Make Way for the Widget Marketing Wave

One of the latest trends in marketing is widget marketing.
Widgets are small applications that provide online functionality and content, and are distributed through a potentially vast number of websites.

A website or webpage owner integrates the widget from a third party website or webpage by placing a small snippet of code.

The code brings active content from the third party website (links, advertisements, images) without the need for the website or webpage owner to update the content.
Due to their nature, they are now becoming a new marketing & advertising venue.

Widgets are uploaded onto all kinds of sites, including profile pages, forums and blogs.
Widgets are sometimes called blidgets (TypePad) or snippets (PageFlakes).
Yahoo offers more than 4,300 widgets. It entered the widget arena with the purchase of Pixoria, a producer of widgets.

Other companies, such as Netvibes, Snipperoo and YourMinis also offer widget galleries.

Apple and Microsoft have desktop tools in the form of constantly updating stock tickers, news feeds and airline schedules.

According to Google, “gadgets” are one its fastest-growing products.

But they don’t stop there. Apple’s latest version of its Mac OS X operating system let its users build widgets from scratch and share them with others, even if they’ve never written a line of code.

Microsoft’s Vista comes with 11 standard “gadgets, as well as the option to create more and upload them to Windows Live.

Current users of widget marketing include The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and ESPN.

Flickr (a photo-sharing site) lets its members create a “badge” that they can post on their blogs and personal home pages to let friends know when they’ve uploaded new snapshots.

Fox Interactive Media (comprising all of Fox’s sites as well as MySpace, RottenTomatoes.com and AskMen.com) launched its own platform, called SpringWidgets.

What are the benefits of widgets?
1) They are low cost to develop.
2) They don’t require advance coding skills to create.
3) They are extremely easy to use.
4) They are pulled by the consumer, not pushed by the marketer.
5) They are a completely new marketing tool and a great addition to the current marketing mix.
6) They are low cost to distribute.
7) They have a much longer lifespan than traditional online ads.

A great example of widget marketing is Purina’s weather widget.
It lets pet owners know what the weather is outside when you wan to take the dog for a walk.

In the first two months, it was downloaded more than 15,000 times.
It means, that the Purina brand is now constantly in front of 15,000 pet owners, which gives maximum exposure for minimum costs.
The key success element of Purina’s widget is the fact that it is an extension of its brand while giving useful, up-to-date information.

Widget marketing is still in its infant stage. It is hard to tell if widget technology providers such as well-funded Clearspring and Freewebs will be able to become profitable.

Widgets do have some disadvantages. The state-of-the art interactive ones use a lot of computer resources, resulting in slow downloading.
People might download so many widgets, that their webpage becomes cluttered and therefore the marketing message of an individual widget is lost.
As a business model, it isn’t clear yet how profitable it will be as a promotion and branding tool. Advertisers are not yet comfortable with widgets, since tracking and analyzing its traffic is hard and their influence on consumer behavior not yet known.

Personally, I like this new addition to the marketing mix.
It’s exciting to see how it will develop.

For those of you who want to learn more about widget marketing, it’s worth while to attend WidgetCon 2007 taking place on 7/11 in NYC.

Let's widget away!

Marketing to Male Pigs – the Trojan Way

Trojan, the US condom producer, launched a marketing campaign “it’s time we evolve….interested?
In the campaign, men are portrayed as pigs– literally! (or may be hogs, it’s hard to tell).
The commercial shows bar filled with women and a bunch of bar-sitting pigs with cellphones. When one pig goes to the restroom and returns with a condom purchased at a vending machine, he is transformed into an attractive man.
The beautiful blond who had been indifferent now smiles at him.The end of the commercial carries the message: "Evolve: Use a condom every time."
Printed ads will appear in 11 magazines, including Cosmopolitan and Glamour, and on seven Web sites.

The campaign certainly created a nice little media storm.
For starters, Fox and CBS refused to air the commercials, while ABC, NBC, and nine cable networks (including (MTV, Comedy Central and Cartoon Network's Adult Swim) didn’t have a problem with it.
In its rejection letter to Trojan, Fox stated that the ad was rejected since “contractive advertising must stress health-related uses rather than the prevention of pregnancy."
CBS didn’t take such a moral high ground – it wrote to Trojan that the ad “wasn’t appropriate for the network, even with late-night only restrictions."

