Get Customers. But, a single current example illustrates how their content beats the Penton online welding effort. They produce a host of very useful and practical videos that instruct users on a broad range of welding topics.

Here’s one example:

Although there is a brief mention of a Miller product, this video is all about best welding practices.

Penton lags way behind Miller not only in videos, but also in how-to information, interactive buying guides, and easily accessible content.  They prove that a business can out publish a publisher.

You may not have the resources that Miller can leverage, but by studying their approach to their customers, you will certainly be inspired to start thinking and acting like a publisher. That’s critical,because soon you will have few realistic alternatives to effective content marketing.

Because all of us are smarter than one of us, you will find lots of value in the new e-book, Key Content Marketing Trends and Predictions  for  2010– which even includes my own fearless prediction on content marketing. The genius behind this e-book is Ambal Balakrishnan. She has turned crowd sourcing into an art form.

Ambal has recruited 39 experts and given them an opportunity to display their knowledge. She adds her own value by synthesizing the best of those 39 predictions to come up with her own top 10+1.

Aside from its intrinsic merit, this e-book is a perfect example of content marketing at work. It delivers relevant and valuable content for marketers that illustrates how savvy its creator, Ambal, is about content marketing. Thus, it gives her instant credibility among potential clients.

Here are her top five trend takeaways synthesized from her 39 contributors:

1. Interruptive, "tell-and-sell" marketing is a thing of the past.
2. Don’t follow the crowd.
3. Get visual.
4. Grow more ears.
5. Think about engagement.

There’s plenty of substance behind those brief bullet points, but you’ll have to download the free e-book to access that terrific content. Click on this link to bring your content marketing knowledge up to speed.

Why this e-book represents content marketing at its very best

Key Content Marketing Trends and Predictions  for  2010 has plenty of intrinsic value for marketers. But that’s just the beginning.

What I really love is that Ambal is helping other content marketers with their content marketing. Needless to say, it is in our collective best interests to assist Ambal to promote the heck out of her ebook.

We will happily promote the e-book to our own networks of readers and fans.  Moreover, this e-book is easy to talk about and to explain to fellow marketers—who, in turn, are likely to spread the word. Best of all, she has provided us links to every possible preconfigured tool and image so that we can share it on our websites, our blogs, our eNewsletters or on Twitter. For example, the image I’m using in this blog post comes from a direct link that Ambal provided. She made it very easy for me to help her and to help myself in the process

These critical content marketing components optimize the probability that it will become a pervasive Internet presence within a matter of hours, days or weeks.

That’s pretty smart content marketing.

The Geico gecko campaign is an excellent example of effective advertising because it integrates humor with a consistent product benefit message. Nonetheless, it suffers from the same limitations that afflict all advertising:

• It calls out to customers whether or not they want to hear the message. Thus, however amusing, it’s still an example of interruption marketing.
• Because each ad is short, Geico is limited in the amount of information it can convey.
• There is little intrinsic value to the content of the ads. That is, they don’t help Geico customers be more successful or live better lives.
• However amusing, their constant repetition can become annoying even for big fans of Geico like me.
• This is strictly one-way communication that does not enable customer interaction.

Now, however, they have added a powerful content marketing component to their marketing mix.

Geico Jumps on the Mobile Content Marketing Bandwagon with GloveBox™ App

Most of us rarely interact with our own insurance company let alone with other insurance carriers. Now Geico has cleverly added intrinsically valuable content to its GloveBox™ App so that both customers and non-customers will benefit.

Normally, we contact our insurance companies because we have a specific insurance related-problem. Now we are enticed to interact with Geico so that they can help us with the number of car related challenges. 

Here’s the kind of useful mobile content that Geico promises with the content-driven iPhone app:

• Bill Pay & Insurance ID Card(s) – Pay your GEICO auto insurance bill and access your current insurance ID cards from your phone.
• Accident Helper – Take advantage of our Accident Helper which helps put you in contact with emergency services, gives you a place to organize photos and much more.
• Roadside Service – Locator features allow you to find nearby tow services and gas stations…anywhere, anytime. Use your phone’s GPS or enter a location manually, it’s up to you!
• Taxi/Rental Car – Need a taxi to get home from the repair shop or maybe even after a night of fun? Want to rent a car? Our locator will help find what you need in moments.
• Auto How To’s – Our step-by-step instructions can help you jump start a vehicle, change a flat tire or check your tire pressure.

With the GloveBox™ App Geico has gone from an amusing TV commercial that reaches out to us whether we want the interruption or not to a mobile helper that can extricate us from car challenges wherever we happen to be. 

It’s great to know that the Geico gecko has jumped on board the content marketing bandwagon for the benefit of his company and his customers. Crikey! That’s one savvy marketing lizard.