Abercrombie and Fitch’s Reverse Endorsement Deal – What a Situation!

Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino of “Jersey Shore” fame, has been asked by Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) to stop wearing their clothes. The company is willing to pay him for this, which makes it a reverse endorsement deal.

On August 16, Abercrombie announced their decision to disassociate from The Situation, stating: "We are deeply concerned that Mr. Sorrentino's association with our brand could cause significant damage to our image. We understand that the show is for entertainment purposes but believe this association is contrary to the aspiration nature of our brand and may be distressing to many of our fans." Funny enough, Abercrombie & Fitch itself has courted controversy with racy catalogs and questionable products.

From a marketing standpoint, it is quite likely that A&F will be laughing all the way to the bank. "It gets their name further out into the marketplace with one of the hottest brands on TV right now at the peak of the back-to-school season," said Wall Street Strategies analyst Brian Sozzi. "It's free marketing. Because the approach is so ridiculous, everybody's talking about it."

MTV, who hosts Situation's "Jersey Shore", responded to Abercrombie's money offer with a statement: "It's a clever PR stunt, and we'd love to work with them on other ways they can leverage Jersey Shore to reach the largest youth audience on television."

Abercrombie and Fitch may not want Jersey Shore’s Situation wearing their clothes but Larry Flint wants Mike Sorrentino for his Hustler brand. Larry Flynt told TMZ: “The Sitch may not be good enough for Abercrombie & Fitch, but he’s good enough for us.”

Is this move by A&F a clever PR stunt? Will reverse endorsement deals become popular? Time will tell.....

How Net Promoter Score (NPS) Measures Customer Happiness

Companies want to know if their customers like their products and services. Net Promoter Score (NPS) tracks how likely is it that they will recommend the company’s product/service to a friend or colleague, using a 0-10 point scale, and tracking the ratio of “promoters”, “passives” and “detractors”.

• Promoters are loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and refer others, fueling growth. They score 9-10.

• Passives are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitive offerings. They score 7-8.

• Detractors are unhappy customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth (WOM). They score 1-6.

Apple (AAPL) has some of the highest NPS scores of any sector by careful listening to what customers have to say and responding to it.

Apple made its retail stores to places where people can gather and learn, not just buy. Apple learned that customers want an ongoing relationship with Apple and not a one-off purchase transaction. Apple opens on average between three to five stores a month worldwide, using the NPS to check how effectively each store is meeting expectations.

Apple uses the NPS in its daily management of its more than 300 stores. Apple’s central NPS team analyzes customer feedback from all the stores to understand the systemic reasons for promoter’s enthusiasm or lack thereof.

Apple store employees who create promoters are recognized by store management. Each day, the “daily download” takes place, when employees review the NPS feedback and discuss how to adjust their work accordingly. Detractors are phoned by Apple store managers within 24 hours resulting in additional sales of $25m yearly.

Other companies that use the NPS are: Intuit (INTU), Philips (PHG), Southwest Airlines (LUV) and Allianz, They all use NPS to monitor customer satisfaction.

Using sweepstakes and contests for marketing

At exhibitions and events, sweepstakes and contests are a popular marketing strategy. It is a great way to get leads: visitors submit their business card and the winner of e.g., a trip or iPad is announced.

At a sweepstakes, the winner is chosen by the luck of the draw. At a contest, the winner is chosen based on some merit, such as best photo, most votes on a video, best slogan, etc.

In the U.S., federal laws governing marketing promotions have been in place for decades. But also many states regulate sweepstakes, such as Massachusetts, Michigan and Virginia that all ban tobacco-related promotions. California, Tennessee and Utah highly regulate promotions involving alcohol.

Every sweepstakes and contest must have “official rules” and they should be easy to find by the public. The easiest way is to link to the rules where it is easy to find and read them.

What should the rules entail?

• “No purchase necessary.”
• The alternative method of free participation.
• Geographic area of the sweepstakes and/or who is eligible to participate in the sweepstakes.
• Opening date and scheduled termination date of the sweepstakes.
• Complete name and address of the sponsor and promoter of the contest.
• Number of prizes, the accurate description of each prize, the retail value of each prize and the odds of winning each type of prize.
• Whether all prizes offered will be awarded and how the prizes will be awarded.
• Manner of selection of winners and when a determination of winners will be made.
• Where and when a list of winners can be obtained.

From a marketing standpoint it is clever to limit the value of the prize to e.g., an eBook, a voucher of $25 for an online store, or a free product to avoid tax complications for the winner.

Sweepstakes and contests ate a great way to promote and grow business or promote a corporate blog. It is also used on Twitter and Facebook to get followers.

How to Tweet Wisely

Is Twitter just for people who can’t shut up? Many tweets are irrelevant, and it takes some digging to get to the good stuff. That way, it’s not any different from looking for a good book. Between shelves of Dan Brown fluff, there are literary gems such as “The Perfume”, “Madame Bovary” and “To Kill A Mockingbird”.

Companies (and individuals) can of course choose never to send a tweet into cyberspace. But the problem is that companies will be left behind and their competitors will have the competitive edge.

Tweets are short (140 characters) and resemble sms-speak (not surprising, considering the original twitter concept) and have huge marketing potential.

Following is a short guide to tweeting (courtesy of www.ReputationManagementFor.com with some of my own additions).

