Marketing is Everyone's Responsibility

A Dummy's Puppet's Ramblings - from Chip Martin, Puppet
Mannequin American views and guidelines on marketing/PR trends, news from the world of puppets and ventriloquism, bits of humor and other interesting but useless information. I post every Tuesday and Friday.
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Even a Dummy Mannequin American Knows That Marketing is Everyone's Responsibility
One of the smartest things any business can do is create and carry out marketing training for everyone in the company. This includes delivery people, administrative people, frontline employees ... everyone. 

Marketing your company ... your brand ... is your company's heart and soul. It defines what you do, how you do it and why you do it your way. Anyone associated with your business who comes into contact with a prospect or customer is performing a marketing function. Everyone should understand what they can do to be effective, consistent ambassadors for your company.

This marketing training for everyone doesn't have to be complicated. In fact, those who received the latest issue of the B&M newsletter also received a White Paper titled, "Marketing is Everyone's Responsibility." The paper describes how to implement a marketing training program to make everyone in your company better informed, more effective representatives of your company. Click here for a printer friendly copy of the White Paper. And if you need help in creating a marketing training program, contact B&M or email me at chip.martin@bmpr.com

Do You Market to "Create Buzz" or to "Sell"?
According to a recent article on AdAge.com, Super Bowl advertisers who "bought the most ad time ended up reaping the most chatter among the Twitterers, bloggers and online talkers."

I respond with a big, "So what?"

I know I'm going to raise the wrath of some advertising guru's, but I'm one of those cynics who stills believes that the purpose of most advertising is to "sell," versus to be among the "top 10 most-talked-about advertisers online." Keep in mind that I'm talking about people who have time to "talk" among themselves online and who believe that what they say to each other online really matters even though there is no proof that online "buzz" about Super Bowl commercials correlates to increased sales. (Sorry that sentence is so long but I don't have time to go back and figure out how to make it shorter.)

I'll admit that I'm not basing my opinion on scientific studies ... instead I'm relying on Mannequin American common sense. Let's look at two Super Bowl ads that focused on "selling" ...  Cash4Gold.com featuring Ed McMann and TeleFlora, featuring the abusive talking flowers in a box. Ironically these two were ranked among the worst ads by many polls and advertising "experts."  Here's another irony. Other experts predict that these two ads will probably result in sales spikes. Huh? Even with Dale standing behind me, I'm speechless.

My point here is that polls, expert opinions, Twitterers, bloggers and online talkers contribute nothing to the bottom lines of those who advertised during the Super Bowl. It's the people who walk into stores and purchase the products that impact bottom lines. And most of those people don't have time to twitter, or blog or even email each other to "talk" about Super Bowl ads.

In these tough times, ads need to do more than entertain and create buzz ... they need to sell. If they can entertain while selling all the better. But entertaining just to create buzz is not the best use of marketing dollars. So if you have $3 million in your ad budget, I'd advise you to spend it someplace other than the Super Bowl. But what do I know ... I'm just a marketing blogger who's talking online to a lot of other marketers ... I think I just gave myself a headache and irreparably damaged my self esteem.

By the way, if you want an easy to use, clickable video list of all of the Super Bowl ads click here.  

Get a Tan From Your Computer


If you know someone who likes to lie out in the sun a lot, or uses tanning beds to get toasty brown, you should send them to ComptuterTan.com. The Web site is very state-of-the-art and promotes a computer application that enables users to tan using their computer monitor.  The site is so good that it fools a lot of people ... which is the point.

When you click the button to start your free session your monitor goes through several changes and makes many people expect to be able to start tanning. But at the last moment you're shown close up photos of skin cancer ... pretty gross photos at that. And then you're told how many people die from skin cancer each day. Health tips follow. It's so well done that you just have to send it to someone you know!

How a Ventriloquist Became the Country's Most Popular Stand-up Comedian

By every conceivable measure, Jeff Dunham is America's favorite comedian. Jeff''s Very Special Christmas Special, which aired on Comedy Central in November, was the most-watched broadcast in the network's history. His previous concert film, Spark of Insanity, got the best reviews of any DVD on Amazon.com in 2008. And according to the concert-industry watchers at Pollstar, Jeff was last year's highest-grossing stand-up act in North America, with $19.2 million in tickets sold.

Click here to read "The Hardest Working Hand in Show Business," an in depth article about Jeff that appeared this week in Slate magazine.

Balloon Sculptures Taken to a Whole New Level
If you're in to making balloon animals, or you like balloon sculptures, this may amuse you. The Italian magazine Domus' recently featured photographer Paul Graves' photos of balloon-constructed people (and their innards) and other subjects. Below are a couple of shots from his 2008 Balloon Sculpture Series. To see more, click here. Some of them are pretty amazing.

New Best Buy Signs

When I first saw this sign I presumed Best Buy was kicking Circuit City while it was down. But after more thought, it occured to me that there are goodly numbers of not-too-honest, or not-too-bright consumers who may actually expect Best Buy to match Circuit City's going-out-of-business prices. So I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume that it's not meant as mean-spirited sarcasm.