The brains behind the campaign is the Kaplan Thaler Group.
According to CEO Linda Kaplan Thaler, the humor in the ad is a way of “ getting consumers’ attention and opening up a serious conversation about sexually healthy lifestyles.
Some people may be initially surprised by the imagery, but we’re really using the pigs as a metaphor for selfish behavior to call to attention a very important subject.”

Trojan defended its campaign by stating:
“Evolve is a wake-up call to change attitudes about using condoms and, on a larger scale, the way we think and talk about sexual health in this country.
Other than abstinence, the best way people can prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection is to use a condom every time they have sex.
Unfortunately, that’s just not happening today—single sexually-active Americans between the ages of 18 and 54 use them only about 25 percent of the time. We urgently need to foster healthier attitudes about sexual health and condom use.”

Mens News Daily labeled the campaign “male-degrading”, adding that it’s not surprising in a country that “gives round-the-clock media coverage of any rich blonde who drives her car while drunk ... or emerges from it without panties”. (Paris, Britney, and Lindsey – are you listening?).
The website goes on with the cry for “killing the Trojan pig” by boycotting Trojan condoms and protesting against ABC, NBC, and the nine cable networks that air the commercial.

From a marketing point of view, the commercial is excellent.
It created a lot of buzz, far more than a less controversial ad would have done.
The commercials are also done in good taste, and are entertaining as well.
They were directed by Phil Joanou (State of Grace).
Special effects were done by the Stan Winston Studio (Jurassic Park), since our porcine males are animated – no real livestock was used.
Lots of people viewed the strong reaction of Fox and CBS with bewilderment.
As Andrea Kalfoglou pointed out on Agora Vox:
“the message is all about thinking about your own health and that of your partners everytime — a great public health message.”

Personally, I don’t understand the rejection of Fox and CBS.
Both networks are using sex in their marketing.
They place Viagra ads and broadcast shows such as Temptation Island.
Even if you don’t like the humor or are offended by men portrayed as pigs, there is no doubt that preventing airing it or calling for a boycott is not the way to go about it.
Ironically enough, Fox and CBS made the discussion of condom use far more accessible, since their ban gives people a nice opener.
In the mean time, Trojan got a lot of free publicity, which is good for their sales, their brandname and (hopefully) the health of sexually active adults.

In conclusion, we have stumbled on an interesting paradox here.
In the US, sex sells every product (from cars to cosmetics) – but not condoms…..

Having fun with EMV - emotional marketing value

During a market research for EMV migration of payment terminals (EMV stands for Europay, Mastercard, Visa; the smart debit cards), I hit on a completely different EMV.The Advanced Marketing Institute developed an Emotional Marketing Value (EMV) score.
It analyses the impact that a headline has on its readers.
It’s a tool for copywriters to check what the impact of a specific headline has on its readers.
Needless to say, I was intrigued.

The tool analyzes the words in the slogan or headline as follows:

• Intellectual impact
  Words which are especially effective when offering products and services that require reasoning or careful evaluation.
  According to AMI, intellectual impact words are best used to attune copy and sales messages aimed at people and businesses involved in the fields of education, law, medicine, research, politics, and similar fields.
  While not restricted to these groups, by giving presentations which are weighted with intellectual impact words, your clients and customers will be more positively influenced and you are more likely to attain a more favorable response.
  
• Empathetic impact
  Words which resonate in with empathetic impact often bring out profound and strong positive emotional reactions in people.
  According to AMI, empathetic impact words are best used to attune with people and businesses involved with care-giving.
  For example, nurses, doctors, and counselors all tend to respond easily and favorably to empathetic words.
  Women, and especially mothers, are very strong in their use of empathetic impact words in the language.
  While use of empathetic impact words does not have to be limited to these groups, we've found that by selecting m ore words with empathetic impact delivers desirable conversion responses from those types of market segments.
  
• Spiritual impact
  Words which have the strongest potential for influencing people by appealing at a very deep emotional level.
  According to AMI, spiritual impact words are best used with people and businesses desiring to make an appeal to some aspect of spirituality.
  This does not mean religion specifically, but any product or service that resonates with “spirituality” oriented markets is appropriate.
  The clergy, new age, health food and related markets all respond favorably to sales copy heavy with spiritual impact content.
  Women and children also respond strongly to words in the spiritual sphere.
  Marketing documents with strong spiritual impact content can make for the most powerful presentations in the marketplace but must be used with considerable skill.