1/ Tweeting
When you tweet, you’re sending a message to all of your followers (see 2/) and displaying the message on your Twitter Feed (a list of your tweets). Now, it’s extremely important that you bear a few things in mind when tweeting, as you can end up wasting a lot of time for zero productivity. Don’t over-tweet, but don’t tweet sparingly either. A Tweet a week does not an interest garner. These are some important things you’ll need to keep in mind while tweeting:

• Don’t treat Twitter like an SEO exercise. Nobody cares for unexplained, uninteresting links, and if all you’re doing is linking back to your website, people will generally ignore you.
• Don’t make ridiculous spelling mistakes. Tweets are only 140 characters long, and typos and other errors will reflect badly on your company. Spell it right; sell it right.
• Try not to be too personal, or emotional. You’re marketing your brand, and while that doesn’t mean you should be robotic, attention-seeking will ultimately reflect badly.
• Develop your own style, but unless you’re a professional comedian don’t make every post into a joke.
• Make sure to hashtag important keywords in your tweet (see 4/).

Ideally, every time you tweet you want your followers to re-tweet (RT) your posts. That way, you are reaching the followers of your followers.

2/ Following
When you follow somebody on Twitter, it means that you’re going to automatically get updated with every tweet of that user. You can opt to get as many people to follow you as possible, or to expand your brand awareness and market influence to targeted users (journalists, institutes, bloggers, magazines, etc.).

The easiest and simplest way getting followers is to include obvious links to your Twitter account on your website, and any email correspondence you send out. If you don’t tell people to look for your Twitter account, you’re relying on people looking for you speculatively, and that can be a slow process. Also, you can enter your contact list from GMail, AOL, MSN, Hotmail and Yahoo! accounts to see if the people you already speak to use Twitter. Following people you know on Twitter will encourage them to follow you.

3/ @Mentions
If you have a look at your “homepage” on Twitter, you can see a few tabs below the Tweet box. One of these tabs says ‘@Mentions’. A @Mention is when somebody puts a ‘@’ sign, followed immediately by a username. When somebody @Mentions you in a Tweet, it’ll show up both on their Tweet Feed and on your @Mentions page (which your followers can’t see. A @Mention is useful:

• to engage other users who are not in contact with yet. They’re then more likely to return the favor.
• if you’re Tweeting their material. Their details do show up on a RT, but a @Mention will show gratitude and let the person know you’re passing on their content/posts.
• when tweeting original content. Start the post with “RT” and end it with @yourtwittername. .It makes it easier for people to find you and associate your Twitter account with the content being (re)tweeted.

4/ The #Hashtag
While we have already mentioned that this shouldn’t be an SEO exercise, that doesn’t mean that none of the same principles apply. The #hashtag is the king of Social Media Optimization – an opportunity to make use of ‘keywords’. People searching Twitter for posts on specific subjects will generally find #tagged posts first. Tips to use #hashtags:

• If you want to talk about a #subject, #location or #person (without linking to their Twitter account), use the #hashtag.
• A #hashtag can be used to emphasize a specific part of your tweet, and generally adds context to any content or comments you might be posting.

Twitter posts show up in Google search results. Although it is unlikely that a Twitter post will outperform a highly contested keyword by normal SEO standards, a clever campaign on a specific subject will get attention.

5/ Trending
Twitter keeps track of when a term (or #term) is being used a lot on Twitter. It records Trends that appear by geographical demographic, and a general worldwide tracker. Thus, if a #term (with or without the #hashtag) is popular in e.g., the US; users who’ve set up their “Trend Feed” to the US will automatically see a list of the “Trending Topics” for that country. Users can also click on a topic that is trending (e.g. budget cuts).

There are many innovative ways to turn social networking and social media profitable for business. On your Twitter homepage, you can link to your own website. You can also add Twitter to your website homepage. Your tweets will now automatically be displayed.

6/ Shortened Links
As mentioned before, tweets are limited to 140 characters. Most website links (e.g., to articles you RT) take up a lot of character space. To solve this problem, there are several free services around that automatically shorten your links. The most popular are tinyURL and bit.ly.

Wishing you Happy Tweeting!

(Cartoon courtesy of Johnny Ancich of Past Expiry)

Wikipedia Needs More Contributors

David Daw published an interesting article in PCWorld. He writes that Wikipedia is not yet fading away, but could do with an extra dose of contributors to give it a much-needed shot in the arm.

At Wikipedia's annual conference this week, founder Jimmy Wales warned that Wikipedia is slowly losing contributors. He said the issue was an important one that Wikipedia needed to focus on.

Wales blamed the drop in contributions on Wikipedia's editing guidelines, which many users feel have gotten more complex in recent years. While longtime users are busy in edit wars about the minutia of Wikipedia entries, new users are often left in the dark or chastised for not creating articles in the proper format.

The best solution is to make edits easier for new users. Wikipedia also is trying some other fixes.
Among them: Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation nonprofit that runs Wikipedia, said the organization is working with college professors to have students assigned Wikipedia articles as class work. Users can now also send each other virtual badges in a program called WikiLove to encourage more participation.

It's unclear how effective these strategies will be, though Wales also was quick to point out that some of the attrition is natural.

The typical Wikipedia user, whom Wales described as "a 26-year-old geeky male," is bound to move on to other things eventually and, after ten years, there simply aren't as many things for new users to add.

Wikipedia has more than 3 million entries, but by March had only about 90,000 active contributors, according to The Associated Press, which reports that Gardner says the goal is to add another 5,000 by June of next year.

For the original article, please go to www.pcworld.com/article/237452

(Cartoon courtesy of Brian Fairrington, Cagle Cartoons © Cagle Cartoons)