Again according to AMI, the English language contains approximately 20% EMV words.Most professional copywriters' headlines will have 30%-40% EMV words in their headlines, while the most gifted copywriters will have 50%-75% EMV words.
A perfect score would be 100%.
According to AMI, this is rare unless your headline is less than five words.

I played around a bit with the tool and try to find a top score in each category.
My first challenge was to create a headline with a strong intellectual impact.
I decided to zoom in on Apple’s new iPhone, and came up with the headline:“iPhone best technology”.
It scored 66.67% in both intellectual and empathetic impact, which does make sense.
Orpak’s “fueling your business for success” has a 20% spiritual score.
A slogan I once coined for a high-tech company “your power to communicate” scores 50% on the spiritual scale.
Not bad, considering the company was active in broadband-over-powerline (BPL or PLC).
By repeating words, the score goes up.
“Profit, profit, profit!” scores a cool 100% on the empathy scale; "free, free, free!" also scores 100%, but strangely enough on the intellectual scale.
"Opportunity, opportunity, opportunity!" even scores 300% in all three categories.

I also had a look at strong and successful slogans to see how they scored.
The US Army’s famous “we want you” scores 100% in all three categories.
Philips's new slogan “sense and simplicity” only has a 33.3% intellectual score.
May be it is too close to Jane Austen’s novel title for its own good?
Unilever’s “feel good, look good and get more out of life” scores a measly 10% in the intellectual category, which I didn’t expect. I was sure it would do well in the empathetic and spiritual categories.
Bobcat’s “we are closer than you think” scores a nice 50% in all categories, despite it being slightly stalkerish.
Holmes Place (the global fitness center network) “One life. Live it well” doesn’t score at all. It is 0% neutral, although I expected it to score nicely in the spiritual category.
Nokia’s “connecting people” has as strong 50% score; but in the intellectual, not the emotional categories.

How reliable is this tool? I have my reservations, but it is definitely fun to use!

Has Jack in the Box gone too far?

CKE Restaurants Inc. (parent company of the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's fast food chains) sued Jack in the Box Inc. in federal court in Santa Ana, CA, accusing the San Diego-based chain of deceptive advertising relating to the business end of a cow.

The suit cites TV ads that tout Jack in the Box's sirloin burgers and lampoon those made with Angus beef, which happens to be what's in the Carl's Jr. Six Dollar Burger and the Hardee's Thickburger (and in premium burgers sold at McDonald's and Burger King).

In one ad, Jack, the mascot whose head looks like a ping pong ball, is asked to point to a cow's "angus area" on a diagram.

He says sheepishly: "I'd rather not."

In the other, employees laugh hysterically when a colleague talks about rivals' "Angus burgers."

The suit, which claims that Jack's sirloin burgers are made from "frozen sirloin butt meat," seeks unspecified damages and asks that Jack in the Box run "corrective advertising."

There are two elements at play here.

One is the legal side, and a jury will decided if CKE has a legitimate case.

It all depends how much damage CKE endured – and the burden of proof is theirs.

Several legal experts on Fox News discussed the legal merit.An ad that is clearly intended to be funny, gives the advertiser normally more protection.

The main issue in this case is, if the ad crossed the line.

The panel members on Fox News were divided.

Time and jury members will tell us what will prevail: free speech or offensive and harmful content.

The other element is the marketing one.

Using humor as a PR tool has been used for decades, if not centuries.

The tricky part is to define how far to go– and how effective it will work for a product or company.

Not many people will have a problem with the ad campaign of Ameriquest.

But humor can also be used to make the competition look foolish.

This is dangerous: not only can it backfire, but it can also lead to lawsuits, as the Angus Case proves.

In this case, it also gives misinformation about the product, implying that the source is not from prime beef.

"While Defendant may find humorous the aural and phonetic similarities between the words `Angus' and `anus,' " the suit says, the link is made to create "the erroneous notion that all cuts of Angus beef are derived from the anus of beef cattle.

If they want to have a war, we will take the gloves off," Andy Puzder CKE's CEO.

The irony is that both CKE (and the advertising agency that made the ads) got heaps of free publicity.

The agency, Secret Weapon Marketing of Santa Monica, CA will from now on be associated with the ads.

This could backlash - potential customers might be turned off by the crude humor.

The statement of their Chief Creative Officer Dick Sittig in Adweek magazine doesn’t help as well – he pointed out that the humor was "no more crude than a middle-school joke about the planets - one planet in particular."

Once the dust settles, it will be interesting to watch the legal and marketing fallout……